Tag: Punting the Pundits

Fareed Zakaria: Build the Ground Zero Mosque

I believe we should promote Muslim moderates right here in America. And why I’m returning an award to the ADL.

Ever since 9/11, liberals and conservatives have agreed that the lasting solution to the problem of Islamic terror is to prevail in the battle of ideas and to discredit radical Islam, the ideology that motivates young men to kill and be killed. Victory in the war on terror will be won when a moderate, mainstream version of Islam-one that is compatible with modernity-fully triumphs over the world view of Osama bin Laden.

As the conservative Middle Eastern expert Daniel Pipes put it, “The U.S. role [in this struggle] is less to offer its own views than to help those Muslims with compatible views, especially on such issues as relations with non-Muslims, modernization, and the rights of women and minorities.” To that end, early in its tenure the Bush administration began a serious effort to seek out and support moderate Islam. Since then, Washington has funded mosques, schools, institutes, and community centers that are trying to modernize Islam around the world. Except, apparently, in New York City.

Fareed Zakaria’s Letter to the ADL

Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was delighted and moved to have been chosen for it in good measure because of the high esteem in which I hold the ADL. I have always been impressed by the fact that your mission is broad – “to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens” – and you have interpreted it broadly over the decades. You have fought discrimination against all religions, races, and creeds and have built a well-deserved reputation.

That is why I was stunned at your decision to publicly side with those urging the relocation of the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan. You are choosing to use your immense prestige to take a side that is utterly opposed to the animating purpose of your organization. Your own statements subsequently, asserting that we must honor the feelings of victims even if irrational or bigoted, made matters worse.

“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.

Michelle Obama: A food bill we need

Last spring, a class of fifth-grade students from Bancroft Elementary School in the District descended on the South Lawn of the White House to help us dig, mulch, water and plant our very first kitchen garden. In the months that followed, those same students came back to check on the garden’s progress and taste the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor. Together, they helped us spark a national conversation about the role that food plays in helping us all live healthy lives.

Fareed Zakaria: To deal with the deficit, let the tax cuts expire

For the past few months, we have heard powerful, passionate arguments about the need to cut America’s massive budget deficit. Republican senators have claimed that we are in danger of permanently crippling the economy. Conservative economists and pundits warn of a Greece-like crisis in which America will be able to borrow only at exorbitant interest rates. So when an opportunity presents itself to cut those deficits by about a quarter — more than $300 billion! — permanently and relatively easily, you would think that these people would be leading the way. Far from it.

“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.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This is Ms. Amanpour’s debut as the anchor person for a Sunday talk show.

This Week with Christiane Amanpour: Coming Up Exclusive interviews House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Round table with George Will, Donna Brazile, Paul Krugman and Ahmed Rashid.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Adm. Michael Mullen, Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff; Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Richard Haass, President, Council On Foreign Relations; Thomas Saenz, President, Mexican American Legal Defense And Education Fund.

Chris Matthews: Kimberly Dozier, Associated Press; Dan Rather, HDNet, Global Correspondent; Rick Stengel, TIME’ Managing Editor; Helene Cooper, The New York Times, White House Correspondent.

CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  They’ll discuss the war in Afghanistan as the U.S. experiences its deadliest month in the country. Topics will also include the wiki leaks incident, immigration and the economy.

Later, discussion about the passing week’s main political issues with New York Times correspondent, Peter Baker, and Washington Post editor Dan Balz.

Fareed Zakaria – GPS: Senator John Kerry — the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to talk about the Wikileaks and, more broadly, the war in Afghanistan; about Iran and whether we should be engaging that nation; and about U.S. politics.

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S. responds directly to the accusations in the war logs that his intelligence service has been colluding with the Taliban.

Finally a panel of experts featuring Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker, Reuters’ global editor-at-large Chrystia Freeland, and Ross Douthat of the N.Y. Times on the Obama’s administration is handling the crises that seem to keep coming at them.

Daniel Ellsberg’s WikiLeaks wish list

The disclosure of tens of thousands of classified reports on the Afghan war last week by WikiLeaks has been compared, rightly or wrongly, to the release in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. “The parallels are very strong,” Pentagon Papers contributor and leaker Daniel Ellsberg told The Washington Post on Monday. “This is the largest unauthorized disclosure since the Pentagon Papers.”

But perhaps not large enough? Outlook asked Ellsberg for his wish list of documents to be leaked, declassified or otherwise made public, documents that could fundamentally alter public understanding of key national security issues and foreign policy debates. Below, he outlines his selections and calls for congressional investigations

“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 yoHe was not the only lawmaker to solicit donations in this manner, his lawyers argue, saying that peers who did the same thing were not punished.

Bob Herbert: A Sin and a Shame

The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse – far more treacherous – than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.

Many of those workers were cashiered for no reason other than outright greed by corporate managers. And that cruel, irresponsible, shortsighted policy has resulted in widespread human suffering and is doing great harm to the economy.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “Not only did they throw all these people off the payrolls, they also cut back on the hours of the people who stayed on the job.”

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There can be no robust recovery as long as corporations are intent on keeping idle workers sidelined and squeezing the pay of those on the job.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Germany and Japan, because of a combination of government and corporate policies, suffered far less worker dislocation in the recession than the U.S. Until we begin to value our workers, and understand the critical importance of employment to a thriving economy, we will continue to see our standards of living decline.

“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.

Eugene Robinson: In the short term, immigration ruling is a gift for the GOP

Christmas came early for demagogues. The court decision  putting a hold on the worst provisions of Arizona’s new anti-Latino immigration law is a gift-wrapped present to those who delight in turning truth, justice and the American way into political liabilities.

As surely everyone knows by now, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday blocking the state from enforcing parts of the law that look patently unconstitutional. The political fallout is pretty clear: In the short run, at least, Republicans win and Democrats lose.

Longer term, the impact of the immigration issue on the major parties’ prospects is the other way around. But the focus now is on winning in November, and the GOP is licking its chops.

Paul Krugman: Curbing Your Enthusiasm

Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred?

These questions were inspired by the ongoing suspense over whether President Obama will do the obviously right thing and nominate Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer financial protection agency. But the Warren affair is only the latest chapter in an ongoing saga.

Mr. Obama rode into office on a vast wave of progressive enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was bound to be followed by disappointment, and not just because the president was always more centrist and conventional than his fervent supporters imagined. Given the facts of politics, and above all the difficulty of getting anything done in the face of lock step Republican opposition, he wasn’t going to be the transformational figure some envisioned.

“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.

Is this what the American people really voted for? More war?

Robert Scheer at Truthdig

Thank God for the Whistle-Blowers

What WikiLeaks did was brilliant journalism, and the bleating critics from the president on down are revealing just how low a regard they have for the truth. As with Richard Nixon’s rage against the publication of the Pentagon Papers, our leaders are troubled not by the prospect of these revelations endangering troops but rather endangering their own political careers. It is our president who unnecessarily sacrifices the lives of our soldiers and not those in the press who let the public in on the folly of the mission itself.

What the documents exposed is the depth of chicanery that surrounds the Afghanistan occupation at every turn because we have stumbled into a regional quagmire of such dark and immense proportions that any attempt to connect this failed misadventure with a recognizable U.S. national security interest is doomed. What is revealed on page after page is that none of the local actors, be they labeled friend or foe, give a whit about our president’s agenda. They are focused on prizes, passions and causes that are obsessively homegrown.

Gaius Publius at AMERICAblog

Ellsberg: Obama ‘has indicted more people for leaks than all previous presidents together’

Daniel Ellsberg is asked to comment on a clip of press secretary Robert Gibbs complaining about the leaks:

   

KING: Daniel, do you understand why Mr. Gibbs, representing the president, is so upset?

   ELLSBERG: Well, he’s very upset in part because he’s working for a president who has indicted more people now for leaks than all previous presidents put together. And two of those people — Thomas Drake and Shamai Leibowitz — have been indicted for acts that were undertaken under Bush, which [the] George W. Bush administration chose not to indict.

   So this is an administration that’s more concerned about preventing transparency, I would say, than its predecessor which I’m very sorry to hear. As somebody who voted for Obama and expect to vote for him again, despite all this.

Yikes. That’s all – yikes. (Video of the Ellsberg intervew is available here.)

“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.

Maureen finally realizes this war is futile.

Maureen Dowd: Lost in a Maze

The waterfall of leaks on Afghanistan underlines the awful truth: We’re not in control.

Not since Theseus fought the Minotaur in his maze has a fight been so confounding.

The more we try to do for our foreign protectorates, the more angry they get about what we try to do. As Congress passed $59 billion in additional war funding Tuesday, not only are our wards not grateful; they’re disdainful.

Washington gave the Wall Street banks billions and in return, they stabbed us in the back, handing out a fortune in bonuses to the grifters who almost wrecked our economy.

Washington gave the Pakistanis billions and in return, they stabbed us in the back, pledging to fight the militants even as they secretly help the militants.

We keep getting played by people who are playing both sides.

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During the debate over war funding on Tuesday, Representative James McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, warned that we are in a monstrous maze without the ball of string to find our way out.

“All of the puzzle has been put together and it is not a pretty picture,” he told the Times Carl Hulse. “Things are really ugly over there.”

“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.

Joan Walsh: Fox News’ 50-state Southern strategy

CNN’s “Reliable Sources” from Sunday is worth watching. American University’s Jane Hall has the best quote, in my opinion: The former Fox contributor said Shirley Sherrod was the victim of “virtual world McCarthyism.” I wasn’t that disciplined or clever in my comments. I was angry at the attempt to make this story about the Obama administration (I’ve already stated my objections to how Obama handled the mess), to whitewash the role of Fox in the scandal, and to try to turn the tables on Shirley Sherrod and insist she’s wrong to call either Fox or Breitbart “racist.”

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The most important point is this: Fox News has, sadly, become the purveyor of a 50-state “Southern strategy,” the plan perfected by Richard Nixon to use race to scare Southern Democrats into becoming Republicans by insisting the other party wasn’t merely trying to fight racism, but give blacks advantages over whites (Fox News boss Roger Ailes, of course, famously worked for Nixon). Now Fox is using the election of our first black president to scare (mainly older) white people in all 50 states that, again, the Democratic Party is run by corrupt black people trying to give blacks advantages over whites (MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow laid out this history last week).

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Watch the video for yourself, and see what I said. First of all, the idea that any journalist is wasting his or her time policing Shirley Sherrod’s rhetoric on race, after what she’s been through, is absurd. But what I said was, I think her charges of racism by Fox and Breitbart are justified. Both are peddling a false story of all the nonexistent ways white people are hurt and/or oppressed by blacks; in particular, our black president. In my book, that’s racist; others may disagree. I didn’t give Sherrod carte blanche to peddle hatred of white people (not that she would if I gave it to her).

It’s not my job, either way. Fox and Breitbart are far more powerful, and dangerous, than Shirley Sherrod. They should be ashamed of themselves, but they’re shameless.

“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.

Glen Greenwald: The WikiLeaks Afghanistan leak

The most consequential news item of the week will obviously be — or at least should be — the massive new leak by WikiLeaks of 90,000 pages of classified material chronicling the truth about the war in Afghanistan from 2004 through 2009.  Those documents provide what The New York Times calls “an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.”  The Guardian describes the documents as “a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fueling the insurgency.”

The White House has swiftly vowed to continue the war and predictably condemned WikiLeaks rather harshly.  It will be most interesting to see how many Democrats — who claim to find Daniel Ellsberg heroic and the Pentagon Papers leak to be unambiguously justified — follow the White House’s lead in that regard.  Ellsberg’s leak — though primarily exposing the amoral duplicity of a Democratic administration — occurred when there was a Republican in the White House.  This latest leak, by contrast, indicts a war which a Democratic President has embraced as his own, and documents similar manipulation of public opinion and suppression of the truth well into 2009.  It’s not difficult to foresee, as Atrios predicted, that media “coverage of [the] latest [leak] will be about whether or not it should have been published,” rather than about what these documents reveal about the war effort and the government and military leaders prosecuting it.  What position Democratic officials and administration supporters take in the inevitable debate over WikiLeaks remains to be seen (by shrewdly leaking these materials to 3 major newspapers, which themselves then published many of the most incriminating documents, WikiLeaks provided itself with some cover).

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Whatever else is true, WikiLeaks has yet again proven itself to be one of the most valuable and important organizations in the world.  Just as was true for the video of the Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, there is no valid justification for having kept most of these documents a secret.  But that’s what our National Security State does reflexively:  it hides itself behind an essentially absolute wall of secrecy to ensure that the citizenry remains largely ignorant of what it is really doing.  WikiLeaks is one of the few entities successfully blowing holes in at least parts of that wall, enabling modest glimpses into what The Washington Post spent last week describing as Top Secret America.  The war on WikiLeaks — which was already in full swing, including, strangely, from some who claim a commitment to transparency  — will only intensify now.  Anyone who believes that the Government abuses its secrecy powers in order to keep the citizenry in the dark and manipulate public opinion — and who, at this point, doesn’t believe that? — should be squarely on the side of the greater transparency which Wikileaks and its sources, sometimes single-handedly, are providing.

“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.

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.  Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ).  Roundtable: Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, Donna Brazile, Stephen Hayes.

CBS’ Face The Nation: Abigail Thernstrom, Vice Chair, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Michael Eric Dyson, Georgetown University. Cornel West, Princeton University. John Fund, Wall Street Journal Columnist. Michael Gerson, Washington Post Columnist.

Chris Matthews: Amy Walter The Hotline; Howard Fineman Newsweek; John Heilemann New York Magazine; Cynthia Tucker Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  Topics: Will African Americans Stick With Obama This Year?  Will This Year’s Elections Be an Historic Wave Year, and Is it Better for Obama to Lose Control of Congress?

CNN’s State of the Union: Gen. Michael Hayden on national intelligence.  FinReg with Mort Zuckerman. Christopher Edley Jr., Dean of University of California, Berkeley School of Law and past member of the Commission on Civil Rights,  and contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute City Journal and conservative commentator John McWhorter on race.

Fareed Zakaria – GPS: Afghanistan – U.S. Special Representative Richard Holbrooke; plus Richard Haass, Council on Foreign Relations; George Packer, New Yorker and Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal.  Then Harvard historian Niall Ferguson and Lord Robert Skidelsky: to spend or not to spend.  Plus oil drilling in the Niger Delta.

Frank Rich: There’s a Battle Outside and It Is Still Ragin’

This country was rightly elated when it elected its first African-American president more than 20 months ago. That high was destined to abate, but we reached a new low last week. What does it say about America now, and where it is heading, that a racial provocateur, wielding a deceptively edited video, could not only smear an innocent woman but make every national institution that touched the story look bad? The White House, the N.A.A.C.P. and the news media were all soiled by this episode. Meanwhile, the majority of Americans, who believe in fundamental fairness for all, grapple with the poisonous residue left behind by the many powerful people of all stripes who served as accessories to a high-tech lynching.