“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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Lucia Graves: John McCain had the chance to do the right thing on healthcare. He failed
John McCain often gets cast as a truth-teller to Donald Trump, but his voting record says otherwise. And nowhere was that more clear than on Tuesday when, despite his own ill health, when it came to the decision of whether to take other people’s healthcare away, he cast a decisive vote in the wrong direction. [..]
Though he has often railed against Trump as if he can’t actually affect what he is complaining about, McCain isn’t a helpless observer – he’s an influential senator. And on Tuesday, as the country draws closer than ever before to the death of the Affordable Care Act, he was a pivotal one.
Had McCain simply voted no to the question of whether the Senate should begin debate on a repeal or replacement of Obamacare, which squeaked by in the Senate with a vote of 51-50, the chamber’s leader Mitch McConnell might well have been forced to do the very thing McCain claimed to want: restore the chamber to order.
Trevor Timm: If Trump wants to fire Jeff Sessions, let him – it would be a gift to America
Donald Trump has spent the past few days publicly throwing his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, under a bus, apparently furious that Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation shortly after he was confirmed for the job.
As a result, everyone is speculating that Trump is trying to force Sessions to resign, or will eventually fire him directly if Sessions does not act himself. Strangely, many Democrats seem to be worried that Trump will actually pull the trigger, when they should be welcoming this development with open arms. Sessions leaving the justice department would be a gift to the American public on multiple levels.
The argument for Sessions remaining in office centers on the fact that Trump could attempt to install a new attorney general who would have a free hand to fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and thwart the Russia investigation. But this argument is both wrong and short-sighted.
Jill Abramson: Trump is a coward. At least it limits the damage he does
Like most bullies, Donald Trump is really a coward.
Although he spent a dozen seasons on “The Apprentice” playing the boss who loved saying “You’re fired,” he doesn’t have the guts to lower the boom as president.
When he did fire former FBI director James Comey, he hid behind the skirts of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. With his beleaguered press secretary Sean Spicer he waited until the poor man resigned after weeks of mean-spirited critiques behind Spicey’s back, of everything from his suits to his speaking style.
Then came his cowardly trashing of attorney general Jeff Sessions, at first through leaked rumors and then finally aired publicly, in his gabfest with the “failing” New York Times, the paper he pretends to hate but really loves and fears. On Tuesday, he once again pronounced himself “disappointed” with Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation and giving the president no advance warning before being appointed.
Richard North Patterson: How Will President Trump Handle A Full-Scale Crisis?
Soon enough, President Trump will confront an economic, military, or constitutional crisis — or provoke one.
Already we see a judgment warped by self-absorption: The insistence on alternate realities. The corrosive lies and reversals. His revelation of classified information to Russian officials. His attack on our intelligence agencies. His failure to defend America against Russia’s attack on our election.
These behaviors suggest a man loyal only to himself. Little wonder, then, that a hostile foreign power would strive to make him president. A leader of this temper can destabilize a country and its relationships around the globe.
In reaction, we see our allies distancing themselves, their intelligence agencies reluctant to share information with a president this erratic. Most ominous will be the unavoidable collision between a volatile world and a president unable to process external reality. Trump’s first six months have dramatized traits too dangerous to dismiss:
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