Not ready for primetime

Morning Bits

By Jennifer Rubin

Not ready for primetime? “Scott Walker on Sunday took his third position within seven days on Donald Trump’s proposal to end birthright citizenship, this time saying he opposes Trump and supports the policy. . . . The changing answers come as Walker’s standing in polls — particularly in Iowa, which his campaign regards as crucial to his chances of winning the GOP nomination — has been hurt by the rise of Trump and other outsider candidates, like retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Hewlett-Packard executive Carly Fiorina.”

Is she ready to run? “Liberal activists and strategists argue Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would be beating Hillary Clinton in the polls by now if she had opted to run for president as a champion of Wall Street reform. At a time when nervous Democrats are eyeing 72-year-old Vice President Biden and former Vice President Al Gore — who left office 15 years ago — as potential alternatives, some liberals say it’s not too late for Warren to jump in.”

Vice President Joe Biden sure looks like he is getting ready. “Biden, who has begun to explore a possible presidential campaign in recent weeks, made the trip Saturday from his home in Wilmington, Del., to his official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington to meet Warren, who has become an icon to liberal activists who view financial institutions as wielding too much clout in the corridors of power. CNN first reported the meeting Saturday afternoon, after which an administration official declined to comment about the meeting but acknowledged that Biden made an unplanned trip to the capital.”

The press should be ready to press him — and reveal the emperor has no clothes. ” ‘How?’ Stephanopoulos Tries Pressing Trump to Actually Give Immigration Specifics.” Good for him.

Ready to stop losing. “The head of the Kock brothers’ flagship political organization says a Republican winning the presidency is becoming a higher priority for more of its members, suggesting a rift between pragmatists and ideologues.” That’s a promising development for the GOP.

Carly Fiorina seems ready to take on China. “Of course it’s an opportunity because we have the most productive workers in the world, we have the best products in the world, yes it’s an opportunity.  It’s also an opportunity, by the way, to begin finally pushing back on China, which has become a rising adversary.  In the Oval Office, what I would do now, given this period of weakness, is begin to provide our allies in the South China Sea with some of the technology they’ve asked for.  Be very aggressive about insuring that China does not control the South China trade route. . .”

Michael Mukasey is ready to deliver a tutorial on classification: “No, it is not a political witch hunt. And so far as definitions of what’s classified and what’s not, obviously, at the margins, there are some things that may or may not be classified, but we’re talking about information that went to the secretary of state, who is the highest foreign relations officer of the United States. It’s inconceivable to me that a great deal of that was not classified. And that’s something we’re going to have to find out when we find out what was on the server.” Maybe the Clinton team doesn’t want to get into this debate after all.