Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“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 will have an exclusive interview with Sen. John McCain about the revolt in Libya and why he thinks a “no-fly” zone should be enforced. Also a discussion withe guests Daily Beast and Newsweek Editor in Chief Tina Brown, Egyptian writer and activist Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, Zainab Salbi of Women to Women International and Sussan Tahmadebi of the International Civil Society Action Network for Women’s Rights, Peace and Security who will discuss how women are changing the Muslim world.

ABC News anchors Diane Sawyer, David Muir and Sharyn Alfonsi will discuss jobs and manufacturing in the US. The publisher and real-estate magnate Mort Zuckerman, Chrystia Freeland of Reuters and United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard will discuss how America can generate more jobs in a competitive global economy.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Mr, Schieffer’s guests are Sen. Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader (R-KY), Sen. John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (D-MA) and Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist.

The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent, Rick Stengel, TIME Managing Editor, Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post Senior Political Editor and Norah O’Donnell, MSNBC Chief Washington Correspondent who will discuss these questions:

Is America Still Number One?

Will Establishment Republican Hopefuls For 2012 Pander To The Far Right?

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Mr. Gregory has two exclusive interviews with White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). The round table guests will be Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson and New York Times columnist and author of the new book “The Social Animal,” David Brooks.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Sunday’s guests will include Stephen Hadley, the former U.S. National Security Adviser, and Dr. Ali Errishi, the former Libyan Immigration Minister to discuss Libya. Also, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) looking at potential 2012 contenders for the White House. Finally, Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has planned hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in America. He’ll join us to explain what he’s hoping to learn. Also joining us will be Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: The schedule for this Sunday was not available at the time this diary was published.

The other Pundits are below the fold

Daphne Eviatar: Marines Say Bradley Manning Is Imprisoned Isolated and Naked ‘For His Own Good’

If the U.S. military is really concerned that a soldier in its custody might commit suicide, it would seem like a bad idea to keep him isolated in a prison cell for months and forcibly stripped naked for seven hours a day while under constant surveillance.

But that’s just what the Marines at the brig in Quantico, Virginia are apparently doing to Pfc. Bradley Manning, the Army intelligence analyst suspected of leaking secret government documents to Wikileaks.

According to his lawyer, David Coombs, Manning, who is in Maximum security and Prevention of Injury watch, was once again stripped naked on Thursday night. This is apparently part of a new regimen implemented earlier this week. Coombs said he was first stripped and left naked in his cell for seven hours on Wednesday, as the New York Times reported this morning.

First Lieutenant Brian Villard, a Marine spokesman, told the Times that the decision was “not punitive” and is in accordance with Brig rules. But, he added, it would be “inappropriate for me to explain it.”

Inappropriate, or impossible?

Dennis Kucinich: Is This Quantico or Abu Ghraib?

After initial allegations of mistreatment, I requested a visit with Private First Class Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks, to see for myself the conditions of his treatment.

Despite the fact that Manning has not been found guilty of any crime, his lawyer reports that he is in isolation 23 out of 24 hours every day, conditions which may violate his 8th Amendment protection from ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment. This treatment is in stark contrast to a presumption of innocence and raises questions of whether Pfc. Manning can be fit for trial.

Robert Reich: The Real News on Jobs

Are we making progress on the jobs front? The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports 192,000 new jobs in February (220,000 new jobs in the private sector and a drop in government employment), and a drop in the overall unemployment rate from 9 to 8.9 percent.

We’re heading in the right direction but far too slowly to make a real dent in unemployment. To get the unemployment rate down to 6 percent by 2014 we’d need over 300,000 new jobs a month, every month, between now and then.

Overall, the number of unemployed Americans — 13.7 million — is about the same as it was last month. The number working part time who’d rather be working full time — 8.3 million — is also about the same.

But to get to the most important trend you have to dig under the job numbers and look at what kind of new jobs are being created. That’s where the big problem lies.

Richard Simmons The Hypocrisy of Peter King

There’s a lot not to like about next week’s Congressional hearings into “Islamic Radicalization,” but one of its most appalling aspects is the naked hypocrisy of the hearing’s chairman, Republican Peter King of New York.

Until now, Rep. King has been best known for his very public support of the Irish Republican Army, which of course was internationally recognized as a terrorist organization. Despite the IRA’s long history of murder, violence and intimidation, King argued (until breaking with the group over it’s failure to support the US invasion of Iraq) that the IRA represented the “the legitimate voice of occupied Ireland.”