Roundup: Media's Take

Kathleen Parker: Chasing John Kennedy & Ronald Reagan

[Ms. Parker is a columnist for RealClearPolitics.] Americans finally have narrowed the presidential race to two front-runners: John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Too bad they're both busy chatting up Guinevere and Galahad, respectively, in the ultimate Camelot, where the climate really is perfect all the year. Eternally. Back on planet Earth, where we typically elect live specimens, the legacies of Kennedy and Reagan can't get a rest. The Republic

Richard W. Garnett: When Catholicism was the target

[Richard W. Garnett is the John Cardinal O'Hara, C.S.C. associate professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.] ... It is easy to forget but, from the Puritans to the Framers and beyond, anti-"popery" was thick in the cultural air breathed by the early Americans. Our forebears were raised on hair-raising tales of Armadas and Inquisitions, Puritan heroism and Bloody Mary, Jesuit schemes and Gunpowder Plots, lecherous confessors and baby-killing nuns. As the great histo

William Kristol: You fight an election with the politicians you have

... It's foolish to wait for another Ronald Reagan. But not just because his political gifts are rare. There's a particular way in which Reagan was exceptional that many of us fail to appreciate: He was the only president of the last century who came to the office as the leader of an ideological movement. Reagan gave "The Speech" in October 1964, inherited the leadership of the conservative movement after Goldwater's loss, defeated a moderate establishment Republican two y

Jacob Weisberg: The Bush Tragedy

[Excerpt from Weisberg's new book, The Bush Tragedy.] There's some support for the dynastic reading that George W. Bush intended to invade Iraq from the outset of his presidency to avenge his father. "After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time," Bush declared at a political fund-raiser in Houston in September 2002. Considerable doubt has since arisen around the incident Bush was referring to, a supposed plot by Saddam to blow up the former president wit

E.J. Dionne: Bill Clinton used to sound a lot like Barack Obama, which makes his recent outbursts all the more disheartening.

It was a remarkable moment: A young, free-thinking presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton sat down with reporters and editors at The Washington Post in October 1991 and started saying things most Democrats wouldn't allow to pass their lips. Ronald Reagan, Clinton said, deserved credit for winning the Cold War. He praised Reagan's "rhetoric in defense of freedom" and his role in "advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back." "The idea

Melvin E. Lee: Grievance-Based Terrorism

[Melvin E. Lee is a sea captain and a nuclear engineer in the United States Navy. He serves as special operations officer for the commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, and commander, U.S. 6th Fleet. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the Department of the Navy or U.S. government.] The fundamental premise of much scholarly examination and public discourse is that grievances with U.S. policies in the Midd

Dick Morris: There's a method to crafty Bill's madness

Why is Bill Clinton courting such intense publicity, in evitably much of it negative? Is he crazy? Crazy like a fox. He has two goals and is achieving them both spectacularly. First, he wants to be the same kind of lightning rod for Hillary that she was for him during his run for the presidency. As the 1992 Republican convention approached, Hillary ratcheted up her comments and profile precisely to attract GOP fire so that they would leave Bill

Ezra Klein: The three reasons the Clinton administration's health care reform effort failed, and how the next Democratic president can get it right

[Ezra Klein is a Prospect staff writer.] In the best of circumstances, presidential libraries are a strange combination of leftover campaign literature and newfound architectural ambition. Even so, the Clinton Presidential Library, in Little Rock, Ark., is notable for approaching its subject with all the depth of a coloring book. Eight years of policies, political battles, and world events are sorted into 20-odd "policy alcoves," each headlined by a slogan from the campaig

Bret Stephens: The Tet Offensive is what McCain's candidacy is all about. In many ways it's what this year's election is all about, too.

By an apt coincidence, the revival of John McCain's political fortunes takes place close to the 40th anniversary of the Tet Offensive, when some 100,000 North Vietnamese troops and Vietcong irregulars launched a coordinated attack on the South that took the U.S. by surprise and permanently altered the political landscape of the war. That event, far more so than Sept. 11, is what Mr. McCain's candidacy is all about. In many ways it's what this year's election is all about, too. There

Barbara Ehrenreich: Of Race and Progress (LBJ and MLK controversy)

[Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of "Nickel and Dimed," is the winner of the 2004 Puffin/Nation Prize. 2008, The Nation.] At first I took it as another -- yawn -- white rip-off of black culture and creativity: the Rolling Stones appropriating the Bo Diddley beat, Bo Derek sporting cornrows and now Hillary giving Lyndon Baines Johnson credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. If you had to give this honor to a white guy, LBJ was an odd choice, since he'd spent

Clarence B. Jones: A former MLK speechwriter weighs in on the Obama/Clinton dispute

[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.] The Clinton vs. Obama contest for the Democratic ticket of the upcoming residential race raises some provocative issues when reflecting on the Women's Movement and

Bill Moyers: Does it take a president to get things done?

BILL MOYERS: If William Shakespeare were around I suspect he might describe the recent flap between the Obama and Clinton camps as much ado about nothing or a tempest in a teapot. Senator Clinton was heard to say that it took a president – Lyndon Johnson – to consummate the work of Martin Luther King by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Almost no one in the media bothered to run the whole quote. Here it is: HILLARY CLINTON:Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Ly

Rebecca Solnit: Encounters with the Zapatistas

[The last time Rebecca Solnit camped out on rebel territory, she was an organizer for the Western Shoshone Defense Project that insists -- with good legal grounds -- that the Shoshone in Nevada had never ceded their land to the U.S. government. That story is told in her 1994 book Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Landscape Wars of the American West, but the subsequent inspiration of the Zapatistas is most evident in the book Tom Engelhardt helped her to bring into being, Hope in the Dark: Untold

Edward Lazarus: The Supreme Court and Public Opinion: Will They Soon Diverge, If a Democrat Is Elected This Year?

[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. ] Throughout our history, the Supreme Court has moved in and out of sync with public opinion and the dominant political sentiment in the country. In the early 1930s, for example, the Court - led by the famous "Four Horsemen

Eric Zorn: History gives honest look at fairy tale

The whole thing, really, is a fairy tale. I mean, give me a break: The guy gives a good speech. Yes. Give him that. But are we electing a toastmaster or a president of the United States? Let's look at his record to see what qualifies him for the highest office in the land: Eight years in the Illinois legislature? He was a party loyalist and a temporizer who too often put politics ahead of principle and was cautious rather than bold when it came to controversial issues.

David Zarembka: Kenya's Violence ... Britain's Legacy

[David Zarembka, a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, is the Coordinator of the African Great Lakes Initiative in Kenya.] It's hard to fathom how a rigged election could produce such violence as burning women and children alive in a church. But that's what happened in the Kenya Assemblies of God Church in Kiambaa, just outside the town of Eldoret in western Kenya. Unfortunately, it didn't come as a surprise to me or others living in the region. Some brief historical b

Timothy Noah: The Politics of Weeping

Hillary Clinton's teary moment while discussing the rigors of campaigning represents the third and final step in the evolution of crying on the presidential campaign trail. As recently as 1972, tears were verboten. That was the year in which Edmund Muskie, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, angrily rebutted a letter published in the (then-pathologically right wing) Manchester Union Leader while standing in front of the newspaper's offices. The letter allege

Damian Thompson: Lies, damn lies and 'counterknowledge'

['Counterknowledge: How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and False History' by Damian Thompson (Atlantic). ] George Bush planned the September 11 attacks. The MMR injection triggers autism in children. The ancient Greeks stole their ideas from Africa. "Creation science" disproves evolution. Homeopathy can defeat the Aids virus. Do any of these theories sound familiar? Has someone bored you rigid at a dinner party by unveilin

Michael Barone: Voters seem unusually willing this year to entertain candidates lacking in Washington experience

[Mr. Barone is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and senior writer at U.S. News & World Report. He is principal coauthor of "The Almanac of American Politics" (National Journal Group, 2005).] The Iowa caucuses have just passed and we await, with just two weekday prime-time news nights in between, the New Hampshire primary. The biggest surprise of the campaign so far is the success of candidates with minimal credentials and little if any experience

Sam Stein: New Hampshire Polling Fiasco Not Unique In History

[Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity.] So the polling industry, and the reporters who religiously follow it, got their predictions wrong. What was expected to be an easy victory for Sen. Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary turned instead into a dramatic win for Sen. Hillary Clinton.