Politics

A couple of days ago, members of the United States House of Representatives processed with all their accustomed pomp and dignity to file, formally, two articles of impeachment against President Trump. Yesterday, Chief Justice John Roberts swore in the senators, who promised, scout’s honor, to deliberate with all the impartiality for which that great legislative body is known, i.e., to deliver their verdict almost exclusively on party lines. They didn’t say that, of course, because niceties must be preserved in these august chambers, especially when the television cameras are running, but everyone knows that is what is mean by 'impartial' in our political life today.

Yet another dubious figure whom Donald Trump barely knows. This time it’s Lev Parnas, the Michael Cohen of 2020. 'I don’t believe I’ve ever spoken to him,' Trump said on Thursday. He added, 'I don't know him at all. Don't know what he's about. Don't know where he comes form. Know nothing about him. I can only tell you this thing is a big hoax.' Whether Parnas spoke directly with Trump about the Ukraine caper, remains a matter of dispute.But it was commencement day for the impeachment trial as 100 senators swore an oath to carry out impartial justice, an act that was somewhat vitiated by Martha McSally’s petulant outburst at CNN reporter Manu Raju.

The next time Elizabeth Warren offers you a beer, be sure not to turn your back on her lest she crack you across the back of the head with it. That's the message the Warren camp has sent out with the latest Liz-Bernie spat — just in time for the seventh (I know!) Democratic debate in Iowa tonight. Pulling a dirty trick worthy of Roger Stone, Warren's associates briefed CNN about a December 2018 meeting between the two senators, during which Sanders allegedly said 'he did not believe a woman could win.' Saagar Enjeti of The Hill lays out the apparent Warren strategy nicely: 'Progressives. Allow me introduce you to the media ecosystem that has bedeviled conservatives in the Trump age: Step 1) Leak a bullshit smear sans any real confirmation to CNN.

There’s a funny silence where the complaints about ‘money in politics’ used to be. The latest numbers on amounts spent on TV ads have billionaires Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer at $153.1 million and $116.5 million, respectively. Yet no viral pieces have been written, no passionate speeches given about their corrupting influence. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have given lip service to them, sure, but it’s been very muted. Warren told Rachel Maddow that Bloomberg is ‘skipping the democracy part of this’ because his lack of fundraising means he can’t participate in the debates. Of course, anyone who tells you they believe Warren actually would want Bloomberg in the debates is lying to you.

This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. If we can’t be governed, we may as well be entertained. That’s become the ethos behind the Donald Trump presidency. The national debt might continue to bulge, our military might remain pointlessly overextended, our healthcare system might stay ablaze, but at least politics has become funny in a nothing-matters, Rick and Morty kind of way. Americans upvoted a man who’d spent hours on the Howard Stern show boasting about his sexual prowess, and we expect to be amused, dammit. So why has the news lately been so dreadfully boring? The fault certainly doesn’t lie with Trump.

In July 55 BC, in the midst of his campaigns to civilize Gaul, Julius Caesar was troubled by the Germans. They would cross the Rhine, wreak havoc, and then disappear back across the mighty river, whose depth and swift currents made the Germans regard it as an impregnable barrier. To teach them that it wasn’t, Caesar had his engineers construct a bridge across the Rhine. As Caesar recounts in Book IV of his commentaries on the Gallic War, they did this in an astonishing 10 days. Caesar and his troops crossed over, stayed for a few days in German territory, 'burned all their villages and other buildings, and cut down the grain in their fields'. They then crossed back over and destroyed the bridge.

This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. Galileo famously said that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. But what made him so important in the history of science was his further insight that mathematics, in order to reveal the laws of nature, had to be empirically tested. Mathematical formulae described what he thought would happen; he had to clamber up the leaning tower of Pisa and drop the two balls to convince us that objects of different masses fall at the same speed. I am not sure that most modern pollsters have taken Galileo’s second insight fully on board. The modern pollster tends to be in love with his model.

‘We are not looking to start a war with Iran,’ said defense secretary Mark Esper today. ‘We are looking to finish one.’ Iran just replied by firing off at least a dozen missiles at American targets in Iraq in an effort supposedly dubbed Operation Martyr Soleimani. It doesn’t mean all out war yet — but all the Trump administration’s talk about ‘de-escalating’ the situation sounds like hot air. As I write, the details of Iran’s retaliation are unclear — we don’t know if the strikes were aimed at American troops or infrastructure. Is it a face-saving measure? A decoy? Why did Iran attack Erbil and Al-Asad, rather than more obvious US bases? Have the fortified American defenses at these bases worked?

P.G. Wodehouse once described a character as so crooked that he sliced bread with a corkscrew. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s behavior on the Sunday morning television shows brings to mind Wodehouse’s description. No, Pompeo wasn’t toting a corkscrew or a loaf of bread, but he offered a study in deceit. Pompeo didn’t merely reiterate the wafer-thin claim that Iran was about to pose an 'imminent' threat to American interests in the Middle East, but also claimed that President Obama and his aides had essentially been in league with the mullahs of Tehran.In responding to Jake Tapper of CNN, Pompeo was unable to explain how blowing Qasem Soleimani to kingdom come would enhance the safety of America.

Talleyrand once commented that Napoleon’s execution of the Duke of Enghien in 1804 was worse than a crime. It was a mistake. Something similar could be said about President Trump’s liquidation of Maj. Gen Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. No one will miss the villainous Soleimani, but killing him was the equivalent of stepping on a landmine to cure a headache. What on earth could Trump have been thinking — if he was thinking at all? Trump has in effect ceded his foreign policy to the hawks. So much for Trump the restrainer. Hello, Donald Trump neocon. Trump has launched America into the path of a war with Iran that it can win but only at a cost that is disproportionate to the terrible cost it will pay.