The central issue of the current campaign ought to be the nature and ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party — its reckless disregard for the world in the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, its repression of Hong Kong, what may be genocidal treatment of the Uighurs and its plans to dominate not just the South China Sea but the international order for decades to come. The election of 2020, like that of 1984, ought to turn on which candidate is best equipped to deal with the country’s most significant adversary.
A few thoughts:
* Hewitt is wrong that the CCP should be the "central issue" of the presidential campaign. We should look in our own backyard, first! We've got a raging pandemic to deal with, as well as an incipient Depression. If the United States can't get its own act together, our ability to act effectively on the world stage will be curtailed anyway. China? It's Issue Number Three, at best.
* It's notable that Hewitt raises the issue of the Uighurs without noting John Bolton's report that President Trump sold out the Uighurs to the Chinese in favor of getting a trade deal. It's additionally notable that in a column that purports to compare Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the China issue, he makes no effort at all to defend Trump's handling of China.
* Meanwhile, Hewitt's main attack on Biden is that Biden was wrong about some stuff ... 40 years ago. It's unconvincing. Daniel Larison has made a better case on why to be skeptical of Biden on foreign policy, but it comes from a distinctly less militaristic bent.
* But Hewitt is right about one thing:
The left has long liked to attack conservatives for a supposed lack of intelligence and sophistication, along with alleged warmongering and other crimes. One of my favorite novels, John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” is marred by this twitch. It was published in March 1989, an unfortunate mere eight months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is full of the then-conventional contempt for Reagan that accompanied the nuclear freeze movement, that condemned Reagan’s deployment of Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe, his embrace of strategic nuclear defense — derided as “Star Wars,” first by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and then everywhere on the left — and, of course, opposition to Reagan’s support for the contra rebels of Nicaragua, which reached hyper-pitch as Iran-contra scandal unfolded.
“The White House, that whole criminal mob, those arrogant goons who see themselves as justified to operate above the law — they disgrace democracy by claiming what they do, they do for democracy,” Irving has his narrator rail. “They should be in jail,” he huffs after labeling Reagan an “old geezer” and slamming him with the innuendo of Hollywood stupidity routinely traded in by anti-Reagan newspaper columnists in those days.
OWEN MEANY is a beautiful, funny novel -- I've read it once a decade, at least, since my 20s and find that I get something new out of it each time. But the Reagan hatred portions really are pretty tedious. Hewitt isn't wrong about everything.
There were many John Grisham movie adaptations made during the early 1990s. This is one of them.
Three thoughts about THE CLIENT, coming up....
* My favorite thing about John Grisham movies/novels is all the ridiculous names. Reggie Love. Roy Foltrigg. Thomas Fink. Avery Tolar. Gavin Vereek. Sometimes Grisham went the Dickensian route, matching names to the characteristics of his characters. And sometimes, I swear, a cat walked across the keyboard.
* That said, this is pretty powerhouse cast: Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon, obviously, but also Mary-Louise Parker, JT Walsh, Bradley Whitford, William H. Macy, Will Patton, Anthony Lapaglia, and Ossie Davis, just to name a few. This is a by-the-numbers 1990s legal thriller, but all the good actors in it -- even in minor roles -- make it just a little better than it should be.
* Two things really embarrassed me about this movie, though. Parker's character is a single Southern mom living in a trailer park, and my God, she plays it to the absolute max of what you think that character is. Not her fault. It's the work she was given. But hoo boy.
It was already true that you should never believe politicians who use "supporting the troops" to justify endless, stupid warfare. Supporting the troops can and should mean "bring them home so they don't have to die, or live with having killed." The GOP in this century has been skilled at weaponizing (so to speak) the bodies of soldiers in service of their foreign policy objectives. But Republicans have increasingly revealed cynicism underlying their "pro-troops" rhetoric. Donald Trump was criticized for his attacks on John McCain and Gold Star families -- but he didn't do anything that the the GOP, with its swiftboating attacks on John Kerry and Max Cleland, hadn't perfected years before.
My own leanings are pacifist. But Vindman is being sacrificed because he told truth, Duckworth attacked because she ... isn't a Republican. Their service to their country was a source of respect from Republicans. Until it became inconvenient.
Anthony Fauci has been a voice of reason during the pandemic. Perfect? No. But he has offered straightforward medical advice at almost every step of the way, and his guidance has frankly been better than the president's.
The president has undermined him, like he did tonight. And the president has stifled him -- the White House has curbed his U.S. TV appearances, probably because Fauci's advice rather notably conflicts with the president's.
So the best thing Anthony Fauci could do for public health at this point is quit.
He's 79. It's not like he has a lot of career ahead of him. And he wouldn't even have to criticize Trump directly. But as a newly retired foremost public expert on COVID-19, he might find his services to speak publicly and on TV in demand -- and might do a better job of getting good information to the public as a result.
The president is determined to magically think the virus away. And he has a leash on Fauci. The good doctor should quit, and serve the public by making his voice heard.
As I mentioned earlier today, we've already decided to keep our son at home this fall. You know why we made that decision? Well, it had nothing to do with Donald Trump.
Taking this tweet at face value, it means that the president of the United States cannot conceive of reasons why schools and parents would not want to fill up the classrooms this fall -- unless it's to make him look bad. He is so self-centered that the idea that people don't want to die, or that schools don't want to risk their students or be liable for that risk. He can only conceive of how that reflects on him.
Let me be clear: I wouldn't be sending my son to school this fall even if it meant that going or not going could guarantee Joe Biden's presidential victory. Again: Our decision had nothing to do with Donald Trump. But Trump cannot understand a universe in which he is not the center, in which people make decisions based on their own interests instead of how it affects his. His narcissism has always been one of his most terrible qualities. Now it could be positively lethal.
