“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:Sitting in theis Sunday for Ms Amanpour is ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper. His guests will be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will discuss American involvement in Libya. Then the un-indicted war criminal, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will weigh in on Libya and push his new book.
On the roundtable: ABC News’ George Will, former Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA), national correspondent at The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg, and Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy take on the substance of America’s third war and the potential Republican 2012 Presidential candidates
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Mr. Schieffer’s guests are Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hyping Libya.
The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent, Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Senior Editor, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor and Norah O’Donnell, MSNBC Chief Washington Correspondent. They will discuss these questions:
Is President Obama failing to lead?
Could Republican “Red Hots” spoil the party
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Again, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will appear, still defending Obama’s Libya decisions. Also the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) in an exclusive interview.
Our roundtable guests The Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward; the BBC’s Ted Koppel; senior fellow for the Center for a New American Security and author, Tom Ricks; and NBC News White House Correspondent, Savannah Guthrie.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, supports the mission; and former director of the CIA, Gen. Michael HaydenMr (Ret.) and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley will weigh in on Libya. Nuclear policy expert, Joe Cirincione will discuss the nuclear reactor disaster in Japan and a discussion about the anemic US economic recovery with two former directors of the Congressional Budget Office.
Below the fold is NYT’s columnist Bob Herbert’s last Op-Ed for the Times. He will be missed but promises he’s not going too far away. Thank you, Mr Herbert.
This is my last column for The New York Times after an exhilarating, nearly 18-year run. I’m off to write a book and expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor and others who are struggling in our society. My thanks to all the readers who have been so kind to me over the years. I can be reached going forward at [email protected].
Bob Herbert: Losing Our Way
So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.
Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.
Marjorie Cohn: Bradley Manning Treatment Reveals Continued Government Complicity in Torture
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is facing court-martial for leaking military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico brig in Virginia. Each night, he is forced to strip naked and sleep in a gown made of coarse material. He has been made to stand naked in the morning as other inmates walked by and looked. As journalist Lance Tapley documents in his chapter on torture in the supermax prisons in The United States and Torture, solitary confinement can lead to hallucinations and suicide; it is considered to be torture. Manning’s forced nudity amounts to humiliating and degrading treatment, in violation of U.S. and international law.
Nevertheless, President Barack Obama defended Manning’s treatment, saying, “I’ve actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures . . . are appropriate. They assured me they are.” Obama’s deference is reminiscent of President George W. Bush, who asked “the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government” to review the interrogation techniques. “They assured me they did not constitute torture,” Bush said.
Alan Strachan From Trance-State to Moral Outrage: Recognizing The Civil War Against We, the People
The American Creed reminds us that we all are created equal, and that our compassion for each other is the very basis for our democracy and our honor. In times of greatest crisis, we are called upon to assert our Creed, as we originally did during the American Revolution, or to reaffirm it, as we did during the Civil War.
Lincoln re-asserted our Creed with eloquence and persistence during the Civil War. He called us to the “better angels of our nature,” reminded us of the values upon which this country has been founded, and so led us through that time of great crisis.
The Mega-Rich have declared war against ordinary Americans:
Although current circumstances have not been labeled as such, we are in another Civil War. This time it is not the North against the South. This time it is the Mega-Rich against ordinary Americans.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winsap: Just a Couple More Things About NPR
Like Jake LaMotta and his brother Joey in the bloody boxing classic “Raging Bull,” we are gluttons for punishment. So, here we are again, third week in a row, defending NPR against the bare-knuckled assault of its critics.
Our earlier pieces on the funding threat to NPR have generated plenty of punches, both pro and con. And although most of the comments were welcome, and encouraged further thinking about the value of public media in a democratic society, a few reminded us of the words of the poet and scholar James Merrick: “So high at last the contest rose/From words they almost came to blows!”
Nonetheless, reading those comments and criticisms made us realize there are a couple of points that these two wizened veterans of public broadcasting – with the multiple tote bags and coffee mugs to prove it – would like to clarify.
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