Conservative: GOP Embracing Kanye Seems Desperate
Republicans “have always had a celebrity problem,” observes Kimberly Ross at the Washington Examiner, since any entertainer who doesn’t “hold fast to a leftist mentality” is “quickly ostracized” for holding minority views. But in searching for celebrities “they can call their own,” conservatives too often “bend to the superficial temptations they have decried for years.” And many of those on the right who consistently dismiss celebs “who place themselves within the center of political discussion” are now “falling all over Kanye West for his adherence to the MAGA mindset.” This fawning over fame, says Ross, “comes off as desperation,” because Kanye “offers very little sober thinking that we should praise.” Whether left or right, celebrity political endorsements should be viewed as “meaning next to nothing.”
Security beat: The Price of Saudi Friendship
In one sense, the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul “is pretty much business as usual” for Riyadh, where repression of dissent “is taken for granted,” suggests Jonathan Tobin at JNS. But abducting and likely murdering a US resident, a writer for a major newspaper, “is the sort of thing that can’t be swept under the rug.” It’s a reminder to both the US and Israel “of the cost of an alliance with an unsavory, if friendly, government,” even if it’s an alliance of convenience. Complicating things is that the Saudis currently “are playing a productive role” in the Middle East. So completely discarding this alliance “isn’t sensible” — not while “the Iranians, who are just as bad, if not worse, on human rights, pose a deadly threat to the world.”
From the right: The Case Against Pope Francis
When Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Francis five years ago, recalls National Review’s Michael Francis Dougherty, it seemed as if his papacy would be “an era of mercy for sinners at the peripheries and accountability for malefactors at the Vatican.” Instead, says Dougherty, “the opposite has taken place.” Because while “trying to please the progressives who elected him, Pope Francis has plunged the Church into acrimony and confusion.” Nearly half of his reformist team “have been pulled into sexual-abuse scandals themselves.” Indeed, Francis seems to favor those who are either “morally compromised” or “doctrinally suspect.” Now the curia itself “is filled with moral mediocrities, men who are sexually and financially compromised.” No wonder the Vatican “inveighs against whistleblowers immediately but waits decades to investigate predator bishops.”
Political scribe: Yes, Democrats, It Is a Mob
There’s nothing wrong with fighting in politics, contends David Harsanyi at RealClearPolitics, and there’s no need “to be hypersensitive about every metaphorical over-indulgence.” Problem is, Democrats act “as if every political setback they experience is caused by some act of criminality.” And “this instigates lots people to act like a bunch of children — or worse.” Yet “the mob within their ranks is being cast, predictably, as a conservative fiction.” Indeed, “CNN insists that it’s a normal, everyday demonstration of free expression to chase politicians’ wives out of public places.” But “a mob is a disorderly crowd of people who have the intent of causing trouble or violence.” And when “you surround people and restrict their movements, you are engaging in more than incivility.”
Foreign desk: First Big Test for Trump’s China Strategy
President Trump has shifted course on China, from engagement to competition, combined with what The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin calls a willingness to “confront Chinese economic aggression, military expansion, internal repression and overseas political interference.” But it’s still “an open question” whether his team “has the commitment and capability to make this strategy a reality.” The first big test will be over human rights and Tibet: Congress wants Beijing to open Tibet to US officials and journalists or face travel restrictions on its officials here. If Trump signs this into law and implements it, “Washington’s new policy of enforcing ‘reciprocity’ in the US-China relationship will be on.” Escalation “certainly risks disruptions and unintended consequences” — but those risks “must be weighed against the costs of allowing Chinese practices to go unchecked.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann