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The news: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul.
Red said: Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post:
Al-Qaeda is back in Afghanistan. Yes, it is good that we killed Zawahiri — and Biden deserves credit for the strike. But he also deserves blame for creating the conditions that allowed the world’s most-wanted terrorist to move to downtown Kabul and set up operations in a city that had been liberated from al-Qaeda ans Taliban allies with the blood of courageous American service members. If the president had listened to his military advisers last year, Zawahiri might never have been in Kabul this year. Killing Zawahiri is Biden’s greatest foreign policy triumph. The fact that al-Qaeda’s leader was in Kabul is Biden’s greatest foreign policy disgrace.
Blue said: God bless America and this will indeed help Biden’s poll numbers (right?).
Halperin said: Recognizing the distinction between “what ought to be” and “what is,” I agree with both Jeff Greenfield and Liz Cheney.
[T]he killing of Ayman al-Zawahri — bin Laden’s successor and the co-architect of the horrific 9/11 attacks — will be just one of many stories on the news, along with the Kentucky floods, the monkeypox virus, the coming slate of primaries….The relative second-tier status of this story — yes, it will be big news for a few days, but nothing like the bin Laden killing — may serve to obscure both a clear achievement and a deeply important question….
For all the likelihood that Biden will get a (deserved) bump in his approval ratings, as Biden and Trump did when bin Laden and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were killed, that specter of a terrorist sanctuary may limit that advantage.
Cheney:
Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s reign of terror has come to an end because of the dogged efforts of America's counterterrorism professionals. For decades, "Ayman Al-Zawahiri’s reign of terror has come to an end because of the dogged efforts of America's counterterrorism professionals. For decades, Al-Zawahiri threatened the lives of innocent Americans. This decisive action ensures that he will no longer be able to plan or order attacks against our nation. Al-Zawahiri was Osama bin Laden's closest and most influential adviser. He had intimate knowledge of the 9/11 hijackings and other attacks against our country. Al-Zawahiri's demise further proves that anyone who plots terrorism against the United States will pay the ultimate price. I commend the Biden Administration for taking this decisive action and proactively using America's strength to defend our interests.
Al-Zawahiri's death should serve as a reminder of the constant vigilance peace demands. Al-Qaeda remains a dangerous enemy. The Taliban never broke with al-Qaeda. And the Taliban's Afghanistan remains a safehaven for terrorists to this day. That can never be the accepted status quo. We must continue to hunt down terrorists and confront their enablers around the world, to ensure that we never have to fight them here at home.
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The news:
Red said: It is painful to root on this Speaker, but “Go, Nancy, go!”
Blue said: At this point, she has to go.
Halperin said: Wow, wow, wow, everything in Tom Friedman’s essential reading column has blown my mind:
I have a lot of respect for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But if she does go ahead with a visit to Taiwan this week, against President Biden’s wishes, she will be doing something that is utterly reckless, dangerous and irresponsible….
The timing could not be worse. Dear reader: The Ukraine war is not over. And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky — considerably more than has been reported….
It is a measure of our political dysfunction that a Democratic president cannot deter a Democratic House speaker from engaging in a diplomatic maneuver that his entire national security team — from the C.I.A. director to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs — deemed unwise.
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The news, via the Washington Post:
A final stretch of primaries for state and federal offices kicks off Tuesday, setting the stage for a six-week battle inside a divided Republican Party pitting candidates loyal to former president Donald Trump and his false election claims against rivals looking to move past those fights in this fall’s midterm elections….
Tuesday’s contests in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state could elevate more Republicans who, like Trump, have baselessly undermined faith in elections and pitch themselves as populist fighters against not just Democrats but the GOP establishment.
“I think what is going to be clarified here over the next few weeks, have the lunatics really taken over the asylum? … Are you going to see election truthers taking over the voting mechanisms up and down the ballot?” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic consultant. “That’s going to present the American people with a real choice to make that is going to be very stark.”
Red said: We are still Donald Trump’s party – or so the Fake News says.
Blue said: They are still Donald Trump’s party – let’s hope the November Red wave isn’t so big that we become Donald Trump’s nation (again).
Halperin said: Arizona, Arizona, Arizona.
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The news:
Red said: As long as we hold the seat…
Blue said: Just when America thought there was nothing new Trump could do to demonstrate how ridic he is…
Halperin said: Don’t miss the poetry of Alex Isenstadt’s bawdy limerick of a piece on how it all went down at Bedminster:
It was a madcap exit ramp. But Trump went in on the details, asking if the two candidates’ first names were spelled identically — noting that it wouldn’t work if they weren’t. While Trump was intrigued, he also remarked that it might be too cute.
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The news: The Senate cues up the Schumer-Manchin deal for a vote.
Red said: Gerard Baker speaking on behalf of the unified establishment and MAGA wings:
It all amounts to a breathtaking piece of policy-making chutzpah worthy of the most unscrupulous salesman’s patter: Having created the inflationary mess in the first place, Democrats now aim to con the country into believing that they’re cleaning it up, even as they steal a further march in their plan to remake the country.
Blue said: We are ready to fight out the midterms on behalf of taxing the wealthy and corporations in the service of saving the planet. Bring it on.
Halperin said: While we wait for the Reds to move from their tax-and-spend mantra to the IRS boogeyman, read the New York Times piece on all the hurdles left to go before the Biden signing ceremony. Lots can still go off the tracks here; buckle in and buckle up.
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