From the right: Pope’s Sex-Abuse Speech Was All Excuses
Pope Francis’ closing address to the Vatican Summit on Child Protection was “a disgraceful display of excuses and evasions,” charges Marc Thiessen at The Washington Post. He urged the assembled bishops to ?focus on “other forms of abuse” and “laid out an agenda that, bizarrely, has nothing to do with clerical abuse.” Finally, the Argentine pontiff “lashed out at those demanding that bishops who covered up abuse” be held to account. Moreover, he “still refuses to tell us which bishops and cardinals did the covering up.” Fact is, making the summit about “the protection of minors” generally was “a cynical ploy to avoid addressing questions of accountability.” But “until the bishops repent of their sins and ?accept the temporal consequences of their actions, there will be no forgiveness from the laity.”
Culture critic: Is ‘Green Book’ Really ‘White Guilt Trash’?
Granted, says Dominic Green at Spectator USA, “Green Book” is no masterpiece. But did it really deserve to have the title of its Wikipedia page changed to “Lying White Guilt Trash” after winning the Oscar for Best Picture? And did “the always mediocre and chippy Spike Lee really have to storm off” in disgust at the ceremony — making “a show of trying to ?escape from the clutches of an Academy that he’s spent his life trying to get into”? Clearly, given its box office appeal, the Academy identified the film as “the sweet spot between the bottom line and the virtue signal.” The film’s dramatic equation seems obvious: “Americans are troubled by the racist past, Americans believe in happy endings, Hollywood is the answer — and laid a bet on its victory.”
Foreign desk: Time Rapidly Running Out for Maduro
Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro tried to demonstrate his unconcern over the political crisis in which he’s engulfed by ?appearing on state TV over the weekend and dancing the salsa. But Bloomberg’s Eli Lake warns that “time is not on Maduro’s side.” Because “as their access to ?international capital and bank accounts is constricted, Maduro and his henchmen will find it harder to stay in power,” given the current US-led campaign of “regime change through public and private diplomacy.” Eventually, “his most important international backers, Russia and China, will want their debts repaid” — and Maduro “has no chance of doing that with international sanctions on the oil industry.” Says Lake: Consider the lessons of Muammar Khadafy and Nicolae Ceausescu and “what can happen when a tyrant stays loo long.”
Conservative: Border-Wall Stalemate Favors Trump
Shifting the border-wall discussion from legislative impasse to national emergency changes “the stakes and the audience — both to Democrats’ detriment,” argues J.T. Young at The Hill. When wall funding was mired in legislative gridlock, Democrats were able to prevail by playing to their base, while “swing voters lost sight of what was obscured in appropriations arcana.” The latest shift “is subtle but significant.” Congress must first pass legislation to stop Trump, then overturn his veto, “an impossible task.” And by switching the issue to national security, Trump attracts independent voters, who will “react differently than the partisans” and decide their views based largely on the final outcome. Democrats could “stand pat and not lose the debate about dollars” but now face “a vastly different and more difficult spot.”
Libertarian: Yes, SCOTUS Should Reconsider Libel Law
In joining with those who refused to hear a case involving a libel claim by a woman who accuses Bill Cosby of rape, Justice Clarence Thomas nonetheless argued that the Supreme Court needs to revisit the issue of libel, notes Glenn Harlan Reynolds at USA Today. And though this was “poorly received by the press,” understandably, even liberal law professor Cass Sunstein agrees that the constitutional foundations of the court’s landmark 1964 Sullivan decision “are not entirely firm.” It’s essentially “a subsidy for the chattering classes,” given that “you have to work pretty hard to commit actionable libel under present law.” But, “like all subsidies, the costs come from someone else — in this case, someone whose reputation is ruined and who is left without a remedy.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann