Foreign desk: China’s Doomed ‘Cold War’ With the US
China has been in an undeclared economic cold war with the US “for some time,” J.T. Young contends at The Hill. But now “President Trump has declared it, and appears serious about fighting it.” And China is “far more exposed.” It’s “much more internally dependent on its economic relationship with the US.” Plus, Beijing is stuck: It doesn’t want to be seen “losing face” and kowtowing to Trump’s demands, but if it tries to prop up its economy via intervention, it will only “court the excesses China most needs to correct.” The US, Young asserts, is “fighting on one external front,” while “China is fighting on two: one external, but an even more serious internal one.”
Security beat: Law-Enforcement Loved Jeff Sessions
Jeff Sessions’ successor at the Justice Department “will inherit an agency that enjoys deep support within law enforcement circles,” Judith Miller reports at City Journal, based on “more than two dozen” interviews. Law-enforcement officials, she writes, say that “no recent attorney general was as appreciated within their community as Sessions.” Why? Because his underlings believed he had their backs. Association of Retired Agents President John Costanzo says Sessions was seen as “the most pro-law enforcement” AG in years. Agents supported his “tough-on-crime policies,” even if his critics despised them. And while his tenure at Justice lasted just two years, Sessions’ legacy, Miller believes, “is likely to remain as powerful as it is controversial.”
From the left: Michelle Obama’s ‘Scrubbed’ Memoir
Michelle Obama omits much from her new book, and falsely claims at one point she’s not “a political person,” according to Amy Wilentz in an interview with Jon Wiener at The Nation. Obama, for example, cites her nonpolitical background as an excuse for not offering an analysis of Trump’s election victory. But “that is just a giant cop-out,” insists Wilentz. “Of course she’s done an analysis of it.” Obama plays down her knowledge of, and involvement in, politics as a teen, and doesn’t mention reading any of the “grand” African-American writers while at Princeton. But she had “to have known more” and “thought more” politically. Fact is, “this is a carefully scrubbed book,” Wilentz argues. “She’s left so much politics out. Who does that?” The answer, of course, is “politicians” — which is why Wilentz believes Obama is “running for office,” and that with the book, she’s “clearing the stage.”
Legal analyst: How Mueller May Show ‘Collusion’
Robert Mueller’s Russia strategy may be to prove “collusion,” even if he can’t show a crime was committed, argues Andrew McCarthy at National Review. It seems the special counsel is hoping to show President Trump’s ties to Russia were “more elaborate” than he let on, that Team Trump was ready to accept anti-Hillary Clinton info from Moscow. Which “might be politically damaging” but “is not a criminal conspiracy.” Meanwhile, “all roads lead to the Trump Tower meeting” of 2016, which Mueller may paint as an effort that effectively “compromised” Trump, handing Putin the ability to blackmail the president by revealing what went on.
Media watch: Trump Is Facing Death by Cliché
With the latest developments, “we’ve reached another ‘turning point,’ in the Russia probe. The walls are once again ‘closing in,’ on President Trump. The ‘noose is tightening'”: That, at least, is the kind of “language Trump’s critics use each and every time there’s a development in the Mueller investigation,” observes Eddie Scarry at The Washington Examiner. The New York Times called Cohen’s plea “a turning point for Donald Trump’s presidency.” A Washington Post columnist warned, “The walls are closing in.” After an earlier story, actor Rob Reiner tweeted: “The noose is tightening.” In March, a Daily Beast headline claimed “the walls are closing in.” And in January, Business Insider said the Russia probe “is reaching a pivotal moment and it looks like it’s closing in” on Trump. Yet it’s all old news to Scarry. “Wake me,” he jokes, “when the point closes in, the walls finally pivot, and the noose turns.”
— Compiled by Adam Brodsky
