Read about how the other side thinks about the health care debate and the new White House communications director’s profanity-laced tirade.
The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That’s why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen.
Has this series exposed you to new ideas?
Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com .
• Ramesh Ponnuru in Bloomberg:
“Obscene language wasn’ t the worst thing about the interview. It wasn’ t even one of the worst four things about it.”
Many columnists on the right have been focused on potential repercussions from the profanity-laced interview the new White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, gave to The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza. Mr. Ponnuru explains why Mr. Scaramucci’s rant should worry supporters of the administration beyond the vulgar language. He points to Mr. Scaramucci’s fixation on the “leaking” of “trivial” gossip, and his seeming willingness to betray his colleagues, saying this environment is likely to scare away potential talent the White House needs to attract to function well. Read more »
_____
• Tiana Lowe in National Review:
“Much like his namesake, the scaramouch, the Mooch masquerades as a useful idiot and a sly schemer, performing both roles while never forgetting to enthrall the audience and, most important, the boss.”
According to Ms. Lowe, “however this turns out, the Mooch wins.” The most recent addition to the Trump White House has faithfully carried out his duty to entertain the public, betray his internal “foes” and “enthrall” the president. If Mr. Trump is turning the presidency into a reality show, then in Mr. Scaramucci, the president has found “a star and a producer to orchestrate this week’s storyline.” Read more »
_____
• Joel B. Pollak in Breitbart:
“We conservatives fall for it all the time, because we are so bullied by the media that the moment they seem willing to offer us the spotlight, we think everything has changed.”
Mr. Scaramucci’s gravest mistake this week, Mr. Pollak argues, is hoping that journalists would “like” him. Read more »
_____
• Stu Burguiere in Medium:
“I have no problem criticizing Trump, I do it all the time, but the failure of Obamacare repeal is mainly the fault of Congress.”
Mr. Burguiere, who is a head writer and producer on “The Glenn Beck Radio Program, ” argues that the failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act rests squarely on the shoulders of Republican leaders who have perfect cover to pass conservative legislation. Not only will Mr. Trump “sign anything” Republicans put in front of him, he’s provided legislators a week full of stories to distract the news media and public from criticizing the health care bill. It’s one of the “inadvertent benefits of having a tweeter-in-chief.” Read more »
_____
• Philip Klein in Washington Examiner:
“From the beginning, the entire Republican healthcare push has been a farce.”
Written just before the Senate failed to pass “Skinny Repeal, ” Mr. Klein’s op-ed decries the bill, a piece of legislation that he calls “an insult.” Writing that it’s “totally bonkers” to expect senators to vote for a bill they don’ t want to become law, Mr. Klein criticizes the bill from the right; it’s a “skinny bill” that “wouldn’ t repeal much of anything.” Read more »
_____
• Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone:
“I already miss Anthony Scaramucci.”
Mr. Scaramucci is a welcome addition to the administration, according to Mr. Taibbi. After all, he writes, he’s “reignited the comic potential” of the Trump presidency. He notes that Mr. Scaramucci’s strategy as White House communications director looks like that of his boss’s: “Don’ t ever react to the news or attempt to explain it, but continually stay ahead of it by making new news of your own.” Read more »
_____
• Jeet Heer in New Republic:
“Scaramucci may long remain in good standing — as long as he doesn’ t break one golden rule.”
Mr. Heer matches Mr. Scaramucci’s penchant with salty language as he diagnoses the particular type of New York personality evident in the Washington newcomer’s demeanor. To survive in President Trump’s White House, Mr. Heer argues, Mr. Scaramucci can betray as many colleagues as he’ d like on his way up the ladder as long as he adheres to one rule: Don’ t get more press than the boss. Read more »
_____
• Scott Lemieux in The Week:
“I have never been happier to have been dead wrong.”
Mr. Lemieux is proud to have been wrong in his assessment of Senator John McCain of Arizona. He joined others on the left in mocking Mr. McCain “for harshly condemning a process he cast a decisive vote to continue.” Now that Mr. McCain’s vote was one of three Republican votes to secure the defeat of the “skinny repeal” bill, Mr. Lemieux won’ t hesitate to admit he was wrong about the “maverick” he criticized just a day earlier. Read more »
_____
• Greg Sargent in The Washington Post:
“For Trump, this has never been about improving our health-care system.”
In the wake of the “skinny repeal” bill’s defeat — a bill that Mr. Sargent calls “Trumpcare” — it’s time, he writes, to dispel with a number of untruths. Among them, the need to recognize that the Affordable Care Act is not collapsing on its own and that government-subsidized health coverage “has actually helped enormous numbers of people, even if it isn’ t in the manner that Republicans had hoped.” Read more »
_____
• Chris Cillizza in CNN:
“Scaramucci is endeavoring to sound as much like Trump as possible. After all, you can’ t fire yourself, right? Right?”
Mr. Cillizza calls the president’s new communications director a Trump “Mini Me, ” writing that “what Scaramucci has obviously internalized is that Trump likes people like him.” Read more »
_____
• Perry Bacon Jr. in Five Thirty Eight:
“The Senate’s failure to pass a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare was not shocking, in a broad sense.”
Mr. Bacon gives his view of how the Senate’s attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act failed.
