National Democrats
Mill Wheels
It was part circus and part melodrama but the mill wheels were grinding, even if it left you shaking your head: On Twitter Trump was hollering ‘Ask her who leaked the classified information’ and, at the same time, the Democrats were howling ‘Prove Flynn was Trump’s go-between with the Russians.’ A trio of Republican Senators…
Read MoreA Temptation He Can’t Resist
“I was all set to terminate. I looked forward to terminating. I was going to do it,” Trump told the reporter. But he didn’t terminate so, in the next breath, he was telling the reporter, “I get a call from Mexico yesterday, ‘We hear you’re going to terminate NAFTA.’ I said that’s right. They said,…
Read MoreThe Pond-Skater
David Brooks, the columnist, felt a sea-change. Last fall, before the election, liberals saw Donald Trump as a buffoon who couldn’t possibly win the election then, on Election Night, right in front of their eyes, the clown turned into a dragon. After the election – as the dragon headed for Washington – the shaken liberals…
Read MoreNo Quit in Him
To show strength, he said he’d ordered an aircraft carrier to sail straight north to North Korea – then the Pentagon released a photograph of the carrier sailing straight south away from Korea. He pounds the Washington Politicians but, despite his threats, his wall’s stuck in Congress, his immigration plan’s stuck in the courts, and…
Read MoreNo One Minds
Last year Trump tore into NAFTA. And said China was a no-good currency manipulator, NATO was obsolete, Obama’s Iran Agreement was the ‘worst deal ever,’ and Obama’s Paris Climate Change Agreement was a ‘hoax.’ And he said he was going to fix them all and ‘Make America Great’ – and the crowds at his rallies…
Read MoreHardly a Soul Blinked
After the Congressional Special Election down in Georgia, President Trump exclaimed, Great victory. (He meant for Trump.) At the same time the Democrats were saying the same thing: They said they’d won a great victory. And defeated Trump. Somebody wasn’t telling the truth. And Sean Trende, of Real Clear Politics, put his finger on who:…
Read MoreClinton shattered
A new now-it-can-be-told book performs the requisite autopsy on why Hillary Clinton lost. Judging by the reviews, “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign” is the kind of political porn we junkies eat up. No doubt it’s filled with delicious dirt dished out by dueling staffers exacting revenge and blaming each other. Yum! It’s a first stab…
Read MoreBannon’s fall = Democrats’ opening
It’s good that Steve Bannon has been eclipsed in the court of the Sun King. By all accounts, he’s a hate-spewing, fear-mongering, immigrant-bashing, Muslim-banning, dark force. But Bannon did have one important insight into today’s politics. And Democrats should take heed of it. Bannon has a clear focus on the anger that millions of Americans…
Read MoreRx: the Democrats
Second of two parts More than 25 years ago, a little-known college president was running what looked like a hopeless U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania. He was Harris Wofford, a Democrat. He was running against Richard Thornburgh, a former Governor and United States Attorney General. Wofford’s own polls showed him 40 points behind. Thornburgh had…
Read MoreHillbilly Elegy
Gary told me, Read Hillbilly Elegy – it’ll make you see things you’ve been staring at for years in a different light. The story – a memoir – starts when a pregnant thirteen-year-old girl marries a sixteen-year-old boy and moves from Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains to Middleton, Ohio in the late 1940’s. He went to work…
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