Good morning. Or good afternoon if you are a Red Sox fan who was up late celebrating. Iâm Walter Shapiro, and Iâm pinch-hitting today in The New Republicâs lead-off slot.Â
Coming off a three-day weekend, there is no dominant story in the news today as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have all gone in different artistic directions with their online front pages. What we get in the lead position are what seem like long-planned trend stories about Chinese real estate (the Times), climate change (the Post), and the post-pandemic return to offices (the Journal).
To my mind, the biggest story today is something that hasnât happened: any discernible progress by the Democrats toward passing either infrastructure or the Biden spending package. Nancy Pelosi did release a letter urging House Democrats to focus on doing âfewer things wellâ as the spending number gets whittled down from $3.5 trillion. But Senate Democrats still havenât come close to agreeing on a number, and House Democrats havenât clarified their priorities. Dilatory Democrats should remember that when the Senate was evenly divided under Dwight Eisenhower, from 1953 to 1955, nine senators died and one retired with control of the upper chamber changing each time. The clock is ticking.
This morning at NewRepublic.com, Alex Shephard grapples with an important topicâthe meh feeling among voters about the reconciliation package. His smart key point, which is directly related to the delay on Capitol Hill: âAs Democrats continue to bicker over its contents, significantly more attention is being paid to its top-line number than to its actual components.â Annie Geng adroitly reminds social liberals that national legislationâand not the vagaries of the courtsâhas always been the best way to guarantee the right to an abortion. And in a glorious review of John le Carréâs final novel, Silverview, Jake Bittle points out the underlying theme of the spymasterâs nearly two dozen novels: âThe condition of being watched, observed, overheard, eavesdropped upon, monitored, followed, pursued, huntedâthis is the essential condition of the novels of John le Carré.â
Happy trails to you until we meet again,
Walter Shapiro
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