Roundup: Media's Take

James A. Morone: On Healthcare, Democrats Should Channel Harry Truman

[James A. Morone is chair of political science at Brown University and the author, with David Blumenthal, of "The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office."] What do the Democrats do now? After chasing healthcare reform since 1935, they finally had it in their grasp until Massachusetts elected Republican Scott Brown to fill Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's seat. Jittery Democrats promptly ran for cover; gleeful Republicans saw a shot at getting their congressional ma

Robert Kagan: How Obama Can Reverse Iran's Dangerous Course

President Obama has a once-in-a-generation opportunity over the next few months to help make the world a dramatically safer place. It's not by negotiating an arms deal with Russia, or strengthening the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or by making that elusive climate-change deal with the Chinese, worthy though those initiatives may be. It is by helping the Iranian people achieve a new form of government. Given the role that the Islamic theocracy in Tehran has played in leading and sponsoring a

Jonah Goldberg: Recognizing Terrorism

[Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.] It is always dangerous to mistake your ideological preferences for shrewd political strategy, but that is precisely what President Obama and his advisors have done with the War on Terror. On the right, the prevailing critique of the president’s approach to the War on Terror is that it is both

Mark E. Halperin: What Obama Can Learn from Reagan

[Mark E. Halperin is an American political analyst for Time magazine.] Back in January 2008, while meeting with the editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal right before the Democratic Nevada caucuses, Barack Obama offered some approving commentary on the legacy and influence of the 40th President. Ronald Reagan, he said, "changed the trajectory of America in a way that, you know, Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not." Not surprisingly, Obama's r

Patrick Hennessey: Good news from Afghanistan ... democracy is taking root

[Patrick Hennessey is a former captain in the Grenadier Guards.] We’re in the village of Baluchan, about 570 miles from Kabul at a shurah in the heart of an area until recently under Taleban control. Over the past 48 hours British and Afghan troops have been engaged in firefights with the Taleban to clear the surrounding countryside. Hajibullah, the charismatic district governor, has just made his way up from Nad-e Ali in a nervous but cheerful convoy of well-protected vehicles. but

Sami Moubayed: Notorious 'Chemical Ali' Meets His End

[Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.] Three big stories came out of the Arab world on Monday, starting with the explosion of an Ethiopian airplane in the skies off Beirut, which led to the death of all 90 passengers, on to three deadly attacks in Baghdad, which killed 37 people, and finally, the execution of Ali Hassan al-Majid, the notorious cousin of Saddam Hussein. The death of Majid - known as "Chemical Ali" - has caused a stir

Andrew G. Bostom: The Pentagon's Willful Blindness

[Andrew Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad and associate professor of medicine at Brown University Medical School.] ...The contemporary willful ignorance -- and subversion -- of our DOD contrasts starkly with the studious and intellectually honest approach to jihad taken by C. Snouck Hurgronje. A professor and Dutch colonial official, Snouck Hurgronje was also a pioneering and prolific Western scholar of Islam. He visited Arabia (1884-85), including a stop at Mecca, whil

William Galston: What Would Reagan Do?

[A former policy advisor to President Clinton and presidential candidates, Bill Galston is an expert on domestic policy, political campaigns, and elections. His current research focuses on designing a new social contract and the implications of political polarization.] “The problems we inherited were far worse than most inside and out of government had expected; the recession was deeper that most inside and out of government had predicted. Curing these problems has taken more time a

Andrew Kohut, Jodie T. Allen, and Richard Auxier: It's All About Jobs, Except When It's Not

As the Obama administration redoubles its effort to communicate its concerns about unemployment in the face of sagging approval ratings, a look at the connection between the rise and fall of joblessness and the political fortunes of past presidents in the modern era is instructive. Recent history shows that the public response to all presidents has been shaped to some degree by rising or falling unemployment. However, only Ronald Reagan's ratings in his first term have borne as close a connectio

Ranj Alaaldin: 'Chemical Ali' and Blair, the hero

[Ranj Alaaldin is a Middle East political and security risk analyst based at the London School of Economics and Political Science.] Ali Hassan al-Majid, the infamous general and henchman of Saddam Hussein, was executed yesterday for his genocidal onslaught on the Kurdish population of Halabja in 1988. Many of the 5,000 Kurds killed that day died almost instantly as the cloud of poison gas settled upon them. Others suffered a slower, more gruesome death as the gas gradua

Michael White: Is it fair to blame Blair and Bush for continued violence in Iraq?

[Michael White is assistant editor and has been writing for the Guardian for over 30 years, as a reporter, foreign correspondent and columnist.] As the tumbrels and the bounty hunters converge on the Chilcot inquiry for Friday's climactic appearance by Tony Blair it may be worth a backward glance at what's going on in Iraq nearly seven years after the fateful US-UK invasion. Not much of a backward glance is needed. Today's papers are full of chilling detail

James W. Ceaser: The Roots of Obama Worship

[James W. Ceaser is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of politics at the University of Virginia.] ...When the history of this period is written, the 2008 campaign will almost certainly be seen as a watershed event in cultural history, above and beyond any connection it had to American politics, when a worldwide movement congealed to display its enthusiasm for Barack Obama. This perspective will also require a reassessment of the place of Obama. To be sure, th

David Brooks: The Populist Addiction

Politics, some believe, is the organization of hatreds. The people who try to divide society on the basis of ethnicity we call racists. The people who try to divide it on the basis of religion we call sectarians. The people who try to divide it on the basis of social class we call either populists or elitists.... ...it’s easy to see the seductiveness of populism. Nonetheless, it nearly always fails. The history of populism, going back to William Jennings Bryan, is generally a histor

Michael C. Dorf: The Supreme Court Rejects a Limit on Corporate-Funded Campaign Speech

[Michael C. Dorf, a FindLaw columnist is the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell University. He is the author of No Litmus Test: Law Versus Politics in the Twenty-First Century and he blogs at michaeldorf.org.] Last week, in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of federal election law that forbids corporations and unions from spending their general treasury funds to support or oppose candidates for federal office. The ruling is significant in i

E.J. Dionne: The Urgency of a Teddy Roosevelt Moment

"Populism" is the most overused and misused word in the lexicon of commentary. But thanks to a reckless decision by Chief Justice John Roberts' Supreme Court and also the greed of the nation's financial barons, we have reached a true populist moment in American politics. The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision last week giving American corporations the right to unlimited political spending was an astonishing display of judicial arrogance, overreach and unjustified activism.

William McGurn: Clinton's Shadow Hangs Over Obama's Address

[William McGurn is a Vice President at News Corporation who writes speeches for CEO Rupert Murdoch. Previously he served as Chief Speechwriter for President George W. Bush.] He's baaaaack. When the president enters the House chamber tomorrow night to deliver his maiden State of the Union address, members of Congress, the press, and the public will see Barack Obama at the podium. But they will have Bill Clinton on their minds. Specifically they will be think

Soumitra R. Eachempati, Dean Lorich and David Helfet: Haiti ... Obama's Katrina

[Dr. Eachempati is a trauma surgeon and incoming president of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. Drs. Lorich and Helfet are orthopedic surgeons. All practice at the Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City.] Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the l

Rich Lowry: 1994 Nightmare ... Dems Look Out of Touch

[Rich Lowry is a syndicated columnist and a commentator for the Fox News Channel.] For Democrats willing to see what's before their eyes, the nightmare came into sharper focus over the last week. Another 1994 might be in the offing. Back then, the beginning of the end came on a procedural vote. A Democratic majority that had held the House for four decades lost a routine party-line vote on a "rule," a basic measure allowing it to control the House floor.

Roger Pulvers: For all His Failings, MacArthur was a Fine Precursor of Obama's Bow

Two photographs, separated in time and context by 64 years, may symbolize, as well as anything can, the nature of the postwar Japanese-American alliance. Both in their time gave rise to uproar. The second of these was the photograph, taken on the occasion of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Japan in November 2009, of the president bowing low to the Emperor. Despite the fact that such bowing in Japan is a gesture of respect and propriety, the American media went semi-postal, an

Nina Hachigian: The false promise of primacy in U.S. foreign policy

[Nina Hachigian is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the co-author of “The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise.”] One unquestionable success of the Obama administration so far has been to turn the page on the failed Bush foreign policy framework. Not so, says Robert Kagan, who reveals a perverse nostalgia for the previous paradigm in his recent writings in which he argues that the Obama administration is formulating