Roundup: Media's Take

Nicholas Kristof: When Women Rule

While no woman has been president of the United States — yet — the world does have several thousand years’ worth of experience with female leaders. And I have to acknowledge it: Their historical record puts men’s to shame. A notable share of the great leaders in history have been women: Queen Hatshepsut and Cleopatra of Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China, Isabella of Castile, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Maria Theresa of Austria. Granted, I’m negle

Laura Flanders: The Grassroots and the Party, 1964 and 2008

[Laura Flanders is the author of Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, Inspirational Political Change in America, just out in paperback from Penguin Books, and the host of RadioNation on Air America Radio. For more information on her click here.] The swirl of the primary season is intoxicating and the media love it. If the ratings records set by the recent pol

Christopher Hitchens: Islamo-Fascism is the right term to use

The attempt by David Horowitz and his allies to launch “Islamofascism Awareness Week” on American campuses has been met with a variety of responses. One of these is a challenge to the validity of the term itself. It’s quite the done thing, in liberal academic circles, to sneer at any comparison between fascist and jihadist ideology. People like Tony Judt write to me to say in effect that it’s ahistorical and simplistic to do so. And in some media circles another kind of reluctance

Alfred Regnery: How McCain Can Convince the Right

[Mr. Regnery is publisher of the American Spectator and author of "Upstream: The Ascendance of American Conservatism" (Threshold Editions), to be published this month.] John McCain is not the first Republican nominee to give conservatives fits. In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower promised Robert Taft's supporters that he was just as conservative as Mr. Republican, as Taft was known. By the time Ike finished his two terms, conservatives were so disappointed they vowed never again to

Mark Bauerlein: Why are we making such a fuss about the youth vote?

[Mark Bauerlein is professor of English at Emory University. His books include Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (1997) and Negrophobia: A Race Riot in Atlanta, 1906 (2001). ] Every four years, we undergo a national citizenship ritual. Not the election, but the now-36-year-old question: Will the youth vote turn out? Since the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1972, voting rates for 18-to-24-year-olds have slid downward, leading many to find them a lost cause.We got an increase in 2004, a

Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo: Why Obama is my Man

[Rudolf Ogoo Okonkwo is an MFA student at Western Connecticut State University. He has a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Federal University of Technology in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. He worked as a reporter for many years in Nigeria, Europe, and North America. He is a columnist for New York based African Abroad newspaper and Houston based Class magazine. His columns appear in many journals including ThisDay, Champion, USAfricavoice, Africa Vibe, Vanguard, and Independent.]

Paul Mirengoff: Obama's a masked man

[Paul Mirengoff is an attorney in Washington, D.C. He is a 1971 graduate of Dartmouth College and a 1974 graduate of Stanford Law School. He has two daughters and lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland.] Shelby Steele is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He's the author of The Content of Our Character, A Dream Deferred, and White Guilt. A few years ago, President Bush awarded him the National Humanities Medal. Steele's latest book is A Bound Man: Why We Ar

Marc Ambinder: Candidates who invoke the spirit of Reagan may live to regret it

[Marc Ambinder is an associate editor of The Hotline.] ... Comparing oneself to Reagan is less likely to elevate one’s own Reaganesque attributes than to invite invidious and memorable comparisons from one’s opponents and the media—courting the conclusion that one is barely like Reagan at all. Mitt Romney ran into this problem early on. To conservatives at a National Review dinner, he allowed that he had changed his position on abortion, and that he had not always been

David Forsmark: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender

At long last, the CIA and the State Department have targeted a government they have identified as an aggressive threat to world peace and largely countered its foreign policy through psy-ops, propaganda, selective leaks of intelligence and covert operations. And who was the target of this covert campaign? Are these operations aimed at the Islamofascists in Iran? How about Vladimir Putin and his increasingly fascist government in Russia? Is the CIA trying to counter Chinese hegemony

John Perazzo: Why Does Obama's Pastor Matter?

[John Perazzo is the Managing Editor of DiscoverTheNetworks and is the author of The Myths That Divide Us: How Lies Have Poisoned American Race Relations. For more information on his book, click here. E-mail him at wsbooks25@hotmail.com.] Barack Obama, in a way that recalls John F. Kennedy, a politician to whom he's frequently compared, has carefully controlled and burnished his image to create the impression of an independent figure, free

Alan Dershowitz: Who’s Making These Nazi-like Statements?

Here is a multiple choice quiz: 1. Who made the following statement? “We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that culture of violence is eventually going to destroy humanity." A) A person named “Hitler”, B) A person named “Stalin” C) A person named “Gandhi”? 2. Who described the establishment of the state of Israel as a “historical, moral, political calamity,” blames the existence of

James H. Warner: I disagree with John McCain, but he did not sell out his fellow POWs. I know; I was one of them.

Recently, I have seen several allegations that condemn Senator John McCain for his behavior as a prisoner of war. I believe that these allegations are false. I am in a better position than the Senator’s accusers to know the truth since I was a prisoner with him, having been captured a little over a month before him. I have contacted hundreds of my comrades on our e-mail list and not one of them can confirm anything that has been alleged against McCain. Let me tell you what they hav

Frank Rich: Ask Not What J.F.K. Can Do for Obama

BEFORE John F. Kennedy was a president, a legend, a myth and a poltergeist stalking America’s 2008 campaign, he was an upstart contender seen as a risky bet for the Democratic nomination in 1960. Kennedy was judged “an ambitious but superficial playboy” by his liberal peers, according to his biographer Robert Dallek. “He never said a word of importance in the Senate, and he never did a thing,” in the authoritative estimation of the Senate’s master, Lyndon Johnson. Adlai Stevenson di

Matt Bai: Superdelegates could decide the Democratic race

This Tuesday was designed to be the day when it all gets decided for Democrats and Republicans, the moment when more than 20 states weigh in at once on the chaotic presidential campaigns. In the Democratic field, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are each hoping to pile up a decisive number of delegates and end in one night what has been a protracted and increasingly unkind competition. If the Democratic voters defy the designs of the party, though, and neither candidate can achieve a clear verdi

Jean Johnson and Scott Bittle: Where does the money go?

[Scott Bittle, an award-winning journalist, is executive editor of PublicAgendaOnline, a public affairs site twice-nominated for the prestigious Webby Award. Jean Johnson is executive vice president of Public Agenda and a founder of the Web site. She has written on public opinion and current issues for dozens of publications ranging from Education Week to USA Today.] Thanks to some fearless investigative journalism by the Associated Press, voters can now ponder revealing new facts o

Allegra Goodman: Forget Kenya and Kansas, black and white. To understand Obama, understand this ... The man is Hawaiian.

[Allegra Goodman's novels include Intuition and Paradise Park. Her new book, The Other Side of the Island, will be published in September.] My fifth grade classroom at Punahou, a private school in Honolulu founded by nineteenth-century Congregational ministers, was on the third floor of Castle Hall, in an airy room with big windows that Mrs. Hefty covered with blackout curtains when she showed us films. We thought nothing of the room-darkening curtains, until, one day, Mrs. Hefty ex

Eileen McNamara: Shades of 1960

[Eileen McNamara, a former columnist at the Globe, is a journalism professor at Brandeis University.] IN HIS endorsement of Barack Obama this week, Senator Edward M. Kennedy dismissed doubts about the Illinois senator's age and experience with a glancing reference to President Harry S. Truman's misgivings about another brash young senator who challenged party elders for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1960. More campaign coverage: The full text of

Edward J. Lazarus: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Debate Over How Much Supreme Court Decisions Truly Matter

[Edward Lazarus, a FindLaw columnist, writes about, practices, and teaches law in Los Angeles. A former federal prosecutor, he is the author of two books -- most recently, Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court.] Over the last 15 years, a considerable academic literature has developed that downplays the importance of landmark Supreme Court decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade in reshaping American society. Beginni

Bernard-Henri Lévy: How Monica Lewinsky Continues To Dominate American Politics

All the talk here is about the presidential election, along with the recession. And within that election, clearly the only duel that matters, for the moment, is the one between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I observe Clinton in her television appearances. I see how hard she works at trying to prove that she is more experienced, more prepared than her opponent. I can see where the spin doctors have been fine-tuning her speeches on Iraq and o

Alvaro Vargas Llosa: Tragedy In Kenya ... Why Blaming European Imperials Won't Cut It Anymore

[Alvaro Vargas Llosa, author of Liberty for Latin America, is the director of the Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute.] ... Make no mistake about it. The stealing of the election did not create problems where there were none. The dominant tribe, the Kikuyu, was already looked upon with suspicion by other tribes, including Odinga's Luos, who felt marginalized. Muslims felt left behind by Christians. Various provinces resented the concentration of power in the Cen