The Week - USA (2021-02-26)

“To achieve great things

you need a plan and not

quite enough time.”

Leonard Bernstein, quoted in

TheBrowser.com

“The problem is not

so much whether one

trusts the news as whether

one finds it.”

Joan Didion, quoted in the

Toronto Globe and Mail

“You always have to go

too far to get anywhere at

all, in art or life.”

Painter Francis Bacon, quoted

in The Times (U.K.)

“When a man knows he is

to be hanged in a

fortnight, it concentrates

his mind wonderfully.”

Samuel Johnson, quoted in

the Los Angeles Times

“It is disease that

makes health sweet.”

Ancient Greek philosopher

Heraclitus, quoted in Vogue

“In memory everything

seems to happen to music.”

Tennessee Williams, quoted in

ArtsJournal.com

“As you get older,

you don’t get wiser.

You get irritable.”

Author Doris Lessing, quoted

in GoodReads.com

Talking points

Wit &

Wisdom

AP

NEWS 17

Poll watch

Q58% of Americans think

that Trump should have

been convicted at his im-

peachment trial, including

88% of Democrats, 64%

of independents, and 14%

of Republicans. 56% think

there was strong evi-

dence that Trump incited

the insurrection, while

37% say the evidence

was weak.

ABC News/Ipsos

Q55% of Americans think

Trump should not be

allowed to hold public of-

fice ever again despite his

acquittal. 43% of Ameri-

cans disagree, including

87% of Republicans who

say he should be able to

run for office again.

Quinnipiac University

California: A failed liberal experiment?

“California is making liberals

squirm,” said Ezra Klein

in The New York Times.

Dominated by progressive

Democrats, the country’s most

populous state is beset by

policy failures and is no lon-

ger anyone’s idea of paradise.

“California has the highest

poverty rate in the nation,” the

median home costs more than

$700,000, and “130,000 more

people leave than enter each year.” Many well-off

Californians are “symbolically liberal,” display-

ing “Black Lives Matter” signs in their windows

and cheering immigration, but send their kids to

private schools and sue to block new, affordable

housing. San Francisco’s school board last month

voted to rename schools honoring supposed rac-

ists like Abraham Lincoln and Paul Revere, while

the schools themselves remained closed. Construc-

tion of an $80 billion bullet train connecting San

Francisco and Los Angeles was derailed by end-

less environmental reviews and cost overruns. “If

progressivism cannot work here, why should the

country believe it can work anywhere else?”

It’s nice to see liberals conceding that California is

a mess, said Kevin Williamson in NationalReview

.com. But well-intentioned progressives like Klein

think the state’s problems can be fixed by better

or smarter government and fail to understand that

it is regulation by so-called

experts that is the real source

of California’s dysfunction.

Bloated government “distorts

markets,” prevents “solu-

tions from rising organi-

cally,” and creates scarcity

and high prices. Yet the

Biden administration wants

to use California “as a model

for national policymaking,”

said The Orange County

Register in an editorial. Biden tapped former Cali-

fornia Sen. Kamala Harris as his vice president

and former California Attorney General Xavier

Becerra as health secretary. Why? A state where

Gov. Gavin Newsom faces a recall effort over his

bungling of the Covid response and other prob-

lems should be “a model for what not to do.”

Even tech moguls are fleeing California, said

Cyrus Farivar in NBCNews.com. Oracle and

Hewlett-Packard announced plans in December

to relocate to Texas, where Tesla CEO Elon Musk

has moved, and several prominent venture capital-

ists have ditched Silicon Valley for Florida. Tech

giants fear proposed new taxes targeting corpo-

rations and millionaires, and Texas and Florida

allow companies to pay workers less because of

“a lower cost of living.” Until California addresses

its housing, tax, and cost issues, employers and

residents will continue their exodus.

“As quickly as it rose to its perch as a media dar-

ling, the Lincoln Project is crashing down swiftly

to its fitting end,” said Joe Concha in TheHill

.com. The Never-Trump Super PAC founded by

former Republican strategists to produce polished

ads attacking Trump is now imploding in scan-

dal. The group’s leaders are facing allegations

they used donors’ funds to enrich themselves and

that they covered up the sexual harassment of

young interns and other males by co-founder John

Weaver. Weaver, a 61-year-old married father of

two, has since admitted sending “inappropriate”

messages to at least 21 men—one as young as 14.

The group’s leaders reportedly were told about

Weaver’s predations in June, but they let Weaver

take a “medical leave” in August and professed

to be “shocked” when the accusations became

public. Six of the Lincoln Project’s co-founders,

including George Conway, Steve Schmidt, Jennifer

Horn, and Mike Madrid, have resigned.

The Lincoln Project was “an ugly grift,” said

David Harsanyi in NationalReview.com. The

Associated Press reports that of the $90 million

the group raised, only $27 million was spent

on ads, while more than $50 million went to

consulting companies controlled by its leaders.

Liberals deserve blame, too, said Glenn Green-

wald in Greenwald.Substack.com. They exalted

the Lincoln Project’s leaders “as noble men of

conscience” even though these same strategists

had produced some of the “most grotesque and

amoral” Republican attack ads of the modern

era— including one that suggested that Democratic

Sen. Max Cleland, a triple- amputee Vietnam vet-

eran, was a tool of Osama bin Laden. As long as

the Lincoln Project was using its dark arts against

Trump, the Left and the media forgave all.

Given that the Lincoln Project’s roots are in

the GOP, said Will Bunch in The Philadelphia

Inquirer, it’s no surprise it turned out to be “mor-

ally bankrupt.” The party long ago abandoned

“any and all former principles” for a cynical,

self- dealing mentality. We should have seen this

coming, said Alex Shephard in NewRepublic.com.

The Lincoln Project was founded on “the operat-

ing theory” that “to defeat Trump, you needed to

act like him.” They sure did, assailing him with

vicious personal attacks, stuffing their pockets

with donors’ cash, and reportedly creating a toxic

workplace culture rife with sexism. In fighting

dirty, the Lincoln Project’s leaders became like the

monster they had set out to destroy.

Lincoln Project: A dark cloud of scandal

A homeless encampment in Los Angeles