When Dems were immigration moderates, waking up to Wolff’s sleaze and other comments
Policy wonk: When Dems Were Immigration Moderates
President Trump’s immigration proposals are sure to be met with nothing but continued Democratic resistance, predicts City Journal’s Howard Husock. Yet back in 2009, he recalls, “moderate Democrats signed on to a serious immigration proposal that overlapped in several ways with the president’s plan.” It suggested enforcement of E-Verify and limits on what’s now called “chain migration.” When Trump proposed this, however, “Democrats hooted and booed,” showing “how quickly the Left has moved in a radical direction.” Indeed, back in 1997, the Jordan Commission actually proposed a one-third reduction of legal immigration — which President Bill Clinton agreed to. Yet “it’s hard to imagine prominent Democrats endorsing such plans today,” even though “doing so could go a long way toward defusing the bad feelings about immigration policy.”
Conservative: Media Waking Up to Michael Wolff Sleaze
MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski is winning scattered praise for booting anti-Trump author Michael Wolff from her show for spreading the rumor that UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and President Trump are having an affair. But “hold your applause,” cautions Becket Adams at the Washington Examiner. After all, “Wolff’s penchant for factually challenged narratives and lurid innuendo was well-known long before the Haley episode.” Brzezinski and other media types who helped make his book a best-seller “even excused the factual errors . . . as they promoted it” by suggesting “it feels true.” Because “Trump must be resisted!” Now they’re starting to jump ship — but “people all knew what they were getting into with this author.”
Professor: No, Congress Should Not Protect Mueller
Congressional Democrats want to prevent President Trump from firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller by requiring any such decision to be reviewed by a panel of judges. Greg Weiner at The Washington Post calls this “fundamentally misguided,” even though it’s intended to “take politics out of law enforcement.” Because any “threat to Mueller is an inescapably political problem that requires a political solution.” Fact is, “presidential control over federal prosecutors is an indispensable tool for protecting civil liberty,” and “impeding that authority is not the answer to its potential abuse.” Without it, “we risk runaway prosecutors” with the power to “harass powerless defendants,” as well as an unpopular president. But Congress can “discourage abuse by showing that it is willing to use the ample powers of punishment at its disposal.”
Foreign desk: US Gets Serious on Muslim Brotherhood
Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reports that the Trump administration backed away from its initial plan to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization in favor of “a more refined approach.” Unlike the Obama administration, it has no plans to “find common ground with the Muslim Brotherhood,” but it is “getting more aggressive against the Brotherhood’s violent affiliates.” This week, Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh was designated a terrorist, meaning “his assets will be blacklisted from the global financial system.” This also “signals the US will not support efforts at a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.” Also designated: two relatively new groups headed by former Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood members. All this is a good start, but “it’s no substitute for a coherent policy on the Muslim Brotherhood.”
From the right: No More White House Sports Invites
The Philadelphia Eagles’ Chris Long and Torrey Smith have become the latest players to say they’ll refuse a White House invite — in the name of political resistance — if their team wins the Super Bowl. But The Weekly Standard’s Chris Deaton says “the Trump administration would do America a tremendous favor by ending this tradition.” Fact is, “the country does not need the office of president to inflate its already exaggerated sense of self-regard” as if “the purpose of scoring touchdowns” is “to honor Apollo in the Rose Garden.” Sure, some athletes consider posing with a president to be cool. And some presidents, like Trump, are flattered by being “in the company of winners.” But “if for no other reason than engendering humility, he and all his successors could afford being knocked down a peg.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann