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Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation
It is absolutely mind boggling to read of the pay-to-play corruptiongone wild in the indictment against Governor Rod Blagojevich - from withholding money for a children’s hospital unless given campaign contributions, to trying to sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder, to demanding editors be fired by the Tribune Company in exchange for help selling Wrigley Field, to speeding up all of these efforts before a new ethics law taking effect this January 1…. not to mention the egomaniacal profanity with which Blagojevich issued his demands.
But beyond the shock and sadness of this moment, what’s key is something that novelist Scott Turow zeroed in on in a New York Times editorial today. He writes, “I hope the governor’s arrest galvanizes public outrage and at last speeds reform.”
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor, The Nation
"The past week's events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone.... Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to all."
–Mikhail Gorbachev, Washington Post, August 12
Former Soviet President Gorbachev's condemnation of Georgia's assault on Tskhinvali on the night of August 7, which precipitated the larger Russia-Georgia conflict, reminds us that if we had heeded his vision of a truly post-cold war world, we might not today be confronting such dangerous geopolitical gamesmanship. It should also remind us, as a wobbly cease-fire is put in place, that the conflict has been flagrantly misreported in this country.
I am heartsick at the violence and brutalities on all sides. Georgian, South Ossetian and Russian friends have all suffered. Yet commentary in the US media, almost without exception, has turned a longstanding, complex separatist conflict into a casus belli for a new cold war with Russia, ignoring not only the historical and political reasons for South Ossetia's drive for independence from Georgia but also the responsibility of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for the current crisis. So eager have commentators been to indict Vladimir Putin's Russia that they have overlooked Washington's contribution to the rising tensions.
FULL POST
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/06/16/art.sanderseconomy.jpg caption="Senator Bernard Sanders addresses the press during a conference on the economy June 11, 2008."]
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor, The Nation
It started with one simple question posed by Senator Bernie Sanders to his constituents in an invitation to a town meeting: what does the decline of the middle class mean to you personally?
Over 700 people replied.
A second question was asked in his e-newsletter, The Bernie Buzz: do you have a story to tell about how gas prices are affecting you?
Over 1200 responses.
"The volume of responses was stunning," Sanders told me. "Most people in my state – especially in rural areas – do not feel comfortable telling people about their struggles. ‘He has it worse than I do, I'll be fine. Thanks for asking.' It's just not a natural thing [to share these struggles]…. The other point that has to be underlined – this is not an interview at the homeless shelter. These are letters from working families, from middle class families… [and] people who've worked their whole lives who expected to have a minimal degree of economic security but are now finding themselves with nothing."
FULL POST
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor, The Nation
John McCain's widely-touted speech on nuclear security has been treated by the mainstream media as a major break with Bush Administration policy. And while there are elements which diverge from some of Bush's destructive politics and policies–it is, after all, an Administration which has shredded several decades worth of bipartisan arms control agreements with the Russians– it's also important to understand that McCain continues to define the problem through the prism of the Bush Doctrine.
How, for example does McCain, who seeks to expel Russian from the Group of Eight industrialized countries, anticipate negotiating successful arms agreements with the expelled country? How does a candidate whose neocon "League of Democracies" proposal–which would exclude Russia and, in doing so, undermine any role that country could play in dealing with Iran and securing weapons of mass destruction–expect Moscow to be receptive to real efforts on nuclear cooperation? Instead of hailing McCain's stance as a sign of his newfound realism –and a Johnny-Come-Lately break with the neocons– it's critical to put McCain's remarks into a larger context.
I asked Joseph Cirincione, president of the respected Ploughshares Fund and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, for some deeper analysis of McCain's speech:
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor, The Nation
Check out CNN.com for Bill Clinton's vent about how a "cover up " is hurting Hillary Clinton's chances of becoming the Democratic nominee. This is a man who has trampled on his spouse's voice every time, in this campaign, that she's found it.
The women of The Nation are the first to deplore the sexism in media commentary this primary season, but a "cover up"?
Hillary Clinton started this race last year as the one to beat–she had the money, the machine and the name recognition that assured her of quasi-incumbent status. And, indeed, she ran as a quasi-incumbent, an establishment candidate in a change- year election. Yes, there were the Chris Matthews and the Tucker Carlsons and the Mike Barnicles and the Rush Limbaughs and the women who were working out their Clinton hatred through Hillary's candidacy.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor, The Nation
Jim Webb can make the Four Seasons feel like a diner in Owensboro, Kentucky. It's that kind of blue-collar street cred that may be just what it takes to propel the first-term senator from Virginia onto the Democratic ticket as vice president.
On Monday night, at a party for his latest book, "A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America," the first term Senator from Virginia filled the dining citadel of elitism with a spirited mix of active duty and retired Marines and New York's media glitterati. After he said a few words, Webb remained at the made-for-the-occasion podium–as if he were campaigning–and took questions.
Ronald Reagan's former Secretary of the Navy has refocused the warrior ambition that made him the most highly decorated Vietnam-era Marine from his Naval Academy into a passionate, progressive and patriotic populism. When asked, by The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg, what he thought of those who opposed the Vietnam war, Webb said "I never had a problem with those who properly opposed the war. I had a problem with the way vets were treated when they got home."
FULL POST