The shortcomings of Obama compared to Tlaib, Biden’s weaknesses, and more: A critical analysis
Israel war: Why Obama’s Worse Than Tlaib
“Poor Rashida Tlaib,” snarks The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn. “If only she had Barack Obama’s ability to couch the argument for moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas in terms acceptable to polite society.” The House censured her for defending Hamas’ brutality and what amounts to a “genocidal call” to destroy Israel. Yet “her influence is limited” because she’s recognized as “a left-wing kook.” Obama isn’t so “crude,” but his call for “complexity” and claim that we’re all complicit clouds “moral distinctions” and undermines President Biden’s backing of Israel. “When Rashida Tlaib makes the case for moral equivalence, she is outrageous and extreme. But when Barack Obama does, his argument is smooth and sophisticated. That’s what makes it all the more pernicious.”
From the left: American Gerontocracy
“Here’s how the likely presidential field for 2024 is currently shaping up — actuarially,” observes The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson: “Joe Biden is 80 years old. Donald Trump is 77. Joe Manchin is 76. Jill Stein is 73. Cornel West is 70. Robert Kennedy Jr. is just 69, but he’ll turn 70 come January.” Wow: “A merely middle-aged candidate would stand out in that field.” And “Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s election night victory speech provided the opportunity to hear the case for Bidenesque policies and themes made by a more effective proponent than Biden himself.” “Biden does have an ace in the hole, of course: his opponent.” But the facts on the ground argue “for a better advocate for Biden’s values and achievements than Biden himself.
Eye on 2024: Biden’s Glaring Weaknesses
Key polls show President “Biden trailing former President Trump in five of six swing states,” cautions Doug Schoen at The Hill. His approval rating is “on par with Jimmy Carter when he suffered an overwhelming defeat in 1980,” while third-party candidates Jill Stein and Robert Kennedy Jr. may draw voters “away from Biden in states where he already had very little margin of safety.” Bidenomics has “very little credibility” with voters — and by 2024, when “issues of war and peace,” plus the “economic management of the country are at stake, it is less likely that abortion will predominate.” With Biden’s numbers “sinking precipitously,” his re-election “wouldn’t be a bet that I would take, and I doubt many in the White House would disagree.”
From the right: Who Scott’s Exit Helps
After “the exit of Sen. Tim Scott from the 2024 Republican presidential race,” argues the Washington Examiner’s W. James Antle III, Govs. Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley “will now get to test the theory that the winnowing of the field will help one or both of them more directly take the fight to” ex-President Donald Trump. “Normally, a candidate with Scott’s 2%-4% in the national polls suspending [his] campaign wouldn’t have a major impact on the race. But Scott was doing better than that in Iowa and South Carolina, two key early contests.” DeSantis is “the last candidate standing who can say he is more antiabortion than Trump,” which “could help him in Iowa,” but “Scott’s departure could help Haley in South Carolina, where she served as governor.”
Libertarian: How To Wipe Out Malaria
Malaria infects millions and kills by the hundreds of thousands each year, but Reason’s Ronald Bailey points to a new hope: “a team of biotechnologists” has managed to “genetically engineer mosquitoes to be immune to the malaria parasite, thus protecting people from that disease.” The new breed features “gene drives” to rapidly spread the resistance, so “releasing the bioengineered mosquitoes to interbreed with wild ones would reduce the incidence of human malaria infections by more than 90 percent within three months.” But “activist groups seeking a global moratorium on gene drives have managed to tie up research and deployment,” with a key report on the tech not due ’til 2026, even as “hundreds of millions already know the real and present risks of life without it.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
