Washington

The Canadian truckers might have been driven out of Ottawa, but a copycat protest is brewing in the United States. Cockburn hears that police are preparing for demonstrations that could gridlock the DC area, and they could start as soon as Wednesday. Honk honk! The truckers are coming to Washington — just in time for President Biden's State of the Union address next week. Cockburn has been a fan of truckers ever since he decided to see whether he could hitchhike across America using only Jim Beam trucks (he could, as it turns out). But in this case, the big riggers may be in need of a friendly correction.

Bob Dole passed away this week, and according to the press coverage, he took with him an entire golden age of senatorial comity. The New York Times characterized Dole's time in the Senate as "the days when Republicans and Democrats at least tried to work together" while praising "his instincts as a deal maker." It was yet another lament for a supposed Pax Bipartisana gone by — and it's not like the Times is entirely wrong. Congress really was less dysfunctional during the 1980s and 90s when Dole was at his prime. But just as the famous Ronald Reagan/Tip O'Neill working relationship is overrated (Tip in his memoir: "It was sinful that Ronald Reagan ever became president"), so too was Dole not just some huk-yukking back-slapper.

It might come as a surprise, but Cockburn is a big advocate of public transportation. Most days, his rigorous whiskey-and-ginger schedule leaves him unfit for the wheel of a car. You're more likely to find him in the back of a cab or pedaling around on a Capital Bikeshare bicycle, his tie fluttering in the wind. So it's been much to Cockburn's dismay that the Metro, Washington's subway system, has lately ground to a halt. It began last month when a single train managed to derail at least three times in one day thanks to what was later found to be a faulty wheel axle. The National Transportation Safety Board, the regulatory agency tasked with overseeing Metro, swooped in, and was aghast at what they found.

SeattleWhen the time comes to consider the question of America’s worst governors, it seems we’re somewhat spoilt for choice. From the swivel-eyed Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan to New York’s ubiquitous Andrew Cuomo and his never-ending victory lap for having overseen just 33,000 deaths — a reported 6,692 of them in his state’s nursing homes — media posturing would seem to be the rule, and sustained periods of selfless public duty the exception. But for sheer myopic self-regard, it would be hard to top 69-year-old Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington since 2013, who barring a political earthquake is almost certain to be reelected in next month’s election.

SeattleSo the revolution devours its children. On Tuesday, Seattle’s police chief Carmen Best announced her retirement just hours after the city council had voted to strip her department of roughly 130 of its 1,400 officers, with more such cuts promised in the future. Best, 54, was Seattle’s first black police chief. She had served in the department for 28 years. Announcing her departure, Best remarked: ‘It’s not about the money. And it’s not about the demonstrations in our city. Be real. I have a lot thicker skin than that.’‘It’s really about the overreaching lack of respect for the men and women who work so hard, day in and day out,’ Best added.

SeattleAh, Seattle, that environmentally obsessed city where all is decorous, the sidewalks immaculately swept, the parks rigorously trimmed, proverbial for its snow-capped mountains and sparkling lakes, and now, too, for its riotous Capitol Hill residential neighborhood where free spirits roam with their feral dogs and semi-automatic weapons. Their little community survives — even flourishes — by handing out free stuff like gas masks from the back of trucks, eating lentils cooked over an open fire, and sustaining each other’s morale by peak-decibel showings of the racially-themed movie 13th. Apparently they’re in it for the long haul.

I can think of only a single positive thing to say about World War One: it ended. Yet in addition to precluding any further waste of lives, the Armistice of November 1918 and the ensuing Paris Peace Conference did something else. It allowed historians and other writers to begin taking stock of this ghastly episode, which had caused death and destruction on an unprecedented scale. Making sense of the so-called Great War exceeded the limits of human capacity. Yet however imperfectly, at least it might be understood. Why had the war happened? Why had it lasted so long? What had motivated the belligerents? What did this horrendous cataclysm signify, both politically and morally? Finally, how could the recurrence of such a debacle be averted?

How many times do pundits with conventional sensibilities have to be surprised before they twig to their own blindness? They were surprised by Brexit. They were surprised by Donald Trump. And now, while they’re distracted by Donald Trump’s latest tweets, they’re setting themselves up to be surprised by another nationalist miracle — the wholesale replacement of the decrepit conservative movement by a new national conservatism. The press missed the story of this week’s National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., an event organized by Yoram Hazony and his newly created Edmund Burke Foundation. The media hive mind had decided that Trump’s tweets were the axis around which political news must revolve for about 72 hours.

It’s becoming a cliché but it bears repeating: in the Trump era, media and politics have merged like never before. The Fox News channel serves as something like, in American baseball terms, a Triple-A farm team for the White House. Most recently called up to play for the Yankees is John Bolton, America’s new national security advisor. Other alumni that have gone in -- and out -- of the White House include Mercedes Schlapp, Tony Sayegh and Sebastian Gorka, the last of whom has, for now, found himself back at Fox.Both Gorka and John Bolton have used the president’s media diet, heavy on the Wall Street Journal and Fox, to their advantage.