Roundup: Media's Take

David Rothkopf: The Myth of the Innovation Nation

[David Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and President and CEO of Garten Rothkopf.] President Obama is absolutely right to focus on innovation and

Aaron Goldstein: Does Obama Really Admire Reagan?

[Aaron Goldstein is a Canadian-born author and American political commentator.] The day before his State of the Union address, President Obama took to the pages of USA Today to sing the praises of Ronald Reagan. And why not? With the Reagan centennial is less than a fortnight away it can do Obama no harm to write a few kind words about The Gipper. Obama thus begins his tribute: Ronald Wilson Reagan was a believer. As a husband, a father, an entertainer, a governor and a

Peter Ferrara: Why Today Is 1979, Not 1995

[Peter Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation, a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute, a senior fellow at the Social Security Institute, and general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union.] In 1979, of course, Jimmy Carter was the incumbent President, and no sophisticated, intelligent person in Washington thought Ronald Reagan had a serious chance of beating him. The RNC was convinced Reagan would be another Goldwater, an

Philip Klein: Obama Builds Bridge to Clinton

[Philip Klein is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent.] For all the “future” talk in last night’s State of the Union address, President Obama seemed to have drawn a lot of inspiration from the past. While the defining phrase of the speech, “Winning the Future,” was the title of a 2005 book by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the content of the speech echoed the theme of former President Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign. After defeat in t

Svetlana Babeva: Russia's Homeland Insecurity

[Svetlana Babeva is the U.S. bureau chief of the Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti).] Thirty-five people died, eighty-six in hospitals and ninety-four received outpatient treatment, according to emergency officials. These are the consequences of Monday’s terrorist act at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow. The airport operates hundreds of flights daily, and all members of the Star Alliance, including United Airlines, use Domodedovo as their principal hub.

Thomas Sowell: New Heroes vs. Old

[Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.] When I mention that my family used kerosene lamps when I was a small child in the South during the 1930s, that is usually taken as a sign of our poverty, though I never thought of us as poor at the time. What is ironic is that kerosene lamps were a luxury of the rich in the 19th century, before John D. Rockefeller came along. With the high price of kerosene at that time, an ordinary working man could not affo

Bradford Plumer: Gangster Paradise? Not Quite

[Bradford Plumer is an associate editor of The New Republic.] Some cities have all the fun. Last week, the FBI arrested 125 suspected Mafia members across the Northeast—the largest mob bust in history. New York was, as usual, well-represented in the Mafia round-up, with no less than 34 made guys from the city’s five crime families dragged off to jail. Also getting in on the action were Providence (83-year-old Luigi Mannochio, accused of shaking down local strip clubs) and Newark (va

Christopher Hitchens: Churchill Didn't Say That

[Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Roger S. Mertz media fellow at the Hoover Institution.] The King's Speech is an extremely well-made film with a seductive human interest plot, very prettily calculated to appeal to the smarter filmgoer and the latent Anglophile. But it perpetrates a gross falsification of history. One of the very few miscast actors—Timothy Spall as a woefully thin pastiche of Winston Churchill—is the exemplar of this bizarre rewriting. He

Fred Siegel: How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage

[Mr. Siegel is a scholar in residence at St. Francis College and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.] The turbulent years of the 1960s and '70s are best known by the headline-grabbing civil rights and women's rights movements. But there was another "rights" movement, largely overlooked, that has also had a profound effect on American life. The looming public-pension crisis that threatens to bankrupt city, county and state governments had its origins in those same y

Richard P. Sloan: A Fighting Spirit Won’t Save Your Life

[Richard P. Sloan, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, is the author of “Blind Faith.”] GABRIELLE GIFFORDS’S remarkable recovery from a bullet to her head has provided a heartening respite from a national calamity. Representative Giffords’s husband describes her as a “fighter,” and no doubt she is one. Whether her recovery has anything to do with a fighting spirit, however, is another matter entirely. The idea that an individual has

David Eisenhower: A Tale of Two Speeches

[David Eisenhower is director of the Institute for Public Service at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of "Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969."] On Tuesday, President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. Shortly after his speech, a spokesman for the Republican Party will offer a televised rebuttal. And if the evening unfolds as usua

Dominic Tierney: Do Americans Love War?

[Dominic Tierney is assistant professor of political science at Swarthmore College. He is the author of How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War.]Of course not, goes the traditional answer. Americans have always been reluctant warriors."Of all the enemies to public liberty," wrote James Madison in 1795,"war is, perhaps the most to be dreaded." Our literary heritage is full of anti

George F. Will: An Anti-Authority Creed

[George F. Will is a columnist for the WaPo.] America is a creedal nation and the creed is, as Robert Penn Warren wrote, the "burr under the metaphysical saddle of America." It is a recurring source of national introspection, discontent, self-indictment and passionate politics. We are in the midst of a recurrence. The tone of today's politics was anticipated and is vindicated by a book published 30 years ago. The late Samuel Huntington's "American Politic

Jack Cashill: Sarah Palin and the Legacy of Republican 'Idiocy'

[Jack Cashill has a Ph.D. from Purdue University in American studies, has taught media and literature at Purdue and at Kansas City area universities, and served as a Fulbright professor in France. Sarah Palin may be the reigning Republican "idiot," but she shares in a proud legacy that dates back to at least Dwight David Eisenhower, if not earlier. The "idiot" talk began as soon as Palin was named McCain's running mate. As I drove to the 2008 Republ

Rick Unger: Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798

[Rick Unger is an attorney in Southern California, and a frequent writer, speaker and consultant on health care policy and politics.] The ink was barely dry on the PPACA when the first of many lawsuits to block the mandated health insurance provisions of the law was filed in a Florida District Court.The pleadings, in part, read -The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens

Lee Smith: The Long, Withdrawing Roar

[Lee Smith is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.] A few years ago I was in the West Bank with a Christian missionary who worked among Jews and Muslims. The Jewish converts came to his home for Sunday services that were held in both English and Hebrew. But to gather with Arab converts he had to meet them secretly on the outskirts of their town lest his mere presence put their lives in jeopardy.... “The Christians have always been under attack,” explains Lebanese pol

Duncan Currie: The Way We Weren’t

[Duncan Currie is deputy managing editor of National Review Online.] Back in the first season of Mad Men, while pitching a new ad campaign to the suits from Eastman Kodak, creative whiz Don Draper describes nostalgia as “a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.” Will Rogers put it less artfully: “Things ain’t what they used to be and probably never was.” That nugget of wisdom should be kept in mind amid our latest bout of self-indulgent handwringing o

Michael Barone: Shriver, Lieberman, and JFK

[Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner.] Last Thursday was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, and while the anniversary did not go unmentioned, it got less attention than I had expected. I suspect that those of us who can remember that snowy day — why do we schedule our great national outdoor ceremony for a day that is as likely as any to be the coldest of the year? — are inclined to overestimate the hold that Kennedy has on

Olivier Roy: The Tunisian Revolt: Where Have All the Islamists Gone?

[Olivier Roy, a professor at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, is the author of “Holy Ignorance” and “The Failure of Political Islam.”] The novel characteristic of the first peaceful popular revolution to topple a dictatorship in the Arab world is that there is nothing Islamic about it. The young Tunisian street peddler who triggered the revolt by publicly burning himself reminds us of the Vietnamese Buddhist monks in 1963 or of Jan Palach in Czechos

Jacob Bronsther: What Does President Obama Really Believe?

[Jacob Bronsther, a former Fulbright Scholar and graduate student in political theory at Oxford University, is a law student at New York University. He writes for ThePublicPhilosopher.com.] Quick quiz: In one sentence, describe FDR's political philosophy. Good, now summarize Reaganism. Pretty easy, right? OK, do the same for President Obama. Still thinking? Don't worry, Mr. Obama is, too. And that's bad news for all of us. Because no matter how you feel about Obama, his