From the Right: The GOPers Who Fear O’Care Repeal
House Speaker Paul Ryan insists he’ll have enough votes to pass an ObamaCare repeal bill, but Byron York at the Washington Examiner asks why this is even in question, given the comfortable Republican majority. The answer: “Because a lot of Republicans do not want to repeal ObamaCare.” In fact, “they don’t even want to sorta repeal ObamaCare,” citing opposition in their districts. After all, the current bill “falls far short of a full repeal of ObamaCare.” GOP moderates “appear to be moving the goalposts, even as the conservatives offer concessions.” They “were perfectly happy for conservatives to take the blame for killing the first bill, but now are showing their true colors by rejecting compromise on the second version.”
Centrist: Mattis & Trump — An Odd Couple That Works
The relationship between “the mercurial and inexperienced” President Trump and his “unflappable” defense secretary, Jim Mattis, is “an unlikely partnership, but so far it mostly works,” suggests David Ignatius at the Washington Post. Indeed, Trump “can take credit for selecting a generally solid national-security team and for listening to its advice.” Mattis, though “mildly eccentric by military standards,” is “fundamentally a team player who moves with a group, rarely in isolation.” Meaning that he’s “bonded with Trump’s other key foreign-policy advisers” to form “a strong, self-confident group” with “little of the infighting that characterizes Trump’s domestic advisers.” Mattis brings “a wariness of overly hasty military commitments” to the table: He believes “foreign policy became overmilitarized in recent years and that a strong State Department voice is essential.”
Mideast Desk: Some Iranians Leery of Moscow Ties
The Russian embassy in Tehran has become a target for militant anger, denounced — like the US embassy there four decades ago — as “a nest of spies,” reports Amir Taheri at Arab News. This, despite Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s “ ‘Looking East’ strategy based on an alliance between Tehran and Moscow” in which he agreed “his Islamic Republic would take no position on major international issues without ‘coordinating’ with Moscow.” Aligning with Russia, “which has a 200-year-long history of enmity and war with Iran,” is a bitter pill to some. And now Vladimir Putin is suspected of trying to meddle in Iran’s upcoming presidential election. Which has some citing the old Persian adage comparing Russia to “a big bear to admire from afar; if he embraces you, he will crush you.”
Culture Critic: Study Shows Dems Least Tolerant Students
Bre Payton at The Federalist reports on a new study of Dartmouth College students with an unsurprising conclusion: “Those who identified as Democrats are the least tolerant.” The survey asked students how comfortable they would feel about rooming with a student who holds opposite political views. Of self-identified Dems, only 39 percent said they’d feel comfortable; 45 percent felt uncomfortable. But 69 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of independents had no problem with that arrangement; only 12 percent of Republicans were uncomfortable. “No surprise,” says Payton, given what’s been happening on college campuses. Besides, as “a political minority” on most campuses, “if conservative students refused to live with their liberal peers, it would be more difficult to find a roommate.”
Iconoclast: Maybe Electing Trump Wasn’t So Crazy
Andrew Sullivan makes a startling confession at New York magazine: “I’m much less afraid of Trump than I was a year ago.” Indeed, “those of us who were worried that the Constitution might not hold, and that liberal democracy was teetering on the edge of implosion, have so far, mercifully, been proven wrong.” Of course, Sullivan feels this way because he sees Trump and the GOP Congress as ineffectual, suggesting the right’s political strength depends “on being in permanent opposition, and never having to actually implement something.” But he also believes a President Hillary Clinton’s “incompetence and indecision would have given the GOP even more political oxygen,” resulting in “an ugly death spiral for Democrats.”
Compiled by Eric Fettmann