In the Washington Post, Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III, Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Colin L. Powell make the Republican case for ratifying START:
Republican presidents have long led the crucial fight to protect the United States against nuclear dangers. That is why Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated the SALT I, START I and START II agreements. It is why President George W. Bush negotiated the Moscow Treaty. All four recognized that reducing the number of nuclear arms in an open, verifiable manner would reduce the risk of nuclear catastrophe and increase the stability of America's relationship with the Soviet Union and, later, the Russian Federation. The world is safer today because of the decades-long effort to reduce its supply of nuclear weapons.
As a result, we urge the Senate to ratify the New START treaty signed by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. It is a modest and appropriate continuation of the START I treaty that expired almost a year ago. It reduces the number of nuclear weapons that each side deploys while enabling the United States to maintain a strong nuclear deterrent and preserving the flexibility to deploy those forces as we see fit. Along with our obligation to protect the homeland, the United States has responsibilities to allies around the world. The commander of our nuclear forces has testified that the 1,550 warheads allowed under this treaty are sufficient for all our missions - and seven former nuclear commanders agree. The defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the Missile Defense Agency - all originally appointed by a Republican president - argue that New START is essential for our national defense.
Well, it's certainly no endorsement from the Bushes, but maybe the secretaries of state for the past five Republican presidents will be enough for Senator Susan Collins to consider supporting it. Or not.
E.J. Dionne:
What we are witnessing here is the political power that comes from the Republican Party's single-minded focus on high-end tax cuts and the strategic incoherence of a Democratic Party that is confused and divided - and not getting much help from its president.
Obama seems to have decided that showing how conciliatory he can be is more important than making clear where he stands. The administration's strategy is rooted in a fear of what Republicans are willing to do, which only strengthens the GOP's bargaining position.
...
He's right to fight for a restoration of unemployment compensation for about 2 million Americans whose benefits have expired, and for other stimulative measures. And, yes, the Senate should ratify the New START treaty with Russia before the end of the year - though what does it say about us as a country when the president has to offer a tax-cut payoff to get a key foreign policy initiative through?
New York Times:
On Tuesday, looking for “sensible common ground,” Mr. Obama dispatched two top White House officials to negotiate with Republicans on the Bush-era tax cuts. The problem is, common ground has already been found — and abandoned. Both sides have long agreed that tax cuts for people earning less than $250,000 should be extended. That is more than enough. It would preserve $3.2 trillion in tax cuts over the next 10 years. Republicans, however, insist that the high-end cuts also be extended, bringing the total 10-year cost to $4 trillion.
Congressional Democrats were too timid to bring the issue up for a vote before the election and took a beating anyway. Now they are faced with extending the tax cuts in the lame-duck session and are bound to extend some or all of the cuts for the rich. The only real question is in exchange for what, if anything?
Dana Milbank:
On Tuesday, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow a group of states to nullify federal laws with which they disagree.
"This repeal amendment gives states a weapon, a tool, an arrow in their quiver," he told a group of state legislators assembled at the Hyatt in downtown Washington. Of course, states have fired similar arrows before, and it led to a Civil War and Jim Crow - but Bishop wasn't going to get into that.
"I actually hope to have a series of statutes and amendments -- several amendments and several statutes -- that we can introduce this year," Bishop continued, "with the sole goal of not just cutting down the power of Washington to do things to people, but more importantly, is to empower states."
Several amendments? Would it be easier if they just got some red pens and walked over to the National Archives to do the job?
Mark Morford has some questions for God:
Look, I don't mean no wild disrespect, but why shouldn't we call you out on this rigged game you call life? Nothing is really improving down here. Nothing has really changed after all these millennia of worship and fawning and perfectly good virgins hurled into the volcano except, dammit, fewer perfectly good virgins.
How long are we supposed to keep up this charade? How long can you go on without taking a little responsibility for the teeming pile o' havoc thou hast wrought?
Because here's what we're realizing: It's pretty much all your fault, God. Allah. Jesus. Yahweh. Ba'al. Whatever. Here we are, been praising you for what, thousands of years? A million? Dressing in ridiculous outfits, observing silly rituals, offering alms and farm animals and money, falling to our collective knees before whatever wanton form we've assigned to you throughout the ages: the sun, moon, crops, the ocean, flaming tigers, sullen cows, multi-armed blood-spewing demon-goddesses, bearded grandpas in a toga, the perfect martini, you name it. And for what?
Meanwhile, Gail Collins says the Senate's bipartisan passage of the food safety bill could signal the end times are near. But:
Not everybody was impressed by the achievement.
“Oh, my gosh! It’s so important,” said Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m glad I rushed back from our break to work on food safety.”
Brown felt the Senate should have been focusing on economic issues, particularly his effort to stop the extension of unemployment compensation benefits until the Senate agrees to the Scott Brown Unemployment Compensation Funding Plan.
“Is it because I’m a Republican that we’re not going to pass that? Is it because I’m the new guy?” he demanded.
We will now have a moment of silence to contemplate the suffering of Senator Brown. Who had to come back the week after Thanksgiving in order to vote on a major bipartisan bill aimed at keeping people from being poisoned by contaminated food. And then became a victim of discrimination.
The Los Angeles Times urges the repeal of DADT:
We were skeptical in February when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates commissioned a study on how a repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy would be implemented. Our chief concern was that putting the issue to a vote, as the study seemed to do, would obscure the fact that simple justice required repeal. We also worried that the study's outcome might provide a pretext for congressional opposition to allowing gay and lesbian service members to serve openly.
This week the Pentagon released its report, complete with the results of more than 100,000 surveys turned in by service members and their families. Though we continue to believe that "don't ask, don't tell" should have been abolished before any surveys were taken, the results are heartening. More important, they may persuade some senators to end their equivocation and join the House in supporting repeal.
Also, John McCain is "increasingly cranky."
Doyle McManus explains why Wikileaks doesn't tell the whole story on Iran:
The Obama administration deserves credit for getting as far as it has. Critics dismissed Obama's offer of engagement with Iran as naive and his reliance on economic sanctions as ineffective. But the sanctions have had bite, and it was engagement that made the sanctions possible. The problem of Iran hasn't yet been solved, but the administration has made progress, the kind of progress that a collection of leaked cables can't always convey.
Oh goody. The Washington Post has hired a new conservative blogger. But, believe it or not, Jennifer Rubin actually has some kind of sound advice for conservatives:
Conservative activists, TV cablers and the like use rhetorical flourishes and insults to garner attention, but candidates and office holders need to subscribe to a higher standard. You can be for border enforcement without dubbing opponents "pro-illegal alien." You can lambaste the president's foreign policy results without ascribing ill-motives to his decisions, as foolish as you think they may be. Conservatives complain that this White House has been among the most rhetorically partisan in memory. Yes, the White House has gone after critics from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News to the Chamber of Commerce, sometimes with zero factual evidence for the attacks, as was the case in the "foreign money" smear against the Chamber. But the "White House did it first!" isn't justification for Republicans to return the barbs.
Karl Rove says Nancy Pelosi has an "unquenchable passion for class warfare" like it's a bad thing.