From the right: Obama Echo Chamber Lives On

The Atlantic last week published an article by a former National Security Council staffer who said she’d planned to stay on under President Trump but resigned eight days in over his executive order suspending visas for nationals from seven Muslim-majority countries. But Lee Smith at The Weekly Standard says the piece’s “basic premise . . . doesn’t pass the smell test.” Like another staffer who told a similar story in The Washington Post, she worked for top Obama aide Ben Rhodes — where they “helped manage [his] ‘echo chamber’ to market Obama’s policies.” In fact, she “was a political appointee” who “was inevitably going to be replaced by a Trump appointee.” Consider this yet another sign that “large parts of the press have willingly become instruments in a campaign of political warfare.”

Security wonks: Trump Foreign Policy Is Working

Forget the tweets and the tirades, say Michael O’Hanlon and David Gordon at USA Today: President Trump’s “foreign policy is going surprisingly well abroad” and “his national security team is performing much better than it is being given credit for.” Indeed, they say, that team “has already calmed many nerves around the world.” Defense Secretary James Mattis “made the case for strong US-Korea and US-Japan alliances” and promised “there would be no military cooperation between the US and Russia in the near future.” He and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also “clearly reiterated the US commitment to NATO.” But the pundits “seem more concerned about faux pas and political incorrectness than actual national security policies.”

Law professor: In Defense of Kellyanne Conway

Self-proclaimed liberal Democrat Steven Lubet at Slate is no fan of Kellyanne Conway. But he says the disciplinary complaint filed against her with the DC Bar by 15 professors “is dangerously misguided and has the potential to set a terrible precedent.” For one thing, the complaint focuses on two statements — the “Bowling Green massacre” and her contention that Trump’s refugee ban was similar to President Barack Obama’s — “neither of which had any connection to Conway’s law license.” Both were “made in a clearly political context, one in which overstatements are commonplace.” Nor did she make them under oath. So while they may be “irresponsible,” they “are not fraudulent.” And political debate “is protected by the First Amendment.”

Conservative take: Trump Rewrites Media Playbook

Donald Trump “is the first Republican president who responds immediately to biased reporting and doesn’t let a single charge go by unrefuted,” says Steve Feinstein at the American Thinker. As such, his “fearless, effective handling of the liberal media redounds to his benefit in a manner never seen before in Republican politics.” Indeed, “for the first time, conservatives are not shouting at the TV out of frustration, ‘You should have said . . .’ Now, the Trump administration says it.” Plus, Feinstein says, “even casually attentive voters have become aware of liberal media bias.” Bottom line: “Trump has lessened the liberal [media’s] impact to the point where it’s no longer the critical, defining element it once was.”



Health expert: No, ObamaCare Has Not Saved Lives

For all the dire predictions by Sen. Bernie Sanders that “36,000 people will die yearly” if ObamaCare is repealed, Oren Cass at National Review says “the best statistical estimate of the number of lives saved each year” by the program is actually: “zero.” Studies suggesting otherwise focus mainly “on individuals with private coverage.” But ObamaCare “is primarily an expansion of Medicaid,” Cass points out, while “in recent years, the share of Americans with private insurance has declined.” That’s crucial, “because studies of Medicaid do not find the same positive effects on mortality sometimes seen in studies of private insurance.” So “what is the best use of the government’s limited resources, especially when it comes to improving the lives of lower-income Americans?” Says Cass: Not ObamaCare.

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann