Politics

Guests on the Sunday political talk shows include Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on ABC’s This Week and Sen. John McCain on Fox News Sunday. Robert Gibbs and Ed Gillespie will talk the 2012 race on Face the Nation.

The only think tanker this week is E.J. Dionne on the Meet the Press panel.

Full line-up below. What catches your eye?

•NBC’s Meet the Press: Newt Gingrich; Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD); Maria Shriver; Michael Lewis; Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa; Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard; E.J. Dionne, Washington Post and Brookings Institution; David Brooks, New York Times

•CBS’ Face the Nation: Robert Gibbs, senior adviser to the Obama campaign; Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to the Romney campaign; Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN)

•ABC’s This Week: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta; Jennifer Granholm, Current TV; Liz Claman, Fox Business Network; Nia-Malika Henderson, Washington Post; Ron Brownstein, National Journal

•Fox News Sunday: Sen. John McCain (R-AZ); Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington; Jeff Zeleny, New York Times; Kimberley Strassel, Wall Street Journal; Kirsten Powers, The Daily Beast and Fox News

•CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL); Gen. Peter Chiarelli (ret.); Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA); Tim Tetz, American Legion; Paul Rieckhoff, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

•CNN’s GPS with Fareed Zakaria: Former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson; former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles; Bill Keller, New York Times; Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal; Chrystia Freeland, Reuters; Ross Douthat, New York Times

•CNN’s Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz: Andy Cohen, Bravo; Roger Simon, Politico; Anne Kornblut, Washington Post; former president of ABC News David Westin

•NBC’s The Chris Matthews Show: Joe Klein, Time; Helene Cooper, New York Times; Major Garrett, National Journal; Kasie Hunt, AP

Last week, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced his appointment of Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Elliott Abrams to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

Abrams, whose expertise is in the Middle East, was a member of the commission from 1999 to 2001 and also served as chair man.

Abrams served in the George W. Bush administration, joining in June 2001 as special assistant to the president and senior director of the National Security Council (NSC) for democracy, human rights and international organizations. From 2002 to 2005, he was special assistant to the president and senior director of the National Security Council for Near East and North African affairs. From 2005 to 2009, Abrams was deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, supervising U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House.

A sometimes controversial figure, Abrams first came to the public’s attention during the Reagan administration for his role in the Iran-Contra affair when he was assistant secretary of state. 

The commission, an independent federal body, is responsible for reviewing international instances of religious freedom violations and for making policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state and Congress.

Obama’s spending: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, which president is the biggest spender of all? (Cato)

Are Romney and Obama competing for the austerity prize? (TPM)

Heritage’s Michael Franc: Is the Constitution a Republican plot? (National Review)

Room for Debate asks: How should the U.S. support returning veterans? (New York Times)

Manhattan Institute’s Paul Howard says life sciences will be one of the ways the U.S. stays a leader in the world: “This is the good news for American patients and companies, since the United States is the long-standing global leader in fields like biotechnology and drug development. The bad news is that U.S. dominance in the life sciences is now threatened by an outdated regulatory system at the Food and Drug Administration.” (Washington Examiner)

Brookings’ Tamara Cofman Wittes and Stephen Grand preview the 2012 U.S.-Islamic World Forum, in Doha, Qatar:

Victor Davis Hanson says removing Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is a good idea not worth going through. (National Review)

Room for Debate asks: What role will the Hispanic vote have in this presidential election? What are Obama and Romney’s strengths and weaknesses among Latino voters, and how can they secure that vote? (New York Times)

Michael Barone argues that if you live in a political cocoon, it’s so much harder for conservatives: But cocooning has an asymmetrical effect on liberals and conservatives. Even in a cocoon, conservatives cannot avoid liberal mainstream media, liberal Hollywood entertainment, and, these days, the liberal Obama administration. (National Review)

Raising national fuel-efficiency standards to an average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 could spur economic growth, help American families, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and protect our national security, writes Bipartisan Policy Center’s Sherwood Boehlert. (Politico)

Brookings’ E.J. Dionne: The battle among Catholic bishops. (Washington Post)

Just prior to the historic 2012 Egyptian presidential elections, Shibley Telhami, a Brookings Institution fellow, University of Maryland professor and pollster released the results of the 2012 Public Opinion Survey in Egypt. In it, Telhami assesses which candidate is most favored by respondents, the issues driving voter preferences, what role they want religion to play in politics and attitudes toward the United States.

A few key points of interest in the poll:

•Most of the votes are intended for two candidates: Abdel-Men’em Abul-Fotouh led with 32%, followed by Amr Mousa with 28%, followed by Ahmed Shafiq with 14%, and Mohamed Morsi and Hamdeen Sabahi with 8% each.

•The feeling of trust in the candidate is the most important quality respondents cited.

•The majority of respondents, 71%, said that the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to field their own presidential candidates after they said that they would not was a mistake.

•Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s candidate garnered only 8% support.

On attitudes, there are a few other items to note:

•In the 2012 U.S. presidential elections, 73% of respondents said they want Mitt Romney to be president and only 25% hope for President Obama’s re-election.

•When asked about how they feel toward the U.S., 68% said “very unfavorable,” 17% “unfavorable” and 14% “favorable.”