President George W. Bush once explained his failure to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with the excuse that, "We can't want peace more than the parties themselves." Dennis Ross, who tried and failed to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace for several decades and under several Presidents, said the same thing.

And now White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel seems to be picking up on the mantra.

In a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Rose on Wednesday night, Emanuel did not sound particularly upbeat about the possibilities of an Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough although he emphasized that the President intends to keep up the pressure.

But then he echoed Bush and Ross: "They [Israelis and Palestinians] live side by side. You can't want this more than they want it."

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Current US foreign policy is driven by what I'd call the "ante up doctrine." The United States is ready to put its chips into the middle of the table and expects the rest of the world community to do the same. Global interconnectedness isn't just about the way problems move across borders; it's about nations' shared obligation to do something about them. In his speech at the UN Wednesday, President Obama reminded his fellow leaders that international bickering and finger-pointing only lets dangers like poverty, nuclear proliferation, and climate change get worse. These ideas about international responsibility help explain what's new and not new about post-Bush foreign policy. They also serve as strategic underpinnings not just of Obama's speech, but of many of his administration's recent moves.

America is no longer saying "you're with us or against us," making demands of other nations rather than working with them to hammer out diplomatic solutions. But Obama is telling the rest of the world "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem"--a standard to which the US will also hold itself. In a parallel with domestic politics, international issues are surrounded with plenty of skepticism over the difficulty of reaching agreement, but not enough heed to the consequences of diplomatic drift and inaction.

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The Atlantic's Jeff Goldberg is concerned that one of this year's MacArthur Genius Grant recipients, filmmaker James Longley is "anti-Israel" and "not particularly clever." He also notes that it is "alas, no surprise" that Longley is on the MacArthur list. As evidence of Longley's bias, Goldberg cites the following quote from the filmmaker.

"To my great relief, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip turned out to be people like everyone else. It's the situation they find themselves in that is extraordinary: The Gaza Strip is essentially an open-air prison for Palestinian refugees, guarded on all sides by the Israeli military. Barely 28 miles long and 4 miles wide, it contains more than 1,200,000 Palestinians - over one third of them living in squalid refugee camps built in 1948 to hold the people forced out of their homes by the creation of modern-day Israel. It is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Nobody can pass through its borders without the permission of the Israeli soldiers. Like the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Most people living in the Gaza Strip have never known a single day of real freedom."

But I've got some news for Goldberg. Everything Longley says in that statement is true.

Below is a compilation of Longley's statements (in italics) followed by Goldberg's attempted rebuttals, then the facts:

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Thanks for the great discussion.

Will, I think you crystallized the problem with our public/media response to Columbine: Many of us shoehorned this tragedy into our existing agendas or preconceptions, consciously or not. We made it fit a model that explained something we needed explained, or accelarated the need for a solution to an existing problem.

By doing so, we whizzed right by the real drivers. What about teen depression? What about our criminally-poor understanding of psychopathy: what causes it, how to ID it, and how to treat it when we discover it? Psychopathy and depression were not the only factors in Columbine, but they were major factors, which have gone ignored.

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The most difficult work a journalist can take on is an emotional autopsy of a tragedy. The breadth of the Columbine horror and its damage on the psyches of a community and nation makes this a torturous assignment. But the emotional truths, in many ways, are just as important to expose as the reality of the horror inside the building and the failures of police; in fact, they elevate our understanding of those horrific details.

The fact that Dave was willing to spend years plumbing the minds and souls of the victims, survivors and killers is a tribute to his emotional stamina and courage. You don't follow in the footsteps of principal Frank DeAngelis where he spots a speck of blood from his best friend on the school room floor, or imagine yourself over and over under the table with student Cassie Bernall without carrying away a lot of pain. You don't immerse yourself in the diary of a killer without testing the limits of your empathy - not to mention inviting criticism from the public for the mere effort.

These are hard exercises, exercises most journalists don't dare undertake.

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In today's speech to the UN General Assembly, President Barack Obama underscored his commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. The speech reiterated the steps his administration has taken or promised to take since his historic April speech in Prague, from pursuing mutual nuclear arms reductions with Russia to pressing for a global agreement banning all nuclear testing to commencing negotiations on ending all production of nuclear bomb-making materials. But perhaps the most newsworthy and important element of the address was his commitment to "complete a Nuclear Posture Review that opens the door to deeper cuts, and reduces the role of nuclear weapons." This means that the president intends to push back against the the clique of nuclear neanderthals in the Pentagon who would like nothing better than to tie his hands by churning out a business-as-usual statement of policy on nuclear weapons.

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Anyone who thought that President Obama was backing away from his commitment to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by moving away from the emphasis on a settlement freeze has already been proven wrong.

In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, the President asserted America's role as honest broker. After eight years during which the President of the United States called on Palestinians to do this, that, and the other thing while ignoring the Israeli occupation, President Obama got right to the heart of the mater: the 42 year occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. (see youtube clip)

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Writing in today's Washington Times, Newt Gingrich declares that "it may seem hard to believe, but the conservative hour in America has once again arrived."

"Seven months after Barack Obama was inaugurated, the left has so mismanaged its opportunity that its hour is over," Gingrich writes. The result: a conservative "moment of opportunity."

Should we be worried?

Yes, and no. Yes, the right is going to make a lot of noise, spew a lot of hate, and even continue to foster a climate of violence surrounding Democrats and liberals.

But this is not the right's moment. Its moment ended.

The "opportunity" Gingrich describes was not created by any fumbles by President Obama or the Democratic Congress but simply because the GOP lost the election, and lost it even though the party nominated a relative moderate who is detested by the base. The crazies lost twice. First the nomination, then the election.

They are going nuts the same way they did when a moderate GOP nominee lost to Harry Truman in 1948.

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President Obama's decision to chair a special session of the UN Security Council focused on nuclear disarmament is an historic step, but you wouldn't know it from reading and watching some of the media coverage that has come out in advance of this Thursday's meeting. The frame for much of the coverage on this and other key issues has been what will he accomplish this week? But that's the wrong question. The question is how will what happens this week set the stage for what needs to happen in the months and years to come. There will be no Mideast peace deal this week, nor will Iran magically agree to drop its nuclear program. But the fact that the President of the United States has chosen to put his power and prestige on the line to seek concrete steps to rid the world of nuclear weapons will yield benefits that will extend far beyond this week.

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The story of Columbine seems so familiar as it's become part of our national consciousness. One word, and we all nod our heads. Ah, yes, Columbine. And we think we know it. Yet revisiting it through your deft, sensitive and insightful narrative brought tears to my eyes, especially in the chapters where you describe the hours during which the violence unfolded. It's the simplicity in which you tell this story, and your restraint from gore and hyperbole, that's so haunting and so moving. I'd like you to talk about how you were able show us the innocence of these young victims whose lives so suddenly end in a place they least expect it, who draw their last breaths in utter surprise, thinking some sort of prank was in progress, unable to comprehend the horrors which they faced. Dave, I think you have shown tremendous respect for the victims and never let us forget that this is their story, as well as Eric and Dylan's.

So, I'll bypass the discussion of examining why this happened, which you so brilliantly addressed, and pose the question about your choices in re-creating that horrific day at Columbine High School, beginning with Chapter 11, "Female Down," which takes us inside the school virtually shot for shot.

Dave, how did you decide to structure this narrative in terms of describing not just what happened, but how you would portray the victims in a way that was both sensitive and real? Too many crime narratives seem overwrought and hackneyed. You were able to take us there, make it real and make us feel something profound.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) seems not to have watched President Obama's televised statement following his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. AIPAC issued a statement citing "dramatic steps" the Netanyahu government has taken "to improve the everyday lives of Palestinian civilians...."

It concludes that "Israel is taking meaningful steps and tangible risks for peace" and urges "the Arab states and the Palestinians to match Israel's commitment to peace with actions of their own."

AIPAC cites the Arab states before the Palestinians because its focus these days is not on any sort of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement but on benefits that can be secured from the Saudis (and other oil-rich Arab states) in advance of any concessions by Israel.

The statement overlooks the fact that President Obama gave no evidence whatsoever that he shares the AIPAC take. In fact, he said that Israelis and Palestinians "cannot continue the same patterns of taking tentative steps forward and then stepping back."

Writing in Ha'aretz, correspondent Aluf Benn says, "In his statement, Obama explained that the Americans are not interested in suggestions raised by Israel - interim agreements which mainly benefit Netanyahu. He also made clear that he does not accept Abbas' refusal to enter into talks until Israel halts settlement construction."

The President has simply had it and is ready to skip intermediate steps and get down to business. "Permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon."

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After a very long security sweep of the Sheraton Hotel & Towers conference space, I finally made my way in to get credentialed for the Clinton Global Initiative, opening this afternoon with a powerhouse panel chaired by the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton.

At the opening of this policy-star studded event, Clinton will host a powerhouse panel of the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama; Chile President Michelle Bachelet; Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Wal-Mart Stores President & CEO Mike Duke; and Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent.

The schedule lists Obama first -- then Clinton, offering deference to the incumbent -- but it also looks like Obama will actually participate in a panel format. I won't fully believe that until I see it -- but if Obama did sit up there with these other global leaders and CEOs, that would be a gesture of creative humility. Though it begs the next question of why corporate CEOs only? Could we not have had a major labor federation chief on stage, or an NGO that was also working hard to sculpt the world into a better place?

Coke. Wal-Mart. Obama.

I should stop nit-picking. It's not President Obama's conference. But a labor leader would have been good.

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I spent a week in Littleton, Colorado, in August 2000, trying to understand what had happened. I was doing a piece with a co-writer for a website, and a Littleton City Council member gave us a guided tour of the area. (He wouldn't take us to the school, so we dropped by on our own later and were on the receiving end of countless, and justified, scowls from students.) He took great pains to explain that Columbine was not, in fact, within Littleton city limits; the school just used the city in its mailing address, and journalists used it in their datelines. "Shame, people will always associate it with us," he said. "Just a misunderstanding, really."

I'm not sure what I was expecting; it seemed such unimaginable evil. I expected, while driving into the city, for the skies to part, for a plume of smoke to be permanently ensconced above the city. But it wasn't like that at all. It was just any other city, like any other place, like any other school.

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So how can the Dow Jones Industrial Average be flirting with 10,000 when consumers, who make up 70 percent of the economy, have had to cut way back on buying because they have no money? Jobs continue to disappear. One out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. Homes can no longer function as piggy banks because they’re worth almost a third less than they were two years ago. And for the first time in more than a decade, Americans are now having to pay down their debts and start to save.

Even more curious, how can the Dow be so far up when every business and Wall Street executive I come across tells me government is crushing the economy with its huge deficits, and its supposed “takeover” of health care, autos, housing, energy, and finance? Their anguished cries of “socialism” are almost drowning out all their cheering over the surging Dow.

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Thanks for joining in Frank and Hugh. There's a lot to talk about.

Hugh, We definitely blew it on Columbine by trying to assign blame too quickly. In retrospect, it seems amazing that we (the media) thought we could have it all figured out--why it happened, who the killers were, what was driving them--in the first day or two. But we did, and we reported it, and it stuck. The data we needed to make those assessments didn't come for months and years. (It was about seven years before we finally got the killers' journals--the most important element of all.)

I'm putting a post together outlining the major myths of Columbine, which will address more of that shortly.

Frank, I am so glad to have your perspective here. I hope it adds to some understanding of what these tragedies can be like for the people going through them. Those anecdotes are all too familiar. People in/around the school began referring to the "Columbine Curse" for at least a few years afterward. The grief seemed to cascade, and under that umbrella of gloom it was hard to separate out random misfortune.

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The large number of people who protested against Barack Obama's healthcare plan in Washington last week drew an enormous amount of media attention. Clearly some of the leaders are certifiably crazy, questioning whether Obama is an American and likening him to Hitler. But many of the protesters had reasonable concerns about how the plan would affect the quality of care that they and their loved ones receive.

It was also striking how often the protesters complained about a government that was out of control and not responsive to ordinary people. One of the items that often came up in the interviews reported in the media was the bank bailout. Clearly this is an enduring and deeply felt cause of resentment.

It would be very hard to tell these people that their concerns on this topic are misplaced.

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It has been the continuing obsession of this writer that we are entering an Interregnum, best summarized by Gramsci's description.

The old is dying and the new cannot be born;in this interregnum there arises a great diversity of morbid symptoms.

The economic collapse that we chronicled here for almost two years has exacerbated the morbidity. Demagogues like Glenn Beck have played on the confusion and uncertainty of the working class--chanelling their anger away from the capitalists and towards a young Black President--"the other". So this anger in the general populace manifests itself in strange ways--racial animus; thuggishness that leads to fame; a general anomie best described almost a century ago by Yeats.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

I've been writing a book called Outlaw Blues about the century long culture war between America's artistic avant-garde and the radical right, and so I can say with some confidence that this current culture war is not new. It's been an ugly battle for 110 years since Mark Twain was denounced by the New York Times editorial page for saying, "I am an anti-imperialist. I'm opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land." Sometimes the artists have just left the country like in the early 1920's--escaping to Paris to avoid the religious bluenoses, the KKK and prohibition. Sometimes the artists have gone to jail, like the Hollywood Ten in 1950. But in each of the earlier periods of rising right wing repression and paranoia, the fever abated in three or four years when responsible Republican's stood up and denounced the dangerous paranoids within their ranks

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She is tactful about it, but in the exchange below between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and The News Hour correspondent Margaret Warner, Clinton suggests that McChrystal is only one of several voices on Afghanistan strategy but that his views are not definitive, and that there are many other decision points. She is respectful that this is his view -- but she is not on board with what the commanding general in the field suggests as of yet.

She makes clear that the President will not be rushed into a decision by the McChrystal report and also emphasizes that the outcome of the Afghan election is not yet decided (wow. . .really?)

Here is the fascinating exchange between Margaret Warner and Hillary Clinton that will appear on The News Hour tonight (to watch video, click here):

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When Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people in Columbine, Colorado, the American psyche received the sort of blunt trauma that psychologists love to learn from. Except: nobody was looking. The focus, instead, was on the parents that failed the two boys, or the bullies that fomented their rage, or the music that inspired them, or the gun industry that enabled them, or the support networks that were underfunded and unobservant.

In COLUMBINE, Dave Cullen explores each of these themes, but the true genius of the work is in its overall coverage of that damaged psyche by delving into our reaction, as witnesses, to this event. There are two human traits highlighted by the book that go largely unnoticed, possibly because they are so pervasive, but more probably because of what they conclude.

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To walk through Columbine High School today is to be struck by the apparent normality of it all. Students greet each other between classes. A teacher jokes with a group of girls and boys in the hall. Band members tote instruments to practice. It's almost as if the shootings of April 20, 1999, had never happened.

But the cheerful ordinariness that prevails on the surface masks a painful paradox: Though the school and the community are gradually returning to normal, they will never, on one level, be "normal" in people's minds again. The name "Columbine" will always signal more than the name of a high school. And those who lived through the killing cannot deny to themselves that their lives have been forever changed, reorganized around tragedy and loss.

That was written in the summer of the year 2000, during my regular visits to Littleton. I was welcomed by the principal and other Columbine administrators because we met earlier at a conference convened by the FBI, came to know and trust each other as we discussed the motives and methods of American school shooters, and as we struggled to find ways to help those responsible for restoring confidence to survivors of such harrowing tragedies.

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I've been wondering whether there's any rationality at all to Republican strategy now. Sometimes the leadership, if that's the right word, embrace the spasms of their farthest-gone crazies, as when Chuck Grassley endorses Glenn Beck, the militias tote guns to town meetings without incurring criticism from the party leadership, and John Boehner votes against censuring Stars-and-Bars Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Then again, sometimes the leadership lurches, afraid to embrace the crazies wholeheartedly but equally afraid to cast them away.

In either case, whether the Republicans tie themselves to their crazies everyday or only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, the Republicans It would seem that insofar as they wear Joe Wilson's albatross around their collective neck, the Republicans have decided to become a frantic, revanchist, regional party of the Confederacy, prairie DaWN (Dakotas-Wyoming-Nebraska), and Alaska. In which case, full steam ahead or only half steam, they're doomed. Right?

But there's one circumstance in which this Republican doomsday strategy has a chance of working--improving their standing in national politics and enabling them to recover from 2006 and 2008. And this is if the economy founders badly enough and Obama is seen as a loser. In which case, the party's consolidated base recovers the ground lost in 2006 and 2008.

Read this fine piece of 2008 campaign analysis by Andrew Gelman and John Sides; and also the various comments, and Gelman's and Sides' responses. Gelman and Sides on 2008:

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In Ted Kennedy's new memoir, the Senator describes his first meeting with Bill Clinton in the White House. The new president had stumbled into a firestorm about gays in the military and had invited the Democratic members of the Armed Services Committee for a consultation. All of the senators went around the room giving their opinions, an unburdening that lasted a whopping two hours, long enough to cost Kennedy a seat at the ballet that night.

Kennedy spoke in favor of lifting the ban, while Robert Byrd, going last, spoke against. Finally, the president spoke up. Here is Kennedy's telling:

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Courage, sacrifice, hero--three words thrown around carelessly these days. Politicians that cross party lines to force compromise on the divisive issues of our day are labeled "courageous." A professional athlete that makes a bold play, leading his team to victory is deemed "heroic." An actor who forgoes a big paycheck for the summer blockbuster to work on a small budget documentary is seen as making a "sacrifice." Don't get me wrong, these acts are worthy of admiration. But for a nation at war, using these terms irresponsibly does a big disservice to those that serve.

Last Thursday, we were reminded of what true courage, sacrifice, and heroism is all about. At a private White House ceremony, worlds away from the polarizing health care fight and the latest Kanye West stunt, President Obama posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to the family of Sergeant First Class Jared C. Monti. The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest decoration for military valor. It's received, not won. And it's a distinction so rare that in 150 years, less than 3,500 servicemembers have received it. To put it in perspective, this is less than the number of troops that have bravely given their lives during the Iraq war.

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I won't pull a Joe Wilson in response -- but I will suggest that President Obama either doesn't understand how Nikita Khrushchev "defined" JFK at the beginning of his term or he is stretching things to sidestep an interesting question on the networks this morning.

From my perspective, then Soviet premier Khrushchev pushed Kennedy hard, highlighting doubts about Kennedy's international commitments and creating a perception of weakness that was reversed only by a nail-biting escalation that nearly resulted in global thermonuclear exchange .

Today on This Week, George Stephanopoulos asked the interesting question of whether any world leader had run circles around President Obama and really surprised him -- compelling him to "step up his game."

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Prof. Stephen Walt writes in today's Washington Post that despite the rise of J Street -- and, I'd add, the decline in Israel's public standing since the Gaza war -- AIPAC is still managing to block President Obama's efforts to advance Middle East diplomacy. This is not a partisan issue, Democrats are, if anything, worse than Republicans when it comes to effectively advancing the interests of the Likud Party. That should change with a Democratic President but, as Walt says, only if the President insists that Democrats stand with him and not Netanyahu.

But he probably won't unless Democrats start making clear to their representatives that being "right" on health care, the environment, and marriage equality does not make up for supporting a one-sided Middle East policy that is decidedly not in American interests simply to keep those campaign contributions roling in. Those policies have turned Palestinian lives into a living hell and will lead, if left in place, to the end of a democratic Jewish state.

Read the piece.

Here is an excerpt:

Plus: Israeli soldiers on Gaza war crimes

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President Obama will be hosting both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas this week. The subject, presumably, will be how to advance the prospects of a Palestinian state, and the agenda, almost certainly, will focus on such things as settlements and security arrangements. What has been getting less attention, but seems the biggest emerging fact on the ground, is the West Bank economy which is being driven by an exceptional, rising business class: the key to Palestine's civil society, around which a state must form. I have spent a good part of the summer talking to these leaders, and report on their achievements--and urgent requirements--in the current Harper's. The bottom line is this: Israel could not invent more appropriate partners to build a Palestinian state, economically federated with itself and Jordan; yet in spite of Netanyahu's exhortations, Israel seems to be doing everything to foil Palestine's economic development. Obama's chief objective must be to get Israel out of its way. (Alas, only Harper's subscribers will currently have access to the entire article. Below are excerpts from the article's opening.)

Benjamin Netanyahu ran for prime minister last winter rejecting a Palestinian state but promising to advance "economic peace." In his much anticipated speech at Bar Ilan University in June, he cautiously reversed himself on statehood but returned to his favorite theme: "Economic peace is not a substitute for peace, but it is a very important component in achieving it. . . . I call upon the talented entrepreneurs of the Arab world to come and invest here."

For Netanyahu's boosters, the phrase often means little more than increasing jobs for Palestinians on Israeli construction projects, including settlements that ring Ramallah, and in tax-exempt industrial zones; as well as more opportunity for West Bank farmers to sell to Israeli fruit wholesalers (who, in a grotesque twist, then pad their profits by controlling the distribution of their produce in Gaza). Economic peace slyly implies that Israelis can have no "partner" for a political settlement until Palestine looks more like Delaware. Meanwhile, presumably, fuller bellies and fatter wallets will make Palestinians more tranquil.

Nevertheless, economic peace prompts a reasonable question. If a Palestinian state rises, will it work? Does not the prospect of sovereignty presume a class of resilient entrepreneurs and professionals, people who will build competitive businesses that will, in turn, employ a burgeoning population?

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