Netanyahu “Stuck in the Past”? What about Senator Schumer Himself?

Plus, how NPR lost its way

New York City, and New York state, have faced challenges during Charles Schumer’s quarter-century in the Senate.

“The Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,” the Senate majority leader, Charles Schumer, said the other day in a mid-war insult aimed at the elected prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Schumer’s speech denounced Netanyahu as a “major obstacle to peace” and called for an early election in Israel. The Democrat from New York doubled down on it in a front-page interview with the New York Times, which then became the basis for an episode of the Times podcast The Daily.

It got us thinking. If Netanyahu, 74, is “stuck in the past,” after 16 years as prime minister of Israel, what does that make Schumer, 73, who was originally elected to Congress in 1980 and who has been a senator since January 1999?

And since Schumer has such a critical public view of Netanyahu’s leadership, maybe it’s worth taking a rigorous look at what has happened to New York during the 25 years in which Schumer has been senator?