Round Up: Catching Up on the Morning's Columns

A round up of today's columns on debates we covered yesterday

AFGHANISTAN

• George Will, Washington Post: Time to leave Afghanistan. "America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

TORTURE

• Richard Cohen, Washington Post: On torture and enemies, only questions. "Torture never works, torture always works, torture is always immoral, torture is moral if it saves lives. Torture always is ugly. So, though, is the hole in the ground where the World Trade Center once stood."
• Thomas Sowell, RealClearPolitics: Terrorists have no rights. "German soldiers who put on American military uniforms, in order to infiltrate American lines during the Battle of the Bulge were simply lined up against a wall and shot-- and nobody wrung their hands over it."

HEALTH CARE

• Norman Ornstein, Washington Post: The President is not losing on health care. "The odds remain reasonable that a solid, if not dramatic, health reform bill can make it through this process and become law. Any bill, under these conditions, will be a major accomplishment."

DEATH PENALTY

• Bob Herbert, New York Times: Innocent, but dead. "The authorities were unmoved. Willingham was executed by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004."

DAVID BROOKS AND PRESIDENT OBAMA

• David Brooks, New York Times: Obama's sliding poll numbers. To save his presidency, Obama must, "align his proposals to the values of the political center: fiscal responsibility, individual choice and decentralized authority."

JAPAN

• Michael Auslin, Forbes: Japan's Obama moment. Will the new rulers "meet voters' expectations?"