Sometimes you have to read the headlines atop editorials several times just to make sure they say what they seem to say.
And then shake your head and laugh at how politics can turn so many otherwise bright, well-educated people into idiots.
Some of my favorites from recent weeks, all taken from the daily compilations found on the always useful RealClearPolitics site:
• "I Won't Celebrate Christmas this Year, and Trump is Why" by Amanda Marcotte (Dec. 3).
Is it really normal, psychologically healthy behavior to not celebrate Christmas because you don't like the president? And isn't that making politics a bit too much of your life?
Maybe she wasn't getting any Christmas party invites or gifts anyway.
• "William Barr is Unfit to be Attorney General" by Eric Holder (Dec. 12).
Maybe so, but the last person who should be making that argument is the first sitting attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress.
And if Barr is inappropriately partisan and protective of Trump, how do we describe Holder, who while serving as attorney general referred to himself as Barack Obama's "wingman?"
• "Kamala Never Had a Chance in Trump's America" by Dahleen Glanton (Dec. 6 ).
Yes, we've become accustomed to lefties finding a way to blame racism for any setbacks to leftism, but how did "Trump's America" (meaning, presumably, Trump's racist voters) prevent Kamala Harris from getting above single digits in polls of Democratic respondents in a Democratic Party presidential race?
A more obvious explanation might be that Harris was simply a terrible candidate, that racism had nothing to do with her campaign's demise (unless there are an awful lot of pro-Obama racist Democrats out there) and that it fizzled because black voters are just as capable of identifying and rejecting a demagogue when they see one as other voters.
• "How Trump Created a Crisis with Iran" by Joe Biden (Jan. 13).
One would think that Biden would avoid commenting on anything to do with Iran these days, given the extent to which the Obama administration in which he served as vice-president bent over backwards to appease the mullahs at every opportunity.
Sort of like Neville Chamberlain claiming that his successor as prime minister had "created a crisis" with Der Führer.
• "The GOP's Endless War on Democrats" by William Saletan (Jan. 12).
So did Saletan forget before he started typing that the Republicans and Democrats have been competing for political power in a two-party system for roughly a century and a half now? And that that's how two-party systems work?
So do the Chicago Cubs wage "endless war" on the St. Louis Cardinals? And do the Washington Redskins wage "endless war" on the Dallas Cowboys?
Wouldn't those make just as much sense (which is no sense at all)?
• "Racist Republican Voters May be Violating Constitution" by Noah Berlatsky (Jan. 18).
Let's see now: Donald Trump is a racist (according to Berlatsky), so if you voted for Trump you are a racist too, and because being a racist is bad it should also be unconstitutional and therefore voting for Trump should be illegal (and maybe also for Republicans more generally, since Trump is a Republican).
So, carrying it through, maybe we should simply ban the GOP altogether and have a one-party system consisting of just Democrats, who can never, by definition, be racist.
• "Trump Achieved the Impossible: Uniting Iran" by Dina Esfandiary (Jan. 8).
So that's what all those demonstrations going on in Iran are about? Iranians from all walks of life and political persuasions coming together in the wake of the killing of their national hero Qassem Soleimani to protest the warmonger Trump?
If so, why are police shooting and tear-gassing the protesters?
• "U.S. Economy Isn't Working for Too Many" by Michael Bloomberg and Arne Duncan (Jan. 12).
I guess we should forget the impressive growth rates. And the booming stock market and the near-record-low unemployment numbers. And the wage gains and record number of Americans working. The monthly job creation figures too.
Because the numbers must lie. Because it can't be true if it's happening while Trump is president.
• "Why Warren's Drop in the Polls Will be Good News for Her" by John Harris (Dec. 13).
I'm sure her campaign staff sees it that way too, and will be doing everything in their power in coming weeks to drive those numbers even lower. And if she flops in Iowa and New Hampshire (as seems increasingly likely, given that poll slippage), Harris can write a follow-up piece on how Warren has the rest of the field right where she wants them, thereby inventing a new, rather counterintuitive campaign strategy.
Call it winning by losing.
• "Behind Trump's Reckless Fixation on the Border" by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig (Jan. 21).
Reasonable people can disagree over immigration policy, and over Trump's approach to the issue, but is it really a "reckless fixation" for a president whose highest duty is defense of the nation to wish to secure its borders? And isn't control over a nation's borders a fundamental attribute of nation-state sovereignty?
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 01/27/2020