Roundup: Media's Take

Michael Barone: Bush and Obama's Presidential Meeting Is Unique in History

History was made yesterday when all the living presidents of the United States—Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—met for lunch in the White House with President-elect Barack Obama. As noted in this Washington Post article, this was the first meeting of all living presidents since October 1981, when Ronald Reagan hosted Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter as they were assembling to attend the funeral of Anwar Sadat in Egypt. And once Obama is inaugurated,

Slate's Q & A: Some history and background on the Gaza Strip.

The leader of Hamas has begun negotiations with Egypt to end the 17-day-old Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. Last January, when Israel tightened its blockades and militants ramped up their rocket attacks, Nina Shen Rastogi offered the following primer on the region.... What exactly is the Gaza Strip? The Gaza Strip is a roughly rectangular territory surrounding the city of Gaza, wedged between the Mediterranean Sea and Israel. To the southwest, it shares a seven-mile

Jacob Weisberg: The top 25 Bushisms of all time.

I started gathering Bush's verbal slip-ups while covering his first presidential campaign. From the first one we published in Slate in October 1999—"The important question is, how many hands have I shaked?"—adding to the collection has been my main pleasure, perhaps my only pleasure, in watching the man. Since then, I've collected—with help from Slate readers—more than 500 Bushisms. What follows is a list of my 25 favorites. There were many to choose from, but in my opinio

Adam Cohen: What Can Obama learn from FDR's first 100 days? (Interview)

According to an article in Monday's New York Times, Barack Obama, a week away from the presidency, is trying to learn from a predecessor who also entered the White House at a time of national crisis. Aides say that Obama has studied FDR's first 100 days, "even look[ing] at the words Roosevelt used and the tone he struck," in hopes of emulating the way FDR carried on a "conversation with the American public" and built confidence in the New Deal. But if Obama want

Tom Segev: Peace Is No Longer in Sight

[Tom Segev, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is the author, most recently, of "1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East."] ... From my perspective, the immediate blame for the latest events rests with Egypt, for it was Egyptian corruption and inefficiency that enabled Hamas to smuggle its rocket arsenal into Gaza. Yet there is a sad familiarity to all this. Apart from the conflict's cruelty -- particularly toward civilians, includin

Leonard Doyle: Exit Bush, with a few digs at his critics – and himself

[Leonard Doyle is the Independent's US editor.] George Bush was in defiant mood yesterday for the final press conference of his little-mourned presidency, his face flushing red as he declared that only history would prove a fair judge of his leadership. The banality of life after the Oval Office struck home as he described how he will soon be waking up, not to receive an intelligence briefing on terrorist threats six days a week, but to "make or fetch the coffee&q

Clarence B. Jones: The 80th Birthday of Dr. King and the Inauguration of Obama as President

[Clarence B. Jones is the former personal counsel, advisor, draft speech writer and close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He is a Scholar in Residence at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute at Stanford University. His forthcoming book titled What Would Martin Say will be published by HarperCollins in April 2008.] January 15th, 2009 will mark what would have been the 80th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. On January 19th we commemorate Dr. King's birthday as a national holi

Mark Steyn: The ‘Oldest Hatred’

... Forget, for the moment, Gaza. Forget that the Palestinian people are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth. For the past sixty years they have been entrusted to the care of the United Nations, the Arab League, the PLO, Hamas and the “global community” — and the results are pretty much what you’d expect. You would have to be very hardhearted not to weep at the sight of dead Palestinian children, but you would also have to accord a measure of blame to the Hamas offi

Simon Sebag Montefiore: In Russia, Power Has No Heirs

[Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of the novel “Sashenka” and the biography “Young Stalin.”] ... Russia has had a functioning system for handing over power for only 121 years in its entire history: during the later years of the Romanov autocracy. Before Emperor Paul I established a legal structure in 1797, there was no law of succession: Czars simply chose their heirs. Both Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible undermined their own achievements by killing their sons and chosen h

Adam Cohen: Republicans’ Latest Talking Point ... The New Deal Failed

On Christmas Eve, the conservative pundit Monica Crowley argued on Fox News that instead of rescuing America from the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s spending on public works made it worse. She insisted that this bizarre claim was confirmed by “all kinds of studies and academic work.” The show’s host backed her up. “Yes,” said Gregg Jarrett, “I think historians pretty much agree on that.” In the same vein, a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece said F.D.R. helped turn “a

Wajahat Ali: Israel continues to waltz

[Wajahat Ali is a Muslim American of Pakistani descent. He is a writer and attorney, whose work, The Domestic Crusaders is the first major play about Muslims living in a post 9/11 America.] Waltz with Bashir, an autobiographical "animated documentary" from Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman, examines the repressed memory and guilt of an IDF soldier's participation in the horrific 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinian refugees, while simultaneously offering a sobering re

Charles Fried: Arrest and try Bush officials for crimes?

[Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School, is the author of “Modern Liberty.”] ... It is a hallmark of a sane and moderate society that when it changes leaders and regimes, those left behind should be abandoned to the judgment of history. It is in savage societies that the defeat of a ruling faction entails its humiliation, exile and murder. In contrast, by turning away from show trials and from the persecution of even the worst of their past regimes’ miscreants

Tim Giago: Cultural Genocide in the Land of the Free

[Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was the founder and publisher of Indian Country Today, the Lakota Times, and the Dakota/Lakota Journal. He can be reached at najournalist@msn.com] It would appear to me that most Americans know more about the "Stolen Generation" of Aboriginal children in Australia than they do about the "Stolen Generations" of Ind

Peter Brookes: Bush's achievements

If you asked Americans to list President Bush's foreign policy and national security accomplishments, you'd likely get some laughs - surely some snarky comments. Perhaps, at best, a short list. But, in truth, there are a number of great successes. So as the Bush administration gets ready to exit the national and world stage in the coming days, it's time to give credit where credit's due. It's not just by chance that there hasn't been another terrorist strike here at home since

Brad Listi: The (Great) Name Game ... What to Call the Current Financial Crisis?

[BRAD LISTI is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestselling novel Attention. Deficit. Disorder. and the founder of TheNervousBreakdown.com. He has a BFA from the University of Colorado and an MFA from the University of Southern California, and he teaches creative writing and English composition at Santa Monica College. He can be found online at www.bradlisti.com.] The first World War didn't get its name until the prospect of a second one cam

Carol Felsenthal: Blago on One of His Favorite Presidents: Richard Nixon

[Carol Felsenthal is a journalist who writes in-depth magazine articles about political and media figures. She has also written several biographies, including books on Katharine Graham and Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Her book about Bill Clinton's post presidency, Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in May.] It's fitting that Rod Blagojevich was impeached on what would have been the 96th birthday of Richard Nixon, one of

Dane Stangler: Robert Samuelson’s history of postwar inflation belongs on Obama’s bookshelf

In conventional telling, postwar American history resembles thermodynamics: action and reaction ad infinitum. The dull Eisenhower years gave way to the optimism of the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations. Student movements (in reaction to the Vietnam War) and race riots of the 1960s exploded into chaos, out of which Richard Nixon emerged, promising order only to give us Watergate. This ushered in the malaise-ridden cardigan presidency of Jimmy Carter, which then propelled Ronald R

David Brooks: Does fiscal stimulus work?

Christina Romer is Barack Obama’s choice to lead his Council of Economic Advisers. In 1994, Romer and her husband, David, wrote an essay entitled “What Ends Recessions?” In the first paragraph, the Romers noted that “economists seem strangely unsure about what to tell policy makers to do to end recessions.” The Romers surveyed the recessions of the previous 50 years to try to reach some conclusions about what works. “Our central conclusion is that monetary policy alone is a sufficie

Martin Kettle: He wants to, yet he doesn't. Will Brown do a Callaghan?

[Martin Kettle writes for the Guardian on British, European and American politics, as well as the media, law and music.] In early 1978, with the British economy still in crisis, the Tories leading in the polls and speculation mounting about the timing of the next general election, the veteran Keynesian economist Lord Kaldor sent a message to the Labour prime minister James Callaghan. Kaldor had studied both the economic forecast data and the political polling in depth, he told Calla

George Pitcher: Does Tony Blair deserve a medal?

[George Pitcher is Religion Editor of The Daily Telegraph.] Two stories about unwanted honours tell us much, not just about the reluctant recipients, but also about what it means to be great and good – and what it means not to be so great at all. Both gongs were bestowed on guitar heroes who became obsessed with world peace, but whose careers took very different directions. The first is the MBE that was awarded in 1965 to John Lennon, vocalist and strummer with The Bea