Columns, pieces and posts
Two political opposites declared for the presidency this week. Sen. Tim Scott has the most winning personality in American politics but few policy accomplishments. Gov. Ron DeSantis has the least winning personality in the field but a long record of policy victories and a vivid political persona. Mr. DeSantis is getting beat about the head […]
Some thoughts on Trump/Russia occasioned by the release of the Durham report, which found that the Federal Bureau of Investigation got ahead of itself in launching a full-scale probe of allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia, that it relied too much on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” and that partisan hostility played a determinative […]
Well, that was a disaster, a politically historic one. It situated Donald Trump as the central figure of the 2024 presidential cycle, certainly more compelling than the incumbent or the other competitors. It will have an impact on the campaign’s trajectory. When it was over I thought, of CNN: Once again they’ve made Trump real. […]
GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump will be going on CNN next week, for a live Town Hall, for several reasons: To mix it up, like the old days. To be the dramatic focus of attention in a potentially sparky environment, like the old days. To remind people of positive things they experienced during his administration. […]
Look at people’s faces when you say, “Looks like it’ll be Biden and Trump.” Those faces tell you everything—the soft wince, the shake of the head, the sigh. Those are the emblems of the 2024 campaign right now. Seventy percent of his own party doesn’t want Joe Biden to run. More than half his party […]
The dawn of the internet age was so exciting. I took my grade-school son, enthralled by Apple computers, to see Steve Jobs speak at a raucous convention in New York almost a quarter-century ago. What fervor there was. At a seminar out West 30 years ago I attended a lecture by young, wild-haired Nathan Myhrvold, […]
Thinking over here about the free press. What an ideal, what a human achievement. You know the hallowed stories. The first investigative newspaper series is generally credited to W.T. Stead, whose “The Maiden Tribute of Babylon,” caused a sensation in 19th-century England. Stead was a rascally man and born crusader. In 1885, while editor of […]
We need a palate cleanser. It is Easter (whose theme is resurrection and salvation), Passover (freedom and remembering) and Ramadan (devotion). So let us go back to affectionate days and men of stature. It has been noted that the first and only previous American president to be arrested was Ulysses S. Grant. He was arrested […]
Artificial intelligence is unreservedly advanced by the stupid (there’s nothing to fear, you’re being paranoid), the preening (buddy, you don’t know your GPT-3.4 from your fine-tuned LLM), and the greedy (there is huge wealth at stake in the world-changing technology, and so huge power). Everyone else has reservations and should. It is being developed with […]
Two topics, both having to do with presidencies. The New York Times last week recounted the memories of Ben Barnes, 84, who traveled to the Mideast in the summer of 1980, at the height of the U.S. presidential election, with his political mentor, Texas political powerhouse John Connally. There, Mr. Barnes said, Connally urged heads […]