Abbreviated Pundit Round-Up

Your one stop pundit shop.

Bob Herbert argues forcefully and persuasively against escalating our involvement in Afghanistan:

The government we are supporting in Afghanistan is a fetid hothouse of corruption, a government of gangsters and weasels whose customary salute is the upturned palm. Listen to this devastating assessment by Dexter Filkins of The Times:

“Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.”

Think about putting your life on the line for that gang.

If Mr. Obama does send more troops to Afghanistan, he should go on television and tell the American people, in the clearest possible language, what he is trying to achieve. He should spell out the mission’s goals, and lay out an exit strategy.

He will owe that to the public because he will own the conflict at that point. It will be Barack Obama’s war.

Ron Chernow wants a "sweeping inquest" into how the current economic crisis came be, and says to look at Ferdinand Pecora's investigation into the causes of the 1929 crash for inspiration.

Richard Cohen says that it's stupid to blame the current conflict on Israel, but that:

The horrors of war are not to be dismissed or demeaned. In 2006, Israel accidentally killed 28 civilians in the Lebanese village of Qana when it attempted to take out a nearby rocket site. In Gaza, innocent Palestinians are being killed. The suffering is great and cannot be ignored. But what has been ignored is the series of events that led to this war. Anyone could see how it was going to start. As always, though, it's a lot harder to see how it ends.

Kathryn Lopez is upset at the "orgy of abstinence bashing" after a study said that teens who take "virginity pledges" are as likely to have sex as those who haven't taken the pledge.

William McGurn, while less colorful than Lopez, goes after the same study on teens and sex.

E.J. Dionne Jr., on what the current fight to lead the Republican National Committee says:

Right-wing loyalists can talk all they want about how President Bush's problem was that he wasn't "conservative enough," but the numbers show they are misunderstanding their party's problem. Obama and Kaine are appealing to a moderate country moving gradually in a progressive direction and have a party behind them prepared to grapple with the realities of politics now.

Ben Lieberman is afraid the incoming Obama administration won't want to drill, baby, drill.

Steve Calabresi and Michael Saks argue that justice requires twelve angry men, not six.

H.D.S. Greenway says that the "times are too dangerous, both at home and abroad," to waste time trying to stop Roland Burris from being seated as the newest Senator from Illinois.