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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Karen Tumulty: Trump’s America is a bully, not a beacon
In Tuesday’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Trump made it as clear as he ever has how he views America’s place and purpose in the world.
As a bully, not a beacon.
His speech lashed out at all the familiar foes, but Trump’s main target was the international order itself. [..]
Trump crowed about how he has advanced the agenda that he calls America First. “We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism,” he declared.
But this extremely self-interested form of nationalism also represents a stark repudiation of American exceptionalism. That is the ideal of a “shining city on a hill” Ronald Reagan borrowed from John Winthrop, and the belief — expressed by nearly 60 percent of Americans in a 2010 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution — that “God has granted America a special role in human history.”
Trump has a dark vision of an America that is under siege by the rest of the world, not one that is leading the way for it.
Laurence H. Tribe and Norman L. Eisen: If Rosenstein’s going to leave, he should demand to be fired
Whatever happens to Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, he should not resign. If President Trump is determined to oust him, Rosenstein should insist that he be fired rather than leave voluntarily.
That is the case, first, because Rosenstein has done nothing wrong. He has denied Friday’s bombshell allegations that he acted inimically to Trump. We know Rosenstein to be a man of integrity, and any comments about wearing a wire were likely the same sarcasm that was on display in some of his recent televised jousting with Trump’s congressional proxies. We take Rosenstein at his word that he did not seriously contemplate authorizing surveillance of the president or advocate the president’s removal from office.
Second, by forcing Trump to fire him, Rosenstein would be daring the president to show his true colors. Rosenstein’s termination would, following that of former FBI director James B. Comey, mark the second occasion on which the president has fired someone with responsibility for investigating him. Rosenstein’s standing his ground and forcing the president to act would represent the next logical step in his so-far sterling defense of the rule of law.
Third, as Rosenstein is surely aware, the manner of his departure could have a significant impact on Trump’s ability to choose his successor. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act gives the president the power to name any other Senate-confirmed person as a temporary replacement in the event that the holder of a position “dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform” the functions of the office.
Katrina vanden Heuvel; Progressives must seize their momentum to articulate a saner foreign policy
Insurgent progressives have scored remarkable victories in primaries up and down the ballot and are winning the domestic “ideas primary.” As Barack Obama recently acknowledged, bold reform ideas — from Medicare for All to tuition-free college to a $15 minimum wage — have become almost standard fare for Democrats.
Now, we need a forceful articulation of a progressive foreign policy.
To date, the progressive left’s national security policy has been mostly missing in action. Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign did much to frame the domestic agenda, but paid less attention to foreign policy. Democrats in Congress have too often criticized President Trump from the right — for not being tough enough on Russia, for questioning the United States’ allies, for preemptive diplomacy with North Korea. There are a few exceptions — such as Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.)’s emphasis on diplomacy as well as challenges to U.S. misadventures in Afghanistan from Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Rep. Barbara Lee (Calif.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.). And the Congressional Progressive Caucus has called for a more sensible military budget. Yet none have gained much traction.
This must change. The absence of a coherent progressive alternative leaves Americans with the unappetizing choice between Trump’s racialized America First bloviating and the Democratic establishment’s hand-wringing about saving the “post-World War II rules-based order” with the United States policing the world. Both are recipes for decline.
Michael Tomasky: Hold Kavanaugh to his Own Standard for Bill Clinton, and Take Him Apart Piece by Painful Piece
“Piece by painful piece.”
If you don’t know those words as written by Brett Kavanaugh back in 1998, I urge you to commit them to memory in advance of Thursday’s questioning.
They appeared in a memo Kavanaugh wrote to his boss, special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, on August 15, 1998. We were in the midst of the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, and Starr’s team was about to question Clinton in front of a grand jury. [..]
And now here we are, 20 years later. No, say conservatives, and even some “let’s be fair” liberals. Let’s not get too detailed about Kavanaugh’s past. All that yearbook stuff; let’s not go there! Whatever he did, he doesn’t deserve to have his youthful errors thrown before the public in such ghastly detail.
Well, there may be other reasons, having to do with whatever remains of the dignity of the United States Senate, why senators shouldn’t ask Kavanaugh what the FFFFFFourth of July Club was (that’s six F’s, and you should get to know what each one stood for; none of them was for “feminism”). But one of those reasons is most definitely not that Kavanaugh doesn’t deserve it. He deserves every last bit of it based on the standard that he himself set 20 years ago.
Then, he wanted America to know every single distasteful thing Bill Clinton had done. What right has he today to be shielded from the same treatment?
Frank Figliuzzi: The Kavanaugh conundrum: Trump’s FBI grandstanding highlights flaw in the bureau’s background check process
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation has been stalled by a credible allegation dating back three decades to his high school days at Georgetown Prep. What appeared to be a confirmation certainty is now in question as the reporting victim, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, requests an FBI investigation to substantiate her claims.
And yet, the only entity who can grant Ford’s request seems wholly uninterested in making that happen. President Donald Trump can, with one phone call, request the FBI re-open its background inquiry into Kavanaugh. Thus far he has both refused to issue such a request and uttered false statements about the FBI’s willingness and authority to investigate if he were to do so. Similarly, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee chair, wrongly asserted that this is not a job for the FBI. I disagree. Congress and the White House must take steps to modify the existing memorandum of understanding between the White House and the FBI as well as current protocols so that the bureau can unilaterally and independently pursue logical follow-ups to background inquiries.
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