Roundup: Media's Take

Henry Kissinger: Don't Forget Iraq

[The writer was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.] In a 71-minute State of the Union address, President Obama managed no more than 101 perfunctory words about Iraq. Throughout its term, the administration has recoiled from discussing Iraq's geostrategic significance and especially America's relation to it. Yet while Iraq is being exorcised from our debate, its reality is bound to obtrude on our consciousness. The U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq will not alter the g

Harold Meyerson: A Jobs Lesson from the New Dealers

The Democrats have shifted their focus, they tell us relentlessly, to jobs, jobs, jobs. Would that they had. In fact, the job proposals coming from the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are far too small to seriously reduce the massive unemployment created when the financial and housing bubbles popped. Many Democratic leaders know that, and some want to do more. The current proposals, I was told this past weekend by George Miller, chairman of

Daniel Finkelstein: Remember Churchill When You Think of Iraq

[Daniel Finkelstein is a weekly columnist and Chief Leader Writer of The Times.] On May 13, 1940, shortly after lunch, Neville Chamberlain entered the House of Commons to be greeted by a massive ovation. Order papers were waved, MPs shouted, MPs cheered. And shortly afterwards the Prime Minister followed him. But for Winston Churchill there was only a low murmur. His fellow Conservatives were virtually silent. The Prime Minister then rose to deliver his first speech si

Yang Yao: The End of the Beijing Consensus

[Yang Yao is Deputy Dean of the National School of Development and the Director of the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University.] For the last 30 years, the CCP has intentionally adopted policies favoring specific groups or regions to promote reform and economic growth. It has helped that the disinterested CCP government was not permanently beholden to certain groups or regions. China's integration into the world economy is a case in point. At the end of the 1970s, th

Michael Schwartz: The Iraqi Oil Conundrum

[A professor of sociology at Stony Brook State University, Michael Schwartz is the author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context (Haymarket Press), which explains how the militarized geopolitics of oil led the U.S. to dismantle the Iraqi state and economy while fueling a sectarian civil war. Schwartz's work on Iraq has appeared in numerous academic and popular outlets. He is a regular at TomDispatch.com. His email address is ms42@optonline.net.]

Amanda Bowman: Blair Teaches a Lesson on Iraq War

[Amanda Bowman is the former New York Director of the Center for Security Policy. She is currently the CEO. of the Atlantic Bridge, a policy organization whose mission is to promote the Special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.] Last week Tony Blair appeared before the Chilcot Inquiry — a public hearing launched by Gordon Brown with the seemingly innocuous purpose of learning the lessons of the Iraq war. Is this a rare example of a party being transparen

Don Bohning: Influx from Haiti? South Florida Takes It in Stride

[Don Bohning is a retired Miami Herald reporter and editor and the author of “The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba 1959-1965.” ] For South Florida, it’s become old hat. A crisis erupts in one of its Caribbean neighbors and the area braces to accommodate the refugee deluge that often follows. It happened in the early 1960s, after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba. It happened in the 1970s, when Jamaican politics boiled over into political violence. I

Ryan Streeter: Making Poverty History: A Short History

[Ryan Streeter is a senior fellow at the London-based Legatum Institute and can be followed on Twitter here.] Former chief economist of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development David Henderson coined the appellation, “Global Salvationism,” to describe the kind of behavior one witnesses at gatherings such as this past week’s World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. WEF was created in 1971 so that elites from around the world could gather to “map out solution

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: How the British Empire is Striking Back

I did try to sit through the Blair show. An unfortunate combination of Asiatic high emotion and feminine fragility made me feeble. I had to walk away, knocking over a large goblet of dark red wine, the colour of blood. It stained the beautiful wooden floor. From TB, then, the final words. I Did It My Way and Je ne regrette rien. So long folks. The Tory poster of Blair as the devil man now seems prescient.... The Chilcot panel could have included a dispassionate Muslim academic or on

Mario Canseco: History Repeats Itself as Obama Faces Slump Similar to Carter's

[Mario Canseco is Vice-president, Public Affairs, at Vancouver-based global public opinion firm Angus Reid Strategies.] A year has passed since Barack Obama became the first African-American president in the history of the United States. His supporters point to several feats, such as the decision to tackle health care reform, as proof that Obama is on the right course. His detractors complain about a series of broken promises, including the delay in closing the Guantanamo Bay detent

Peter Beinart: The Republicans' Reagan Amnesia

[Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is associate professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His new book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, will be published by HarperCollins in June.] Republicans love hallowing Ronald Reagan’s name. Too bad they know so little about the guy. Last week in Hawaii, the Republican National Committee almost passed a

Chris Hedges: The Creed of Objectivity Killed the News

Reporters who witness the worst of human suffering and return to newsrooms angry see their compassion washed out or severely muted by the layers of editors who stand between the reporter and the reader. The creed of objectivity and balance, formulated at the beginning of the 19th century by newspaper owners to generate greater profits from advertisers, disarms and cripples the press. “The very notion that on any given story all you have to do is report what both sides say and you’ve

Christopher Hitchens: Kim Jong-il's Regime Is Even Weirder and More Despicable Than You Thought

Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world's most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed wh

Dean Baker: The Second Great Depression Bogeyman

[Dean Baker is the Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. CEPR's Jobs Byte is published each month upon release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics' employment report.] Our political leaders continually assert that we should be thanking them that we are not in a second Great Depression rather than complaining about how bad things are. The second Great Depression theme came up repeatedly in the debate over the reappointment of Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Ber

William Rivers Pitt: Schooled

[William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.] In my last article, I made the following observation regarding the challenges President Obama faced on the eve of his Wednesday e

Michael Kinsley: No Room for Reagan

In the end, chairman Michael Steele persuaded the Republican National Committee not to require that any candidate hoping to receive help from the party promise to support eight out of ten principles in the so-called Reagan Resolution. That requirement, pushed by some conservatives, has been reduced to mere suggestion under Steele’s leadership. Strike a blow for the party establishment over the "tea-party" element that has the GOP both excited and terrified. It is like a political hand

Bruce Anderson: Blair... The Hubris of a Tragic Hero Who Fell for the Enlightenment Myth

[Bruce Anderson is a British conservative political columnist.] Tony Blair has an almost Shakespearian ability to capture a great world on a small stage. But it was not just good theatre. Mr Blair set out to transcend narrow legalities. He invited us to interpret his actions in the broadest of contexts: to stop taking a magnifying glass to the small print and to judge his good faith by his global ambitions. Yet even if we were to accept his invitation, this would not turn him into H

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: How the British empire is striking back

[Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a Ugandan-born British columnist for The Independent and the Evening Standard.] I did try to sit through the Blair show. An unfortunate combination of Asiatic high emotion and feminine fragility made me feeble. I had to walk away, knocking over a large goblet of dark red wine, the colour of blood. It stained the beautiful wooden floor. From TB, then, the final words. I Did It My Way and Je ne regrette rien. So long folks. The Tory poster of Blair as the dev

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Condescender in Chief

[Kathryn Jean Lopez is editor-at-large of NRO.] They called it a “miracle.” Maybe it wasn’t the Spirit of 1776, but something derivative of that was in the air as Republican Scott Brown was elected to the U.S. Senate seat that had been held by Edward M. Kennedy for five decades. Running on resetting health-care reform in Washington, tax cuts, fiscal responsibility, and not trying enemy combatants in criminal courts, Brown did what really was considered impossible. It wa

E.J. Dionne: Our Thin-Skinned Supreme Court.

[E.J. Dionne, Jr. is the author of the recently published Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. He is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University.] ...[Justice Samuel] Alito's inability to restrain himself during the State of the Union address brought to wide attention a truth that too many have tried to ignore: The Supreme Court is now dominated by a highly politicized conservativ