Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Dana Milbank: On education policy, Obama is like Bush

The Education Department kicked off its first ever “Bullying Summit” this week with a speech by Secretary Arne Duncan about the need “to break the cycle of bullying.”

But if Duncan really wants to stop the biggest bully in America’s schools right now, he’ll have to confront his boss, President Obama. In federal education policy, the president and his education secretary have been the neighborhood toughs — bullying teachers, civil rights groups, even Obama’s revered community organizers.

Frank Rich: Angels in America

Courage and a sense of fundamental fairness sometimes flower in our country in the most unexpected quarters, even as the angrier voices dominate the debate.

TO appreciate how much and how unexpectedly our country can change, look no further than the life and times of Judith Dunnington Peabody, who died on July 25 at 80 in her apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York.

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But to quote Tracy Lord, the socialite played by Katharine Hepburn in the classic high-society movie comedy “The Philadelphia Story,” “The time to make up your mind about people is never.” In 1985, Judith Peabody, a frequent contributor to the traditional good causes favored by those of her class, did the unthinkable by volunteering to work as a hands-on caregiver to AIDS patients and their loved ones.

Maureen Dowd: No Love From the Lefties

The Democrats’ radicals are mad at the White House, and the White House is mad right back.

Robert Gibbs should be yanked as White House press secretary.

Not because of his outburst against the “professional left.” He was right about that. In an interview with The Hill last week, Gibbs once more proved Michael Kinsley’s maxim that a gaffe is just truth slipping out.

He said the president’s lefty critics “ought to be drug-tested,” would only “be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon,” and “wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

Teddy Partridge : MoDo: Time for a New Press Secretary, Mr President

Splitting the baby here, Maureen thinks Bobby Gibbs needs to be promoted, not fired, since he’s always wanted to be a counselor to the president, bonding as they did during the campaign over sports and missing their families.

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But should Gibbs be fired? Nah, Maureen wants him promoted, if you can imagine. I guess there’s just not enough voices around the president telling him to break every promise he made to the American people when he sought the office he now holds

Robert Marquand: Ground zero mosque debate echoes Europe’s fears of Muslims

The US debate over the so-called ground zero mosque in New York tracks similar fights that have taken place in European capitals in recent years over national identity and the impact of growing Muslim populations.

Paris

As they weather a steamy August, Europeans are dimly aware of a convulsing US debate over the so-called ground zero mosque in New York, an Islamic center scheduled to be built two blocks from where Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center in 2001.

Here, America is seen as a harbor of religious freedom whose embassies promote interfaith dialogue and protection of minority faiths. President Obama’s Cairo speech to harmonize Islam and American values was perceived as typical, as is the American inclination to push Europeans not to ban small churches and “cults.”

In Paris and London, opinion seems split between those who support and even admire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s acceptance of the Islamic center and those who say the 16-story center is inappropriate or a provocation Americans shouldn’t accept.

In France, stories on Mr. Bloomberg’s decision registered surprise that an America often seen here as narrow-minded and Arab-hating proved more open and tolerant in some ways than current French opinion.

Dahlia Lithwick: Will Anthony Kennedy Do on Gay Marriage?

It’s the question driving the entire Prop 8 train.

When Judge Vaughn Walker decided Thursday to restart gay marriage in California as of Aug. 18, he turned what had been a tactical headache for supporters of Proposition 8, the voter referendum that banned same-sex marriage two years ago, into a strategic aneurism. Last week, the only issue they had to worry about was the lousy record they had produced  for the appeals courts. They now have much bigger worries after Judge Walker’s suggestion that the only group that may be willing to appeal his decision striking down Prop 8-not the state, but ProtectMarriage.com, which defended Prop 8 at trial-may may lack standing to do so. As Walker put it, “Proponents may have little choice but to attempt to convince either the governor or the attorney general to file an appeal to ensure jurisdiction.” Emily Bazelon explains why the standing issue may derail the whole case. And if that happens, nobody will be happier than Justice Anthony Kennedy.