Columnist.
How about now? Are you in favor of the death penalty now? I ask because the preferred argument from opponents of the death penalty is doubt: We can never be sure; look at all of the people released from death row; we can't afford to risk ending a single innocent life. None of those arguments apply to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He admitted, through his lawyers, that he and his brother murdered three people and maimed 260 others at the Boston Marathon. (A few days later, they murdered a police officer.) Tsarnaev knowingly left a bomb next to a family on a family outing. Martin William Richard, 8 years old, died. His sister Jane lost a leg. His mother lost an eye.
The first thing one needs to know about the nuclear deal with Iran is that it is not, in fact, a deal. You might be confused about this point, given that so many news outlets refers to a "deal" that doesn't exist. In fairness, many do so simply for expediency's sake. The various parties to the talks did come away with an agreement, but it was an agreement to haggle more about what a deal might look like. We don't have a good word for such things, so people use "deal" as a placeholder. But in any other realm of life, if you left a negotiation where things stand in Lausanne, Switzerland, you wouldn't think you had a deal. The known disagreements are profound and the room for further disagreements vast.
Rolling Stone screwed up. In most media scandals, it's unfair to paint with such a broad brush. When Stephen Glass concocted his fables at the New Republic, he went to antiheroic lengths to conceal his deceptions from his colleagues. Janet Cooke, who famously won a Pulitzer for her Washington Post series about an 8-year-old heroin addict, "Jimmy's World," lied to her editors. That's not the case with Rolling Stone's publication of "A Rape on Campus," the story of the brutal gang rape of a student named "Jackie" at the University of Virginia that turned out to be false. Its failure was a group effort, from editor-in-chief Jann Wenner on down.
"It's the Jim Crow law of our time." That exact quote, or one very much like it, has come from the mouths of reporters, editorialists, activists, corporate CEOs and, of course, politicians, all because of Indiana's Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. (RFRA) The other day I wrote a column arguing that it's ridiculous to compare Indiana's RFRA to Jim Crow laws. It was obvious, at least to me, that lots of people didn't really understand what RFRA was. What I failed to appreciate is that perhaps even more people didn't really know what Jim Crow laws were. After the Civil War, the victorious North, led by the fledgling Republican Party, brought civil rights, including economic rights, to Southern blacks by a series of legislative "Reconstruction" acts, hence, the "Reconstruction era."
"I could have handled that better." I don't know if the captain of the Titanic ever said that. But Mike Pence did on Tuesday. The Indiana governor has managed to step on an impressive number of parts of his own anatomy recently and in the process gravely injured what was already a long-shot ambition to run for president in 2016. Earlier this month he signed the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act in a private ceremony. In attendance were prominent opponents of gay marriage.
"I don't understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second and support Israel along the line of just following their president," vented Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) on Boston Herald Radio last week. It was a small controversy in the grand scheme of things, easily overlooked during a week when: a German pilot turned a routine flight into a murder-suicide mission, Ted Cruz drove the media batty by announcing he will run for president as Ted Cruz, an Army sergeant and Taliban captive the White House touted as a hero was charged with desertion, and America joined forces with Iran in Iraq to kill Sunni jihadists while allying with Saudi Arabia in Yemen to kill Shiite jihadists (who are backed by Iran).
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough recently spoke to J Street, a left-wing organization that fancies itself the headquarters of the tough-love-for-Israel crowd. J Street's critics would phrase it a bit differently. In a charitable mood, they'd say J Street is all about loving Israel to death. Regardless, J Street is the perfect think tank for the Obama administration to get its message out. Which is why McDonough was there to deliver harsh criticism of Israel and to signal that the U.S., under President Obama at least, will not be as reliable an ally to Israel as it once was, particularly at the United Nations.
Starbucks is easy to make fun of on its best days, what with the pretentious names for everyday items, never mind the ridiculously high prices for those same everyday items. Even the cashiers have fancy monikers -- "barista." The snootiness is by design, of course. And you can make fun of it all you want; it's worked. Using many of the same techniques realtors have employed to hawk borderline tenements as unique gateways to the urban experience, Starbucks has managed to educate the consumer that it's OK to pay through the nose for what used to be a "cuppa joe." Even that slightly burnt taste is spun as a feature, not a bug. We're subtly informed, "That's the way it's supposed to taste, you philistine."
It has been an Iranian tradition since 1979 to end Friday prayers with chants of "Death to America!" In a purely rational world, that would be all one needed to know that Iran is not a reliable negotiating partner. Alas, we do not live in such a world. But there's more evidence. Iran, according to our State Department, has been the chief exporter of terrorism for the last three decades. It has worked closely with al-Qaida, facilitating its attacks on America and our allies. Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers traveled through Iran with the help of the Iranian government. U.S. judges have ruled that Iran was an accomplice in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and the Sept. 11 attacks. During the Iraq war, Iran was responsible for numerous American deaths. And it's not like any of this is ancient history. Indeed, in 2012, the Treasury Department designated the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security as a major promoter of terrorism and violator of human rights.
Let us now make the case for Jeb skepticism. Jeb Bush is a fine man. He's a conservative. He was a highly effective conservative governor. He would probably make a fine president. And, if he were the Republican nominee, there would be precious few good arguments -- from a conservative perspective -- for sitting out the election, never mind voting for the Democratic nominee (whoever she may be). If the choice comes down to Bush versus Clinton, the conservative cause would be advanced by another Bush presidency far more than it would be advanced by another Clinton presidency. That's just my opinion, but I consider it as obvious as noting that water is wet.
In the wake of Hillary Rodham Clinton's fairly disastrous press conference at the United Nations on Tuesday, there's only one conclusion shared by all parties: This was not how it was supposed to go. This was supposed to be the month Clinton led with her chief selling point: her gender. She had put together a whole "I Am Woman, Hear Me Bore" speaking tour in which women's issues -- particularly the women's issues that poll well among women who care a lot about women's issues -- would be the main subject. The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation unveiled a big foofaraw over Hillary's "No Ceilings" campaign. What a wonderfully convenient theme for Mrs. Clinton's massive and mysterious foundation, given that smashing the "highest glass ceiling" -- i.e., the presidency -- is the central rationale of her planned presidential bid. It was just a coincidence that the tax-exempt foundation with her name on it happened to be rolling out a big light show on that very subject during the rollout of her presidential campaign.
Historically, the Clintons have proved to be politically indestructible. To paraphrase the movie "Aliens," to truly destroy the Clinton Industrial Complex, you'd have to nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Given that alone, I doubt that the unfolding controversy over Hillary's email schemes spells her doom. The basic details are as follows: In 2009, a week before she started her job as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had a personal Internet server registered at her home address. She then used her own domain name, "clintonemail.com," to conduct all of her business -- for the State Department, but also presumably the Clinton Foundation and other matters, be they nefarious or high-minded.
Any chef will tell you that you need great ingredients to pull off a great meal. Less discussed but just as true: You need to cook the ingredients in the right order. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has nearly all of the right ingredients to win the GOP nomination. He is popular among both anti-establishment activists and the big donors of the establishment. He has working-class appeal (desperately needed for the GOP), and he's battle-tested in his home state -- a state many believe the Republicans could finally pick off in a presidential election. The question is whether his timing is off. In countless discussions I had at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference -- as well as among people I've talked to who attended the Club for Growth meeting in Florida last weekend -- the concern for friends, and the hope for foes, is that Walker is peaking too soon.
Canaries are not very formidable birds, but they have their uses. For instance, coal miners learned over a century ago that when canaries gag and drop dead at the bottom of the cage, it's a sign that maybe there's something wrong with the air in the mine. MSNBC is not a very formidable network, but its wheezing is similarly instructive. MSNBC's slogan is "Lean Forward," which has a robust sound to it. But it turns out the phrase is a more apt descriptor of how the Peacock Network's mini-me is poised to teeter off its perch and plunge beak-first into the droppings-stained pages of the fading New Republic below. It is suffering "cataclysmic ratings declines" (in Politico's words) from already mediocre ratings to begin with. The hope had been that Ronan Farrow, the Prius-dashboard saint of Brooklyn hipsters and the son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen (or Frank Sinatra), would, like David Hasselhoff in "Baywatch," leap into the waters and save the drowning network.
Is Hillary Rodham Clinton a McDonald's Big Mac or a Chipotle burrito bowl? A can of Bud or a bottle of Blue Moon? JCPenney or J. Crew?" That was the opening question of a front-page Washington Post story on Clinton's effort to figure out her "brand." To that end, she has recruited a team of corporate marketing specialists to "help imagine Hillary 5.0." "It's exactly the same as selling an iPhone or a soft drink or a cereal," Peter Sealey, a longtime corporate marketing strategist, told the Post. "She needs to use everything a brand has: a dominant color, a logo, a symbol. ... The symbol of a Mercedes is a three-pointed star. The symbol of Coca-Cola is the contour bottle. The symbol of McDonald's is the golden arches. What is Clinton's symbol?"
"Could this argument be any dumber?" That's how I began a column over a month ago in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. My point was that by making it an ideological priority to deny the Islamic nature of Islamic terrorism, the White House was in fact encouraging people to talk more about terrorism and Islam, not less. It's a simple fact of human nature that if you deny the obvious, you invite people to debate the obvious. If you don't believe me, walk into a bar and insist that Michael Jordan didn't play basketball. Or proclaim that we didn't win World War II. One month later, the answer to my rhetorical question -- "Could this argument be any dumber?" -- is, on the one hand, absolutely yes. On the other hand, maybe not.
I once asked my late father if he had any experiences with anti-Semitism. There weren't many. Although that was probably in part because of his scoring methodology. The Irish kids who beat up the Jewish kids in his Bronx neighborhood didn't do so because they were anti-Semitic, but because "they had to fight somebody," as my dad put it. Today, such behavior would probably be called a hate crime. So I suppose that's progress. He did tell me that the first time someone said to him "Don't Jew me" was during his freshman year at the University of Michigan. He was more shocked than offended. He couldn't believe someone he was friends with could be so stupid.
At an event in London on trade policy, Scott Walker was asked about evolution. "It's almost a tradition now," the moderator said, to ask "senior Republicans" if they are "comfortable with the idea of evolution." "I'm going to punt on that one as well," the Wisconsin governor replied. "That's a question a politician shouldn't be involved in one way or another." It wasn't a great answer, though there have been worse ones. But it was also a bad question, even though it's a favorite among liberal journalists in the U.S., and apparently across the pond, too.
By now everyone knows about his transgressions. If even only some of the reports are true, Brian Williams is a serial embellisher, a self-aggrandizing fabulist. No doubt everyone knows somebody like this, and if you don't it's probably because you're that guy. But Williams' case is special. This isn't some sad Willy Loman at the end of the bar who needs to invent impressive stories about himself. If anything, he needed to not tell such stories, given that he reportedly makes more than $10 million a year to be a trusted name in news. Yet he couldn't stop himself.
On Tuesday, the so-called Islamic State released a slickly produced video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a steel cage. On Wednesday, the United Nations issued a report detailing various "mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive" at the hands of the Islamic State. And on Thursday, President Obama seized the opportunity of the National Prayer Breakfast to forthrightly criticize the "terrible deeds" ... committed "in the name of Christ." "Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history," Obama said, referring to the ennobling aspects of religion as well as the tendency of people to "hijack" religions towards murderous ends.
