Neocon: Facing Down Putin Means Pain
The need “to muster a more comprehensive and long-term response to Russian aggression,” Noah Rothman warns at Commentary, “surely terrifies Western leaders because it involves absorbing real and sustained pain.” Notably, “to comprehensively sanction the Russian regime,” allies “will need to target its most lucrative export — energy.” That will push up oil prices, which “could in turn push U.S. inflation rates well above 10 percent.” And “Europe, which is far more reliant than the U.S. on Russian energy, will be even more acutely affected.” Yet “this is the only serious course left to the West.” Sanctions in train so far “won’t send a single Russian soldier back to permanent bases.” Putin’s out to kill “a geopolitical order that has well served both Americans and the world,” and “Resistance won’t come without sacrifice, but it is a sacrifice we all must be asked to make if we are to preserve the world our parents and grandparents struggled to bequeath to us.”
From the right: Hillary, the FBI & Mueller
The “dots” that John Durham is connecting “strongly suggest the Clinton campaign ran a sophisticated, multi-prong coordinated intelligence operation against Trump with either the active or tacit support of the FBI,” thunders Peter van Buren at Spectator World. The campaign indirectly hired ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele to feed “lies” to the FBI and the press. Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann went to The New York Times (as an anonymous source), FBI and likely CIA (allegedly “misrepresenting himself as not working for the Clinton campaign”) to push the lie of secret Trump communications with Russia’s Alfa Bank. And Robert Mueller may have declined to indict anyone because “the conspiracy would have been disclosed.” Mueller “was protecting someone in his beloved FBI. This goes deep.”
Conservative: Fla. Protects Parents v. ‘Aggressors’
President Biden has “called Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill hateful,” notes Madeleine Kearns at National Review. But the bill simply states that “classroom instruction . . . on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3.” Critics cry “censorship” but “it is perfectly appropriate to censor adult themes and ideas around small children,” such as the notion of a “true gender.” Nor are these “hypothetical concerns”: A Florida family filed suit on learning “school staff had held private meetings” with their daughter on “which pronouns she would prefer,” “whether she would like to stay with the boys on overnight trips” — and “whether they should keep her parents in the dark.” These lawmakers have “identified the real aggressors.”
Foreign desk: Biden’s Tough Vlad Promises
Noting then-candidate Joe Biden’s tweet of Feb. 21, 2020: “Vladimir Putin doesn’t want me to be President. . . . I’m the only person in this field who’s ever gone toe-to-toe with him,” Real Clear Politics’ Philip Wegmann observes: “But now, for better or worse, the president does find himself toe-to-toe with Putin.” Biden also told supporters that once he won, Putin’s “days of tyranny and trying to intimidate the United States and those in Eastern Europe are over.” And, in the first 2020 debate, “I’ve gone head-to-head with Putin and made it clear to him we’re not going to take any of his stuff.” Oops.
Liberal: Where the Right Is Right
“Part of developing a genuine liberal nationalism requires examining and absorbing good ideas from around the political spectrum,” observes John Halpin at Liberal Patriot, noting the “best ideas” of conservatives: A commitment to “localism,” i.e. asking “political and community leaders to design policies . . . from the ground up rather than from the top down.” Tradition, “vital to maintaining softer norms that keep society together,” and common sense, which “offers a good corrective” to “bureaucratic traditions.” Plus a focus on the “potential and real spillover effects” from regulation. “Conservative ideas . . . serve American interests by stressing the importance of free enterprise and small business,” and “policy makers would be wise to incorporate suggestions coming from conservatives and the private sector.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
