Latest news with #TunkuVaradarajan
Wall Street Journal
2 days ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Mamdani's MAGA Playbook
Tunku Varadarajan asks 'Can Anyone Stop Zohran Mamdani?' (Weekend Interview, July 5). Hank Sheinkopf attempts to discredit the assemblyman's progressive platform as hypocritical by referring to him as someone 'who started with everything, continues to have everything, and isn't telling the people who have nothing that they're going to pay a price for everything he wants to give to some.' But if this formula—populist giveaways, vilification of elites and selective appeal to grievance—works so effectively in Republican politics at the national level, why wouldn't it in New York? The setup is the same. The only difference is the color of the jersey. Mr. Mamdani's opponents will need another game plan.
Wall Street Journal
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
What the U.S. Learned From the 12-Day War
In his Weekend Interview with Walter Russell Mead, 'The Strike on Iran Was 'Jacksonian' ' (June 28), Tunku Varadarajan notes that Israel is in many ways America's 'most reliable partner' in global security matters. Mr. Mead refers to the Jewish state as 'a fantastic ally' that spends a greater share of its gross domestic product on defense than does the U.S. In 2021, Ron Dermer, now Israel's minister of strategic affairs, predicted that Jerusalem would become Washington's most important ally. That, he admitted, was a big claim for a country the size of New Jersey. But a hypothetical helped to test it: If the U.S. had to choose only one ally, which would it choose?
Wall Street Journal
30-05-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Watergate-Style Hearings for the Biden Coverup
The massive coverup of Joe Biden's mental decline has stimulated plenty of indignant commentary. Missing from the hand-wringing is a demand for accountability, which brings to mind the quip: 'Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.' This newspaper and recently published books have exposed the trickery and lies of Mr. Biden's minions and Democratic allies, who attempted to wield power in a leaderless vacuum. It was perfectly described in Tunku Varadarajan's review of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson's book, 'Original Sin,' as resembling 'a hush-hush leftist capture of an infirm president.' A White House cadre, with media connivance, hoped to drag their puppet over the electoral line to win four additional years of power, dangerously undermining the institutional integrity of the presidency. Memorial Day has come and gone, and Washington's elite is already enabling the machinery to which the Democratic left turns in the face of scandal—elevating sideshows such as insupportable claims that Republicans are destroying Medicaid or rants regarding President Trump's dispute with Harvard, all to make this latest deceit disappear like April's cherry blossoms.
Wall Street Journal
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Why Catholic Charter Schools Are a Risky Bet
Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn's Weekend Interview with Tunku Varadarajan ('Harvard and the View From Hillsdale,' April 19) gives new life to the eternal truth that government money is never free. While their conversation comes in the context of the Trump administration's battle with Harvard and other higher-education elite, the lesson extends to the idea of religious charter schools that will be argued before the Supreme Court this week ('The Court Should Bless Religious Charters' by Nicole Stelle Garnett, Houses of Worship, April 25). The minute you say 'yes' to government money, you get government's rules and oversight. In the world of charter schools, where state regulators can shut you down, you're looking at potential coercion. For the Catholic Church, that can mean having your license and funding predicated on instruction and policies that contradict your teachings. Think discussions of abortion in health class or gender-specific bathroom policies. The cost of being a Catholic charter school would be the very catholicity that makes a Catholic school different, distinct and important.
Wall Street Journal
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Harvard Can't Embrace the ‘Hillsdale Model'
In 'Harvard and the View From Hillsdale' (Weekend Interview, April 19), Tunku Varadarajan writes that Hillsdale President Larry Arnn 'believes the real problem—a moral crisis, even—was that 'Harvard and Columbia couldn't define a reason to stop' ' protests that disrupted their campuses. Even worse were the affirmative responses, such as that of Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan, where protesters violated multiple university rules to establish a 'Wesleyan Liberated Zone,' defaced sidewalks and buildings and issued demands. Mr. Roth announced he wouldn't clear the encampment even while acknowledging it violated the rules. A week later, he wrote that he had received many notes from alumni, parents and others criticizing his failure to enforce the rules, but that 'context matters' and 'cops don't always give people tickets for going a few miles over the speed limit.' 'I admire that they're not entirely taken up with grades or lining up their credentials,' he wrote of the protesters, before entering into an agreement with them, granting various demands.
