Roundup: Media's Take

Leon Wieseltier: The Repellent Persistence Of The Kennedy Dynasty

These are the times that try men's resumés. Maybe it is the swift emergence of Washington as the capital of status anxiety, in the transition's tilting of egos and elbows; or the restoration to prestige of "the best and the brightest," all shadows gone, and the return to power of liberal credentialism; or the fact that Congress could find $700 billion when the mandarins of New York needed it but could not find $14 billion when the workers of Detroit needed it-whatever it is, I am tirin

Peggy Noonan: A little perspective for the pessimistic "age of the empty suit"

... Who was in charge? Who was in authority? The biggest swindle in all financial history if the figure of $50 billion is to be believed, and nobody knew about it, supposedly, but the swindler himself. The government didn't notice, just as it didn't notice the prevalence of bad debts that would bring down America's great investment banks. All this has hastened and added to the real decline in faith—the collapse in faith—the past few years in our institutions. Not only in Wall Stree

Judith Warner: Getting Beyond Camelot

Caroline Kennedy is, by all accounts, a smart, decent and very capable woman. There is no reason why she shouldn’t enter politics and why she couldn’t have a good shot at winning an election. That doesn’t mean she should be handed Hillary Clinton’s soon-to-be-vacated United States Senate seat. Running for office and getting a high-class government handout are two very different things. I suppose Caroline can’t be blamed entirely for having a bit of a blind

Humberto Fontova: Ted Turner's lies about Cuba

Last week during a FoxNews interview with Bill O'Reilly, Ted Turner, who founded what has become (in their own words) "the world's largest cable news network "claimed that Fidel Castro's Stalinist regime has never killed anyone. O'REILLY: Fidel Castro, do you admire the man? TURNER: Yes. O'REILLY: Now he has murdered people. He's imprisoned people. There are political prisoners now. He won't let his people use the Internet. Nobody can use that. A

Dick Morris: Obama's spending plan won't create enough stimulus

The economic stimulus plans unveiled by President-elect Obama over the weekend won't do much to help the economy. But they will vindicate all the dreams of liberal Democrats for higher government spending. Of course, the basic choice facing any politician seeking to stimulate a moribund economy is whether to catalyze the supply side with tax cuts on business or the demand side by way of spending increases. Obama obviously made that choice years ago: He will work the demand side.

Michael Lind: The South's attempt to kill the North's auto industry is the latest battle in an ongoing conflict. It's time for a Third Reconstruction to put an end to it.

It is just as well that Barack Obama is emulating Abraham Lincoln by traveling to his inauguration in Washington by train. As the regional politics of the automobile bailout controversy demonstrate, the Civil War continues. If the major U.S. automobile companies go under, it will be partly because timely federal aid for them was blocked by members of Congress like Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, whose states have created their own counter-Detroit in the form of Japanese, Korean, and German transpl

NYT Editorial: The Torture Report

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services. Now, a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretar

Harold Meyerson: Destroying What the UAW Built

In 1949, a pamphlet was published that argued that the American auto industry should pursue a different direction. Titled "A Small Car Named Desire," the pamphlet suggested that Detroit not put all its bets on bigness, that a substantial share of American consumers would welcome smaller cars that cost less and burned fuel more efficiently. The pamphlet's author was the research department of the United Auto Workers. By the standards of the postwar UAW, there w

Pete Du Pont: 'Progressive' policies would cause economic regression

Economist David M. Smick's recent book,"The World Is Curved," shows that during the past quarter-century we have had a global"golden age of wealth creation and poverty reduction never before seen in the history of mankind." The global free market"experienced an unprecedented doubling of its labor force from 2.7 billion to 6 billion"; the U.S. had 40 million new jobs created;"the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed from 800 to over 12,000" (it is back under 9000 now); and, according to the

Robert D. Kaplan: A Gentler Hegemony

Declinism is in the air. The latest conventional wisdom is that the combination of the disastrous Iraq war, the military and economic rise of Asia, and the steep recession in the West has chastened America, ending its period of dominance in world affairs. It is time for us to be humble. There is a lot of truth to this, but it goes too far. For decline itself -- as a concept -- is overrated. Britain's Royal Navy went into relative decline beginning in the 1890s, even as Great Britain

Bob Fertik and David Swanson: How History Will View Bush

[Bob Fertik is president of Democrats.com. David Swanson is Washington Director of Democrats.com.] As George Bush prepares to leave office, he and his aides are trying desperately to rewrite history, especially on Iraq. Nearly six years after invading Iraq on the basis of lies that were manufactured inside the White House, the Bush Administration adamantly insists the lies were all innocent mistakes. Were they? Originally, the invasion of Iraq was justified primarily on g

Larry Sabato: That Was The Year That Was

... In my own lifetime, there has been only one other year as packed with people and events that loomed as large. In 1968 America endured its final year of Lyndon Johnson, a failed president forced to abdicate; a tragic, unnecessary war in Vietnam far bloodier than the one we have lamented this year; the brutal assassinations of two great leaders whose talents we sorely needed (Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Francis Kennedy); and the election of the globally shrewd but fundamentally flawed R

John R. Bohrer: Lessons from the Senators Kennedy

[John R. Bohrer is currently writing a book about the young aides to Senator Robert Kennedy.] Caroline Kennedy's New York Senate candidacy is reportedly underway, and it will be rough. When Robert Kennedy finally decided to make a go at the same seat in August 1964, his wife Ethel predicted that he'd start out ahead, fall behind in October and then come back to win -- which is exactly what happened. It looks like the same bumpy road is ahead for his niece, with a much less certain o

Paul Kengor: Dissing Palin

[Paul Kengor is author of God and George W. Bush (HarperCollins, 2004), professor of political science, and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. His latest book is The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007).] This weekend, John McCain was less than committal about supporting his running mate, Sarah Palin, should she seek the presidency in 2012. His words were interpreted as a slam against Palin, but it's no

Heather Whipps: History Repeats ... How 2008 Reflected the Past

For all the talk about change, everything old seemed oddly new again in 2008. The events of this year, perhaps more than any other, had a way of dredging up historic memories, bad and good - from the ongoing, Depression-like economic scare to the Civil Rights struggles that led to Barack Obama's milestone election win. Overall, 2008 was a year that made more sense if you had paid attention in history class. Here's how: 2008 was like the 1930s W

Bill McGraw: What happens when a car factory dies

[Bill McGraw is a columnist for The Detroit Free Press.] This week, as Washington has tried to decide whether to rescue the automobile industry, Americans have wondered what it looks like when a giant automobile company goes under. The answer can be found in Detroit. In the summer of 1956, the once-mighty Packard Motor Car Company closed its doors. Its headquarters and chief production complex still stand here, though, and their slowly decaying remains serve as a symbol

Randall Lane: A bipartisan solution to improve the Electoral College inequities

[Randall Lane, the former Washington bureau chief for Forbes, is the editor in chief of Doubledown Media.] THE 2008 presidential election actually ends today, when the people whose votes truly count, the 538 electors chosen by voters to reflect their candidate preference, convene in each state to cast their ballots. The result might lack drama — 365 electoral votes for Barack Obama, 173 for John McCain — but when a high school biology teacher named William Forsee walks into Nebraska

Salon Roundtable: He will inherit the kind of problems that few new presidents have had to face. Where should he start?

Whenever a new president is preparing to take office, talk turns to the vaunted first 100 days. Barack Obama's historic presidential run generated a level of excitement in Washington and across the country not witnessed in a long time. With the election won, the buzz continues, but the focus is now on the possibilities and perils of the opening moments of his administration. Obama will be taking the helm of a country facing a long, daunting list of problems. With many observers citing historical

Jonathan Soros: It's Time to Junk the Electoral College

[Mr. Soros is the deputy chairman of Soros Fund Management and a supporter of the National Popular Vote.] ... The Constitution is no longer in line with our expectations regarding the role of the people in selecting the president. Yet several previous attempts to eliminate the Electoral College through a constitutional amendment have failed, scuttled by the difficulty of the process itself and the tyranny of small-state log

David Stokes: Inside the Obama TENT of Rivals

[Mr. Stokes is the senior pastor of Fair Oaks Church in Fairfax, VA.] As President-Elect Barack Obama moves toward the transition finish line, he has been busy putting his cabinet together, collecting what is now routinely referred to as a “team of rivals.” But this may be more than a reference to the fact that he is trying to avoid “group-think.” The man seems, in fact, to be putting together a team of former-and-would-be pretenders to his political throne.It is certainly under