The Failure to Administer Justice — Another Lockerbie Tragedy by Michael Reagan At a time when civilized nations are continuing to wage a collective and challenging fight against terrorist organizations, and the rogue nations that harbor them, this week’s release by Scottish officials of one of the masterminds behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing constitutes a major setback. Just as importantly, it has...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to appear on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Via tweet from Kyle Moore, comes this op-ed from Geoff Garin about which political party most needs another Ted Kennedy:

After a half century of seeing Kennedys up close and reporting their history, watching Ted Kennedy’s funeral prompts renewed wonder about the complexity of American fame. President Obama’s eulogy, eloquent as always, was after all the tribute of someone who has known Ted Kennedy for only a few years, graciously lauding him as “a Happy Warrior” and “a kind and tender hero.” His...

Today the voters in Japan are headed to the polls and if the pre-election polling is correct the long dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is going to experience a defeat, quite possibly by landslide margins. The LDP has ruled Japan for almost all of the 54 years since the end of World War Two but they have suffered major losses recently, including the loss of control of the less powerful upper house. This...

As I am writing this, Senator Edward M. Kennedy is being laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. He joins his two slain brothers, John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. In fact, Senator Kennedy is being buried only a short distance from where his brothers are buried, and where an eternal flame lights the graves not only of the former president and the former First Lady, Jacqueline...

If the Pulitzer Prize Committee had a category for stenographic journalism, this WaPo piece by Peter Finn, Joby Warrick, and Julie Tate surely would win it. The article is three full screens of tripe like this:

Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi after stepping aboard the Libyan aircraft that would whisk him away to Libya, August 20. Did ‘the powers that be’ decide that pursuing the best leads after the Lockerbie bombing, aka/Pan Am Flight 103, was politically inconvenient? According to this analysis by Pierre Prier of France’s Le Figaro, the need to keep Iran and Syria ‘on board’...

As the nation pays its final respect for the life and times of Sen. Edward Kennedy it has become clear to me we will never again see a politician of his stature grace the halls of Congress. That is sad. What struck me was the litany of friends and foes alike who all agreed on one basic principle: Ted Kennedy was a man of his word. He was passionate in his beliefs even though many disagreed. He was an engaging...

Within the last month or so, we had a string of comments and even a few posts wherein labels like “stupid” were attached to one or another derided group or individual. As the so-called “managing editor” of this blog, I sent a friendly reminder to our contributing writers that we (at the very least) should not contribute to the careless proliferation of such labels. I won’t flaunt...

Too-big-to-fail is morphing into bigger-than-ever swallowing up failing-faster-than-ever. The nation’s largest banks, infused with taxpayer billions, are feasting on the weak as the Washington Post reports that “no consequence of the crisis alarms top regulators more than having banks that were already too big to fail grow even larger and more interconnected.” FDIC chair Sheila Bair sums it...

Here’s CBS live streaming video of Ted Kennedy’s funeral: Free TV : Ustream

Even Camelot Needed Health Care by Michael Winship Toward the end of George McGovern’s failed presidential bid in 1972, I was helping advance a bus trip for vice presidential candidate Sargent Shriver. The final weekend of the campaign, his caravan would start in New Hampshire and work its way down the Eastern seaboard, holding rallies along the way and winding up in Washington, DC, just before...

Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

Ronald Bailey at Reason objects to Ezra Klein’s objection to Charles Krauthammer’s repetition of the rightist canard that government-funded health care will lead to rationing.

Senator Joe McCarthy covers the microphone as he listens to his nearly-as-notorious legal aide, Roy Cohen, in 1954. Is Hollywood being too hard on America’s one-time anti-communist crusader, Senator Joseph McCarthy? Furthermore, is the ‘factory of dreams’ too kind to those whose lives the late senator ruined? In the newspaper Rceczpospolita, Poland’s very own anti-communist crusader,...

In this surprisingly critical article from China’s state-controlled Xinjingbao [Beijing News], the author castigates the authorities for relying on foreign justice to identify graft – and for failing to pursue those who have taken bribes from American companies. Given the appearance of this article in the state-controlled press, one can assume that Beijing has been embarrassed by disclosures from...

It’s barely political debate or discussion any more — it’s pure polemics and varying degrees of demonization.

Daphne Eviatar at The Washington Independent reports that ABC’s Brian Ross and Matthew Cole were told by a former CIA intelligence official that the blacked-out sections contain information about three detainees who died while under CIA interrogation, and an unspecified number whose whereabouts are unknown:

Well, the Republicans are to blame, of course. But, for Democrats, here’s some much-needed perspective from TNR’s Jon Chait: The Senate is what controls the process. That’s the chokepoint for any health care bill. The question isn’t how badly Obama wants a public plan, or how much he cares about bipartisanship. It’s whether moderate to conservative Democrats in the Senate will filibuster...

When bringing to the attention of our readers articles written by others, I normally try to add some of my views, my own perspective—my two cents’ worth. In the wake of Senator Kennedy’s death, three giants at the Washington Post have written opinion pieces on the Senator’s passing. Yesterday, David S. Broder and George F. Will wrote “A Man Unbowed and Unchanged,” and “The...

I mean, REALLY. The bottom line is that even with U.S. politics’ steady decline into demonization over the past decades, the bar is being lowered each day. There’s always the “Oh, I didn’t really mean it that way” afterward – but the bar is being lowered in political discourse in public and on the airwaves, seemingly each day. It can be argued that the bulk of people don’t...

David Brooks: We have been taught since, well, since the days of Camelot to admire a particular sort of politician: the epic, charismatic Mount Rushmore candidate who sits atop his charger leading transformational change. But the founders of this country designed the Constitution to frustrate that kind of leader. The Constitution diffuses power, requires compromise and encourages incrementalism. The founders...

It will be a short trip for Barack Obama from his vacation site in Martha’s Vineyard to Ted Kennedy’s funeral in Boston tomorrow, but the Senator’s interment will be the start of a longer, tougher journey for the President. He will have to follow his mourning by channeling the departed’s gift for inside politics, summoning up Kennedy’s legendary blend of toughness and people skills...

The Economist magazine announces in almost celebratory tone that “big business” is back. But a spirited discussion follows in the comments section on the merits and demerits of big corporations. Recalls The Economist: “In 1996, in one of his most celebrated phrases, Bill Clinton declared that ‘the era of big government is over’. He might have added that the era of big companies...