WASHINGTON — Having coined Bush Derangement Syndrome more than a decade ago, I feel authorized to weigh in on its most recent offshoot. What distinguishes Trump Derangement Syndrome is not just general hysteria about the subject, but additionally the inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences on the one hand and signs of psychic pathology […]
Charles Krauthammer
Posted inOp-Eds
Policy of deterrence may take new direction for Europeans
WASHINGTON — So what if, in his speech last week to NATO, Donald Trump didn’t explicitly reaffirm the provision that an attack on one is an attack on all? What’s the big deal? Didn’t he affirm a general commitment to NATO during his visit? Hadn’t he earlier sent his vice president and secretaries of state […]
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Middle East peace comes through Saudi Arabia
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first tempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” — Irving Kristol WASHINGTON — The quixotic American pursuit of Middle East peace is a perennial. It invariably fails, yet every administration feels compelled to give it a try. The Trump administration is no different. It will fail as well. To be […]
Posted inOp-Eds
With Trump in driver’s seat, nation in for one rough ride
WASHINGTON — The pleasant surprise of the First 100 Days is over. The action was hectic, heated, often confused, but well within the bounds of normalcy. Policy (e.g., health care) was being hashed out, a Supreme Court nominee confirmed, foreign policy challenges (e.g. North Korea) addressed. Donald Trump’s character — volatile, impulsive, often self-destructive — […]
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Implausible actions standard fare for administration
WASHINGTON — It was implausible that FBI Director James Comey was fired in May 2017 for actions committed in July 2016 — the rationale contained in the memo by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. It was implausible that Comey was fired by Donald Trump for having been too tough on Hillary Clinton, as when, at […]
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Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain
WASHINGTON — With near unanimity, my never-Trump friends confess a sense of relief. It could have been worse. They thought it would be worse. A deep apprehension still endures but the international order remains intact, the republic still stands, and no “enemy of the people” has (yet) been arrested. Admittedly, this is a low bar. […]
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Populist wave is not in retreat. It’s on pause.
WASHINGTON — Yesterday’s conventional wisdom: A wave of insurgent populism is sweeping the West, threatening its foundational institutions — the European Union, the Western alliance, even liberal democracy itself. Today’s conventional wisdom (post-first-round French presidential election): The populist wave has crested, soon to abate. Chances are that both verdicts are wrong. The anti-establishment sentiment that […]
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Eight years of sleepwalking are over
WASHINGTON — The world is agog at Donald Trump’s head-snapping foreign policy reversal. He runs on a platform of America First. He renounces the role of world policeman. He excoriates parasitic foreigners that (I paraphrase) suck dry our precious bodily fluids — and these are allies! On April 4, Trump declared: “I don’t want to […]
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Bad precedent and the nuclear option
WASHINGTON — For euphemism, dissimulation and outright hypocrisy, there is nothing quite as entertaining as the periodic Senate dust-ups over Supreme Court appointments and the filibuster. The arguments for and against the filibuster are so well-known to both parties as to be practically memorized. Both nonetheless argue their case with great shows of passion and […]
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Health care issue isn’t over yet
WASHINGTON — Repeal-and-replace (for Obamacare) is not quite dead. It has been declared so, but what that means is that, for now, the president has (apparently) washed his hands of it and the House Republicans appear unable to reconcile their differences. Neither condition needs to be permanent. There are ideological differences between the various GOP […]