President Donald Trump announced the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in a dramatic pre-dawn raid on Caracas, rocking the hemisphere, stunning the world, alarming Americans across the political spectrum and delighting Venezuelans almost everywhere.
⬇ Nicolas Maduro
Going from all-powerful dictator to the ultimate FAFO meme is no fun. Maduro put on a brave face and wished his captors “Happy New Year!” as he did a perp walk on video. Understandably, no one wished him the same.
⬆ The CIA
The greatest intelligence agency in the free world spent decades mired in 9/11 failures, Iraq falsehoods and Russiagate politics. Then, in the past two years, it was overshadowed by Mossad’s magic and Ukraine’s devious drone warriors. But after the stunning success of the Caracas raid, CW’s verdict is no different from that of any of America’s foes and friends: Wow!
The Secretary of Defense once had lower chances of keeping his job than Maduro. Well, Pete defied the odds and clearly played a central role in ending the Venezuelan president’s career. And as the chief poster of war plans in the signalgate security breach, he got to keep a straight face as Trump explained that Congress couldn’t be briefed on the raid because it leaks.
⬅➡ Donald Trump
The president may have just pulled off America’s greatest foreign policy triumph in the post-Cold War era. Or he may have steered his presidency and the country into a quagmire like Iraq or Vietnam. A brilliant military success doesn’t guarantee either outcome.
The Cuban president is on a shortlist of leftist Latin American leaders who have nightmares about Trump. Díaz-Canel’s country is smaller, poorer, closer to the United States, more reliant on Venezuela and has a longer history of ideological hostility to America than any of the others. And after U.S. forces cut through Maduro’s Cuban guards like a hot knife through butter, Díaz-Canel’s nightmares will stop because he won’t be able to sleep at all.
⬆ Alvin K. Hellerstein
At 92, the U.S. District Judge, a Clinton appointee, was winding down his long career with perhaps his most fraught political case—an appeal from Donald Trump’s criminal conviction for hush money payments to a porn star. Or so he thought. Next week, Judge Hellerstein could have Nicolás Maduro in his court.
Originally a staple of Newsweek’s print edition, Conventional Wisdom used arrows to track whose stock was rising or falling in the political circus. We’re reviving it in the digital age because the problem it lampooned—hyperbole and partisan certainty masquerading as insight—has only intensified.
CW assigns arrows—up, down, or sideways—to the figures and forces shaping current events. The arrows don’t predict the future or claim special insight. They capture the prevailing winds of the moment, uncluttered by tribal howling. In an era when partisan media reinforces rather than questions assumptions, CW operates from the center—skeptical of left and right alike, committed to puncturing inflated reputations and recognizing overlooked truths.