Roundup: Media's Take

Max Boot: McGinnis’s Medal of Honor

President Bush yesterday awarded a Medal of Honor to Army Specialist Ross McGinnis for awe-inspiring courage during the Iraq War. In 2006 a grenade was thrown into McGinnis’s Humvee and instead of escaping, he jumped on the explosive, thus saving his fellow crew members but sacrificing his own life. He is the fifth soldier to receive a Medal of Honor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. What do they all have in common other than their display of bravery far above and beyond the call of duty

Lou Cannon: From 1976, a Question for Obama and Clinton

Gerald Ford went to his grave believing that Ronald Reagan's challenge for the Republican presidential nomination cost him the White House in 1976. In truth, Reagan sharpened Ford as a candidate, much as Hillary Clinton's campaign has sharpened Barack Obama in 2008. What damaged Ford in his effort to overtake Democrat Jimmy Carter was not what Reagan did to him in the spring of 1976 but what he failed to do in the fall. Similarly, the question now is what role Clinton will play after Obama has f

Paul Krugman: That 70s show

Not long ago it seemed as if everyone watching the carnage in financial markets was drawing scary parallels with the 1930s. This time, however, Ben Bernanke and his colleagues at the Federal Reserve did what their predecessors failed to do during the banking crisis of 1930-31: they acted forcefully to avert a collapse of the financial system. And their efforts seem, provisionally, to have worked. While things are far from normal in the financial markets, over the last few months the

James Carroll: Was Ted Sorensen JFK's conscience?

[James Carroll is an author, novelist, and columnist for the Boston Globe.] 'I MAY not be able to see you," the partially blind, stroke-impaired Ted Sorensen told a crowd at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston last week, "but I have more vision than the president of the United States." Over 1,000 people gathered to hear JFK's speechwriter discuss his new book, "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History." Those who expected a satisfying draught of the old Ke

James Carroll: The war-hero president and the pacifist

[James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.] 'I MAY not be able to see you," the partially blind, stroke-impaired Ted Sorensen told a crowd at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston last week, "but I have more vision than the president of the United States." Over 1,000 people gathered to hear JFK's speechwriter discuss his new book, "Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History." Those who expected a satisfying draught of the old Kennedy mystique were not disappoi

Gary Hart: The Perserverance of Idealism

As many people seem to be born either liberal or conservative, so many also seem naturally inclined toward either idealism or pragmatism. Overly simplified, the pragmatist says "tell me how the system works and I'll do my best within it," and the idealist says, "let's change the system." Though this dichotomy doesn't seem to work very well in Republican party politics (where those claiming idealism invade foreign countries), it plays a striking role in the Democr

George F. Will: Caesaropapism Rampant

Barack Obama recently said, "I believe in our ability to perfect this nation." Clearly there is something the candidate of "change" will not change—the pattern of extravagant presidential rhetoric. Obama is trying to replace a president who vowed to "rid the world of evil"—and of tyranny, too. But then, rhetorical—and related—excesses are inherent in the modern presidency. This is so for reasons brilliantly explored in the year's most pertinent and sobe

Peter F. Schaefer: What Might Have Been in Iraq

[Peter F. Schaefer is a researcher and writer for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation who last year completed a study on U.S. pre-occupation planning in Japan. Presently he heads the GlobaLand Group, which registers informal property in poor countries.] No matter the outcome in Iraq and Afghanistan, when the dust settles the United States will remain the world’s only superpower. And though the American people may be tired of overseas wars now, the U.S. military will undoubtedly bec

Jim Downs: History's part in the Democratic nomination

[Jim Downs is Assistant Professor of History, Connecticut College.] In a crowded black church in Southern California in February 2008, President Bill Clinton announced, ‘I waited my whole life to vote for an African American for president. I waited my whole life to vote for a woman for president. And sometimes I look up at sky and say God you’re playing with my mind again.’ God may not be playing a trick on Clinton’s mind, but history seems to be. Throughout the nineteenth a

What's the Difference Between Dan Bartlett, Brian Williams and David Gregory? A Lot Less Than You Think

[For over 20 years, David has been a banker covering the energy industry for several global banks in New York. Currently, he is working on several journalism projects dealing with corporate and political corruption that, so far, have escaped serious scrutiny by mainstream media. He is trained as a lawyer.] There's a difference between lying and dissembling. Dan Bartlett lied on Wednesday. Brian Williams and David Gregory merely dissembled. Yet the statements of all three are discredit

Quin Hillyer: Meet the New Barry Goldwater

[Quin Hillyer is an associate editor at the Washington Examiner and a senior editor of The American Spectator.] Many conservatives realistic enough to know there will never be "another Reagan" nevertheless wish at least for another Barry Goldwater. They don't realize that we already have one. His name is John McCain. Granted, McCain is more like the Goldwater of 1981 than like the conservative standard bearer of 1964. At age 72, Goldwater was, like the 72-year

Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky: McCain (Mis)Speaks

[Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky are the co-authors of the recently published Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq: The Experts Speak, which provided the basis for this essay. Their previous book, also a product of The Institute of Expertology, is The Experts Speak: The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation. They appeared recently on

Josh Patashnik: Veeps won't change the math of the election in November

[Josh Patashnik is a reporter-researcher at The New Republic.] There's a strain of logic in recent presidential campaign discourse that goes something like this: Though Barack Obama sports a modest lead over John McCain in national polling, his apparent weakness in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida could lead to a loss in the electoral college even if he wins the national popular vote by a wide margin. But his salvation could lie in picking someone from one of th

David Broder: What Jimmy Carter Could Teach Obama

A year after Jimmy Carter lost his re-election race to Ronald Reagan, Hamilton Jordan, his former White House chief of staff, sat down for a lengthy interview with scholars at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. Last week, after hearing the news of Jordan's death, friends at the center sent me a transcript of that 27-year-old interview. As they predicted, it was of intense interest for current politics, and particularly on the challenge facing Barack

Mark Mellman: Obama so far is doing ok with white working class voters

[Mark Mellman is a Democratic pollster whose clients include the majority leaders of the House and Senate. He polled for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.] DOES Barack Obama have a problem with the white working class? Despite the ubiquity of the term during this presidential campaign, it’s hard to say what, exactly, “working class” means. If you define class by education, which is polled more consistently than occupation or income, Mr. Obama certainly seems to have trouble w

Ramesh Ponnuru: In Carter's Shadow

[Ramesh Ponnuru is a Washington, D.C. based Indian American columnist and a senior editor for National Review magazine.] The ghost of Jimmy Carter is haunting the 2008 campaign. Well, let me restate that: the ghost of his presidency haunts the 2008 campaign. As for Carter, he certainly has not passed on; he is an active freelance diplomat and campaign consultant. In recent days he has told Hillary Clinton to "give it up" in June and estimated the size of Israel's nuclear s

Andrei Cherny: A lesson from Berlin for Baghdad

[Andrei Cherny, the co-editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, is the author of The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour.] Nearly three years after the invasion, it was clear that the occupation was failing. Little rebuilding had taken place in a country that had been showered with U.S. bombs. The economy was barely sputtering along. The security situation was growing worse. In the once-thriving capital, death from random violence and at t

Thomas Frank: Welcome to Nixonland

[Mr. Frank is the author of What's the Matter with Kansas.] ... Well, now the main events of the '60s are 40 years behind us, and still we can't shake them. In the last national election, we redebated the Vietnam War. In the one coming up, we will be forced to debate Barack Obama's not-even-tenuous connection to the Weathermen. (We will probably not be asked to judge the poisonous legacy of the Young Americans for Freedom, although McCain adviser Charlie Black was actually a leader

Dick Morris: Hillary is the new Wallace

In its final days, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign has come to echo George Wallace's 1968 run. Like Clinton, Wallace as a candidate stalked the Northeast exploiting white anger. Like her, he bypassed the nation's more educated and liberal parts to focus squarely on those who felt left behind, rallying animosity against elites. But behind the mask of populism, it was race that fueled Wallace's campaign from the start. And it is race that has brought new life

Scott W. Johnson: The Kennedy-Khrushchev Conference for Dummies

[Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney and contributor to the blog Power Line.] BARACK OBAMA FIRST VOWED to meet unconditionally with the leaders of America's foremost enemies in the YouTube Democratic candidates' debate on July 23, 2007. Since then he has reaffirmed and expanded on the commitment in a variety of contexts, promoting such meetings as a sort of panacea for America's national security challenges. In making these pronouncements, Obama sounds like a precocious colle