Tag: Politics

“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”.

César Chelala Human Rights Groups United in Demand for Bush’s Prosecution

Several human rights groups are united in their demand that former president George W. Bush face prosecution following his open admission that he authorized the use of waterboarding, one of the cruelest forms of torture. Former president Bush made his admission during interviews publicizing his book, Decision Points. Bush’s admission of having authorized torture, however serious the claim is, is just one of the reasons the former president could be prosecuted.

During an interview with NBC News Bush said, “Three people were waterboarded and I believe that decision saved lives.” And he added, “My job was to protect America. And I did.” This is not the opinion of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch, three of the most prestigious human rights organizations.

“The Department of Justice has made clear that waterboarding is torture and, as such, a crime under the federal anti-torture statute.18 U.S.C. 2340 (c). The United States has historically prosecuted waterboarding as a crime. In light of the admission by the former President, and the legally correct determination by the Department of Justice that waterboarding is a crime, you should ensure that Mr. Durham’s current investigation into detainee interrogations encompasses the conduct and decisions of former President Bush,” says the ACLU in a letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

New York Times Editorial: Try Something Hard: Governing

Many Americans who voted this fall expressed a deep mistrust of government. House Republicans’ triumphalist vows to tie up the Obama administration with nonstop investigations and obstructionist budget crimping are not going to allay those voters’ concerns – or solve any of the country’s problems. . . .

This combativeness from the new House majority is an early symptom of its preference for politicking over the tougher job of governing in hard times. Its plans already feature the low cunning of snipping budget lines so the Internal Revenue Service cannot enforce key provisions of the health care reform law. (Why not defund Postal Service document deliverers while they’re at it?) . . .

In principle, Congress’s oversight of the executive branch can be a vital necessity. Politically, however, both parties push its limits from time to time. Now is no time for myriad searches for sensational distractions when the nation’s voters cry out for solid progress.

Annie Gell: Haiti’s Unnatural Disasters

International aid, trade, debt and governance policies over many decades made Haiti dependent on imported food and materials and crippled the domestic economy. These policies forced Haitian farmers off their land and into the low-lying cities and encouraged the deforestation of Haiti’s hillsides. The policies also severely curtailed the Haitian government’s ability to provide basic public services to its citizens, including healthcare, housing and sanitation services. The result is a country and a population that are acutely vulnerable to environmental stresses like earthquakes, diseases and storms. . . . .

Despite the generous pledges of billions of dollars in assistance by individuals and countries across the world, only a small percentage of promised funds has reached organizations in Haiti, and only a miniscule fraction of the money delivered has reached the Haitian people themselves. Many Haitians are living just as they were immediately after the earthquake with utterly inadequate access to sanitation, shelter, food and clean water.

“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: Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., join Ms. Amanpour to debate the administration’s foreign policy, the role of the U.S. in the world, the formation of a new Iraqi coalition in Iraq, from which Graham has just returned from a congressional delegation visit, and the chances for a bipartisan foreign policy in the new Congress.

She also brings together top voices on the economy with two members of the deficit commission, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and chairman and CEO of Honeywell International, David Cote.  

At the Round Table with George Will, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus and Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution the mixed messages from the White House on  the Bush Tax cuts and President Bush’s new book, “Decision Points.”

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Scheiffer will be joined this Sunday by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. and Sen.-elect Rand Paul, R-Ky.

The Chris Matthews Show: This Week’s Guests Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst, Howard Fineman, The Huffington Post, Senior Political Editor, Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune Columnist and Kelly O’Donnell, NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent will be Mr. Matthew’s guests to discuss these topics.

Which Republican Sees the Best Shot to Run as the Un-Obama in 2012?

The House Republican Plan for 280 Hearings in 2011 to Investigate the Obama Administration

Meet the Press with David Gregory: In his first television interview since Democrats suffered big losses in the midterm elections, Mr. Gregory will sit down with President Obama’s top advisor, David Axelrod and have an exclusive interview with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Joining Mr. Gregory for a Round Table discussion of the Deficit Commission Chair Report and the Bush Tax Cuts will be former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA), former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN) and  Co-Author of “All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis”, Bethany McLean of Vanity Fair.  

As my good friend BillinPortland puts it:

On Meet the Press Sunday: Newt Gingrich, John McCain, Alan Greenspan and Harold Ford. A perfect 10 on the Wanker Scale!!!

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: This Sunday, the focus is on the president’s Asia trip, the Deficit Commission report and the agenda for the lame duck congress. Joining us, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)and  Senator Mark Warner (D-VA).

Then, after an historic election, the balance of power in the House tips to Republican control. What will it mean for the Democrats? We’ll talk to Congressmen James Clyburn of South Carolina and Heath Shuler of North Carolina.

And insight and analysis on the new balance of power with former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn and former Republican Congressman Tom Davis.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS: Mr. Zakaria will be on Hong Kong to talk about President Obama’s Asia trip and America’s diminished influence. He will have a one on one discussion with elder statesmen, George Shultz about the current state of the economy, his advice for fixing it, and his thoughts on world affairs.

Fareeed will then look at the inventions that are coming out of the tiny city-state of Singapore. Next up, what was accomplished on Obama’s trip overseas? GPS has gathered a panel of experts, one from each of the President’s four stops, to break down what Obama’s visit means for the future of U.S-Asian relations.

And finally, a last look at the President shouldn’t be sentimental about at least one aspect of his childhood home of Indonesia.

“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”.

Dan Fromkin: Bush’s Waterboarding Admission Prompts Calls For Criminal Probe

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday joined a growing chorus in the human rights community calling for a special prosecutor to investigate whether former president George W. Bush violated federal statutes prohibiting torture.

In his new memoir and ensuing book tour, Bush has repeatedly admitted that he directly authorized the waterboarding of three terror suspects. Use of the waterboard, which creates the sensation of drowning, has been an iconic and almost universally condemned form of torture since the time of the Spanish Inquisition.

Except for a brief period during which a handful of Bush administration lawyers insisted that the exigencies of interrogating terror suspects justified its use, waterboarding has always been considered illegal by the Justice Department. It is also a clear violation of international torture conventions.

Robert Reich: Why We Should Beware Budget-Deficit Mania

We’re in for another round of budget-deficit mania.

The first draft of the President’s deficit commission, written by its co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is a pastiche of ideas – some good, some dumb, some intriguing, some wacky. The only unifying principle behind their effort seems to be to throw enough at the wall that something’s bound to stick.

At their best, presidential commissions focus the public’s attention – not only on the right solution to some important problem but also on the right problem. Sadly, this preliminary report does neither.

As to solution, the report mentions but doesn’t emphasize the biggest driver of future deficits – the relentless rise in health-care costs coupled with the pending corrosion of 77 million boomer bodies. This is 70 percent of the problem, but it gets about 3 percent of the space in the draft.

Paul Krugman: For Lenders, the Name of the Game Is Extend and Pretend

I’m finding it difficult to write about the recent foreclosure mess in the United States.

Amid the revelations in October that so many mortgage lenders might have been sloppy when processing foreclosure paperwork, attorneys general in all 50 states have now announced they are investigating lenders’ foreclosure practices.

It’s clear that there has been massive malfeasance on the part of the banks (again), but it’s less easy to decide what should be done about it.

One thing is obvious: the main argument in favor of turning a blind eye to this whole situation and avoiding a temporary freeze on foreclosures is wrong.

“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”.

Jane Hamsher: Obama Twists Own Arm, Says “Uncle” to Extending Bush Tax Cuts

Political mastermind David Axelrod says the White House is ready to cave in the wake of imaginary overwhelming pressure to extend all of the Bush tax cuts, exacerbating the “deficit” problem they’ve been completely obsessed with:

President Barack Obama’s top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration was ready to accept an across-the-board continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.

That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week’s electoral defeat.

“We have to deal with the world as we find it,” Axelrod said during an unusually candid and reflective 90-minute interview in his office, steps away from the Oval Office. “The world of what it takes to get this done.”

Me or David Axelrod – one of us does not understand how congress works.

Lame duck.  Democrats still have the majority in the House. So they pass extensions for the middle class, excluding the ones for the wealthy.

Bill Quigley: Why George W. Bush Should Still Worry

Bush Pens True Crime Book, No Justice for CIA Destruction of 92 Torture Tapes

In his memoir (which some wise people have already moved in bookstores to the CRIME section) George W. Bush admitted that he authorized that detainees be waterboarded, tortured, a crime under US and international law.

Bush’s crime confession coincides with reports that no one will face criminal charges from the US Department of Justice for the destruction of 92 CIA videotapes which contained interrogations using waterboarding.

Where is the accountability for these crimes?  

Bush and other criminals will be brought to justice if the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) have their way.  

CCR and ECCHR jointly intervened into a criminal investigation in Spain examining the role of former civilian and military officials from the Bush administration in the commission of international law violations, including torture.  The investigation is ongoing and includes the crimes that Bush admitted he authorized.

John Nichols: The Fight Over Social Security’s Future Is On-But Which Side Is Obama On?

The debate about the future of Social Security has opened, and how progressives respond will decide whether the United States is a civil society or a pirate state where the government’s primary role is to take from the poor and give to the rich.

So far, the response has been mixed. The signals from the Obama White House are bad, with the president indicating openness to “compromises” that would compromise the legacies of the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society. In contrast, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, key Congressional Democrats, labor unions and activist groups are raising all the right objections.

Matthew Rothschild: Shame on Holder and Panetta for Not Going after CIA Destruction of Torture Evidence

If you’ve been a cynic all along, you win again.

I’m referring to the decision this week by the Justice Department not to go after a senior official of the CIA who ordered the destruction of dozens of videotapes of the torture of terrorism suspects.

Remember, this wasn’t a low-level operative of the CIA going off on some rogue mission.

This was the guy who, at the time, was head of the agency’s clandestine service. His name is Jose Rodriguez, and he ordered his staff to destroy the visual evidence, which included a taping of a detainee being waterboarded.

Rodriguez’s lawyer calls him “a hero and a patriot.” I call him a criminal and a creep.

And the Justice Department a bunch of cowards. Attorney General Eric Holder should be ashamed of himself.

“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”.

Robert Reich: Obama’s First Stand

The president says a Republican proposal to extend the Bush tax cuts to everyone for two years is a “basis for conversation.” I hope this doesn’t mean another Obama cave-in.

Yes, the president needs to acknowledge the Republican sweep on Election Day. But he can do that by offering his own version of a compromise that’s both economically sensible and politically smart. Instead of limiting the extension to $250,000 of income (the bottom 98 percent of Americans), he should offer to extend it to all incomes under $500,000 (essentially the bottom 99 percent), for two years.

Dan Fromkin: Ten Flash Points In The Fiscal Commission Chairmen’s Proposal

The two deficit-hawk extremists President Obama put in charge of his fiscal commission released their personal suggestions for cutting the federal budget deficit on Wednesday. And while it’s quite possible that not a one of them will make it into the commission’s official recommendations, which require the approval of 14 of the 18 commissioners (not just two), the document will inevitably be welcomed as a “serious” contribution to the debate – at least by Republicans and conservative Democrats.

But taken as a whole, the plan authored by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson would have devastating effects on the government and its ability to help the most vulnerable in our society, and it would put the squeeze on the middle class, veterans, the elderly and the sick – all in the name of an abstract goal that ultimately only a bond-trader could love.

Here are the top 10 flash points:

Joe Conason: Meet the leader of the Obama witch hunt

If past is prologue, Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa will aim low and cheap — by probing stimulus road signs!

How Darrell Issa will conduct the vital business of the House Oversight Committee when he takes over as chairman isn’t clear yet. When the California Republican describes his plans in the mainstream media, he strives to sound reasonable, bipartisan and public-spirited; but when speaking with media outlets and personalities, such as Rush Limbaugh, he sounds like a hard-line right-winger aiming to revive the paranoid partisan style of the Gingrich era — which would be more in keeping with the reputation he has already established. He displayed the fugue state that preoccupies him when he denounced President Obama on CNN as “the most corrupt” occupant of the Oval Office in modern times – and then withdrew that accusation with an apology.

Now Issa has announced that he expects the Oversight committee and its subcommittees to hold nearly three times as many investigative hearings over the next two years as Henry Waxman, an active and successful chairman, ran during the final years of the Bush administration. He may consider the federal government (and the White House) to be bottomless pits of waste, fraud and abuse, but are there really three times as many troubling issues for Issa and his colleagues to study now as there were in the Bush years?

Dean Baker The Wall Street TARP Gang Wants to Take Away Your Social Security

Just over two years ago, the Wall Streeters were running around Congress and the media saying that if they don’t immediately get $700 billion the world will end. Since they own large chunks of both, they quickly got their money.

Even more important than the hundreds of billions of loans issued through the TARP was the trillions of dollars of loans and guarantees from the Fed and the FDIC. This money came with virtually no strings attached. . . .

The thing about Wall Streeters is that no matter how much money you give them, they always want more. Now they are using their political power and control over the media to attack Social Security.

This effort is being led by billionaire investment banker Peter Peterson. Mr. Peterson has personally profited to the tune of tens of millions of dollars from the “fund managers’ tax subsidy,” an obscure provision of the tax code that allows billionaires to pay a lower tax rate than schoolteachers and firefighters. However, Peterson believes in giving back. He has committed $1 billion to an effort that is intended to take away the Social Security benefits that people have worked and paid for.

“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”.

Joseph C. Wilson: George Bush’s Deception Points

Having read that people began lining up in front of bookstores before former President Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, was due to be released, I hurried off to purchase mine early on November 9, arriving about fifteen minutes after opening time. I have the distinction of being the first person to purchase Bush’s book in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I have a special interest in understanding how the former president sees his decision to invade Iraq and his use of intelligence to justify the invasion. I have also been curious about what he might have to say about the betrayal of a CIA covert officer’s identity, my wife’s, by, among others, two senior members of his staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and Karl Rove. I had seen his interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer in which he volunteered that Scooter Libby was a “loyal” American who had been somehow caught up in the Valerie Plame affair. I was thunderstruck by his description of a man convicted of four counts of lying to federal officials, perjury, and obstruction of justice, the chief of staff to the Vice President who knowingly offered up Valerie Plame’s name to a New York Times reporter, and who was so obsessed with destroying my reputation that he kept a three-ring binder on me and an annotated copy of my book. My expectations for truthful revelation in Bush’s book, after his comment, were naturally low. I have not been disappointed. In fact, Deception Points might have been a more appropriate title.

Richard (RJ) Eskow: Sit! Stay! A New York Times Chew Toy for Blue Dogs

The conservative wing of the Democratic Party just drove it over a cliff, but you’d never know if from reading Matt Bai’s latest New York Times piece. It’s the latest in a series of Bai paeans to that odd mix of ideologies and opportunism that Washington types persist in calling “centrism,” despite its ever-increasing distance from the real center of American opinion.

How is a Blue Dog different from all other dogs? Apparently when you love a blue dog, you lick it.

Like so many other commentators these days, Bai’s so enmeshed in personalities and labels that he never gets around to the issues. In his piece the liberals are fighting with the centrists, Howard Dean’s supporters don’t like Rahm Emanuel, and it’s all a reporter can do just to keep score. Unfortunately he never pauses to consider the possibility that policies, not personalities, might have been the key to victory.

Richard Norton-Taylor: Waterboarding is no basis for truth

George Bush’s defence of torture relies on a belief in information that our intelligence agencies treat with deep scepticism

Bush cannot be allowed to get away with making these kind of claims about information based on torture, information that Britain’s security and intelligence agencies treat with deep scepticism and – as far as the supposed links between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq are concerned – incredulity

“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.

Bob Herbert: The Impossible Dream

One of the most frustrating tendencies of mainstream leaders in the United States is their willingness, year after debilitating year, to embrace policies that have no hope of succeeding.

From Lyndon Johnson’s mad pursuit of victory in Vietnam to George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq to today’s delusionary deficit zealots, the tragic lure of the impossible dream seems never to subside.

Ronald Reagan told us he could cut taxes, jack up defense spending and balance the budget – all at the same time. How’d he do? As his biographer Garry Wills tells us, the Gipper “nearly tripled the deficit in his eight years, and never made a realistic proposal for cutting it.”

President Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan while promising to start bringing our troops home next summer, which is like a heavyweight boxer throwing roundhouse rights while assuring his opponent that he won’t fight quite as hard after the eighth or ninth round.

I don’t know if it’s the drinking water or the rarefied air at the highest reaches of government that makes so many of our leaders go loopy. Whatever it is, we need to put a stop to these self-defeating tendencies. The U.S. is in sad shape, and most of the policy prescriptions being tossed around by the movers and shakers are bad ones.

Peter Daou: On 60 Minutes, President Obama apologizes to America for being a Democrat

The title of this post is intentionally hyperbolic and provocative – I couldn’t think of any other way to express my shock at the things President Obama said to Steve Kroft.

First, some context: I’ve been insistent that the fundamental problem for President Obama and Democratic leaders is a lack of moral authority, a pervasive sense among the electorate that they don’t have the courage of their convictions . . .

The aftermath of the GOP’s midterm triumph perfectly illustrates this problem: Obama is falling over himself seeking compromise with Republicans, ceding to their frames, while Republican leaders say they will stick to their principles and try to destroy his presidency and legacy. Here’s how I put it a couple of days ago: If one side offers “compromise” and the other claims to stand firmly on principle, which one appears more principled to voters?

Astonishingly, in a 60 Minutes piece that just aired, Obama goes one step further. During the course of the entire interview he only once mentions having the courage of one’s convictions. And he attributes it not to himself or Democrats, but to Tom Coburn, a staunch conservative!

Eugene Robinson: Mr. President, some leadership, please

Last week, voters made a powerful statement about leadership: They’d like some, please. So far, there’s no evidence that either President Obama or the top Republicans in Congress were paying the slightest attention.

In his only interview since the GOP rampage, with Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes,” Obama was reasonable, analytical, professorial – but also uninspired and uninspiring. I’m just being honest, if not generous; when Kroft asked whatever happened to Obama’s “mojo,” the president gave the impression that he’s been wondering the same thing.

By uninspired, I mean there was no sense that Obama relishes the high-stakes political battles that are sure to come over the next two years. There was no hint, for example, that he looks forward to the opportunity to put Republicans on the spot about all the unrealistic budget-cutting they say they want to carry out. And by uninspiring, I mean that the president offered no vision of a brighter tomorrow. Instead, he sketched a future not quite as dim as the present.

“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.

Andy Worthington: No Appetite for Prosecution: In Memoir, Bush Admits He Authorized the Use of Torture, But No One Cares

With just days to go before George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, hits bookstores (on November 9), and with reports on the book’s contents doing the rounds after review copies were made available to the New York Times and Reuters, it will be interesting to see how many media outlets allow the former President the opportunity to try to salvage his reputation, how many are distracted by his spat with Kanye West or his claim that he thought about replacing Dick Cheney as Vice President in 2004, and how many decide that, on balance, it would be more honest to remind readers and viewers of the former President’s many crimes – including the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the authorization of the use of torture on “high-value detainees” seized in the “War on Terror.”

As I fall firmly into the latter camp, this article focuses on what little has so far emerged regarding the President’s views on Guantánamo, and, in particular, on his confession that he authorized the waterboarding of “high-value detainee” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which is rather more important than trading blows with a rapper about whether or not his response to the Katrina disaster was racist, as it is a crime under domestic and international law.

Nancy J. Altman: New York Times Columnist Peter Orszag Joins the Social Security Fearmongering Crowd

Former OMB Director Peter Orszag writes a tin-eared response to the elections, in his NYT op-ed, “Saving Social Security.”

Tuesday’s election gave expression to a deep frustration that Washington is not listening to Main Street. This frustration seems reasonable after reading the tin-eared response to the elections penned by former OMB Director Peter Orszag, in his recent opinion piece with its fear-mongering title, “Saving Social Security.”

Social Security is not in need of saving. It is the most fiscally responsible part of the entire federal budget. Its benefits are modest, averaging less than the minimum wage. It is extremely efficient, returning in benefits more than 99 cents of every dollar spent. At its most expensive, when the Baby Boom generation is fully retired, Social Security will cost half as much, in terms of percentage of GDP, that France, Germany and many other countries are paying for their counterpart programs right now, today. Its projected deficit, still decades away, is manageable in size – just 0.7 percent of GDP, about the same amount as extending the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent of Americans. (Paradoxically, Orszag recently penned a piece advocating the extension of those tax cuts)

Barry Eisler: The Definition of Insanity

Last month, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Jack Devine, former CIA deputy director of operations and chief of the CIA Afghan Task Force. When I read it, I thought it was perhaps the most insane op-ed I’d ever come across. But leave it to David Broder, “Dean of the Washington Press Corps,” to try to one-up it just three weeks later.

Let’s take Devine’s piece first. Devine argues that our top priority in Afghanistan must be capturing or killing bin Laden. Devine asks, “We have entered into two problematic wars and have expended a great deal of blood and treasure since Sept. 11. What was it all about, if not capturing bin Laden?”

I think I know now why invading Iraq was “problematic.” You see, bin Laden wasn’t in Iraq. No wonder we can’t find the guy. . . .

And now, Broder.

There’s less to say about Broder’s piece, but only because he expresses his insanity more succinctly than does Devine. First, he lays out his premise: war and peace are the only forces influencing the economy that the president can control. Second, his evidence: World War II resolved the Great Depression. Finally, his slam dunk conclusion: Obama should take America to war with Iran (Congressional declarations of war are so pre-9/11) because war with Iran will improve America’s economy.

“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 with Christiane Amanpour: The Tea Party favorite and newly-elected Republican Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul sits down with Ms. Amanpour for an exclusive interview. House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence and Former Reagan budget director David Stockman debate extending the Bush tax cuts.

Outgoing Democratic Senator Evan Bayh joins the Roundtable discussion with George Will, former Bush political strategist Matthew Dowd, John Podesta of the Center for American Progress and ABC News Political Director Amy Walter.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-SC) join Mr. Schieffer.

The Chris Matthews Show: Mr. Matthew’s guests will be Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, Bob Woodward, The Washington Post Associate Editor, Joe Klein, TIME Columnist and Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent to dscuss these topics:  Will President Obama Change?

and George W. Bush’s New Memoir.

Meet the Press with David Gregory: Mr. Gregory will speak exclusively with the Tea Party’s most vocal backer in the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and then New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R).

His guests for the Round Table discussion will be Former Obama White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, Former Adviser to Pres. George W. Bush Karen Hughes, President of the National Urban League, Marc Morial and Republican Strategist Mike Murphy.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley will be joined by re-elected Gov. Tim Pawlenty (MI) and Gov. Rick Perry (TX) to discuss what  Tuesday’s midterm elections say about the last two years in politics and  what they mean for the next two.

Then, after suffering a historic defeat in the House of Representatives, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), the congressman responsible for electing Democrats to the House, will join us. What’s the way forward for Democrats in Congress after the election?

And Pennsylvania Sen.-elect Pat Toomey (R) joins us to explain how he defeated his Democratic opponent in a state with more than one million more registered Democrats than Republicans. What will he achieve in Washington?

Finally, we’ll be joined by Michael Duffy of Time magazine, and Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post to break down a midterm election with wide-ranging implications.

Fareed Zakaris: GPS. See why Fareed says that if this “Republican Revolution” doesn’t manage to cut the deficit, the American people will be saying “Fool me three times, shame on me”.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman thinks the outlook for the next two years — with a power split in Washington — is “terrible”. In an exclusive interview, Krugman goes head-to-head with the former chief economist of the IMF, the right-leaning Raghuram Rajan on what can be done to fix the U.S. economy…and whether it will ever GET done given the likely of gridlock in the nation’s capital.

Remember when we told you it’s only been a few weeks since the end of WWI? Well, it looks like we might have to wait a little bit longer for WWII to end. Japan never signed a peace treaty with the Soviets or Russia. And President Medvedev’s four-hour tour of an obscure island this week has heated up the cold war between the two nations. What in the world?

After that, we answer the question that has been asked over and over since last week’s thwarted cargo bombings: Is Yemen the next Afghanistan? Fareed speaks with the New York Times’ man in Yemen, Robert Worth.

Then, a look at a moderate Muslim country that’s fighting and winning their war on terror and extremism. An interview with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak.

And finally, how one country could really put the “savings” in “daylight savings”.

It will be Republicans all the time now