Roundup: Media's Take

Michael Lind: The Five Worldviews That Define American Politics

[Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of "The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution."] Does it often seem that many American politicians and pundits are talking past each other? That is because they really are. The frustrating nature of public debate arises in large part from the fact that Americans do not share a single worldview. A worldview is a

Al Sharpton: In MLK's honor, let's strive for dialogue that's passionate but not poisonous

[The writer is president of National Action Network, a civil rights organization.] The senseless violence in Arizona this past weekend left all of us stunned, but this devastating act hit home for me more than most. I have been a victim of violence that could have cost my life, and I have been involved in controversies that led to violence in which my words were distorted and misused. As we try to understand the steps that led to the horrors in Tucson, it is not lost on

Stephen Kinzer: America and the rise of middle powers

[Stephen Kinzer is a former New York Times reporter and the author of Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (2006) and Reset Middle East: Old Friends and New Alliances: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey,Iran (2011).] The dramatic rise of Turkey in the councils of world power was one of the main geopolitical developments of 2010. Iran's emergence as a serious regional power was another. They are harbingers of what will be one of the main trends of global power

Michael C. Desch: Idealism, Not Economics, Drives American Militarism

[Michael C. Desch is a professor of political science and fellow of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. His most recent book is Power and Military Effectiveness: The Fallacy of Democratic Triumphalism.] President Eisenhower famously warned his fellow Americans about the pernicious influence of what he termed “the military-industrial complex.” This was, to be sure, an important speech for many reasons, not the least of which wer

Matthew Continetti: A World in Crisis

[Matthew Continetti is opinion editor of The Weekly Standard and author, most recently, of The Persecution of Sarah Palin (Sentinel).] On December 13, 1931, there was a traffic accident in New York City. A man exited a cab on the Upper East Side and was crossing Fifth Avenue when he was hit by a car traveling around 35 miles an hour. The force of the impact threw the man to the pavement. He struck his head. Two of his ribs were cracked. A crowd formed around him; one of the witnesse

Andrew C. McCarthy: A Horrid Crime, a Dishonest Debate

[Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.] On June 5, 1968, a deranged 25-year-old Jordanian named Sirhan Sirhan slithered through a crowd toward Sen. Robert Kennedy as the Democratic presidential candidate basked in the glow of his California presidential primary triumph. Sirhan shot and killed Kennedy, wounding several others. The ensuing investigation showed t

Richard Cohen: America, Armed and Dangerous

[Richard Cohen is a columnist for the WaPo.] I had a teacher in college who used to ask, Who discovered America? He would offer some choices. They were Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus or the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. The answer he wanted was the three ships with which eventually someone would have discovered the New World and without which everyone would have remained in Spain. It is no different with the tragedy in Tucson. Hate speech and madness were part of the

Dana Milbank: For Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, a McKinley Moment?

[Dana Milbank is a columnist for the WaPo.] If any good can come of the horror in Tucson, it will be that this becomes a McKinley moment for Sarah Palin and her chief spokesman, Glenn Beck. One hundred and ten years ago, during another low point in the nation's political discourse, newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst - who was angling for a presidential run in 1904 - published a pair of columns fantasizing about violence against President William McKinley.

Michael Gerson: Is Arizona Shooting an Empty Search for Meaning?

[Michael Gerson is a columnist for the WaPo.] When President John Kennedy visited Dallas in November 1963, he was greeted by a full-page newspaper ad accusing him of being a communist fellow traveler. To his wife he observed, "Oh, you know, we're headed into nut country today." The city, according to historian William Manchester, was a "mecca" for "the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry societies." In the hours following Kennedy's

George F. Will: The Charlatans' Response to the Tucson Tragedy

[George F. Will is a columnist for the WaPo.] ...[I]magine a continuum from the rampages at Columbine and Virginia Tech - the results of individuals' insanities - to the assassinations of Lincoln and the Kennedy brothers, which were clearly connected to the politics of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan, respectively. The two other presidential assassinations also had political colorations. On July 2, 1881, after four months in office, President Jame

Ariel Cohen: Russian "Justice"

[Ariel Cohen is a Washington-based foreign, economic and security policy expert.] The new, Republican-majority Congress is starting its work with a jaundiced eye on what's going on in Russia. Just a week ago Moscow convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky for crimes most legal experts believe he did not commit. Former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov is in jail, albeit only for two weeks, for demonstrating in support of freedom of assembly. But it is the fourteen-year sentence meted out a

Bret Stephens: Haiti, Sudan, Côte d'Ivoire: Who Cares?

[Mr. Stephens writes the Journal's "Global View" column on foreign affairs.] Once upon a time in West Africa, two kings named Acqua and Bell made a memorable request of British Prime Minister William Gladstone. "We are tired of governing the country ourselves," they wrote in a letter dated Nov. 6, 1881. "Every dispute leads to war, and often to great loss of life, so we think it is the best thing to give up the country to you British men who no

Doyle McManus: A retooled White House

[Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has reported on national and international issues from Washington for more than 25 years.] Barack Obama's White House is looking more like Bill Clinton's every day. Last week, for example, President Obama named William M. Daley as White House chief of staff and Gene Sperling as economic policy czar. Daley is a former Clinton Cabinet secretary and Chicago banker who plants himself squarely in the center of t

Gerry Adams: Eta can make peace – but they should heed the Irish lesson

[Gerry Adams is the president of Sinn Fein.] Many in the Basque country have taken a close interest in the peace process in Ireland. They hope to learn from the Irish experience in an effort to advance their own peace process. In my view, a failure to grab opportunities and to build on initiatives led to the Irish peace process taking much longer to make progress than it should have. At times, arguments over words and their interpretation were elevated to pre-conditions

Jeffrey Gettleman: Colonial Curse Comes Up for a Vote in Sudan

[Jeffrey Gettleman is the East Africa bureau chief for The New York Times.] More than any other continent, Africa is wracked by separatists. There are rebels on the Atlantic and on the Red Sea. There are clearly defined liberation movements and rudderless, murderous groups known principally for their cruelty or greed. But these rebels share at least one thing: they direct their fire against weak states struggling to hold together disparate populations within boundaries drawn by 19th

Yuriko Koike: Cold War With China Is Not Inevitable

[Yuriko Koike, Japan's former minister of defence and national security adviser, is chairwoman of the executive council of the Liberal Democratic Party.] Mesmerised by China's vast military build-up, a new constellation of strategic partnerships among its neighbours, and America's revitalised commitment to Asian security, many shrewd observers suggest last year saw the first sparks of a new cold war in Asia. But is Cold War II really inevitable? Although ap

Adam Kirsch: The First Drafts of American History

[Adam Kirsch is a senior editor at The New Republic and a columnist for Tablet Magazine.] WHEN the new House of Representatives convened on Thursday, the Republican leadership kept its promise to start the session by reading the text of the Constitution aloud.... If the reading was meant to be a win for originalism, however, it stumbled out of the gate, over the text of Article I, Section 2. This deals with the apportionment of House seats among the states, which is sai

Steve LeVine: The U.S. and Saudi Arabia ... Frenemies Forever

[Steve LeVine is author of The Oil and the Glory and a blogger on energy issues at ForeignPolicy.com.] Over the past decade, the American public has been presented with the case against Saudi Arabia, and it's a damning indictment: oil (dirty), terrorism (evil), fundamentalist Islam (dangerous), human rights (shockingly bad). President Barack Obama has spoken of the need to "get off Middle East oil" so that America is no longer beholden to the "whims of oil-rich dictat

Clifford D. May: Jihad 101

[Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism.] Last month, Americans celebrated the holidays without a terrorist attack on American soil. That should be a source of relief but not complacency. Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, and the Philippines were not so lucky. The hard fact is a global conflict is underway. You, as an incoming member of

David Harsanyi: The Constitution is dead. Long live the Constitution

[David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Denver Post.] Every patriotic fiber of my body tells me that reading the Constitution aloud at the commencement of congressional sessions is a good idea. Heck, a pop quiz might even be in order. It is vital that members of Congress fully immerse themselves in the document if they're going to circumvent it effectively. These same instincts demand that I embrace the new Republican rule requiring that every House bill contain a stateme