Lots to keep you busy in the latest issue of Commonweal:

• We've already been discussing Andrew Bacevich's article "The War We Can't Win," from the new issue of Commonweal. Subscribers will want to check out Joel Hafvenstein's article "The Cost of Peace" for another perspective on what it will take to succeed in Afghanistan.
• Our editorial, "In Defense of Politics," is a response to Caritas in veritate and the pope's discussion of solidarity and subsidiarity. Subscribers can read two more takes on the encyclical, by Daniel Finn and Eugene McCarraher.
• Gilbert Meilander, a member of President Bush's bioethics council, responds to President Obama's decision to disband the council with a defense of the political role of public bioethics commissions: "End of Discussion."
• Richard Alleva reviews the Michael Mann film Public Enemies.

If the above hasn't convinced you to subscribe today, there's also a new short story by Valerie Sayers, "Brooklyn, Bewitched"; a review of the James Ensor show at MoMA by Alejandro Anreus; book reviews of Dambisa Moyo's Dead Aid (reviewed by Beth Dufresne) and Shaun Casey's The Making of a Catholic President (reviewed by James P. McCartin); and Peter Quinn's remembrance of his friend Frank McCourt.