Charles Cooke writes for National Review Online about a significant misstep for a darling of the political left.
The New York Times’ Kellen Browning would very much like us all to know that the key problem with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s excruciating performance at the Munich Security Conference was that we noticed it. Today, Browning writes that,
“rather than the substance of her arguments, it was her on-camera stumbles when answering questions about specific world affairs that rocketed around conservative social media and drove plenty of the discussion about her visit, as political observers speculated whether they would make a dent in a potential presidential run in 2028.”
Ah, yes. The “substance of her arguments.” Substance such as:
“Um, you know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a um — this is, of course, a, um, very long-standing, um, policy of the United States. And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation — and for that question to even arise.”
And:
“What we are seeking is a return to a rules-based order that eliminates the hypocrisies around when too often in the West we look the other way for inconvenient populations, to act out these paradoxes.”
Elsewhere in his piece, Browning notes that Ocasio-Cortez was worried that, having been “microscopically dissected,” her message “was being lost in all the commotion.” But what she said was “her message.” One could dissect her words for the next ten years straight, with the best of intentions, and still one would not glean anything coherent or useful from them. This wasn’t the fault of “conservative social media” or “rocketing” or “speculation”; it was the fault of Ocasio-Cortez herself, who went to a security conference, was asked questions about security, and fell flat on her face at the first hurdle.
.jpg){kind=link}