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Liberal Opinion Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Vol. 27 NO. 12 March 23, 2016

Week

John Judis

After 2016, Will The Political Parties Ever Look The Same?

Even if Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump don’t win the presidency, their candidacies have roiled the waters of American party politics. Within the GOP, those white voters who began migrating from the Democrats 50 years ago have become restive. On the Democrats’ side, young voters are repudiating the “third way” politics favored by party elites. Are these fleeting disturbances, or do they suggest that some dramatic change is in store for U.S. political parties?

To answer that question, it helps to look backward. In 1932, GOP ineptitude in the face of the Great Depression turned a solidly Republican majority into a Democratic one. After World War II, political scientists developed a theory of realignment to explain the shift. A succession of writers has attempted to refine and adapt that theory to analyze the development of American politics. It’s a useful way to understand the current eruptions.

The theory was born 60 years ago, in a paper by Harvard political scientist V.O. Key. In 1955, Key demonstrated that the Democratic realignment of 1932 had been anticipated by the “critical” 1928 presidential election, when Democrat Al Smith won urban, working-class parts of New England that had previously gone Republican.

The predominately Catholic voters in these places would subsequently flock en masse to the Democrats. Key was among the first political scientists to document that a shift of ethnic and class voting blocs from one party to another (or the emergence of new voting blocs) could create the basis for party realignments.

In 1967, MIT political scientist Walter Dean Burnham built on Key’s work. In “Party Systems and the Political Process,” Burnham laid out a new theory of realignments, suggesting that they’re cyclical and strike every 30 to 40 years. He called them “America’s surrogate for revolution.” They could be

chastened by their defeat, move to the center. With Congress predictably deadlocked, the White House embattled and turnout low, the Republicans could regain their momentum in the 2018 midterms.

foreshadowed by Key’s critical elections, but were precipitated by wars or depressions that exposed the inadequacy of prevailing party ideologies.

During the Nixon years, Kevin Phillips applied the theory to what was going on around him. In “The Emerging Republican Majority,” the young Nixon administration operative wrote in 1969 that a realignment would displace the Democratic majority. Citing election data from the 1968 presidential contest, he argued that Southern and northern ethnic white Democrats, alienated by their party’s support for the civil rights revolution, were eventually going to give the Republicans a new majority. His idea was brushed off after Democrats won back the White House in the wake of Watergate. But soon after, Phillips’s prediction came to pass.

In 2002, Ruy Teixeira and I wrote a sequel to Phillips’ theory called “The Emerging Democratic Majority.” We argued that the movement of women and professionals into the Democratic Party, along with growing support from minorities, was laying the basis for a Democratic majority - not of New Deal proportions but similar to the

It’s also possible that Trump’s candidacy could revive and strengthen the trends of 2006 by invigorating and expanding the support Democrats have enjoyed from Hispanics and women. The Dems could maintain and enlarge their coalition while the Republicans remain deeply divided.

Something like that happened in California after Republicans alienated Latino voters in 1994. The GOP might still temporarily control the House but would be shut out of the presidency and the Senate for years to come.

A Trump victory in November, made possible by a sweep of the industrial Midwest, would probably lead to a reversal of the first scenario: As Republicans feuded, Democrats would be able in 2018 to recoup their losses.

But Trump’s success among economically disadvantaged whites and Sanders’s popularity with a new generation of debt-laden college students could foreshadow the kind of left-right realignment that took place in the 1930s, when the great preponderance of workingand middle-class voters became concentrated in one party. That would require either Republicans to court lower-income blacks and Latinos, or Democrats to replace their emphasis on race and gender with a Sanderslike emphasis on class. It’s not likely in either case, but stranger things have occurred in American political history.

Judis is writing a book, “The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics.”

Republican tilt of the prior decades.

In the wake of Republican successes after 9/11, the book was greeted with disbelief. But by 2008, the trends we described had helped Democrats recapture the Congress and the White House. Since then, this coalition has helped Democrats retain the White House, but not Congress or most statehouses. That suggests the two parties, as Burnham wrote later, are in a state of “unstable equilibrium,” where majorities created by “wave” elections can prove fleeting, and where Democrats enjoy an edge in presidential years, but Republicans in midterms.

This year’s election may not realign the parties, but it could be one of Key’s “critical” contests. Trump has disrupted the GOP coalition of downscale Reagan Democrats and the Republican business class. Similarly, Sanders’s support suggests a growing Democratic division over the party’s subservience to Wall Street and Silicon Valley on economic issues.

Where this could lead is anybody’s guess, but I can think of several possibilities.

Most likely, a Trump loss at the hands of Hillary Clinton would Special To The Washington Post simply reaffirm the status quo of an 3-11-16 unstable equilibrium, as Republicans,

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Rachel Manteuffel

I Have The Voting Power Of 40 Texas Republicans I am about to cast the most consequential vote in my youngish inconsequential life. Because of a few accidents of history in this crazypants election cycle, and a weird strategic decision I made five years ago, I am about to hold more power in a national election than I have ever had, or will likely ever have again, or really ever should have.

And here is how I am going to wield it: I am going to vote for a man I disdain, an empty suit who is the wholly owned subsidiary of a rich old plutocrat; a man who skitters cockroach-like toward whichever position might keep him safe from having to say what he really thinks; a man whose every stated opinion on any social issue fills me with disgust; a man who has debased himself so much in this race that, by his own admission, he has become an embarrassment to his own children.

That is the man who gets my vote. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do.

Deep breath.

You probably didn’t know there is a Republican primary happening in the District of Columbia on Saturday. Neither do most people. It’s hardly gotten any publicity, because there are very few Republicans in the District of Columbia: Six percent of the

population, to be exact. Only 19 delegates are at stake. This year, though, the crazypants year, their votes matter a lot.

“We haven’t mattered this much,” D.C. Republican Party Executive Director Patrick Mara told me, “since Frederick Douglass was a precinct captain.”

With the ominous rumblings about a brokered convention, every delegate denied to Donald Trump is a big deal. And right now, just before Even-Superer Tuesday, looks like the moment of upheaval in which the part of the party that can’t stand Trump or Ted Cruz realizes it really is going to have to pick one. Or the other. Oh, God. And now, math: Mara estimates there will be somewhere between 2,000 and 8,000 primary voters.

Nineteen delegates is the same number Hawaii gets, but Hawaii had 13,377 Republicans vote.

That makes a D.C. vote between 1½ and six times as powerful as a Hawaiian’s. A D.C. Republican voter will have between 40 and 160 times as much share of a delegate as a Texan will.

I am one of those D.C. Republicans, even though my politics are exactly what you’d expect from an urban, unmarried woman who works for a newspaper.

On impulse, I registered as a

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Republican five years ago when I moved to the city, figuring my actual vote would never matter as much as pretending to be a Republican would. My logic: The more Republicans who appear to live in the District, the more likely we are to get congressional representation from a Republican Congress.

A half-million disenfranchised Republicans would just matter a lot more to the powers that be than if those same people were Democrats.

Mine would be a world-changing movement, as soon as I persuaded a second person to do it. Which has not happened yet, though not for lack of trying. And so that is how, starting from the conclusion that my actual vote would never matter, I acquired the power of 40 Texans.

world to watch us get so close to electing a boorish xenophobe sexist who doesn’t seem to care what he’s actually saying about, say, war crimes, as long as the crowd roars in delight. My grandkids are going to ask me what I did in the election of 2016. Frederick Douglass is watching.

So I gotta vote for one of these other clowns. Cruz looks, today, like he’s got the best shot. Eeeuuuuugh, if I may say. But I am voting in D.C., strategically, so I have to decide which one might beat Trump here.

Of course there’s no real polling - nobody cares, remember - but Marco Rubio won the D.C. suburbs in Virginia, leading me to conclude he is the choice of Republicans who have probably met Cruz and/ or are hoping there continues to be a federal government next year.

The decision I’m hoping #NeverTrump Republicans make in November is the one I’m making now: Vote for someone you despise, rather than blow up the country. I’m voting, actually voting, exercising my franchise, by touching the screen where it says “Marco Rubio.” With as little as possible of the side of my nondominant pinky finger.

Rachel Manteuffel works in The Post’s Editorial department.

Once I realized this, I stopped being a Democrat happily watching things explode over there. To my horror, I actually, accidentally, had some smidgen of responsibility here, and it meant I would have to vote for a Republican. I spent days trying to figure which one.

Moral authorities such as Mitt Romney, The Post’s editorial board and Louis C.K. have declared it the duty of Republicans to stop Trump. Even if Trump is the easiest candidate for a Democrat to beat in November, as some polls currently (c) 2016, The Washington Post suggest, I don’t want the rest of the 3-11-16

Reference Guide Government Politics

1 Judis 2 Manteuffel 3 Abramowitz

Hillary Clinton 4 Marcus 4 Wilkinson 5 Petri

Bernie Sanders 6 Page 7 Collins

Democrats

8 Witcover 8 Dionne 9 Dionne

Government

Government

National

10 Barry 10 Kaul 11 Press 12 Petri 12 Lane 13 Robinson 14 Witcover 14 Collins 15 Bruni

18 Blow 18 Hunt 19 Cillizza 20 Marcus 20 Hiatt 21 Krugman

26 Smith 26 Krugman 27 Fox

Republicans

16-17 Liberal Delineations

Republicans

Supreme Court 22 Posner 22 Feldman 23 Carter

Nancy Reagan 24 Roberts

Secrets and Spying 24 Kiriakou 25 Lake

Economy

Education

28 Matthews

Health

28 Richardson

Pets

29 Lyons

Technology

30 Segal/Grigsby 30 Carter

Women 31 King

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Alan Abramowitz

America Today Is Two Different Countries.

They Don’t Get Along.

Each week, In Theory takes on a big idea in the news and explores it from a range of perspectives.

This week, we’re talking about polarization in politics: It is presidential primary season, and just as in 2008, the Democratic and Republican candidates sound as though they are talking to two different countries. Only this time, the divide between those two countries has grown much larger today it is fueled by increased racial and cultural friction.

Republican candidates are talking to a country that is increasingly angry and fearful - angry at a president they view as a dangerous radical who seeks to weaken America, and fearful of threats posed by jihadists from the Middle East and illegal immigrants from Mexico. Their target country is overwhelmingly white, mostly male and relatively old. Its population is concentrated disproportionately in small-town and rural America and is shrinking in size with every election cycle. The candidate who has clearly captured the mood of this country in 2016 is Donald Trump,

which is why he is now the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination.

Democratic candidates are talking to a country that is more hopeful than angry but that is increasingly worried about the effects of growing wealth concentration, declining economic opportunity, racial injustice and the threat of climate change, and that is frustrated at the inability of our government to deal with these challenges. That country is racially diverse, relatively young and heavily female. Its population is concentrated disproportionately in large metropolitan areas. It is growing in size with every election cycle, but its citizens don’t turn out to vote as consistently as the citizens of the other country, especially in midterm elections. Bernie Sanders’s message clearly resonated with many of the younger citizens of the Democratic nation, but Hillary Clinton’s appeal to African Americans and Latinos who make up almost half of its voters appears likely to carry the day in the end.

The citizens of these two nations

disagree about many things, including the Affordable Care Act, environmental regulation, immigration reform, abortion and same-sex marriage. But what may be even more significant than policy disagreements is the fact that citizens of these two nations look at each other with deep suspicion and hostility. Those on the other side are no longer viewed as mere political rivals but as enemies.

These attitudes are increasingly found among supporters of both major parties, but they are clearly more prevalent today among Republican voters. This may be partially due to the fact that a president from the opposing party provides a highprofile target for partisan attacks.

But there is no doubt that anger and fear have been cultivated by GOP leaders and candidates as a tool for energizing and mobilizing the party’s base in elections. This year, however, Donald Trump has turned that anger and fear against the Republican establishment itself - effectively arguing that the party’s

leaders have failed to deliver on their promises to reverse President Obama’s policies and return the nation to a mythical golden age.

One cannot understand the rise of Donald Trump without taking into account the growing racial, cultural and ideological divide between the two major parties. Trump’s message, that he is the only one who can provide the strong leadership needed to overcome the threats posed by illegal immigrants at home and terrorists abroad, plays directly to the anger and fears of a large part of the Republican nation.

But a Trump nomination would also alienate a substantial minority of Republican voters who find both his message and his personal style repellent while uniting Sanders and Clinton supporters within the Democratic nation. Thus a Trump candidacy would almost certainly ensure the election of Clinton and greatly increase the odds of Democrats regaining control of the Senate and making substantial gains in the House.

It might take just take such a devastating defeat to cause Republican leaders to take seriously the message of their party’s post2012 election autopsy. In a nation that is becoming more racially diverse with every election cycle, the GOP cannot remain a viable party in national elections by doubling down on angry white voters. Such a change in direction might begin to bring the two nations back together.

Abramowitz is the Alben W. Barkley professor of political science at Emory University. He is author of “The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization and American Democracy” and “The Polarized Public: Why American Government Is So Dysfunctional.”

Special To The Washington Post 3-10-16

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Ruth Marcus

Why Hillary Clinton Is Unlikely To Be Indicted For those of you salivating -- or trembling -at the thought of Hillary Clinton being clapped in handcuffs as she prepares to deliver her acceptance speech this summer: deep, cleansing breath.

Based on the available facts and the relevant precedents, criminal prosecution of Clinton for mishandling classified information in her emails is extraordinarily unlikely.

My exasperation with Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state is long-standing and unabated. Lucky for her, political idiocy is not criminal.

“There are plenty of unattractive facts but not a lot of clear evidence of criminality, and we tend to forget the distinction,” American University law professor Stephen Vladeck, an expert on prosecutions involving classified information, told me. “This is really just a political firestorm, not a criminal case.”

Could a clever law student fit the fact pattern into a criminal violation? Sure. Would a responsible federal prosecutor pursue it? Hardly -- absent new evidence, based on my conversations with experts in such prosecutions.

There are two main statutory hooks. Title 18, Section 1924, a misdemeanor, makes it a crime for a government employee to “knowingly remove” classified information “without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location.”

Prosecutors used this provision in securing a guilty plea from former CIA Director David Petraeus, who was sentenced to probation and fined $100,000. But there are key differences between Petraeus and Clinton.

Petraeus clearly knew the material he provided to Paula Broadwell was classified, and that she was not authorized to view it. “Highly classified ... code word stuff in there,” he told her. He lied to FBI agents, the kind of behavior that tends to inflame prosecutors.

In Clinton’s case, by contrast, there is no clear evidence that Clinton knew (or even should have known) that the material in her emails was classified. Second, it is debatable whether her use of the private server constituted removal or retention of material. Finally, the aggravating circumstance of false statements to federal agents is, as far as we know, absent.

The government used the same statute in 2005 against former national security adviser Sandy Berger, sentenced to probation and fined $50,000.

Here, too, the conduct was more evidently egregious than what the public record shows about Clinton’s.

Berger, at the National Archives preparing for the 9/11 investigations, twice took copies of a classified report out of the building, hiding the documents in his clothes.

For Clinton, the worst public fact involves a 2011 email exchange with aide Jake Sullivan. When she has trouble receiving a secure fax, Clinton instructs Sullivan to “turn [it] into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure.” But

Clinton has said she was not asking for classified The argument here would be that Clinton information. In any event, it does not appear her engaged in such “gross negligence” by transferring instructions were followed. information she knew or should have known was classified from its “proper place” onto her private Another possible prosecutorial avenue server, or by sharing it with someone not authorized involves the Espionage Act. Section 793(d) makes to receive it. Yet, as the Supreme Court has said, it a felony for a person entrusted with “information “gross negligence” is a “nebulous” term. Especially relating to the national defense” who “willfully in the criminal context it would seem to require communicates, delivers [or] transmits” it to an conduct more like throwing classified materials unauthorized person. That might be a stretch given into a dumpster than putting them on a private the willfully requirement. server that presumably had security protections.

Section 793(f) covers a person with access to My point here isn’t to praise Clinton’s conduct. “national defense information” who through “gross She shouldn’t have been using the private server negligence permits the same to be removed from its for official business in the first place. It’s certainly proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in possible she was cavalier about discussing classified violation of his trust.” The government has used the material on it; that would be disturbing but she “gross negligence” provision to prosecute a Marine wouldn’t be alone, especially given rampant oversergeant who accidentally put classified documents classification. in his gym bag, then hid them in his garage rather The handling of the emails is an entirely than returning them, and an Air Force sergeant who legitimate subject for FBI investigation. That’s a put classified material in a dumpster so he could far cry from an indictable offense. get home early.

3-9-16

Francis Wilkinson

What Clinton’s Wall Street Speeches Tell Us

Hillary Clinton has sometimes been cast as her husband’s opposite. He’s a natural; she’s calculating.

He’s a bubbly roue; she’s a Methodist scold. He’s a slapdash genius; she’s a buttoned-down knowit-all. He’s indiscriminate and omnivorous; she’s discerning and restrained.

I’ve never found this twin portrait entirely convincing. Hillary Clinton didn’t traipse through the ice of New Hampshire in the winter of 1992 answering embarrassing questions about her marriage because she insists on a tidy, well-ordered life. She did so because she shared her husband’s soaring ambition. Maybe not every last morsel of it, yet surely enough to endure more than many spouses would.

And, of course, Clinton proved her personal ambition later, running for Senate and then for president. Twice.

Clinton is currently resisting calls made by Sen. Bernie Sanders to release the texts of speeches she gave to Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, UBS and other financial institutions. The speeches are very likely banal, and whatever praise she dolloped out to the bankers, and however unseemly her chumminess with them, it won’t be sufficient to sink Battleship Clinton.

But as a measure of sheer appetite, the speeches are curiously telling.

After leaving the State Department in 2013, Clinton delivered a series of such speeches for lucrative fees.

Like countless high-ranking government officials before her, she saw her opportunities, and she took ‘em. The New York Times reported that talking earned Clinton and her husband $30 million in just 16 months after her State Department job ended. Since Bill Clinton’s presidency ended in January 2001, the New York Times reported, the Clintons earned more

than $125 million on the speaking circuit.

After leaving the State Department, Clinton gave three paid speeches to Goldman Sachs, earning a total of $675,000.

Consider the context: -- In 2013, the Clintons were worth many millions.

-- Goldman Sachs, like other Wall Street banks after the financial crisis and subsequent bailouts, was a pariah among American voters on both right and left.

-- For the sake of $675,000 that this fabulously wealthy family scarcely would notice, Clinton created a new doubt about her judgment and a clear line of attack for her opponents and the news media.

(The New York Post called out her “pathological need for cash.”)

Having set out to capture the biggest prize of all -the presidency -- Clinton still couldn’t resist making a few pit stops to pick up easy, yet politically fraught, money.

For Clinton haters, of course, this offers a new opportunity for another hapless quest, marked by comic excess and the firm conviction that someone in that darned family will someday get their comeuppance.

For the rest of us, the tale presents the basic mystery of those whose appetites can never be sated.

It poses the question of why a supremely intelligent, exceedingly competent, detail-oriented, everprepared politician just can’t leave well enough -- or even well-off enough -- alone.

Francis Wilkinson writes editorials on politics and domestic policy for Bloomberg View. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-10-16

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Alexandra Petri

The Miami Debate Was Clinton’s Personal Nightmare Please make these debates stop. I’m not having fun any more.

Please let me out of this deep well.

And stop giving me lotion. I don’t want any more lotion. I just want to go one night without watching a dang debate. Here is my recap of the last one. Won’t that suffice?

If not, here is the Wednesday night Univision/Washington Post debate summarized for those of you who were not unexpectedly trapped when helping a seemingly friendly stranger move a large unwieldy piece of furniture into a van and forced to watch these debates FOREVER PLEASE HAVE MERCY SEND SNACKS AT LEAST. Clinton: Thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to this debate.

Maria Elena Salinas: Secretary Clinton, why don’t people trust you?

Clinton: Maybe it’s because I just said that I was looking forward to this debate, which is either a baldfaced lie or a sign that I am some kind of a sociopath. We had one of these three days ago. Why would we have another one now? Did you just want to torment me by putting me in another situation where a man makes unrealistic promises and waves his arms while I have to smile and look unruffled, all the while living with the knowledge that somehow he was what the people of Michigan wanted, not me? What does he have that I do not have? Does this answer your question?

Salinas: Maybe?

Salinas: Secretary Clinton, why don’t people like you?

Clinton: HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO ANSWER THAT SERIOUSLY IS THERE AN ANSWER I CAN GIVE WHERE YOU STOP ASKING ME THIS QUESTION HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF PEOPLE CAME UP TO YOU ONCE A WEEK AND ASKED YOU WHY NOBODY LIKED YOU ISN’T THAT TECHNICALLY BULLYING? Salinas: Where did you fail in Michigan?

Clinton: (pinches herself repeatedly) Dang it. For a second I was hoping that this was my recurring nightmare where I lose

a state and then I have to stand on national TV and look calm and say, “gee, I don’t know what went wrong, but I’m confident looking forward” but NOPE it’s my recurring REALITY where that is also true.

Jorge Ramos: Senator Sanders, what’s your path forward?

Sanders: My path forward is great! It’s a revolution!

Audience: YAYYY Jorge Ramos: Senator Sanders, now for a difficult question. What color is your suit?

Sanders: Thank you, Jorge. I think it is blue, but mostly it is whatever color your dreams are.

Audience: YAYYYYY Salinas: Senator Sanders, are you loving this weather?

Sanders: Thank you for asking. I sure am.

Ramos: Secretary Clinton, what about your emails? Who gave you permission to do a thing like that?

Will you drop out of the race if you are indicted?

Clinton: Wait why am I getting these questions? Why aren’t you asking Bernie anything that remotely resembles this? Um, look, a lot of this was classified retroactively and we all know what that counts for. Remember when J. K. Rowling classified Dumbledore retroactively? A lot of people got quite upset about that.

Ramos: Senator Sanders, would you like to go after Secretary Clinton on this subject?

Sanders: No, thank you. I would prefer to appear statesmanlike and say vague things about process.

Karen Tumulty: Secretary Clinton, you know Donald Trump.

Clinton: (chuckles) (laughs) (laughs more) (tears podium in half) (lights the halves on fire with her eyes while continuing to laugh) (watches the podium burn) (begins weeping) what was the question I’m sorry Karen Tumulty: Is Donald Trump racist?

Clinton: Wow okay did not realize that was where this was going. Um. Everything he says is racist? His words are racist, definitely. Him? Who can say.

Tumulty: Senator Sanders?

Sanders: Don’t forget the Birther movement! That was crazy!

Salinas: Secretary Clinton, are you pandering to Hispanics with your stance on the pathway to citizenship -- or some might say, hispandering?

Clinton: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that the pun in it is too terrible. Look, there is no daylight between me and President Obama, unless you need there to be.

Also Senator Sanders voted against Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform and he supports the Minutemen, a group of dangerous vigilantes!

Sanders: The Minutemen? No way. I supported Nite Owl, but that was it. And Senator Kennedy was a friend of mine. I knew Ted Kennedy. You, ma’am, are no- Salinas: Oh, look, it’s time for commercial!

Ramos: And we’re back.

Secretary Clinton, will you deport children?

Clinton: Uh. Ramos: Will you?

Clinton: No! I won’t deport children! I think I was trying to give you a more nuanced answer about process but if you’re going to keep asking then, no, no I won’t.

Sanders: I can confidently promise that a President Sanders will never deport children!

Clinton: (hopefully) Are you saying that because you don’t believe President Sanders will happen?

Salinas: Secretary, didn’t you at some point vote for a wall like Donald Trump?

Clinton: No, no, he wants a -yuge beautiful tall wall.

Tumulty: Is -- is that supposed to be your Trump impression?

Clinton: What’s wrong with it?

‘A beautiful tall wall’ ‘and Mexico will pay for it.’

Tumulty: Secretary Clinton, only 37 percent of Americans trust you.

Why is that?

Clinton: I WISH I KNEW HONEST TO GOD Tumulty: Honest to God? Clinton: Look. No one who has ever watched me at any point, ever, would say I was a natural politician. They often say I am an “unnatural politician” or a “barely lifelike politician” or “why does she keep doing this? it’s painful to watch.” But I keep trying. Please just let me have this once. I am all too aware that when Bill walks into

a room, everyone around him lights up like a Christmas tree, and when I walk into a room everyone wilts like a fern on a radiator. President Obama is a charismatic orator. I, on the other hand -- frankly the least credible argument that Senator Sanders is pushing against me is this idea that somehow, in secret, I was able to give Wall Street an incredible, beautiful speech. Have I ever, even once in my life, given an incredible, beautiful speech?

Ramos: Secretary Clinton, I’d like to ask about Benghazi?

Clinton: ARE WE SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? WASN’T 11 HOURS OF TESTIMONY ENOUGH? Ramos: NOTHING WILL EVER BE ENOUGH Tumulty: Florida is going to disappear if climate change continues! Here is a map!

Sanders: Oh no! How awful! Do you know what will fix this?

Clinton: Let me guess. A complete political revolution?

Sanders: That’s exactly right!

A complete political revolution!

That will fix everything! Millions of people are going to stand up and tell the fossil fuel companies where they can shove it!

Audience: YES THIS SOUNDS VIABLE! Sanders: DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING, SECRETARY? Clinton: And the same goes for your single-payer plan- Sanders: SINGING THE SONGS OF ANGRY MEN! Clinton: We’re just going to -- not worry about the Republicans who want to repeal Obamacare, because we will have a guaranteed political revolution that will fix all of this. (pulls out a flask) Sure. Great.

Ramos: Senator Sanders, here is some grainy old video of you saying that Cuba is great. What do you make of this?

Sanders: Are you sure that’s not Bruce Rappaport?

Ramos: I’m sure.

Sanders: Drat.

Clinton: You say you want a revolution, Senator Sanders?

How about THAT revolution?

Because I do NOT support this kind of revolution ONE BIT! No

Petri continued on page 7

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Clarence Page

Why Has Bernie Sanders Stumbled On Race? We All Do. Did Sen. Bernie Sanders really say that white people “don’t know what it’s like to be poor?” Well, yes, he said it, but he didn’t mean it, which only shows how quickly serious presidential debates can turn pretty goofy.

In context, the Vermont Democrat’s “ghetto gaffe,” as some headline writes quickly branded it, came during Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Mich.

Responding to a question from CNN’s Don Lemon about what “racial blind spots” the candidates had, Sanders said, “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or you get dragged out of a car.”

With that, Sanders accidentally landed in the ever-shifting sands of political correctness. That’s an etiquette that Republican frontrunner Donald Trump loves to flout but it still means something to liberals, among whom the comment touched off a blizzard of ridicule in social media.

Sanders tried to clarify his remarks the next day with an obligatory “Beg your pardon....”

“What I meant to say is when you talk about ghettos traditionally, what you’re talking about is African-American communities,” Sanders told a gaggle of reporters.

“I think many white people are not aware of the kinds of pressures and the kind of police oppression that sometimes takes place within the AfricanAmerican community.”

That’s ironic, I thought, since “ghetto” originally referred, I am told, to the part of Venice to which Jews were restricted and segregated -centuries before the word was applied in the 1960s to socially and economically segregated AfricanAmerican communities.

But our language around race is filled with ironies.

“Ghetto” has fallen out of fashion, except as a putdown of somebody’s taste or behavior (“That’s so ghetto”). Sanders’ revival of its earlier meaning brought to mind Elvis Presley’s 1969 hit, “In the Ghetto.” (“On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’ a poor little baby child is born in the ghetto....”), along with the thought that perhaps Bernie needs to update his record collection.

But more seriously, Sanders comments touched a nerve with a number of African-Americans with its implication that most black people are poor and that white people aren’t.

In fact, only 26.2 percent of African-Americans fall below the poverty line, according to the latest census data. That’s a higher rate than the 12.7 percent of non-Hispanic whites who live below the poverty line or the 23.6 percent of Hispanics.

But since we have almost five times more nonHispanic whites than blacks in this nation, poor whites outnumber poor blacks by almost three-toone. If we were being truly honest about race, we would be talking about poverty as a white problem, more than a black burden.

But stereotypes die hard, even among liberals

who like to think of themselves as more candid about race than conservatives like Trump, who too often view racism as a non-issue unless it discriminates against whites.

the crux of the issue was poverty, not race. As an African-American fortunate enough to earn a bit of the American Dream, thanks to hard-working parents and a decent public school system, I, too, see poverty as a more urgent issue than race, although both are important.

Politically, as Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson has written ever since his breakthrough 1978 book “The Declining Significance of Race,” the best way to build a multiracial anti-poverty consensus is to focus on class, not race.

Yet in today’s presidential cycle, we seem to be more interested in arguing about race and poverty than finding some common-ground solutions.

E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.

Sanders’ gaffe in the heat of debate, revealed a not very deeply hidden truth: He primarily views our national political and economic divides through a lens of class, not race.

Former NAACP president Ben Jealous, a Sanders surrogate and African-American, rushed to the senator’s defense. He sympathetically described Sanders’ own racial blind spot that has hindered his efforts to reach black voters. “Sen. Sanders is from Burlington,” Jealous said. “He grew up in old Brooklyn, he knows white folks live in ghettos.”

(C) 2016 Clarence Page Yet Jealous and Sanders both emphasized that 3-9-16

Clarence Page

An Issue That Links Sanders and Trump: Trade

Pollsters had a heap of explaining to do after Sen. Bernie Sanders defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Michigan’s Democratic primary, beating odds that pollsters had put at 99to-one.

Polls had Clinton leading Sanders by anywhere from 5 percent to 37 percent in the final week. He won by 50 percent to 48 percent.

Poll aggregator Nate Silver’s site FiveThirtyEight. com said, “By most measures, it’s the biggest polling miss in a primary in modern political history.”

What went wrong? The possibilities tell us a lot about the unique nature of this presidential campaign cycle.

They include an underestimation of youth turnout, a failure to call enough cellphones as well as landlines, an underestimation of how many independents would vote and a failure to poll after Sunday, missing the impact of the Clinton-Sanders debate in Flint.

Crossover voters also threw forecasts off. Some 7 percent of Republican primary voters identified themselves as Democrats to exit pollsters, compared to only 4 percent in the Democratic primary who said they were Republicans.

Call it strategic voting. After the polls indicated Clinton was a shoo-in, some Democrats in Ann Arbor on Election Day told me they were voting for Sanders to send a message to Clinton, or for Republican Gov. John Kasich from neighboring Ohio to send a message to the Grand Old Party’s frontrunner Donald Trump.

Bernie Porn, president of Lansing-based EPICMRA, which polled for the Detroit Free Press, supported that theory but said the exit-poll samples were too small to check it out.

Significantly, pollsters underestimated Sanders’s support among black voters. After YouGov and Mitchell Research and Communications found

Sanders had less than 20 percent of black voters, the same percentage he had won in most states that have large black populations, Sanders actually won 28 percent.

That tends to support my theory about Sanders’ black support. The former civil rights activist and avowed “democratic socialist” is nowhere near as well known in black communities as Hillary Clinton. But the more African-Americans get to know him, the more they are appear to like him.

But the most decisive factor, interestingly enough, may have been the sleeper issue of the year. Trump on the right and Sanders on the left have beat their drums with equal outrage over an issue with which they have broken with their own parties: the downside of trade agreements.

Trade proved to be a “late-breaking issue” that turned a lot of voters away from Clinton, EPIC/ MRA’s Porn told the Free Press.

CNN’s exit polls found that 58 percent of Michigan voters believed trade with other countries costs jobs, compared to 30 percent who believed it creates them. Trump and Sanders won majorities of those who believe trade costs jobs.

Trade is an issue in which where you stand depends on where you sit -- economically, educationally and geographically. Those who have a high school diploma or less have seen their employment and promotion opportunities dry up since the 1950s as big employers like Detroit’s once-robust auto industry have moved overseas or to other states that have lower labor costs.

Sanders calls NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and other major trade deals a “disaster” that have put American wages on a race to the bottom. Trump promises to raise tariffs and be a tougher negotiator, particularly with China.

Page continued on page 7

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Gail Collins

Hillary! Bernie! Debate!

Let’s give a hand to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. After all we’ve been through with the Republicans, it’s nice to hear presidential candidates go at each other’s throat while they’re talking about where they stood on immigration issues in 2007.

This was Wednesday’s Democratic debate — the second one in a week, not counting the back-to-back town halls in between. People, do you remember when we used to complain that there weren’t going to be enough debates? Ah yes, long ago. Dinosaurs roamed the earth and Marco Rubio was a hot ticket.

Clinton held up well, given that her first three questions involved why she lost the Michigan primary, her emails and whether she’d drop out if she was indicted. (“Oh, for goodness — that is not going to happen. I’m not even answering that question.”) It was a tough evening. Sanders accused Clinton of cruelty to Honduran children. She claimed he had sided with the Minutemen.

Since the debate was on Univision, there was a strong emphasis on immigration, which provided a kind of mirror image of the Republican debates. Clinton and Sanders bickered long and hard about who had been less in favor of deportation, going back more than a decade. (“Madam Secretary, I will match my record against yours any day of the week!”)

In truth, immigration is not an issue that actually separates these two people. The real gulf is between the grand vision and the practical plan.

Sanders thinks he can provide free public college tuition and Medicarelike health coverage for all. “My dad used to say, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” Clinton rejoined.

And then there’s the auto industry

Page continued from page 6

But those who are attracted to such tougher trade talk should be careful what they wish for. Americans learned a hard lesson with the SmootHawley Tariff Act of 1930 that raised tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods. The result was a disastrous trade war as our trading partners retaliated with new tariffs of their own.

Many experts on the right and left agree that Smoot-Hawley made the Great Depression even worse.

It certainly didn’t help make things better.

bailout. One of the biggest moments in the Democrats’ Week of Endless Debates came Sunday when Clinton caught Sanders off guard by accusing him — in Michigan! — of refusing to support Detroit during the economic crisis.

“He voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry,” Clinton claimed while Sanders looked stunned.

What followed was the most quoted moment of the encounter: Sanders: “If you are talking about the Wall Street bailout, where some of your friends destroyed this economy ——” Clinton: “You know ——” Sanders: “Excuse me, I’m talking.” an amendment to raise taxes on Audience: “Oooooh” high-income individuals, which was It’s certainly a tribute to the basically ignored. He was marvelous, general decorum with which the but symbolically marvelous.

Democrats have conducted themselves that this was enough to draw a gasp He was in no way like Ted from the crowd. The bar is so high Cruz, who just tries to get attention on the Republican side that to get a by stopping things. Nobody hates real response one of the candidates Bernie Sanders. But he’s a maverick would have had to hit the other with a legislator, a man without a party.

That’s a way, way different kind of hammer.

But let’s look at the bailout issue life than being the person who has to for a minute. Sanders did vote for a run the country. bill to lend money to the auto industry. “You have to make hard choices But it got blocked in the Senate. Then when you’re in positions of during the stupendously complex responsibility,” Clinton said. end-of-the-Bush-administration Clinton is a stupendous debater, negotiations, the bailout got mooshed and she’s developed smooth and into a huge, messy bill that did indeed sensible-sounding answers to sticky involve helping Wall Street. When matters like the State Department the only choices were nothing or a emails and Benghazi. But she still big, unappetizing legislative stew, he hasn’t been able to handle Sanders’ attacks on her $225,000 speeches to refused to bite.

That pretty much sums up his finance industry insiders. She shrugs career in Congress. Sanders stood up and says she’ll release the transcripts for his principles, but he didn’t play Petri continued from page 5 any real role. At one point he offered oppression! No disappearing people! None of these 1984 tactics!

Americans have benefitted from I hate Big Brother! lower prices and new industries Audience: YAYYYY made possible by changing trade Clinton: FINALLY policies in recent decades. But while Tumulty: Let’s conclude. some people are movers and shakers, Clinton: PLEASE ELECT ME as my factory-worker father used to PLEASE I’M GOOD ENOUGH say, others get moved and shaken.

I’M SMART ENOUGH I’VE Responsible political leaders need to COME AND STOOD THROUGH help lower-skilled workers who have ALL THESE DEBATES I AM been left adrift by economic changes BEGGING YOU I DON’T -- before the demagogues get to THINK I CAN DO THIS AGAIN them.

IN 2024.

E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@ Sanders: I haven’t gotten to tribune.com. give my stump speech yet tonight!

(C) 2016 Clarence Page (clears throat) America is broken.

3-13-16

when “everybody else does,” which generally involves mentioning that President Barack Obama “took a lot of money from Wall Street.”

“I don’t have any comment,” she said when she was questioned earlier in the week about campaign donations.

“I don’t know that. I don’t believe that there is any reason to be concerned about it.”

This is the stuff that makes Democrats want to send a message.

Clinton is by far the best qualified candidate for president. But at this point in the campaign, you can understand why some people feel that voting for her against Sanders is like rewarding Washington for its worst behavior.

In the end, Clinton is the one who knows how to make the system work.

But she’s just got to be clearer on how she can work against the system. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-10-16

The one percent and vulture capitalists have taken everything from the disappearing middle class, and we have a rigged economy!

This is oligarchy! Free college for everyone, even and especially Donald Trump’s children!

Clinton: (pinches herself again) Nope. Well, figured it was worth a try.

Alexandra Petri writes the ComPost blog, offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of “A Field Guide to Awkward Silences.” (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-10-16

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Jules Witcover

Debates Highlight Different Standards Between Republicans and Democrats In the last week, television viewers were treated by the rival political parties to two distinct styles of debate. The Republican candidates engaged in a personal brawl that showed politics at its worst. Three nights later, the Democrats demonstrated how to disagree without bringing disgrace to their own brand.

On Thursday morning, onetime GOP standardbearer Mitt Romney launched an uncharacteristic attack on frontrunner Donald Trump, urging Republicans to mount a movement to thwart their frontrunner and save their party from defeat in November.

Romney, accusing Trump of being a con man, fraud and phony, implored Republicans to vote in the remaining primaries for Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, to keep Trump short of the 1,237 convention delegates required to clinch the nomination.

On Thursday evening, in a two-hour debate in Detroit, Kasich abstained from the assault but Rubio and Cruz took off on the celebrity businessman with a vengeance. Rubio particularly demeaned himself with a vulgar, ludicrous reference to Trump’s sexual anatomy.

That, unsurprisingly, brought forth a similar crudity from Trump debasing Romney. In all, the exchanges brought the Republican debate to a deplorable new low.

On Sunday night, about 50 miles north in Flint, Mich., site of the lead-contaminated water supply that has brought a severe health crisis to the city, Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders held their own debate that also was marked by heated discourse.

But this one managed to offer considerable light and substance worthy of the circumstances -- and of adult party leaders grappling with the local challenge.

There obviously was no love lost between the two Democratic contenders as they responded to the deep concerns of the Flint citizens, both black and white, coping with the politician-made calamity. Clinton and Sanders quickly agreed -- in what was an easy call for them -- that Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, a tardy responder to the crisis, should resign. Sanders had already called for him to do so, and Clinton not only said “Amen to that” but called on Snyder to be recalled.

“The state should also be sending money immediately to help this city,” she said. “I know the state of Michigan has a rainy-day fund for emergencies. It’s raining lead in Flint.”

Despite that early agreement between the two Democrats, as the debate expanded to other issues touching on Michigan, sharp differences were introduced that raised tempers. But Sanders and Clinton managed to deal with them without descending to the depths of discourtesy, vileness and personal vulgarity that infected the Republican mudfest in Detroit.

They argued over their difference on the 2009 auto industry bailout, which Clinton supported and Sanders voted against. He said he did so rather than forcing the auto workers to bail out “the crooks of Wall Street.” To which she said, “If everybody had voted the way he did, I believe the auto industry would have collapsed.”

Sanders bristled. “Excuse me, I’m talking,” he said. She interjected: “If you’re going to talk, tell the whole story.” Thereupon he told her: “You’ll get your turn.” Later, again, she interrupted: “Let’s have some facts instead of some rhetoric for a change.” He answered: “Let me tell my story, you tell yours.”

Though it went along like that, the two Democrats eschewed the personal and stuck to the issues raised by the Flint citizenry and the

crisis they’re facing. Hillary and Bernie thereby delivered a striking contrast to the character assassination served up by the trash-talking Republicans in Detroit three nights earlier.

But today’s politics “ain’t beanbag,” as oldtimers used to say. So it’s probably not likely that most voters in either party will cast their ballots this year according to candidate behavior governed by rules of etiquette, or give either of the campaigning Democrats a good conduct medal.

Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net.

(C) 2016 Tribune Content Agency, llc.

3-8-16

E.J. Dionne Jr.

Hearing Michigan’s Angry Voices

Tuesday in Michigan was brought to you by white working-class men and the people from little towns and small cities. The outcome of a primary that shook the certainties in the Democratic presidential race while also ratifying the ongoing power of Donald Trump’s coalition of discontent was determined by voters who don’t trust trade deals and don’t believe in the promises of the new economy.

Trump and Bernie Sanders are as different as two politicians can be, yet both served as megaphones for a loud cry of protest from the long-suffering and the ignored.

This year’s primaries can be seen as the end of 1980s conservatism in the Republican Party and 1990s moderation in the Democratic Party.

The social compact that underwrote each party’s consensus was broken by the long-term effects of working-class income decline and the severe dislocations let loose by the financial collapse of 2008. Economic change has affected regions, states and localities very differently. Few states were as traumatized as Michigan.

Thus did majorities in both parties in Michigan tell exit pollsters that trade takes away rather than creates U.S. jobs. The negative verdict among Republicans was 55 percent to 32 percent, as CNN reported; among Democrats, the figures were 57 percent to 30 percent. Both Trump and Sanders did far better with the critics of trade.

The political crisis -- and this is what it is - is especially acute in the Republican Party.

For all of their differences, Sanders and Hillary Clinton both support more regulation of Wall Street, more progressive taxes, and government measures to ease economic dislocation and to provide broader social benefits. Clinton’s program already acknowledges the need for Democrats to go beyond the political approach crafted by her husband, even if her Michigan defeat is an

important warning sign that many in her party are still unpersuaded.

Moreover, both Democrats have embraced a multiracial America and courted AfricanAmericans aggressively. Sanders’ ability to win a somewhat higher share of the black vote than he has so far contributed to his triumph.

By contrast, the Republican leadership is as chained as ever to the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. The incantations about smaller government, less regulation, and lower taxes (especially for the wealthy) are as familiar as the sonorous tones of Gregorian chant.

Trump is a menace to the believers in free market doctrine because he pastes the conservative label on a package of views antithetical to it: He excoriates trade deals, attacks the pharmaceutical companies, pledges not to cut Social Security and Medicare and, in general, suggests that government itself -- if led by him -- can cure what ails the most angry (white) voters.

Once again, they responded. Trump managed only 27 percent among Michigan primary voters who graduated from college, but 46 percent among those who didn’t. And the Trump constituency is very male: Men gave him 45 percent of their ballots, women only 29 percent.

The gender gap would pose an enormous problem for Trump if he became the GOP nominee: The most recent Washington Post-ABC News Poll showed Clinton leading Trump in a hypothetical matchup among registered voters by 50 percent to 41 percent, based on a 21-point lead among women; Trump led by five points among men.

But for now, facing a divided field, Trump has made his irate, masculine and ideologically

Dionne continued on page 9

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

E.J. Dionne Jr.

Can A Moderate Left Beat A Radical Right?

Obama Derangement Syndrome is striking Republicans once again.

To avoid having to answer for the rise of Donald Trump, they want to hold the man in the White House responsible for the emergence of a demagogic showman who has been the loudest voice challenging the legal right of the winner of two elections to be there.

Obama picked his words carefully but with some quiet glee when he was asked about this at a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday.

“I have been blamed by Republicans for a lot of things,” Obama said, “but being blamed for their primaries and who they’re selecting for their party is” -- here he paused, enjoying the moment -- “novel.”

On the contrary, Obama insisted, it was Republicans who had created “an environment where somebody like a Donald Trump can thrive” and allowed “the circus we’ve been seeing to transpire.” He urged his opponents to “do some introspection.”

That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

I should acknowledge a stake in this fight, having published a book in January called “Why the Right Went Wrong” arguing that the emergence of Trump was the logical consequence of a half-century of conservative history and of the steady legitimation of extremist ideas within the GOP. The nation, not just the Republican Party, desperately needs a different and

Dionne continued from page 8

more constructive brand of conservatism.

But if progressives are to beat back an increasingly virulent right and encourage the emergence of a more temperate form of conservatism, they have to ponder the crisis on their own side that is visible in this campaign and in most of the European democracies as well.

The strength of Bernie Sanders’ challenge to Hillary Clinton from the left, like the radicalization ofAmerican conservatism, is a symptom of the decay of a moderate brand of progressivism that rose in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was president and Tony Blair was Britain’s prime minister.

Its ideology was rooted in a belief that capitalism would deliver the economic goods and could be balanced by a “competent public sector, providing services of quality to the citizen and social protection for those who are vulnerable.”

Those last words are Blair’s from a collection of essays by 11 centerleft politicians from around the world released on Friday by the Center for American Progress and Canada 2020 to coincide with Trudeau’s visit to the United States. The title of their effort, “Global Progress,” is

profoundly their comfort contrasts with the social and economic pain experienced by so many of their fellow citizens.

Take a map of Michigan and draw a line across it at Grand Rapids.

The vast majority of counties north of that line supported both Trump and Sanders.

Voters who are geographically and instinctively distant from the power centers and the great metropolises feel ignored and forgotten. Democratic republics do not thrive when so many of their citizens are so alienated.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne.

polyglot constituency a real power in Republican politics. And Marco Rubio, the candidate who hews most closely to the establishment conservative line, finds himself isolated, his candidacy dependent on carrying his home state of Florida next week. Usually, presidential candidates can count on carrying their home states in primaries. That Rubio can harbor no such certainty speaks to the failure of his effort to be all things to all Republicans.

He is bleeding more moderately conservative voters to John Kasich and the more ideologically and religiously fervent to Ted Cruz.

But the Michigan Revolt should leave the traditional powers in both (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group parties uneasy and the economically 3-9-16 better-off with an intimation of how

optimistic and Bill Clinton, for one, continued to express confidence that government could “empower people with the tools to make the most of their own lives and to create the institutions and conditions for them to succeed.”

This never stopped being a good idea, but the sober reflections of Ricardo Lagos, Chile’s former president, pointed to the “significant challenge to progressive politics” created by the economic crisis of 2008. It raised “profound questions” about policies “that favored the deregulation of the economy and allowed the financial system to self-regulate.” The moderate left, it turns out, had more confidence in a loosely governed capitalism than was merited by the facts.

And in the post-crash period, progressives largely lost the argument against austerity policies.

A significant exception was the United States during the first two years of Obama’s term: Keynesian policies helped lead to a revival of the American economy that was faster and more robust than in other places. But continued economic sluggishness, Lagos argued, feeds “the anger and alienation of a dangerous populism on the extreme left and right.” Trudeau himself said Friday that the economically excluded “don’t feel like this idea of progress still holds.”

Lodewijk Asscher, the deputy prime minister of the Netherlands,

wrote of the challenge to national identity created by immigration and the fear of terrorism. He called for “building a society based on solidarity in which people are seen as individuals instead of members of their group and someone’s background remains just a background.” Well, yes, but, as Asscher no doubt knows, this is easier said than done.

If Republicans delude themselves that Obama is responsible for Trump, there’s little hope for the soul-searching their party requires.

But progressives of moderate inclinations can’t use the right’s shortcomings to blind them to their own call for reflection. Those who believe in gradual, steady progress need to provide plausible responses to a world both less secure and less orderly than it was in the 1990s.

Otherwise, the alternatives, as Trump is showing us, will be both irrational and grim.

E.J. Dionne’s email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne. (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group 3-14-16

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Francis Barry

The Delegate Quirk That Enabled Trump’s Rise

Much has been made about Donald Trump winning primaries in different regions of the country. But after 23 states and Puerto Rico have held nominating contests, Trump has yet to win 50 percent in any of them. It’s rare for a candidate to go this deep into a primary season without having cleared that mark and still go on to be the nominee. His success highlights an important quirk in Republican Party rules: A candidate can clinch the nomination without ever persuading a majority of voters in any given state.

For some perspective: In 2012, Gov. Mitt Romney squeaked out a majority in the fifth state to vote, Nevada. In 2008, Sen. John McCain did not win a majority in the first eight states, but then won three majorities in the 21 Super Tuesday states. In 1996, Sen. Bob Dole ran through ten states before winning majorities in three of the next nine. On the Democratic side, nominees who emerged from crowded fields in 1976, 1988, 1992, and 2004 all won a statewide majority within the first dozen states.

Maybe Trump’s failure to clear the 50 percent mark (he came close in Massachusetts and Mississippi, where he received 49 and 47 percent, respectively) says more about the strength of the field than it does about him. And perhaps he will clear it soon. But a new poll shows Trump losing head-to-head matchups against both senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

Take the case of a 2014 Alabama House race. In a Republican primary with seven candidates, Paul DeMarco won 33 percent of the vote. His nearest challenger, Gary Palmer, won only 20 percent. But in the runoff, the margins were reversed: Palmer received 64 percent to DeMarco’s 37 percent.

The prospect of a candidate winning the nomination without being the choice of the majority is the nightmare scenario Republican leaders are now facing, and it will almost certainly prompt discussion about rule changes for future elections. What might those changes be?

One option is to adopt the Democratic Party’s approach: awarding delegates in a more proportional manner, while also creating more superdelegates who could band together against an extremist candidate. An analysis by 538’s Nate Silver shows that under Democratic Party rules, Trump would have about 20 percent fewer delegates. Of course, this approach does more to encourage candidates with little chance of winning to stay in the race, increasing the likelihood of prolonged campaigns and contested conventions.

Until Trump, that was the outcome party leaders most wanted to avoid. Now it doesn’t look so bad.

Another option would be to give delegates at the convention the flexibility to switch horses on the first ballot if no candidate wins a majority in a certain number of states. That could lead to charges of backroom deals, but it might also save a party from self-destruction.

A more drastic change would be for states to hold runoff elections between the top two finishers when no candidate receives a majority of votes. Runoffs are fairly common in local and statewide races, and they can be very useful.

When Donald Trump announced he was running for president, I mocked him. “Of the United States?” I asked. (I got a C- in Mockery when I was in college, unfortunately.)

When he jumped into the lead almost immediately, I laughed. “The higher the climb, the harder the fall,” I said. (I did better in Pithy Quotations.)

When the early campaigning found him doing well in such disparate states as Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, I fell into denial.

“He’ll never, ever be the Republican nominee,” I said. “Republicans are too sensible.”

Then Super Tuesday happened and Trump basically wiped the floor with his opponents, who finally paused their fights with each other to join in a pathetic mass spitball attack on Trump. They were joined by the ghostly reappearance of Mitt Romney, who as usual was a day late and a dollar short.

So I give up. I’m now convinced that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for the presidency. Yes, of the United States.

He crisscrossed the country and stitched together a diverse group of people — young and old, conservative and moderate, well-educated and “poorly educated,” Southern and Northern.

They’re united by a single characteristic: They’re no smarter than a box of rocks.

That, it turned out, was enough. I don’t know whether it will be enough to beat Hillary Clinton

several states for overseas ballots. (It is not without its flaws.)

Party leaders could also consider splitting the primary calendar in half, allowing only the two leading candidates to advance to the second round. States could choose whether they wanted to play a role in picking the finalists or the winner.

As it stands now, states that vote after March are usually left to rubber-stamp the winner. This would give them a more meaningful role in the nomination process.

Trump has exposed a central flaw in the nominating system -- the possibility of selecting a nominee who lacks majority support -- that will prompt leaders in both parties to consider ways to protect against it. Even if Trump fails to win the nomination, he may have a lasting impact on presidential politics.

Francis Barry writes editorials on politics and domestic policy.

When no runoff occurs, candidates who have low ceilings of support can win nominations and elections, frustrating the will of the majority. Sure, runoffs cost money. But if they’re worth it for local and state offices, why not the presidency?

The trouble is, holding a second election two to four weeks after the first would complicate candidates’ campaign schedules, divert attention away from other states, and force the leading campaigns to continue spending money in runoff states, putting them at a disadvantage elsewhere.

States could eliminate these problems -- and the added costs of a runoff -- by adopting ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View Various U.S. cities including San Francisco and 3-9-16 Minneapolis have adopted this system, as have

Donald Kaul

Trump’s America: A Shining Outhouse On A Hill

or Bernie Sanders (if the Vermont senator’s unexpected Michigan win portends a real turnaround), but to tell you the truth I wouldn’t be surprised. Shocked, yes. Surprised, no.

Well, you know what they say: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. In that spirit I would like to put forth the reasons that I, from now on, support Donald Trump.

He’s inexperienced — and good for him, I say. The two most experienced presidents we’ve elected in recent times were Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, and what did it get us? The war in Vietnam and Watergate. The next two most experienced were Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush, both duds.

And, don’t forget, George W. Bush came into office surrounded by what was described as a “dream team” of foreign policy advisers — Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

Hello Iraq invasion and endless war in the Middle East.

Experience is vastly overrated.

Trump tells it like it isn’t. And he lies, but that’s good too. Why should we be the only country that tells the truth? Does China? North Korea? Iran?

Russia? Don’t be silly.

We need a leader who will match our enemies lie for lie, and Trump has shown a real genius for that. He can tell a lie and make it sound like an

Kaul continued on page 11

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

11

Bill Press

Looks Like Wild Time In Cleveland They’ve tried everything to stop him. They’ve run ads calling him a closet Democrat. They’ve attacked his brands of vodka, neckties and magazines. They’ve accused him of hiring foreign nationals.

They’ve exposed the massive fraud he allegedly wrought on students of his online university. They rolled out Mitt Romney and Carly Fiorina to denounce him.

There’s only one thing wrong with that strategy: The Donald keeps winning primaries and racking up delegates. Now, as a last resort, his enemies within the GOP establishment have decided to exercise the nuclear option in order to block Donald Trump from becoming the Republican Party nominee. Suddenly, especially after his wins this week in Michigan, Mississippi and Hawaii, it’s what everybody’s talking about: a “brokered convention.”

Of course, planning a brokered, or open, convention is easier said than done. For one thing, no one around today has ever been part of one. For the last 50 years or more, we’ve known the nominees of both parties before the convention even began. A contested convention occurs only when no candidate wins on the first ballot -- at which point delegates, no longer obliged to support the candidate who won their state’s primary, are free to vote for anybody. Serious horse-trading begins and balloting continues

Kaul continued from page 10 unpleasant truth.

until one candidate - even someone who did not compete in the primaries - rounds up enough delegates to win.

The best, or worst, example happened at the Democratic Convention in 1924, when Alfred E. Smith and William G. McAdoo deadlocked over 102 ballots. On the 103rd ballot, exhausted delegates finally nominated dark horse John W. Davis as a compromise candidate. He lost.

The most recent candidates of both parties nominated in open conventions were Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and Republican Thomas E. Dewey in 1948. Both of them lost too.

One other speed bump on the way to an open convention: Today’s rules, designed for the preordained convention outcome, don’t apply anymore and would have to be completely changed -- especially Rule 40(b), which requires any party nominee to have first won a majority of delegates in at least eight primaries. This year, no candidate

like Christie to a hand-licking toady with such effortless ease can’t be all bad.

Finally, Trump flip-flops on issues — another strong point. We live in volatile times that demand constant reassessment of one’s positions on issues. The king and queen of this technique are none other than Bill and Hillary Clinton, who are able not only to change positions on a dime but to occupy both sides of an issue simultaneously. Trump isn’t quite their equal yet, but he’s close.

Now you see why I’m for The Donald. He’ll make America great again. It will be a shining outhouse on a hill.

OtherWords columnist Donald Kaul lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

He has no respect for anyone — nor should he. The kind of people he hangs around with don’t deserve respect. A perfect example of that is Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey who endorsed Trump after ending his own bid.

Christie immediately made himself useful by whacking Marco Rubio in a drive-by, but did that make Trump grateful?

No, he’s too big for gratitude.

He treated Christie like the lackey he’d become. For me one of the great images of the campaign was Christie standing behind Trump during a rally, wearing that 1,000yard stare one associates with a soldier who’s survived a bombing. OtherWords.org.

Anyone who can reduce a bully 3-9-16

is going to meet that test.

The big question is: Can Donald Trump beat the odds? There’s a better than 50 percent chance he can. He is, after all, even more than Ronald Reagan, the Teflon candidate. None of the outrageous things he’s said or done has made a dent in his popularity. And, so far, none of the negative ads or speeches against him have weakened his base of support. If anything, they’ve only made him stronger.

Plus, maybe not at the fastest pace, but still -- Trump continues to accumulate delegates. To capture the Republican nomination, a candidate must win 1,237 delegates.

As of March 10, the delegate count stands at: Donald Trump, 458; Ted Cruz, 359; Marco Rubio, 151; John Kasich, 54. The next round of primaries, on Tuesday, March 15, will be decisive.

so delegates short.

At which point, Katy bar the door. Who knows what would happen? Trump could take the convention by storm and win on the second or third ballot. Or delegates could abandon Trump for Cruz, Rubio -- or, most likely, Kasich. Or somebody else could come riding in on a white horse and volunteer to save the party from chaos. Rumors are that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are already saddling up.

Then the real fun starts. Because you can bet that if party elders succeed in using an open convention to take the nomination away from the man who won the most votes and most delegates in the primaries, Donald Trump and his supporters will not go away quietly. There will be riots in the streets.

All of which adds up to the fact that Cleveland promises to be the wildest national convention of our lifetime. I’ve already booked my hotel room. I wouldn’t miss it.

Bill Press is host of a nationallysyndicated radio show, CNN political analyst and the author of a new book, “Buyer’s Remorse,” which is available in bookstores now. You can hear “The Bill Press Show” at his website: billpressshow. com. His email address is: bill@ billpress.com. Readers may also follow him on Twitter at @bpshow.

Two states will tell the tale: Florida and Ohio, both of which are winner-take-all states. If Donald Trump can walk away with either one of those delegate-rich states, he’s home free. But if Marco Rubio wins Florida and captures all of Florida’s 99 delegates (a BIG if, given Rubio’s sudden collapse), and if John Kasich walks away with all 66 of his home state’s delegates, Trump would have an almost impossible road to 1,237. (c) 2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. He’d show up in Cleveland 100 or 3-10-16

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Alexandra Petri

Donald Trump’s Gettysburg Infomercial The concept of Donald Trump delivering famous speeches has been tried before, but when it was tried before, he had not gotten up in front of the American people after winning Michigan and Mississippi on Semi-Super Tuesday and delivered an hour-long infomercial for Trump Water, Trump Wine, Trump Steaks and Trump Magazine. He even praised Trump University and Trump Airlines. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton started her speech and ended it and we never cut away once.

Trump said, in his speech, that he was “more presidential than anybody ever except the great Abe Lincoln.” But after seeing a transcript of Trump’s Gettysburg Address, I am not sure he needed to stop there.

Hello America. Hello, Gettysburg!

I love Pennsylvania. I love it here! Look at this place. How can you not?

Forty, 50, maybe 60 years ago, some really brilliant, remarkable guys, they got together and said, hey, let’s build something. Something great, where people can be equal. And now look. Look what we have. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?

We’re in the middle of (smattering of applause) Now we are engaged in a huge civil war. I mean huge. So big. They said we never would get here. All those guys, all the media (crowd boos the one photographer slowly setting up a wet plate for daguerreotypes in his covered wagon) They said: It’ll never work. Won’t get off the ground. They said, this war will put an end to all of this. Well. I’ll tell you what. We’re going to dedicate some of this field, right now. I’m signing autographs, and they came to me, millions of people, they said, “Donald, are you sure?” They said, “Donald, don’t do it.” I said -- you know me. I said, “Listen, I have to do it. I think it’s important.”

Let’s get Melania out here. Isn’t she great?

But first, I want to show you something. They’ve said very bad, very bad things, preposterous things, about these wonderful Trump products and I’d just like to set the record straight.

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here. Well, maybe they will. I think they will. But maybe they will remember what a great product Trump University offers. Really wonderful, just quality. I still get letters from people saying they would give their lives for me, they come to me, weeping, they say, I can never repay you, not because I’m bankrupt now with the tuition, but because - you gave me life. And what do you say? Just great people.

You know me. You know what will endure?

I brought these here so that you can see them.

Trump magazines. They’re very much still in business. They’re a wonderful product. Five stars!

And you don’t need to fight over them, the way they fought here - terrible, just terrible. There’s enough to go around.

Here’s something else: Trump Wine. There may be vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored, but not Trump vineyards. We only have the best, the happiest grapes. Look at this wine!

Isn’t it beautiful? I love it.

Pickett’s charge, we accept. Pickett’s cash or checks, we take also.

And Trump water. When Trump touches water, a miracle occurs: It turns into Trump water. Not Trump wine yet, we are not there yet! But one day, maybe! I don’t know. Do I know? I believe it.

You hear a lot of talk about this, about that.

About a house divided against itself cannot stand?

But why divide your house. Don’t do that. Stay in a Trump hotel or resort, where your house will never be divided. I promise you. Believe me.

Look where we are! This golf course - Jack Nicklaus has played here. I beat him. Talk about endurance! I own this, you can play through once we get these honored dead off the course. It will be fantastic!

This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Buy Trump Steaks.

Alexandra Petri writes the ComPost blog, offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day. She is the author of “A Field Guide to Awkward Silences.” (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-11-16

Charles Lane

How Trump Could Attack Clinton

Donald Trump’s lips were moving again Tuesday night - and you know what that means.

For what seemed like forever, but was really about an hour, the Republican front-runner treated America to another primary-night victory speech that was self-absorbed, belligerent and, well, sporadically factual.

Among his more obvious whoppers was this boast: “If I get to go against Hillary, polls are showing that I beat her. And some of the polls have me beating her very easily.” No: Only two reputable national polls this year, one taken for USA Today and one for Fox News, have shown Trump leading Clinton, both times within the margin of error. She’s up by more than six points in the RealClearPolitics average.

Still, those numbers should be cold comfort to Democrats eyeing a matchup between Clinton and Trump, and not simply because they don’t capture what people would think when confronted with an actual choice between the two, rather than a hypothetical one.

The real imponderable is what would happen if Trump trained his verbal guns on the former secretary of state, and her alone, and fired them like this: “You know our country doesn’t win anymore.

When was the last time - like, 1991, when we beat the Soviets, and that guy Saddam in Kuwait? We were on top of the world and everybody loved us and wanted to copy our system and it was really special. That was what, 25 years ago? These college kids who voted for Bernie weren’t even born yet.

“Ever since, it’s been lose, lose, lose. And you know when it started, people? I’ll tell you: It started in 1994, with that stupid NAFTA. That was her husband Bill’s idea. He sounded all high and mighty about markets and democracy, but he was really listening to lobbyists and taking their money, and he let Mexico rip us off.

“And then he had another genius idea: Renew most-favored-nation trade status for China - can you believe it! He promised not to do it in the 1992 campaign, but the lobbyists and Henry Kissinger got to him. He made it permanent his last year in office so China could join the World Trade Organization. He said that would help sell U.S.-made cars in China! And now he says she’d be a great president.

“Somebody told me the other day about this economist at MIT - Author? Auto? Yeah, David Autor. He figured out trade with China explains about a fifth of the manufacturing job loss in this country between 1990 and 2007 - like 1.5 million jobs! Bill should have kept his campaign promise, but he never was too good with vows, if you know what I mean.

“So, after 9/11, we sort of had a comeback. I mean that day was horrible - horrible - but at least for a while we were all united and the rest of the world supported us. And then that idiot George W. Bush, I mean, he even makes his brother look smart, he blew it all by starting the war in Iraq.

Totally destabilized the Middle East, discredited our foreign policy - and she voted for it in the Senate!

“She voted for that stupid, stupid war and then five years later we have total financial meltdown, and Bush wants to bail out the banks - and she votes for that, too! Everything the last 25 years has her fingerprints on it, people. Libya! What a disaster! Even Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg the other day ‘it didn’t work.’ His words - I would have used stronger ones, believe me. Either way, that was on her watch as secretary of state. She wanted to do that terrible, terrible Trans-Pacific trade deal, too, until she wimped out for the campaign.

“I know, I know. A lot of Republicans voted for these things, too: Most of ‘em were bipartisan,

Lane continued on page 13

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

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Eugene Robinson

Only The Voters Can Stop Trump Now We the people are going to have to save ourselves from Donald Trump, because politicians don’t seem up to the task.

For the big-haired billionaire it was another week, another romp. In winning three of the four states up for grabs Tuesday, Trump demonstrated once again the weaknesses of his rivals.

Ted Cruz, whose core support is among staunch conservatives and evangelical Christians, should have won Mississippi. John Kasich, the sitting governor of Ohio, should have won next-door Michigan. And Marco Rubio ... well, he should have competed somewhere.

Cruz did manage to win Idaho, somewhat bolstering his claim to be the only plausible anti-Trump candidate left in the field. But Trump has now won primaries in the Northeast, the South, the West and the Midwest. Exit polling showed he had strength among both conservative and moderate voters.

If he were not so dangerously unsuitable for the presidency, at this point he’d be called the presumptive Republican nominee.

Fumbling efforts by what’s left of the GOP establishment to halt Trump’s march to power seem too little, too late. Mitt Romney’s never-Trump salvo may have been intended to influence voters in Michigan, where Romney grew up and his father was a popular governor. If so, it was a humiliating failure.

One problem was that after

Lane continued from page 12

in fact. That’s my point, people.

They’re all the same. Say what you want about me - okay, so I was kinda for TARP at the time; maybe I did tell Howard Stern we should attack Iraq. At least that was just talk. I was nowhere near that mess in Washington. She was knee-deep in it.”

forcefully stating why Republicans should not vote for Trump, Romney refused to say whom they should choose instead. There’s an old saying in politics: “You can’t beat somebody with nobody.” There is no way the establishment will derail Trump without settling on, and backing to the hilt, a viable alternative.

This will likely be remembered as the week when the establishment finally gave up on Rubio. He was always the fair-haired boy of party insiders, but not, alas, of the voters; he has managed to win only two contests, in Minnesota and Puerto Rico, and routinely finishes third or even fourth.

Rubio acknowledged this week that he rues his decision to go after Trump with playground insults. He is right to be remorseful, because that ploy probably cost him any chance at the nomination. His grand display of juvenile behavior reinforced the notion that he is too young and unformed to be president.

Trump, who knows how to find the jugular, started calling him “Little Marco.” It stuck.

Rubio is trying desperately to win his home state of Florida next Tuesday, and a new Washington Post-Univision News poll shows him perhaps within striking distance; Trump leads with 38

Democrats and Republicans who regret the Iraq War, abhor Wall Street and distrust trade deals.

Hillary Clinton, either personally or by association with the past two Democratic administrations, has been involved in many of the most fateful, and controversial, policy decisions of a difficult quarter-century. Trump may be the Republican best positioned to turn that history against her. She better be ready.

Charles Lane is a Post editorial writer, specializing in economic policy, federal fiscal issues and business, and a contributor to the PostPartisan blog.

Like all Trump pitches, this one would be over-the-top, tendentious, totally oblivious to valid countervailing considerations and arguments.

Unlike many of them, however, it would have a relatively high fact content - just true enough to (c) 2016, The Washington Post be effective, especially with the 3-11-16 apparently large percentage of

percent, but Rubio is fairly close at 31 percent. Kasich, meanwhile, is gaining on Trump in Ohio; a recent Fox News poll even showed the governor with a small lead.

If Trump wins those states, the Rubio and Kasich candidacies are effectively over. More important, the winner-take-all haul of delegates -- and Trump is also leading in Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina, the other three states that vote Tuesday -- would increase the possibility that Trump could win the nomination outright, rather than have to fight for it at a contested party convention.

alternative. Cruz has, after all, won seven states. He is widely disliked by party leaders, many of whom believe he would almost surely lose in the general election -- and potentially bring down some GOP Senate and House candidates with him. But if the establishment does not agree on someone else, Donald J. Trump will be the standard-bearer of a political organization that calls itself the “Party of Lincoln.”

Can Republicans really stomach such a thing? Do they watch those Trump rallies, with protesters being roughed up by angry mobs, and feel proud? Do they agree with his call to reinstitute torture? Do they really believe that Mexico will pay for the wall?

The GOP allowed Trump to get this far and seems powerless to stop him. In November, it appears, voters will have to do the job.

Eugene Robinson’s email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

Put me down as extremely skeptical that the party will try to deny Trump the nomination if he comes to the convention with anywhere near the required majority of delegates. To do so would require a fortitude and a willingness to stand up to Trump’s bullying that the establishment has (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group not shown thus far.

3-11-16 The low point came at last week’s debate when Trump’s opponents all described him as unfit for the presidency -- then meekly Join pledged to support him if he is the nominee.

Liberal Opinion Stopping Trump, either before Week or during the convention, would require party leaders to swallow hard on Facebook. and support Cruz, who is right to portray himself as the only realistic

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Jules Witcover

At Last, The Republicans Sober Up After months of flirting with the political suicide of the Republican Party in a series of juvenile, irrelevant and vulgar debates, the surviving GOP candidates went a long way Thursday night in Miami to redeem its good name.

For two hours, Donald Trump, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich put aside the previous personal abuse and vilification and engaged in the most substantive debate of the election season. Their collective behavior hinted at possible unanticipated unity by the end of the campaign.

Rather than intensifying the focus on a stopTrump effort, the night’s narrative actually fed into the celebrity businessman’s reputation as a successful deal-maker. He managed during the debate to score rhetorical points on foreign trade policy, though he is widely criticized as lacking experience as well as temperament in that field.

Absent was much of Trump’s familiar bombast and incivility that had made him a target of the others. Instead, he said his negotiating talents and record could benefit the U.S. in deals with China, Mexico and other trading partners.

“We’re going to go out to bid in virtually every different facet of our government,” he said.

“We’re going to save a fortune.” He also repeated his earlier sharp criticism of President Obama’s nuclear trade deal with Iran, saying he would negotiate a much better one.

Rubio abandoned his strategy of childish and churlish personal references to Trump and instead offered serious responses on a range of issues that showed him in much improved light, though it’s unlikely to do much to revive that mistaken-ridden campaign.

Regarding the stop-Trump movement, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has urged Republicans to vote for Rubio in his homestate of Florida and for Kasich in next Tuesday’s Ohio primary, to leave Trump short of a majority at the July party convention. But Trump seemed to acquiesce with a moderator’s suggestion that the nomination should go to the candidate with the most delegates at the end.

Cruz, currently the runner-up to Trump in the delegate count, challenged Trump on trade but with greater civility than he had shown in earlier debates, and Trump in turn did not engage him much. At one point, the celebrity mogul remarked that “so far, I can’t believe how civil it’s been up here.”

While Rubio and Cruz called for raising the Social Security retirement age for future recipients, Trump said he would do “everything within my power” to maintain the current ceiling at 67. Rubio argued that “the numbers don’t add up” and rejected Trump’s insistence that eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” was the answer.

As for international trade, Trump said he knew how to “take advantage” of and change rules and

regulations governing it. As a businessman, he said, “I’m the one that knows how to change it.

Nobody else on this dais knows how to change it like I do, believe me.”

They all said they would follow the counsel of American military leaders on deploying as many as 20,000 to 30,000 if so suggested by them.

But more than any specific policy position, the significance of this latest GOP debate was the conspicuous cease-fire in what had become a circular firing squad among the candidates, tarnishing the party’s reputation. It remains to be seen now whether this pivot to the high road will survive throughout the remaining primaries that lead up to the July convention in Cleveland.

Jules Witcover’s latest book is “The American Vice Presidency: From Irrelevance to Power,” published by Smithsonian Books. You can respond to this column at juleswitcover@comcast.net.

Kasich, who has yet to win any primary but finished a close third behind Cruz in Michigan, continued his boycott of the stop-Trump effort, again selling his budget-balancing record in Congress and as the Ohio governor. He has turned aside calls to quit to enable Cruz to take on Trump alone, though he has said he would withdraw if he loses Ohio next week.

On coping with the military threat from the Islamic State, the debate brought agreement among the surviving Republican candidates (C) 2016 Tribune Content Agency, llc. that American boots on the ground are needed. 3-13-16

Gail Collins

Trump Clarifies, and It’s Worse

Admit it, people, you miss the Republicans screaming at one another.

“So far I cannot believe how civil it’s been up here,” said Donald Trump in the most-quoted moment of Thursday’s debate — an event that is probably not going to be all that much quoted.

“The fact of the matter is, we have to have an expedited process.”

“There’s TPA and TPP. I opposed TPP and have always opposed TPP.” “... You know, Smoot-Hawley led to the Great Depression.”

Trump was the man we came to hear, and he didn’t exactly dominate the deep dives into policy.

Still, it was interesting to learn that Marco Rubio doesn’t care about climate change, considering he lives in a city that seems to be submerging rather rapidly. And Ted Cruz has an irritating habit of holding his hand over his heart when he talks.

All right, that wasn’t an issue. Let’s consider Social Security.

Rubio started off by waving the requisite senior citizen flag (“I’m against any changes to Social Security that are bad for my mother”) and then delivering the bad news for people under 55, who would be getting higher retirement ages. Or, under Cruz’s plan, a different program entirely.

Fifty-four-year-olds, they are so after you.

There’s a Republican conviction that Social Security is under some sort of zombie curse, in which inevitable collapse is right around the corner unless we start cracking down on benefits.

It’s true that in about 20 years the system will no longer take in as much as it has to pay out. There will be a gap, most of which would be bridged if Congress eliminated the rule saying that people can stop paying the payroll tax on any income over $118,500.

Nobody mentioned that factoid. “Anyone who tells you that Social Security can stay the way it is, is lying,” Rubio lied. OK, misrepresented.

The only Republican presidential candidate

who doesn’t want to mess with the Social Security system is Trump, who also refuses to acknowledge any solution that involves increasing taxes on the wealthy.

His plan is to: 1) Make this country great again. (More money for everything!)

2) Get rid of waste, fraud and abuse. There is nothing Trump hates more than waste, fraud and abuse. Except possibly people dying in the streets.

Questioner Dana Bash pointed out that studies of Social Security suggest the waste might amount to about $3 billion, or approximately 2 percent of what it would take to solve the gap problem.

Pop quiz: How do you think Trump will account for the $147 billion shortfall in his Social Security plan?

A) Say he’s going to make a great deal with the accountants. B) Mention that he has a lot of very rich middle-aged friends who all agree with him. C) Start babbling about something totally unrelated.

Right you are! Trump went on an unrelated riff about not being “the policemen of the world.”

When Rubio challenged his train of thought, Trump retorted that “We don’t bid out, as an example, the drug industry, pharmaceutical industry” and that he is self-funding his campaign.

Trump spent a lot of his time cleaning up past problems. For instance, he’s come under fire for campaigning against immigration while hiring foreign workers himself. At the debate he argued that he’s the man to lead a crackdown because “nobody knows the system better than me.” It’s sort of like a career criminal arguing that he’s the best-prepared candidate for the job of police chief. Trump pointed to one frequently abused loophole as “something that I frankly use and I shouldn’t be allowed to use it. We shouldn’t have

Collins continued on page 15

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

15

Frank Bruni

Donald Trump’s Epic Neediness After Donald Trump asked voters at a recent rally to raise their hands heavenward in a pledge of fealty to him, a few commentators frothed at the gesture’s supposed evocation of a Nazi salute.

That wasn’t my take. As much as Trump appalls me, I don’t assign him control over the precise arcs of his supporters’ arms.

I was and am transfixed by something else: the scope and intensity of his hunger for adulation. It’s bottomless, topless, endless, insatiable. He gazed upon a teeming arena of admirers and neither their presence nor their numbers was quite enough.

He ached for an extra exhibition of their ardor. He had to issue a command and revel in their obeisance. I’m surprised only that he didn’t ask them to kneel or genuflect, but that could still come.

The primaries slog on. The general election looms.

And Trump’s campaign events have become increasingly unsettling affairs, by turns ludicrous and scary.

One night he’s turning a supposed victory celebration into an obliquely relevant pitch for Trump wine, Trump water and Trump steaks, to a point where he almost seems poised to bark out a toll-free number and urge consumers to “order now.” Another night he’s canceling a speech in Chicago at the last minute because

Collins continued from page 14

it.” He was practically begging the nation to stop him before he hired again.

Otherwise, he just repositioned.

Things that he said before were actually just starting bids so he could use his negotiating skills to solve the problem. In the case of Cuban relations, he used the word “deal” in his answer 12 times.

But the one thing he didn’t backtrack on was his recent statement to CNN’s Anderson Cooper that “Islam hates us.” There were lots of openings. Trump was practically invited to say he meant only radical Islam. Or even to repeat one of his traditional softeners, like claiming he has Muslim friends. (“They say, ‘Donald, you brought something up to the fore that is so

the gathering has devolved into gaze, the syllable tumbling from violent chaos. everyone’s lips. Trump, Trump, Trump.

Trump’s candidacy has It’s no surprise that some of the uncorked more words and analysis instructors at Trump University than perhaps any in my lifetime, as pressured students into writing those of us flailing to make sense of rave reviews of the school, as him reach for new insights, novel The Times’ Michael Barbaro and theories, deeper understanding.

Steve Eder recently documented. It But while his appeal may be existed chiefly to make Trump feel layered, his drive isn’t. What set good about himself. him in motion was a compulsion to see his face flickering across TV Of course some of the groupies screens, his handle popping up in at Trump’s rallies turn physically retweets, his minions arrayed before aggressive, a phenomenon that him. What eggs him on is the sound drew closer scrutiny and more of his name uttered by pundits, alarm last week. The man they rivals, crowds. To his ears it’s a worship is an agent of agitation music sweeter than Beethoven’s, with little restraint or decorum of saucier than Beyoncé’s. He tangos his own. to it, or at least his itty-bitty heart Commentators keep marveling does. And he can’t quite hear or at the way he “dominates” or fully appreciate the ugliness of “owns” almost every news cycle, some of the noise he has whipped as if what he says and does are all up. plotted in advance and part of some Everything about Trump’s sophisticated, disciplined political campaign can be explained in terms strategy. of substance abuse: He’s addicted But is he executing a plan or to attention, demanding regular surrendering to a jones? Brilliant fixes and going to ever greater or just fruitfully pathological? He lengths — in terms of reckless mints fresh insults to monopolize statements and provocative acts the spotlight, but that’s most likely — to get them. a spontaneous reaction to how cold Imagine what that would mean and lonely he becomes whenever for a Trump presidency. His agenda it starts to recede. Maybe he’s a wouldn’t be conservative, moderate, multimedia mastermind, maybe liberal or for that matter coherent. just a publicity glutton. There’s a It would be self-affirming and self- difference. aggrandizing: whatever it takes Note the oddity and questionable to remain the focus of everyone’s utility of the frequency with which he still makes those telephone brilliant and so fantastic.’”) calls to cable news shows and sits But Trump just pressed forward: down with interrogators. Most “There’s something going on that politicians with a lead like his maybe you don’t know about, would be protecting it somewhat, maybe a lot of other people don’t playing things a bit safer, running know about, but there’s tremendous out the clock — as he seemed to hatred. And I will stick with exactly be doing, belatedly and for the first what I said. ...” time, during the debate Thursday Imagine a president coming out night. A normal front-runner under with a statement like that. Rubio normal circumstances minimizes pointed to Muslim Americans his or her exposure, lest a moment serving in the military and the Arab be fumbled and a mistake made. countries that were cooperating Not Trump. He has been an in the war on terror. “Marco talks interview machine, an interview about consequences. Well, we’ve mill. He can’t help himself. Last had a lot of consequences, including week he had two chats with the airplanes flying into the World crew at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Trade Center ...,” rejoined Trump. and a long sit-down with CNN’s That’s it. He’s going all the way. Anderson Cooper. He did Fox Running for president on an anti- News at least five times. He did Muslim platform. Good God. NBC’s “Today,” ABC’s “Good c.2016 New York Times News Service Morning America” and CBS’ “Face 3-12-16 the Nation.”

Are there networks on which he hasn’t appeared? Possibly the Cartoon Network (though it would be fitting).

When returns come in, other candidates give their speeches and then dash off. Trump lingers, taking question after question from the media. He won’t go away.

That’s madness if the aim is a refined message after a triumphant performance, but not if the purpose is to prolong the show and thus enlarge the portion of coverage on which he feeds. Gorging is his real goal.

That’s fine by us journalists. It’s welcomed. It makes our jobs easier.

It makes us feel relevant.

We complain incessantly about politicians who neglect us, who don’t indulge our requests readily, who skimp on news conferences.

But their reasons are often sound. They understand that everything they say has weight and consequence: that at a certain altitude of leadership, words matter greatly and carry great risk. Trump’s failure to grasp this was evident in his comment in February about a protester who was being ejected from an event in Las Vegas. “I’d like to punch him in the face,” Trump fumed. A leader must speak with care — and in careful measure.

There’s only one measure for Trump: more. More products bearing his brand. More buildings blaring his name. He’s a modernday Midas, with a vain twist.

Everything he touches turns to Trump.

He insists on that. Craves it.

No reassurance sustains him for too long; no validation suffices.

That would be as true of Trump the president as it is of Trump the candidate, and it would dictate the terms and the tempo of a reign from which this country would not soon recover. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-12-16

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March 23, 2016

LIBERAL DELINEATIONS

Liberal Opinion Week

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Charles Blow

Carson Endorses The Demagogue On Friday, I watched yet another bizarre scene from an already bizarre election cycle: The affable but hopelessly vacant Ben Carson endorsing the demagogic real estate developer who once said of Carson that he had a “pathological temper” as a child and compared him to a child molester.

Carson said in his endorsement speech that there are actually “two different” sides to the front-runner.

What does this mean? Which one is real? Are they both? Is there a Jekyll to this Hyde? It was an exceedingly strange and feeble attempt to diminish the danger that this man poses, but in a way, if anyone could understand this duality, it would be Carson.

This is the same Ben Carson who has inveighed against the “purveyors of division,” who played a video at his presidential campaign announcement in Detroit in which the narrator said in part: “If America is to survive the challenges of the modern world, we need to heal, we need to be inspired, and we need to revive the exceptional spirit that built America. Never before have we been so closely connected to each other, but more divided as a country.”

This is the same Ben Carson who used this closing statement at the sixth Republican presidential debate in North Charleston, South Carolina, by imploring Americans to join him “in truth and honesty and integrity.”

And yet, on Friday, Carson endorsed one of the most dangerous and divisive demagogues in recent presidential election history, a man for whom “truth and honesty and integrity” are infinitely malleable, and easily discarded, concepts, and whose rallies have been plagued by vileness and violence.

Carson, like so many conservatives, isn’t truly interested in unity as much as silent submission, a quiet in which one can pretend that hostility has been quashed, all evidence to the contrary.

These are folks who view discussions about reducing racial inequity and increasing queer equality as divisive. They are people who see efforts to protect women’s health, in particular their full range of reproductive options, including abortion, and to reverse our staggering income inequality as divisive. Indeed, the very words white supremacy, privilege, racism, bias, sexism, misogyny, patriarchy, homophobia, and poverty are seen as divisive.

Somehow, they think, these very real oppressive forces will simply die if only deprived of conversational oxygen. In fact, the opposite is true. By not naming these forces and continuously confronting them, they strengthen and spread.

Carson’s endorsement further tarnished his already tarnished reputation. He validated and rubber-stamped a grandiloquent fascist who is supported by a former grand wizard.

All Carson’s calls for civility were in that moment proven hollow.

No wonder so many Americans despise politicians and see them as soulless and without principle. And although both these men pride themselves on being political outsiders who’ve never held political office, they are undoubtedly political animals and relentless personal brand promoters who chase a check over a cliff.

But the more I thought about it, the more sense it began to make. Carson and the real estate developer are not so different from one another in this predilection for outrageous utterances, it’s just that one smiles and the other scowls.

This is the same Ben Carson who called President Barack Obama a psychopath who is possibly guilty of treason and was, oh my, “raised white.” He has accused Obama of working to “destroy this nation” and compared Obama’s supporters to Nazi sympathizers.

This is the same Ben Carson who on a radio show in 2013 said of white liberals: “Well, they’re the most racist people there are because, you know, they put you in a little category, a little box — you have to think this way.

How could you dare come off the plantation?”

This is the same Ben Carson who has compared women who have abortions to slave owners, who said Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery — yes, he’s obsessed with slavery — and that

being gay is a choice because people go to prison straight and leave gay. On the issue of whether a Muslim should be allowed to be president, he said: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Carson isn’t the only one. Chris Christie’s endorsement of the front-runner is just as baffling and unprincipled. As The Los Angeles Times put it: “Christie had spent years curating an image as a policy-focused administrator who reached out to Muslims and Latinos, and he was rewarded with rock star status in the national Republican Party. Now he’s backing a candidate who has insulted minorities, shown a casual disregard for policy discussions and is reviled by the party’s establishment.”

And yet it is Carson’s endorsement that I find more interesting, not because it will have a greater impact, but because he and the frontrunner are two sides of the same coin: they are both dangerous, but one is a narcissist who just might win the nomination and the other is a nearnarcoleptic who never had a chance. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-13-16

Albert Hunt

Contested Convention Could Deepen Republican Chaos

The anti-Donald Trump brigade is banking on defeating him this week in Ohio, and possibly Florida, paving the way for an “open” convention that would deny him the Republican presidential nomination and avoid what it believes would be a general election debacle.

This is an uphill climb under any scenario and probably impossible if Trump wins both states on Tuesday. If the strategy works, however, it could create an even more perilous outcome.

But Republicans, from establishment politicians to conservative activists to big-money types, are more rattled than ever by the New York billionaire; several respected polls suggest Trump as the nominee would be an electoral nightmare, threatening to take down lots of Republicans.

Thus the chatter and strategizing for an open convention where Trump would come in with a plurality but not a majority. This requires a multicandidate field.

Moreover, any open convention that shuns Trump could be a nightmare with no clear alternative. If a protracted struggle requires looking outside the contestants for a nominee, the odds-on favorite would be House Speaker Paul Ryan, which would create its own frictions.

The stop-Trump movement knows that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the right-wing favorite and only

slightly more palatable to the establishment than Trump, has the financial and political support to stick it out for the long haul. They hope one of the others, probably Ohio Governor John Kasich wins Tuesday and goes on.

Trump continues to win contests -- 15 of 25 so far -- and insists that he’ll easily beat Hillary Clinton in the fall. But his general election weaknesses are glaring.

He’s running well behind her in polls this month by Washington Post/ABC News and Wall Street Journal/NBC News. More alarming to Republicans, in the Post/ABC survey only 27 percent of voters rated Trump as honest, 10 points less than Clinton on an issue that is her Achilles’ heel. In the Journal/NBC poll, Trump got a 64 percent negative rating from all voters compared with only a 25 percent positive. That 39-point net negative is territory previously reached only by politicians such as Richard Nixon during impeachment.

Although the plethora of anti-Trump ads from outside groups haven’t won rave reviews, plans are underway for a bigger campaign to get more attention when primaries don’t dominate the news; from March 23 to April 19, there is only

Hunt continued on page 19

Liberal Opinion Week

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19

Chris Cillizza

Donald Trump Can’t Keep Blaming Other People For The Anger Of His Campaign

never even heard of.

It’s not him saying that Carly Fiorina isn’t attractive enough to be president.

It’s people misunderstanding that when he commented on Fiorina’s “face” he was talking about her “persona.”

It’s not him saying that most white people are killed by blacks. He was just retweeting someone who said that.

It’s not him professing admiration for a sentiment expressed by Benito Mussolini. It’s someone else’s tweet -- and Trump just likes interesting quotes.

And, it’s not himtalking about genital size in a debate. He was merely responding to attacks on his manhood from Marco Rubio.

Sense a pattern? According to Trump, he is close to the controversy each time but is not the instigator of it.

Now, imagine your kid keeps getting into fights at school. He keeps saying that it’s because other kids started it and that it’s all just one big misunderstanding. You can’t figure out any pattern. It’s not the same group of kids he’s fighting with. There’s no obvious single issue that is causing the fights. At some point - if you are paying attention you realize that the common thread is your kid. If he’s involved in five fights with five different kids, it’s unlikely that a) he has no culpability in the whole thing and b) it’s all just a misunderstanding.

Trump seems to want credit for It’s not him refusing to denounce starting a movement - and, make no the KKK. It’s the media misconstruing mistake, that is what he’s done - but his comments about a group he’s simultaneously wants to avoid any Know that old cliche “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire?”

That has been running through my head for the past couple of days, watching violence flare on the campaign trail in and around Donald Trump’s rallies. Trump, for his part, insists that he is blameless. “I don’t accept responsibility,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd Sunday morning when asked about the tenor of his rallies and the skirmishes between protesters and supporters that have become increasingly commonplace.

In Trump’s version of events, the recent upswing in confrontation is to be blamed on professional “disrupters” who come to his rallies looking for fights. As for the vitriol coming from his supporters? “The reason there’s tension at my rallies is that these people are sick and tired of this country being run by incompetent people that don’t know what they’re doing on trade deals,” with U.S. jobs being shipped out to other countries, Trump told Todd on Sunday.

Don’t blame Trump, Trump says.

This is a very familiar pattern of logic for anyone who has watched this Trump campaign closely.

It’s not him saying that Mexico is sending rapists and criminals into the United States. It’s the Border Patrol officers he has talked to.

It’s not him saying that Muslims were on rooftops in New Jersey celebrating on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s the “many” news reports of the incidents he saw.

Hunt continued from page 18 one nominating contest.

Trump, despite his victories, is winning less than 45 percent of the delegates. If that continues, he would go to the Cleveland convention in July with fewer than 1,100 delegates, well short of the 1,237 necessary to be nominated.

Cruz might have more than 800, and others about 400. The rest are uncommitted.

By party rules, almost all delegates are bound to the candidate on the first ballot, but that requirement is sharply reduced on any second ballot and subsequent tallies. A number of

blame for the uglier elements that have crowded movie theater but I wasn’t been nurtured by that movement. the one who got up and trampled everyone trying to get to the exits.”

Yes, people are angry at the Anger is one of the most powerful state of the country. They’re angry emotions in politics - and in life. that politicians have told them one Trump has ridden that anger - his thing and done another for way too own and that of his supporters - to long. They’re angry at stagnant the front of the Republican pack. On wages. They’re angry at the political- Tuesday night, if he wins primaries in correctness police who, they believe, Ohio and Florida, he will effectively are waiting around every corner be the Republican nominee. to shame you for saying what you With that coveted perch comes believe. responsibility. If you are running for And, yes, Trump understood this at the highest and most powerful office an intuitive level very early on in the in the country, you don’t get to pass 2016 campaign and has channeled the blame buck onto whoever looks much of that anger to his great to be the most appealing scapegoat. political benefit.

(Trump’s scapegoat of choice is the But the idea that he bears zero media.) blame for the environment he What Trump has accomplished creates at his rallies is ludicrous. It’s as a political candidate is absolutely like saying, “Sure, I yelled fire in a unparalleled. To go from zero to the likely Republican nominee in the Thus the most likely might be space of nine months is unprecedented Ryan, who will be the chairman of in modern times. But, he has done so the convention. After two or three by, at times, stoking the anger and ballots, he may be the only one who fear of his supporters rather than allaying them. That is a fact obvious could get 1,237 delegates.

But imagine the anger of the to everyone other than Trump. loyalists of Trump, Cruz and others Trump has promised that his who went through the long slog to demeanor will change if he is the get there if they are suddenly forced Republican nominee, that he will to hand it over to a white knight be less angry, less confrontational, who did none of the dirty work. It more presidential. That needs to start would be a zoo and Trump likely happening. Now. Chris Cillizza writes “The Fix,” a would stoke the anger.

Albert R. Hunt is a Bloomberg politics blog for the Washington Post.

He also covers the White House.

View columnist.

these delegates will be selected at the party state conventions and won’t be controlled by the candidates after the initial ballot.

It’s reasonable to expect Trump then would peak on the first ballot.

But the question that the plotters can’t answer easily is: Then what? It’s hard to imagine giving the nomination to someone who finished second or a distant third, There are no good alternatives.

Mitt Romney is a non-starter, as he would be unacceptable to Trump and Cruz factions. There are no senators or governors who would (c) 2016, Bloomberg View be a credible consensus candidate.

3-13-16

(c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-13-16

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Ruth Marcus

Donald Trump’s Thuggery It’s always a good day in middle school when the seventh-graders make it out of the cafeteria without a lunchtime food fight. So we should, I suppose, pause to appreciate the restraint and substance of the latest GOP presidential debate.

The candidates, most notably mashed-potatoflinger-in-chief Donald Trump, managed to make it through the evening without resort to belittling invective (“little Marco,” “lying Ted”) or juvenile puffery (“He referred to my hands, if they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there is no problem. I guarantee.”)

Sigh of relief, and credit to CNN moderator Jake Tapper and his colleagues for substantive questions that did not prod the candidates to taunt one another.

“So far I cannot believe how civil it’s been up here,” Trump observed at one point in the evening, as if he has not been the chief engine of 2016 campaign incivility.

But it’s also important to note: This is grading on the most generous curve. The lowest point of the evening -- as disappointing as it was predictable -- came when Tapper asked Trump about violent attacks on protesters at his rallies.

Just the day before the debate, at an event in North Carolina, a Trump supporter identified as John McGraw punched a demonstrator in the face.

“We don’t know who he is, but we know he’s not acting like an American,” said McGraw, who has since been charged with assault, in footage posted by Inside Edition. “The next time we see him, we might have to kill him.”

Kill him. Stop and think about that scary mindset. Because Trump doesn’t. The moment was played nonstop on cable news, but he didn’t take the time to look at what had happened at one of his own events, much less accept any responsibility for it.

“Do you believe that you’ve done anything to create a tone where this kind of violence would be encouraged?” Tapper asked.

Trump responded with the weakest of condemnations. He spent more time empathizing with the understandable anger of his supporters than criticizing their unacceptable conduct.

“People come with tremendous passion and love for the country, and when they see protest, … you know, you’re mentioning one case, which I haven’t seen, I heard about it, which I don’t like,” he said. “But when they see what’s going on in this country, they have anger that’s unbelievable.

They have anger. They love this country. They don’t like seeing bad trade deals, they don’t like seeing higher taxes, they don’t like seeing a loss of their jobs where our jobs have just been devastated. ... There is some anger. There’s also great love for the country. It’s a beautiful thing in many respects. But I certainly do not condone that at all, Jake.”

Tapper persisted. “Some of your critics point to quotes you’ve made at these debates -- at these

rallies -- including February 23rd, ‘I’d like to punch him in the face,’ referring to a protester.

February 27th, ‘in the good ol’ days, they’d have ripped him out of that seat so fast.’ February 1st, ‘knock the crap out of him, would, you? Seriously, OK, just knock the hell. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees, I promise, I promise.’”

egging on violence. Indeed, he incites his crowds against the “absolute scum,” “sleazebag,” “lying, disgusting” reporters at his rallies. On Friday, accepting the endorsement of Ben Carson, a man he once described as “pathological” and likened to a “child molester,” Trump reaffirmed his inclination to meet violence with violence, citing the example of a protestor who was “swinging” at the audience.

“And the audience hit back,” Trump said, approvingly. “And that’s what we need a little bit more of.”

Actually, we don’t. Left unprovoked, Trump can manage to keep things civil. That should not mask, and it does not excuse, his underlying thuggery.

Ruth Marcus’ email address is ruthmarcus@ washpost.com.

Trump, characteristically, regretted nothing.

“We have some protesters who are bad dudes, they have done bad things,” he said. “They are swinging, they are really dangerous and they get in there and they start hitting people. And we had a couple big, strong, powerful guys doing damage to people, not only the loudness, the loudness I don’t mind. But doing serious damage. And if they’ve got to be taken out, to be honest, I mean, we have to run something.”

Trump never accepts responsibility. He never (c) 2016, Washington Post Writers Group recognizes the role his own rhetoric might play in 3-13-16

Fred Hiatt

The Real Donald Trump

If he consolidates his front-runner standing in Tuesday’s primaries, you can expect more and more Republicans to begin trying to persuade you, and themselves, that there is nothing to fear from the real Donald Trump.

Trump is showing that he can appear reasonable, conciliatory, even tolerant when he wants. Redfaced and strutting, he fantasizes aloud about punching a protester in the face. Later, he can calmly deplore (while still sympathizing with) his supporters’ violence.

Some Republicans have been fine with either version from the start. Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, is emblematic of the amoral functionary for whom Trump’s bigotry and demagoguery are irrelevant.

“Winning is the antidote to a lot of things,” Priebus has observed.

But others have had misgivings.

Given the anti-Muslim bigotry that helped fuel his own presidential candidacy, it’s no surprise that Ben Carson could find his way to endorsing his former rival. But even Carson had to reassure himself by purporting to have discovered the “two Donald Trumps.”

“There’s the Donald Trump that you see on television and who gets out in front of big audiences, and there’s the Donald Trump behind the scenes,” Carson explained. “They’re not the same person. One’s very much an entertainer, and one is actually a thinking individual.”

Of course, there is only one Donald Trump, and if he continues to win you will hear several theories to explain why that singular personality is essentially benign.

Some politicians will cite Trump’s all-tooevident ignorance as a blessing: He is an empty vessel who will take guidance, or unwittingly be molded, by more experienced hands.

Others will take comfort in Trump’s identity as a dealmaker who is simply staking out opening positions that he knows must eventually be moderated. Maybe the wall won’t be quite so high. Maybe we’ll split the check with Mexico.

Maybe we’ll deport only 5 million people, not 11 million.

Still others will assure us, and themselves, that he can’t possibly mean the things he says. They know someone who knows someone who’s been to his parties; he’s a nice guy; he’s not really a hater.

In truth, bigotry and demagoguery got Trump this far, and he cannot abandon his roots. He vaulted into politics by playing cynically on voter suspicions that America’s first black president must be foreign-born. He catapulted to the top of the Republican field by calling Mexicans rapists.

Whenever his campaign needs a jolt, Trump finds an ugly way to deliver it - mocking women, threatening critics, endorsing torture.

A man who gains power by showing contempt for democracy and civil discourse is not going to develop a finer sensibility as he gains more power. The reverse is far more likely.

Even last week, as we were celebrating the supposedly new and improved civility of the campaign, Trump was again slandering an entire religion.

“I think Islam hates us,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

In the debate that night, he was asked whether he meant all 1.6 billion Muslims.

“I mean a lot of them. I mean a lot of them,” Trump said, and then added in his usual conspiratorial way: “There’s something going on that maybe you don’t know about, maybe a lot of other people don’t know about, but there’s

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Liberal Opinion Week

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Paul Krugman

Trump Is No Accident Establishment Republicans who are horrified by the rise of Donald Trump might want to take a minute to remember the glitch heard round the world — the talking point Marco Rubio couldn’t stop repeating in a crucial debate, exposing him to devastating ridicule and sending his campaign into a death spiral.

It went like this: “Let’s dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.”

The clear, if ungrammatical, implication was that all the bad things Republicans claim have happened under President Obama — in particular, America’s allegedly reduced stature in the world — are the result of a deliberate effort to weaken the nation.

In other words, the establishment favorite for the GOP nomination, the man Time magazine once put on its cover with the headline “The Republican Savior,” was deliberately channeling the paranoid style in U.S. politics. He was suggesting, albeit coyly, that a sitting president is a traitor.

And now the establishment is shocked to see a candidate who basically plays the same game, but without the coyness, the overwhelming front-runner Hiatt continued from page 20 tremendous hatred.”

The musings revealed Trump’s unreformed willingness to smear and stereotype. But the reaction to them showed how he has dragged the campaign down to his level, creating a dangerous new normal.

When last fall he vowed to prevent all Muslims from entering the United States, it was shocking, and Republican leaders united to condemn him. This time, the pushback was mild. Marco Rubio’s first complaint was that Trump’s comment was making life hard for Christian missionaries in Bangladesh; Ted Cruz’s objection was that Trump isn’t tough enough on Iran’s ayatollahs.

It was easy to imagine both of them making peace with nominee Trump, as they have pledged to do, and easy to imagine other party leaders joining in. Given the nature of our attention spans,

for the Republican presidential nomination. Why? The truth is that the road to Trumpism began long ago, when movement conservatives — ideological warriors of the right — took over the GOP. And it really was a complete takeover. Nobody seeking a career within the party dares to question any aspect of the dominating ideology, for fear of facing not just primary challenges but excommunication.

You can see the continuing power of the orthodoxy in the way all of the surviving contenders for the Republican nomination, Trump included, have dutifully proposed huge tax cuts for the wealthy, even though a large majority of voters, including many Republicans, want to see taxes on the rich increased strategy. instead.

During the Obama years But how does a party in thrall Republican leaders cranked the to a basically unpopular ideology volume on that strategy up to — or at any rate an ideology 11 (although it was pretty bad voters would dislike if they knew during the Clinton years too).

Republicans more about it — win elections? Establishment Obfuscation helps. But demagogy generally avoided saying in so and appeals to tribalism help more. many words that the president was Racial dog whistles and suggestions a Kenyan Islamic atheist socialist that Democrats are un-American if friend of terrorists — although not active traitors aren’t things that as the quote from Rubio shows, happen now and then, they’re an they came pretty close — but they integral part of Republican political tacitly encouraged those who did, and accepted their endorsements. anyone harking back to ugly Trump And now they’re paying the price. moments from last fall, or even For the underlying assumption last month, will be dismissed as a behind the establishment strategy naysayer dredging up old news. was that voters could be fooled Which may leave, as the only again and again: persuaded to vote hope to save the country from Republican out of rage against Trump . . . Trump himself. Over the Those People, then ignored after the coming weeks and months, he may election while the party pursued its just find it too difficult to maintain true, plutocrat-friendly priorities. an image of being “actually a Now comes Trump, turning the thinking individual,” in Carson’s dog whistles into fully audible dubious praise. Too difficult to shouting, and telling the base that keep his narcissism in check; too it can have the bait without the difficult to conceal his ignorance; switch. And the establishment is too difficult to block his prejudices being destroyed by the monster it from erupting into view. created.

Hopefully then not everyone will Things are very different on the find it quite so easy to embrace the other side of the aisle. myth of “the two Donald Trumps.”

Fred Hiatt is the editorial page I still sometimes see people editor of The Post. He writes suggesting an equivalence between editorials for the newspaper and a Trump and Bernie Sanders. But biweekly column that appears on while both men are challenging Mondays. He also contributes to a party establishment, those the PostPartisan blog. establishments aren’t the same. (c) 2016, The Washington Post The Democratic Party is, as 3-13-16 some political scientists put it,

a “coalition of social groups,” ranging from Planned Parenthood to teachers’ unions, rather than an ideological monolith; there’s nothing comparable to the array of institutions that enforces purity on the other side.

Indeed, what the Sanders movement, with its demands for purity and contempt for compromise and half-measures, most nearly resembles is not the Trump insurgency but the ideologues who took over the GOP, becoming the establishment Trump is challenging. And yes, we’re starting to see hints from that movement of the ugliness that has long been standard operating procedure on the right: bitter personal attacks on anyone who questions the campaign’s premises, an increasing amount of demagogy from the campaign itself. Compare the Sanders and Clinton Twitter feeds to see what I mean.

But back to the Republicans: Let’s dispel with this fiction that the Trump phenomenon represents some kind of unpredictable intrusion into the normal course of Republican politics. On the contrary, the GOP has spent decades encouraging and exploiting the very rage that is now carrying Trump to the nomination.

That rage was bound to spin out of the establishment’s control sooner or later.

Donald Trump is not an accident.

His party had it coming. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-13-16

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Richard Posner

A Supremely Politicized Court The decision of the Republican Senate majority to consider no nominee of President Obama to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia is significant, but not for the usual reasons given - that the work of the court will be disrupted or that the senators are showing disrespect for the president by refusing to consider any nominee he might name. All that happens when the court is reduced to an even number of justices (eight in this instance) is that a few key cases are scheduled for reargument in the court’s next term, which will begin in October. A few months later, after the new president has taken office, the vacancy will have been filled.

Rather, the significance of the Senate’s action lies in reminding us that the Supreme Court is not an ordinary court but a political court, or more precisely a politicized court, which is to say a court strongly influenced in making its decisions by the political beliefs of the judges.

This is not a usurpation of power but an inevitability. Most of what the Supreme Court does - or says it does - is “interpret” the Constitution and federal statutes, but I put the word in scare quotes because interpretation implies understanding a writer’s or speaker’s meaning, and most of the issues that the court takes up cannot be resolved by interpretation because the drafters and ratifiers of the constitutional or statutory provision in question had not foreseen the issue that has arisen. This is notoriously the case with respect to the Constitution, composed in 1787, and the Bill of Rights, composed two years later. But it is also the case with respect to the 14th Amendment, composed in 1866 and ratified two years later; and in the statutory realm, it is the case with respect to numerous old but still influential statutes, such as the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, and countless modern statutes as well.

Eighteenth- and 19th-century politicians, and many 20th-century ones as well, did not foresee or make provision for regulating electronic surveillance, soundtrucks, flash-bang grenades, gerrymandering, child pornography, flag-burning or corporate donations to political candidates.

When judges are not interpreting, they’re creating, and to understand judicial creation one must understand first of all the concept of “priors.”

Priors are what we bring to a new question before we’ve had a chance to do research on it. They are attitudes, presuppositions derived from upbringing, from training, from personal and career experience, from religion and national origin and character and ideology and politics. They are unavoidable tools of decision-making in nontechnical fields, such as law, which is both nontechnical and analytically weak, in the sense that there are no settled principles for resolving the most difficult and consequential legal controversies. The tools I am calling priors can in principle and sometimes in practice be overridden by evidence. But often they are impervious to evidence, being deeply embedded in what we are, and that is plainly true of judging- not in every case but in cases that can’t be resolved by interpretation

or some other decision-making tool that everyone David Souter, Harry A. Blackmun and to a lesser understands and uses in an identical way. extent Sandra Day O’Connor - justices who were or at least seemed conservative when appointed but The priors that seem to exert the strongest became significantly less so as justices. Republican influence on present-day Supreme Court justices senators can avoid the embarrassment of confirming are political ideology and attitudes toward religion. a stealth liberal by refusing to hold a confirmation It is well-understood that there are now, with hearing for any Obama nominee, hoping that Scalia’s death, three very conservative Catholic the next president will be a Republican and will justices (Samuel A. Alito Jr., John G. Roberts Jr. and appoint someone in Scalia’s mold. The Republican Clarence Thomas), four liberal justices (Stephen senators’ behavior is proof (were any needed) of G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court’s politicization.

Sonia Sotomayor) and a swing justice (Anthony I may seem to be criticizing the court by calling it M. Kennedy) who is generally conservative but politicized. That is not my intention. When a statute liberal in several important areas (such as gay rights or constitutional provision is clear, judges (including and capital punishment of minors). Before his justices of the Supreme Court) will usually apply death, Scalia, a solidly conservative and devoutly it to disputes within its scope, whether they like it Catholic justice, gave the conservatives a definite or not. But when there is no clarity in the relevant majority on the court that pushed the court in a provision - when the judges are on their own - their conservative direction, much as the liberal justices priors will tug them this way or that, and the tug of the 1950s and 1960s had pushed the court in may be decisive. That is inevitable, and bowing to a liberal direction. (Kennedy and Sotomayor are the inevitable is not misconduct, however much also Catholic but less influenced by religion; the it deviates from the “official” - the self-protective three liberal justices besides Sotomayor are Jewish “the law made me do it” - conception of judicial but not, it seems, influenced by Judaism in their decision-making. judicial work.)

Richard A. Posner is a judge on the U.S. Court of President Obama might nominate to the Scalia Appeals for the 7th Circuit and a senior lecturer at vacancy a centrist, or even a conservative-seeming the University of Chicago Law School. judge of sterling qualifications, who yet might be a (c) 2016, The Washington Post “stealth” liberal in the mode of John Paul Stevens, 3-9-16

Noa Feldman

The Dark Side of ‘Friends’ at the Supreme Court

Filing a friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court sounds like an act of spontaneous intellectual generosity meant to help the justices see all sides of a case. Or maybe an exercise in lobbying by interest groups.

Actually, it’s neither. A new article by two law professors shows that an organized business they dub the “amicus machine” generates hundreds of amicus curiae briefs, planned and coordinated by the specialized guild of lawyers who argue before the court.

Surprisingly, the authors think the machine is a good thing. They say it weakens the excessive influence of the solicitor general, helps the court’s law clerks find good cases and helps the justices announce broad rules of law.

I don’t agree that these benefits - if they’re benefits at all -- outweigh the costs. The amicus machine is part of a system that pushes the justices to the sidelines and lets law clerks, past and present, take over the court’s jurisprudence.

Start with a quick description of the machine. It involves at least two roles: the “amicus wrangler” (a term coined by Kathleen Sullivan, a former law school dean and professor with whom I co-author a constitutional law casebook), and the “amicus whisperer” (a term coined by Pamela Karlan of

Stanford Law School). The wrangler coordinates who will write a friend-of-the-court brief and which interested non-parties they should represent.

The whisperer coordinates the messaging.

To a non-specialist, all this is largely invisible.

It’s not a coincidence that Sullivan and Karlan invented the terms used by the article. Both are brilliant scholars and litigators who belong to the elite of the Supreme Court bar.

This opaque practice is a great way for the participants to scratch each other’s backs, as I’ve suggested before.

But that’s not what’s fundamentally wrong with it. The real problem is that amicus briefs are a kind of currency circulating among present and former law clerks.

The main reason for this is that the justices don’t read amicus briefs, as several justices have said openly. The law clerks do. The authors of the briefs know this. So they write for the clerks, not for the justices.

Why bother to write briefs aimed at clerks, who don’t decide the cases? The simple answer is that clerks draft most of the court’s opinions.

Sure, the justices start by telling them how the

Feldman continued on page 23

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March 23, 2016

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Stephen Carter

Look Beyond Judges For Supreme Court Nominee As President Barack Obama prepares to square off with Senate Republicans over his Supreme Court nominee, I offer a soft word of advice: Don’t pick a judge.

I mean this quite seriously. My Yale colleague Akhil Amar has written thoughtfully about what he calls the “judicialization” of the Supreme Court. It is rare nowadays for anyone to be selected who has not attended a top law school, enjoyed a top clerkship and spent several years on the bench. In his fine book “The Law of the Land: A Grand Tour of Our Constitutional Republic,” Amar tells us this: “On the day that Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O’Connor in early 2006, not only was every justice a former judge, but each had been a (1) sitting (2) federal (3) circuit-court judge at the time of his or her Supreme Court appointment. Never before in history had the Court been so deeply judicialized.”

Obama’s subsequent appointment of Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, broke the Feldman continued from page 22 decision should come out, and usually add a general line of reasoning. And the justices rewrite extensively, infusing the decisions with their distinctive voices, especially in high-profile cases and dissents. But much of the text of the opinions - and certainly the citations - are produced by the clerks.

Clerks have a hard job, and believe it or not, they’re modest about inventing arguments that will live forever in the official Supreme Court record (you’d be, too, if you were two or three years out of law school). If a brief gives clerks guidance on how to frame an issue, they’ll gratefully take it. It’s much safer to rely on a former solicitor general or another famous litigator than to argue on your own.

Amicus briefs, therefore, while intended to give people who aren’t parties to a case a way to raise relevant legal issues, become tools for clerks to cite and use. They’re both a cause and a symptom of why the court’s opinions are bizarrely, insupportably long. When the justices were writing opinions themselves, the texts were often succinct and short, reflecting their workload but also their confidence. Clerks, by contrast,

pattern, but Amar considers the distinction insignificant: Granted, Kagan came to the Court without having previously served as a federal judge. But she had served as solicitor general (SG) of the United States, the one technically nonjudicial position in America that is closest to being a judge. The SG is tasked with representing the United States in courtrooms across America, and in the Supreme Court in particular.

For good reason, this officer is often called “the Tenth Justice.

The selection of justices, Amar tells us in dismay, has become much like advancement in the civil service. And this lack of “portfolio diversification,” he wants us to understand, is a new thing in the nation’s history.

What difference does background make? Amar is concerned about diversity in several important senses. It’s notorious that every sitting justice attended either Yale or Harvard. But he’s also concerned feel a need to address and refute every argument raised by the briefs - because they lack the authority or confidence to ignore claims made by the sophisticated Supreme Court bar.

for a lack of diversity in styles of argument. Those who have spent their careers on the bench tend to think that “judges are more right than they really are.” There are more ways to think about the Constitution than the ways we think about it in the cases. Part of the triumph of Brown v. Board of Education is the richness of its understanding of politics. Amar implies that this is in part because nobody on the Brown court had spent a career in the judiciary.

On the other hand, he attributes John Roberts’ vote to uphold the Affordable Care Act in part to the chief justice’s extensive earlier experience in the intricacies of executive-branch policymaking, including four years in the White House counsel’s office.

There’s something very Jacksonian about this argument - and I refer not to Justice Robert Jackson, one of the heroes of Amar’s fine book, but to President Andrew Jackson, who campaigned against both the judiciary and the rule of lawyers. But although

even dilute the influence of the solicitor general, although I tend to doubt it, since the justices and clerks know the SG’s office in the Justice Department isn’t paid by clients and tries to maintain some degree of remove from the fray.

But the real costs of the system lie in the way it shifts responsibility from justices to clerks.

I’ve got no beef with clerks, mind you. Some of my best friends are former Supreme Court clerks.

They’re excellent lawyers and (for the most part) upstanding people.

I’m one myself.

But clerks shouldn’t become the makers of constitutional law. To be more precise, the justices should exercise more direct authority over the text of their opinions. They should keep opinions short to make them accessible and meaningful to the public and to lawyers. The amicus machine makes that harder.

Its existence may not be a scandal, but it’s a problem.

Bloomberg View columnist Noah Feldman is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard University.

There’s a further twist. Who drafts the amicus briefs? Not the famous lawyers who sign them.

No, that work is done by - you guessed it - former Supreme Court clerks working as apprentices in the offices of major court litigators.

After a clerkship, the plum job for a clerk who doesn’t want to go into government or academia (or just hasn’t gone down those roads yet) is to take a large clerkship bonus and go to work for an appellate litigation operation lodged inside a major law firm. Within the firms’ appellate groups, the plum assignment is, of course, Supreme Court litigation.

The upshot is that the amicus machine consists of former clerks writing for current clerks -- who understand exactly what’s going on. When they cite an amicus brief, they’re encouraging the industry that’s about to hire them.

All this may help the clerks find (c) 2016, Bloomberg View worthy cases for the court. It may 3-9-16

Jackson is in bad odor these days, on this point I think the seventh president was mostly right.

He worried that judges were becoming an aristocracy in the new nation.

Amar doesn’t go quite so far, but perhaps he should.

Both major parties are facing Jacksonian moments, with their bases believing -- with reason, I would say -- that their views are rarely reflected or even seriously solicited in the making of policy.

More and more they see what goes on in the power centers they mistrust (Washington and Wall Street) as an ever-heavier burden of impositions. One needn’t share this opinion to see that it exists.

How does this relate to the judicialization of the Supreme Court? Because of the system that produces the justices, few Americans have heard of any of the nominees before they are nominated. Already, then, there exists a barrier that non-lawyers can’t easily breach. And yet in the past, the Supreme Court’s great justices have included both politicians and prominent advocates, some of them household names. Justices like Earl Warren, Hugo Black and Salmon Chase were already widely known. So was William Howard Taft, former president. Thurgood Marshall and Louis Brandeis were practically household names.

This isn’t to suggest that selecting a non-Ivy League nonjudge who has not been a clerk would suddenly cure the nation of its current passionate mistrust toward those in authority. But it might help.

Bloomberg View columnist Stephen L. Carter is a law professor at Yale University. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-10-16

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Roxanne Roberts

In First Lady, Nancy Reagan Found The Role Of A Lifetime

Whether you loved her or hated her, Nancy Reagan was an American queen.

In the democratic world of 20th-century politics, everyone politely pretended the first lady was merely a devoted wife, supporting her beloved Ronnie in anything he wanted to do. That was certainly true, but there have been plenty of first ladies who loved and supported their husbands.

No, she was much, much more: A woman who derived power from her husband but wielded it freely. A woman with expensive tastes and glamorous friends who saw no point in acting like the girl next door. A woman who knew what she wanted and, more often than not, got it.

Not many people would call her a modern feminist -- she never did -- but Nancy Reagan loved the life she lived and never apologized for her choices or her ambition. In first lady, she found the role of a lifetime and redefined the office for the women who came after her.

Her timing was impeccable. After the drab virtue of Pat Nixon’s Republican cloth coat, the downto-earth modesty of Betty Ford and the proud populism of Rosalynn Carter, Americans were hungry for some excitement and glamour. Camelot and the easy grace of the Kennedys were still in the rearview mirror. Ron and Nancy Reagan arrived in Washington for a coronation, and gave the country the imperial presidency -- at least in style -- many had been craving.

Her famous Reagan red, a hot signature color, became her calling card. Make no mistake: It’s not a hue for the faint of heart or someone unaccustomed to the spotlight. Long before she moved into the White House, she embraced the sophisticated style of a wealthy Republican woman -- designer clothes, real jewels, furs -- and never felt the need to change simply because her husband was president.

She had a tiny, slender frame that showcased her wardrobe to maximum effect: Body skimming knits, creamy wools, lavish ball gowns. Her penchant for the perfect outfit for every occasion -- American women loved their stylish first lady -created the first real scandal of her tenure when she “borrowed” couture dresses, shoes and handbags from Galanos, Adolfo, Bill Blass and others but failed to return them. The American designers were, of course, thrilled to see their creations in every glossy fashion spread; the president’s advisers, not so much.

In 1982, she was chastised and warned that she was skirting ethics rules, and so she publicly promised to stop accepting the free clothes. With the unerring instinct of a true performer, she appeared at the annual Gridiron press dinner that year in rags and charmed reporters with a self-deprecating song-and-dance that turned the issue into a punch line. But she didn’t stop, of course, and honestly never thought she had crossed a line. She didn’t see it as a problem: Wasn’t she helping promote American fashion, after all?

“I wonder: What would have happened if I had stopped borrowing dresses and had started wearing only the clothes I could afford to buy?” she wrote in her memoir “My Turn.” “Instead of calling me extravagant, the press would have started referring to me as ‘dowdy’ and ‘frumpy.’ “ And there was no way in a thousand lifetimes that Nancy Reagan was going to let anyone call her “frumpy.” Not happening, no way, no how.

Inside the White House, when it came to style and decor, Nancy’s personal stamp was just as forceful. She got what she wanted.

That included $210,000 worth of red and white Lenox china, which came to be known as the Reagan China. The 4,370-piece porcelain service became a symbol of the era’s excess, although no public funds were used to pay for it.

She brought that same grandeur to showing off her friends: bona fide Hollywood celebrities and wealthy power brokers. This was a woman, after all, who called Frank Sinatra an intimate friend.

She delighted in gracious entertaining and glittering guest lists, and made an invitation to the White House a coveted and exclusive treat. Washington, accustomed to the low-key gatherings of previous administrations, clamored for a place at the table.

And she rewarded them with the likes of Liz Taylor and Clint Eastwood and Prince Charles and Princess Di, who had that famous dance with John

Travolta because Nancy understood the magic of star power and creating moments.

Washington both respected and feared her. Her focus was laser-like, her discipline enormous.

She was an implacable force for her husband and whatever she thought served him best. She reached out socially to the Ladies Who Lunch, less because she wanted their friendship and more because she wanted to create relationships with those in the city who could help her. She could be a loyal and thoughtful friend. Or a dangerous enemy.

There were of course, her charitable works -- the daily bread of traditional first ladies. One can debate the efficacy of reducing drug addiction to “Just Say No” -- a moralistic platitude that still enrages those dealing with the issue -- but no one from either side of the aisle was unmoved by her courageous and outspoken campaign for Alzheimer’s victims and research.

Reams have been written about her marriage, that impenetrable fortress of two, and how it shaped their children, their politics, and every other aspect of their lives. Reams more will be written about her battles, her fears, her generosity.

At the end of the day, only one opinion mattered to her. She played to an audience of one: Ronnie, her king.

Jura Koncius contributed to this report. (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-7-16

John Kiriakou

Torching The Truth

America’s military adventures — and, just as often, its misadventures — have inspired thousands upon thousands of books. But the military isn’t just in the business of inspiring books: Sometimes it bans them, too.

The Pentagon recently announced that it was refusing to carry a new book by journalist (and veteran) Joseph Hickman in the stores on U.S. military bases. It’s called The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of America’s Soldiers.

Burn pits, NPR reports, are “acres-wide mounds of waste near bases” containing “everything from batteries to vehicle scraps to amputated body parts.” These refuse piles, once set aflame with jet fuel, can burn for 24 hours a day. They expose our troops and other personnel to deadly toxic fumes.

Banning books is bad enough. But there’s a bigger issue here: Why does the Pentagon expose our soldiers to deadly poisons and then pretend it hasn’t happened?

Hickman’s Burn Pits exposes a link between military service near burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan and serious maladies, including everything from respiratory illnesses to rare brain cancers. Indeed, Hickman says, Vice President Joe Biden’s son Beau died of one of these rare brain cancers after serving in Iraq.

The Pentagon’s ban comes despite the fact that the book is an Amazon bestseller and has been reviewed favorably in media around the world.

So it seems like a sure bet that the brass doesn’t intend to change its policy of exposing our soldiers to these deadly toxins. By officially sticking their heads in the sand, they’re hoping the problem will go away.

The problem won’t go away, though. Agent Orange didn’t go away after Vietnam. Gulf War Syndrome didn’t go away after Desert Storm.

And now brave men and women who wanted nothing more than to serve their country are dying prematurely.

The effects on families are devastating. Just ask Joe Biden.

Or ask Tammy McCracken. Her husband David was one of my best friends. We were nearly inseparable since the age of 15.

David’s father was a highly decorated hero from World War II. David wanted nothing more than to follow in his dad’s footsteps. All through high school he talked only about joining the army.

He was commissioned as a lieutenant after college and eventually rose to the rank of full colonel.

David had a degree in environmental engineering,

Kiriakou continued on page 25

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

25

Eli Lake

Intel Whistleblowers Fear Government Won’t Help Them

Nearly three years after Edward Snowden bypassed the intelligence community’s own process for reporting wrongdoing and leaked troves of classified documents to Glenn Greenwald, the system for protecting whistleblowers inside the national security state remains broken.

This is the view of current and former intelligence officials, national security lawyers and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Their message is simple: whistleblowers are often too intimidated to take their case to the inspectors general and Congress.

“There is a systemic problem with the whistleblower process,” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told me.

“There is no easy way for them to come forward that doesn’t jeopardize their careers, across the whole defense and intelligence community enterprise.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has in the past two years tried to address this problem, with mixed results at best.

Dan Meyer, the executive director of the Intelligence Community’s Whistle-Blowing & Source Protection program, said in a statement that more whistleblowers were coming

Kiriakou continued from page 24

so the army assigned him to manage garbage collection in Iraq early in the war. Our friends and I used to jokingly call him the “Garbage King of Iraq.”

forward in the last two years since the intelligence community began implementing a 2012 executive order from President Barack Obama that gave them additional protections. He said his office was also doing more, for example, to educate agencies on the new law and regulation.

Meyer conceded, however, there were holes in the process.

“Protections are imperfect given their differences, the most notable being the lack of equivalent laws protecting intelligence community contractors from reprisal actions by the private companies employing them,” he said. He also acknowledged: “There will likely be some reluctance on the part of whistleblowers to come forward. In our experience, this is understandably a very emotional event in someone’s career given what’s at stake.”

Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who has represented dozens of whistleblowers over the last two decades, went further. “I have not seen any noticeable improvement in the ability of a national security whistleblower to come forward and be confident they will be protected,” he told me.

Snowden himself has said that action suit against KBR on behalf of veterans who believe they were sickened by the burn pits. Hundreds have come forward. And nearly 60,000 people may have been affected.

The Defense Department has to stand up for our soldiers and do the right thing. First, it needs to put out those burn pits. Second, it must acknowledge that the pits are causing these illnesses, as already confirmed by medical experts. Finally, it must take responsibility for healing the veterans affected.

Now’s not the time to bury the truth. It’s time to help our soldiers.

OtherWords columnist John Kiriakou is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and the winner of the 2015 PEN Center USA First Amendment award. An earlier version of this opinion piece appeared at Truthdig.com.

None of us knew that the Pentagon’s policy of burning garbage — all of it, no matter what it is — was going to kill our friend.

But it did. In 2011, David developed a very rare form of brain cancer. He was diagnosed only days after running a marathon. Eight months later, he was dead.

He was just 47.

The burn pits were operated largely by KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton — the military contractor once helmed by Dick Cheney. It was KBR that decided to burn the garbage, with Pentagon approval. Instead of burying the garbage, KBR just bulldozed it into pits and set it on fire.

OtherWords.org An attorney has filed a class 3-9-16

he went to the press because of the experience of whistleblowers before him. Specifically, he has talked about Thomas Drake, a former official at the National Security Agency. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Drake tried to warn his superiors and other oversight bodies of what he saw as a wasteful and illegal NSA program, known as “Trailblazer,” to collect personal data from digital networks.

For Drake, the system didn’t work. Out of frustration, he eventually leaked what he has says was unclassified information about the program to the Baltimore Sun. The Justice Department prosecuted him in 2010, but dropped his case the following year. His career was ruined.

intelligence analysts on the integrity of their product.

At a hearing last month Nunes disclosed that 40 percent of analysts at U.S. Central Command, or CentCom, who responded to the survey complained their reports on the Islamic State were skewed by higher-ups to make the U.S.-led campaign seem more effective than it really was. (The Pentagon’s acting inspector general, Glenn Fine, is also looking into these claims).

Nunes said analysts filled out extensive comments in response to the survey describing how their work was politicized, with the intention of getting them to the committee. Yet Nunes is still trying to get those in-depth comments from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

While some analysts at Central Command have gone directly to the inspector general at the Pentagon (who declined to comment for this column), Nunes said there were many more at CentCom who did not want to risk potential retribution and file a formal complaint.

Nunes also said intelligence officials who have helped his investigation into cost-padding for the construction of a new Joint Intelligence Analysis Center in Europe have been too intimidated to go through the formal whistleblower process.

It’s understandable that lawmakers like Nunes would raise concerns about weak protections for whistleblowers. His committee is supposed to perform oversight, even though his predecessors have not made this an issue.

But fixing the system is also in the interest of the national security state itself. In the last five years, the intelligence community has invested great resources to protect its secrets from the next mega-leaker. But if whistleblowers inside the system see no recourse to address legitimate grievances, then the intelligence community should brace itself for more Snowdens.

Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake writes about politics and foreign affairs.

A staff member on the House Intelligence Committee who took Drake seriously, Diane Roark, soon found she too was under investigation.

She told me that because of her interest in Drake’s complaints, and lobbying within the system on his behalf, the Justice Department and eventually her own committee put her under the microscope.

“They wanted to ruin our lives and make an example out of us to anyone else in the intelligence community,” she told me, even though she said she never took Drake’s complaints to the press.

Speaking anonymously, other U.S. intelligence officials told me analysts often face milder forms of intimidation if they are suspected of talking to Congress. This includes threats to suspend one’s security clearance, or being deliberately kept out of loop on important programs.

At issue is anonymity. The inspector general for the intelligence community is required by law to tell the Office of the Director of National Intelligence the identities of whistleblowers that seek to speak with Congress. The DNI office has also bolstered its monitoring of intelligence professionals and their browsing habits on classified computer systems since the first mass disclosures by WikiLeaks in 2010.

Congress and others have adjusted.

Nunes told me he has found creative ways for intelligence professionals to get him information. One was (c) 2016, Bloomberg View through an annual survey provided to 3-8-16

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Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Noah Smith

Maybe Someday Bitcoint Will Grow Up To Be A Currency Two big things have happened in the cryptocurrency world recently. The first is that there are now two competing versions of bitcoin: bitcoin core and bitcoin classic. There is quite a lot of argument about which will become more popular. The second development is that the price of bitcoin - now known as bitcoin core - rose a lot in late 2015.

This has raised the expectations of many cryptocurrency buffs that bitcoin will replace the fiat money printed by central banks.

But when I read these debates, I see a lot of misunderstanding. Whether people are talking about which version of bitcoin will prevail, or whether cryptocurrency in general will replace fiat currency, they keep making the same error.

That error is the assumption that long-term value is what makes a currency good. The truth is it’s almost the opposite.

Most people I meet - including tech people, many of whom are big bitcoin fans - haven’t had much contact with monetary economics. Many of them tend to assume that in order for a currency to be valuable, it has to be backed by some valuable commodity - gold, for example. Without backing, the folk theory goes, money is intrinsically worthless - just pieces of paper.

In this view, money is comparable to a stock certificate - a placeholder that marks ownership of something intrinsically valuable. It implicitly equates the word “money” with value.

But unlike gold or stocks or housing or other real assets, money’s primary value depends not on intrinsic value but on something else - liquidity.

“Liquidity” is a loose term. In general, it means your ability to quickly and easily trade something for other things. Houses are not very liquid, since it can take months to sell one. Stocks are more liquid.

But money should be the most liquid thing of all; you should be able to use it to pay for anything, at any time. If you can’t, you should switch to a new, more liquid form of money, and stick your old, less liquid money in a vault somewhere.

This means that money with no real asset backing it can be perfectly good. All you need is for other people to accept it for close to the same value that you got it for. As long as people can be counted on to take your money, the money is good.

No gold required.

In the Great Depression, alternative theories of money were put to the test. Before that episode, the U.S. and European economies adhered to a gold standard - national currencies could be exchanged for gold. As growth collapsed, some countries experimented with going off the gold standard, hoping that this might end the deflation that was thought to be hurting growth.

None of the countries that abandoned the gold standard suffered hyperinflation, nor did their currencies collapse. Instead, as Ben Bernanke and Harold James noted in a 1990 paper, the countries that abandoned the gold standard soon began to recover.

Skeptics will note that although liquidity is the primary source of money’s value, it isn’t the only source. You also need money to hold its value over short periods of time. There’s a lag between when you get money and when you spend it. You’d like the value of what you exchanged for the money to be very close to the value of the things you spend the money on a little while later.

So if you want money to be a good short-term store of value, you need it to have low volatility.

That’s the main reason high inflation is bad, actually. It also tends to be very volatile, making money’s value more uncertain in the short term, which gets in the way of money doing its job.

That’s why central banks try very hard to maintain their inflation-fighting credibility. If people believe that the central bank might decide to devalue the currency at any time, then they will have an incentive to abandon the currency for alternative forms of payment, like bitcoin, gold or a foreign currency. Fears of central bank irresponsibility could thus become self-fulfilling prophecies.

The currencies of rich countries such as the U.S. and Japan are remarkably stable in value. Both inflation and the volatility of inflation have rarely

changed dramatically month to month, especially after the mid-1990s. People expect this state of affairs to continue - they think the dollar isn’t risky in the short term. And that is why the U.S. dollar remains a good form of money. Compare this to bitcoin’s price, which gyrates all over the place!

Now, in the financial world, we expect low risk to come at a price: poor long-term returns. And in fact, the value of the U.S. dollar decreases over time, at a very slow consistent rate. That’s exactly what finance would predict - in exchange for being a good short-term store of value, good money is a terrible long-term investment.

So for people who want to make bitcoin replace fiat currency, I have some advice: focus on low volatility. Instead of getting people excited about investing in bitcoin, focus on finding a way to stabilize the amount of real consumption goods that people can buy with each bitcoin. My suggestion?

Peg the currency to the price of a Big Mac. Noah Smith is an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University and a freelance writer for a number of finance and business publications. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-8-16

Paul Krugman

Trade and Tribulation

Why did Bernie Sanders win a narrow victory in Michigan, when polls showed Hillary Clinton with a huge lead? Nobody really knows, but there’s a lot of speculation that Sanders may have gained traction by hammering on the evils of trade agreements. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, while directing most of his fire against immigrants, has also been bashing the supposedly unfair trading practices of China and other nations.

So, has the protectionist moment finally arrived? Maybe, maybe not: There are other possible explanations for Michigan, and freetraders have repeatedly cried wolf about protectionist waves that never materialized. Still, this time could be different. And if protectionism really is becoming an important political force, how should reasonable people — economists and others — respond?

To make sense of the debate over trade, there are three things you need to know.

The first is that we have gotten to where we are — a largely free-trade world — through a generations-long process of international diplomacy, going all the way back to FDR. This process combines a series of quid pro quos — I’ll open my markets if you open yours — with rules to prevent backsliding.

The second is that protectionists almost always exaggerate the adverse effects of trade liberalization. Globalization is only one of several factors behind rising income inequality, and trade agreements are, in turn, only one factor in globalization. Trade deficits have

been an important cause of the decline in U.S. manufacturing employment since 2000, but that decline began much earlier. And even our trade deficits are mainly a result of factors other than trade policy, like a strong dollar buoyed by global capital looking for a safe haven.

And yes, Sanders is demagoguing the issue, for example with a Twitter post linking the decline of Detroit, which began in the 1960s and has had very little to do with trade liberalization, to “Hillary Clinton’s free-trade policies.”

That said, not all free-trade advocates are paragons of intellectual honesty. In fact, the elite case for ever-freer trade, the one that the public hears, is largely a scam. That’s true even if you exclude the most egregious nonsense, like Mitt Romney’s claim that protectionism causes recessions. What you hear, all too often, are claims that trade is an engine of job creation, that trade agreements will have big payoffs in terms of economic growth and that they are good for everyone.

Yet what the models of international trade used by real experts say is that, in general, agreements that lead to more trade neither create nor destroy jobs; that they usually make countries more efficient and richer, but that the numbers aren’t huge; and that they can easily produce losers as well as winners. In principle the overall gains mean that the winners could compensate the losers, so that everyone gains. In practice,

Krugman continued on page 27

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

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Justin Fox

Understanding The ‘War on Men’ In The Workplace According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 5.1 million professional drivers of assorted motor vehicles (that’s leaving out boats, trains and trolleys) in the U.S. Eighty-nine percent of them are men.

If and when driving is automated, most of those jobs will probably disappear. And it’s not as if wiping out male-dominated occupations is anything new. Manufacturing, in which men currently hold 73 percent of the jobs, employed 13.7 million men in June 1979 and 9 million in February. That’s 4.7 million jobs gone over a period during which the male population grew by almost 50 million.Women’s manufacturing employment has actually seen a somewhat steeper decline, from 5.8 million to 3.4 million, in part because of the near wipeout of apparel manufacturing in the U.S. And there are other femaledominated industries that have suffered -- travel agencies went from employing 136,200 women in October 2000 to 64,800 in January.

But on the whole, changes in the workplace since the 1970s have hit men much harder than women.

The number of women on U.S. payrolls topped the number of men for a few months in 2009 and 2010 in the aftermath of the recession, and the numbers are still much closer together than before the recession.

Interestingly, women came nowhere close to passing men in the other jobs count, the household survey in which individuals say whether or

not they’re employed (as opposed to employers providing the data).

That in itself may be telling. Four economists with a lot of experience in such matters hypothesized in 2009 that when labor markets are weak, many people with off-thebooks or other marginal work show up in the household survey but not the employer survey. My take: More men than women are stuck with jobs that aren’t quite jobs.

There are of course still lots of high-status, high-pay fields dominated by men. According the BLS, men occupy 61 percent of managerial jobs in the U.S., 75 percent of computer and mathematical jobs and 85 percent of architecture and engineering jobs.

Get into the rarefied and extremely well-compensated territory of top corporate executives, Hollywood directors and hedge-fund managers, and male dominance is even more extreme. Today, on International Women’s Day (and yes, there is an International Men’s Day), it’s important to emphasize that women are still a long way from achieving full workplace equality.

Part of the reason for that is surely discrimination, but part of it has to be the nature of today’s high-end work.

Ryan Avent has a wonderful essay in the new issue of the Economist’s 1843 magazine exploring why he and other professionals spend so many hours working. He writes: “One of the facts of modern life is that a relatively small class of

about what that would do to our especially given the scorched-earth credibility and standing in the obstructionism of the GOP, that’s world?

What I find myself thinking about, not going to happen. in particular, is climate change Why, then, did we ever pursue — an all-important issue we can’t these agreements? A large part of confront effectively unless all major the answer is foreign policy: Global nations participate in a joint effort, trade agreements from the 1940s with last year’s Paris agreement just to the 1980s were used to bind the beginning. How is that going to democratic nations together during work if America shows itself to be the Cold War, NAFTA was used a nation that reneges on its deals? to reward and encourage Mexican The most a progressive can responsibly call for, I’d argue, is a reformers, and so on.

And anyone ragging on about standstill on further deals, or at least those past deals, like Trump or a presumption that proposed deals Sanders, should be asked what, are guilty unless proved innocent. exactly, he proposes doing now. The hard question to deal with Are they saying that we should here is the Trans-Pacific Partnership, rip up America’s international which the Obama administration has agreements? Have they thought negotiated but Congress hasn’t yet

Krugman continued from page 26

people works very long hours and earns good money for its efforts.

Nearly a third of college-educated American men, for example, work more than 50 hours a week. Some professionals do twice that amount, and elite lawyers can easily work 70 hours a week almost every week of the year.”

Avent theorizes that these people -- himself included -- work so hard because they find work fulfilling and engrossing, and because you can’t afford to live near where the really good jobs are unless you work that many hours. This all-in approach to work has favored men, because they have generally been more willing to prioritize work over family than women are.

But remember, this is a “relatively small class of people.”

Most men don’t have the opportunity to do such intellectually, emotionally and financially rewarding work.

Most women don’t either, but they are generally seen as better suited for the other kinds of jobs that are being created. As journalist Hanna Rosin put it in a much-discussed 2010 Atlantic cover story on “The End of Men”: “The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today -- social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus -- are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true.”

approved. (I consider myself a soft opponent: It’s not the devil’s work, but I really wish President Barack Obama hadn’t gone there.) People I respect in the administration say that it should be considered an existing deal that should stand; I’d argue that there’s a lot less U.S. credibility at stake than they claim.

The larger point in this election season is, however, that politicians should be honest and realistic about trade, rather than taking cheap shots.

Striking poses is easy; figuring out what we can and should do is a lot harder. But you know, that’s a would-be president’s job. c.2016 New York Times News Service 3-10-16

Some men are, understandably, extremely frustrated about this turn of events. I was inspired to write about this topic, in fact, by an irate e-mail I received Friday in reaction to a column that asked why so few Americans are working relative to 15-plus years ago.

“The number 1 reason that Americans aren’t working,” my correspondent wrote, “is the WAR ON MEN.” There was no name on the e-mail, but I think I’m safe in presuming that the author was male. He called me a “libtard” three times, used a few choice expletives and complained that corporations favor women over men in hiring and firing decisions. He also pointed out that criminal records pose a big obstacle to work for many men: “Wanna know why people don’t have jobs? It’s because if you are a man and you get arrested . . . you will never have a job the rest of your life.”

Men were in fact hit harder than women by job cuts during the recession. Men are also far more likely to have criminal records than women, and those records really are keeping many men from working. A New York Times/CBS News/Kaiser Family Foundation poll in 2014 found that 34 percent of jobless men aged 25 to 54 had criminal records.

One obvious bit of advice to men here is: Don’t commit so many crimes! Women seem to be able to get by with a lot less lawbreaking.

For whatever it’s worth, women also seem a lot less likely to send insulting, expletive-laden e-mails to economics columnists whose work they deem unsatisfactory. A lot of the problems men face in the modern workplace -- and society in general -- have come because they (we) are so prone to do and say stupid things.

Still, the troubles many men are having adjusting to the way the world now works are real, and important. They shouldn’t be laughed off. As was once said of a famous fictional middle-aged man struggling with a changing work environment, attention must be paid.

Bloomberg View columnist Justin Fox writes about business. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-9-16

28

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Jay Matthews

Why It’s All Right That A Parent And I View This History Book Differently

My most important moment in school, at least in relation to what I do for a living, was when my high school U.S. history teacher, Al Ladendorff, encouraged our class to criticize the textbook.

I had never heard a teacher say that before.

Could I really do it? This led to a life of gleefully pointing out flaws in books, newspapers and television and to happy employment as a Washington Post reporter and columnist.

Arlington parent Hans Bader, a lawyer who knows what fun it is to challenge authority, is trying to encourage that same kind of critical thinking in his third-grade daughter, and in the rest of us. In a post on the Liberty Unyielding website - “Sugar-coated lies? My daughter’s politically correct history textbook” - he decries what he sees as big errors and false analyses in his daughter’s widely used history textbook, “Our World Far & Wide,” by Joy Masoff.

“It is unlikely to achieve anything other than depriving kids of a solid grasp of their country’s history,” he said. “It depicts a nation in Africa that had little effect on the world as one of the world’s three great civilizations. And its portrait of seven great Americans includes relatively insignificant black and Hispanic activists in order to make a majority of the seven be black or Hispanic.”

Much of what Bader says will make many readers furious or sad. That is how I felt when he asserted that the book’s inclusion of the ancient Mali Empire as a great civilization and its mentioning of such figures as Cesar Chavez as great Americans “may reflect a clumsy hamhanded attempt to make certain people (like minority children and residents of non-wealthy areas) feel better about themselves.”

My wife and I, both native Californians, think U.S. history textbooks ignore important events in the West. That’s not because we crave selfesteem but because we think readers are getting a distorted view of our country and its history.

Millions of Americans, including me, have the same problem with textbooks that say little or nothing about Africa and important people who weren’t white.

Such discussions often become heated and personal, and they go nowhere because most of us don’t like yelling or being yelled at. I propose that we calm down and treat Bader and critics like him as neighbors and parents who mean well, even if their words sometimes drive us to distraction. Bader did, for instance, expose an error in the book about population growth in Roanoke.

How are our children going to learn to think for themselves if we explode at every disagreement?

My view of “Our World Far & Wide” is different from Bader’s. I hope my grandsons are assigned the book when they reach third grade. And it doesn’t say that ancient Mali was “one of the

world’s three great civilizations”; it says it was “one of the world’s great empires,” of which there were dozens. It makes a clear distinction between Mali and ancient Greece and Rome, “two mighty civilizations (that) have left big marks on the way we live.”

like students to read about him, too.

You can’t get everyone into a third-grade book that is just 64 pages long. We can have peaceful debates about who and what is most important.

Research shows that parents and grandparents are the most effective teachers of children at that age, so Bader and I can add any lessons we want. Kids I enjoyed learning about ancient Africa. might not listen as carefully as we would like, but I liked the discussions of George Washington, they will remember we had a disagreement with Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, what they were reading.

Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King Jr. That can inspire useful, if contrarian, thinking The subjects all were dictated by Virginia state for the rest of their lives. standards. For some reason, my edition of the (c) 2016, The Washington Post book, acquired cheaply and quickly online, does 3-13-16 not include Chavez, as Bader’s does, but I would

Jill Richardson

Toxic Teflon

Teflon, you might have heard, may cause cancer.

The culprit was a toxic, now retired compound called PFOA. Also known as C8, the chemical became the subject of a major lawsuit accusing DuPont — the manufacturer of the popular nonstick coating — of sickening thousands of Americans.

Yet Teflon is still on the market, The Intercept reports, with a secret new active ingredient.

To find out what it was, scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency sampled river water downstream from a North Carolina chemical plant that previously manufactured the lethal ingredient C8.

That’s right: The pollution of waterways with factory waste is such a given that the river was the EPA’s go-to location to find industrial chemicals.

Yikes.

In 2016, don’t we have a better way of disposing of toxic waste? Don’t we have the sense to say that manufacturing plants shouldn’t be allowed to dump industrial waste into rivers?

Sad though it is, the scientists were right: They found a new generation of chemicals in the river that are related in performance properties to the poisonous one that’s no longer used.

Naturally, the scientists wondered, are the new compounds’ toxicity and environmental persistence also similar? Sure enough, the new chemicals used in Teflon cause cancer in lab animals.

This should call into question our environmental and chemical safety laws. DuPont, after all, helped write the law that regulates toxic chemicals. It’s a small surprise that it allows them to introduce new chemicals and profit like mad until scientists definitively prove them harmful.

In the case of PFOA, by that time it had already found its way into the bodies of 99.7 percent of Americans. Babies were being born with it in their bloodstreams.

Our chemical control laws aren’t getting fixed any time soon. But while we wait, there’s something

all consumers can do: Stop buying Teflon.

Nonstick cookware is convenient, for obvious reasons. But it’s not the only option for nonstick cooking.

I’m personally a fan of stainless steel, but cast iron is nice too. So are the fancy Le Creuset enamel-covered pots and pans, although they cost a fortune. Another possibility is glass — not for most pots and pans, but for baking dishes used in the oven.

Unfortunately, many of the alternatives are pricey. A lucky find in a thrift store or estate sale might help some save money, but most thrift stores don’t stock the latest Williams-Sonoma cookware.

Our current laws have created a two-tiered system in which the rich can replace their Teflon with non-toxic options much more easily than the rest of us.

As long as Teflon’s new chemical is legal, and so long as companies can get away with dumping it in rivers, all of us will face exposure to it in the environment. Whether you’re rich, poor, or in between — and whether there’s nonstick cookware in your home or not — it affects your health.

Ultimately, we need to change our laws — not only to ban dangerous chemicals currently on the market, but also to require thorough testing of new ones before they can be sold commercially.

Alas, to do that, we need a Congress that actually does the people’s business. That doesn’t seem imminent.

In the meantime, as we arm ourselves with the knowledge to make the right choices in November, the most we can do individually is to ditch our nonstick cookware and replace it with whatever safer alternatives we can afford.

OtherWords columnist Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org.

3-9-16

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

29

Gene Lyons

Understanding The ‘Moral Molecule’ Of Our Pets “People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines. ... Such people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections.

It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel.”

-- Voltaire In the popular imagination, there are dog people and cat people, although one rarely encounters them in real life. Me, I’m leery of anybody who dislikes dogs, although it’s necessary to make allowances for people with bad childhood experiences. Cat-haters are almost invariably men. Probably cats are spooked around them.

But do domestic animals love us back? Most pet owners find it an absurd question. What could be more obvious than a dog’s joy at welcoming us home after an absence? Than a cat’s curling up and purring in our laps?

For the longest time, strict behaviorists clung to pseudo-

scientific fundamentalism claiming that talking about animals’ emotions was sentimental nonsense. Psuedoscience, as Carl Safina points out in his wonderful book “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel,” precisely because it required ignoring almost everything we know about their anatomy, evolutionary history and observed behavior.

“So, do other animals have human emotions?” he asks. “Yes, they do.

Do humans have animal emotions?

Yes; they’re largely the same. Fear, aggression, well-being, anxiety, and pleasure are the emotions of shared brain structures and shared chemistries, originated in shared ancestry.”

Enter now one professor Paul Zak, advertised as something called a “neuroeconomist” -- a term hinting at mumbo-jumbo to me -- who recently undertook an experiment to determine which domestic animal loves us best. Dogs? Or cats?

Judging by his Wikipedia profile, Zak is a handsome rascal who makes a handsome living advising corporate clients that we’d be better off if we went around acting like a bunch of Italians, with lots of hugging and

kissing each other’s cheeks. He’s probably right too, although your mileage may differ.

Zak’s book, “The Moral Molecule” expounds upon the wonders of oxytocin, a neurotransmitter that gives people the warm-fuzzies when people they love (or attractive Italians) embrace them. He goes on TV a lot.

Anyway, at the request of BBCTV, the professor set out to determine which species got the biggest oxytocin boost after 10 minutes of being dandled by their owners, dogs or cats. So he assembled 10 of each at his laboratory, took saliva samples, instructed their owners to play with them, and then took more saliva samples, which he analyzed for the happy hormone.

According to Elyse Wanshel’s summary in The Huffington Post, “Canines were proven to love us Homo sapiens five times more than their feline counterparts.”

That’s right, cat lovers, dogs rule!

Except, you know what? I don’t have a Ph.D. in neuroeconomics, but I do have an unusual orange tabby cat named Albert. His nickname is “The Orange Dog,” on account of

how he’s the smallest member of our security team -- consisting of two Great Pyrenees, a German shepherd and Albert.

Albert has many unusual personality traits. Besides preferring canine company, he’s been known to sit atop fence posts to let Mount Nebo the horse nuzzle him. The other horses, no. He wanders among cows as if they were as inert as hay bales.

He’s totally devoted to me, perching on the arm of my chair watching ballgames, and lying on my chest at bedtime purring.

Then he retires to the bathroom towel closet, fishes open the springloaded door and lets it thump shut behind him. Around 5 a.m. -- thump!

-- he’s up and out the door. Many afternoons he accompanies my wife, five dogs and me on an hourlong walk around the pastures to my neighbor’s hay barn, rubbing on the dogs’ legs and panting like a little lion. Sometimes he stays the night out there hunting mice. A country cat, Albert’s wise to coyotes.

I’m absurdly fond of him, and the feeling’s clearly mutual.

However, Albert has two significant phobias: cars and strangers.

He vanishes when company comes, keeps the house under surveillance from an undisclosed location and materializes after they’ve gone.

So carry him to a laboratory, let a stranger take a saliva sample, play with him for 10 minutes and then let the stranger mess with him again?

Our basset hound Daisy would be fine with that. She loves riding in the car, has never met a stranger and pretty much drools all day anyway.

Elevated oxytocin levels? Albert would take a week to forgive such an indignity. He might bite. So would most cats.

What a farcical experiment. The moral molecule indeed!

So what does Albert feel when he’s lying there on my chest? I think basically what I feel: security, contentment and deep affection.

Arkansas Times columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and co-author of “The Hunting of the President” (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). You can email Lyons at eugenelyons2@yahoo. com.

Copyright 2016, Gene Lyons 3-9-16

30

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

Adam Segal & Alex Grigsby

Breaking the Encryption Deadlock Since the 1990s, U.S. law enforcement has expressed concern about “going dark,” roughly defined as an inability to access encrypted communications or data even with a court order.

Silicon Valley companies are rolling out encrypted products that allow users alone to access their data, and in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino, California, terrorist attacks, law enforcement officials argue that their fears are being realized.

The FBI is engaged in a public battle with Apple over access to data stored on the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino attackers and cautions that encrypted messaging apps could hinder the organization’s ability to uncover terrorism plots.

To prevent future attacks, law enforcement has urged U.S. tech giants to build in “backdoors” or “front doors” to their products - essentially, the technical ability to decrypt communications pursuant to a warrant. Silicon Valley and computer scientists argue that any solution allowing someone other than the data’s owner to decrypt communications amounts to a flaw that could be exploited by criminals and state actors and thus weakens security for everyone. Moreover, proponents of encryption point out that numerous countries and groups have developed their own products and services, meaning anti-encryption policies will only hurt the competitiveness of U.S. companies without providing access to a great deal of suspect communications. Despite the technologists’ claim of the intractability of the problem, U.S. officials insist there is a technological workaround and have sought to compel tech companies’ assistance to break into encrypted devices.

that already apply to wiretapping.

For example, Apple can access the content of an encrypted iPhone if it has been backed up to iCloud, Apple’s cloud storage system. Recognizing how and when encryption occurs, and the different security offerings of the more popular service providers, may help law enforcement access data.

Better tech literacy might have avoided the current Apple-FBI fight. The FBI could have obtained more information from the San Bernardino attacker’s iPhone if it had not hastily ordered the county to reset his iCloud password.

These three proposals will not be fully acceptable either to technologists or to law enforcement.

Some in the technology community will recoil at the idea of the NSA supporting law enforcement, while others will resent the need to keep pace with Silicon Valley’s offerings. Nevertheless, a onesize-fits-all solution isn’t likely. The debate has been going on in one form or another for more than 20 years. It’s time to consider some realistic solutions.

Adam Segal is the director and Alex Grigsby is the assistant director of the digital and cyberspace policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Segal is author of “The Hacked World Order.”

In the past year, both sides have repeated their talking points many times. The debate has been dominated by absolutists. Some cybersecurity experts and privacy advocates are loath to concede that “going dark” is a problem at all, while many in law enforcement are scornful of what they see as decisions motivated by business interests and remain adamant that anything less than a real-time, on-demand decryption capability is unacceptable.

It does not have to be like this. There are solutions that allow law enforcement to gather the evidence it needs without introducing encryption backdoors.

Here are three worthy of consideration: First, Congress could empower law enforcement to exploit existing security flaws in communications software to access the data it needs. Put simply, law enforcement should have the ability to hack into a suspect’s smartphone or computer with a court order, such as a warrant.

It’s no secret that software is riddled with security flaws. As some prominent computer security experts have argued, such lawful hacking would allow authorities to use existing vulnerabilities to obtain evidence instead of creating new backdoors.

Although this would entail law enforcement adopting the same techniques as criminals, tight judicial oversight would ensure that lawful hacking is employed responsibly, much like the restrictions

Put away your worries about how all the major presidential contenders have abandoned a bipartisan consensus on trade, or whether any serious financial instrument will ever again earn serious interest. In Seoul, a genuine tragedy for the human race is taking place.

AlphaGo is winning. The computer, developed by artificial intelligence researchers at Google, has won the first two games in its five-game match with Lee Se-dol, the world’s best player of the game Go. The chances of a comeback are tiny.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Sure, the best computers have been crushing world chess champions for over a decade. But Go -- Go was supposed to be unsolvable. Or at least not solvable so soon. AlphaGo might have beaten the European champ last fall, but he was ranked something like 229th in the world. No big deal.

Go was safe, we thought, because Go was different. It’s not just calculation. It’s intuition. It’s an aesthetic. It’s a feeling for structure. It’s a calm appreciation of space and shape and direction. In short, it’s art.

I was introduced to Go as a college freshman, and very soon those of us who were serious about the game -- mostly math and science nerds -looked down our noses at mere chess players. In the 1990s, we had a good laugh when computers

Second, the executive branch should explore the possibility of developing a national capacity to decrypt data for law- enforcement purposes. The challenge of “going dark” affects state and local law enforcement the most: They are the least likely to have the resources and technical capabilities to decrypt data relevant to an investigation. Creating a national decryption capability, housed within the FBI and drawing upon the expertise of the National Security Agency, would provide assistance to state and local law enforcement, similar to what the FBI provides for fingerprint and biometric data.

Third, and most important, law enforcement needs to improve its tech literacy. Law enforcement was confronted with a problem akin to “going dark” when, in the 1990s, organized-crime suspects started using disposable phones that hampered wiretaps. Nevertheless, law enforcement adapted its procedures, and arrests and prosecution of organized-crime suspects continued.

Running into an encrypted communication does not necessarily mean an evidence trail will go cold.

Encryption can occur on a device, as the data are transmitted and when they are stored in the cloud. (c) 2016, The Washington Post Encryption in one avenue doesn’t necessarily 3-13-16 mean the other two avenues will also be encrypted.

Stephen Carter

Computer Wins at Go; Humans are Disappointed

began to trounce world chess champions. Go, we were sure, was safe for decades to come.

The number of legal positions in Go dwarfs the number of legal positions in chess by many orders of magnitude. Brute force would never solve Go. The transcendent difficulty of Go has long contributed to its allure. In the West in particular, the game has carried an aura of inaccessibility that adds to its mystery. “Not one in a hundred European residents in Japan,” complained a British observer in 1906, “has had the patience needed to learn and appreciate the merits of ‘Go,’ or to enjoy playing the game.” Writing in the Pall Mall Magazine, he went on to praise Go for what it might teach about discipline and strategy.

Alas, he went on, the game was too difficult for most Westerners. The only ones who might play it well were those who possessed “the brain-faculty of persistent memory in the midst of distracting dangers.” The “great merit” of Go, he wrote, was “its combining the opposite qualities of simplicity and complexity.” He added: “You will lose if you do not perceive your opponent’s real objective as clearly as you must bear your own in mind while concealing it.”

This last point, of course, is common to games

Carter continued on page 31

Liberal Opinion Week

March 23, 2016

31

Colbert King

Women Who Inspire The accomplishments of four leaders recognized this week at the Women in the World salon in Washington - a Tina Brownsponsored platform for women on the front lines of change around the world - are awe-inspiring.

The honorees’ compelling and inspirational stories put to shame, by comparison, the puerile behavior of the top Republicans seeking to occupy the world’s most powerful office.

When GOP presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Donald Trump are not extolling their own virtues, they are, for the world to see, indulging in locker-room gibes about genitalia.

Said Rubio recently, joking about the size of Trump’s hands, “You know what they say about men with small hands.”

To which Trump responded in a nationally televised debate: “Look at those hands. Are they small hands?” raising them for viewers to see.

“And, he referred to my hands, if they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”

In her opening remarks at the Women in the World gathering, Brown attributed the two presidential contenders’ behavior to “toxic testosterone.”

Then there’s the passionately

Carter continued from page 30

of skill, but somehow in Go seems more so. My brother, a very skilled player, used to refer to Go as chess to the fourth power. It’s often called the most perfect game of strategy every invented. (OK, devotees of Hex will disagree.) Most important, Go was supposed to be the game least likely to be broken by the machines.

Oops.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-tech. I’m fascinated by AI. When I was at Stanford University back in the 1970s, the multiple courses I took on the subject - in both computer science and philosophy -- were among the most enthralling and stimulating of my college career. Yet I will confess that I am no transhumanist. I like to imagine that there will remain areas of uniquely human endeavor.

So if the world of games has been conquered, what realm might the humans still protect?

righteous Ted Cruz, who continues to fend off charges of questionable campaign ethics, hypocrisy and dishonesty from - be still my heart - his fellow Republicans.

Those morally distasteful GOP campaigns stand in sharp relief to the actions of Hafsat Abiola, a Nigerian sower of democratic seeds who was honored by Women in the World.

In 1993, Hafsat’s father, Moshood Abiola, was elected president in the first Nigerian election in 10 years.

The military regime immediately annulled the election, called him a traitor and put him in detention, where he died in 1998.

Hafsat’s mother, KudiratAbiola, didn’t shrivel up after her husband’s arrest. She led protest marches and strikes to attract international attention to the rape of democracy in Nigeria. The day before she was due to fly to the United States to see Hasfat graduate from Harvard University in 1996, Kudirat was assassinated by gunmen.

“Freedom” and “democracy” are easy words to throw around when you are under the protection of the law. Anyone who traveled to Nigeria when it was under military rule, as I did, knows that courageous deeds can lead to deep trouble.

And Hafsat Abiola is not all One possibility is the arts, often said to be such complex products of observation, experience, imagination and emotion that they take years or decades to master. Surely there Homo sapiens must remain champion. But, no. Even in the arts, the gauntlet has been tossed down.

Take poetry. I remember the crude programs we came up with in high school and college. The IBM mainframe would groan and struggle and after hours of debugging spew forth something like this: DOWN

BY THE BROWN HORSE VERILY / THE RED HOUSE SADDENED MERRILY. Now you can take an online challenge to figure out whether a poem was written by a computer of a human. Mostly you’ll be able to tell, but it’s getting harder.

Computers are writing classical music. The results, although not yet near the level of genius, can be beautifully haunting. Computers are writing novels. Not very good ones -- but give them time. Then there’s

talk. She is fearlessly continuing her parents’ legacy, establishing a nonprofit organization named after her mother. The Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, or KIND, is a twopronged effort to curb violence against women and strike down barriers to women’s participation in public affairs.

She doesn’t work behind closed doors. While others were wringing their hands, Hafsat went beyond “#BringBackOurGirls” and traveled to that menacing region in northeastern Nigeria where Boko Haram carries out its attacks on villages, turning women and girls into sex slaves, servants and fighters. Like her mother, she mobilized international attention to the carnage.

Unlike today’s U.S. political carnival barkers, Abiola’s commitment to civil society and democratic freedom is exercised beyond the campaign trail.

GOP front-runner Trump inherited a bunch of money, which he used to build a billion-dollar business empire.

Women in the World honorees Monica Gray and Annie Medaglia, University of Virginia graduates and media entrepreneurs, have also built a national enterprise. But their undertaking got started with a few

the recent paper describing the use of convolutional neural networks to allow a computer to transform a photograph into a painting in the style of one of the great masters.

Cheerleaders for AI look forward to the day when computers will fall in love and have their hearts broken, wonder about their place in the universe, and perhaps begin to resist their oppression at the hands of the humans. Cheerleaders for humanity keep marking barriers and insisting that they have found the one the machines will never cross. But the circles are getting smaller.

Lee Se-dol, the news accounts tell us, was stunned by his defeat in the first game, and disheartened by the result of the second.

He’s not the only one.

Carter, a Bloomberg View columnist, is a professor of law at Yale University. (c) 2016, Bloomberg View 3-11-16

dollars in seed money from a U-Va. incubator.

Their nonprofit venture is called DreamWakers, a novel business that, through video technology, links career professionals and dynamic speakers to students in urban and rural public school classrooms across the country. Gray and Medaglia are tackling an enormous problem. One in fiveninth-graders drops out before receiving a diploma, according to their website. DreamWakers connects underserved students to real-live role models who share with them the world of possibilities. Helping low-income students to dream big, by providing sound advice and inspiration, does more to stimulate achievement than all the pompous, self-absorbed bragging that comes out of The Donald’s mouth.

Perhaps the greatest contrast between leaders who talk, and those who do, can be found in the work of another Women in the World honoree: Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch.

Terrorism is the scourge of the planet. Trump has said he would target terrorists’ families. Cruz would “carpet bomb them into oblivion.”

Rubio would halt the admission of refugees from Syria. All bluster.

Lynch, when she was U.S. attorney for New York’s Eastern District, prosecuted dozens of terrorists and made life a living hell for drug traffickers, child-sex predators and brutal police officers. As attorney general, Lynch is a vigorous prosecutor of hate crimes, which she dubs “the original domestic terrorism.’’

Unlike pandering vote-seekers who say anything and do little, Lynch is strong, independent and uncompromising when it comes to the pursuit of justice.

These Women in the World achievers put those presidential wannabes to shame. (c) 2016, The Washington Post 3-11-16

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