Free Republic

Instead we must tar Trump with his lack of preparedness the way “the emails” were stuck to Hillary Clinton in 2016, “the hostages” to Jimmy Carter in 1980, “the pardon” to Gerald Ford in 1976, and “Hoovervilles” to Herbert Hoover in 1932. So what should the frame be? I’m partial to a headline in the March 28 New York Times: “The Lost Month: How a Failure to Test Blinded the U.S. to Covid-19.” The article detailed how testing screw-ups (by a still-unnamed pharmaceutical company) and bureaucratic bumbling led the government to lose the critical weeks it needed to get on...

It’s one of this autumn’s pleasant surprises. Two years after Donald Trump’s election as president and 10 years after his own, Barack Obama is gracefully re-entering our consciousness, reminding us of what we have lost and may yet recover. The contrast between Obama and Trump - decent vs. despicable; incisive vs. ignorant; honest vs. humbug; classy vs. clownish - is now the critical subtext of the 2018 campaign. With Obama’s current approval ratings more than 20 points higher than Trump’s, the aching memory of his presidency will help energize Democrats in the midterms. But Obama’s return is also a reminder...

We need more people like Kavanaugh defender Sara Fagen! On MTP Daily, she goes toe-to-toe with Katy Tur and Jonathan Alter. And far from backing down, she puts them on the spot. Fagen was W's political director, by the way. Someone you'd definitely want in your foxhole!

On the Monday night edition of MSNBC's All In, longtime liberal columnist Jonathan Alter reacted to President Obama's executive actions on gun control by comparing it to President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and remarking how heartbreaking it was for Obama to have met with the families of Sandy Hook victims and "see those six-year-olds stacked up like cord wood." Host Chris Hayes began the segment with a number of soundbites from the President and Republican presidential candidates opposed to the move before remarking: "While the substantive reason to be concerned about guns seems clear, in a country where...

Appearing as a panel member on Sunday's Up show on MSNBC, Bloomberg View columnist and MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Alter hinted that President Bush deserved blame for not stopping the 9/11 attacks as he recounted a vague warning from August 2001 that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack the U.S. He further accused the "Bush people" of "Orwellian, deceptive, historically amnesiatic (sic) thinking." Host Richard Wolffe picked up on recent comments by Donald Trump similarly seeming to blame President Bush. After playing a clip from a Trump interview with Bloomberg's Stephanie Ruhle, and then recounting GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush's...

If the reaction to President Obama's post-election press conference is any indication, he's in Dutch not only with voters but with the mainstream press as well, after several gave Obama two thumbs down for his performance. The Daily Beast's Jonathan Alter, for one, was not impressed. "His post-election press conference was too long, too provocative and too stingy in his phoned-in praise for the winners. Obama managed the extraordinary feat of making (Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell look gracious by comparison." Politico's White House reporter, Josh Gerstein, poked holes in Obama's defense of his record. "President Barack Obama and his...

Everyone proposes drinking games for the State of the Union speech. But it’s not just the president that can drive you to drink. It’s the opportunistic media elites deciding which branches of government have too much power, depending on which branches the Democrats presently control. After a lot of stalemate in 2013, the partisan media think it’s high time for the executive branch to go completely around the legislative branch. They think that now that Congress has proven itself unwilling to provide Barack Obama with the historical greatness he deserves, they should and must be driven around like roadkill. They’ll...

Forget seeking to tie Mitt Romney’s past with one woman’s death from cancer – a charge that lacks much evidence. A political pundit and journalist took a great leap further when he said Thursday that a Romney presidency would cost people with preexisting conditions and those out of work their lives. On MSNBC Thursday night, Jonathan Alter spoke out against the repeal of Obamacare. “People will die in the United States if Obamacare is repealed,” Alter said on air last night. “That is not an exaggeration. That is not crying fire. It’s a simple fact.” Alter then went on to...

At the very end of MSNBC’s “NewsNation” hosted by Tamron Hall, immediately after President Barack Obama had wrapped up his much-ballyhooed economic speech from Cleveland on Thursday, MSNBC’s liberal-leaning pundits appeared to be less-than impressed. According to Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Alter, formerly of Newsweek, the speech was too long-winded to be effective. “I thought this honestly was one of the least successful speeches I’ve seen Barack Obama give in several years,” Alter said. “It was long-winded. He had a good argument to make. And at the beginning of the speech he seemed to be making it in a fairly compelling...

In a fawning opinion piece for Bloomberg, author and columnist Jonathan Alter writes glowingly of “The Obama Miracle” — the supposed lack of scandal in the White House under Obama’s purportedly upstanding leadership. Alter’s analysis approaches the absurd, but at least mercifully stops short of the worshipful psalms that could pass for parody of some Esquire opinion writers.Alter writes, apparently without irony: For starters, the tone is always set at the top. Obama puts a premium on personal integrity, and with a few exceptions (Tim Geithner’s tax problems in 2009) his administration tends to fire first and ask questions later....

In a Bloomberg opinion piece published Aug. 25, Jonathan Alter asked for “proof” that Barack Obama has been a bad president, specifically with regard to his handling of the economy. OK, Jonathan, here’s your proof. Executives are judged by results. In terms of the economic results produced during the first 2.5 years of his first term, Obama is the worst president of the past 60 years. Given that Alter himself would likely agree that there have been some bad presidents during the past 60 years, this makes Obama a bad president. Ten presidents have been elected since 1952: Eisenhower, Kennedy,...

Jonathan Alter has a well publicized piece on Bloomberg asking people opposing Barack Obama why he has been a bad president. I know, I had to chuckle too. Varied commentators have taken their stabs at answering the question. Classic non-conservative David Frum even took a swing at it. Mickey Kaus at The Daily Caller probably had the best answer. But I thought I would take a swing at it too...especially in direct response to Alter's claims regarding the economy. Obama's failure economically can be divided into two distinct parts: the stimulus, and everything after the stimulus. 1. The Stimulus Was...

On Friday, Jonathan Alter wrote a column challenging his readers to "prove" why Obama "has been a bad president." He ended his piece, which he based off of the old Mission Impossible television show, by saying, "Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral." I wish to take up that task, but before I do so, readers must understand something about Jonathan Alter and his views. The former editor of Newsweek, Alter has written books and articles defending liberalism for decades. His latest book, The Promise: President Obama, Year...

Progressive Jonathan Alter is outraged that everyone is ready to “fire” Obama. “I want to know,” wrote a snippy Alter on Bloomberg.com, “on a substantive basis, why you think he deserves to be in a dead heat with Mitt Romney and Rick Perry and only a few points ahead of Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann in a new Gallup Poll. Is it just that any president -- regardless of circumstances and party -- who presides over 9 percent unemployment deserves to lose?”I was tempted to treat Alter with the “What? You got to be kidding,” routine. Any Republican should be...

“Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president?” Jonathan Alter writes in his column.Alter tells us he’s not talking here about Obama as a tactician and communicator, and he’s not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about people’s generalized “disappointment.” (Neither am I.) He wants to know on a substantive basis why Obama should be judged to have failed so far.In Alter’s words, “Your mission, Jim [or anyone else for that matter], should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral.”Consider the mission accepted.In one sense, the answer...

“Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president?” Jonathan Alter writes in his column. Alter tells us he’s not talking here about Obama as a tactician and communicator, and he’s not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about people’s generalized “disappointment.” (Neither am I.) He wants to know on a substantive basis why Obama should be judged to have failed so far. In Alter’s words, “Your mission, Jim [or anyone else for that matter], should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral.” Consider the mission accepted. In...

Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president? I'm not talking here about him as a tactician and communicator. We can agree that he has played some bad poker with Congress. And let’s stipulate that at the moment he’s falling short in the intangibles of leadership. I’m thinking instead of that opening sequence in the show “Mission Impossible,” the one where Jim Phelps, played by Peter Graves, gets his instructions.

Three days after he decried the lack of civility in American politics, President Obama is quoted in a new book about his presidency referring to the Tea Party movement using a derogatory term with sexual connotations. In Jonathan Alter’s “The Promise: President Obama, Year One,” President Obama is quoted in an interview saying that the unanimous vote of House Republicans vote against the stimulus bills “set the tenor for the whole year ... That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.” Tea Party...

Here is the speech John Kerry should have delivered at 10 o’clock on the morning after Election Day. The speech that might have prevented, or at least transformed, the fever of "stolen election" paranoia that is sweeping through cyberspace now. Or, if not prevented it, given people some reason to hope that their candidate cared about their votes, even if he lost—cared enough to make sure, as he’d pledged, to get them counted. The speech that might have spared us the post-election dialogue on the phony "values" issue. Here’s the "alternate history" Kerry speech. It’s 10 a.m., when only two...

President Obama may cultivate an image as the unflappable Mr. Cool, but he can get hot under the collar too, according to a new book. In "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," by Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter, the author recounts a series of private blow-ups - including a particularly fiery one involving the nation's top military brass. "A presidential dressing down unlike any in the United States in more than half a century," is how Alter describes the October 2009 eruption. [Snip] But it's often the flashes of anger, not amour, that shine through Alter's tome, including: Asked...