Sunday Roundup

We've written a great deal about the Middle East these past few days, so today's focus is on other news today:  

The Post's lede editorial today begins with this remarkable graph: "The world last week seemed almost to be spinning out of control. From Lebanon to North Korea to Darfur, from Baghdad to Bombay, the news was frightening or depressing or both. Hundreds of innocent people died. Oil prices soared, stock prices fell. It's been some time since global affairs seemed so bleak."  They then raise the vital question - is the world spinning out of control because of the weakness of the Administration, or despite it?  The answer to this question is one of the most important ones of our time. 

Thinkprogress captures the well-reported exchange between Bush and Putin, where, at a low moment for our country, the Russian autocrat bests an American President in a discussion of the meaning of democracy. 

The Post reports how worried GOP leaders are that the immigration debate could do long term damage to their Party.  NDN agrees that they should be worried.

The Times previews this week's Senate stemcell debate. 

On the subject of Presidential power, talkingpointsmemo offers an interesting take on what happened this week with FISA and Arlen Specter.  Glenn Greenwald, author of How Would a Patriot Act? has had a series of thoughtful posts on the subject this week. And in a related editorial, the Times weighs in hard:

"It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

One result has been a frayed democratic fabric in a country founded on a constitutional system of checks and balances. Another has been a less effective war on terror."

And finally, the Times Magazine has a piece that I've haven't read yet - but will tonight - on the possible return of nuclear power.