Roundup: Media's Take

Sidney Blumenthal: Shoot first, avoid questions later

In the original account authorized by Vice President Dick Cheney of his shooting of Harry Whittington, given by Katharine Armstrong, heiress and hunting companion, to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and later elaborated on to other news outlets, the 11 members of the hunting party set off on the morning of Feb. 11 in two trucks for the wilds of the 50,000-acre Armstrong Ranch in search of quails. After lunch, whose menu was described as antelope, jicama salad, bread and Dr Pepper, the hunters di

Max Boot: The West as scapegoat

WHY ARE SO many Muslims so enraged by a handful of cartoons published in an obscure Danish newspaper? It's not enough to point out how the governments of Egypt, Syria and Iran are stoking the protests in a cynical ploy to deflect Western pressure for democratic reform and to curry favor with Islamic radicals. Their strategy wouldn't be so successful if it didn't resonate with deeply ingrained attitudes among the Muslim multitudes. I got an earful of those views last week in Kuala L

Joshua Green: Republicans might—or might not—want to look backward for lessons on handling life under a cloud

Legend has it that certain Eskimo tribes in northern Canada had a fiercely efficient way to dispatch elders who outlived their usefulness and became a burden on the community: put them on an ice floe and shove them off to sea. That kind of cold-eyed realism is hardly alien to the tribes of Washington, D.C., forever locked in their own struggle for survival. And if the Republican scandals centered upon the former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and the lobbyist Jack Abramoff suddenly metastasize

Kyle Smith: Cancel the Olympics

[Mr. Smith is a movie critic for the New York Post.] Here's a proposal to increase harmony and goodwill among nations. Cancel the Olympics forever. Pierre de Coubertin, the Frenchman who founded the modern Olympics and literally left his heart in Olympia, Greece (as decreed by his will; the rest of him is buried in Switzerland), envisioned nations using former battlefields for track and field. "Export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands," he

John Dean: Vice President Cheney and The Fight Over "Inherent" Presidential Powers

Vice President Dick Cheney has stirred up an old fight in Washington. He sent a rookie, however, to make his case publicly. It did not work. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to offer what may have been the weakest legal argument for presidential power to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance since Nixon's Justice Department invoked the views of King George III. King George III's take on the matter did not carry any w

Jane Smiley: Cartoons and the Honor Wars

[Jane Smiley is the author of numerous books.] Ten years ago, when I was researching for my pre-Civil War novel, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, I ran across a book by former NYT reporter Fox Butterfield, called All God's Children, about the family and culture of a boy who committed murder -- the youngest person ever to be convicted of murder in the state of New York at the time the book was written. What was interesting to me about Butterfield's bo

Peggy Noonan: Four Presidents and a Funeral --And I Loved It

Listen, I watched the funeral of Coretta Scott King for six hours Tuesday, from the pre-service commentary to the very last speech, and it was wonderful--spirited and moving, rousing and respectful, pugnacious and loving. The old lions of the great American civil rights movement of the 20th century were there, and standing tall. The old lionesses, too. There was preaching and speechifying and at the end I thought: This is how democracy ought to be, ought to look every day--full of the joy of arg

Amir Taheri : Islam prohibits neither images of Muhammad nor jokes about religion

[Mr. Taheri is the author of "L'Irak: Le Dessous Des Cartes" (Editions Complexe, 2002).] ... The Muslim Brotherhood's position, put by one of its younger militants, Tariq Ramadan--who is, strangely enough, also an adviser to the British home secretary--can be summed up as follows: It is against Islamic principles to represent by imagery not only Muhammad but all the prophets of Islam; and the Muslim world is not used to laughing at religion. Both claims, however, are false

Sidney Blumenthal: The extraordinary legal defence of George Bush's domestic spying reads like a blend of Kafka, Le Carré and Mel Brooks

In 1996, Governor George W Bush received a summons to serve on a jury, which would have required his admission that 20 years earlier he had been arrested for drunk driving. Already planning his presidential campaign, he did not want this information made public. His lawyer made the novel argument to the judge that Bush should not have to serve because "he would not, as governor, be able to pardon the defendant in the future". (The defendant was a stripper accused of drunk driving.) The

Max Boot: The wrong weapons for the Long War

THE DEFENSE Department released two important documents in the last few days — the Quadrennial Defense Review and the defense budget for fiscal year 2007. Unfortunately, they seem to be diametrically at odds with one another. The QDR — a major overhaul of defense strategy — calls for moving beyond a military configured exclusively for fighting mirror-image adversaries. "In the post-September 11 world, irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting th

Jeffrey Bell: Iran ... The defining test of Bush's war presidency

EVENTS ARE CONVERGING TO ELEVATE the nuclear crisis with Iran into the central crisis of the Bush presidency. War presidents are graded not by circumstances they inherit, including those that lead to war. They are judged by how they react to those circumstances. Franklin Roosevelt as a war president is defined not by the attack on Pearl Harbor, but by the radical war aim he laid out against Japan and Germany in the wake of Pearl Harbor--unconditional surrender--and by his relentless

Sidney Blumenthal: Bush's Brezhnev Period

The most significant and memorable statements in President Bush's lackluster State of the Union address, the phrases that most clearly and succinctly captured the state of his presidency after five years, were his heartfelt and hostile admonishments: "Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy." Bush did not claim to have learned any lessons from the past. Nor did he propose any new strategies. By assailing "hindsight" and "second-

Milton Friedman: Alan Greenspan's Legacy

Over the course of a long friendship, Alan Greenspan and I have generally found ourselves in accord on monetary theory and policy, with one major exception. I have long favored the use of strict rules to control the amount of money created. Alan says I am wrong and that discretion is preferable, indeed essential. Now that his 18-year stint as chairman of the Fed is finished, I must confess that his performance has persuaded me that he is right -- in his own case. His performan

Fred Barnes: We Are What We Own

When running for re-election in 2004, and again last year as he campaigned for Social Security reform, President Bush repeatedly advocated an "ownership society." It was a bold concept aimed at producing a historic shift in power from Washington bureaucrats to individual Americans. But "ownership society" is not a phrase you're likely to hear from him tonight in his State of the Union address. Instead, he is expected to take a more conventional--and politically palatable--app

James Taranto: Does Watergate's legacy hinder the war on terror?

In the vice president's office in the West Wing of the White House hang portraits of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson--or "No. 1 and No. 2," as the current occupant of the office calls them. No. 46, Richard B. Cheney, sat at his desk Tuesday morning for an interview with Paul Gigot, editor of this page, and me. A day earlier, the vice president had attended a farewell dinner for Alan Greenspan, who steps down next week after more than 18 years at the Federal Reserve. Our co

Reza Aslan: The Coming Islamic Reformation

[Reza Aslan is a research associate at USC's Center for Public Diplomacy and the author of "No god but God."] Osama Bin Laden'S latest taped message caused U.S. pundits to comment on his evolution from an in-the-trenches jihadist leader to elder statesman -- sidelined, but providing a soundtrack for terror. But even "elder statesman" may not do him justice. In 100 years, after the memory of 9/11 has receded and the war on terror is a somber chapter i

Gilbert Achcar: 'First Reflections On The Electoral Victory Of Hamas

[Gilbert Achcar is author of Eastern Cauldron (New York : Monthly Review Press, 2004) and The Clash of Barbarisms, new expanded edition coming out soon from Saqi Books (London) and Paradigm Publishers (Boulder, CO). The author thanks Steve Shalom for his editing and very useful suggestions.] 1. The sweeping electoral victory of Hamas is but one of the products of the intensive use made by the United States in the Muslim world, since the 1950's, of Islamic fundamentalism as an ideolo

Gore Vidal: President Jonah

While contemplating the ill-starred presidency of G.W. Bush, I looked about for some sort of divine analogy. As usual, when in need of enlightenment, I fell upon the Holy Bible, authorized King James version of 1611; turning by chance to the Book of Jonah, I read that Jonah, who, like Bush, chats with God, had suffered a falling out with the Almighty and thus became a jinx dogged by luck so bad that a cruise liner, thanks to his presence aboard, was about to sink in a storm at sea. Once the crew

Ahistoricality (Blogger): The Iraq War Compared with Other Wars (Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics)

Now, at first glance it makes our Most Excellent Adventure in Iraq look like a bargain... but it's lying with statistics, as so often happens. The Iraq Occupation has gone on for about 2.5 years following the initial invasion. The first Gulf War was indeed quick and cheap,

Discover the Network: Brief History of Hamas

***Islamic terrorist group founded in 1987 ***Received funding from Saddam Hussein ***Receives funding from Iran ***Responsible for many suicide bombings and terrorist acts against Israeli targets ***In 1995, entered into an alliance with the Palestinian Authority "There is no other solution for the Palestinian problem other than jihad [holy war]." Hamas' landslide victory in the Palestinian elections this week stunned I