From the right: How Unhinged Foes Are Helping Trump
The good news for Democrats, notes John Fund at National Review, is that with Donald Trump in the White House, their apathy is gone. The bad news: “The fires of protest could burn so brightly that they alienate moderate voters and threaten any Democrats who decline to throw gasoline on the fire.” Some Dems are warning of anti-Trump overkill and the party’s “relentless choice of a negative, obstructionist tone.” But “the confusion is only making it more difficult for Democrats to think strategically.” So “practical considerations are being pushed aside in the rush to portray Donald Trump as some kind of ‘fascist in chief.’ ” But “if Democrats believe that this kind of hyper-partisan opposition will carry the day or appeal to moderates,” says Fund, “good luck with that.”
Lefty take: Chelsea Clinton Is the Last Thing Dems Need
Michael Sainato at the Observer cites reports Chelsea Clinton may seek a congressional seat and warns if she wins, it “would be a disaster for the Democratic Party.” Because “another Clinton in public office would broaden the party’s disconnect with working and middle class voters” and “do little to convey a message of change and progression.” Indeed, he suggests, noting her recent series of anti-Trump tweets, “if the best Democrats can come up with for the ‘resistance’ against Donald Trump is sensationalizing tweets from establishment elites as legitimate opposition, the Party is worse off than anyone understands.” Let her run and lose, he says: That would teach “a lesson the Democratic establishment has continuously failed to learn.”
Foreign desk: GOP’s ‘Moral Relativism’ Dilemma
President Trump’s Super Bowl interview — in which he responded to Bill O’Reilly’s description of Vladimir Putin as a “killer” by claiming “We’ve got a lot of killers,” too — creates a dilemma for Republicans, argues Max Boot at USA Today. Historically, “the tendency to draw comparisons between the conduct of the United States and its enemies,” has been “the bane of American conservatives.” They “excoriated” President Barack Obama for “supposedly apologizing for past American actions.” So to see a GOP president as today’s “chief font of moral equivalence” is “more than a little ironic.” Fact is, Putin’s regime “routinely murders anyone with the temerity to criticize him.” To imply America does likewise “is as ludicrous as it is offensive.”
Editor: Here’s a Trump Story the Media Botched
Contrary to what you may have read or heard, notes Washington Post Deputy Editorial Page Editor Jackson Diehl, Trump did not “downgrade the participation of the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the deliberations of the National Security Council.” Yet these days, “even when the White House does something ordinary, it may be portrayed as radical and dangerous, and even when it tells the truth, it is not believed.” The misinterpretation by the media led to immediate denunciations, even though the same arrangement existed under George W. Bush. Spokesman Sean Spicer pointed out the error — “to no avail,” notes Diehl: the misreporting continued. This is “hurting both sides. Media organizations look less credible,” while the White House “looks utterly unable to coherently explain its own policies.”
Libertarian: Growing Disrespect for Judges
President Trump’s attack on the “so-called judge” who stayed his executive order on immigration is an “unusual” example of “judicial disrespect,” but hardly unexpected these days, sighs Walter Olsen at Overlawyered. In fact, “the norm of not personally attacking judges has been eroding for years.” President Barack Obama, after all, “publicly scolded judges not only in his 2010 State of the Union speech but also repeatedly during the court review of ObamaCare.” Then there are “the extraordinarily vicious interest-group-led campaigns against judicial nominees, currently being cranked up” against Justice-designate Neil Gorsuch. But Trump’s comments “could complicate the efforts of his own lawyers in court.” They must either defend the remark, or distance themselves from their boss.
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann
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