Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet
Why Stormy Daniels Isn’t Getting the Monica Lewinsky Treatment
So far, none of the familiar sexist insults have seemed to stick.
Sex scandals have come a long way since the Bill Clinton days.
That’s a major takeaway from this week’s courtroom spectacle, when Daniels calmly testified about hotel room dalliances and sexual positions and the clumsy come-ons from a future U.S. president — and the media took copious notes. In some ways, the excitement around the trial was a throwback to the political and legal scandals of the 1990s, when Clinton’s alleged sexual harassment and illicit affairs led to lawsuits, investigations and impeachment. Then, as now, there was breathless interest from the press, aw-shucks reporting of salacious details, palpable glee from late-night comedians.
But there’s also a crucial difference. The women at the center of the 1990s scandals, Paula Jones, who sued Clinton for sexual harassment in the mid-1990s, and Monica Lewinsky, the intern at the center of Clinton’s impeachment, were mocked and belittled, frequently dismissed, dragged unwittingly into the arena and left to suffer there alone. At one memorable point in the saga, Jones broke down crying at a press conference; the spotlight was too harsh, the pressure was too much.
Michael Tomasky/The New Republic;
Tim Scott’s Stated Willingness to Crush Democracy Is an Ominous Moment
We crossed another Rubicon this week with these veep wannabees parroting Donald Trump’s line about not accepting election results.
As you’ve probably read, Scott was on Meet the Press Sunday and, under questioning from host Kristen Welker, refused six times to say he’d accept the election results. The things he did say were ludicrous: “This is an issue that is not an issue so I’m not going to make it an issue.” “I’m not going to answer your hypothetical question when, in fact, I believe the American people are speaking today on the results of the election.” “This is why so many Americans believe that NBC is an extension of the Democrat Party.”
The same day, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum ran for the hills when CNN’s Jake Tapper asked him about potential political violence after the election. He spat out some evasive nonsense about how the important thing about the election is that “both sides feel good about how it was counted.” We all know what that means: If one party (gee, which one?) doesn’t “feel good” about the vote count, then violence might be justified.
These are, in one way, dismissible men. But these are not dismissible comments. This is new. And it’s worth thinking about.
Walter Shapiro/The New Republic:
No, the 2024 Election Won’t Be Anything Like 1968
The election will be a challenge for Joe Biden. But looking to the past won’t help him—or us—understand what lies ahead.
But the closer you look at the turbulent history of 1968, the more it reflects the 2024 presidential race with the accuracy of a funhouse mirror.
For all the horrors in Gaza, that war is a distant echo for most Americans—unlike Vietnam where nearly 17,000 U.S. soldiers died in 1968. Moreover, young men, unless they had the resources to obtain a deferment by going to college, were subject to the military draft.
Few presidential candidates have been as hapless as Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic nominee after Lyndon Johnson abandoned his reelection campaign in late March of 1968. Historian Luke Nichter’s recent book on the 1968 election, The Year That Broke Politics, reveals that LBJ preferred Nixon over his own vice president—and undermined Humphrey at every turn. It wasn’t until late September that Humphrey, who kept begging for Johnson’s approval, had the temerity to call for a bombing halt in Vietnam without preconditions, which was a minor dissent from the administration’s position.
Andrew Sanders/MSN:
CNN: Trump Has Succeeded In Being ‘Casual About Violence’
CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem expressed concerns about former President Donald Trump using the threat of violence to rally support for the 2024 election.
She highlighted the normalization of violence as an extension of democratic differences and emphasized the potential impact on the election.
Kayyem warned about the permissive atmosphere created by the lack of condemnation from Trump’s party and the potential consequences if he were to win the presidency. (Trending: Joe Biden Emailed Hunter’s Business Associates 54 Times)
“It’s about to be 2024. We are running into an election period in which violence and the threat of violence are sort of viewed as an extension of our normal democratic differences,” Kayyem said.
“This is one of the successes of what Donald Trump has been able to do, is to sort of be kind of casual about violence.”
Chris Brennan/USA Today:
Noncitizens can’t vote in federal elections. Trump and the GOP hope you don’t know that.
Republicans are again pushing unsubstantiated claims about noncitizens voting in federal elections
[Speaker Mike] Johnson and his election-denying schemers were pushing the new Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.Sounds harmless, right? That’s true if you don’t know much about voting rights issues.
But like laws that some states have enacted requiring voters to show identification at polling places, this act completely ignores the fact that not everyone who is eligible to vote has access to the documents needed to establish their identity.
Nancy Mace says staff ‘sabotaged’ her: Republican accuses ex-aides of mismanaging $1million, hacking her phone, spying on medical records and dumping office devices in water in extraordinary interview
- Mace says her new staff are still repairing the damage left behind by her ‘sabotaging’ former aides
- ‘This seems to be stemming from paranoia and trust issues,’ one former staffer said. ‘She’s clearly unwell and I hope she gets help’
Reps. Mace (South Carolina) and Victoria Spartz (Indiana) are the two House Republicans that can be counted on to switch positions hourly. For some reason, Mace gets labeled as a moderate, when there not only aren’t any in the GOP, but she clearly isn’t one. For that reason, she’s worth the extra attention.
Steerpike/The Spectator:
Listen: Houchen turns on Sunak
When it rains for the Tories, it pours. Now Tees Valley’s Conservative mayor Ben Houchen has hit out at his party’s leadership – just 24 hours after yet another Tory MP defected to Labour. The re-elected Conservative mayor this morning admitted the path to Tory electoral victory is ‘getting narrower by the day’ before adding, in more bad news for poor Rishi Sunak, that ‘ultimately it all rests on the shoulders of the leader.’ Talk about trouble in paradise…
In a series of damning remarks made during an interview on BBC Radio Tees today, Houchen seemed rather downcast on the topic of his party’s prospects. ‘Things don’t look great for the Conservative party at the moment,’ he told the station. But while admitting that ‘all responsibility goes back to the top’, the Tees Valley mayor had some home truths for his parliamentary colleagues:
Oh, and by the way, speaking of the UK …
