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The Papua New Guineans are put out, columnist Josh Rogin writes, as are the Australians, to whose country Biden also nixed a visit, and many other Asian nations watching to see whether the United States can be counted on or whether China might be a more committed partner.
“This is a shortsighted blunder,” Josh says, “that Beijing will surely exploit when courting America’s allies.”
Biden, he writes, could have tackled over the phone the debt ceiling negotiations he rushed home for, instead of “pulling the football out from Charlie Brown’s foot, again,” as one Asia analyst described the situation.
The president did stick around long enough for the Group of Seven meeting in Hiroshima, which got columnist Eugene Robinson reflecting on the nuclear devastation the United States unleashed on the Japanese city. Are things so different today?
“Three decades after the end of the Cold War,” Gene writes, “we are still trapped inside the conceptual framework of mutual assured destruction.”
We should be disarming nuclear weapons, which — and here’s the difference — are many times more powerful than in the 1940s. Alas, Gene’s realpolitik take is that Western leaders will only continue stockpiling, to keep up with Russia’s erratic Vladimir Putin, and to keep in check an ever-stronger China and Xi Jinping …
… who, by the way, has spent a lot of time in Papua New Guinea.
Chaser: Columnist Henry Olsen wrote last year that China is muscling its way into Pacific island nations, and the United States needs to push back.
A quick bio on Mark L. Wolf:
- Special assistant at Gerald Ford’s Justice Department
- Anti-corruption lawyer at the Boston U.S. attorney’s office
- Federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan
- Obsessive and unethical witch hunter out to get Justice Clarence Thomas
That last bit comes from two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Neely Kennedy (La.) and Mike Lee (Utah). Columnist Ruth Marcus writes they chose to smear Wolf rather than listen to his sensible testimony about the judicial ethics system that Thomas has repeatedly slipped through.
What sticks with you most is a quote Ruth plucks from Wolf’s testimony about how partisanship has infected ethics:
“Some people I respect advised me not to do this … that I would be subject to various unfair attacks.” It looks like the judge was right.
It’s a figure House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) is eager to investigate, and one contributing columnist Jim Geraghty thinks is totally fair game for probing, even if he hasn’t bought in to Comer’s “preconceived narrative that Biden is on the take from all kinds of shady characters.”
The thing is, that’s enough money to Biden’s brother/sister-in-law/son/daughter-in-law/grandchildren/third cousin twice removed that the notion of Biden’s being “entirely disconnected” stretches Jim’s credulity.
The other thing is, Jim writes, even if Biden never so much as hinted at a favor, and even if the Trump kids, too, were well known for intermingling family business with their father’s role, it’s never a good look “when presidential offspring seem to be shilling access like a guy on the corner selling fake Rolexes.”
It’s not quite $10 million, but $2 in bus fare isn’t nothing. And columnist Chuck Lane is relieved the people of D.C. will keep needing to pay it.
The city has delayed plans this summer to offer free public bus rides for all because, as Chuck says, “free public bus rides for all is a bad idea.” In fact, it’s an idea so bad, he writes, that there’s a whole Econ 101 conundrum named after it.
His column explains what the “free rider problem” is, where zero-fare transit might actually succeed, why most users should be paying to ride, and how levying a cost will actually keep buses running smoothly for those who need it most.
Before you write Chuck off as just a bus-hater, know this: You can catch him many a morning on a Metrobus from suburban Maryland, forking over his $2.
Chaser: At the height of the pandemic, videographer Joy Sharon Yi rode the bus around low-income Southeast D.C., documenting what she saw.
- A Colorado sit-in for a gun ban is a courageous act of imagination, producer Kate Woodsome writes. It’s what America’s mental health needs.
- Republican voters won’t let Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis get away with painting Donald Trump as “unelectable,” contributing columnist Ramesh Ponnuru writes. DeSantis needs a message focused on DeSantis.
- The Editorial Board writes that there’s a shining example for how to redevelop a downtown. It’s in Canada.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s… The Bye-Ku.
… on the other side of town
Plus! A Friday bye-ku (Fri-ku!) from reader Ramon P.:
Scripts have gone on strike,
Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!
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