I often visit the website of the National Review, to find out what “responsible conservatives” are thinking, one of the most responsible (usually) being Ramesh Ponnuru, though Ramesh, I’m sad to report, while once a fairly stout Never-Trumper, has been sliding slowly into the slough of hemi-demi-semi Never-Trumpism, where, like misery, he enjoys company. NR…
Tag: Ramesh Ponnuru
Ramesh Ponnuru explains some of it—but only some of it—for you
Over at Bloomberg, Ramesh Ponnuru, sometime truth-teller on the Republican1 side of the aisle, comes up a little short with his take on the Republican tax “reform” package, headed “Tax Reform’s Losers Can Afford the Loss”. Ponnuru praises the bill because it “caps the tax deduction for mortgage interest at a loan value of $500,000,…
Ramesh Ponnuru, defending Trump’s UN speech, lays an inverted curate’s egg
What is a curate’s egg? Webster’s Third International defines it thusly: “something with both good and bad parts or qualities [so called from a cartoon in the weekly Punch depicting a curate who was given a stale egg by his bishop and declared that parts of it were excellent]”. So what is an inverted curate’s…
Ramesh Ponnuru gives advice to Donald Trump—Yes, he’s that stupid
Over at the National Review, Ramesh Ponnuru provides some serious right-wing inside baseball regarding whatever the fuck it is Donald Trump is doing playing footsie with Nancy for God’s sake Pelosi—which, if you like serious, right-wing inside baseball, is worth reading. But in his final paragraph, mighty Ramesh whiffs mightily, as it were, with the…
Ramesh Ponnuru, last seen trumpin’ Trump
There was a time, so I’ve been told, when Ramesh Ponnuru was considered a reasonable man. Well, here is his latest posting, in full, “Trump v. Sessions, Rosenstein, and Mueller, over at the National Review: “If the attorney general isn’t doing his job properly; if the deputy attorney general is hopelessly conflicted; if the special…
Ramesh Ponnuru, not really up on the Constitution thing
Trump Derangement Syndrome! It’s everywhere! Not among Democrats, but among Republicans! Yes, it’s dismaying when “your president” acts like a two-year-old—because he is a two-year-old! So what’s a pundit to do? Well, “I know you are but what am I?” seems to be what may be called the “Ramesh Ponnuru defense”. Ramesh, writing in the…
Shelf life of Trump Bump: 1 day
Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? One whole day of “Papa Trump” before that nasty “Russian Connection” began to rear its ugly head once more, its rancid scent rising to the point that even FBI Director James Comey—“No Nose Jim”, as I like to call him—might be moved to say, “Now, what the heck is…
Why isn’t the Fed omniscient? Conservatives want to know!
The Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression. It also caused the Great Recession. Why? Because it couldn’t predict the future. That’s the late Milton Friedman’s explanation for the GD, and it’s now David Beckworth and Ramesh Ponnuru’s explanation for the GR, “It took a bigger shock to the economy [than the decline in the housing…
Chaos in the House? Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along
How can you tell when conservatives (or anyone else, really) are really frightened? Whey they pretend that something that is a very big deal is not a very big deal. Ramesh Ponnuru illustrates this point beautifully when he “explains” that there are two things to keep in mind now that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy…
Ramesh and Yuval, less than generous, less than ingenuous
Ramesh Ponnuru and Yuval Levin have a heavy rap on how to replace Obamacare over at the National Review, a piece that occasioned less than reverent comment on the left, to which Ponnuru and Levin respond, rather tartly, here. The piece has drawn some critical responses in the past few days — from Ezra Klein,…