| Editorial Board: Inching toward immigration reform Dec 1st 2012, 01:32 PRESIDENT OBAMA'S lopsided margin of victory among Hispanic voters in the presidential election alarmed Republicans and stirred hopes on Capitol Hill that an overhaul of the nation's crippled immigration rules might just be possible. But as they prepare to dance their latest minuet on reforming a broken system, each party is starting with steps that the other finds unpalatable. Read full article >>   |  | Editorial Board: GOP fratricide in Virginia? Dec 1st 2012, 01:31 REPUBLICANS IN VIRGINIA have been busy downsizing their tent for some time, mainly to their own detriment. Despite some success in state legislative elections, which owe much to gerrymandered districts, they have lost three straight elections for the U.S. Senate, two for the presidency and two out of the last three for governor. Not coincidentally, that anemic record coincides with the party's sharp tilt to the right, which has made centrists feel unwelcome. Read full article >>   | | The Post needs to recapture its Style Dec 1st 2012, 01:14 The Washington Post brand is not simply Watergate. Part and parcel of The Post's brand is also the idiosyncratic and irreverent Style section. At its best, Style — sometimes called the "daily magazine" — gave and gives The Post not only voice and cachet but also power. Read full article >>   | | A second-term democracy agenda Dec 1st 2012, 01:12 As he develops his second-term foreign policy agenda, President Obama should include a prudently implemented strategy to expand freedom's reach to those parts of the globe where fear and repression prevail. By embracing support for freedom, the president would advance American interests and burnish his legacy as a leader who achieved major change for the United States and the world. Read full article >> | | How to fight in Afghanistan with fewer U.S. troops Dec 1st 2012, 01:11 Kimberly and Frederick W. Kagan's Nov. 23 commentary, arguing for a force of 30,000 or more Americans in Afghanistan after 2014 ["What we'll need in Afghanistan," Sunday Opinion], is fundamentally wrong. Although their goals are sound — preventing terrorist attacks from the region on the United States — the writers' logic and conclusions about the resources required are flawed. It is possible to protect U.S. interests across that region after 2014 with a force in Afghanistan of 10,000 or fewer American troops. Read full article >> | | It's a close call on Susan Rice Dec 1st 2012, 00:53 The Republican assault on Susan Rice is a fabricated scandal, attacking her for repeating CIA talking points, almost verbatim, to explain the Benghazi attacks. The U.N. ambassador's version, even with its omissions, may turn out to be closer to the truth than some of the inflammatory GOP rhetoric. Read full article >> | | Colleges have free speech on the run Dec 1st 2012, 00:52 In 2007, Keith John Sampson, a middle-aged student working his way through Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis as a janitor, was declared guilty of racial harassment. Without granting Sampson a hearing, the university administration — acting as prosecutor, judge and jury — convicted him of "openly reading [a] book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject." Read full article >> | | New ideas from a new generation of teachers Dec 1st 2012, 00:37 We have all heard about the dramatic changes in the American electorate and how, because he spoke to the concerns of the growing numbers of Hispanic, black, female and younger voters, President Obama was reelected despite adverse economic conditions. Read full article >> | | "A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust" b y Mary Fulbrook Dec 1st 2012, 00:22 Mary Fulbrook, a distinguished scholar of German history who teaches at University College London, has written in "A Small Town Near Auschwitz" a richly and painfully detailed examination of "those Germans who, after the war, would successfully cast themselves in the role of innocent 'bystanders,' even claiming they 'had never known anything about' " the Holocaust. Her specific focus is on a man named Udo Klausa, but she casts a far wider net: Read full article >>   | | "The John Lennon Letters" edited by Hunter Davies Dec 1st 2012, 00:09 "In a hundred years from now," John Lennon sang in a satirical home demo he recorded in New York in 1978, "they're going to be selling my socks, like Judy Garland! And I hope they get a good price!" So the founder of the Beatles predicted this day would come — and as editor Hunter Davies makes clear in his prefatory remarks to "The John Lennon Letters," even the ex-Beatle's unsigned grocery lists and skimpiest doodles now command five figures at Sotheby's. Read full article >>   | | "Restless empire" China and the World Since 1750" by Odd Arne Westad Nov 30th 2012, 23:56 Something good is happening in history departments around the world when it comes to China. Western historians have finally taken a cue from their China-watching counterparts in journalism and put ideology to the side to describe China with a newfound clarity. Gone is the tendentious political correctness that for decades muddled a lot of academic writing on the Middle Kingdom; out, too, is the exoticism of China as a world apart. This is excellent news for people interested in China and the role it played in the past and could play in the future. Read full article >>   | | Who had the worst week in Washington? Susan Rice. Nov 30th 2012, 23:44 By most appearances, the week started off well for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. Widely assumed to be President Obama's pick to be the next secretary of state — as Hillary Rodham Clinton takes a few years off to plan her presidential bid, I mean, to relax — Rice headed to Capitol Hill to meet with a trio of Republican senators who have led the charge for more information about what she knew and when she knew it regarding the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. Read full article >>   | | Petraeus: Not a hero, but not a failure Nov 30th 2012, 23:08 It seems hard to fathom now, but only 15 months ago, Gen. David H. Petraeus stood at attention on a sunny Fort Myer parade ground, listening to his peers compare him to the most accomplished generals in American history. Cannons boomed, sending clouds of white smoke billowing into the air. A band played patriotic marches. Read full article >> | | Big Ten move a loss for U-Md. community Nov 30th 2012, 23:04 In the Nov. 27 Sports article "Loh says Maryland move was not hasty," regarding the University of Maryland's decision to join the Big Ten (actually, Big Fourteen and counting), U-Md. President Wallace D. Loh was quoted as saying: "Your typical fan is looking at it only in terms of today and the game with Duke in January. It's not their job to look at the broader picture of where the university is going over the next 10 to 20 years. That is my job." Read full article >> | | Nov 30th 2012, 23:04 President Wallace D. Loh's defense of the decision to move the University of Maryland to the Big Ten is far more transparent than the process by which he says that decision was reached. By noting his consultation with "school officials, politicians, prominent alumni and donors," Mr. Loh suggested that he does not consider full consideration of the views of faculty and students integral to leading the university. Read full article >> | |
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