PostPartisan

Peace negotiations with the Taliban?

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:52:48 -0500

Memo to the Taliban: We’re not saying “no” to peace negotiations, assuming you are willing to dump Osama bin Laden and stop shooting U.S. soldiers. But we’re not saying “yes,” either. Yours sincerely, Hillary Clinton, secretary of state. That’s the way I would read the oblique and little noticed message that Clinton delivered Monday. Asked about Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s call Sunday for a loya jirga council that would include Taliban members, she said this: “Obviously we are going to ask questions about how it proceeds. But the general idea of exploring this is one that we have been open to.” I’m skeptical that either side is really ready for peace negotiations. U.S. officials have been saying for many months that they favor an eventual reconciliation with the Taliban as part of an overall political solution, but only if the Taliban abandons Al Qaeda and agrees to lay down

Holder's decision is embarrassing and offensive

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:20:36 -0500

Two weeks ago, in the Friday news black hole with President Obama safely on the way to Asia, Attorney General Eric Holder announced his decision to award five Sept. 11 conspirators, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the full rights of American citizens at a federal trial. Holder perhaps hoped the tides of the cable cycle would wash the news away. They haven’t, for a number of reasons. First, Holder’s Senate testimony on the trials added to public concerns instead of allaying them. He was unprepared for obvious questions. What would happen if the terrorists were acquitted? “Failure is not an option,” said Holder, in violation of the principle of due process -- a response Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) properly called “ludicrous.” Could he point to a single case in U.S. history in which an enemy combatant caught on the battlefield was tried in civilian court? Holder answered that he’d “have

The truth about the public option

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:40:35 -0500

I am in trouble with the left -- again -- over the public option for health care. My offense? On MSNBC Monday, Andrea Mitchell asked, "how do they water down the public option to make it acceptable to some of the moderates but placate some of the more liberals?" My response, in part: The president, I think, is going to have to tell the left wing of his party and the balking liberal senators that it is crazy to pull down the entirety of health care over this one issue which the president has already said is not the be all-end all of health reform. This remark -- or, more precisely, blog commentary about the remark -- has generated too many e-mails to respond to each individually. But the more civil among them deserve a thoughtful response. One e-mailer writes: It seems to me that the left has been

Where is Sanford's shame?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:29:39 -0500

By Jo-Ann Armao I don’t know what reaction I expected from South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford to findings that he violated state ethics laws. Maybe some chagrin? Perhaps some thought to the idea maybe he should resign to spare himself, his family and his state further agony? Or, at the very least, the good sense to just say nothing? Instead, Sanford, through this attorney, had the temerity to dismiss the charges as “technical questions.” As if there is anything technical about using state planes for political trips or having taxpayers underwrite private flings. I guess, though, that the distinction between right and wrong, lawful and outrageous is lost on a man who thinks nothing of leaving his four sons over Fathers Day to travel to another time zone for a tryst with his mistress. And I guess that someone who thinks the public is so stupid that it will buy

Oh, the travails of being a Justice

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:20:18 -0500

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy recently found himself in the middle of a mini-scandal. The reason: His office demanded that he be allowed to pre-screen an article in the Dalton School’s student newspaper about the justice’s recent visit -- not exactly copacetic with First Amendment values. Justice Kennedy also barred the professional press from the event -- something he does routinely in a school setting. Kennedy is only the latest robed one to meet with criticism for trying to control media access to his outside appearances. Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, is notorious for routinely -- although not uniformly -- barring television cameras or other recording devices from his speeches. And don't bother broaching the subject of allowing cameras in the Supreme Court during oral argument unless you're prepared to endure a rant about the corrupting influence of television coverage. As for the latest controversy: Kennedy’s grandson attends

Obama's Asian misstep

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:01 -0500

There's been a lot of misguided criticism of President Obama's trip to Asia. You're upset that he bowed to the emperor of Japan? Get over it. Obama was being respectful -- which was in keeping with the tone of his trip. His overall message seemed to be that the United States values its relations with Asian nations and intends to be a presence in the region -- but a polite one, willing to listen as well as lecture. That's as it should be. The president did make one remark, though, that made me wince. Speaking with NBC News, he rightly noted China's "unprecedented" economic progress since 1979, and then said: "One of the things I'm confident about is that when you start seeing economic freedom like that then political freedom starts, starts gearing up." This has been the operating assumption of U.S. presidents for many years, and it's time

Can't we celebrate a little on health care?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:52:08 -0500

Something truly momentous happened in the United States Senate last night, and almost all of the accounts today involve carping. Typical is the Politico headline: “How health care reform could fall apart.” Okay, it’s entirely true that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s success in putting together 60 votes to let debate on a health-care bill go forward is only a first step. A final bill is a long way from passage, and of course many things could go wrong. My colleague Ezra Klein is right to quip that this was a case of “60 votes to go find 60 votes.” But can we pause to note that a comprehensive health-reform bill has never been this close to passage? The House has passed a bill. Yet most of the post-game analysis of the House’s action two weeks ago focused not on the bill but on the fight over abortion that

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Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:52:08 -0500

Are Americans really 'food insecure'?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:26:22 -0500

Many families are struggling in today’s economy, and this has hurt their food budgets. This week an Agriculture Department study showed that 16.4 million U.S. households containing 49.1 million people experienced “food insecurity” in 2008, up from 12.2 million households containing 36.2 million people in 2007. Fortunately, Congress has already addressed some of the problem with a significant food-stamp boost in the stimulus package adopted in February. But is “hunger” widespread in America these days? That is the misleading impression created by press coverage of the USDA study. Headlines in the New York Times print edition (“49 Million Americans report a lack of food”), USA Today (“1 in 6 went hungry in America in 2008”), and The Washington Post (“America’s economic pain brings hunger pangs”) made it sound as if famine stalks the land. The stories were salted with terms such as "alarming" and "dramatic." When you crack into

Ruth Marcus going rogue

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:28:39 -0500

My normally mild-mannered colleague Ruth Marcus has gone rogue about my recent column on Eric Holder’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other Sept. 11 conspirators in Manhattan. She makes a number of sincere but flimsy arguments that deserve a response. But let me start by expressing concerns about Marcus’s disturbingly inconsistent commitment to equality before the law. In her post, Marcus refers to Mohammed as the “Sept. 11 mastermind.” Shouldn’t that be “alleged Sept. 11 mastermind?” It is Holder’s intention, after all, to give him the full range of constitutional protections -- just like any American citizen facing trial. Why is Marcus so insensitive to his rights? She goes on to assure us that Mohammed will not gain a platform for his Islamist views because an “experienced federal judge” can shut him up in court. But why should this defendant be denied the right to speak fully

Who promoted Hasan?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:16:54 -0500

Who promoted Peress? That was the question posed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, the indefatigable red-hunter of the 1950s, regarding an obscure army dentist named Irving Peress who was promoted from captain to major despite having refused to answer questions regarding his loyalty. That right-wing rallying cry ought to be revived, only this time to pose a much more serious question: Who the hell promoted Nidal Malik Hasan? The case of the Army psychiatrist charged with the murder of 13 persons at Fort Hood raises many questions -- about terrorism, of course, and whether the massacre could have been prevented. But it also makes me wonder how Hasan went from captain, which he was in April, to major, which is what he was the day he allegedly went on his homicidal rampage. The question is pertinent because while he was a mere captain and stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical

Dining on death row

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:34:16 -0500

By Jo-Ann Armao Larry Bill Elliott died in Virginia’s electric chair Tuesday night and, among other things, his last meal wasn’t revealed. Officials at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt withheld the details at Elliott’s request. The decision -- like that a week earlier not to disclose the last meal of executed Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad -- irked me. Why should these men get privacy? Muhammad was responsible for a reign of terror that is still felt in the Washington area. Elliott, in a twisted bid to win the love of a former stripper, killed a young couple that was involved in a bitter custody dispute with the woman. Who cares what they think? Don’t public tax dollars pay for this food? Mostly, though, I have always been fascinated by what those condemned to die choose to eat as their last meal. And I am not alone. A former

Lindsey Graham's disappointing filibuster vote

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 17:17:36 -0500

What happened? I haven't always agreed with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, but I've long respected him for taking principled stances even when that meant parting ways with his party's orthodoxy. Graham recently triggered the ire of South Carolina conservatives by joining Democrats in support of cap-and-trade legislation. He has been criticized by the right for working with those across the aisle on immigration reform that could pave the way for millions of illegal immigrants to live legally in the United States. And Graham was a member of the Senate's "Gang of 14" that put an end to the routine use of filibusters to block George W. Bush's judicial nominations. Although the pact meant most Bush nominees would ascend to the bench, Graham and the other GOP gang members were pilloried by some on the right who would have loved to continue the nominations showdown as a

Does football cause domestic violence?

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:26:17 -0500

Does professional football cause domestic violence? Not exactly, although Thanksgiving does (see below.) But it turns out that losses in professional football games -- specifically, when the home team suffers an unexpected upset, based on the pre-game point spread -- lead to an 8 percent spike in the number of police reports of spousal abuse within a short time of the game. The more important the game -- against a main rival, or for a playoff spot -- the bigger the spike. And in especially frustrating games, those with a large number of sacks, turnovers and penalties, the effect of an unexpected upset on an increase in domestic violence was 15 percent. Unexpected wins, on the other hand, were not associated with a reduction in domestic violence reports. And, if you had any question, the increased violence was entirely male-on-female, according to the newly released National Bureau of Economics

"Black Man!"

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:10:29 -0500

File this one under quirky observation. On Sunday, Post writer Keith Richburg filed an interesting story from Shanghai about racial prejudice in China on the eve of President Obama's arrival there. The story explored the negative view of blacks in the wake of a half-Chinese, half-black singer named Lou Jing winning "Go! Oriental Angel" -- that nation's answer to "American Idol." Folks used the internet to call her a "black Chimpanzee" among other things. "[T]he widely held view here," Richburg reported, "[is] that black people are inferior, that white people are wealthy and successful." Then came the picture on the front page of Wednesday’s Post of Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao at an arrival ceremony Tuesday in Beijing. Looking at the soldier to the left of Hu, the one second to the right of Obama and the one at the end, I couldn't help but wonder what they

On Gerson's takedown of Attorney General Holder

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:17:10 -0500

I’d like to propose Marcus’s General Theory of Punditry: the intellectual force of a column tends to be in inverse relationship to the amount of invective. Today’s example -- and, yes, I’m sure it would be easy to apply this to some of my own -- is my normally mild-mannered colleague, Michael Gerson. Gerson denounces Attorney General Eric Holder as “the most destructive member of Barack Obama’s cabinet.” Holder’s original sin, according to Gerson, was having a special counsel review allegations of criminal misconduct growing out of the Bush administration’s torture policies. But what really set Gerson off was last week’s move to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal court. Any ensuing trial, Gerson says, will be conducted in “a circus atmosphere,” with “America subjected to the airing of intelligence sources and methods” and Mohammed awarded “the full O.J. Simpson treatment.” Holder himself is depicted as