Roundup: Media's Take

Sidney Blumenthal: The Republican will to power remains ferocious

Under crisis conditions of an extraordinary magnitude political leadership of the highest level will be required in the next presidency. The damage is broad, deep and spreading, apparent not only in international disorder and violence, the unprecedented decline of U.S. prestige, and the flouting of our security and economic interests but also in the hollowing out of the federal government's departments and agencies, and their growing incapacity to fulfill their functions, from FEMA to the Depart

Scott Horton: On Inappropriate Comparisons (GW & GWB)

Bush national security advisor Frances Townsend today delivered to President Bush a three-page handwritten resignation letter on White House stationery. At its core was this heart-rending tribute: In 1937, the playwright Maxwell Anderson wrote of President George Washington: There are some men who lift the age they inhabit, til all men walk on higher ground in their lifetime. Mr. President, you are such a man. Comparing George W. to the first president may invite the more s

Michael Barone: Iraq, like Korea, may turn out ok

... “The trend toward better security is indisputable,” writes the Associated Press. U.S. military and civilian deaths have declined sharply. Anbar province is pacified, Iraqis are streaming back to Baghdad, and al-Qaeda in Iraq is on the run. Time’s Joe Klein, a critic of the administration, admits the gains and advises Democrats not to try to cut off funds. Conservative columnist Tony Blankley claims “a very real expectation that next year the world may see a genuine, old-fashioned victory in

Scott Horton: The Two-Front Battle Over Torture

[Remarks delivered, in slightly differing form, at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, on Nov. 15, 2007 and as the Arlene Shaw lecture at the Huguenot Church in Pelham, New York, on Nov. 18, 2007. Scott Horton is a contributor to Harper's Magazine and writes No Comment for this website. A New York attorney known for his work in emerging markets and international law, especially human rights law and the law of armed conflict, Horton lectures at Columbia Law School.]

Blogger: If It Was Torture in Mississippi, Then It's Definitely Torture, Right?

A final word or two on this"waterboarding as torture" issue.Waterboarding, known ironically in earlier times as "the water cure", remains -- in the view of this administration and many supporters -- not torture. And if it's not torture, then it's not cruel and unusual punishment or a violation of due process. But here's the rub. In 1926, the Mississippi Supreme Court called the water cure torture. No qualifiers. No h

Daniel Henninger: Barack Obama has said the '60s are over--Is he right?

[Mr. Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page. His column appears Thursdays in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.] ... In 1968, Nicolas Sarkozy was 13 years old. John McCain was 32 and Hillary Clinton was 21. Barack Obama was 7. It is not beyond imagining that the precocious Messrs. Sarkozy and Obama were alert to events in 1968, but for the first wave of baby boomers just touching adulthood that year, it was the beginning of a strange journey.

Adam Cohen: Public Works: When "Big Government" Plays Its Role

At the dedication of the Triborough Bridge in 1936, Franklin Roosevelt made an impassioned case for public works. There was a time when no one complained, he said, “that our schoolhouses were badly ventilated and lighted” or that “there were no playgrounds for children in crowded tenement areas.” But times had changed. “People are demanding up-to-date government in place of antiquated government,” he declared, “just as they are requiring and demanding Triborough Bridges in place of ancient ferri

Matt Bai: Why no one has produced a great campaign book since Richard Ben Cramer's

I remember exactly where I was sitting when I started reading “What It Takes,” Richard Ben Cramer’s 1,000-page, tiny-print history of the 1988 presidential campaign. It’s not a hard thing to remember, because I couldn’t sit anywhere else: I had mangled my knee in a touch football game, and all I could do was sit on the couch with my leg strapped into a motion machine. Like a lot of young journalism school graduates then and now, I had come to see political journalism as a lesser form of the craf

Oliver Kamm: The rationale for keeping the bomb has changed over the decades

Earlier this month one of the most significant figures in human history, Paul Tibbets, died aged 92. Tibbets flew the plane that dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima. Ever since, political leaders have faced the immanent risk of the destruction of civilisation through design or miscalculation. In response, every British government has supported the development and maintenance of an independent nuclear deterrent. What were the reasons, how far were they were justified and are they applicable to policy

Scott Horton: What Does Putin Want?

The two presidents—George W. Bush and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin—make a remarkable study, side-by-side, and so do the nations they embody. There is much similarity between them. Andrei Sakharov, back in the seventies, taught that the looming prospect of violent confrontation between the Americans and Soviets would most likely be avoided through a process of steady convergence. Examining the situation now with a bit more distance from the dramatic events of 1992-93, Sakharov's prognosis

Simon Kuper: The strange world of 'Eurabia'

While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer Doubleday $23.95, 256 pages The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent by Walter Laqueur Thomas Dunne £12.99, 256 pages Londonistan: How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within by Melanie Phillips Gibson Square £8.99, 384 pages Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye'or Farleigh Dickinson University Press

Gary Sick: Pakistan's Plan B deficiency

[Gary Sick, a senior research scholar at Columbia University, served on the National Security Council under presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan and was the principal White House aide on Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis.] What is happening today in Pakistan takes me back to the time when the Iranian revolution was brewing, when I was the desk officer for Iran on the National Security Council. The ultimate reason for the U.S. policy failure then wa

Evan Wallach: Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime

[Evan Wallach, a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York, teaches the law of war as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School and New York Law School.] As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I'd always conclude by saying, "I know you won't remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do u

Peggy Noonan: Mrs. Clinton is no Iron Lady

The story as I was told it is that in the early years of her prime ministership, Margaret Thatcher held a meeting with her aides and staff, all of whom were dominated by her, even awed. When it was over she invited her cabinet chiefs to join her at dinner in a nearby restaurant. They went, arrayed themselves around the table, jockeyed for her attention. A young waiter came and asked if they'd like to hear the specials. Mrs. Thatcher said, "I will have beef." Yes, said the

Marisa Treviño: Romney Wants to Penalize Cities Declared Immigrant Sanctuaries But Forgets His Own Grandparents Fled to Mexico for That Very Reason

It seems that Governor Bill Richardson isn't the only presidential candidate with a Mexican-born parent. Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, can technically claim Latino heritage as well. His father, George Romney, was born in Colonia Dublán, Galeana, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The elder Romney was born in a Mormon colony on Mexican soil that his parents had fled to, for lack of a better word — sanctuary. That's why, it's rather ironic that Mitt, bei

Anne Applebaum: Why actors and models love to hang out with Hugo Chávez

Ninety years ago this week, a Bolshevik mob stormed the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, arrested the provisional government, and installed a "dictatorship of the proletariat" in its place. Though the Russian revolution is no longer widely celebrated (not even by the Russians, who instead commemorate the expulsion of the Poles from Moscow in 1612), I felt it important to mark the occasion. In honor of the anniversary, I reread Ten Days That Shook the World, the famed account of the rev

Akiva Eldar: The Jewish Lobby Israel Needs

[Akiva Eldar is a senior columnist for Ha’aretz. He is the co-author of “Lords of the Land: The War for Israel’s Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007” (Nation Books).] The next few weeks may determine the future of Zionism. This is not an exaggeration. If the upcoming Annapolis peace conference ends the same way as the Camp David summit of 2000, the future of the Jewish state will be in jeopardy. The Israeli people can deal with another deadlock in the end

Paul Kengor: God and Hillary Clinton (Interview)

Frontpage Interview’s guest today Paul Kengor, the author of the New York Times extended-list bestseller God and Ronald Reagan as well as God and George W. Bush and The Crusader. He is a professor of political science and director of the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College. He is the author of the first spiritual biography of the former first lady, God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life. FP: Paul Kengor, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Kengor: It’s alw

Craig Unger: Battle of the Bushes (Bush I vs. Bush II)

This is Part 1 of an excerpt from "The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future." Parts 2 and 3 will follow on Nov. 8 and 9. For more information on the book, visit http://www.craigunger.com *** It was a cool, crisp day in the spring of 2004 -- a rarity for Houston -- and George H.W. Bush chatted wit

William Voegeli: Why even Reagan couldn't stop spending from skyrocketing--and what to do about it.

[Mr. Voegeli is a visiting scholar at Claremont McKenna College's Henry Salvatori Center.] A quarter century ago president Ronald Reagan declared in his first inaugural address: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. . . . It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the federal government and those reserved to