BARNES ON HILLARY KRISTOL ON TRUMP

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WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents July 25, 2016 t Volume 21, Number 43

2 The Scrapbook Notorious RBG, comeuppance for Hillary, & more 5 Casual Eric Felten, a romantic abroad 6 Editorials Yup, She’s Crooked BY

The Worst Nominee BY WILLIAM KRISTOL

Articles 6 11 ‘Progressivism Is as Progressivism Does’ BY MARY EBERSTADT Seizing the moral low ground

12 The Chilcot Report BY A very long crucifixion of Tony Blair

16 Supreme Confusion BY JAIME SNEIDER Eight is enough

18 Uphill, but Doable BY MARK HEMINGWAY Darryl Glenn’s shoestring Senate race

Features

22 New Bottle, Old Whine BY NOEMIE EMERY Taking the party for a ride

28 The Shadow of the Kingfish BY GEOFFREY NORMAN Down-home dictator

18 Books & Arts

34 Love Me Do BY ANDREW FERGUSON Was Paul McCartney the real John Lennon?

37 In History’s Court BY MICHAEL M. ROSEN Seven decades on, holding the Third Reich to account

38 Tr a n s a t l a n t i c H o u n d s BY GEOFFREY NORMAN There was only one way to prove which was better

39 Strutting and Fretting BY DOMINIC GREEN Four hundred years after his death, Shakespeare rules

43 Price of Joy BY TARA BARNETT The bill comes due for a lifetime’s contentment

28 44 Parody A TKO debate victory

COVER BY DAVID CLARK THE SCRAPBOOK Notorious, Indeed ne of the stranger incidents dent, he could reasonably argue that that her behavior was damaging the O in the modern history of the such public contempt and criticism integrity of the Court, and to stop it. Supreme Court unfolded this past disqualifies her from judging the gov- If so, the chief’s intervention was both week when Justice Ruth Bader Gins- ernment’s cases. Indeed, how obvious timely and honored by precedent. burg told a New York Times reporter, was Ginsburg’s misjudgment? Both In recent decades, chief justices “I can’t imagine what the country and New York have been notably reluctant to inter- would be with as our Times editorial pages sided with, yes, vene in such circumstances, especially president,” and was accelerated with Donald Trump, the Post explaining when older justices show clear signs of a further dose of acid about Trump that while Ginsburg’s comments may failing judgment or incapacity. This (“a faker”) in a CNN interview. It have been “valid” they were “much, has led to such grotesque circum- ended a few days later when Justice much better left unsaid by a member stances as the mortifying period, dur- Ginsburg issued a statement from her of the Supreme Court.” The Times ex- ing 1974-75, when Justice William O. chambers, conceding (among other horted Ginsburg “to drop the politi- Douglas, reduced to invalid status by a things) that “my recent remarks in cal punditry and the name-calling.” stroke, resolutely refused to step down. response to press inquiries were ill- We may never know what, exactly, In that sense, THE SCRAPBOOK is re- advised and I regret making them.” caused Ruth Bader Ginsburg to be- minded of a poignant chapter in Court As well she should. There was have so bumptiously—or, for that history. When, in 1932, it became clear a time, not so long ago, when Su- matter, what prompted her to step that the 91-year-old Justice Oliver preme Court justices resolutely de- back from the abyss. But THE SCRAP- Wendell Holmes could no longer share clined to comment publicly about BOOK has a theory or two. Justice the burden of the Court’s work, Chief the inner workings of the Court, as Ginsburg has become something of Justice Charles Evans Hughes went to well as subjects that might come to a cult figure among her most fervent visit him at home one Sunday morn- the Court’s attention. Even Court admirers: They have dubbed her “the ing and gently explained that he and nominees would refuse to answer Notorious RBG” (a play on the name his colleagues on the Supreme Court hypothetical questions during Sen- of a famous rapper) and attend her had reluctantly concluded that Holmes ate confirmation. Those days, alas, lectures and public appearances, and ought to resign. are gone. But justices remain gener- savor her offhand pronouncements, Which Holmes did, there and ally circumspect about public issues with the passion of pop music fans then. Hughes later remembered his and, especially, about politics—and and souvenir hunters. It is entirely action that day as a “highly distaste- for obvious reasons: The credibility possible—it is entirely likely—that all ful duty,” but it was the right thing of the judicial branch of government this has gone to the 83-year-old head to do—both for Holmes’s reputa- can hardly survive if judges render of the Notorious RBG. tion, and for the sake of the Court. their opinions in advance. There is another possibility, which If Chief Justice Roberts played any Justice Ginsburg’s bad judgment THE SCRAPBOOK hopes may be true: part in saving the Notorious RBG in this instance should be obvious: Chief Justice John Roberts might have from herself, THE SCRAPBOOK offers If Donald Trump IS elected presi- privately instructed Justice Ginsburg its thanks to him. ♦

Sympathy for Hillary growing majority of voters saying gunman who expressed sympathy for she cannot be trusted.” Wow—don’t the Islamic State . . . ” ven when is sugarcoat it! Expressed sympathy? Let’s, as the E in a , truth-telling mode, it But later in the same article, the sportscasters say, go to the tape: can’t help but fudge the discussion reporters found themselves exploring “What’s your name?” the Orlan- of terrorism, draping ugly reality in how particular issues might benefit do police department 911 dispatch- gauzy euphemism. or harm the candidates, and they got er asked the shooter, who was on Here’s the truth-telling: The to the question of “handling terrorism the phone. Times, reporting on the plunge in and national security.” They began “My name is I pledge of allegiance polling numbers for Hillary Clin- that paragraph by discussing the mur- to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islam- ton, acknowledged she “has emerged derous jihadist rampage at the Pulse ic State.” from the F.B.I. investigation into her nightclub in June. Here’s how they “Okay,” the dispatcher asked again. email practices as secretary of state a phrased it: “After the deadly attack on “What’s your name?” wounded candidate with a large and a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., by a “I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-

2 / JULY 25, 2016 Baghdadi, may God protect him [Ara- bic], on behalf of the Islamic State.” No doubt if that hadn’t been clear enough, he would have been happy to repeat it again. There is a fundamental difference between “expressing sympathy” and “pledging allegiance,” especially when fealty to murderous terrorist organiza- tions is involved. THE SCRAPBOOK sus- pects that the New York Times is savvy to the distinction. Why then the dishonest portray- al? Perhaps because a blatant, ISIS- linked terrorist attack on U.S. soil is politically inconvenient for Hillary. Perhaps the Times team is just pledg- ing allegiance to—sorry, we mean expressing sympathy for—their can- didate of choice. ♦ Comeuppance for Hillary HE SCRAPBOOK was amused to see T a poll this week from the digi- tal marketing firm Fluent, reporting that 46 percent of voters say they’ve seen a “Trump for President” TV ad—despite the fact that no such ads have run. In fact, Trump’s imaginary ads have been seen by nearly as many voters as have seen the 31,000 real ads that have been aired by Clinton and her super-PACs (52 percent). The Trump campaign’s reluctance to pay for ads comes, presumably, from a combination of poor fundrais- ing and lots of free media. Nonethe- less, Trump ads are inevitable in the say”—edited into clips of Hillary say- used just one device, was that true?” long run, and—ambivalent about ing she supports TPP and opposes it, “She used multiple devices,” says Trump as we are—THE SCRAPBOOK saying she supports NAFTA and op- Comey. And so forth. looks forward to one anti-Hillary ad poses it, saying she opposes gay mar- Given Mrs. Clinton’s latest escape in particular. (One it’s frankly sur- riage and supports it, saying she favors from justice, THE SCRAPBOOK looks prised it hasn’t seen yet.) the Keystone pipeline and opposes it, forward to a late-summer and autumn In early May, while she was cam- saying she opposes drivers’ licenses for filled with comeuppance. ♦ paigning in , Clinton at- illegal aliens and supports them, say- tacked Trump’s off-the-cuff style: “He ing she was under sniper fire in Bosnia Weighing the Risks just kind of throws things out, and and she wasn’t. Et cetera, et cetera. people say, maybe he doesn’t really Add those to the now-famous clip transgender advocacy group mean it. When you are running for of questioning FBI di- A known as the “Movement and serving as president, you’d better rector on Hillary’s Advancement Project”—a name mean what you say.” email use: “Secretary Clinton said redundant on so many levels it’s THE SCRAPBOOK expects to see that there was nothing marked classified distracting—is paying to run an ad video clip—Hillary saying “when in her emails either sent or received, on during the Republican you are running for and serving as was that true?” “That’s not true,” says national convention. The ad features president, you’d better mean what you Comey. “Secretary Clinton said she a transgender narrator being denied

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 3 the use of a ladies’ room and explain- simple. Is obliterating the convention ing that being forced to use a bath- of single-sex bathrooms, locker rooms, room that corresponds with his or and changing rooms necessary to pro- her biological sex “puts me at risk for tect the exceedingly small minority of harassment and violence.” people that identify as transgender? www.weeklystandard.com While there might be some truth to Or should we preserve this convention that argument, it requires a lot of brass to protect the over 50 percent of the William Kristol, Editor Fred Barnes, Terry Eastland, Executive Editors to make it. That’s because the risks for population that is female from harass- Richard Starr, Deputy Editor violence and harassment do not run ment and violence? THE SCRAPBOOK is Eric Felten, Managing Editor Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, only in one direction. Last fall, the no mathemagician, but the utilitarian Victorino Matus, Lee Smith, Senior Editors University of Toronto temporarily sus- calculus in favor of sticking with con- , Literary Editor pended its policy requiring all campus vention is pretty compelling. Kelly Jane Torrance, Deputy Managing Editor ♦ Stephen F. Hayes, Mark Hemingway, bathrooms to be gender-neutral after , Jonathan V. Last, John McCormack, Senior Writers discovering that some men were using Jay Cost, Staff Writer it as cover to film women who were No, We’re Not Michael Warren, Online Editor showering. University officials should Ethan Epstein, Associate Editor Chris Deaton, Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editors have known better. In 2014, a rapist in Making This Up David Bahr, Assistant Literary Editor Toronto was arrested for pretending dvocates for poor people and pro- Priscilla M. Jensen, Assistant Editor Tatiana Lozano, Editorial Assistant to be transgender so he could get into ‘A gressive causes say they still plan Jenna Lifhits, Alice B. Lloyd, women’s shelters, where he sexually as- to make a stink—literally—during Shoshana Weissmann, Web Producers Philip Chalk, Design Director saulted two women. ’s big night accepting Barbara Kyttle, Design Assistant And now, just as the Movement the Democratic presidential nomina- Teri Perry, Executive Assistant Claudia Anderson, , , Advancement Project is moving and tion this month. , , advancing its big PR campaign, a “The plan: feed beans to Demo- Noemie Emery, , , , Reuel Marc Gerecht, “transgender male who identifies as cratic National Convention delegates Michael Goldfarb, Mary Katharine Ham, , female,” Shauna (Sean Patrick) Smith, for Bernie Sanders, and send them Frederick W. Kagan, , , Tod Lindberg, Micah Mattix, has been arrested in Idaho Falls for into the Philadelphia convention hall Robert Messenger, P. J. O’Rourke, holding an iPhone above a dressing- to show what they think of the former John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, Contributing Editors room partition to film an 18-year-old secretary of state. . . . girl trying on swimwear at the local “Dr. Walter Tsou, a leader with the MediaDC Ryan McKibben, Chairman Target. According to East Idaho News, Philadelphia branch of Physicians for Stephen R. Sparks, President & Chief Operating Officer Social Responsibility . . . , is helping Kathy Schaffhauser, Chief Financial Officer Deputies interviewed Smith and “the David Lindsey, Chief Digital Officer promote the cause. Catherine Lowe, Integrated Marketing Director defendant eventually admitted . . . “ ‘The fart-in is to raise attention Alex Rosenwald, Director, Public Relations & Branding that she had made videos in the past about things that really stink in our Mark Walters, Chief Revenue Officer of women undressing. The defendant Nicholas H. B. Swezey, Vice President, Advertising society,’ he says.” (“Bernie Fans Say T. Barry Davis, Senior Director, Advertising told [the detective] that she makes Jason Roberts, Digital Director, Advertising these videos for the ‘same reason men ‘Fart-In’ Against Hillary Will Go On,” Rich Counts, National Account Director go online to look at pornography.’ ” U.S. News, July 12.) ♦ Andrew Kaumeier, Advertising Operations Manager Brooke McIngvale, Manager, Marketing Services Advertising inquiries: 202-293-4900 The fact that this took place in a Subscriptions: 1-800-274-7293 Target dressing room is not without Help Wanted The Weekly Standard (ISSN 1083-3013), a division of Clarity Media Group, irony. Earlier this year Target formal- is published weekly (except the first week in January, third week in March, ized a policy of welcoming “transgen- HE WEEKLY STANDARD has a full- fourth week in June, and third week in August) at 1152 15th St., NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005. 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It still hasn’t recovered—the platforms, including WeeklyStan- Customer Service, The Weekly Standard, 1152 15th St., NW, Suite 200, Dow is soaring at the moment and dard.com, social media sites, and Washington, DC 20005. Copyright 2016, Clarity Media Group. All rights reserved. No material in The Weekly Target is trading at $73. multimedia platforms. Candidates Standard may be reprinted without permission of the copyright owner. The question before us regarding should send a cover letter and résumé The Weekly Standard is a registered transgender bathroom policies is pretty to [email protected]. ♦ trademark of Clarity Media Group.

4 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 CASUAL

Back in early 1996, Jen and I had Ta k i n g t h e P l u n g e been engaged, only to become disen- gaged late in the spring. That sum- mer we chanced upon one another at Dulles airport (Jen just happened to t’s settled: The U.K. is in best shot at Downing Street was not be arriving as I was departing). Over “uncharted territory.” In the Gove (Iago has never exactly been the a drink, we made up, and I floated I immediate wake of the British most popular character in Othello) but the nutty notion we should forgo the decision last month to leave the Euro- a squishy, left-leaning Remainian. trappings and tensions of a wedding pean Union, an aide to Prime Minister Labour, meanwhile, went into lead- and simply elope. A couple of hours David Cameron got the mantra going, ership convulsions of its own (not that later we were on a plane for London, declaring, “We’re in uncharted terri- anyone really seemed to care). And a destination chosen for no better tory.” The New York Times picked up on the right, the triumphant leader of reasons than that it seemed roman- the motif and proclaimed that the vote the U.K. Independence Party called it tic and there were seats available on a “Sends a Nation with a Storied History quits, his work having been done. flight to Heathrow. into Uncharted Territory.” The BBC Once in London we quickly dis- asked whether the EU can save itself covered that getting married there in the face of “Brexit’s uncharted without waiting weeks was, as the territory.” The tumbling value of Brits are wont to say, “not on.” the pound, according to an alarmed (The great bebop trombonist Carl , caused “US Treasur- Fontana once told me in an Eton ies [to] fall into uncharted territory.” pub, “This England is nice and all, My wife and I left for England but it ain’t no Vegas.”) with our three children the day Soon we were back in the United after the Brexit vote. We arrived States. But instead of admitting to find, happily, the island had not defeat, we went to the courthouse in sunk (though you would think that Leesburg, Va., near Dulles, where our was one of the many imminent risks adventure had begun. There, getting faced by the U.K., what with all the married was a simple matter of show- panicked commentary). And happier ing up with $30 for the license and still, the tumbling pound—thanks, $30 for the officiating judge. And, oh panicked commentary!—meant yes, we had to take an oath that we our vacation dollars would buy that weren’t prohibitively closely related. much more Cotswold cheese, ripe Our friends thought Jen had lost in-season strawberries, and mellow her marbles. They no doubt thought cask-drawn ales. me crazy too, but that assessment Goodness knows the political was tempered by their apprecia- class was doing its best to prove that tion of my obvious good fortune. I chaos was what would come of the wouldn’t have been surprised if some Leave campaign beating Remain. of them had gotten a pool together to After Cameron announced he would Over the course of a week, the wob- bet on how short our marriage would be stepping down as prime minis- bly exchange rate did bless us with last. And yet, here we are 20 years later ter, there was no orderly lining-up of ever-cheaper cheese, strawberries, and not only still married, but happily so, MPs behind the Cameron rival who cask-drawn ales, but Britain seemed and blessed with kids who make us had led Leave to victory. No, poor old otherwise to be weathering its cross- smile at the impossible wonder of it all. floppy-headed found Channel storm. We’ve been lucky. But for all of us, himself Tonya-Hardinged by his long- While in England, I gave some the things in life that matter take some time ally Michael Gove: On the day he thought to the risks and rewards of luck because they entail taking chances. was expected to announce he would be sailing out into uncertain waters. And The best things in our lives start with leading Johnson’s campaign among not just because of the Brexit circus. stepping out into the unknown. Life MPs, Gove instead denounced his old You see, we had arranged our London is full of risk and uncertainty. We’re all friend as unworthy and unfit and in trip to celebrate the date—exactly 20 in uncharted territory, you might say— the next breath announced his own years before—when my yet-to-be wife and not necessarily a bad thing at that. campaign. In the mad scramble that Jennifer and I had run off to England followed, the MP to emerge with the to get married, and failed. ERIC FELTEN

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 5 EDITORIALS Yup, She’s Crooked

while protecting Ambassador Chris Stevens, Clinton lied. She said an anti-Islam video had prompted the fatal attack, which she knew wasn’t true, when she could have simply expressed her condolences. Clinton has a masochistic rela- tionship with the media. She spurns them. They protect her. Is there any public figure who lies as routinely as Clin- ton? Not in my lifetime in Washington. Not . Not LBJ. Not Donald Trump. Not even . She skillfully, though probably unconsciously, spreads out her lies to lessen the impact. But when you pack them together, as Rep. Trey Gowdy did while questioning FBI director James Comey at a House hearing, they’re shocking. The Gowdy-Comey exchange went like this: GOWDY: Clinton said she never sent or received any classified information over her private email. Not true? COMEY: Right. GOWDY: Clinton said there was nothing marked classified on her emails. . . . Was that true? COMEY: That’s not true. GOWDY: Clinton said [she] didn’t email any clas- sified material to anyone. . . . True? COMEY: There was classified material emailed. GOWDY: [She] said that she used just one device. True? COMEY: She used multiple devices. GOWDY: [She] said all work-related emails were returned to the State Department. True? COMEY: No. illary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to GOWDY: [She] said neither she nor anyone else deleted get this close to becoming president of the United work-related emails. . . . True? H States. Aaron Burr was corrupt, but his treason COMEY: That’s a harder one to answer. We found traces didn’t occur until after his presidential possibilities had of work-related emails. . . . Whether they were deleted . . . dried up. Ulysses Grant was a great man whose administra- or something happened to them, there’s no doubt that tion was riddled with corruption, but he wasn’t personally there were work-related emails . . . removed electronically involved. Warren Harding wasn’t a great man, but he wasn’t from the email system. [: not true.] party to the corruption in his administration either. Hillary GOWDY: [She] said her lawyers read every one of the Clinton stands alone. emails [individually before deleting any of them]. True? Her corruption has many dimensions. It encompasses COMEY: No. her personal, professional, and political life. There are lots of GOWDY: False, exculpatory statements—they are used overlaps. Her use of a private email server engulfs all three for what? aspects. With Clinton, one never has to exaggerate. Her mal- COMEY: Either for the substantive prosecution or for evi- feasance speaks for itself, loudly. She lies to get out of trouble dence of intent in a criminal prosecution? and fool the press and voters. But she also lies gratuitously— GOWDY: Exactly. Intent and consciousness of guilt, when it’s not required to avoid trouble. Face to face with the right?

parents of CIA commandos who were killed in Benghazi COMEY: Right. CLEGG DAVE

6 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 As pernicious as Clinton’s lies have been—and continue prohibited by federal law from giving to political campaigns to be—there’s a far more serious problem with her as presi- and super-PACs. But with the Clinton Foundation and dent. It’s twofold: her indifference to protecting national speaking fees, foreign entities can sidestep what has been security secrets and her exploitation of the foreign policy and a longtime consensus point in American politics.” That diplomatic process for personal gain. Together, these make point: American foreign policy isn’t like politics, where her unfit to be president, both morally and professionally. campaign donations buy access and favors. With the Clin- Comey spared Clinton the criminal prosecution a lesser tons, foreign policy is politics by other means. State Department official would surely have faced for treat- When his wife became secretary of state, Bill Clinton’s ing classified emails so cavalierly. But he was unforgiving in speaking fees skyrocketed. He gave two speeches in Nigeria discussing her lackadaisical approach to at $700,000 apiece. He was paid $750,000 “very sensitive, highly classified informa- The absence of clear by Ericsson, the Swedish telecom com- tion.” It was the equivalent of an indict- evidence of hacking pany, for a speech in Hong Kong. He gave ment, only one not to be prosecuted. 13 speeches for more than $500,000 a pop Comey said Clinton emails with “Top was a signal to experts from the time he stepped down as presi- Secret/Special Access” information—the that her email likely dent in 2001 to the day his wife left as truly sensitive stuff—were less protected ‘had been breached, secretary of state in 2013. Eleven of them than they would have been “with a com- but the intruders were occurred while she was in office, Schweizer mercial service like Gmail.” In other found. PolitiFact confirmed his numbers words, one’s email chats with friends, far too skilled to leave and speech dates. lovers, and relatives are more secure than evidence of their work.’ The examples of the Clintons’ remu- were those of the secretary of state. Such intruders are the nerating themselves with help from hold- Though the FBI found no “direct most frightening kind. ing high office are numerous. He got evidence” of “computer intrusion by hos- $16.5 million from Laureate International tile actors,” it’s obvious Comey believes They tend to work for Universities, the parent company of an there was plenty of it. He said adversaries America’s enemies. online diploma mill, as honorary chan- had hacked into the email of those with cellor for five years. Laureate Education whom Clinton was in “regular contact from her personal Inc. got $55 million in State Department grants. The Clin- account.” Worse, her email “domain” was widely known and tons benefited from deals in Russia, India, Colombia, and “readily apparent.” Worse still, she used her unsecure email Africa. At least Bill Clinton did. outside the United States, even in the “territory of sophisti- Meanwhile, they’ve broken all the rules. The Clinton cated adversaries.” We know who they are. Foundation, more a slush fund to finance the family’s liv- Since a Romanian hacker named “Guccifer” had no ing expenses than a charity, signed a document promising trouble accessing her emails, Vladimir Putin, , to disclose any donations from foreign entities during Hil- and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would have to have been lary’s tenure as secretary of state. At the time, , asleep at the wheel not to have tapped in from the start of the then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Commit- Obama administration. David Sanger of the New York Times tee, wondered aloud why the foundation needed to take in reported the absence of clear evidence of hacking was a signal any foreign money at all: “If you’re traveling to some coun- to experts and government investigators that her email likely try and you meet with the foreign leadership and a week “had been breached, but the intruders were far too skilled to later or two weeks later or three weeks later the president leave evidence of their work.” Such intruders are the most [Bill Clinton] travels there and solicits a donation and frightening kind. They tend to work for America’s enemies. they pledge to give at some point in the future but nobody Sloppy security alone doesn’t make Clinton unfit for the knows, is there an appearance of a conflict?” Now, as sec- presidency. But the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons’ retary of state himself, Kerry must know the answer. The methods of enriching themselves do. The mainstream media, foundation violated the agreement at least five times. with a few exceptions such as the New York Times, have failed They got away with it, largely unscathed. Hillary Clin- to see the foundation as a target for investigative reporting. ton was stung by the email case. But she’s sticking with But , in his 2015 book Clinton Cash, exam- the family formula when you’re caught red-handed: Stone- ined the foundation and discovered how it allowed the Clin- wall and confess to nothing and eventually the problem tons to make foreign policy pay. Donate to the foundation will go away. This has worked since her $100,000 gain bet- or give Bill Clinton an exorbitant fee for a speech and good ting on cattle futures in 1978. An academic study calcu- things often happened. According to Forbes, Bill and Hillary lated the chance of such a windfall happening legitimately Clinton made $229,319,855 between 2001 and 2014. at 1 in 13 trillion. Yet the sham was soon forgotten. This The Clintons created a structure whereby foreign gov- time, in this presidential race, voters have no excuse. We ernments, businesses, and financiers could buy access to know who Hillary Clinton really is. American politicians, Schweizer says. “Foreign entities are —Fred Barnes

8 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 The Worst Nominee

illary Clinton may or may not be the all-around There were many moments over the past year when worst presidential nominee in the history of this fate could have been avoided. The weakness not to say H the Democratic party. That party has, over the debility of several elements of the Republican party is an years, thrown up some pretty unappealing characters. important topic for another day. For now, the last chance It’s also nominated candidates whose policies did (James to save the Grand Old Party from itself rests with the Buchanan, Jimmy Carter) or would have done (George delegates to the 41st Republican Convention. If they suc- McClellan, George McGovern) great harm to the nation. ceed, all honor to them. If they fall short, their failure will The Republican party has, on the whole, had higher merely mark the final act of the Lamentable & Extraordi- standards or at least better luck. Since its first convention nary Republican Tragedie of 2016. in 1856, it has nominated 27 men to serve as president At this melancholy moment for Republicans and of the United States. Not all conservatives, the conclu- have been of sterling quality. sion of Winston Churchill’s Even the most loyal Repub- great speech in the House of lican will acknowledge that Commons of March 24, 1938, there have been times when comes to mind. Not because perhaps GOP nominees fell we think Donald Trump’s short of the standard for the nomination is in any way presidency set forth in Fed- comparable to the Anschluss. eralist 68, that “it will not be And not because we think this too strong to say, that there era is comparable to the eve of will be a constant probabil- World War II. But because we ity of seeing the station filled do think, for all of its farci- by characters pre-eminent for cal aspects, it is a moment of ability and virtue.” It would some gravity. not perhaps even shock a loyal Here’s Churchill: Republican to say that over the long history of the GOP For five years I have talked to there have been times when the House on these matters, it was perhaps as well that the not with very great success. Republican nominee did not I have watched this famous island descending inconti- prevail in the general election. nently, fecklessly the stairway But we do think it fair to which leads to a dark gulf. It is say, tipping our hat to recent revisionist studies of Warren a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the G. Harding, and making allowances for a few unfortunate carpet ends. A little further on there are only flagstones, stumbles by Richard M. Nixon, that none of the previous and a little further on still these break beneath your feet. GOP nominees was an embarrassment or a disgrace. I can say, as someone who has cast votes for the Republican pres- For our part, we have watched the party descend a stair- idential nominee in the eleven elections of my adult life- way. Now the carpet has ended. The flagstones are broken time, that in no case have I felt it necessary to engage in beneath our feet. A dark gulf awaits. serious second thoughts about the propriety of my choice. Perhaps the party, and the principles for which it But now the presumptive nominee of the Republican stands, can emerge from this episode without lasting dam- party, heir to the distinguished mantle of Abraham Lin- age. After all, a distinguished party’s traditions are not coln and , of Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight undone in a day or a year. They will remain available to D. Eisenhower, and, yes, of Tom Dewey and us as a of education and encouragement. Donald and John McCain and , is one Donald J. J. Trump may become the 2016 Republican nominee. He Trump. If Trump is nominated on Thursday, it will not be cannot be allowed to define the future of a great party that a grand day for a grand old party. For it will have nomi- can, we trust, be made great again.

NEWSCOM nated the worst nominee in its history. —William Kristol

10 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 to what they say, what does the record show? ‘Progressivism Is as We know, first, that this new pro- gressivism is no friend of religious liberty. We know this because in and Progressivism Does’ out of government, it has interfered with and even undercut religious lib- erty itself. We also know the Obama administration has steadily replaced Seizing the moral low ground. the phrase “freedom of religion” in BY MARY EBERSTADT key documents with the far more constricting “freedom of worship.” resident Obama’s self-described And like Samuel Johnson kick- “Freedom of worship” sounds like “rant” in front of the Canadian ing a stone to refute Bishop Berke- something you can do in your closet. P prime minister the other week ley’s immaterialism, Freedom of religion is one freedom included one more encore of the same demolished Marxism’s moral claims that doesn’t require money to exer- drum solo that Candidate Clinton thus: “ is as socialism does.” cise; that can be shared equally by pounds out nonstop: that progressives Don’t look at what socialism says of rich and poor alike. How does con- do a better job of taking care of the itself; look at what socialism does in stricting that help brothers and sisters poor and needy than . . . well, anyone the world. in need? else. The alternative to good progres- In similar spirit, after two terms of The ledger also shows that this sives, says Team Left, are those bad President Obama and team, a standard new progressivism will run rough- Others—like the presumptive shod over humbler souls. Con- Republican nominee, someone sult for starters the Little Sisters “who has never shown any regard of the Poor, who live with and for workers, has never fought on care for dying people whom behalf of social justice issues or everyone else has thrown out. making sure poor kids are getting What did today’s neo-progres- a decent shot at life,” as the presi- sivism have to say to these saintly dent put it. nuns? It dangled handcuffs at It’s an interesting trope—and them. It threatened them with it shouldn’t get the pass it usu- crippling fines, all to make them ally does. A pithy line of Irving knuckle under to what the sex- Kristol’s from a few decades ual revolution now demands. back is especially helpful: Little Sisters: unlikely targets That is a rousing example of “Socialism is as socialism does.” the dictum “progressivism is as Before the Velvet Revolutions of the for measuring his movement’s moral progressivism does.” What kind of ide- late 20th century, unapologetic Marx- record springs to mind: “Progressiv- ology goes after people like the Little ists and socialists ran free in all the best ism is as progressivism does.” This is Sisters in the first place? What kind of places, everywhere strutting their sup- particularly true of today’s newer and activism calls the harassing of selfless posed moral authority. They claimed much evolved variant of progressiv- religious women a day well spent? to hold the high ground against ism: the kind dominant in Washing- We know, third, that in the name of democratic capitalism. They insisted ton since 2009, as well as in academia this new progressivism, other initia- that their ideas would better help the and Hollywood and many courts; the tives are afoot that will also hurt the poor—indeed, that they were the only kind that takes its marching orders poor. Christian education, for example, ones who even cared about the poor. from the sexual revolution, rather is under attack on numerous fronts. They professed their own purity of than from the biblical understanding Home-schooling is a perpetual bête motive. And of course they reiterated of justice and its demands; the kind noire of progressive thinking, opposed ad nauseam that history and justice that liberal thinkers of yesterday, like by the National Education Association were on their side. Christopher Lasch and Martin Luther and other institutions of the left. Athe- King Jr., would disown. ist Richard Dawkins and others have Mary Eberstadt is author of It’s Dangerous Like yesterday’s Marxism, even called religious home-schooling to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its this new so-called progressivism the equivalent of child abuse. Enemies (HarperCollins). This essay is claims—and claims, and claims— Then there are attempts to under- adapted from a talk given at the American that it stands on the side of the margin- mine the very transmission of Chris- Enterprise Institute conference in June on alized and needy. But by the standard tian ideas in higher reaches. At least

“Catholic Thought and Flourishing.” of what its activists do, as opposed two prominent colleges of Prot estant NEWSCOM

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 11 evangelicalism, the King’s College in the country are sued and harassed against religious liberty. The poor, the New York and Gordon Col lege in Mas- by burdensome, ideologically driven destitute, the dying, the unwanted, sachusetts, have undergone accredi- ordinances. These are places where the hungry, the imprisoned: All have tation battles in the last ten years. mothers-to-be go for help ranging exactly the same right to freedom as Anyone who thinks that Catholic from sonograms to diapers, because everyone else. Destitution and hard- schools will somehow escape the same they want babies rather than abor- ship are often the crucibles out of is blind to the signs of the times. One tions. Inexplicably, grim activists which steely faith emerges in the first 2014 essay in the Chronicle of Higher work to make their “choice” for life place. People who find God in the Education by a professor at the Uni- more onerous. midst of chaos and misery should versity of Pennsylvania argued that no How is any of this neo-progressive never be told—as so many neo-pro- Christian college should be accredited. legal activism in the interests of real, gressives would tell them—that they’re Of course the secularist mission of live people—pregnant women looking on the wrong side of history. disrupting Christian education hurts for help, refugees desperate for a life- Robert George gave a speech a the poor. Many parents home-school line, babies and children looking for couple of years ago which included for the simple reason that they don’t loving homes? the refrain, “The days of acceptable want their children in mediocre gov- In sum, and in dark contrast to lofty Christianity are over. The days of ernment schools. Both President talk of being “that good Samaritan,” comfortable Catholicism are past.” Obama and President Clinton sent as the president also once declared, Something else is becoming clearer their children to elite private schools today’s dominant strain of progres- by the day as well. After a decade of rather than to the District of Colum- sivism includes interfering with good progressive ascendency, the distance bia’s public ones. What about parents works, menacing voluntary organi- between what that movement says who also don’t want their kids in medi- zations that help the poor, and tor- about the castoff and forlorn and ocre schools, but who don’t have the pedoing Christian resources via what it does to those same people has means of American presidents? ideologically fueled litigation. become measurable. It’s time to hold Similarly, religious education, and These are toxic fruits. And the soil that record up to the light. The day the Catholic school system above all, in which they flourish does not come when comfortable neo-progressivism has been an irreplaceable engine of from moral high ground. is over will be a better day for those social and intellectual mobility for Neither, finally, do today’s sorties who need help from the rest of us. ♦ generations now. It’s lifted millions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike to a better life, thereby rendering them able to help others in turn. Neo-pro- gressivism shrugs at that record, too. The Chilcot Report Here is a fourth fact about today’s dominant variant of progressivism as it pertains to the poor. In any contest A very long crucifixion of Tony Blair. between the perceived mandates of the sexual revolution on the one hand BY REUEL MARC GERECHT and the competing needs of anybody else, the revolution trumps. And a long he Chilcot report on the despite the close, at times intimate, line of litigation in addition to that of war ought to elicit two - relations between the British and the Little Sisters can be summoned to T tions: sympathy and pity for American armed forces, intelligence prove it. former British prime minister Tony services, and diplomatic corps. This The U.S. Catholic bishops, for Blair. As was evident by late 2002, envious English sneering, which example, who resettle some 25 percent when Europeans saw the frightful erupted into disgust when the occupa- of the refugees in this country, are resolve of George W. Bush and began tion of Iraq went south in 2004, is not sued by abortion rights groups. Why? earnestly debating how evil Iraqi dic- in Blair’s repertoire. His affection for Because their refugee work at the tator was and what the United States seems untroubled southern border of the United States threat he posed, Blair was a brave poli- and sincere. His admiration is both does not include contraception and tician and an exceptionally good ally moral and strategic: Anyone who abortion. Catholic hospitals are sued of the United States. The English has watched the documentary shown by the same antagonists for the same political elite has never been a foun- in the theater at the 9/11 Memorial reason. Christian adoption agen- tainhead of pro-American sentiment, Museum in , in which cies have been shuttered in Boston Bush and Blair reflect on what hap- and elsewhere, for refusing to recant Reuel Marc Gerecht, a contributing editor, pened that day and its aftermath, can Christian teaching about the family. is a senior fellow at the Foundation tell that both men see history in broad Emergency pregnancy centers around for Defense of Democracies. brushstrokes, that 9/11 was a tocsin

12 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 call of a new barbarian age, which the his defense budgets, that the United Washington, and on why many poli- West needed to respond to with deter- Kingdom could no longer sustain an ticians—though not the man on the mination and force. expeditionary force in a hostile envi- street and intellectuals in the cafés— Blair’s post-9/11 vision put him at ronment, particularly one where Ira- decided to back the war against Sad- odds with many in the British estab- nian-manufactured explosive devices dam or at least not oppose it. Twenty lishment, who had become increas- ripped apart lightly armored vehicles. members of NATO or the European ingly uncomfortable with war as an After British combat operations ended Union either supported the war or unavoidable part of maintaining the in Iraq in 2009, senior British military remained helpfully silent or neutral. post-World War II liberal order. There officers apologized to their American Did these European politicians believe is some irony in that Blair consistently counterparts for failing to hold their the increasingly hyperbolic claims withheld the means for his mission: own, when British forces hunkered and suggestions of some U.S. officials He is as culpable as any post-Cold down and let militant Shiites run ram- about Iraq’s WMD programs, state- War prime minister in allowing Brit- pant through the south until American ments that may have been uttered ish military power to wane. Europe forces quelled the violence. because Washington was trying to has excelled at disarming since the In all likelihood, the sig- gain a ’ blessing for its collapse of the Soviet Union. The naled the end of Britain as a significant actions—a move dictated not by Amer- punctilious ethics and legalisms that military partner of the United States. ican domestic politics but by Wash- animate European discussions about The ever-growing British welfare state ington’s concern for Blair and other the use of force remain, even in the ate the Royal Navy during the Cold Europeans who felt they needed, polit- age of , awkward and War; it effectively finished off the army ically, a U.N. imprimatur? adventitious to Americans, who don’t and air force during Blair’s premier- It’s doubtful. Most of the pro-war believe the legal or moral legitimacy ship. The Chilcot report’s questioning neoconservatives I know were cer- of war is determined by a unanimous of Blair’s military planning is certainly tainly uncomfortable with some of the vote of the permanent members of fair though entirely secondary to the commentary that could vividly bubble the United Nations Security Coun- failure of American officers and offi- forth from Rumsfeld, Vice President cil. Poor Blair was too American for cials. Its assessment didn’t—at least in , and national security many Brits, especially after the wars the 100,000 words that I read—under- adviser . If neocons in Iraq and Afghanistan became ardu- score the general decrepitude of the were skeptical and could nevertheless ous. John Chilcot and the other privy British military brought on by decades strongly back the war, then certainly counsellors who have produced this of insufficient funding by Labour and Europeans, whose hearts and minds seven-years-in-the-making, 2,600,000- Tory politicians who suffered from a almost always veer more toward Venus word report (one shudders to think failure of strategic imagination, in part than Mars, could be unmoved by this what Chilcot would have done with because of their dependency on the rhetoric and nevertheless find the war the Boer War) scold the former prime United States. an acceptable choice for the United minister as dons would a wayward stu- In a different time, the Brits, too, States. They surely acted how they dent. If Blair couldn’t have stopped would have surged. A stout-hearted did because they acknowledged the the Americans from going to war, the British prime minister might have United States’ preeminent position as report not too subtly suggests, he objected to Obama’s calamitous deci- their defender; it’s also not outrageous should have at least joined the French sion to withdraw all American soldiers to suggest that they may have paid and Germans in opposition. from Iraq, which, despite the presi- some attention to Saddam’s wars, his Blair’s Iraqi hopes, of course, foun- dent’s felicitous prognostications about gassing of the Kurds, his longstanding dered on (initial) American military the country’s future success, helped appetite for weapons of mass destruc- incompetence. Secretary of Defense lead rapidly to a government crack-up tion, or just the Stalinist hell inside , his deputy Paul in and the rise of Shiite mili- Iraq. In other words, many European Wolfowitz, and the light-footprint tias, Iran, and the Islamic State. We officials understood that the United generals who thought they could go wouldn’t have need today for the quiet States was going to war to remove into Iraq, a society torn apart by Sad- and ignominious return of nearly 6,000 Saddam not because of his refractory dam’s savagery (Chilcot refers to American soldiers to Iraq. Yet any of and deceptive behavior with U.N. Saddam’s rule as one of “harsh depriva- these observations and conjectures weapons inspectors, and not because tion”), and leave within an undefined would have been politically incorrect; every major European intelligence short period were delusional. Blair, the Chilcot report is, in the range and service also thought that Saddam had like Bush, didn’t pay sufficient atten- limitations of its curiosity, tirelessly in active WMD programs (to be fair to tion soon enough to the occupation. tune with accepted wisdom. the Europeans, bad intelligence and Civilian leaders should always rigor- The privy counsellors surprisingly analysis can spread among the West- ously second-guess military brass and don’t spend much time on Europe, ern services like venereal disease, espe- intelligence bureaucracies. Blair really on how so many governments were cially if Americans are responsible should have known, especially given divided about whether to support for the first infection). Whether the

14 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 European backers of Bush had read American juggernaut. It’s entirely pos- so, but a British inquiry into the Iraq Ken Pollack’s The Threatening Storm, sible that if George W. Bush had been war was superfluous from the start. an influential book that made the a better diplomat, if Secretary of State Adults knew that there had been no case for taking out Saddam, a wild Colin Powell had not so often sent lies and prevarications about weapons- and crazy totalitarian who’d repeat- mixed messages about whether the of-mass-destruction intelligence after edly shown himself immune to car- United States could be dissuaded from the publication in 2005 of the Ameri- rot-and-stick Western diplomacy, conflict, if he’d just bothered to travel can Robb-Silberman Commission’s the theme was appreciated in Europe if to Europe to chat with natives, the findings. For better or worse, Blair not embraced as it was in Washington. die might have been cast differently. attached his fate to Bush, Rumsfeld, That Bush got the support that he Blair would not have been “Ameri- and their generals. Junior allies in big did in the Old World shows that ca’s poodle” if France had joined the wars have no other choice. Somewhere the Kantian hold on post-Cold War coalition: The effect of French par- in Washington, preferably close to the Europe wasn’t complete. ticipation, even if led by a conservative British embassy, Americans ought to It’s a painful irony that Blair got French president, on the antiwar West- erect a tribute to Blair, probably their hoist by his own petard: He insisted ern left would have been significant. truest ally since Winston Churchill. that the United States and his own A serious British reflection on 9/11, government make a case for war closely the Iraqi tyrant, and Blair’s decision tied to the issue of U.N. weapons to stand by the United States could inspections and security-council delib- have been done in 26,000 words, even erations, and not to Saddam’s past or allowing for Chilcot’s odd specula- to post-9/11 arguments about preemp- tions about Europe’s willingness to tion. This “American” understand- continue to starve Saddam’s regime, ing of the world, which Blair privately to deny it the resources to rebuild seems to have ardently embraced, actu- his war machine. There would even ally created the philosophical space, have been enough space for guesses in both the United States and Europe, on what the Middle East might have that allowed Bush to move decisively looked like if the Butcher had sur- against Saddam, an aspiration that vived, on how many Iraqis would have Chilcot reports President Bill Clin- Tony Blair in London, July 7, 2016 perished if the Great Arab Revolt, ton also had. If the occupation had which began in Tunisia and spread gone better, Blair and Bush would The Chilcot report lacks any vari- far and wide, had ignited in Meso- have escaped the WMD booby trap: able, “what if,” history that doesn’t potamia, or on whether the Kurdish Saddam’s “harsh deprivation” would tilt against the war. Its dry narrative, enclave could have survived Saddam’s surely have held the high ground in devoid of color and the personal inter- rebirth, even with American air sup- the West’s moral imagination. action that frames so much of foreign port. Chilcot could have speculated Recall that the active European policy, leaves the reader undernour- on whether Washington could have opposition to the Iraq war consisted ished and bored even before escaping held the line with Europeans, Rus- only of four countries: France, Ger- the 150-page executive summary. An sians, and Chinese eager to re-attempt many, Belgium, and Russia. The assessment of a small action that has a policy of engagement with Bagh- Belgians and the Germans were major ramifications—the 9/11 Com- dad. Or whether the mullahs in Iran implac able. Chancellor Gerhard mission report—can be illuminat- would have been inclined to slow their Schröder made it clear he would never ing and at times surprising because nuclear-weapons ambitions, let alone support the war, even if the U.N. Secu- its questions are relatively simple and stop them as some in Europe and the rity Council approved American mili- apolitical, and its methodology Obama administration want to hope tary action. The opposition of the and intent aren’t speculative. the Joint Comprehensive Plan of French, who became determined crit- The Chilcot report wasn’t content Action has done, if Saddam had sur- ics of the campaign to eliminate Sad- with such a factual exploration of tac- vived. The Iraqi ruler was, after all, the dam, wasn’t a foregone conclusion. In tical questions but had to stroll off into inspiration for the Islamic Republic’s Paris there was lingering shame about a wormhole of strategic conjectures, clandestine quest for the bomb. It’s a earlier French support to the Butcher camouflaging them, as headmasters good guess that Iranian intelligence, of Baghdad. Saddam’s atrocities are often wont to do, with august asser- too, didn’t dissent from the CIA’s esti- against the Kurds had long had a sym- tions. What else could privy counsel- mate that the gentleman hadn’t given pathetic audience, and French presi- lors do with a report on a war about up on active WMD programs. dent Jacques Chirac, despite his open which, conspiracies possibly aside, At 26,000 words, it would have been ambition to constrain American power, serious people knew already all the a taut essay. But Chilcot, a civil servant wasn’t ardently anti-American and pertinent facts? It’s mean-spirited and rigorously trained to write memo-

NEWSCOM was sensitive to standing against an hopelessly American-centric to say randa, surely could have done it. ♦

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 15 ratification debates.” The notion that uniformity is essential to vindicate Supreme Confusion the supremacy of federal law is also belied by what cases the Supreme Court has historically been permitted Eight is enough. to review. The Constitution provides that Congress may make exceptions BY JAIME SNEIDER to the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction, and while legal scholars ince Justice ’s hysteria. “The Supreme Court sits debate the precise contours of this leg- death in February, the Obama to provide uniformity of federal law islative power, we know that Congress S administration and its allies and the supremacy of federal law,” need not allow the Supreme Court (or have insisted that a failure to confirm said Susan Low Bloch, a professor any federal court, for that matter) to D.C. circuit judge Merrick Garland at Law Cen- review every case that poses a ques- to replace him would result in chaos. ter. “When a case comes to it, and it tion of federal law. In the absence of an odd number of decides it—or doesn’t decide it—4-4, The Judiciary Act of 1789, which justices, the story went, the Supreme then it hasn’t performed its function.” the Supreme Court itself has said is Court wouldn’t be able to exercise Never mind that even if the Senate “weighty evidence of [the Constitu- oversight over the decisions of state had immediately taken up the presi- tion’s] true meaning,” created excep- and lower federal courts, which would dent’s nomination of March 16, there tions to the Supreme Court’s authority end up promulgating inconsistent was no chance the vacancy would to review cases involving federal ques- interpretations of federal law. have been filled by the April 18 argu- tions. While the law created the lower The reality has not matched the ment in the immigration case. Never federal courts, i.e., district and appel- apocalyptic rhetoric. The justices mind that ties and vacancies are noth- late courts, it did not grant them tied in a whopping four cases in the ing new for the Supreme Court, and jurisdiction to hear cases involving Supreme Court term that just con- that President Obama and legal aca- federal questions. (Later law did.) cluded, and they agreed unanimously demics did not perceive them to be That meant in general state courts in 39 of 81 decisions, nearly 20 percent a threat to constitutional principles decided cases presenting federal ques- more than in the preceding term. when Justice recused tions. Equally important, the act only If you assumed the Obama admin- herself from 28 cases, one-third of allowed the U.S. Supreme Court to istration would welcome this con- the total, in her first term. And never review a state supreme court’s deci- sensus building and dial back its mind that Congress is free to alter the sion regarding the content of federal bombast, you would be mistaken. number of justices on the Supreme law if the state supreme court denied One of the four ties occurred in the Court, that there is nothing special the federal right. If the state supreme immigration case brought by 26 states about having an odd number of jus- court vindicated the federal right at challenging a pair of executive actions tices, and that the Supreme Court is issue, the U.S. Supreme Court lacked President Obama took in 2014 to pre- not under any obligation to resolve the power to exercise appellate juris- vent nearly 5 million illegal immi- disagreements among the courts over diction over the case. grants from being deported. The tie federal law. Obama has weighed in, By allowing states to adopt differ- left in place a court of appeals decision and he and his allies have intoned ent interpretations of the same fed- that held the president had exceeded that the Senate’s failure to promptly eral law, the Judiciary Act of 1789 in his constitutional authority. confirm a ninth justice to the Court effect decentralized federal law. It also Following the Court’s decision, is not just dirty politics, but contrary created an incentive for state courts President Obama declared, “Repub- to an original understanding of the to vindicate very broad notions of licans in Congress currently are will- Supreme Court’s role. federal rights, as doing so insulated fully preventing the Supreme Court Lest anyone get away with believ- them from both the review of the U.S. from being fully staffed and function- ing that Justice Scalia is turning over Supreme Court and the state legisla- ing as our founders intended.” No in his grave because of the Supreme ture. Together this defeats the notion doubt the speechwriter who wrote Court’s inability to declare a uniform that, as a matter of original intent, the this line—throwing the purported understanding of federal law, a brief U.S. Supreme Court had any inherent intentions of the Framers in the face history lesson is in order. As a pre- responsibility to establish a uniform of Republicans—patted himself on liminary matter, “The objective of understanding of federal law, that the back. assuring uniformity of federal law,” there must be a single understanding Certain legal academics joined the law professor Robert N. Clinton has of federal law for it to be “supreme,” observed, “almost never manifested or that the Court must have the last Jaime Sneider is an associate at Boies, Schiller itself at the Philadelphia Convention word when it comes to federal law. & Flexner LLP. and only rarely was raised during the Uniformity of federal law is not an

16 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 artifact of the Constitution, but could that it has no obligation or responsi- of conservatism, described it as an one argue that the rise of interstate bility to conform federal law to a sim- “inspiring 10-minute speech to the commerce and the federal adminis- ple meaning. delegates, interrupted often by stand- trative state in the 20th century ren- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told ing ovations and hitting conservative dered it a fundamental consideration? the New York Times in her recent high notes on immigration and Iran.” The answer, at least with respect to interview that in the best case sce- It “boosted the Air Force veteran to the the U.S. Supreme Court’s function, is nario, the Senate would confirm front of the pack of 10 candidates.” no. The Supreme Court receives 7,000 Judge Garland during the lame-duck There are two ways to get on the to 8,000 petitions a year and decides session after November’s election, but Republican primary ballot in Colo- about 80 cases. It is fiction to say he would still miss most of the term’s rado. The first is by gathering enough the Supreme Court has the ability to arguments. While President Obama signatures statewide. The second is by resolve every disagreement of federal may rue this result, there is no need getting at least 30 percent of the del- law. The fact that the Supreme Court to pretend the Senate’s failure to act egates at the state convention to vote of today (unlike that of 1789) exercises somehow abrogates the historic prov- you on the ballot. Glenn stunned the discretion over its docket underscores ince of the Court. ♦ Republican establishment by getting just over 70 percent of the delegates at the convention, locking out all the other candidates. This caused chaos, as the remaining Uphill, but Doable candidates fanned out across the state in a mad dash to collect signatures to get on the ballot, prompting a flurry of Darryl Glenn’s shoestring Senate race. lawsuits about the validity of various petitions. It didn’t matter in the end. BY MARK HEMINGWAY Glenn ended up with 38 percent of the vote, an impressive victory in a five- Colorado Springs Force lieutenant colonel, an attorney, way race. arryl Glenn lives in a nice, and a former city council member in But to say that his victory hinged but modest, home. A few Colorado Springs, one of the biggest on the speech shortchanges the man. D trusted aides are running his conservative strongholds in America. He began campaigning hard well over U.S. Senate campaign from his dining He’s currently a commissioner of El a year ago, but lacking the name ID room table. This is a quaint tableau of Paso County, which encompasses Col- and financial backing of better-known wholesome American politicking, but orado Springs. His specialty in the Air candidates, he had to work the phones, with the election four months away, Force was logistics, which has served knock on doors, and otherwise com- it’s a little disconcerting. Glenn won him well in local politics. He’s highly mit to canvassing the grassroots in the Republican primary in Colorado regarded for the leadership he exhib- ways that don’t attract much attention. on June 28. Colorado is one of the few ited in response to a series of dramatic “We went to events where 15 peo- chances the GOP has of unseating an floods and fires Colorado Springs expe- ple were there, and we were happy!” incumbent Democrat, and Republi- rienced in recent years. And while it Glenn tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. can control of the Senate may hinge might be a superficial qualification, Further, winning the conven- on Glenn winning. He’s got to get a Glenn is black and the GOP is certainly tion wasn’t a fluke—it was the strat- large campaign operation up and run- in need of an image overhaul. egy from the get-go. “When you have ning fast. The fairytale version of Glenn’s vic- a 15-candidate field, I’m looking at The conventional wisdom—and tory in the primary begins in April. it from the standpoint of having to let’s face it, that phrase might be mean- Colorado has one of the most active make an investment in somebody,” ingless in 2016—was that Glenn would and organized state Republican par- says Glenn. “So we were never shoot- never make it this far. He’s not the ties, and in such a competitive envi- ing for the moon, we were realistic in man the National Republican Senato- ronment even a compelling candidate what the expectations were. We knew rial Committee (NRSC) thought they’d such as Glenn was a lesser-known fig- exactly what it was going to cost to get be dealing with at this point, but they ure. Glenn had one shot at making an through the assembly process, and we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. impact, a speech at the state conven- wanted to be able to use that to show- On paper, he might be about as close tion. He stepped up to the mike and case how much it was going to cost in to the perfect Republican candidate as proclaimed himself “an unapologetic comparison to the other candidates . . . you could imagine. He’s a retired Air Christian, constitutional conservative, who spent probably between three to pro-life, Second Amendment-loving four hundred thousand dollars to be Mark Hemingway is a senior writer American.” The Denver Post, not given able to petition and sue their way on at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. to encomiums on rousing professions the ballot. We just wanted to show a

18 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 very stark contrast for who you want to Glenn’s strengths. He’s focused on embrace and elevate a black conserva- managing your money.” grassroots campaigning—Senator Cory tive such as Glenn. Conversely, it might Glenn didn’t seal the deal entirely Gardner has been hitting the trail with also raise eyebrows if Trump and the on his own. After he made a splash at Glenn, as have a couple of his GOP national GOP were inexplicably to the convention, he picked up a crucial primary competitors. The thinking keep him at arm’s length. endorsement from . And per- is that if Glenn keeps his head down In the long term, it’s tough to say haps more important, the Senate Con- and proves his viability, the national whether Trump being at the top of the servatives Fund stepped in and spent GOP will come around. It appears to ticket will be of much help to Glenn. $600,000 on his behalf. While his shoe- be working. On July 11, the Republican In a Monmouth University poll taken string campaign desperately needed a National Committee’s morning email July 9-12—after Hillary Clinton was cash infusion to put him over the top, featured a glowing paragraph about denounced by FBI director James the windfall is a decidedly mixed bless- Glenn’s efforts in Colorado. Comey—Trump was still trailing Hil- ing. As Glenn wryly notes, the SCF and Since Senate campaigns aren’t lary Clinton in Colorado 35 percent Republican Senate leadership “do not cheap, the final piece of the puzzle is to 48 percent. In the same poll, Glenn exchange Christmas cards.” to raise Glenn’s national profile, so trailed incumbent Democratic sena- The SCF was founded in part by for- they can expand his fundraising efforts tor Michael Bennet by exactly the mer senator and cur- well beyond the Centennial State. He’s same margin. But Glenn had just won rent Heritage Foundation president started to make appearances on Fox the primary and remains an unknown Jim DeMint, who was well known for News, and the fundraising numbers quantity in the state. Presumably, he feuding with Mitch McConnell when are encouraging so far. has real potential to rise the two were in the Senate together Gardner raised a million in the polls. (McConnell was then minority dollars in the first 30 days Glenn still has plenty leader). In 2014, the SCF sponsored a after being nominated of opportunities to press primary challenge to McConnell. The in 2014, and Glenn is on his case. Bennet is a NRSC and McConnell responded by pace to do the same. fairly milquetoast Demo- launching total war against any can- And speaking of play- crat, and Glenn smartly didate who had the imprimatur of the ing to his strengths, the plans to make the race SCF. McConnell told the New York key to Glenn becoming a a referendum on Wash- Times the goal was to “crush them national figure may hinge ington. “You want to be everywhere” and expressed hope the on Glenn giving another speech. On able to say it’s just like someone going SCF wouldn’t have “a single [Senate July 3, Derrick Wilburn, founder of in for a performance review. You hired GOP] nominee anywhere in the coun- the Rocky Mountain Black Conserv- someone to do a job, they met, and try.” The pitched battle escalated to an atives and vice chairman of the Colo- they performed. Now is their perfor- undeniably counterproductive point rado GOP, uploaded a video to YouTube mance satisfactory, based on how they in key races in the last election cycle. addressing the presumptive Republi- voted? . . . Is he doing a good job for Notably, McConnell went scorched- can presidential nominee. “Mr. Trump, you—yes or no?” earth against Ben Sasse in Nebraska, as a conservative, as a Republican party Glenn’s self-confidence stems from who, despite the institutional opposi- official, and as a personal friend of Dar- his belief that no other candidate can tion, won the GOP Senate primary in ryl Glenn, I’ve got a request of you. work harder than he will. Asked what the state, carrying 92 of 93 counties. Darryl Glenn needs to be on the stage Bennet’s weakness is, he doesn’t hesi- Even though GOP control of the in a primetime slot at the RNC,” he tate: “competing.” Glenn’s work ethic Senate and McConnell’s job as major- said. “Darryl and you together are a is evident just by looking at him. If ity leader may hinge on Glenn win- team that can help deliver an incred- elected, the 50-year-old—a three- ning in Colorado, his campaign is ibly important swing state.” time Collegiate National Powerlifting walking on eggshells. (Glenn has Certainly, speaking at a convention champion from his days at the Air also picked up some key members of has launched notable political careers, Force Academy—would be the fit- the campaign team that helped elect including that of the current occupant test man in Congress by a significant Sasse.) Glenn’s campaign aides believe of the . As this article goes margin. Thankfully, a winning smile the NRSC will come around to sup- to press, a few days before the GOP and positive attitude nearly make you porting them, but for now they’re not convention in Cleveland, Glenn is ten- forget that he’s literally an intimidat- expecting a big influx of cash from the tatively scheduled to speak on July 18, ing figure. national GOP. At some point, Glenn the first night of the proceedings. “We’re going to win this,” he says. says, “it’s important for me to sit Glenn endorsed Trump on July 3 at “We’ve been very confident in this race down and have a conversation with the Western Conservative Summit in because we believe we’re on the right the NRSC and say, ‘Guys, at the end Denver, and given the wisps of racism side of the issues and . . . because we are of the day we’re on the same team.’ ” swirling around Trump’s campaign, willing to continue to go out and talk to

THOMAS FLUHARTY In the meantime, the plan is to play it would do Trump a world of good to people, and people appreciate that.” ♦

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 19 New Bottle, Old Whine Taking the party for a ride

BY NOEMIE EMERY younger woman (who in the course of separating from her first husband had left four quite young children behind). all it déjà vu, call it old whine in new bot- Believing that neither could win, but that both could set tles, call it a tale thrice told, perhaps by an off a fight that divided the party, they planned to hold out idiot; there are a lot of things one can call for a unity candidate, whom all sides could rally around. this Republican political season, but new But when asked to come up with a number of options, is not one of them. Been-there-done-that Eisenhower mentioned his Treasury secretary (Robert Cmight be more like it. Anderson), Generals Lucius Clay and Alfred Gruen ther, It’s been a generation or more, but we’ve seen outsider and his own brother Milton (who had never held office)—a candidates take their parties on wild rides, grabbing the keys list that showed his distaste for career politicians. This was to the family vehicle, driving it into ravines and through emblematic of a much larger flaw that would later prove fences, and bringing it back to the house with dents in the fatal: Knowing his success was based in the belief that he fenders and the headlights knocked out. History may not was antipolitical, Eisenhower feared most of all being seen repeat itself but it rhymes, and couplets abound, what with as conniving, which led him at times not to give an endorse- futile establishments, fervent outsiders, and rancorous egos. ment, or to withdraw one within hours of it having been Looking back, each of these episodes has a strange, dream- made. As White would explain, “conversations with Eisen- like aspect, as the participants seem to be careening towards hower . . . were to baffle and confuse” his more moderate catastrophes they see coming but cannot find ways to avoid. allies, as he would prod them to run but refuse to endorse Each tells its own story of hapless futility. Let’s look back at them. And having gotten the word direct from the gen- them closely and see. eral, “the distinction between being ‘urged’ to run and the Few establishments had ever seemed stronger than the implicit promise of support was always obscure” to them. Republican party’s in 1963, led by Dwight Eisenhower, a In November 1963, he urged to come beloved, two-term ex-president just three years out of office, home and run for president on a “common sense” platform. and a cadre of golden-boy governors, including George (Lodge had lost his Senate seat in 1952 to John , Romney of Michigan and William Scranton of Pennsylva- who as president appointed Lodge his ambassador to South nia, the last a particular favorite of the war-hero president. Vietnam.) Eisenhower’s urging led people to think he had Early on, this group had pegged as a pos- chosen his candidate—till just days later he made the same sible menace, the head of a group of Western conservatives plea to Scranton, the patrician young governor. Through whom Theodore White, the great chronicler of modern the winter and spring a plan evolved to let Goldwater and presidential campaigns, referred to as “primitives,” seen as Rockefeller kill off one another, hinging on the critical pri- way too far to the right of the rest of the country and much mary in California, to be held on June 2. Rockefeller, who too proactive in foreign affairs. But Goldwater was not the was then ahead in the polls, was expected to win, thus crip- only contender the establishment planned to stop: They pling Goldwater, and would head to the convention, where also feared New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, whom he would be blocked by the Goldwater forces, whose skills they considered too liberal and also quite certain to lose at delegate-hunting were strong. The deadlocked conven- the election, having divorced his first wife to marry a much tion would then find itself in a quandary and turn, as a mat- ter of course, to esteemed party leaders who would come Noemie Emery, a WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor, is forth with a man of their own. author most recently of Great Expectations: The Troubled As a result, the stop-Goldwater people mainly on Lives of Political Families. their hands through the primary season, careful to offend or

22 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 to irritate no one, in hopes that backers of both contestants for the nomination, but he would not fight for it. ‘I don’t would have no reason to go against them. Richard Nixon, plan to go out and try to defeat Senator Goldwater. I have no who had lost the last election to Kennedy and who had such intention,’ ” he said. hoped to emerge as a compromise candidate, said not a word. Two strange days followed in Cleveland, as the gover - Neither did George Romney, nor did Scranton, who refused nors staggered about in a state of confusion, trying to scare the plea of Pennsylvania senator Hugh Scott to endorse up a stand-in for Scranton, as various prospects emerged, Rockefeller before California, as he hoped to meet two days and then failed. Rockefeller was still divorced, still too after the primary with several other establishment leaders liberal for most of the party, and still had lost California. to plan their approach, once Rockefeller had won. The plan Richard Nixon arrived, but had to wait for someone to ask was inspired, the sole problem being that it would utterly him, which no one was doing. Several said they’d agree to fail to work out. On Friday, Rockefeller led in the polls by a draft, but no one would start one. Romney had made a a margin of more than 10 points. On Saturday news arrived promise to the voters of Michigan not to run for president that his son, Nelson Jr., had been born in New York, forcing in his first term in office; he was afraid of the public’s reac- this then-dormant scandal back into . The race tion if he broke his pledge. Lodge was away, and Eisen- was tied Monday. And on Tues- hower remained an uncertain day, Goldwater won, 52-48, and trumpet, whose calls came and headed toward the convention went. Wholly embarrassed, the appearing unstoppable. mortified governors skulked Instead of an impasse, and out of Cleveland, but the drama a plea from the party to step in was not quite done. Also morti- and save it, the stop-Goldwater fied, Eisenhower and Scranton, forces faced a scenario in which perhaps unnerved at the beat- they would have to step in and ing they had taken from the oppose a proven frontrunner press, used Goldwater’s vote with impassioned support and a against the civil rights bill that strong lead in delegates, for none was then before Congress as of which they had planned. Prov- Eisenhower and Goldwater at a GOP their excuse and/or reason to ‘unity’ meeting, August 1, 1964 identially, the annual national charge back into battle, sending governors’ conference was scheduled to open in Cleveland Scranton into a quixotic campaign that would quickly go just days later, presenting them with a rare chance to meet nowhere, and end five weeks later at the convention, where and to make future plans. On a Saturday morning, Scran- the establishment handed its sword to the renegade sena- ton met Eisenhower, who urged him to run, gave him his tor from Arizona, who would go on to lose 44 states. Even blessing, and promised to be on his side. Saturday evening, then, Eisenhower substantially weakened this final doomed the news reached Cleveland, where 12 other governors ral- effort when he went back on his promise to publicly back lied behind him. Sunday morning Scranton arrived to a the campaign. “The principles that moved the great Repub- hero’s reception, ready to go on Face the Nation to announce lican chieftains to their behavior . . . are difficult enough to that he too would be running for president, and had the define, but the personalities involved seemed determined support of the beloved ex-president. But minutes before, he to confuse them still further,” as White reported, correctly. was called to the phone, where Eisenhower told him he did “The week before and the week after the California primary not have his blessing, that he feared he had made a mistake. of June 2nd exposed all of them in the worst possible light.” He had not meant to say he would back Scranton for presi- Truer words never were written, and for the first time a dent. “The General wanted Bill to know that he could not party establishment composed of accomplished and tested be part of any ‘cabal’ to stop Barry,” White informs us. “Bill professionals had collapsed in the face of internal rebellion. was on his own.” As time proved, it would not be the last. Stunned, Scranton went on the program reeling with shock, wholly disoriented, and struggling to make sense t least the Republican establishment had rec- of a new situation he had not had the time to absorb. “His ognized Goldwater as a threat to their interests arms folded, his eyes downcast . . . he stumbled through half A as early as 1962, even if they weren’t able to do an hour of awkward question-and-answer, taking refuge in much to stop him when the time came to act. By contrast, ‘principle,’ ” as White writes. “He felt strongly about the tra- it took Democrats until May 1972 to recognize the cam- ditional principles of the Republican Party, but he did not paign waged by George S. McGovern—who was as far to

BOB GOMEL / THE LIFE IMAGE COLLECTION / GETTY / COLLECTION IMAGE LIFE THE / GOMEL BOB feel strongly about stopping Goldwater. He was ‘available’ the left as Goldwater had been to the right of the country,

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 23 and as much of a threat to their settled world order—as the not understand the bitterness that remained from Hubert critical challenge it was. Standing at 3 percent in the polls Humphrey having been awarded the nomination in 1968 in January 1972, he seemed a blip on the screen next to by the powers that were without getting one vote in the pri- Edmund Muskie, the heir apparent who had been the vice maries. It did not understand what it meant that McGov- presidential candidate in the last outing and the one man ern had been the stand-in for the late Robert Kennedy at to emerge from that sordid election with his moral stature that convention, or that , McGovern’s campaign enhanced. Unfortunately, he ran the classic campaign of a manager, had left his law firm in Denver to campaign for frontrunner, long on inevitability and short on ideas, with Kennedy in 1968, or that Gene Pokorny, one of his aides, a huge office (called the Taj Mahal) on K Street in Wash- had come out of four years of student activism at his uni- ington that seemed to eat money, an office and a staff for versity, having moved from the civil rights to the antiwar every niche interest, and boards of advisers with experi- movement, and then to the Eugene McCarthy campaign. ence going back to the administration of Franklin D. Roo- “A whole generation of American youth leaders was sevelt. Everyone who was anyone (or wanted to be) had moving at the same time in the same direction,” White lined up behind him, as White reported. “By January . . . notes. “The decade of the sixties moved its campus polit- the parade of endorsements from the established leadership ical heroes on into national politics by the scores and the of the party had become so crowded hundreds, where they proceeded that one of the chief problems was to act.” What they brought with sequencing their dates with enough them was an army of people willing separation to get maximum press to work on the ground in caucus impact.” Muskie’s ascent seemed, and primary states and an open- as ’s did later, a fait accom- ness to more modern forms of poll- pli. “He had solid financial backing, ing technology, of which the party a large and experienced staff, the leadership had remained ignorant, endorsement of the party’s lead- and with which it was not prepared ing figures, the advice of the party’s to compete. It didn’t know that in sages, the affirmation of the nation’s 1971 Hart had worked out a pri- pollsters. But if Muskie was long From left, Eagleton, Humphrey, McGovern, mary schedule that focused on New and Muskie share the finale of the Democratic at the bank, and on the letterhead, National Convention, July 13, 1972. Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Cali- he was short, depressingly short, fornia, or that in 1971 Pokorny was in ideas.” Unwilling to risk his large lead, he dealt in eva- living full-time in Wisconsin and organizing the state so sions and platitudes, relying on the theme “Trust Muskie” intensely that by March of the next year, each of the state’s that had been so effective four years earlier. But what hit 72 counties had a volunteer nucleus, paid organizers were the right note against Nixon and Agnew had rather less staffing numerous storefronts, while “ten thousand unpaid punch in a primary contest, and, as the Wa s h i n g t o n Po s t, the volunteer workers were walking blocks and country roads, Boston Globe, and White himself noted, “People were will- marking voters on precinct sheets . . . indicating the degree ing to trust Muskie, but were asking . . . trust Muskie for of pressure to be exerted to bring them out on primary day.” what?” Weeks later, he indulged in a tirade in the snow of In California, the campaign’s operation was state of the art, New Hampshire, where he seemed to shed tears, and his “the most efficient technical apparatus ever fielded by any image and numbers would never recover. He still won the candidate in a primary,” with 283 storefront offices, 500 primary, but with 46 percent, 20 points down from his pre- organizers from out of the state, precise polling that charted vious standing. McGovern was second, with a surprise 37 the movement of sentiment, and a system in which print- percent, which vaulted him into a position of top competi- outs of names, on which volunteers coded questions and tor. And from then on he did not look back. answers, were shipped to centers where computers “spat out and mailed a personalized form letter from George McGov- hat the establishment failed to see in McGov- ern to each numbered respondent, addressed to that voter’s ern was that he was not merely one man but central concern.” By contrast, the campaign of Humphrey, W the tip of a long spear of unfinished business, the last establishment figure left standing, looked back to a going back several years. The Democratic establishment long-ago era in which candidates relied upon unions, lead- in 1972 did not have the catastrophic dysfunction that the ers of ethnic blocs, and machines in big cities to turn out GOP had experienced eight years earlier, but what it did their clients. It was at this point, just before California, with have was a willful blindness to the forces that whirled all McGovern leading in most polls by double digits, that the

around it and the currents that swirled round its feet. It did institutional Democrats awoke to the fact that the party of PRESS ASSOCIATED

24 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy was about to nominate not be regarded as legitimate by many voters and might face a man who, despite his heroic record as a bomber pilot in a third-party challenge,” as writes in Our the Second World War, had supported Henry A. Wallace Country. “But they believed that McGovern’s views on for- in 1948 and deeply believed American power was a malev- eign policy were a genuine danger to freedom, and must be olent force in the world. challenged and rebuked if at all possible. They could not yet At the instigation of organized labor, at that time an be certain that he would lose to Nixon, and they were cor- anti-Communist and socially conservative institution, rect in thinking that he was genuinely different from their Humphrey took on McGovern in three debates, and in the nominees of the past.” course of them managed to rip him to pieces, forcing him to As with Scranton eight years before, it was too little, too defend his very high-priced plan for a guaranteed national late in the process to resonate. “In China years ago,” wrote income and for partial withdrawal from world conflicts. He White (who had actually reported from China), “it was managed to drive McGovern’s lead down from a 20-point accepted that by the time the guerrilla forces surfaced in any spread to a 5-point margin, which served only as a tan- province,” the time had gone by to stop them. Before the talizing hint of what might have been had they wakened regular forces arrived to confront them, the battle already sooner to their plight. At the convention, it was another was lost. labor figure who came up with the idea of a rules change as the last chance to avert a catastrophe: “Why should oo late” was also the problem for Republican McGovern claim all of California’s 271 votes when he had regulars in 2016, when an aroused and ener- won only 44 percent of the vote in the primary? If Hum- ‘T gized large group of people rolled over a larger phrey, Muskie, Jackson, the labor forces, the Southerners all but diffuse and disorganized set of opponents, who had not joined in a coalition to challenge the California delegation, seen their peril in time. Donald Trump’s unique ability to McGovern might yet be stopped.” McGovern’s “opponents tame, master, and co-opt the media gave him the sort of surely recognized the high cost of such tactics in a proce- leg up over his many opponents that their mastery of mod- dure-conscious age and knew that any other nominee would ern organizational tactics gave the McGovern campaign

Let’s Get Back to Business in 2016

By Thomas J. Donohue Advancing Trade. Forget what the get capital to operate. President and CEO isolationists claim. In a global economy, Electing the Right Candidates. Want U.S. Chamber of Commerce trade supports U.S. jobs, expands consumer pro-growth policies? Then you better elect spending power, and helps America compete. pro-growth leaders. The business community Two weeks of political theatrics are We need more of it, not less. is supporting men and women running for getting under way today as the Republicans Producing U.S. Energy. Our nation the House and the Senate who are right on convene for their party convention in now has more proven energy reserves than the issues and committed to governing. Cleveland, followed by the Democrats any other country. If we tap those resources Answering Attacks on American next week in Philadelphia. This will be the responsibly, we can create good paying jobs, Business. U.S. businesses are coming under presidential candidates’ and their parties’ big attract manufacturing and investment to our attack from the left and the right. But it’s chance to establish their platforms and show shores, generate billions in revenue, and businesses that create jobs, offer benefts, the American people what they really stand strengthen national security. drive the economy, and lead innovation. for. Will they promote an agenda to support Fighting Overregulation. A tsunami of Business is not the problem. It’s a big part of jobs, growth, and prosperity? Or will they regulations are strangling business growth, the solution to our nation’s challenges—and advance more of the same failed policies that investment, and hiring. We must restore we’re going to stand up and say so. have delivered slow growth, the lowest labor balance and commonsense to the regulatory The business community will have a participation rate ever, and falling incomes? system so that businesses have the certainty powerful voice this election year. We are Throughout the conventions and for the they need. committed to getting the right people elected rest of this election season, the U.S. Chamber Defending Our Financial System. and the right policies in place to grow our of Commerce will be urging our leaders to get Banks and other fnancial institutions are a economy and create jobs. Working together, back to business—the business of spurring popular punching bag these days. But we can get back to business in 2016. our economy, creating jobs, and spreading they perform a critical function in our opportunity far and wide. To that end, we’re economy—without them, consumers promoting six core priorities for 2016. couldn’t get credit and businesses couldn’t www.uschamber.com/abovethefold

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 25 in 1972. But this year more closely resembles 1964, in that Political people are creatures of outsized ego, and none both egos and incredible errors of judgment by frequently more so than the ones who see themselves as president. In sensible large personalities undercut, kneecapped, and shat- their day jobs, they are surrounded by staff who function tered completely any chances to cohere around an oppo- as courtiers. In their government jobs, they cooperate with nent. In 1964, it was Eisenhower’s last-minute phone call one another; but a primary contest is entirely different, as withholding full support from Scranton that snapped the the stakes are much higher, and only one among them can back of the anti-Goldwater movement, following the risky win. Each intends to be that one person. They do not want decision to rely on California primary voters to stop the ren- to work and to play well with others. They do not want egade senator. In 2016, it was too many people staying in to coalesce around others. They want others to coalesce much too long and ripping the innards out of each other around them. And so as it developed, each player in the (instead of the threatening outsider), leaving the outsider to 2015-16 primary field seemed to have a plot in his head in glide by unopposed. What made Jeb Bush, out of office nine which Trump could be stopped by other people dropping years and out of touch with the new set of pertinent issues, out at just the right time and in just the right sequence for decide that a large field filled with fresher, more plausible the votes and delegates to flow his way. They seemed very figures required his presence at all? The put out when things failed to work effect of his entry was to cripple a num- out in this fashion. And so they ber of younger candidates and provide Confronted with hung on, often beyond the point the ideal target for Trump to play off of, when any hope remained. as the outdated and listless establishment insurgencies, people One does not even have to be an figure against which to wield his wreck- wait too long to actual candidate to let self-interest ing ball for change. recognize danger, and screw up a race. The stop-Goldwater Second to Bush in the damage-done then are too often movement was stalled at all points sweepstakes would be , who paralyzed by it. by Eisenhower’s fear that if he were had no chance of winning anything out- ever perceived by the public to have side of but was an all-purpose drag dabbled in politics, his pristine pub- on all of the others. Ted Cruz and also suffered lic image would cease to exist. Thus, having pushed Scran- from self-inflicted injuries that sapped their vote-getting ton out in a doomed frantic effort, he still refused to endorse ability, Rubio having sponsored an immigration reform bill him in public. An irate Nelson Rockefeller asked him what that enraged conservatives, and Cruz having stumbled in he was doing. “The former President,” White reported, 2013 when he dragged his party into an ill-advised govern- “said he could not come out publicly, he had to preserve his ment shutdown. As a result, when he emerged as the last influence.” This was the man who had planned the invasion hope to stop Trump, most of his colleagues refused to sup- of Normandy, with his reputation secure, and no future in port him, and he had trouble reaching people who were politics. “Acidly, Rockefeller inquired: For what?” outside his own base. In the beginning, when Trump could In spite of all their resources, the establishment forces, have been stopped, the center-right ignored him, tearing both fifty years back and now in the present, were never each other to pieces, while Cruz played along with Trump as strong as they seemed. Their resources are real, but all at first in the hope that, as a fellow outsider, he could pick but impossible to coordinate and deploy, out of fear, out up Trump’s voters if and when Trump collapsed. But Trump of blindness, out of complacency, out of self-interest, and didn’t collapse. Each step taken at each stage by the whole owing to the inability of ambitious people to wholly aban- range of the entire not-Trump contingent ended up the don their dreams. “Together, the thirteen anti-Goldwa- wrong one, each guess mistaken, and every plan failed. ter governors governed some 58 million Americans in the name of the Republican Party,” as White wrote in his o what can we take from these sad little stories, as a Making of the President, 1964. “The great cities, communi- guidebook to future campaigns? First, people do wait ties, and states they tended were of world-wide importance; Stoo long to recognize danger, and then are too often their resources of talent and wisdom could shake the nation. paralyzed by it. Second, it’s easier to be for something than Yet all of them, together, could find no way of shaping an simply against it, no matter how unappealing that some- alliance that might confront the legions . . . mobilized under thing may be. Positive force is direct and ferocious, nega- the Goldwater flag.” That’s how it looked then from the tive force is diffuse and meandering. The insurgent force outside, of course; from the inside it would be a whole other has one thing in mind, its own elevation; the people against story. That’s how it was in 1964, in 1972, and now in this it bring diffuse and conflicting unrelated ambitions. Which cycle. And so it may be at some future moment, if the threat brings us to point number three. ever arises again. ♦

26 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 The Shadow of the Kingfish Down-home dictator

BY GEOFFREY NORMAN But of course that is only part of the story. If there were no more to it, then Randy Newman would not be singing t was Sunday, a month before Election Day 1932, about , decades after his death: and the Roosevelts were having a guest to lunch at their Hyde Park estate. When Eleanor Roosevelt Everybody gather round Loosen up your suspenders greeted him at the door, the guest was dressed in a Hunker down on the ground plaid suit that could politely be described as “loud.” I’m a cracker IThe suit was complemented by a pink tie and a purple shirt. And you are too Mrs. Roosevelt escorted him to the dining room and seated But don’t I take good care of you him next to her husband. The guest then proceeded to lec- Who built the highway to Baton Rouge? ture—or perhaps hector—the Democratic party’s presiden- Who put up the hospital and built you schools? Who looks after shit-kickers like you? tial nominee. It went on for the duration of the lunch and The Kingfish do at one point, Roosevelt’s mother, Sara, said in a voice loud enough to be heard up and down the table, “Who is that Long has fascinated artists and biographers from the awful man?” time of his death, and one suspects that it will never end. This didn’t seem to bother Huey P. Long. He had been He was an American original, as T. Harry Williams made called worse. Much worse. And by people who would have abundantly clear in his magisterial Huey Long, which came been happy to do more than shame him for his bad man- out in 1969 and won both a Pulitzer and National Book ners—who would have been delighted to kill him and Award for biography. Forty years later, came Richard D. dance on his grave. White’s Kingfish, which does not so much rival Williams’s As for the man who would soon be president of the book as complement it at half its length. Then, of course, United States, he saw past Long’s uncouth clothes and there was Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men, undisciplined mouth and got to the essentials. As he later which won a Pulitzer in 1947. The film adaptation won said to one of his principal advisers, he considered Long to the Academy Award for best picture in 1949. Broderick be one of the “two most dangerous men in America.” The Crawford was named best actor for his role as Governor other was General Douglas MacArthur. Willie Stark, Warren’s fictionalized Huey Long, and Mer- It can be fairly assumed that Long never gave Roosevelt cedes McCambridge won best supporting actress as Sadie reason to revise that opinion. Or, for that matter, that he Burke, Stark’s indispensable aide and sometime lover. ever would have objected to that characterization. If he did, The story was told again, in film, in 2006, with Sean Penn it was probably because he thought he had no rivals for the playing Stark. It flopped, not least because the filmmakers title and that the president should fear him far beyond any decided—for reasons understood only in Hollywood—to other. After all, he would soon be president himself. set the action in the 1950s. Huey Long was purely a phe- He was known as the “Kingfish,” a name that came to nomenon of the 1930s. For him and his ambitions, the him from the Amos ’n’ Andy radio show and stuck. The was . . . opportunity. Perhaps even revo- comedy character was all big talk, and Huey P. Long could, lutionary opportunity. as they say, talk the bark off a tree. But he was also capable Long had an instinctive, almost feral feeling for the of action. Brutal, ruthless, and even sadistic action. wounds and woes suffered by the common man during those bleak years. In 1933 unemployment nationally reached Geoffrey Norman, a writer in Vermont, is a frequent contributor nearly 25 percent. In Long’s , if you were poor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. and lived in the rural portions of the state, life had been

28 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 plenty hard before the Depression. And then it got worse. He had run indefatigably for his seat on the Railroad Long was not himself what was once called “poor white Commission, a powerful agency that also regulated public trash,” but he was not above encouraging people to think he utilities. His energy was legendary. He needed very little was. Among the dozens of stories about his gift for empa- sleep, and he seemed to run at only one speed, flat out. In thetic and improvisational speech-making, there is one just two years he’d moved up to chairman of the commis- about how in the middle of a campaign speech, he asked sion and went after a telephone company that had raised the crowd of hard-pressed farmers, sharecroppers, laborers, rates some 20 percent. The case went all the way to the and generally put-upon and burdened voters, “How many Supreme Court, where Long won. People who received of you wear silk socks?” their small refund checks from the phone company never No hands went up. forgot who had made it happen. Chief Justice William “How many wear cotton socks?” Howard Taft later said that Long was one of the best legal When he saw hands raised in answer, Long raised a minds he’d seen appear before the court. pant leg and showed the crowd that he, too, wore cot- He was neither dumb nor a red- ton socks. neck, as some of his enemies—and “And how many of you he was making them quickly have holes in your socks?” and by the bushel—wanted to The hands went up believe. Those enemies tried again, and now Long took to get rid of him, claiming he off a shoe and showed the had abused his authority on audience his big toe, sticking the commission. It was not the through a hole in his sock. last such effort. At that moment, and per- He was a man in a hurry haps for evermore, the people and in 1924, just 30 years in that audience were his. old, he ran for governor. Even if they knew he wasn’t He would lose, everyone really one of them. said, and lose badly. Then he would sink back into the f he wasn’t born poor and could obscurity from which he had have worn silk socks from very early emerged. But he campaigned I in his political career, it didn’t matter. Huey like a demon. He crossed the Long made the visceral connection and at its state on its pitiful 300 miles roots, it was pure. He felt the right resentments of paved roads, which he made and hated the right people and institutions. From into a campaign issue, along with the beginning of his political career, he made the free schoolbooks for the children and right enemies, including Standard Oil. increased taxation on Standard He had been a traveling salesman—a good and the other big players. He made one—and a lawyer—a combative one—before he speech after speech. He was young, ran for a seat on the Louisiana Railroad Commission in lacking an organization, and he wore cheap, ill-fitting 1918. He was 25 and had found his true calling and his suits. But when he talked about how Standard’s lawyers eternal enemy. He had his reasons, personal and political, had written the tax laws, and the political insiders in Baton which for Huey Long always amounted to the same thing. Rouge were in the saddle and riding the common man into A $1,000 investment that he’d made when he was a the dirt, he made people listen. The influence of the KKK young attorney had looked good for a while. There was oil became an issue in the election and he straddled it. He pre- where the company he’d invested with was looking. But ferred, through his career, class war to race war, though it Standard Oil, which did the all the storage and refining in would be a long reach to call him “enlightened” on race. Louisiana, refused to take oil from independent producers He missed making it to a runoff by 7,400 votes. The and Long, like many others, was wiped out. He never for- next day, he bought a new suit and began campaigning for got nor, certainly, did he forgive. Later, when he was run- the office again. He’d never made any secret of his ambi- ning for governor, he would charge Standard with being tions. He’d told his wife, just after they were married, that among “the world’s greatest criminals,” and he would point he would first run for some statewide office and when they out that Louisiana’s farmers paid 40 times more in taxes knew his name, he would go for governor, then senator, and

JASON SEILER than Standard Oil, on earnings of a third less. finally for president. And, of course, win.

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 29 He was both more energetic and more polished in his that broke it. They passed an impeachment resolution. second run for the governorship in 1928. He had a slo- But Long had seen it before. “I was elected Rail- gan, borrowed from William Jennings Bryan, whom he road Commissioner of Louisiana in 1918, and they tried admired: “Every man a king.” He was already relying on to impeach me in 1920. When they failed to impeach me the themes he would work and rework for the rest of his in 1920, they indicted me in 1921. And when I wiggled life. For the common man, it was a stacked deck, in a rigged through that, I managed to become governor in 1928, and game, against a crooked house. Of the many speeches he they impeached me in 1929.” gave in that campaign, there was one that stood out and is Long stumped the state in his own defense and on the still talked about. attack, against enemies old and new, including especially He gave the speech in St. Martinville, under the Evan- Standard Oil. They were, he said, handing out bribe money geline Oak of the famous Longfellow poem. Long’s theme to the legislature in amounts of as much as $25,000. It was, was not lost love, though, but betrayal. he said in an idiom unlike the one he used under the Evan- geline Oak, “enough money to burn a wet mule.” And it is here, under this oak, where Evangeline waited The Louisiana House passed out a dog’s breakfast of in vain for her lover, Gabriel, who never came. This oak impeachment charges, but there was no trial in the Senate. is an immortal spot, made so by Longfellow’s poem, but Evangeline is not the only one who has waited here Long had already secured commitments from the neces- in disappointment. sary one-third of that body’s members. They would not Where are the schools that you have waited for your chil- vote to convict, so there was no point in proceeding. dren to have, that have never come? Where are the roads The impeachment failed but things had changed. If and the highways that you sent your money to build, that are no nearer now than ever before? Where are the institu- Long had played rough before, he was now prepared to tions to care for the sick and disabled? Evangeline wept bit- play dirty. Ominously for that era, he began traveling ter tears in her disappointment, but it lasted only through with bodyguards. one lifetime. Your tears in this country, around this oak, Then he announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in have lasted for generations. Give me the chance to dry the eyes of those who still weep here. the 1930 campaign. There was already an occupant of that Senate seat. And Long was only two years into his term as The worst fears of the establishment were realized governor. But he planned neither to resign as governor nor when he finished first in the Democratic primary and by immediately serve as senator, if he won the election. such a convincing margin that the runoff was conceded to He would, he promised, resign as governor if he were him. A reporter at Long’s headquarters on primary night not elected to the Senate. This was, of course, more threat heard him say, loudly and exuberantly, “You fellows stick than promise. Long viewed the Senate race both as a ref- to me. We’re just getting started. This is only the begin- erendum on his service as governor and as a way to get his ning. . . . From now on, I’m the Kingfish. I’m gonna be feet wet in Washington. Which didn’t mean he would be president some day.” turning his back on Louisiana. He would still run the state while, in Washington, he ran for president. ut first, he had to be governor. And he meant to He won in a landslide. Now his power in the state was do what he’d said he would. The history of Amer- of an entirely new magnitude, and it drove his enemies to B ican politics is littered with the corpses of candi- greater fury. He continued to push his programs, includ- dates who promised big and delivered small. Huey Long ing some that seemed like extravagances or personal vani- may have been a , but he meant to build roads ties or both. He wanted a new capitol building in Baton and schools and hospitals and to get after Standard Oil. Not Rouge so he built the tallest one in the entire United only was he not afraid of a political fight, he relished one. States: 34 stories. This, in a poor, rural, Southern state (Actual fistfights were another thing, and he would go out where many people still got along without electricity. But of his way to avoid those.) Huey wanted the capitol building and he got it. So he went to Baton Rouge and got to work. He filled He decided that Louisiana State University was under- the government with supporters and cronies. It might funded and inadequate. So he threw himself passionately be said that there was never an American politician who into a program to raise its profile, beginning with improv- better understood the uses of patronage. He rammed bills ing and enlarging the band and making the football team through the legislature. To build the roads and bridges more competitive. He fired the coach, then rehired him. He and supply the schoolbooks he had promised, he went gave locker room speeches to the team and walked the side- after his old nemesis and proposed a 5-cent-per-barrel tax lines during games. He was the number-one fan. on the production of refined oil. And, in truth, LSU improved thanks to his attentions For his opponents who were, by now, many and fevered, and not only on the football field. The university added a

30 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 badly needed medical school and generally raised the qual- found amusing. For instance, U.S. senator Joseph “Feather ity of the faculty. Duster” Ransdell, New Orleans mayor T. Semmes “Tur- He had put his mark on LSU and had, in fact, broken key Head” Walmsley, and Esmond “Shinola” Phelps, of the state of Louisiana to his considerable and ferocious will. the New Orleans family that published the Times-Picayune Now . . . it was on to Washington where the entire country for decades. would see him at work and make up its mind. That sort of thing was not appreciated in the Senate chamber, where Long plainly relished violating the heavy he mood of the times was right for the man. It sense of decorum, thus offending all the right people and was 1932. Herbert Hoover was still in the White institutions, among them the Wa s h i n g t o n Po s t, which called T House, and the Depression was deepening. Pes- for him to resign. simism, and something more, was in the air. There was a But he could be utterly serious when he had to be. sense that the old order of things might not survive, and This was an essential element of the Long mystique. Huey Long’s presence in Washington When the situation called for him to and membership in the U.S. Senate play the crude, ill-mannered redneck, was an indicator of this. he could do that and do it so none He rode the L&N Crescent City would think it an act. But when he Limited from New Orleans to Wash- needed to be sober, serious, and even ington, arriving on January 25, scholarly, he could do that, too. As he 1932, in the early morning. He took did at the Democratic convention in the oath of office and, in the Senate Chicago in the summer of 1932, when chamber, a desk that had once been two slates of delegates arrived from John C. Calhoun’s. Louisiana. One of these was loyal to He stayed in Washington exactly Long. The other represented his bit- one day, then returned to Loui- ter enemies. The convention would siana to put down an attempt by decide which to recognize. the sitting lieutenant governor to Long took to the podium with assume the role of governor. That a stack of law books for a prop. He one was easy. He bought a house and was not dressed in his usual colorful launched a law practice and then, fashion. He wore, instead, a cream- since it was Mardi Gras, he ordered colored suit. He made his case with- Long, right, presents his Senate credentials the LSU band down to New Orleans, out the usual wild gestures and table to Vice President Charles Curtis, 1932. all 250 pieces. When he’d said thumping. As he spoke, the crowd— he wanted the band to be big, Huey had meant . . . big. which had begun by booing him—began to come around, He returned to Washington in February and immedi- and by the end of the speech he had them. The vote went ately began making headlines and enemies. In early April his way and, later, Clarence Darrow complimented Long he made a speech in which he argued for what became his on one of the “greatest summaries of fact and evidence he singular cause, the crusade of his political life: Share the had ever heard.” Wealth. The particulars would evolve but it came down to a The convention nominated Franklin Roosevelt on a radical redistribution of wealth. Fortunes would be limited fifth ballot. During the fourth ballot, Long got in the face of to $100 million. Incomes over $2 million would be taxed at a senator from Mississippi and threatened to “break” him if 65 percent. And so on. he allowed his state’s delegates to vote as individuals rather Long made it personal, which was his way. He attacked than as a unit. This was the other Huey, not the one who Joe Robinson, the leader of the Senate’s Democrats—nomi- had so impressed Clarence Darrow but the one who ran nally his party—as an ally of Herbert Hoover and then Louisiana with an iron fist and made sure no one forgot it. accused him of being in the grip of his corporate law clients Long could have run for president against Roosevelt back in Arkansas. Long went on to name those clients and as the candidate of the Farmer-Labor party. But he passed then went after Robinson’s looks, saying, “he doesn’t look and campaigned hard for Roosevelt in the hope that FDR really as well with his dyed.” would support the Share the Wealth plan. Roosevelt had This was typical of Long, who enjoyed mocking oppo- made the right noises. He had, in fact, talked about “the nents at a personal level. (One inevitably thinks of paral- forgotten man at the bottom on the economic pyramid.” lels with a current presidential hopeful.) He would give his Long also, no doubt, saw the Farmer-Labor candidacy

BETTMAN / CORBIS GETTY opponents nicknames that his rural Louisiana audiences as a losing proposition and sensed that it was not yet his

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 31 time. But this did not mean his time might not come soon. While Smith was the public face of Share Our Wealth, Unsurprisingly, not long after Roosevelt’s inauguration Huey was the soul and the muscle and the man who Long’s patience with the president began running out. But, might become president if he ran in 1936. The times were then, Huey was an impatient man. He pushed his Share the right for and dictators. It was the age of the Wealth plan, which was far too radical for Roosevelt and strongman. Mussolini in Italy. Hitler in Germany. And, might, indeed, have been too radical for anyone until the perhaps, Long in America. advent of Bernie Sanders. The scheme called for heavy and He seemed, increasingly, like he belonged to the escalating taxation on fortunes of more than $1 million. breed. In summer 1934, he had sent troops armed with A limit of $5 million on inheritances. (Long believed the rifles and machine guns into New Orleans to settle one of Bible sanctioned this, and that taxing estates was protec- his many political battles. The New York Times reported, tion against the accumulation of great fortunes.) He called, “Huey P. Long became de facto dictator of this state at additionally, for a $1 billion program to pay college tuition noon today and immediately began acting the part.” for needy students. Long had ordered the troops in It was extreme and radical and— because, he said, “Hasn’t a governor according to the economists who got the right to protect a state office studied it—impossible. It would with the militia if he wants to?” On require confiscation of incomes over other occasions, he referred to a need $4,000 in order to provide guaran- to “preserve law and order,” which teed subsidies of $1,400 to the poor. only drove his enemies to great fury. The plan was widely dismissed as Hodding Carter II, whose career impractical and utopian. in journalism made him into some- But not to Huey Long and not thing of a legend as an enlightened to his growing national following. voice from the primitive South, As Roosevelt’s New Deal attempted wrote that Long was “the first true to gain traction against the Depres- dictator out of the soil of America.” Long surrounded by members of sion, Share the Wealth looked like a the National Guard, circa 1934 Roosevelt feared him, which promising alternative to people who accounts for IRS and FBI investiga- were struggling. So Huey created a Share Our Wealth Soci- tions that turned up all manner of corruption in Louisi- ety and gave a nationwide radio speech to launch it. He ana. This was no more surprising than if the Department urged listeners to “join with us.” And people did. There of Agriculture had discovered that crawfish thrived in were 3 million members by the end of 1934 and more than the bayous. 7.5 million members of 27,000 local clubs by summer 1935. The investigations never came up with anything on Long was soon receiving more mail than all the other Long, though they might have, given a little more time. senators combined. Additional help was hired to handle But time ran out for Huey Long on September 8, all this volume and to run the organization. To this end, 1935, when a young doctor managed to get close, in spite he recruited Gerald L. K. Smith, then in the advent of a of the bodyguards, as Long walked a corridor in the capi- career as an orator and radio evangelist. Smith preached the tol building. The doctor got off one shot. Huey’s body- Gospel of Anti—anticommunism, , anti-New guards took him down in a fusillade. He had dozens of Deal. And he was good at it. Very good. gunshot wounds in his shredded body. The one wound he H. L. Mencken wrote, “Gerald L. K. Smith is the great- inflicted, though, a small-caliber one at that, was enough est orator of them all, not the greatest by an inch or a foot or to finish Long, who died two days later. a yard or a mile, but the greatest by at least two light years. Two hundred thousand people attended his funeral. He begins where the next best leaves off.” Had the song been written by then, they might have raised Huey recognized Smith’s gift, saying he was “the only a chorus from Randy Newman’s ballad to the Kingfish, man I ever saw who is a better rabble-rouser than I am.” Smith was a force himself but a sycophant to Long. Who took on the Standard Oil men And whipped their ass When he concluded one of his rallies, Smith would say, Just like he promised he’d do? prayerfully, “Lift us out of this wretchedness, O Lord, out Ain’t no Standard Oil men gonna run this state of this poverty. . . . Rally us under this young man who Gonna be run by little folks like me and you came out of the woods of north Louisiana, who leads us Here’s the Kingfish, the Kingfish Friend of the working man like a Moses out of the land of bondage into the land of The Kingfish, the Kingfish

BETTMAN / CORBIS GETTY milk and honey.” The Kingfish gonna save this land. ♦

32 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 Books&Arts

Sir Paul McCartney, Super Bowl XXXIX (2005) Love Me Do

Was Paul McCartney the real John Lennon? BY ANDREW FERGUSON

bit past the midpoint of ular music any of us could have hoped the last century, roughly Paul McCartney to hear. He was a Beatle. from early 1967 to late The Life McCartney’s youthful reputation by Philip Norman 1969, a sizable number Little, Brown, 864 pp., $32 may surprise anyone under the age of ofA human beings believed that Paul 50, certainly anyone under the age McCartney was the coolest man who of 30. Paul McCartney has become ever lived. Compared with your aver- He had a farm in the Scottish high- their generation’s version of George age world-historical claim, this one lands and a mansion in St. Johns Jessel—the world’s “toastmaster gen- was not unreasonable. Wood and a bungalow on call at the eral,” an antique, unavoidable show- The evidence was strong. At 25, Beverly Hills Hotel. Wherever he went biz figure of long-ago achievement Paul McCartney was in the bloom he left behind him puddles of ador- who pops up at every halftime extrav- of youth and one of the most famous ing fans, to whom he was unfailingly aganza, charity concert, royal jubilee, men in the world. He was engaged kind. Academics wrote complicated, White House PBS special, and life- to Jane Asher, the prettiest actress awestruck articles about his talent. time award ceremony. You can almost in Britain. The clothes he wore were His fellow musicians revered him. hear the conversation in the promot- unlike anyone else’s, Savile Row clas- He drove an Aston Martin DB5 and ers’ office: “You mean we have to let sicism tweaked with casual. owned a sheepdog straight from the him sing ‘Hey Jude’ again?” pages of Dog Breeders’ Bible. He was The descent from coolest-man- Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor richer than Croesus. And of course he who-ever-lived to latter-day Jessel

at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. was producing the most gorgeous pop- began not long after broke HARRY HOWE / GETTY

34 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 up in 1970. McCartney’s decline wasn’t It is still in print 36 years later, still photo of the two of them naked—truly commercial; he was far the most suc- judged to be the definitive biography the stuff of nightmares—and releasing cessful of the post-breakup Beatles. of the Fab Four. In Norman’s account, a 51-minute slow-motion film of Len- The problem was commercialism McCartney appeared as a manipula- non breaking into a big grin. I’d sell itself, oozing out in a series of boneless tive, hypocritical cutie-pie whose cun- my shares, too. hits like “Let ’Em In” and “Silly Love ning and guile managed to obscure his In this new McCartney biography, Songs” and—the hands quiver to type relative lack of talent and Lennon’s however, Norman describes the same the words—“Wonderful Christmas- position as the cornerstone of the events like this: “Latterly, as John’s time,” the most annoying song ever band’s greatness. Promoting his thesis, behavior had become more and more written about our most annoying holi- Norman told interviewers that Lennon erratic—and especially since he’d day. McCartney’s true decline in stat- hadn’t been one-quarter of the Beatles, teamed up with Yoko—[the stock ure took place, instead, in the rarefied he’d been three-quarters—leaving the price] had begun to fluctuate alarm- precincts beyond commercial culture, last quarter, presumably, to be divided ingly.” This is much fairer and more in the estimation of critics, hipsters, between Paul and George Harrison, accurate, and Paul is spared the snooty and the swelling ranks of boomer aca- with some microscopic fraction going accusations of being “housetrained” demics who managed to turn their to poor Ringo. McCartney took to call- simply because he wanted to keep the teenage passion for rock music into a ing the book Shite. shareholders happy. simulation of a scholarly discipline. Now, with his new biography, Nor- Having helped in the demolition, (Academics who write about pop music man has reassessed. He dismisses the aging Norman has now taken are like sex researchers or vice cops: his earlier anti-McCartney hostility on the role of repo man, suggesting They disguise their unseemly obses- as a kind of derangement, almost an that, in Shout! and elsewhere, he and sion by pretending it’s a job.) instance of Freudian projection. He everyone who agreed with him got it And as McCartney sank, his former writes: “Actually, if I’m honest”—always wrong: “I’ve been able to uncover a bandmate John Lennon ascended—the the best policy for a biographer—“all Paul McCartney very different from “smart Beatle” (Paul was the “cute Bea- those years I’d spent wishing to be him the one the world thinks it knows,” tle”) blossomed into an intellectual and had left me feeling in some obscure he writes. The facts are hard to dis- wordsmith, a politically sophisticated way that I needed to get my own back.” pute. Lennon first formed the group artist who was in touch with the avant- It took a while for his change of heart that grew into the Beatles, but after garde and unafraid to push the boundar- to take hold: In 2008, he published the band stopped touring in 1966 and ies of the bourgeoisie. Lennon’s mellow, a biography of Lennon (also grandly became creatures of the recording stu- preposterous anthem, “Imagine,” which subtitled “The Life”) and McCartney dio exclusively—which is to say, when never seems to go away, supercharged didn’t come off too well then, either, they did their most enduring music— his reputation. His bloody martyrdom in contrast to Lennon, “the Beatle who the Beatles were McCartney’s band. in 1980 sealed the deal. And cool Paul had made us all think, the John Len- Even back in Liverpool, he brought faded from memory. non who lifted us onto a higher plane discipline and a showbiz gloss to the But Philip Norman remembers. of consciousness.” enterprise. From the start, he pushed He was one of those besotted by the for more rehearsal time and broadened McCartney of the late sixties. A man can very benefit of doubt was granted their song selections, making the little react to the overwhelming, field-sweep- E the thinking Beatle, always to the skiffle band eligible for a wider variety ing coolness of another man in one of cute Beatle’s disadvantage. Here, for of gigs. McCartney was the first to sug- two ways: He can look on in stunned example, is how the Lennon biography gest that they all don uniforms; these admiration or go green-eyed with envy. describes Lennon and McCartney’s evolved from cowboy shirts and string Back in the sixties, by his own admis- relationship with a music publisher ties to all-black T-shirts and jeans to sion, Norman chose option number and his publicly traded company: the collarless suits and pointy boots two. In a foreword to his new, long, and they were wearing when they caught not-particularly-necessary biography, So long as Lennon gave an appear- the world’s attention. You can’t imag- Norman says that he spent much of ance of being as house-trained as ine (if you’ll excuse the expression) McCartney, the future of Northern his early journalism career—he’s near Songs was rosy. But once John’s indi- the Beatles performing in blue jeans McCartney’s age—ardently wishing he viduality asserted itself . . . the share or street clothes. Their seemingly lim- could “swap lives” with the Beatle. He price began to wobble alarmingly. itless appeal, spanning generations, would have killed for the car. And for would have disappeared if they had Jane Asher. “Asserting his individuality” is a fallen into the black hole of “authen- The ill will—all going in one direc- tidy euphemism. What Norman means ticity” that swallowed so many late- tion—was a motive force behind Nor- is that Lennon and his new wife, Yoko sixties bands and dated them instantly. man’s first Beatles book, a four-sided Ono, were holding weeklong press There’s something timeless about biography called Shout! published a conferences from their honeymoon singing “I’m Happy Just to Dance few weeks before John Lennon’s death. bed, releasing an album with a cover With You” in coat and tie.

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 35 Meanwhile, as Norman shows, the work of his col- leagues would be unimagi- nable without him; the reverse, however, is not true. He designed their album covers. He produced the idea for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts. The witty and sting- ing guitar parts from that album aren’t Harrison’s but McCartney’s. Lennon’s most popular song with the Beatles, “Come Together,” was a wan ripoff of Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” until McCartney intro- duced the bass riff that defines the record. He put together the “suite” on Side Tw o o f Abbey Road. Only years later did it come out John Lennon, Paul McCartney (1963) that what many of us took to be Ringo’s greatest perfor- mance—the frenetic drum- Much of the Beatles’ identity was songs, Broadway show tunes, and early, ming behind the last verse of “Dear the work of their manager, Brian mostly African-American rock ’n’ roll Prudence” from the White Album—was Epstein, whom Norman credits with bred songs not quite like anything that played by Paul. We could go on and on. “an unerring instinct for the classy.” had come before. The art was at once Will Norman’s repo job succeed? But it was McCartney who ensured adventurous and accessible. It’s a stubborn myth, this idea of that the music, too, would sound age- And it’s McCartney’s doing, nearly a progressive, hyper-talented John less. At the start, Lennon and Harri- all of it. In his life outside the Beatles, Lennon dragging the ball-and-chain son’s taste ran to rock ’n’ roll rave-ups he was what critics took Lennon to of Paul McCartney into musical great- and doo-wop, and not much beyond. be. Settling down, John and his other ness. The myth rankles McCartney McCartney’s father had been a player bandmates bought houses in the even now—even after his solo success, in a jazz band before World War II and “stockbroker belt” in the London sub- after his knighthood, after the endless he passed along to his son a reverence urbs, embodying the bourgeois ideal sold-out tours that continue to gross for pop standards to sit alongside the and watching lots of TV until McCart- more than $100 million a year. “A boy’s love for Elvis and Little Rich- ney roused them to make another lot of the artistic and creative things ard. Paul’s favorite song lyric, says record. He bought the mansion in St. that John got credit for were done by Norman, was by Lorenz Hart: “Don’t Johns Wood and lived the life of an Paul,” his late wife Linda once said. change a hair for me / not if you care arty bachelor in Swinging London. “He still resents it.” And how: “I for me.” He subsidized an underground news- started to get frustrated,” McCartney “I wasn’t necessarily looking to be a paper, invested in avant-garde galler- said last year, “because people started rocker,” McCartney said later. “When ies, befriended modernist composers to say, ‘He was the Beatles.’ ” His I wrote ‘When I’m 64’ ”—at the age of like Karlheinz Stockhausen and John most recent album featured a song, 16!—“I thought I was writing a song Cage, and built a private art collection “Early Days,” in which McCartney for Sinatra.” The Beatles catalogue filled with Magrittes and de Koonings. picks at the scab. It’s not a very good is littered with what Lennon called As the avant-garde scene flourished in song, but anyway: “Paul’s granny shit,” throwback ditties London, much of it under McCartney’s like “Your Mother Should Know” and sponsorship, it drew castoffs from New Now everybody seems to have their “Honey Pie” that the other members York. Among them was Yoko Ono, own opinion of the band despised. Still, the songs who was told that if she wanted a Bea- Who did this and who did that suggested a wide-ranging musical curi- tle to invest in her “innovative” work, But as for me I don’t see how they can remember osity and a sense of the past that no she should try McCartney. He declined When they weren’t where it was at other rock band had shown. The cross- and directed her to Lennon. The rest is And they can’t take it from me if they try

FOX PHOTOS / GETTYFOX fertilization of English music-hall herstory. Thanks, McCartney. I lived through those early days . . . ♦

36 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 Nagorski deftly chronicles and B A assesses the conduct and fairness of & the various Nazi trials, most promi- nently the prosecution of Eichmann in . There, while world opin- In History’s Court ion initially deplored Israel’s efforts to abduct and try Heinrich Himmler’s Seven decades on, holding the Third Reich to account. chief accomplice, the transparency and BY MICHAEL M. ROSEN impartiality of the proceedings grudg- ingly won global approval. And along the way, Nagorski grapples with the he death this month of Elie age-old question first raised by Han- Wiesel left a gaping moral The Nazi Hunters nah Arendt: Were Eichmann and his and historical void that wid- by Andrew Nagorski ilk merely following orders, or did they Simon & Schuster, 416 pp., $30 ens daily as the ranks of the harbor a murderous anti-Jewish ani- Tgeneration of Holocaust survivors con- mus that motivated their depredations? tinues to thin. But in The Nazi Hunters, After a careful reckoning with Andrew Nagorski fills that void, blend- primary and secondary evidence, ing key documentary evidence with Nagorski concludes that Eichmann over 50 interviews of central figures in a was “both a careerist in a totalitar- comprehensive treatment of the dogged ian system, willing to do anything to men and women whose heroic efforts please his superiors, and a virulent restored a measure of justice to millions antisemite who reveled in his powers of murdered souls. to dispatch his victims to their deaths, The book begins with an examina- systematically tracking down anyone tion of the postwar tribunals at Nurem- who sought to elude the Nazi net.” berg and Dachau, where dozens of Nagorski also recounts his own high-ranking Nazis were tried, and Adolf Eichmann on trial (1962) research, in the 1980s for , sometimes executed, mostly at the hands into the wartime conduct of Kurt of the victorious Americans. Nagorski telling the Israelis that “I won’t reject Waldheim, the onetime U.N. secretary also ably documents the unlikely col- the idea of your getting him to Israel general whose successful campaign for laboration of Fritz Bauer, a German Jew, in your own way,” Bauer, by then an the Austrian presidency was marred by and Jan Sehn, a Polish Catholic, in locat- officer of the West German court, effec- allegations that he’d abetted Nazi atroc- ing and prosecuting some of the most tively green-lit what would become ities. In addition, he devotes attention notorious war criminals. Cooperating Operation Eichmann. to several other (mostly non-Israeli) “across the Iron Curtain,” Bauer and In retelling the riveting story of the Nazi pursuers—notably Simon Wie- Sehn “viewed their mission as one of location, identification, and capture of senthal, the dean of Nazi hunters whose not only punishing the perpetrators but Eichmann—a tale of false pretenses, sympathy for Kurt Waldheim flowed also setting out the historical record— false identities, and false mustaches partly from his stringent anticom- providing the foundations for educating that stretched across three continents munism—whose objectives and per- current and future generations.” and entailed serendipities too numer- sonalities often clashed. As Nagorski Bauer confronted suspicion, before ous to recount—Nagorski relies on explains, these characters “often have and after the war, as a disloyal Jew- previously published accounts but been at odds with each other, prone to ish German, a Social Democrat, and adds his own flourishes. For instance, recriminations, jealousies, and outright closeted gay man; but he built a judi- in a stirring interview, Mossad bigwig rivalries, [which] undoubtedly weak- cial and prosecutorial legacy that only Rafi Eitan recounted the moment he ened their effectiveness.” recently has gained proper apprecia- physically lifted Eichmann off a Bue- Even so, the efforts of these tireless tion. The orchestrator of the “Frank- nos Aires street into a waiting car. Hav- men and women struck many blows for furt Auschwitz trials” that revealed to ing received a pep talk from his boss justice the world over. And in the end, the German public the full extent of stressing that “for the first time in his- these Nazi hunters “demonstrate[d] that Nazi depravity, Bauer also passed along tory, the Jews would judge their assas- the horrendous crimes of World War II a key tip to Israel’s Mossad in 1957 sins,” Eitan and his team stalked their and the Holocaust cannot and should that led to the capture in Argentina of quarry one May evening on a quiet not be forgotten, and that those who Adolf Eichmann three years later. By Argentine street, distracted him with instigated or carried out those crimes— a few words in Spanish, and wrestled or others who may carry out similar Michael M. Rosen is an attorney and writer him to the ground, taking care to avoid crimes in the future—are never beyond in Israel. injuring him while stifling his screams. the law, at least in principle.” ♦ UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE / UIG GETTY

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 37 Alexander himself was not inclined to B A go out and add to the accomplishments & of his line in the traditional way; he was all about sport. Snarkers might call it “idleness,” but what do they know? Tr a n s a t l a n t i c H o u n d s Fox-hunting, after all, was the pastime of royalty, among whom idleness had There was only one way to prove which was better. always been a virtue and honest work BY GEOFFREY NORMAN considered, well, vulgar. That the British side in the dispute was advanced by an American might ome disputes simply cannot seem odd. But then, no actual fox- be resolved by rational debate The Great Hound Match of 1905 hunting Englishman would deign even but must be settled in the Alexander Henry Higginson, to consider the question. As the author field, and by blood. Harry Worcester Smith, writes, “If asked to match his hounds and the Rise of Hunt Country Sand Auburn people can, for instance, against a pack of American hounds, by Martha Wolfe argue 364 days of the year about Lyons Press, 224 pp., $22.95 an Englishman would have (politely, which “program” is superior. Then, behind closed parlor doors, among fel- on the 365th, all the calls to low Englishmen) laughed in Paul Finebaum’s radio show the American’s face.” will be forgotten and the test Well, there are American of arms will be conclusive. Anglophiles; but there are So it was in 1905 when the Anglophobes, too. And one burning issue was—which was supposes that 1905 would have the superior foxhound: the been a good year for them: one bred according to British Great Britain still ruled the standard, or the more recent waves and the sun never set, version that had come along in etc., but Theodore Roose velt what many a fox-hunting man was in the White House and back in the mother country America was on the rise still surely thought of as “the and on the march and full of colonies.” There were two fox- a kind of confidence and arro- hunting men who advocated gance typified by one Harry for their dogs and arranged a Worcester Smith, the advo- showdown. In Virginia. And cate for the American-bred in that part of the state, to hounds. Smith was a proto- be precise, that is known as typical capitalist of the can-do “hunt country.” school, aggressive and blus- While fox-hunting, then tering and full of a righteous and now, is not exactly a belief that competition was widely popular spectator sport, Alexander Higginson (left) at the Great Hound Match something approaching life’s the thing stirred up interest essence. And he prospered, as beyond the pastime’s insular world. Prize money was put down on the Wolfe writes, “in what we call indus- The match was set for November, and table: one thousand dollars from each trial consulting or mergers and acquisi- as Martha Wolfe writes: side, winner take all. The rules were tions—conglomerate building—which agreed upon and the crux of them was he named ‘harmonizing.’ ” Throughout the summer, north and south and back and forth across “the that whichever side’s dogs killed more So the antagonists could not have puddle,” debate raged and the respec- foxes would be declared the winner. been much more unalike in tempera- tive camps swelled. The Washington There were judges named to enforce ment. And they manifestly did not Post, The New York Herald, The the rules. And the thing was on. like each other—so much so that, a few , The Boston Herald, On the side of the British hounds decades earlier, the thing might have The Boston Evening Transcript, , The Richmond Times there was Alexander Henry Higginson, been settled on a dueling field, between Dispatch, and The London Times kept whose pedigree stretched back across the two of them. But, it wasn’t really a running commentary. the Brahmins of New England and about them; it was between the dogs. included a great-grandfather who “was a (The foxes figured in there somewhere Geoffrey Norman, a writer in Vermont, is a ship owner and Massachusetts delegate but they carried no nation’s flag or

frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. to the Constitutional Congress in 1783.” pride: They were not running for the COURTESY OF MARTHA WOLFE

38 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 honor of foxes, merely for their lives.) wins? For this, the reader keeps turn- one breed of dogs won, and the other Higginson’s British dogs (American, ing the pages and, in the view of this lost, the foxes did better than anyone actually, but bred to English standards) reviewer, it’s well worth the effort. It might have expected. And some read- were trained to hunt almost as a unit is also wrong to give away the ending ers might have been pulling for them and to conform, obediently, to the com- here. I can reveal, however, that while all along. ♦ mands of a human leader. They tended to remain relatively close together, which certainly added to the enjoyment B&A of the riding along behind who could see—and hear—the dogs and fol- low along behind the chase. Strutting and Fretting American dogs were inclined to run the country and to go pretty much Four hundred years after his death, Shakespeare rules London. where they wanted to go, which meant BY DOMINIC GREEN that they were often not merely out of sight but out of hearing as well. They were bonier and rangier than their London men, which taken at the flood, leads British counterparts. It doesn’t require our hundred years ago, on on to fortune.” The fortune of mod- much imagination to see the Brit- April 23, 1616, William Shake- ern Britain was made by Thatcherite ish hounds as equivalent to redcoats speare, having stayed up late deregulation and the affairs of the City marching to battle in orderly ranks in a “merry meeting” with of London, not the regulators of Brus- and the American dogs as lean fron- Fsome old friends, died of a fever. He sels, who have stranded the eurozone tiersmen clad in buckskin and fighting stayed up late on a damp spring night, in “shallows [and] miseries.” And on from ambush and on the run. caught a chill, and died shortly after- June 23, two months to the day after When the great showdown finally wards. Much has happened in England the Shakespeare anniversary, the Brit- occurred, the dogs performed as they since then, and since Shakespeare’s ish voted to leave the EU. were bred. The English hounds stayed 400th birthday in 1964. In the 17th cen- Shakespeare is central to English- in tight formation and responded obe- tury, Shakespeare was not classical and ness. Not just because he was the laure- diently to commands. The American clever enough; now he is too white and ate of the age in which England defined dogs behaved in the fashion of that too difficult. Which Shakespeare did itself as a mercantile Protestant state, at famous son of nearby soil, the Confed- we see in this spring’s anniversary fes- odds with Europe and at large in the erate cavalryman J.E.B Stuart. Which tivities? Is our Shakespeare authentic, Atlantic. Shakespeare is in the fab- is to say, they went where instinct and or is authenticity merely another bit of ric of the English language and wove impulse drove them to go. ideological flotsam. more of it than any other writer—more All this happened a long time ago These questions are sharpened by even than the team of contemporaries and Martha Wolfe, obviously, was developments on and off stage. The who translated the Authorized Version not a witness. But she does a fine job United Kingdom, an 18th-century pol- of the Bible. When we speak English, of recreating the wild rides across the ity, is going the way of King Lear and we are quoting Shakespeare, whether Virginian countryside and the enmity devolving into three kingdoms. The or not we “give the devil his due” between the rival humans. She does, English, who spent centuries defin- (Henry IV, Part One). however, sometimes try for her book to ing everybody else, are floundering to The image of Shakespeare is made carry more weight than it should. We define themselves. The Welsh and the from what is in our minds and reflects are talking here, after all, about fox- Scots now have national assemblies. what is on our minds. The fact that hunting, dogs, and horses, so medita- Northern Ireland has “power-shar- Shakespeare died on St. George’s Day tions on the theory of relativity and the ing.” But the English, the people who only became significant in the patri- fin de siècle can seem a little strained. invented parliamentary democracy, otic 18th century. Before the 1850s, At one point, she asks (rhetorically): have no national chamber. no one believed that Shakespeare had “Could it be that our Match, our con- Beyond the “rocky shore” of the not written the works of Shakespeare. test of men on horseback and their “scepter’d isle,” the European Union The idea that “Shakespeare” was not a foxhounds in the Virginia countryside, has attracted and repulsed the British middle-class glover’s son, but a pseu- was also an exposition, an illustration in equal measures. There is, as Brutus donym for one blue-blood or another, of the central conflict in the regenera- tells Cassius, “a tide in the affairs of is a compensatory fantasy from the age tion myth: spontaneity versus author- of the bourgeois revolution. In our time, ity, release versus control?” Dominic Green, who teaches politics at the “sound and fury” of the Internet Well, one thinks, maybe—and Boston College, is the author of The Double has multiplied the ranks and delusions maybe not. And can we now, please, get Life of Dr. Lopez: Spies, Shakespeare, of the Oxfordians, the champions of on with the competition and learn who and the Plot to Poison Elizabeth I. Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 39 ‘The Tempest’ on the South Bank

Meanwhile, the age of organic food and The RSC performed the history the buildings, the lower the morals.” period orchestras has produced Shake- cycle for the death-iversary too. This Given how many London resi- speare’s Globe Theatre, a modern rep- time, though, they warmed up their dents and visitors speak English as a lica built on the site of the original and Richards and Henrys in Stratford, then second language, the range and qual- dedicated to authentic performances of took them to London, Hong Kong, ity of London’s Shakespeare400 events the plays. China, and New York. This year’s hit were superb. King’s College London In 1964, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare book, The Year of Lear, was coordinated dozens of cultural institu- Shakespeare’s birth, the sixties had written by James Shapiro of Columbia tions and a small army of performers, hardly got going. Sexual intercourse, University. The Globe sent a company producing a wonderful array of perfor- Philip Larkin recalled, had only just on a two-year world tour. After playing mances, exhibitions, and seminars. begun, “Between the end of the Chat- Hamlet in almost every country on the Almost all of the important Shake- terley ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.” planet, they came home for the anni- spearean documents were on show in As London was not yet Swinging, most versary weekend. documentary exhibitions at King’s of the birthday celebration took place If the Shakespeare business has College, the British Museum, and at Shakespeare’s birthplace, Strat- become ever more global, in Britain it the Globe Theatre. The unique per- ford-upon-Avon. The Royal Shake- has become ever more local. London formances included Henry V at the speare Company performed the entire was the center of this year’s festivities, Middle Temple Hall (where Twelfth cycle of history plays. The Shakespeare especially if you were a visitor, not a Night premiered in 1602) and the first Centre, a museum and visitor center, native. In part, this reflects Shake- production on Bankside since Shake- opened to polite applause. The ancil- speare’s life, which only began and speare’s day, a “midnight matinee” of lary entertainments included John ended in Stratford. It is also what hap- Much Ado About Nothing at the recently Dankworth and Cleo Laine’s Shake- pens when an artist belongs to every- excavated site of the Rose Playhouse. speare and All That Jazz and one of body and when a metropolis absorbs There were concerts and readings, Anthony Burgess’s best novels, Noth- the economy of its hinterland, then walks and archaeological digs, and an ing Like the Sun. The tone was lowered secedes from the rest of the country. array of conferences. The most inter- only by the atrocity that is English As Noël Coward said, “I don’t know esting of these both concerned the

folk dancing. what London’s coming to—the higher relationship of language to music. At / GETTY CHRIS RATCLIFFE

40 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 King’s College, Shakespeare’s Musical The “people” that the RSC has in to portray Oberon as a drug-dealing Brain looked at the aesthetics of perfor- mind are the little people. The Dream pimp. How enlightened of the RSC to mance and neurology. At the Victoria & production will tour Britain’s provincial take to the inner city a play in which a Albert Museum, a motley collection cities for the rest of the year. So there black man pushes pills into the mouths of writers, musicians, theater techni- are more nonwhite faces than usual— of his sluttish white molls: “So quick cians, and academics conducted an Theo St. Claire gets his big break as bright things come to confusion.” The all-day symposium on The Tempest, First Fairy—and there’s a real dwarf, director who thought this up is best the last and most musical of the plays. too, in case the kids get bored. This is not named. The speakers included novelist John the reserve team, steered by a few more She is Erica Whyman. In this pro- Lanchester, poets A. E. Stallings and experienced hands; but the RSC has duction, the real war of the 1940s is Alice Oswald, and the Oxford profes- depth on the bench, and almost all of the class war against the toffs and the sor John Pitcher. the actors understand their lines, which culture snobs. A pianist plays a classi- Shakespeare400 culminated on the is not always the case with Shakespeare. cal introduction and is lampooned by anniversary weekend of April 23-24 Mumbai-born Ayesha Dharker, who has Puck, playing “Chopsticks.” The Duke with the conversion of Spenser’s played Emilia in Othello for the RSC, of Athens is a cruel and stupid snob, “sweet Thames” into a pop-up cin- excels as Titania, Queen of the Fair- wearing the uniform of the RAF—you ema. Thirty-seven giant screens, one ies. Chu Omambala, who has played know, the stuck-up, stuffed-shirted for each of the plays, showed newly Malcolm in Macbeth at the Globe, is idiots who beat the Luftwaffe in 1940 commissioned 10-minute films, which elegantly cruel as King Oberon. The and whose all-volunteer bomber crews explored the plays in chronological young lovers are good enough, but suffered higher losses than any other sequence over the two-and-a-half miles Shakespeare’s deft, lyrical romance is service. Yet, as with the anachronism, from Westminster Bridge to Tower marred by a crude production. the inverse snobbery backfires. Bridge. Hamlet was filmed in Den- At each stop on the RSC’s tour, par- mark, Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt, hakespeare set the Dream in ancient ties of local schoolchildren play the and Romeo and Juliet in Verona. SAthens, by way of the Warwick- non-speaking fairies. Local amateur This is the face that Britain turns shire woods where he had sowed his companies play the Mechanicals, the outwards to the world. A country with wild oats. This production is set in “hempen homespuns” whose “most cultural depth, keeping its national the trauma that so scarred the young lamentable comedy” Pyramus and Thisbe poet at the heart of a global city. A Shakespeare, the Blitz of 1940-41. The is the entertainment at the weddings country whose sense of itself is so disjuncture between the script and the that consummate the Dream. In keep- strong that, confident as a Mary Pop- staging is inexplicable—unless the RSC ing with the theme, the Mechanicals pins chimney sweep, it can change in hopes to endow the children of immi- are wartime factory workers: Snug the order to remain the same. Behind the grants with the sense of tragic-heroic Joiner is a Rosie the Riveter and Peter scenes, however, the performers are grievance about the war that is the Quince her pedantic foreman. The idea not so confident. Back in the heartland native Briton’s birthright. As the Fal- that amateurs played the Mechanicals at Stratford, the Royal Shakespeare staffian complaint goes, “Who won the in Shakespeare’s time is a modern fic- Company’s centerpiece, A Midsummer bloody war, anyway?” tion. Admittedly, the 1930s were the Night’s Dream, betrayed an uncertainty The star turn, Lucy Ellinson, fol- golden age of am-dram, but the assump- bordering on panic about the relation- lows the Hitlerite theme down the tion that an amateur can best play a ship between Shakespeare and the plughole by playing Puck as an irritat- half-wit vitiates the point of acting. modern English. ing composite of in At Stratford, the amateurs of the The RSC bills their Dream as “A The Great Dictator and Liza Minnelli local Bearpit Theatre Company were Play for the People.” This evokes the in Cabaret. Worse, the fairies are played as good as the professionals. Why cast worst of 20th-century manipulations, not as spirits from a better world but as them as fools? It is not just that Bottom such as the Great Hall of the People creatures from the wartime underworld is the comic hinge on which the whole in Beijing or Tony Blair’s rebranding of black marketeers and illegal night- production turns; changing the actor of Diana, Princess of Wales as “The clubs. Fedoras are tipped, jazz hands who plays him at each of the tour’s 13 People’s Princess.” Shakespeare wrote proffered, and tap dances hoofed. Jazz stops will weaken the play’s rhythm. for the people: If you miss the classi- Shakespeare is not new: Before Dank- When Puck mimics the Mechanicals’ cal allusions, there are always the stab- worth and Laine, there was Duke rehearsal, it looks too much like a pro- bings and jokes. The gap between high Ellington’s Such Sweet Thunder. This is fessional mocking the little people—a culture and ordinary people is not the like watching a high school production lamentable comedy, which emphasizes work of Shakespeare, but the curators of Guys and Dolls. As often happens the social gap that this production of English culture. This patronizing in cases of anachronistic conceit, the purports to address: “Lord, what fools production shows how they created sharpest reflections of contemporane- these mortals be!” it and how they contrive new ways to ity are inadvertent and distasteful. The Bette Midler observed that when widen it. dignified Chu Omambala is obliged it’s three o’clock in New York, it’s still

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 41 1938 in London. There is a certain did his best to stay there. Stratford was mirrors. In both plays, Shakespeare truth in the perception that English where he invested his ticket sales, buy- mixes his genres: high tragedy with history comes down to Shakespeare ing property for his retirement. Like low comedy, though the Dream has less and the Blitz. As Hamlet nearly says, the young Bard, we must look to Lon- tragedy and The Tempest less comedy. the rest is gravy—all that Magna Carta don for a classy production. The Wana- And both end with a play-within-a- and Mother of Parliaments stuff. But maker Playhouse is the Globe’s winter play. In the Dream, it is the low farce this Dream is not likely to convince retreat, an all-wooden replica of a Jaco- of Pyramus and Thisbe; in The Tempest, the young to care about English his- bean theater, with candles for lighting, the highest of Renaissance forms, an tory and English art. If the guardians winches and trapdoors modeled after extended courtly masque. of culture are so contemptuous of their the originals, and delicate marquetry by This musical of pagan rebirth par- heritage, you can hardly blame the Snug the Joiner. allels Prospero’s exchange of rough immigrants and their children for not The Wanamaker is named for the magic for “heavenly music.” In The caring. The Blitz-themed production American actor and director Sam Te m p e s t , words become music, music bombed with the Stratford audience Wanamaker. In 1949, Wanamaker vis- pure sound, and sound the waves that of private schoolchildren and tourists. ited the site of the Globe and was baffled vibrate the tiny wooden theater; like But when this Dream goes to cash- to find only a blackened plaque on the the waves with which Prospero has poor, Muslim-rich Bradford and Not- wall of a defunct brewery. Blacklisted wrecked Alonso’s ship or the thrown tingham, will Shakespeare inoculate in Hollywood, Wanamaker lived on an voices with which Ariel leads the ship- against alienation and radicalization? alien shore, like Prospero expelled from wrecked usurpers before Prospero— Some parts of the plot may strike Milan in The Tempest. He worked the and the audience to a confrontation home. When Hermia refuses the mar- magic that raised the money that, four with the deepest paradoxes of art. riage that her father has arranged, she years after his death in 1993, revived The Tempest is a final accounting, faces the death penalty: a judicial honor the Globe. The Tempest is one-quarter the last marks in a ledger where words killing. When the king and queen of of the Wanamaker Theatre’s offering shade into silence and the spirits are the fairies fall out over who shall enjoy for this year’s anniversary, along with “melted . . . into thin air.” The “base- a juvenile slave, the son of an Indian the other three Last Plays, Cymbeline, less fabric” of illusion seems more real prince, I was reminded of the recent Pericles, and The Winter’s Tale. than our own lives: “Yea, all which it scandal in nearby Rotherham, in which inherit—shall dissolve,” Prospero says. mostly Muslim gangs groomed children he play is the star in this produc- “Our music-and-dance spectacle is in care homes and pimped them across Ttion. The RSC cast cartoons its over.” Like the notations on a page of Britain: “What a dream was here!” characters. The Globe cast, unaided Bach, this insubstantial rough music Or if you have been warned that the by clever props, lays bare the psychol- of words is a prelude. The great art of English are godless, drunken fornica- ogy of ambivalence and ambition. Tim the Globe is subsumed into the “great tors, will the Dream confirm every- McMullan’s Prospero is anxious and globe” and the music of the spheres. thing your parents have warned you vain, manipulating Miranda, Ariel, As The Tempest moves from speech about? James I might have appreciated and Caliban to stave off mortality. Bren- and politics to dance and music, one the homoerotic sadism in Oberon’s dan O’Hea plays Antonio, the brother spell is broken and another spun. It control of Puck, but children from who disinherited Prospero, as mighty in is not easy for a cast to carry the audi- traditional-minded families might standing and weak with guilt. As Gon- ence from one willing suspension of not. Leaving aside the Dream’s overt zalo, the courtier who has served both disbelief to another. You can see that paganism, what about the bestiality, brothers, Joseph Marcell develops the the Globe cast has worked this magic narcotics, and adultery? A man called emotional tensions that underpinned when Ariel appears from a trapdoor in Bottom, so drugged that he believes he his portrayal of Geoffrey the English the ceiling. The wires are visible, but is a donkey, mounts an equally intoxi- butler in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. as Ariel hovers overhead and sentences cated married woman while her chil- In the Dream, one of Shakespeare’s Antonio and his accomplices to “lin- dren are watching. A common enough early plays, the rulers are confident of gering perdition,” the upturned faces scene in any English town on a Sat- their power. The dreamers sleep on of the audience are “spell-stopp’d,” urday night, but unlikely to inspire a flowery banks, and the magic for which rapt and horrified: “We are the stuff as love of the stage or respect for the soci- Puck apologizes is real. In The Tem- dreams are made of.” ety that cherishes such spectacles. If pest, which is probably Shakespeare’s Truly, a play for the nation, and you want to win over the Muslim chil- last play, the rulers are unsure of their for all nations. Authentic not just dren in Britain’s cities, The Merchant power. The victims of Ariel’s trickery to Shakespeare’s words, but to this of Venice or Marlowe’s Jew of Malta sleep in an “oozy bed” of wet mud; strange moment in the history of might go down better. Prospero’s last speech, in which the Brexit Britain—a moment when, as Shakespeare could afford to romanti- magician abjures his “rough magic,” in Shakespeare’s time, politics and cize his provincial youth in the Dream. is an admission that art is artifice, a national identity are in flux: “The isle He had already moved to London and magic of strings and pulley, smoke and is full of noises.” ♦

42 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 25, 2016 able. Upon receiving his invoice, he thinks there must be some mistake: B&A How could his life be so highly valued? He is an underachiever. He lives alone, working part-time at a video rental Price of Joy store. His one love affair ended long ago. Surely the rich and adventurous The bill comes due for a lifetime’s contentment. and beautiful must live better. BY TARA BARNETT But as Karlsson demonstrates, the value of an experience is not so easy to estimate. Joyful experiences for our onas Karlsson’s new novel begins hero include eating pizza, watching with an annoyance: An astro- The Invoice movies, and peeling stickers off desks. nomically large invoice arrives by Jonas Karlsson Somehow, this unwittingly zen narra- translated by Neil Smith J for an unnamed narrator. “A tor has stumbled into the most richly Hogarth, 208 pp., $24 scam!” our hero thinks. “A mistake!” expensive life there is and must now he thinks again. Many would dissolve pay for his natural state of quiet bliss. immediately into irritation, but our With this absurd premise, Karlsson hero merely chuckles it off and goes sweeps through what it means to be about his simple, content day. happy. Of course, joy is individual, a But when he begins to receive great secret that can never be detected reminders to pay his bill and contacts or measured. Joy is an interpretation, the terrifyingly generic World Resources inherently subjective: What is joyful Distribution agency, he learns that for some causes anxiety for others. And the invoice represents the price of all the it is difficult to understand the joy of contentment, meaning, and joy he has another. The magic of Karlsson’s work had thus far. The WRD has calculated is that he manages to convey real joy, the value of his experience of life, and the pleasure of a life captured in little this, in short, is the cost of his existence. actions. The traditional “big things”— And terrifying as that, alone, may Jonas Karlsson death and love—do not overshadow be, his problems are even greater than these little moments, nor do the little those of his neighbors and friends, all So why won’t his coworkers admit that moments resolve and symbolize the of whom have received invoices of their it exists? His battles over the existence great. Peeling a sticker off a desk is an own. Our hero has accrued perhaps the of the room are hilarious, if mean. amusing diversion; it does not need greatest debt in the whole country. Even For all the ways that The Room to represent the futility of existence to worse—he has no way to pay. was cruel, The Invoice is sweet. While play a role in the construction of joy. This sort of strange, bureaucratic the central character in The Room is Karlsson’s magic trick is the nar- fable is not Jonas Karlsson’s first. The oblivious to his own ineptitude, in The rator’s as well, for the most winning author made waves with his hilari- Invoice, obliviousness gives rise to joy. passages here are the narrator’s inter- ous debut novel The Room, published Karlsson gives us a glimpse of a con- actions with the WRD employee he in English in 2015, which concerns an vincingly happy life. And while that finally reaches over the telephone. oblivious, borderline-insane nuisance experience is funny, it is also sincere. Like all rational people who receive a of an office worker. In The Room, Karls- One of Karlsson’s greatest strengths big unexpected bill, our hero attempts son showed us the experience of a man is showing us how different characters to negotiate the sum down. He argues who cannot understand a very different experience their world: what they see, his unhappiness—yes, he has felt anxi- problem: In his office at “the Author- and where they are blind. Perhaps this ety; yes, he has experienced loss—and ity,” there is a room that only he can see. is not a surprise, given his career path: at every turn his interlocutor high- This room is fantastic: It allows him to First a successful actor in his native lights his experience of his events. accomplish work more effectively than Sweden, Karlsson moved to playwrit- Explaining happiness means see- ever before. The little problems of the ing before trying his hand at fiction. ing through another’s eyes. Both Jonas office—paper sliding onto his desk, Perhaps his experience inhabiting Karlsson and our hero try to show us interpersonal annoyances—fade away. these roles has helped make his narra- how to see the world in a new way, to And indeed, these little difficulties tend tors so compelling. find the experience in a film clip or a to irk him endlessly. But within the Indeed, it is the hero here, not the slice of pizza. And despite a potentially room, he is efficient, brilliant, content. hook, that makes The Invoice. Our nar- too-cute premise, The Invoice delivers a rator does not understand that he is thoroughly engaging and winsome tale Tara Barnett is a writer in Washington. happy, and so his happiness is believ- that does just that. ♦

JULY 25, 2016 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 43 “Trump hires rapid response director from Ultimate Fighting Championship” PARODY —, July 11, 2016

JULY 25, 2016