Natalie Portman’s petulant prize decision and other comments
From the left: How Democrats Could Blow It
All predictive models point to Democrats winning the House in November. So should they bank on it? The answer, says the Daily Beast’s Jonathan Alter, “is an obvious no.” For one thing, a deal with North Korea and other breaks “could shift the momentum just enough to protect vulnerable Republican seats.” And too many Democrats are still “acting as if the midterms are in the bag and they can indulge in expensive primary fights.” Which is why they’re furious that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is “pressuring weaker candidates in some districts to drop out in favor of well-funded moderates with a better chance of winning.” Problem is, “nominating the most liberal Democratic candidate in a Republican district may feel principled, but it reeks of moral vanity.”
From the right: A Tale of Two Justice Departments
“Political role models are hard to find,” but National Review’s David French names two: Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Both, he says, are “all that reasonable men and women could ask to both carry out the lawful agenda of the president and fulfill their ultimate duty to uphold and defend the Constitution.” And they “look even better in comparison with their immediate predecessors in the Obama Department of Justice.” Contrast Sessions’ proper recusal from the Russia investigation with Loretta Lynch’s “kinda-sorta-not-really recusal from the Clinton email investigation after her clearly improper tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton.” Or DOJ warnings that the FBI not take any “overt steps” to investigate the Clinton Foundation during the campaign.
Ex-ambassador: Natalie Portman Is No Prize
The Israel Genesis Prize, widely described as the “Jewish Nobel Prize,” was created by “Russian-Israeli oligarchs who resented feeling sidelined in the fishbowl of Jewish power,” says Vivian Bercovici, the former Canadian ambassador to Israel, at Commentary. The recipients have all been “bankable celebrities with American reach and ‘liberal’ pedigree,” and this year’s honoree is actress Natalie Portman. But she declined to attend the gala ceremony, complaining it would signify an endorsement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet “there were many more responsible and mature options available to Ms. Portman short of toddler-esque petulance to express her views.” Maybe now, “rather than pandering to bankable stars who draw glitter and gold,” organizers will select “exceptionally deserving individuals beavering away in obscurity and bereft of the obnoxious hubris with which Natalie Portman is afflicted.”
Conservative: NJ Gov Shouldn’t Mess With Texas
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy last week participated in an op-ed war with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over which state is best suited to attract businesses and people. The Star-Ledger’s Paul Mulshine notes that, in his argument, Murphy cited a lot of numbers but left one out: $204, 361 — “the annual property-tax bill on Murphy’s riverfront estate in Middletown Township.” Most Texans would be “shocked” by that figure. And the “new direction” in which Murphy claims to be moving the Garden State “is even higher taxes.” Murphy wants to raise the state income tax on those making $1 million or more — which is just “the sort of salary that a transplant from Texas” (which has no state income tax) “would need to pay the property taxes on a house in Murphy’s neighborhood.”
Culture critic: Tenure Not for Protecting Hateful Tweets
Fresno State English Professor Randa Jarrar is under fire for her vicious tweets against the late Barbara Bush and her boasts that, as a tenured teacher, she can “never be fired.” As the Detroit Free Press’ Mitch Albom notes, conservatives “screamed for her head” while liberals claimed punishing her “would only prove that free speech in this country is in peril.” But “lost in this debate is the simple fact that Jarrar behaved like an obnoxious, petulant child.” And “her chest pounding of tenure, a concept put into effect by the very government she apparently abhors, was hypocritical.” Tenure “was designed to keep powerful college donors from influencing freedom of thought.” Too bad someone as educated as Jarrar can’t understand that most of her critics aren’t reacting to her ideals, just her cruel way of expressing them.
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann