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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Are there no standards for punditry?

Last Sunday, ABC’S “This Week” turned to none other than Donald Rumsfeld, the former Bush administration defense secretary, to get his informed judgment of the mission in Libya. Last month, the journal International Finance featured former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan commenting on what is “hampering” the economic recovery.

Fox News trumped even that, trotting out retired Marine Col. Oliver North, the former Reagan security staffer who orchestrated the secret war in Nicaragua, to indict President Obama for – you can’t make this stuff up – failing to get a congressional resolution in support of the mission in Libya.

Next we’ll see a cable talk show inviting the former head of BP to tell us what it takes to do offshore drilling safely.

Susan Feiner: Assault on Public Unions an Affront to Women’s Historic Gains

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s slash-and-burn approach to public sector unions — imitated by over a dozen Republican governors across the nation — is the political equivalent of slamming women’s labor history into reverse. Right in the middle of Women’s History Month.

While women represented 57 percent of the public-sector work force at the end of the recession, women lost the vast majority–79 percent–of the 327,000 jobs cut in this sector between July 2009 and February 2011, according to a January report by the Washington, D.C.-based National Women’s Law Center.

Of course these job losses–and those still to come–have a bad ripple effect, leading to even more unemployment, spreading the pain far beyond the initially affected workers.

Ruth Marcus: Obama fills in some important blanks on Libya

In his speech Monday night to a public thoroughly, and understandably, befuddled about U.S. policy in Libya, President Obama began to fill in some important blanks. The White House would dispute this assessment, but Obama’s remarks came unfortunately late. Rallying the public behind “kinetic military action,” my new favorite phrase, requires explanations sooner rather than later. This is especially true when it is a kinetic action of choice, not necessity; in the nervous aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan; and in the relentless context of a 24-7 news cycle.

And especially when the run-up to action has been so herky-jerky, with clashing messages about the wisdom and feasibility of a no-fly zone and a confusing bifurcation of means and ends. It is U.S. policy that Moammar Gaddafi should – indeed, must – go, but that is not the stated aim of the military action.

Amy Goodman: Georgia and the U.S. Supreme Court: Tinkering With the Machinery of Death

On March 28, the Supreme Court refused to hear the death penalty case of Troy Anthony Davis. It was his last appeal. Davis has been on Georgia’s death row for close to 20 years after being convicted of shooting to death off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah. Since his conviction, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, alleging police coercion and intimidation in obtaining the testimony. Despite the doubt surrounding his case, Troy Anthony Davis could be put to death within weeks.

Davis is now at the mercy of the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole, which could commute his sentence to life without parole. It will be a tough fight, despite widespread national and international support for clemency from figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former President Jimmy Carter.

P.J. Crowley: Budget Paralysis and the New Middle East

The Middle East sits at a precarious pivot point, a transformational moment that rivals the fall of the Berlin Wall. Country by country, whether they remain autocratic, become democratic or fall somewhere in between, the Middle East will not be the same.

From the individual street vendor who lit the spark in Tunisia to the massive protests in Tahrir Square to the current standoff with Muammar Gaddafi, none of this has been scripted and ultimate outcomes are far from certain. Eastern Europe benefited from the centripetal pull of NATO and the EU, and received immediate and sustained assistance from the United States and the West to order to achieve today’s remarkable regional stability and integration.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: The Department of Justice: Indicting Immigrants, Ignoring Wall Street Crooks

If you’re a banker who bought your estate with the millions you made from mortgage fraud, relax. The Justice Department isn’t looking for you. But if you’re an illegal immigrant who’s working on that banker’s estate, look out. The Department of Justice is ignoring your boss and devoting most of its resources to catching you.

And the Justice Department’s “mortgage fraud” unit doesn’t prosecute bankers. It protects them.

Joe Nocera of the New York Times contrasts the legal treatment that was given to one high-flying borrower with that received by Angelo Mozilo, CEO of the fraudulent lender Countrywide. But if stories like this one are bad, the numbers are even worse.

John Nichols: Wisconsin Judge Checks and Balances a Lawless King, er, Governor

A week after Dane County Circuit Court Judge Maryann Sumi issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) that was meant to delay the publication and implementation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s anti-union, pro-corporate power grab, Walker’s legislative allies pressured state bureaucrats to publish the measure and then claimed they were free to implement it.

But the law does not work that way. Governors are not kings. They do not get to violate the law at will. And they do not get to dismiss orders from judges.

Judge Sumi made that “crystal clear” Tuesday, after a day of testimony that described the pressure placed on the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau by Walker’s consigliere, state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, to publish the governor’s anti-labor plan — even though authorization from Secretary of State Doug La Follette was required, and La Follette was prevented from giving that authorization because of the TRO.

Robert Dreyfuss: The ‘Obama Doctrine,’ Libya and Iran

Does Libya set a precedent? If a revolt breaks out again in Iran, and the regime cracks down with brutal force, will the United States support a Libya-style response? The New York Times, in its coverage of Libya, is already talking about imposing a no-fly zone against Syria. Is there an “Obama Doctrine” emerging?

It looks like it. And, unfortunately, it seems focused on the idea of humanitarian interventionism, with some add-ons and codicils, that make it broader than that. For instance, in his speech, President Obama spoke of “challenges that threaten our common humanity” as motivation for US intervention abroad, but then added that such interventions could occur in “maintaining the flow of commerce,” which sounds suspiciously like a declaration that the United States will go to war to protect the flow of oil.

Peter Rothberg: Tell Facebook to Unfriend Coal

The iconic social networking site Facebook has been a useful, even indispensable, tool in fomenting social change, and even revolution, across the globe. But with more than 600 million members (and growing!), Facebook also burns more energy each day than numerous nations.

And what powers Facebook? Coal, the number-one contributor to climate change. At current growth rates, data centers and telecommunication networks-two key components of the “cloud” that Facebook depends on-will consume about 1,963 billion kilowatts hours of electricity in 2020. That’s more than triple their current consumption and more than the current electricity consumption of France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.