Fareed Zakaria

Smart Takes on the NSA Scandal

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Smart Takes on the NSA Scandal

The first half of this last Sunday’s Fareed Zarakia GPS discussed the fall out from the NSA spying scandal. 

First, Fareed gave his “take” on the issue. 

Next, he interviewed Former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg who made news by stating, “Well, everyone spies on each other.  That’s a fact.  And, at the moment, we hear interesting voices (inaudible) tries to deny that we don’t do it and they do it.  Everybody does it.”  This is essentially the point Dave Kailer made more than a week earlier on the SLACE Forum. 

Finally, Fareed spoke with Former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden. Hayden also made news by stating, “If the president says he didn’t know, he didn’t know. I just take that at face value.”

Here is a description of the show: 

On GPS this Sunday: The revelations over alleged tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone by the U.S. National Security Agency have strained relations between the two nations. But how serious are the current tensions? Fareed speaks with former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg.

Next, the American side of the story. Who would have given the NSA permission to spy on leaders of ally countries? Former NSA and CIA chief Michael Hayden gives his take.

“[O]ccasionally, what you have is political guidance kind of being placed on top of your operational planning,” Hayden says. “I had political guidance while I was director of NSA.  I had targets. I had legitimate needs. But I was told, frankly, back off. That target is too sensitive. I don’t want you doing that at this time, for this purpose.”

 

Zakaria to Conservatives: Get Real, Lighten Up

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

This past Sunday on Fareed Zarakia GPS, Fareed provided his take on the Republican party and the conservative movement. Zakaria critiques conservatism as being overly ideological and detached from the practical realities that face the United States.

Progressives will likely find Zarakia’s critique compelling. I suspect Conservatives might not find it entirely fair. What do you think?

Here is a description of the video:

For many conservatives today, the “rot” to be excoriated is not about economics and health care but about culture. A persistent theme of conservative intellectuals and commentators – in print and on Fox News – is the cultural decay of the country. But compared with almost any period in U.S. history, we live in bourgeois times, in a culture that values family, religion, work and, above all, private business. Young people today aspire to become Mark Zuckerberg. They quote the aphorisms of Warren Buffett. They read the Twitter feed of Bill Gates. Even after the worst recession since the Great Depression, there are no obvious radicals, anarchists, Black Panthers or other revolutionary movements – except for the Tea Party.

Now, for some tacticians and consultants, extreme rhetoric is just a way to keep the troops fired up. But rhetoric gives meaning and shape to a political movement. Over the past six decades, conservatives’ language of decay, despair and decline have created a group of Americans who fervently believe in this dark narrative and are determined to stop the country from plunging into what they see as imminent oblivion. They aren’t going to give up just yet.

The era of crises could end, but only when this group of conservatives makes its peace with today’s America. They are misty-eyed in their devotion to a distant republic of myth and memory and yet they are passionate in their dislike of the messy, multiracial, capitalist-and-welfare-state democracy that America actually has been for half a century – a fifth of this country’s history. At some point, will they come to realize that you cannot love America in theory and hate it in fact?

Watch the video for the full Take or read more in the Washington Post.

Fareed’s Take: Gridlock and Polarization in Washington

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Fareed’s Take: Gridlock and Polarization in Washington

On the most recent episode of Fareed Zakaria GPS, Fareed devoted much of his show to the current state of political polarization and gridlock in the Nation’s capital. He began with his “take” on the problem.  He then discussed the topic with a panel comprised of Vanessa Williamson (Harvard PhD student and author of  The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism) , Norm Ornstein (of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute) and Jeffrey Toobin (legal columnist for the New Yorker). 

Here is a link to  Williamson’s commentary on the Tea Party.

Toobin’s take on Republican radicalism and the effects of the primary system can be found here.

Fareed’s Take: “Restoring the American Dream”

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Fareed’s Take: “Restoring the American Dream”

Yesterday, Fareed Zakaria GPS began with “Fareed’s Take” on poverty, education and the American Dream.

Here is a description of the commentary:

A recent OECD report points out that the U.S. is one of only three rich countries that spends less on disadvantaged students than others, largely because education funding for elementary and secondary schools in America is tied to local property taxes. So by definition, poor neighborhoods end up with badly funded schools. In general, America spends lots of money on education but most of it is on college education and most is directed towards those already advantaged in various ways.

What’s clear from all this research is that countries that invest more heavily in all their children’s health care, nutrition, and education, well-being more generally end up with a much stronger ladder of opportunity and access than America. Now, that is something we can change and with relatively little money. So if we want to restore the American dream, we now have the beginnings of a path forward.

For more, read the Washington Post column

 

Will Lobbying Destroy the American Empire?

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Will Lobbying Destroy the American Empire?

Recently, Fareed Zakaria began his Sunday show discussing the deleterious influences of lobbyist on American politics.  

Here are the basics of “Fareed’s Take”

The entire political system creates incentives for venality. Consider just one factor – and there are many – the role of money, which has expanded dramatically over the past four decades. Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig has pointed out that Congressmen now spend three of every five workdays raising money. They also vote with extreme attention to their donors’ interests. Lessig cites studies that demonstrate that donors get a big bang for their campaign bucks – sometimes with returns on their “investment” that would make a venture capital firm proud.

Now, taking money out of politics is a mammoth challenge. So perhaps the best one could hope for is to limit instead what Congress can sell. In other words, enact a thorough reform of the tax code, ridding it of the thousands of special exemptions, credits, and deductions, which are, of course, institutionalized, legalized corruption.

The most depressing aspect of This Town, by Mark Leibovich, is how utterly routine all the influence-peddling has become. In 1990 Ramsay MacMullen, the great Yale historian of Rome, published a book that took on the central question of his field: Why did the greatest empire in the history of the world collapse in the fifth century? The root cause, he explained, was political corruption, which had become systemic in the late Roman Empire. What was once immoral had become accepted as standard practice and what was once illegal was celebrated as the new normal. Many decades from now, a historian looking at where America lost its way could use This Town as a primary source.

Watch the video for the full take and read more in the Washington Post