Foreign analyst: Pushing Turkey Into Putin’s Arms

Tuesday’s foreign ministers’ meeting on Syria between Turkey, Russia and Iran left Washington’s foreign-policy community “aghast,” writes Josh Rogin in The Washington Post. It was “not only a turning point in the Syrian crisis but also a stunning display of Turkey’s shifting orientation towards Russia and away from America.” And “the assassination of the Russian ambassador in Ankara” actually “accelerated the warming” of relations, “rather than driving a wedge between the two countries, as the assassin perhaps intended.” For years, says Rogin, “Turkey tried to work with the Obama administration on Syria but was rebuffed again and again.” In the long run, “Turkey is better off with the United States and NATO than with Russia and Iran, but it will only accept that if US credibility in the region is restored.”

Campaign historian: The Importance of ‘Being There’

Lou Cannon at Real Clear Politics notes that while Hillary Clinton continues to blame “outside forces” for her defeat, a close look at the three Rust Belt states she lost — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — suggest “a less dramatic reason.” Simply put: “She failed to show up in crucial counties where she might have made a difference.” Fact is, “despite criticisms of her campaigning, Clinton made a difference in many of the places she visited” — like Nevada, where Dems elected a new US senator and flipped both legislative houses. Yet she campaigned heavily in Arizona, a GOP redoubt, but not even once in competitive Wisconsin and “just barely” in Michigan.



Parent: Why I Teach My Son To Believe in Santa

Faith Moore, writing at PJ Media, says she and her husband first argued over Santa Claus: He “felt that telling children that Santa is real is a lie he didn’t want to participate in.” To which she “responded something like, ‘Yeah, but . . . I mean . . . but . . . the, you know, the magic! The magic of Christmas! There has to be Santa Claus!’ and burst into tears.” She won the argument. “Waking up on Christmas morning and running into the living room to see if Santa had come is one of my most vivid, most cherished childhood memories,” she writes. “Because something miraculous had happened. In my own home. Something supernatural, and awe-inspiring, and beautiful.” What Santa taught her is that “there are miracles in the world. There are things beyond our ken. There are wonderful, beautiful, mysteries and possibilities and impossibilities.”

From the right: Dems Lay Trump Impeachment Trap

Donald Trump hasn’t even been sworn in, but “a lot of Democrats and their media allies are already starting to work toward his impeachment,” warns Jonathan Tobin at Commentary. This “conceit . . . rests on the idea that the moment Trump becomes president he will begin violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution,” which prohibits foreign bribery. They argue that “every time any foreign country pays for a room or a reception at the Trump International Hotel in Washington,” it’s “a potential bribe.” Never mind that Trump’s “point that he could be making a lot more money outside of politics than in it makes sense.” Says Tobin: “If Democrats go all in on this attempt to defenestrate him,” it’s “bound to strike” many as “petty partisanship.”

Attorney: War on Christmas Goes Back Decades

The notion, just advanced by The New York Times, that Fox News concocted a phony “war on Christmas” is nonsense, says religious-liberties lawyer Jordan Lorence. Writing at the network’s Web site, he says he’s been litigating this battle since 1985, when a Florida school banned “Silent Night” over a single parent’s objection. And a decade earlier, the ACLU began filing “many lawsuits to stop Christmas observances in public schools, city halls and other government entities.” Indeed, “Fox News did not rile up gullible people to fight a war against Christmas that did not exist.” People responded to protests over “efforts to suppress Christmas because they had experienced it firsthand.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann