Roundup: Media's Take

Barry Everingham: Wiesenthal's Nazi Tracking In Australia

Writing an unofficial biography of Sydney-raised and educated Princess Michael of Kent was never going to be easy. The girl, who in 1978 and against all odds married the Queen's first cousin, was adept at reinventing herself at every turn. As Marie Christine von Reibnitz, she even denied the existence of her childhood home behind the old Waverley tram depot near Bondi Junction and claimed a Double Bay address. But early in her marriage into the heart of the world's most

Robert J. Samuelson: Discovering Poverty (Again)

We Americans are now supposedly discovering poverty for at least the fourth time since World War II. The first occurred in 1962, when Michael Harrington's classic "The Other America" appeared. To a nation generally dazzled by its newfound suburban prosperity, Harrington described the grim realities of West Virginia shanties and inner-city slums. Then there was Lyndon Johnson's "war on poverty" and later what was often described, rightly or wrongly, as Ronald Reagan's war agai

Harold Meyerson: Master of the Poison Pill

Why has President Bush placed Karl Rove atop the government's endeavors to rebuild the Gulf Coast? Rove knows as much about massive relief and reconstruction efforts as your pet schnauzer, but he's not devoid of germane expertise. He played a critical role, after all, in the formation of the Department of Homeland Security. In the fall of 2002, as the legislation establishing the DHS was wending its way through Congress, Rove had a Rovean idea: Embed some extraneous, ideological cri

Max Boot: This North Korean Deal is No Bargain

ONE SUSPECTS that if George W. Bush were not in the White House, he would be condemning the accord with North Korea announced on Monday. As it is, the president was decidedly lukewarm in his endorsement of what others are prematurely calling a breakthrough. His caution is warranted, because the six-party deal unveiled in Beijing has loopholes big enough to fly an ICBM through. The most obvious flaw became apparent within hours: North Korea and the United States have very different i

Mimi Spencer: A British Look At Waists, Catwalks, And Women

If the shopping gene in you is searching for the defining vision of this autumn's dressing, look no further than the model Carmen Kass on the catwalk at Roland Mouret's autumn/winter collection in Paris. She wore a petrol-blue, wasp-waist outfit so pneumatic, so curvaceous, so goddamn hot that women (and, I fully expect, a few men) fell for it in droves. You could almost hear the purr as she walked the runway. That figure! That waist! Waist? Surely you recall? It's the place where w

George Friedman: The Ghost City of New Orleans--And Why It Matters

[George Friedman is the Founder, Chairman, and Chief Intelligence Officer of Stratfor, a private geopolitical and public policy intelligence firm. The article in this issue draws from his analysis for a Stratfor geopolitical intelligence report. He was the Founder and Director of the Center for Geopolitical Studies at Louisiana State University. (October 2005).] The American political system was founded in Philadelphia, but the American nation was built on the vast farmlands that st

Michael T. Klare: More Blood, Less Oil

[Michael T. Klare is the Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum (Owl Books) as well as Resource Wars, The New Landscape of Global Conflict.] It has long been an article of faith among America's senior policymakers -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- that military force is an effective tool for ensuring control over foreign

Richard Cohen: Incompetence, Not Racism

If you told me that George W. Bush is a dummy, I would argue with you but understand why you thought so: all those idiotic statements. But if you told me, as some have been implying, that Bush is a racist or that he doesn't care about black people, I would not only say that you're wrong but add, "Not the George Bush I know." Of course, I don't know George Bush personally. But in his first presidential campaign, I traveled with him and tried, as he might say, to look into h

Nathaniel Fick: An Honest Victory

AUTHORITY can be delegated; responsibility cannot. President Bush's speech last week accepting responsibility for the federal government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina was commendable, if overdue. Though it has been derided by some as political expediency, the president's acknowledgment was a necessary first step in rebuilding the Gulf Coast and preparing for the next disaster. This new transparency, however, shouldn't stop with Hurricane Katrina. Consider the positive effects

T.R. Fehrenbach: Bureaucracy vs. Paranoia

If the United States had to fight World War II today, I believe we could not do nearly so good a job as we did in 1941-45. Yes, we have a much larger population, are far richer and we know vastly more about weaponry and war-fighting than Americans did then. There would be sufficient commitment, drawing from the aftermath of 9-11. We are neither a nation of cowards nor heroes, but we have always found enough of the latter to win. The problem is this: In 1940 when we bega

Barbara Karkabi: Long Before Katrina, Texas Served As Home For Migrants

Bernard Tebo was 7 when his family moved from a little town outside Lafayette, La., to Texas. Tebo is 99 now, but he remembers that day in 1914 when his family put everything they owned on the train and landed in what looked like wild country. "My daddy came to Texas for free school and cheap land, but there was nothin' here to do," Tebo recalls. "The living was better in Louisiana, but there were more (job) opportunities here." The Tebo

David Ho: Clinton Returns To Center Stage

Bill Clinton's summit of world leaders and tycoons is the latest chapter of his increasingly public return to the world stage with a post-White House career political scholars call unique in American history. ... Unlike many other former presidents, who returned to private life or only slowly crept back into the spotlight, Clinton has traveled the world in the last year to help tsunami victims and support his personal foundation's efforts to combat HIV in places like Africa and Ind

Graham Gudgin: Northen Ireland's Unionists Feel U.K. Position Threatened

[Dr Graham Gudgin was special adviser to First Minister David Trimble during 1998-2002.] More flexible forms of devolved government in the North must be found; expecting polar opposites to form stable governments has proved unrealistic, writes Graham Gudgin Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain described the recent Belfast riots as "a spasm from a dark past". His hope is that they are an isolated problem on the road to peace. Although the riots are the latest

Peter J. Boyer: Biloxi Reinvents Itself Again After Katrina

Mississippi is among the red states, which supported President Bush in the last election, and the Mississippi coast, which is where I grew up, was the most pro-Bush region of the state. When Bush visited Biloxi, on the Friday after Hurricane Katrina, he was greeted warmly by friendly politicians, including the state’s two United States senators, Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, who are Republicans; and Governor Haley Barbour, an old friend, who was the head of the Republican National Committee from

David Ignatius: Taking Back Islam

Rarely has a big idea gotten more lip service and less real substance than the argument that there is a war of ideas underway for the soul of the Muslim world. Do a Google search on war of ideas and Muslim, and you get more than 11 million hits. Yet, four years after Sept. 11, 2001, the real battle is only now beginning. The Bush administration's response has been to throw former White House spinmeister Karen Hughes into the fray. The implication is that Muslims will stop hating Ame

The Supreme Court's Biggest Question

He had the right to remain silent. He knew that everything he said could and would be used against (and for) him. And yet, when Judge John G. Roberts Jr. was asked last week by Senator Arlen Specter, who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee, whether he believed the "right to privacy" existed in the Constitution, Mr. Roberts replied, "Senator, I do." History suggests that if he had not, Judge Roberts would have sunk his chances to become the 17th chief justice of

Fred Kaplan: The MX, All It Touched Off Was a Debate

TOMORROW at 10 a.m., at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., the last MX missile will be "deactivated," and a turbulent chapter of history will come to an end. The MX is hardly remembered now; its phase-out began without fanfare four years ago. But in the late 1970's and the '80s - at the height of the United States-Soviet nuclear arms race, amid tensions over the invasion of Afghanistan and the collapse of détente - the MX was the centerpiece of the American military

Clifford J. Levy: Post-Katrina, Bricks and Mortals

WHEN President Bush went to the virtual ghost town of New Orleans on Thursday to champion a plan for its recovery, his words - "This great city will rise again" - carried familiar echoes. The American way of facing these calamities: get up off the ground, dust (or dry) yourself off and start over. Dream big, and take back what nature took. After Hurricane Andrew thrashed Florida in 1992, for instance, a high-powered civic group, We Will Rebuild, sprang up, with a vow to ma

Mark Danner: Bush's Extreme Version of the Cold War

... In launching his new cold war, George W. Bush chose a peculiarly ideological version of cold-war history. He opted not for containment, the cautious, status quo grand strategy usually attributed to the late George F. Kennan, but for rollback. Containment, by which the United States determinedly resisted Soviet attempts to expand its influence, would have meant a patient, methodical search for terrorists, discriminating between those groups that threaten the United States and those that do no

Frank Rich: Message: I Care About the Black Folks

ONCE Toto parts the curtain, the Wizard of Oz can never be the wizard again. He is forever Professor Marvel, blowhard and snake-oil salesman. Hurricane Katrina, which is likely to endure in the American psyche as long as L. Frank Baum's mythic tornado, has similarly unmasked George W. Bush. The worst storm in our history proved perfect for exposing this president because in one big blast it illuminated all his failings: the rampant cronyism, the empty sloganeering of "compassio