Roundup: Media's Take

August 5, 2004

In Japan They're Wondering What Might Happen in the Event of a Terrorist Attack There ... Would Foreigners Face Discrimination?

Satoko Kogure, at Japan Focus (August 2004): [Satoko Kogure is a writer on Japanese political affairs and military history, and a columnist with The Japan Times in Tokyo.]As the Japanese government moves to beef up the country's military preparedness, once again the issue of the protection of foreigners' rights has been raised.With the passage of military contingency legislation in June, the government has begun to prepare t

August 4, 2004

Goodbye Jack Anderson ... We'll Miss You

Mark Feldstein, in the Houston Chronicle (July 31, 2004): Jack Anderson, 81 and ailing with Parkinson's disease, quietly gave up his syndicated column two weeks ago after more than half a century. It was not the ending some of Richard Nixon's men once had in mind. In 1972, in one of the most bizarre and overlooked chapters in American political history, Anderson was the target of a Mafia-s

August 4, 2004

Only One Democrat Has Won the White House Since WW II with the Backing of a Majority of Voters

Bruce Walker, at EnterStateRight.com (Aug. 2, 2004): How many times have we heard it? "America is so evenly divided that this election could go either way." The implication is that America is evenly divided on what direction the nation should head and what values the nation should cherish. There is no evidence that Americans are divided, but rather deceived.Has John Kerry or John

August 3, 2004

David Boaz: The Left and Right As Mirror Images

David Boaz, in the Los Angeles Times (August 3, 2004): [David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute.] The country is polarized, we're told. Bush-haters versus Clinton-haters. Mel Gibson versus Michael Moore. Red states versus blue states. Liberals and conservatives read different books, watch different networks, go to different churches.

August 2, 2004

Doug Wead: The Good and Bad of Being a President's Child

Doug Wead, in the Los Angeles Times (August 2, 2004): [Doug Wead is author of"All the President's Children."] Shortly after his father won the presidential election in 1988, I sat with George W. Bush in his office on 14th Street in Washington, D.C. I was an advisor to the incoming administration, and he was talking about who was going to work in the

August 1, 2004

Michael Kinsley: The Facts Say Democrats Have Ruled More Wisely for 40 Years

Michael Kinsley, in the Washington Post (August 1, 2004): You know how sometimes, when it's really really hot, you get this urge to crank up the old spreadsheet, download a bunch of numbers from the Web and start crunching away like there's no next fiscal year? Me neither. But I did spend a bit of the past week watching the Democratic National Convention on TV, and I needed something to

August 1, 2004

Robert Kagan: Kerry's Ahistorical View of American Interventionism

Robert Kagan, in the Washington Post (August 1, 2004): Someday, when the passions of this election have subsided, historians and analysts of American foreign policy may fasten on a remarkable passage in John Kerry's nomination speech."As president," Kerry declared,"I will bring back this nation's time-honored tradition: The United States of America never goes to war because we want to; we only go to wa

July 31, 2004

WSJ: Clinton Rewrites the History of the Roaring 1990s

Editorial in the WSJ (July 28, 2004): Ah, the glorious, roaring 1990s. Bill Clinton got elected, raised taxes on the rich so that the budget deficit and interest rates fell, and thus kicked off one of the great booms in economic history. Then Al Gore lost the 2000 election--sorry, had it stolen--President Bush cut taxes, and the economy more or less immediately went to hell. In case you've

July 31, 2004

The Impact of the Election on the Candidates' Kids

Sara B. Miller, in the Christian Science Monitor (July 29, 2004):Life was easier for Vanessa Kerry in November, when her father had been all but written off as a presidential contender. "I could go to a primary state, I could campaign, and I could come back to my life," says the daughter of the Democrats' presumptive nominee.She was no less fervent back then - just less famous. Now, as Nov. 2 nears, the trickle of parties and press confere

July 30, 2004

Jonathan Schell: Strong and Wrong ... The Democratic Convention of 2004

Jonathan Schell, in an article published jointly by the Nation and TomDispatch.com (July 30, 2004):"During the Vietnam War, many young men, including the current President, the Vice President and me, could have gone to Vietnam and didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background. He could have avoided going, too. But instead he said, 'Send me.' "When they sent those Swift Boats up the river in Vietnam... John Kerry said, 'Send me.'

July 30, 2004

Jim Hoagland: The 9-11 Commission Report Will Not Be Well-Regarded by History

Jim Hoagland, in the WSJ (July 30, 2004):History professors should give the 9/11 Commission's final report a solid A as an illuminating chronology pulled together on the gallop. History itself is not likely to be as kind. The report has conceptual holes and works too hard to round off the necessary rough edges of politics and national strategy. The commission investig

July 28, 2004

James Taranto: Bush Doesn't Need to Carry Ohio to Win

James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com and co-editor of"Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House" (Wall Street Journal Books, 2004), in the WSJ (July 27, 2004): Even though John Kerry has yet to break out of a dead heat in the polls, some Democrats are convinced he's going to beat Preside

July 28, 2004

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge: Why Some Conservatives Don't Fear a Kerry Victory

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridgehttp, in the Los Angeles Times (July 28, 2004): [John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge write for the Economist.] One of the secrets of conservative America is how often it has welcomed Republican defeats. In 1976, many conservatives saw the trouncing of the moderate Gerald Ford as a way of clearing the path f

July 28, 2004

Time Abroad Shaped Kerry's Outlook

Jill Lawrence and Barbara Slavin, in USA Today (July 27, 2004): Kerry uses his resume to argue his case: two tours in Vietnam; nearly 20 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; six years on the Senate Intelligence Committee; leader of investigations into international bank fraud, narcotics trafficking and missing prisoners of war; author of a 1997 book, The New War, about global fraud, crime and terrorism. The book was published at a time when internatio

July 28, 2004

Kerry's Hubert Humphrey Problem

Jack Beatty, in the Atlantic (July 27, 2004): "Unity" is the regnant cliché about this convention and this party. The Democrats are"united" as rarely before. But in fact, there is dramatic division here—between the delegates and the candidate. According to a Boston Globe poll, ninety-five percent of the delegates think the Iraq war was—is—"a mistake." Joh

July 28, 2004

John Kerry's Presidential Ambition Can Be Traced to His Encounters with JFK as a Youth

Stephen Braun, in the LAT (July 25, 2004): From his boarding school days to the grind of the campaign trail, John F. Kerry has worn his ambition like a badge — almost always on display, yet rarely acknowledged. Over the course of a carefully crafted public life brimming with accomplishment and wrenched by war and loss, he has discreetly kept his distant prize, the presidency, in clear sight.

July 27, 2004

Bat Ye'or: Europeans Ar e Adopting the Arab Vietpoint--And Not By Accident

Bat Ye’or, at frontpagemag.com (July 27, 2004): Last Tuesday, the 25 nations of the European Union (EU) voted unanimously to support a United Nations Resolution condemning Israel’s defensive fence (ignoring that this barrier was constructed to keep jihadist murderers from entering the nation via Judea and Samaria). The EU’s craven, morally bankrupt stance was sadly consistent with Eurabian policies evident now for three decades. In fact, the EU has been c

July 27, 2004

Robert Sheer: 9/11 Commission Contradicts Bush At Every Turn

Robert Sheer, in the Los Angeles Times (July 27, 2004): Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents' early return home, President Bush's nearly three years of bragging about his"war on terror" credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing. Without dissent, five prominent

July 27, 2004

Howell Raines: The Disingenuousness of Republican 'Populism'

Howell Raines, in the Washington Post (July 27, 2004): [Howell Raines is former executive editor of the New York Times.] In times gone by, Democrats were regarded as the master panderers of American presidential elections on the basis of their supposed belief in generous benefits for the working class. But as Democrats gather in Boston, they do so as a party that has surrendered the title. The R

July 27, 2004

R.W. Apple: My Favorite Convention Year Was ...

R.W. Apple, in the NYT (July 27, 2004):I guess 1964 was the best year for conventions during my time at bat. As F. Clifton White completed his conservative coup d'état on behalf of Barry Goldwater at the old Cow Palace in San Francisco, the galleries booed and brayed at their bête noire, Nelson A. Rockefeller, who struggled to make