WASHINGTON — How far they’ve come. And I’m not talking about the GOP, whose front-runner representing 37 percent of the Republican electorate has repudiated post-Reagan orthodoxy on trade, entitlement reform, limited government and Pax Americana (and possibly abortion, but who knows?). I’m talking about the Democrats. The center-left, triangulating, New Democrat (Bill) Clintonism of the […]
Charles Krauthammer
Posted inOp-Eds
Trump maintains core constituency
WASHINGTON — Yes, the big Wisconsin story is Ted Cruz’s crushing 13-point victory. And yes, it greatly improves his chances of denying Donald Trump a first-ballot convention victory, which may turn out to be Trump’s only path to the nomination. Nonetheless, the most stunning result of Wisconsin is the solidity of Trump’s core constituency. Fundamentalist […]
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Major differences in foreign policies for top 4 candidates
WASHINGTON — After dozens of contests featuring cliffhangers, buzzer- beaters and a ton of flagrant fouls, we’re down to the Final Four: Sanders, Clinton, Cruz and Trump. (If Kasich pulls a miracle, he’ll get his own column.) The world wants to know: What are their foreign policies? Herewith, four candidates and four schools: pacifist, internationalist, […]
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Obama’s ideological holiday in Cuba
WASHINGTON — The split-screen told the story: on one side, images of the terror bombing in Brussels; on the other, Barack Obama doing the wave with Raul Castro at a baseball game in Havana. On one side, the real world of rising global terrorism. On the other, the Obama fantasy world in which romancing a […]
Posted inOp-Eds
An air of violence in this campaign
WASHINGTON — By international and historical standards, political violence is exceedingly rare in the United States. The last serious outburst was 1968 with its bloody Democratic-convention riots. By that standard, 2016 is, as yet, tame. It may not remain so. The political thuggery that shut down a Donald Trump rally in Chicago last week may […]
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Trump’s appeal lies in tough guy image
WASHINGTON — What happened to the evangelicals? They were supposed to be the bedrock of the Ted Cruz candidacy. Yet on Super Tuesday he lost them to Donald Trump. Cruz still did make a reasonably good showing, winning Alaska, Oklahoma and Texas, the latter by an impressive 17 points. But he didn’t have the great […]
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U.S. foreign policy one of weakness
WASHINGTON — State of the world, Year Eight of Barack Obama: (1) In the South China Sea, on a speck of land of disputed sovereignty far from its borders, China has just installed anti-aircraft batteries and stationed fighter jets. This after China landed planes on an artificial island it created on another disputed island chain […]
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Democrats hypocritical about Supreme Court appointment
WASHINGTON — Let’s understand something about the fight to fill the Supreme Court seat of Antonin (“Nino”) Scalia. This is about nothing but raw power. Any appeal you hear to high principle is phony — brazenly, embarrassingly so. In Year Seven of the George W. Bush administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer publicly opposed filling any Supreme […]
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Sanders and Trump: Magic get votes
WASHINGTON — The New Hampshire results have solidified the reigning cliche that the 2016 campaign is an anti-establishment revolt of both the left and the right. Largely overlooked, however, is the role played in setting the national mood by the seven-year legacy of the Obama presidency. Yes, you hear constant denunciations of institutions, parties, leaders, […]
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Put an end to the ‘establishment’ nonsense
WASHINGTON — The reigning idiocy of the current political season is the incessant tossing around of “establishment,” an epithet now descending into meaninglessness. Its most recent abuse is by Donald Trump supporters rationalizing his Iowa defeat with the following consolation: If you tally up Trump and Ted Cruz (and throw in Ben Carson), a whopping […]