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.

Andy Worthington: No Appetite for Prosecution: In Memoir, Bush Admits He Authorized the Use of Torture, But No One Cares

With just days to go before George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, hits bookstores (on November 9), and with reports on the book’s contents doing the rounds after review copies were made available to the New York Times and Reuters, it will be interesting to see how many media outlets allow the former President the opportunity to try to salvage his reputation, how many are distracted by his spat with Kanye West or his claim that he thought about replacing Dick Cheney as Vice President in 2004, and how many decide that, on balance, it would be more honest to remind readers and viewers of the former President’s many crimes – including the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the authorization of the use of torture on “high-value detainees” seized in the “War on Terror.”

As I fall firmly into the latter camp, this article focuses on what little has so far emerged regarding the President’s views on Guantánamo, and, in particular, on his confession that he authorized the waterboarding of “high-value detainee” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which is rather more important than trading blows with a rapper about whether or not his response to the Katrina disaster was racist, as it is a crime under domestic and international law.

Nancy J. Altman: New York Times Columnist Peter Orszag Joins the Social Security Fearmongering Crowd

Former OMB Director Peter Orszag writes a tin-eared response to the elections, in his NYT op-ed, “Saving Social Security.”

Tuesday’s election gave expression to a deep frustration that Washington is not listening to Main Street. This frustration seems reasonable after reading the tin-eared response to the elections penned by former OMB Director Peter Orszag, in his recent opinion piece with its fear-mongering title, “Saving Social Security.”

Social Security is not in need of saving. It is the most fiscally responsible part of the entire federal budget. Its benefits are modest, averaging less than the minimum wage. It is extremely efficient, returning in benefits more than 99 cents of every dollar spent. At its most expensive, when the Baby Boom generation is fully retired, Social Security will cost half as much, in terms of percentage of GDP, that France, Germany and many other countries are paying for their counterpart programs right now, today. Its projected deficit, still decades away, is manageable in size – just 0.7 percent of GDP, about the same amount as extending the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent of Americans. (Paradoxically, Orszag recently penned a piece advocating the extension of those tax cuts)

Barry Eisler: The Definition of Insanity

Last month, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Jack Devine, former CIA deputy director of operations and chief of the CIA Afghan Task Force. When I read it, I thought it was perhaps the most insane op-ed I’d ever come across. But leave it to David Broder, “Dean of the Washington Press Corps,” to try to one-up it just three weeks later.

Let’s take Devine’s piece first. Devine argues that our top priority in Afghanistan must be capturing or killing bin Laden. Devine asks, “We have entered into two problematic wars and have expended a great deal of blood and treasure since Sept. 11. What was it all about, if not capturing bin Laden?”

I think I know now why invading Iraq was “problematic.” You see, bin Laden wasn’t in Iraq. No wonder we can’t find the guy. . . .

And now, Broder.

There’s less to say about Broder’s piece, but only because he expresses his insanity more succinctly than does Devine. First, he lays out his premise: war and peace are the only forces influencing the economy that the president can control. Second, his evidence: World War II resolved the Great Depression. Finally, his slam dunk conclusion: Obama should take America to war with Iran (Congressional declarations of war are so pre-9/11) because war with Iran will improve America’s economy.

Gary Younge: The Tea Party is not new, or coherent. It’s merely old whine in new bottles

This incoherent group has no leaders, no policies, no headquarters. It is held together by Fox TV and big money

What we witnessed on Tuesday was not a realignment of American politics but the first real test of the reconfiguration of the balance of forces in the American right. Exit polls show an electorate even more polarised than two years ago, where registered independents swung to Republicans but self-described moderates continued to back the Democrats. Sixty per cent of the seats that the Democrats lost were in districts where John McCain beat Obama in 2008.

Last December I interviewed Rand Paul, after he addressed about 12 people in a small town in Leitchfield, Kentucky, and asked what the Tea Party meant to him. “I call it the national open mic movement,” he joked. “It’s kind of good in a way. Some people were tired of not being able to speak their piece. But I don’t think it has a cohesion yet. It’s yet to be seen whether it can transform itself.”

Back then Paul was a rank outsider; now he is a senator-elect. The Tea Party still has no cohesion, but it has been transformed. Not from the inside or below, but from the outside and above. Its name reflects a popular mood, its actions reflect an elite capability.

Robert Freeman: Obama Was Used, And Is Now Used Up

Barack Obama was used. Of course, he knew he was being used when he made the deal. But what he didn’t know was how quickly he would be used up. Now he has to face two years of humiliation knowing that he betrayed the people and the country he claimed to champion – and knowing that everyone else knows it as well – but also knowing that he’s gotten what’s coming to him.

Obama made a deal to get the job in the first place. The deal was that he would carry on with Bush’s bailout of the banks, with Bush’s two wars, with Bush’s suppression of civil liberties, that he wouldn’t prosecute or even investigate any of the enormous fraud that had brought down the country, or the lies that had railroaded it into war.

Even before he took office, he began fulfilling his end of the bargain. He appointed Larry Summers head of the National Economic Council. It was Summers, more than any other person, who was responsible for dismantling the Glass-Steagall regulations that had acted as a firebreak against banks looting the country since the Great Depression. Summers had made millions consulting for hedge funds before taking the office.

Steve Almond: Jon Stewart, Opiate of the Masses

I realize this is going to put me in some pretty unsavory company, but here goes: I didn’t like Jon Stewart’s rousing speech at the end of his Rally to Restore Sanity. I found it cowardly and even a little heartbreaking.

I’ll get to why in a minute, but let me say first that I have been, for many years, a big fan of Stewart and his evil twin, Stephen Colbert. They’re both brilliant comedians and, when they choose to be, powerful advocates of reason.Stewart’s systematic dismantling of insurance company shill Betsy McCaughey, for instance, was a crucial bit of public theater that helped put to rest the myth of Death Panels. Colbert’s upbraiding of both George W. Bush and the lapdog media that enabled him at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was a genuine act of heroism. So when Stewart and Colbert announced their joint rally, I was as excited as the next disaffected progressive. The more cultural bandwidth these guys get, I figured, the more sensible our discourse will become.