The Liberals' Question: Is 2008 like 1980 or 1952? | Newsweek Politics

POLITICS
A Liberal’s Lament
Sean Wilentz 8/23/2008 12:00:00 AM
Barack Obama has chosen to deliver the most important speech of his young political career in a setting that suits his spectacular campaign in the presidential primaries. In front of 75,000 roaring, adoring Democrats at Invesco Field at Mile High stadium in Denver, he will give one of his uplifting arena-rock performances, while also evoking the spirits of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (on the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington) and John F. Kennedy (who moved his own acceptance speech in 1960 from the convention hall to the Los Angeles Coliseum).
How Americans Are Different
Andrew Nagorski 6/7/2004 12:00:00 AM
Capitol Letter: The Meaning Of Jimmy Carter
Eleanor Clift 10/18/2002 12:00:00 AM
A WORLD OF TROUBLE
What Presidents Are For
Jonathan Alter
Presidents do not decide how much you will pay for drug prescriptions at your local pharmacy. They don't determine whether your child's classroom will be overcrowded, or your streets safe. They can, with Congress, have an indirect effect on domestic life, but it's only on the world stage that the true power and importance of the American presidency crystallizes:
BETWEEN THE LINES
The Overseas Booby Trap
Jonathan Alter
Twenty years ago this month Jimmy Carter offered asylum to anyone who wanted to leave Cuba. Fidel Castro responded by emptying his jails of lunatics and criminals and sending them to the United States on what came to be known as the Mariel boatlift. Over the hysterical objections of a young governor named Bill Clinton, Carter housed many of the criminals at Fort Chafee, Ark. The prisoners rioted, just one of several foreign-policy fiascoes to beset Carter in 1980. Both men lost that fall, at least partly because of dicey international circumstances that, once set in motion, spun out of control.
The Price Of Cheap Shots

Of the many dangers associated with the renewal of violence in Israel, one of the least noted is that the crisis is taking place in the midst of an American presidential campaign. Soon--perhaps during the first presidential debate--the candidates will be asked how they plan to ""solve'' this problem. In fact, Washington has been only a marginal player during the Israeli-Palestinian peace process--they are called the ""Oslo accords'' for a reason--and it cannot end the conflict if the parties are unwilling to do so themselves. There is little for the United States to do other than what it is currently doing: implore each side to live up to its commitments.