Roundup: Media's Take

Geraldine A. Ferraro: Why Democrats created Super Delegates

[Geraldine A. Ferraro, a lawyer and a former member of Congress, was the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 1984.] ... After the 1980 presidential election, the Democratic Party was in disarray. That year, Senator Ted Kennedy had challenged President Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination, and Mr. Kennedy took the fight to the convention floor by proposing 23 amendments to the party platform. When it was all over, members of Congress who were concerned about their re-el

Larry Diamond: We are about to move from "the silly season" to "the ugly season"

[Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor by courtesy of political science and sociology at Stanford University, where he also coordinates the democracy program of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. ] Anyone who is not deeply naïve about American politics had to know it was coming: an intense assault on Barack Obama's character, his past, and his judgment. Now, as the previous fragments of rumor, innuendo, online reporting, and

Ryan Cole: Is McCain Too Old?

[Mr. Cole is a writer based in Washington, D.C.] John McCain will turn 72 in August. If he goes on to win the presidency in November he will be the oldest American to enter that high office. Though his opponents have only nibbled around the corners of the issue, Mr. McCain's age will certainly emerge as the presidential sweepstakes unfold. Indeed, it is likely to be a prime target of his would-be Democratic opponent in the general election. This will especially be the c

Humberto Fontova: Cuba's New and Improved Tyrant

[Humberto Fontova is the author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. Visit www.hfontova.com] With Raul Castro's ascent to power in Havana, the news media have dutifully presented him as a potential Gorbachev. The Chicago Tribune headline blares, "Cubans Hope Raul Castro Brings Reform." True, the Associated Press reporter acknowledges, Raul has been a hardliner by his brother Fidel's side for five deca

Stephen Hayes: Obama and the Power of Words

[Mr. Hayes, a senior writer for The Weekly Standard, is the author of "Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President," (HarperCollins, 2007).] These are words that move and uplift, that give hope to the hopeless. These words inspired millions of voters nationwide to join the grand experiment called democracy, casting votes for their candidate, their country, their destiny: "More than anything else, I want my candidac

Jamison Foser: John McCain and the Clinton Rules

In the wake of this week's controversy surrounding John McCain's dealings with lobbyists, and his honesty about those dealings, it is impossible to avoid thinking about how differently the media would have handled the news had it been about Bill Clinton or Al Gore rather than John McCain. Three consistent rules of media coverage of purported scandals involving progressives come immediately to mind: If any part of an alleged scandal turns out to be tr

Alan S. Blinder: From the New Deal, a Way Out of a Mess

THE question of the day seems to be this: Are we in, or heading for, a recession? But so much attention is focused on that question that we may be losing sight of an even greater danger: the possibility that powerful headwinds may prevent a strong recovery from any slowdown. Most of the potential headwinds stem from the housing slump and related financial crises that began — but, unfortunately, did not end — with the subprime mortgage debacle. Wounded financial markets are supposed

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes: The three trillion dollar war

[Joseph Stiglitz was chief economist at the World Bank and won the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics in 2001. Linda Bilmes is a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Extracted from The Three Trillion Dollar War, to be published by Allen Lane on February 28 (£20).] The Bush Administration was wrong about the benefits of the war and it was wrong about the costs of the war. The president and his advisers expected a quick, inexpensive con

Isabel Hilton: So farewell, Castro

News that Cuba's Fidel Castro is stepping down brings an end to the longest, and most controversial, presidency in the world. The 81-year-old leader, who has been ill for some years, said in a letter published on a state newspaper's website: "It would be a betrayal of my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer." The final words of his message promised "I will be careful", possibly a wr

Paul Krugman: Don’t Rerun That ’70s Show

Will the next president be the second coming of Jimmy Carter? Given Thursday’s economic headlines, full of dire warnings about the return of 1970s-style stagflation, you might think so. Realistically, though, the parallels between the problems facing the U.S. economy now and those of the late-1970s aren’t that strong. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the economy probably will look similar to, but worse than, the economy that undid the first President Bush. And

Karen J. Greenberg: Barbarism Then and Now

[Karen J. Greenberg, the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security at the NYU School of Law, is the editor of the Torture Debate in America and, with Joshua Dratel, The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib as well as the forthcoming The Enemy Combatant Papers: American Justice, the Courts and the War on Terror (Cam

Andrew C. McCarthy: When Jihad first came to America

[Andrew C. McCarthy directs the center for law and counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. In somewhat different form, this article will appear in his book, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, soon to be released by Encounter Books. Copyright 2008 by Andrew C. McCarthy.] On May 2 and 3, 1990, the U.S. embassy in Cairo alerted its counterpart in Khartoum that Egypt’s “leading radical,” Omar Abdel Rahman, was on his way to Sudan. Warning that his ultimate

Fareed Zakaria: The End of Conservatism

Conservatives are a gloomy bunch at the moment. Many believe that their party—the Republican Party—has lost its way and that it has done so by abandoning its principles. Aside from his foreign policy and Supreme Court appointments, conservatives find little to love about George W. Bush. His signature domestic policies include a vast expansion of government-financed health care (prescription-drug benefits), and increased funding for education while halfheartedly promoting vouchers and school choi

Humberto Fontova: Fidel Castro: The Teflon Tyrant Resigns

[Humberto Fontova is the author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. Visit www.hfontova.com.] Last September, Fidel Castro vowed to stay in power until President George W. Bush leaves the White House. Even with his failing health, one would have been hard-pressed to bet against the dictator who outlasted nine U.S. presidents and his great sponsor in the Soviet Union. Castro’s retirement yesterday, in favor of his brother Raul, confirms that he will

Dan Balz: Johnson's Legacy, Today's Democratic Race

When Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton meet Thursday night for their critically important 90-minute debate, they will do so in an arena not far from the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library, the marble-sided mausoleum-like structure that houses the documents and memorabilia from the 36th president's tumultuous presidency. In the Democratic presidential race, Obama has cast himself as a latter-day John F. Kennedy, summoning the energy and glamor of a new generation politician to ad

George F. Will: How McGovern Made This

The former bomber pilot's spry walk belies his 85 years, he dresses like a boulevardier—gray slacks, blue blazer, shirt with bright-red stripes and white collar—and tucks into a robust breakfast. Long ago, he began shaping the Democrats' presidential nomination process into the one that has his party's two contenders locked in a long march to Pennsylvania's April primary. He has seen important aspects of American politics move in his direction in the 36 years since he lost 49 states to Richard N

Martin Feldstein: Why this recession may be worse than other recent ones

[Mr. Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, is a professor at Harvard and a member of The Wall Street Journal's board of contributors.] Although it is too soon to tell whether the United States has entered a recession, there is mounting evidence that a recession has in fact begun. Key measures of economic activity stopped growing in December and January or actually began to decline. The collapse of house prices and the crisis in the credit ma

Alvaro Vargas Llosa: Kosovo's independence could be a very positive development--so long as its leaders remember the perils of nationalism

[Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author of Liberty for Latin America, is the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute. ] ... The Serbs set foot in Kosovo in the 11th century in the midst of their struggle against the Byzantine Empire. That was long before Albanian nationalism emerged in the province at the end the 19th century. As the Serbs keep reminding us, Kosovo was the scene of a seminal event in the history of their nation: the battle that bears the provin

Marty Kaplan: Washington, Lincoln, Bush

Here's a desirable "learning outcome" for first grade students in the public schools of Georgia: being able to answer the question, "How are Washington, Lincoln, and Bush alike?" In their classrooms, Georgia's 6-year-olds "will compare and contrast information about Washington, Lincoln, and our current president. This information will be recorded on a Venn diagram." I don't know how many other states require this Venn diagram to be created, or whether f

Jonathan Schwarz: Bill Kristol's Obscure Masterpiece

[Jonathan Schwarz is a frequent contributor to Mother Jones and co-author with Michael Gerber of Our Kampf, a collection of their humor from the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and Saturday Night Live. His website is named after a saying of George Orwell's:"Every joke is a tiny revolution."] Imagine that there were a Beatles record only a few people knew existed. An