The Point: Protection games
People walk past the National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest, which will be a venue for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, in Beijing. Credit: AP/Mark Schiefelbein
- In China, all Olympic athletes, team staff and news media must be vaccinated to enter any Olympic area without going through a 21-day quarantine. In other words, there will be no cases of Novak Djokovic in Beijing.
- Republican insiders say many GOP candidates for 2022 admit privately that the 2020 election was fair but publicly express skepticism to court former President Donald Trump. Oh well, it’s not like hypocrisy has ever been an automatic disqualifier in American politics.
- Democratic strategist James Carville says Democrats should "quit being a whiny party" if they want to win in 2022. Probably true, but for many party electeds and activists being whiny is pretty much in their DNA.
- Former President Donald Trump raised questions about public health expertise while in office and was vaccinated and boosted out of public sight, but now is defending vaccines and boosters and criticizing fellow politicians who won’t reveal their vaccination status. Give him credit for being consistent in his inconsistency.
- A new Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics poll finds young people aged 18-29 are breaking sharply Democrat. That’s good for Dems, if they can get the young 'uns to vote.
- Former President Donald Trump, who loves to draw contrasts between himself and his rivals, is privately calling Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis a "dull personality." Not much of a campaign platform perhaps, but definitely a contrast.
- Commenting on declining COVID-19 rates in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul said, "We’re not through this yet." No kidding.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping told the World Economic Forum that protectionism and bullying are bad, that "win-win cooperation" is good, and that a "zero-sum approach that enlarges one’s own gain at the expense of others will not help." Here’s hoping that the world leaders influenced by that include … Xi Jinping.
By Michael Dobie
Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
