Pondering the Pundits

“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

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Paul Krugman: Trump Is Wimping Out on Trade

During the campaign, Donald Trump talked loudly and often about how he was going to renegotiate America’s “horrible trade deals,” bringing back millions of good jobs. So far, however, nothing has happened. Not only is Trumpist trade policy — Trumptrade? — nowhere to be seen in practice; there isn’t even any indication of what it will involve.

So on Friday the White House scheduled a ceremony in which Mr. Trump would sign two new executive orders on trade. The goal, presumably, was to counteract the growing impression that his bombast on trade was sound and fury signifying nothing. [..]

Not surprisingly, reporters at the event questioned the president, not about trade, but about Michael Flynn and the Russia connection. Mr. Trump then walked out of the room — without signing the orders. (Vice President Mike Pence gathered them up, and the White House claims that they were signed later.)

Chales M. Blow: Dwindling Odds of Coincidence

We are still not conclusively able to connect the dots on the question of whether there was any coordination or collusion between members of Donald Trump’s campaign and the Russians who interfered in our election to benefit him, but those dots do continue to multiply at an alarming rate.

First, and we have to keep saying this because this fact keeps getting obscured in the subterfuge of deflection, misdirection and ideological finger-pointing about what has yet to be proven: It is absolutely clear that the Russians did interfere in our election. This is not a debatable issue. This is not fake news. This is not a witch hunt. This happened.

The investigations, rightly, are seeking to figure out exactly how and to what degree, and those questions obviously depend on knowing more about campaign contacts with Russian meddlers.

Colbert I. King: This Watergate lawmaker set the standard for slavish loyalty. Then came Nunes.

Watergate showcased legislators on Capitol Hill in their finest hour: folksy and clever Sam Ervin (D-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee; Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), the committee’s vice chairman (“What did the president know, and when did he know it?”); House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.), who reportedly went to a back room after voting for the third article of impeachment, called his wife and wept, telling her, “I hope we’ve done the right thing”; and Barbara Jordan (D-Tex.), who advised the committee that the United States had come too far for her “to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”

However, to me the most unforgettable Watergate lawmaker was House member Earl Landgrebe, a three-term Republican from Valparaiso, Ind. Landgrebe’s support for President Richard Nixon throughout the Watergate scandal set a standard for slavish loyalty that remains unmatched to this day.

As the case against Nixon mounted with the discovery of the White House tapes, Landgrebe shrugged the whole thing off, saying, “Don’t confuse me with the facts.

Landgrebe voted against accepting the final report of the Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry.

With Nixon’s presidency fading into the sunset, Landgrebe vowed to “stick with my president even if he and I have to be taken out of this building and shot.”

They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

Or so I thought, until House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) arrived on the scene.

E. J. Dionne Jr.: The right’s jarring drift toward Russia

It is jarring to see pro-Trump conservatives indifferent or even hostile to investigations of Russian intervention in the 2016 campaign. Just a few years ago (it feels like an eternity), conservatives were jumping all over President Barack Obama for his Russian “reset” and his first-term eagerness to negotiate with Moscow.

Even further back, conservatives hailed President Ronald Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union as “an evil empire.” Reagan ran a brilliant ad during his 1984 reelection bid that showed a bear roaming through the woods. Without mentioning the words “Russia” or “Soviet Union,” an announcer intoned:

“There is a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it’s vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear.”

Robert Kuttner: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/needed-a-democratic-shadow-cabinet_us_58e17b0ee4b0ba359595e5e4?mr&

Donald Trump, precisely because his behavior is so outlandish and unpredictable, has dominated the news coverage. It’s unreality TV, and the media can’t stop covering it.

The benefit is that Trump’s sheer craziness gets a lot of scrutiny. But the downside is that Democratic critics have trouble getting much airtime.

If this were a parliamentary democracy, there would be a leader of the opposition, and a whole “front bench” of opposition spokespeople, issue by issue ― a kind of Shadow Cabinet.

Leading Democrats could both hold Trump accountable for his bizarre positions (and those of his Republican allies in Congress), and the Democrats could also offer more attractive alternatives.

They could also show up Trump’s sheer ignorance of the issues, and his crazy inconsistency, and hold him accountable, item by item.

Once a week, the Democratic front bench could hold its own press briefing; and particular spokespeople could be the ones to whom the media would turn. The press would have to cover this, much as they cover Sean Spicer’s zany White House briefings—and the contrast would be startling. The bizarre versus the normal. Fact versus fantasy.