Gail Collins: So Bret, Joe Biden’s been on a roll. Economy good, State of the Union speech good — made even better by those Republican boo birds.
Any complaints?
Bret Stephens: The economy is a mixed bag, with positive signals, like falling inflation and historically low unemployment, but also some worrying ones, like a labor-force participation rate that’s too low and big layoffs in big tech. I thought the speech was a mixed bag, too, with a feisty performance that will please liberals but not endear him to the majority of Americans, who still disapprove of his job performance by a seven-point margin.
But on the subject of Republican hecklers, what a disgrace. Never mind the geriatric president; the real danger is the prepubescent opposition.
Gail Collins: Well, if I ever want to make a good impression on a group, I’ll try to recruit Marjorie Taylor Greene to scream at me that I’m a liar.
Bret: Being called a liar by Greene is like being accused by Donald Trump of having a low I.Q. I believe that’s what Freudians call projection.
Gail: The Republican leaders were certainly better behaved. But they did seem desperate to reject any suggestion that their party wanted to cut back spending on Social Security and Medicare. I thought that was part of the plan all along. Wasn’t it?
Bret: Not as far as I’m aware, unless you mean Senator Rick Scott’s nonstarter proposal to sunset all federal legislation every five years.
Gail: Well, Scott was head of the Republican Senate re-election effort at the time.
Bret: Even Mitch McConnell dismissed Scott’s brainstorms out of hand. But if it means trying to save both programs from looming insolvency, then yes, you could say some Republicans are for that.
The other thing I found striking about the speech, Gail, is that it was probably the most unapologetically liberal State of the Union any Democratic president has delivered since Lyndon Johnson in the ’60s. I know you like a lot of the proposals, but will it win Biden a second term?
Gail: Which part do you think an average American voter would have hated? An assault weapons ban? Abortion rights? A tax on the superrich?
Bret: Well, abortion rights is a winning issue for Democrats, thanks to the terrible Dobbs decision. On the other hand, the billionaires’ tax is probably unconstitutional and also ineffective, since ultrawealthy people are pretty good at shielding their assets. And, as our own polling guru Nate Cohn pointed out last summer, gun control is one of those issues that always seems to poll well but rarely decides elections.
Gail: One thing Biden’s speech demonstrated was how good a liberal agenda sounds to nonliberals when it’s presented by a guy who seems so mellow. People always looked down on Biden as a presidential candidate because he reminded them of somebody’s chatty great-uncle. Turns out that these days, a nice great-uncle who wants to put a cap on drug prices is just what we’re looking for.
Bret: Our friend Frank Bruni had the best line on the same point in his newsletter last week. “For Donald Trump,” he wrote, “we needed noise-canceling headphones. For Biden, hearing aids.” It’s particularly sharp because the age question is only going to become more acute for Biden. Some of his fumbles, like calling Chuck Schumer the Senate minority leader, are going to stick in people’s minds.
Um, awkward segue here, but we really should talk about Senator John Fetterman.
Gail: So sorry to hear he was briefly hospitalized — and to learn, in a story by our newsroom colleague Annie Karni, that his long-term physical problems have made it difficult for him to deal with his work. Lesson No. 1: Joining the United States Senate is not the best possible agenda for a man who’s recovering from a serious stroke.
Bret: Obviously we wish him a full recovery ….
Gail: Fortunately, the Pennsylvania voters who chose him last year over Mehmet Oz — by nearly five percentage points — weren’t overly focused on Fetterman’s health situation. Lesson No. 2: These days, when it comes to congressional elections, the overriding issue is simply which party will control what.
Thanks to Pennsylvania, the answer in the Senate this year is the Democrats, and even if Fetterman can’t perform all his day-to-day duties as well as he’d hoped, as long as he can show up for votes, he’s fulfilling their most important mandate.
Bret: OK, total disagreement on this one. Being a senator isn’t just about voting a certain way. There’s also important committee and constituency work. If Fetterman’s doctors think he will eventually recover, then he should stay. But voters also deserve more transparency about his health than they got during the campaign or than they are getting now. If he can’t meet the demands of the office, he owes it to Pennsylvanians to step down and let Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, select his replacement.
Gail: Now Bret, on a totally different matter: I’ve always appreciated your willingness to go along with my foreign-affairs avoidance. But China has, I guess you could say, floated into domestic territory. Tell me if you have any new balloon thoughts.
Bret: What really gets me about the balloon caper (I am withholding judgment about the three U.F.O.s we shot down over Alaska, Canada and Lake Huron until the little green men send me further instructions) isn’t the threat to national security. The Chinese can surely get most of the surveillance they need from orbiting satellites. It’s the nerve. The Chinese government thought it could get away with it on the eve of Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing. If they are that rude, stupid and cocky, what else do they think they can pull off?
Gail: Kinda wondering if the Xi government just did it to look tough to their own people.
Bret: Well, we probably popped that balloon. My fear is that the Chinese regime, or elements inside it, may be spoiling for war. Have I mentioned that we need to start spending more on defense?
Gail: I’m very, very worried this is a prelude to a Chinese attempt to take Taiwan. While we should do everything we can to keep that from happening, there’s no way I would want to go to war over it.
Bret: I disagree, but you’re speaking for a lot of Americans, including a growing share of Republicans.
Gail: As far as our defense budget goes, I think we could get whatever money is needed by cutting costs someplace else in the Pentagon.
But, just between us, if I rooted for higher military spending would you oppose risking the lives of American troops over Taiwan?
Bret: I’m with President Biden on this one. The defense of Taiwan is a vital American interest, and not just because it’s the superpower of microchips. If Beijing conquers Taiwan it will just whet its appetite for aggression against our other allies, including Japan and the Philippines. So trying to stay out of it will only make our problems larger, not smaller. I also think our commitment to Taiwan’s freedom is akin to President Harry Truman’s stands for West Berlin and South Korea. Those sacrifices in blood and treasure paid long-term dividends for global freedom and American prosperity.
But speaking of long-term threats to the country, Gail, I was shocked but not surprised to read that two-thirds of American fourth-graders are not proficient in reading. What a disaster. Thoughts on fixing?
Gail: Nothing more important to worry about than reading skills. But you don’t want to encourage an obsession over tests. There’s way too much of that already — even preschools are drilling their kids in preparation for kindergarten entrance exams.
Bret: On this point, Gail, we agree. The endless testing is turning kids into nervous wrecks. And clearly it’s not helping them get any better at reading and math.
Gail: Let’s focus on early childhood education — if it’s the right quality, kids will move on to grade school with skills in problem-solving and critical thinking that makes the next level so much easier.
That, of course, would require a lot more money. Jill Biden has made it one of her top crusades, and cheers to the first lady for that.
Bret: I’m pretty sure the United States spends much more per student than most other countries, only to achieve lackluster results. Different suggestion: Let’s adopt phonics more widely for early reading, give up new math for old math, and urge parents to read to and with their children for at least an hour each night.
Gail: Preschool education is one of our biggest fights, so I guess this conversation needs to be continued …
Bret: Before we go, Gail, I hope our readers don’t miss Richard Sandomir’s beautiful obituary for Solomon Perel, a.k.a. Josef Perjell, who died in Israel earlier this month at 97. If you remember the film “Europa, Europa,” you’ll know his story — a Jewish boy who pretended to be an ethnic German to escape being murdered by the Nazis and later got inducted into the Hitler Youth, where he had to hide his Jewishness for the rest of the war. The parting piece of advice he got from his father was, “Always remain a Jew,” while his mother told him, “You must live.”
It seems like contradictory advice, since he had to pretend to be a Nazi in order to survive. But, from a Jewish perspective, the advice was actually the same. From Deuteronomy: “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse — therefore choose life.”
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