During Sunday night’s debate, Donald Trump told Hillary Clinton that, “if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your [email] situation.” That would constitute an abuse of power. Presidents are not supposed to “instruct” their attorneys general to appoint a “special prosecutor” (now called an “independent counsel.”) The attorney general is supposed to make ...
Pundits say that Mike Pence performed better in his debate than Donald Trump did in his. I’m not so sure. Yes, Pence was better stylistically. He spoke more crisply. He more deftly pivoted away from uncomfortable subjects. But on both trade and national security, Pence hewed to the established conservative script. Trump discarded it. And of the two agendas, Trump’s is more popular, especially among ...
Again and again at Monday night’s debate, Hillary Clinton attacked Donald Trump’s record in business. She accused him of caring only about himself. Again and again, he pleaded guilty. When Clinton quoted Trump as cheering for a housing crisis, Trump responded, “That’s called business.” When Clinton accused Trump of not paying taxes, Trump answered, “That makes me smart.” When Clinton attacked Trump for declaring bankruptcy ...
A new epithet has entered the political lexicon: “theater criticism.” Since the 1980s, wrote Charles Homans in the New York Times Magazine in August, American journalists have been eviscerating candidates for saying things that journalists deem bad politics, whether or not these “gaffes” really matter. Thus, they have been “practicing a kind of theater criticism as much as political reporting.” Earlier this month, Slate’s Jamelle ...
The new issue of Politico Magazine features an essay by the former John F. and Robert Kennedy speechwriter Adam Walinsky about why he’s planning to vote for Donald Trump. Trump, Walinsky argues, will follow in the Kennedys’ anti-war tradition by working with Russia to utterly destroy ISIS. Make sense? Actually, no. Not at all. …
Last Saturday, The New York Times published an extraordinary story. What made the story extraordinary wasn’t the event the Times covered. What made it extraordinary was the way the Times covered it. On its front page, top right—the most precious space in American print journalism—the Times wrote about Friday’s press conference in which Donald Trump declared that a) he now believed Barack Obama was a ...
Except for her gender, Hillary Clinton is a highly conventional presidential candidate. She’s been in public life for decades. Her rhetoric is carefully calibrated. She tailors her views to reflect the mainstream within her party. …
The best thing you can say about Hillary Clinton’s performance at Wednesday night’s Commander in Chief Forum is this: Matt Lauer was worse. …
Crusaders against “political correctness” often portray themselves as brave. They deride others for knuckling under to left-wing orthodoxy, for being too afraid of African Americans, Latinos, feminists, and gays to speak the truth. They, on the other hand, speak their mind, come what may. No presidential candidate has used this conceit more effectively than Donald Trump. His supporters love his willingness to say things about ...
I admire Colin Kaepernick. I admire his courage in doing what he thinks is right even though it could cost him money and perhaps his job. You don’t see that from public figures very often. I admire him for raising awareness about police brutality. I also admire the veterans who have defended him by arguing, correctly, that they are defending his right to sit or ...