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<% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>"AN INTELLIGENT DEMOCRAT" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Evan Bayh on preemption, Iraq/al Qaeda, and more. Nice constrast to Dean's repulsive 9/11-Bush-was-warned talk--which Steve Hayes cites in his piece.
Posted at 10:38 PM
KERRY F-S UP [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted at 10:35 PM
YOU SAID IT, GISCARD [Andrew Stuttaford]
With discussions continuing on the fate of the EU’s draft ‘constitution,’ its architect, Giscard D’Estaing (looking, in the photograph that accompanies this article, suspiciously like someone from Roswell, not France) has said that " ... we would have rather no constitution than a bad constitution…"
Now he tells us.
Posted at 05:54 PM
DAVID HEMMINGS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Like Derb earlier this week, I found much to savor in the Daily Telegraph’s obituary of the much lamented David Hemmings, including this:
"We were the poor man's Taylor and Burton," Hemmings recalled. At the wedding, a swimming pool was filled with doves dipped in puce dye, the Mamas and the Papas sang and Henry Mancini conducted the orchestra."
Doves dipped in puce!Lord Berners would have approved.
Posted at 05:34 PM
JUNK JOE INSTEAD [Andrew Stuttaford]
By combining self-regarding, preening preachiness with the ambition and tactics of Uriah Heep, the awful Joe Lieberman is quite possibly the least likeable of all the Democratic candidates, no small achievement in a field that includes a race baiter, a mad doctor, a star child and Lurch. Senator Heep’s latest idea, however, quite literally takes the biscuit. Having read somewhere that there is an ‘obesity epidemic’ Lieberman wants big government to intervene against big stomachs. His policy initiatives (directed against ‘junk’ food) are the usual presumptuous and insulting pap, but, best of all, perhaps, was the admission to NBC that, ahem, he doesn’t actually know what junk food is:
"Lieberman’s campaign officials said the senator will not define what junk food is, leaving that to dietary and health care experts."
He’s going to leave it to the “experts.” Oh, that’s OK then.
Posted at 05:10 PM
70 YEARS AFTER PROHIBITION ENDS... [Andrew Stuttaford]
The Lancet used to be a serious medical journal. No more, alas. In a thuggish editorial (which has appeared, suitably enough, on the 70th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition) it has now called for tobacco to be made illegal:
“If tobacco were an illegal substance, possession of cigarettes would become a crime, and the number of smokers would drastically fall. Cigarette smoking is a dangerous addiction. We should be doing a great deal more to prevent this disease and to help its victims. We call on Tony Blair's government to ban tobacco.”
In a way, I suppose, we should be grateful that this piece of trash has been published, for, it shows the anti-tobacco jihadists for what they are, bone-headed, presumptuous, arrogant and with a contempt for humanity so profound that it has, quite obviously, become pathological.
They also make the tobacco companies look honest by comparison. Do you remember all that talk about how much tobacco ‘cost’ society (always a nonsense calculation, by the way, in that it excluded the, cough, cough, savings in pension costs that a smoking habit was likely to entail)? Well, look at this, also from the same editorial:
”The UK public, though, is better at facing facts than its government, perhaps because the UK public does not have to consider directly the £9·3 billion per year raised in tax revenue on tobacco. Compared with that figure, the cost to the National Health Service of smoking-related diseases of £1·5 billion a year seems paltry. So does the £1 million the government spent on a television campaign with images of babies apparently smoking to illustrate the dangers to children of second-hand smoke, and the £138 million spent helping smokers to quit."
Posted at 04:39 PM
FREE TOMMY CHONG! [Andrew Stuttaford]
Well, while on the topic of idiocy, the only people dumber than the cretins (John Ashcroft’s Justice Department, presumably) who decided to prosecute Tommy Chong were the cretins who passed the law making the sale of a bong a criminal offense in the first place. The details of his arrest make staggering reading – an armed raid by a dozen gun-toting DEA agents, backed up by some of LA’s finest. The result of their efforts? The incarceration of a 65-year-old man. That’s a waste of his time and a waste of our tax dollars.
Now, there will be some that say that none of this is Ashcroft’s fault. His department was, they will argue, just doing its job. Yes and no. There is always an element of discretion about how much time and money to spend on any one aspect of law enforcement. The DoJ's resources are not, after all, infinite. The decision to go after Chong in this way and in this time, a time when the Department of Justice has rather more important matters to deal with, is not merely stupid, but irresponsible.
Free the Kern County Taft Correctional Institute One!
Posted at 04:08 PM
ANNALS OF IDIOCY [Andrew Stuttaford]
It’s been a banner week this week for stories dedicated to the lunacy of the ‘authorities’, but then isn’t every week? Nevertheless, the idea that a high school student can be expelled for a year for possession of Advil takes some beating.
Posted at 04:00 PM
LOTR III [John Podhoretz]
I just saw the third Lord of the Rings movie. I am no LOTR nerd, found the books excruciatingly boring, and was not blown away by either of the previous films. But this movie does have the greatest line of the decade. On the eve of battle with the forces of evil, king-in-waiting Aragorn declaims to his assembled troops, "I bid you stand, men of the West!"
I don't know if the line appears in Tolkien, but it obviously has amazing resonance today. It's bitterly ironic that the actor who speaks it, Viggo Mortensen, is very, very, very bad on the War on Terror and Iraq.
Posted at 11:50 AM
CAN SOMEONE SAVE THE MUPPETS? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
NBC is reairing last year’s It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie. Here’s what Kevin Cherry said about the movie on NRO last year.
Posted at 11:08 AM
ZERO-TOLERANCE INSANITY [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This sounds like another instance of zero-tolerance tyranny: A girl--a high-school sophomore--gets a yearlong expulsion from a public school for carrying Advil with her.
Posted at 10:58 AM
DON'T YOU KNOW IT! [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
From a satisfied e-mailer:
Kathryn,I might add, if you are in the NorthEast today, for instance, NRO shopping is a safe shopping option for you today. Forget the malls!
Not only does NRO provide a daily dose of logic and laughter, but now you’ve made my Christmas shopping easier, too!
My father, a non-computer guy, is difficult to shop for – but not this year. National Review will be the perfect gift. I’ve ordered it and I’m confident he’ll be thrilled on a monthly basis. Thanks for the great product.
I’d also like to get him a book – maybe one that gives the reader a revealing look at the Clinton presidency, but I just can’t think of any titles off the top of my head. Maybe you know of one?
And remember that there's NR Digital as an option now, too: A cheaper way to give the gift of NR all year round. Give it here. And for the paper version to give as a gift, go here.
Posted at 10:43 AM
SHARPTON'S ORATORY [Rick Brookhiser]
John, I agree with your praise of Sharpton as a speaker. It truly is a skill learned in black pulpits. Jesse Jackson has thickened and collapsed in recent years, but in the mid-eighties he blazed. So did Louis Farrakhan.
For a good non-black speaker in the presidential sweepstakes I believe one must go all the way back to John Connally. Ronald Reagan was a special case, succeeding by projecting conviction, warmth and humor, which is a different skill.
Posted at 10:24 AM
GIVE THEM THE WORLD [Jack Fowler]
Influential author, editor of World magazine, syndicated columnist, distinguished journalism professor--Marvin Olasky's juggling act is better than anything you've seen at Cirque de Soleil. We're exceptionally pleased by his kind (and accurate!) take on National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature and The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories, which we share with you now:
"Before having children I did not realize that it would be so much fun to read them bedtime stories. It's no trouble finding picture books and fairy tales for young children, but eloquent tales that can be read to or read by older kids are harder to come by. These stories are just what parents need for children's joy and their own pleasure."
Many thanks Marvin. You'd be wise to take his sound advice and get your copies of these wonderful books. With Christmas looming these books are the best thing you can give a child or a family: they have real worth and lasting value, and will help shape children into being good, decent, moral folk. Order any or all of our great titles: the original edition or "Volume Two" of The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature, and our new book designed especially for new and beginning readers, The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories (a lavishly illustrated collection of enchanting stories by the great Thornton Burgess). Order here.
Posted at 10:16 AM
HE HAD ME AT HELLO [Tim Graham]
Eric Alterman goes warm and fuzzy as John Kerry goes flippy and floppy:
Kerry and I had what candidates call a “spirited exchange” in which he defended his vote. He said he felt betrayed by George Bush, whom he had believed, had not yet made up his mind to go to war when the vote was taken. He never expected a unilateral war given the way Powell, Scowcroft, Eagleberger and others were speaking at the time. He defends his willingness to trust the president of the United States, but now realizes that this was a big mistake. At one point, after answering somebody else’s question, he turned back to me and pointedly—one might evens say “passionately”—insisted, “And Eric, if you truly believe that if I had been president, we would be at war in Iraq right now, then you shouldn’t vote for me.”
Posted at 09:39 AM
“WINTER WONDERLAND” [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
After all the weather forecasters misjudged the timing on these two snow storms hitting the Northeast (the Friday commute was only supposed to be a bit wet), I thought I’d be smart (making up for some other mistakes: like the stupid shoes I chose to wear) and beat rush hour home from the NR World Headquarters yesterday. HA! Took six hours to make it not 20 miles, with the speediest pickups and SUVs doing about 15. I was actually headed to a full day in D.C. today, but in the wee hours when I would have been leaving, it was clear I was cornered in my unplowed roads. Now heavy accumulation is starting again and it’s been hours since I heard one of hour trusty local buses pass buy. Readers who live way more to the north will probably laugh at MidAtlantic wimpyness when it comes to snow, but, well, I’d move to your parts if I wanted a foot or two on Dec. 6--it’s not even winter! And anyone in a warm climate who, at this time of year especially, covets his brother’s white Christmastime, just think of the shoveling, plowing, blowouts, frigid temps, windgusts, ice, and overall mess. Don’t let the pretty pictures of Central Park and the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center they show on cable news today deceive you.
One non-Grinch comment from me though: Kids do love it. Their giddy laugh goes go a long way toward making up for the high yuck factor.
Posted at 09:32 AM
Friday, December 05, 2003
HILLARY ON THE "IRREPARABLE HARM" A PRESIDENT CAN DO [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
My dear senator, you should read LEGACY.
Posted at 08:46 PM
MARTINEZ TO RUN [KJL]
WASHINGTON Dec. 5 — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez intends to quit President Bush's Cabinet in anticipation of a run for U.S. Senate in Florida, administration and other Republican officials said Friday. Martinez will announce his decision to resign as early as next week with an eye toward the seat being vacated by three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, administration officials said. Two officials said the word could come at Bush's Cabinet meeting Thursday.
Posted at 07:33 PM
LEGACY ON HANNITY [Rich Lowry]
FYI: Doing Hannity radio around 5:20 to talk about the book...
Posted at 02:16 PM
THE STATE OF OUR PUBLIC ORATORY [John Derbyshire]
On the topic of public oratory, a reader asks if I don't consider Pat Buchanan a good orator. Yes, I do--he's about as good as it gets nowadays. However, I have a sidebar on this: Pat has so internalized his public-speaking skills that he carries them over into his private conversation. At a crowded & noisy reception once, leaning close to Pat to hear what he was saying, I was nearly decapitated by one of his karate-chop hand gestures.
Posted at 02:03 PM
THE STATE OF PUBLIC ORATORY [John Derbyshire]
(From many readers): "Alan Keyes!" Yes, Alan is very good. The late Barbara Jordan also got a couple of honorable mentions for her eloquence.
Posted at 01:55 PM
BARKING MAD [Andrew Stuttaford]
There's one explanation for this, and only one. The Onion has hacked into Dennis Kucinich's website and been very, very unkind.
Via the indefatigable Radley Balko and NRO, of course, earlier this week.
Posted at 01:46 PM
MURDER IN THE BIBLE [John Derbyshire]
One of those things you vaguely knew but are glad to be reminded of now & again (from a reader): "A note on the Ten Commandments: In Hebrew, the word for 'kill' is 'harag,' while the word for murder is 'ratzach.' The Ten Commandments (both versions) read 'Lo Tirtzach,' that is, 'You shall not murder.'"
Posted at 01:12 PM
MATHECENTRIC CHRISTMAS PRESENTS [John Derbyshire]
The company that makes sweatshirts, mugs, greeting cards, etc. emblazoned with likenesses of great mathematicians is doing a Derb special! With DISCOUNTS!! Just click on my picture (which, I think it is fair to say, bears out my extended grumble in the December 8 NRODT).
Posted at 01:09 PM
RE: RE: SOUTH PARK, GOP [John Derbyshire]
Tim, Jonah: Not only is there no significant "South Park Republican" voter segment, but I lost half my NRO readership when I made it known that "Married With Children" was my favorite TV sitcom.
Posted at 01:02 PM
RE: SOUTH PARK, GOP? [Tim Graham]
Jonah, I would agree that there is no identifiably large "South Park Republican" constituency, which is why Stanton seems wrong concluding "The Republicans can't maintain the majority without the South Park Republicans; and they can't keep the South Park Republicans by pretending they don't exist." In fact, as an identifiable group, they don't exist. They've just been invented as a type. It's not like they host South Park parties and raise funds for local GOPers.(Not that I don't know personally several SPR types, including a co-worker who thinks the South Park movie should be preserved by Smithsonian as a cultural treasure. But he is not in the "socially moderate middle," but pro-life and pro-FMAish.)It's as squishy an grouping as "Star Trek Republicans" or "Will and Grace Republicans" (okay, that's largely Log Cabin Republicans). Types can help illuminate for a strategist how to stitch together a coalition, even between GOP types that disagree a lot. By Stanton's standards -- near-silence on "anti-vice legislation" and a Federal Marriage Amendment -- Team Rove is already tap-dancing on that cultural line. Unlike Bush-Quayle and Dole-Kemp, Bush-Cheney have steered clear of saying anything very critical of the entertainment industry (Lynne Cheney excepted a tad for Eminem).
They have deduced there are votes to be lost rather than gained by marching around on cultural matters that aren't really legislative in nature. The danger for them is that for every "anti-anti-vice" vote they try to get (e.g. the Log Cabin GOP), they threaten to lose three or four evangelical or traditional Catholic voters to apathy.
Posted at 12:57 PM
ABORTION AND MURDER [John Derbyshire]
[Following up some exchanges yesterday in re Bill Pryor's position on Roe vs. Wade.] Reader David Churchill Barrow, whose middle name I covet, writes: "I note with satisfaction Derb's argument that murder is (and should continue to be) a legal term, and that it is used sparingly in the New Testament. There is also much authority for the translation in the Old Testament of one of the Ten Commandments as 'Thou shalt not do murder.' Obviously the Old Testament had a variety of permitted killing, so only murder as a legal concept has any rational meaning in this context." Not only the Bible, but also Anglo-Saxon common law, harbors the concept of "justifiable homicide," as well as different categories of non-justifiable homicide (e.g. "manslaughter"). You don't win any arguments--certainly not in a culture as lawyer-dominated as America's!--without adhering strictly to the proper, precise meaning of words. Personally, I'd like to see the pro-life movement win more of their arguments. That's all.
Posted at 12:46 PM
BANNING "X-MAS" [Jack Fowler]
A slightly different, and excellent, take on what's worth banning this time of year, from Cal Thomas.
Posted at 12:44 PM
BDELLOID ROTIFERS EAT YOUR HEART OUT [John Derbyshire]
425 million years old, but apparently still well endowed.
Posted at 12:41 PM
BANNING CHRISTMAS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
An e-mailer asks a good question:
That article from the IndyStar to which you posted a link regarding the "Christmas" display at IU law school being banned made me chuckle in a "what's next" sort of way.
But it, along with what I've been able to gather (courtesy of David Limbaugh and on my own), makes me seriously wonder when (no longer if) some court somewhere will declare Christmas as a national holiday both a violation of the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause (since there is no corresponding federal holiday for all workers for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur or for Ramadan).
The logic of how we can keep Christmas (not "Winter Holiday") as a federal holiday, supported by the force of government, yet we cannot have a crèche or, in the case of IU law school, even a fake-snow-covered tree that could be interpreted as being a Christmas tree (which the SCOTUS has said is a secular symbol, anyway) escapes me. Logically, it does not follow how we can have the one and not the others if we accept as given the current trend in Establishment Clause jurisprudence. We just simply allow the former, logic notwithstanding.
I am deeply concerned that, one of these days, a court somewhere will take the Establishment Clause path we're presently on to its logical conclusion. "Government, you must be open for business on December 25, and government workers, you must report to work on that day or else take a personal leave day." Do you not see that coming?
Posted at 12:28 PM
RE: CHRISTMAS BE GONE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
An e-mail:
As you probably noticed, this flap over the Christmas tree was at the I.U. Indianapolis Law School and not the main IU campus law school in Bloomington, IN. (where such ivory tower behavior is to be expected). The Indianapolis Law School was traditionally a more practitioner-oriented, and some would say "blue collar" school: it was originally an evening school which educated returning servicemen from WWII -- many with families and jobs.
I can't believe that this type of pc cowardice is going to sit well with it's alumni -- speaking of which I wonder what it's most famous alumnus, Dan Quayle, would have to say in response.
Posted at 12:21 PM
MORE WORMWOOD AND GALL [John Derbyshire]
I was somewhat mollified, though, Kathryn, to see that Scrooge McDuck got a passing mention in that "Twenty Most Annoying Conservatives" list You may recall that we had some exchanges about S. McD. on The Corner back in the summer, coming to the conclusion that he is one of the great unsung heroes of popular conservatism, especially fiscal conservatism. Perhaps those elves you've got making up mugs and T-shirts with quotes from NRO-niks such as, ahem, myself, could find an apt Scrooge McDuck quote to further the cause?
Posted at 12:11 PM
SOUTHPARK REPUBLICANS, AGAIN [Jonah Goldberg]
Stephen Stanton revisits the whole non-brouhaha of South Park Republicanism. If all he's saying is that there's a socially moderate middle which is right now in the Republican column, I agree with him. But beyond that, I'm not sure. Regardless, I think he steals a few bases.
One is stylistic and I may be misreading him. But he seems to say that I'm wrong on South Park Republicans because I don't address his writings. Protecting what you see as your turf is fair game but, truth be told, I didn't have his writings in mind at all when I wrote my column about Brian Anderson's City Journal piece.
Second, it seems to me that Stanton is using SPR in a way that a lot of people aren't. At the outset he agrees with me that there is no uniform bloc of South Park Republicans. He even concedes that many South Park Republicans have never seen the show and have no coherent political outlook on actual issues of public policy. Rather, SPRs are merely moderates, middle of the roaders, centrists, libertarian or liberal Republicans or conservative or libertarian Democrats.
Well, if that's the case, why the hell are we talking about them in the first place? Doesn't this underscore my contention that this is largely a contrivance of the pundits and bloggers? I agree there are generational differences among younger conservatives and young people generally. My problem is with the rush to create seemingly insightful but actually distorting journalistic buzz-phrases for rather ordinary -- though important -- trends.
Also, Stanton seems to think there's rich irony in the fact that most South Park Republicans don't know we're talking about them and he suggests this fact is lost on many of us pointy-headed pundits. As for the first part, I agree entirely that they might be oblivious to this debate -- especially if they don't exist. As for the second part, who says? Stanton refers to the "incestuous circles of punditry" as if folks like Andrew Sullivan and I live in a bunker somewhere. Well, truth be told, I pretty much do live in a bunker but it never dawned on me that all of these millions of people would be aware of this tea-cup debate. I'm also aware, for example, that millions of urban Catholics are probably unaware Karl Rove is reaching out to them and that they live outside these incestuous circles as well. This is not news and presenting it as such doesn't wash.
Lastly, Stanton's concessions that South Park Republicans aren't a unified bloc are largely retracted by the end of his essay where he starts listing the policies that could win them over to the Democrats or keep them in the Republican column. Well, which is it? Is it true that "There is no single 'South Park Republican' platform. They have different views on drugs, guns, abortion and Social Security." Or is it true that, the GOP could lose their support by endorsing "anti-smoking legislation" or by raising tariffs?
Posted at 11:50 AM
REV'M AL SENT BACK TO BIBLE CLASS [John Derbyshire]
A reader, who listened to the sound clip I linked to in today's column: "I suppose this is being picky, but Al Sharpton says that 'after 7 plagues, Moses led 'em to the Red Sea.' There were 10 plagues. Any Bible scholar knows that. As a preacher and teacher, I know that I should at least read the passage on which I am preaching. Of course, lazy preachers use their memory and cover with rhetoric. Getting it right is less important than getting it over."
Posted at 11:45 AM
BAD BAD BAD [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Derb, Jonah, I wish you could have seen my "Mother Superior look" (as one wag once called it) when I opened that GROSS link up. (Kudos to Jonah for living in fear of the K-LO wrath.)
Posted at 11:43 AM
GROSSEST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT EVER? [John Derbyshire]
After reading about the Bad Sex Prize, you may feel like sampling thisparody of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," done (apparently) as a public-service announcement to warn against the perils of casual sex. Warning: it is VERY GROSS, though more so visually than aurally. Make sure there are no kids in the room when you bring it up on screen. As the reader who sent it to me remarked: "It lends an entirely new dimension to the use of stick figure animation."
Posted at 11:31 AM
ONOMASTIC INTEREST (CON'T) [John Derbyshire]
From the obituary for movie actor David Hemmings in today's Daily Telegraph: "Later, Hemmings admitted that Gayle Hunnicutt had discovered that he had been having an affair with his secretary, Baroness Prudence de Casembroot, as well as an on-set relationship with Samantha Eggar, his co-star in The Walking Stick (1970)." Have ever three such mellifluous names appeared together in the same sentence? "Baroness Prudence de Casembroot"! People just don't have names like that any more. Nowadays she'd be "Tiffany."
Posted at 11:26 AM
FAVORITE LINE FROM A READER E-MAIL ALL DAY [John Derbyshire]
"Recently we had our town Thanksgiving service, attended by worshipers in all congregations. (We're in such a small town all the Episcopalians are straight)."
Posted at 11:25 AM
RE WORMWOOD [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Some of those people aren't even conservatives--by their own acknowledgement or at least their status is a matter of debate. The compiliers could have def. made a spot for more NR types. Derb., I'd ignore it--don't be down. But, Jonah, of course, should milk it for anything it might be worth.
Posted at 11:23 AM
WORMWOOD AND GALL [John Derbyshire]
I am devastated to see that once again I did not make the annual list of "Twenty Most Annoying Conservatives." Even more infuriating, Jonah is on it. Grrrr. What do I have to do to be more annoying?
Posted at 11:19 AM
ONOMASTIC INTEREST [John Derbyshire]
Here is the class list for my son's Friday-evening Chinese class: Tina Cheng, Tina Cheung, Daniel Derbyshire, Jeremy Han, Tiffany Huan, Jonathan Li, Alex Liu, Helen Liu, Betty Ma, Danny Qiao, Brian Tam, Alex Wang, Anne Zhang, Frank Zheng, Michelle Zhou.
The thing I want to know is: WHAT'S THAT TIFFANY DOING IN THERE?
Posted at 11:18 AM
SPEAKING OF JOHN KERRY [Jonah Goldberg]
My syndicated column on the guy with important hair.
Posted at 11:15 AM
ONOMASTIC INTEREST [John Derbyshire]
Here is the class list for my son's Friday-evening Chinese class: Tina Cheng, Tina Cheung, Daniel Derbyshire, Jeremy Han, Tiffany Huan, Jonathan Li, Alex Liu, Helen Liu, Betty Ma, Danny Qiao, Brian Tam, Alex Wang, Anne Zhang, Frank Zheng, Michelle Zhou.
The thing I want to know is: WHAT'S THAT TIFFANY DOING IN THERE?
Posted at 11:13 AM
SPARE A DIME? [Jonah Goldberg]
Some GOP lawmakers want to put Reagan on the dime as payback for the CBS Reagan series. Talk about blowback.
Posted at 11:13 AM
STOP THE MADNESS [Jonathan H. Adler]
Is John Kerry mad? Or is he just trying to sound like Howard Dean?
Posted at 11:09 AM
BAD SEX AWARDS [Jonah Goldberg]
We have a winner. (Nod to Arts & Letters Daily for the link). I would post the extended passage, but it's sufficiently graphic to violate K-Lo's rules against such things. You can find it at ALD.
Posted at 10:56 AM
BANNING THE SCARF [Jonah Goldberg]
It'll be interesting to see whether the Europeans blink.
Posted at 10:21 AM
41 TO 43 [KJL]
Jim Baker is going to Iraq for the White House to deal with debt issues, FNC just reported.
Posted at 09:57 AM
CLARK: READY, FIRE, AIM [Jonathan H. Adler]
"A Clark press release assails Bush's lifting of steel tariffs as proof he "takes his cues from donors" in industry; steel opposes Bush's move. The campaign soon issues a revision," reports the WSJ in today's "Washington Wire."
Posted at 09:24 AM
MORE PRAISE FOR NR'S GREAT-GIFTS CHILDREN TREASURIES [Jack Fowler]
We're not the only ones singing praises of The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature and The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories. Here's the take on these big, beautiful books from the respected essayist and commentator Midge Decter:
“ 'Treasure' is the right word to use for these three collections of children’s literature. Indeed, reading through the National Review treasuries is a happy reminder of the time when children were respected as creatures capable of both real thoughts and real imaginings rather than, as they so much are today, no more than a cohort of small and conventionally attitudinizing adults. Indeed, with the Treasuries in tow, parents and children are both apt to begin anticipating bedtime as a whole new adventure."
Powerful words. Many thanks for them Midge (and congratulations again for being honored by President Bush last month with a National Humanities Medal!). And with Christmas looming the best thing you can do for children is to give them something of real worth and lasting value--something that will help shape them into being good, decent, moral folk.
You know the score: the stupid must-have cheesy toys will be played with for 10 minutes and then forgotten. They're destined for a tag sale or Goodwill. Meanwhile, NR's books are crammed with wondrous literature that is destined to influence a child's entire life. So we boldly urge you order any or all of our great titles: the original edition or "Volume Two" of The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature, and our new book designed especially for new and beginning readers, The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories (a lavishly illustrated collection of beautiful stories by the great Thornton Burgess). They are the perfect Christmas gifts (and we can get them to you before Santa slides down the chimney--by the way, how does he get through the furnace?!!). Order securely here.
Posted at 09:03 AM
CHRISTMAS BE GONE! [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
At Indiana University's law school, Christmas trees with nothing but lights and fake snow is banned for being a religious display.
I wonder how many people think Christ was born under a pine tree in Bethlehem. Santa Claus brought him Hokey-Pokey Elmo.
Posted at 08:50 AM
THAT CAPTAIN, OUR CAPTAIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
One last note: Just heard from the mother of the captain in Iraq who wrote that turkey e-mail I posted yesterday. She tells me her son and his wife are spending their first Christmas apart this year while he is in Iraq, but if plane schedules and such work out, the family will be together shortly into the new year. Since many of you have expressed as much to me, I passed onto them the best wishes and prayers of many Cornerites.
Posted at 08:38 AM
GOING LOOPY ON THE LEFT [Tim Graham]
Charles Krauthammer nails it today on how Howard Dean (on NPR) and Bill Moyers (on PBS) show a dramatic paranoia about President Bush.
Posted at 08:25 AM
COLLUSION MEMO FALLOUT [Jonathan H. Adler]
Several conservative groups are planning to file a formal ethics complaint with the Virginia State Bar against Elaine Jones of the NAACP LEgal Defense Fund for her role in delying the confirmation of Judge Julia Gibbons to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, the Washington Times reports. According to internal memos by Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee staff, Ms. Jones sought to delay Gibbons' confirmation so as to effect the outcome of the en banc ruling in the Universityof Michigan affirmative action case -- a case in which the NAACP Legal Defense Fund was a party. According the complaint (excerpted here), "Ms. Jones violated both the spirit and letter of the Virginia Rules of Professional Conduct when she intentionally acted to influence and disrupt an impartial tribunal that was then in the deliberative process of considering a landmark constitutional case in which she was counsel to one of the parties."
Posted at 08:16 AM
HEY THERE, BIG SPENDER [Jonathan H. Adler]
At a time when libertarians and economic conservatives are already grumbling about Republicans' profligate spending, what does the Bush Administration do? Think up new big-ticket spending items for a second term. Is KArl Rove trying to make such voters stay home in 2004?
Posted at 08:06 AM
CHRISTMAS TREE BAN [John J. Miller]
For a lot of my apartment-dwelling neighbors in the greater-D.C. area, it's against the law to put up a Christmas tree. Penalties for violations can include jail time.
Posted at 06:17 AM
SNOPES.COM [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The captain has nothing to fear on that front.
Posted at 05:26 AM
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Hillary Clinton is up for another Grammy, for the Living History audio. She has one already for It Takes a Village on tape.
Posted at 05:20 AM
ANOTHER UNFAIR RAP AGAINST WAL-MART [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Was a woman really trampled?
Posted at 05:13 AM
Thursday, December 04, 2003
BAGHDAD CALLING [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
It did not take 24 hours for me to hear from the captain who wrote that email making the military rounds I posted about Turkey with the president. He tells me: "I hope snopes.com doesn't claim my letter is a hoax, because that would just make me feel forgotten." You're not forgotten, sir, and thanks for fighting the war on terror, liberating Iraq, and setting the U.S. media straight all in a day's work.
Posted at 11:24 PM
"WHAT'S A WI-FI?" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Rod, dear, come back to New York. That writing in Starbucks you used to do will be a whole new experience now.
Posted at 08:15 PM
HICKEY NO CRIME [John Derbyshire]
The lad who gave a girl a hickey is not to be tried on an assault charge after all.
Posted at 07:05 PM
GOATEE-CONS [John Derbyshire]
Rod: I'm with the lefty on this. The goatee is an abomination, and engenders a cloud of suspicion about the wearer's sexual orientation. Sorry. Put me down as a jowly, out of touch old guy.
Posted at 06:33 PM
MORE PRYOR BAIT & SWITCH [John Derbyshire]
Well, perhaps something must be allowed for rhetoric. But I don't think he would so misuse a legal term when speaking _ex cathedra_ (as an officer of the court, I mean). Personally, just for the sake of clear thinking, I'd prefer to see "murder" restricted to its legal scope. The King James Bible is very sparing with this word--I think there are only 22 occurrences in the New Testament.
Posted at 06:32 PM
PRYOR ON ABORTION [Jonathan H. Adler]
Actually, John, Bill Pryor has said that he believes abortion is "murder" (as our own Byron York reported here). Obviously he did not mean this in the legal sense of the word. Rather, I take it, he meant that he believes abortion is the unjustified killing of an innocent human being.
Posted at 05:45 PM
GOATEES AND ME [Rod Dreher]
At last, Andrew Sullivan and I are united on something. Here's an overwritten bit from the December GQ, expectorated by someone named David Kamp:
"Maybe you've even taken notice of photo-bylined neoconservative commentators like Andrew Sullivan and Rod Dreher, for whom a goatee signifies a cool-daddy engagement with the poptastic modern world of Wi-Fi technology, reality television and boutique California garage wines, a worlds they find compatible with their rigorous, showboaty churchgoing and unapologetic hawkishness, which therefore gives the lie to the stereotype of conservatives as jowly, out-of-touch old guys, because -- look -- there's this groundswell of goateed young, self-congratulatory moralist offalheads who represent the true direction in which America is headed."
Golly. Since the Rt. Rev. Kamp is so interested in the semiotics of my facial hair, let me disappoint him by saying that I acquired it in 1994, after picking up a razor following two weeks of not shaving while recovering from an auto accident. The things were popular back then. I grew accustomed to it. Now they're not so popular, but I like it anyway, so I'll keep my Republican goatee. My little dog Checkers will be surprised to discover that his master's outdated beard was an attempt to be secretly "poptastic." Anyway, what's facial hair have to do with politics? I was just as conservative back when I wore combat boots, long hair and an earring because, well, I liked it. Anyway, what's a Wi-Fi? What's a David Kamp, and why does it write so badly?
Posted at 05:39 PM
RE: PRYOR BAIT AND SWITCH [John Derbyshire]
Jonathan: I think you'd get an argument going with Bill Pryor as to whether abortion is murder. "Murder" is a legal term, referring to a certain kind of killing against the law of the land. Plainly abortion is not currently murder. You may think it should be, and you may be right, but as a matter of legal definition, it just isn't. My guess is that Pryor would say that abortion is a certain kind of killing against the law of God: that an officer of the court must administer the law of the land: and that where the law of the land conflicts with the law of God, there are several different paths a person of conscience can follow, including the path of administering the law of the land faithfully as an officer, while striving in one's capacity as a private citizen, through argument and persuasion, to nudge man's laws into closer conformity with God's. Greater goods have to be wieghed against lesser ones, the present against the future. If officers of the courts balked every time they were obliged to do something that pained their consciences, there would be precious little justice administered in the U.S.A.
Posted at 05:34 PM
YOU DO KNOW, DON'T YOU? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
That there is such a thing as a NRO Christmas ornament?
Posted at 03:58 PM
BITTER MEDICINE [Jonathan H. Adler]
I'm no fan of OPEC, but some of Raymond Learsy's policy recommendations seem a little much. More government subsidies for altenrative fuels and energy conservation are standard fare, but gas rationing? No thanks. The biggest threat of OPEC is that it can cut production and increase oil prices -- so how does it make any sense for us to beat OPEC to the punch by cutting supply and increasing prices ourselves? Importing oil has costs, but so do policies to reduce oil consumption. The latter are only worthwhile if they are less costly than the former. The aggressive pursuit of "energy independence" does not pass this test.
Posted at 03:57 PM
PRYOR BAIT AND SWITCH [Jonathan H. Adler]
TAPped's Matthew Yglesias suggests that "A person who believes that his religious commitments prevent him from doing that has no place in the federal judiciary." This is true. Yglesias also suggests this is a reason to oppose the nomination of William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Yet Pryor has never suggested that his deep Catholic convictions, including his belief that abortion is murder, would prevent him from faithfully applying the law as a judge. Indeed, as Alabama's Attorney General Pryor narrowly construed a state abortion law to conform it to relevant legal precedents and sought the removal of state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore for defyting a federal court order to enforce a court judgment with which Pryor disagreed. The truth is that Pryor has shown he can keep his personal religious and ideological beliefs separate from his legal responsibilities. Ironically, when Justice Scalia made Yglesias' broader point -- that those who cannot faithfully follow the law when it conflicts with their personal convictions should not be judges -- the Left howled with indignation. At least Yglesias has come around.
Posted at 03:52 PM
RE: CANNON [Tim Graham]
Steve, I threw in the word "liberal" with Cannon to make the point that he worked for the liberal Washington Post during the Reagan presidency. I did not mean to suggest that he's a contemporary liberal media type like Al Hunt (although Hunt used him recently to suggest Gov. Arnold should raise taxes in Sacramento just like Ronnie. ) I did not mean to suggest he has not played a role in recent years in correcting history-mangling slurs like those in "The Reagans." He has extra credibility in these corrections precisely because he worked for a liberal newspaper and was not some in-the-tank, official camp chronicler.
Also, it should not be forgotten, as you note, that conservatives were not always wild about Cannon's work during the Reagan presidency. In my research comparing Reagan and Clinton scandals years ago I came across this, which suggests Cannon was at one time frustrated by excessive positive coverage of Reagan.
Newsweek media critic Jonathan Alter described the ethos on December 15, 1986: "After six years of state-of-the-art White House media manipulation and large-scale public indifference to criticism of the President, reporting about his shortcomings finally had found an audience." Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon told Alter: 'People are finally listening to what's wrong with him.'"
Posted at 03:35 PM
WHAT STEVE SAYS GOES FOR ME [Peter Robinson]
My criticism of Cannon's work would be precisely the same as Steve's: Broadly speaking, the Reagan White House was divided between the pragmatists (Baker, Deaver, Gergen, Darman) and the true believers (Meese, Clark, and, for what it was worth, the speechwriters), and Lou's newspaper reporting, as also his early Reagan books, were heavliy colored by the pragmatists for the simple reason that they were the ones who were leaking to him.
Take a look, for example, at Cannon's account of the Bitburg mess. What happened, basically, is that Mike Deaver got sloppy, making an advance trip to Germany during which he permitted himself to be shown around a graveyard by representatives of the German government while the graves were covered with snow, then, without checking up on just who happened to be buried there (quite a few members of the SS, as the world learned quickly enough), blithely agreeing to have the president visit the site on his upcoming visit. Once it became clear that Deaver had messed up, Helmut Kohl himself called Reagan, begging him to go through with the visit on the grounds that if he failed to do so the West German government would fall. Reagan complied, giving a moving speech (written, incidentally, by Josh Gilder). How does Cannon handle this? By putting the best possible construction on the behavior of Deaver, who caused the mess in the first place (Deaver wasworking long hours under intense pressure, don't you know) and the worst possible construction on the behavior of Reagan, who, Cannon claims, all but laughably, was somehow oblivious to the meaning of the SS. What does Cannon handle the matter in this way? Because, transparently enough, his source was...Deaver.
In his more recent work, though, Cannon has been undergoing an impressive metamorphosis from reporter to true historian, double-checking his earlier judgements, immersing himself in the documents, and retaining enough of an open and honest mind to come to some new conclusions. I still think he hasn't quite got the measure of Reagan or of his enormous place in history. But for a detailed, serious accounting of Reagan's life, governorship, and presidency, Cannon's work is nevertheless completely indispensable. And while I'm at it, let me add that he's a kind and companionable man. We swapped a batch of emails while I was working on my own Reagan book, How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life, and Cannon was always generous with his insights and his time.
Posted at 03:26 PM
ALAN WEST [Jed Babbin]
There is a whole host of you who wanted to know if there's a way to help Col. West, specifically to contribute to a defense fund. I just learned that Col. West's family has established a fund. If you want to contribute, send the check to: Alan West Defense Fund, c/o Angela West, 6823 Coleman Drive, Ft. Hood, Tex 76544. I'm answering e-mail as fast as I can, but youse guys are ahead of me by a goodly bit. Be patient. I'm typing as fast as I can.
Posted at 03:22 PM
RE: JONAH'S THESIS ON THE DECLINE OF TV [John Derbyshire]
Jonah: Nice argument, but I'm still on the side of the military recruiter in STARSHIP TROOPERS (the wonderful book, not the stupid movie) who says: "Well, nobody that left school with a 'C' in Television Appreciation can be all bad."
Posted at 02:34 PM
VOUCHING FOR THAT TURKEY E-MAIL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A relative of the captain in Iraq writes in:
This email was from my brother to our mother and his wife who is in [ Wiesbaden]. We have no idea how it 'got out' as we received it Thanksgiving morning. We had heard on the news that the Pres.had visited the airport (where my brother is based with the intel division) and so we (the family) knew we'd soon get an email from him. Sure enough, this one came and my mother read it to us all as we stood around the den. My mother sobbed and the rest of us got very teary-eyed as well...even my 18 year old son.
I had forwarded this to a friend of mine (who is a retired Navy Commander) whom I keep updated on my brother's 'goings on' and he wrote me yesterday that he had received the same email from several of his friends. He was flabbergasted that my brother's email came to him from other sources far and wide. He had not sent it to anyone. Interestingly enough, in the version he sent me the names are edited out with X's. In the version you published, the names were still there...i.e. my nephew.
So see? This is a real letter from a real patriot and soldier who is serving his country per his chosen responsibility. Not all warm and fuzzy sentiments are staged after all. My question remains...how the heck did it get 'out' unless Shelly passed it along to other mil. Personnel in Germany who may have distributed it. Never the less, the point, again, is that this is not a military PR ploy.
Thank you for your time,
Marsha Jefferson
Prairie Grove, Arkansas
Posted at 02:07 PM
STEEL TARIFFS GONE [Jonathan H. Adler]
With this announcement, President Bush reversed his administration's biggest policy blunder. Alas, the wounds caused by the President's abandonment of free-trade principle will take some time to heal.
Posted at 01:59 PM
IN DEFENSE OF LOU CANNON [Steve Hayward]
In his otherwise spot-on remarks below on Lisa Morales' pathetic rendering of the ruckus over "The Reagans," Tim Graham describes Lou Cannon as "the liberal former Washington Post reporter." I think this goes too far and is unfair to Cannon, who is not an ideological liberal. (He has, after all, written for NRODT a few times.) Lou has some conservative leanings, though he is a bit clueless about conservative ideology and philosophy. (I doubt he has ever read Milton Friedman, let alone Hayek or Kirk.) I have numerous criticisms of Cannon's work (as does Peter Robison and many other Reaganites), but when you stack up his work against the works of other liberal journalists in the 1980s (e.g., Haynes Johnson, Bob Shieffer, the list is long), Lou's work is like day to their night.
Lou's weak spot was not ideology, but the fact that his primary sources during the Reagan presidency were the infamous "pragmatists" who leaked to him relentlessly in their bid to manipulate Reagan through the media. Lou's most recent book on Reagan forthrightly retracts some of the harsher judgments he made in "Role of a Lifetime." And this must be said of Cannon: he always took Reagan seriously, starting from the first time he saw Reagan on the stump in California in 1966. Although he indulged some of the Washington-insider attitudes toward Reagan, he never condescended to Reagan the way most of the rest of the press corp did. For this, Paul Laxalt once told me, Cannon was viewed with suspicion by his fellow reporters at the Post and elsewhere.
Posted at 01:41 PM
MOBY'S GRAMMY GROANER [Tim Graham]
MRC's Jessica Anderson passes on that at 11:59 a.m. EST, during the Grammy nomination announcements, leftish musician/sampler/jingle merchandiser Moby couldn't help tossing in a bitter scoop of Bush-hater politics as he announced the nominees for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album:
"Tony Bennett and K.D. Lang for 'Wonderful World,' George Clooney's Aunt Rosemary Clooney for 'The Last Concert,' Bette Midler for 'Bette Midler Sings the Rosemary Clooney Songbook' – a little bit of nepotism – Rod Stewart for 'As Time Goes By: The Great American Songbook, Volume II,' and Barbra Streisand for 'How to Defeat Our Current Inept President.' Thank you."
Members of the audience cheered in response. Streisand did indeed win a nomination in this category, but for "The Movie Album."
Posted at 01:38 PM
PROPS FOR BELLISARIO [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
My [community college] students likewise draw a blank when I refer to anything current on TV.Given his longevity in the industry and his several mega-successful series, a couple of which I have loved, I marvel that Bellisario's work is always excluded from the sort of discussion you just posted. JAG is one of the most grown-up (in the best sense of the word) shows on television--consistently mature in outlook and in the themes it portrays. Magnum PI had Tom Selleck, which would have been enough, in addition to Hawaii and good story-telling. Bellisario's Quantum Leap was highly inventive, and ran for years. Why does no awards show or media writer acknowledge the man's existence?
Posted at 12:53 PM
RNC KOOL-AID [Tim Graham]
Washington Post TV writer Lisa DeMoraes continues pounding the idea that only the RNC protested the planned CBS airing of "The Reagans," but today she adds a nice Jonestown twist, just weeks after the 25th anniversary of that mass suicide:
"A mere1.15 million people bothered to watch the new movie, which found itself on the Viacom-owned pay cable network after the chief of Viacom-owned CBS drank a big glass of Republican National Committee Kool-Aid, abruptly decided that the project he had ordered for the November sweep, the period when stations use ratings to set ad prices, was insufficiently flattering toward the former president, and cut bait."
For a roundup on the Showtime panel discussion, in which liberal former Washington Post reporter Lou Cannon suggests "It’s hard to imagine a cartoon that could be that bad" at portraying Reagan, see here.
Posted at 12:52 PM
GO AGGIES! [Roger Clegg]
The president of Texas A&M has announced that he will recommend to its regents (who will vote today) that the school not use racial and ethnic preferences in its admission and scholarship policies. The proposed policy is not perfect – the school will still be color-conscious in its recruiting – but this is still very welcome news indeed. Other schools in Texas have signaled that they will be moving back to using preferences, now that the Supreme Court has given such discrimination a tentative okay, but perhaps the Aggies’ willingness to break with political correctness will inspire them to do likewise. A&M, Texas Tech, the University of Texas, and Rice have all been under pressure from the Center for Equal Opportunity not to reinstate preferences, by the way. A&M is hardly alone in its policy: Public universities in California, Washington, and Florida are prohibited by state law from using preferences, as were schools in a number of other states prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling this summer; indeed, the proponents of preferences are fond of pointing out that the vast majority of colleges in the U.S. do not use them.
Posted at 12:33 PM
LIFE & DEATH & THE BURDEN OF PROOF [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
There's a piece worth reading on TechCentralStation on Terri Schiavo by a physician:
We've been down this road before, most famously with Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan. In both of those cases, families fought hard for the right to discontinue treatment; treatment that they felt was futile. Today, the Schiavos are fighting equally hard to continue treatment; treatment that so many others feel is futile.
So little and so much has changed in the past ten years. Our science is no closer to understanding consciousness, but our society is more confident that those living in altered forms of it are closer to death than to life. In the era of Quinlan and Cruzan, the burden of proof lay on those who would deny basic care to the severely cognitively impaired. Today, the burden of proof is on those who would continue it. If that isn't a slide down the slippery slope, what is?
Posted at 12:21 PM
BANNING THE BAN [Meghan Keane]
A fly on the wall at the D.C. smoking-ban hearing yesterday says things are looking good for defeating the ban. "Actual workers, the people for whom this legislation ostensibly exists, showed up at the hearing begging them not to pass the ban. Only two out of 90 people I saw testify were people from Smoke Free D.C. reading testimony "on behalf of" waitstaff who said smoking bothered them and but they needed the money from their jobs. Neither of them said, however, that they'd tried to find jobs in one of the many smoke-free restaurants in the city and failed." Better yet, Mayor Williams said he would veto it if it passed Said one of his employees: "If we pass this, the smoke-free environment you'll be providing will be in the unemployment line."
Anti-ban activists have a website, here.
Posted at 12:16 PM
RE: BLESSED MOTHERHOOD [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The aforementioned e-mail reminds me of Karen Santorum who wrote a beautiful book about her son Gabriel, who died at twenty weeks. Here is what NRODT wrote about it in 1998:
During Senate floor debate in 1996 on a bill to ban partial-birth abortion, Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) was told that he could not make a judgment about something that had never touched his life. Less than a month later, Santorum's wife, Karen, pregnant with their fourth child, had a miscarriage. Letters to Gabriel chronicles Gabriel Michael Santorum's twenty-week life. Although he spent only two hours outside the womb before he died, he had become a part of the family in utero. As Mrs. Santorum writes, Accepting partial-birth abortion as our only alternative to a difficult birth or a potentially disabled infant is to thwart two of our strongest human needs: those of love and memory.''
Posted at 12:05 PM
BLESSED MOTHERHOOD [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This e-mail is one that I must share:
Just read your article on the Passion of Christ.
I would nominate my wife as my favorite feminist (before JPII and Mel Gibson, unfortunately, but after the Blessed Mother). After learning at 22 weeks that our daughter Clare Catherine was anencephalic, my wife faced a path akin to that chosen by the Blessed Virgin. Rather than acting "to end the suffering" (as so many cowardly counseled), my wife exercised her "right" by complying with Deuteronomy and choosing life. As with the Blessed Mother, my wife said "yes" to God's request. She agreed to take care of one of His most beloved children, who was also among the most vulnerable in our "culture of death."
My wife carried Clare until she was born at 40 weeks. It was a journey full of sadness, grief and pain, as one can easily imagine. More importantly, however, it was also a journey of love and hope. Clare's birth was anticipated and received with joy, and my wife spent the entire amount of Clare's life (20 hours) with her. How many parents can say they spent their child's entire life with them? Because Clare was allowed to come to term, she was able to receive the sacraments of baptism and confirmation (her godfather is the priest who gave her the sacraments), and now she is in heaven, hopefully working to keep her father on track.
We celebrated the second anniversary of Clare's birth and death (last Friday and Saturday) with mass, a cake, and for some, a visit to her grave. She was and is our greatest blessing.
After watching my wife go through this experience, similar in some ways to that of the Blessed Mother, I hope that someday examples like her will be viewed as the true feminism, the courage to respond to God's call to be all that a woman can be.
Thanks for reading.
Posted at 11:42 AM
REAGAN AND AIDS: AN ADDENDUM [Peter Robinson]
From a reader: Reagan defenders have missed one unprecedented thing Reagan did in regards to AIDS. In June, 1988, according to a website on AIDS history (http://aidshistory.nih.gov/timeline/), "the brochure 'Understanding AIDS,' prepared by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in collaboration with the CDC [Centers for Disease Control], was mailed to every household in the United States."
No other disease, before or after, has gotten that level of attention.
Posted at 11:35 AM
MY INBOX OVERFLOWETH [Peter Robinson]
My inbox now contains about 30 suggestions for calendar software that my wife and I might be able to use to manage our mad family and more than 70 suggestions for Advent calendars of a traditional--which is to say, religious--nature. I've also received quite a few requests asking me to post the best couple of suggestions in each category. (Query for Milton Friedman: In a an economy as vast and varied as our own, why are so many of us nevertheless having so much trouble finding items as simple as Advent calendars and as needful as computer software?)
I figure I'll have my inbox sorted out by early afternoon Pacific Time. Until then, may I, a) beg your forbearance, and, b) state yet again my pleasure and astonishment at the intelligence, knowledge, and goodwill of our readers?
Posted at 11:34 AM
WOULD THIS MAKE PETA FOR THE LIBERATION OF AFGHANISTAN? [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
AFGHANISTAN’S DECIMATED LIVESTOCK COULD TAKE 10 YEARS TO REGENERATE – UN REPORT
New York, Dec 4 2003 10:00AM
Four years of drought and many years of civil strife have decimated livestock in Afghanistan, a major source of income and food for farmers and their families, and it could take up to 10 years for the animal herds to regenerate naturally, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported today.
Posted at 11:31 AM
JESUS IS A FEMINIST [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
NRO readers are so countercultural. A reader responding to my Passion piece earlier in the week:
Good article on Mel Gibson. Only, Jesus is my favorite feminist. Walter Wink has pointed out that Jesus upends social convention in every single scene in the Gospels in which he interacts with women. (Always for the better.)
It took time, but his influence slowly changed the world. Though people like Hugh Heffner...and Bill Clinton try to change it back, (upending post-Jesus social convention for the worse) Christ's feminist influence has even reformed views of women in India, China and Japan, to a large extent.
Posted at 11:04 AM
FACIALLY CHALLENGED [John Derbyshire]
China has staged a Miss Ugly contest. Winner Zhang Di declared that "My small eyes, flat nose and poor skin have been such a burden to me that I have no self-confidence." Her prize was $13,000 worth of cosmetic surgery. The whole thing, in fact, was staged by the cosmetic-surgery industry, now booming in China.
Posted at 10:52 AM
TITLE VI: MAKING PROGRESS [Stanley Kurtz]
The battle over Title VI reform is definitely heating up. The academy can’t defend their boycott of national security scholarships or their dismal record of training language specialists to work for our defense and intelligence agencies (key justifications for Title VI subsidies). So they’ve settled on a strategy of claiming interference with academic freedom. I’ve got a column today rebutting that charge. And don’t miss Martin Kramer’s powerful attack on the false claims about HR 3077 being purveyed at Yale, and in the Los Angeles Times. Finally, I’ll be debating Title VI reform with Rashid Khalidi live on NPR’s Los Angeles station today at 11AM Pacific Time.
Posted at 10:52 AM
WOOPS RE: "OUTSTANDING ESSAY" [Jonah Goldberg]
The link below was messed up. I fixed it there. And here it is again.
Posted at 10:50 AM
GREAT TV [Jonah Goldberg]
Just for the record, I was not trying to be exhaustive in today's G-File on the subjects of good or bad TV. For example, I didn't mention "Hill Street Blues" or "Homicide" as great TV and I didn't mention "Love, American Style" as terrible tv. Lots of folks are emailing to insist I was wrong not to mention this show or that. I wasn't wrong, I was just economical.
Posted at 10:43 AM
I KNOW YOU KNOW [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
but I'm just reminding: you get to read that Dean piece by Rich before week's end if you subscribe to Digital or Dead Tree on dead tree.
Posted at 10:42 AM
NR ENDORSES DEAN [Rich Lowry]
Well, not quite. But this is the newest cover of NR…
Posted at 10:38 AM
TURKEY CHAIN [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I hesitate to post this because it strikes me as something that will turn out being debunked by snopes.com very shortly, when every inbox and blogsite in America has it, but I haven't seen it except from a few Air Force guys so far, so I guess we'll start the roll. If snopes debunks in 12 hours, just let me know so we know the telephone game is complete. This could be legit though (if you happen to be a captain and wrote this to your wife last week, let me know)--it certainly sounds like how things probably went down:
An Email from a Captain in Iraq
We knew there was a dinner planned with ambassador Bremer and LTG Sanchez. There were 600 seats available and all the units in the division weretasked with filling a few tables. Naturally, the 501st MI battalion got ourtable. Soldiers were grumbling about having to sit through another dog-and-pony show, so we had to pick soldiers to attend. I chose not to go.
But, about 1500 the G2, LTC Devan, came up to me and with a smile, asked me to come to dinner with him, to meet him in his office at 1600 and bring a camera. I didn't really care about getting a picture with Sanchez or Bremer, but when the division's senior intelligence officer asks you to go, you go. We were seated in the chow hall, fully decorated for thanksgiving when all kinds of secret service guys showed up.
That was my first clue, because Bremer's been here before and his personal security detachment is not that big. Then BG Dempsey got up to speak, and he welcomed ambassador Bremer and LTG Sanchez. Bremer thanked us all and pulled out a piece of paper as if to give a speech. He mentioned that the President had given him this thanksgiving speech to give to the troops. He then paused and said that the senior man present should be the one to give it. He then looked at Sanchez, who just smiled.
Bremer then said that we should probably get someone more senior to read the speech. Then, from behind the camouflage netting, the President of the United States came around. The mess hall actually erupted with hollering. Troops bounded to their feet with shocked smiles and just began cheering with all their hearts. The building actually shook. It was just unreal. I was absolutely stunned. Not only for the obvious, but also because I was only two tables away from the podium. There he stood, less than thirty feet away from me! The cheering went on and on and on.
Soldiers were hollering, cheering, and a lot of them were crying. There was not a dry eye at my table. When he stepped up to the cheering, I could clearly see tears running down! his cheeks. It was the most surreal moment I've had in years. Not since my wedding and Aaron being born. Here was this man, our President, came all the way around the world, spending 17 hours on an airplane and landing in the most dangerous airport in the world, where a plane was shot out of the sky not six days before.
Just to spend two hours with his troops. Only to get on a plane and spend another 17 hours flying back. It was a great moment, and I will never forget it. He delivered his speech, which we all loved, when he looked right at me and held his eyes on me. Then he stepped down and was just mobbed by the soldiers. He slowly worked his way all the way around the chow hall and shook every last hand extended. Every soldier who wanted a photo with the President got one. I made my way through the line, got dinner, then wolfed it down as he was still working the room.
You could tell he was really enjoying himself. It wasn't just a photo opportunity. This man was actually enjoying himself! He worked his way over the course of about 90 minutes towards my side of the room. Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to shake a few hands. I got a picture with Ambassador Bremer, Talabani (acting Iraqi president) and Achmed Chalabi (another member of the ruling council) and Condaleeza Rice, who was there with him.
I felt like I was drunk. He was getting closer to my table so I went back over to my seat. As he passed and posed for photos, he looked my in the eye and "How you doin', captain." I smiled and said "God bless you, sir." To which he responded "I'm proud of what you do, captain." Then moved on.
Posted at 10:36 AM
OUTSTANDING ESSAY [Jonah Goldberg]
On Islam, Hayek, Catholicism, the rule of law, etc. I know from my own experience from my "Islam Needs a Pope" column, that some people will take exception with some of what Edward Feser writes here, and I have some disagreements too. But this really is a very interesting, albeit long, read. Check it out.
Posted at 10:24 AM
NATIONAL REVIEW AND GAY MARRIAGE [Jonah Goldberg]
I want to call your attention to the editorial in the upcoming issue of NR for two reasons. First, it's well done and worth reading. Second, because I get so many emails from people who think NR is pro-gay marriage because I'm allegedly pro-gay marriage. Well, I'm not and neither is NR. The differences between me and the editorial borad of the mothership are real, but they are simply not what many people think they are. Regardless, I'm criticized in the editorial for opposing the FMA. Just thought you should know.
Posted at 10:02 AM
TURKEY TALES [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A Navyman e-mails:
The “turkey prop” reminds me of a Navy Thanksgiving celebrated onboard my ship in the early 90’s. We were pierside in Okinawa, loading Marines and equipment for a major exercise in Korea. Mess Specialist David Robinson, preparing the meal for the officers’ mess made a beautiful bird stuffed with cornbread and sage sausage. When his prize bird made it to the table, our embarked Marine officers refused to carve it, thinking it was a prop. For the first go-round, they ate roasted turkey loaf. Robinson was disappointed beyond belief, at which point I told him to state his case to the senior officer present. He did, and the Marines promptly re-oriented themselves his centerpiece, picking the platter clean in very short order.
Posted at 10:01 AM
MORE PETA CHICKENS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jay Nordlinger's got a great PETA vs. KFC piece in the upcoming issue of NRODT. You can read that online tomorrow if you subscribe to NR Digital. I would recommend reading Jay's piece with a box of the Colonel's popcorn chicken.
Posted at 09:57 AM
SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!!! [Jonah Goldberg ]
If you don't know how to use the word "neocon," don't. Seriously, don't. If you're even the teensiest bit unsure, don't. Because when you use it wrong you illuminate such vast swaths of ignorance so as to make it difficult to be taken seriously on other subjects. An amazing case in point from Tina Brown's column today defending Conrad Black:
The meager turnout was a bummer, since Black's 1,300-page biography has had stellar reviews. Historians from Alan Brinkley to Daniel Yergin have hailed it as the best single volume on the many perplexing aspects of FDR's political life. A belligerent neo-con before it was fashionable, Black has paradoxically contrived to write an admiring appraisal of Roosevelt's pre-Pearl Harbor reluctance to fight the Nazis and the economic interventionism of the New Deal for which neo-cons of the '30s bitterly reviled FDR as "that man."
Now, to the extent I understand the charges, I am all in favor of defending Conrad Black. But, Tina, there were no "neocons" in the 1930s, hyphenated or otherwise. As a matter of intellectual history, this is like referring to "Christians" in 500 B.C. Does Brown think that only "neo-cons" disliked FDR but authentic cons loved him? Seriously, when in doubt, shut up.
Posted at 09:56 AM
PETA IS TIRESOME [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Offensive, sure. Ridiculous, surely. Definitely tiresome. They've got mock Pieta/Immaculate conception billboards in Rhode Island (just in time for the Dec 8 feast of the Immaculate Conception?): It's the Virgin Mary holding a chicken carcass.
Posted at 09:50 AM
SPECTER'S CHAIR [Meghan Keane]
In today's Washington Times: "I want to thank Arlen Specter, who is the state campaign co-chairman for Bush-Cheney '04," Mr. Bush said to a room full of well-heeled supporters. "I look forward to working with him as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the United States Senate to make sure my judges get through and appointed."
Posted at 09:46 AM
WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S A WAY [Jack Fowler]
Among the deluge of praise for our NR kids books -- from some pretty distinguished folks- is this from none other than George Will:
"National Review, having done so much to make government safe for subsequent generations, has now turned its attention to making those rising generations suited to self-government. These treasuries of children's literature will delight young readers, and improve them without making them aware that anything so annoying is going on."
Well thanks Mr. Will!--we couldn't have said it any better. Now, with Christmas looming, may we suggest NROers delight young readers and order any or all of our great titles: the original edition or "Volume Two" of The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature, and our new book designed especially for new and beginiing readers, The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories (a lavishly illustrated collection of beautful stories by the great Thornton Burgess). They are the perfect Christmas gifts (they'll not only last a lifetime--they'll influence a child's entire life!). Order here.
Posted at 09:44 AM
MORE ARSENIC, LESS WILDERNESS [Tim Graham]
See the website of the new Democratic soft-money warship America Coming Together for a taste of the same old partisan sludge:
"Tax cuts to benefit the wealthy … More arsenic and mercury in the water; fewer parks, wildernesses and forests for our future … Turning back the clock on civil rights, on women’s rights, on workers’ rights. It’s time to fight back against the extremist Bush agenda. It’s time for America Coming Together (ACT)."
Posted at 09:30 AM
VISUAL II [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted at 09:15 AM
TOUCHING TURKEY [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The link I posted earlier isn't working, so here's one of the other wire visuals from the Thanksgiving trip, where Bush is not just part of the decorations.
Posted at 09:12 AM
SHAM REV [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This is my last Today Show reference today. Every morning they have celebrity "elves" collecting "toys for tots." Today's not-so-sweet treat? Al Sharpton, Mr. Saturday Night Live this week.
Posted at 08:36 AM
THAT MAGICAL MOON [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
It's amazing how space travel still makes grown men and women as giddy as they were as kids playing with plastic space shuttles. Today Show has on Dennis Powell this morning after his NRO piece--the moon story is everywhere today after his NRO piece yesterday--and Ann Curry and Matt Lauer were positively gleeful anticipating the space segment.
Posted at 07:06 AM
CREDIBILITY QUESTION?! [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I’m glad, at least, that the turkey-and-trimmings-platter-was-a-prop story is at least on page A33 of the Washington Post and not the front-page. The whole thing seems ridiculously silly. I’ll buy it was a decoration no one put there in anticipation of the president picking it up. But if it was scripted, so what? (He did, by the way, touch real food later.) Of course this is what the story is all about, not some Thanksgiving dud turkey:
the foray has opened new credibility questions for a White House that has dealt with issues as small as who placed the "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the aircraft carrier Bush used to proclaim the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and as major as assertions about Saddam Hussein's arsenal of unconventional weapons and his ability to threaten the United States.Earlier this week, Katie Couric actually had a neat "so-called" end-of-major-combat-ops construct when asking Paul Bremer about the supposed Bush admin lies or mishap. We defend that "Mission Accomplished" banner in the new issue of NRODT, by the way. From the Lincoln to the turkey: call it "leadership."
Posted at 07:01 AM
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
NORTH KOREA AND ITS U.N. HELPMATES [Tim Graham]
Jonah, don't be too hard on yourself. The UN does suck...and on this issue. It fails to place the blame for North Korean poverty where it belongs...with Kim Jong Il. (The biggest "market reform" would be to dump the communist regime, right?) Once again, just like in Saddam's Iraq, the UN "humanitarians" are making it easier for a dictator to prop up his military programs at the expense of his people. You'd think the liberals would be against that. For a wider take on the UN's North Korea findings, see here and here.
You can also get a flavor of the UN chatter from this release in March.
Posted at 10:34 PM
BIG PRIME [Rick Brookhiser]
John, I think I saw a 6,320,420 digit prime number just the other day. Some sort of business zip code.
Posted at 06:42 PM
RE: ME BLEG: EASIEST DEATH THREAT OF ALL TIME [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
You never know what will set folks off; this time it was a bad attempt at a joke. An email:
Die Socialist Pig!
From us according to our ability, to you according to your want? Whatever happened to the ideal of self-reliance?
Posted at 06:13 PM
THIS JUST IN… [Rich Lowry]
According to Kerry, both Carter and Clinton have in conversations with him expressed interest in serving as a “Presidential Envoy to the Peace Process” in the Kerry administration. Peace and security is on the way…
Posted at 05:11 PM
KERRY ON BUSH STRAWMEN [Rich Lowry]
As for the rest of the speech, it was basically respectable Howard Dean. Kerry looks the part of a Senator and gives off none of the ultra-hot insurgent vibe of Howard Dean, but he served up the same sort of rhetoric, just in senatorial tones. For instance: "We have a President who has developed and exalted a strategy of war - unilateral; pre-emptive; and in my view, profoundly threatening to America's place in the world and the safety and prosperity of our own society. Simply put: The Bush Administration has pursued the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history." Otherwise, Kerry sets up a series of strawmen. He says that "the battle against terrorism is not and must not be a modern crusade against Islam." But who is actually proposing that? He criticizes the Bush administration for offering a UN resolution calling the U.S. an "occupying power" in Iraq. But that's what we are. He complained that "by acting without international sanction in Iraq, the administration has in effect invited other nations to invoke the same precedent to attack their adversaries." Well, maybe if their adversaries are in violation of 15-something UN resolutions over a period of a decade. Kerry still can't explain how he would square his support for dealing with Saddam Hussein in theory with his support for only doing it with diplomatic unanimity. Asked about this by a reporter, Kerry said he would have gone back to France month after month to ask them whether they are finally ready to support the U.S. invasion, the theory being that eventually France would have been embarassed out of its opposition. Not very likely. Needless to say, this performance was greeted rapturously by the members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Meanwhile, Howard Dean is out somewhere winning actual votes.
Posted at 05:00 PM
KERRY ON THE SAUDIS [Rich Lowry]
Just saw John Kerry deliver his major foreign policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations. He took after the Saudis big time. This is becoming a major Democratic theme, and is one to be encouraged since Saudi relations is an issue where the Democrats can usefully get to Bush's right. Here is Kerry's take (excuse the long post):
"The Saudi government now claims to be cracking down on terrorist financing, but their actions have not matched their words. The United States must do everything possible to ensure that Saudi reforms are real, not just window-dressing. There needs to be accountability.
I have specific concerns.
Saudi Arabia has long been a major supporter of Islamic extremism here and elsewhere. Saudi-funded hate speech can be found in schools, mosques, and other institutions across the world, fostering hatred of Jews, Christians, Americans, and the West. This kind of officially sanctioned bigotry breeds terrorism. Spokesmen for the Saudis now say that textbooks are being rewritten to remove "possibly offensive" language and that Islamic clerics are being told to tone down their rhetoric. But we need more than promises. We need to see the new textbooks. We need to hear what the government-financed clerics are preaching.
Saudi officials and spokesmen have said repeatedly that the Saudi government is opposed to every form of terrorism; yet the Saudi regime openly and enthusiastically supports Palestinian terrorist groups, such as Hamas,. The Saudis cannot pick and choose among terrorist groups, approving some while claiming to oppose others.
Beyond all this, one purveyor of Saudi hate speech is a senior member of the ruling family who serves as the top law enforcement official in the kingdom. I'm referring to Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister. More than a year after 9/11 attacks, Prince Nayef told an Arab media outlet that he thought "the Jews" were responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. How can we even begin to regard Saudi Arabia as a reliable ally against terrorism when its top law enforcement officer, supposedly responsible for tracking down terrorists, is a man who promotes wild, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to explain away the 9/11 attacks?
The truth is, we have deep, and for the moment inescapable ties - corporate and energy dependence - that complicates our relationship with significantly. And that is why we must adopt a new energy policy for America and create a real partnership against terror which is in the best long-term Saudi interests as well."
Posted at 04:58 PM
THE UN STORY [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Subject: You're wrong about "U.N. Sucks."Well, okay, the U.N. DOES well and truly suck, but the passage you quoted came from the AP writer, not the U.N. guy. If you read the whole story, you'll see that the U.N. guy is asking for more international aid for N.K. in order to persuade the government to CONTINUE it's capitalist reforms.
The U.N. is NOT chastising the Norks for experimending with capitalism.
The U.N. does indeed suck, but this story is poor evidence of
it.
Posted at 03:44 PM
THE U.N. SUCKS...AGAIN [Tim Graham]
Jonah, that AP story was awful. Do you think the AP reporter could have found someone else on Earth to ponder the North Korean economy? But that's not the only UN scoop today: they also believe that global warming is going to ruin downhill skiing in Europe.
Posted at 03:33 PM
ME BLEG [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Just wondering if anyone would like to pay for my Christmas shopping this year. Actually, i'll take volunteers who will actually do it, too. There are a number of men on my list who will be happy with obscure Star Trek items. Multiple copies of NR kids' books and LEGACY will go far, too. Also, would you be a dear and stop by and replace all the bloody lights on every light string that doesn't work. Any takers?
Posted at 03:29 PM
SKI BLEG [John Derbyshire]
The Derbs were planning a ski break over the New Year (Dec. 29 to Jan 1) but our plan fell through--or, to be fair, was not as well-confirmed as we supposed. Does any Corner reader have a skiing time-share or condo that would be free those days at a moderate rental rate, not more than a few hours drive from NYC? We are all house-broken--though the two kids are kids, so nothing with priceless Ming vases in situ would be suitable. Any offers, please, with rates & conditions, to olimu@optonline.net with subject line SKI.
Posted at 03:20 PM
HABARI GANI [John Derbyshire]
OK, mystery solved. "Habari gani" is Swahili for "What's up?"
This is in contradiction to several readers who sent in specualtive translations, of which the only one suitable for a family website was: "Sharpton for President!"
Posted at 03:14 PM
FAMILY LIFE: BLEG 2 OF 2 [Peter Robinson]
Well, here we are, four days into Advent, and the only Advent calendars I've found are entirely secular--calendars covered with pictures of Rudolph the Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. What I want is a proper Advent calendar, one decorated with scenes from the nativity narrative with windows that contain not stale pieces of chocolate but quotations from scripture or carols.
Good readers, can anyone recommend a site where I can find such an Advent calendar? Please place "Advent" in your subject heading.
Posted at 03:12 PM
STRAIGHT FLIGHT--THE DETAILS [John Derbyshire]
Back in July I coined the phrase "straight flight." Here it is in action. NB: This link is to a piece that is rather long, but well worth reading. I personally found it very moving, though a little bit scary. Many thanks to the reader who sent me this.
Posted at 03:09 PM
FAMILY LIFE: BLEG 1 OF 2 [Peter Robinson]
Can anyone recommend a good piece of calendar software? Please? I mean, please?
When our children were smaller, our principal difficulty lay in keeping them in their diapers. (Little boys, for some reason, know no greater delight than to climb out of their diapers, then run around the house, cackling.) But now that they're older, our problem has become much, much more complicated: Keeping track of the dates of each child's athletic events, major tests, piano lessons, doctor's appointments, and on and on.
What we need is a piece of software that is
a) Simple. My darling wife leads a life that is quite complicated enough as it is. (This is why Microsoft Outlook is out. Be honest. Have you ever met anyone who understood that software?)
b) Capable of being posted to the web, so that I can see the family's schedule even when I'm at the office
c) PC-compatible
Yes, I know. Apple aficionados will tell me that what I'm looking for is a piece of software for PCs that's half as good as iCal, the software that comes built in to every Apple. And you know what? They're right.
One last thing: Please place "calendar" in your subject heading. And thank you.
Posted at 03:05 PM
WHAT A GOOD FATHER AM I [Peter Robinson]
I have this very instant ordered The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature and The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories. Not that my children deserve such fine volumes.
In the car yesterday on the way to school:
ANDREW (age 7): Dad, I found this really, really old penny, and I’m taking it in for show-and-tell.
SELF (at the wheel): Really old? What’s the year?
ANDREW (reading the date with help from his two older brothers): Nineteen fifty-seven.
EDITA (age 12): Wow, that’s, like, antique!
SELF: Andrew, you can tell your classmates that your penny was minted in the same year in which your father was born.
EDITA (after all four children produce gasps of astonishment): You’re kidding.
The NR Classics under the tree. But in their stockings? Lumps of coal.
Posted at 02:48 PM
THE UN SUCKS (EXHIBIT 9,034B) [Jonah Goldberg]
The UN is chastising North Korea for being too free market:
"By dabbling with capitalism, North Korea is creating a new class of urban poor that is worsening its hunger problem, as once centrally controlled industries have to cut costs and jobs amid free-market pressures, a top U.N. official said Wednesday."
Posted at 02:29 PM
THE GIPPER [Peter Robinson]
Readers of this happy Corner one and all, be sure to go to the NRO homepage today to click on Deroy Murdock's piece about Reagan and AIDS.
It has become an established "fact" on the left that Reagan did nothing about AIDS. Reviewing the HBO production of Angels in America in the Times a couple of weeks ago, for example, Frank Rich spent at least half his time assailing Ronald Reagan. (And when I was touring for my book on Reagan, I could count on someone's asking me at nearly every stop why the Gipper merely stood by while HIV spread.) Yet as Deroy demonstrates in marvelous detail, the fact that Reagan did nothing about AIDS is no fact at all. An actual fact? That Reagan spent more than five billion on AIDS.
Posted at 02:10 PM
RE: THE SIMPLE LIFE [Rod Dreher]
Dittoes, Jonah, and did you see catch Shales' remark about how "the rest of us" -- versus Republican-loving corporate fatcats -- "just hope to cope"? The "rest of us"? Oh, please. According to this, the WaPo pays the Man of the People $200,000 a year for his services. That would put him somewhere between the top one percent and the top five percent of American earners. I say Po' Tom belongs in Andrew Sullivan's Poseur Alert feature.
Posted at 02:01 PM
TOM SHALES AND THE RICH [Peter Robinson]
Were he paying a trifle more attention, Jonah, Tom Shales would also have noticed that for decades now the stock market has tended to rise more during Democratic than during Republican administrations. I suppose my view of all this may be distorted by living in Silicon Valley, where during the last election cycle there was a pretty good chance that on any evening you'd find the streets of Palo Alto or Atherton cut off because a fundraiser was being held for Al Gore or Joe Lieberman, but can anyone doubt that the rich were giddier under Clinton than they are under Bush?
Posted at 01:49 PM
RE THE SIMPLE LIFE [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah,It just goes to show how split people who identify with the blue states and those who identify with the red states are. If Shales thinks the message of the Simple Life is that the rich are doing great in Republican administrations, he's nuts.
In my opinion, the show is a gift-wrapped Christmas present to the RNC. Here we have a perfectly functional, hard-working farm family in a red state. Their house is covered in American flags. And then two completely ditsy heiresses drop in, fresh from a Page Six worthy party. Paris Hilton is the exact type of person that limousine liberals fawn over at Bill Clinton-hosted fundraisers at Lotus, along with Ian Klause, Nane Annan, and Laurie David. This show will only make the Red States hate NY and LA more.
Posted at 01:46 PM
MORE ON FORCEFIELDS [Jonah Goldberg]
A member from the US Military chimes in:
Jonah:I realize that most of these discussions have taken place in the TOS time period but I can't beleive that YOU of all people could forget about the ALMIGHTY Q.
The Q forcefield (as seen in many first-season TNG episodes, including Encounter at Farpoint) travelled at WARP SPEED (Above warp 9.9, if I remember correctly) and it was able to completely encircle the Enterprise-D. Obviously a much more sophisticated forcefield than any mentioned in Jim Kirk's logs.
Posted at 01:43 PM
PRIME NUMBERS [John Derbyshire]
A reader in Omaha asks: "Hello - sorry to interrupt your day, but Paul Harvey on the radio just said that the largest prime number has been discovered. He gave a person's name (which I forgot) and the number of digits (6 million plus). You're the only person in my e-mail who might know something about this. Is it true? Thanks."
Well, if Paul Harvey called it the largest prime number, he mis-spoke. There is no largest prime number, a fact proved by Euclid around 2,300 years ago. This one is just the largest we have so far identified. It's (2 raised to the power of 20,996,011) minus 1. The number of digits is 6,320,430. Here's a story.
Posted at 01:24 PM
STAR TREK FORCE FIELDS [Jonah Goldberg]
Susan from Seattle makes a good case:
Jonah:
My vote for the strongest force field around the Enterprise is for the one put on the Enterprise by Sylvia in "Cat's Paw," shown as a the ship encased in Lucite (or something) on a chain. That lasted until her actual power source was destroyed, didn't it?
Posted at 01:19 PM
KWANZANUKKAHMAS [John Derbyshire]
My son Daniel Oliver (3rd grade) has brought home his song sheet for the school's "Winter Songfest." There are three songs on it.
(1) A spoof on "The 12 Days of Christmas" (Heaven forbid anyone should take Christmas SERIOUSLY!) with gifts like messy drawers... burning ulcers... bags of dirty clothes... and "viscous" [sic] colds.
(2) "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music, unaltered so far as I can tell.
(3) A song I am not familiar with named "Celebrate Kwanzaa." In case I am not alone in being unfamiliar with this no doubt ancient and traditional American carol, I have written it out below. Can anyone tell me the provenance and meaning of "Habari Gani"?
CELEBRATE KWANZAA
Winter is here so Kwanzaa is near Celebrating joy and love As a happy family Join us in our greeting With seven days of holiday Sharing all our gifts and love In a happy gathering
[Chorus] Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Kwanzaa Love and peace, from me to you Habari Gani, spread the news Of joy to you and ask what's new
Peace be unto you Good things come true When you spread your joy and love In a happy family Self determination Living as a nation too Where all one relation and live in harmony [sic]
[Chorus] Happy Kwanzaa, etc.
Posted at 01:09 PM
WHAT TO GET THAT REPUBLICAN FOR CHRISTMAS [Jack Fowler]
Don't scratch your head wondering what to give that rock-ribbed GOPer for Christmas -- the perfect gift is We Will Prevail: President George W. Bush on War, Terrorism, and Freedom, an NR/Continuum book (with a smashing Foreword by Peggy Noonan and a superior Introduction by NR Managing Editor Jay Nordlinger) that collects over 90 of the most compelling and inspiring speeches given by President George W. Bush as he rallied the United States and other nations after the terrible and tragic attacks of September 11, 2001.
It's a great book. We say so -- and so does Steve Forbes:
“This extraordinary compendium is a stark, eloquent, timely reminder of the true stakes of our post-September 11th war against terrorism, a struggle that should transcend partisanship and whose outcome will fundamentally affect the future of freedom.”
And so does Bill Buckley:
“Insufficient attention has been paid to the great volume of speeches and addresses by President Bush in the heavily altered theater, national and worldwide, since the great assault on the Twin Towers. Here they are, and how welcome and valuable they are.”
We Will Prevail: President George W. Bush on War, Terrorism, and Freedom is a must for every family library, and will surely be appreciated by any "W" fan who is lucky to receive it. Order here.
Posted at 12:57 PM
ANOTHER VIOLATION OF K-LO'S PRIME DIRECTIVE [Jonah Goldberg]
A reader follows-up on yesterday's discussion of the Tholian web versus Apollo's hand:
Jonah,
Mike from Crofton, Maryland may need a refresher course at Starfleet Academy.
The GGHOA was capable of crushing the Enterprise 'like an eggshell' at Apollo's whim, as he convincingly demonstrated when angered by Kirk. The Tholian Web was effective only when fully woven, and this process was contingent on the Enterprise being unable to fire on the Tholian ships or move from its position (lest it disturb subspace and maroon Kirk forever in the alternate dimension).
Posted at 12:52 PM
KERRY'S MONEY [Jonah Goldberg]
Because I don't care very much about campaign finance and because I don't care very much about John Kerry, I haven't cared very much about John Kerry's campaign finances. But apparently lots of folks think this is an interesting topic, including Slate's Tim Noah.
The gist of the story is that Kerry's wife -- who's also John Heinz's rich widow -- can't give him lots of money because of their prenup and the current campaign finance laws. So he's going to borrow money against his house instead. Maybe this has all been covered somewhere -- again, I don't really care -- but let's assume he lose his presidential bid. Not a crazy assumption, right? Couldn't his wife just pay off his debts after the campaign? I mean it's not like he's going to have to sell his house. Couldn't he just borrow like nuts on the assumption that his wife will make post-facto donations to his campaign by clearing his debts for him? And if so, doesn't that just demonstrate how absurd these laws are? I mean what's the difference between giving someone money and promising someone that their debts will be covered?
Or am I missing something?
Posted at 12:48 PM
WORD ON THE (WALL) STREET [Roger Clegg]
CNS News reports that the New York Stock Exchange will, alas, again provide financial support for Jesse Jackson and his annual Wall Street Conference next month. The shakedown continues, the groveling goes on. The last paragraph of the story contains a nice Jackson touch, as he likens himself to Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and, of course, Jesus Christ.
Posted at 11:58 AM
WHY ROLLING STONE? [Jonathan H. Adler]
In response to my article on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s recent attack on the Bush Administration's environmental record, a reader wonders why Kennedy chose Rolling Stone, over more prominent media outlets, for his article. I suspect Kennedy was motivated by two factors. First, readers of more high profile publications, such as the NYT Magazine, are likely to have read attacks on the Bush environmental record in the NYT, whereas Rolling Stone may reach more people who have not heard these attacks before. Second, younger voters tend to care more about the environment and, interestingly enough, are quite pro-Bush. Thus, if one seeks to defeat President Bush in 2004, it would make strategic sense to attack Bush's environmental credentials in a publication primarily read by younger Americans.
Posted at 11:56 AM
RE: THE SIMPLE LIFE [Jonah Goldberg]
I didn't get around to posting this yesterday and I just assumed someone else would've by now. Did no one else catch this typically bitchy aside in Tom Shales review of "The Simple Life" yesterday:
"Maybe if the show encouraged more hatred of the rich, who are having so much fun right now (as they usually do during Republican administrations) while the rest of us just hope to cope, it might be worth watching and worth having been made."
Um, Tom. If you spent a little less time maintaining that oh-so-natural blond look on your column photo and a bit more reading about the corporate scandals, you might have learned that most of them occurred during the last Democratic administration and have been prosecuted during a Republican one. But I understand how hard it is to keep up with the news when you're so busy "coping" in these trying times.
Posted at 11:51 AM
(NOTHING BUT) FLOWERS [Jonathan H. Adler]
The Talking Heads sing of environmentalist excesses, via Michael Rappaport on The Right Coast.
Posted at 11:37 AM
AN AFTERTHOUGHT [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Especially in the first few months following 9/11, there was a tendency among social liberals to equate social conservatives with the Islamists. All alike were theocrats, did not appreciate the value of religious freedom, did not share the liberal definition of the separation of church and state, opposed abortion, etc. Our enemy in the war on terrorism was "fundamentalism"; what we are fighting for was "tolerance," "pluralism," "modernity," and "the open society"--and these terms were, with varying degrees of explicitness, to be understood as liberals understand them. What we are fighting for, in other words, is moral liberalism. I thought that this analysis was entirely wrong-headed and, at points, became a smear. One reason conservative Christians should not be working with radical Islamists is that it gives credence to that smear--although it's not the most important reason.
Posted at 11:35 AM
DISTURBING REPORT [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Evan Gahr writes that opponents of gay marriage have teamed up with radical Islamists. Didn't social conservatives used to oppose the "big tent" strategy for the Republican party? To have made tactical alliances with fairly brutal Islamic dictatorships at the United Nations in the 1990s may have been defensible. After 9/11, this kind of coalition politicking is simply appalling. Gay marriage may or may not be a good idea. The Islamists want to kill us.
Posted at 11:25 AM
RIVAL WARLORDS BATTLE FOR POWER IN BLAIRISTAN [John Derbyshire]
Tony Blair's Northern Ireland policy -- which has been, in essence, to hand over the keys of the store to Republican terrorists -- blew up in his face last week, when elections were held to the Northern Ireland Assembly. This assembly is a "power-sharing" legislature established as part of the 1998 Good Friday agreement, but suspended last year after Sinn Fein, the hard-line Republican party ("the IRA in suits," as people in Ulster say pretty freely) was found to have been running a spy ring in the executive offices of Northern Ireland's administration. Well, Tony Blair has been determined to get "power-sharing" back on track, notwithstanding the fact that Sinn Fein / IRA has made no real move towards demilitarization, as required by the 1998 agreement. Blair accordingly arranged last week's election, and made a point of telling Ulster Unionists not to vote for Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, which refuses to talk to SF/IRA until some real demilitarization has taken place. The Unionist voters of Ulster, who regard Blair, with much justification, as being determined to sell them out to their enemies, poked their collective finger in his eye, giving the DUP 30 seats against the more moderate UUP's 27. At the same time, Republican voters abandoned their own moderate party, the SDLP, for SF/IRA, the seats here going 18 to 24. So: the Northern Ireland assembly now breaks 54-45 hardline-moderate. It is still suspended, and likely to remain so for a long time. The province is being ruled directly from London. The IRA terrorists will put up with this for a while, then start letting off bombs again to (as the saying goes) "push the peace process forward." Whoever is in charge of the British government at that point will cook up some new formula to give the terrorists more of what they want in return for some token concessions. The Unionists will grudgingly go along; the Republicans will fail to deliver what they promised; the Unionists will withdraw their support; and so on to the end of time... Or until the whole wretched island converts to Islam--there are already mosques in all big Irish towns. Dublin has at least four.
Posted at 11:19 AM
IT'S THAT TIME OF THE MONTH, PART I [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
We're closing the latest edition of NR on Dead Tree right now. Rich LOWRY on DEAN, John O'SULLIVAN on DEMOCRACY, WFB on HUGH KENNER, Rob LONG, Mark STEYN, and much, much more. Have you gone DIGITAL? Have you considered giving DIGITAL for Christmas?
Posted at 11:10 AM
ISRAELIS THWART 25 ATTACKS IN NOVEMBER [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted at 10:17 AM
CHRISTMAS IN NYC [Rod Dreher]
Last Christmas season, I was living in NYC, and took my family on a snowy evening to see the tree lighted at Battery Park downtown. The experience inspired me to write this reflection. I've just heard that the tree-lighting there this year will be on this Thursday at 4:45pm -- and the Roches will be singing Christmas carols again. If you live in New York City and can make it to this event, by all means go. Can't recommend it highly enough.
Posted at 10:14 AM
AND FOR THE LADIES [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The fun is not all Derb's: There are Rumsfeld and Bush in a Flight Suit talking dolls ("action figures" if you give them to your son for Christmas). Both are sitting with me as I write right now, courtesy of the TalkingPresidents.com folks. So excuse me if I sound distracted.
Posted at 10:08 AM
JANE BOND, INDEED [Jonah Goldberg]
I just love this story about Valerie Plame appearing in Vanity Fair. I guess there's an unwritten rule among Jihadists that information gleaned from trendy glossy magazines cannot be used for purposes of assassination.
Posted at 09:53 AM
THE WORLD AND YOU [Jack Fowler]
By the way, we forgot to mention yesterday, re our good friend Marvin Olasky, that he and the folks at World Magazine have an excellent blog site -- where intelligent writing reigns -- that any and all are welcome to visit -- here.
Posted at 08:39 AM
PERFECT SETUP [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
You know, Tim, readers can get background on Clinton's record there and everywhere in Rich Lowry's book LEGACY. That book could plug some holes in your Christmas list. John Kerry should consider it.
Posted at 08:21 AM
KERRY'S QUESTIONABLE SAVIOR [Tim Graham]
John Kerry says he'd fight terror with a special ambassador to the Middle East -- Bill Clinton, who did so well in squelching the terror threat in his last job...
Posted at 08:18 AM
KATIE AND THE DEVIL [Tim Graham]
Katie Couric asked James Carville on NBC this morning if Democrats didn't "sell their soul to the Devil" by being too conservative. Carville was selling his umpteenth Simon and Schuster book Had Enough? Certainly, anybody suffering from Clinton (and Carville) fatigue would look at the cover with James mussed up like a fighter and say, "I've certainly had enough of you."
Posted at 08:14 AM
I'M A JACOBIN NOW [Rod Dreher]
I watched The Simple Life with Paris Hilton. Where the hell's my guillotine?
Posted at 07:38 AM
ART: A NEW HISTORY [John J. Miller]
I found this short article on Neanderthal art fascinating. It's also encouraging for conservatives. The next time some liberal calls us Neanderthals, just reply: "Did you know we make art?"
Posted at 05:29 AM
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
AN INTERESTING ARTICLE [Ramesh Ponnuru]
by Amy Sullivan in the Washington Monthly. Sullivan was a staffer for Tom Daschle when the senator floated a "compromise" on partial-birth abortion. The idea was to outlaw late-term abortions--whatever the procedure used--with an exception for maternal health. She argues that the Democrats, and pro-choicers, made a real political mistake in not embracing this idea. But she misstates the pro-life objection to it.
She writes, "Devout anti-abortion senators refused to consider the [compromise] if it included a health exception, claiming that any allowance for health was simply a loophole. This belief is based on a willful misinterpretation of abortion law by anti-abortion leaders, who have promoted the idea that doctors are obligated to consider 'emotional, psychological, familial, and physical' factors when they consider a woman's health. In fact, Doe v. Bolton, the companion case to Roe that is generally understood to have provided the foundation for determining what health is in the context of abortion, says that doctors may consider those factors as pertinent to a woman's health, not that they must."
I won't follow her uncharitable lead by saying that Sullivan's error here is "willful," but it is an error. The health exception is a loophole regardless of whether doctors are mandated to consider psychological factors or merely allowed to. The point is that Doe allows abortion--and requires the law to allow abortion--whenever a doctor can say that a failure to abort would have negative emotional consequences; and the same would have been true of the Daschle bill. I doubt the bill would have led to a single successful prosecution.
Posted at 09:34 PM
SHARPTON AT 11 [Rick Brookhiser]
Sharpton was known as the Boy Preacher, or some such. Before we gasp, remember that there is a wing of Protestantism that takes the priesthood of all believers quite literally, opening their pulpits to women and the young. If preaching has more value than teaching or administering sacraments, then why not? Imagine that Sharpton had a precocious presence (he certainly has presence now). Imagine him growing up in a church-going household, so that the language would be bred in his bones. Such things are always unusual, but not, in some parts of the world, inconceivable.
Posted at 06:54 PM
61 [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
President Bush's post-Iraq-visit approval ratings are on the rise.
Posted at 05:55 PM
THE DOWNSIDE OF BOYCOTTS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The Abercrombie and Fitch porn mag is currently going for $127 on ebay.
Posted at 05:44 PM
DERB ALERT [John Derbyshire]
I am here, Kathryn, playing with my Ann Coulter doll. (Which the NR staff gave me after I did an editorial paragraph on the subject in NRODT.) The only thing I haven't been able to figure out is why, every three or four presses of the button, the thing shrieks I'M DYING FOR A SMOKE! GIVE ME A CIGARETTE SOMEONE!
Posted at 05:41 PM
NASCAR@WHITEHOUSE.GOV [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Derb, where are you?
Posted at 05:00 PM
CANAAN BANANA [John Derbyshire]
The current (11/29-12/5) issue of THE ECONOMIST carries a moving tribute to the Rev. Canaan Banana, sometime President of Zimbabwe, who died November 10. Sample: "For much of his time in office, President Banana's job was to look dignified at posh events, such as Prince Charles's wedding to Lady Diana Spencer. His light workload left him with plenty of time for his hobby, which was raping his male attendants." Requiescat in pace.
Posted at 04:12 PM
THE REV. [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
That CNN report also noted that Al Sharpton became a minister at eleven. Eleven?!
Posted at 04:01 PM
"GORE CARRIED CATHOLIC VOTE IN 2000" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
That was one of the buzzlines that just ran across CNN during a story on the presidential candidates and religion. A. "What Catholic vote?" B. It's a tad more complicated than that.
Posted at 03:55 PM
IRRITATING [Meghan Keane]
After explaining that the Reagans was just a great, unbiased movie, Liz Smith writes this: "If you admire the Reagans, this movie would irritate you." Really, who could admire that man?
Posted at 03:51 PM
SLIME MOLDS FOR DEAN [John J. Miller]
K Lo: Kucinich may have the woodland animals, but word in DC is that Dean will soon win the coveted slime mold endorsement, despite heavy lobbying from Kerry and Edwards.
Posted at 03:48 PM
ANOTHER GOOD QUESTION [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
If a tree in the woods endorses Kucinich, is it even worth making fun of? Because, evidently, if you go deep into the forest, you will meet wildlife and more that want to vote Kucinich.
Posted at 03:17 PM
GOOD QUESTION [Jonah Goldberg]
Mike from Crofton, Maryland asks:
Jonah:I thought Star Trek was verbotten in The Corner. If the ban has been lifted, I just wanted to ask you: what do you think was a stronger force field/deterrent to the Enterprise: the Tholian Web or the Giant Green Hand of Apollo? Just wondering. I'll be awaiting your answer in the basement of the science building.
Posted at 02:46 PM
"MY" FEDERALISM [Jonah Goldberg]
Ramesh - I've been dreading the day you got around to responding to my syndicated column. And, now, I fear you might get angry email from people accusing you of letting me off easy. Anyway, you make a very good point and I guess I've got to think it through a bit more. But at first blush a few points come to mind. First, I would probably be against an amendment to the Constitution for the prohibition of narcotics too. Second, I'm for the decriminalization of pot, and I think that such a move would best be implemented on a state-by-state basis.
Third, the analogy doesn't quite hold for me because I think drugs and gay marriage have very different social costs. The arguments about the direct, demonstrable, damage caused by gay marriage are often very abstract. I find some of those arguments plausible and a few even convincing to one extent or another. But, the damage to the individual and the society caused by drug use is not abstract but concrete and obviously demonstrable.
Fourth, the federal government historically has had very little role in marriage, but it has had a very large role in regulating food, drugs, narcotics and the cross-border (state and international) trade in same.
Anyway, I'll think about it more.
Posted at 01:49 PM
ELECTORAL COLLEGE [John J. Miller]
Jonah: A minor addendum and a new point. Gore really earned 267 electoral votes, not 266. One of his electors chose not to vote in "protest" of the Florida outcome. Also, as I pointed out in the most recent issue of NRODT, Democrats have their own electoral advantage because our government apportions House seats (and thereby electoral votes) on the basis of state populations, including populations of illegal aliens. California gains political clout under this arrangement--specifically, three extra House seats. Apportionment is a zero-sum game, which means there are winners (+3 for California) and losers (-1 for each of Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, and Montana). Overall electoral advantage for the Democrats, based on the 2000 Bush-Gore results: +2. It doesn't quite nullify the population shift to Bush states, but it does take a cut.
Posted at 01:24 PM
JONAH'S FEDERALISM [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Jonah concludes his column sort-of opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment with these lines: "You can't favor federalism for only good ideas or ideas you like. Experimentation means allowing local communities to make mistakes." I've never much cared for the "laboratories of democracy" justification for federalism (if indeed it is a justification for federalism: Michael Greve argues that Justice Brandeis, the originator of the phrase, used it to express his commitment not to federalism but to scientific socialism). But let's leave that aside.
Based on the views expressed in those sentences, Jonah, isn't it time you came out against the federal war on drugs? I know you think legalization is a bad idea. But local communities have to be allowed to make (what you regard as) mistakes, don't they?
Posted at 01:10 PM
BUSH GAINS IN ELECTORAL COLLEGE [Jonah Goldberg]
Interesting piece in the New York Times on how demographic changes help Bush in the electoral college. The essential bit:
That change, a result of a population shift to Republican-friendly states in the South and West in the last several years, means the Republicans have a slight margin of error in 2004 while the Democrats will have to scramble just to pull even.In 2000, after Florida's 25 electoral votes were awarded to Mr. Bush, he won the presidency with 271 — 5 more than Al Gore's 266. Since then 18 states have either won or lost electoral votes, with 7 states that Mr. Bush won last time gaining a total of 11 electoral votes: Florida picked up 2, as did Texas, Georgia and Arizona. North Carolina, Nevada and Colorado each gained 1.
The gain of 11 electoral votes was offset by a loss of 4 from four other Bush states, leaving Mr. Bush with a net gain of 7. The Democrats lost eight electoral votes in six states that went for Mr. Gore and gained one in another, for their net loss of seven.
The shift in the electoral map means that the Republicans have a crucial cushion going into the 2004 presidential campaign. Mr. Bush could hold all the states he won in 2000 except for, say, West Virginia and its five electoral votes, and still win in 2004. The Democrats have no such room for error. They must hold all the states Mr. Gore won and add to them to make up the difference.
Posted at 12:15 PM
PAUL KRUGMAN IS RIGHT [Andrew Stuttaford]
Well, sort of. There's the usual partisan muttering in today's NYT column on electronic voting, as well as some predictably one-sided conspiracy-mongering, but his key point rings true:
"You don't have to believe in a central conspiracy to worry that partisans will take advantage of an insecure, unverifiable voting system to manipulate election results. Why expose them to temptation?"
And even if 'partisans' can (as one hopes) resist that temptation, the mere fact that the votes tallied by such systems are unverifiable is bound to raise suspicions that the count was indeed rigged. When Krugman claims that this issue is "about the credibility of US democracy," he's dead right. Interestingly, Krugman writes that Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey has introduced a bill requiring that digital voting machines leave a paper trail and that their software be available for public inspection. That sounds like a good idea, but I'd still prefer a simple pen and paper ballot.
Posted at 11:57 AM
FRANKENFAILURE [Tim Graham]
Nick Confessore is one liberal who gets why the new liberal talk radio initative (see Byron York elsewhere on NRO today) is probably doomed by pushing radio rookies like Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo:
What made Limbaugh successful was, in large part, his mastery of the medium -- he spent years as a radio DJ before becoming host of a political show. He knows radio. From what I've seen, the various liberals who've gone up against Limbaugh (Jim Hightower, Mario Cuomo, etc.) were almost always people selected for their political and intellectual credentials rather than any proven mastery of the radio medium. And not surprisingly, they failed to build a Rush-size audience.
Posted at 11:25 AM
DEAN IS TOO GREEN [Tim Graham]
K-Lo, we were making fun of Carl Rowan in Notable Quotables for discussing the "Soviet Union" -- ten years ago! (Scroll down the page to "Living in the Past.") This ought to be seen as a Not Ready for Prime Time moment, as you suggest.
Posted at 11:24 AM
LOR SCENERY [John Derbyshire]
Once, in my traveling years, I found myself sharing a hostel with a Frenchman who had been everywhere. I mean, EVERYWHERE: Siberia to Singapore, Macchu Picchu to Mombasa--everywhere. I asked him which place, of all the places he had seen, was the most beautiful. After a moment's though he said: "New Zealand." Within a remarkably small territory (he explained) there is simply everything you could wish to see: towering ice-capped mountains, lush forests and quiet woodlands, rolling hills dotted with sheep, tropical beaches, coral reefs... the whole works. Never been there myself (though my brother was born there). Sure would like to go.
Posted at 11:12 AM
POLYGAMIST EMBRACES LAWRENCE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
You knew this was coming.
Posted at 11:08 AM
SNOWJOB [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
It is snowing outside my window. Why do I tell you this? If you ever wanted to overhear the conversations had at NR World Headquarters, here you are: There was just cheering and glee at the site of snow falling in New York city in the hallways of NR. I don’t know what to read into it, but there you are.
Posted at 11:07 AM
IT'S OFFICIAL, KYOTO IS DEAD [Steven Hayward]
The Washington Post website is reporting that Russia has announced today that it will not ratify the Kyoto protocol. That means, by the treaty's own terms, that it will not go into force. Look for American and European greens to say it is all Bush's fault.
Posted at 11:04 AM
PASSION P.S. [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
The New York Post is in the midst of controversy for holding their own preview of what was allegedly a stolen copy of The Passion. The Post got together a rabbi, a professor, a priest, a professional reviewer, and a Post reader. The professionals’ reactions really aren’t surprising. But, once you’ve seen the movie, the nonsense coming from that Post priest is particularly jarring. Father Mark Hallinan of a Catholic parish in Manhattan said calls one of the coolest touches in the movie a “nonsensical flashback.” It’s a scene where Christ is building a table, as his mother prepares a meal, I believe. It’s just a great, humanizing scene (a good relief point in a brutal film, too) which ends with the mother and son joking around. It shows Christ--who we would otherwise only really see in the context of his suffering and death--as an attractive guy who can work with his hands, has a great sense of humor, and loves his mother with a deep and abiding gratitude. And she is a women who adores her son. While the table isn’t in the Bible, it’s just a great scene. That’s subjective, of course, but it is one of the many signals from Gibson that he truly gets it. It’s the kind of thing I want a priest to get.
Posted at 11:03 AM
POPCORN AND DATING [Kathryn Jean Lopez ]
I suspect that, in no small part because of all the talk about it and because of Mel Gibson’s involvement, The Passion will be fairly huge when it is finally released. I am more than a little curious about how it will be received in the local mall theater. “Darn, that new Vin Diesel movie’s full, wanna see the Gibson one instead?” It’s not exactly the stuff of popcorn and Goobers. But, as I note in a piece upcoming in The National Catholic Register, it could be the ultimate date movie: fast forwards you to the heart of matters. The conversation afterward could make or break things for you.
Posted at 10:58 AM
“MEL GIBSON IS A FEMINIST” [Kathryn Jean Lopez ]
Here’s my two cents on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, which I saw just before Thanksgiving. The movie, which is still in not-final form, comes out for real on Ash Wednesday in the new year, which is the most appropriate time. It’s an experience, not just a movie. No one in the theater I was in could sit still. You felt it. And again. And again. Which, considering the subject matter, seems quite appropriate.
One thing that struck me about the anti-Semitism controversy surrounding it is that I think an straight, honest viewing of it makes one wonder, “What would I do?” “How does a crowd get so riled up about something so wrong?” Perhaps it is instinct on my part—after 20-something years of reading “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” during the annual reading of the Passion story at Mass, as Catholic churches do, but Gibson does anything but focus on the culpability of “the Jews” specifically.
Posted at 10:58 AM
RE: THE SAVAGE CURTAIN [Jonah Goldberg]
Excellent point from a reader:
What's more amusing and lost in this whole quotation thing is the point of the episode (at least I think I'm remembering correctly here). The plot was classic "good vs evil" where the good side (Lincoln, Kirk et al) were pitted against evil (Genghis Khan, other non-specific aliens). The aliens who set up the confrontation were skeptical of the difference -- in the end they saw a difference and didn't destroy the Enterprise. It's exactly the wrong example for the anti-war crowd.
Posted at 10:25 AM
ME GQ [Jonah Goldberg]
From a friend:
Jonah, Just thought I'd mention, in case you hadn't seen it, that in an article applauding the demise of the goatee, you are congratulated in a sidebar for having shaved yours off. Don't recall the author's name, but it's on page 267, I think.Keep 'em flying!
Posted at 10:17 AM
JONAH, JOHNJ [Rick Brookhiser]
See p. E2 of the New York Times. Who says Sauron and his minions are not public spirited?
Posted at 10:06 AM
WE'RE EDGY [Susan Konig]
Anne Morse and NRO make the fashion pages re: A&F!
Posted at 09:50 AM
GIVE THEM THE WORLD [Jack Fowler]
Influential author, editor of World magazine, syndicated columnist, distinguished journalism professor -- Marvin Olasky's juggling act is better than anything you've seen at Cirque de Soleil (is there anything he can't/doesn't do?!). We're exceptionally pleased by his kind (and accurate!) take on National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature and The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories, which we share with you now:
"Before having children I did not realize that it would be so much fun to read them bedtime stories. It's no trouble finding picture books and fairy tales for young children, but eloquent tales that can be read to or read by older kids are harder to come by. These stories are just what parents need for children's joy and their own pleasure."
Many thanks Marvin. You'd be wise to take his sound advice and get your copies of these wonderful books. With Christmas looming these books are the best thing you can give a child or a family: they have real worth and lasting value, and will help shape children into being good, decent, moral folk. Order any or all of our great titles: the original edition or "Volume Two" of The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature, and our new book designed especially for new and beginning readers, The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories (a lavishly illustrated collection of enchanting stories by the great Thornton Burgess). Order here.
Posted at 09:48 AM
I LOVE IT [Jonah Goldberg]
Anti-war protesters invoked Lincoln's famous declaration: "There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There's nothing good in war except its ending." Alas, that's actually from an episode of Star Trek, specifically one of my favorite ones, "The Savage Curtain" (#77), which has come up around here several times for Lincoln's more memorable utterance to Lt. Uhuru, "My, what a charming negress." Maybe at the next rally, they can just drone on "Help me, Spock. Hellllllp meeeeeee Spooooocccccccccckkk."
Posted at 09:37 AM
MORE TEEN PORN AT THE MALL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Abercrombie and Fitch may have dropped its infamous porn quarterly--which was first reported by Anne Morse on NRO yesterday, by the way (and WFB wrote about back in 2001)--but the store was all about sex appeal at at least one mall this Thanksgiving.
Posted at 09:28 AM
BUSH AND FUNERALS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Charles Krauthammer writes in Time this week on why the president shouldn't be attending the funerals of our fallen warriors:
Of course this President cares. Bush has met privately with families and has written a letter to every one. And during his Thanksgiving Day address to the troops in Baghdad, he paid tribute to their fallen comrades. In the middle of a war, that is how the Commander in Chief can best honor the dead — in the context not of mourning but of resolve; with acknowledgment of loss, but within a larger demonstration of defiance.
Posted at 09:06 AM
RIGHTEOUS REV [Kathryn Jean Lopez ]
A 27-year-old female vicar in England has been granted the right to challenge law enforcement for not policing doctors who abort for trivial reasons. Here’s her story.
Posted at 08:48 AM
SOVIETS ON THE MIND [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Last night on Hardball, Howard Dean made reference more than once to the "Soviet Union" instead of Russia.
[An example:
DEAN: Iran is a more complex problem because the problem support as clearly verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less -- fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons. That is also a country that must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons much the key to all this is foresight. Let's act now so we don't have to have a confrontation which may result in force, which would be very disastrous in the case of North Korea and might be disastrous in the case of Iran.]
Understandable. Not a big deal. Except that it would be if it had been George W., not Howard D.
Posted at 08:38 AM
GRIEF ON THE GROUND [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Mark Cunningham on what's wrong with the WTC memorial finalists:
The message to the ages is not about the love that the bereft feel, but about their grief.
About their pain, not about those they lost.
This is not what I want my loved ones to keep of me when I am gone.
This, too, must be said: Putting grief at the core - together with the cowardliness of some politicians, and the ego of others - has led to a rank dishonor to those for whom the place and manner of death did speak of their lives, and heroically so: the firefighters, cops and others whose lives were lost in the line of duty.
YES, others were heroes on that day, and the fact the "civilians" too spent their last minutes there does in some way link them to that spot. But how does it diminish any of the departed to properly honor what is particular to just a specific few?
It doesn't - unless we see the memorial as being about the bereft - for it is wrong to set one person's grief above another's, at Ground Zero or anywhere.
One great issue remains: the honest sense of many, 9/11-bereft or not, that the site is a hallowed burial ground.
Posted at 08:30 AM
CONDOMANIA [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Yesterday on The Today Show Katie Couric, interviewing Magic Johnson, bemoaned the death of "safe sex" talk. Looks like the mythical rubber magical barrier is back in the Beltway, though, courtesy of the D.C. government.
Posted at 08:14 AM
STALINIST STAMP [John J. Miller]
That Robeson stamp is not the first time our government has decided to honor someone of this politcal cast, by the way. Two years ago, another repugnant Stalinist, Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (not even an American, for crying out loud), also won the honor of appearing on a stamp.
Posted at 07:56 AM
Monday, December 01, 2003
STAMPING OUT ROBESON'S REAL HISTORY [Tim Graham]
Appearing in the Washington Post (and other newspapers nationwide), AP's Jennifer C. Kerr completely glosses over a "civil rights" leader's unrepentant love of the Marxist monster Joseph Stalin.
"Also being released early in 2004 will be the 27th stamp in the Black Heritage series, which will honor actor, singer, civil rights activist and athlete Paul Robeson. David Failor, executive director of stamp services for the Postal Service, said there was strong support from the public for a stamp honoring Robeson, who was labeled a subversive for his mid-century activism against racism and anti-Semitism."
The man was a Soviet toady, but AP (and other media outlets) are still presenting incomplete and inaccurate history. See more on this sad trend here.
Posted at 11:04 PM
PRO-LIFE, PRO-GAY MARRIAGE [Mike Potemra]
About a week ago, Ramesh wrote a Corner post about how the case against abortion might be made stronger by being decoupled from the agenda of opposition to gay marriage. He asked for people to come forward who have a pro-life, pro-gay-marriage perspective, and after a lot of consideration I believe I qualify. Why am I not 100 percent sure? Let me try to explain. When gay friends, or just gay people in the general public, say that they consider themselves married, that's good enough for me. They are making a commitment, before God, and telling me about it. They are married, as far as I am concerned. So far, so good: I am in favor of gay marriage. But now let's look at the legislation being discussed-by actual legislatures, and by courts acting as legislatures. The proposed measures codify gay marriage as a government-approved status. What has been added by this extra step? Let's take off the table issues such as health benefits and hospital-visitation rights, which most people admit can be taken care of without recourse to formal recognition of gay marriage. What's left then? Public, democratic recognition of the marriage of gay couples. In short, what gays are being denied is not a definable good or benefit but merely the formal approval of their fellow citizens acting collectively. What they are being denied is a particular status in the minds of other people-in other words, exactly the sort of thing that, to be meaningful, must not be coerced or imposed undemocratically. I am willing to recognize gay marriages; but I am not gravely troubled that a majority of my fellow citizens still choose not to recognize them, as long as gays are harmed in no tangible way. So does this mean that I am covertly anti-gay marriage, willing to condone denial of a basic human right just because that right is still unpopular? Absolutely not. I find the civil-rights analogy very instructive in this regard. If I had said to a black person in 1964, "You can vote as far as I'm concerned, but you shouldn't insist on this right because there are a lot of racists out there," I could justly have been accused of hypocrisy-because in fact, there is no such thing as a vote "as far as I am concerned"; there's only a real-life vote. If they don't count your vote along with everybody else's, your voting rights have been denied and that's the end. The civil-rights analogy, taken logically, would protect gay people from being arrested for consensual sex; in those cases, either the police burst down the door and arrest you or they don't. But the civil-rights analogy does not demand the recognition of gay marriage by anyone who opposes gay marriage. The day may come when large majorities favor gay marriage, and are willing to issue pieces of paper to that effect. But gays should not wait for that day; they should look to their conscience, and their partner, and make whatever commitments are prompted by their heart.
Posted at 04:52 PM
RADIO FREE CHAVEZ [John J. Miller]
My old boss, Linda Chavez, started a new nationally syndicated radio show today. It will air every weekday from 12 noon to 2 pm. The broadcast may be heard in DC and over the Internet. Click here for more info.
Posted at 04:42 PM
NRA ON YOUR BACK [Dave Kopel]
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition for certiorari in Silveira v. Lockyer, which I wrote about in a column last September. This afternoon, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of a middle school student to wear a t-shirt from a NRA shooting sports camp, in the case of Newsom v. Albermarle. The student and his family had sued the Albermarle, Virginia, school board after the student was threatened with discipline for wearing the shirt. The district court denied the student's request for a preliminary injunction to protect his First Amendment rights. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court, and held that the student was entitled to a preliminary injunction. So as of today, it is legal to wear NRA t-shirts in Albermarle County schools. The Independence Institute filed an amicus brief on behalf of the student's Fourth Circuit appeal. The student was represented for free by NRA attorney Daniel Zavadil.
Posted at 04:31 PM
RIGHTEOUS ANGER [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Also in yesterday's papers: A political scientist named Burdett Loomis was quoted in an NYT article about "the high costs of rising incivility on Capitol Hill." The article didn't make a case that the costs were all that high, but never mind. What bothered me more was the Loomis quote: "There seems to be almost no shame. Everyone is just completely righteous now." The distinction between "righteous" and "self-righteous" seems to be passing away. On the older understanding of that distinction, nobody would be worried that everyone on Capitol Hill is "completely righteous now."
Posted at 04:15 PM
BOAZ ON BUSH'S BETRAYAL [Ramesh Ponnuru]
I was reading Cato veep David Boaz's op-ed on Bush and nodding along until I came to this sentence: "His more libertarian-minded voters are taken aback to discover that 'compassionate conservatism' turned out to mean social conservatism -- a stepped-up drug war, restrictions on medical research, antigay policies, federal subsidies for marriage and religion -- and big-spending liberalism justified as 'compassion.'" It was the bit about medical research that surprised me. Cato has not been very involved in the debates about embryonic stem-cell research and cloning. Boaz tells me that he was not stating an organizational position on these issues, and that he was trying to be careful to talk about what Bush actions would annoy--as he put it in the sentence in question--"libertarian-minded voters" rather than Cato staffers specifically. If that was his focus, however, it's a little odd that he left Bush's abortion record off his list. Surely "libertarian-minded voters" are at least as annoyed with that as with his advocacy of a ban on cloning, even if Cato itself avoids the abortion issue. When I mentioned to Boaz that the debate over embryonic stem-cell research (as opposed to cloning) concerned federal funding rather than private-sector funding, he said he would be against it.
Posted at 04:05 PM
FEDERALISM AND THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT [John Derbyshire]
I'm sorry, but I can't resist recycling an old legal joke: If a couple get married in Arkansas, then move to Texas, are they still legally brother and sister? (Groan.)
Posted at 03:58 PM
RATHER BIASED [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Did you all catch the New York Times front-pager on Dan Rather yesterday? I loved this line, about 20 graphs in: "For all the emotions in play, including the contention by some on the right that Mr. Rather is too liberal, any move to replace him could ultimately be a business decision. . ." Some on the right think Rather is too liberal? What ever gave them that idea?
Posted at 03:51 PM
THE JOKE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
THe French foreign ministry goes on strike.
Posted at 03:47 PM
JONAH'S WRONG [Rod Dreher]
I know he's traveling, and won't have the opportunity to respond till later, but I wanted to say before it slipped my mind that I think Jonah's wrong to come out against the Federal Marriage Amendment . He thinks it's wrong for a couple of reasons. One, he believes that federalism should be allowed to work here, giving states the right to experiment. The problem is, as one of his correspondents put it, gay marriage quickly becomes a federal issue when a gay couple married in Massachusetts moves to Texas, where they're treated as unmarried. Then it goes to the federal courts and probably to SCOTUS, where (as Novak says) the court that gave us Lawrence will be inclined to give us gay marriage, nationalized. Secondly, Jonah compares the FMA's unworkability to the amendment banning alcohol, on the idea that you can't mandate by law what most people don't want by custom. The general point may be correct, but the analogy to Prohibition breaks down here: Prohibition would have worked if government had been able to maintain an absolute monopoly over the production of alcohol. That was not, and is not possible, ergo moonshiners, speakeasies, etc. But government does have an absolute monopoly over the production of marriages. If they were prohibited by Constitutional amendment, there would be no such thing as marriage speakeasies, because marriage in any socially meaningful context cannot exist independently of governmental sanction.
Posted at 03:21 PM
NOVAK TURNS UP THE HEAT [Rod Dreher]
Robert Novak's column today really turns up the heat on the president to take a stand on the Federal Marriage Amendment Novak points out that there really is no middle ground on this one. Either we will have the FMA, or the courts will impose gay marriage. I can't see where he's wrong. Personally, I believe there's nothing in the Constitution granting gays the right to marry (or the right to abortion, or any other "rights" the Supremes and other jurists have discerned in recent decades), but of course that hasn't deterred the courts from conjuring such rights and imposing them on the entire nation, willing or not. It might be acceptable to have a federalist solution to this gay marriage thing, but for various reasons that would be unworkable, and after the Lawrence decision, the High Court would find any reason it could to declare gay marriage a right always and everywhere. This usurpation of politics by the judiciary then compels the radical step of the FMA. As Eugene Volokh, a gay marriage supporter, has argued, judiciary overreach in these matters forces the social right to these last-ditch measures. By temperament, I dislike the idea of amending the Constitution. But when the alternative is to yield before the powers of an unelected few to make sweeping social policy that overturns an institution that has been the bedrock of society for a many centuries, well, amending the Constitution is by far the lesser of two evils.
Posted at 03:20 PM
"DID I JUST SEE AIR FORCE ONE?" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Mystery surrounds the story of British Air poliot who supposedly spotted Air force One en route to Iraq.
Posted at 03:17 PM
CLINTON ON THANKSGIVING [Tim Graham]
It might be fun to compare Bush's Thanksgiving remarks in Baghdad to Clinton's pre-Thanksgiving remarks in Kosovo four years ago. Notice how Clinton can't help talking about the wonderfully diverse races and ethnicities of our soldiers and sounding like the old "South Pacific" tune that children have to be taught to be haters.
Posted at 02:43 PM
'TIS THE SEASON [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Why stress this Christmas when you can make the season bright and easy. Just rip out your credit card and order a few NR books. We've got a selection of children's books, as you may have noticed, and classic Florence King, among others. No lines. No hassle. Just good reads, beautifually bound and illustrated. Order here.
Posted at 02:13 PM
IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT OIL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
An Iraqi blogger.
Posted at 01:19 PM
MY ALARM CLOCK JUST WENT OFF [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
A clock radio I have in my office here in NR World Headquarters just went off. Wonder if we can rig it so that it will go berserk every time The Corner is sleepy.
Posted at 12:49 PM
SAFIRE & WILL ON FMA [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
David Blankenhorn addresses them both.
Posted at 12:45 PM
TODAY'S GUFFAW [Tim Graham]
On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly began complaining about how the White House won’t allow camera access to flag-draped coffins coming off planes at Dover Air Force Base, and how the press was “never” allowed into Bush campaign fundraisers in 2000. Her conclusion: “George Bush, from the time he was a candidate in 2000, right on through Thanksgiving Day, has absolutely controlled, maybe even manipulated the press.” This might come as a bit of a surprise to Puppet Dan, Puppet Tom, and especially Puppet Peter.
Posted at 12:06 PM
PEACE-LOVING SADDAM [Jonah Goldberg]
Was trying to buy missiles from North Korea.
Posted at 10:39 AM
AND STILL MORE PRAISE FOR NR'S CHILDREN TREASURIES [Jack Fowler]
Joining the chorus singing the praises of The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature and The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories is our good friend, mega-syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, who says:
"These are great. If children can be taught to read and appreciate good literature at an early age, it helps serve as a moral, intellectual and cultural deterrent to the stuff they are being forced-fed by the pagan and dishonest media."
Cal's dead-on, and no word-mincer. Of course, the most important two words of his are "good literature" -- that's precisely what these books consist of (there's no heavy-handed sermonizing in these pages -- just good, wholesome, beautifully written and illustrated stories!) With Christmas looming these books are the best thing you can give a child or a family: they have real worth and lasting value, and will will help shape children into being good, decent, moral folk. Order any or all of our great titles: the original edition or "Volume Two" of The National Review Treasury of Classic Children's Literature, and our new book designed especially for new and beginning readers, The National Review Treasury of Classic Bedtime Stories (a lavishly illustrated collection of enchanting stories by the great Thornton Burgess). They are the perfect Christmas gifts (they'll not only last a lifetime -- they'll influence a child's entire life!). Order here.
By the way, don't forget to watch After Hours with Cal Thomas on Fox News Channel, Saturdays at 11 p.m. Eastern Time!
Posted at 09:57 AM
TOLD YOU SO MOMENT: REAGAN MOVIE REEKS [Tim Graham]
MRC's Brent Baker reports this morning that the Showtime airing of "The Reagans" movie was terrible, making many liberals look silly for denouncing conservative criticism as uninformed or premature:
The movie, originally produced as a two-part mini-series for CBS, was every bit as awful as conservatives feared with a belittling portrayal of Ronald Reagan. The movie delivered a cartoonish Ronald Reagan, played by James Brolin, who read words fed to him by others, seemed capable only of uttering short quips about commies" and "big government" and followed the orders of others -- mainly an all-controlling Nancy Reagan, played by Judy Davis, who came across every bit as what rhymes with witch.
Before the showing of the movie, Matt Blank, Chairman and CEO of the Showtime Networks, delivered a condescending introductory message in which he bemoaned how the movie "has been criticized by those who have yet to see it as an unbalanced denouncement of Ronald Reagan's presidency," though that was exactly what viewers were about to see. He also maintained that "nearly all" of the "facts" are true: "Nearly all of the historical facts in the movie can be substantiated and have been carefully researched."
Posted at 09:48 AM
GITMO [Jonah Goldberg]
Drudge, the LA Times and the Washington Post have made a great deal of hay in the last day or two about Viet Dinh and Michael Chertoff raising objections or concerns about Jose Padilla and/or Gitmo. Drudge's headline was "Patriot Act author has concerns...." That's all cool. But it is worth noting that the detainees at Gitmo have absolutely nothing to do with the Patriot Act and neither does the whole "enemy combatants" issue. Indeed, many at the Justice Department have always wanted to go after the enemy combatants themselves. In other words, this isn't an example of the Patriot Act overreaching, it's an instance where justice might be served if the Patriot Act's reach extended even further.
Posted at 09:41 AM
THE COUNTER ARGUMENT [Jonah Goldberg]
Smart email in response to my syndicated column from a guy studying law across the pond:
Jonah,The problem with the federalism argument, which you don't acknowledge in your recent column, is that marriage is pretty meaningless if it's a status that depends on geography. What happens when a gay Mass. married couple relocates to Texas, which doesn't recognize homosexual marriage. Are they still married? If not, then it seems that we now have an even worse civil rights violation than before (if that's what it was before Goodridge). The straight husband and wife move to Texas, and they're still married. The gay couple, once married, now is not. Or does federalism just give Texas the right not to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies? How is the gay no-longer-married couple in Texas to fill out federal income tax forms--married or separate? If the gay no-longer-married couple separate, must they go back to Mass. for a divorce? Who has a right to their jointly-owned house in Texas in the meantime? If they had adopted a child in Mass., how do the Texas courts decide custody issue? The Texas statutes on custody (like nearly all states) on assume there are two spouses, and the spouse who is not awarded primary custody has specified visitation rights.
These questions--and thousands of similar ones--show that marriage, civil unions, and the like, cannot be settled on a state-by-state basis. I'm a huge fan of federalism. I prefer a constitution to be as substance-free as possible. But I'm afraid in this case it just won't work.
That said, I don't support the FMA in its current form. It merely gives judges a "conservative" tool to fight it out with courts like the Mass. Sup. Ct. Judges remain the policy makers, and that's bad.
The horribly painful truth is that what we actually need is an amendment that gives Congress the power to define and regulate marriage and/or domestic partnerships. The precedent for this is the 14th Amendment, which gave Congress the power to enforce equal rights. Congress is nearly the last body on earth that I would like to see in charge of marriage policy. But it's better than having the blue-state supreme courts impose same-sex marriage on everyone, which is the only alternative.
[Name withheld]
Posted at 09:34 AM
LAY OFF DRUNKEN SAILORS [Jonah Goldberg]
Oh, let's drop the "spending money like drunken sailors" cliche. First of all, drunken sailors don't spend as much as this Congress has. Second, drunken sailors spend their own money. Third, they deserve too. And fourth, it's just a tired and dull thing to say. How about saying, "spending money like pimps at a chinchilla sale." Or, "spending money like Salon magazine."
Posted at 09:23 AM
WE'RE ALL KEYNESIANS NOW [Jonah Goldberg]
Let's assume economic growth continues to go gangbusters, as I think it will. Supply-siders and other tax-cutters will undoubtedly claim that it was the result of George W. Bush's pro-growth, tax-cutting policies. That's fine. But won't that argument be kind of tough to make when Congress is also pouring zillions of dollars into the economy through deficit spending? I'm not saying the tax cuts we're wrong. Me likey tax cuts. But doesn't the intellectual water and historical record stay muddy if you prime the pump with outrageous over-spending while cutting taxes? Wouldn't it have been nice to have had a nice clear cut example of the power of tax cuts and tax cuts alone?
Posted at 09:19 AM
NINTENDO WINS BIG [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I link to this because I know there are Cornerites who have opinions on such things.
Posted at 08:59 AM
OFF TO HOTLANTA [Jonah Goldberg]
I'm speaking at Emory U today. I've been told that seating is limited and priority is given to members of the Emory community. But I'm sure a few of you could get in there commando style.
Posted at 08:59 AM
FIREFIGHT IN IRAQ IN WHICH THE GOOD GUYS WIN AND THE BAD GUYS DIE [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted at 07:48 AM
ABOUT TIME [Jonah Goldberg]
Bush drops steel tarrifs.
Posted at 07:41 AM
HOT HOT HOT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
This one's from reader Phil Elmore for Andrew Stuttaford:
Hot Dr Pepper
2 U.S. gallons of Dr Pepper
4 large lemons
1 Tsp. nutmeg (or to taste)
Juice the lemons and pour juice into a large 3 gallon pot. Slowly add all the Dr Pepper. Sprinkle the tsp. of nutmeg evenly over the top of the precious liquid. On a stove, heat slowly to almost boiling then remove from heat. Let stand for 5 minutes then pour in a punch bowl. Add holiday guests and enjoy the compliments.
Posted at 06:32 AM
MAUREEN SNARLS [Tim Graham]
A rather liberal book reviewer in the Washington Post gets defensive in her very first paragraph Sunday:
Some people don't like Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski mysteries. They think the series is altogether too preachy -- especially about feminism. What Paretsky's detractors dismiss as left-wing propaganda, however, her many -- and perhaps more politically simpatico -- fans extol as a seamless wedding of the novel of ideas with the hard-boiled mystery. Or, as I've heard myself sometimes snarl at Paretsky's critics: "Hey, if it's reactionary shoot-'em-up stories you want, go read a trench coat fascist like Mickey Spillane or a techno tough guy like Tom Clancy."
Is it any surprise the writer is Maureen Corrigan, the book critic for "Fresh Air" on...National Public Radio?
Posted at 06:30 AM
RICH LOWRY, ANGRY LIBERAL [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Rich Lowry has gone over to the dark side? I'm USA Today on Dead Tree-less, but a reader reports: "In a picture accompanying a USA Today cover article, "Liberals finding their voice -- and it's angry", Rich Lowry's book cover appears right below Michael Moore's, Al Franken's, and Paul Krugman's."
Posted at 05:53 AM
"GOOD CATHOLICS USE CONDOMS" [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Catholics for a Free Choice--the near-one-woman crusade fueled by the abortion industry, launches a new anti-Vatican ad campaign today (Today is World AIDS Day).
Posted at 05:52 AM
Sunday, November 30, 2003
VANDEHEI ANXIETY [Tim Graham]
My examples of bias from Saturday's Post -- especially the front-pager on division over what proponents call "gay marriage" -- are somewhat matched by a Thursday front-pager, which at least claims in a headline on the continuation on p. 5 that "Abortion, Gay Rights Are Divisive for Democrats." I'm a bit befuddled by the Democratic candidates' self-descriptions, especially Wesley Clark, "a Catholic who frequently attends Presbyterian services." (At my church, we'd call that kind of Catholic a "Presbyterian.") It's also odd to see reporter Jim VandeHei suggest that conservative white evangelicals are defined as those who "see abortion and homosexuality as going against the Bible." (As opposed to those passages where the Bible endorses them?) But at least the Post has instructed its readers that it's not all roses for the Democrats among religious voters.
Posted at 08:37 PM
PIPE DREAMS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Thanks to the reader who sent me the link to this story, this time about smoking bans in the Washington DC area. I don’t know who Councilman Dorsey is, but I do know that if there is one thing that is all too frequently as nauseating as proposed legislation containing the word ‘children,’ it is draft bills including the word ‘family’.
Posted at 05:10 PM
GREAT MOMENTS IN EUROPEAN INTEGRATION [Andrew Stuttaford]
Continued
Posted at 05:08 PM
GITMO TURKEYS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Here is an example of the lengths people will go to have an original idea published.
Posted at 01:54 PM
FAIRY TALES [Andrew Stuttaford]
Just when you think that ‘gender studies’ are beyond parody, there’s this. The worry? Sexual stereotyping in the likes of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. However, in a rare gesture of tolerance ‘sociologists’ are now saying that parents don’t actually have to ban such dangerous literature. They merely should ask their daughters to consider whether such stories are telling them to seek beauty at the expense of their education and careers.
Beyond parody? Oh yes.
Posted at 01:38 PM
SMOKE AND MIRRORS [Andrew Stuttaford]
Inspired, perhaps, by the ‘success’ of Nurse Bloomberg’s smoking ban, a bunch of overbearing British doctors are now looking to see similar legislation imposed in the UK. Given the increasing presumption of health care ‘professionals’, there’s nothing surprising about that, but I was struck by the claims of how many lives are lost to the (largely imaginary, of course) scourge of passive smoking: 1,000 a year apparently.
In reality, of course, this is a number that has been picked out of the (smoke-filled) air, but it’s time to start tallying the tallies. Here’s Jane Brody from the New York Times on the supposed death toll (65,000!) in the US, a country with a population between four and five times the size of Britain's, but with passive smoke that is, it seems, far far more deadly.
How come?
Posted at 01:28 PM
THE FEDERAL MARRIAGE AMENDMENT [Jonah Goldberg]
I'm against it, I guess.
Posted at 11:24 AM
THERE'S A TIME AND A PLACE [ Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Hillary Clinton raises questions while with troops abroad.
Posted at 11:20 AM
PRESSLEY'S TEDDY BEAR [Tim Graham]
Saturday’s Post offered a simple case study of the media’s liberal bias on social issues. On the top of the front page of the Metro section is a story by reporter Sue Anne Pressley on the latest memorial event for “transgender” activists, headlined “Realizing, Fulfilling ‘Who They Are’: D.C. Slayings Help Galvanize Transgender Community’s Push for Acceptance.” Pressley writes didactically with the activist argot, aiming to indoctrinate people into that push for acceptance of “people who do not conform to traditional notions of gender identity, appearance and expression.” There is no radical (let alone liberal) labels to be found – and certainly not “out of the mainstream” – even as groups in the story are so shrink-wrapped tight that they use words like “Latina/o.” Also unlabeled is the Human Rights Campaign, whose activism is very Democratic-left. Pressley cites an HRC poll, as if “transgender acceptance” is reliably measured by hard-core activists. (Would the Post accept an American Family Association poll to paint an accurate picture of public opinion?) Pressley is so deep in the “transgender” tank that she repeatedly uses the desired, but inaccurate pronoun “she” to describe wishfully thinking biological males.
(Pardon me for sounding a bit like a “broken record,” to use a quaintly outdated term, but notice that 75 “transgender” activists make the front page of Metro in a group shot, while tens of thousands of pro-life marchers last January received a photo of one angry guy and his hostile mitten. )
By contrast, on the front page of the Saturday newspaper is a fairly straightforward summary by reporter Alan Cooperman of the divisions between “gay marriage foes.”
You can pick on the we’re-always-“foes” thing, and they do, of course, use the “conservative” label regularly. But unlike the Pressley press release, the Cooperman story also reaches out to gay Republican professor Dale Carpenter, who sneers about conservatives being “fixated on gay sex,” as if all these domestic partnerships would be built around celibate hand-holding. A little Googling quickly suggests that Mr. Carpenter would have been a fascinating presence in the "transgender" story. (See here or here.)
Does the Post mean to suggest that it’s only the religious right (and not the libertine left) which has internal debates? Or that focusing on one side’s internal debates adds to the flavor of impending (inevitable) political defeat?
Posted at 09:40 AM
DON'T LAUGH AT SILLY AMERICANS...MAY THEY SEE THE SAUDI LIGHT [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
from the Arab News
Posted at 02:34 AM
ANOTHER GITMO BREACH [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Posted at 02:10 AM