SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:50 P.M. ET: 

WEIRD – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is telling friends and staff he is taking a role with the Trump administration, according to a source close to the White House.  The GOP governor’s position has not been worked out, but he would not replace Reince Preibus as the president’s chief-of-staff, the source said.  “Trump told him to be patient,” the source said. “Christie will only take something where he is answerable to the president.”  Trump told The Wall Street Journal last month “at some point, we’re going to do something with Chris.” But the White House said it has not offered Christie a position.   This is very strange.  Trump doesn't need Christie, but Christie was loyal to Trump.  Christie's star has faded.  He may yet face indictment on corruption charges.  He has grown unpopular in his own state.  What precisely would he do?

WELL, OF COURSE – FROM THE COLLEGE FIX:   The Ohio State University’s Middle East Studies Center in partnership with the Multicultural Center is set to host author Nathan Lean to discuss the “pernicious phenomenon” of Islamophobia.  The event, slated for Monday, comes roughly three months after a Somali refugee student plowed a car into a crowd of Ohio State students before stabbing several of them with a butcher knife. In the past, that student had praised an al-Qaeda leader as a “hero” and criticized America for interfering in the Middle East.  Lean, author of “The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims,” is a researcher focused on Islam, Islamophobia, the Middle East, Muslim-Christian relations, and other issues, his website states.  Just what we need, another "scholar" who believes the problem is with us, and not the terrorists.  We had a crowd like that in the 1930s, claiming that Hitler was simply a response to the rude behavior of other nations. 

OH PLEASE – FROM THE POLITICO:   Historians have ranked Barack Obama the 12th best president of all time, the highest rated since President Ronald Reagan, in a new C-SPAN survey released Friday.  Less than a month after exiting the White House, Obama received high marks from presidential historians for his pursuit of "equal justice for all" and for his commanding "moral authority," ranking third and seventh among all former presidents in each respective category. The 44th president also cracked a top 10 ranking for his "economic management" and public persuasion.  The former president's tenure earned its lowest marks for the relationship between the presidency and Congress, with bitter partisanship often stagnating the effectiveness between the two and Obama seeing his Democratic majority slip in both the House of Representatives and the Senate during his eight years in office.   I guess we had to expect that "presidential historians" – also known as professors – would give Obama a big boost, but number 12 is absurd.  They ranked George W. Bush at 33, and Bush was more successful.  Ignore these lists.  They'll just ruin your day.

February 18, 2017