Roundup: Media's Take

February 26, 2004

Will Bush's Support for a Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage Make Much of a Difference?

Anne E. Kornblut, and Lyle Denniston, in the Boston Globe (Feb. 26, 2004): History shows that presidents rarely influence the fate of constitutional-amendment proposals; the Constitution gives them no role in the process at all. It is also a lengthy ordeal that, in this case, will almost certainly last beyond the November elections. As a result, it is relatively easy for Bush, like presidents in the past, to embrace the idea of a constitutional amendm

February 26, 2004

Congressman Jim McDermott: What the Bible Says About Marriage

From the Congressional Record, quoting Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) (Feb. 25, 2004): Mr. McDERMOTT . Mr. Speaker, the President's presidential prayer team is urging us to ``pray for the President as he seeks wisdom on how to legally codify the definition of marriage. Pray that it will be according to Biblical principles.''

February 25, 2004

The Left's Anti-Semitic Chic

George Will, writing for the Washington Post (Feb. 25, 2004)It used to be said that anti-Catholicism was the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals. Today anti-Semitism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals. Not all intellectuals, of course. And the seepage of this ancient poison into the intelligentsia -- always so militantly modern -- is much more pronounced in Europe than here. But as anti-Semitism migrates acros

February 25, 2004

Amending the Constitution Isn't Easy

Tracey Kaplan, Kansas City Star (Feb. 25, 2004): President Bush on Tuesday joined a long, proud - and mostly unsuccessful - line of Americans that stretches back 215 years: those who have tried to amend the U.S. Constitution. Even before the notion of banning same-sex marriage became

February 25, 2004

Milosevic 'May Escape Conviction for Genocide'

Adam LeBor, writing in the Times (London) (Feb. 25, 2004)Slobodan Milosevic spends his free time at the United Nations detention centre in The Hague reading John Grisham thrillers and listening to Frank Sinatra. His choice of music is appropriate.During the two years of his trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the former Serbian President has been doing things his way.He refu

February 25, 2004

Was Iraq Worth It?

David Aaronovitch, writing for the Guardian (Feb. 24, 2004)I know it's true that, as an old friend in Australia pointed out to me in an email last week,"It doesn't really matter very much if you were wrong or I was wrong. One hundred years from now, some very clever historians with access to material we all know nothing about may prove the point conclusively, one way or another. What matters is w

February 25, 2004

What Was John Kerry's Role in the Winter Soldier Investigation?

Craig Gordon, in Newsday (Feb. 22, 2004): They gathered in a Detroit motor lodge in early 1971, veterans calling on brother veterans to speak of the unspeakable - war crimes and atrocities they had committed in Vietnam in the name of America . The so-called Winter Soldier meetings were controversial even then, and a young John Kerry made their most horrific testimony the opening paragraphs of his own address to a Senate panel three months later, an ap

February 25, 2004

Amend the Constitution to Prohibit Gay Marriage?

Editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Feb. 23, 2004): For both sides [in the gay marriage debate], the Constitution is more than what the word literally means: a system for "constituting" the federal government. Especially after the addition of the Bill of Rights and post-Civil War amendments designed to protect recently freed slaves and their descendants, the Constitution is at least semi-sacred, and not lightly to be changed.

February 25, 2004

Does a Presidential Candidate Have to Be Likable?

John Tierney, in the NYT (Feb. 22, 2004): [John] Edwards has been criticized for not having enough government experience, but a pleasant disposition can overcome a lot of handicaps. Intellectuals made fun of Eisenhower's mangled syntax, but they were outnumbered by voters wearing"I Like Ike" buttons. Gary Hart's candidacy in 1988 was ended by his sexual indiscretion, but Bill Clinton survived his, than

February 24, 2004

Haiti's Problems Can Be Blamed in Part on the West's Hostility

Gary Younge, in the Guardian (Feb. 23, 2004): As civil war encroaches, civil society implodes and civil political discourse evaporates, one of the few things all Haitians can agree on is their pride in Toussaint L'Ouverture, who lead the slave rebellion in Haiti that established the world's first black republic."The transformation of slaves, trembling in hundreds before a single whit

February 24, 2004

Vietnam Is Ancient History to Most Americans

Richard S. Dunham, in Business Week (Feb. 23, 2004): It was reckless for Academy Award winning filmmaker Michael Moore to accuse Bush of"desertion" because of gaps in his National Guard service record, when the son of the then-U.N. ambassador was working on a Republican Senate campaign in Alabama. It was shameful when retired General Wesley Clark, then a Presidential candi

February 22, 2004

Bush is Convinced He's Doing God's Will

Michael McAteer, writing for the Toronto Star (Feb. 21, 2004)U.S. President George W. Bush will be re-elected in November in a landslide.We have it on the highest authority: God.It appears that God passed the prediction on to TV evangelist and right-wing Christian fundamentalist Pat Robertson who passed

February 20, 2004

Bush's Agreement to Testify Before 9-11 Commission Unprecedented

Dan Eggen, in the Washington Post (Feb. 14, 2004):President Bush agreed to meet privately with the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but has ruled out offering any testimony in a public setting, according to a White House statement released last night. In addition, the commission's executive director said that Vice President Cheney, former president Bill Clinton and former vice president Al Gor

February 20, 2004

Bush's Military Record: A Chronology

From the LAT (Feb. 15, 2004):A look at Bush's military record During the Vietnam War, George W. Bush was admitted to the Texas Guard and received a commission as a second lieutenant. Some important dates:1968 January: While still at Yale, Bush completes Air Force officer qualification test in New Haven, Conn.May: Texas Air National Guard Commander Col. Walter B. "Buck" Staudt meets with Bush, recommends him for a d

February 20, 2004

The Shocking (and Relevant) Truth About Our Occupation of the Philippines

Renato Redentor Constantino, a writer and painter based in the Philippines, writes a weekly column for the Philippine national daily, TODAY (whose online partner is abs-cbnnews.com), in www.tomdispatch.com, a weblog of the Nation Institute (Feb. 20, 2004): And so here we are, at the crossroads of another day, speechless and troubled by what is before us, so anxious to engage in a conversation with what oug

February 19, 2004

Bush Is (Is Not) Conducting Foreign Policy in the American Tradition

Jay Tolson, in US News (Feb. 16, 2004):America, John Quincy Adams once famously declared, "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." Those cautionary words of 1821 are currently enjoying a second round of fame, largely because no discussion of George W. Bush's foreign policy can seem to avoid them. Pithy as the sentence is, though, does it really explain how the sixth president's vision of America's place in the wo

February 17, 2004

To James Zogby, History's Repeating Itself in the Middle East

James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute, in the Gulf News (Middle East) (Feb. 17, 2004): The more things change, the more they stay the same. The dynamic in today's Israeli-Palestinian and US relationship is distur-bingly similar to the Zionist-Palestinian-British relationship of the 1920s. Back then, the Zionists made no secret of their intent to take advantage of the manda

February 17, 2004

A New Quiz Is Needed to Test Immigrants' Knowledge of the United States

Michael Schudson, in the LAT (Feb.16, 2004): What do you need to know to be an American? That's the tricky question raised by the Bush administration's decision to revamp the test that immigrants must pass to gain American citizenship. Right now, the quiz focuses arbitrarily on a set of often-trivial fac

February 17, 2004

Would Kerry's Military Background Be Helpful in the Presidency?

Michael R. Gordon, in the NYT (Feb. 16, 2004): ... If [John Kerry] becomes president, his own military record and his familiarity with military culture will enhance his standing and facilitate his relations with the military, from four-star officers to the lowliest recruit. Because Bill Clinton lacked that insight and cr

February 17, 2004

The Bush Administration Has Been More Effective at Throttling the Media than Any Administration in Memory

David Shaw, in the LAT (Feb. 15, 2004): The Bush administration has, after all, been more effective at throttling the mainstream news media than any administration in memory. That may seem a churlish observation a mere week after the president sat for a one-hour interview with Tim Russert on"Meet the Press." But with every network host and anchor having angled for the interview