EXCLUSIVE BOOK EXCERPT: HALPERIN'S RULES OF WASHINGTON
You can't buy a book without a cover.....
EXCLUSIVE: Here’s an excerpt from my forthcoming book, “Halperin’s Rules of Washington” to be published by Wide World of News Press in September, 2023. All rights reserved.
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BACK TO THE BOOK EXCERPT!
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HALPERIN’S 12TH RULE OF WASHINGTON: You can’t fairly criticize a government policy unless you game out — and are willing to accept the risks/downsides of — the alternatives.
Case in point: I have read every tick tock story about how the Biden administration settled on its Sunday decisions about how much (and, as important, how little) to do to deal with the banks. I have also read, watched, and listened to much of the criticism of what they did (and didn’t do). Team Biden’s coordination of the policy, the politics, and the press on this shows that they can still pull off the complicated in the post-Klain era. They weren’t flawless; the markets can still gyrate; more investigation will yield some errors; and the critics will still carp. But, as this essential reading Peter Baker story in the New York Times indicates, the administration used the 2008 bailout experience to establish its political baselines and worked the policy choices out from there.
Wicked smaaat stuff, allowing them to effectively repel even the most partisan barbs so far.
COROLLARY TO HALPERIN’S 12TH RULE OF WASHINGTON: No populists have their fingers more tightly on the pulse of American populism than Rhode Island populists.
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HALPERIN’S 14TH RULE OF WASHINGTON: A Republican politician who goes from New York Post hero to the New York Post barrel is in danger of losing control of her or his public image.
Case in point: Sure the New York Times and CNN can round up the tut-tutting of Liz Cheney, Marco Rubio, John Cornyn, and other establishment GOPers criticizing Ron DeSantis’ Tuckery Ukraine position. And, sure, David Frum can pile on, declaring it the beginning of the end of the Sunshine State topper’s White House ambitions.
But when Rupert Murdoch signals unhappiness with no fewer than three New York Post pieces in one day, well, Tally, you have a problem.
Here’s one of the trio of rebuke, an editorial:
Ron DeSantis has shown plenty of leadership as Florida’s governor, but he’s sure dodging the challenge when it comes to the war in Ukraine.
In a written response to questions from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, DeSantis hedged: “While the U.S. has many vital national interests … becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”
Fine: America faces no direct threat from Russia.
But this is far more than “a territorial dispute.”
COROLLARY TO HALPERIN’S 14TH RULE OF WASHINGTON: We have yet to see Ron DeSantis adjust to criticism by going from full MAGA to less MAGA, even under (especially under) duress.
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HALPERIN’S 23rd RULE OF WASHINGTON: When Donald Trump gets a favorable news story in the Washington Post, resist the urge to look away and focus closely on the reasons why.
Case in point: This Washington Post piece:
Trump is leaning into his freewheeling style in no small measure, according to advisers, to draw a contrast with his potential chief rival for the Republican nomination: Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor’s unofficial pre-campaign book tour has consisted of more scripted and stage-managed events, often where the row of cameras that Trump so loves are excluded and the rituals of more intimate politics are limited.
COROLLARY TO HALPERIN’S 23rd RULE OF WASHINGTON: There is no experience like the experience one gets from having run for president before. Team Trump is counting on the press to press DeSantis to be more spontaneous – and then counting on DeSantis to melt, Rick Perry-style, when he tries.
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HALPERIN’S 43rd RULE OF WASHINGTON: There is no such thing as a casual trip to Iowa for someone who aspires to work in the Oval Office.
Case in point:
COROLLARY TO HALPERIN’S 43rd RULE OF WASHINGTON: The incumbents running for a second term always try to bracket the open nomination fight action of the other party in the first-in-the-nation states.
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HALPERIN’S 55th RULE OF WASHINGTON: Never do anything on late-night TV you don’t want the daytime world to see.
Case in point:
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HALPERIN’S 456TH RULE OF WASHINGTON: An item that appears only in the New York Post will either disappear into the ether – or become the dominant story for the Dominant Media before too long.
Case in point: Again, the New York Post:
It’s Washington’s newest guessing game: Who is the unnamed Biden family member who got proceeds from a $3 million wire to Hunter Biden associate John “Rob” Walker weeks after Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017?
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) first revealed Monday that bank records obtained via subpoena implicate a “new Biden family member” in the panel’s probe of the first son’s alleged influence-peddling scheme.
Comer is expected to reveal the person’s name at some point, but has not yet announced specific plans to do so, leaving the door open to speculation about who else could have been on the receiving end.
The Kentucky Republican told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday that the records obtained from Bank of America show that in March 2017, Walker received a $3 million wire transfer from two individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, which he then divvied up to multiple Biden family members.