Liz Warren has already made a campaign gaffe and other commentary

From the right: Liz Warren’s ‘Dukakis Tank’ Moment

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren “may have set a new land-speed record in presidential campaign trail gaffes,” suggests The Boston Herald’s Jaclyn Cashman. Just hours after announcing her 2020 exploratory committee, Warren “went full Michael Dukakis” — as in the “ridiculous” video of him driving a tank that helped doom his 1988 White House run. Warren did an Instagram Live chat with her followers from her kitchen during which she “not-so-casually said she would grab a beer.” That would be fine for most pols, but this “erstwhile Harvard elitist is really an extra oaky chardonnay kind of lady.” The “most authentic thing about it,” in fact, “was its bogusness: Warren once again trying to pretend she is something she is not.” Then again, maybe “pushing frauds and tall tales” is who she really is.

Economist: US Could Face a Demographic Time Bomb

In 2017, notes The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell, the US saw the fewest babies born in 30 years. What’s worse is that we “might be headed” in the same direction as Japan, which saw the fewest babies born there last year since record-keeping began in 1899, even as deaths “hit their highest level in nearly a century.” In other words, Japan’s “population is shrinking rapidly, experiencing its largest natural decline on record.” Some of the reasons why are specific to Japan, but others “bode ill for countries such as ours.” The problem? “It’s hard for an economy to grow with fewer workers.” The lesson: “If you want more babies, find ways to make it easier for working people to have kids.”

Political scribe: Why Mitt Romney’s Op-Ed Matters

If Mitt Romney wanted to grab our attention, The Week’s Damon Linker contends, he sure has succeeded. The incoming US senator from Utah published a “blistering” op-ed in The Washington Post denouncing President Trump’s character. In the end, it might “mean very little,” as has the opposition of such GOP Trump critics as Sens. Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and Ben Sasse. But that, he says, “is unlikely.” Because Romney “wants to set himself up as the de facto leader of the (sizable but mostly silent) faction of the Republican Party establishment that still stands strongly opposed to Trump as a person and as a president.” And, as a former presidential nominee, he’s “uniquely poised to take on that role in a formidable way.” It’s a sign that “the battle for the soul of the party goes on.”

Security watch: How To Make the Pentagon Hi-Tech Savvy

With Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ resignation, Arthur Herman at Forbes thinks it’s time for his successor to think about what is needed “when it comes to getting the Pentagon and America ready for the coming era of high-tech warfare.” The future Pentagon chief “will have to understand the urgent priority and the full extent of the China threat to America, which reaches far beyond conventional military threats like submarines and missiles and stealth aircraft, and increasingly revolves around the struggle for high-tech supremacy.” He or she will also have to understand “that in the 21st century, economic warfare will be as important as amphibious warfare” and that “dominance in the information domain, including cyber, will be as decisive as dominance in air power or sea power.”

Foreign desk: Will a Failing China Attack America?

Twice last month, reports Gordon Chang at The National Interest, senior Chinese military officials publicly urged “an unprovoked attack on American vessels.” One, Rear Adm. Luo Yuan, declared: “The United States is most afraid of death. . . . Let them suffer 5,000 casualties.” Though Luo “has a history of bellicose statements,” he’s believed to reflect “thinking in the senior ranks.” And renewed local interest in Mao Zedong’s “On Protracted War” suggests “Chinese leadership figures are talking war as a way to prevail in factional infighting.” This, says Chang, “should lead Washington to fundamentally rethink relations with the Communist superstate.” Because China “appears far less stable and much more aggressive” than the new US national-security strategy portrays.

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann

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