The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, left, and Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photo of mural in the city of Qom (cc) 2013 by David Stanley.
I think the most rational response to President Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities is to hang back a bit — that is, to acknowledge that he’s the wrong leader to do this, that he was more likely acting on ego and personal pique than out of any strategic vision, but that it’s too soon to tell whether this will be a disaster or might actually accomplish some good.
One starting point is that Iran shouldn’t be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Another starting point is to understand that what led to this really is all Trump’s fault. President Barack Obama painstakingly negotiated an agreement with Iran that significantly slowed Iran’s race to get a nuclear bomb, and Trump undid that in his first term for no discernible reason other than to disrespect Obama.
It’s important at a historical moment like this to keep our heads about us. Social media was filled with dark warnings about authoritarianism on Friday after the FBI arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan and charged her with illegally helping an undocumented immigrant avoid being detained by federal agents. I even saw a quote attributed to Hitler.
We should leave it to the legal system to determine whether Judge Dugan broke the law or not. But, to their credit, a number of news organizations noted that the Dugan case is remarkably similar to that of Massachusetts District Court Judge Shelley Joseph. Joseph was charged by federal authorities in 2019 with obstruction of justice after she helped an undocumented immigrant escape out the back of her courtroom when she learned that the feds were waiting to take him into custody.
Charges against Joseph were dropped in 2022 after she agreed to a state investigation into her conduct. As of late 2024, her case was still wending its way through the disciplinary system.
Sen. Tom Cotton. Photo (cc) 2016 by Michael Vadon.
The PRESS Act, which would protect reporters from being forced to identify their anonymous sources or turn over confidential documents, appears to be dead despite passing the House on a unanimous vote earlier this year.
Clare Foran and Brian Stelter report for CNN that the bill died Tuesday after Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas objected to an attempt to pass it by unanimous consent. Cotton said that passage would turn senators “into the active accomplice of deep-state leakers, traitors and criminals, along with the America-hating and fame-hungry journalists who help them out.” President-elect Donald Trump has demanded that Republicans defeat the measure, so that would appear to be the end of the road.
Meanwhile, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a staunch supporter of the bill, noted that the U.S. Justice Department’s Inspector General’s office released a report Tuesday finding that journalists’ records had been sought during Trump’s first term in violation of internal guidelines. CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post were targeted along with members of Congress and congressional staffers.
In a statement, RCFP executive director Bruce Brown said:
The government seizure of reporters’ records hurts the public and raises serious First Amendment concerns. This investigation highlights the need for a reasonable, common-sense law to protect reporters and their sources. It’s time for Congress to pass the PRESS Act, which has overwhelming bipartisan support, to prevent government interference with the free flow of information to the public.
The PRESS Act, which stands for Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying, would add the federal government to the 49 states that already have some form of shield protection for journalism. The sole exception is Wyoming.
Trump is hardly alone in his contempt for the importance of journalistic anonymity in holding government accountable. Former President Barack Obama was so aggressive in demanding that reporters identify leakers that I once wrote a commentary for The Huffington Post headlined “Obama’s War on Journalism.”
Under President Biden, though, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued guidance prohibiting federal prosecutors from seizing journalists’ records except in a few narrow cases involving terrorist investigations or emergencies — the same exceptions that are spelled out in the PRESS Act. Now it seems virtual certain that Trump will return to his previous repressive practices, with Tom Cotton cheering him on.
Media notes
• Peeling back The Onion. The internet exploded in celebration recently when The Onion won a bid to purchase Infowars from right-wing conspiracy-monger Alex Jones, who was sued into bankruptcy by the families of children who were killed in the Sandy Hook school massacre of 2012. Jones had spread false stories that the shootings were somehow faked. Now, though, a bankruptcy judge has ruled the Infowars auction was improperly conducted in secret and may have resulted in less money for the families than an open process, David Ingram reports for NBC News.
• Krugman’s awkward farewell. Longtime New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, surely the only opinion journalist to have won a Nobel Prize, wrote a heartfelt farewell column (gift link) on Monday. But though all was sweetness and light publicly, independent media reporter Oliver Darcy writes that Krugman may have left earlier than he would have liked because he regarded opinion editor Katie Kingsbury as heavy-handed, demanding a “far more thorough edit” (including the vetting of pitches) of all Times columnists than had previously been the case.
I’m looking forward to seeing what Krugman does next. I thought his column had become somewhat repetitive in recent years, but I’d welcome longer pieces from him published less frequently. He remains one of our most vital public intellectuals.
Update: Well, that didn’t take long. Krugman started a Substack newsletter in 2021, let it wither, and has now revived it.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Photo (cc) 2019 by nrkbeta.
I’m thinking through what it means to say that Kamala Harris has united the Democratic Party’s disputatious factions. The media tend to refer to those on the left as “liberals” and “progressives” as though the terms are interchangeable. They’re not.
I’m not going to try to tease out the various positions that define the factions. Instead, I’ll take a shot at who’s in what camp. This is unscientific to say the least, but:
• Liberals. Also known as the center-left. This is where the bulk of the party is today, and where it’s been most of the time since FDR. Leading exemplars: Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.
• Progressives. The left, which I’ll arbitrarily define by citing Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Bernie Sanders would be in here if he were actually a Democrat.
• Centrists. Now this is slippery. Bill Clinton for sure. Joe Manchin*? Does anyone know if he’s still a Democrat? It’s tempting to say that he’s a conservative, but he votes with President Biden most of the time. Barack Obama governed as a centrist, but I’m not sure whether that was his preference or if he was just playing the hand he was dealt.
What unites them all, incredibly, is not just support for Harris but genuine enthusiasm and excitement.
*Note: Manchin used to be a Democrat, but he’s now an independent.
The media fact-checkers have not distinguished themselves this week, torturing the language to find fault with statements by Democrats that, in some cases, are actually true.
Now, I’m going to confess that I was not following the fact-checkers during the Republican National Convention. But what I have found going back a number of years — as I wrote for HuffPost way back in 2011 — is that organizations like PolitiFact often twist themselves into knots to find negative observations to make about Democrats so they can achieve some sort of balance with Republicans, who were often untethered from the truth even before the rise of Donald Trump.
Fact-checkers for The New York Times and The Washington Post have both come under fire during this week’s Democratic National Convention. But I want to focus on PolitiFact, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project, which has produced some fact-checks that make you scratch your head. I’ve been following PolitiFact on Threads. Here are a few examples:
• On Tuesday, PolitiFact gave President Biden a “false” on its Truth-O-Meter for claiming that billionaires pay an average tax rate of 8.2%. The post linked back to a PolitFact story from last January that said:
The White House report found that if you include unrealized gains in the income calculations of the 400 richest U.S. families, then their taxes paid would account for just 8.2% of their income.
Economists and policymakers have long debated whether the government should tax unrealized gains. But Biden made it sound as if 8% was the standard rate today, not what would happen under a potential future proposal.
In other words, Biden was correct under PolitiFact’s own analysis.
• On Wednesday, PolitiFact slapped J.B. Pritzker on the wrist: “Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Trump told ‘us to inject bleach’ during the pandemic. That’s Mostly False. Trump’s 2020 comments about treatments were criticized, but he didn’t tell people to inject or ‘take a shot’ of anything.”
Pritzker’s statement was labeled as “mostly false.” Yet here’s a BBC report from 2020 that quotes Trump’s exact words: “And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”
Pritzker was right on the facts, the nuance and the context. Full stop.
• Two more from Biden: PolitiFact said the president’s assertions that Trump wants to cut Medicare and Social Security were “mostly false” because — God help us — “When he was president, Trump released annual budgets that proposed cutting Medicare but he has repeatedly pledged throughout the 2024 presidential campaign that he will not cut the program” and “Trump has said in the past that he’s open to cutting Social Security, but this isn’t his current position.”
I’m sorry, but that’s just embarrassing.
The late show
A number of observers, me included, have been puzzled by the DNC’s schedule, which has resulted in the main speaker of the night taking the podium after 11 p.m. The swing states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and most of Michigan are all in the Eastern time zone, and presumably you don’t want soft supporters and undecided voters to go to bed before hearing from the Obamas, Tim Walz and, tonight, Kamala Harris.
But it may not have made much difference. According to Craig Harrington of the liberal organization Media Matters for America, the audience for President Biden fell off only 2%. “Not ideal, but not disastrous either,” he wrote on Twitter/X.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that no one is going to invest a couple of hours tonight and then tune out just before Harris comes on. Still, it strikes me that it would have been a good idea to wrap up each night’s proceedings before viewers decide they’ve had enough.
Walz from the heart
Tim Walz’s short, punchy address and Oprah Winfrey’s speech were pitch-perfect.
Those who thought that Harris should have picked Josh Shapiro as her running mate may have changed their minds Wednesday night, as Shapiro delivered a perfectly serviceable but rather generic address. Walz, by contrast, was folksy and empathetic, speaking to the heartland in a way that the Democrats haven’t done in many years. You had to love his former football players taking the stage, too.
What can I say about Bill Clinton? It was interesting to see that some women I follow on Threads were tuning out. Given his history, I couldn’t believe that he glommed onto the dick joke President Obama indulged in — funny coming from Obama, creepy from Clinton.
Clinton also spoke way too long and just sort of rambled. I know that some viewers loved it, and I’ve heard from a few. I also understand that a former president can’t be denied his place at the podium. But I was glad when it was over.
Barack and Michelle Obama in 2008. Photo (cc) by Luke Vargas.
Twenty years ago, when the Democratic National Convention gathered in Boston, a young senator named Barack Obama delivered the speech that launched him to the presidency.
I was covering the convention for The Boston Phoenix, but I wasn’t in the hall. No regrets — I reported from four national conventions, and I thought the best way I could serve our audience was to spend as little time in the building as possible, focusing instead on alternative events, protests, what the media were up to and the like. Still, that was a big one to miss.
I didn’t miss Barack Obama’s speech last night, nor Michelle Obama’s, even if it was from the comfort of our TV room. Wow. Observers are trying to decide who delivered the better of what were two magnificent addresses. I thought hers was a superior piece of pure oratory but that his did more to advance the cause of getting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz elected. The two addresses complemented each other perfectly.
And soaring though their rhetoric was, it was pretty amusing to see the former president go there for what I believe was the first time since Marco Rubio made some awkward remarks about the size of Donald Trump’s, uh, hands.
Doug Emhoff’s speech was folksy and effective. All in all, it was another strong night for the Democrats.
Vice President Kamala Harris. Photo (cc) 2019 by Gage Skidmore.
The Boston Globe’s editorial board has just called for President Biden to end his re-election campaign. The paper took its time, which I think is appropriate. But given the president’s anemic response to his disastrous performance in last Thursday’s debate, it’s now clear that someone else would be better suited to the crucial task of saving our democracy from Donald Trump and the forces of the authoritarian right. The Globe writes:
Serious questions are now in play about his ability to complete the arduous work of being leader of the free world. Can he negotiate with a hostile Republican Congress, dangerous foreign powers, or even fractious rivals within his own Cabinet? The nation’s confidence has been shaken.
The Globe is also calling for an open convention. I understand the appeal. But the cleanest solution would be to hand off the presidency to Vice President Kamala Harris. Biden would have to resign in order to do that, and I realize that’s unfair. There’s no logical reason for him not to serve out the remainder of his term, but defeating Trump is of paramount importance. Harris is as popular, or unpopular, as any of the other Democrats being mentioned, and with her ascendance there would be no issues regarding campaign finances or ballot access.
The New York Times is reporting that Biden told an unnamed key ally that he is thinking about ending his campaign. The Times is getting furious pushback from the White House, but how could Biden not be having such conversations? Former President Barack Obama is also letting it be known that his full-throated support for Biden is mainly for public consumption.
Maybe Biden will put the doubts to rest in his interview with George Stephanopoulos. Maybe he’ll hold a two-hour news conference, as Jake Tapper has suggested, and turn back the clock. Right now, though, he appears to be on a trajectory that will end, inevitably, with his making a very different calculation.
President Biden delivered what I thought was the best State of the Union address I can remember. He was energized, passionate, funny and focused. He mixed it up with Republicans on issues ranging from Ukraine to reproductive rights and, aside from unfortunately adopting Marjorie Taylor Greene’s slur while answering back at her (he referred to undocumented immigrants as “illegals”), he escaped unscathed.
For those of us who look back to Barack Obama as the gold standard, well, the SOTU doesn’t often produce a memorable speech. Obama’s two for the ages are his address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and his eulogy at Mother Emanuel AME Church in 2015. No one remembers his SOTU speeches.
We were also treated an an exceedingly weird performance by House Speaker Mike Johnson, who sat there looking miserable, trying to be impassive, but reflexively nodding from time to time as though he agreed with Biden. I don’t know how to describe Vice President Kamala Harris except to say that she was resplendent and may have improved her political standing through body language alone.
I caught a little bit of the commentary by the “PBS NewsHour” folks afterwards, and the theme they seemed to be settling into was that Biden’s speech was overly political. Good grief. These are the times we live in. Jonathan Capehart put it well, though, calling it “an epic speech” and that Democrats “will be energized by the cranky grandpa.”
Yes, they will. The polling for Biden has been awful lately as the media, and especially The New York Times, have obsessed over the president’s age. Maybe the SOTU will be a turning point.
Former President Barack Obama has posted an important message at Medium. Echoing President Biden’s approach, Obama calls on us to support Israel’s right to self-defense while at the same time calling on Israel to protect the lives of civilians and work toward a decent resolution of the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He writes:
[W]hile the prospects of future peace may seem more distant than ever, we should call on all of the key actors in the region to engage with those Palestinian leaders and organizations that recognize Israel’s right to exist to begin articulating a viable pathway for Palestinians to achieve their legitimate aspirations for self-determination — because that is the best and perhaps only way to achieve the lasting peace and security most Israeli and Palestinian families yearn for.
After striking out the day before, we finally got to see the National Portrait Gallery paintings of Barack and Michelle Obama at the Museum of Fine Arts. It was a wonderful experience, and we enjoyed learning more about the artists, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald. I regard Obama and Dwight Eisenhower as the two best presidents of my lifetime, and I was too young to remember Ike.
