Donald Trump is a dominant presence in our public life, although one that his adversaries have trouble accepting and processing. The left is still looking for scapegoats for his 2016 victory, and the coterie of critics on the right — loosely referred to as Never Trump — often sound like they are in denial. I’m […]
Rich Lowry
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Student activists poisoning public gun debate
All you needed to know about student activist David Hogg’s speech at the “March for Our Lives” in Washington, D.C., over the weekend was that he affixed a price tag on the microphone to symbolize how much National Rifle Association money Sen. Marco Rubio took for the lives of students in Florida. The stunt wasn’t […]
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Posted inLetters, sj-web
The real Gina Haspel
In his March 20 column on CIA director nominee Gina Haspel, Rich Lowry likens Haspel’s treatment to that of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork — but for all the wrong reasons. Haspel’s treatment isn’t “disgraceful,” as the column’s headline stated — it’s appropriate, as Haspel is clearly the wrong person for the job. After his […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Stormy Davis becomes media darling
Stormy Daniels could have stepped right out of the 1990s. She would have been a natural in a Bill Clinton scandal, and, in fact, all the same means would have been used against her. Donald Trump’s tactics in these cases are almost indistinguishable from the Clintons’. The effort to shut down the accusers, the unconvincing […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Mueller would be the worst of all firings
Unsurprisingly for the former host of “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump has given us every variety of firing. There have been necessary firings (at three weeks, the ouster of Michael Flynn was long overdue), cruel firings (Rex Tillerson, check out Twitter) and spectacularly ill-advised firings (the cashiering of James Comey that led directly to the hiring […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
The disgraceful treatment of Gina Haspel
President Donald Trump’s pick for CIA director is about to experience a good Borking. No one doubts her professionalism, and she’s been endorsed by Obama intelligence officials. Yet Gina Haspel’s long career at the agency, including extensive work undercover in the field, is getting blotted out by her reported involvement in the CIA’s black-site interrogation […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
How to counter Chinese trade policies
There’s already a trade war, and it’s being waged by Beijing. China’s ascension to the World Trade Organization nearly 20 years ago has failed in its large-scale strategic objectives. It hasn’t created a liberalizing regime or a free-market economy in China; in fact, it hasn’t even created a China ready and willing to abide by […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Doubtful that Sessions will leave post, despite Trump attacks
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been attacked and belittled by President Donald Trump more than Vladimir Putin has. Trump has had rough patches with most of his top officials at one point or another, but there is a particular poignancy in his humiliating treatment of his own attorney general, who got on board the Trump […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Broward County sheriff should get out of town
The sheriff is an outsized figure in the American imagination. He is Wyatt Earp, shooting it out with outlaws at the O.K. Corral. He is John Wayne, a lonely instrument of frontier justice. He is Rick Grimes, the resourceful survivor of a zombie apocalypse in “The Walking Dead.” Now, along comes Scott Israel to remind […]
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Trump won't find a replacement for John Kelly
If John Kelly didn’t exist, President Donald Trump would have to invent him, and he wouldn’t be able to. The chief of staff has had a rocky couple of weeks — first it was the imbroglio over ousted White House staff secretary Rob Porter, and now stories of a brewing clash with Jared Kushner — […]