Columnist.
Democrats and their supporters in the media are congratulating themselves for a job well done in the first Democratic debate. Both Martin O'Malley and Hillary Clinton included in their closing remarks canned celebrations of how civil and morally superior the Democratic debate was compared with the earlier GOP donnybrooks.
The scuttlebutt in Washington is that Vice President Joe Biden is going to throw his hat into the presidential race, which means there is at least a 50 percent chance that he will. I mean, when is the Beltway scuttlebutt ever wrong? Under different conditions, I'd guess that, if he does announce, Biden has almost no shot at winning the Democratic primary, and that his candidacy could prove a gift to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on." The Bill Withers song has been covered by countless artists, but the rendition of "Lean on Me" performed in a duet last weekend on the season premiere of "Saturday Night Live" had novel poignancy. It was sung by Kate McKinnon, the show's go-to impersonator of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and Mrs. Clinton herself.
Hillary Clinton revealed on Wednesday that she opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, providing just the latest evidence that she is little more than political ambition wrapped in a pantsuit. Pay attention to the press coverage, because it's fascinating: Nobody takes Clinton at her word. I'm not just referring to her conservative critics.
President Obama was right. He was right when, just a few hours after the horrible shooting in Oregon, he decried the fact that such slaughters have become "routine." He was even right, in a sense, when he defended politicizing the tragedy. "Of course," Obama said Thursday night, "what's also routine is that somebody, somewhere, will comment and say, 'Obama politicized this issue.' Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic."
If the humiliation of the Obama administration continues at this rate, by this time next week you should expect to see Secretary of State John Kerry on all fours at the United Nations, getting paddled by the Russian foreign minister and shouting, "Thank you, comrade! May I have another?" On Monday, President Obama and Vladimir Putin had a meeting at the United Nations. All Putin wanted from it was a photo of the two men huddling together. The Russian president needed to show his people that he's still a major player on the world stage, a big man driving events. Obama, who spent much of the last year trying to isolate the butcher of Ukraine, gave Putin exactly what he wanted. In wall-to-wall coverage, Russian media celebrated the big man's diplomatic triumph and his geo-strategic genius.
Almost exactly seven years ago, House Speaker John Boehner said of the Wall Street bailout bill, "I think this thing is a crap sandwich" — but he'd vote for it anyway. I remarked at the time, "It's crap sandwiches for as far as the eye can see" — and I was right. Boehner finally had his fill of the meal, opting to push away from the table, as it were. On Friday, he announced he'll be resigning the speakership and his seat. Boehner has become a lightning rod for a large segment of the base that is simply fed up with GOP failures, both real and imagined, in the age of Obama.
There is only one guaranteed way to get fired from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Falsifying records won't do it. Prescribing obsolete drugs won't do it. Cutting all manner of corners on health and safety is, at worst, going to get you a reprimand. No, the only sure-fire way to get canned at the VA is to report any of these matters to authorities who might do something about it. That, at least, is what the U.S. Office of Special Counsel recently reported to the president of the United States. The Special Counsel's office is the agency to which government whistleblowers go to report wrongdoing.
"Anyone who has watched this videotape, I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch these tapes. Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says, 'We have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.' This is about the character of our nation, and if we will not stand up and force President Obama to veto this bill, shame on us." —Carly Fiorina, GOP presidential debate, 9/16/2015. The videotape in question was put out by the Center for Medical Progress, an anti-abortion group that went undercover to record Planned Parenthood officials discussing the buying and selling of organs and tissue from aborted fetuses — some just shy of 20 weeks — to medical research companies. Fiorina's description of what takes place in the videos has come under withering attack. Sarah Kliff of Vox.com labels Fiorina's version of the scene as "pure fiction." PolitiFact says it is "mostly false."
The news that the Obama administration has spent $500 million to put "four or five" fighters on the ground in Syria adds an almost comic irony to what is ultimately a tragic farce. In the 1980s, the symbol of Republican incompetence and mismanagement was the $600 toilet seat. Left out of the media coverage was the fact that the toilet seat was for a special kind of anti-submarine aircraft that had been out of production and needed special retrofitting. But forget all that. How does that compare to spending $100 million per non-bionic human soldier?
The wheels haven't come off Hillary Rodham Clinton's bus quite yet, but they're getting wobblier. Hence the Joe Biden boomlet. As a columnist, never mind as a conservative, I think it's a fantastic idea. (A Biden vs. Trump debate would cause a national popcorn shortage.) But is Biden really the answer to the Democrats' problem? That depends. As with any malady, the right treatment hinges on the correct diagnosis. You don't recommend better diet and exercise for a shark bite. Biden is a treatment for one symptom, not the whole disease.
"[T]he European 'refugee crisis' ... is in many respects a migrant crisis."
Most of the Syrians we see on the nightly news and on newspaper front pages are not fleeing war-torn Syria. The 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi (whose real name is Alan Shenu) whose heartrending death was broadcast around the world was not fleeing Syria. He'd lived his whole short life in Turkey, where his parents had been living in safety. The Shenu family, like so many of these refugees, left Turkey on a smugglers' boat, ultimately trying to reach Canada in pursuit of better economic prospects and a better life. This distinction is often lost in the coverage of the European "refugee crisis" that is in many respects a migrant crisis. According to the law, never mind morality, we treat refugees differently. Refugees flee for their lives. Migrants make choices.
What if this is as good as it gets? You have to wonder if that's what Hillary Clinton's handlers are saying to each other right about now. Of course, that's not what they're saying in public — or on background to the press. The New York Times reported this week that Clinton plans to be spontaneous from now on: "There will be no rope lines to wall off crowds, which added to an impression of aloofness. And there will be new efforts to bring spontaneity to a candidacy that sometimes seems wooden and overly cautious."
"To say that all kinds of violence are equally bad isn't high-minded morality."
Every time the State Department pulls out a new fistful of Hillary Clinton emails like Richard Dreyfuss yanking a license plate out of a shark's belly in "Jaws," someone declares that there's "no smoking gun!" I've written before about how shouting "there's no smoking gun!" is a non-denial denial. Ask a cop. When a murder suspect immediately exclaims, "You have no indisputable evidence I murdered my boss!" instead of, "I didn't do it!" it's a good sign that the suspect thinks he covered his tracks, not that he's innocent.
Ridiculous stories about political correctness float around the Internet like so much ocean garbage. Occasionally, one washes up on "Good Morning America" with a larger story to tell. A little girl named Laura was sent home with a note because she had brought a Wonder Woman lunchbox to school. (The website The Mary Sue first reported the story, from a post on the social media site Imgur.) In the letter addressed to Laura's parents, the school explained: "The dress code we have established requests that the children not bring violent images into the building in any fashion — on their clothing (including shoes and socks), backpacks and lunchboxes. We have defined 'violent characters' as those who solve problems using violence. Superheroes certainly fall into that category."
According to polls, the No. 1 thing Donald Trump's fans like about him is that he "tells it like it is." I think his fans are wrong about this. But that's a column — actually a lot of columns — for another time. It is true, however, that there is something refreshing about the way Trump talks. It's not actually candor, though lots of people mistake it for that. Rather, he's unfiltered. The one thing you can be sure of is that he hasn't consulted with a political consultant about how to talk. He doesn't worry what the liberal editors at The New York Times or The Washington Post — or, for that matter, the conservative editors at National Review — think of him.
When is it outrageous to amend the Constitution? Donald Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination, wants to overturn the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship. Whether out of panic or sincerity, a number of other Republican candidates have joined the bandwagon. This is probably good politics for the GOP nomination and almost certainly bad politics for the general election. I am inclined against the idea as a matter of public policy, because the costs would outweigh the benefits. But I am far from convinced it is something to be outraged about.
Peter Schramm has died. I knew it was coming. He'd been struggling with cancer. But it felt particularly poignant given that I was in Europe, a place Peter had little patience for. It was an attitude he inherited from his father. During World War II, before Peter was born, William Schramm had been conscripted by the Nazis to work in a munitions factory. The Allies dropped leaflets warning that a bombing run was imminent. The Nazis demanded that everyone report for work anyway. William refused.
