Roundup: Media's Take

February 17, 2004

A Conservative's Analysis of John Kerry's Record

John Perazzo, in frontpagemag.com (Feb. 17, 2004):When analysts look back on the moments that catapulted Sen. John Kerry to frontrunner status in his quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, they will acknowledge that one of the biggest turns of the campaign occurred on January 25. On that day, Kerry campaign strategists whisked Jim Rassmann from Florence, Oregon, straight to Iowa for an emotional, “surprise” public reunion with Kerry. As Rassmann's fellow soldier

February 17, 2004

What Bush Learned from Lincoln

Brendan Miniter, assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com, in the WSJ (Feb. 17, 2004): America is now at a crossroads. In one direction is complacency, a return of the mindset the nation was in before 9/11. It is here that staying within the consensus of"world opinion" is valued above acting on moral principles. It is here that, we are told, the ethos of the"everything goes" culture must not

February 17, 2004

How Bush Got into the National Guard: Or, How It's Useful Having Friends in High Places

Lou Dubose, in LA Weekly (Feb. 13-19, 2004): So President Bush went mano a mano with Tim Russert on Meet the Press and put to rest the claim that he went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard. He was serving in the state of Alabama while working on a congressional campaign of one his father's buddies in 1972. Bush said he left the Guard eight months early because he was ac

February 17, 2004

Robin Toner: Do Presidents Need a Military Background? (NYT)

Robin Toner, in the NYT (Feb. 15, 2004): For much of American history, a respectable - if not heroic - stint in the military was almost a prerequisite for high political office. An overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives for many years were veterans. Most presidents had served in the military, and even before the rise of modern image making, presidential campaigns celebrated the candidate

February 13, 2004

Why the Left Has Become a Threat to Israel

Murray Friedman, director of the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History at Temple University in Philadelphia, in FrontPageMag.com (Feb. 13, 2004): Early this year, I was a panelist in a program at a leading Episcopalian Church in Philadelphia. The topic was a discussion on the public policy postures of the various faith groups. When the subject got around to Israel and the Intifada, I noted that many within this upper class group seemed hostile to Israel. The acts of

February 13, 2004

John Kerry's Voters Have Their Heads in the Sixties

Daniel Henninger, in the WSJ (feb. 13, 2004): The Democrats, from day one of Terry McAuliffe's year-long nomination rondo, wanted a liberal who would be cast in their own likeness. They never wanted a moderate like Joe Lieberman, a Democrat trying to come to grips with the new political century--its security dangers, efficient global markets and a ragged domestic culture. Mr. Lieberman and those w

February 13, 2004

Third Way Politics = Bad Policy

Michael Chapman, editorial director of the Cato Institute (Feb. 13, 2004): The Third Way-a mix of capitalism and welfare-state socialism-is the dominant political philosophy in Europe and parts of Asia. Britain's Tony Blair is a Third Way-er, as is America's Bill Clinton. Unfortunately, in many ways, so is President George Bush. His brand of Third Way politics is called "compassionate conservatism." The Democratic Leadership Council terms its version "toleran

February 13, 2004

Why 2004 Is Shaping Up as a Replay of 1984

Noemie Emery, in the Weekly Standard (Feb. 9, 2004):CLOSE YOUR EYES on some days, and you can almost believe it: You're back somewhere in the mid-1980s, 1984 to be precise. At least from the Democrats' side of the aisle. There it all is: The Republican president denounced as a dunce and a dangerous cowboy; the left on a tear against corporations and tax cuts; and t

February 13, 2004

Our Cynical Foreign Policy: One Day Saddam's a Hero, the Next a Villain

Simon Jenkins, in the London Times (Feb. 11, 2004):Your starter for ten. What is the difference between a sadistic oil-rich Arab dictator who must be backed and feted by the West and a sadistic oil-rich Arab dictator who must be bombed and sanctioned into submission? Answer: none. The lucky dictator in the 1980s was Saddam Hussein and today it is Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. The unlucky dictator in the 1980s was Gaddafi and the unlucky

February 13, 2004

Comparing What We Didn't Do in Cambodia with What We Did Do in Iraq to Stop Genocide

Frida Ghitis, author of The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television, in the LAT (Feb. 11 2004):Just about the time that the White House announced plans for an investigation into faulty Iraq intelligence, my Cambodian friend Phead took me to visit one of the monuments to the victims of his nation's genocide. On the way to see the collection of human bones and skulls gathered from the killing fields of the Khmer

February 13, 2004

Once Again, It Is Yale v. Yale in the Election

Amity Shlaes, in the London Financial Times (Feb. 9, 2004):John Kerry, Howard Dean, George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman all have something in common, and it is not merely that they spent January running for the US presidency. They are all Yale men. But then Bush v Clinton was also a Yale v Yale event. A Yale graduate has occupied the Oval Office for a decade and a half now. Assuming Hillary Clinton (Yale Law School, 1973) is all her fa

February 13, 2004

How We Treat Our Enemies in Wartime

Michael Dobbs, a Washington Post reporter and the author of Saboteurs: The Nazi Raid on America (2004), in the Post (Feb. 8, 2004):There are few more difficult issues for a democracy than how it metes out justice to its enemies in time of war. Over the coming weeks and months, as the Supreme Court hears a series of challenges to the Bush administratio

February 12, 2004

FCC Hearings on Janet Jackson Escapade Are Seen as Theater

David Zurawik, writing in the Baltimore Sun (Feb. 11, 2004)Indecency on the airwaves has become such a hot button issue since Janet Jackson's Super Bowl stunt that there will be two hearings today in Washington - and no shortage of politicians and regulators making pronouncements about the decline in broadcast standards as they promise reform.But even as the TV networks race to delete images of nudity and sex from such prime-time dramas as ER and Without a Tra

February 12, 2004

IT--Key to Productivity Growth in the 1990s

Economist Hal Varian, in the NYT (Feb. 12, 2004):PRODUCTIVITY growth took a breather last quarter, slowing to 2.7 percent, after the previous quarter's torrid 9.5 percent growth. Still, by historical standards, 2.7 percent is a respectable number. From 1948 to 1973, productivity grew at close to 3 percent annually, doubling the living standard in that period. Then came the dark age of productivity growth: from 1974 to 1994, it averaged only

February 12, 2004

The Scandal of Seeing Janet Jackson's Breast

Rachel Sauer, in the Palm Beach Post (Feb. 4, 2004):Oh, the deliciousness of scandal! The lurid details! The shock and outrage! The entertainment piled on entertainment! Because entertainment without occasional scandal is just a little, well, boring. Having our envelopes pushed can engage us in art and entertainment

February 12, 2004

Molly Ivins: Rewriting the History of the Second Gulf War

Molly Ivins, in her column for Creators Syndicate (Feb. 10, 2004):Just for the record, since the record is in considerable peril. These are Orwellian days, my friends, as the Bush administration attempts to either shove the history of the second Gulf War down the memory hole or to rewrite it entirely. Keeping a firm grip on actual historical fact, all

February 12, 2004

Michael Novak: The Media Are Exaggerating Combat Deaths in Iraq

Michael Novak, in National Review (Feb. 2, 2004):The news media, which constantly accuse the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat in Iraq, are constantly exaggerating the number of U.S. combat deaths. I first pointed this out last August [in www.nationalreview.com]. For a while, the exaggeration stopped, but early in January it recommenced. The round number "500" was apparently irre

February 11, 2004

The Controversy Over the Placement of a Frederick Douglass Statue in Maryland

Gregory Kane, in the Baltimore Sun (Feb. 11, 2004): RUN THAT ONE by me again, Thomas G. Duncan. I don't think I quite got it. Duncan, for those of you who don't read The Sun every day, is a county councilman in Talbot County on the Eastern Shore. A quote of his appeared in Monday's edition of The Sun, in a story written by reporter Chris

February 11, 2004

Osama's Not Demoralized ... He's Energized by a Fantasy of Hatred

Bret Stephens, editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, in the WSJ (Feb. 11, 2004): In Israel, where I live and work, suicide bombings are commonly understood by the foreign press as acts of desperation by a people who have lost all hope for a better future. Ease the economic hardships of Palestinians and end the occupation, so the thinking goes, and terrorism will be deprived

February 11, 2004

Steven Aftergood: In the Bible the Spies Who Brought Back Bad Intelligence Were Punished

Steven Aftergood, in Secrecy News, the newsletter of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy (Volume 2004, Issue No. 17 February 11, 2004):It is often noted that espionage is an ancient enterprise with roots at least as old as the Bible. But what is rarely if ever recalled is that intelligence oversight and accountability are *also* part of the Biblical record, and that the Deity imposed a severe penalty upon those who distorted intelli