The Week 07Feb2020

16 NEWS Talking points

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AP

QAn average of 11 mil-

lion TV viewers watched

the first day of President

Trump’s impeachment

trial on cable TV during

the afternoon and another

7.5 million during prime

time. That far exceeds the

2.3 million who tuned in

during prime time in 1999

for the first day of Presi-

dent Clinton’s impeach-

ment trial.

The Washington Post

QThe Trump administra-

tion has opened an inves-

tigation into an incident

of alleged anti-Semitism

at UCLA—one of the first

such inquiries since the

president extended the

1964 Civil Rights Act’s

protection to Jews in

December. The incident

involved a guest speaker

to an anthropology class

who sharply criticized

Israel for alleged atroci-

ties and ethnic cleansing

against Palestinians.

Los Angeles Times

QSince Jan. 1, nine

inmates have died in

fights or by suicide at

the infamous Mississippi

State Penitentiary, also

called the Parchman.

Gov. Tate Reeves an-

nounced this week he was

shutting down Unit 29 at

the prison, where many of

the deaths occurred.

CNN.com

QPresident Trump’s Doral

resort in Florida doubled

its rates ahead of his

visit last week to address

the Republican National

Committee, which spent

an estimated $500,

on the event. The rate for

the least expensive room

surged from $254 to $539.

Salon.com

Kobe Bryant: His quest for redemption

“A huge hole has been cut

out of Los Angeles’ heart,”

and basketball fans world-

wide are grieving, said Bill

Plaschke in the Los Angeles

Times. Kobe Bryant, one

of the most revered athletes

of his era, died this week

at the age of 41 in a heli-

copter crash that also killed

his daughter Gianna, 13,

and seven others. Over his

20 seasons with the Lakers,

the five-time champ and 18-time All-Star was

idolized for his ferocious will to dominate, which

continued right down to his 60-point final game

in 2016. His maniacal perfectionism, said Jackie

MacMullan in ESPN.com, “was both admirable

and at times unsettling,” and even teammates as

great as Shaquille O’Neal found him difficult. “I

could never understand why winning wasn’t the

most important thing to everyone,” Bryant once

said. “Why are you here then?”

Bryant could come off as a “loner,” said Louisa

Thomas in NewYorker.com. He grew up in Italy,

where his father, Joe, played pro basketball, and

modeled his game after Michael Jordan’s—the

patented fadeaway jump shot, the ferocious,

acrobatic drives to the basket. The cerebral Bry-

ant sometimes spoke openly about how he could

be “warped by his overwhelming competitive

instincts.” He didn’t, how-

ever, like to speak about

the 2003 sexual assault

allegation by a 19-year-

old hotel employee in

Colorado. The case was

dropped after Bryant paid

off the accuser and she

refused to testify. Around

this time, Bryant created

his “Black Mamba” alter-

ego. “Kobe” became the

“flawed human being,”

while Black Mamba “channeled his rage and

darkness into devastating power,” scoring an

astonishing 81 points in one 2006 game.

In retirement, Bryant turned to fatherhood and

storytelling, said Jemele Hill in TheAtlantic .com.

In 2018, Bryant won an Oscar for Dear Bas-

ketball, an animated short about “the game he

loved”; he also created novels, podcasts, and a

TV show to teach kids a championship mentality.

He was deeply devoted to his four daughters and

embraced women’s basketball, perhaps in part

because Gianna looked like a “mini-Kobe” on the

court. If you watched Bryant at his peak, defying

gravity, said Charles Pierce in Esquire.com, “you

can appreciate the terrible irony that he died in a

fall from the sky.” His life will be judged by how

deeply people believe that “he corrected his griev-

ous fault through the life he lived afterward.”

Noted

If we weren’t in the thick of an impeachment trial,

said Dan Primack in Axios.com, “the country’s

biggest story would be allegations that Saudi

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hacked

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ phone.” That stunner

emerged last week, after investigators hired by

Bezos—who is, not incidentally, also the owner

of The Washington Post—concluded that bin

Salman, also called MBS, personally sent data-

mining malware to Bezos in a WhatsApp message.

Their findings were backed up by U.N. investiga-

tors, who believe the cyberattack was an attempt

to intimidate Bezos and the Post from publish-

ing the critical columns of Saudi dissident Jamal

Khashoggi, who was later murdered by a Saudi

hit squad. After the spyware attack, the National

Enquirer, whose owner, David Pecker, has ties to

both MBS and President Trump, published leaked

texts and photos revealing that the then-married

Bezos was having an affair.

The silence from the White House is telling,

said Justin Sink in Bloomberg.com. Trump, who

refused to sanction the Saudis after the Khashoggi

killing, has continued to maintain a strong alliance

with MBS, sending U.S. troops and nuclear tech-

nology to Riyadh. Trump son-in-law and senior

adviser Jared Kushner is known to be tight with

MBS. Are the Saudis monitoring his phone, too?

The implications of what we already know are

“mind-blowing,” said Will Bunch in The Philadel-

phia Inquirer. A murderous foreign dictator had

a U.S.-based journalist killed with the apparent

blessing of Trump, who shares his loathing of the

Post and a free press. After the impeachment trial,

House Democrats should investigate the “Trump-

Saudi alliance” and seek records of Trump’s phone

calls to MBS, which—like his call to Ukraine’s

president—were moved to a secret server by pan-

icked aides.

Stop hyperventilating, said Holman Jenkins Jr. in

The Wall Street Journal. The report, written by

a private firm hired by Bezos, provides only “cir-

cumstantial and underwhelming” links between

the MBS text messages and Bezos’ hacking. The

Enquirer says it bought the embarrassing texts

between Bezos and his paramour, Lauren Sanchez,

from her brother, not the Saudis. But if the world’s

richest man did get his personal information stolen

off his phone, said Richard Waters in the Finan-

cial Times, “then who can truly feel safe?” For

anyone in a senior position in business or govern-

ment, “it is a clear wake-up call.”

Bezos hack: Did Trump approve?

Devoted dad: Kobe with his daughter Gianna