From the right: Joe Biden’s Unnecessary Lie
For all the #MeToo hoopla over Joe Biden’s personal-space invasions, National Review’s Jack Fowler contends there’s something missing about his behavior: “a deeply troubling — I guess the right word is ‘lie’ ” — about a deeply painful event. In 1972, Biden’s wife and daughter were killed, and their two sons severely injured, when an oncoming truck hit their car. Investigators found the truck’s driver blameless, though the accident continued to haunt him for the rest of his life. Yet for the past 20 years, Biden repeatedly has claimed publicly that the driver was drunk and has ignored pleas from the driver’s family to correct what a writer at The Atlantic has called “a false and painful accusation.” Says Fowler: “This says so much more about Biden the man than any too-close shoulder grasp ever could.”
Foreign desk: Trump Offers Clarity on Iran’s Terrorism
American presidents have been calling Iran a state sponsor of terrorism for more than three decades, yet not one had placed the main outfit responsible in the same category as its clients like Hezbollah, notes Bloomberg’s Eli Lake. Until Monday — when President Trump formally designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. This, says Lake, “is a dramatic escalation with real consequences.” It’s a “powerful disincentive for Europeans to invest in Iran,” because “the IRGC’s tentacles reach into most aspects of Iran’s economy.” Now any Democratic president who wants to return to the 2015 nuclear deal will have to certify that the IRGC is “out of the terrorism business.” Trump’s strategy, unlike his predecessor’s, “begins with the premise that Iran is an outlaw state — and treats it as such until it changes its behavior.”
Political scribe: Stop Thinking of Sanders as a Gadfly
By every traditional measure, Bernie Sanders’ campaign “is off to a strong start,” declares The Los Angeles Times’ Doyle McManus. The Vermont socialist runs second in national polls to Joe Biden but leads the former vice president in Iowa and is tied with him in New Hampshire. And since 1972, notes McManus, “five of the six candidates who won both early contests in contested races went on to become their party’s nominee.” The reason: “Winning attracts more supporters,” producing “a bandwagon effect.” Another plus for Sanders: The Democrats have banned super-delegates, elected officials who traditionally reflect the party establishment. And unlike 2016, Sanders is in it to win, not just deliver a message. In politically fractured times, says McManus, “implausible outcomes are possible.”
2020 watch: Another Reality Check for Democrats
A pair of off-year elections in two battleground states last week provided “a wake-up call to Democrats” convinced they can beat President Trump with any candidate, “no matter how liberal,” reports National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar. In Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate for a state Senate seat supported cutting corporate taxes and opposed registration of firearms. She carried her GOP-leaning district with 52 percent. And in Wisconsin, progressive groups rallied behind a Democratic Supreme Court candidate who labeled her GOP opponent “a religious bigot over his adherence to Christian values.” The Republican won. The lessons, says Kraushaar, are clear: First, “running as woke culture warriors will be a losing strategy.” Second, when Democrats “tack left to energize their base, they inevitably energize the other side even more.”
Conservative: Why the Sudden Embrace of Reparations?
At PJ Media, Mark Margolis asks: What exactly do proponents of slavery reparations believe “they will do that affirmative-action policies in education, employment and the awarding of government contracts” couldn’t? Fact is, “it won’t solve any problems” and “it won’t satisfy anyone.” Even proponents can’t explain just how reparations would be implemented. In the end, reparations are “just another wealth redistribution program that would precede another, and another, and another to solve something that, in the eyes of those pushing for it, will never actually be fixed to satisfaction.” Yet it’s suddenly become a litmus test for 2020 Democrats — notwithstanding the fact that “opposition to slavery reparations has been strong and consistent over the years, with roughly 7 in 10 Americans” opposed.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann