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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Krugman: Bernie Sanders Is Going for Broke

Is maximalism the best political strategy?

Few political movements have experienced as quick and dramatic a fall from grace as what happened to the Sanders campaign between the Nevada caucuses and Super Tuesday. Over the course of 10 days Bernie Sanders went from the presumptive Democratic nominee to a very long shot.

In fact, things have gotten so bad that Sanders is running an ad that attempts to portray him as best buddies with former President Barack Obama.

Fact checkers have pointed out that the ad is deeply misleading. It jumbles together things Obama said over the course of a decade and leaves out important context.

But a frame-by-frame analysis actually understates how disingenuous it is for Sanders to try to tie himself to Obama. For Sandersism, as a philosophy, is all about rejecting Obamaism. That is, it’s about refusing to accept incremental, half-a-loaf-is-better-than-none politics and demanding go-for-broke maximalism instead.

The thing is, there is a case for the Sanders critique of Obama. But Sanders should own that critique, not pretend that he never made it.

Michelle Goldberg: Trump’s Calamitous Coronavirus Response

Last month, after analyzing figures on epidemics since 1960, The Economist concluded that people die at a higher rate from such disease outbreaks in authoritarian countries than in democratic ones, even controlling for income levels. [..]

But democratic countries are far better than authoritarian ones at fact-based policymaking and at sharing the truth with the public. “Non-democratic societies often restrict the flow of information and persecute perceived critics,” The Economist piece noted. We’ve seen this in China. As Li Yuan wrote of coronavirus in The Times last month, “As the virus spread, officials in Wuhan and around the country withheld critical information, played down the threat and rebuked doctors who tried to raise the alarm.”

Unfortunately, you could substitute “Washington, D.C.” for “Wuhan” in that sentence and it would be equally true. So far, Donald Trump’s response to coronavirus combines the worst features of autocracy and of democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless inefficiency.

Eugene Robinson: Black voters just rescued the Democratic Party

In recent decades, old-style kingmakers faded from American politics. This year, though, there are hundreds of thousands of them: the African American voters across the South who gave Joe Biden a lead in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Kingmaker in chief is House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), whose emotional, full-throated endorsement last week lifted Biden to a landslide in a state where black voters make up more than half of the Democratic electorate. After Clyburn weighed in, what had been a confusing picture — Would younger African Americans turn out in droves for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)? Was billionaire Tom Steyer’s barrage of television ads across the state winning him votes? — suddenly became crystal clear.

Biden ended up winning 61 percent of the black vote in South Carolina, according to exit polls. But what happened three days later, on Super Tuesday, was even more impressive — and perhaps, in the contest for the nomination, definitive. [..]

Clyburn’s message last week seemed to clarify things for black South Carolina voters, who were trying to figure out how best to defeat President Trump. The landslide those voters gave to Biden seemed to clarify things for black voters in the Super Tuesday states. If Biden is nominated and wins in November, African Americans will have picked a president.

Amanda Marcotte: Let’s face it, America: We didn’t deserve Elizabeth Warren

As Dolly Parton says, “They use your mind and they never give you credit.” That’s never been more true than now

Even though it was expected after her disappointing showing on Super Tuesday, it somehow still felt like a gut punch when Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts formally withdrew from the presidential race on Thursday. After giving it some thought, I think I know why: Because this time, there is no other explanation than raw, unvarnished sexism. It just can’t be anything else.

“If Warren was a man, this would be over by now,” is a statement so painfully true that it became a cliché the moment it was first uttered. And yet it somehow failed to capture the scope of the unfairness that greeted Warren on the campaign trail — the way she was held to impossibly high standards, met them, and still saw male competitors who met much lower standards keep scaling past her in the polls.

Warren is a slight woman, but always feels like an outsized presence. Her towering intellect, her quick wit, her ability to crush small men like Mike Bloomberg with just her words, her skill at explaining complex ideas simply without dumbing them down, her deep well of compassion that is the thing that drove her into politics in the first place: All of this made her shine so much brighter than her counterparts on the debate stage.

Dan Froomkin: Get political reporters off the coronavirus story — they’re screwing it up

When reporters like the Times’ Peter Baker cover public health as a political narrative, we all stand to suffer

One of the many ways the public is ill-served by the White House chokehold on information about the coronavirus crisis is that it gives way too big a role to the White House press corps, which sees most everything through a political lens — and a warped political lens, at that.

To get at the truth about this public-health threat, news organizations need to route around the White House. It is flatly insane that someone as uninformed, intellectually incurious and science-intolerant as Mike Pence is playing point man here.

But news organizations also need to take political reporters — and perhaps even more importantly, political editors — entirely out of the loop on this story. It’s too damned important to be covered as a two-sided battle over who’s winning the narrative.

The epic irresponsibility of letting the political staff anywhere near this story was on full display in the coverage — particularly by the New York Times — of Donald Trump’s wildly dishonest attempt on Wednesday to blame Barack Obama for his own administration’s continued failure to make widespread testing for the virus available to the public.

The Times story moved through a credulous headline, a credulous subhead and two long stenographic paragraphs before even giving readers a hint that Trump had no idea what he was talking about.

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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Paul Waldman: Warren’s wrenching downfall says something terrible about 2020

Is it enough, as a presidential candidate, to have smarts and charisma, to have a clear and concise message, to even be the best debater, and most of all to be the best prepared to do the job effectively?

No, it is not. Which is why so often during this primary campaign, we’ve heard supporters of Elizabeth Warren ask plaintively, “Hey, what if we got behind the person who’d actually be the best president? Why not do that?”

They asked because the number of voters willing to do that was not what it might have been, which is why Warren has announced that she’s ending her bid for the White House.

There is a temptation to say the presidential primary process is brutal and unsparing but ultimately fair. It tests you in the way no other campaign can. If you don’t win, it’s because you didn’t have what it takes. Lots of it may be out of your control, but if you were a once-in-a-generation talent like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, you could have overcome any obstacle cast before you. Nobody deserves the nomination; either you win it or you don’t.

Which is true as far as it goes. But we can’t consider Warren’s candidacy without seeing sexism, both in fact and in perception, for the hindrance it was for her.

Amanda Marcotte: After Super Tuesday, it looks like Bernie Sanders has a ceiling. This is not good news

Joe Biden is winning as the anti-Sanders candidate — but voters should worry how he’ll hold up against Trump

That Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has a floor in this Democratic primary race is undeniable. His base of supporters has been enthusiastic and loyal, and apparently not even a little tempted to decamp to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has largely the same policy goals but a more detailed roadmap for how to achieve them. Sanders’ base has been an invaluable asset, creating a floor of support of about 20% below which his numbers never really dipped, even after he suffered a heart attack that threatened to end his campaign.

The only question really is whether or not Sanders has a ceiling — a level of support where he maxes out and cannot expand further— and how close to that floor the ceiling is. Would the self-described democratic socialist who isn’t a registered Democrat be able to win the majority of Democratic voters? How many people outside the Sanders base can be persuaded that he’s the Democratic Party’s best bet against Donald Trump in November? [..]

But the results of Super Tuesday should trouble Sanders and his supporters all the same, because it’s not clear that Biden’s success has much to do with Joe Biden himself. On the contrary, it looks like the result of Democrats who aren’t comfortable with Sanders coalescing behind the one remaining candidate who seems best poised to beat him.

Karen Tumulty: The Super Tuesday results have Trump spooked — for good reason

One of the many things we learned on Super Tuesday is this: The perception that the Democratic Party has lurched to the left is greatly exaggerated.

The results of what amounted to a nationwide primary were an endorsement of gradualism over revolution, and pragmatism above both of them.

This, more than anything else we’ve seen lately, should scare President Trump’s campaign.

And it obviously does, as evidenced by the increasingly desperate and pathetic efforts by Trump and his team to shill for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a democratic socialist.

The president has been filling his Twitter feed with laments that Sanders is being mistreated and faux concerns that the race is being rigged against him. No doubt Russian bots are adding to the chorus as well.

But then, what would you expect? Trump is apparently so terrified of former vice president Joe Biden that he felt compelled to commit an abuse of power that led to his impeachment.

The campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination has taken more than its share of seemingly impossible turns, and there may well be more to come. The velocity with which expectations have formed and then exploded has been unlike anything in memory.

But at least for now, the party has returned to its original theory of the case, which is that the man who served as No. 2 during Barack Obama’s presidency is the Democrats’ safest bet to bring an end to Trump’s.

Greg Sargent: Trump’s latest coronavirus lies have a galling subtext

President Trump is now claiming he has a “hunch” that the World Health Organization is wrong about the death rate from coronavirus — it’s far lower, Trump claims — while also suggesting that going to work with the virus isn’t dangerous.

Meanwhile, Trump is attacking Democratic criticism of his administration’s response to the virus as nothing more than an effort to hurt him politically — a move that’s designed to place his government’s handling of a public health emergency beyond scrutiny entirely.

Each of those things is profoundly galling on its own. But if you put them together, they add up to something substantially worse than the sum of their parts.

To wit: It is now falling to Democratic elected officials to correct Trump’s lies to the American people about something that poses a dire threat to them. At times Democrats are literally going around Trump to get the real truth out to the public.

Yet even as this is happening, Trump is working to delegitimize what those Democrats are saying. It’s a double whammy of gaslighting: Trump is misleading the American people while making it harder for other elected officials to responsibly inform them where Trump will not.

Richard Wolff: The resurrection of Joe Biden is almost complete: the race is his to lose

Super Tuesday’s super wins for Biden change nothing about his flaws, but they do underscore the strength of his sales pitch to a Trump-weary world

The resurrection of Joe Biden is almost complete. In less than a week, the former vice-president has walked out of the tomb of loser candidates into the glorious sunshine of frontrunner greatness.

This is a remarkable turnaround by any measure. It also reflects no change in Biden’s qualities or character, and everything about a party with a singular focus on one factor: kicking Trump out of office.

Super Tuesday’s super wins for Biden change nothing about his flaws as a candidate but they do underscore the strength of his sales pitch to a Trump-weary world.

Biden’s wins also change nothing about Bernie Sanders’ strength as an insurgent critic of the establishment; they may even boost them.

But they most definitely blow a hole in his sales pitch to Democrats: that he can build a vast turnout machine to energize the base of the party to beat Donald Trump.

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.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Susan E. Rice: An Afghan Bargain Likely to Fail

After 14 months, the United States would be left without any military or counterterrorism capacity in Afghanistan, effectively subcontracting America’s security to the Taliban.

In assessing the U.S.-Taliban agreement, it is important to first acknowledge the positive results. Any end to the war in Afghanistan can come only through a settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban. To the extent that the present document, barely four pages long, could become a first step that culminates in talks to discuss such a settlement, it is better than nothing. Moreover, if the reduction in violence by 80 percent is sustained and the Taliban curtail attacks not only against American and coalition forces, but also against Afghan government forces, it would lessen the bloodshed and help create conditions more conducive for negotiations.

Unfortunately, there are troubling early signs that the Taliban are already resuming attacks against civilians and Afghan forces.

And in the long run, the fundamental weaknesses of the U.S.-Taliban agreement will most likely endanger America’s national security and doom prospects for a just and lasting peace in Afghanistan.

Michelle Cottle: Maybe Next Time, Ladies

So much for the most diverse presidential field in history.

Talk about a head-spinner. Just a few days ago, Joe Biden’s candidacy was being prepped for burial, while Bernie Sanders’s revolution was considered unstoppable. But after the Biden blowout in South Carolina, Super Tuesday voters decided to shake things up.

As the results came rolling in, from east to west, political anchors delivered a breathless play-by-play of how Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders were divvying up the map and turning this into a two-man race. Their remaining major rivals, Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg, registered as little more than afterthoughts. Ms. Warren came in third in her home state of Massachusetts, behind both Biden and Sanders.

And so, after all the tumult, the Democratic race has come down to this: Two straight white septuagenarian men fighting over the soul of the party — whatever that turns out to be.

Let us state that Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders have many fine qualities. Either would make a better president than the unstable man-child currently degrading the office. That said, for the party of progress, youth and diversity, a final face-off between two lifelong politicians born during World War II leaves much to be desired. And it says something depressing about the challenges women candidates still confront in their quest to shatter the presidential glass ceiling.

Paul Krugman: Can the Fed and Friends Save the Economy?

On putting too much faith in central bankers.

Markets were in a state of near panic, deeply worried about the economic outlook. But then the Federal Reserve stepped up: its chairman issued a statement strongly suggesting that he would cut interest rates. And the market experienced a huge relief rally.

No, I’m not talking about Monday’s big market bump. I’m talking about Dec. 5, 2000, in the middle of what we now remember as the bursting of the dot-com bubble. (Actually, I wonder if some of my readers are too young even to remember that?) The Fed chairman in question was Alan Greenspan; his remarks sent the tech-heavy Nasdaq soaring 10.5 percent in a day, while broader stock indexes also rose by several points.

The relief was, however, short-lived. Stocks quickly began falling again. The Nasdaq wouldn’t regain the level it reached on Greenspan Day until, wait for it, 2012.

I’m not making a stock market prediction here; that’s a mug’s game (and sometimes I’ve been the mug). I’m just trying to put Monday’s rally into perspective.

Paul Waldman: Will ‘pragmatism’ and ‘realism’ doom Democratic chances against Trump?

Mike Bloomberg is not a sentimental man. Whatever his flaws, he can look at a spreadsheet and understand reality. And after spending somewhere north of a half-billion dollars carpet-bombing the airwaves with television ads, Bloomberg looked at his poor showing on Super Tuesday and decided to pack it up: [..]

It was an extremely pragmatic thing to do. Bloomberg could have stuck around for a few more weeks, but for what? He doesn’t have a set of beliefs he’s trying to get the Democratic Party to adopt, nor does he have loyal supporters whom he wants to give the opportunity to cast their ballots for him. So it was the only decision that made sense.

Bloomberg’s quick exit is the latest sign of what a powerful pull pragmatism is exerting on this race. There’s nothing wrong with being pragmatic, of course, especially when you’re faced with as urgent a need as getting rid of President Trump.

The difficulty comes when it’s unclear exactly what the truly pragmatic thing to do is. And if that’s all you think about, you may find yourself going rapidly down a road that looks pragmatic but is actually fraught with risk.

Max Boot: A new report shows freedom is declining in established democracies — including ours

When critics of President Trump argue that he is a threat to democracy, his supporters tell us to relax. No one is being exiled to Alaska or locked up for criticizing the supreme leader. The courts, Congress and the media all continue to function. Elections aren’t being canceled.

All true, but it offers scant comfort given the historical experience of how other countries have lost their freedom. There is seldom a moment of clarity, at least not early on, when a dictator announces that democracy has been abolished. Much more common is for aspiring autocrats to chip away at the foundations of liberal democracy — judicial independence, freedom of the press, minority rights, an apolitical civil service and so on — while maintaining its facade.

Unfortunately, this type of democratic erosion is now the norm across the world. The “Freedom in the World 2020” survey, released Wednesday by Freedom House, reports that 2019 saw the 14th year in a row of political deterioration, with 64 countries experiencing a loss of liberties, while only 37 experienced improvements.