Culture critic: Kavanaugh Case’s Troubling Precedent

That Brett Kavanaugh was 17 and Christine Blasey Ford 15 when the alleged attack (which he denies) occurred “should make all those determined to use the charge as the poison pill to kill the judge’s nomination nervous,” warns Kay Hymowitz at City Journal. For one thing, “they’re on the verge of setting a dangerous precedent that will inevitably come back to bite them” — namely, “condemning to reputation-death” anyone at all “by accusation alone.” If it truly was a single incident of drunken groping by a minor, “adolescents can be dumb risk-takers.” That, she notes, is “why we seal juvenile records”: Kids “grow up; they change; often, they straighten out.” Ironically, “the Left has always been at the forefront of the fight for leniency for minors” — but is now clamoring for Kavanaugh’s scalp.

Foreign desk: The Great US-China Clash Has Arrived

The US-China relationship “as we knew it is dead,” declares Harry Kazianis at The Hill. Washington “is making clear that it no longer will tolerate the continuation of a bilateral trade relationship that favors China much more than America.” Yet President Trump’s tariffs are just “part of a much bigger story that is decades in the making.” This, he says, is “at its core a contest of who will dominate Asia diplomatically, economically and militarily” as well as “who will lay claim to the title of 21st-century global superpower — and there can be only one victor.” But with Kim Jong Un at least talking denuclearization, “that gives Trump the geopolitical bandwidth to make his own pivot in Asia, and he has Beijing clearly in his crosshairs.” So the stage is set “for a showdown that could change the world.”

From the right: NPR’s Censorship of ‘Gosnell’ Ads

The producer of the new film about Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia doctor convicted of murder for performing multiple illegal abortions, ran into a roadblock from National Public Radio when he submitted “sponsorship notice” copy referring to Gosnell as an “abortionist.” According to e-mails leaked to The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis, NPR demanded Gosnell be referred to simply by “the neutral word ‘doctor.’ ” Even the term “abortion doctor” was vetoed. A network spokesman said it wanted to “avoid suggesting bias in NPR’s journalism.” Yet as the producer noted, NPR’s own news stories have repeatedly used the term “abortion doctor.” Says Lewis: It’s just “the latest example of why conservatives have a legitimate gripe about liberal media bias.”

Conservative: Amid the Chaos, Foreign Policy Triumphs

When Donald Trump was elected, recalls The Washington Post’s Marc Thiessen, “many worried that he would usher in a new age of American isolationism and withdrawal.” In fact, he’s “pursued a foreign policy that is not only not isolationist but also a significant improvement over his predecessor’s.” In Syria, he enforced Barack Obama’s red line against the use of chemical weapons, “punishing violations not once but twice — and restoring America’s credibility on the world stage.” He moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and has “refocused US efforts in the Middle East on shoring up relations with allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia instead of courting Iran.” Credible threats brought Pyongyang to the negotiating table and he’s taken “a surprisingly tough line with Russia.” The chaos, it seems, is “producing pretty good results.”

Tech desk: Google’s Creepy Control of Our Phones

Many people have forgotten, or don’t realize, that Google and Apple “have the ability to control some parts of your phone over the Internet. And maybe quietly change things without your permission,” notes Sean Hollister at CNet. What seemed to be a bug last week involving an Android update that saw features turn on by themselves was anything but: Google “was conducting an internal experiment to test battery-saving features that was mistakenly rolled out to more users than intended” — including phones that aren’t even made by Google. It makes you wonder “what other sorts of things they can control remotely, and what sorts of safeguards are in place to keep employees from abusing that power.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann