“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:Ms Amanpour focuses on the problems and stresses of today’s war vets with a report from Bob Woodward on Iraqi vets returning to homelessness. She also interviews with Army Vice Chief of Staff, General Peter Chiarelli on stresses facing vets, and First Lady Michelle Obama and the Vice President’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden on what we can do to help.
New York Times war reporter David Rohde, held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan for seven months until his daring escape while his captors slept, and his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, discuss their new book, “Rope and a Prayer”.
ABC Nightline anchor Terry Moran profiles an Israeli and a Palestinian who through their deep loss are trying to bridge the gap that has defined the most intractable war.
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Tis week Mr. Scheiffer will host a Roundtable with CBS News Washington Correspondents on The Year in Review and what’s ahead in 2011: Chip Reid, Chief W.H. Correspondent, Lara Logan, Chief Foreign Correspondent, David Martin, Nat’l Security Correspondent, Nancy Cordes, Congress Correspondent and Sharyl Attkisson, Investigative Reporter.
The Chris Matthews Show: Tweety will discuss the best and worst of 2010. The panel include Howard Fineman (Huffington Post), Katty Kay (BBC News), Joe Klein (Time) and Norah O’Donnell (NBC News).
Meet the Press with David Gregory:”Lurch” will have an exclusive interviews with Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s advisor, about what the White House will face in 2011.
Taking stock of 2010: the passage of health care reform, the oil disaster in the Gulf, the rise of the Tea Party, and the on-going economic crisis. How has it all impacted the country politically, and what does it mean for the future of bipartisanship in 2011? will be discussed by NBC News’ Tom Brokaw, Presidential Historian and Author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Wall Street Journal Columnist Peggy Noonan, and Washington Post Associate Editor Bob Woodward.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: This Sunday, we hear from two major players in the Obama administration. First, we talk to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about President Obama’s legislative victories: the tax cut deal, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and START. Then we talk to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in an exclusive interview about the reports of terrorist threats this holiday season and the uproar over the TSA. We end the hour with a look at the terrorist threat worldwide with Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden (Ret.) and Former Director of National Intelligence Vice Adm. Mike McConnell (Ret.).
Fareed Zakaris: GPS: This Sunday night on GPS: A special edition of Fareed Zakaria GPS: “How To Lead”.
This special features interviews on what makes a great leader with 5 leaders from diverse arenas (global politics, national politics, military, business and academia).
Sitting down with Fareed this week to share their vast experiences are: Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister on how he steered a nation; Lou Gerstner, who has taken some American corporate icons from the brink of bankruptcy to billions in profits, on leading through crisis; Former Governor of the NJ Christie Whitman on how a woman can lead in world that is often still male-dominated; Rick Levin, the President of Yale University, on leading by persuasion and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on not just how to lead, but how to command.
Nicholas D. Kristof: The Big (Military) Taboo
We face wrenching budget cutting in the years ahead, but there’s one huge area of government spending that Democrats and Republicans alike have so far treated as sacrosanct. . . . . .
This is the one area where elections scarcely matter. President Obama, a Democrat who symbolized new directions, requested 6 percent more for the military this year than at the peak of the Bush administration.
“Republicans think banging the war drums wins them votes, and Democrats think if they don’t chime in, they’ll lose votes,” said Andrew Bacevich, an ex-military officer who now is a historian at Boston University. He is author of a thoughtful recent book, “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War.”
William Rivers Pitt: All I Want for Christmas
I’m not tremendously religious by any measurable standard, but the guy who got nailed to that tree had some deeply valid points to make, and if you believe what you read, He was murdered for trying to tell people about it. Emperor Constantine stole December 25th from his Pagan political opponents in a power consolidation move, so even if you believe in the existence of the guy who got nailed to that tree, you won’t be celebrating His birth on the 25th…but that guy had some good things to say, regardless of the garbled historical record, and if you can cut through the nonsense and bedlam of this season, those lessons are well worth remembering, especially in a year when the rest of us got royally screwed so rich people could get fat tax breaks they don’t need.
If you have two cloaks, give one away. Someone might even call that “socialism.” But it is winter, after all, and the snow has begun to fall, and there are a lot of people who need those cloaks. Remember them.
Take care. Enjoy the snow.
Help someone if you can. Hold close to you who and what you love.
Be fiercely present in these mad days, to whatever extent is reasonable for you.
Remember what we can do, together, if we lean in to the task.
This is all I want for Christmas:
Lean in. Lean hard.
You won’t be alone.
I promise.
John Nichols: A Christmas Carol of Conservatives and Liberals
Charles Dickens would find these times rather too familiar for comfort. In seeking to awaken a spirit of charity in his countrymen, the author called attention to those who callously dismissed the poor as a burden and the unemployed as a lazy lot best forced by hunger to grab at bootstraps and pull themselves upward.
So Dickens began his “A Christmas Carol,” a book very much in keeping with the radical tenor of a time when the world was awakening to the truth that poverty and desolation need not be accepted by civil society — or civilized people. The language employed by Scrooge was not a Dickensian creation; rather, it was a sort of reporting on the political platforms and statements of those who opposed the burgeoning movements for reform and revolution, which were sweeping through Europe as the author composed his ghost tale.
Ultimately an optimist, Dickens imagined that spirited prodding from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future would change Scrooge — just as there are those today who imagine that a bit more enlightenment might cause even the most rigid Republican to reconsider his disdain for the unemployed, the underemployed and the never employed.
Rchard Cohen: “It’s a Wonderful Life”: The most terrifying movie ever
Underneath the warm fuzzies, Frank Capra’s holiday classic is a tale of hunger, greed and a troubled America
I don’t care what your parents told you. “It’s a Wonderful Life,” that reassuring holiday spectacle, is really the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made. It’s one of a handful of masterpieces directed by Frank Capra, an Italian immigrant who loved America because America saved him. Capra lived through the Depression, then through the rise of terrible ideologies. He knew how bad things could get. He knew, too, that the United States was not immune and this knowledge spiked his love with the worst kind of fear. The result was that special melancholy, blue shot through with black, that runs through his films, the best of which are parables that operate on various levels, some of which were probably unknown to Capra himself.
Justin Elliot: Doubting Sarah
A chorus of criticism and doubt about Sarah Palin is emerging from an unlikely and telling source: Republicans
Sarah Palin is widely considered to be a leading candidate for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. And while an October story in Politico made a splash (and drew Palin’s wrath) by quoting anonymous Republican “insiders” attacking Palin, we’ve noticed a different, striking pattern in recent weeks: More and more prominent Republicans are publicly voicing doubts about Palin.
When you gather together, as we have below, the recent criticisms and misgivings voiced by Republican operatives, politicians and commentators, it becomes clear that Palin, if she has presidential ambitions, has a serious obstacle to overcome even within her own party. It also suggests that Palin would perhaps not be the powerhouse front-runner of a GOP primary that some have made her out to be.
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