Three columns on Trump, one of him at his best, two of him at his worst. The links to the full columns are embedded in the headlines.
Trump’s Rushmore speech was monumentally splendid (July 6). Despite so much media drivel about President Trump giving a “dystopian” or “dark and divisive” or out-and-out racist speech at Mount Rushmore, his Friday speech, as written, was the single finest of Trump’s presidency.
It featured realistic, entirely justified pushback against civilization’s despoilers. And it married that with an appropriate, much-needed celebration of the essential goodness of the United States and its history, along with plenty of unifying thoughts and proposals….
Trump’s opposition to COVID-19 testing money is could be deadly (July 20).President Trump is acting recklessly by opposing funding for increased coronavirus testing simply because he thinks it would make him look bad.
Congress is working on another large package of coronavirus-related relief. Democrats and most Republican leaders want it to include a significant amount of money for increased testing capacity, to expand the availability of testing and for the crucial task of increasing the rapidity with which patients can receive results.
There are two elements to Trump’s opposition to expanded testing. First, he repeatedly and almost obsessively has contended for months, completely illogically, that increased testing is ill-advised because more tests mean that more people get reported as having the virus.
This is, of course, nonsense. A problem doesn’t go away merely by a refusal to look at it….
Trump’s commutation for Roger Stone is unpardonable (July 13). President Trump, like Presidents Barack Obama and especially Bill Clinton before him, has now abused his commutation power for rank political ends in a way that undermines the cause of justice.
The fact that Obama and Clinton “got away with it” does not make Trump’s commutation of the sentence of his longtime political dirty trickster, Roger Stone, less of an affront to the system…. Even Attorney General William Barr, often seen as extremely protective of Trump, reportedly recommended against the commutation after earlier having proclaimed Stone’s conviction “righteous” and “appropriate.” ….
