I realize I am not part of Columbia. I realize that campus situations are usually more nuanced that they appear in the news. That said, I am hard-pressed to think of any university president who has handled things worse than Minouche Shafik.

Every time I go to the NY Times website, I see the same video of a pro-Palestinian protester breaking a window at Columbia. I understand about news photography, but this constant loop makes Columbia look like it is the stage set for the French Revolution. nytimes.com

It's bad enough that the Biden and Trump campaigns have found my cell phone number and regularly text to beg for money. But I just got a fund-raising text from perennial NYC candidate Scott Stringer more than a year before the 2025 mayoral primary. I need to get a burner phone.

From Eeyores to masochists to cross-tabs fanatics, Walter Shapiro nails the Democrats' crowded psychological big tent when it comes to 'dealing with the specter of the Once and Future President Donald J. Trump.' He outs himself at the end, btw. newrepublic.com/article/180452…

'Probably, at this very moment, both presidential campaigns are working on ways that a hologram of Biden or Trump can greet swing voters at their breakfast table each morning.' If they weren't, they probably are now. Thanks a lot Walter Shapiro.🙂
rollcall.com/2024/04/30/is-…

From a stirring Jill Lawrence column: 'Republicans like Trump talk big and tough on the border, but they’re reaping mostly failure and backlash from their stunts, power grabs, cynicism, cruelty, and, sometimes, raw racism.' thebulwark.com/p/donald-trump…

Let's hear it for free speech and the rest of the First Amendment.

You can also walk around the Yale campus as I did on Thursday and Friday and not see a sign of protest. It ain't the Sixties.

Exceptionally good Trump analysis from Charles Homans. A sample: 'The insult-comic riffs and winding tours through the headlines are more constrained and repetitive now, his performer’s instincts duller than they once were.' nytimes.com/2024/04/27/mag…

Channeling Arthur Vandenberg, then channeling Richard Nixon. Sharp column from Walter Shapiro, who notices that history is rhyming -- and not in the best way: Mike Johnson Is Stoking the Culture War to Save His Job newrepublic.com/article/180973… Follow The New Republic

Me in The New Republic: 'Protesting students have long been a foil for politicians. Unconcerned with electoral politics and animated by the righteousness of their cause, these protesters make extreme statements and (shocker!) sometimes even block traffic.' newrepublic.com/article/180973…

Part of the reason why Mike Johnson made the pilgrimage to Columbia is that it is always good politics to demonize left-wing students, writes Walter Shapiro.

trib.al/9aLuBBd

Excellent Walter Shapiro on how reactionary state judges and insensitive, good-old-boy GOP state legislators have defined abortion for the nation--making Dobbs not a single event but a torrent of regressive policies. Did Mitch McConnell get blindsided? newrepublic.com/article/180812…

Me in The New Republic: 'In 2022, as the leaked Alito draft became the Dobbs decision, the prevailing GOP view of the political aftereffects of the abortion decision was, in effect, 'It will all blow over.'” I relive the GOP's litany of wrong-o predictions. newrepublic.com/article/180812…

Even a huckster with Trump’s disdain for the truth cannot spin away the fact that Republicans are on the unpopular side of the abortion debate, writes Walter Shapiro
. trib.al/XaEJC8N

Avoid hot takes on Trump’s supposed trial of the century.
(Walter Shapiro)
More, via Opinion Today:
opiniontoday.substack.com/p/240417-topli…

Can I question the Times news judgment? Was a Trumped up House hearing really the most important thing that happened Wednesday inn the world? How would the Times have covered the story if it were the president of Fordham (and not Columbia) on the hot seat?

This could be Mayorkas week in the Senate and anticipation is building toward the high drama of an impeachment trial about ... nothing. Or, Walter Shapiro writes, for the high crime of recognizing that Biden, not Trump, is in charge of border policy. rollcall.com/2024/04/09/may…

Terrific column by Jill Lawrence seeing the affinities between Paul Gosar and RFK Jr. The parallelism had never occurred to me. But it works. Spoiler alert: Both families hate their relative for wallowing in the fever swamps of conspiracy theories: thebulwark.com/p/crank-politi…

Ukraine is the issue that's currently upending the media's well-worn stereotypes. The Republicans, led by Trump, are the feckless appeasers, while the Democrats under Biden are the party of Reaganite strength writes Walter Shapiro. trib.al/rXysyaX