Gail Collins

OK, actually kind of boring. Not, of course, anything like the scene Donald Trump described later, in which it sounded as if Mueller fell weeping to the floor, admitting his whole investigation was a pile of lies.

“The administration, our president, me, we’ve done a great job,” Trump boasted as only he could. The probe into Russian interference in the election and his own attempts at obstruction of justice, he claimed, had “totally folded.”

“Robert Mueller had no material,” Trump said of the former special counsel, who authored a 448-page report on presidential misdeeds.

In the real world, Mueller didn’t say anything unexpected when he was called before two different committees on the same day. He testified once again about Russia’s assault on American democracy and said very clearly that the president was not exonerated on any count.

However, the man is just not good at drama. Think of him as Robert “I’d Refer You to the Report for That” Mueller.

The hearing was a miscalculation on the part of the Democrats, who were a little frustrated that Mueller’s report, although damning for Trump, did not have the kind of juicy language that makes for memorable headlines. His big quote, after all, was: “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so.”

Plus, how many Americans were going to read 448 pages? One clue came when the FBI director admitted he’d just kind of skimmed. A CNN poll found 3% of the country had read the whole thing.

And even at that, how many of that 3% do you think were fibbing?

C) Everybody but vicious political science professors who assigned it as a term paper.

To get the story out, some House Democrats decided to bring Mueller himself before the cameras. Once Americans heard the report’s conclusions in his own words, how could they not get ready to impeach? The most riveting bits would be all over Twitter and Facebook and the evening news. What could go wrong?

The result was the political equivalent of a movie that makes you want to avoid reading the book. Either through all-purpose weariness or determination not to be pushed, Mueller was pretty consistently ... unexciting.

“We decided we would not make a determination as to whether the president committed a crime,” he said, um, determinedly.

The Trump forces seemed to feel the day was a big triumph for their side, which was true only if you’d be encouraged by the news that the world doesn’t think you’re any more wretched today than it did yesterday.

Even the 97% of Americans who don’t claim to have read the report know that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election, and Trump did everything but jump up and lead a cheer with pompoms when WikiLeaks dumped a ton of hacked Clinton emails on the nation.

The president’s defense was somewhere between outrageous and pathetic. He refused to talk with Mueller, even though — as Rep. Eric Swalwell noted — during the time he was rejecting those invitations, he met with Vladimir Putin six times.

The Russian connection more than disturbed Mueller, even though he tried to avoid saying anything news-making about it. The closest he came was when someone mentioned Trump’s WikiLeaks euphoria. “Problematic is an understatement,” he said, in what was the equivalent of a howl of fury.

Mueller had warned that he wasn’t going to say anything that wasn’t in the report, and you can’t claim the man didn’t try to keep his word.

“I defer to you on that. I can’t get into the details.”

“I am not going to answer that question, sir.”

“If that’s what was written in the report, yes.”

Congressional hearings can be worthy and boring at the same time. Honestly, if you want to complain about something, there are lots of better targets. Tax cuts for the wealthy. Overpopulated Democratic debates. Bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk. “The Secret Life of Pets 2.”

And even if Mueller had been way, way more forthcoming, it’s unlikely it would have given the impeachment crowd much help. The nation is so divided on the subject of Trump that it’s almost impossible to imagine anything would get him kicked out of office.

If he got caught standing with a knife and a pile of murdered puppies, he’d claim that he had actually protected innocent children from a pack of small fuzzy sharks. And around a third of the country would shrug, while Senate Republicans muttered something about danger at the beaches.

Looks like the Democrats are just going to have to run a strong presidential campaign about how to make the country better. If they do that, Trump will not be in the White House in 2021. At which time, we can let the collusion and conspiracy indictments roll.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/opinion/mueller-testimony-reactions.html" id="243fa534-a249-388f-a70c-4a9e102f6f89">The New York Times</a>.

When it comes to tamping down excitement, Robert Mueller is a genius. He soldiered on through two much-anticipated House committee hearings, full of politicians eager to make a splash. The result was ... muted.

How to Take Down Trump

Really. Just Google “I love Joe Biden.” Go past the T-shirts and memorial coffee cups and you’ll see a ton of stuff.

“I love Joe Biden. He’s a great guy and a great politician,” said Jerry Shriner, a Democratic National Committee member from Idaho, when the question of a Biden return came up. “I wish he were the president right now. But I’m not sure I wish he is president in 2021.”

“I love Joe Biden. I really do,” said Tom Courtney, a Democratic leader in Iowa. “But there comes a moment when it’s time to not run.”

In the past, whenever Biden has tried to run for president, things didn’t go well. In part it’s been because of his tendency to sound ... goofy. In 2007, he described one of his opponents, Barack Obama, as the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

He didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but he still finished fifth in the Iowa caucuses. He dropped out and became vice president. When asked about Biden as a possible successor, Obama just said, “I love Joe Biden.”

Now, Biden seems ready to give it one more shot. He hasn’t announced yet, but he’s ahead in the polls. And thrashing around in the controversy over his long-standing habit of affectionately putting his hands all over women he meets.

“Social norms are changing,” said the former vice president via Twitter. It was not quite an apology. More like: “OK, OK. I’ll do it another way.”

Well, remember that old movie line about how love means never having to say you’re sorry?

On Wednesday, Biden sent out a video promising the world he’d be “more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space.” It was a pretty good presentation. He managed to look fairly normal, all things considered. When you’ve spent a week being savaged for old-uncle-creepiness, it’s easy to get a little self-conscious.

“I worked my whole life to empower women,” he told the camera “ ... so the idea that I can’t adjust to the fact that personal space is important, more important than it’s ever been, is just not thinkable. I will. I will.”

Two problems here. One is that Biden is acting as though the whole don’t-touch business is a brand-new product of the #MeToo movement. That a person in his position could have accidentally missed the message until recently.

Let’s go back to 2006. At a G-8 summit in Russia, President George W. Bush came up behind German leader Angela Merkel and inflicted a quick back rub. Merkel appeared ... grossed out. The picture went around the world. Comedians had a field day. Hard to believe a powerful U.S. senator with an expertise in foreign affairs could have missed the story.

A few months earlier, New Mexico Lt. Gov. Diane Denish had told a reporter she tried to avoid being around the governor, Bill Richardson, because “He pokes me. He pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg.” Like Biden, Richardson was a Democratic presidential hopeful.

People were talking about it a lot. “Have our leaders gone mad?” demanded a Times writer, who traced the new touchy-feely trend to political consultants like Republican Frank Luntz, who were trying to create more human interaction between their clients and the public.

Luntz was indeed encouraging his clients to go beyond the traditional handshake when it came to making contact. These days, he’s still consulting, but he’s pretty clear that times have changed. “What used to be seen as a demonstration of endearment is now seen as invasion of space,” he said in a phone interview. Nevertheless, he loves Joe Biden. (“One of the warmest people I’ve ever met.”)

Second problem with Biden’s video pitch. He has indeed worked to empower women — he was an author of the Violence Against Women Act. But he also has that really nasty history on the Anita Hill matter. Hill had the courage to show up and testify before the world about Clarence Thomas’ lecherous behavior as a boss. This was in 1991, when no one ever talked about that stuff in public. And Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, did nothing but ask her embarrassing questions. (“Were you uncomfortable, were you embarrassed, did it not concern you?”)

He’s been trying to make amends, without really taking responsibility. (“I am so sorry if she believes that ... I am so sorry that she had to go through what she went through.”)

Maybe that’s why he made a particular point of lacing into Donald Trump’s history of grabbing women’s private parts. Last year Biden told some college students that if only he and Trump were in high school together, “I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”

At the time, I wrote a column about the inadvisability of advocating an assault on the president, even in the past tense. And the next day Biden called up to say thanks “for showing me what a jerk I was.”

See, this is the reason people keep saying they love Joe Biden. Right before they say they hope he doesn’t run for president.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/opinion/joe-biden.html" id="25e03294-cc0e-3518-adea-ad39fa0174cb">The New York Times</a>.

One of the great political themes of the Democratic presidential campaign is how much everybody loves Joe Biden.

The Biden Sort-Of Lovefest

And now she’s getting a statue next to Grand Central Station. About time.

We’re coming to the end of Women’s History Month, and all in all, it’s been a pretty good celebration. Perhaps a little superior to the one when Donald Trump dropped in on a women’s empowerment panel and asked the assembled high achievers whether any of them had ever heard of Susan B. Anthony.

So about Elizabeth Jennings, a Manhattan schoolteacher in the years before the Civil War. She was rushing to church services, where she was supposed to play the organ, when a trolley conductor told her that his car was only for white people and she’d have to get off and wait for another ride.

Jennings was fearless. She grabbed onto an open window frame, screaming “Murder!” when the conductor tried to pull her off. She hung on for dear life until a police officer shoved her onto the sidewalk, soiling her going-to-church dress and smashing her bonnet.

Her family hired a young lawyer, Chester Alan Arthur, to file suit against the streetcar company for discrimination. Jennings won 100 years before Rosa Parks. And several follow-up suits later, segregation in New York mass transit came to an end.

Arthur, a machine politician of no remarkable talent, later became president of the United States. Jennings was forgotten.

For years I’d spend Women’s History Month muttering that there ought to be a statue of her at Grand Central Station. Now it’s happening! New York is trying to do something about its wildly man-centric population of public monuments, and City Hall has commissioned five female statues, one for each borough.

Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to serve in Congress, will be greeting visitors to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Queens gets singer Billie Holiday and the Bronx gets Dr. Helen Rodríguez Trías, a pioneer in treating families affected by HIV.

Staten Island gets Katherine Walker. She was a tiny widow who ran a lighthouse outside the New York harbor in the early 1900s until she was 73. When the waters got bad and boats started to sink, she rowed to the rescue, saving at least 50 lives over the years.

See? This is the sort of thing you learn when you get to see monuments that don’t involve generals on horseback. There needs to be a statute of limitations on statues of guys in stirrups.

The nation’s nonmilitary statue population is very heavy into politicians. For instance, down on Madison Square there’s a tribute to Roscoe Conkling, a 19th-century boss who gave Chester Alan Arthur his big career break running the deeply corrupt port of New York.

Meanwhile we’re still working on Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Could be worse. Georgia’s legislature has been busy voting to make it virtually impossible to remove any existing statue from a public place. It’s intended to protect statues of generals who are on horses and wearing Confederate uniforms.

On the plus side, Tennessee is working on a Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail, which celebrates its role as the critical 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment. That was a very dramatic moment. The House was one vote short of passage. Then 24-year-old Harry Burn — who had always been seen as a “no” — switched sides at the final second.

He later said he had gotten a letter from his mother urging him to change his mind and “I know that a mother’s advice is always safest for her boy to follow.”

Now there’s a new statue of Burn in Knoxville. He’s sitting down while his mother, Febb, stands behind him with a hand on his shoulder. She’s probably saying, “Harry, shape up.”

Besides all the famous heroines we need to honor, it’d be nice to see tributes to some of the more obscure yet exciting figures. I’ve always yearned for a monument to the Woman Who Burned Down Manhattan.

In 1776, the British troops were hot on the trail of George Washington, hoping for a quick end to the Colonial rebellion, when their path was blocked by a sudden blaze that broke out in Manhattan. Back in England, a frustrated Edmund Burke told the House of Commons it was all the fault of “one miserable woman” who had been found in a cellar, covered with soot and proudly declaring that she was the one who did the deed.

She was apparently executed for her heroics. Never did get her name. Historian Linda Kerber, who first brought Burke’s remarks to attention, says she hasn’t been able to find any details.

Kerber, however, had another nominee on the Revolutionary War front — Deborah Sampson of Massachusetts, who disguised herself as a man so she could fight the British.

Sampson was a scout and a fierce fighter. To stay in combat and keep her secret, she dug a pellet out of her leg when she was wounded rather than let a doctor check her out.

There’s a statue of Sampson in Massachusetts, but nothing really spectacular. If only she’d had a really impressive horse.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/opinion/women-statues.html" id="687da3f5-fbae-31a0-a3b6-75dc932b215e">The New York Times</a>.

It is possible that you didn’t know a 24-year-old black woman started the integration of the New York City mass transit system in 1854. It’s a very good story that involves some kicking and screaming, a ruined hat and a future president of the United States.

Where the Girls Aren't

The most critical, of course, is how he pronounces his name. So, BET-oh. We’ve heard a lot of Bay-tos out there, but do it his way. Also, one more time: Comma-lah Harris and Pete Boot-edge-edge.

O’Rourke is different from the dozen or so people who announced before him mainly in the way he’s been treated like a Second Coming. The nation waited while he wandered around the countryside, waiting to hear a special call. When it came and he made the inevitable announcement, he got a cover profile in Vanity Fair, in which he confided, “I’m just born to do this.” Oprah has done everything but turn over her fortune to him.

Do you think he’s special? O’Rourke’s face, when he’s at rest and not acting kind of goofy, does look a little like Bobby Kennedy. Sure, you can say Bobby Kennedy would never have sent out a video of himself getting his teeth cleaned. But how do you really know? Bobby Kennedy never had Instagram.

On Thursday, O’Rourke sent out another video — the big one, where he’s sitting with his wife, and announcing: “Amy and I are happy to share with you that I’m running to serve you as the next president of the United States of America.”

People noted that Amy didn’t say anything — just sat there smiling and, as Astead Herndon noted in The Times, “periodically grasping his hand.”

This last part is possibly not as strange as it sounds, since O’Rourke does have a tendency to throw his arms around when he talks. You didn’t want to see the poor woman get knocked off the couch.

Then it was off to Keokuk, Iowa, to introduce himself to the First State to Vote. He told everybody that Amy was staying home with the kids. They have three — Ulysses, 12, Molly, 10 and Henry, 8. Ulysses got his name because his dad really loves the “Odyssey.”

So, although we still have a ton to learn about O’Rourke, including his specific plans for health care and tackling global warming, we already know that he has a son named after the hero of an epic poem by Homer.

“I want to show up everywhere for everyone,” he told the Iowans. When O’Rourke ran for the Senate in Texas he made news by visiting all 254 counties, often just driving himself. There are 99 counties in Iowa, and some ambitious candidates have been known to hit every single one. Let’s see how it goes. Just warning him that there are 3,142 counties in the United States and expectations may rise.

Why do you think he’s getting so much attention? Certainly none of the announced women candidates are creating this much stir. Elizabeth Warren has been shoving out policy positions. Kamala Harris has been campaigning like crazy. Warren, Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar are all acting senators. O’Rourke is a former member of the House of Representatives who lost a race to Ted Cruz, one of the least appealing human beings on the face of the Earth.

But there’s just something about Beto that makes him stand apart. Hate to think it’s being a cute white guy who can skateboard.

O’Rourke’s visit to Keokuk was his first time ever in the state, where candidates are expected to show up at lots and lots of town halls to talk with the voters, many of whom have been in this business way, way longer than any of the politicians they’re vetting.

First came a woman who wanted to know what he’d do about the high cost of prescription drugs.

“So, really great question,” O’Rourke responded. The rest of the answer was basically that we needed “guaranteed high quality health care” for everyone. And that however that worked out it would be super-expensive, but still worth it.

Another voter wanted to know why teachers “have to take money out of their own pockets to buy supplies.” This is an issue that always comes up a lot, in part because there are no more diligent voters than teachers, and you hardly ever see a town hall meeting that doesn’t have a lot of them in the audience. They keep participating, but they’re still buying the supplies with their own money.

“Yes, it’s a great question,” O’Rourke said. He called for better wages for everybody who worked at schools, and an effort to “hold one another accountable.”

We still have so much to learn — when people run for president a lot of interesting factoids pop up and we’re excited to hear more about O’Rourke’s teenage years online with the Cult of the Dead Cow. On a more elevated policy level, so far we know that he’s running as a centrist who is filled with passion to end climate change and make Americans’ lives better. Details still to come.

But Iowans won’t kick off the primary season for 46 weeks. By then, O’Rourke could easily issue explicit position papers on everything from health care to tax reform to seafood importation.

Or, you know, he could drive to every county.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/opinion/beto-orourke-2020.html" id="afc1ee9b-9f9e-392b-a3c6-b09347f45533">The New York Times</a>.

Beto O’Rourke went to Iowa to start running for president. I know you have a lot of important questions.

What Do You Think About Beto?

All right — it’s a little depressing that it can’t be world peace or affordable health care. But let’s take what we can get. If our elected officials could join hands and lead us into a world where phones are no longer an instrument of torture, maybe it’d give them enough confidence to march forward and, um, fund some bridge repair.

Everybody has always hated telemarketers, particularly the ones trying to sell some shady product. And now the miracles of technology let them follow you around all day. When I’m home, I feel as if I spend half my time blocking robocalls on our landline. Yet somehow a different number always pops up, with great news about opportunities to reinsure my nonexistent car at low prices or acquire a cost-free knee brace.

The knee brace thing is a scam to get money out of Medicare, but in order to figure that out you’d have to engage in conversation. People, do not ever talk on the phone with a stranger wielding free knee braces. This can be a life rule.

Things are at least as bad on mobile phones, which were the lucky recipients of 48 billion robocalls in the United States alone last year.

Congress has been trying to control the problem at least since 1991, when it passed the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Remember 1991? “Dances With Wolves” won the Oscar for best picture. The Dow closed the year at 3,168. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s been a while.

At the time the big problem was mainly telemarketers — actual people who dialed your actual number and tried to talk you into buying something. Under the TCPA you could put your name on a national “do not call” list. Some observers did worry about the part of the plan that required the list be maintained by the telemarketers themselves.

Whoops. In 2003 Congress gave the job to the Federal Trade Commission. Then-President George W. Bush signed the bill into law, rejoicing that from then on, when parents were reading to their children at night, they’d no longer be interrupted by “a stranger with a sales pitch.”

Then robocalls really took over the world, and one person on the other side of the planet could push a few buttons and disrupt “Goodnight Moon” from coast to coast.

The FTC kept saying it could take care of the problem. (“ ... you can count on us ... ”) Then the Federal Communications Commission created the Robocall Strike Force in 2016. Great name! Mediocre results.

So here we are, tortured phone owners one and all. Perhaps, like me, you’ve accidentally blocked some of your friends without successfully getting rid of the woman with the free knee brace. Perhaps you were like Dr. Gary Pess, a hand surgeon who told The New York Times’ Tara Siegel Bernard that he stopped answering any calls when he didn’t recognize the number and then discovered one of them was about a person with a severed thumb.

But good news! We’re getting some action. I know “Congress is working on a bill” is not as encouraging as, say, “Let me pour you a drink and change the subject.” But still.

In the House, Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., has a proposal called Stopping Bad Robocalls, which certainly gets to the point. Pallone is the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce and it’s fair to say he has a healthy chance of getting something done.

Things are more problematic in the Senate, which, as you may have noticed, is barely capable of getting its act together long enough to salute the flag. However, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. — the man who helped give us that Telephone Consumer Protection Act in 1991 — has teamed up with Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., to sponsor a bipartisan plan. It’s called the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act, which I certainly hope you noticed spells out Traced. (Or, OK, Traceda, if you wanted to be really technical.)

The bill, Markey says, is “a perfect example” of lawmakers from opposite sides of the aisle getting together and “agreeing we don’t want our wireless devices in our pocket to be called by total strangers 10, 15 times a day.”

Pretty low bar, yes? Perhaps someday we will see a liberal from California and a conservative from Arkansas get together to fight against people who throw beer bottles out of their car window when they’re in the passing lane on the highway.

But let’s not be cynical. Markey says, “If this bill can’t pass then no bill can pass,” and he’s probably right. You need to root him on, given that the other option is falling back in your chair and moaning, “No bill can pass.” Come on.

The idea is to make telephone companies try much harder to identify and block slimy robocalls. And to bring enforcement groups together to find new ways to prosecute the scammers. I know it doesn’t sound all that dramatic, but if you want people to stop calling you every day with offers to repay your student loans, it’s a better strategy than repeatedly screaming “I graduated in 1980!” into the phone.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/opinion/robocall-scams.html" id="5b017af6-b0ab-39cb-a0f6-427ea2dda571">The New York Times</a>.

Congress may have found an issue that all Americans can rally around.

Let's Destroy Robocalls

You may have heard of the first one, which we’ll call Green for short. It’s a 15-point proposed House resolution with no force of law, but the Republicans have been sniping at it as if it’s a blueprint for the elimination of everything from sidewalks to free speech.

“The Democrats’ ‘Green New Deal’ brings to mind an insight from Churchill: Socialism may begin with the best of intentions, but it always ends with the Gestapo,” tweeted Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas. As only he could.

Mitch McConnell, who generally doesn’t like to let the Senate consider Democratic ideas more substantive than post-office-naming, gleefully announced he was going to schedule a vote on the whole Green package.

Democrats from conservative states, or coal-mining states, or just neurotic states, softly moaned.

Green is super idealistic. It calls for “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” by 2030, which is totally commendable. And you’d think more than enough ambition for one resolution.

But the sponsors — Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and the increasingly famous Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Queens — added, among other things, the creation of “economic security for all people of the United States” and “repairing historic oppression” of 12 different groups, ranging from “indigenous peoples” to women to “depopulated rural communities.”

All good thoughts, but maybe too much of an agenda for one press release. Ocasio-Cortez is one of the most talented tweeters in Congress. You’d think she’d know we live in a world that has trouble focusing on more than 280 characters.

How about just one really important climate-control thought? How about windmills? If the country really threw itself into wind power, we could, er, breeze toward our goals on that alone. Wind turbines are clean, and they work well in places like the Plains states that are flat and in need of economic development. And you can put them way out in the water and still get all the energy you need. “So far offshore you wouldn’t be able to see them from Mar-a-Lago,” said Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group.

Actually, we don’t care about Mar-a-Lago. One of the other nice things about wind power is that Scotland put a turbine across from one of Donald Trump’s golf courses, and he’s hated the idea ever since. Although his real problem is that wind can replace coal, which is one of our president’s favorite things in the entire world. “A tremendous form of energy in the sense that in a military way — think of it — coal is indestructible,” he babbled last year as he announced an end to President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

Go wind! Ocasio-Cortez — who once headlined a clean energy sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office — could certainly lead a march of several hundred little kids carrying windmills and chanting: “Blow away climate change!”

And, of course, we’d want to throw in solar power. Very efficient, very clean, and Donald Trump hates that, too.

Much more of a conversation-starter than the Green New Deal, which is great but way more complicated. For instance, it calls for more investment in high-speed rail just when the governor of California is basically throwing in the towel on the dream of a high-speed rail service from San Francisco to Los Angeles. (“There simply isn’t a path. ... I wish there were.”)

Green also included a gabby, rather unfortunate memo that explained that the goal of zero greenhouse-gas emissions in 10 years had to be tweaked because “we aren’t sure that we will be able to fully get rid of, for example, emissions from cows or air travel before then.”

The memo — which seemed to have been accidentally released — was taken down, but Republicans demanded that it be discussed in endless detail. Cotton claimed that the media, by failing to continue obsessing over it, was “complicit in the Stalin-like or 1984 technique of disappearing it, sending it down the memory hole.” (Truly, there is almost nothing he doesn’t like that won’t get compared to Stalin or Nazism. At the very beginning of his maiden Senate speech, Cotton claimed limits in defense spending reminded him of how “Adolf Hitler had taken power in Germany.”)

Trump loved the cows and planes angle. He told a rally in Texas that the Democrats wanted to “shut down a little thing called air travel!” This was at the same gathering when he wandered off on a rant about how German shepherds were better at sniffing out drugs than any technology. Calmer heads might have then proposed that we simply line the Mexican border with German shepherds, but instead the president just told the audience that he loved dogs and wished he could have one.

We are mentioning this in order to point out that Donald Trump does not love dogs, has never had a dog, and in fact has apparently never had any pet, even a goldfish, his entire life.

If the Democrats were as good as Republicans at making a huge issue out of something totally off the point, they would be spending the rest of the week discussing the president’s dislike of his first wife’s poodle.

But we can talk about wind power instead. It’s lean, it’s practical, and extremely tweetable.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/opinion/ocasio-green-new-deal.html" id="815d1658-5ea0-3eaf-a292-c7b47ccc0208">The New York Times</a>.

Your challenge for today is to build your own Green New Deal.

The Answer Is Blowin' in the Wind

I know, I know. You’ve had a lot to keep track of, what with everything from the meltdown in Virginia to Jeff Bezos’ selfies.

But about the hearing. Testimony centered on a bill that would make it harder for people to buy guns without thorough background checks. Supporters pointed out that right now it’s ridiculously easy to get lethal weapons from an unlicensed seller who is not going to check to see if said purchaser might have a record of violence, stalking or involuntary commitment for mental illness.

Opponents hugged the Second Amendment and argued that the real reason we have so many deaths by gunfire is ... Well, guess:

Yes! Are we living in the age of Trump or what?

“I hope we do not forget the pain and anguish and sense of loss felt by those all over the country who have been the victims of violence at the hands of illegal aliens,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who read a short list of people who had been shot by unauthorized immigrants. Better background checks, he contended, “would not have stopped many of the circumstances I raised, but a wall, a barrier on the southern border may have, and that’s what we’re fighting for.”

Is there anything that the wall wouldn’t solve? Nearly 40,000 Americans died in gun violence in 2017, the last year for which we have records. But if only there’d been a huge concrete slab dividing us from Mexico, they’d be fine.

There are a lot of lawmakers prepared to say almost anything, no matter how nutty, in their role as worker bees for the National Rifle Association. But it was sort of surprising that the lead ranter was from Florida.

Next week we’ll be recalling the anniversary of the Parkland high school shootings in which one student with a gun took the lives of 17 people. We just passed the second anniversary of the fatal shooting of five people in the baggage claim area of the Fort Lauderdale airport. Which came six months after 49 people were shot to death at a nightclub in Orlando. And it was just a couple of weeks ago that a young man walked into a bank in Sebring, pulled out a pistol, forced five women to lay on the ground and shot each one in the back of the head.

All in Congressman Gaetz’s state. All the gunmen were native-born Americans. Perhaps Gaetz feels the border situation was sending dangerous vibes across the Gulf of Mexico and spurring them on.

Americans are very, very strongly in favor of good background checks, and it does seem likely this bill will pass the newly Democratic House. Beyond minor technical fixes, that’ll be the first time either chamber has done anything about the issue of gun violence in years.

Oh, wait. In 2017 the House and Senate got together and revoked an Obama-era regulation that had made it harder for mentally ill people to purchase a gun.

It’s highly unlikely the background check bill will make it into law. “Color me unclear as to how we get Mitch McConnell to bring it up in the Senate,” said Chris Murphy of Connecticut, one of the Senate sponsors.

Sigh. All you can do is keep on trying. It may not make the laws any better, but at least it’ll remind the public that some people in power are worried.

We have terrible gun problems in this country not just because firearms are all over the place, but also because of the careless, stupid attitude so many people have toward them.

Partly, I blame Congress. (Hey, it’s better than blaming a shortage of steel slat barriers.) Murphy believes the endless rejection of any gun legislation looks like a kind of “moral green light” to potential killers: “I truly believe these young men who have something very dark happening in their minds watch our silence and interpret it as an endorsement.”

It certainly helps perpetuate the attitude that guns are a casual part of everyday life, like your wallet or socks — something you wear when you go out to buy a loaf of bread, leave laying around the house and treat in general with less care and discretion than a light bulb.

Last year safety inspectors at American airports found 4,239 firearms in passengers’ carry-on bags — almost all of them loaded and a third with a bullet in the chamber. While a few of those people may have been plotting a crime, it’s pretty clear the vast majority were just incredibly careless with lethal weapons.

This is the kind of thinking that gives us endless mayhem involving violent, semi-deranged young men who just grab one of the family guns and mow down five people in a bar. Toddlers who shoot themselves when they stumble across a gun that Dad or Granddad left sitting on the bed. Or find a rifle in the back seat of the car and accidentally kill Mom while she’s pulling into the preschool parking lot.

We hear stories like that every day. Obviously, it’s all because of those caravans of immigrants coming to the border.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/08/opinion/guns.html" id="99bbd691-b45f-32a5-a92a-97c833b222f6">The New York Times</a>.

Perhaps you missed it, but this week the House of Representatives held its first hearing on gun violence in eight years.

Surprise! It's Not Guns, It's the ...

When you throw in the Democrats who say they’re “thinking,” we’re way past two dozen. You’re a concerned citizen — when you go to parties, people are going to ask you whom you like for the nomination. How are you supposed to maintain your credibility?

First, Kamala is pronounced Comma-la.

Second, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is only 29. She cannot be a candidate in 2020. If somebody brings her up, you can make this point clearly but gently, and everyone who’s listening will nod wisely. You’re on your way!

The primary voting doesn’t start until February of 2020, but there’s already a lot going on. People in Iowa have met a bunch of candidates. There’s a certain sense of empowerment that comes with living in the first state, and Iowans will not really respect anybody who hasn’t shown up in their town to shake hands. Or possibly have dinner at their homes.

John Delaney, a former congressman turned presidential candidate, pretty much moved to Iowa in July 2017, and he’s been campaigning there ever since. To be fair, he’s also spent a lot of time in New Hampshire, where The Telegraph of Nashua has already touted him as “somewhat impressive.” The rest of us are not responsible for knowing anything about John Delaney at this point.

When the presidential parade comes up, the smart approach is to start talking about the issues — health care, taxes, immigration, climate change, corruption — and then sagely say that you’re waiting until the candidates are done changing their minds before you pick a favorite.

Or terrify everyone by posing a profound question. If someone asks you about New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, you can just respond: “Do you think he’s too close to the pharmaceutical companies?” In the remote event that there’s a person in the room who has an answer, you will have a chance to nod thoughtfully.

Or try a diverting factoid. If a friend asks you if Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is too centrist, say something like, “Well, anybody who got $17,000 in campaign contributions from her ex-boyfriends can’t be all bad.”

Meanwhile, of course, you’ll be studying up. You don’t have to research 20-plus politicians. Begin by eliminating anybody who’s trying to run for president without having been elected to anything else first, whether it’s “spiritual guru” Marianne Williamson or tech executive Andrew Yang. I’d also throw in former Attorney General Eric (“I’m considering”) Holder. Virtually every president has either been a general in the military or served in some previous elective office. The exceptions were Donald Trump and Herbert Hoover. Enough said.

If you’re feeling energetic, try starting a conversation about whether governors would be better candidates than senators. Then you could point out that John Hickenlooper of Colorado started a very successful brewpub business, which is just as impressive as Howard Schultz and his 30,000 or so coffee shops.

Everybody’s so angry at Schultz they won’t even argue with you.

How about a question we can all relate to, like age? A couple of the younger candidates have been talking about what South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg calls “intergenerational justice.” This would be an elevated version of the millennials’ complaint that the baby boom generation gobbled up all the ... stuff.

The baby boom generation, which is now 55 to 73, has pretty much been the center of attention forever. There are at least seven members currently in the presidential-speculation swarm, including Sens. Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. Kamala Harris is actually a borderline boomer.

Plus there are several big names who are too old to make the cut — Joe Biden, 76, Michael Bloomberg, 76, and Bernie Sanders, 77. We live in a nation where people can now have very full and productive lives long past the point when our predecessors were staggering toward retirement. However, it is absolutely fair to have a discussion about whether you’d worry about electing as president somebody who’d be 80 before the term was up.

See, this is the kind of stuff you can debate right away, while you’re still working on deciphering everybody’s position on “Medicare for all.”

And wait! What about Generation X? Those are the folks in their 40s and early 50s, and they’re always getting ignored because boomers are taking up all the space while the millennials jump up and down and whine outside the door.

Three Gen-Xers have already announced — see, they’re ready for their moment. That would be former housing secretary Julián Castro of Texas, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Booker.

Plus a bunch of maybes, including Beto O’Rourke of Texas, whose great fame comes from losing a Senate race to Ted Cruz. Since then, he’s sort of gone for a walk to think about things. I would suggest you refrain from worrying about him until he comes back.

Although you should definitely check out the Instagram where O’Rourke discusses immigration with his dental hygienist while having his teeth cleaned. Campaign of the future or TMI? Talk among yourselves.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/opinion/democratic-primary-guide.html" id="f6a8032c-b022-355b-afee-4d659ec2939b">The New York Times</a>.

Cory Booker is running for president. That makes nine announced candidates for the Democratic primary, and if you add everyone The New York Times lists from “likely” to “might,” you’re up to 22.

How to Talk Presidential

Or maybe the fact that Giuliani works for free is more attractive than the fact that he does a dreadful job.

Or maybe it’s just that he is the one person who makes Trump look good.

Sure, both of them contradict themselves every five minutes. But Trump never tries to argue that he can’t be wrong because he’s such a great lawyer.

Both men have been married three times, with a messy history when it comes to adultery, but Trump seems to have calmed down with age. Giuliani is 74, and he’s involved in divorce proceedings with his last wife, Judith Nathan, who claims very vigorously that he’s been running around.

“For a variety of reasons that I know as a spouse and a nurse, he has become a different man,” Nathan told New York magazine.

People wondered whether the “nurse” thing was a reference to the fact that Rudy likes to drink. He also smokes — Nathan claimed that her almost-ex had spent about $12,000 over five months in cigars alone.

Trump doesn’t use alcohol or tobacco. See, he’s looking better. Sort of.

Other presidents who’ve gotten in trouble have hired private lawyers, but has there ever been anything quite like this? On Sunday, Giuliani quoted his own client as saying that discussions with the Russians over a Trump Moscow hotel were “going on from the day I announced to the day I won.” Take it easy, Mueller investigators. Rudy seems to be doing your job for you.

Then — retraction time! On Monday, Giuliani said everything he told reporters on Sunday was “hypothetical.” And anyway, nothing matters as long as you can’t be convicted for it. (“My client didn’t do it, and even if he did it, it’s not a crime.”) The man is certainly a master of the low bar. “Paying $130,000 to Stormy whatever and paying $130,000 to the other one is not a crime,” he said during Trump’s shut-up-the-squeezes period.

We pause here to briefly note that the Stormy Daniels payoff was delivered by Trump attorney Michael Cohen. Does this president have great taste in lawyers or what?

Watch Giuliani on TV and you see a man being devoured by egomania. Lawyers are supposed to serve as a screen between their clients and the outside world. If said client is being accused of a crime, their mission is to make the whole matter sound as boring as humanly possible.

It’s no problem for us that Trump picked an attorney who’s so wildly hungry for attention that he can’t follow the rules. Really, it’s great that we’re getting to hear so much unfiltered information. The depressing part is that this is just one more piece of evidence that Donald Trump surrounds himself with people who have both terrible judgment and terrible aptitude for the jobs they’re supposed to be doing.

Whatever shred of credibility Giuliani still retains is connected to his role as mayor on Sept. 11, when the whole world saw him walking through the dust of the World Trade Center collapse. He needed to get uptown since the city’s emergency management center had been destroyed by the blast. That’s because Giuliani had it located in the WTC — a place that had been targeted for bombing by terrorists in the past — despite vigorous objections from his security advisers. He just sort of wanted it close to City Hall.

Later, the mayor would take dignitaries to the disaster site, sometimes shielded from the deadly asbestos floating through the air by a face mask. And, it appeared, totally ignoring the fact that most of the workmen had no protection whatsoever.

Giuliani had already begun to evolve from competent city official to hapless big-time political candidate before the bombing occurred. He tried to run for Senate against Hillary Clinton in what was undoubtedly one of the most disaster-ridden campaigns in history. That was the time he held a news conference to announce he was leaving his wife, without mentioning the matter to the spouse in question.

His unharnessed libido has been part of his story ever since. Last summer, after Giuliani bragged to a reporter about his new girlfriend, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was forced to declare that she was “not today or tomorrow or at any point ever going to comment on Rudy Giuliani’s love life.”

And the beat goes on. During his parade of super-strange comments over the last week, he volunteered that he’s afraid “it will be on my gravestone: ‘Rudy Giuliani: He lied for Trump.'”

“Somehow I don’t think that will be it,” he added. “But if it is, so what do I care? I’ll be dead.”

There are a lot of theories about why Rudy Giuliani is still Donald Trump’s lawyer. Maybe his crazed, contradictory rantings are a canny plot to confuse the public about what’s actually going on with the president’s Russia-connection scandal.

Gail Collins

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