Roundup: Media's Take

Zahid Hussain: Musharraf's failures (interview)

Zahid Hussain is the Pakistan correspondent for the Times of London, the Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. He is also the political correspondent for the Karachi-based monthly Newsline. According to Ahmed Rashid, one of the foremost experts on Afghanistan and author of several books on the region, Zahid Hussain's new book, Frontline Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam "is the first serious exposure of the rise and continuation of Islamic extremism in Pakistan. Zahid Hus

David McNeill: Japan Rearms

[David McNeill writes regularly for the Chronicle of Higher Education, the London Independent and other publications. He is a coordinator of Japan Focus. This is an extended version of an article that was carried in the Irish Times on Feb. 25, 2007.] ... The specter of a remilitarized, aggressive Japanese nationalism is something of a journalistic cliché and is rejected by some who call it a much needed readjustment to the new security ‘realities’ of Asia. Some describe it is merely

Robert Kuttner: Impeach Gonzales

[Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a fellow at Demos. His column appears regularly in the Globe. ] THE HOUSE of Representatives should begin impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzales, the nation's highest legal officer, has been point man for serial assaults against the rule of law, most recently in the crude attempt to politicize criminal prosecutions. Obstruction of a prosecution is a felony, even when committed by the

David Brooks: For 2008, An American Themistocles

Leonidas led the Spartans at Thermopylae, and as anybody who’s seen “300” can tell you, he had all the qualities of a perfect movie hero. He was brave, straightforward and self-sacrificing. But it’s worth pointing out that Leonidas didn’t win the Persian Wars. Themistocles did, and Themistocles had an altogether different set of qualities. He was not straightforward; in fact, he could be deceptive and manipulative. He was not self-sacrificing; there was an air of corruption and fier

George F. Will: Politics After the Reversal

... No one should be allowed to vote until he or she has driven across the country. Why? Because voters should understand the nature of regional differences. Why the regions matter is the subject of a new book, "Divided America: The Ferocious Power Struggle in American Politics," by Earl Black and Merle Black, political scientists at Rice and Emory universities, respectively. The story of American politics in the 20th century was the Great Reversal, with Democrats becoming

Douglas Kmiec: An Historical Perspective on the Controversy over U.S. Attorney Firings

Recently, there has been much talk of a"scandal" in the Department of Justice - based on claims that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales improperly allowed politics to govern the removal of a number of U.S. Attorneys. The facts still remain to be ascertained, by Congressional inquiry. Hopefully, the facts will show that the law was administered without partisanship or favoritism. As Congress inquires into this matter, it must be careful not to subvert the intended constitutional structu

Astra Taylor: The '60s Are Gone, But One of Its Most Controversial Organizations Is Back

Since its fiery demise in 1969, there have been various attempts to revive Students for a Democratic Society. All such efforts failed ... until recently. In April of 1965 a young man named Paul Potter took the stage at the first march on Washington against the war in Vietnam."What kind of system is it that justifies the U.S. or any other country seizing the destinies of the Vietnamese people and using them callously for its own purpose?" he asked the crowd, before enjoining

Paul Armentano: It's Been an 'All Out War' on Pot Smokers for 35 Years

[Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for NORML and the NORML Foundation in Washington, D.C.] Thirty-five years ago this month, a congressionally mandated commission on U.S. drug policy did something extraordinary: They told the truth about marijuana. On March 22, 1972, the National Commission on Marihuana (sic) and Drug Abuse -- chaired by former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond P. Shafer -- recommended Congress amend federal law so that the use and possession of pot w

Stephen Labaton: The Law Ranks Its Privileges

THE investigation of President Clinton's link to Monica S. Lewinsky is barely a month old and it has already set a peculiar record: Most variations on the ancient legal concept of special privileges that excuse people from testifying in court and before grand juries. Before the White House began threatening to invoke the recognized doctrines of lawyer-client privilege and executive privilege to block the testimony of top aides, other Administration lawyers were trying to craft a new

Alex de Waal: The Wars of Sudan

[Alex de Waal is a program director of the Social Science Research Council and a director of Justice Africa in London. Since completing a PhD on Darfur in 1988 he has worked on famine, human rights and conflict in the Horn of Africa. He is co-author, with Julie Flint, of Darfur: A Short History of a Long War (Zed).] When history repeats itself for a third time, it is beyond tragedy. Since its independence fifty-one years ago, Sudan has suffered two civil wars between North and South, each

Congressional Research Service: Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege ... History, Law, Practice and Recent Developments

[Morton Rosenberg is a Specialist in American Public Law American Law Division.] ABSTRACT This report provides a brief review and discussion of the historical and legal development of the constitutionally-based prerogative of the President to maintain the confidentiality of documents or other materials or information that reflect presidential decisionmaking and deliberations. The evolving nature and scope of the presidential privilege is described and discussed and recent court deci

Paul Krugman: Don’t Cry for Reagan

As the Bush administration sinks deeper into its multiple quagmires, the personality cult the G.O.P. once built around President Bush has given way to nostalgia for the good old days. The current cover of Time magazine shows a weeping Ronald Reagan, and declares that Republicans “need to reclaim the Reagan legacy.” But Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have be

Howard Fineman: A generation ago, Vietnam blew up politics as we knew it. Why isn’t that happening now?

As we approach the fourth anniversary of "Shock and Awe," I keep waiting for the war in Iraq to blow up politics as we know it, the way the war in Vietnam did a generation ago. That hasn’t happened—at least not yet—and it's important to understand why. The main reason: Democrats haven’t fashioned a compelling (even to themselves) alternative to George W. Bush’s world view. Unless they do, they could lose in 2008. Often in politics, what candidates DON’T say is more import

John B. Judis: Nobody running in 2008 is qualified to be president

[John B. Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.] If this were 1820 or 1888 or even 1928, it wouldn't matter that much whether a president had a more than passing grasp of foreign affairs. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, U.S. foreign policy was primarily concerned with continental expansion. But for a century now, America has played a large, and since World War II, the largest role in global af

Sam Tanenhaus: How Bill Buckley turned against his own movement

[Sam Tanenhaus is the editor of The New York Times Book Review. His book, An Un-American Life: The Case of Whittaker Chambers, has just been published in England. ] Although he remains the most eminent conservative in the United States, his face and voice recognized by millions, William F. Buckley Jr. has all but retired from public life. At the apex of his influence, when Richard Nixon and, later, Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, Buckley received flattering notes on presiden

Charles E. Anderson: Is the Vietnam Wall Memorial Being Politicized?

[Charles E. Anderson served in Iraq with the Marine Corps' Second Tank Battalion during the invasion of Iraq. During his nine-year career, he served in infantry, armor, and medical units. He lives in Hampton, Virginia, where he is a World Studies student at Thomas Nelson Community College. He can be contacted through his website at http://www.charleseanderson.com.] ... I was saddened to learn recently that for the first time since the be

Jonathan Rauch: The way to end culture wars is to slug them out state by state

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a 2008 Republican presidential candidate, is a thoughtful politician, for a politician. So it was not surprising to find him recently debating one of the country’s core conundrums. It was a little surprising, though, to find him debating himself. Romney believes abortion is wrong, but he thinks the decision on whether to allow it should be left to the states. In February, National Journal asked him if he favored a constitutional

Michael J. Petrilli: How to end the reading wars?

[Mike Petrilli is Vice President for National Programs and Policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, where he oversees the Foundation's research projects and publications, including The Education Gadfly. ] This month's Atlantic includes a thoughtful article by Jonathan Rauch about how to end the culture wars: "slug them out state by state." He points to the cautionary tale of Roe v. Wade, which nationalized

Karen Tumulty: How The Right Went Wrong

A generation ago, fresh off the second biggest electoral landslide in American history, Ronald Reagan surveyed the wreckage that had been the opposition and declared victory. Standing before 1,700 true believers at the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he proclaimed, "The tide of history is moving irresistibly in our direction. Why? Because the other side is virtually bankrupt of ideas. It has nothing more to say, nothing to add to the debate. It has spent its intellectu

Max Boot: The Lessons of Grenada

Like so many “small wars,” the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada has been all but forgotten. But the death of Joseph Metcalf III, the vice admiral who commanded the U.S. invasion force, provides an opportunity to recall the impact of this operation.The Reagan admin