The Week

• The Biden administration has vowed to track down the hackers who sabotaged the Colonial pipeline, to see what they can do about Keystone.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy added just 266,000 jobs in April. The number was so far below consensus expectations of over a million that when the news crossed the wire, CNBC’s Steve Liesman had to double-check on air to make sure there wasn’t a mistake. A big reason for the significant miss: The federal government is still paying out weekly $300 bonuses to unemployed individuals on top of their standard unemployment benefits — a policy that President Biden extended into September as part of his $1.9 trillion COVID-relief package. As a result of the generous benefits, many Americans can earn more by remaining unemployed than they would were they to reenter the workforce. Anecdotal stories along with surveys of business owners have revealed that employers are having difficulty filling open positions. The labor-shortage theory is also supported by BLS data demonstrating that current workers are being forced to work more hours to pick up the slack. One thing the government is good at doing is getting more of what it pays for: in this case, idleness.

• The Republican response to President Biden’s speech to Congress was delivered by Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina. In the course of his remarks, Scott said that he had experienced racism — the senator is black — but America on the whole is not a racist country. Many disagreed with him, as is natural. But some of the disagreement had a special ugliness, as when the phrase “Uncle Tim” trended on Twitter. It takes a special courage to be a black Republican.

• Congressman Anthony Gonzalez has been censured and called on to resign by the Ohio Republican Party. His crime? Voting to impeach President Donald Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot. Reasonable minds can differ on the moot question of whether Trump should have been impeached for events that crested with two weeks left in his term. Gonzalez is not, however, being reviled over this prudential question. Riot revisionism has become a political force in the GOP, as has an intolerance for those Republicans who have not at least feigned sympathy toward the “Stop the Steal” effort. Gonzalez, a wide receiver for the Indianapolis Colts in a former life, is used to taking hits. He should accept this one like a trophy.

• When Senator Mitt Romney addressed the Utah Republican state convention early this month, he was greeted with boos, catcalls, and cries of “communist” and “traitor.” His treachery consists of disloyalty to Donald Trump, whom Romney voted twice to remove from office. The charge that Romney is a “communist” is more puzzling. The usual attack on him, used by Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and The Nation in the 2012 cycle, is that he was a vulture capitalist. It should be noted that outgoing Utah party chairman Derek Brown told the crowd to simmer down, and that a good portion of it clapped for Romney. So stupidity and rudeness, though general, are not universal.

• Caitlyn Jenner has a lot to answer for. As Bruce Jenner, he won fame as a decathlon gold medalist at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and fame of a tawdrier sort as a Kardashian-by-marriage. Jenner’s 2015 announcement that he had always yearned to be, and was in fact, a woman opened the gates to the trans deluge. Caitlyn Jenner has now taken the inevitable tabloid/social-media next step of running for governor of California, in the special election to recall Gavin Newsom. So it was some surprise to hear Jenner tell TMZ and Twitter that biological males should not compete in women’s sports. “It’s an issue of fairness and we need to protect girls’ sports in our schools.” May Jenner’s 2021 bombshell have the impact of its 2015 predecessor.

• Arizona’s Republican-controlled senate is conducting an audit of the 2020 election. It focuses solely on Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and Mesa and carried by Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. With the Republican-led Maricopa County Board of Supervisors refusing to fund the audit, the state senate has instead taken outside contributions of upwards of $50,000 from Lin Wood, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and other conspiracy theorists. State GOP chairwoman Kelli Ward, a strident critic of accepting the outcome, has touted the effort. Doug Logan, the cybersecurity expert leading the audit, has flirted with conspiracy-minded views of election “anomalies.” As with Donald Trump’s voter-fraud commission, a shoddy effort here could not only foster conspiratorial thinking on the right but also harm the cause of responsible election integrity. We can hope that the audit will at least be transparent enough to allow for reasoned critiques and, if it is honestly conducted, a fair defense of its findings. We are not optimistic.

• The Census Bureau released state-by-state population figures that will be used to reapportion seats in the House of Repre­sentatives, and with it the Electoral College. The numbers arrived in time, tamping down fears of a last-minute reapportionment scramble. Strong Republican performances in 2020 state legi­slative elections give the party a fighting chance in drawing maps. The news was good for Republicans in the House and the presidency, but less so than projected. Texas gained two seats. The balance was towards the Sun Belt (e.g., Florida and North Carolina) and away from New York and Illinois. California lost population, and lost a seat for the first time since entering the Union in 1850. States won by Donald Trump in 2020 gained five electoral votes, and lost two. That means that Joe Biden would lose in 2024 just by losing states he won in 2020 by 0.63 percent or less. The shift from the trio of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio to Texas and Florida is good news for a candidate — Ron DeSantis? — who can rebuild a map that looks more like that of George W. Bush. Expectations, however, had been for larger shifts. Minnesota, Alabama, and Rhode Island were all projected to lose seats but did not. New York lost a seat by a margin of 89 people, for which Andrew Cuomo should answer. Arizona failed to gain a seat, and projections of a three-seat gain for Texas and two-seat gain for Florida did not materialize. Democratic governors put more resources into “getting out the count,” and cut their losses. Lesson to learn.

• President Joe Biden has endorsed a Bernie Sanders plan to grant intellectual property of pharmaceutical companies to the World Trade Organization, to help poor countries attain more COVID vaccines. This might sound compassionate, but it both breaks existing agreements and corrodes legal protections that help fuel life-saving innovation. Enormous investments of capital go into developing these drugs. Companies will surely be leery of those billion-dollar outlays if they believe the state will come in and retroactively change the parameters of a deal. Moreover, pharmaceutical companies already reach licensing agreements with manufacturers in developing countries to protect their work and ensure safe production. The Biden administration’s decision undermines these efforts. If the United States goes through with this plan, it will have shown less regard for intellectual property than Germany and numerous other Euro­pean nations that oppose such infringement because of the precedent it sets.

• In 2020, Biden waxed pious on the influence of Dr. Scott Atlas and the Trump White House on the CDC’s COVID guidance: “I believe in science. Donald Trump doesn’t. It’s that simple, folks.” One of his first executive orders declared it “the policy of my Administration to listen to the science.” Given his rhetorical high dudgeon, voters might reasonably expect this administration to be purer than Caesar’s wife. Not so. A Freedom of Information Act request by the conservative watchdog group Americans for Public Trust, reported by the New York Post, shows how the White House and one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions put pressure on the CDC. The CDC’s March guidelines ignored the extensive evidence, even from CDC studies, that it was safe for schools to fully reopen. The guidelines instead insisted that schools should be closed or “hybrid” between virtual and in-person much of the time. The Post found at least two instances in which the AFT-drafted language to limit in-person instruction was inserted verbatim into the CDC guidelines. Biden is against politicized science only if he dislikes the politics.

• Republicans on Capitol Hill tried to force an investigation into COVID’s origins, including especially the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. GOP members of the Energy and Commerce Committee have sent four letters to U.S.-government and research entities requesting more information related to the pandemic’s potential origins. Mean­while, Dr. Anthony Fauci faced questions about the support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for grants used by the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance to fund research at the Wuhan lab. Representative Mike Gallagher (R., Wisc.) sent Fauci a letter to ask how much money has gone to the lab over time and how the U.S. government should reconsider its previous scientific cooperation with Chinese entities. Then, the following week, Fauci clashed publicly with Rand Paul when the Kentucky Republican senator said that the NIH had funded controversial “gain of function” virus research in China. Calling him “completely incorrect,” Fauci said that the NIH had never funded such research there. Although there’s some confusion about what precisely the NIH’s policy was, Fauci seems to have been taking refuge in a technicality, and it’s likely that U.S. funds have in fact gone to some very risky scientific projects in China. Republicans are pushing for clearer answers, and there’s no defensible reason for Democrats to withhold support for these investigations.

• The coronavirus vaccines represent one of the greatest scientific achievements of the modern age. They are also our ticket out of the pandemic; declining deaths and case counts nationwide are among their many benefits. So it is unfortunate that public figures such as Tucker Carlson and Naomi Wolf are giving platforms to irresponsible contentions about the vaccines — and sometimes even indulging in them themselves. In early May, Carlson argued that deaths caused by the vaccines are being undercounted. His claim is based on a misunderstanding of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, which is designed to count any potential complications, and a failure to account for the unprecedented scale of the COVID-vaccine rollout. There is no reason to think the vaccine is especially risky. Wolf, for her part, has recycled common but idiotic claims of microchips in vaccines and false reports about their lethality while adding a few new fables, such as Bill Gates’s supposed plan to distribute vaccines via genetically modified mosquitoes. The CDC and other public-health authorities deserve scrutiny rather than unquestioning belief in all their pronouncements, to be sure; but even more skepticism should greet some of their critics.

• Biden has created a new position in the budget office with responsibility for making sure government purchases are made from American companies. “Buy American” is a perennially popular idea, and sometimes, as in sensitive national-security contexts, it is sensible. But the downsides are numerous. It requires government to look even less at getting value for taxpayers’ dollars than they otherwise would, and to make infrastructure spending even less a model of efficiency than it already is. It creates headaches for U.S. contractors since it invites scrutiny of and meddling with their decisions about subcontracting. And it invites retaliation: “Buy Canadian” is at least as appealing up north. “How ‘Buy American’ Can Hurt U.S. Firms” was a Wall Street Journal headline from 2009, when stimulus spending was being overseen by . . . Vice President Joe Biden. He never learns — and on this subject, neither does anyone else.

• Next year, the Biden administration will reportedly move to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars. The step has been hailed in some quarters as a blow for racial justice because as many as 85 percent of black Americans who smoke choose menthols. Do black choices matter? Smoking rates hit an all-time low in 2019 because black Americans, like all Americans, know that smoking is bad for one’s health. There is no need for the feds to butt in.

• The Biden Justice Depart­ment approved a raid of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s home and office. (Pro-Trump lawyer Victoria Toensing’s home was also searched, though she is said not to be a target.) To judge from press reports, the probe is vengeful overkill. While representing Trump, Giuliani led an effort to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine. Some of his main sources were later found by the Trump administration to be operatives of Russia. The DOJ is apparently pursuing a criminal investigation based on the tenuous theory that Giuliani was working as an agent of Ukraine without having registered as one. This would potentially violate the Foreign Agent Registration Act. In over a half century, the DOJ has almost never treated FARA infractions as felonies. To use FARA as a predicate for raiding lawyers’ offices, in gross violation of the confidentiality rights of the lawyers’ many clients, is an abuse of power.

• As a legal move, the Justice Department’s civil-rights indictment against the four ex-cops implicated in George Floyd’s killing is difficult to defend. The timing is impossible to defend. The DOJ could have filed federal charges under seal and awaited the conclusion of the state proceedings. By announcing the indictment now, the feds ratchet up prejudicial publicity, monumentally complicating the Minneapolis court’s duty to ensure an impartial jury for the August trial of the three remaining former officers while intensifying pressure on Judge Peter Cahill to impose a severe term when Derek Chauvin is sentenced next month. Moreover, civil-rights prosecutions are difficult, focusing on the cops’ mental state (did they willfully deny Floyd’s federal rights?) rather than their actions (did their use of excessive force cause death?). A federal acquittal would heighten distrust of law enforcement, while a conviction, after state murder convictions have been won, would add nothing of significance. As a political move, though, the Biden DOJ’s move, as a sop to the angry Left, makes all the sense in the world.

• America hit a record low in its birth rate last year. It’s not, for the most part, an effect of COVID: The trend long predates the virus. The potential consequences for the health of our economy and the strength of our country are huge, and mostly negative. There is also a deep sadness attached to the trend: Americans consistently register a preference, in surveys, for larger families than the ones they end up having. The good news is that this preference suggests that the low birth rate is not the result of people having lost hope for the future, and that it might be possible to foster conditions in which people could better realize their familial goals. It ought to be at least as high a priority as increasing our GDP — and, come to think of it, might eventually be a prerequisite for it.

• “We want parents to be in the workforce, especially mothers.” That’s what Susan Rice, the head of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council, told David Brooks. It’s a desire that helps to explain the administration’s proposal to subsidize day care. An alternative would be to expand parents’ options for child care, perhaps by cutting their taxes, without pushing mothers toward full-time work plus day care. But that would mean starting with the question of what mothers want or what’s best for small children, rather than with the administration’s labor-force goals.

• Elizabeth Bruenig, a columnist for the New York Times, wrote a Mother’s Day piece about having her first child at 25, a relatively young age, she noted, in her peer group of white, Millennial, highly educated women living in urban centers. She observed that delayed childbearing is among the trends contributing to falling fertility rates and acknowledged the material costs that can lead people to put off having babies they might otherwise desire. But she wrote that, in her experience and to her surprise, “the truest thing about having children” is that it is “not the end of freedom as you know it but the beginning of a kind of liberty you can’t imagine.” Bruenig is a progressive who is also pro-life and a Christian, a combination that might help to explain the odd rage that greeted her column online, particularly from liberal feminists. (“Naked pandering to the fantasies of pathetic men,” tweeted Salon’s Amanda Marcotte.) Apparently we have reached the point where expressing a sense of unexpected joy in one’s motherhood is a provocation.

• Pummeled by COVID, George Floyd riots, and eight years of the lazy, incompetent, and conceited mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City teeters on the brink. The recent shooting of three random passersby, one of them a four-year-old girl, in broad daylight in Times Square epitomizes the dire state of things. It makes sense, then, that the two front-runners for the Democratic mayoral nomination (de Blasio is term-limited) have been making sensible noises of late. Andrew Yang and Eric Adams reject the left-wing push to defund the police. Yang speaks up for charter schools, while Adams says the city must continue to attract the wealthy, who pay so much of its taxes. Yang, an entrepreneur who ran a vanity campaign for president, has no political résumé, and Adams’s is rather bad: Before becoming Brooklyn borough president, he was a grandstanding cop, ever attacking the NYPD from within. Gotham must hope they have learned from the city’s experience.

• Facebook’s “oversight board” upheld the company’s ban on President Trump in January, but in a way embarrassing to founder Mark Zuckerberg, who had hoped to wash his hands of the issue. The platform, the board ruled, had probably erred in its initial decision and has six months to find a reason to make it permanent. In response to the board’s ruling, everyone involved disgraced himself. Elated, Trump’s critics took to pretending that the board was a font of meaningful due process rather than a motley crew of amateurs playing Calvinball. President Trump suggested that its judgment showed that “Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth” rather than that the company had been put in a tough spot by his repeated lies. Republican politicians such as Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan mused about retaliating against the corporation. And the Left, which has rarely met a company it did not wish to regulate, waxed lyrical about the sanctity of private business. Let’s hope Facebook doesn’t try to tackle hypocritical speech next.

• Salvatore Cordileone, the Catholic archbishop of San Francisco, published a pastoral letter noting that “public figures who profess to be Catholic and promote abortion” are engaged in a “persistent, obdurate, and public rejection of Catholic teaching.” Accordingly they should not receive Communion until they have repented. Robert McElroy, the bishop of San Diego, wrote to disagree on the ground that the Eucharist should not be “instrumentalized” or “weaponized.” Cordileone had the right response: “I’m not trying to sway votes. I’m trying to save souls.” We might add that “weaponize,” though getting more and more rote, was originally suggestive of deadly force. The violence that rightly shocks the archbishop’s conscience is decidedly non-metaphorical.

• In the run-up to Mother’s Day, Congresswoman Cori Bush (D., Mo.) complained on Twitter that “every day, Black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain.” Bush used the term “birthing people” so as to be inclusive of those who identify as transgender. And to think, “motherhood and apple pie” used to be our phrase for things that were uncontroversial.

• If anything good comes out of the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, the operator of the pipeline that ordinarily transports some 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel supplies, it will be that it highlighted the vulnerability of our country’s ever smarter infrastructure to cyberattack. It appears that those responsible were crooks and nothing more. Neverthe­less, the coincidence that the extortionists are based in Eastern Europe, including, quite possibly, Russia itself, is a reminder of more-sinister possibilities. Where critical infrastructure is involved, we may need to mandate far tougher protections against cyberattacks as well as effective “firebreaks” that do not require mass shutdowns in case of a breach. This hack was particularly damaging because of the East Coast’s heavy reliance on one pipeline. The reasons for that are benign enough — it’s an example of how the success of fracking (the pipeline runs from Texas) has displaced traditional energy supply channels. But significant dependence on a single system or resource also means increased vulnerability. The Biden administration’s climate-change agenda will, if implemented, involve (literally) rewiring America in a way that will both reduce the range of “acceptable” energy while increasing the level of technology required to ensure reliable supply. Not only a waste of vast sums of money, this project could also end in catastrophe.

• Well over 1,000 rockets have been launched into Israel by Palestinian terrorists operating out of Gaza. The rockets have been aimed at schools, at Israeli civilians in the highly populated Tel Aviv area, and, in a major escalation — at Ben Gurion Airport, which connects Israel with the outside world. Due to the incredible performance of its Iron Dome missile-defense system, Israel has been able to minimize its casualties. Though no system is perfect, and with Iran-backed Hamas and Islamic Jihad launching hundreds of missiles simultaneously, some have managed to slip through, doing damage to property and killing several Israelis, including a father and daughter in the city of Lod. This has led to a justified military response by Israel targeting terrorists and their infrastructure. It presents an early test for the Biden administration’s policy of outreach toward Palestinians and diplomacy with Iran.

• Against the backdrop of Russia’s efforts to destabilize and intimidate Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Kyiv for meetings with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials. Although the Russian defense minister had claimed that Russian troops recently amassed at the Ukrainian border (which at one point exceeded 100,000) would return to their bases, Blinken and his hosts pointed out that many soldiers and much equipment have remained. Meanwhile, Moscow’s efforts to back separatist forces in Ukraine’s Donbass region have continued. Blinken brought with him a solid message about supporting the Ukrainian people and deterring Russian aggression. He and the rest of the Biden administration ought to follow through by stepping up arms transfers to Kyiv and further integrating Ukraine into NATO. It should also reconsider the proposal to cut defense spending this year.

• The term “prisoner of conscience” is an Amnesty International coinage. It refers to a prisoner who has been jailed for what he thinks, not for what he has done. When Russian agents arrested Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, in January, Amnesty designated him a “prisoner of conscience.” In February, however, the organization revoked the designation, citing “hate speech” that Navalny had engaged in, 15 years before — concerning illegal immigrants, for example. This decision was bewildering. It was a blow to Navalny and a boost to the Kremlin. Now the organization has issued a statement, saying, forthrightly, “Amnesty International made a wrong decision . . . and apologizes for the negative impacts this has had on Alexei Navalny personally, and the activists in Russia and around the world who tirelessly campaign for his freedom.” Navalny is again in label, as he is in fact, a “prisoner of conscience.”

• In April, both Iran and China were elected to the United Nations’ Commission on the State of Women, the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Spot the problem? If not, recall that in Iran, women continue to face discrimination in law, with regard to such issues as marriage, employment, and political office. In addition, the state does not criminalize domestic violence, marital rape, early and forced marriage, or other gender-based violence against women and girls, all of which are widespread. As for China, the Communist Party is currently subjecting thousands of Uyghur women to unspeakable acts of sexual violence and detainment. That both regimes are involved with an international entity dedicated to women’s equality should shock the conscience. So far, the Biden administration has declined to explicitly condemn their election.

• In Kabul, there was a horrific atrocity as bombers targeted schoolgirls. At this writing, the death toll is 85, with the injured numbering 147. The government has accused the Taliban of this mass murder, and the Taliban, unconvincingly, has denied it. More such atrocities can be expected as American troops file out, a cost of the U.S. decision. This cost should be acknowledged, whether individuals agree with the decision or not.

• Infected by hubris, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi declared victory over COVID in January. “We are in the endgame,” his health minister said in March, when the daily death toll from the virus hovered around 100, in a population of 1.4 billion. Meanwhile, candidates running for office in elections in several states across the country organized large rallies. Cases began to surge. By mid May, drowning under a second wave, India was the source of approximately half of new COVID cases and deaths worldwide. The pandemic was claiming nearly 4,000 Indian lives daily, according to government reports, while some analysts suspected that the official figures were severe undercounts. The nation’s fragile health-care system has been crippled by sudden shortages of hospital beds, testing kits, and medical oxygen. A variant of the coronavirus appears to have spread from India across much of Southeast Asia. Vaccines may be at least partially effective against the mutation. Outside help would appear to be a matter of enlightened self-interest.

• A Chinese rocket fell back to earth, burning up and entering the sea over the Indian Ocean around the Maldives, in a display of flagrant recklessness by Beijing. It was sheer luck that protected anyone from injury by debris from the Long March 5B rocket. No one was quite sure where the rocket was expected to fall. Various calculations showed that the debris could have ended up anywhere along an orbit that stretched from Costa Rica to Crete to New Zealand. Although such rockets usually fall back to earth immediately, this one stayed in orbit for an unusual amount of time. This latest mishap comes after a Chinese rocket launch last year rained debris on a village in Côte d’Ivoire. After NASA criticized Beijing’s failure “to meet responsible standards,” the officials in Beijing played victim, claiming that China was being held to a different standard. The truth is that here, as elsewhere, the Chinese Communist Party’s actions are an aberration from the norms set by the civilized world.

• The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided to permit biological men into the women’s category in weightlifting. The rule change came in response to Laurel Hubbard, a man who transitioned in 2013, before which he competed in the men’s category. The IOC’s reasoning is that requiring the artificial lowering of testosterone levels is enough to level the playing field. This is patently false. There is no evidence to suggest that lowering testosterone does anything whatsoever to remove the innate physical advantages that men generally have over women in size, strength, and speed. This is most obvious in weightlifting, where, at the Olympic level, the performance gap between the sexes is 30 percent. The absurdity of the IOC’s position was perfectly exposed in 2019 when the British rapper Zuby posted a video of himself on Twitter smashing “the British Women’s deadlift record without trying.” He wrote: “I identified as a woman whilst lifting the weight. Don’t be a bigot. [laugh emoiji].”

• George F. Will wrote a column on the occasion of his 80th birthday that was learned and sparkling. The column was shocking — not because it was learned and sparkling, but because Will had turned 80. He looks basically the same as he always has. He writes the same, too — at a standard-setting level. Will began his column for the Washington Post in 1974. Three years later, he won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Will had begun his journalistic career with us, at National Review. William F. Buckley knew a talent when he saw one. George Will, like WFB, has enjoyed one of the greatest careers in the history of American journalism. “To be 80 years old in this republic,” he wrote in that birthday column, “is to have lived through almost exactly one-third of its life.” He concluded as follows: “To live a long life braided with the life of a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to an imperishable proposition is simply delightful.” This mind and spirit serve as examples to us all.

• Please don’t show this issue to Jack Fowler. The longtime publisher and then vice president of National Review is leaving to pursue a new challenge after 31 years at NR, and has asked that we not mark this momentous occasion in these pages. We, naturally, are defying this characteristically modest request from an extraordinary colleague and man. If there had ever been a vote on which publisher of a national publication was most likely to be found shoveling his neighbor’s walk in a nor’easter, it’d have been won going away by Jack Fowler. He truly has a “servant’s heart.” There was nothing he wouldn’t do for NR, and over the decades, whatever it was, he probably did it. Friend of the friendless, mentor to young staff, beloved confidant of so many cruisers, donors, and readers, profane raconteur, keeper of the institutional flame — there will forevermore be a Jack Fowler–sized hole at NR. We wish you the best in your new endeavors, Jack, and can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for us personally and institutionally. Godspeed.

• Pierre Samuel du Pont IV could have had a career in the family business, one of America’s oldest and largest corporations (yes, those du Ponts). Instead, in 1968, age 33, he went, under his voter-friendly nickname “Pete,” into politics, serving successively in the Dela­ware legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives, and Delaware’s governorship. He started as a moderate Republican, but eight years as an executive (1977–85) transformed him. His small, limping state thrived as he cut taxes and regulations and wooed the credit-card industry. In the 1988 cycle he aimed for the White House, falling early in a crowded GOP field. But he kept his interest in public policy, serving as an early president of National Review Institute. Smart, well-spoken, good-humored, old-fashionedly handsome, Pete du Pont never lost his faith in the principles that had made his family and his country prosper. Dead at 86, R.I.P.

The Removal of Liz Cheney

Liz Cheney got ousted from her House leadership position by a voice vote, a sign of how lopsided the sentiment against her was within her own conference.

She had handily survived a prior challenge to her leadership in early February, after she was one of the few Republicans to vote to impeach Trump, but her position steadily eroded afterward. Instead of biting her tongue and saying that everyone already knows what she thinks about Trump — the approach that has allowed Mitch McConnell to continue to navigate successfully in leadership — she felt duty-bound to answer every Trump-related question, forthrightly and fearlessly.

This irked Kevin McCarthy, who swung back toward Trump after criticizing him in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, and even alienated those members who had supported Cheney the first time around. The job of conference chairman is to advance the party’s message rather than generate headlines for her own views.

That said, at the end of the day, the problem wasn’t that Cheney was making unwelcome statements; the problem was that Republicans considered her obviously true statements to be so unwelcome.

Of course, it isn’t Cheney who is preventing Republicans from moving on and repairing the wounds from the 2020 election. It is Trump himself. Six months after being defeated, he still won’t drop it — in statements, in TV appearances, and in impromptu speeches to small crowds at Mar-a-Lago.

These statements are divisive and false, yet the same people now coming after Cheney don’t raise a peep about them. Indeed, Cheney is being accused of distracting from the fight against Biden when some Trump supporters have displayed more passion about taking her out than about opposing Biden’s $6 trillion agenda.

It’s also worth noting that Cheney is not in danger because she is a RINO who has broken with the party on policy. She has maintained an overwhelmingly conservative voting record, and while noninterventionists may object to her hawkishness, that does not explain the movement to oust her.

Indeed, as we went to press, her likely replacement was Representative Elise Stefanik (N.Y.). While Cheney voted 92.9 percent of the time with Trump’s position on actual issues, according to FiveThirtyEight, Stefanik did so only 77.7 percent of the time.

Unlike Cheney, though, Stefanik stood with Trump by peddling his mendacious claims and voting against certification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory. It’s a sad commentary on the state of the House GOP that this has now become a condition of advancement.