Good morning, it’s Friday, May 3, the day of the week when I offer a quotation meant to be inspiring or elucidating. Today’s words of wisdom, inspired by World Press Freedom Day, come from Thomas Jefferson.
First, I’d direct you to RCP’s front page, which contains the latest poll averages, political news and video, and aggregated opinion pieces ranging across the ideological spectrum. We also offer the usual complement of original material from our stable of columnists and contributors. Recent highlights include the following:
GOP Right Flank Challenges Speaker Johnson (And Trump). Phil Wegmann follows the strained relationship between the former president, the Louisiana congressman, and their party’s far-right faction.
RCP on SiriusXM, Thursday edition. Tom Bevan, Andrew Walworth, and RCP senior elections analyst Sean Trende discuss President Biden’s statement today condemning violent campus protests and RFK Jr.’s “No Spoiler Pledge.” They also talk about signals from the White House and Senate that the federal government may start to legalize marijuana.
Columbia Lawlessness Springs From Free-Speech Hypocrisy. Peter Berkowitz writes that current campus tensions are typical of those that democratic societies regularly confront, and though they can never be completely resolved, they can be effectively managed.
Abortion Once Again at Forefront of Election. Salena Zito observes that while many Republican candidates are softening their stance, Democrats are hoping to use concern over reproductive rights to regain political control.
Five Ways Campus Turmoil Hurts Democrats and America. Charles Lipson details the damaging effects of recent protests on the president, his party, and the nation as a whole.
The Wasted Vote Dodge. Greg Orman makes the case for rejecting legacy media notions of spoiler candidates and voting by conscience.
Dear Conservatives, We Don’t Need To Fear Mail-In Ballots. In a guest op-ed, Samuel Underhill submits that in order to compete on an even playing field, the GOP must lean in to the new reality of voting by mail.
Biden Administration Needs a Real Iran Policy. Albert Eisenberg warns that the continued coddling of the hostile Middle East country risks an escalation of instability across the globe.
Milgram in the Modern Day: Psychology of Antisemitism in Higher Ed. Aaron Pomerantz hears concerning echoes of history in the ongoing protests occurring at campuses across the country.
Avoiding Victimhood: A Lesson From Our Jewish Peers. Lexi Boccuzzi calls on her generation to recognize that we can do better as a nation.
Unredactions Reveal White House Role in Trump Documents Case. In RealClearInvestigations, Julie Kelly reports top Biden officials worked with the National Archives at an early stage to develop Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against Donald Trump involving alleged mishandling of classified material.
Every Election Is the Most Consequential in Our Lifetime. Can presidents #45 and 46 agree on anything? At RealClearMarkets, Randolph May says yes.
Medicaid’s Latest Cost-cutting Proposal Could Hurt Black Patients. At RealClearHealth, Kevin Kimble cautions that changing the way the program calculates prescription payments will disproportionately impact sickle cell anemia sufferers.
Nutrition and Crime: Is the “Twinkie Defense” Legitimate? Can anti-social, even criminal behavior really be blamed on junk food? At RealClearScience, Ross Pomeroy takes a look.
Gatsby Loses to Woody Allen. At RealClearBooksandCulture, Todd Buchholz asks: Who’s the cynic and who’s the realist?
As I have noted previously in my 1735 Project, freedom of expression didn’t spring full-blown from the brow of George Mason, James Madison, and the other authors of the U.S. Constitution. It’s more properly understood to be the other way around: The American Experiment was made possible by freedom of the press, which enlightened men on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean began agitating for almost as soon as it became technologically viable to mass publish treatises on civics and politics.
Is it jarring today to read the words of brilliant Virginians who waxed eloquent on the virtues of liberty while enslaving other human beings? Yes, it is. The hypocrisy is stunning, even 250 years later (and struck some people that way at the time). Does it mean everything these men did and wrote should be discarded as though it can teach us nothing? No, of course not.
As president, Thomas Jefferson chafed under the withering criticism of a partisan press, writing on June 11, 1808, to a friend that “nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”
But that complaint was and always will be a rationale for better news coverage, not government censorship. Jefferson understood this perfectly. In an earlier letter to a friend, written on March 24, 1789, the Sage of Monticello wrote, “it [liberty] is the great parent of science & of virtue: and that a nation will be great in both, always in proportion as it is free.”
Three years earlier, Jefferson wrote a letter to a Scotsman physician named James Currie, who he’d known while Dr. Currie lived in Virginia. “Our liberty,” Jefferson wrote, “depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
And that is our quote of the week.
Carl M. Cannon
Washington Bureau chief, RealClearPolitics
@CarlCannon (Twitter)
ccannon@realclearpolitics.com
