Political scribe: Dems Should Hope They Don’t Win Big
Democrats remain giddy at the prospect of regaining control of one or both houses of Congress in November. But Real Clear Politics’ Tom Bevan warns “they should be careful what they wish for.” Because if they do so, it almost surely will be with “the same problem Republicans have now: majorities so slim as to be unmanageable.” Which means “they still wouldn’t be able to get much done in the way of legislation.” And their new committee chairs will be “under immediate pressure from the party’s liberal base to begin impeachment proceedings” against President Trump, despite party leaders’ wishes. But since they can’t possibly win a conviction, “they would effectively turn the president into a victim,” just as Republicans did with Bill Clinton.
Foreign desk: US-Israel Honeymoon Could Soon End
Two “unprecedented steps highly favorable to Israel” undertaken by President Trump — recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and cutting aid to the anti-Israel UN Relief and Works Agency — may end up turning into a “fiasco” for the Jewish state, argues Daniel Pipes at the Washington Examiner. That’s because they were made “for what appears to be the wrong reasons.” For one thing, recognition did not “settle the Jerusalem issue,” as Trump claims. In fact, it’s now “a more disputed issue” than previously. And Trump’s made clear he “intends to exact an unspecified price from Israel” in return. As for the aid cut, it was meant only to pressure the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. Once they do, they can expect “a bevy of benefits.”
From the left: What If Iran Nuke Deal Was a Mistake?
Slate’s Joshua Keating, a onetime supporter, is having buyer’s remorse over Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Since the deal was signed, he notes, “the Middle East’s sectarian conflicts have only become deeper, more violent and more intractable.” Given what’s happening in Syria and Yemen, “it’s much harder now to say that Obama made the right decision in prioritizing the Iran deal above all else.” Yes, the deal is working as far as its “explicitly declared goals” are concerned. But its defenders must “acknowledge that its larger impact has been more mixed than we like to admit.” Indeed, it has “contributed to escalating tensions.” Fact is, Obama was “elected in part on a promise to extract the US” from Mideast conflicts but “ended his term with America just as enmeshed in them as ever.”
Historians: Dems Long Supported FBI Abuses
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Garrow at The Wall Street Journal reminds us that “congressional Democrats eagerly aided and abetted the FBI’s running amok” during the J. Edgar Hoover era. Former FBI Director James Comey says he kept a copy of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s order authorizing wiretaps of Martin Luther King in order to remind him of those abuses. But, says Garrow, “anyone eager to embrace the belief that today’s FBI is a rigorously professional and politically unbiased agency is overlooking the facts.” That includes its use of the Steele dossier, “third-hand, anonymous partisan gossip about Donald Trump, brokered by a paid operative.” Sadly, “judgment-blurring partisan hatred is leading many Democrats to ignore and forsake the lessons that the FBI’s history so richly teaches.”
Culture critic: Textbooks Increasingly Politicized
California has had “enormous influence on the nation’s history textbooks for decades because of its large education market,” notes Gilbert T. Sewall at The Federalist, which is why “single-interest groups have long flocked to Sacramento to try to gain favorable inclusion.” And they’ve succeeded: The state’s board of education now officially places “identity politics of all kinds at the heart” of its curricula. As a result, publishers increasingly are creating textbooks that “select, recognize and feature historical figures based on their sexuality,” including “outing historical figures, often based on thin speculation” — even in first-grade texts. Now curriculum supervisors nationwide, either “by law or partiality,” are refusing to “consider volumes unless they align to multicultural preferences.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann