Roundup: Media's Take

Sep 24, 2004

Iraq isn't Vietnam, it's Guadalcanal

Powl Smith, in the Weekly Standard (Sept. 24, 2004):[Lieutenant Colonel Powl Smith, U.S. Army, is the former chief of counterterrorism plans at U.S. European Command and is currently in Baghdad with Multi-National Forces-Iraq.] ... People love to draw historical analogies because they seem to offer a sort of analytical proof--after all, doesn't history repeat itself?

Sep 24, 2004

The CIA's New Mission In Light Of Its Past

John Diamond, USA TODAY, 22 Sept. 2004 WASHINGTON - Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CIA is still five years away from fielding the network of spies and spymasters it will need to defeat global terrorists. That's not the charge of one of the CIA's growing legion of critics; that's the agency's own grim estimate. The assessment, given to the 9/11 Commission in testimony last spring by then-CIA director George Tenet, was"one of the most appalling comments we heard" in t

Sep 24, 2004

Zell Miller, Race-Baiting, and Southern Politics

Cynthia Tucker, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 22 Sept. 2004 Zell Miller wants you to believe that he is dispensing a dose of discipline to his beloved Democratic Party --- pointing out the foibles and foolishness that have led to its loss of the South. Miller claims he only wants the Democrats to regain their traditional values before it's too late. Miller is a hypocrite. As a historian, he knows exactly why the Democratic Party is teetering in the South: It's precisely beca

Sep 24, 2004

Prominent London Newspaper Editor Supports Kitty Kelley Book On Bush

Sarah Sands, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON), 18 Sept. 2004 [Sarah Sands is the editor for the Daily Telegraph Weekend Edition.] There has been some managing of expectations by the Bush Administration of Kitty Kelley's new biography, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty. It has so far been described both as"garbage" and"tittle-tattle". "But they haven't read it yet!" wailed Miss Kelley on the Today programme. In which case, there may be some even rougher language in st

Sep 24, 2004

Past And Present Life In Iraq

Mark Steyn, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH(LONDON), 19 Sept. 2004 The other day, the BBC interviewed Kofi Annan. Don't ask me why. But, in the course of the programme, the United Nations Secretary-General said that the liberation of Iraq did not conform to the UN Charter and therefore was"illegal". The best response to that comes from George W Bush, after Gerhard Schroder made a similar point last year:"International law?" said the President."I better call my lawyer. He didn't bring that up t

Sep 24, 2004

A Look At Rather's Past Coverage Of Politics

Marlon Manuel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 19 Sept.2004 Dan Rather has been a lightning rod before. Long before the flap over the authenticity of documents concerning President Bush's military service rocked CBS News, Rather was a veteran of controversy. At a new conference in 1974, Rather, then CBS's White House correspondent, drew jeers and cheers when he stood and pressed President Nixon on Watergate. "Are you running for something?" Nixon asked. "No, sir

Sep 24, 2004

China's Jiang Yields Control Of Army to Successor

Richard Spencer, THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON), 20 Sept. 2004 Beijing - A long struggle at the heart of China's communist leadership was settled last night when the former president Jiang Zemin, who was paramount leader for a decade, relinquished his last lever of state power. Mr Jiang's retirement as head of the armed forces was announced after a meeting of the Communist Party central committee. It ended two years of in-fighting that had threatened to become public and which, one

Sep 24, 2004

Polling And Presidential Elections

Linda Feldmann, Christian Science Monitor (Boston, MA), 20 Sept. 2004 Different readings in the presidential race point, in part, to a volatile electorate. To casual consumers of campaign news - and that would be most voters - the past week may have been particularly perplexing. First the Pew Research Center, a respected nonpartisan polling outfit, showed President Bush ahead of John Kerry by just one point among likely voters nationwide. Then Gallup, another major brand in pol

Sep 23, 2004

James Fallows: I Was Astonished to Watch a Tape Showing Bush Trouncing Ann Richards in a Debate

James Fallows, in the Atlantic Monthly (July/Aug. 2004): Recently I saw an amazing piece of political video. It was ten-year-old footage of George W. Bush, and it changed my mind about an important aspect of the upcoming campaign. Because the President so rarely exposes himself to live, unscripted questioning, and because he has expressed himself so poorly the few times he has risked such exposure this year, the political e

Sep 23, 2004

James Dobbins: In Bosnia and Other Trouble Spots the Lesson Learned Was that Security Comes First ... Then Reconstruction

Jams Dobbins, in the NYT (Sept. 22, 2004):[James Dobbins, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, was special envoy for the Clinton and Bush administrations on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo and Somalia.]Last week, the Bush administration announced plans to change how it will spend nearly

Sep 23, 2004

Nicholas Kristof: Bush I Was Slimed ... He Should Know Better

Nicholas Kristof, in the NYT (Sept. 23, 2004):What I found most dispiriting over the last month of politicking was the sight of two senior statesmen in the Republican Party - yes, I mean you, George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole - climbing on the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth bandwagon in its campaign to turn Mr. Kerry from war hero to craven braggart.Both former

Sep 23, 2004

Barbara Garson: America Is Making the Same Mistakes as Cost Ancient Greece Its Democracy

Barbara Garson, in the Los Angeles Times (September 23, 2004): [Barbara Garson is a playwright and the author of"Money Makes the World Go Round" (Penguin, 2002).] During a lull in the war between Athens and Sparta, the Athenians decided to invade and occupy Sicily. Thucydides tells us in"The Peloponnesian War" that"they were, for the most part, ignoran

Sep 22, 2004

US News & World Report: The War Over War Crimes in Vietnam

Dan Gilgoff, in US News & World Report (Sept. 6, 2004):... Claiming that they killed for sport and cut the ears off Viet Cong, the Winter Soldier vets gave testimony that is difficult to prove. "There was this feeling that you had to shock the country into paying attention," says David Thorne, who attended Winter Soldier with Kerry."You wondered whether some [of the vets]

Sep 22, 2004

A NATO for Asia? It's Coming!

Sakakibara Eisuke interviewed by Hara Manabu,as republished by Japan Focus (Sept. 17, 2004): [Sakakibara Eisuke was vice finance minister for international affairs in the years 1997-99. He is now a professor at the Global Security Research Center of Keio University. Hara Manabu is Senior Staff Writer of the Asahi Shimbun.] As the region's economy grows, a common Asian currency will gain favor, says Mr. Yen. 'The current calm Japan-U.S. economic relationship basicall

Sep 22, 2004

Robert Kaplan: It's Time to Remember the Lessons of the Indian Wars

Robert Kaplan, in the WSJ (Sept. 21, 2004): An overlooked truth about the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq in particular, is that they both arrived too soon for the American military: before it had adequately transformed itself from a dinosauric, Industrial Age beast to a light and lethal instrument skilled in guerrilla warfare, attuned to the local environment in the way of the 19th-century

Sep 21, 2004

L.A. Times: Cheap Politics and Rich History

Los Angeles Times (September 21, 2004): Remember the poll a few years back that found more Americans could name the Three Stooges than the three branches of government? Or the survey, also conducted by the Philadelphia-based National Constitution Center, in which one in four adults couldn't name a single right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment? OK, it

Sep 21, 2004

James Carroll: America's Neglectful Conscience

James Carroll, in the Boston Globe (September 21, 2004): THE WAR IN IRAQ goes from worse to catastrophic. Hundreds of Iraqis were killed last week, as were two dozen US soldiers. Planned elections in January point less to democracy than civil war. Kidnapping has become a weapon of terror on the ground, matching the terror of US air attacks. An American"take-back" offen

Sep 21, 2004

Neither Ike Nor Nixon Were Specific About Their Plan to Bring Peace Either

James Bennet, in the NYT (Sept. 19, 2004):...On Wednesday, in a rare development, one candidate was pressed for specifics. The radio host Don Imus asked Mr. Kerry how he would meet his stated goal of leaving Iraq in a first term. Mr. Kerry said, "The plan gets more complicated every single day" because of the mayhem there.He said he would "immediately ca

Sep 21, 2004

What Napoleon and Bismarck Teach Us About Preventive War

Stanley Kober, at he website of the Cato Institute (Sept. 18, 2004): [Stanley Kober is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. ] The decision to go to war is the most fateful one political leaders ever make. At what point does one decide non-military measures for resolving a dispute are exhausted, and that further delay in initiating hostilities is too dangerous? Winston

Sep 21, 2004

Who Is Dan Rather?

Lowell Ponte, at frontpagemag.com (Sept. 20, 2004): [Mr. Ponte hosts a national radio talk show Saturdays 6-9 PM Eastern Time (3-6 PM Pacific Time) and Sundays 9 PM-Midnight Eastern Time (6-9 PM Pacific Time) on the Liberty Broadcasting network (formerly TalkAmerica). Internet Audio worldwide is at LibertyBroadcasting .com. The show's live call-in number is 1-866-GO LOWELL (1-866-465-6935). A professional spea