Roundup: Media's Take

WSJ Editorial: What's the alternative to promoting freedom in the Middle East?

In the matter of Middle East elections, the results of which we don't always like: Anyone out there have a better idea? We ask amid some recent wringing of hands following elections for the Palestinian legislature, in which the terrorist group Hamas won an outright majority; elections in Iraq, where voters cast their ballots along sectarian lines, and a strong showing by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's parliamentary elections late last year. "For s

John Wertman: Bush's Obstruction of History

At some point in the next few months, President Bush is expected to announce his choice for the location of his presidential library. Once it's open, most of the media attention is likely to focus on the public exhibits, which will no doubt extol the president's compassionate conservatism, his leadership immediately after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and his impressive selections of John Roberts and Sam Alito for the Supreme Court. More important to history, howe

Bob Herbert: Ike Saw It Coming

Early in the documentary film "Why We Fight," Wilton Sekzer, a retired New York City police officer whose son was killed in the World Trade Center attack, describes his personal feelings in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. "Somebody had to pay for this," he says. "Somebody had to pay for 9/11. ... I wanna see their bodies stacked up for what they did. For taking my son." Lost in the agony of his grief, Mr. Sekzer wanted revenge. He want

Jim Castagnera: About those Reports of Cannibalism

Reports of cannibalism came out of the Congo last week. An outfit calling itself the Mayi-Mayi are the culprits. Besides chowing down on people, these dudes wear masks and talismans and claim that when they shout “mayi-mayi” (“water-water”) bullets turn into liquid spray. Cannibalism in the Congo is nothing new. During the 1890s, according to British Historian Thomas Pakenham, an upstart named Gongo (rhymes with “Congo”) “had carved an empire on the marshy banks of the Loma

Andrew L. Yarrow: Fifty years ago, America's future was limitless. So what happened to optimism?

America has never been richer, but it once was much more optimistic — even utopian — about its future. In 1956, Fortune magazine published "The Fabulous Future," a book of essays by luminaries forecasting a nation of technological and economic wonders by 1980. Adlai Stevenson spoke of "the most extraordinary growth any nation or civilization has ever experienced." George Meany predicted "ever-rising" living standards. And David Sarnoff gushed, "The

Jonathan Alter: The Imperial (Vice) Presidency

Fox News's exclusive interview with Vice President Dick Cheney was, as CNN's Jack Cafferty sniped, "like Bonnie interviewing Clyde," but Brit Hume posed some good questions. When asked if he still thinks after everything that happened that he handled the story the right way, Cheney replied, "I still do." To me, this was the most revealing part of the whole episode. Cheney believes in what might be called partisan accountability—you answer only to your own side, on your own t

Dana Milbank: John Yoo says it's a myth that Congress declares wars

For generations, civics students have learned that the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Yesterday, the man who built the legal underpinnings of the Bush administration's terrorism strategy revised the curriculum. John Yoo, the former Justice Department official whose writings justified the administration's treatment of military prisoners and the National Security Agency eavesdropping program, announced that Congress's warmaking powers are just a figment of the &

George F. Will: An Election Breakwater?

The electorate's dyspeptic mood about the nation's politics reflects the fact that, as is frequently the case, the party in power in Washington has done much to earn a rebuke but the opposition party has done nothing to earn a reward. Herewith a tour of the political horizon nine months before the November elections, and 33 months before the first presidential election since 1952 without an incumbent president or vice president running—and just the second in 28 years without a Bush on the ballot

Mark Engler: Finding the tipping point for Vietnam -- and for Iraq

[Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City, is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus and a contributor to Newsday, In These Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and TomPaine.com. He can be reached via DemocracyUprising.com. Research assistance for this article provided by Kate Griffiths.] In the center of the CostOfWar.com home page, an upward-racing ticker, presented in a large, red font, keeps a steady tally of the money spent for the U.S. war in Iraq. Every time I visit, it

Steve Sailer : Cesar Chavez, Minuteman

[Steve Sailer is TAC's film critic and a VDARE.com columnist.] In California, only three birthdays are official state holidays: Jesus Christ's, Martin Luther King's, and Cesar Chavez's. Beatification as a secular saint, though, isn't always good for the soul. A recent four-part expos by reporter Miriam Pawel in the Los Angeles Times revealed how the labor leader turned revered ethnic icon descended into paranoia, megalomania, and general crack-pottery in the 15 years before his dea

John Laughland: Deterrence worked with the Soviets. Why not Iran?

Since the end of the Cold War [deterrence] has been consigned to the dustbin of history. Today's neocons do not conclude from the possibility that Iran might obtain the bomb that countermeasures must be taken to deter her from ever using it. Instead, they bleat that Iran is infringing the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-one of the stupidest treaties ever to have entered the annals of diplomacy because it elevates hypocrisy to a principle of international law by saying that only so

Sidney Blumenthal: Cheney's coup

After shooting Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, Dick Cheney's immediate impulse was to control the intelligence. Rather than call the president directly, he ordered an aide to inform White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card that there had been an accident but not that Cheney was its cause. Then a host of surrogates attacked the victim for not steering clear of Cheney when he was firing. Cheney attempted to defuse the subsequent furor by giving an interview to friendly Fox News. His most revealing

Max Boot: Diplomacy for the real world

MUCH OF OUR national security and foreign policy bureaucracy has been designed to confront an enemy that no longer exists. Today, many of our biggest threats come not from other strong states but from subnational groups such as Al Qaeda or from failing states that create fertile ground from which they operate. The Pentagon has reacted to the post-9/11 world by enlarging the Special Operations Command and placing greater emphasis on language and cultural education. It's not enough,

Weekly Standard: Jimmy Carter's Hypocrisy

The funeral of Coretta Scott King last week in Lithonia, Ga., brought together two of The Scrapbook's favo-rite statesmen, Sen. Edward Kennedy and former President Jimmy Carter, on the same podium for the first time since--oh, maybe it was the 1980 Democratic Convention, when Kennedy effectively declined to endorse Carter for reelection. Well, that was then, and now the two old warriors are united by a common adversary, George W. Bush, who sat on the very same podium at Mrs. King's

Rebecca Solnit: Wal-Mart Buys History

[Rebecca Solnit's Tomdispatch-generated Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities is out in a new and expanded edition. Her other recent books include A Field Guide to Getting Lost and, with Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe, Yosemite in Time: Ice Ages, Tree Clocks, Ghost Rivers.] It isn't that, when Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton purchased Asher B. Durand's 1849 painting Kindred Spirits last year, she got the state of Arkansas to pass legislation specifically to save her taxes

Kelly M. Greenhill : Don't Dumb Down the Army

[Kelly M. Greenhill is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan and a research fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.] ... Welcoming [recruits without high school diplomas] ... into the military has obvious appeal at a time when recruitment numbers are slipping, while manpower needs remain acute. But the adoption of lower standards to fill the ranks is shortsighted and imprudent. Moreover, continuing or expanding this policy would be a mistake for the Army and for

James Ottavio Castagnera: We should be patient with countries trying democracy for the first time

[Jim Castagnera is a Philadelphia attorney and author, who writes a weekly newspaper column, “Attorney at Large.”] These are the times that try men’s souls. Hammas has won the Palestinian elections. In Iraq an insurgency rages. Iran has rejected further snap inspections by the U.N.’s nuclear inspectors, as its increasingly-conservative Islamic regime seeks an atomic arsenal. Out of China comes word that Internet provider Yahoo knuckled under to government pressure and gave up inf

Jeffrey Herf: The hypocrisy of Britain and France over Israel's Nukes

Two weeks ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to refer the matter of Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. There is plenty to like about the IAEA resolution, starting with the large majority it commanded among the organization's member states--even the usually recalcitrant Russians and Chinese signed on. Moreover, the strong text refers to Iran's "many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply" with Nuclear Proliferation Treaty agreements; a

Martin Peretz: Why Perot Matters

oss Perot ran for president twice, first in 1992 against George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the second time in 1996 against Clinton and Bob Dole. In both races, he ran without the support of a major party. (He funded his initial run, under the banner "United We Stand," himself; the next, as a representative of the Reform Party, he did not.) I recently asked a small group of Harvard undergraduates, "Who is Ross Perot?" A Texas billionaire, said one. He bought a copy of the Mag

Jonathan Schell: Farewell to Ground Zero

[Jonathan Schell is The Nation Institute's Harold Willens Peace Fellow. He is the author of The Unconquerable World, among many other books.] This column will be my last "Letter From Ground Zero." The series will be succeeded by another, "Crisis of the Republic." Until recently it seemed possible to trace the main developments in the Bush administration's policies back to that horrible, fantastical day in September 2001, as if following an unbroken chain of cause