Tom Wright:
But the main charges against Goldberg['s piece in The Atlantic] aren’t about loading the cost-benefit analysis. They’re about framing the future debate. His piece leaves you thinking that Israel will attack Iran very soon unless America does the honors. So the debate becomes about who should bomb Iran, not about whether Iran should be bombed.
And this is the way Israel’s hawks want the debate framed. That way either they get their wish and America does the bombing, or, worst case, they inure Americans to the prospect of a bombing and thus mute the outrage that might otherwise ensue after a surprise Israeli attack draws America into war. No wonder dozens of Israeli officials were willing to share their assessments with Goldberg, and no wonder “a consensus emerged that there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July.”
Harold Meyerson:
Not to be difficult, mind you, but what is it that the Democrats see themselves running on in the next 75 days -- or, for that matter, the next two years? Health-care reform? Since many of its benefits don't kick in until 2014, it exists in the minds of millions of Americans chiefly as a nebulous threat. Financial reform? A major achievement, but largely negated by the public's perception that the Obama administration, like its predecessor, moved heaven and Earth to bail out the banks. The economy? The evidence is overwhelming that the Obama stimulus saved millions of jobs, but the economy is still the worst we've seen since the Depression, and there are almost no signs that it's going to get better.
Neal Peirce:
The rest of the world is starting to notice the United States' incarceration follies. ...
The grim statistics noted: Some 2.3 million people, more than the population of 15 of our states, are now incarcerated — one in 100 adults. That's quadruple our 1970 imprisonment rate. For hard-to-defend reasons, and at staggering fiscal cost, we incarcerate people at a rate five times Great Britain's, nine times Germany's, 12 times Japan's.
We're still No. 1 in something. Even China, Russia and Iran are behind us when it comes to sticking people in prison.
Jarvis DeBerry:
Sunday morning, when my congregation began singing Andrae Crouch’s song “Bless the Lord,” my mind wasn’t on the song so much as it was on Baton Rouge. ...
How much harder it would have been to sing if I knew that as I worshiped at Second Baptist, New Orleans police officers were rushing to the Danziger Bridge where, according to authorities, they would kill two and maim four innocent and unarmed civilians.
Singing the song Sunday didn’t trigger flashbacks, as I feared it might, meaning it didn’t make me as sad as I felt that morning in Baton Rouge. I don’t know if I can feel that sad again. I pray I don’t, at least.
Joel Bleifuss:
It’s time the democratic wing of the Democratic Party demands that our elected officials promote a progressive agenda. We urge you to join our friend Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in his campaign on behalf of Warren. Go to his website (www.sanders.senate.gov), and sign his petition. As Sanders says, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection needs a director like Warren who is “serious in standing up to Wall Street and providing the consumer protection [Americans] need.”
Larry Korb and Loren Thompson:
America began the new millennium with optimism and confidence. Today, two recessions and two wars later, the optimism is weakened and the confidence is waning. U.S. military spending has risen to nearly half of the global total, but the U.S. share of global output is eroding steadily as other economies grow faster.
Gotta keep those 800 overseas U.S. military bases running while the Chinese plan a trip to the moon and $738 billion in spending on renewables - both in the next decade.
Andrew J. Bacevich:
Within the past week, complaints dribbling out of Petraeus’s headquarters in Kabul—duly reported by an accommodating press—indicate growing military unhappiness with the July 2011 pullout date. Now, Petraeus himself has begun to weigh in directly. This past weekend, he launched his own media campaign, offering his “narrative” of ongoing events. Unlike the ham-handed McChrystal, who chose a foreign capital as his soapbox, Petraeus sat for a carefully orchestrated series of interviews with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC’s “Meet the Press,” each of which gratefully passed along the general’s view of things.