Politics: Obama’s Lobbyist Connection | Newsweek Scope

Underqualified for the Overrated
Christopher Hitchens 10/10/2009 12:00:00 AM
Alfred Nobel had one odd thing in common with Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway and Marcus Garvey. He had the chance to read about his own death in the newspapers. It seems that he was so depressed by the emphasis that the obituarists laid on his pioneering work on dynamite—the WMD of its day—that he resolved at once to upgrade his real death notice by endowing an award for international peace.
Africa’s Last, Next War
Jason McLure 10/8/2009 12:00:00 AM
Arab horsemen toting Kalashnikovs provided by the Sudanese government thunder into a town. Women are raped in their huts. Men are gunned down as they flee for the bush, and children are packed off on the back of the raiders' horses while stolen cattle are herded away to be sold.
Motley Crew
Katie Connolly 10/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
If President Obama decides to endorse Gen. Stanley McChrystal's plan to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan, he'll find an unlikely assortment of allies. Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin wrote a note to her Facebook followers stressing her belief that the additional troops were integral to success in Afghanistan. In September, she joined Karl Rove, William Kristol, David Frum, Robert Kagan, and more 30 other conservatives in signing a letter that urges the president to "give our commanders on the ground the forces they need to implement a successful counterinsurgency strategy." On Tuesday, Sen. John McCain told reporters that he was "very convinced that General McChrystal's analysis is not only correct but should be employed as quickly as possible." Possible GOP 2012 contenders Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, both supportive of McChrystal's assessment, concur. And Obama would also receive the blessing of hawkish Democrats like Evan Bayh of Indiana and House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri, who said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation that he supported additional deployments. All these voices—representing vying factions across the political spectrum—have a shared chorus: "Give the general what he needs."
The Question Remains
Arian Campo-Flores 10/6/2009 12:00:00 AM
As Rep. Joe Wilson illustrated with his "You lie!" outburst during President Barack Obama's speech to Congress, the illegal-immigration issue remains as hot as ever. Lou Dobbs still fulminates about it most evenings on CNN. Conservative talk-radio hosts descended on Washington, D.C., last month for a “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” gathering, aimed at lobbying against "amnesty" for illegal immigrants. On the other side, the United We DREAM Coalition organized 125 events around the country a few weeks ago in support of a law that would legalize certain undocumented high-school graduates.
The Stakes? Well, Armageddon, for One.
Jon Meacham 10/3/2009 12:00:00 AM
On Nov. 2, 1945—All Souls' Day in the Catholic tradition—J. Robert Oppenheimer spoke to scientists at Los Alamos. "It is clear to me that wars have changed," he said. "It is clear to me that if these first bombs—the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki—that if these can destroy 10 square miles, then that is really quite something. It is clear to me that they are going to be very cheap if anyone wants to make them." Oppenheimer basically had it right: nuclear weapons are not particularly cheap, but the knowledge, once unleashed, could not be contained. This was a persistent concern among the scientists who made the Manhattan Project come to life, including Albert Einstein, who wrote FDR in 1939 about "extremely powerful bombs of a new type." (The Pulitzer Prize–winning book American Prometheus, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, is essential reading about the beginnings of the bomb.) Those present at the creation feared what has come to pass: the steady proliferation of the means of Armageddon.
Letters: October 5, 2009
10/3/2009 12:00:00 AM