Roundup: Media's Take

NYT Editorial: Justice Delayed

Eight years have now passed since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the victims, their families and the rest of America are still denied justice. The United States has tried and convicted one person for those horrifying crimes. The Bush administration captured about a dozen high-ranking Al Qaeda members, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11. But President Bush refused to subject them to real trials under America

Jeffrey Rosen: The Trial of John Roberts

[Jeffrey Rosen is a law professor at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic.] FOUR years ago, when John Roberts became chief justice of the United States, he said that he hoped to emulate the modesty and unanimity of his greatest predecessor, John Marshall. But if Chief Justice Roberts presides over a broad, ideologically divided ruling in a campaign finance case the court heard last week, he risks being remembered instead as a conservative Ea

Maureen Dowd: Boy, Oh, Boy (Obama as the 'outsider')

[Maureen Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, became a columnist on The New York Times Op-Ed page in 1995 after having served as a correspondent in the paper's Washington bureau since 1986.] The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind. Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a

John Nichols: Afghanistan Election Fraud and the High Price of Empire

[John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.] It is amusing, if remarkable, that there are still some players in Washington who try to maintain the fantasy that Afghan President Hamid Karzai governs with anything akin to legitimacy. Karzai, an alleged oil industry fixer awarded control of his country by occ

Emily Witt: Bush and Obama: A Counterterrorism Comparison

[Emily Witt is an intern with ProPublica] As president-elect in late 2008, Barack Obama promised to “regain America’s moral stature in the world” by ending some of the Bush administration’s most controversial counterterrorism policies. So with President Obama nearly two-thirds through his first year in office, what exactly has changed? Abusive interrogations have been banned, but renditions to other countries will continue. The prison at Guantanamo Bay has been ordered

Michael Winship: The death of Marine Joshua Bernard, captured in a controversial photo, reminds us of the war that won't end

[Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal.] There was a certain ironic and painful symmetry at work last month. As one iconic image of war was called into doubt, another was being created, a new photograph of combat's grim reality that already has generated controversy and anger. When it was first published in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Robert Capa's photo was captioned "Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death."

David Horowitz: Lest We Forget: How the Left Undermined America's Security Before and After 9/11

I wrote an article: How the Left Undermined America’s Security Before 9/11 eight years ago, right after the attacks. It documents how the Democrats crippled the CIA, ignored the threats from al-Qaeda throughout the 1990s, and failed to install airport security programs recommended by a Clinton task force because it would be “racial profiling.” Ive written two books on this subject — Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left and (with Ben Johnson) Party of Defeat. Unfortun

Elin Suleymanov: Making History in Person: A view from Azerbaijan

[Elin Suleymanov is Azerbaijan's first Consul General to Los Angeles and 13 Western States, including the State of Alaska. For more information on the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles, please visit www.azconsulatela.org.] A year has passed since both major parties in United States politics held their nominating conventions. Looking back on the rancorous, contentious presidential election last year with the benefit of hindsight

Thomas Klau: 'Cult of the Founding Fathers' is Obscuring America's Worldview

[Thomas Klau is a columnist for Financial Times Deutschland.] Translated By Ulf Behncke At the beginning of United States history - exactly 400 years ago in Virginia and a little later in New England - sectarianism, a spirit of adventure, religion and greed drove immigrants to America. In the 19th Century, escaping poverty became the dominating motive for migration, and it still is. Others even more desperate had no other choice: they came to save life and limb from per

Andre Fontaine: The Danger to the West of Not 'Helping Russia'

[André Fontaine is a former director of Le Monde.] Brave, a good fellow, cultivated, sporty, a model father and husband … ? Whether people he unwittingly offends like it or not, Barack Obama is currently the most influential and, in any case, most popular statesman on the planet. Therefore, we need to pay great attention to what he says and does. And in particular, at the time of his recent trip to Moscow, to the manner in which he called for, "a strong, peaceful and prosperous

Humberto Fontova: The enemy of my friend is my friend says Obama on Honduras

[Humberto Fontova is the author of four books including Exposing the Real Che Guevara. Visit hfontova.com.] "Obama doesn't know what he's doing!" snapped Honduran foreign minister Enrique Ortez this July, 4. "He doesn't know anything about anything!" continued Ortez. "He probably can't even find Tegucigalpa on a map." The U.S. was then (as now) denouncing the democratic Honduran government's actions to uphold their constitution and thwart

Paul Wolfowitz: Has the U.S. Grown Complacent Since 9/11?

[Paul D. Wolfowitz, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is a former president of the World Bank and deputy secretary of defense.] Sixty years ago on Dec. 7, 1949, Americans marked the eighth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the worst enemy attack on American soil at that time. That attack, which left 2,400 Americans dead, stunned the country and mobilized the U.S. into action on a scale without precedent in history. As Winston Churchill said, ''The Uni

Richard Wolffe: Obama-Cameron special relationship?

['Renegade: The Making of Barack Obama', by Richard Wolffe, is published by Virgin Books.] One is the son of a Kenyan goatherd, the other a son of Eton. One is called a socialist by his critics, the other is accused of wanting to destroy the welfare state. Could there be two more disparate leaders of the special relationship than Barack Obama and David Cameron? Only if you believe the caricatures. And only if you think the two are incapable of setting aside their cultural difference

Dan Fletcher interviews Former New Jersey attorney general John Farmer: A New Look at the 9/11 Commission

Former New Jersey attorney general John Farmer served as senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, tasked with investigating the government response to the attacks. His new book, The Ground Truth, picks up where the commission left off — taking a deeper look at the government's disorganized response to the attacks and exposing officials determined to hide their failings from the inquiry. Farmer uses newly released transcripts and recordings to cast doubt on the official version of events and show t

Isaac T. Woods: Is the GOP On the Cusp of Another 1994?

[Isaac T. Woods is the House Race Editor for Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia.] All sound electoral predictions are grounded in history. Astute observers look back over the electoral landscape of the past and pick the bits and pieces of past years that match the conditions of the present. The upcoming House of Representatives elections in 2010 require the same approach. With that in mind, the Crystal Ball embarks on a short compare-and-contrast journey to examine

Yossi Alpher: What Is Peace?

[Yossi Alpher, former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, co-edits bitterlemons.org.] Israelis want peace but don’t believe it’s possible. That is the cumulative finding of a host of opinion polls, and it is critical to any effort by President Barack Obama to create a new momentum toward peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. For many Israelis, the peace with Egypt and Jordan has not appeared sufficiently beneficial, despit

James Ridgeway: Joe Wilson: Confederate Heritage Is "Honorable"

[James Ridgeway is a Senior Correspondent for Mother Jones. In 1965, James helped launch the modern muckraking era by revealing that General Motors had hired private eyes to spy on an obscure consumer advocate named Ralph Nader. He has written 16 books, including The 5 Unanswered Questions About 9/11, and he codirected Blood in the Face, a film about the far right.] Rep. Joe Wilson, the congressman who accused the President of lying last night during his address on health care to a

Peter Bergen: Where's Osama Bin Laden?

[Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum, and at New York University's Center on Law and Security. He's the author of "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader."] HELMAND, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Eight years after September 11, the "war on terror" has gone the way of the dodo. And President Obam

Tony Karon: Eight Years After 9/11: Why Osama bin Laden Failed

[Tony Karon is a senior editor at Time.] He may have eluded justice and the long reach of the world's most powerful military force; his followers may (and probably will) strike again at some point in the future, near or distant; but history's verdict on Osama bin Laden has been in for some time now: al-Qaeda failed. The 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington — like those that preceded them in East Africa in 1998 and those that followed in London, Madrid, Bali and

Peggy Noonan: The Children of 9/11 Grow Up

[Peggy Noonan is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal whose work appears weekly in the Journal's Weekend Edition and on OpinionJournal.com.] It is eight years since 9/11, and here is an unexpected stage of grief: fear that the ache will go away. I don't suppose it ever will, but grieving has gradations, and "horror" becomes "absorbed sadness." Life moves on, and wants to move on, which is painful for those who will not forget and cannot be comforted. Part of t