Roundup: Media's Take

Humberto Fontova: Fidel Castro Endorses Obama -- Again

[Humberto Fontova is the author of four books including Exposing the Real Che Guevara. Visit hfontova.com.] Barack Obama's Kenyan cousin Raila Obinga did well in naming his son Fidel Castro Odinga. From Havana this week, Obama's nephew's namesake issued his 2nd Barack Obama endorsement. "The only thing that abounds in McCain are years" wrote the Stalinist Cuban dictator in his regime's official paper. "His (electoral) adversary far surpasses McCain in in

Dennis Stute: Brzezinski ... West Must Avoid Russia's Mistakes in Afghanistan (interview)

[Dennis Stute works for Deutsche Welle.] DW-WORLD.DE: While almost all political parties in Germany want the troops to remain in Afghanistan, a majority of the population would prefer a withdrawal. What should the West do -- withdraw, stay the course or increase the number of troops? Zbigniew Brzezinski: I don't think any of these options can be the answer. Withdrawal means that Afghanistan will plunge immediately into a major crisis with unpredictable consequences. Si

Stephen Kinzer: The reality of war in Afghanistan

[Stephen Kinzer is author of "A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It."] DESPITE their differences over how to pursue the US war in Iraq, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama both want to send more American troops to Afghanistan. Both are wrong. History cries out to them, but they are not listening. Both candidates would do well to gaze for a moment on a painting by the British artist Elizabeth Butler called "Remnants of an Army.&qu

Thomas Frank: My Friend Bill Ayers

"Waving the bloody shirt" was the phrase once used to describe the standard demagogic tactic of the late 19th century, when memories of the Civil War were still vivid and loyalists of both parties could be moved to "vote as they shot." As the years passed and the memories faded, the shirt got gorier, the waving more frantic. In 1896 the Democrats chose William Jennings Bryan as their leader, a man who was born in 1860 and had thus missed the Civil War, but who se

Maya Jaggi: The struggle of memory against forgetting

Milan Kundera is the latest writer whose alleged or admitted past threatens to cast a pall over his oeuvre – from Christa Wolf, outed in 1993 as a former Stasi informant, to Gunter Grass, revealed in his 2006 memoir as a teenage recruit to the Waffen-SS. Kundera has broken a habit of media silence to denounce as a "lie" claims that, as a student in Communist Czechoslovakia in 1950, he informed on a western spy who then spent 14 years in a prison and labour camp. He called

Carl Bernstein: Ayers and the McCain-G. Gordon Liddy Symbiosis

Does John McCain "pal around with terrorists?" Certainly McCain's continuing "association" and relationship with the convicted Watergate burglar and domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy might suggest that is the case, if we are to apply the standards drawn by the McCain campaign. In 1998, Liddy gave a fundraiser in his Scottsdale, Arizona home for McCain's senatorial re-election campaign -- the two posed for photographs together; and as recently as May

Robert Gordon and James Kvaal: It's Possible--Possible!--That The Economic Crisis Could Ignite A Level Of Civic Engagement Unseen In Decades

Hard economic times usually hit not only our wallets, but also our spirits. Charitable giving goes down. And as Benjamin Friedman has explained, racial tension and nativist sentiment go up. Friedman noted one great exception in American history, though, and it's the Great Depression. In recent weeks, experts have talked about the New Deal for its contributions to financial regulation, like the FDIC and the SEC. But at least as important to Americans 75 years ago were projects that

Adam Serwer: What Right Wingers Mean When They Call Obama A "Socialist"

[Adam Serwer is a writing fellow at The American Prospect and recent graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.] On Saturday, Georgia Congressman John Lewis went nuclear on John McCain, releasing a statement that seemed to compare McCain to segregationist George Wallace. "George Wallace never threw a bomb," Lewis wrote. "He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent American

Philippe Naughton: Fresh impetus behind call for 'new Bretton Woods'

[Philippe Naughton has written articles published in The Times.] Gordon Brown today threw his weight behind calls for "a new Bretton Woods" agreement to set the rules and direction for global trade and finance in the 21st century. Fresh from pumping £37 billion into emergency bank nationalisations, the Prime Minister told a City audience that he would be pushing his fellow European leaders this week on the need to rewrite the rules of the international financ

William Rees-Mogg: Déjà vu ... six steps that make up a great panic

[William Rees-Mogg has had a distinguished career with The Times and The Sunday Times. He was Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times before becoming Editor of The Times in 1967, a position he held until 1981.] It has not been too difficult to foresee the course of the 2008 credit crisis, since it has followed the classic pattern of financial panics. There has been nothing new so far; it is just that the world forgot the lessons of previous panics: an expensive oversight. One

Debra J. Saunders: Playing the Race Card

... You could not watch cable news last week without hearing about "the Bradley effect" -- a term spawned after Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley lost the California gubernatorial election to state Attorney General George Deukmejian in 1982 by one point, despite pre-election polls that showed Bradley, who was black, had a seven-point lead. But "the Bradley effect" was not the election-turning factor that some people saw. As Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll explained, a num

Fareed Zakaria: There Is a Silver Lining

... Since the 1980s, Americans have consumed more than they produced—and they have made up the difference by borrowing. Two decades of easy money and innovative financial products meant that virtually anyone could borrow any amount of money for any purpose. If we wanted a bigger house, a better TV or a faster car, and we didn't actually have the money to pay for it, no problem. We put it on a credit card, took out a massive mortgage and financed our fantasies. As the fantasies grew,

Tim Reid: Obama invokes the spirit of Roosevelt

[Tim Reid is Washington correspondent for the Times.] Barack Obama accused John McCain yesterday of trying to incite anger and divide the country, as he made an impassioned plea to voters to ignore the Republican’s attacks on his character and honesty. Invoking Franklin Roosevelt, the President who steered America out of the Great Depression, Mr Obama declared: “Nothing’s easier than to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division. But that’s not what we need now in t

Editorial in the Guardian: In praise of ... the International Brigades

"Pendleton man killed in Madrid fighting," this paper reported in early 1937, noting the death of Fred Newbury, a young man "of fine physique who was full of enthusiasm for the Spanish workers' cause". He had, it added, been unemployed for 12 years and left his wife and two children to fight for the Republicans. The men and women of the International Brigades came from across Europe and beyond, and from all sorts of backgrounds too. In one of the Manchester Guar

E.J. Dionne: Hoover vs. Roosevelt?

Hope versus fear, new versus old: Barack Obama and John McCain have placed their bets. These are the terms on which the 2008 presidential campaign will be decided. That's why it's unfair for political bystanders to attack Obama and McCain for offering few specifics as to how they'd fix an ailing economy. And it's foolish to ask them to jettison their campaign promises in order to pay homage to the God of Balanced Budgets. Each campaign has given voters ample notice abou

Stephen Foley: History lessons ... Galbraith's 'The Great Crash 1929' is still essential reading today

[Stephen Foley writes for the Independent.] The late John Kenneth Galbraith attributed the longevity of his book The Great Crash 1929 – published in 1955 and never since out of print – to the tendency of history to threaten a repeat. "Each time it has been about to pass from bookstores," he wrote in a later foreword, "another speculative episode – another bubble or the ensuing misfortune – has stirred interest in the history of this, the great modern case of boom and

Martin Kettle: History can guide, yet there are new limits of the possible

[Martin Kettle writes for the Guardian on British, European and American politics, as well as the media, law and music.] This is no time for outdated thinking and conventional dogma, Gordon Brown announced as he unveiled Labour's bank rescue package this week. Who could disagree? Yet since David Cameron was not about to insist that outdated thinking and conventional dogma were exactly what we need more of at such a time, Brown's words recalled a Roy Jenkins axiom - that a politician

Peter Beinart: Is Barack Obama American Enough?

"I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America." So said Sarah Palin about Barack Obama on Oct. 6 as she attacked him for his decision to "pal around" with onetime Weatherman bomber Bill Ayers. With Obama back in the lead, the new, harsher Republican line surprised almost nobody. The Obama campaign declared it a distraction before it even arrived. But seen in historical perspective, the McCain campaign's strategy

Nate Silver: Uncommitteds and Persuadables in Historical Perspective

In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove asserts the following: What about swing voters? There are probably more undecided and persuadable voters open to switching their choice than in any election since 1968. Is it true that there are an unusually high number of swing voters this year? Not really, although it may be slightly higher than average. Let's go to the video tape ... err... the Gallup Polling archive. What I've done here is simply

Editorial in the Newstatesman: We have no imperial right to remake nations

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith and Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles sound like the kind of chaps who might have led skirmishes along the North-West Frontier in the days of the Great Game. Their names may be redolent of the era when an officer bound for the east set off from his St James's club with a volume or two of Kipling in his trunk; but this should not make us overlook the wisdom of their judgement about the resilience of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The brigadier, Britain's most senior