“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.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour: It’ll be the SALT Treaty, Obama’s Afghanistan strategy and the impasse in funding the government with Sen John Kerry (D-MA) and Sen. Richard Lugar, (R-IN).
The Round Table guests, George Will, Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile, Reuters Editor at Large Chrystia Freeland and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post will look at the meaning of progress in the Afghanistan war. And Amanpour takes a special look back at her time covering Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s guests will be Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), Armed Services Committee Member, Sen. Carl Levin, (D-MI), Armed Services Committee Chair, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, (D-MN) and Sen. Jeff Sessions, (R-AL). They will discuss the recently released Afghanistan report and what’s ahead in 2011.
The Chris Matthews Show: Chris, aka “Tweety”, will be joined by , Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine
Assistant Managing Editor, Helene Cooper, The New York Times White House Correspondent and Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Senior Editor. They will discuss:Did Barack Obama Get Back on the Right Track This Week? and Top Ten Political Gaffes of the Year.
Yeah, Obama’s on the “right track” alright.
Meet the Press with David Gregory: “LUrch” will have as his exclusive guest Vice President Joe Biden who will no doubt lie about how great the Obama tax cuts are and how the left should suck it up and vote for Obama in 2012.
The Round Table will include the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Cory Booker (D), Republican Strategist and Founding Leader of No Labels, an organization devoted to decreasing hyperpartisanship, Mark McKinnon, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell, and the Host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, Joe Scarborough.
Andrea’s getting around this morning
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: The President signs a key tax cut plan into law after a contentious debate in Congress with his own party. What are the chances for bipartisanship that got this legislation passed can possibly carry on to the next session? We’ll talk to Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (aka the Human Hybrid Turtle) on his party’s agenda.
Then shifting focus abroad to the progress in the War in Afghanistan… where do we go from here and what are the prospects for country’s future? Candy sits down with former Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, former CENTCOM commander Adm. William Fallon (Ret.) and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers (Ret.)
And we’ll break down the week in politics with A.B. Stoddard from The Hill Newspaper and Matt Bai from The New York Times.
I have it good authority that Matt Bai is an idiot
Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Remembering Richard Holbrooke, the man that Fareed calls “maybe the most important American diplomat of the last two decades.” A great GPS panel will discuss what makes a great diplomat…and what’s the way forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan after Ambassador Holbrooke.
Also, Fareed’s take on the President’s recent Afghanistan review and the challenges that lie ahead for the United States and its allies in the region.
Britain’s austerity measures have sparked protests and violence. Fareed sits down with the architect of the austerity, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
And then for the other side of the story, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who also served as the U.K.’s finance minister, tells Fareed why he thinks the budget cuts are the wrong move.
Also, what in the world? Why are China and Russia renouncing the almighty American dollar?
And finally a last look at the Pentagon powered by…a Playstation?
Glenn Greenwald: Joe Biden v. Joe Biden on WikiLeaks
It’s really not an overstatement to say that WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are the new Iraqi WMDs because the government and establishment media are jointly manufacturing and disseminating an endless stream of fear-mongering falsehoods designed to depict them as scary villains threatening the security of The American People and who must therefore be stopped at any cost. So often, the government/media claims made in service of this goal are outright false, which is why I have focused so much on the un-killable, outright lie that WikiLeaks indiscriminately dumped 250,000 diplomatic cables without regard to the consequences (on Thursday, The New York Times, in its article on Assange’s release from prison, re-printed the lie by referencing “Mr. Assange’s role in the publication of some 250,000 American diplomatic documents” only to delete it without any indication of a correction in the final version of the article, while the always-conventional-wisdom-spouting Dana Milbank in The Washington Post — in the course of condemning “the absurd secrecy of the Obama administration, in some ways worse than that of George W. Bush” — today wrote of “Assange’s indiscriminate dump of American government secrets over the last several months – with hardly a care for who might be hurt or what public good was served”).
But this new example from Joe Biden is extraordinary, and reveals how government officials are willing to say absolutely anything — even things they know are false — to demonize WikiLeaks. First, here’s Biden with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell — on Thursday, December 16 — happily insisting that the leak of the diplomatic cables has done no damage to U.S. relations
MITCHELL: This is Vice President Joe Biden, who told me that the leaked cables created no substantive damage — only embarrassment . . . .
BIDEN: And I came in [to the U.N.] almost all to embraces – it wasn’t just shaking hands – I know these guys, I know these women – they still trust the United States – there’s all kinds of —
MITCHELL: So there’s no damage?
BIDEN: I don’t think there’s any damage. I don’t think there’s any substantive damage, no. Look, some of the cables are embarrassing . . . but nothing that I’m aware of that goes to the essence of the relationship that would allow another nation to say: “they lied to me, we don’t trust them, they really are not dealing fairly with us.”
But here’s the very same Joe Biden, in a preview of an interview with David Gregory — taped the following day, Thursday, December 17 — to air this Sunday on Meet the Press, gravely lamenting that Julian Assange has harmed American foreign relations:
This guy has done things that have damaged and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of other parts of the world. He’s made it more difficult for us to conduct our business with our allies and our friends. For example, in my meetings — you know I meet with most of these world leaders — there is a desire to meet with me alone, rather than have staff in the room: it makes things more cumbersome — so it has done damage.
New York Times Editorial: The Tax-Cut Deal
As it became clear last week that Congress would pass the tax-cut deal he made with Republicans, President Obama said it “proves that both parties can in fact work together to grow our economy and look out for the American people.” It proves no such thing.
Mr. Obama himself described the talks that led to the $858 billion deal as a hostage negotiation. The Bush-era “middle class” tax cuts were extended for two years, along with other tax cuts that both sides wanted; the cost is high – $485 billion – but the breaks will support consumer spending while the economy is weak.
Mr. Obama knows, however, that significant parts of the deal – especially the two-year, $139 billion extension of the high-end Bush-era tax cuts and the generous new estate tax provisions for multimillionaires and billionaires – will generate relatively little new growth. And because excessive tax cuts worsen the deficit, they actually threaten Americans by creating pressure to cut spending on other programs that actually are needed.
Frank Rich: The Bipartisanship Racket
JEEZ, can’t we all just get along? Can’t we be civilized? Can’t we reach across the aisle, find common ground and get things done? Can’t we have a new Morning in America as clubby and chipper as MSNBC’s daily gabfest, “Morning Joe“?
This is actually the manifesto of the new political organization called No Labels. It’s no surprise that its official debut last week prompted derisive laughter from all labels across the political spectrum, not to mention Gawker, which deemed it “the most boring political movement of all time.” But attention must be paid. In its patronizing desire to instruct us on what is wrong with our politics, No Labels ends up being a damning indictment of just how alarmingly out of touch the mainstream political-media elite remains with the grievances that have driven Americans to cynicism and despair in the 21st century’s Gilded Age.
Although No Labels sounds like a progressive high school’s Model U.N., its heavy hitters are serious adults – or at least white male adults. Among the 16 billed speakers at last week’s official launch in New York, there were three women and no blacks, notwithstanding an excruciating No Labels “anthem” contributed by the Senegalese-American rapper Akon. (Do find on YouTube.) The marquee names on hand included Michael Bloomberg; Senate Democrats (Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the incoming Joe Manchin of West Virginia); moderate Republicans drummed out of office by the Tea Party (Charlie Crist, Mike Castle); and no fewer than four MSNBC talking heads. Despite Bloomberg’s denials, some persist in speculating that No Labels is a stalking horse for a quixotic 2012 presidential run. At the very least the organization is a promotional hobby horse for MSNBC.
David Sirota: Why the “Lazy Jobless” Myth Persists
During the recent fight over extending unemployment benefits, conservatives trotted out the shibboleth that says the program fosters sloth. Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., for instance, said added unemployment benefits mean people are “encouraged not to go look for work.” Columnist Pat Buchanan said expanding these benefits mean “more people will hold off going back looking for a job.” And Fox News’ Charles Payne applauded the effort to deny future unemployment checks because he said it would compel layabouts “to get off the sofa.”
The thesis undergirding all the rhetoric was summed up by conservative commentator Ben Stein, who insisted that “the people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities.”
The idea is that unemployment has nothing to do with structural economic forces or rigged public policies and everything to do with individual motivation. Yes, we’re asked to believe that the 15 million jobless Americans are all George Costanzas — parasitic loafers occasionally pretending to seek work as latex salesmen, but really just aiming to decompress on a refrigerator-equipped recliner during a lifelong Summer of George.
John Nichols: Rejecting Bigotry and Bitter-Ender McCain, Senate Scraps Ban on Gays in the Military
Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 with the strong support of the LGBT community and allies who believed that his election would usher in an era when gays and lesbians could serve openly in the military.
Instead, supporters of equality and of strategies to assure that the military attracts the best and the brightest got the noxious “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” compromise, which supposedly allowed closeted gays and lesbians to serve in the military but in fact became a new platform for discrimination.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” lasted through Clinton’s presidency and George Bush’s.
But, now, after two decades of organizing, campaigning and lobbying, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been rejected-and with it the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the U.S. military.
In an indication of how far the movement for LGBT rights has come, a bipartisan Senate vote of 63 to 31 to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and lift the ban.
Michael Moore: ¡Viva WikiLeaks! SiCKO Was Not Banned in Cuba
Yesterday WikiLeaks did an amazing thing and released a classified State Department cable that dealt, in part, with me and my film, ‘Sicko.’
It is a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the State spin their lies and try to recreate reality (I assume to placate their bosses and tell them what they want to hear).
The date is January 31, 2008. It is just days after ‘Sicko’ has been nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary. This must have sent someone reeling in Bush’s State Department (his Treasury Department had already notified me they were investigating what laws I might have broken in taking three 9/11 first responders to Cuba to get them the health care they had been denied in the United States).
Former health insurance executive Wendell Potter recently revealed that the insurance industry — which had decided to spend millions to go after me and, if necessary, “push Michael Moore off a cliff” — had begun working with anti-Castro Cubans in Miami in order to have them speak out and smear my film.
So, on January 31, 2008, a State Department official stationed in Havana took a made up story and sent it back to his HQ in Washington.
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