ON IRAQ on AFGHANISTAN on EGYPT RAMESH PONNURU on Charles R. Kesler's Crisis of Liberalism

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October 15, 2012 $4.99 EDUCATIONFALL RAMESH PONNURU on Charles R. Kesler’s Crisis of Liberalism ISSUE

Things Fall Apart Frederick W. Kagan & Kimberly Kagan ON IRAQ Bing West ON AFGHANISTAN Andrew C. McCarthy ON EGYPT

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OCTOBER 15, 2012 | VOLUME LXIV, NO. 19 | www.nationalreview.com

ARTICLES

18 WHO ARE THE 47 PERCENT? by Reihan Salam Mitt Romney’s simplistic take on a complicated situation.

FOUR YEARS AGO 20 by Jay Nordlinger COVER: MARWAN IBRAHIM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Obama, and Biden, in debate.

24 FATWA AGAINST FREE SPEECH by Nina Shea The U.S. needs to resist it. BOOKS, ARTS 28 THE AYATOLLAHS’ AGENCY by John R. Bolton & MANNERS How the IAEA has ignored and enabled nuclear proliferation. 59 ESCAPE FROM UTOPIA Ramesh Ponnuru reviews I Am ESTONIAN ECONOMICS 30 by Andrew Stuttaford the Change: Barack Obama What the Baltic state can and cannot teach us. and the Crisis of Liberalism, by Charles R. Kesler. 33 THE RAPPER BARONS by Daniel Foster They won’t vote Romney, but they probably should. 60 CREATING ORDER Kelly Jane Torrance reviews The Living Moment: FEATURES Modernism in a Broken World, by Jeffrey Hart. 35 LOSING IRAQ by Frederick W. Kagan & Kimberly Kagan We face a strategic debacle. 62 DICKENS AT 200 M. D. Aeschliman reviews the works 39 A MILLION STEPS by Bing West of Charles Dickens. Our men trudge endlessly through Afghanistan as politicians vacillate. 64 TRAVEL: TWO KINGS, A CITY, 43 SHARIA ON THE NILE by Andrew C. McCarthy AND A COUNTRY The Muslim Brotherhood rejects liberal democracy. Michael Potemra considers Memphis.

45 TAX RATES AND ECONOMIC GROWTH by Arpit Gupta 66 FILM: UP AGAINST IT A close look at the relationship. Ross Douthat reviews Arbitrage.

67 COUNTRY LIFE: EDUCATION THE SEASONS TURN Richard Brookhiser on the end of 48 THE LAST RADICALS by Kevin D. Williamson summer. Homeschoolers occupy the curriculum.

50 CHICAGO FAILS ITS STUDENTS by Frederick M. Hess Scott Walker, not Rahm Emanuel, offers a model for reform. SECTIONS

53 NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND, LEFT BEHIND by Robert VerBruggen 4 Letters to the Editor And not a moment too soon. 6 The Week 57 Athwart ...... James Lileks 55 DRIFTING TO A CLOSE? by Thomas K. Lindsay 58 The Long View ...... Rob Long The latest front in the higher-education battles. 63 Poetry ...... Sarah Ruden 68 Happy Warrior ...... Mark Steyn

NATIONAl REvIEW (ISSN: 0028-0038) is published bi-weekly, except for the first issue in January, by NATIONAl REvIEW, Inc., at 215 lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mailing offices. © National Review, Inc., 2012. Address all editorial mail, manuscripts, letters to the editor, etc., to Editorial Dept., NATIONAl REvIEW, 215 lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Address all subscription mail orders, changes of address, undeliverable copies, etc., to NATIONAl REvIEW, Circulation Dept., P. O. Box 433015, Palm Coast, Fla. 32143-3015; phone, 386-246-0118, Monday–Friday, 8:00 A.M. to 10:30 P.M. Eastern time. Adjustment requests should be accompanied by a current mailing label or facsimile. Direct classified advertising inquiries to: Classifieds Dept., NATIONAl REvIEW, 215 lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016 or call 212-679- 7330. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to NATIONAl REvIEW, Circulation Dept., P. O. Box 433015, Palm Coast, Fla. 32143-3015. Printed in the U.S.A. RATES: $59.00 a year (24 issues). Add $21.50 for Canada and other foreign subscriptions, per year. (All payments in U.S. currency.) The editors cannot be responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork unless return postage or, better, a stamped self-addressed envelope is enclosed. Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors. base:milliken-mar 22.qxd 9/24/2012 11:31 AM Page 1

RECLAIMING THE GREAT Christian Intellectual Tradition IN PHARMACY RESEARCH

A few years ago, Union University made the Union was the first decision that its new health sciences building “place that offered me would house the caliber of pharmacy labs that the ability to follow could support cutting edge research. Today, top Christ as well as do faculty and students work together in Providence scientific research to Hall designing anti-cancer agents and conducting the best of my ability.” other research to benefit people’s lives. DR. ASHOK PHILIP To learn more about Union’s commitment to Assistant Professor of Christ-centered academic excellence, visit uu.edu. Pharmaceutical Sciences

OCTOBER 15 ISSUE; PRINTED SEPTEMBER 27 Obama and the Founders

EDITOR In “Obama’s Truth” (October 1), Charles R. Kesler does a remarkable job of Richard Lowry sorting through some of the muddled thinking in Barack Obama’s The Audacity Senior Editors of Hope. But Mr. Kesler is too hard on our president’s attempts to reconcile the Richard Brookhiser / Jay Nordlinger Ramesh Ponnuru / David Pryce-Jones seemingly inclusive language in our founding documents with the existence of Managing Editor Jason Lee Steorts Literary Editor Michael Potemra slavery. Executive Editor Christopher McEvoy He seems to believe that the Declaration of Independence and the Consti - Roving Correspondent Kevin D. Williamson National Correspondent John J. Miller tution have always been understood to apply to black Americans. For example, Political Reporter Robert Costa Art Director Luba Kolomytseva he writes that the Founders only “allegedly exclud[ed] black Americans from Deputy Managing Editors constitutional protections as equal human beings and citizens” (emphasis Nicholas Frankovich / Fred Schwarz Robert VerBruggen added). Production Editor Katie Hosmer Editorial Associate Katherine Connell It seems obvious to me, however, that the founding generation of the South Research Associate Scott Reitmeier would not have signed on to the Declaration of Independence or the Consti - Assistant to the Editor Madison V. Peace Contributing Editors tution if these documents were understood to protect the rights of blacks. Robert H. Bork / Shannen Coffin Further, the Constitution explicitly, albeit temporarily, protected the interna- Ross Douthat / Roman Genn Jim Geraghty / Jonah Goldberg tional slave trade. And many of the individuals who signed our founding docu- Florence King / Lawrence Kudlow / Mark R. Levin Yuval Levin / Rob Long / Jim Manzi ments owned slaves themselves. Andrew C. McCarthy / Kate O’Beirne One need not drink the Howard Zinn Kool-Aid to believe that when the David B. Rivkin Jr. / Reihan Salam Founders wrote “We the People,” they meant some people more than others. NATIONALREVIEWONLINE Editor-at-Large Kathryn Jean Lopez Managing Editor Edward John Craig Bob Tuvgen National Affairs Columnist John Fund News Editor Daniel Foster Seattle, Wash. Editorial Associates Charles C. W. Cooke / Katrina Trinko Technical Services Russell Jenkins CHARleS R. KeSleR RePlIeS: I thank Mr. Tuvgen for his letter, but I don’t think Web Developer Wendy Weihs Web Production Assistant Anthony Boiano his conclusion follows from his facts. As the distinguished historian Bernard

EDITORS- AT- LARGE Bailyn pointed out, the Declaration of Independence did not solve the problem Linda Bridges / John O’Sullivan of slavery in America; it created the problem. Or to paraphrase Harry V. Jaffa’s Contributors Hadley Arkes / Baloo / James Bowman trenchant statement of the same point, the wonder was not that a nation with lots Eliot A. Cohen / Brian Crozier of slaveowners did not immediately free its slaves. The wonder was that a nation Dinesh D’Souza / M. Stanton Evans Chester E. Finn Jr. / Neal B. Freeman of slaveowners declared that “all men are created equal,” thus making James Gardner / David Gelernter George Gilder / Jeffrey Hart emancipation a moral and eventually a political necessity. Kevin A. Hassett / Charles R. Kesler Many signers of the Declaration or the Constitution were slaveholding south- David Klinghoffer / Anthony Lejeune D. Keith Mano / Michael Novak erners, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson prominently among them. Yet Alan Reynolds / Tracy Lee Simmons Terry Teachout / Vin Weber neither man doubted that slavery was wrong, a violation of natural right—that Chief Financial Officer James X. Kilbridge is, of black men and women’s humanity. This conviction was so widespread Accounting Manager Galina Veygman that, for example, both houses of the first Congress under the Constitution acted Accountant Zofia Baraniak Business Services unanimously to exclude slavery from spreading into the Northwest Territory, the Alex Batey / Kate Murdock Elena Reut / Lucy Zepeda only territory then owned by the United States. “We the People,” North and Circulation Manager Jason Ng South, understood the wrong of slavery. How and when to right that wrong was, WORLD WIDE WEB www.nationalreview.com MAIN NUMBER 212-679-7330 of course, a matter of controversy. SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES 386-246-0118 WASHINGTON OFFICE 202-543-9226 ADVERTISING SALES 212-679-7330 Executive Publisher Scott F. Budd Advertising Director Jim Fowler Advertising Manager Kevin Longstreet Regarding the Last Cover EXECUTIVEVICEPRESIDENT Paul Dilion The image on the cover and the contents page of our October 1, 2012, issue, in PUBLISHER Jack Fowler both its print and its various digital editions, was altered by NATIONAl ReVIeW

CHAIRMANEMERITUS to change the word on the blue signs. It is not the original photograph as Thomas L. Rhodes provided by Reuters/Newscom, and should not have been attributed to that orga- FOUNDER nization or to the photographer. William F. Buckley Jr.

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n Obama says you can’t change Washington from the inside—and he wants four more years to finish the job.

n Most of the polls show Mitt Romney behind, and Democrats and the press are eager to call the race. Some Republicans are panicking, possibly including those at the Romney campaign, which has been cycling through tactics pretty rapidly. Inside and outside the campaign, Republicans should get a grip. Constructive criticism from outsiders is one thing; premature recriminations another. The race remains tight, and therefore winnable. Romney’s chief liability appears to be that voters trust Obama more than him to look out for middle-class interests. So Romney should aggressively and repeatedly make the case that tax reform, liberating the energy market, and replacing Obamacare will raise wages, cut the cost of living, create jobs, and improve financial security for nearly all Americans. If he does that, the Democrats will be the ones attacking one another after the election.

n Romney said something foolish at a fundraiser a few months ago, and the left-wing magazine Mother Jones got it on videotape and released it in September. Romney said that the 47 percent of Americans who do not pay income taxes are people who do not take responsibility for their own lives and will vote for Obama no matter what Republicans do. Ac tual - ly, many of the people who don’t pay income taxes are perfectly responsible people, and Republicans: senior citizens who no longer make taxable income, lower- middle-class par- n On the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, protesters stormed ents who receive the child tax credit. Most of them pay pay- the American embassy in Cairo and the consulate in Ben - roll taxes, however, and think of themselves, accurately, as ghazi. The Egyptian assault was vicious theater—the taxpayers. For the same reason Romney’s remarks were American flag was burned, and the black flag of al-Qaeda wrongheaded, they may not be as politically damaging as the hoisted above the walls. The ostensible cause, a no-budget pundits immediately concluded: Since many of the people American movie mocking Mohammed, looks in retrospect who don’t pay income taxes think of themselves as tax - like a pretext. Did the assailants wish to embarrass Muslim payers, they won’t take offense. Too many Americans are Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi? Or did his police dependent on the government. But that’s the result of over- let them attack, to strengthen his hand in pressuring spending, not insufficient taxation, as Republicans of all peo- President Obama? The Libyan attack was a terrorist opera- ple should remember. tion, conducted with serious weaponry, leaving Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. Many n Paul Ryan took the Republican case on health care to Libyans repudiated the deed, as demonstrators later mobbed AARP. He got booed for saying Republicans would repeal the headquarters of various Libyan militias. Libya’s splin- Obamacare if elected. AARP is a liberal outfit, of course, and tered politics gives us some room to maneuver, assuming we moreover it’s one with a financial interest in liberal policies. know what is happening on the ground. Egypt needs a yank Under the Romney-Ryan Medicare plan, it stands to lose the on the chain: We subsidize a country that cannot feed itself, commissions it makes from recommending supplemental- to the tune of $1.5 billion a year (they owe us $3 billion coverage plans. (The reform would give people financial now). As Arab spring molts to fall, we face the same prob- assistance in buying the insurance policy they want: No sup- lems we always have—exacerbated by our ongoing regional plemental policies would be needed.) AARP’s members, on drawdown. the other hand, are hostile to Obamacare and its cuts to some of Medicare’s most popular, and market-oriented, compo- n When he first ran for president, Barack Obama’s main qual- nents. AARP makes money from seniors. What it doesn’t do ification seemed to be that he had written two memoirs by age

ROMAN GENN is speak for them. 45. This was not the jeer of enemies—Obama himself said that

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THE WEEK his very biography would improve America’s standing in the n The Obama campaign launched a project for young adults, world. In November 2007, he told New Hampshire Public under the moniker “For All” (the “O” being the striped- Radio: “I truly believe that the day I’m inaugurated, not only bottomed Obama “O”). Obama supporters are supposed to the country looks at itself differently, but the world looks at write inspiring words on their hands, place them over their America differently. . . . If I’m reaching out to the Muslim hearts, and tweet the pictures. Scarlett Johansson, Jared Leto, world they understand that I’ve lived in a Muslim country and and Obama campaign manager Jim Messina posted exemplary I may be a Christian, but I also understand their point of view. shots of themselves (Messina’s hands say “Obama” and . . . I’m intimately concerned with what happens in these coun- “Care”). Messina, alas, grins like the Joker; writing on your tries and the cultures and perspective these folks have. And hand is something most people stopped doing in grade school; those are powerful tools for us to be able to reach out to the mimicking the gesture of the Pledge is either risible or North world.” Recent events sadly confirm that the jihadis of the Korean, take your pick. We confess, we would read the Phys i - world hate America because it is a refutation of and a potential cians’ Desk Reference on Scarlett Johansson’s hands, but the roadblock to their medieval totalitarian worldview, and they young lady and politics should leave each other alone. All in don’t care whether Barack Obama’s middle name is “Hussein” all, it was the worst campaign idea since . . . or “Hymie.” n . . . the other n The news about Mitt Romney’s taxes is that there is no news brainstorm of the about Mitt Romney’s taxes. His recently released summary Obama campaign, reveals that most of his income is from long-term capital gains, which was its own which are taxed at the long-term-capital-gains rate, and that he flag. The “O” re - gives away millions of dollars to charity, which reduces his placed the starry taxable income—i.e., exactly what everybody already knew. field, in pale blue. The predictable result is that his tax rate in a typical year is just The seven red under the 15 percent capital-gains rate. The only odd thing is stripes dwindled to that Romney chose not to take some of his charitable-donation five pale red ones. deductions one year in order to increase his tax bill—because With four alternating white stripes, that shrank the original he apparently feels the need to defend himself against accusa- thirteen states to nine (counting states is a problem with this tions of selfishness resulting from his giving away millions president: 57 states, nine states, who can keep track?). The and millions of dollars to good causes. President Obama likes image was called “Our Stripes,” and a limited edition was to talk about compassion; based on their charitable donations, offered for sale on the Obama-campaign website until the Mitt Romney is 50 percent more compassionate than the pres- backlash against this hipster Old Glory became so sharp that ident, whose entire career is a reminder that talk is indeed the campaign pulled it. If Obama wants to be president of cheap. Obamastan, he should leave his current job to someone more interested in fulfilling its functions. Otherwise, he should n The conservative rally round the flag we all see at school, the post office, and press has had some the football halftime show. fun—some indignant fun—taking note of all n The Federal Reserve announced another round of quantita- President Obama has tive easing, this one to last until labor markets improve. done instead of meet- Conservatives mostly denounced the move as dangerously ing with Israel’s prime inflationary. Inflation remains under the Fed’s 2 percent target, minister, Ben jamin Ne - however, and market expectations of inflation over the next tanyahu, as Netanyahu five to ten years are also low. The chief merit of the Fed’s move requested. Oba ma has is that it brings a little more predictability to its behavior; the given an interview to a chief defect is that it does not bring enough. The Fed has too Florida DJ known as much discretion, and uncertainty about its course has weak- “the Pimp with the ened the economy. It did a reasonably good job from 1982 Limp.” He has ap - through 2007, adjusting the money supply so that spending peared on Letterman grew by 5 percent a year. That monetary stability was the cru- and The View. He has cial precondition for “the great moderation” of that period, in hung out, and raised which inflation stayed low and recessions were short and shal- money, with Jay-Z and Beyoncé. But for Netan yahu, no low. The Fed should turn its practice then into its rule now, and time. Obviously, an American president is not at the beck this time make it explicit. and call of an Israeli prime minister. And, obviously, Obama SIPA USA VIA AP IMAGES / and Netanyahu don’t like each other. But today’s problems n The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed what most are far above personality; they are, in fact, an emergency. Americans have already suspected: Yes, President Obama’s Israel can’t take its existence for granted: People who want policies will raise taxes on middle-class families. The penalty MATEJ DIVIZNA

: to see it annihilated are driving ever closer to a nuclear for non-compliance with Obamacare’s individual mandate, weapon. The Israelis are entitled to wonder why they can’t which survived constitutional scrutiny only as a tax, will be

NETANYAHU get on the calendar. assessed on an estimated 6 million Americans in 2016. Eighty

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Young America’s Foundation alumni have

Funding Fathers Throw Them All Out by Nicole Hoplin & Ron Robinson authored more than by Peter Schweizer 100 books and are some of the most influential

How to Talk to a Liberal Courting Disaster by Ann Coulter leaders in the by Marc A. Thiessen Conservative Movement Help the young person in your life

Outliers Chinese Girl in the Ghetto by Malcolm Gladwell become a leader for our cause by Ying Ma ou will recognize New York Times best-selling authors Ann Coulter, Peter Schweizer, Marc Theissen, and Jason Mattera all as Young America’s YFoundation graduates. Young America’s Foundation is inspiring the next generation of conservative leaders, from educating students on campus and at the Reagan Ranch Center, to training the next generation of truth-seeking journalists at the National Journalism Center, to inspiring students to advance conservatism on campus by starting a Greatness Young Americans for Freedom chapter. Hollywood Hypocrites by Steven F. Hayward by Jason Mattera Have the young person in your life visit www.yaf.org to learn how WKH\FDQWDNHWKHLUÀUVWVWHSVLQWKH&RQVHUYDWLYH0RYHPHQW Reagan Ranch Center 217 State Street, Santa Barbara, California 93101, 888-USA-1776 National Headquarters, F. M. Kirby Freedom Center 110 Elden Street, Herndon, Virginia 20170, 800-USA-1776 www.yaf.org Copyright © 2012 Young America’s Foundation

Fast and Furious Lasting Lessons by Katie Pavlich IURPWKH&RUQHU2IÀFH by Todd G. Buchholz

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THE WEEK percent of them make below four times the federal poverty ney general, he expanded Durham’s mandate, over the line, or $120,000 for a family of four—that is, 4.7 million objections of CIA directors past and present, and over the decidedly middle-class Americans will pay a new tax as a objections of others with strong national-security sense: He result of the health-care law. The approximately $700 each is tasked Durham with investigating allegations that the CIA going to owe will subsidize those who choose to purchase had abused, tortured, or killed as many as 101 detainees. insurance via state and federal exchanges. Perhaps after he Some of those detainees, it transpired, had never been de - abandons the “47 percent” argument, Mitt Romney should tain ees—had never been in U.S. custody. After three years’ start talking about the 4.7 million. work, Durham has closed his investigation, saying there is nothing to prosecute. This result has not been ballyhooed in n In 2008, President George W. Bush’s last attorney gener- the media—which have ballyhooed accusations against the al, Michael Mukasey, appointed John Durham a special CIA for years. Writing about all this, the Wall Street prosecutor. Durham’s task was to investigate allegations that Journal’s Bret Stephens recalled Ray Donovan’s famous the CIA had destroyed videotapes it had made of interroga- plaint in the 1980s: “Which office do I go to to get my tions in the War on Terror. When Eric Holder became attor- reputation back?” Since the beginning of the War on Terror,

The Failing Economy May Boost Romney

s economist Ray Fair of Yale University has ployment. These increases have happened steadily over demonstrated, economic conditions are a crucial this time period, and are clearly not a summer blip. A factor driving voter sentiment in presidential elec- If voting patterns respond to the data as they have in tions. Throughout history, voters have penalized sitting the past, this is very bad news for President Obama. presidents for a lousy economy. With the election On the other hand, there are very few paths to the pres- approaching, and the economy in neutral, Fair’s model idency that do not travel through Ohio, and the unem- currently predicts, somewhat unhelpfully, that this elec- ployment rate has dropped in that key state, even while tion is too close to call. the rest of the nation has suffered, suggesting that Ever since his first pioneering paper in 1978, Fair has Governor Romney will have a heavier lift. focused on forecasting the national vote with a measure In 2008, President Obama won 15 of these 18 states, of how the U.S. economy is doing in the aggregate. The losing only South Carolina, Arizona, and Missouri. While model he came up with accurately predicts 21 of the past his margins were large in some cases, the deteriorating 24 presidential elections. In a close race, it might well be state economies should make such a record extremely that local conditions will be the swing factor that deter- difficult to repeat. mines the election outcome. If that is the case, then there is significant hope for the Romney team. —KEVIN A. HASSETT While a reliable measure of GDP is unavailable at the state level, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does report state-by-state measures of unemployment. Nate Silver of Changes in Unemployment the New York Times has found that changes in unem- Between April and ployment are highly predictive of voting patterns. If voters see unemployment increasing, they punish August 2012 in cum bents. 1.2

With many states solidly in the Republican or Dem o - 1 Leans Obama cratic camp, this election will clearly be determined by Leans Romney 0.8 Toss-Up voters in a few swing states. In the nearby chart, each bar 0.6 shows the change in unemployment between April and August. The color of the bar illustrates the signal from the 0.4 most recent polls as calculated by RealClearPolitics.com. 0.2

Percentage Change Percentage Light blue bars are states that are leaning toward 0

President Obama; light red bars lean toward Governor -0.2 State (Electoral Votes) Romney; and grey bars are a toss-up. -0.4 The data clearly indicate that a number of key states are in economic free fall. Since April, the unemployment Iowa (6) Ohio (18) Nevada Oregon(6) (7) IndianaVirginia (11) (13) Colorado (9) FloridaArizona (29) (11) Michigan (16) Missouri (10) rate in Michigan has increased 1.1 percent, from 8.3 to Wisconsin (10) Minnesota (10) New Mexico (5) Pennsylvania (20) South CarolinaNew Hampshire (9) (4) North Carolina (15) 9.4. Wisconsin, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania have also seen large increases in unem- SOURCE: REALCLEARPOLITICS AND THE BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS.

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THE WEEK the CIA has been dragged through the mud by die-hard wants it. GM should just close the production line—in fact, opponents of that war masquerading as champions of civil that is what GM is doing abroad, shutting down factories in liberties. No doubt some CIA interrogators have made Europe because nobody there wants GM’s non-electric cars, errors. But they have done hard and lifesaving work—and either. The Democrats made the GM bailout the centerpiece of thankless work. The prevention of mass murder is no small their economic case at their convention in Charlotte, boasting thing. With this little bit of paper and ink, we thank them that the intervention saved more than a million jobs. This now. ridiculous claim assumes that without GM every single auto- motive job in the United States would have been lost: not only n With the Office of the Inspector General’s report on those at GM and other U.S. firms pinned down under the mor- Operation Fast and Furious, we are one step closer to under- bidly obese autoworkers’ unions, but at Honda, Toyota, BMW, standing why the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and etc. An automaker that cannot sell cars at a profit is not a busi- Explosives allowed Mexican drug cartels to buy and traffic ness, and it is altogether mysterious that it has become a talk- American guns. According to the report, the Phoenix Field ing point. Division of the ATF and the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office wanted to prepare a big case without tipping off the cartels that n Lest the GM debacle have you fearing that no American law enforcement was watching—and so they watched passive- company can successfully cobble together a motorized ly, with no consideration of the risk to public safety, as the car- vehicle, consider the case of iconic motorcycle manufacturer tels acquired approximately 2,000 guns. The document also Harley-Davidson. H-D is a business that has been through contains a wealth of information about Operation Wide hell but never been offered a bailout—the motorcycle Receiver, a similar program the ATF ran under the Bush industry doesn’t have that kind of political clout—and so it administration—though “it happened under Bush too” is not has had to do what GM hasn’t: get better. H-D is predicting a an excuse for the current administration’s continuation of this 16 percent operating margin this year, which it achieved by flawed tactic. Two officials resigned in the wake of the report, investing in robotics and embracing cutting-edge inventory and several more were disciplined. This is not the last word— and production techniques to replace an assembly plant that the inspector general was not able to interview everyone he the Wall Street Journal referred to as “an industrial museum.” wanted to, he had no access to White House communications, But to get that done, H-D had to go thermonuclear on its main and some of those singled out for criticism claim they’re being union, telling the workers at its York, Pa., facility that they scapegoated to protect their superiors. But we now know more, were going to make concessions regarding work rules and with little thanks to the press corps and none to the White flexible pro duction or the plant was going to move to House. Kentucky, where the extortionate power of unions is much lower, a fact that has attracted such manufacturing heavy- n The Obama administration has announced a series of polit- weights as Toyota. Harley’s employees decided ically timed trade actions against China, and Mitt Romney they like building motorcycles, and, proposes to one-up the president by labeling China a curren- though there are 1,000 fewer work- cy manipulator and imposing sanctions. All of this fretting ers there today than over China ignores a number of important facts: China has there were three years been letting its currency drift closer to market rates; the bulk ago, the com pany is of our trade deficit is not cheap Chinese goods but crude oil; moving into the future and many countries, including the United States, have taken on solid ground, hav- steps to depreciate their currencies. The wicked octogenari- ing consigned nostal- ans who dominate China are indeed manipulators of curren- gia to the design and cy and other trade factors, but this is hardly the worst of their marketing departments. crimes and is, in the larger context, a relatively minor economic issue for the United States. It is also one that should be n Japanese prime minister Yoshihiko Noda put the ball firmly sorted out far from the heat and drama of a presidential cam- in China’s court over the disputed Senkaku Islands. After paign. A destabilizing trade war with China would not serve protests against Japanese diplomatic missions and businesses our national interest, and jobs that have be transferred abroad rocked 85 of China’s cities, and after major Japanese business- in search of lower labor costs probably are not going to return es such as Honda, Toyota, and Japan Airlines either suspended to the U.S. in any case: Our comparative advantage is inno- or pared down their operations on the mainland, Noda warned vation and high-value-added processes, not cheap labor. China that its aggressive actions could backfire. He noted that Beijing’s sins are not trivial, but neither are Washington’s— investors may be “scared off” by China’s unwillingness or and those we stand a fighting chance of doing something inability to rein in protesters and that any confrontation with about. Japan would harm China’s already-weakening economy. Of course, with Japanese coast-guard ships being deployed to pro- n General Motors sells the electric Volt for $40,000 and loses tect the islands and confront Chinese patrol vessels in the dis- about $50,000 every time it makes a sale, because that $40,000 puted waters, Noda has a vested interest in trying to avoid car costs $89,000 to build. The solution GM has hit upon (you conflict while ensuring Japan’s continued control over the have to be a government-run enterprise to think this way) is to strategically important islets. Yet this was the first time that a DAVIDSON USA sell it for $30,000 instead. GM is offering additional $10,000 world leader pointed out that China may have more to lose -

discounts on a car nobody wants, but the problem is: Nobody than other nations in continuing its aggressive path. HARLEY

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n The International Atomic Energy Agency is supposed to be apologize, but only to bank clerks. So the then parliamentary the U.N.’s “nuclear watchdog.” Some years ago, critics chief, Jerzy Buzek, once a member of Polish Solidarity, fined renamed it the U.N.’s “nuclear watch-puppy.” Led by him 3,000 euros. Farage appealed, and after this lapse of time Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA seemed more eager to protect he has lost and must also pay legal costs. “They have made the Iranian dictatorship than to report the facts about that dic- themselves a laughingstock,” he says. Polls are showing that tatorship’s nuclear program. For their troubles, ElBaradei and voters believe Farage gets it right. Come elections, UKIP may the IAEA won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. These days, the have another good laugh. IAEA is under different leadership, as John Bolton explains on page 28 of this issue. Its director general, Yukiya Amano, n Uneasy lies the body that wears no bathing suit, to bring is serious about the IAEA’s mandate; IAEA employees are Shakespeare up to date about the travails of royal personages. glad to be, at last, doing their jobs. How do we know their jobs The House of Windsor has been in the news for nudity. In Las are being done? Iran’s nuclear chief denounced the IAEA as a Vegas, young Prince Harry was photographed cavorting with nest of “terrorists and saboteurs.” Tehran never talked this nothing on amid a crowd of maidens—well, that’s one word way when ElBaradei was director general. for them. Now he’s on duty flying a helicopter in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, his elder brother, Prince William, took his wife, n The United States Agency for International Development Kate, on vacation to the south of France. Sunbathing on a cha - has been unceremoniously kicked out of Russia. A dozen or teau’s balcony, Kate removed her bikini top, evidently forget- more Americans will have to leave, some 60 Russians will lose ting that paparazzi are undercover all around. See the future their jobs, and millions of dollars will not now be spent as Queen of England topless! is the sales pitch of sleazy maga- intended on democratic and civic programs. Monitoring elec- zines in France, Italy, and Scandinavia. A furious Court re - tions, USAID-funded groups have been pointing out some of minds the public that paparazzi pursued Lady Diana, Prince Polls are showing that voters believe Nigel Farage gets it right. Come elections, UKIP may have another good laugh.

the irregularities that helped Vladimir Putin manipulate him- William’s mother, to her untimely death. The royals have al - self back into the Kremlin, and its activities stretch to the pur- ready sued the French magazine for invasion of privacy and suit of human rights and prisoners’ rights. Putin sees won an injunction. The general view is that a modest and new - conspiracy and “foreign agents” at work wherever he looks, ly married girl shouldn’t have to go through this, but some and it follows that the Russian foreign ministry accuses more crotchety people are advising her in the future to search USAID of meddling in what does not concern it. Sergei out and block all possible photo opportunities within range of Magnitsky was a young human-rights lawyer arrested and long-distance shots. murdered in his prison cell, and a bill before Congress proposing to punish Russian officials guilty of human-rights abuses n A government in graft-ridden West Africa has taken a stand by freezing their U.S. assets may well have pushed Putin to get for cutting government waste: Senegal’s lower house of par- his punishment of the United States in first. The expulsion of liament and the president agreed to abolish the country’s USAID also gives him a little more freedom to suppress dis- senate, saving the government $15 million a year. More truth- sent at home, and to make it plainer still that President Obama fully, the newly elected president, Macky Sall, is consolidat- can speak all he likes of “reset” while an indifferent Russia ing his power base, since the upper house is dominated by pursues policies such as re-arming the Syrian regime. Putin is supporters of the other party. President Obama tends to like a product of the Cold War, and it shows. symbolic, ineffective, and politically advantageous stabs at government downsizing too; one hopes he doesn’t start get- n The European Parliament in Brussels is a Potemkin façade ting any Senegalese ideas about the $1.2 billion cost of the now and then exposed by lively spirits, one of the liveliest Republican House. being Nigel Farage. A member of this parliament, he is also leader of the United Kingdom Independence party, which n Pity Pakistan’s Abdullah Ismail. On match day at the terror- pushes for Britain to regain sovereignty. He tends to treat the ist academy, all the other guys got assigned suicide bombing, goings-on in Brussels as pretty ridiculous, and none more IEDs, and bus massacres, while poor Abdullah was stuck with ridiculous than the election a couple of years ago of a Belgian flag-burning duty. So at a recent demonstration in Lahore by the name of Herman Van Rompuy to be president of against cute-puppy videos—no, check that, it was against Europe. The 27 heads of state in the European Union had cho- Innocence of Muslims—he trotted out his specialty and lit up sen him in secret proceedings behind closed doors. In a mem- the Stars and Stripes. But while the Supreme Court has ruled orable speech, Farage said that nobody has ever heard of this that flag burning may not be punished, its writ does not cover man, Belgium is a non-country, and democracy is not popular the forces of cosmic justice, and after a few minutes of barbe- there. Still more personal in tone: The new president has “the cuing Old Glory, Ismail took ill from inhaling the smoke and charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade was rushed to a hospital, where he died. Not exactly an immor- bank clerk.” Uproar. Consternation. Farage was prepared to tal hero of jihad, perhaps; but his martyr’s death should quali-

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THE WEEK fy him for three or four virgins at least, and maybe a small n To the uninitiated, it would seem that a law preventing room on the airshaft in paradise. motorists from smiling while in the New Jersey department of motor vehicles would be superfluous. But wonders never n Meter maids in Palma de Mallorca, a Spanish island city, cease. In September, the Garden State’s authorities began to were replaced by a male work force in September. Muslim enforce a new rule that prohibited applicants from smiling in men who had been spitting on and otherwise harassing the their driver’s-license photograph. The change is the product controladoras led their employer, a private company that of new face-recognition software that has been implemented manages Palma’s public parking, to remove the five dozen statewide. It works by comparing the master license image to women rather than risk their safety. The incident fits into a subsequently collected shots and ensuring that they match up. larger pattern of efforts by some Spanish Muslims, mostly Smiling and other exaggerated gestures are problematic, as immigrants, to stamp Islamic values on Spanish civil society. they render it more difficult for the software to recognize the Some of those values, including respect for traditional gender subject in everyday situations, a complication that inexorably differences, could be sympathetically received by non- leads one to the conclusion that the powers that be in New Muslim conservatives, in theory. The practice, as on the Jersey do not expect its citizens to be smiling very much while streets of Palma last summer, is too often a matter of bar- going about their business. barism, at which point men and women of goodwill stop listening. n Also in New Jersey, Democratic assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer, whose legislative achievements include co- n Public grammar schools in sponsoring a bill to designate walking “the New Jersey State Toronto have been ordered to dis- Exercise,” has introduced a first-in-the-nation measure play a set of posters that, under requiring cats and dogs to wear seatbelts or incur fines for the all-purpose rubric of “encour- their owners. The widespread failure of pets to buckle up is aging tolerance,” promote accep- “a bigger issue than people realize,” according to Spencer. tance of polygamy. At least, that Drivers who refuse to properly restrain their animals would seems to be the message of one face penalties ranging from $25 in most cases to $1,000 for poster, which depicts groups of infractions deemed “inhumane treatment,” such as allowing stick figures—sometimes two, a dog to ride in the bed of a pickup truck. Bloomberg News sometimes three—in various gen- reported that Governor Chris Christie has not taken a posi- der combinations, silhouetted tion on the proposed law. Perhaps the governor should make against hearts. We say “seems,” his opposition known, lest President Romney face impeach- because we assume the figures wearing dresses represent ment the first time his official limo travels through New women, though another poster in the set shows photographs of Jersey. elementary-school boys wearing dresses beneath the slogan “There are no rules for being a boy or a girl.” This message, in turn, is undercut by a third poster that amounts to a long list of bossy rules (“Question your assumptions,” “Be sensitive,” n Earlier this year, Marion Barry—D.C.’s most famous “Speak up against sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and het- Democrat after Barack Obama—made a statement glow- erosexist behavior”). In any case, a news report says the school ing with humanity: “We got to do something about these board “is denying claims it’s promoting polygamy—just illus- Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty trating it exists as a family dynamic.” So it would be perfectly shops. They ought to go. I’m going to say that right now. all right, then, if one of the stick figures were pictured lighting But we need African-American businesspeople to be able up a cigarette after celebrating his family dynamics? to take their places, too.” In response to this statement, a D.C. bar owner, Tony Tomelden, created a drink he called n Like almost everybody else under the sun, Urban Outfitters “Marion Berry’s Dirty Asian Summer Punch.” (The sells Che paraphernalia—items glorifying Che Guevara, the spelling alluded to the fact that the drink had fruit in it.) Argentinian Communist who was instrumental in setting up Tomelden wanted to poke fun at the ex-mayor, and current the Cuban dictatorship whose cruelty continues today. Thor councilman: “He gets away with this stuff continuously.” Halvorssen, the president of the Human Rights Foundation, Tomelden is part Filipino, incidentally. And he advertised JACQUELYN MARTIN / decided to do something about it. He wrote an open letter to the his Dirty Asian drink with a sign featuring a crude Asian company’s CEO, protesting one item in particular: a Guevara caricature. In came the D.C. Office of AP PHOTO : poster. In this letter—eloquent, powerful, and factual—he Human Rights, saying, “Take down

BARRY the sign, and take the drink off the ; explained who Guevara was. Many others added their voices to the protest. The day after Halvorssen penned and publicized menu, or else.” Tomelden com- his letter, a company spokesman announced that the Guevara plied. He told a Washington Post poster had “sold through.” Halvorssen then asked a mischie- reporter, “I have three kids, and I’m vous question: Would the item be restocked, considering how just too tired to fight City Hall.” The popular it obviously was? The spokesman said, “No com- lesson here: If you want to be a ment.” The Che myth is very deeply entrenched. But with the racist in D.C., you have to TORONTO DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD : bravura demonstrated by Halvorssen and his foundation, run for it instead.

POSTER maybe it can be budged.

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THE WEEK n Like most people whose writings do great harm, Tho mas Szasz started with a plausible-sounding principle, but instead of using it to clarify his thoughts, he made it the center of his worldview, bending everything else to fit while he ratcheted up the overstatement. Szasz’s governing notion was that psychiatry is not just an inexact branch of medicine, not just a discipline subject to misuse, but nothing less than a gigantic fraud, useful only for keeping inconvenient people under control. Mental illness did not exist. It was merely a myth, on par with witchcraft, exploited by those in power to control the masses. By denying the existence of what everyone could see with his own eyes, Szasz threw out the baby with the bathwa- ter, and included the tub and plumbing fixtures for good measure. The 1960s spirit of “only the mad are sane” romanticism, and the 1970s post-civil-rights hangover, gave his pernicious doctrine a long shelf life. With his sharp mind, Szasz could have helped curb psychiatry’s abuses and excesses; instead, his charismatic nihilism led to the usual overreaction (most notably the draconian policy of deinstitutionalization, unfortunately still very much with us) and ensuing counterreaction (nowadays he is widely and correctly considered a crank). Dead at 92. R.I.P.

Outside the White House the day after the Benghazi attack, September 12, 2012 AT WAR Speak Up belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Both condemned violence and slipped in a mention of free speech. But he Islamist attacks on American diplomats and diplo- who made the secretary of state and the president theologians matic property in Cairo and Benghazi have embroiled or chiefs of religious protocol? We live in a free country, and T us in an international controversy over free speech in every minute someone is giving it to someone else with the which we, under the current administration, have been singu- bark off. larly inept. The government did worse than speak and think badly. The assaults were commemorations of 9/11, the cheerlead- Nakoula Nakoula was hustled to a police station in the middle ers of the terrorists then doing their best again now. But they of the night for questioning on probation violations: a thug- claimed to be motivated by YouTube trailers for a movie, gish stunt better suited to a banana republic. Did he make the Innocence of Muslims, produced by Nakoula Nakoula, an president’s life harder? That comes with the job, along with egyptian Copt living in the United States. (The “film” most the golf dates and appearances on The View. likely does not exist; the trailer was a bargain-basement Americans should understand what we have and what the affair.) The videos derided Mohammed, to say the least. Muslim world conspicuously lacks. The rationalism of the Leave aside the deaths and physical damage caused by the en lightenment and a long practice of english common law initial attacks, vile though they were, and the havoc wreaked contributed to our liberties; they found fertile soil in the by copycat protests throughout the Muslim world, and in religious world of early America. Jesus instructed his follow- places—e.g., Sydney, Australia; prisons in Athens—where ers that different things were rendered to Caesar and to God. unbalanced Muslims are to be found. Consider the moral and American Christians, overwhelmingly Protestant, were di vid - intellectual damage the affair has caused. ed among themselves into different churches, some of which The U.S. embassy in Cairo, hoping to head off the rioters believed as a matter of principle that the conscience is the before they struck, issued a statement condemning “efforts by throne of God in man. This became the understanding of all. misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of The Muslim world has not developed traditions of con ten - Muslims—as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all tion and inquiry, and decades of Arabian evangelism, fueled religions.” “Respect for religious beliefs,” the statement went by oil money, labor to ensure that it will never happen. As a on, “is a cornerstone of American democracy.” This is doubly result a crescent of ignorance stretches from Morocco to wrong. Neither the Declaration nor the Constitution says any- Indonesia, with ghetto outposts wherever self-insulted immi- thing about “respect”: America upholds the free exercise of grants settle. religion; you earn respect yourself. Our cornerstone laws are There may be a pushback to Islamist bluster and bullying. equally emphatic about defending freedom of speech, and of The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which re - the press. Mitt Romney was quite right to be critical. printed the Danish Mohammed cartoons, announced a new set The kowtow to Muslim rageboys was repeated after the to play off the current storm. But the defense of freedom, fact. hillary Clinton called the trailers “disgusting and repre- mind, and the West cannot be left to games of gotcha. We have hensible,” designed to “denigrate a great religion.” In his to know that we are right, and on the appropriate occasions EVAN VUCCI /

AP speech to the U.N., Barack Obama said “the future must not say so.

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flated a number of distinct issues in a particularly destructive and distracting manner. Perhaps the most obvious criticism is that many of those who reflex- ively oppose the gOP are among Amer ica’s well-off, from ultra-wealthy social liberals to upper-middle-class pro- fessionals employed by the public sector. And while the dependency of the poor is of great consequence, the dependency of public employees and subsidized industries is at least as important. Then there is the fact that virtually all of the households with no federal income-tax liability pay other taxes. Once we factor in Social Se cur i ty and Medicare payroll taxes, for example, the share of households that aren’t paying taxes falls to 18 percent. Adding in state and local taxes, including retail sales taxes, causes the number to fall further still. Who Are the 47 Percent? Even if we do focus exclusively on federal income-tax liability, it is not clear Mitt Romney’s simplistic take on a complicated situation that there is a strong conservative case for dramatically shrinking the 47 percent. Last July, Roberton Williams of the BY REIHAN SALAM Tax Policy Center broke down why 46 percent of tax units—that is, individuals gREAT deal of ink has already million to 40 million. Much of this or married couples filing jointly and their been spilled over Mitt Rom - growth can be attributed to a rapid rise in dependents—had no income-tax liabili- ney’s off-the-record remarks the number of non-poor households that ty, drawing on the findings of a report he A at a fundraiser concerning the receive SNAP benefits. As of 2010, these co-authored with Rachel Johnson, James 47 percent of Americans who are depen- households accounted for 48 percent of Nunns, Jeffrey Rohaly, and Eric Toder. The dent on government, who do not pay fed- the SNAP rolls. Over that same decade, analysis is complicated, and it doesn’t eral income taxes, and who would never Medicaid enroll ment shot up from 33 line up well with the dependency story dream of voting for a Republican presi- million to 54.6 million, and that number Romney seemed to have in mind. dential candidate. President Oba ma has is expected to increase dramatically if Half of these households have no fed- woven references to Romney’s supposed President Obama’s health-care law goes eral income-tax liability because they contempt for the 47 percent into his into effect as scheduled. report very low incomes. Most of the rest stump speech, to great effect. Many on One interpretation is that this expan- rely heavily on Social Security benefits, the left are convinced that Romney’s ref- sion of the SNAP rolls and Medicaid which are partly excluded from taxable erence to the 47 percent has cemented represents a moral triumph that has income, or receive tax credits aimed at the perception that he is a clueless pluto- materially improved the lives of the poor raising the disposable income of low- crat, thus dooming his presidential cam- and near-poor, and that it should be cele- income workers with children. Which of paign. brated. Another interpretation is that it these provisions would we really want to In response to this feeding frenzy, represents a profound failure, in that our change? many on the right have leapt to Rom ney’s broken economy has for at least the last Republicans have championed the defense. And Romney’s defenders have decade failed to grow in a way that earned-income tax credit (EITC) as an made at least one crucially important would have delivered these benefits and anti-poverty tool that emphasizes labor- point, which is that the dependency the more as rewards for hard work rather force participation, and the program is former Massachusetts governor refer- than dignity-sapping handouts. These rightly regarded as a success. In fact, enced is a serious and growing problem. views are far enough apart that we can’t there is a case for improving or expand- In the latest issue of National Affairs, expect any real reconciliation of them ing the program in various ways. We David Armor and Sonia Sousa of george anytime soon. Even so, Rom ney’s de - might, for example, embrace wage sub- Mason Uni ver si ty document the extraor- fenders are right to want to have this sidies that would raise the incomes of dinary growth of federal anti-poverty debate. low-wage workers who aren’t parents schemes such as the Supplemental Nutri- The problem for them is that the Re - (perhaps by increasing the EITC income tional As sis tance Program (SNAP). pub li can nominee didn’t make a very threshold for nonparents). We might Between 2000 and 2010, the number of sophisticated point about dependency in also take stronger action to reduce

ROMAN GENN SNAP beneficiaries has gone from 17 his off-the-cuff remarks. Rather, he con- fraudulent EITC claims. Yet there is

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strong evidence that the EITC has in- young workers and those close to retire- creased labor-force participation more ment appear to be more tax-sensitive than un conditional cash assistance. In than prime-age workers, and a secondary Four Years doing so, it has encouraged poor people earner (i.e., the member of a couple with to get on the first rungs of the economic a lower income) is more tax-sensitive Ago ladder. The central problem facing the than a primary earner. Conservatives poor is that, in the absence of robust eco- have long argued, and rightly so, that Obama, and Biden, in debate nomic growth and healthy labor mar- these differences be tween people’s cir- kets, there hasn’t been enough of a cumstances should be reflected in tax BY JAY NORDLINGER chance to climb up the ladder to real policy. A policy that recognizes such dif- economic independence. But the EITC ferences is more likely to encourage vERY four years, we have pres- is not to blame. growth and wide spread labor-market idential debates, and it’s that Tax credits for parents are a low-cost participation than one that does not. time again. How about a glance way to recognize that raising the next Republicans who have embraced the E back, at a handful of things generation constitutes an expensive in - “takers” interpretation of the statistic that from 2008? Barack Obama was very, vestment in human capital that will 46 percent of tax units don’t pay federal very fluent against John McCain. yield dividends for society as a whole, income taxes forget why Re pub lican pol- Seldom has there been a more polished as Ramesh Ponnuru and Robert Stein icymakers of the past created policies like talker on our national stage. have argued on NATIONAl REvIEW ON- the EITC and the child tax credit in the In the three debates, Obama came off lINE. Shielding Social Security benefits first place. This has left the GOP vulner- as quite conservative, in almost every from taxation is extremely popular able to the charge of indifference to the area. He decried an “orgy of spending politically, and there is no reason to fate of the poor. What conservatives and enormous deficits.” He said, “When believe that it creates a particularly should be arguing is that the way to President Bush came into office, we had strong work dis incentive. To the extent reduce the number of households that a budget surplus, and the national debt was a little over $5 trillion. It has doubled over the last eight years. And we are now The elasticity of taxable income looking at a deficit of well over half a tril- varies between individuals and lion dollars.” In 2012, after four years of Obama, the debt is about $16 trillion, and between broad demographic groups. the deficit is almost $1.2 trillion. “When I’m president,” he said, “I will that it does, conservatives might con- don’t pay taxes is to enact policies that go line by line to make sure that we are sider exempting over-62 workers from make everyone—the 100 percent, to use not spending money unwisely.” He the So cial Sec urity payroll tax to Mitt Romney’s new turn of phrase—rich- promised that he would actually cut encourage senior citizens to keep work- er. To get there, however, we need tools more than he spent. listening to him, ing, as An drew Biggs of the American like the EITC to inculcate the habits of you might have thought he was running Enterprise Institute has proposed. work, and a generous child tax credit to as Calvin Coolidge. What is the basic idea that ties these help cash-strapped working parents in - Over and over, he promised to cut threads together? It is that the tax code vest in America’s future work force. taxes for 95 percent of Americans. No should be attuned to the life cycle. Many Some have asked why conservatives one making less than $250,000 would low-income households are headed by seem to be repudiating tax reforms that see a tax increase. Everyone making less young people, including students and GOP stalwarts such as Ronald Reagan, than $200,000 would see a tax cut. Did workers in the apprenticeship phase of who celebrated the fact that his 1986 tax it happen? Well, it depends on the mean- their careers. Many high-income house- reform removed large numbers of low- ing of “tax cut.” Obama and his team holds, in contrast, are headed by prime- earners from the tax rolls, championed in count “refundable tax credits” as tax age individuals, who are in a better the past. Many of today’s Re publi cans cuts. Other people see these credits as position to carry the tax burden than their are unacquainted with the case for the good old-fashioned welfare. Then there younger or older counterparts. Some EITC, the child tax credit, and the exclu- are the taxes waiting in Obamacare— prime-age individuals have children, and sion of Social Security benefits, or else some of which fall on people in the they are thus obligated to make substan- fail to connect these in i tia tives to the nar- sacred “middle class.” tial human-capital investments in their rowing of the tax base. This is an intel- In 2008, as in 2012, Obama said he children that generate significant spill - lectual failure. We need conservative wasn’t proposing anything radical: He’d over benefits to the wid er economy. politicians who are willing to explain simply ask the rich to pay “a little more.” Other prime-age individuals do not have why low-income and middle-income Regular folks, he said, “don’t feel as if children. parents should be removed from the tax they are sharing the burden with other The elasticity of taxable income (i.e., rolls during the years they are making folks”—folks who are “living pretty the degree to which higher income taxes the biggest investments in their children, high on the hog.” He was especially hard create a disincentive to work) varies and to make the case for the EITC pro- on “Big Oil.” Polls must have shown that between individuals and between broad gram as an alternative to worklessness the public disliked oil companies. In demographic groups. For example, very and lifelong dependency. his three debates, Obama mentioned

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ExxonMobil twice. In his one debate a “game-changer” in the Middle East. defense from them. And he “hit the reset against Sarah Palin, Joe Biden men- For one thing, it would “threaten Israel, a button” with Russia, adopting a policy tioned ExxonMobil four times. country that is our stalwart ally.” Obama of accommodation. (This was one of the On the subject of health care, Obama said he would tell Iran, “If you don’t moves that won him the 2009 Nobel could not have been more reassuring: “If change your behavior, then there will be Peace Prize.) you’ve got a health-care plan that you dire consequences.” Somehow, the In debate, Obama made a statement like, you can keep it. All I’m going to do Iranians don’t seem all that worried surprising to a lot of us: “I actually is help you to lower the premiums on it. about President Obama. believe that we need missile defense, You’ll still have choice of doctor. In the vice-presidential debate, Biden because of Iran and North Korea and the There’s no mandate involved.” More- assured one and all of Obama’s commit- potential for them to obtain or to lau nch over, “we estimate we can cut the aver- ment to Israel: “No one in the United nuclear weapons.” Once in office, age family’s premium by about $2,500 States Senate has been a better friend to though, he put the brakes on the proper year.” This last bit was pure fancy. Israel than Joe Biden. I would have gram. And in March 2012 he was caught As for being able to keep your plan if never, ever joined this ticket were I not on tape in a fascinating exchange with you like it—that’s no sure thing, to put it absolutely sure Barack Obama shared Russia’s Dmitri Medvedev. A number of mildly. my passion.” Israelis have good reason issues can be “solved,” said Obama, and Talking about health care, Obama told to be much less sure about this passion. “particularly missile defense”—but “it’s the story he has often told, about his On Russia, Obama sounded almost as important for him to give me space.” mother on her deathbed: how she had to tough as he did on Iran. He said the The “him” was Vladimir Putin, the boss. fight with insurance companies, at the Russians needed to understand that they “Yeah, I understand,” said Medvedev. “I worst possible time. Now, you should couldn’t be a 21st-century power while understand your message about space.” never dispute someone on his mother, acting like “a 20th-century dictator- Obama continued, “This is my last elec- particularly when it comes to her last ship.” What’s more, he pledged his sup- tion. After my election, I have more days. Little could be more unseemly. port to “all the fledgling democracies flexibility.” Then he patted Medvedev’s But even Obama-friendly researchers in that region,” including Poland and arm knowingly and reassuringly. Med - have said this story is a stretch (to put it the Czech Republic. He even used the vedev said, “I will transmit this informa- mildly). word “solidarity” (a significant word for tion to Vladimir.” What Obama has in Over and over, Obama said something East ern Europe). When he became pres- mind, in the event he is reelected, is hard that hardly any conservatives would dis- ident, however, he badly unnerved the to say. agree with: “We are a force of good in Poles and the Czechs by yanking missile Back in the ’08 debates, Obama iden- the world. But there has never been a nation in the history of the world that saw its economy decline and maintained its military superiority.” The debate this year is over how to arrest this decline. Also, some have a bold question, even a rude one: Does the president want to maintain our military superiority? At every opportunity, Obama knock ed and mocked Bush for failing to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. He himself would get the job done, he said. And lo, it came to pass. Like John Kerry in 2004, Obama dis- dained Iraq as the Bad War and hailed Afghanistan as the Good War, needing further attention. That’s where the “war on terrorism” (as he was still calling it) should be centered. He made good on his promise to “end” the Iraq War. He seems to have lost interest in the Afghan War, which too will “end,” whatever the conditions there. On Iran, he was very tough—and very tough on Bush. “Obviously, our policy over the last eight years has not worked,” Obama said. In his own debate, Biden AP added that Bush’s policy had been “an / abject failure.” Obama said, “We cannot

tolerate a nuclear Iran,” which would be Obama and McCain during the 2008 presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. GERALD HERBERT

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tified Venezuela, along with Iran, as a ly a thoughtful educator, working with a had probably in American history.” He “rogue state.” As president, however, he bunch of Republicans. Sure, Obama, as said he was proud to have “led the fight clasped Hugo Chávez in a soul-brother a state legislator, had opposed the Born against Judge Bork,” one of President handshake and called him “mi amigo,” Alive Act—a bill meant to protect Reagan’s Supreme Court nominees. In his friend. In debate, he called for a no- infants who survive an abortion. But he doing so, you see, he had safeguarded fly zone in Sudan. He said that the opposed it, said Obama, only because our “civil rights and civil liberties.” “international community” should be the bill “undermined” Roe v. Wade, and, Meanwhile, Obama presented himself mobilized. “And that’s what I intend to besides: A similar law was already on as the champion of civility: “What is do when I’m president.” For his part, the books. (For good measure, Obama important is making sure that we dis- Biden said, “I don’t have the stomach added, “Nobody’s pro-abortion. I think agree without being disagreeable. And it for genocide when it comes to Darfur. it’s always a tragic situation.”) All of means that we can have tough, vigorous We can now impose a no-fly zone. It’s this dancing has been discredited, not debates around issues. What we can’t within our capacity.” Rightly or wrong- just by Obama critics, but by some do, I think, is try to characterize each ly, it never happened. friendlies as well. other as bad people.” Last year, Politico Over and over, Obama and Biden said In the presidential debates, gay mar- quoted “a prominent Democratic strate- that America had lost its standing in the riage did not come up. It did in the vice- gist aligned with the White House.” This world, and that they would restore that presidential debate, where both Biden unnamed man or woman said, “Unless standing. America was once respected, and Sarah Palin said they opposed gay things change and Obama can run on they said. No more. With them in char ge, marriage. The moderator said, “Won - accomplishments, he will have to kill America would be respected once again. derful. You agree. On that note, let’s Romney.” Obama and his team have Is America, in fact, more respected move to foreign policy.” Four years tried their best, or worst. now, after these four years? It would later, of course, both Biden and the pres- Let’s give the last word to Joe Biden. take a funny view of the world—of the ident would come out for gay marriage. In his debate, he said, “This is the most Middle East, China, and other places—to On the stage with Palin, Biden offered important election you will ever, ever believe so. his usual shtick. He was a Son of the have voted in—any of you—since Obama did his usual dancing around Middle Class, and its Protector. He 1932.” Later in the debate, he said, his not-quite-conservative past. His talked about the car accident that killed “Look, folks, this is the most important relationship to ACORN was innocent his first wife and their daughter. He said, election you’ve ever voted in [in] your and slight. Bill Ayers, the Weather “Vice President Cheney has been the entire life.” Look, folks, you could say Underground terror leader, was basical- most dangerous vice president we’ve the same of now.

2 3

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tion of incitement material,” Ihsanoglu said the international community should Fatwa “come out of hiding from behind the excuse of freedom of expression.” Against Free The United States has never offered a sustained defense of free expression in response to such demands, and has even I M P O R T A N T Speech signaled to the Muslim world that it is The U.S. needs to resist it willing to restrict speech. Under the Clin - N O T I C E ton administration, the U.S. joined the BY NINA SHEA OIC in a non-binding U.N. resolution to all National Review calling for a universal ban on the “defam - He cascading crisis involving ation of religion.” The Bush administra- subscribers! derogatory depictions of Islam’s tion broke that consensus but made no prophet, Mohammed, by ama- attempt to lobby against the resolution, T teur American filmmakers and which the U.N. continued to adopt annu- French satirists has reinvigorated a 20- ally for a decade. Nor did it try to explain year-old demand from the Muslim world the importance of individual freedoms of We are moving our for a Western crackdow n on free speech. speech and religion when they were This demand has been made by egypt’s under assault during worldwide Muslim subscription-fulfillment Salafist Nour party, by Iran’s theocrats, by rioting—in 2005 against Danish car- office from Hezbollah, and, not least, by the al- toons depicting Mohammed, and in 2006 Qaeda-linked groups that on September ag ainst Pope Benedict’s Regensburg Mount Morris, Ill. 11 and the days immediately following spe ech, which included a quote linking to Palm Coast, Fla. attacked and rioted against our embassies Islam to violence. Please continue and interests in two dozen Muslim coun- The Obama administration has at times tries, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens acclaimed free speech, as President to be vigilant: and 51 others and injuring hundreds. It is Obama did in his recent address to the There are fraudulent also being pressed on the diplomatic front U.N. General Assembly, but it has also by Muslim governments allied to the U.S. joined in U.N. calls for religious-hate- agencies soliciting Without doubt, the uproar over the speech codes and left the impression that your National Review twelve-minute video Innocence of the First Amendment is out of step with Muslims is the result of ulterior motives international human-rights standards. In subscription ! renewal and political manipulations as Islamists his 2009 Cairo speech, President Obama without our authorization. jockey for power. Nevertheless, and not pledged to fight anti-Islamic “stereotyp- Please reply only to for the first time, large populations have ing,” and in 2011 Secretary of State been incited to violence by these cynical Hillary Clinton followed up on this National Review and opportunistic forces. It is important to promise with her proposal for a series of renewal notices or respond in a principled and coherent way. conferences with the OIC to develop The Islamist demand for a global curb “implementation” measures for this fight. bills—make sure the to free speech first burst upon the scene in Last month, the administration (unsuc- return address is 1989, when Salman Rushdie was con- cessfully) asked Google to remove the demned to death by Iran’s Ayatollah Mohammed video from YouTube, which Palm Coast, Fla. Khomeini (whose fatwa was bolstered Google owns, and dispatched the FBI to Ignore all requests for with a decidedly worldly bounty, recently investigate whether the video’s principal renewal that are not increased, by $500,000, to $3.3 million). maker could be arrested on a technicality. Its most recent diplomatic articulation It also, and not for the first time, deployed directly payable came on September 20, from ekmeleddin top military brass to personally try to to National Review. Ihsanoglu, the Turkish secretary general silence micro-church pastor Terry Jones, of the Organization of Islamic Co - who had praised the video. On the If you receive any mail or operation (OIC), a Saudi-based group of anniversary of 9/11, four hours before the telephone offer that makes 56 member states. Calling for “an interna- violence erupted, the U.S. embassy in you suspicious contact tional code of conduct for media and Cairo posted on its website a statement social media to disallow the dissemina- echoing the OIC and suggesting that by [email protected]@nationalreview.com.. hurting Muslims’ “religious feelings” the Your cooperation Nina Shea is the director of the Hudson Institute’s video was an “abuse [of] the universal Center for Religious Freedom and a co-author, with right to free speech.” is greatly appreciated. Paul Marshall, of Silenced: How Apostasy and We need to take stock of what is really Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom being asked of us. It is not a small thing. Worldwide. This is not about offending people. The

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Saudi ministry of education has no com- murder of Pakistani cabinet minister ing Mohammed on Facebook. In punction about teaching that Jews are Shahbaz Bhatti, who had criticized response, outraged local Muslims had riot- “apes” and Christians are “pigs.” Egypt’s Islamic blasphemy laws. ed with impunity in Asyut, burning homes law banning “insult to heavenly reli- The Internet and social media have the and injuring several Christians. gions” does not stop Egyptian state media potential to give these codes unlimited In 2011, Naguib Sawiris, the Coptic from denigrating Coptic Christians and reach: Muslim reformers cannot escape founder of a liberal party and one of promoting The Protocols of the Elders of being attacked even in exile. In 2006, a Egypt’s richest men, was accused by Zion. This is not even about offensive group called Al-Munasirun li Rasul al Islamist lawyers of offending Islam; speech concerning Muslims. As Moham- Allah—previously unknown, and now charges were eventually dismissed on med Bouyeri told a Dutch court during his thought to be based in Egypt—used e- procedural grounds. He had tweeted a trial for the murder of filmmaker Theo mail to threaten over 30 prominent cartoon of Mickey and Minnie Mouse Van Gogh: “The story that I felt insulted Muslim reformers in the West. Among the dressed in conservative Islamic garb. as a Moroccan, or because he called me a targets were renowned Egyptian human- Hamza Kashgari, a Saudi columnist goat f***er, that is all nonsense. I acted rights advocate Saad Eddin Ibrahim and whose tweets of an imaginary conversa- out of faith.” In other words, he acted Sheikh Subhy Mansour, an imam who tion expressing religious doubt to Islam’s because he thought Islam was blas- was imprisoned and had to flee Egypt prophet prompted an Internet petition phemed when Van Gogh’s film criticized after opposing the death penalty as a pun- calling for his death, was arrested last the Koran’s verses on women. Or, as ishment for apostasy. They were pro- February in Malaysia. He was extradited To comply with Muslim blasphemy laws would be to undermine our liberal democracy.

Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa put it in nounced “guilty of apostasy, unbelief, and to Saudi Arabia and placed in solitary a Washington Post article about the recent denial of the Islamic established facts” confinement in a Riyadh prison, and his YouTube video: “Insults against the and given three days to “announce their fate is unknown. In June, a Turkish court Prophet are taken as more serious than repentance” or be killed. The e-mail in - charged Fazil Say, a composer and con- insults against one’s own parents and cluded their addresses and the names of cert pianist, for a single tweet poking fun family, indeed than one’s own self.” their spouses and children. at a literal conception of paradise. Whether the putative offense is called The new media also provide new out- Pakistan, with its strict blasphemy religious “defamation,” “insult,” or lets for people to commit blasphemy, laws, has struggled to censor its tech- “incitement,” the goal of the OIC and including people who live in the Muslim savvy population. Overwhelmed by the many Muslims is to universalize Muslim world. The first blogger convicted for sheer number of cases, as well as the blasphemy codes. They will not be placat- blasphemy was Egyptian Kareem Amer, a accompanying rioting, the government ed by hate-speech laws of the kind man- Muslim who was sentenced in February has turned to temporary blanket bans on dated within the EU following the 2007 to three years of imprisonment for the offending media. Last May, Pakistan Danish-cartoon crisis—laws that protect insulting Islam. His offense was to criti- blocked Twitter for a day, accusing it of Muslims, but not Islam per se, from cize the treatment of Copts. promoting a “blasphemous” cartoon con- insult. Nor would simple bans against With the Arab Spring, blasphemy on test on Facebook. The Pakistan Tele - Koran-burning of the sort Senator social media has proliferated. Even as riot- communication Authority reportedly then Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) proposed last ers raged outside our embassy in Egypt, an engaged in talks with Twitter to remove year settle the matter. What is being de- Egyptian court was handing down a three- all “objectionable” content. Pakistan manded is sweeping censorship, covering year prison sentence to Coptic Christian banned Facebook for two weeks in 2010 all that has been asserted as truth in the Bishoy Kamel, a teacher from the city of for a similar cartoon contest; at the same Koran, in thousands of other Islamic texts Sohag, for posting cartoons deemed time it banned YouTube and hundreds of called “hadiths,” and in other Islamic insulting toward Moham med on his other websites and services. Last month, sources over 1,300 years. Facebook page (he was given an addition- Pakistan succeeded in having Google Most Muslim countries have such laws, al three years for insulting Egyptian presi- block access within its borders to but their application varies over time and dent Mohamed Morsi and an Egyptian Innocence of Muslims. Nevertheless, riots from place to place. Traditional punish- prosecutor). At the same time, Albert led by Pakistan’s Jamaat-e-Islami and al- ments for blasphemy include the death Saber, a 25-year-old Egyp tian Coptic Qaeda-linked groups against American penalty, which is still applied by Iran and activist, was arrested and reportedly tor- interests escalated, prompting the U.S. to Pakistan. Frequently, it is dissidents and tured for insulting religion after allegedly run TV ads on seven channels with religious minorities who are targeted for posting on his Facebook page the anti- President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and prosecution. Where control is loose, the Mohammed YouTube trailer. And Gamal ordinary Americans denouncing the accused, even if acquitted, are also vul- Abdou Massoud, a 17-year-old Copt from video. The riots also prompted Islamabad nerable to attacks by vigilantes, who often the city of Asyut, is serving a three-year to jam cell-phone service in 15 major operate with impunity. For example, no sentence imposed last May for insulting cities, affecting millions. one has been arrested for the March 2011 Islam when he posted cartoons lampoon- There can be little doubt: To comply

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with Muslim blasphemy laws would be to longtime directors general: Two Swedes undermine our liberal democracy, the rule were DGs consecutively from 1961 to of law, the free exchange of ideas, and our The 1997, followed by Egypt’s Mohammed way of life. The West once privileged ElBaradei from 1997 to 2009. Under the Christianity in this way and the ensuing Ayatollahs’ studiously neutral Swedes, the IAEA religious wars and political oppression led devoted 80 percent of its watchdog bud- America’s founders to enact the First get to scrutinizing the nuclear work of Amendment. Agency Canada, Japan, and Germany. Mean - A serious and respectful American while, rogue states were busily ramping policy response to the Muslim demand How the IAEA has ignored and up covert nuclear-weapons programs for Western blasphemy bans is long enabled nuclear proliferation that the sleepy IAEA missed. overdue. President Obama’s U.N. speech Alarms finally rang after the 1990–91 was only that: a single speech. It was BY JOHN R. BOLTON Persian Gulf War, with the embarrassing unsupported by—was, in fact, contra- revelation that the IAEA had overlooked dicted by—his specific foreign policies. ITH the world’s attention Saddam Hussein’s massive nuclear- It seemed calculated to woo American diverted yet again, this weapons project. Saddam’s original voters rather than persuade a world com- time by the collapse of plutonium-based effort effectively munity already facing a concerted cam- W the myth of the Arab ended in 1981 when Israel destroyed the paign to impose international laws Spring as a democratic awakening, Osirak reactor. The full extent of his against blasphemy. Iran’s nuclear program powers ahead. second program, which enriched urani- His adminstration has failed to lead a Again, the International Atomic Energy um, was discovered during post-war diplomatic effort even among our Agen cy (IAEA) has demonstrated its inspections required under the Security Western allies to rally support for the in ability, even under new and better Council’s 1991 cease-fire resolution; the rights of the individual to freedom of leadership, to constrain rogue states program was far more advanced than speech and religion, and has neglected determined to possess nuclear weapons. previously known. The IAEA’s failure to stand up for such freedoms in its over- After the IAEA passed another tooth- to discover the scope of Saddam’s all foreign policy. We should end the less resolution in mid-September, Iran’s program (a failure shared by our intelli- apologies and lead a sustained conversa- ambassador to the agency complained gence community) should have encour- tion articulating the importance of indi- that the measure would “only compli- aged a cautionary humility, but it did vidual freedoms of speech and religion cate the situation and endanger the co - not. Instead, analysts overcompensated to dem ocracy and to economic advance- operative environment” between the for past mistakes, swinging wildly from ment, personal as well as societal. We two sides. And the head of Tehran’s former CIA director George Tenet’s should firmly assert that we do not—and nuclear program claimed that the “slam dunk” overestimation of Iraq’s will not—regulate speech on behalf of agency had been infiltrated by terrorists capabilities ten years later to the precise any religion or body of ideas. We should trying to sabotage his work. That is opposite today, after the second Gulf ap peal for the freedom of specific blas- chutzpah. War—underestimation of nuclear pro- phemy prisoners abroad and expose the Born in 1957, the IAEA has two mis- grams in Iran and North Korea. injustices and due-process lapses sur- sions: promoting peaceful uses of atom- That Iraq could have so thoroughly rounding their cases. We should defend ic energy and guarding against the deceived the IAEA prompted calls in the the religious minorities that are oppres - spread of nuclear weapons. Although 1990s for more stringent inspection sed in—and in danger of being driven potentially a significant adjunct to U.S. powers, but did not alter the agency’s from—Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, counter-proliferation efforts, the IAEA, basic mindset. Then–director general Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mali, and parts of to be effective, requires two essentials: a Hans Blix understood that his agency Nigeria. We should tell our allies among non-political technical staff that under- had bungled badly, but he was too much the OIC member states to end the stok- stands its role is to report facts, not to the international bureaucrat to make sig- ing of outrage over blasphemy, includ- make policy, and member governments nificant changes. ing by the imams they appoint, register, that are collectively serious about pre- Bad as Blix was, ElBaradei was and fund. venting proliferation. Unique because of worse. His active opposition to the And we should cite the words of coura- the palpable connection between nu - IAEA’s doing anything effective to stop geous Muslim reformers themselves. One clear weapons and world peace, the Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, his is the late Naser Abu-Zayd, who was dri- IAEA, unlike other U.N. specialized unwillingness to admit what was in - ven out of his native Egypt for expressing agencies, is linked directly to the Sec - creasingly obvious to objective obser - such thoughts as this: “Charges of aposta- urity Council. When the Cold War grid- vers, and his distortions and con cealment sy and blasphemy are key weapons in the locked the Council, the IAEA’s role of information in IAEA reports trans- fundamentalists’ arsenal, strategically shrank. formed an already-weak organization employed to prevent reform of Muslim Its impotence was symbolized by its into a cat’s paw for Iran. Worse still, societies and instead confine the world’s ElBaradei thought it was his job to nego- Muslim population to a bleak, colorless Mr. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United tiate with Iran to resolve Tehran’s quest prison of sociocultural and political con- Nations, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise for nuclear weapons, which he did heed- formity.” Institute. less of what IAEA members such as the

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U.S., Britain, and France wanted. He the BOG could readily water down and undercut Security Council efforts, fee- render impotent any IAEA efforts to ble though they invariably were, and halt and expose its illicit activities. And Estonian helped convince Iran’s leaders that ElBaradei made matters worse by open- Western attempts to stop them could ly resisting efforts to move the main Economics always be thwarted by enabling U.N. focus on Iran from the IAEA to the What the Baltic state can ElBaradei’s presumptuousness. One Security Council, because doing so day, years hence, when the transcripts would have diminished his personal and cannot teach us. of intercepted conversation from the role and his ability to be Iran’s humble BY ANDREW STUTTAFORD world’s intelligence agencies find their servant. way into the sunlight, we will see just Of course, the Security Council suf- Tallinn, Estonia how closely ElBaradei and Iran collud- fered from its own inadequacies be - ITTING shirt-sleeved and with- ed. Until then, we can judge his tenure cause Russia and China were flying out, sadly, his trademark bow by his public obstructionism toward the political cover for Tehran, eviscerating tie, in his official residence here United States, his apologies for Iran, and S in the Estonian capital, this sanctions resolutions, and otherwise his repeated efforts to subvert the work preventing the Council from acting Baltic nation’s Swedish-born, New of his own nuclear inspectors. effectively. This combination of IAEA Jersey–raised president, Toomas Hendrik It is simply not the place of an inter- weakness, Russian-Chinese obstruc- Ilves, looks pained. He’s chewing antacid national civil servant to act beyond the tionism, and, sadly, Western unwilling- pills (I’d guess), but it’s the name that I control of his agency’s member gov- ness to force the issue early (when the just mentioned that is the problem, not ernments. ElBaradei’s arrogance also potential risks and costs would have indigestion: “Krugman.” surfaced in the handling of Libya’s been far lower) has left us with no He sighs. nuclear-weapons program. Britain and attractive options. We now face an “I know this has been done to death,” I the United States convinced Moammar incredibly risky future in which either admit. Qaddafi to renounce his nuclear aspira- Iran gets nuclear weapons or someone Ilves does not disagree. tions after Saddam’s overthrow and uses preemptive military force to pre- Estonia has a tragic history of being a capture and after the seizure in 2003 of vent it from doing so. battleground for other people’s wars. critical uranium-enrichment equipment In 2009, Japan’s Yukiya Amano was Thankfully, the latest conflict into which as it was being shipped to Tripoli. elected the director general of the the country has found itself unwillingly When ElBaradei was briefed on this IAEA. He hews precisely to the correct drawn—the debate over how the West can triumph and informed that Libya’s model for a U.N. agency head: carrying emerge from its post-Lehman malaise— nuclear materials would be moved to out its mission professionally under the has involved nothing more than a “snide” Oak Ridge, Tenn., for safekeeping and policy direction of member govern- (to borrow Ilves’s adjective) bit of blog- for use in our efforts against the A. Q. ments. Amano brings to the job Japan’s ging by Paul Krugman for the New York Khan proliferation network, he explod- profound awareness of the destructive- Times. And even that, the president con- ed. Instead of welcoming this sig - ness of nuclear weapons and a genuine cedes, ultimately turned out to be “good nificant counter-proliferation victory, desire to tell the truth, with no fear of the publicity” for a tale of economic recovery. he took offense, actually contending consequences. IAEA inspectors have In 2008, Estonia’s boom, fueled to that we should have taken no further rejoiced at their newfound freedom, a overheating by (primarily Scandinavian) action when our intelligence uncovered freedom ElBaradei denied them, to banks attracted by the country’s post- Qaddafi’s program but should instead report the facts they uncover and to sim- Soviet revival, turned, like so many oth- have handed the matter over to him. He ply do their jobs. ers, into bust. GDP fell by 3.7 percent in also objected to shipping the Libyan But the Amano model is only a nec- 2008 and by 14.3 percent in 2009, taking assets to Oak Ridge rather than deliver- essary and not a sufficient condition for tax revenues with it: The budget went into ing them into his untrustworthy hands. an effective IAEA. Even a skilled and a deficit of 2.7 percent in 2008, shocking British and Amer ican diplomats alike dedicated international civil servant in a country that aims to run a structural were amazed at this display of narcis- cannot succeed if his member govern- surplus. Unemployment soared to 16.9 sism, but it was all in a day’s work for ments are collectively feckless. The percent in 2010, from 4.7 percent in 2007. ElBaradei. IAEA and the Security Council are still Housing prices crashed 40 to 50 percent The IAEA was hampered on Iran not failing to stop Iran, because an interna- from their peak. only by ElBaradei but also by the tional organization is never more than In response, the country’s governing inability of its member states to get seri- the sum of its members, and in many coalition of conservatives and classical ous about Tehran’s nuclear program. cases it is less. We might wish for more, liberals cut spending and raised taxes The IAEA’s board of governors but that would be unrealistic. At least (Estonia’s flat-rate income tax was, how- (known quite accurately by its acro- now the IAEA’s leader is a man of abil- ever, left untouched at 21 percent) in a nym, “BOG”) never overcame “the ity and integrity who tells the truth, squeeze equivalent to over 9 percent of spirit of Vienna,” the absurd notion that courageously. Perhaps a new U.S. GDP. But it was what happened next that it should act by consensus—that is, administration will explore whether it unanimously. Under this gauzy bro- can install his like throughout the U.N. Mr. Stuttaford is a contributing editor of mide, Iran or its supporters serving on system. NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE.

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You deserve a factual look at . . . One of the enduring myths about the Arab-Israeli conflict is that the “settlements” in Judea/Samaria (often called the “West Bank”) are the source of the conflict between the Jews and the so-called “Palestinians.” If that problem were solved—in other words, if Israel would turn Judea/Samaria over to the “Palestinians”—peace would prevail and the century-old conflict would be ended.

is now Israel (including the “West Bank”) and what is now the Erroneous Assumptions: Various fallacies and erroneous Kingdom of Jordan—as the homeland for the Jewish people. In assumptions underlie that belief, so often repeated that even those 1922, the League of Nations ratified the Balfour Declaration and who are friendly to Israel, even many Jews in Israel and in the designated Britain as the mandatory power. Regrettably, Britain, for United States, have come to accept it. Our government, generally its own imperial reasons and purposes, separated 76 percent of the friendly to and supportive of Israel, has bought into the myth of the land—that lying beyond the Jordan River—to create the kingdom of “settlements;” it has regularly and insistently requested that the Trans-Jordan (now Jordan) and made it inaccessible to Jews. In “settlements” be abandoned and, one supposes, be turned over lock, 1947, tired of the constant bloodletting between Arabs and Jews, the stock, and barrel to those who are sworn to British threw in the towel and abandoned destroy Israel. “The Arab propaganda machine has the Mandate. The UN took over. It devised The very designation of the Jewish created myths that have been a plan by which the land west of the inhabitants of Judea/Samaria as “settlers” Jordan River would be split between the is inappropriate, because it connotes accepted by much of the world. No Jews and the Arabs. The Jews, though with something foreign, intrusive and peace in the Middle East is possible heavy heart, accepted the plan. The Arabs temporary, something that is purposefully virulently rejected it and invaded the and maliciously imposed. But that is until those Arab myths have been nascent Jewish state with the armies of nonsense of course. Why would the more exposed for what they are!” five countries, so as to destroy it at its than quarter-million Jews who live in birth. Miraculously, the Jews prevailed Judea/Samaria be any more “intrusive” or any more “illegal” than and the State of Israel was born. When the smoke of battle cleared, the more than one million Arabs who live in peace in what is called Jordan was in possession of the “West Bank” and Egypt in “Israel proper” or west of the so-called “green line”? Nobody possession of Gaza. They were the “occupiers” and they proceeded considers their presence as intrusive; nobody talks of them as an to kill as many Jews as they could and to drive out the survivors. obstacle to peace. They systematically destroyed all Jewish holy places and all vestiges Most of us, regrettably perhaps, are too worldly and too of Jewish presence. The area was “judenrein”—free of Jews. “sophisticated” to put much stock in the argument that the In the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jews reconquered the territories. territories in question, Judea and Samaria, are indeed the ancestral The concept that Jewish presence in Judea/Samaria is illegal and homeland of the Jewish people and that they were promised by God that the Jews are occupiers is bizarre. It just has been repeated so to Abraham and his seed in perpetuity. Jews have lived in that often and with such vigor that many people have come to accept it. country without interruption since Biblical times. There is no Even our president seems to have bought into that. reason why they shouldn’t live there now. Why should How about the “Palestinians,” whose patrimony this territory Judea/Samaria be the only place in the world (except for such supposedly is and about whose olive trees and orange groves we hear benighted countries as Saudi Arabia) where Jews cannot live? endlessly? There is no such people. They are Arabs—the same Legal Aspects: But how about the legal aspect of this matter? Isn’t people as in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and beyond. Most of them the “West Bank” “occupied territory” and therefore the Jews have no migrated into the territories and to “Israel proper,” attracted by right to be there? But the historic reality is quite different. Very Jewish prosperity and industry. The concept of “Palestinians” as briefly: The Ottoman Empire was the sovereign in the entire area. In applied to Arabs and as a distinct nationality urgently in need of 1917, while World War I was still raging, Britain issued the Balfour their own twenty-third Arab state, is a fairly new one; it was not Declaration. It designated “Palestine”—extending throughout what invented until after 1948, when the State of Israel was founded. But here’s a thought: How about a deal by which the “settlements” were indeed abandoned and all the Jews were to move to “Israel proper.” At the same time, all the Arabs living in Israel would be transferred to Judea/Samaria or to wherever else they wanted to go? That would indeed make Judea/Samaria “judenrein,” and what are now Arab lands in Israel would be “arabrein.” The Arabs could then live in a fully autonomous area in eastern Israel and peace, one would hope, would descend on the holy land. What is wrong with this plan is that very few if any Israeli Arabs would accept it—life is too good for them in Israel.

This message has been published and paid for by FLAME is a tax-exempt, non-profit educational 501 (c)(3) organization. Its purpose is the research and publication of the facts regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its allies in that area of the world. Your tax- deductible contributions are welcome. They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these messages in national newspapers and magazines. We Facts and Logic About the Middle East have virtually no overhead. Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational P.O. Box 590359 San Francisco, CA 94159 work, for these clarifying messages, and for related direct mail. Gerardo Joffe, President 77A To receive free FLAME updates, visit our website: www.factsandlogic.org 3col:QXP-1127940387.qxp 9/26/2012 2:29 AM Page 32

must have really bothered Krugman: the tightwads of Tallinn, many of Est - Tallinn. It was the prospect of Estonia’s After pain came gain. GDP jumped 7.6 onia’s trading partners pulled out of their adoption of the euro that triggered that last, percent in 2011, and should grow by 2 to post-Lehman dive rather more rapidly fatal surge in Scandinavian lending. On the 3 percent this year and next. Unemploy - than might otherwise have been expected, other hand, it has also represented an addi- ment has dropped to 10.2 percent and dragging the Estonian economy up in tional incentive (and some political cover) seems set to fall farther. their wake as exports picked up again. for the maintenance of that budgetary dis- That did not fit comfortably with the The budget is (broadly) back in balance, cipline without which—ironically, in the sometimes-cartoonish Keynesianism that and the ratio of central-government debt light of the shambles elsewhere—the the professor has been pushing since the to GDP stood at 6 percent at the end of country would not have been eligible for era of hope, change, and stimulus. So he 2011, a time, ahem, when the U.S. num- membership in the currency union. took to his blog, cropped a graph, and ber was over 100 percent. Estonia’s finan - Switching to the euro was seen by most took aim at “the poster child for austerity ces remained intact. of the Estonian elite as final confirmation defenders”—not a role that the Estonians And so, largely, did the population. that the country had left its Soviet past had sought for themselves. There had, Demography is a sensitive topic in the behind. Even though the Estonian kroon wrote Krugman, been a “depression-level three Baltic states, small nations with (in had been pegged to the Deutsche mark, slump” (true enough) “followed by a signi - the case of Latvia and Estonia) ethnic and then to the euro, since its rebirth, ficant but still incomplete recovery. . . . This balances severely distorted by the influx many ordinary Estonians were not so con- is what passes for economic triumph?” of Russians who arrived in the Soviet vinced that it should be swapped for the Well, no, but that is not what the years. The slump has triggered a large single currency, but the terms of the coun- Estonians, a modest bunch, are claiming. wave of emigration. Estonia has been try’s accession into the EU in 2004 ren- No one I talked to described times as easy, spared the worst of this, not least because dered their discontent moot. Calls for a but progress is progress. What’s more, if of the presence of Finland (Finnish and referendum were ignored, and Estonia you push the graph back a touch earlier Estonian are closely related languages) moved over to Brussels’s funny money on than 2007, which Krugman used as his just across the Baltic Sea. Why emigrate January 1, 2011. starting date, the broader picture is re - if you can commute? There’s probably If the alternative approach, retention vealed to be rather prettier than the Nobel something else at play, too. All three and then devaluation of its own currency laureate let on. Yes, it was true that GDP countries have come a long way since (frequently a useful tool in an economic had yet to return to 2007 levels, but it still their escape from Moscow in 1991, but crunch), was considered, it was not con- stood slightly higher than in 2006, no Estonia has gone the farthest: Perhaps its sidered for long. Exports are vital to plague year. President of one of Europe’s citizens were more willing to believe that Estonia, but it adds comparatively little tech-savviest countries, an irritated Ilves hanging on would be worth their while. value to them. Devaluation would there- turned to Twitter to rough up the “smug, Estonia’s is an impressive story, but it is fore have had little impact on their cost to overbearing & patronizing” Krugman. a distinctive one, with specifics—includ- international customers. What it would Let’s take a step back: Estonia is not ing a history of budgetary prudence, the have done, however, is risk importing yet Greece. Government is transparent and presence of those Swedish banks, a heavy more inflation into Estonia’s small, open thrifty. Taxes are paid. Private borrowing export orientation, assistance from the economy. Above all, devaluation would ballooned during the bubble years, but EU’s structural funds, and a windfall from have, as Ilves explains, “wiped out” the that of the public sector did not. At the end the sale of emissions quotas—that mean middle class. Typically, the mortgages— of 2008, the state’s debt stood at a sober that advocates of an Estonian solution to often on properties that had since col- 4.5 percent of GDP, a figure that might the euro-zone crisis should proceed with lapsed in value—that Estonians had taken have tempted some governments to try to care. Crushing the economic activity on out from those generous Scandinavians splurge their way out of recession. In which tax revenues depend is increasing were denominated in euros. To repay rejecting that route, Estonia did the right the burden of government debt in many of them in depreciated krooni would have thing. It depends on its external trade: the PIIGS. In that sense, Krugman was been a Sisyphean nightmare. Another Exports amounted to 79 percent of GDP right. Estonia is not a poster child for alternative, redenominating those loans in in 2010 (compared, for example, with “austerity defenders.” local currency, was never a serious Greece’s 22 percent). With the European But it is a poster child for Estonia: Its option: The liquidity that the Swedes pro- economy in savage, sudden free fall, frugal, free-market, low-tax, and transpar- vided throughout the crisis would have efforts to pump up domestic demand ent democracy is indeed something to dried up overnight. would have achieved little. emulate. An Estonian-style tightening That was then. The problem now is that Instead the government concentrated could never have ended Greece’s slump, Estonia arrived in the euro zone at a very on maintaining the fiscal discipline that is but if the Hellenic Republic had earlier bad time. The safe haven has turned out to one of the country’s most valuable assets taken a path that was more Baltic than be anything but. And it could prove an and waited for better times, helped in the Balkan, it would not be in the mess that it expensive place to stay. Estonia dutifully meantime by the fact that its banking sys- now is. Coulda, shoulda, drachma. helped underwrite the European Financial tem (dominated by the subsidiaries of The sting in this tale is that the euro’s dis- Stability Facility, the currency union’s large, well-capitalized Swedish banks) tress may mean that Estonia will not be temporary bailout fund, and just a few kept liquidity flowing. The wait was not allowed to follow its own example much weeks ago ratified its commitment to the too prolonged. Benefiting from policies longer. This will not be the first time that fund’s permanent successor, the Euro - often very different from those pursued by the trickster currency has caused trouble in pean Stability Mechanism. If things go

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badly, that could leave this small country High School who, after an Augie on an unnervingly large hook. March–esque series of failed stints at This has not played very well with the The Rapper chain restaurants and call centers and an electorate. To date, the country’s voters, abortive off-Broadway acting career, many of whom remember the infinitely Barons was plucked from New York’s under - harder Soviet period, have supported the ground hip-hop scene in 2007 by the hair shirt. The government was reelected They won’t vote Romney, CEO of one Dirty Money Enter tain - with an increased majority last year. But but they probably should ment. Nota bene: Dirty Money Enter - bailing out feckless, richer folk in Eur - tainment is not to be confused with ope’s south (for example, Estonian aver- BY DANIEL FOSTER Young Money Entertainment, which age earnings are only about one-third eventually signed Minaj in 2009, or with higher than the Greek minimum wage) I feel like a black Republican, money I Cash Money Records, which is Young has been a tougher sell. Most Estonians got comin’ in. Money’s parent label. opposed participation in the EFSF and —Jay-Z, “Black Republican,” 2006 With the full marketing-and- dis tri - ESM. By contrast, the political class re - bution armature of Universal Mu sic mains willing to trudge through euro- I’m a Republican voting for Mitt Group—which, despite owning the Romney, you lazy b****es is f***ing up Calvary, although there are some signs that aforementioned labels, conspicuously the economy. this resolve may begin to crumble if the —Nicki Minaj, “Mercy,” 2012 fails to mention currency in its name— bailouts grow bigger (and thus potential- and the critical approval of lil Wayne ly more costly to Estonia) and more wide- ’ll assume that Shawn Carter of (a pint-sized, tattoo-festooned, drug- spread. And it would be the insult, not just Brooklyn, N.Y.—a.k.a. “Hova,” addled savant of figurative language the cost. Should still-poor Estonia really “Jiggaman,” and “Jay-Z”— has who is hip-hop’s version of Ray Brad - be asked to stump up for Spain? Or Italy? I reached such a level of multi- bury’s Illustrated Man), Minaj has been Ilves points out that, “to put it crassly,” platform cultural saturation that you are installed as a pop-cultural fixture. Estonia has profited nicely from its mem- at least aware of his existence. As for So much so that when she dropped bership in the EU (not least from the Minaj . . . well, for the uninitiated, Minaj the above rhyme on a lil Wayne financial support that Brussels channels to is a sort of extra-dimensional pop bomb- mixtape, it hijacked an entire news cycle the union’s less prosperous members), shell whose sartorial combinations can from the Democratic National Con - and it has—so far. But there’s an obvious be viewed only at a distance and only vention. Gawker and the Hill were danger that Santa could turn Fagin. with specially designed goggles. Un- bre athless over the apparent Romney And the euro’s woes menace more than derneath the hot-pink wigs and Day-Glo endorsement. Irate fans flooded Minaj’s Estonia’s coffers. It now seems clear that lipstick is a 29-year-old Afro-Trinidadian Twitter with vitriol, even death threats. attempts to fix the single currency will by way of Manhattan’s laGuardia Fox News, ABC, and the Washington revolve around trying to integrate the euro zone into a deeper political and budgetary union. Such a union, were it to be formed, would be launched with promises of fi - nancial discipline, transparency, and dem - ocratic accountability, none of which, given such a construction’s artificial, ill- fitting, and unnatural character (not to speak of the EU’s own lamentable track record in these respects), are even remote- ly credible. And what then would happen to Estonia, trapped within a Frankenstein union that could be held together only by methods—budgetary and otherwise— that would be the antithesis of everything that independent Estonia has come to stand for? Neither Ilves nor any other of the pol - itical figures to whom I have spoken in Tallinn appear to believe that this is what lies ahead, but, even amid the confidence that is the product of past success and satisfaction at Estonia’s hard-won arrival in “Europe,” it is impossible to miss some PICTUREGROUP VIA AP IMAGES / hints of uncertainty over what comes next. That uncertainty needs to be replaced

FERNANDO LEON by alarm.

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Post covered the story on the Web, and To vindicate both the political legiti- Nicki’s and Jay’s hyperbolic celebra- the New York Times found the entire macy and the ideological orthodoxy of tions of self-interest and material suc- affair fit to print on page A10 of the these rappers, their defenders tend to cess are just as much a performance as 9/11/12 issue. generalize the same strategy adopted by the “Black Republican” shtick, and that Despite the fact that, according to Obama in his defense of Minaj: They’re by contrast the political advocacy on enterprising bloggers, Minaj doesn’t just playing characters. Hence the cot- behalf of the president is authentic. But appear to be registered to vote in any of tage industry of lefty armchair sociolo- why shouldn’t it be the other way the states where she’s resided, the pres- gists, most of them white, who popped around? Why shouldn’t we take these ident of the United States himself took up on the blogs to assure us that both wordsmiths at their word, assume that time to weigh in on the matter, assur- Minaj’s political apostasy and the hyper- their attachment to the president is a sort ing the DJs at a Florida radio station materialism underlying it were tongue- of celebrity reflex, and look to their that Nicki hadn’t “actually” endorsed in-cheek, a layer of hyperbole sitting work for evidence about what they actu- Romney, that “she likes to play dif - atop deeper, esoteric commentary about ally believe? People vote against their ferent characters” in her “little rap[s].” wealth and status signifiers in the black purported interests all the time, and if Of course, he was right. After the community. Thomas Frank can ask “What’s the mat- brouhaha had churned up sufficient Do these Straussians of black ver - ter with Kansas?” why can’t we ask publicity, Minaj confirmed that she has nacular have a point? Maybe. Hyper - “What’s the matter with Jiggaman?” nothing but “love & support” for the bolic boasting is certainly a founding Indeed, Jay-Z’s music constitutes a president. trope of hip-hop. Just as every funk kind of stylized autobiography of a truly Meanwhile, as l’affaire Minaj petered song seems to be about how funky it is, American success: Boy from broken out, Jay-Z, her antecedent in back handed the bright, relatively uncomplex main- home in Brooklyn’s Marcy housing pro- GOP shout-outs, hosted a $40,000-per- stream hip-hop of my ’80s youth had a ject trades crack vials for turntables, ticket event for President Obama. In charming recursiveness: Every rhyme raises self out of poverty to become fam- pointed contrast with the Internet erup- was about how smooth every rhyme was. ily man and leader of international busi- Do these Straussians of black vernacular have a point? Maybe. Hyperbolic boasting is certainly a founding trope of hip-hop.

tion over Minaj, the fact that a confessed In the ’90s, with the ascendance of ness empire. On the American Captain former narcotics trafficker was fundrais- “gang ster rap,” hip-hop became more of Industry to Robber Baron Scale, it’s a ing on behalf of the sitting president of mor ally complicated—both more “issue”- lot closer to J. P. Morgan than to Al the United States passed by barely conscious and bloodier—but the boast- Capone. noticed beyond a few headlines about the ing remained, even if it was often in the And if we take the Left’s advice and $105,000 tower of Armand de Brignac context of narco-capitalism and the ritual skip past the hyperbole, we can squint champagne at the Jay-Z-owned club objectification of women. Unfortunately, and more charitably read Jay-Z’s boasts where the event was held. only the vices seemed to survive the as pride in achievement, his apparent But here was Jay-Z, whose oeuvre is decade. By the 2000s rappers were a self-centeredness as an all-too-American studded with references to his ill-gotten cash crop, and it started to seem like celebration of individualism. Nor does it baubles, and to how much he has and record companies were giving new MCs require putting words in his mouth: how much you haven’t, hosting a fat advance checks just so that they When he was asked about the Occupy blinged-out Obama fundraiser while could procure the luxury toys and movement in an interview printed Mitt Romney was getting burned for groupies that provided the raw material aro und the time of his Obama fundrais- comments about the “dependent” 47 for their braggadocio. er, his reply may have been more telling percent. The juxtaposition seems to pre- I know that there are entire courses than the check he cut the president. sent a bit of a dilemma for the cultural of study at prestigious universities “What’s the thing on the wall, what are Left: If hip-hop stars are to be accepted dedicated to a hermeneutics that trans- you fighting for?” Jay asked. “Yeah, the as legitimate, if relatively minor, players forms this increasingly aesthetically 1 percent that’s robbing people, and in a presidential election—as the excite- limited and morally bankrupt genre deceiving people . . . that’s criminal, ment over the Minaj incident and the into an instrument for measuring the that’s bad. Not being an entrepreneur. shrugging over the Jay-Z fundraiser inequalities in America—into some- This is free en terprise. This is what suggests they are—how does one thing that’s not so ideologically odi- America is built on.” explain the dissonance between their ous—and I certainly have neither the That sounds more like a kid who Obama shillery and their artistic per - credentials nor the time to prove them kicked and scratched and fought like sonae, which make them look like the wrong. hell to escape the projects than a kind of Republicans Elizabeth Warren But it seems to me that we can with champagne-sipping shill for the guys would hallucinate after a peyote-fueled equal plausibility flip their assumptions who built the projects. That sounds a lot vision quest went south? on their head. They take for granted that like a black Republican.

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After a car-bomb attack in Baghdad, June 2012 Losing Iraq We face a strategic debacle

BY FREDERICK W. KAGAN & KIMBERLY KAGAN

resident Obama announced the “end of america’s reality is that the United states has not achieved its national- war in iraq” on december 14, 2011, with the words, security objectives in iraq and is not likely to do so. “We’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self- When President Obama took office, the U.s. had 144,000 P reliant iraq, with a representative government that servicemen and -women in iraq. they were training and sup- was elected by its people. We’re building a new partnership porting iraqi security forces fighting both al-Qaeda in iraq between our nations.” these were the conditions that he felt (aQi) and iranian-backed shiite terrorist groups. today, allowed him to describe the completion of america’s military around 150 american military personnel remain in iraq. they withdrawal as a “moment of success.” nine months later, iraq are not training iraqis or operating with them. the U.s. has does not seem like a success, even in these extremely limited withdrawn its military forces—keeping the president’s cam- terms. it is neither sovereign nor stable nor self-reliant. its gov- paign promise, as the White House constantly reiterates. but ernment does not reflect the will of its people; sunni officials what kind of iraq have we left behind? have been marginalized and, in some cases, driven out of is iraq an effective ally in the struggle against regional ter- office. and it is not a partner of the United states on any of the rorist groups? Counterterrorism cooperation with the U.s. key issues in the region: From its evasion of economic sanc- against al-Qaeda in iraq has fallen off dramatically, while tions on iran to its support for the syrian regime of bashar aQi’s ability to conduct spectacular terrorist attacks within assad, iraq stands in tehran’s camp, not Washington’s. the iraq has been growing since the departure of american troops. Operations against shiite militias have virtually ceased. CORBIS / AP Mr. Kagan is the Christopher DeMuth Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute sectarian violence is rising in all of the traditional hotspots in / and the director of its Critical Threats Project. Mrs. Kagan is the president of the and around baghdad.

Institute for the Study of War. does iraq have a stable government that represents its peo- KARIM KADIM

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ple? Maliki’s government does not reflect the outcome of the 9, again killing more than 100. The amount of time it takes a 2010 parliamentary elections, in which his party did not win a terrorist group to recover from one set of mass-casualty attacks plurality. Neither does it reflect the efforts of the U.S. admin- and prepare and launch another is an important measure of its istration to broker a “unity government” that would have been capability, effectiveness, and resources. The attacks in July, more inclusive—efforts that failed dramatically, as Michael August, and September were roughly 24 days apart, compared Gordon describes in his forthcoming history of the period, The with 37 days between previous attack waves in 2012. This pat- Endgame. Iraqi political accommodations have broken down tern strongly suggests that ISI’s capabilities have increased since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki used security forces to since the departure of American troops and despite efforts by try to seize Sunni vice president Tariq al-hashemi as the last the Iraqi security forces to keep the peace. The September 9 American troops began their departure. Maliki had hashemi attack was particularly alarming because AQI/ISI penetrated tried in absentia after he fled the country, and an Iraqi court deep into the southern Shiite heartland, hitting the cities of recently sentenced him to death by hanging. Nasiriyah, Amarah, and Basra, far beyond the area in which it Is Iraq a partner of the U.S. on key regional issues? Iraq has normally been able to operate. Since the targeted region refuses to enforce international economic sanctions on Iran, supports Shiite militia groups, the attack increases the risk that serving instead as an entrepôt for prohibited Iranian com- reprisal violence will renew sectarian conflict. The attack merce. Baghdad has also refused to support the position of the included a car bombing in the al-Qibla area of Basra, a strong- U.S., Britain, France, the United Nations, and almost all of its hold of Moqtada al-Sadr and his followers. Sadr’s Jaish al- Arab neighbors in opposing the Assad regime in Damascus. Mahdi militia has not yet remobilized, but it could well do so on the contrary, Iran is using Iraqi airspace and ground lines of if AQI/ISI attacks continue. communication to send military supplies and trainers to support Assad. Maliki has also vocally supported the Iranian- backed revolutionaries in Bahrain—a key American ally. hoSe who have argued that Arab Iraqis will naturally Far from being a success, then, American policy in Iraq has resist Iranian pressure even without meaningful created an extraordinarily dangerous situation over which we T American assistance may prove right in the long have almost no influence. term, but Iraqi political elites today are supporting Tehran’s regional objectives in the most important issues of the mo - ment. Iraq is becoming one of the most significant venues in IoLeNce is slowly rising again in Iraq. Measuring it which Iran circumvents the international sanctions intended precisely has always been difficult, and the end of to persuade its leaders to abandon their illegal nuclear pro- V intelligence-collection and -reporting by American gram. military forces makes the task even harder. Nevertheless, two Advocates of extending the U.S. military presence in Iraq independent open-source databases show a significant incited Iraq’s inability to guard the sovereignty of its airspace in crease in Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence since the departure of support of their position—presciently, it turns out. Iraq’s skies American forces in December 2011. Data from the Iraq Body are a critical lifeline for the vicious regime of Bashar Assad, to count website puts the number of average monthly security whom the Iranian military is flying supplies, weapons, and incidents from January through July (the last full month for advisers as he kills thousands of his own people in a desperate which data are posted) at 369, compared with 328 for the same attempt to retain control of Syria. Iraq does not have air- period in 2011—an increase of 12.5 percent. And olive defense systems. It does not have air-to-air fighters. Iranian Group, a private security firm that publishes detailed statistics aircraft that wish to pass through Iraqi airspace have only to do of weekly violence in Iraq, reports that there were more than so, and the most Baghdad can do is lodge a protest. For the 120 security incidents per week for eight of 14 weeks from most part, Maliki has refused even to do that. had the U.S. suc- mid-June to the beginning of September. Incidents had ceeded in negotiating a long-term military relationship with exceeded 120 per week only three times in the previous 25 Iraq, Tehran would have found these overflights much more weeks (from December 2011 to mid-June 2012). olive Group complicated. De facto American control of Iraq’s airspace notes, “This elevated figure would appear to indicate that the would have given Maliki an easy excuse to refuse Iranian basic security level in Iraq is not normalising following the requests to enter it—and might well have deterred Tehran from Ramadan campaign [conducted by al-Qaeda in Iraq from mid- making such requests. July to mid-August], but rather violence is being sustained at Iranian influence within Iraq has also grown and continues above average levels.” to threaten American interests. The U.S. handed over the last These violence levels are very low compared with those of of its detainees in Iraq to Maliki’s government at the end of 2006–07, when monthly averages were in the thousands. But 2011, including two important Iranian proxies—Qais al- the uptick is alarming, and, as always in Iraq, the raw count Khazali and Ali Mussa Daqduq. Khazali, formerly a disciple of does not tell the whole story. The scope, scale, and frequency Moqtada al-Sadr, heads Asaib Ahl al-haq (AAh), which of mass-casualty attacks conducted by AQI’s front organiza- means “the League of the Righteous.” It is one of the most tion, the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), has increased notably in the lethal Shiite militias. Daqduq, a senior member of Lebanese past few months, according to a report recently released by hezbollah, went to Iraq to arm, train, and equip AAh and other Sam Wyer at the Institute for the Study of War. Wyer found that militant Iranian proxies. Both were captured in an early-2007 ISI attacks killed at least 115 people in 20 cities in Iraq on July U.S. raid after they led an attack on U.S. personnel in Karbala 23. A second wave of attacks, on August 16, killed more than that ended with the execution of five American soldiers. Since 100 people in 19 cities. A third wave hit 18 cities on September his release, Khazali has brought AAh formally into the Iraqi

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political process without disbanding his militia as required by offered an executive agreement several times, Gordon notes, Iraqi law. Uniformed AAH members paraded in front of but the Obama administration stuck to its original demand. Khazali at the ceremonies for the opening of AAH political President Obama did not exert himself to smooth the negotia- offices in Baghdad this summer. The Iraqis continue to hold tions, confining his communications with Maliki to the initial Daqduq for the moment, but an Iraqi court dismissed the crim- conversation in June and a discussion in October during which inal charges against him in July and refused an American the U.S. president told his Iraqi counterpart that the negotia- request to extradite him in August. tions were over and U.S. forces were leaving. This failure may have resulted from a lack of desire on the part of the Obama administration to keep sufficient troops in He resurrection of al-Qaeda in Iraq is a consequence of Iraq, from its inability to make a deal, from its unreasonable America’s failure to negotiate a long-term military demands, from Iraqi intransigence, or from all of the above. T partnership of the kind that was envisioned when the From a strategic and national-security standpoint, the only Strategic Partnership Agreement was signed in 2008. U.S. thing that matters is that by failing to secure a new agreement, enablers—combat troops in small numbers combined with the the U.S. failed profoundly to secure its hard-won gains. even precision-strike capabilities of American aircraft and special more important, it failed to secure its interests. forces—could have continued, in cooperation with Iraqi secu- It is most important of all to recognize the price of that fail- rity forces, to keep the pressure on AQI. Their presence would ure. Iraq has become a major strategic vulnerability for the also have sustained pressure on Maliki to keep Shiite militias United States. It is an outlet for Iranian goods skirting sanc- in check. tions. It is a launching pad for Iranian-backed terrorist groups Instead, the Iraqi political accommodation began to collapse looking for “plausible deniability.” It is a critical line of com- as soon as American military forces departed. Maliki ordered munication between Tehran and its once-solid proxy in Da - Iraq has become a major strategic vulnerability for the United States. It is an outlet for Iranian goods skirting sanctions. It is a launching pad for Iranian-backed terrorist groups looking for ‘plausible deniability.’

Iraqi security forces to surround Hashemi’s compound on mascus. It is again becoming a safe haven for one of the most December 15—the day that the Pentagon declared an official lethal and determined al-Qaeda franchises in the world. That end to its mission. Maliki could not have done this had franchise, in fact, is now projecting terrorist operations into American trainers and advisers remained in Baghdad. Fears of Syria in a way it was never before able to do. And Iraq is in a Sunni coup or a Shiite dictatorship could have been mitigat- danger once again of becoming a failed state. ed by the continued presence of American military forces, There are no easy solutions to these problems at this point. which all sides saw as impartial. We cannot go back in time and undo any of the mistakes that The Obama administration claims that it had no alterna- the current president or his predecessor made. We cannot tives—that Maliki and the Iraqi leaders simply would not do return the situation to what it was on January 20, 2009, or what was necessary to allow U.S. forces to remain. Michael December 15, 2011, and start over from there. We are not Gordon paints a different picture in a recent New York Times going to redeploy American military forces into Iraq. We must article excerpted from The Endgame. As he explains it, the recognize the situation as it is and develop a new strategy for Obama administration did not begin negotiations for the achieving vital American goals despite the challenges. extension of a military presence until June 2011, despite the In particular, it is essential for the U.S. to prevent al-Qaeda well-known challenges of securing rapid deals in Iraq. The in Iraq from establishing a firm base from which to conduct administration claims that it could not start negotiations and support terrorist activities throughout the region. It is before then because the Iraqi government had not yet been equally important to prevent Iran from using Iraq as a staging formed. But Gordon demonstrates how much the delay in the area from which its militias can attack American interests and formation of that government resulted from the total failure of those of our regional allies. It is impossible to develop a strat- the Obama administration’s efforts to broker a political deal in egy to contain Iran if Iraq is committed to a policy of sup- Baghdad. porting Tehran. And Iraq bestrides the Sunni–Shiite sectarian When the negotiations did start, they were premised on an fault line in the Middle east that the civil war in Syria is unrealistic demand communicated by President Obama to inflaming once again. Maliki’s Iraq today drives increasing Prime Minister Maliki. Obama wanted the Iraqi parliament to sectarianism within its borders and beyond them. ratify whatever agreement was reached, despite the fact that It is far from clear how to develop a new strategy to meet Maliki had requested an executive agreement that would not these challenges, but any attempt must begin with the recogni- be subject to legislative approval, and the lead U.S. negotiator, tion of the realities in Iraq and the region as they are, rather Brett McGurk, had recommended taking this approach. Maliki than as we wish them to be.

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fire mission was called Precision Strike Suite for Special ops Forces, or PiSS-oFF.) the fight ended with one afghan coali- A Million tion soldier killed and three Marines wounded. Five fresh graves, seen from the air, marked the taliban losses. in itself, it was another close-in fight in the bush. More trou- bling, the thousands of acres of corn were so high that the af- Steps ghan soldiers had decided to avoid any ambush by patrolling only after the corn was cut. (the waist-high poppy fields, har- Our men trudge endlessly through vested in May, offered less concealment—and many of the taliban were among the harvesters.) Colonel John Schaefer, Afghanistan as politicians vacillate the overall commander of the Marines in the region, explained the situation bluntly: “afghan forces love static security. in - BY BING WEST side a fort, they’re complacent, and the insurgents simply flow around them. the afghan officers say they’ll patrol when the Helmand Province, Afghanistan corn is cut down.” n early 2011, national Review published “with the the lack of patrolling had allowed a roving gang of about 50 warriors,” my description of the savage struggle to control taliban to again assert a presence. this meant that the Marines Sangin District in the southern part of this province. More of 1/7, although eager to hand over the district in its improved I than 200 British and american service members have died condition to afghan forces, had to keep up the pace to prevent or lost limbs inside a 25-square-mile maze of flat farm fields the taliban from regaining control. interlaced with thousands of irrigation ditches and jumbled “we patrol hard from the first to the last day of our deploy- clusters of high-walled compounds, with a population of about ment,” Sergeant Major Keith Coombs said. “that’s how to stay 50,000. Clad in sneakers and farmers’ clothes, the taliban alive. Don’t slack off.” blended in, shot their aKs from a distance, and, if hard pressed, the commander of 1/7, lieutenant Colonel David Brad ney, scampered across the shallow Helmand River to safety in the had no illusions about permanent progress. the taliban kept badlands to the north. as related in that article, the taliban had coming back, and the war went on. placed hundreds of improvised explosive devices (ieDs), “You could say i’m brushing back water,” he said. “But which took a daily toll. the third Battalion, Fifth Marine another U.S. battalion is replacing us, and i don’t want them hit Regiment suffered 25 killed and hundreds wounded. in the face when they first arrive.” in mid-September of this year i went back to Sangin to see how things were going. the First Battalion of the Seventh Marine Regiment (1/7) was controlling twice as much territo- Few days after the fight at outpost Fires, lieutenant ry with half as many Marines, at a cost of six killed and 28 Kurt Hoening led a ten-man patrol out through the tall wounded in five months. although 1/7 had encountered some a cornfields to check on another post, called Pabst Blue 300 ieDs, the district infrastructure had steadily improved. Ribbon. a farmer hailed them and complained that they were Since my last visit, 40 miles of road had been paved. over a stepping on his crops but refused to lead them along any path. hundred storefronts lined the main street of the town of Sangin, instead, he demanded money to fix his roof, which had col- offering an array of goods to hundreds of exclusively male lapsed in a recent rain. the Marine rain-makers laughed, and shoppers. within sight of the north–south highway, cows, in the 90-degree heat they plunged back into the stifling corn. goats, and flocks of sheep grazed; the farmers returned waves they were following their practice of never taking the same and the children, expecting candy, ran toward military vehi- route twice, to lessen the chances of stepping on an ieD. along cles. the way, they occasionally sank into chest-deep canals. when at outpost Fires, a half mile west of the highway in the midst a cobra slithered away through the muddy stalks, they didn’t of the fertile farm belt called the Green Zone, the scene wasn’t give it a second glance. as tranquil. a year and a half ago, the 48-man platoon from Kilo this time the patrol emerged from the corn next to a com- Company stationed there had taken two killed, nine amputees, pound where a black-turbaned mullah was preaching to young and seven serious gunshot wounds. Bravo Company of 1/7 had boys in the courtyard. as he hustled them inside, the dozen held the same ground with light casualties until early September. men who had been lounging about folded their arms and then a group of about 40 taliban engaged the Marines at a dis- glared at the Marines, refusing to respond to friendly greetings. tance of 30 yards inside the high cornfields. Despite being hit in the patrol continued and soon arrived at Pabst Blue Ribbon, the neck by a bullet, Sergeant Jordan Hintz rallied his troops to a tiny compound occupied by nine Marines and a dozen hold the line. lieutenant Mike lashutka, his right forearm shat- farmers—part of a home guard called the afghan local Po - tered by an aK round, cinched a tourniquet around his bicep and lice. Due to “green on blue” killings—afghan soldiers’ mur- called in rockets on the enemy position. (the software for the dering coalition soldiers—the police weren’t allowed to carry weapons inside the fort. they were cheerful and friendly, Mr. West is a former assistant secretary of defense and Marine who reports though, and disdainful of the nearby hamlet and its hostile frequently from the front lines. He is a co-author, with Medal of Honor recipient mullah. Sergeant Dakota Meyer, of Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the “these afghans want us here,” Sergeant eric Johnson, a Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War, just published by Random squad leader, said. “they won’t stay exposed out here without House. us. if we leave, they leave.”

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The next day, the Bravo Company commander, Captain ical evacuation, Afghan forces are even more reluctant to Peter Ankney, dispatched more patrols to locate and attrite the patrol. The Taliban have gained freedom of movement and a roaming insurgent gang. Again Lieutenant Hoening took out a psychological edge. squad and some local police. At a spot where the trail narrowed and crossed a footbridge, the dirt showed signs of having recently been disturbed. Hoening called up explosives experts, HEN you accompany our men on patrol, you cannot who dug by hand until they uncovered and cut the wires lead- help but admire their fortitude. Each grunt—Army ing to two plastic jugs full of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer W or Marine, adviser or squad member—straps on 95 easily converted into explosives. pounds of armor and gear, goes through the checklist of tacti- After both IEDs had been blown in a large explosion, cal procedures, and steps in line behind the point man with the Hoening weighed his choices. The land mines were a hasty metal detector. They will walk carefully in single file for the perimeter defense. This meant that if the patrol moved forward next several hours. Over the course of his seven-month quickly, they might well engage the Taliban before sunset. The deployment, each one will sally forth about a hundred times, lieutenant was one of the few who hadn’t been in a firefight covering six to eight miles in every day or night patrol. He that resulted in the award of the Combat Action Rib bon, which will take over a million steps, never knowing when the sudden any Marine would be proud to wear. But Hoening wisely blast and puff of black smoke will come, signaling death or decided to find an alternative route back. maiming. “There are more IEDs up ahead,” he said. “We get up there, In 2011, Kilo Company uncovered—one way or anoth- shooting and scooting, and the sun starts going down—no, it’s er—about 300 IEDs. Some men patrolled with tourniquets not worth the risk to my Marines.” cinched to the outside of their legs, so that they could quickly Before leaving, the local police commander insisted that stop the bleeding if the legs were blown off. Eighteen months the Marines blow up an empty compound nearby that was later, Bravo Company had found 60 IEDs in the Green Zone. frequently occupied by Taliban snipers. The Marines refused; Like the other companies, Bravo had lost personnel, and it was only the Afghan district governor could order a compound down to 110 men. Ten had been wounded; some had lost limbs. Without American firepower, reinforcements, and medical evacuation, Afghan forces are even more reluctant to patrol.

destroyed. In that case, the police commander said, we won’t The grunts of Bravo thought they had had it “easier” than Kilo patrol with you. Hoening shrugged off the threat, knowing the Com pa ny, because they had lost “only” 10 percent of their police weren’t going to stay out in Taliban territory by them- comrades. They felt safe enough to carry their four tourniquets selves. in their pockets instead of wrapped around their legs. The incident reflected a pervasive attitude of entitlement Day after day, year after year, one rifle company after anoth- inculcated by ten years of American generosity. From Pres i - er has slogged through the fields to wrest physical control from dent Karzai on down to the local commander in an obscure the Taliban. It’s not just the grinding courage, walking through hamlet, the feeling was that Americans need Afghans more minefields one hundred times. Over the course of his deploy- than Afghans need Americans. Skepticism about the sincerity ment, the average grunt—Marine or Army—carries that 95- of Afghan-government officials at any level permeated the pound pack strapped to his upper torso for more than 500 Marine ranks, from the grunts to the officers. miles. The heavy armor protects him today but takes a struc- A few days after Hoening’s joint patrol, the coalition high tural toll 20 years later. He faces certain pain in middle age. “If command indefinitely suspended all such joint patrolling with we don’t find a breakthrough in treating degenerative ar - Afghans. Thousands of joint patrols came to an abrupt end, and thritis,” Roy Aaron, a leading orthopedic surgeon at Brown the morale of both coalition and Afghan forces declined. The Uni ver si ty, has said, “the effects on these young men will be reason was a spate of green-on-blue killings. A few days after severe.” We haven’t thought about that. the suspension, President Karzai compounded the setback. As In the field, the men are like wolves in a pack. There’s a part of some political scheme, he abruptly fired Helmand’s pecking order, not always set by rank. They accept one anoth- governor, who for years had staunchly backed the coalition and er’s weaknesses, take perverse pride in living (and smell ing) fought the poppy trade. like mountain men in the 1840s, and hunt in pack style, cover- Together, these changes mark a major turn for the worse. ing for one another, responding by trained instinct to one shout Over the past several years, the coalition has partnered or one burst of fire, and always looking for the edge, for the throughout the country with Afghan soldiers and police. The moment of kill. The Taliban understandably avoid them, while goal was for the Afghans to gain skills, confidence, and inde- the vast majority of the Afghan soldiers, police, and local home pendence by following our example in operations. That guards want to be like them but know they can’t quite get that process has ceased, with no known replacement program. instinct of the flowing pack. Now, without American firepower, reinforcements, and med- The skill of American servicemen is the problem; the enemy

4 0 | www.nationalreview.com OCTOBER 1 5 , 2 0 1 2 Hanson book full page and coupon_milliken-mar 22.qxd 9/11/2012 4:09 PM Page 1 HANSON ON OBAMA The heralded historian separates the Dream from the Reality, as only he can, in this rivetting new collection of his acclaimed National Review Online columns

o writer in America has delivered a more consistent, intelligent, and stark critique of Barack Obama than has Victor Davis N Hanson, the esteemed historian of things ancient and modern, in his weekly column and writings for National Review Online. We’ve assembled his very best columns and articles—126 in all, written with Hanson’s renowned perception and perspective, taking readers from the throes of the 2008 presidential election, through the tumult of Obamacare’s imposition on America, and to the consequential liberal setbacks of the 2010 election races—in this big (over 500 pages) new collection that you must have. Obama: The Dream and the Reality, available only from National Review, is a must for any conservative who seeks a trenchant retrospective of what VDH calls “the strange ascendency of a heretofore mostly unknown Barack Obama,” and the Nobel Prize winner’s ensuing fall, marked by the birth of the tea-party movement, the angst of a people over a leader who proudly denies American Exceptionalism, and the rejection of Obama’s policies and brand of politics by the voters in the historic 2010 congressional elections. Writing with unfailing wisdom about Obama, Hanson’s collected thought, in this brilliant new NRO “best of,” truly separates the Dream of the Community Organizer from the Reality of a President. From the book’s Preface:

First, as I watched the rise of Barack Obama, I was struck by just how little we knew of his past or present life, his political agendas—and how even less we were going to know, given the media effort neither to report nor ana- lyze fully any matters perceived to be injurious to the Obama cause. In response, I tried, as many did during the Obmaa ascendency, to point out how contradictory and orthodox was the reality of his hope and change agenda, an assessment more than borne out by the record of his first-term in office. Second, I confess to a certain naiveté. While I accurately predicted that the Rev. Wright matter, inconsistency in both Obama’s campaign and governance, his often clumsy proclamations, and a certain petulance with critics and boredom with the mechanics of governance would all conspire to end the 2008 Obama hysteria and later send his presidential polls plum- meting, I underestimated the resiliency of Obama, the candidate and the president—and in particular his iconic value.

Segmented into nine chapters (from “The ‘Good’ War in Afghanistan, the ‘Bad’ War in Iraq” to “Obama, Dream and Reality”) that include over ten dozen columns and essays (including “Win One for the Messiah!,” “The Age of Middle East Atonement,” “A Thug’s Primer,” “Resetting Our Reset Foreign Policy,” and many more), Obama: The Dream and the Reality—big, National Review w 215 Lexington Avenue w New York, NY w 10016 handsome, new, printed in quality softcover, Send me ______copies of Obama: The Dream and the Reality. My cost is $22.00 each and pure VDH—is yours for just $22.00 (shipping and handling are included!). I enclose total payment of $______. Send to: (which includes shipping and handling charges) direct from National Review. Name PAYMENT METHOD: Address Order Obama: The Dream o Check enclosed (payable to National Review) City State ZIP Bill my o MasterCard o Visa and the Reality right now at Acct. No. store.nationalreview.com e-mail: Expir. Date phone:

Signature (NY State residents must add sales tax. For foreign orders, add $10US to cover additional shipping.) 2col:QXP-1127940309.qxp 9/26/2012 1:52 AM Page 42

fears it, but the Afghan forces have come to rely upon it. Every Mr. Romney is a candidate, not the commander-in-chief. It Afghan soldier wants to see an American somewhere in the for- would be sufficient for him to say: “We have ceased partnering mation. In the short term (like tomorrow), coalition control in with Afghan forces on the front lines. That is a dramatic the Afghan countryside will be severely challenged by the ces- change—so what has changed about our strategy? What have sation of joint patrols. Our military chose not to provide the our troops been ordered by the commander-in-chief to do, and Afghan units with artillery or mortars because of mistrust about for how long? When I am president, I will order our generals how they would employ them. Now we have withdrawn the to report their best advice and strategy within a week. They’ve advisers and U.S. squads that provided both the moral spine and been at it for ten years. I will demand straight answers imme- the overwhelming indirect fire support. In response, many diately. A date like 2014 is not magic. The question is, What is Afghan units will cease aggressive pa trol ling and pull back gained each successive day as our troops die?” within tribal and other boundaries, where they feel comfortable. Balancing risk, reward, and uncertainty, there are alterna- The high command insists that green-on-blue attacks are not tives to the current drift. One option is to accelerate the with- primarily due to Taliban infiltration or influence. Instead, they drawal of our troops without any public announcements. are attributable to cultural sensitivities: Afghans will always Another is to run the added risk of putting in more advisory resort to random xenophobic violence. That explanation aggra- teams. In either case, it is likely that the Taliban would take vates the political problem here in the States. If the Afghan cul- over large parts of the Pashtun areas. ture causes the murders of our troops by those we are trying Once on their own, Afghan government and military offi- to advise, what is our mission? This tendency among Islamic cials will manipulate, clash, fight, posture, and settle things in tribes hurtling headlong into the ninth century cannot be a messy, bloody way that our mainstream press will ignore. solved in a few months. The frustrating reality is that there’s Nothing comparable to the disasters in Cambodia and Vietnam no remediable root cause for isolated, unpredictable, and dev- will occur, and in any case, our press and politicians largely astating acts of treachery. ignored or misinterpreted those disasters. The Taliban cannot The U.S. and NATO high commands proclaim themselves to seize cities without logistical support, armored vehicles, and be “absolutely committed” to partnering with Afghan forces, at heavy weapons that the Pakistanis will not provide. Although We are drifting. Our fundamental war strategy of partnering has ceased at the district level, where the war will be determined.

the battalion level and above. “Absolute commitment” is an the Taliban are supported by Pakistani generals, those generals elastic term. At our senior headquarters, Eu ro peans and Amer- live in comfortable compounds paid for with our tax dollars. icans sit side by side in rows of clicking laptops. No Afghans As long as we dole out that money in small amounts tied to are visible, because they can’t write in English or work the specific deeds, the Pakistanis will be stingy with their aid to the keyboard. In the field, our grunts have left outpost Pabst Blue Taliban. Ribbon. The loss of trust and camaraderie on both sides will Our basic goal is to prevent al-Qaeda terrorists from re- not be reversed if and when they temporarily return. establishing sanctuaries inside Afghanistan. Given our network of spies and our airborne intelligence and strike capacity, such sanctuaries cannot be rebuilt. We can greatly reduce our O where do we go from here? Abetted by the main- casualties and the number of our troops—provided that we stream press, the White House wants to avoid the ques- support the Afghan forces for as long as needed. S tion, saying only that there is no change in President Our current strategy, however, is one of drift. What are our Obama’s plan for American troops to be out by the end of front-line troops expected to do for the next two years? Are 2014. This is neither a mission nor a timeline. It is an end date they going to increase their unilateral patrolling to compen- that hopefully will be changed. We will need support person- sate for a decrease in Afghan patrolling? Or will our grunts nel and anti-terrorist units in Afghanistan for many years. allow gaps to open for a Taliban resurgence while the Af - Cynics believe that if Mr. Obama is reelected, within a ghans stay inside their forts? Should Americans be the front- month he will receive a report from the coalition generals that line defense and die in place of Afghan soldiers our generals enables him to bring home many more U.S. troops in 2013 and do not trust? Will we risk more of our men because the Af- to pull almost all U.S. units out of combat. Our generals would ghans are risking fewer of theirs? What is gained, and at what be indignant that domestic politics were postponing military cost? decisions affecting the lives of our troops. Indig na tion aside, These are not tactical or military questions. They are the we are drifting. Our fundamental war strategy of partnering most important policy decisions that any commander-in-chief has ceased at the district level, where the war will be deter- faces. There is no reason to drift along for two or more months mined. No general should tolerate the perception that politics before determining the new direction in Afghanistan. The pres- are determining life-and-death decisions. Cynicism among our ident should explain now to the American people what his new front-line troops lurks only one headline away. orders are, and why.

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about “training” the “Islamist parties” in the how-to of popular elections. As the months wore on, with Islamists stepping up their SHARIA brutalization of Egypt’s 8 million Coptic Christians, taylor would take pains to stress that the Obama administration would be “satisfied” with a Muslim Broth er hood victory as long as elections were free and fair. On the Nile By the early spring of 2011, with Mubarak out of the way and the remnants of his regime on the ropes, the Brother hood’s most The Muslim Brotherhood rejects charismatic leader took center stage. Khairat el-shater, the “deputy general guide,” is revered nationally as the “Iron Man.” liberal democracy He refused to buckle during two decades of serial detentions by Mubarak’s regime. In the tradition of the Broth er hood’s founder, BY ANDREW C. McCARTHY Hassan al-Banna, and his heirs, sayyid Qutb and Qaradawi, shater brings the movement intellectual heft. After Mubarak fell, ust before the “Arab spring” dominos started falling in it was to him that the Brothers turned to craft their strategy for tunis, Mohammed Badi, “supreme guide” of the global shaping Egypt’s future. this enterprise is called the “Nahda Muslim Brotherhood, called for violent jihad against the Project”; “nahda” is Arabic for “awakening” or “renaissance.” J united states. In April 2011, shater delivered a lengthy lecture, “Features of Yes, yes, we know—on Planet Obama, the Brothers are oxy- Nahda: Gains of the Revolution and the Horizons for Devel op - moronic “moderate Islamists”: members of a “largely secular” ing.” Like Badi, he delivered his words in Arabic to like-minded organization that seeks “change” through “dialogue” and the Islamists—he was not speaking in English for Western consump- “political process,” not violence . . . and never you mind its tion, as the Brothers do when they wish to appear as irenic prag- Palestinian branch, Hamas, or its chief jurist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, matists. shater emphasized that the organization’s fundamental whose notable fatwas have green-lighted suicide bombing in principles and goals never change, only the tactics by which they Israel and terror strikes against American troops in Iraq. are pursued. “You all know that our main and overall mission as Back on Earth, in October 2010, Badi admonished Muslims to Muslim Brothers is to empower God’s religion on earth, to orga- remember “Allah’s commandment to wage jihad for His sake nize our life and the lives of the people on the basis of Islam, to with [their] money and lives, so that Allah’s word will reign establish the Nahda of the ummah [the notional worldwide com- supreme and the infidels’ word will be inferior.” Applying this munity of 1.5 billion Muslims] and its civilization on the basis of injunction, Badi exclaimed that jihad, or “resistance,” “is the only Islam, and to subjugate people to God on earth.” He went on to solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny.” On reaffirm Banna’s time-honored plan for ground-up Islamist revo- went the invective: Wounded by jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan, lution, stressing the need for both personal piety and organiza- the united states, Badi gleefully surmised, “is now experiencing tional discipline in pursuing the goal of Islamic hegemony: a the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.” worldwide caliphate ruled according to sharia. these are the fulminations of a committed enemy. Iran’s Mah - shater’s lecture dovetailed with a 93-page platform released by moud Ahmadinejad could not have said it better. It is not Ahma - the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice party under the guidance dinejad and the shiite mullahs but Badi who represents the of its leader, and now Egypt’s president, Mo ham ed Morsi, a long- avant-garde of Islamic supremacism, the dominant form of Islam time shater confidant. the platform proposed to put every aspect in the overwhelmingly sunni Middle East. this Is lam, as I relat- of human life under sharia-compliant state regulation. the doc- ed in these pages earlier this year (“‘Islam Is Islam, and that’s ument was brazenly anti-Western and anti-Israeli, describing “the It,’” January 23), is what samuel Hunt ing ton aptly described as “a Zionist entity” as “an aggressive, expansionist, racist, and settler different civilization [from the West] whose people are convinced entity.” It called for structuring civil society on the foundation of of the superiority of their culture.” the “Arab spring” is, in reali- “Arab and Is lam ic unity”; made the “strengthen[ing] of Arab and ty, the Islamist ascendancy; the Middle East is not seized by a fer- Islamic identity” the “goal of education”; and urged that treaties vor for freedom, but is ripe for descent into sharia totalitarianism. (think: Camp David Accord) be subject to approval by the popu- As the tahrir square uprisings led to Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, lation. the Obama administration was determined to cultivate the Bro - In March 2011, that same population had given Islamists a land- therhood in Egypt. that, after all, is exactly what the president slide victory in a referendum on constitutional amendments, has done in the united states, where his administration’s high- ensuring an election schedule that would put the Brotherhood in priority “Islamic outreach” empowers Broth er hood affiliates. It firm command of parliament. secular dem o crats, lacking the makes no difference that the Justice De partment, in a 2008 terror- Brotherhood’s organization and clout, had argued that a new ism-financing prosecution, proved that the Brothers are on a constitution should be written from scratch, a process that would self-proclaimed “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying postpone elections for the legislature and presidency indefinitely. Western civilization from within.” they hoped this would give them time to amass support. In the In Cairo, the president’s point man, William taylor, bragged referendum, during which the Brotherhood asserted that a vote in favor of delay was a vote “against Islam,” the secular dem o crats Mr. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute and the executive were wiped out by a margin of 78 to 22 percent. director of the Philadelphia Freedom Center. This essay is adapted from his book In late December 2011, with parliamentary-election returns Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, which was recently already showing that Islamic supremacists would win a smashing published by Encounter. victory, a jubilant Badi told the Egyptian press that the Broth er -

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hood was close to achieving the “ultimate goal” set by Banna in group” to which he illegally belonged. The claim was not false. 1928: the establishment of a “just and reasonable regime,” which But Shater had been given a pardon for the mo ney laundering after would be the stepping stone to “the establishment of a just Islamic Mubarak was ousted, and the “banned group” in question, the caliphate.” The new “ruling regime,” he asserted, would strive to Muslim Brotherhood, was now not only unbanned, it had been achieve one of Banna’s key aims, “the establishment of a long- elected to run the parliament. term plan for the reform of all aspects of people’s lives.” It Despite Brotherhood huffing and puffing, the decision was would also exercise control over all the society’s “institutions and final: Shater was out. Well aware of the old regime’s disdain for elements.” Shater, though, the Brothers had a Plan B. They had proposed an alternative “just in case” candidate: Mohamed Mor si. A 60-year- old engineer and academic, Morsi lacks the magnetism of his EMoCRACY is just the train we board to reach our desti- patron, Shater, but he is a force to be reckoned with. He is also a nation.” So said longtime Brotherhood collaborator testament to the American infrastructure that the Brotherhood has ‘D Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist prime minister of steadily built for the last half century. Turkey. By comparison with that country, Egypt’s “Islamic Morsi pursued his doctorate at the University of Southern democracy” is on the fast track to Sharia Station. Er do gan needed California in the early Eighties. His wife, Nagla Ali Mah moud, nearly a decade to gain control of Turkish society’s institutions joined him in the United States. In fact, two of the five Morsi chil- and elements. Incrementally, ingeniously, he leveraged the holy dren were born here and are American citizens. It was in the grail of EU integration and Ameri ca’s post-9/11 desperation for a Golden State that Morsi joined the Brotherhood, through the “moderate Islamist” ally to hollow out Ataturk’s Westernized Muslim Students Association. The MSA is the gateway through state—to defang the military guardians of the Kemalist order. which many young Mus lims—including such jihadist Egypt, on the other hand, never had one foot in Europe, notables as Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda leader killed and never had a rigorous 80-year secularization exper- in Yemen last year—begin the lengthy process of study iment. In this environment, the Brotherhood has accom- and service that leads to membership in the Broth er - plished in weeks what took Er do gan years. hood. As the Hudson Institute’s Samuel Tadros has When the outcome of Egypt’s parliamentary election observed, this indoctrination is “designed to ensure was officially announced in January, Islamic suprema- with absolute certainty that there is conformity to the cists had their landslide victory—tracking almost exactly movement’s ideology and a clear adherence to its their lopsided win in the referendum on constitutional leadership’s authority.” amendments. Soon to be in firm control of the new gov- The rise of Morsi as Shater’s protégé was due in no ernment, the Broth er hood exploited its growing strength to small part to Morsi’s firm belief in the Brotherhood’s take aggressive new positions, making clear that its prior, traditions of discipline and obedience to hierarchical superiors. He ostensibly “moderate” stances had been insincere. was twice jailed, for brief intervals, during Mubarak’s reign. Dur - The Brothers seized control of the “constituent assembly,” the ing the Tahrir Square uprisings, he squared off with a rebellious body charged with writing a new constitution. Earlier, they had group of young Brothers in a confrontation that shines light on promised non-Islamists that this would be an inclusive “national the straws grasped by Western progressives, who insist the consensus” process; now, it would become a sprint to sharia. They Brotherhood is evolving. Morsi adheres fiercely to classical also went back on their commitment to refrain from proposing sharia. His dispute with the renegades involved his support for a presidential candidate. Shater, the “Iron Man,” was advanced hardline Brotherhood positions favoring the disqualification of as the Brotherhood’s nominee. His popularity would surely mute women and non-Muslims from seeking the presidency and the grumbling about the Broth ers’ duplicity, and his likely victory vetting of proposed laws by religious scholars. For crossing would give them total control of the civilian government—a posi- Morsi, the dissenting Brothers were expelled. tion of great strength from which to begin dismantling Mubarak’s Notably, Morsi’s wife is a longtime and influential member of armed forces, which, unlike Turkey’s, are as rife with Islamists as the Muslim Sisterhood, the movement’s distaff division. Inter - the society at large. estingly, serving with her in the Sisterhood’s “Guidance Bureau” observing these developments, the Supreme Council of the is Saleha Abedin—the mother of Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Armed Forces (SCAF) became increasingly alarmed. It had been Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff and close adviser. Small working with the Brothers, seeing them as inevitable but maybe world, no? It would be Secretary Clinton who pronounced it controllable: “pragmatic” extremists with whom it might be pos- “imperative” that the Egyptian military turn over power to the sible to cut a deal that preserved the military’s most important country’s newly elected Islamist leaders. privileges, funding, and business interests. The generals knew During the Egyptian presidential campaign, before the SCAF from both long experience and recent history, however, that the excluded Shater from contention, Morsi was a constant presence Brothers were not trustworthy and that their long-term goal—and at his side, introduced to crowds as an “architect” of Shater’s perhaps even their short-term goal—was complete control of the Nahda program—Egypt’s future Islamic Re n aissance. Now, with government, very much including the military. Now the Islamists’ Shater forced to the background, Morsi moved to center stage. success was making them more power-hungry. Egypt’s generals well knew the Turkish template. It was time to put up some road- blocks. HE pundits gave Morsi little chance. The election, after The SCAF-appointed cat’s paw, the Supreme Presidential all, was scheduled for late May, just a few weeks after Election Commission, disqualified Shater from seeking office on T Shater’s controversial disqualification. It was awfully the laughable grounds that he had laundered money for a “banned late in the game for a heretofore little-noticed candidate to gain

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traction. in fact, when a much-anticipated debate was televised in mid-May, Morsi was not even among the participants. Yet public anger over the military’s interference in the elec- Tax Rates and tion worked greatly to Morsi’s benefit. So did the Broth er hood’s incomparable network throughout Egypt. if the SCAF thought it had successfully dodged a bullet by sidelining Shater, it badly underestimated both Morsi and his organization. Speaking a few Economic days before the presidential election, Morsi thrilled a throng of supporters and a television audience by hammering home the Brotherhood’s longtime ambitions: Growth MORSi: [in the 1920s, when hassan al-Banna founded the Mus lim Brotherhood, the Egyptians] said: “the constitution is our Koran.” A close look at the relationship they wanted to show that the constitution is a great thing. But imam al-Banna, Allah’s mercy upon him, said to them: “No, the Koran is our constitution.” BY ARPIT GUPTA the Koran was and will continue to be our constitution. the Koran will continue to be our constitution. the Koran is our constitution. ith President Obama reluctant to tout Obamacare CROWD: the Koran is our constitution. or the 2009 fiscal stimulus, tax increases on the MORSi: the Prophet Mohammed is our leader. rich have at times seemed like the only idea he is CROWD W willing to defend. At the heart of the president’s : the Prophet Mohammed is our leader. MORSi: Jihad is our path. passionate and persistent calls for them is an idea of fairness, CROWD: Jihad is our path. namely, that because America’s highest earners have benefited MORSi: And death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration. greatly from the genius of our system of government, they CROWD: And death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspira- have a special obligation to pay more than they do at present. tion. this idea is widely shared by the public at large. A recent MORSi: Above all—Allah is our goal. survey from the Pew Research Center found that 44 percent of Morsi continued with a vow that, under his guidance, the new Americans believe that a tax increase on households earning Egyptian constitution would reflect true sharia: more than $250,000 would both boost the economy and make the tax code fairer. in contrast, only 22 percent believe that it the sharia, then the sharia, and finally the sharia. this nation will would harm the economy, and only 21 percent believe that it enjoy blessing and revival only through the islamic sharia. i take would make the tax code less fair. Moreover, 64 percent of an oath before Allah and before you all that regardless of the actu- Democrats believe that such a tax increase would be a boon to al text [of the constitution] . . . Allah willing, the text will truly the economy, so the politics of President Obama’s stance make reflect [the sharia], as will be agreed upon by the Egyptian people, perfect sense. What is less clear is that tax increases on the rich by the islamic scholars, and by legal and constitutional experts. . . . Rejoice and rest assured that this people will not accept a text would actually encourage economic growth or significantly that does not reflect the true meaning of the islamic sharia as a reduce the deficit. text to be implemented and as a platform. the people will not the president often couches his advocacy for tax increases agree to anything else. in the language of commonsense deficit reduction, and it is certainly true that restoring the Clinton-era tax rates across the When the votes were tallied in the presidential election’s first board would dramatically increase federal revenues. But the phase, he received a plurality, 25 percent. this meant he would president hasn’t called for restoring Clinton-era tax rates face the second-place finisher in a final showdown in June. And across the board. Rather, he has called for the preservation of that runner-up? he was Ahmed Shafiq, Mubarak’s former prime the vast majority of the Bush-era tax cuts—the cuts that apply minister. Shafiq was no secular democrat; in this region, secular to households with incomes of less than $250,000 and individ- democrats barely register. But the millions of Egyptians dread- uals with incomes of less than $200,000, which together ing a totalitarian sharia state realized that their only real alterna- account for 80 percent of the revenue loss. As a result, while tive was a vestige of the dictatorial regime that had, through President Obama’s tax proposal says his plan will raise more tumultuous decades, kept the is lam ic supremacists at bay. than a trillion dollars over the next decade, it would fall about With the contagion of “spring fever,” Egypt is now an “is lam- $2.35 trillion short of a full restoration of the Clinton-era tax ic democracy.” in such a scheme, you don’t get real dem ocra - rates. cy—a rich culture of liberty—but you do get islamists. in June, the president has also called for curbing the use of itemized Morsi defeated Shafiq and became president of Egypt. By deductions by high-earning taxpayers, and Obamacare has August, Morsi had shrewdly purged the SCAF’s Mubarak rem- raised the Medicare tax for individuals earning more than nants, with the support of the Obama administration, and the $200,000 and created the Unearned income Medicare Con - military was humiliated by a jihadist attack that left 16 of its tribution, a tax on investment income. the end result is that the soldiers dead on the Sinai border with israel—a border most rich will pay substantially higher taxes than they did during the Egyptians would rather see their troops attacking than securing. As the Brotherhood’s train pulls into its destination, the Arab Mr. Gupta is a Ph.D. candidate in finance at Columbia University’s Graduate Spring augurs freedom’s cold, dark winter. School of Business.

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Clinton years. There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that One key metric for judging the impact of taxes is the elas- the president would be willing to go even farther in raising ticity of taxable income (ETI). This number expresses the taxes on high-earning taxpayers, including his praise of the degree to which taxable income decreases in response to tax Gang of Six deficit-reduction plan, which was proposed in July increases. Suppose a taxpayer earns $100 that is taxed at the of last year and would hike taxes by $2.3 trillion relative to cur- top marginal rate of 35 percent. If the government then hikes rent policy. this rate to 40 percent, and the taxpayer doesn’t change his It is, of course, possible that President Obama doesn’t intend behavior, the government will collect $5 more from him than to raise taxes only on the rich. A number of his current and for- it did before. But in reality, the taxpayer may decide to work mer advisers, including former White House budget director less or make more of an effort to find tax deductions, so that Peter Orszag, have called for tax increases on middle-income next year he reports less income. The ETI is a measure, calcu- households as well. Noam Scheiber, a senior editor at The New lated through a complex formula, of just how much less Republic, suggests in his book The Escape Artists that the pres- income taxpayers report. In this example, at an ETI of 0.4, the ident has at various points found these arguments persuasive. government will raise only $1.50 in additional revenue. The But if we take the president at his word, he intends to raise higher the ETI, the less money the government raises. taxes on the rich alone, primarily through sharp increases in Economists come to different conclusions when they try to effective marginal tax rates. calculate the ETI for federal taxes. Emmanuel Saez (a Berkeley Would such a tax increase actually improve our growth economist who has supported higher tax rates) and Jonathan prospects? Or would it badly undermine them? The standard Gruber (an MIT economist who has done the same) have esti- left-wing position on taxes is that they don’t act as a brake on mated a value of 0.4. This figure is typical of such research, economic activity, particularly when levied on “millionaires though economists have found a range of values. Estimated ETI and billionaires.” Liberal legislators and pundits—including values for top-end earners tend to be higher, at 0.5–0.6. President Obama—have referred to the Clinton economy to A key limitation of this research is that most studies estimate demonstrate that tax increases are not incompatible with the effects of taxation over the short term and consider only growth. Conservatives, by contrast, tend to be more concerned those taxpayers who are in the work force. It seems reasonable with the negative impacts of taxation, but they often worry to expect that the long-run impacts are larger than what more about the short-term effects of higher taxation on job cre- researchers have found. ation or struggling families than about long-term growth. There is a close link between the ETI and the Laffer curve, The problem with liberals’ invocations of the Clinton econ- the inverse-U-shaped relationship between tax revenue and tax omy is that we don’t know how much the economy would have rates that implies taxes above a certain rate discourage so much grown in the 1990s with lower taxes. Liberals seem to assume economic activity that they cost more money than they bring that the growth rate would have been the same, but they pro- in. The ETI can be used to calculate this turning point. An ETI vide no reason to believe this. George H. W. Bush’s and Bill of 0.4 implies a revenue-maximizing rate of 61 percent, while Clinton’s tax hikes were relatively modest, and so cannot be an ETI of 0.8 implies a revenue-maximizing rate of 44 percent. taken to demonstrate that raising taxes does not reduce growth. Although few economists believe that the U.S. is above the In addition, the Nineties economy benefited from an unusual revenue-maximizing rate, and that therefore cutting taxes circumstance in the form of a tech bubble. And in 1997, would increase tax revenue, maximizing revenue should not be President Clinton and the Republican Congress approved a the sole consideration in deciding tax rates. Higher tax rates deep cut in the taxation of capital income, a measure that may carry costs even when they raise revenue for the government. well have mitigated the impact of tax increases. These factors As long as the elasticity of taxable income is higher than 0, any make it difficult to reach conclusive judgments. increase in taxation will result in a lower measurable amount Meanwhile, conservatives aren’t necessarily wrong to argue of economic activity and reduce the amount of reported that high taxes diminish freedom, harm working families, sti- income. Additionally, the closer we are to the top of the Laffer fle job creation, and fuel the growth of government; but the curve, the harder it is to raise tax revenue by increasing taxes. more fundamental problem is that they discourage valuable The top of the Laffer curve is best regarded as the upper limit economic activity and leave us all poorer—especially in the of feasible tax rates rather than as the optimal rate. long run. The actual magnitude of these effects is an empirical Another key finding from economists is that taxable income question, and while there remains substantial disagreement tends to be more responsive than overall income to tax among scholars, many important findings suggest a sizable changes. In other words, most of the revenue lost from higher role for taxation in influencing economic behavior. taxation is a result of taxpayers’ finding more deductions rather than of their actually working less. One important implication is that simultaneously eliminating deductions and lowering HE economic theory on this topic, known as the life-cycle tax rates—an approach that has been embraced by the co- theory of taxes, holds that taxes discourage economic chairmen of the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission, the T activity by making it less rewarding. Higher tax rates alter Domenici-Rivlin debt-reduction task force, and the Romney- the various economic decisions people make over the course of Ryan campaign—could substantially increase the efficiency of their lives—from the number of hours they work, to when they the tax system while yielding comparable revenue. enter or leave the work force, to whether and how they invest, to It would be a mistake, however, to completely ignore tax whether they go to college, to whether they take big economic rates’ impact on the amount of work people do—that is, on risks in the hope of a spectacular payoff. Collectively, these deci- actual economic activity. In the research on this topic, an sions have the potential to lower overall income. important distinction is made between people who remain in

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the work force but change the number of hours they work and GDP. So taxes affect the debt-to-GDP ratio in both the numer- people who enter or leave the work force entirely. ator and the denominator. Even if a tax increase raises revenue, Many liberal advocates of higher taxes point out that taxes it may lower GDP in a way that makes achieving long-run fis- tend not to change the behavior of people who are already cal balance harder. This may help explain the finding of working, at least not immediately. This should not be surpris- Harvard economist Alberto Alesina that it is easier to keep a ing—after all, very few people will want to quit working balanced budget in the long run when adjustments are made entirely in response to tax changes, and most workers are tied through spending reductions rather than tax increases. to a specific schedule in their current jobs. As we also saw above, however, we can improve our tax sys- The picture changes, however, in the long run. Raj Chetty, an tem by lowering marginal tax rates while eliminating some economist at Harvard, has suggested that people slowly adjust deductions. This would boost incentives for work and employ- their work hours downward when taxes rise—for example, by ment. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 succeeded in doing this, finding less demanding jobs. Chetty’s research suggests that a and it was passed with bipartisan support. The problem is that, 10 percent increase in taxes could lead to a 5 percent decrease much as barnacles stick to the hull of an aging ship, deductions in hours worked. and loopholes have riddled the tax code. The elimination of Economists, including Princeton’s Richard Rogerson, have these inefficiencies represents low-hanging fruit that should be also found that tax rates can have large effects on individuals’ plucked for the sake of economic recovery. decisions to enter or leave the work force. And they have In the long run, especially if higher tax revenue is needed to found that some workers are more tax-sensitive than others. finance greater spending, tax policy should be designed to Married women with children and people nearing retirement encourage rather than discourage economic activity. Relying age tend to be particularly sensitive, since many such workers more on consumption or property taxes and less on income and are on the fence about whether to participate in the labor force capital taxes would boost incentives for investment. Further to begin with. reducing the marriage penalty could boost labor-force partici- Even if a tax increase raises revenue, it may lower GDP in a way that makes achieving long-run fiscal balance harder.

Some researchers have tried to measure the impact of tax pation by women. Generally, the focus should be on keeping rates on a variety of other life decisions, such as whether to start the tax base broad and tax rates relatively flat. a business or go to college. Ideally, we could tally up all of the Finally, we need a stable institutional arrangement for effects that tax rates have and arrive at a grand total. deciding tax rates. Currently, they are set on a year-by-year Unfortunately, that remains a challenge. There are many things basis, and Congress often does not finalize the new rate struc- that are still unclear about the overall effect of tax rates on GDP. ture until close to the end of the year. This results in enormous Still, we can get a general idea by looking at how different uncertainty for taxpayers. The system sometimes yields taxation policies play out in different countries. Edward momentary tax cuts—such as the Obama stimulus checks— Prescott, a nobel laureate in economics, has suggested that the but tax cuts that are not permanent do not meaningfully United States’ low tax rates encourage Americans to work change incentives for economic activity. We need to reduce more hours than their European counterparts, which in turn uncertainty and set the stage for long-run economic growth, as helps explain why the U.S. has higher GDP per capita than in 1986. most European countries. To be sure, not all economists believe that taxes matter as much as Prescott has suggested, and it is difficult to definitively establish causality when so n this election, Democrats and Republicans are offering many other factors (e.g., regulations and unions) play a role. dramatically different visions of how to reform America’s But Prescott’s research is nevertheless suggestive. I broken system of taxation. President Obama has pledged to increase taxes on the rich, on the understanding that the gains from deficit reduction and increased public spending will HETHER or not taxes in general should go up is part- outweigh any economic damage. Mitt Romney, in contrast, is ly a political question rather than strictly an empiri- committed to an overhaul of the tax code that broadens the tax W cal one; the amount of tax revenue needed depends base while lowering marginal tax rates. on the desired size of government. But as the U.S. struggles Both candidates have left a great deal unsaid regarding how with the question of how to reduce its mounting debts and they intend to reconcile their various goals, and it is a near cer- deficits—spending reductions, tax increases, or both?—there tainty that either would have to adjust his plans as economic are some facts that should play a role in the discussion. circumstances changed. What we do know is that individuals Until we reach the top of the Laffer curve, higher taxes bring respond to tax rates, and that the tax-policy choices we make in more revenue, and thus help to control our debt. But as we in the coming months will have a great impact on our eco- saw above, taxes also affect economic activity, and thus our nomic well-being for decades to come.

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tional apostolate reporting to the bishop of Arlington, Va. In one of history’s little ironies, today most of homeschooling’s bitterest enemies are to be found on the left. “We don’t have much of a problem from conservatives,” Wiesner says. “It’s the teachers’ uni ons, educational bureaucrats, and liberal professors. College professors by and large don’t want students who can think for themselves. They want students they can indoctrinate, but that’s hard to do with homeschoolers— homeschoolers push back.” He relish- es the story of a number of graduates of his program who attended a top-tier Catholic university and enrolled to - gether in theology classes taught by the school’s most notorious liberals. They were of course more conversant with church orthodoxy than were many of their instructors. “The professors hated them. But the kids had fun. The president of that college at that time was trying to clean up the theology department, so when the professors would complain, he would call the students in and tell them to try to be polite—with a wink and a nod.” EDUCATION 2012 One of those liberal professors is Robin West of the Georgetown law school, who wrote a remarkably shal- The Last Radicals low and evidence-free jeremiad against Homeschoolers occupy the curriculum homeschooling that was published to the journal’s discredit in Philosophy BY KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON and Public Policy Quarterly. More a work of imagination than one of scholarship, the article ignores the wealth of HERE is exactly one authenti- tural product of that era. The move- data suggesting that homeschooling is cally radical social movement ment’s urtext is Summerhill: A Radical a largely upper-income and suburban of any real significance in the Ap proach to Child Rearing, by A. S. phenomenon, and that homeschooled stu - T United States, and it is not Neill, which sold millions of copies in dents typically outperform their public- Occupy, the Tea Party, or the Ron Paul the 1960s and 1970s. Neill was the school peers. West offers a caricature of faction. It is homeschoolers, who, by the headmaster of an English school or - homeschooling families far removed simple act of instructing their children at ganized (to the extent that it was from reality: “The husbands and wives home, pose an intellectual, moral, and organized) around neo-Freudian psy - in these families feel themselves to be political challenge to the government- chotherapeutic notions and Marx ian under a religious compulsion to have monopoly schools, which are one of our ideas about the nature of power large families, a home bound and sub- most fundamental institutions and one relationships in society. He looked for- missive wife and mother who is respon- of our most dys functional. Like all radi- ward to the day when conventional sible for the schooling of the children, cal movements, homeschoolers drive religion would wither away—“Most of and only one breadwinner. These fami- the establishment bats. our religious practices are a sham,” he lies are not living in romantic, rural, In the public imagination, home- declared—and in general had about as self-sufficient farmhouses; they are in schooling has a distinctly conservative little in common with what most peo- trailer parks, 1,000-square-foot homes, and Evangelical odor about it, but it ple regard as the typical homeschooler houses owned by relatives, and some, was not always so. The modern home- as it is possible to have. on tarps in fields or parking lots. Their schooling movement really has its “People forget that some of the first lack of job skills, passed from one gen- roots in 1960s countercultural tenden- homeschoolers were hippies,” says eration to the next, depresses the com- cies; along with A Love Supreme, it Bob Wiesner, a counselor at the Seton munity’s overall economic health and

may represent the only worthwhile cul- Home Study School, a Catholic educa- their state’s tax base.” Education schol- ROMAN GENN

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ar Brian D. Ray, who specializes in happy consequence of the longstanding children. While West would like to homeschooling, found that West’s patchwork of exemptions in state-level criminalize homeschooling—she writes claims “basically have no foundation in mandatory-education statutes—it is wistfully of the days when “parents research evidence,” and pointed out to highly unlikely that most state legisla- who did so were criminals”—others the contrary that “repeated studies by tures would vote to legalize it. Nine- have sought to regulate it out of exis- many researchers and data provided by tenths of American children attend tence, for instance by declaring home- United States state departments of edu - government schools, and most of the schoolers’ residences to be public cation show that home-educated stu- remaining tenth attend government- schools and requiring them to meet dents consistently score, on average, approved private schools. The political attendant planning and zoning stan- well above the public school average class wants as many of that remaining dards, by installing such things as fire- on standardized academic achievement tenth in government schools as possi- safety systems, parking facilities, and tests. To date, no research has found ble; teachers’ unions have money on emergency exits. “The good news is, homeschool students to be doing worse, the line, and ideologues do not want there are very few people with author- on average, than their counterparts in any young skull beyond their curricu- ity and power who want to end home- state-run schools. Multiple studies by lar reach. A political class that does not schooling,” says Jeremiah Lorrig of var ious researchers have found the home trust people with a Big Gulp is not the National Home School Legal educated to be doing well in terms of going to trust them with the minds of Defense Association. “They’ve given their social, emotional, and psychological development.” The problem is not educational out- comes: Students in the Seton program tend to score on average in the 80th Plan to Attend one of our Open Houses: percentile on standardized tests. The Oct 21 and Dec 9! problem is that progressives operate as though the state owned children as joint property. Dana Goldstein, writing in Slate, urged her fellow progressives to resist the temptation to homeschool, arguing that the practice is “funda - mentally illiberal” and asking incre - du lously: “Could such a go-it-alone ide o logy ever be truly progressive?” She went on to argue that the children of high-achieving parents amount to public goods because of peer effects— poor students do better when mixed with better-off peers—meaning that “when college-educated parents pull their kids out of public schools, whether for private school or home- Portsmouth Abbey School is schooling, they make it harder for less- New England’s Catholic Benedictine boarding school advantaged children to thrive.” She does not extend that analysis to its balancing tradition and innovation, logical conclusion: that conscientious, intellect and athleticism, educated liberals should enroll their children in the very worst public sch - and spirit and conscience. ools they can find in order to maximize Most high schools o er four years of learning. the public good. The numbers are against them, but An Abbey education lasts a lifetime. West, Goldstein, and like-minded critics still bristle with hostility at homeschool- Please contact the O ce of Admission 401.643.1248 for a campus tour ing. There are three related reasons for that. The first is that progressives by their nature do not trust people as individu - als and feel that, whether we are applying for a credit card or popping into portsmouth abbey school 7-Eleven for a soft drink, Americans take root require state-appointed overseers. If New England’s Catholic Benedictine Boarding School www.portsmouthabbey.org homeschooling weren’t already legal—a

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EDUCATION 2012 up trying to outlaw it—and now are legal environment liberal enough. As its trying to control it.” critics best appreciate, homeschooling is The second reason for this hostility is about more than schooling. Chicago that while there is a growing number of The Tea Party and the Ron Paul move- secular, progressive, organic-quinoa- ment are in some ways the conservative consuming homeschool families, there flipside of Occupy, albeit with better Fails Its remains a significant con servative and manners, more coherent ideas, and high- Christian component. The reasons for er standards of personal hygiene. They Students progressive hostility to conservative comprise conservatives on the verge of Christians are many and complex, but despair at trying to achieve real social Scott Walker, not Rahm Emanuel, one of them is that, like the home- change through the process of electoral offers a model for reform school, the church is something out- politics and the familiar machinery of side of government control, a forum party and poll, with its narrow scope of BY FREDERICK M. HESS that the triple constitutional protec- action, uncertain prospects, and imper- tions of religion, free speech, and asso- manent victories. There is a different ciation place beyond the range of model for reform being practiced in Hey want to know if there’s Leviathan’s leash. Progressives are by more than 1 million American house- anything more they can their nature mono polists, and the holds, by people of wildly different get,” said Chicago Teach - churches constitute real competing political and religious orientations. ‘T ers Union president Karen centers of power in society. Homeschooling represents a kind of lib- Lewis, explaining why her members A third reason is that the majority of ertarian impulse, but of a different sort: voted to reject a tentative agreement the homeschool teachers are mothers. A tra- It is not about money. Homeschooling CTU had negotiated with Chicago ditional two-parent family with one families pay their taxes to support local mayor Rahm emanuel. Two days later, full-time breadwinner and one stay-at- public schools, like any other family— on September 18, after taking a victory home parent is practically built into the which is to say, begrudgingly in many lap to show who calls the shots in the model. Goldstein scoffs at that as the cases—and the movement does not seek Windy City, the CTU accepted the gen- “dated presumption that children hail the abolition of local government- erous deal. from two-parent families, in which at education monopolies. (It should.) The odds had seemed to favor a hap- least one parent can afford (and wants) Homeschooling families simply choose pier outcome. emanuel, President Oba - to take significant time away from paid not to participate in the system—or, if ma’s former chief of staff, is a notorious work,” but of course the model is nei- they do, to participate in it on their own fighter and an ardent champion of edu- ther dated nor restricted to religiously terms. cation reform. Chicago public-school conservative red-staters: Liberal en- And that is a step too far for the teachers already earn, on average, claves such as Brooklyn and Seattle are Hobbesian progressives, who view pol- $76,000 a year for working 190 days full of stay-at-home moms. (Brook lyn, itics as a constant contest between the (15 of them student-free “profession- in fact, is a hotbed of crunchy home- State and the State of Nature, as though al” days). The city spends more than schooling.) the entire world were on a sliding scale $13,000 per child a year and deems 99.7 Americans are dissatisfied with many between Sweden and Somalia. Home - percent of its teachers effective, yet its things: Congress, insurance companies, schoolers may have many different and 674 schools graduate just 60 percent of Wall Street, the media. Many are dissatis- incompatible political beliefs, but they their students, and fully 52 percent of fied with the government schools, too, all implicitly share an opinion about the fourth-graders score “below basic” in and homeschooling has given them an bureaucrats: They don’t need them— reading on the National Assessment of opportunity to do something about that, not always, not as much as the bureau- educational Progress. When the CTU taking matters into their own hands. They crats think. That’s what makes them opted in early September to strike rather could do the same thing with health radical and, to those with a certain view than continue negotiating, it seemed a insurance and banking, as well, were the of the world, terrifying. golden opportunity for emanuel to pro ve that reform-minded Democrats can face down their union allies. yet, despite a strong opening hand, emanuel wound up with precious little. The CTU’s initial request was dismissed as laughable in tough times (even by the New York Times editorial page), and the union was slammed for opposing eman - uel’s push to make growth in student test

Mr. Hess is the director of education-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “You’re not fooling “So?–I’m the one that the forthcoming book Cage-Busting Leadership anybody but yourself.” counts!” (Harvard Education Press).

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scores count for more than the state- hours. By the strike’s final days, White House education hand, observed required minimum when evaluating Emanuel was pleading with the courts to that the CTU’s victory “put an end to the teachers. The new three-year contract order the teachers back to school, argu- teachers’ unions’ political losing streak calls for raises of 3 percent, 2 percent, ing that state law prohibited the teachers . . . and breath[ed] new life into dispirit- and 2 percent in successive years, over from bargaining over “non-economic” ed union teachers.” and above regular seniority-based issues—a point he had failed to raise In a missive to its members, the CTU increases; retains seniority-based pay; earlier, and one that he ignored in mak- gloated: “Cities everywhere have been and calls for hiring 600 new teachers, of ing a raft of “non-economic” conces- forced to adopt performance pay. Not whom one-half must be laid-off former sions (including a new provision here in Chicago! . . . We preserved our teachers. It stipulates that teachers dis- prohibiting principals from “bullying” lanes and steps when the politicians and placed because of school closures will teachers). press predicted they were history. We keep their jobs, regardless of perfor- The reviews were harsh. The Chicago held the line on healthcare costs.” mance. On teacher evaluations, Eman - Sun-Times declared: “Mayor Rahm A more striking contrast to Wisconsin uel managed only to get the CTU to Emanuel rolled the dice and lost.” governor Scott Walker’s 2011 con- comply with state law. Illinois requires Veteran education pundit Chester Finn frontation with public-employee unions that growth in student test scores Jr. observed, “[The deal] contains a would be hard to find. The contests in account for at least 30 percent of evalu- handful of features from Rahm’s reform Wisconsin and Chicago starkly illumi- ations; after fiercely insisting that the shopping list. But every one of them was nate the difference between Republican figure be 40 percent, Rahm accepted the weakened, diluted, deferred, or made and Democratic approaches to reform— minimum. very expensive for a city that can ill and why the GOP model is the only one During his mayoral campaign, afford the added cost.” Veteran Chicago likely to deliver. Emanuel had promised to extend Chi- political strategist Don Rose told the In 2011, Walker fought through a cago’s school day (at five hours and 45 New York Times, “This is the first issue ferocious onslaught from public unions minutes, among the shortest in the coun- that’s gone out of control for Rahm.” to pass Act 10, which dramatically try). He came up practically empty: A Andy Rotherham, an influential Demo - narrowed the scope of collective bar- total of three schools extended their cratic reformer and former Clinton gaining. Henceforth, teachers could

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EDUCATION 2012 negotiate over wages and wage-related a tough economy, be able to win big Democratic reform costs more. Where - benefits but not such things as work changes and demonstrate that Walker- as Walker’s reforms saved dollars, rules and school start times. Act 10 freed style reform is unduly harsh? The Emanuel’s deal aggravated the financial districts from paralyzing concessions— answer was “No.” troubles of Chicago’s schools. The con- on precisely those things, and others like And in a time of high unemployment tract is expected to cost the city an addi- them—that they had made, in many and tight budgets, the Walker approach tional $295 million over four years, even cases decades ago. Walker insulated may find unexpected support: Witness as Chicago Public Schools anticipates a school boards and superintendents from Walker’s surprisingly easy win in $1 billion deficit in 2015–16. Just days the pressure to kowtow to politically June’s recall election. In September, after the deal, an Education Week head- adept local unions that play a powerful Harvard University’s Program on Edu - line read, “In strike’s wake, Chicago role in electing board members. cation Policy and Governance reported faces budget questions.” The day after Act 10 also required educators to new survey results finding that 22 per- the Chicago strike ended, the New York start contributing more than a token cent of the public believes that teachers’ Times ran a story headlined “Next amount toward their generous health- unions have a generally positive effect School Crisis for Chicago: Pension Fund care and retirement benefits. Wis - on schools, and 35 percent believes that Is Running Dry.” One giant problem: consin’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau they have a negative effect. That repre- The city has been paying $130 million a estimates that Walker’s pension provi- sents a drop of seven percentage points year to cover most of the pension con - sion alone will save schools $600 mil- from last year, when 29 percent had a tributions required of the teachers (a lion over two years. These savings free positive view of unions. It’s no sur - practice known as a “pick-up”). Walker up dollars to support classrooms and prise that 53 percent of self-identified achieved huge savings by requiring teachers to make their own contributions, but Emanuel didn’t push the issue. Conservative school reformers This despite his warning last spring that should not count too heavily on unfunded pension costs would eventually force cuts such that “average class size progressive allies. will jump to approximately 55 students.” (It should be noted that an overeager instruction. The Wauwatosa School Republicans say unions have a nega - Wisconsin judge recently struck down District, for instance, had faced a $6.5 tive impact on schools, but nearly one- Act 10’s employee-contribution require- million shortfall and anticipated slash- quarter of self-identified Democrats ment. The decision is under appeal, how- ing 100 jobs, but Walker’s changes in now hold that view as well. The survey ever, and appears likely to be reversed by pension and health contributions filled also suggests that public “trust in teach- a higher court.) the hole. ers” is weaker than legend has it, with Conservative school reformers should Yet, in school-reform circles, Walker just 42 percent of respondents saying it not count too heavily on progressive got little credit for any of this. The most has “a lot of” trust or “complete” trust in allies. Mitt Romney and other Repub - startling development was how eager them. licans were quick to back Emanuel, but “education reform” Democrats were to There are three big lessons here. the Democrats’ delicate alliance with defend the unions and attack Walker. Treat the cause, not the symptoms. teachers’ unions makes it hard for them U.S. secretary of education Arne Dun- Even if Emanuel had prevailed, his victo- not to score points with a politically can, generally lauded as a reformer, said, ry would have been less far-reaching than important constituency when they see “For [Walker] to go in that direction after Walker’s. The Democratic approach to Republicans pushing aggressively. Wal - the leadership that the union had shown reform requires district leaders to win ker got kneecapped or strategically ig - simply made no sense to me. It was non- piecemeal the things that Walker achiev ed nored by progressive reformers in his sensical.” And Joe Williams, executive in one fell swoop, and then to resist time of need, with even typically fearless director of Democrats for Education fierce, organized employee unions year Democratic reformers such as Joel Reform, wrote, “How do we keep the after year as they seek new protections. Klein and Michelle Rhee keeping a political focus on providing a quality Treating the cause is made doubly impor- careful silence. Not a single prominent education for all students at a time when tant by the many “evergreen” clauses in school-reform Democrat rose to Wal - some Republican leaders appear to be teacher contracts. These require that con- ker’s defense. Republican governors and primarily salivating at the chance to tract conditions remain in force—even reformers elsewhere can expect similar whack a significant political opponent?” after the contract expires—until both treatment when they go toe to toe with Unlike Republicans, “we believe that parties agree to a change. Of the 80 con- the unions. teacher unions have a crucial voice . . . tract agreements on which the National Chicago’s sorry spectacle was a blow [and] we’re kind of creeped out by some Council on Teacher Quality provides to the credibility of reform-minded of what we are seeing and hearing these data, more than one-third have evergreen Democrats and a reason to question days in the Heartland.” provisions. Additionally, several states, whether a second Obama administration Chicago proved the perfect test case including Missouri, Nebraska, Wash - would be willing and able to deliver on for the Duncan-Williams view. Would a ington, and New York, have evergreen the bold promises of its Race to the Top tough-minded Democratic mayor, offer- laws in their statutes governing labor agenda. Meanwhile, Wisconsin has of - ing teachers significant pay increases in relations. f ered a more promising path.

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12 years after the end of the 2001–2002 plained that these alternative plans are school year, all students [described in not “colorblind” or that they fail to de - No Child the law—basically, all students, period] mand enough of low-achieving groups, will meet or exceed the State’s [stan- and conservatives have correctly argued Left Behind, dard for “proficiency”] on the State that the administration has used its assessments. waiver authority in effect to create a This amounts to pointing at the states whole new policy (the administration Left Behind and instructing them to fix everything grants the waivers based on whether And not a moment too soon that’s wrong with their schools, their states enact its preferred reforms). But teachers, and their children. And to at least the new system makes some BY ROBERT VERBRUGGEN make matters worse, states were re - concessions to reality. quired to track the progress of several One might wonder how such a terrible subgroups—major ethnic and racial law managed to survive for a decade. N 2002, Ted Kennedy and George groups, the economically disadvan- The answer is that while NCLB takes a W. Bush did that rarest of things: taged, English-language learners, and hard line on a superficial level, it gives They enacted a major reform with students with disabilities—and make states and schools plenty of room to I true bipartisan support. In Con - sure that they in particular were making game the system. gress, their No Child Left Behind Act enough progress toward the goal. So the Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect received “No” votes from only 45 repre- biggest demands were placed on the of the law is that states are allowed to sentatives and eight senators. The law groups that were farthest behind. define “proficiency” for themselves and required states to test their students on This is the aspect of the law from to revise their definitions at will. This reading and math, and required individ- which the Obama administration is isn’t a loophole; the law’s drafters made ual schools to make “adequate yearly granting waivers. Instead of progressing it perfectly clear that this is what they progress” on various measures. Schools toward a utopian 2014 in which all stu- wanted: “Nothing in this part shall pro- that failed to make such progress would dents are proficient, states may submit hibit a State from revising, consistent be required to take corrective action, their own plans to the Obama adminis- with this section, any standard adopted and if that failed they would be restruc- tration and request a waiver. These plans under this part before or after the date of tured. may even set different goals for differ- enactment of the No Child Left Behind Almost everyone agreed that NCLB ent racial groups, so long as the lowest- Act of 2001.” was the way forward. And now almost scoring groups are still expected to Unsurprisingly, when forced to make everyone agrees that the legislation has make the most progress. Some have com - progress on test scores or face the con- been a disaster. The Obama administration, demonstrating its usual enthusiasm for simply ignoring laws it doesn’t like, is giving states waivers from NCLB’s worst provisions. States, in turn, are taking advantage of the loosened rules in droves. And while Mitt Romney has a long track record of support for NCLB VISITING SCHOLAR IN CONSERVATIVE THOUGHT AND POLICY and praises it effusively in his campaign literature, even he sees a need to address its grave flaws. Congress has yet to act on NCLB reauthorization, which is due The College of Arts and Sciences intends to appoint the this year. NCLB, as it was originally inaugural Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and passed, is on its deathbed. Policy. We seek a highly visible individual who is deeply Aside from the fact that NCLB assert- engaged in either the scholarship or practice of ed federal control over what is rightful- conservative thinking and policymaking.. The Visiting ly a state and local matter, there are two Scholar will establish an open dialogue on campus major problems with the law: It sets completely unreasonable standards, and featuring the principles of conservatism The term of the it fails to keep states and schools from appointment is variable. Specific duties will include cheating to meet those standards. teaching, delivering public lectures, and organizing events. If you remember just one thing about The compensation package is competitive. The University No Child Left Behind, remember that it of Colorado Boulder is an equal opportunity employer. For actually contains this text: full consideration applications should be received by November 15, 2012. Send a letter of interest and Each State shall establish a timeline for adequate yearly progress [on its stu- curriculum vitae or resume to: Professor Keith Maskus, dents’ standardized-test scores]. The Associate Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, 275 UCB, timeline shall ensure that not later than University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0275.

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EDUCATION 2012 sequences, the states found a way to a Bronx middle school whose adminis- make progress: They made the tests eas- trators simply didn’t report serious ier. Over time, more and more students infractions by students because they were deemed “proficient” by the state wanted the school to lose its “persistent- tests administered under NCLB—but ly dangerous” designation. The school We have remained profoundly the federal National Assessment of Edu - also took advantage of the requirement influential for over five decades. cational Progress (NAEP) showed very that students be allowed to transfer Why? Because of the greatness little improvement. (One of Romney’s away from violent environments: Ad - of our founder? Because of the proposed NCLB reforms is to standard- ministrators would call the parents of ize a system for grading schools and problematic students and explain this talent of our exceptional writers? districts that factors in NAEP results. wonderful opportunity to them. And Because of our determination to He would also emphasize transparency of course her school wasn’t unique: articulate conservative principles rather than mandate school restructuring According to a federal audit, “States fear and expose liberal platitudes? from the federal level.) the political, social, and economic con- And while NCLB included some sequences of having schools designated ‘Yes’ to all. But also true is this: requirements to reduce dropout rates, as [persistently dangerous], and school Our historic influence is due in states were allowed to set their own administrators view the label as detri- goals, and the law’s test-score require- mental to their careers. Consequently, large part to the many good ments gave schools an incentive to states set unreasonable definitions for subscribers and friends who encourage low-achieving students to [persistently dangerous schools] and have generously and freely leave. A 2008 study of Texas, whose schools have underreported violent inci- contributed to National Review school reforms served as the model for dents.” annually to support and sustain NCLB, found that schools were jetti - While these are the biggest problems our operations, and to those soning low-scoring students to increase with NCLB, they hardly constitute an thoughtful few who have their proficiency rates. (For example, exhaustive list. For example, with its remembered National Review in schools would pressure students to drop focus on mere “proficiency,” the law out through “zero tolerance” policies, neglects students who are above average their wills, estates, and trusts. which send students to court for minor in ability—there is no insistence that offenses, including non-attendance.) smart kids get smarter, only that they Please consider this: When you Schools even managed to fudge their pass basic tests like everyone else. By are gone, will National Review dropout statistics by using “leaver codes” contrast, schools place a disproportion- . . . remain? If not, then who will to classify dropouts as non-dropouts for ate emphasis on students who are just fight for those principles that you various reasons (such as that the stu- below the “proficiency” standard— wished dearly to bequeath to dents claimed they would transfer to goosing their scores is the easiest way to make a school look better. And the law’s your country, your family, and another district or get a GED at some point). emphasis on reading and math encour- future generations? Also in 2008, Education Secretary ages schools to shortchange other sub- Margaret Spellings decided to address jects—to “narrow the curriculum.” Can you trust National Review? this problem. She issued new rules that With NCLB up for reauthorization Yes. Please do so when planning required schools to measure their drop- this year, there are several lessons for your estate. Keep us standing out rates in a uniform manner and to education reformers. An obvious one is athwart history, yelling Stop. submit plans for lowering their rates to that incentives matter: When schools are the administration for approval. The faced with the prospect of severe pun- new standardized rates were to become ishment unless they improve, they will By remembering National Review a factor in determining “adequate yearly find ways to “improve” however they in your will, estate, or trust, you progress” starting this year, but the can. will leave a legacy of continued Obama administration has been allow- But a deeper one is that human beings support for those conservative ing a great deal of leeway on this as well vary in lots of ways, and while we can causes and beliefs that will be as for states that apply for waivers. help every student to achieve, we can’t vital to future generations as they Sometimes the evasion of NCLB expect every student to be successful. If are to ours. Please contact: requirements can be physically harmful a student does not meet basic proficien- to students. One requirement is that cy standards, it might be because he’s states develop criteria for identifying not being taught properly. Or it might be Jim Kilbridge “persistently dangerous schools” and that he has a learning disability, or emo- National Review allow students to transfer out of them. tional problems, or a low IQ, or a trou- 215 Lexington Avenue As criteria, states typically chose mea- bled home environment. It might be that New York, NY 10016 sures such as disciplinary actions for he just doesn’t care. We cannot count on 212-679-7330 ext. 2826 violent behavior. the federal government to tell the differ- The results have been predictable. ence, and with No Child Left Behind, it About five years ago, my wife taught at didn’t even try.

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In Closing, Bloom lays out his analysis ions on the question “What is the good of the principles that he recognized had life?” is altogether different from the Drifting to a come to dominate the academy. Adrift soul-impoverishing relativism that provides quantitative evidence that the permeates much of our culture today. Close? American mind Bloom saw closing has, So crates’ skepticism is wedded to a one generation later, closed further. The long ing for wisdom that is as intense, he The latest front in the unanswered question is whether Adrift’s tells us, as a drowning man’s desire for higher-education battles corroboration of Closing will spur re - air. This longing is the original meaning form—or resignation. of the word “philosophy.” Philosophy, BY THOMAS K. LINDSAY Bloom’s book is a liberal education in in this sense, is the highest calling in itself. It is impossible to do justice to its life, while “the unexamined life,” as WenTy-fIve years ago, Allan fullness and depth in a brief summary. Socrates put it, “is not worth living for a Bloom published his bestselling What can be said here is that prominent human being.” book, The Closing of the Amer - among the causes he finds for the decay Accordingly, the highest purpose of T ican Mind. Last year, Richard of higher education is the moral and cul- higher learning is to introduce students Arum and Josipa Roksa published their tural relativism that has come to domi- to alternative visions of the good life as landmark study of collegiate learning, nate the academy and trickled down to presented by the roughly once-a-century Academically Adrift. The two works stand the popular culture. thinkers who have proven capable of as bookends. Between them rests a gen er - Aristotle begins his Metaphysics with ascending from the caves of their partic- ation of college graduates. Together, they the observation that “all men by nature ular cultures. Liberal education offers us chronicle the crisis in higher education. desire to know.” Socrates, when asked the opportunity to liberate ourselves why the Delphic oracle proclaimed that from unthinking acceptance of conven- Mr. Lindsay is the director of the Center for Higher no one in Greece was wiser than he, tional opinions. It invites us to stretch Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He responded that he best understood the and thereby elevate our minds as we served as the deputy chairman and chief operating depth of his ignorance regarding life’s struggle to understand the seminal argu- officer of the National Endowment for the most fundamental questions. But So crat- ments of great thinkers who pondered Humanities during George W. Bush’s second term. ic skepticism regarding received opin- the permanent questions: Who am I?

LEARN HOW TO FIND YOUR WAY NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO

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EDUCATION 2012 What is the good life? What is the good themselves in a self-defeating posi- reception: “Limited Learning on Col - society? tion—they must condemn and must not lege Campuses.” This may explain why But today, Bloom argues, the Amer- condemn Hitlerism. Adrift proves more agreeable to acade- ican mind is closing to these, the most Unsurprisingly, just as relativism mic sensibilities. In 1987, Bloom’s book deeply human questions and concerns. stunts the capacity for an education was routinely excoriated wherever fac- Why? Socrates’ knowledge of ignorance aimed at intellectual liberty, so it de - ulty gathered. In contrast, a professor has been replaced by the assumed prives American democracy of a foun- recently told me that the president of certainty that all moral principles, all dation on which to defend political his university was receptive to Adrift visions of the good life, are mere prefer- liberty. Unique among polities in its because it was penned, in the president’s ences, or “values.” The substitution of dependence on reason as the source of words, by “one of us, not some crazy values for principles is intentional and the legitimacy of its government, Amer - right-winger.” That the president com- momentous. “Values” is a term from ica loses confidence in the American mitted the ad hominem fallacy is under- modern economics, which teaches that experiment to the extent that it loses standable: In the name of expanding the value of a good is not intrinsic but confidence in reason. For us, democracy student choice, logic has not been a dependent on demand. Bloom is said to and liberal education stand or fall to - required course at most universities for have jested, “When I hear someone start gether. many years. to talk about good values, I reach for my Although concern over relativism is The pacific tone of Adrift may explain Sears catalogue.” far from the explicit focus of Arum and the book’s relatively non-hostile recep- Relativism saps the soul’s longing for Roksa in Adrift, their findings somewhat tion by academics in part, but not entire- wisdom, a longing that fuels the ascent complement Bloom’s argument in ly. Another reason that the authors’ from the cave. If students already “know” Closing. Arum and Roksa administered findings resonate may be that, this quar- that no culture or way of life is better or the Collegiate Learning Assessment ter century since the publication of worse than any other, why sweat over a (CLA) to 2,300 students nationwide to Closing, it has become all too obvious lengthy, difficult text such as, say, measure what American undergraduates that higher education is serving students Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, which learn in college. They found that 36 per- badly. Yet for some, it is no cause for purports to say something authoritative cent showed “small or empirically non- optimism that academics may be com- about “values”? The discovery that dif- existent” gains in “general collegiate ing to accept one of Bloom’s central ferent societies honor different, at times skills”—critical thinking, complex rea- contentions. It is instead a sign of further contradictory, visions of the good is at soning, writing, and computational decline and a cause for resignation, as least as old as Herodotus. But this diver- skills—after four years of college. The the “owl of Minerva begins her flight sity was, until the mid–20th century, authors offer a host of reasons that may only at dusk”: Wisdom arises only on regarded as an invitation to further study account for these depressing statistics— the ashes of cultural collapse. that would lead us from opinion to among them, decreased study time that Others are not so pessimistic. In my knowledge, from our particular conven- does not result in lower grades; a decline home state of Texas, some have seized tion to universal principle. Today, the in full-time instructional faculty; in - on Adrift as a banner in their campaign mere fact that there are diverse opinions creased publishing requirements for to reform higher education. Efforts are apparently settles the case against the faculty and the concomitant lightening now under way in the Texas legislature possibility of moral truth. of teaching loads; and the diversion of to pass a law requiring all students at Yet relativism has not banished the in creasing amounts of university republic colleges and universities to take moral cosmos entirely. On the one hand, sources to nonacademic functions. the CLA during their freshman and as Bloom demonstrates, the epistemo- Another reason cited by Arum and senior years. Every institution would logical difficulties of relativism are not Roksa recalls the analysis in Closing. then be called to account for how much hard to convey and not easy to accept. They quote Clark Kerr, former chancel- students learn under its tutelage. More - How many of us are really persuaded by lor of the University of California, over, by revealing which majors signifi- the line “We have our values; Hitler had Berkeley, who sums up nicely—albeit cantly increase learning, and which do his. Who’s to say which is better?” On unawares—the crisis in our universities: not, the CLA could bolster Bloom’s case the other hand, despite the untenability “There is less sense of purpose” but for the restoration of a required core of such a position, relativism has great “there are more ways to excel.” This loss curriculum in the sciences and liberal popular appeal because it has come to be of an authoritative conception of what arts—which is not to be confused with regarded as the precondition of a toler- an educated person looks like, Bloom its imposters, “general education” and ant society. Hitler opined that there were argues, is what constitutes the collapse “distribution” requirements. better and worse ways of life, higher and of higher education. The CLA would serve as an alterna- lower cultures. If no one makes this mis- If the two works harmonize to some tive credential to the bachelor’s degree, take again, intolerant projects such as extent, their tones nonetheless differ, as the hollowness of which has been dem - his surely will wither. The obstacle that becomes apparent merely from consid- onstrated in so many cases. It would relativists leave unaddressed is that con- ering their subtitles. Closing’s is a thun- help students, parents, and legislators sistency requires them to be as open to derclap: “How Higher Education Has to take a more open-eyed view of the intolerance as to tolerance, because both Failed Democracy and Impoverished current state of higher education. For are values, which, they assert, cannot the Souls of Today’s Students.” Adrift’s reformers, the reckoning has been a long be ranked by reason. Hence, they find would be perfectly at home at a faculty time coming.

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Athwart BY JAMES LILEKS Media Matter

HENEVER talking about the YouTube video Now, this is the point where conservatives carp about on which the riots were blamed, it’s impor- the media’s double standard and say, “What if a Bush tant to note that it’s bad. Lousy acting, spokesman implied that Bill Maher wasn’t funny or said W cheap F/X, costumes from the Halloween people should handle their Dixie Chicks CDs in a careless store. But what if The [title removed for fear 10,000 people manner, encouraging scratches? They’d cry fascism!” will set themselves on fire somewhere] had been a really Yes. They’re excitable that way. If Dick Cheney officiat- good movie? ed at a lesbian wedding, he’d be a homophobe if he didn’t The critics rave! “Breathtaking, revelatory, audacious, kiss the father of the bride. It’s a given. with the director’s trademark mixture of lilting wit and rau- We’re told the media don’t matter anymore, because cous smut.” Sacha Baron Cohen’s Oscar-worthy turn as a there’s Twitter. But for the muddle-pated middle who transgendered Zoroastrian who invents the Islamic holy depend on news crawls and headlines to tell them what texts to win the love of a gullible young man (Tom Cruise) the popular kids think, the media is a Jell-O mold that is praised by all. Sixteen months after its release, a mob— shapes their vague beliefs, tells them who’s Up, who’s on 9/11, by one of those “gosh, you can’t make this stuff up” Cool. The media skew the message in the proper direc- coincidences—attacks the U.S. embassy in Tunis with such tion, because they’re good smart folk who know a fury it manages to burn down the entire country, putting in Romney term would mean a Hobbesian society where the doubt longstanding scientific theories about the flammabil- 1 percent get rich selling pre-rusted coat hangers to back- ity of sand. alley abortionists, and gay teachers’-union stewards are Would that be better, somehow? Because they were sup- sent to work fracking gas while Koch-paid overseers posedly incensed by a quality project? crack the whip, and Friskies markets “Senior Blend” cat The constant reassurance that the movie is Bad and its food, as they did during the Reagan years. Also, war director a Bad person ought to be irrelevant, like saying that somewhere. someone who drew an offensive cartoon of Mohammed To prevent these real and present dangers, reality must hadn’t quite mastered the art of shading and perspective. But be adjusted. When the president shows up on the harpy- apparently it’s important to disparage the quality and char- holler hootenanny The View and says he’s there as “eye acter of a work of art before you tut-tut about a lethal candy, ” he’s not a sexist pig who thinks women want to response. Might as well just run photos of burning em - swoon over cool dudes, he’s just speaking Truth to Behar. bassies on the front page with the headline “EVERYONE’SA When the president met with a CIA Pakistan expert who CRITIC.” was wearing “stiletto heels,” as The Daily Beast described The First Amendment doesn’t have a schlock-exemption her, and he said “with clear amusement, ‘You don’t look clause. It doesn’t say your abrasive utterances must be set like a Pakistan expert,’” it didn’t mean he was demonstrat- forth in gooder grammar. It is silent on the issue of penman- ing the habitual sexualization that keeps women from ship. achieving equality in the workplace. It meant he’s a man’s Now, this is the point where people usually roll their eyes man with normal appetites, aside from that whole dog-it’s- and say, “Criticism isn’t denying anyone’s free speech. It’s what’s-for-dinner thing. not like the government has to get involved.” But the gov- I mean, you want some Mormon creep in there who ernment did get involved. The director was hauled in for dis- wouldn’t even look at her legs? cussion of his parole violation late one evening. Unless you Speaking of whom: If Mitt Romney makes a comment believe that California cops sit around bored for hours until about our embassy being overrun, and suggests the admin- a big red light goes off and they slide down the poles istration’s motto is Strength through Cower, he’s hammered. because there was a parole violation across town six months Politics stops at the edge of the water on which Obama ago, you might suspect that pressure was applied. That walks. would seem to be the government at work. And getting over- Isn’t that odd? No one deplored the quality of his remark time pay, probably. and then noted he certainly had the right to make it. Well, if Then there’s the small matter of the chairman of the joint there are riots in other lands, perhaps the State Department chiefs of staff phoning up a private citizen known for his can cut an ad for Pakistani TV, explaining that Romney was Fahrenheit 451 approach to non-Christian holy books and wrong to use a gerund the way he did, and they don’t stand telling him to mind his ways. Totally justified. You can’t shout behind his use of the split infinitive, but in America we’re “Fire” in a crowded YouTube comment thread, or something. free to criticize our leaders. Who knows what pressure the top brass put on the citizen? “I That would calm the rioting, if they hated us for our gram- don’t mean to drone on and on, but we know where you live.” mar. But they no more hate us for our First Amendment than That would seem to be the government at work. they hate us for our bacon-flavored vodka. They just hate us. Everything else is an entry in the “local customs” section of Mr. Lileks blogs at www.lileks.com. an embassy orientation guide.

5 7 longview--ready:QXP-1127940387.qxp 9/26/2012 2:37 AM Page 58

The Long View BY ROB LONG

including family dinners—with such include: sudden and unexplained self-proclaimed “moderates” without weight gain, appearance of imaginary resorting to physical behavior, wither- friends, a sense that one’s cell phone is ing sarcasm, or demanding the imme- being wiretapped. May not be used in Pharmaceutical Aids for diate repayment of outstanding loans. conjunction with any anti-psychotic Election Season Possible side effects: frequent bowel medication, as the two effects are movements and the inability to control counteracting. Slantrusose™ them. Along with Timesitrac™, Slan tru - Pollerease™ sose™ can be used for symptoms of Spinatrill™ Nine out of ten patients who took dizziness and disorientation brought A higher-impact and more powerful Pollerease™ for ten consecutive doses upon by overexposure to the New York version of Slantrusose™, Spinatrill™ of 300mg related decreased anxiety Times and other outlets of the liberal renders whole sections of the New York levels, more energy, a more positive media. Timesitrac™ is a highly concen- Times, the Washington Post, the Los outlook, and a greater sense of calm trated dose specifically aimed at New Angeles Times, and Time magazine, when reading the latest polling data as York Times–related symptoms (David as well as large portions of popular they regard the current presidential Brooks’s columns are especially indi- websites such as The Huffington Post, campaign. Pollerease™ allows the cated) and Slantrusose™ contains a completely illegible to the patient. In patient to “get on with” life without broad-spectrum prophylactic against addition, CNN and MSNBC are almost worrying about weighting factors, most other kinds of left-wing distor- entirely muted except for the Sleep misrepresentations of party affiliation, tions. PLEASE NOTE: None of these Number advertisements. Spinatrill™ skewed adjustment factors, and biased medications are 100 percent effective. works with the brain’s own blood-brain polling questions. Side effects include: Your personal-care professional MAY barrier to block out political spin. sudden coronary occlusion, advanced prescribe multiple doses from this fam- Possible side effects include: the total knowledge of statistics. ily of medications. SPECIAL NOTE: disappearance of cable news from For Paul Krugman–specific disorders, patient’s consciousness. Chrisipac™ the only medication to pass clinical tri- For common symptoms of diarrhea and als is KrugerAsse™, available in oint- Whitewasherax™ explosive incontinence brought upon ment or suppository. For patients on the left, large doses of by consuming in excess of six minutes Whitewasherax™ eliminate drone- of Hardball with Chris Matthews. Centriflux™ attack casualties, Guantanamo Bay, Other symptoms can include: lethargy, An anger-management preparation the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, sleeplessness, red-fog vision, increduli- proven highly effective in controlling and other non-specific items from the ty, and depression. Take as indicated violent and uncontrolled outbursts in frontal lobe/cognition cortex of the with a full glass of water. Avoid direct patients who have heard President brain. Patients report feelings of bliss- sunlight and continued exposure to Barack Obama described as a “cen- ful emptiness and a free-floating sense Hardball with Chris Matthews until trist.” Possible other triggers are words of pure joy resulting from a course of symptoms subside. Possible side ef - like “bipartisan” and “partisanship.” Whitewasherax™. PLEASE NOTE: fects include: euphoria, more time in Centriflux™ has been used to treat Patients must continue dosage at pre- your day. patients who experience feelings of scribed levels for more than four helplessness and bafflement when years to achieve proper levels of dis- General Guidelines: confronting the current political sea- cognition. Do not drive or operate Please take this guide with you to your son. Possible side effects: drowsiness heavy machinery while on White - doctor’s office. Ask your health profes- and/or loss of short-term memory. washer ax™. Also available in smoke- sional before you begin taking any able leaf form. kind of medication. Side effects in - Moderaterall™ clude dizziness, nausea, frequent tax- Moderaterall™ works along the same Racisterall™ related panic attacks, and a desire to neural pathways as Centriflux™, but Also for patients on the left, taken move to Texas. In some cases, para- it’s specifically targeted at the brain- twice a day, with meals, Racisterall™ noid and/or delusional episodes are stem reactions when a person known allows the patient to identify and con- common, leading to violent outbursts. to the patient describes him- or herself fidently proclaim “racism” and “racial Do not use under the influence of al - as a “moderate” but nonetheless pre- politics” the root cause of all ills or cohol or within reach of firearms. Do sents as a far-left partisan. In trials, perceived ills. Racisterall™ has not use while watching MSNBC. patients who received 250mg of proven in blind trials to assist those on If conditions persist for more than Moder aterall™ were able to success- the left with conversation-ending four hours, please seek emergency fully complete social engagements— proclamations. Possible side effects care.

5 8 | www.nationalreview.com OCTOBER 1 5 , 2 0 1 2 books10-15:QXP-1127940387.qxp 9/25/2012 9:01 PM Page 59 Books, Arts & Manners

mont Review of Books, and longtime has been part of the liberal self-image. it ornament of these pages—has been was always a canard: FDR’s policies Escape studying this history for his entire were mostly nostrums retrieved from the career. He illuminates it mostly through progressive shelf, and few of them were From Utopia close and characteristically wry atten- ever discarded except under duress. tion to the words of the progressive pres- Under FDR, the president added to his RAMESH PONNURU idents associated with each of those job description the task of moving all of waves: Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Del - us to a morally better world, especially a ano Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. He less selfish and materialistic one. the identifies them as the leaders of attempts president was no longer one among ma - to transform the country’s politics, eco- ny government officials charged with nomics, and culture, respectively. protecting the natural rights, and espe- Wilson, Kesler notes, was the first cially property rights, of citizens. in stead president to criticize the Constitution he was to redefine those rights, renegoti- and its premises, treating checks and ating the contract between “rul ers” and balances as outmoded and natural rights citizens for each generation. (in an end- as a fiction. He was rhetorically crafty, note, Kesler cites Federalist 84, in which misleading listeners then and since with alexander Hamilton explicitly rejects his remark that “the history of liberty is the metaphor of a contract with a ruler.) the history of the limitation of govern- FDR preferred the term “liberal” to mental power.” He did not say that lib- “progressive,” in part because it aid ed the I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of erty’s future would follow this pattern. political project of presenting his ideas as Liberalism, by Charles R. Kesler He cast the state as the “‘Family’ writ rooted in the country’s classical-liberal (HarperCollins, 304 pp., $25.99) large” and adopted the image of the past. With government now the source “perfected, coordinated beehive” (these rather than protector of rights, the older topian rhetoric is so com- are all Wilson’s own words) as the goal liberal wariness about government had monplace in our political of political community. to go. Kesler paraphrases: “Since our life that we scarcely ques- Wilson was the first president, as rights are dependent on government, U tion or even notice it. part of well, to indulge in the now-familiar cel- why shouldn’t we be?” Charles Kesler’s achievement in I Am ebration of political “leadership,” a FDR redefined the opposition to pro- the Change is to help us see that famil- term the Founders had regarded with gressivism too, and with a degree of iar utopianism in all its strangeness. suspicion, never more so than when that demagoguery that has been airbrushed Consider a commencement address leadership was “visionary.” presi dents out of the popular history of the era. in by newly elected senator Barack obama prior to Wilson had spoken to the public his 1944 annual message to Congress, at Knox College in 2005. “So let’s on rare and brief occasions. “Even most he warned that if “we were to return to dream,” said our future president. Make of the inaugural addresses avoided pol- the so-called normalcy of the 1920s . . . sure that college is “affordable for ev - itics in the sense of policy agendas or we shall have yielded to the spirit of fas- eryone who wants to go,” among other partisan appeals,” Kesler writes. Wilson cism here at home.” things, and “that old Maytag plant could be gan the chatterbox presidency, which Johnson wanted to “out-Roosevelt re-open its doors as an Ethanol refinery would in time yield presidents (and sen- Roosevelt,” and was president at the high that turned corn into fuel. Down the ators, like obama at Knox College) tide of liberal confidence. the promises street, a biotechnology research lab who tell us all about the futures they he made were extravagant: “to end war could open up on the cusp of discover- “see.” they also tell us about the crises and preserve peace, to eradicate poverty ing a cure for cancer.” How did we reach we must pass through to get there: and share abundance, to overcome the the point where a politician could, as Wilson argued that leaders should keep diseases that have afflicted the human Kesler writes, “dangle before the citi- the public in a sense of crisis at all race and permit all mankind to enjoy their zens of Galesburg, illinois, home of times, the better to perfect the beehive. promise in life on this earth.” in addition, Knox College, the prospect not merely Like Wilson, whom he revered, FDR he wished to improve “the quality of our of a biotech research lab opening up was impatient with the Constitution. in american civilization.” in the Great So - down the street, but one that is on the his first inaugural address he suggested c iety, he said, “leisure is a welcome cha - verge of curing cancer”? that it might be a good idea for Congress nce to build and reflect, not a feared the answer lies in the three waves of to grant him “broad executive power to cause of boredom and restlessness.” progressivism that have washed over wage a war against” the Depression. FDR Liberal intellectuals and student act - america in the last century. Kesler—a said he would use his power to engage in ivists were surprisingly unapprecia- professor of government at Claremont “bold, persistent experimentation,” and tive. Kesler comments: “in the Great McKenna College, editor of the Clare ›› ever since then pragmatic improvisation Society [Johnson] thought he was giv-

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS ing them all they could have asked for, rather than laws in the sense of the rule and much more than JFK would ever of law. have managed; but he had little idea of And like the progressives of the late Creating how much they were prepared to ask Sixties, Obama has his doubts about for.” The unboundedness of progressive America’s founding principles. Kesler Order aspirations was Johnson’s undoing: argues that Obama’s book The Audacity “The lower the poverty rate or the un - of Hope implicitly concludes—and that KELLY JANE TORRANCE employment rate, the more intolerable nothing else Obama has said revises the it seemed.” The results of the Great conclusion—that those principles were Soc iety included “a bigger and bigger “racist and even proslavery.” On this government we trust less and less,” and basic question Obama sides with Linc - a progressivism that began to lose faith oln’s opponents, not the Great Eman - in the American people, with their selfish cipator he spent the early days of his reluctance to transform themselves. presidency ostentatiously invoking. The traces of all of Obama’s progres- Obama’s stated reason for nonethe- sive predecessors can be found in his less rejecting the views of Jeremiah presidency. Like the earliest progres- Wright is that the country can change— sives, he creates a mock alternative to indeed, change is its fundamental prin - his creed in Social Darwinism—erasing ciple. In announcing his presidential The Living Moment: Modernism in a Broken World, more than a century of debate about the campaign Obama said that the “genius of by Jeffrey Hart (Northwestern, purposes of government that started our founders is that they designed a sys- 184 pp., $24.95) with natural right rather than survival of tem of government that can be changed,” the fittest. His metaphors date from Wil- which does not actually sou nd like an Any critics count it lucky son: He frequently describes the state as accomplishment that requires genius. for literature that T. S. the instrument by which we act as “our Coupled with this exaltation of change is Eliot abandoned a career brother’s keeper” and occasionally sug- what Obama calls “a rejection of absolute M in philosophy. But it was gests that our politics would improve if truth,” which he claims is “implicit” in at least as fortunate that he studied the we all saw ourselves as part of the arm- the concept of liberty. Kes ler is perhaps subject in the first place, because his ed forces. too polite in discussing these Obama masterpieces—and modernism itself— Like FDR, he does not struggle with tropes. (They’re hardly ideas.) might have been inspired by a solitary constitutional niceties. Kesler avoids Kesler views Obama’s health-care law line from one of his Harvard philoso- the error of thinking that Obamacare’s as “the centerpiece of [his] whole political phy professors: “Those who cannot individual mandate is its only constitu- enterprise.” Its repeal, he argues, would remember the past are condemned to tional deficiency. At least as hostile to deal a body blow to the progressive pro- repeat it.” George Santayana wrote that constitutionalism is the “Independent ject by calling into question whether aphorism in the first volume of The Life Pay ment Advisory Board” the law cre- “change” is really headed inexorably in of Reason, published in 1906—just a ates, grants sweeping legislative pow- the direction it desires. He even suggests year before Eliot became a Harvard ers, and insulates from accountability. that the explosion of government spend- undergraduate—and it was destined to (The legislative language is murky, but ing on health care may cause the progres- become one of the most quoted (and it appears to tell Congress that it cannot sive cause to go bankrupt—before the misquoted) lines of the 20th century. It abolish the board unless it intro duces country does, let’s hope, though Kesler also encapsulates, as well as any other legislation between January and wisely declines to speculate. single sentence, the project of literary Februa ry of 2017 and passes it by a Kesler is the reader for whom Obama modernism, of which Eliot would be - three-fifths vote of both chambers by has long been asking, in the sense of come the most famous practitioner. mid-August.) In general, both that law “asking for it,” and this book is the I realize that this sounds counterintu- and the Dodd-Frank financial regula- examination of the One we’ve been itive, but bear with me. yes, any first- tion are “administrative to-do lists” waiting for. year English major can tell you that the first modernists—the bohemian, Oscar Wilde generation—were rebels against the past, seeking to free themselves from the constricting shackles of Victorian- ism. But as modernism took shape, it was actually steeped in the past. Though author Jeffrey Hart—a former nR senior editor—never mentions it, Santayana’s maxim permeates his interesting new

Kelly Jane Torrance is assistant managing editor of The Weekly Standard and film critic of The “Happiness isn’t really an option anymore–I’m the Bluebird of Complacency.” Washington Examiner.

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book about modernism. (Hart points out Fortunately, in the big picture—which They wanted to make the two whole that Eliot studied with Santayana—but Hart, unlike so many literary critics, again. only in the context of a shared enthusi- aims to illuminate—those judgments Some members of the movement asm for a poet of the distant past: “Dante aren’t essential. It would in fact be dif- focused on the communal disorder, as was enjoying a vogue at Harvard.”) ficult to find a better guide to this rocky, Yeats did in “The Second Coming”: The modernists were intent, as Ezra often submerged, terrain. Sounding a little “Things fall apart; the centre cannot Pound put it, always to “make it new.” like Eliot himself, Hart will, in a single hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the Eliot’s 1922 poem The Waste Land was page, jump through history, from the world.” Others concentrated on how so new, so original, that it was shocking; pre-Socratics, to the New Testament, to individuals responded to this break- as Hart writes, it “made an immediate Martin Heidegger, and back to the Greeks down, as James Joyce and Virginia impact, receiving 46 reviews in the Uni - again. The professor emeritus of English Woolf did with their revelatory stream- ted States and England, about equally at Dartmouth brings a lifetime of learning of-consciousness styles. Eliot—whose divided between approval and condem- to this dense book. He wisely follows the Waste Land is, for Hart, the crucial nation” (a great deal of attention and close reading of the New Critics, but modernist document, the work to which controversy for any age, and especially doesn’t hold with them that the text is all every other artist had to respond—dealt for the pre-Internet age). It was brashly that matters. The Living Moment is opin- with both, and at once. In the first of the new, yes. And yet: It contained allusions ionated, personal, even gossipy. Only at Four Quartets, the poet eloquently ex - to Greek and Latin literature, the Bible, the end of this idiosyncratic but exacting presses the burden of modern man—and Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, ride through the early 20th century (and suggests how one might escape it: and, of course, Dante, to name just a beyond) do we learn why he has bothered: handful, and it manifested Eliot’s obses- He believes that modernism still matters. Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind sion with mythology. It was an attempt to In under 200 pages, he proves it, as well Cannot bear very much reality. “make it new” that reached very far back as something even more fundamental: Time past and time future What might have been and what has into the past. Art, itself, matters. been And it did so for a reason. The solid Some might object that this doctrine Point to one end, which is always world of the Victorians had emphatically needs no defenders. But the last hundred present. come to an end on the battlefields of the years have presented many moments in war to end all wars. The modernists which art has felt like, at best, a luxury. World War I brought more reality than didn’t need to dismantle the social order; The 20th century took its terrible shape many poets thought they could bear; it had already been dismantled. They from the constant clashes between the little did they know that the worst was were more concerned with how one individual and society; perhaps even the yet to come. But Eliot understood that could live in such disorder, and create a early modernists did not imagine how the solution to social disorder wasn’t to new order based on some of the lessons deadly these struggles would become. oppose or eliminate society. It was to and legacies of the past. Critics who see They understood earlier than most, how- learn from the past and rebuild a social modernism simply—or even primari- ever, what would become the central order: to “make it new.” The Waste Land, ly—as a rejection of Victorian orthodoxy conflict of the time. of course, is saturated with metaphors of are not seeing even half the picture. Hart, taking a page from the poet- rebirth. One of Hart’s most valuable in - Jeffrey Hart is not one of those critics. philosopher Eliot, looks to epistemology sights is that many other modernist Now, certain of his interpretations are, in and “the sociology of knowledge” to works are, as well—though sometimes my view, suspect. His first chapter, understand Eliot’s “primal insight” with even less explicit hopefulness than “Robert Frost and T. S. Eliot: Modern - about the relationship between the in - is found at the end of Eliot’s masterwork. isms,” delineates a battle between the dividual and society—which Eliot One might feel that F. Scott Fitz - two giants of verse—but it’s a war understood, even if individuals them- gerald’s Tender Is the Night is that nov- waged only on one side, and Hart never selves did not, as the relationship be - elist’s real work of genius; but Hart establishes just how, or why, Frost fought tween the human being and his (that is, makes us take a fresh look at the seem- it. He’s given us a small but sweeping his species’s) history. Hart writes: “We ingly tired Great Gatsby, making it new book on modernism with str angely little obtain our notions about the world large- again: “Gatsby is full of false fertility, discussion of central figures James ly from other people, and these notions that of Myrtle and Daisy, and Eden at the Joyce and Virginia Woolf. (He devotes continue to be plausible to us because end, that ‘fresh, green breast’ of the New precious space to a foolhardy attempt to others continue to affirm them.” He con- World, lives in memory and aspiration, place Marilynne Rob inson’s 2004 novel trasts Eliot’s “cognitive community,” not in fact.” Gilead—a book I deeply admire but that which includes the whole of the Western Throughout the book, Hart dances is in no meaningful sense modernist—in tradition, with Frost’s “Protestant indi- around the question of just how accessi- the modernist canon.) Most important, vidualism,” which “discovers truths on ble the movement of modernism was. he gives scant attention to the stunning its own and tests them on its own.” It’s a The woman who published Eliot’s “The contradictions within modernism, such clever comparison (though it upends Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” did so as its simultaneous emphasis on (in Hart’s argument that “Frost was a con- at Pound’s insistence—she herself didn’t Hart’s words) “clear, sharp” language cealed modernist”). Modernists didn’t understand the poem. After reading and on the deployment of frequent, often privilege, to use a bit of academic jargon, Hart’s concluding chapter, on Thomas obscure, allusions. society over the individual, or vice versa. Mann’s Doctor Faustus, one wants to

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS read that book again, to hear firsthand often unforgettable depiction of which the symphonic novel that the critic has makes both of them among the very great- explicated. Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Dickens est moralists and imaginative writers who Hart says, finally made modernism ever lived. “mainstream.” Their work wasn’t nearly At 200 Like their great novelist-contemporaries as abstruse as that of eliot and Joyce. Tolstoy and Alessandro Manzoni, Dick - That doesn’t mean readers discerned M. D. AESCHLIMAN ens and Dostoevsky were initially their meaning on a first reading, though. inspired by the liberal reform ideals iden- Hart has to admit, near the end of the ickens was born in 1812, tified with the American and French rev- book, that a sense of nearly impenetrable and there are celebrations and olutions: all men being “created equal and mystery is one of the defining character- commemorative activities endowed by their creator with inalienable istics of the movement: “not all mod- D taking place in this bicenten- rights” and desires for “liberty, equality, ernism, of course, is theological, but it is nial year all over the english-speaking and fraternity.” But all of them knew that always difficult, always excludes and world and beyond it. Along with the the French Revolution went badly, as shuns the ordinary and the mediocre, works of shakespeare, his fictions now Burke had predicted as early as 1790: that and always refines its special audience define what english-speaking people it passed through anarchic, sanguinary of the ‘saved,’ even if saved only in a have come to mean by “classic” literary violence and end ed in the wolfish mili- secular and cultural sense.” it’s an in - art, and although his critical reception tary despotism of napoleon. simon evitable, if uncomfortable, conclusion: has been variable over the 140 years schama’s celebrated bicentennial vol- Hart has emphasized, throughout, the since his death—it stands supremely high ume on the French Revolution, Citizens effort modernist writers demanded of now—his popularity has never waned: (1989), asserted that violence was the their readers. Their project was too big to The dozen great novels have never been very essence of the French Revolution, be writ small. out of print. affirming much of carlyle’s view in his But one artist Hart champions, Robert in the lowest period of critical opinion 1837 history The French Revolution, Frost, based his art, to a great extent, on of Dickens, G. k. chesterton wrote a great which had such a massive influence on the ordinary. Against the Anglophile 1906 book on him and followed it with Dickens and especially on his Tale of Two eliot, Frost exalted an American vernac- introductions to each of the novels in the Cities (1859). The conservative French ular. His subject matter was usually just everyman edition. chesterton saw some- catholic émigré and critic of the Rev - as down to earth. Witness one of his thing radically christian and radically olution Joseph de Maistre exercised an best-known poems—and the one of democratic in Dickens, in this regard important influence on Tolstoy and the which he was proudest—“stopping by unwittingly supporting Dost oevsky’s characterizations in War and Peace. Woods on a snowy evening.” Hart does earlier view of him. in a 1965 reprint of The repeated disappointment of revolu- his best to make this poem difficult: “its chesterton’s book on Dickens, the Amer- tionary and utopian hopes and outbursts subject, far from simple, is the Ren- ican literary critic steven Marcus asserted in France in the 19th century led to a wild aissance argument about which is supe- that chesterton was right to trace Dick- oscillation between secular messianism rior, the contemplative or the active ens’s profound “feeling for” and sympa- and brutal Realpolitik-based cynicism. life.” That’s a lot of weight to bear for a thy with “common humanity . . . not only That cynicism, in turn, produced a litera- 16-line poem that ends (a little awk- to the French Revolution and the radical ture of sinister “realism,” absurdist irony, wardly, to this ear): human itarianism of Dickens’s time, but to and aestheticism in stendhal, Flaubert, Dickens’s christianity, his literal, his Balzac, Mau passant, and many others, The woods are lovely, dark and deep. primitive christianity. Dostoevsky, who and went on to stain and disfigure much But i have promises to keep, called Dickens his master, also called him subsequent literature, not only in France. And miles to go before i sleep, ‘the great christian’ [and he] knew Dickens dealt with social and political And miles to go before i sleep. whereof he spoke.” issues in a uniquely sensitive way. He This is evident in Dostoevsky’s well- depicted and critiqued the cynical selfish- But modernism doesn’t need to apo - known January 1868 letter to his niece ness in the upper classes in england, as logize for its demands—and neither about Dickens, whom he had first read in well as the outraged reaction to it of the should its admirably enthusiastic critic. Russian translation in prison in siberia in “anti-popery” english mobs of the Hart pro vides a reason to accept the chal- the early 1850s. But we also now know Gordon Riots in London in 1780 (Barn - lenge, and at the same time he suggests that Dostoevsky and Dickens actually met aby Rudge) and the anger of the Parisian why we must hold art to be as important and conversed in London in 1862 and that sans-culotte mobs of Paris a decade later to modern life as politics, history, or any- they discussed the internal duality of the (A Tale of Two Cities). Like Dostoevsky, thing else. Paraphrasing his mentor, Lio- human person—that perennial inner he had a prophetic insight into these nel Trilling, Hart explains that when we moral conflict—the frequent, eloquent, human dynamics. The tormented Rous - read a novel, “with its contradictions, its s eau’s explosive, revolutionary critique of honesty, we encounter the variousness, Mr. Aeschliman is professor emeritus of education at the competitive, invidious social ego - complexity, and difficulty of actual life.” Boston University and professor of anglophone culture tism, or “amour propre,” that he thought Art can tear us apart; the modernists, in at the University of Italian Switzerland. He has just characterized most aristocrats, bourgeois, their varying, difficult ways, proved it published a new edition of A Tale of Two Cities and intellectuals (“philosophes”) in pre- can also make us whole again. (Ignatius Critical Editions). revolutionary France was probably not

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known to Dickens, but he apprehended it unlettered man of genius”: Dickens, who good and hate the bad, rejuvenating our imaginatively in ways that have proved to knew that the “fundamental sense of sense of justice and moral beauty; to make be unforgettably vivid and profound, not human fraternity can only exist in the us, in the phrase from King Lear, “see only in A Tale of Two Cities but also in the presence of positive religion.” The final feelingly” the value, sufferings, and genteel, satanic figure of the Frenchman triumph of Polish Catholicism over pathos of the lives of others; “to assert Blandois in Little Dorrit. It is a mark of Communist utilitarianism at the end of the Eternal Pro vidence / And justify the ways Dickens’s supreme, almost angelic disin- 20th century, the first domino in the of God to men”; to refresh hope and com- terestedness and fairness that he also destruction of European Communism, mend moral earnestness. depicts it in English characters such as may be said to illustrate the point. After Dickens’s death, this “moral Sir John Chester in Barnaby Rudge. As Fagin in Oliver Twist, Ralph Nickleby earnestness,” so characteristic of him and Lionel Trilling pointed out, in one of the in Nicholas Nickleby, and Gradgrind in other great Victorian writers such as greatest essays on Dickens, figures such Hard Times are particularly explicit and Carlyle, Hawthorne, Newman, Tenny son, as Chester and Blandois are exemplifica- effective satires on “looking out for num- Melville, Longfellow, and Ruskin, came tions of the line in King Lear that “the ber one” as a basis for society, eth ics, edu- to be mocked by aesthetes, atheists, and prince of darkness is” often “a gentle- cation, or even self-respect. Lester G. cynics such as Oscar Wilde (“The Im - man.” Trilling goes on to argue that the Crocker showed in detail 50 years ago in portance of Being Earnest,” 1895) and his heartlessly clever cosmopolitanism of Nature and Culture: Ethical Thought in Bloomsbury successors such as Lytton these figures is “rationalistic and subver- the French Enlightenment that scientistic Strachey, who cleverly attacked such sive of the very assumption of society.” French naturalism led logically and in - earnest Victorians as the nurse Florence Dostoevsky and Dickens felt and depicted evitably to the “nihilist dissolution” of Nightingale, the Christ ian educator this invidious, egotistical social snobbery, ethics that has intermittently tormented Thomas Arnold, and the Catholic convert and its terrible effects, with hallucinatory and distorted Western societies since the Henry Edward Card inal Manning, quite clarity and force. 18th century, a point also made apologet- effectively distorting and wounding the Both writers imaginatively apprehend- ically by the re formed cynic Aldous Hux - reputations of these noble individuals. Of ed the fact that the ascendant utilitarian ley in 1938 in Ends and Means. In 1972, Strachey’s portrayal of Queen Victoria accounts of ethics were profoundly Lionel Trilling noted the disfiguring “sci- (1921) and other eminent Victorians (in wrong, despite being articulated by the entistic conception of the mind that pre- the 1918 book of that title), Paul Johnson most influential intellectuals of their vailed among intellectuals at the time of wrote 20 years ago: Strachey was “far time—the philosophes and Jacobins in the French Revolution.” Dick ens’s moral more destructive to the old British values France, Bentham and the Mills in Eng- imagination intuitively ap prehended and than any legion of enemies.” But no soci- land, Chernyshevsky in Russia. As ortho- powerfully depicted these truths in fiction- ety—no decent individual—can live long dox moralists from Bishop Butler, Burke, al forms that remain triumphs of psy - or well without moral sincerity as an Tocqueville, and Newman to Reinhold chological, social, and ethical in sight, ideal. It is an ideal that suffuses Dick ens’s Niebuhr have cogently argued, no ethical narrative energy, and literary excellence, life and fiction, though with humor and or political theory affirming the primacy astonishing feats of human perception by without self-righteousness. of self-interest can provide a basis for that “unlettered man of genius.” F. R. Leavis claimed that Dickens was ethics; and Dickens and Dostoevsky To read Dickens is, in the words of “a great poet,” arguing that in his “com- mocked and assaulted such utilitarian C. S. Lewis, “to grow in mental health,” mand of word, phrase, rhythm, and conceptions in their fictions. In his superb because he has capacities of moral imagi- image,” his “endless resource in felici- The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), nation that characterize only the greatest tously varied expression,” and his “ease Chesterton asserted that the great secu- of artists in any medium: to “hold up the and range,” there is “surely no greater lar, progressive “utilitarian citadel” was mirror to nature”; to “instruct by delight- master in English except Shakespeare.” “heavily bombarded by one lonely and ing”; to “paint vir tue,” making us love the And T. S. Eliot said of Dickens’s characters that they had “greater intensity than human beings” and a “kind of reality FIVE NIGHTMARES which is almost supernatural, which hardly seems to belong to the character by nat- When I am naked in the dock, ural right, but seems rather to descend I get His cloak and coat. The clock upon him by a kind of inspiration or grace.” His “figures belong to poetry, like Sweeps the exam away from me, figures of Dante or Shakespeare, in that a When I have lost the room, but He single phrase, either by them or about them, may be enough to set them wholly Teaches me where I stand and weep. before us.” He drives all torments from my sleep— But we may leave a last word on Dickens, mysterious but pregnant with The grave’s earth, darkness like a wall— good tidings, to that ambiguous and And with His body breaks my fall. acerbic figure George Santayana: Dick - ens is “one of the best friends mankind —SARAH RUDEN has ever had.”

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS music and the culture. In Memphis, the Memphis—at Graceland, and also at Travel thought—prompted by music but going the Stax Museum of American Soul immeasurably deeper—is inescapable: Music and the Memphis Rock ’n’ Soul The blacks saved civilization. We’ve had Museum—I learned to look at the other Two Kings, books about how the Irish saved civi- side of the coin. “Our” music—music lization, how the Scots invented mo - with black roots—is loved around the A City, and dernity, and so on. But—despite (or world because it is beautiful, melodic, perhaps be cause of?) the excessive and fun. We should be proud of it. A Country productivity of black-studies depart- Possibly even more important is the ments—it had never occurred to me that black achievement in politics, to which MICHAEL POTEMRA the African Ameri cans have a strong there is a somber memorial in Mem - case in the cultural-centrality sweep- phis. Listen to some of the shouty race- he phrase “Memphis: Cra dle stakes. It was, after all, the most unequal mongering on cable news shows, and it’s of Civilization” is likely to cultural exchange in history: The whites easy to forget that it is thanks to blacks evoke, if anything, images of gave the blacks slavery, and in return, that America had one of the most inspir- T pharaohs and dog-headed the blacks invented Gospel, blues, jazz, ing and successful political movements gods. But a recent visit to our own soul, and rock ’n’ roll. (This was a less in world history: the 20th-century civil- Mem phis, the one in Tennessee, has equal exchange even than Peter Minuit’s rights struggle. The story, like that of convin ced me that this city on the purchase of Manhattan for $24.) And 20th-century popular music, is well Mississippi is a cradle of our civiliza- they did so at exactly the moment when known, but it still packs an immense tion—and crucial to understanding how their creativity was most needed. In the punch, as it is told in minute detail at America became what it is today. 20th century, the Western art-music tra- the National Civil Rights Museum— Begin with elvis. he was born in dition—“classical” music—withered: Memphis’s old Lorraine Motel, where poverty in Tupelo, Miss., a couple of There’s a reason most of the classical Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated hours away, but Memphis is his city— repertoire one hears comes from more in 1968. the place where he rose into the financial than a century ago. We needed someone On a recent steamy afternoon, I and cultural stratosphere, and where he to emerge and create new works of walked through the deliciously air- is now the focus of a memorial palace as melody and beau ty, and that’s what conditioned, text-heavy exhibits there, impressive as that of any pharaoh who American popular music—music by de picting the movement’s progress from ruled the original Memphis. Graceland blacks and music inspired by black Jim Crow to the Montgomery bus boy- is a temple of American culture, docu- sources—has done. cott to the Voting Rights Act and other menting with exhibits and films the life One of my passions is listening on the victories. After all the memorabilia and of the figure who was most central to Internet to radio stations around the narrative, the exhibit appears to end, and America’s cultural transformation in the world. It has been a source of frustration there’s nothing left but to find the exit; last century. he was important in a strict- to me that often, when I want to listen to, and yet, there’s something tucked quiet- ly creative sense, in that he wrote and e.g., Japanese music or Bolivian music, I ly over there on the left—what is it? I performed some music that thrilled peo- will tune in to a Japanese station or a walked over and found myself looking ple in his time and endures today. But Bolivian station, only to discover that through panes of glass into the two his centrality was more broadly cultural: they are playing “our” music instead. In rooms occupied by King and his associ- he was the intersection point where the old, white-dominated America of flinty Scots-Irish settlers gave way to the mul- tiracial and multicultural society we now inhabit. The usual way of telling this story is to point out that elvis succeeded by being a white man who was conscripted to play black music. But the achievement was not so much a theft as an integration. Music in itself knows no color, and the black accomplishment in music was be - ing arbitrarily kept away from white people by lines that were drawn by racism. It took a white man to begin the task of era - sing those lines, and blacks and whites alike remain in his debt.

CORBIS Memphis is not just the home of el - / AP / vis, but also a living shrine to the music he incorporated into white culture,

CHARLES KELLY transforming in the process both the MLK’s last speech, Memphis, April 3, 1968

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ates, restored to the way they were at the swinging pelvis, much as all Russian lit- time of the assassination; through the erature was once said to have emerged &''!"'##*"%&$ windows could be seen the balcony from Gogol’s “Overcoat.” But look at !"!"'"%( '#" <0;?4<0/-C (& where he fell. Yes, I knew the whole Elvis’s desk at Graceland, and at King’s idea of the museum was to preserve the bedside table in that fatal motel room. $?-64.,>498'4>60"'#" %)* site of that tragic event, but the quiet There’s a book they have in common, a $?-64.,>498"?7-0< form of presentation made it a real book that anchors them in the culture 46482,>0&0:>07-0<

shock none theless. It felt like a nakedly they inherited and passed on even as they ==?0<0;?08.C4A0056C intimate view of the great man’s last transformed it. (In the case of Elvis’s "?7-0<91==?0=$?-64=30/88?,66C minutes, a place of painful vulnerability. copy, you can get up quite close to it and I burst into tears—for a man who risked see that it’s a King James Version; in the 88?,6&?-=.<4:>498$<4.0 his life to win people’s basic rights, and case of Dr. King, it looks like a period 97:60>0 !,46482 //<0== 91 89A8 #114.0 91 $?-64.,>498 0B482>98 @08?0 "0A +9<5 "+ for the realization that while good can KJV, but its spine isn’t visible from the prevail in this world it sometimes does viewer’s angle, so you can’t be sure.) 98>,.>$0<=98,=98"2 so at a horrible price. I initially tried to Both of these key figures were profound- '060:3980

restrain my tears, but realized that no ly sincere Protestant Christian believers 97:60>0 !,46482 //<0== 91 >30 0,/;?,<>0<= 9< one would fault me for them, and who nonetheless believed that Protestant 080<,6 ?=480== #114.0 91 $?-64=30< 0B482>98 released them. (I have since read that my Christianity needed a good shaking up. @08?0"0A+9<5"+

response to this exhibit was not at all The shaking has lasted, and had effects ?66 ",70= ,8/ 97:60>0 !,46482 //<0==0= 91 uncommon. The museum’s arrangement both good and bad; there was more $?-64=30</4>9<,8/!,8,2482/4>9<$?-64=30<,.5 is a triumph of storytelling that is all the freedom all around, and many people 9A60< 0B482>98@08?0"0A+9<5"+

/4>9< %4.3,98 @08?0 more compelling for being so under- made less than optimal uses of the free- "0A+9<5"+ !,8,2482/4>9<,=98 00 stated.) dom they had. But America in general &>09<>= 0B482>98@08?0"0A+9<5"+ Martin Luther King was turning hard flourished, and the massive positive left toward the end of his life, but his achievements that came in the wake of #A80< ",>498,6 %0@40A 8. 0B482>98 @08?0 "0A +9<5 "+ 98=>4>?>498,6 movement and its achievement cannot Elvis and MLK are now part of our cul- 8>0<:<4=0= 9<:9<,>498 0B482>98 @08?0 "0A be gainsaid, and all Americans ought to tural patrimony that needs to be trans- +9<5"+

take pride in it. In a century when free- mitted. 89A898/396/0<=!9<>2,200=,8/#>30<&0.?<4>C dom was under brutal global attack from This cultural transmission—in other 96/0<=#A84829<96/482 :0<.08>9<!9<091'9>,6 Fascism and Communism, America words, conservatism in the broadest 79?8>9198/=!9<>2,20=9<#>30<&0.?<4>40="980 managed simultaneously to wage a str o ng sense—is a crucial task. The National $?-64.,>498'4>60"'#" %)* global resistance to these foreign forces Civil Rights Museum does a great job of ==?0,>019<4<.?6,>498,>,069A and to reform itself from within, in order passing on an important part of the story; #.>9-0< to become truer to its most lasting so do Graceland and the city’s other B>08>,8/",>?<0914<.?6,>498 @0<,2089 .>?,689 principles. Back when I was a kid, impressive music museums. (I did not .9:40=91 .9:40=91 0,.34==?0 =482604==?0 Communist propagandists used to taunt know, until I saw an exhibit on him, that /?<482 :?-64=30/ :<0.0/482 80,<0=>>9 us anti-Communists with the sneer, soul singer Al Green—whose great hit 798>3= 146482/,>0 “What about the Negroes in the South?” “Let’s Stay Together” was quite memo- '9>,6"?7-0<919:40= $,4/,8/9<%0;?0=>0/4<.?6,>498 Their concern for blacks was of course rably covered earlier this year by none $,4/%0;?0=>0/#?>=4/0 9?8>C!,46&?-=.<4:>498= totally phony, but their point hit home other than President Obama—is actually &>,>0/989<7 nonetheless: The treatment of black the Reverend Al Green; the exhibit &,60='3<9?230,60<=,8/ ,<<40<=&><00>)08/9<= people was a disgrace to an America that includes his preaching suit and old KJV.) 9?8>0<&,60=,8/#>30< claimed to be founded on inalienable But more often, culture is passed on "98(&$&$,4/4=><4-?>498 '9>,6$,4/,8/9<%0;?0=>0/ human rights. Well, here we are a half directly, from person to person. One of 4<.?6,>498 century later, and it turns out we’ve the most inspiring moments of my visit <004=><4-?>498-C!,46 #?>=4/09?8>C,=&>,>0/ managed to get rid of both the Soviet came in a Beale Street jazz club where a 989<7 Union and Bull Connor. Not bad: some- blues guitarist was performing. I had just <004=><4-?>498 #?>=4/0>30!,46 thing to remember the next time you feel bought from the performer a CD of his '9>,6<004=><4-?>498 like mocking the Baby Boomers. work. He had been polite and cheerful '9 > , 6 4 = > < 4 - ? > 4 9 8 In politics as in music and other art during our transaction, but when a young 9:40=89>4=><4-?>0/ forms, preserving the great accomplish- woman from New Zealand came up to '9>,6 $0<.08>$,4/,8/9<%0;?0=>0/ ments of the past is a crucial part of him and said she was learning blues gui- 4<.?6,>498 change. In the cultural realm, especially, tar and wanted to ask his advice, his face $?-64.,>498 91 &>,>0708> 91 #A80<=34: *466 -0 change should be a process more of addi- lit up like neon. They proceeded to have :<48>0/48>30#.>9-0< 4==?091>34=:?-64.,>498 tion than of subtraction. After Elvis, the a conversation that was beyond my un - &428,>?<0,8/'4>6091/4>9<$?-64=30<?=480== cultural landscape saw many new phe- derstanding, but that thrilled me to the !,8,20<9<#A80< nomena, most notably a more generous core: This is how culture endures, pas-

approach to sexuality—the “sexual revo- sionate people working together at the &#" " lution” that cultural shorthand has often task of making it live for a new gen - 4<.?6,>498!,8,20< referred to as emerging from Elvis’s eration.

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS down. Thanks to his bad investment remake of TheThomasCrownAffair, Film choices, there’s a $420 million gap in the where you pulled for Pierce Brosnan’s books, which he’s papered over with a billionaire to get the better of Denis temporary and highly illegal loan from a leary’s cop, even though the cop had Up less-than-friendly old friend. imagine if justice on his side. Arbitrage is much Madoff could have made his losses whole more of a morality play: Whatever hap- Against It (and protected his family in the process) pens, you know that Gere’s character is by selling his firm before the market going to have to pay some sort of sub- ROSS DOUTHAT crashed, and you have a sense of the gam- stantial price for his sins, instead of just bit that our anti-hero is attempting. jetting off happily into the sunset with icholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage But before the sale goes through, rene russo, as crown did. But that is a movie about serious there’s a further complication: Taking knowledge is liberating, in a sense, be - things: corporate fraud and his art-world mistress (laetitia casta) to cause the guarantee of some comeup- N police corruption, adultery an upstate getaway, Miller flips the car pance licenses the viewer to pull for him and manslaughter, race and class, the and kills her, and then scrambles away to get away with as much as he can for ways that husbands betray wives and bleeding from the burning wreck. if he as long as he can. fathers betray children. But it’s funda- turns himself in, the scandal will derail it helps that, like Crown, Arbitrage is a mentally a trifle, a nice little diversion, a the sale, and if the sale’s derailed he’s love letter to a kind of posh fantasy of chance for audiences to turn back the ruined along with all his investors . . . Manhattan: it’s all gleaming offices and clock of recent economic history and root, and so instead of calling the police, he chiaroscuroed apartments, dark wood and against our better judgment, for the bad finds a phone booth and calls the son of old marble, town cars and pinstripes and guys of high finance to keep the system his late and loyal black chauffeur to ask wise old bearded lawyers. chris eige - on its feet. for a ride back to Manhattan. man, familiar to fans of Whit stillman’s The bad guy in question is robert The son complies, the call gets traced, New York stories, plays Mill er’s tight- Miller (richard Gere), a titan of the and suddenly a working-class cop (Tim wound assistant; Graydon carter of investment industry who resembles roth) with a chip on his shoulder is lean- VanityFair plays the would-be buyer of Bernie Madoff if Madoff resembled, well, ing hard on his best chance at a witness, his firm; casta, a former supermodel, richard Gere. a lion in autumn, with a trying to persuade the chauffeur’s kid smolders briefly as the doomed mistress. high-society wife (susan sarandon) and from harlem (Nate Parker) to rat out the Marling, joining the big lea gues after two golden twentysomething children, Manhattan eminence. This forces Gere’s writing herself starring roles in a pair of he’s poised to sell his investment firm to a Miller to play multiple hands of poker at strange art-house movies, doesn’t re - bigger conglomerate in what looks like once: relying on his charm and charisma semble Gere enough to make the pairing the capstone on a long and profitable rather than his checkbook, he has to quite convincing, but she has the requisite career. only his daughter and cFo (Brit simultaneously keep the one witness to glamour, and the necessary hint of a chill. Marling) has any doubts about the trans- his crime from turning state’s evidence, as for Gere, age continues to suit him. action: Given how well they’re doing and bluff the conglomerate’s ceo into sign- This character is a nice marriage between how much he seems to love the business, ing off on the sale, and keep his wife and the master-of-the-universe roles of his why, exactly, does he want to sell? daughter from realizing that anything youth and the slightly more antic, rum- The answer, it turns out, is that he has gone amiss. pled parts he’s taken lately. cross his doesn’t want to sell; he needs to sell, and the audience roots for him to do PrettyWoman corporate raider with his because only the profits from the sale can it. Watching Arbitrage, i kept thinking turn as the howard hughes–forging nov- prevent his house of cards from crashing of 1999’s better-than-the-original elist clifford irving in 2006’s TheHoax and you might get someone like Arbi- trage’s Miller: a glorious success and a brazen fraud who’s scrambling to keep the two halves of his story from coming into contact with each other. of course, this is all a fantasy: in real life, a figure like Bernie Madoff was banal beyond belief, a frugal villain with mediocre taste, not a glamorous and reckless juggler. Nor was there some moment when Madoff could have seen the hammer coming down and made a genius move that saved his investors and his wife and sons from the consequences of their self-deceptions and his lies. But Arbitrage asks, Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so? and the answer, un -

Richard Gere in Arbitrage expectedly, turns out to be yes. ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS AND LIONSGATE FILMS

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enough for the grill, and a table and two What time of day is it? Despite what Country Life chairs to enjoy the results. At eight we know, and what we see as the days o’clock you could have a leisurely drink pass, it can be hard at any given moment and watch the birds. Now it’s dark. We for the heart to say. In the afternoon the The lie in a bit of a bowl with a high eastern light is so bright and so strong, especial- rim, so we have never made much of ly after a night of rain, that it seems like Seasons dawn; we are late risers in any case. But it will blaze forever. But it is low, and now the sun seems to be cooperating the shadows behind their sharp edges with geography and sloth. are dark. The bus that takes us out of the Turn Every flying thing is still with us; no little college town carries more students, one has migrated or died. There are still fewer rock climbers. The apple trees that hummingbirds and dragonflies, surpris- line the thruway are laden with fruit, big ing as drones. The skeins of geese are as stop lights. only moving from pond to pond. But the In New Jersey we reenter civilization: singers have changed their tunes. The car lots, carpet stores, malls, Ikea. The catbirds have given up their jumbled strip club that inspired The Sopranos is arias and stubbornly mew. They will girdled with the cars of patrons; sexual never grace the stage, they have joined humiliation (both ways) is never out of the critics. season. In the homestretch there is a res - Summer people are not such a good pite, as the highway curls through the RICHARD BROOKHISER barometer here. Ours are not movie stars Meadowlands. The sunset is spectacular: and wannabes, but busloads of Ortho - red, orange, and pink; Paris-metro cloud NE thing that all the seasons dox children who come to the U-pick wisps; coal black cloudlets in the fore- have in common is that it is farm to ride the hay wagons and buy ground for contrast; the slash of a jet trail. impossible, in the midst of kosher Eskimo pies. The Jewish calen- The grey flank of a train bound for Penn O any one of them, to imagine dar is opaque to outsiders: Is this New Station offers to race us to the omphalos. things any other way. When the trees are stripped, you cannot recall being unable to see through them because of The light is so bright and so strong, the green curtain. When you are raking especially after a night of rain, that it grass clippings, or piles of leaves, you forget wobbling in the footprints you seems like it will blaze forever. yourself have punched in the snow on the way to the compost pile. Spring peep- Year, or repentance? The U-pick farm is Then, the Coney Island of the approach to ers banish silence. still open for business: You can feed the the Lincoln Tunnel. Suddenly we are del- But what time is it now? All the trees donkeys, play miniature golf, and get uged with lights and information. WBC are thick with leaves (some are tired). your picture taken with the giant garden middleweights. Garden State Honda. An Only the Virginia creepers have turned. gnome that stands by the roadside. ad for a Volt. Breitling watches. Hot 97. The garden is going strong. It needs no The speedway is still going. It is a dirt The last-chance hotel: HBO, Jacuzzi, maintenance; all you have to do is go track with a fanatical fan base—mostly Mirror Rooms, Free In-Room Movies. out every afternoon and pick—what all-year residents, with a few flâneurs Behind it, Toys “R” Us. Many visits to the one neighbor called “shopping.” Some (one gay man told me it takes him a first probably proceed to the second. An plants are done—I pulled up the cran- week to dress). You see the multicolored old sign, unlit and perhaps no longer true: berry beans, and the tomatoes have had cars being ferried in on trailers, and on Welcome to North New Jersey, Em broid - it—but the second rounds of lettuce still, humid nights I can hear the roaring ery Capital of the World Since 1872. If and peas are just coming up. Maybe we from four miles away. King of the Cat - you’re carrying hazardous mat erials or can skip death and go right to rebirth. skills has been run, Wreckage in the bottled gas, exit now. If you want to go to Christianity without the cross—what a Catskills is yet to come. Weehawken or Hoboken, exit now. sales pitch. In town a few fooled mag- Is Little League still going? I never The skyline we have been glimpsing nolias are showing buds. partook when I was little, and I don’t as we crested every ridge now comes The sun is the clock that never lies. follow it now. I pass the local field all front and center. The Chrysler Building When I would be shooting documen- the time; the team mascot is a grinning is just a little too far east to make the taries outside, I would joke about it with Indian; I’m surprised the artist hasn’t splash it deserves from this direction, my director—the big light is cheapest to been arrested and sent to Gitmo. My but everyone else is at attention: Empire rent, but when it’s done there’s no cajol- friend, a power hitter in his day, shakes State, Metropolitan Life, finally and ing. Only yesterday, it seems, it was bru- his head at what he sees: Kids don’t welcome the Freedom Tower. A shock: tal grilling lunch on the deck; the spend any time throwing rocks at trees, Jerry Seinfeld is playing the Borgata. I sunlight hammered down heedless of they have no arms. (Thumbs from knew he was dead, but I did not know he my comfort and of my baldness. Now BlackBerrys, yes.) There were giants in was that dead. there is a margin of shade generous the earth in those days; no more. Home again.

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Happy Warrior BY MARK STEYN Let Them Go Hungry

DISLIkE first ladies—as a concept, I mean, not as erally mandated lunch limits. The stench of failure and dinner dates. I think of the first lady as an individual risibi lity has not yet attached to this initiative as it has to so who happens to be married to the guy with the job, many other Obama-era bureaucratic excesses. But, through I rather than as a job in its own right with a huge staff September, returning schoolchildren complained about and bloated budget. But I seem to be in a minority, and most their new, insufficient lunches. Teachers and parents who Americans appear to be comfortable with the neo- took up their cause did so in statist terms, beseeching the monarchical inflating of the president’s wife into a full- commissars to raise the mandated calorie limits. Very few blown Queen Consort. So, to give all those staffers the did so on first-principle grounds—which is to say the argu- pretense of something to do, it’s necessary to identify a ment that a system in which a centralized bureaucracy “cause” for the first lady to “champion.” The Arab Spring? attempts to impose a uniform menu on a nation of 300 mil- Whoa, steady on. By “cause,” we mean something kinda lion people is nuts, and cannot survive. In theory, educa- non-political, more like good works, but with the force of tion is the responsibility of local school districts in federal power behind it. sovereign states. Yet somehow a bureaucrat in the De - So it was decided that Michelle Obama would go to war partment of Agriculture wound up with a monopoly on on childhood obesity. Democrats and Republicans should what your kids eat. be able to agree that there’s a lot of it about, and it doesn’t Where do you go to vote out the Commissar of School say anything good about where we’re headed. And so it was Lunches? Even if Romney wins in November, I doubt this that the president signed into law the Healthy, Hunger-Free will be anybody’s big priority. Statists well understand that kids Act. Like I said, all very bipartisan: It passed in the you don’t need a president-for-life if you’ve got a bureau- Senate by unanimous voice vote—because who’s against cracy-for-life. Sometimes your team has to take a time-out healthy, hunger-free kids? And thus, in order to lend credi- for a couple of years, but, even when they do, all the depart- bility to a make-work project for the Queen Consort, ments and agencies and bureaus are still in place, hyper- America is now a land in which a government bureaucrat at regulating away. I mean, how often does the party of small the Department of Agriculture sets the maximum permitted government actually abolish anything? calories for school lunches across the fruited plain and all And if Obama wins, you’ll get the National Cal orie Limits the way to Guam. “I’m confident we have a core healthy set approach to government supersized: A vast regulatory of proposed diets for children,” said kevin Concannon, the octopus entwining itself around every aspect of the citizen’s U.S. undersecretary for food, nutrition, and consumer ser- life. America is already hideously over- bureaucratized and vices. At the European Commission, the chef de cabinet, pushing against the limits. It’s not a small, homogeneous despite his title, does not actually determine the national Scandinavian nation of a few million. It’s a vast sprawling menu. But in Washington, Tom Vilsack, the secretary of broke behemoth for which the concentration of power at the agriculture, is literally the chef de cabinet. He sets the set center will prove fatal. menu—and there’s no ordering à la carte, not when the In my latest book (now out in paperback!), I mention the carte stretches from Maine to Hawaii. famous image that closes Planet of the Apes: a loinclothed Okay, that’s enough lame francophone punning. This Charlton Heston falling to his knees as he comes face to year some guy working in some office someplace some face with a shattered Statue of Liberty poking out of the ways down the chain from the chef de cabinet decided to desolate sands. And I write that liberty is not a statue, and reduce the permitted lunchtime calorie intake of American that is not how liberty falls. The more likely dystopia is a middle-schoolers from 785 calories to 700 calories. I land where the Statue still stands, yet liberty itself withers chan ced to read this news while sitting in my doctor’s away remorselessly, often under cover of bright shiny office staring at a Body Mass Index chart on the wall. If novel “liberties” and “freedoms”—“free” health care, you’ve ever attended a middle-school choir concert and “free” college education with “free” contraceptives for 30- watched a 4'10" boy warbling along with a 5'6" girl from year-old students. Until eventually you reach a point where the grade below, you’ll know that things can get really a man in an office thousands of miles away is determining wacky developmentally round about Grade Six. But a how much your child can eat—and nobody finds that bureaucrat in Washington has decided that, food-wise, one unusual. size fits all. The World Health Organization considers BMI Didn’t Oliver Twist have something to say about this? 25 to be overweight for Caucasians but BMI 23 for Asians. “Please, sir, I want some more.” Yet a bureaucrat in Washington can breezily impose a uni- Dickensian London: “Do I understand that he asked for form calorific intake on the school cafeterias of Honolulu more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?” and Buffalo. Obamafied America: “Do I understand that he asked for The first lady was on hand for the launch of the new fed- more, after he had eaten the luncheon allotted by the National Dietary Commissar?” Mr. Steyn blogs at SteynOnline (www.steynonline.com). Forward!

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Discover the Beauty of Truth “By studying and discussing the great books you learn how to think for yourself and how to come to your own conclusions — how to discover the truth. And it’s tremendously satisfying.” Brian Murphy (’14) Cheshire, Conn.

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