Friday

22 Jan 2021

Wednesday

20 Jan 2021

A Trump comeback? Don’t bet on it

He did it. Donald Trump made it through four years, not an accomplishment many of his detractors thought he would achieve, or even wanted him to. ‘See you soon,’ Trump said. A promise or a threat? The truth is that Trump has been badly diminished by his antics in the past few weeks, starting but not ending with the melee on 6 January. His enemies didn’t torpedo his presidency. He torpedoed himself. Trump’s valedictory remarks on Tuesday gave the game away. He couldn’t bring himself to breath the name of Joe Biden. He assumed zero responsibility for the pandemic, barely restraining himself from referring to the ‘Kung Flu’. And he bragged about how great the economy was under his watch even as it continues to falter.

A Trump comeback? Don’t bet on it

Tuesday

12 Jan 2021

Could Trump go bankrupt?

'Send in the troops. The nation must restore order. The military stands ready.' Aficionados of the New York Times may recall that these sentences appeared as the headline of Tom Cotton’s op-ed in June that led to the departure of the paper’s editorial page editor James Bennet. Bennet resurfaced as a guest author of Politico's Playbook newsletter last week. But how the times have changed! These days it is Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser who has embraced the Cotton Doctrine. She is demanding that the city be placed into what amounts a state of martial law. Ten-thousand National Guard troops, up to 15,000, are slated to guard the city against the motley crew of right-wing extremists — 16 groups have applied for federal permits to protest — who are pledging to vindicate the honour of Donald Trump.

Could Trump go bankrupt?

Thursday

7 Jan 2021

The fallout from Trump’s American carnage

Congratulations, President Trump! It took a while but you’ve finally achieved the American carnage that you purported to descry in your inaugural address four years ago. It would be hard to think of a more symbolically apt end to your presidency. Trump’s shameful, revolting and tawdry taped message late on Wednesday urging his supporters to disband devoted more urgency to calling the election a fraud than condemning their storming of the US Capitol. All that was missing was the claim that there are good people on both sides. Trump long ago forfeited any claim to dignity. The idea that he was ever capable of acting as president was the central fiction of his presidency, which is now fully enveloped in the moral squalor that he has always embraced.

The fallout from Trump’s American carnage

Tuesday

15 Dec 2020

Friday

28 Aug 2020

Don’t underestimate Joe Biden

So is it over for Joe? Gloating Republicans and handwringing Democrats alike suddenly seem convinced that President Trump is headed towards an improbable repeat victory this November, especially after his acceptance speech last night. But there are multifarious reasons to believe that this is a bunch of hooey. For one thing, Biden has been repeatedly counted out only to bounce back. Consider the primary. Conventional wisdom was that Biden was a goner. Too old. Out of it. A dullard. On the eve of the South Carolina primary he was, in short, dismissed as a has-been, though vanity prompts me to note that yours truly, writing on this website, rightly predicted the very opposite. The point isn’t that Biden is some kind of Clark Kent who can dash into the political equivalent of a telephone booth and emerge as a presidential Superman.

Don’t underestimate Joe Biden

Thursday

20 Aug 2020

Does Steve Bannon’s arrest damage Trump’s re-election’s bid?

Oops. Not only did the wall that Donald Trump promised to build never get built, but it turns out that some of his closest former confederates are now accused of deploying the slogan in the interests of building up nothing other than their own fortunes. A grizzled Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign adviser, wearing a green Barbour jacket was arrested this morning on charges of fraud by New York federal prosecutors. The contention of the Manhattan prosecutors is that Bannon, who is said to be worth tens of millions, pilfered about £760,000 ($1million) through a private group called 'We Build the Wall'. The advisory board contains a bevy of conservative all-stars, including former Rep. Tom Tancredo and Erik Prince.

Does Steve Bannon’s arrest damage Trump’s re-election’s bid?

Wednesday

12 Aug 2020

Kamala Harris ticks all Biden’s boxes

With his selection of Kamala Harris, Joe Biden bowed to the inevitable. Harris ticks all the boxes — Bay Area progressive who pushed a lock ’em up policy, senator with no apparent skeletons that haven’t already been pulled out of the closet (see: Willie Brown), and a woman and minority who relishes political brawls. She once bashed Biden for his busing policy. Now she will be busing him. Harris has it all over the other candidates. Karen Bass of El Jefe and Venceremos Brigade fame was a disaster waiting to happen. Susan Rice is a creature of Washington elite institutions with no real political constituency. And Stacey Abrams would have driven away the very moderates that Biden is so assiduously wooing. Harris, by contrast, allows Biden to show that he is ready to usher in a new Democratic party that has the tincture of progressivism but no more.

Kamala Harris ticks all Biden’s boxes

Saturday

8 Aug 2020

Wednesday

3 Jun 2020

Friday

13 Mar 2020

Friday

6 Mar 2020

Warren’s decision not to endorse a candidate is a kind of endorsement

She wanted to be the Tin Lizzie of the presidential race, chugging to victory as the champion of the middle-class. But her campaign started running out of gas before it could even really get on the straightaway. Today the denouement arrives. Elizabeth Warren will announce that she’s packing it in. Will she endorse either Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden? Or will she, like Barack Obama, wait until the victor has been anointed? Intense and cerebral, Warren came across during the debates not as a nutty professor but a hectoring schoolmarm. She wanted to be Sanders-lite but the left wasn’t buying. 'Here’s my advice: cast a vote that will make you proud,' she said on Super Tuesday. 'Cast a vote from your heart. Vote for the person you think will make the best president of the United States.

Warren’s decision not to endorse a candidate is a kind of endorsement

Wednesday

4 Mar 2020

Biden surges on Super Tuesday

The luck of the Irish was finally with Joseph Biden. Dismissed as a loser by much of the US political class, Biden had never won a primary until South Carolina. Next he had a super-duper day on Super Tuesday, clobbering Bernie Sanders in state after state. Sanders may take Texas and California, but Bernie is essentially a burnt out case. It is more clear than ever that his candidacy would spell doom for the Democrats this autumn. He was unable to bring in many new young voters and his appeal to African American voters, the base of the Democratic party, is virtually nil. Exit polls showed that moderate and conservative voters regarded Sanders as about as enticing as the coronavirus. He couldn’t close the sale. No wonder that Donald Trump has regarded Sanders with such favour.

Biden surges on Super Tuesday

Thursday

29 Aug 2019

The case for proroguing Congress

It’s time for Donald Trump to take a leaf from Boris Johnson, for the master to take tuition from his pupil. Instead of trying to placate his critics, Trump should prorogue the American Congress. The approval rating of Congress is somewhere in the teens, even lower than Trump’s, so most Americans would likely greet such a move with a yawn, while Trump’s base would cheer it on. The upsides seem pretty clear. With a second term looking rather iffy, Trump would be able to push through his agenda decisively over the next fifteen months. He might even be able to move ahead with nuking a hurricane to test the efficacy of his theory about the virtues of trying to blow them up. If Trump fails to move, Congress will become increasingly emboldened.

The case for proroguing Congress

Monday

25 Mar 2019

The Mueller report’s findings could actually help Democrats in 2020

In determining that Donald Trump did not engage in secret collusion with Russia, Robert Mueller may well have done Democrats a solid. Instead of going down the chimerical road of impeachment, they can focus on ousting him from office in 2020. At the same time, they can keep the base agitated with intimations that not everything was in the up and up with the manner in which William Barr and Rod Rosenstein presented the report’s findings. Trump, who scored a big victory today, is already seeking to turn the tables on his accusers, accusing them of having pursued a witch-hunt that even Mueller couldn’t bring to a successful conclusion — ‘an illegal takedown that failed’ and ‘it’s a shame out country had to go through this.

The Mueller report’s findings could actually help Democrats in 2020

Thursday

3 Jan 2019

Is Mitt Romney the NeverTrumpers’ great hope?

Is Mitt Romney the mouse that roared? Or does he pose a real threat to President Trump? In his Washington Post op-ed, Romney bludgeons Trump: ‘the president has not risen to the mantle of his office.’ Move over Elizabeth Warren. It looks like the real civil war will be in the Republican, not the Democratic, party. Romney has been all over the map when it comes to Trump, seeking his endorsement seven years ago, importuning him for the Secretary of State post, only to denounce him once he’s floundering. Romney’s pious conclusion — ‘the people of this great land will eschew the politics of anger and fear if they are summoned to the responsibility by leaders in homes, in churches, in schools, in businesses, in government — who raise our sights and respect the dignity of every child of God — the ideal that is the essence of America’ — is the kind of bilge that prompted the Republican base to embrace Trump in the first place.

Is Mitt Romney the NeverTrumpers’ great hope?

Saturday

1 Dec 2018

George H.W. Bush, the last great liberal Republican

George H.W. Bush, who died on Friday at the age of 94, oversaw the end of the cold war. Together with Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, he helped to ensure that the dissolution of the Soviet empire and the reunification of Germany took place peacefully. Even as hawks in Washington, DC warned that Mikhail Gorbachev was simply a more nefarious version of his predecessors, Bush ended up embracing him. He represented a realpolitik, a mixture of caution and prudence, that was the obverse of what his son, George W. Bush, ended up practicing as president. Though the right has always awarded the credit for winning the cold war to Ronald Reagan, Bush deserves plaudits for displaying a diplomatic dexterity that would likely have eluded his predecessor.

George H.W. Bush, the last great liberal Republican

Thursday

8 Nov 2018

After losing the House, Trump will have more to worry about than CNN reporters

As soon as Donald Trump says ‘I’ll be honest,’ which he did at his press conference today, you know he’s about to tell a lie. The media, he proclaimed, ‘really does bring disunity.’ No, it doesn’t. What it brings is coverage of his administration rather than the beatification that he craves. Trump’s performance was more than ordinarily intemperate. He was clearly nettled by CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s questions about the Russia investigation, deeming him ‘a rude, terrible person’ who behaves in an ungentlemanly fashion toward his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. After NBC reporter Peter Alexander tried to defend Acosta, Trump barked, ‘Well, I’m not a big fan of yours either.’ https://twitter.com/aljwhite/status/1060224698561318913 Trump oscillated between genuflections toward bipartisanship and issuing threats about prosecuting Democrats in the Senate for allegedly leaking classified information and doing other bad things.

After losing the House, Trump will have more to worry about than CNN reporters

Tuesday

6 Nov 2018

How Democrat success in the midterms could help Trump

Today’s midterm election is bound to put a bit of swagger back into the steps of Democrats. If polls are anything to go by — and since when have they ever led anyone astray? — it will be a dolorous evening for Republicans as they watch state legislatures, governors, and Congress turn Democratic. CNN has the generic gap between Democrats and Republicans at 55 per cent to 42 per cent. Politico purports to discern an upswing for candidates such as Kyrsten Sinema. Maybe a new political category will also be detected — the shy Democrat voter who scurries to the polls, half ashamed at surrendering his or her Republican identity to pull the lever for a liberal or moderate Democrat. Might the Senate go Democratic as well? This is the nightmare scenario for the GOP, though Donald Trump, a political arsonist, might initially be amused by the carnage he has wrought.

How Democrat success in the midterms could help Trump

Thursday

23 Aug 2018

Trump’s presidency has imploded – in less than two years

This is the beginning of the end of the Donald Trump presidency. The double whammy of Michael Cohen, his former fixer, pleading guilty on eight counts, including illegal hush money payments, or, to put it more precisely, campaign contributions, to two women at Trump’s personal direction for ‘the purpose of influencing the election,’ coupled with the conviction of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort on eight counts, constitute a mortal blow to his already tottering presidency. It is also likely to administer the coup de grace to Republican hopes for the November midterm elections and to complicate the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. The calculations of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who staked Republican rule on Trump, may prove to be a colossal blunder.

Wednesday

22 Aug 2018

Trump’s presidency has imploded – in less than two years | 22 August 2018

This is the beginning of the end of the Donald Trump presidency. The double whammy of Michael Cohen, his former fixer, pleading guilty on eight counts, including illegal hush money payments, or, to put it more precisely, campaign contributions, to two women at Trump’s personal direction for ‘the purpose of influencing the election,’ coupled with the conviction of his former campaign manager Paul Manafort on eight counts, constitute a mortal blow to his already tottering presidency. It is also likely to administer the coup de grace to Republican hopes for the November midterm elections and to complicate the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. The calculations of Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, who staked Republican rule on Trump, may prove to be a colossal blunder.

Trump’s presidency has imploded – in less than two years | 22 August 2018

Tuesday

10 Jul 2018

Brett Kavanaugh is a Republican’s dream Supreme Court Justice

After reciting the usual homilies about the need to interpret the American Constitution as it was written, President Trump appeared visibly bored once his nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, took the podium. Who could blame him? There was little Trump could do to inject much excitement into the proceedings and it’s never as much fun to make a solemn announcement as it is to rant and rave in front of tens of thousands of your pursuivants in a sports arena or to send out tweets denouncing NATO or threatening a trade war with China. To be sure, Kavanaugh had clearly been primed on how to curry favour with his benefactor. He was careful to make the outlandish claim upfront that “no president has ever consulted more widely or talked to more people from more backgrounds to seek input for a Supreme Court nomination.

Brett Kavanaugh is a Republican’s dream Supreme Court Justice

Monday

25 Jun 2018

Donald Trump’s inability to care what his critics think is paying off

Donald Trump is becoming a restaurant critic. This morning he weighed in on the Red Hen restaurant, which is located in Virginia and denied service over the weekend to his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. According to Trump: The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018 It’s understandable if the Trump administration is feeling somewhat henpecked. A newly aroused left is engaging in an increasingly aggressive campaign of public shaming against Trump administration officials, much of which appears to centre on denying them meals at fine dining establishments.

Donald Trump’s inability to care what his critics think is paying off

Tuesday

19 Jun 2018

How splitting up families gave Trump the biggest crisis of his presidency

For the Democrats, the mounting furore over forcibly separating children from their parents at the border offers a golden opportunity before the midterm elections to tar Donald Trump as a heartless autocrat, a modern-day Baron Bomburst ruling over Vulgaria with his very own Child Catcher. Do a Caratacus Potts and Truly Scrumptious lurk in the wings to liberate the imprisoned children? Or will Trump continue to lock ‘em up? Both Republicans and Democrats are protesting the policy. Family values has been at the core of the GOP, particularly for its evangelical wing. This represents a repudiation of it. Franklin Graham thus denounced Trump’s move on the Christian Broadcasting Network as “disgraceful.” Others agree.

How splitting up families gave Trump the biggest crisis of his presidency

Thursday

14 Jun 2018

James Comey is a man obsessed with his own myth

Oh, dear. The myth that James Comey has sedulously cultivated of himself—the ascetic warrior for truth, the vigilant sentinel of liberty—is coming in for a bit of a pounding today. In his report to Congress on Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation, the Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded, “While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice.” Comey’s recent memoir was titled A Higher Loyalty, but his highest loyalty seems to have been to his image of himself as a pillar of rectitude.

James Comey is a man obsessed with his own myth

Tuesday

12 Jun 2018

Donald Trump’s dictator complex

The reviews are coming in for Donald Trump’s performance in Singapore and they aren’t pretty. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times says Trump was 'hoodwinked'. Ari Fleischer, the former press spokesman for George W. Bush, says 'This feels like the Agreed Framework of the 90s all over again. NK gave its word to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They never intended to keep their word. And then they broke it.' And Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation, says 'This is very disappointing. Each of the four main points was in previous documents with NK, some in a stronger, more encompassing way. The denuke bullet is weaker than the Six Party Talks language. And no mention of CVID, verification, human rights.

Donald Trump’s dictator complex

Thursday

24 May 2018

Donald Trump goes on the warpath with North Korea

So much for the “World Peace” that Donald Trump bragged he would create at the June 12th Singapore summit. In a wildly inappropriate letter that veered between a bullying and lachrymose tone, Trump bowed to the inevitable in canceling the summit with Kim Jong-un. He had to do it before Kim did. Already Kim had the upper hand. Trump’s impetuous decision gave the Supreme Leader, as the administration had taken to calling him, the validation the regime was seeking for decades. Now it will not be back to the future. South Korea isn’t going to readopt a tough posture of “maximum pressure” toward the North. Score one for Kim. But another winner is national security adviser John Bolton who never wanted a summit in the first place.

Donald Trump goes on the warpath with North Korea
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