Roundup: Media's Take

Christopher Hitchens: The latest absurdities to emerge from Jimmy Carter's big, smug mouth

Almost always, when former President Jimmy Carter opens his big, smug mouth, he has already made the psychological mistake that is going to reduce his words to absurdity. When he told the press last week that the Bush administration had aroused antipathy around the world, he might have been uttering no more than a banality. But no, he had to try to invest it with a special signature flourish. So, he said instead: "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the wo

David Blum: CBS Betrays Flaws With Cronkite Slight

Last Friday night at 8 p.m., when no one in America was looking, CBS broadcast an hour-long tribute to its former anchorman, Walter Cronkite, on the occasion of his 90th birthday. It was a classic backhanded gesture by CBS, the kind that demonstrates just how callous and insensitive the network has become to its great traditions and legacies. A Friday night timeslot for a news special practically begged audiences not to watch. At the same time, the special served as a reminder of just how far CB

Paul Scham: Palestinians, Israel, and the Arab States ... Their Opportunity

[Paul Scham is an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute. From 1996 to 2002, he was a Fellow and Research Development Coordinator at the Truman Institute for Peace at Hebrew University.] Since 1948, perhaps the single most unifying issue in the Arab world has been “The Palestine Question.” The notoriously fractious Arab world would unite as one in passing Arab League and UN resolutions supporting the Palestinians and opposing Israel. Privately, many Palestinians scoffed at

Paul Rogat Loeb: The haircut that won't die

[Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org <http://www.paulloeb.org/> To receive his monthly articles email

Patrick Buchanan: But Who Was Right -- Rudy or Ron?

It was the decisive moment of the South Carolina debate. Hearing Rep. Ron Paul recite the reasons for Arab and Islamic resentment of the United States, including 10 years of bombing and sanctions that brought death to thousands of Iraqis after the Gulf War, Rudy Giuliani broke format and exploded: "That's really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of 9-11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I hav

Andrew J. Imparato and Anne C. Sommers: Haunting Echoes of Eugenics

[Andrew J. Imparato is president and chief executive and Anne C. Sommers is the policy counsel of the American Association of People With Disabilities, based in Washington.] In its preamble, the recently unveiled U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities recognizes"the inherent dignity and worth and equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family as the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." We wonder what Oliv

Martin Sieff: We have a war czar. He's called the commander in chief.

The Bush administration looked for a 'war czar.' Instead it got a 'junior war coordinator.' But according to American history and to the U.S. Constitution, who should be 'war czar' anyway? The whole concept of a 'czar' implies a supreme boss. The term, after all, described the all-powerful, authoritarian emperor of all the Russias for more than 400 years. At times of crisis, especially during wars, over the past century, the call has repeatedly gone up for 'czars' to be given sweeping aut

Chris Kelly: One Hitler Per Customer

[Chris Kelly writes for Real Time with Bill Maher.] It's Hitler season in Washington, and that's a bad sign. Because stopping Hitler is what we say lately whenever we're getting ready to invade somewhere, torture people, and put them in camps. It's a good thing our boogeyman isn't Dracula, or we'd fight him by drinking blood. Monday, on his "Focus on the Family" radio show, James Dobson talked about a long meeting he'd had with President Bush, and how we have

Max Boot: Not a Dead End

I’ve been traveling a lot so have only now gotten around to reading “Dead End: Counterinsurgency Warfare as Military Malpractice,” Edward Luttwak’s article in the February issue of Harper’s. As usual with Luttwak, the article is thought-provoking and stylishly written. It’s also almost entirely wrong. The blog of the Small Wars Journal has already posted two trenchant critiques of the article, by two of the leading counterinsurgency experts in the world: Dave Kilcullen, a former lie

Jules Witcover: Who’s Worse, Nixon or Bush?

A favorite pastime of political scientists and pollsters is compiling lists of the best presidents. The results vary widely, as the judgments of history conflict with contemporary sentiments. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and F.D.R. always finish high on the lists, with more controversial choices like Truman and Reagan often thrown in. Currently, however, we’re seeing an outbreak of consensus on the worst: George W. Bush. The Internet is awash with academic tomes, blogs and partisa

Stuart Taylor Jr.: Congress Should Censure Gonzales

[Stuart Taylor Jr. is a senior writer and columnist for National Journal and a contributing editor at Newsweek. This column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C.] What's Congress to do when the president insists on keeping an attorney general who is so manifestly unequal to the demands of his job and so incapable of giving accurate answers to simple questions that even the president's partisans want h

Harlan Ullman: I coined "shock and awe" but didn't support the Iraq War

[Harlan Ullman is a columnist for the Washington Times.] Recently, my name has been in the press on matters not related to my professional activities. I will deal with those issues separately. [HNN Editor: it's been reported that Ullman's name appears in the files of the Washington DC Madam.] But, intentionally or not, these accounts have also misrepresented my professional standing. Specifically, numerous statements and media reports have credited me with being a &

Blair Kamin: The competing visions of The City (Jane Jacobs Vs. Mayor Daley)

[Mr. Kamin is the Tribune architecture critic.] Surely they would have been bitter adversaries: Richard J. Daley, the late authoritarian Chicago mayor, and Jane Jacobs, the combative New York City activist and author. He ripped expressways through Chicago's quilt of ethnic neighborhoods and presided over the erection of its massive public housing projects. She stopped an expressway from slicing apart her Greenwich Village neighborhood and championed the beauty of small things -- the

Alan Dershowitz: Democracy Not!

Democracy Now!, the hard left radio-television talk show starring Amy Goodman, boasts of its fairness and of presenting both sides of the issues. A recent experience with the show exposes this claim as a bold face lie. A few weeks ago, Noam Chomsky was invited on the show and, spurred on by Amy Goodman’s question, proceeded to attack me for conducting a “jihad” against Norman Finkelstein, who is up for tenure at DePaul University. For those of you unfamiliar with Norman F

Timothy Noah: Jerry Falwell's Hit Parade

God, they say, is love, but the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died May 15, hit the jackpot trafficking in small-minded condemnation. The controversies Falwell generated followed a predictable loop. 1) Falwell would say something hateful or clownish about some person or group associated with liberalism. 2) A public outcry would ensue. 3) Falwell would apologize and retract the offending comment. 4) Falwell would repeat the comment, slightly rephrased. For 20 years, evangelicals have chided

Anne Applebaum: Who Is Tony Blair? The riddle of Britain's retiring prime minister

[Anne Applebaum is a Washington Post and Slate columnist. Her most recent book is Gulag: A History.] He has been called everything from "an inferior Bill Clinton" to "as divisive a figure as Thatcher." His record in the Middle East has been described as one of "catastrophic failure," and his mistakes have been attributed to "stupendous moral vanity." He has been called a success, a failure, lucky, and unfortunate. "Tony Blair: A Modern Tr

Arnaud de Borchgrave: The historian president

[The author is UPI editor at large.] Two of Washington's best-informed men confirmed it so it must be true. President Bush and his consigliere Karl Rove bet on who had read the most books in a year. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told friends Rove won with 117 books and Bush was a close second with 104 books. Unhappy over his loss to his close confidant, Bush asked for a recount -- in words. And the president won by 1.7 percent. The story is no

Humberto Fontova: Is Luis Posada Carriles a terrorist?

[Humberto Fontova is the author of "Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him."] Two years ago, a Cuban exile and former CIA operative named Luis Posada Carriles entered the U.S. and was promptly arrested for illegal entry. Mr. Posada had volunteered for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and later joined the U.S. army emerging as a 2nd Lieutenant. After retiring from the U.S. Army, he worked for the CIA putting out Soviet-started fires throug

Max Boot: Surging Ahead

[Mr. Boot is a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of"War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today" (Gotham Books, 2006).] ... An article in USA Today reported on a Pentagon-funded study which confirms what military historians already know -- an average insurgency can run for a decade, but most fail in the end.Translation: If we're going to be successful in Iraq, we're going to have to make a long-ter

Mathias Dapfner: Europe, Thy Name Is Cowardice

[Mathias Dapfner is Chief Executive of the German publisher Axel Springer AG.] A few days ago, Henryk M. Broder wrote in the Welt am Sonntag, "Europe — thy name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so painfully true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and Gentiles their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated far too long before realizing that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreemen