Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news media and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

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Paul F. Campos: Justice Breyer Should Retire Right Now

If he doesn’t, Democrats run the very real risk that they would be unable to replace him.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was widely, and deservedly, criticized for her refusal to retire from the Supreme Court at a time when a Democratic president could have chosen her replacement.

Justice Stephen Breyer is making a similar and arguably even more egregious mistake.

The evident indifference on the part of Democrats regarding the failure of Justice Breyer, 82, to announce his retirement is apparently a product of the assumption that he will do so at some point during the current Congress and that therefore whether he does so anytime soon is not particularly important.

This is a grave mistake.

Consider that because of the extremely thin nature of their Democratic Senate control, the shift of a single seat from the Democrats to the Republicans or even one vacancy in the 50 seats now controlled by the Democratic caucus would probably result in the swift reinstallation of Mitch McConnell as the majority leader.

What are the odds that something like this — a senator’s death, disabling health crisis or departure from office for other reasons — will happen sometime in this Congress’s remaining 22 months?

Charles M. Blow: Democrats Repent for Bill Clinton

In the last decade, the party and the former president himself have been forced to admit the failures of his administration.

extraordinarily at ease around nonwhite people and possessing a preternatural social sensibility — who became a remarkable president. He knew how to make people feel positive and hopeful, to make them feel seen and heard.

He was a gifted politician, a once-in-a-generation kind of prodigy, and many liberals adored him for it.

But Clinton’s record, particularly with respect to Black and brown Americans and the poor, was marked by catastrophic miscalculation. It was characterized by tacking toward a presumed middle — “triangulation,” the administration called it — which on some levels, abandoned and betrayed the minority base that so heavily supported him.

Two major pieces of Clinton-signed legislation stand out: The crime bill of 1994 and the welfare reform bill of 1996.

Jamelle Bouie: Joe Biden Knew He Was Onto Something Long Before We Did

The advent of Covid-19 changed his conception of the presidency for the better.

Last year, as he steamrolled his way to victory in the Democratic presidential primaries, Joe Biden told CNN that the pandemic was “probably the biggest challenge in modern history, quite frankly.”

“I think it may not dwarf but eclipse what F.D.R. faced,” he added.

Biden referred to Franklin Roosevelt again in an interview with Evan Osnos of The New Yorker. “I’m kind of in the position F.D.R. was,” he said.

And a week before the election, Biden gave a speech at Roosevelt’s winter White House in Warm Springs, Ga., where he promised to “overcome a devastating virus” and “heal a suffering world.”

In other words, Biden telegraphed his F.D.R.-size ambition throughout the year. And the first major bill of his administration is in fact an F.D.R.-size piece of legislation.

Amanda Marcotte: Joe Biden is boring — and it’s driving the media crazy

Yes, Biden is boring. It is why he is just what the country needs to restore some sense into politics

After years of relentless reality show antics caused by Donald Trump, the latest word in the cable news discourse is that President Joe Biden is boring. He spends all his time doing policy work and his press engagement is a total snoozefest, with nary a single unhinged rant in front of buzzing helicopter blades. And the mainstream press is starting to get annoyed by it.

Last week, the Washington Post editorial board complained, “Avoiding news conferences must not become a regular habit for Mr. Biden,” even while grumpily admitting that, unlike Trump, Biden’s White House has daily press briefings that “are informative, not forums for White House lackeys to attack journalists.” Over the weekend, the clamor for press conferences featuring Biden himself grew louder, with members of the White House press corps such as Jonathan Karl of ABC News admitting that “reporters like press conferences and will always demand them” while insisting “press conferences are for the public’s benefit.” [..]

It all sounds very noble until one remembers that the press is comparing Biden disfavorably to Trump, who literally incited an insurrection only two months ago, and is benefiting handsomely from mainstream media worried more about counting press conferences than about the ongoing national instability caused by an increasingly radical right.

Paul Waldman: Here’s the key to overcoming resistance to reforming the filibuster

Stop asking holdouts like Joe Manchin about the filibuster itself. Start asking them what they want to accomplish.

The future of democracy in the United States is quite literally at stake in what happens over the next year or so. While Republicans at the state level have launched what amounts to a war on voting, Democrats in Congress are hoping to pass a sweeping package of reforms meant to secure voting rights and level the electoral playing field.

The For the People Act has already passed the House, but its fate hinges on whether it will die at the hands of the Senate filibuster.

So how can Democrats persuade their own party’s filibuster fetishists — Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and perhaps a few others — to finally agree to reform the rules and give this bill, and so many others, a chance at passage?

By talking less about the filibuster itself, and more about what those holdouts actually want to do.