The Editors

Harold Meyerson writes, On Monday, Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a declaration pledging that their governments would put in place a long-term political and security pact sometime next year. “The shape and size of any long-term, or longer than 2008, U.S. presence in Iraq will be a key matter for negotiation between […]

Immigrants and asylum seekers have never felt comfortable in the European Union. But, Sarah Wildman reports, when Kosovar teenager Arigona Zogaj recently recorded YouTube plea to let her family stay in Austria, Europeans began to rethink some of their immigration policies. “Arigona changed things,” [reporter Gunther] Mueller said in Café Prueckel, which sits on a […]

Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law argues that Mukasey’s confirmation marks a low point in America’s policy on torture: Torture is only one of many abuses of the post-September 11 era. The creation of lawless enclaves like Guantánamo, extraordinary rendition, and the warrantless surveillance of American citizens have […]

Spencer Ackerman discusses the Bush administration’s newest plans for the war on terror: Here’s what’s up for discussion. While General Musharraf suppresses any possible moderate, civilian threat to his continued rule, the tribal areas in the west of his country, bordering Afghanistan, remain mostly outside his control. Autonomy for what the U.S. calls the Federally […]

Our own Gershom Gorenberg taped a Bloggingheads.tv segment with Khaled Dawoud of Al Jazeera about the possibilities for Mideast peace. Check out the New York Times clip here, or watch the full diavlog here. And click here for all of Gershom’s columns for TAP Online. –The Editors

Dana previews a wave of anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives we can expect to see in 2008: Connerly’s organization, the American Civil Rights Institute, is calling his five-state 2008 push “Super Tuesday for Equal Rights.” His movement is practiced at appropriating the language of equality from liberals. In 2006, Connerly’s organizers in Michigan successfully put a […]

Paul Waldman writes that young voters are particularly important in this election, not because they alone will pick the next president, but because of what their increasingly progressive attitudes suggest about the evolution of politics. In short, it isn’t just that young people take the progressive side in the culture war; for them the war […]

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to offer a halt in construction at West Bank settlements before the Annapolis conference. But, Gershom Gorenberg asks, will Condoleezza Rice hold him to his promise? Still, there’s another, more public sign that settlement is back on the American agenda: The Ha’aretz daily reported last week that under […]

Matt Duss on how the neocons have moved the goalposts on Iraq, and have taken to calling anyone who doubts the efficacy of the surge “defeatist” and “dishonorable.” Pointing this out is not meant to dishonor the sweat and sacrifices of American troops (or the sacrifice of the families who desperately want them home), only […]

Courtney Martin thinks the institutionalization of activism on college campuses is a key culprit: As great as it might seem that colleges and universities are supporting student causes, I actually believe that it has tamed the critical energy necessary to be young, outraged, and active. When you’re being funded by a team of white-haired academics […]