From the right: Trump Cabinet Cheers Conservatives
The political right is unexpectedly encouraged by President-elect Trump’s Cabinet picks, notes John Fund at National Review. He’s chosen “knowledgeable conservatives,” is making appointments faster than any other modern-era president and is consulting (and nominating) former critics. It’s all especially heartening to those “who feared that Trump would surround himself with loyalists and spurn help from those who backed his primary challengers.” Moreover, his transition is “relying heavily” on groups like the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation — the latter having “played a major role in Ronald Reagan’s transition.” Still, “this does not mean that conservatives won’t blanch at elements in Trump’s game plan.” But for now, “conservative reaction to Trump’s transition ranges from cautious optimism to borderline giddiness.”
Media critic: Journalists Have Become Trump’s Chumps
The journalistic establishment has “at least met its match in the buffoonish figure of Donald Trump,” suggests Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard. “Consciously or not,” Trump has used his transition “to subvert and, in some cases, even deal a death blow to many of the standard conventions of political journalism.” His key weapon: those tweets, which “are turned into instant news by a panting press corps.” Yet for most people, “the news isn’t merely what Trump tweets, it’s also the hyperventilation he provokes from the press. The second is usually crazier than the first.” Thus, “with a tweet here and a tweet there, and with a reliably hair-trigger hysteria from the press only 140 characters away, Trump is happily driving a wedge between the news media and their intended customers.”
Conservative take: Bring On the Mad Dog
One particular Cabinet choice that’s cheering conservative Bob McManus is the selection of Marine Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis (Ret.) for secretary of defense. Writing in City Journal, he says Mattis could “herald a profound change in America’s national-security policies” from the Obama administration’s “sanguinary shambles.” America’s military “has been depleted, if not exhausted, by budgetary sequestration, personnel reductions and matériel shortfalls — and sorely vexed by wrongheaded, top-down social-justice activism.” Mattis is widely viewed “as a deep strategic thinker with the courage to state his views and then stand by them.” Moreover, “repairing the post-Obama Pentagon demands unconventional measures.”
Top Dem: Don’t Dump the Electoral College
For Democrats, the Electoral College has become a “tempting target,” admits William Daley in The Washington Post. But Daley — Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary and chief of staff, and Al Gore’s campaign chairman — says they should “think hard” before trying to abolish it, because “the cure might be worse than the disease.” No, the Electoral College isn’t perfect, but it has “generally served the republic well.” Moreover, “it often helps new presidents get started by magnifying their mandate.” Most important, it “tends to bolster the two major parties, which, for all the criticisms, have helped produce long-term political stability that many nations can only envy.” So “until we have a clearly better replacement, let’s stick with it.”
Neocon: The Permanent Hostage-Takers
The political left “is steeped in a mythology that Republican intransigence” to President Obama “was both a day-one phenomenon and wildly successful,” writes Noah Rothman at Commentary. In fact, he notes, “contrary to widely shared perception, Barack Obama was granted some courtesies from congressional Republicans.” During his first week in office “more than a dozen political appointees were confirmed by voice vote alone.” But “that courtesy will not be extended to the Trump administration’s Cabinet choices.” Democrats will “seek to delay and draw out the confirmation process to force Trump to spend his scant political capital and to prevent him from dedicating his time to advancing and passing an agenda.” Obama once warned against holding “nominees hostage for other issues,” recalls Rothman. Well, he says, “it seems everyone’s a hostage taker now.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann