Politics

Will Biden meet this perilous moment? William Burns was honest about what he didn’t know but clear about what was possible. In an interview Monday, the CIA director said that US intelligence agencies have not concluded that Russia will invade Ukraine but that the army assembled by Vladimir Putin close to the border “could act in a very sweeping way.” Burns widened the lens to argue that we are at a “rare moment of transformation.” It’s hard to disagree. From Ukraine to Taiwan, from Iran’s nuclear proliferation to a burgeoning shadow war in space, the nature of threats to America are changing. And one cannot but feel that all of this is approaching an uncomfortable pinch point.

The usualness, you might say, of the late Bob Dole is what would render him highly, and commendably, unusual in today’s politics. He was no Reagan or Taft, and certainly no Madison. He had no grand vision he wished to implement in public life. But he had judgment and common sense. He lacked entirely the dubious gift for making long-term enemies. His patriotism — his love of the land he served and fought for, with lieutenant’s bars on his GI helmet — was deeply embedded. Most conspicuously, he had guts and determination. He was up for any contest that involved the preservation of his convictions and ideals — including the lifelong contest he waged against the agony of a partly destroyed physical body.

The long preen through the institutions continues. The latest celebrity to decide his presence is desperately needed on the political stage is Mehmet Oz, the famous TV doctor, who is running for Senate as a Republican in Pennsylvania. Dr. Oz's candidacy is expected to be less a tonic for what ails us than a ginseng extract supplement paired with an omega-3 multivitamin. Oz's detractors have accused him of using his popular daytime TV show to peddle junk cures, a charge that's certain to be front and center if he makes it out of the GOP primary. Oz has promoted "miracle" weight loss solutions, including claiming that green coffee extract can burn off the pounds. He's touted a tropical fruit called the garcinia cambogia as a great way to slim down.

The high-profile trial of Ghislaine Maxwell started with a bang this week, as her defense lawyers portrayed her as a persecuted woman, a modern-day Eve blamed for Jeffrey Epstein’s sins. In opening statements, Maxwell’s attorneys attacked the credibility of the alleged victims, their lawyers, and government lawyers. One of the victims, whose testimony is crucial to the government’s case, testified that Maxwell had lured her into Epstein’s web of vice. The government countered this narrative with testimony from some of the employees closest to Epstein in an effort to show that Maxwell was an integral part of his trafficking ring. The jury heard from Epstein’s pilot, Larry Visoski, who described Maxwell as the manager of Epstein’s properties.

There’s no going back after Dobbs “Consensus” isn’t a word that tends to be associated with the abortion debate. But after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization this week, the most direct challenge to the law on abortion in a generation, plenty of people on both sides of the issue seem to think that Roe v. Wade is on the chopping block. “The Supreme Court looks ready to overturn Roe v. Wade,” speculates the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson Sorkin. Many other observers of this week’s proceedings agree. I’ll leave such speculation to others, including my Spectator colleagues who discuss the case in the latest episode of The District.

One of the most gripping scenes in the classic film Casablanca is at the very beginning, when many of the characters who would feature in the story are seen together in a busy city plaza. Suddenly silent as a small Lisbon-bound plane passes overhead, they all look up, and the audience can see in their faces the cumulating stress of not knowing when, or even if, they would get out of wartime Morocco and fly to America. I never imagined I would experience anything remotely like that until just a few days ago when my twenty-eight-year-old son Zachary and I were wrapping up a long-planned and, due to the coronavirus, frequently postponed vacation to South Africa.

The Democrats' only possible path forward is to ensure that Trump does not run in 2024. So they want to lock him away in jail. With only three years left to go, the 2024 race is narrowing to Trump versus Some Democrat. By Election Day, President Biden will be a vaguely sentient eighty-two, VP Harris will likely have left the country, and the Dems' rainbow coalition of identity claimants will quickly winnow itself down to nobody as their collective lack of experience devalues their various claims of victimhood. What to do about Trump? You can convince some Americans for awhile that Trump is a Russian agent, or violated an Emoluments Clause thingie they'd never heard of before, just by saying it over and over.

Nearly ten months after President Biden ordered defense secretary Lloyd Austin to undertake a comprehensive, across-the-board review of America's military overseas, the Pentagon finally concluded the study this week. And it landed with a loud thud of disappointment. So far as we can tell (the entire product won’t be released to the public), the results of the Global Posture Review (GPR) range from unimaginative to pitiful. Or, in the words of one congressional aide familiar with the findings, "No decisions, no changes, no sense of urgency, no creative thinking. Lots of word salad.” Of course, the GPR is hardly the first government report to be classified this way.