From the right: The Monster Dems Can No Longer Control
Republican Congressman Steve King had a long history of racially inflammatory remarks, and after his recent defense of white supremacy the House reproached him by name and stripped him of his committee assignments. Yet even that wasn’t good enough for many Democrats. So now as House Democrats wrestle with Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic comments, “the double standard has become intolerable,” says Commentary’s Noah Rothman. Unlike the GOP response to King, there was “fierce resistance” among Democrats to any “assault on the bigotry that lingers in their ranks.” Indeed, many Democrats “objected to the idea that these remarks should even be subject to modest rebuke.” Says Rothman: “The battle for the future of the Democratic Party isn’t over yet, but, for now, Ilhan Omar is winning.”
Media critic: Why Are Democrats Afraid of Fox News?
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez this week denied Fox News Channel the right to host any of his party’s 2020 presidential debates, claiming the network is too cozy with President Trump. Then again, notes Politico’s Jack Shafer, Fox hasn’t hosted a Democratic debate since 2004, so all Perez has done is “reassert the status quo.” As with the GOP’s earlier threatened boycott of CNN and NBC, it suggests both parties expect such forums “to produce infomercials that glorify their candidates, not journalistic grillings.” But the DNC move is “shameful political gutlessness.” Because being president means “confronting tough customers on a daily basis.” So “any politician who can’t hold his own against a journalist from the other team should be disqualified from running.”
Foreign desk: Israeli Opposition Offers Bibi-less ‘Bibiism’
For the first time in a decade, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suddenly looks vulnerable, reports Bloomberg’s Eli Lake. His right-wing Likud party trails the more centrist Blue and White bloc in the latest polls. Yet even if he loses power in the April 2 election, “the government that replaces him is likely to continue most of his national-security policies,” judging by the platform that Blue and White released this week: “Call it Bibiism without Bibi.” That’s hardly surprising: All four of its founding members served as top generals or cabinet ministers in Netanyahu governments. As such, “they carried out the national-security policy of the prime minister they now oppose.” Moreover, “Israeli public opinion has shifted”: Most now “worry that any land the Jewish state relinquishes will become a base for terrorists.”
Scribe: Mayor Mike Takes His Final Pass on White House
Michael Bloomberg “was never going to be president,” declares City Journal’s Bob McManus, though “the same thing was said about Donald Trump.” One big difference: “Trump never blinked, and Bloomberg just did,” once again declining to enter the presidential race. Instead, he’s “promised a cash tsunami” to oust Trump. What probably held him back, McManus suspects, “is the need to do something for which he has never shown an appetite — out-in-the-open, thumb-in-the-eye retail politicking, the kind that Trump used to clear the 17-candidate Republican primary field” in 2016. Now Bloomberg likely “leaves the strategic Democratic middle to ‘moderates’ such as Joe Biden and, perhaps, Andrew Cuomo — choices for which history may find it hard to forgive him.”
Culture critic: Bring Back ‘Easy Listening’ Music
Nobody actually listened to Jimi Hendrix back in the ‘60s, suggests The Week’s Matthew Walther; most people “were listening to Andy Williams and Herb Alpert.” And that, he’s now come to realize, “was a good thing.” Because unlike most pop music, what “used to be called ‘easy listening’ was music for adults”: It’s “pleasant to the ears and enjoying it doesn’t require you to be either on drugs or jumping up and down like a child, which is the whole point.” Indeed, it filled “the gap between classical music and jazz on the one hand and kiddie fare on the other.” Until recently, “the ghost of easy listening still haunted FM radio,” but no longer. Spend some time listening to Perry Como, he suggests, and you’ll “never want to hear an overdriven guitar again.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann