Rick Perry's Second

Home , Jeffrey Lord, Rosemary Lehmberg, Somaly Mam, The American Spectator

Perilous Pensions Why Israel Won’t Back Down Will Soccer Conquer American Sport? On Crime and Punishment STEVEN GREENHUT JONATHAN TOBIN PLESZCZYNSKI vs. THORNBERRY EVE TUSHNET

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014 A MONTHLY REVIEW EDITED BY R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR. Rick Perry’s Second Act Can this man win in 2016?

By Jon Cassidy

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Back-to-Campus Bonanza B.D. McClay and Bill McMorris

Raul Labrador: The Negotiator Amanda C. Elliott

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1079330 • American Spectator - Oct14 • 10 x 12 table of CONTENTS

September/October 2014 r70- /0

2 About This Month 43 Politics ARTS & LETTERS Te Defant Ones Can’t We All Get Along? by wlady pleszczynski by stephen moore 54 A Lady With the Spark of Wit Te Informed Air: Essays 4 The Continuing Crisis 44 The Law and Economy Spectator By Muriel Spark by r. emmett tyrrell, jr. Te Lois Lerner Curve reviewed by lydia sherwood by f.h. buckley 9 The Bootblack Stand 56 Mini-Me to the Man Who by george washington plunkitt 46 Letter From Paris Would Not Die Racist, Moi? Te Greatest Comeback: How 10 Sketchbook by joseph a. harriss Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority 18 Te n Pa c e s By Patrick J. Buchanan Does interest in the World Cup show reviewed by aram bakshian, jr. Americans are fnally taking to soccer? by larry thornberry, wlady pleszczynski 57 Reading the Reformist Manifesto Room to Grow: Conservative Reforms for 20 In the Colosseum a Limited Government and a Te Negotiator Triving Middle Class by amanda c. elliott By Peter Wehener, Yuval Levin, et al. reviewed by w. james antle, iii FEATURES 59 Does Language Shape Thought? 22 Rick the Reformer Te Language Hoax: Why the World Te Texas governor has a solid record. But Looks the Same in Any Language can he make voters forget 2012? By John H. McWhorter by jon cassidy reviewed by john derbyshire

26 Why Israel Won’t Listen to Critics Te war in Gaza has left the Jewish state united against its enemies and righteously. 60 Public Nuisances by jonathan tobin Paul Ryan’s Mysterious Way / Marijuana vs. Scotch and a Low IQ 30 Death by Pension by r. emmett tyrrell, jr. California shows what happens when p. 20 unions control everything. 62 Current Wisdom by steven greenhut 48 Presswatch by assorted jackasses Te Times’s Little Saint Nick 34 In Defense of Liberal Arts by james taranto 64 Last Call Who will speak up for Socrates? Shopper’s Delight by b.d. mcclay 49 Campaign Crawlers by kyle peterson Governors Under Siege

36 Pop the Student Loan Bubble? by grover g. norquist COVER ART: ANDY WATT

Ten overturn Griggs v. Duke Power Co. The American Spectator is published monthly, except for by bill mcmorris 51 Ben Stein’s Diary combined July/Aug and Jan/Feb issues, by The American Spectator, LLC at 1611 N. Kent St., Suite 901, In the Time We Have Left Arlington, VA 22209. Printed in the U.S. Periodicals post- age paid at Arlington, VA, and additional mailing offices. DEPARTMENTS by benjamin j. stein One-year subscription is $39 (new subscribers only). Publication number: 0148-8414. Vol. 47, No. 7/8. POSTMASTER: send address changes to The American 40 Americana 52 Conservative Tastes Spectator, P.O. Box 171, Congers, NY 10920-0171. © 2014 The American Spectator, LLC. All rights Te Gift Shop of the Dead Tere’s No Breaking Away reserved. Reproductions without permission are expressly prohibited. To request permission to republish an arti- by eve tushnet by james bowman cle or for reprint information call 703-807-2011 ext. 32.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 1 about this MONTH

VOLUME 47, NO. 6-7

Editor-in-Chief R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR. Editorial Director WLADYSLAW PLESZCZYNSKI WLADY PLESZCZYNSKI Managing Editor Kyle Peterson by Assistant Managing Editor Matthew Purple Assistant Editor Matthew Walther

Senior Editors W. JAMES ANTLE III, T OM BETHELL, F.H. BUCKLEY, Te Defant Ones H.W. CROCKER III, JOHN H. FUND, QUIN HILLYER, NED RYUN, ROGER SCRUTON , BEN STEIN

Chief Saloon Correspondent Aram Bakshian, Jr. Economics Editor Stephen Moore e thought we had over a month ago but for reasons afecting Paris Bureau Joseph A. Harriss some breaking news. many a print publication these days couldn’t Movie and Culture Critic James Bowman Senior Editorial Advisor Shortly after the ca- be published on actual pages and after con- Robert L. Bartley (1937-2003) Kapellmeister Baron Von Kannon lamitous November 4 siderable delay is now being released in elections, the Washing- digital form only. Tere’s no substitute for Contributing Editors ton Post quoted a top aide as telling a key print, even though our website remains ever DAVID AIKMAN, JED BABBIN , FLORENCE KING, W Washington-based leader, “I said you need vibrant and vitally important. Let me note HERBERT LONDON, JEFFREY LORD, to accept blame. You need to be accountable nonetheless that three of my favorite pieces SHAWN MACOMBER, G EORGE NEUMAYR, for your actions. You need to be responsible. in this issue remain timely. Grover Norquist GROVER G. NORQUIST, JOHN TRAIN, Brian S. Wesbury And he said, ‘You know what, I understand fled his story in late August, explaining why those things, I want to do those things, and Scott Walker and Sam Brownback had to Art Direction/Production Jeffrey P. Macharyas Circulation Circulation Specialists, Inc. that’s what I’ll work on doing.’” win re-election. Reading it today (p. 49) one

Except, it turns out, the blame accepter marvels not only at Grover’s prescience but Editorial Office wasn’t our nation’s president. He was the at how he undresses the dominant media The American Spectator Washington Redskins’ beleaguered quar- narrative about the two governors’ chanc- 1611 North Kent Street, Suite 901 terback, Mr. RGIII. He takes a beating es. Grover knows how to win—which is Arlington, Virginia 22209 every Sunday of the sort our president ex- something conservatives and Republicans 703-807-2011 perienced on Election Day. For the record, could improve on. As Steve Moore notes [email protected] that’s two midterms in a row our man has (p. 43), internal divisions may be the main www.spectator.org failed. Once again we see why he has never problem the right currently faces. To many released his college records. true believers, one cannot be right-wing The American Spectator LLC

We’ve learned a few more things about enough, and woe to him who isn’t. Many is a subsidiary of him in the wake of Shellacking II. Unlike the a good Republican these days has for all in- The American Spectator Foundation friendly Mr. RGIII, he’s the sorest of losers. tents been decertifed as a conservative. How No post-game whirlpools for him. Instead of can such a not-conservative-enough-for-me Executive Director Donald Rieck Office Manager the quicky domestic political tour on the day function if he’s having to spend half his time Patrick Gallivan after, he fed Washington as soon as possible, looking over his right shoulder? Plus it poi- Legal Counsel Solitary, Poor, Nasty, ending up in Beijing, dressing in Red Guard sons our politics and decivilizes our activity. Brutish & Short threads, gingerly tiptoeing around Mr. Putin, It’s not a game if according to newly imposed and chewing gum much to his hosts’ disgust. rules it’s one strike and you’re out. Which, SUBSCRIPTION REPRINTS BACK ISSUES Tere’s nothing left for him now except to incidentally, doesn’t let snooty moderates of QUERIES: 703-807-2011 800-524-3469 remain the Defant One, churlish and small, the hook at all. If they’re so superior, shouldn’t 800-524-3469 * * * ADVERTISING DEVELOPMENT eager to hoist himself atop his own petard they be above snobbery? P. O . B o x 1 7 1 Kyle Peterson Donald Rieck of executive orders. One small consolation Luckily it’s still America, the land of the Congers, NY * * * [email protected] might have been the District of Columbia’s second chance. Will Rick Perry get his? In 10920-0171 703-807-2011 703-807-2011 passage of marijuana legalization. He’ll enjoy the hands of the excellent (and rising) young living in Choom Gang country again. And writer Jon Cassidy (p. 22), he’s a subject well Te American Spectator was founded in 1924 by George Nathan and Truman Newberry over a cheap domestic ale in McSorley’s Old Ale this time it’ll be legal. worth pondering, warts and all. Four years House. In 1967 the Saturday Evening Club took it over, rechris- It won’t be any consolation to him, but ago there was a certain inevitability to a Per- tening it Te Alternative: An American Spectator; but by November 1977 the word “alternative” had acquired such an esoteric fragrance we have some problems of our own. Tis ry presidency. Because, as we know, history that in order to discourage unsolicited manuscripts from forists, is the frst time I’ve written an introduction doesn’t repeat itself, this time around his beauticians, and other creative types the Club reverted to the magazine’s original name. Published remarkably without regard to gender, to an issue that was ready for release well chances might actually look better. lifestyle, race, color, creed, physical handicap, or national origin.

2 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 YOUNG AMERICA’S FOUNDATION’S HIGH SCHOOL CONFERENCE AT THE REAGAN RANCH

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by R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR.

He is eating pizza far from the White Paul Biya, who in 2006 ranked nineteenth to desist from defecating in the hallways House. He is downing Starbucks, slurping among the world’s most hideous dictators, and participating in other unsanitary prac- ice cream, and munching on burgers across Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh, who is tices that are not in keeping with the EPA’s America. Yet he is infrequently in the execu- so fervently anti-gay that he has threatened sacred mission. Next the EPA will be tack- tive mansion and when he is, he is apparent- to “cut of the head” of any homosexual he ing up signs reading “Do Not Void Where ly asleep. He rarely addresses afairs of state. encounters (pre- Prohibited.” Tis Actually President Barack H. Obama has al- sumably within has to stop. By the most given up on statecraft and returned to the jurisdictions way, 42 percent of doing what he does best, namely, campaign- of Gambia), and millennials polled ing. In that he is like another of America’s Equatorial Guin- by Reason maga- political prodigies, former President Bill ea’s President Te- zine said that they Clinton. As a species they have been denot- odoro Obiang preferred socialism ed as Chronic Campaigners, and whether Nguema Mbaso- as an organizing in retirement or in full presidential plumage go, who has killed principle for soci- they shake hands, josh it up with the crowd, or jailed all his ety, though only or simply raise money. Tey raise a lot of closest political 16 percent could it, Mr. Clinton for his various charities, opponents and defne the term. the president for the Democratic Party and who often acci- In San Marino, very soon for the Barack H. Obama Pres- dentally misspells California, a rising idential Library and Golf Club. Yet before his own last name! political career has he enters upon that particular fundraising During a press sufered a devastat- drive there is August to contemplate with a conference at the ing setback. Tere swell ffteen-day vacation in Martha’s Vine- Summit, Presi- the JFK of Califor- yard—ffteen days of glorious repose while dent Obama said, nia politics, May- our southern border is a chaos, Gaza is a “Te American or Dennis Knei- heap, and Ukraine vacillates between civil people don’t want er (pronounced war and war with Russia. On the hundredth me just standing kuh—NEER’), has anniversary of the Great War, who knows around….” But been forced to re- where that last item might go? we do, Mr. Pres- sign his glamorous ident. We want post because Mr. But before our president could fy of to you playing golf, Philip Lao, an op- Martha’s Vineyard he hosted at the White smoking ciga- Golf and aerobics together? Michelle would be proud. ponent known for House the largest gathering of crooks and rettes, and trying his treachery, sur- tyrants ever summoned to the United States, your hand at cro- reptitiously flmed the frst U.S.-African Leaders Summit! Call quet or pinochle or any other divertisse- Mr. Kneier throwing a bag containing some it another Obama frst, as with his Nobel ment that does not endanger the American sort of fecal matter on Mr. Lao’s walkway. Prize at the beginning of his presidency not people and add to the national debt, which Mr. Kneier resigned his mayoral position in the end. Would the prize be awarded to him has already gone up $7 trillion since you disgrace, but remains on the City Council now? Given the fact that this White House strutted into the White House. where it is anyone’s guess what his next des- gathering took place as an Ebola epidemic perate expedient will be. of gigantic proportions raged on in Africa, There is news from the Environmental who was indelicate enough to screen the Protection Agency! Te agency established They have done it again. Te Israeli De- guests? Did that inveterate health enthusi- to keep our environment spotless has had fense Forces, relying on a tactic very simi- ast, Mrs. Michelle Obama, suggest it? Te to issue a directive to its Region Eight staf lar to one enunciated in my 2010 classic, guest list included Cameroon’s President in Denver, Colorado, ordering its members After Te Hangover: Te Conservatives Road

4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 to Recovery, responded to Hamas’s rocket attacks on Israel by going into Gaza and “busting the joint up.” Ten the Israe- lis left in an exemplary demonstration of “Te Tyrrell Doctrine.” Just bust the place up and vamoose. Had the U.S. Army done that in Iraq the Iraqis would still be busily rebuilding their country and they would have no time to slaughter each other. Now the Palestinians are presented with this splendid opportunity to rebuild, and if they are obdurate enough to keep Hamas in power after Hamas has used Palestinians as human shields and Palestinian homes and mosques as cover for their rockets and tunnels, Gaza will be leveled again in fve or ten years. Frankly, I think it is high time the Palestinians caught on.

Meanwhile, Sunni jihadists from the newly confected Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) swarmed into Iraq and greater Syria eventually bringing what we might call their sacred sacraments to the Yazidis, a small pre-Muslim sect, and to Iraqi Christians who have lived in the “Yeah, I know you’re picturing it…” region for 2,000 years—those sacraments being death by the sword and expropri- ation. ISIS is even holier than Al Qaeda. out the Republic. In a tell-all book, Te And speaking of Al Qaeda, there is another First Family Detail, which relies heav- job opening at the top of that pious orga- ily on the testimony of Secret Service nization. Mr. Ahmed Abu Khattala, the agents, its author, Mr. Ronald Kessler, mastermind of the raid on our CIA out- writes that “Agents say that, whether at post in Benghazi, was sleeping comfortably the vice president’s residence or at his with his donkey south of Benghazi when home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of around midnight about 30 rufans from swimming in his pool nude.…Female the U.S. Seals, Delta Force, and the FBI Secret Services agents fnd that ofen- swooped down on his hammock and car- sive.” Well, how about the male agents ried him away to the USS New York in the and those of the LGBT persuasion? In Mediterranean where they persisted in ask- Massachusetts, Mr. Richard Capra, 69, ing him confusing questions, and he could was arrested for “open and gross lewd- not get back to sleep. Nor for that matter ness” as he was nabbed using a leaf blow- could an unidentifed man in San Francis- er on his front yard while buck naked. Ten in Arlington, Virginia, Mr. Charles DRINK co who was attempting to get a little shut- eye on a pile of cardboard refuse at the cor- Mack was pulled over by the constabu- ner of 16th and Irving streets when some lary for driving in the nude without even eager-beaver behind the wheel of a city re- having a driver’s license on his person. cycling truck picked the cardboard up and But the extent of the American progres- UP! sives’ nudism campaign became appar- deposited it and the recumbent gentleman $39* buys you one year in the truck’s dumpster. It took the local ent in New York City. Tere, as our Mr. fre department to extricate the man and Daniel Flynn reported on Spectator.org, — 10 issues — then they called the impetuous driver “a a completely naked Mr. George Davis of America’s cleverest magazine! hero!” Te sleepless man never did recover was found campaigning for, of all things, his wine bottle! the San Francisco Board of Supervi- sors. Whether he recognized that he was Call 800-524-3469 A wave of public nudity is sweeping 2,563 miles of target is unknown but he or visit the country or at least its Blue States, was completely in the buf—not even a and it is apparently led by none other wedding ring! Te Crisis continues with www.spectator.org than Vice President Joe Biden, or gafa- no end in sight. *New subscribers only. ble Joe as he is known in pubs through- —RET

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 5 odds & ENDS

Tough Crowd

we are disturbed by the slurs on American the anti-gun arguments exposed by two discussion here, but in the universe I in- Indians in Ira Stoll’s article “Teepee Populism” of your authors in the July/August issue habit time fows one way. Te prerequisites (TAS, July/August 2014) about Elizabeth confict. Te argument in the court cases have to come frst. For Congress to call Warren—starting with the cover of the issue, cited by Josh Blackman (“Our Gun-Shy forth the militia the militia must already with its caricature of Warren as a goofy Indian Justices”) is that the Second Amendment exist and the individuals being called forth sprouting head feathers in front of a teepee. If doesn’t apply outside the home. Where- must already be members of it. Otherwise you wanted to criticize her for being less than as, the book by Michael Waldman, cited the military draft is unconstitutional. ingenuous about various aspects of her past, by Seth Lipsky (“Tub to the Whale?”), Paul Kelly surely you could have done so without trot- argues that the amendment only applies Delta, CO ting out tired stereotypes of the Native people when serving in the militia. OK. I guess of this continent. it’s possible that the only way a Colonial the stark photo of Hofdi House in Ken Te article brings up many other areas American could serve in the militia was to Adelman’s Reagan at Rejkavik (“When in which you think Warren gives cause for refuse to come out of the house, and that the Cold War Cooled Down,” TAS, concern as a possible presidential candidate “Minuteman” referred to the time it took June 2014) reminds me of a suggestion besides the matter of her alleged Native an- to bolt the front door and barricade oneself a few years back to the Reagan Library cestry. You could easily have discussed these in the bedroom. But I doubt it. that a play be commissioned on that without resorting to ofensive stereotypes. What’s more, neither argument can truly historic summit. Along the lines Te cover graphic—along with the article’s stand alone. Te frst falls on “…to keep of the Dore Schary FDR biopic Sunrise title, the sick joke about the Cherokee jeep, and bear arms.” I don’t think “to bear” was at Campobello, it could be High Noon at the reference to war path, etc.—perpetuates colonial code for “render inoperable and Rejkavik—the lone aging Gary Cooper racist attitudes, which are echoed in some lock in a safe.” I suspect it meant the same meets the evil Bolshies on the volcanic of the online comments. Why not cut the then as it does now, “to carry.” plains of Iceland. facile slickness and show a little respect? Te second argument is even dumb- Te cast would include those pushing Dorian Brooks & Anna Watson er. Tere were debates at the time of our Reagan to abandon his maligned “Star Solidarity with American Indians founding over the efectiveness of a militia Wars” for Soviet missile removals, includ- and the dangers of a standing army. But ing Gorbachev, Shultz, and even Dame given to me by a friend, I have just fnished nobody argued for a militia of the un- Tatcher. Te old cowboy Dutch Reagan reading the May edition of Te American armed. Of what possible use would that stood truly alone, with an exasperated Spectator. Yes, the writing is of a commend- be? Some argue the right only applies to media vowing to skewer his resolve. “You able standard with many interesting topics, those on active military duty. By that log- could’ve said ‘Yes.’” but some authors, hastening to be funny or ic, if a general orders a private to turn his And then, dejected on the return fight, learned, left me confused. In numerous ar- weapon in to the armory while on base, he rose above all, penned a national ad- ticles, I was unsure of the author’s point of does the private have a constitutional right dress that swept America in polls even the view. Further, less smart-aleck comments and to tell the general to “go sit on it”? press couldn’t defy. Within a year the Sovi- phrases, less obscure references, and smaller Te U.S. Constitution does not give the ets would capitulate on Reagan’s terms and words where appropriate would render points federal government any power to conscript his forty-year quest would grace the planet. clearer, and no doubt increase readership. private citizens into government service (in What is required is collaboration between Andrew V. Rose Dianella fact, the Tirteenth Amendment expressly an insightful witness and the dramatic ren- Western Australia forbids it). It does give Congress the power derings of a playwright. Half the collabora- to call forth the militia, reorganize it, and tion is revealed. Calling Hollywood? Send correspondence to [email protected] with place it under the Commander in Chief. I Timothy P. O’Neill the subject line “Letter to the Editor.” don’t want to get into a long metaphysical Pompano Beach, Fl Love Yogi Illustration:

6 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 congratulations on a most interesting June issue. R. Emmett Tyrrell’s “Te Press Never Calls” reminded me of a conversation I had in the 1990s with an Irish priest, who asked me what I thought of the Clintons. When I replied, “Not much,” he gave a great snort. “Tinkers!” he said. “Tat’s what they are: tinkers!” For an Irishman, that’s a serious insult, so—to protect him from being added to Hil- lary’s enemies list—I won’t reveal his name. “Te Ad Man Goes to War,” by James Lileks, brought back memories of leafng through old Time magazines in my college library’s stacks, and being amazed at how, after December 7, 1941, absolutely everything was somehow related to the war. Some ads were direct; I especially remember the caption of a very dramatic drawing of soldiers in combat, with shells exploding everywhere, proclaim- ing that Reynolds Aluminum was making the best weapons and ammo for our troops. Joseph A. Harriss (“Te Shocking Mon- sieur Shakespeare”) never fails to entertain me with his acutely perceptive articles on all things French. My father was born in France, so I spent a year over there after college, visiting relatives and trying (with mixed results) to improve my language skills. Like him, I found France to be a strangely wonderful place. In 1971, I was able to attend the dress rehearsal of a Paris production of Hamlet, because my landlady’s niece, Bulle Ogier, was playing Ophelia (she had, as I recall, a splendidly wanton mad scene). Jean-Louis the guys Grover Norquist and his critics (read: by Paul, Cruz, or the others), a GOP Trintignant was a very intense and physical debate (“Pygmies and Giants,” TAS, March victory is plausible. Winning only 30 or 35 Hamlet, actually wrestling Ophelia to the 2014; “Odds & Ends,” TAS, June 2014) are percent of the black vote in, say, Pennsyl- ground during their post-soliloquy encoun- all great Americans and quality candidates. vania, could steer the Keystone State’s 20 ter. He pulled it of—but Laertes, apparently Perry, Jindal, Walker, Cruz, Paul, or Christie electoral votes to the Good Guys. Such a trying to emulate the star, overdid things by would restore integrity and competence in victory would mean that losing Ohio or screaming and fopping on the foor at the the White House and perhaps more impor- Virginia would not necessarily be fatal. Te news of Ophelia’s death, making the audi- tantly carry out the urgent task of bringing Republicans need the breathing room Dr. ence giggle and leading me to hope that that about Hillary Clinton’s retirement. Carson could provide. bit would be gone by opening night. Te problem not addressed by Norquist Dr. Carson’s skin color aside, he would Te translation impressed me as being true or his article’s critics? Tey probably cannot make a great candidate—maybe the best to the original, and not at all bowdlerized. win. Te guy who can win holds neither a since Ronald Reagan. Assuming Hillary is “Lady, shall I lie in your lap?…I mean, my Senate seat nor sits in a statehouse: Ben Car- the Dems’ standard-bearer, she’d be sliced head upon your lap,” became, “Madame, puis- son. Te GOP’s nominee will face in 2016 and diced in a debate with him. (Just imag- je m’etendre sur vous?…Je veux dire, ma tête sur what McCain and Romney did in 2008 ine Carson vs. Joe Biden.) Dr. Carson brings vos genoux.” Of course, it was a very French and 2012: demographics. Te Democrats a healthy narrative needed by this country in touch to make the lines rhyme—but I think enjoy a big head start in the electoral col- general and the Republican Party in particu- Monsieur Shakespeare would have approved. lege, which puts them a win in Florida away lar. His common sense (conservative) and re- Anne G. Burns from the White House. (Or, they could cap- laxed but sharply focused approach to issues Cos Cob, CT ture Ohio—as they did in ’08 and ’12)— would unite the RINOs and Tea Partiers and along with Iowa.) perhaps even attract some Democrats. P.S. Several years ago Mr. Harriss wrote Saying his party and country need Dr. Norquist and his piece’s critics badly about the Algerian war. My grandmother’s Carson because he’s black sounds somewhat missed the boat by omitting the one guy cousin, Gerard d’Ortho, who recently died dismissive of his obvious qualifcations. who would have the chance to return adults at age 107, had a farm there, and wrote won- Nonetheless, if Dr. Carson could garner to the White House. Run, Ben, run! derful letters about his experiences. I would enough African-American votes to steal one Frank Fisher be glad to share them if he is interested. or two of these otherwise unwinnable states Chicago, IL

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 7 Flashback out some of the most interesting facts in All the President’s Men. But the authors’ about the Watergate case. title is as misleading as many of their news- Editor’s note: Forty years after Richard It was Bernstein and Woodward who frst paper stories, and indeed as misleading as Nixon left public ofce, he remains in college made public the Mexican connection through large parts of the book. Te title is sup- journalism textbooks merely a stage prop used which money from the Committee to Re- posed to imply that all of the President’s to set the scene for the heroics of the intrepid elect the President had reached the Watergate men were involved in Watergate. In fact, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward burglars. Tey did not fnd this out by their of course, only a relative handful of the top and Carl Bernstein. But as our own Ben own investigations, but by getting Federal and ofcials of the government, of the White Stein noted in this 1974 review of All the local investigators to spill their guts. House, or even of the CRP have even been President’s Men, a book-length treatment of Bernstein and Woodward also frst broke accused of wrongdoing. the Watergate investigation, the duo’s greatest the story about Donald Segretti and his dirty In fact, Dita Beard swore under oath that talent is perhaps not reporting but self-pro- tricksters. Tey got the leads on this too from she did not write the memo attributed to motion. Tey have, after all, convinced a their sources within the government. her and that it was a forgery. Te memo did generation of moviegoers that they singlehan- It was the golden boys who also got the not “show” anything. It implied a certain dely—well, perhaps doublehandedly—felled frst stories out about Haldeman’s involve- tenuous connection. Te ITT pledge of a United States president. ment with a secret fund used to pay the money was to the San Diego Convention Watergate burglars. In this they were clearly Bureau, not the Republicans, and the anti- • wrong, at least in large part, and Haldeman trust settlement was not favorable to ITT. himself denies the involvement to this day. Instead it was the most stringent antitrust t one point in the story of how two But again, Bernstein and Woodward got settlement in history, and even Archibald reporters for the Wa s h i n g t o n Po s t cov- what they wrote from sources, not from orig- Cox praised it. Finally, Special Prosecutor Aered the Watergate story and broke inal research. Jaworski found no wrongdoing in the trans- much new ground in it, the following lines oc- Nevertheless in their work, and in reading action. But the impression Bernstein and cur: “Tey had not broken the law…that much their book, there is a lesson for all students Woodward leave is very diferent. seemed certain. But they of government, reporting, Another example is even more typical of had sailed around it and communications, and the kind of false image the book tried to give exposed others to danger. human nature, which far to all the activities of the White House. Re- Tey had chosen expedi- transcends the reportage peatedly throughout the book Woodward ency over principle and, on Watergate. refers to a source so secret he did not even caught in their act, their Te lesson is that in reveal it to Bernstein. Te source was nick- role had been covered up. modern life, people who named “Deep Troat.” At one point, “Deep Tey had dodged, evaded, work in large organiza- Troat” says that the Administration was misrepresented, suggested, tions accumulate a lot of bugging throughout its tenure, and that the and intimidated, even if grievances. One of those bugging of the Democratic National Com- they had not lied outright.” grievances is that they are mittee in the Watergate was “only natural.” Tose sentences do not anonymous, faceless cogs “Te arrests in the Watergate sent everybody refer to Richard Nixon in a machine. Tey can of the edge because the break-in could un- or Ron Ziegler. Bernstein dispel some of the feelings cover the whole program.” and Woodward are refer- of their own unimpor- At many other times the authors say that ring to themselves. And tance by telling secrets to such and such a source said Watergate and in those words, and in one the press. Tey can beat Segretti were just “the tip of the iceberg.” additional word, is the se- the system, in a word, by In fact, no responsible authority has even cret of their phenomenal Review: All Te President’s Men leaking. hinted that the instigation of the activities of success—chutzpah is the By Ben Stein Tey can “get back” at the “plumbers” was the same as that of the additional word. November 1974 their bosses—the ones Watergate bugging. Chutzpah is defned who do have known faces Far more important, at least so far, no re- as that quality which allows a person who and personalities. Tey can become the cen- sponsible person has suggested that there was has just killed his parents to throw himself ter of attention—searched for both inside an iceberg under that tip. Tere was no mas- on the mercy of the court and ask for leni- and outside their organizations. sive nationwide wiretapping operation, no ency as an orphan. Bernstein and Woodward found such peo- wholesale campaign disruption, no emerging Bernstein and Woodward had it in spades. ple in the White House, in the Justice De- police state. Tere were just a few dirty tricks By one of those ironic twists of fate, partment, in the FBI, in the CRP, and even and the Watergate break-in and coverup. But when the Watergate story frst broke on in competing news-gathering organizations. Bernstein and Woodward repeatedly seek to June 17, 1972, the Washington Post’s editors Te people were rare and hard to fnd, leave the impression that had it not been for gave it to two of the most nervy reporters but Bernstein and Woodward found that if their intervention, Nixon would have been that have ever lived—Carl Bernstein and they pushed against enough doors, eventu- inaugurated in 1976 to the singing of the Bob Woodward. Tey combined almost ally one would open. Horst Wessel Song.… limitless energy with limitless chutzpah, Te Bernstein and Woodward account strained the result through an almost in- of how they put their talents to work of the Read the rest online at comprehensible writing style, and brought Watergate story is glowingly spelled out www.spectator.org/woodstein

8 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 the BOOTBLACK STAND

Dr. George Washington Plunkitt, our prize-winning political analyst, has recently retired from a staf position with the House Ethics Committee and is working on volume seventeen of his memoirs, tentatively titled A Child Called “Sue”: One Country Singer’s Courage to Survive. But he has graciously consented to once again advise American statespersons in these times of trouble. Address all correspondence to Te Bootblack Stand, c/o [email protected].

Mr. Plunkitt— But what next? Won’t donors be upset ventionist. It sounds like that magic kind in expectation of runnin’ for president, when the impeachment doomsday scenar- of surgery where they operate on your I’ve been workin’ with a language coach. io we’ve painted fails to materialize? spleen by threading the scalpel up through But I still keep gettin’ tripped up. Te oth- Debbie Wasserman Schultz your veins, starting in your big toe. You er day I was at a nice Dallas café, and I or- DNC Chairwoman should coin a term with fewer syllables and dered two Buds Lite and the chef’s special defnitely no more than two vowels. Rand paninus. Te waiter looked at me funny DWS (if I may)— Paul: foreign policy Stoic? —GWP and then asked me to meet him in the al- there’s always the next crisis. Since the ley. I never even got my sandwich! How do plight of the underprivileged seems to be Mr. Plunkitt— I make myself seem smart without coming the time-worn Democratic line, try this lit- there are millions of unauthorized across as a faker? tle diddy on for size: aliens living in our midst. And they keep Rick Perry coming. For decades I have been silent, but Governor of Texas Dear Supporter: my conscience compels me to speak up. Did you know that more than one out of every I did see a spacecraft that cool night in Governor— eighteen homeless drifters sufers from Restless 1969. It hovered above the pine ridge, and I what makes you so sure the American peo- Legs Syndrome? But those fat-cat Republicans watched as three glowing, gelatinous objects ple want a member of the intelligentsia in the don’t want the federal government to do any- foated down to the ground and assumed White House? After all, they did elect that thing about it! Easy for them to say, sitting at human form. Tey fickered slightly as they dolt Zachary Taylor. No, what Americans home in their silk pajamas, their limbs totally dispersed, but it was the type of thing that want is a man with true grit. A man who stationary… would be imperceptible to those not on the wears sandpaper boxer shorts. One who’s lookout for it. I held my tongue, thinking it willing to eat the larva at the bottom of the You can probably vamp from there. —GWP a mere a scout team, an exploration party. tequila bottle, or to lick an electric fence, Well, I have been seeing that telltale ficker just to taste the voltage. A man who’s not Mr. Plunkitt— more and more lately—most alarmingly on afraid to make love to his frst and only wife i keep being tarred with that dang I-word: C-Span broadcasts of Congressional hear- under the twinkling stars, after breaking isolationist. Am not! Te right term is ings. I believe the United States—Earth—is into the local planetarium. noninterventionist. I just think that the under full-scale infltration by an invidious Might you be such a man? —GWP United States needs some “me” time. In- extraterrestrial force. But I am 90 years old, stead of sending our tax dollars overseas, and no one will believe me. Help! Mr. Plunkitt— we should focus on calming our own inner Jimmy Carter this month has been a fundraising bo- demons. Uncle Sam should turn down the nanza. 1) We send out direct mail about lights, put on that Burt Bacharach album, Mr. President— the Plutocrat Republicans’ imminent plan get into a warm bubble bath, and stretch only one man has the expertise to deal with to impeach Barack Obama. 2) I fuf up out those aching muscles. Just remember: gelatinous monsters, but Bill Cosby is unfortu- my hair, go on MSNBC, and say that John no battleships in the tub. Only peaceful nately indisposed. Tat said, are you sure they Boehner may hold the gavel in the House, duckies. mean us harm? Perhaps they simply believe, as but that Ted Cruz holds the leash on a Rand Paul Milton Friedman did, in the interstellar free pack of rabid, bloodthirsty social Darwin- Upwardly Mobile U.S. Senator movement of labor. Perhaps they just want ists. 3) Money rolls into the Democratic their ofspring to have a brighter future than National Committee headquarters in goo- Senator— their own, the opportunity to start a spore ey gobs. We had to hire six more unpaid potato, potato / tomato, tomato…uh, cluster under a warm yellow sun. So long as interns just to cart the checks up the street maybe that doesn’t translate well into print. they stay in Congress, they’re doing jobs that to the bank. I think the problem is this term, noninter- normal Americans don’t want. —GWP

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 9 SKETCHBOOK

Obamacare Architect: Let’s All Die at 75

by DAVID CATRON

f george washington was the father of our country, Benjamin Franklin was Iits grandfather. While the former was fghting the British at home, the latter was on the other side of the Atlantic securing the money and arms that kept the revolution alive. It is no exaggeration to say that, without Franklin’s indefatigable diplomatic eforts in Europe, the American Revolution would have failed. What has this to do with Obamacare? When that confict was ofcially ended by the Treaty of Paris, Franklin was 77 — well past the age when key ACA architect Ezekiel Emanuel says we should recommend a rationing system that would ting the health of individual patients before all embrace death. prioritize “people who have not yet lived a what he perceives to be the good of society. Last week the Atlantic published an essay complete life” yet go on to claim, “Unlike And, somehow, the good of society al- by Emanuel titled, “Why I Hope to Die allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is ways involves stifng seniors. Why does he at 75,” wherein he avers that “families — not invidious discrim- { pick on older people? and you — will be better of if nature takes ination.” For the same reason its course swiftly and promptly.” Note the Good luck selling Willy Sutton is (inac- words “you” and “families.” Its title not- that to Granny, who Is life after 75 curately) said to have withstanding, Emanuel’s article isn’t really may have her own not worth living? given when asked about himself. It is actually a none-too-sub- ideas about the opti- why he robbed banks. tle attempt to make us feel guilty for bur- mum point at which Reagan was 76 Tat’s where the mon- dening our families, and society in general, to shufe of her mor- ey is. About 25 per- by clinging to life past what he considers tal coil. But, like all when he stood cent of Medicare’s the optimum age to die. In other words, it progressives, Eman- before the Bran- annual budget, for is you whom he hopes will go gentle into uel is less concerned example, is consumed that good night after three-quarters of a about the needs of denburg Gate by elderly patients century. individuals than those and said, “Mr. during the last year of Emanuel is a notorious proponent of of the collective. His their lives. Emanuel medical rationing, and has long advocat- Lancet piece is obvi- Gorbachev, tear and other advocates ed denying care to the elderly. In fact, just ously a set of socialist of rationing, includ- prior to his 2009 appointment to Presi- shibboleths, and it is down this wall.” ing one who chas- dent Obama’s Coordinating Council on by no means the only tised me in the New

Comparative Efectiveness Research, he such manifesto he has { York Times for asking co-authored an article in the Lancet which written. In this 2013 article for the Journal if Americans deserve a health care system promotes allocation of health care resourc- of the American Medical Association, he run by soulless bureaucrats, believe that the es according to the age of the patient. In bemoans the hidebound attitude of a phy- only way to solve the problem is to deny its introduction, he and his co-authors sician community that still insists on put- Granny care.

10 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 But this has never played well with GLAAD’s dander is up because the gay char- the voters. Te more they learn about Te Movies You Watch acters didn’t get enough screen time, didn’t Obamacare’s Independent Payment Ad- feature prominently in the plots, or were visory Board (IPAB) and the “end-of-life Aren’t Gay Enough, deemed to be ofensively stereotypical. Teir counseling” that has once again reared its Say Activists solution, not surprisingly, is to place pressure ugly head, the less they like the “reform” on studio heads. Per Schwartzel: law that Emanuel helped design. So, in his by BILL ZEISER Atlantic piece, he attempts to convince us GLAAD is asking studios to give their movies a that he is willing to make the same sacrifce “Vito Russo Test. It’s modeled after the “Bech- that he advocates for the rest of us. Oddly ay and transgender characters del Test,” a concept popularized by “Fun Home” enough, though, Emanuel concludes his don’t feature often enough in ma- memoirist Alison Bechdel that asks if a work of article with the following caveat: “I retain Gjor Hollywood flms, according to fction has two women in it who at some point the right to change my mind.” When ra- a bizarre claim from the activist organiza- talk to one another about a topic other than a tioning begins, however, few seniors will tion GLAAD. I say that the claim is bizarre man. (Some movies said to pass: “Die Hard,” have that choice. because their gripe is that “only” 17 out of “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Gone With the Wind.”) Like most policy experts who support ra- 102 big studio flms from 2013 featured gay To pass GLAAD’s version of the test, a movie tioning, Dr. Emanuel is a man of indepen- characters. GLAAD regularly bean counts must have an LGBT character who is not “solely dent means. If, at age 75, he is diagnosed the number of homosexuals in flm in their or predominantly defned by their sexual orien- with some serious disease whose treatment Studio Responsibility Index. “Only” seems tation or gender identity” and who “must be tied isn’t paid for by his government coverage, a bit of an odd choice of words, though, into the plot in such a way that their removal he can simply write a check. Most of Amer- when 3.8% of Americans identify as LGBT. would have a signifcant efect.” It’s named for ica’s seniors are not quite so afuent. Tey If anything, gays are disproportionately rep- Vito Russo, the author of “Te Celluloid Clos- are predominantly retired working people resented in movies. Tis should hardly be et,” considered a classic text in LGBT entertain- whose earnings were skimmed every pay- surprising, given the distinctly liberal com- ment analysis. day in order to keep Medicare solvent. Tis plexion of the entertainment industry. is why the public overwhelmingly rejects Te 3.8% fgure, by the way, comes not Tis is remarkable for two reasons. First, a rationing. Tey have spent a lifetime pay- from some arch-conservative organiza- classic text in LGBT entertainment analysis? ing into the mythical Medicare Trust fund, tion undershooting the numbers. It’s from How many texts are there in that feld? No, and they expect coverage when they need the Williams Institute at UCLA School wait. I don’t want to know. Second, GLAAD

it. of Law, a think tank { is calling for the ful- Tragically, that’s what Great Britain’s se- which studies—and is flment of a mind- niors also expected after enduring decades sympathetic to—the blowing paradox. At of ever-increasing taxes paid to keep the gay rights agenda. A I agree with once, movies must National Health Service afoat. Now, how- sensible reader might prominently feature ever, they discover that the NHS is writing be asking just what GLAAD on at gay people, but they them of if they require cancer treatment GLAAD’s problem is least one thing. cannot be defned by after reaching age 75. Te people who run at this point. After all, their sexuality. Here, the NHS, like Dr. Emanuel and the other our liberal friends al- Movie characters for once, I agree with architects of Obamacare, are always ready to ways say they want an GLAAD on some- sacrifce seniors to the cause. And, regard- (insert noun here) that shouldn’t be thing. Movie charac- less of the rhetoric, that’s where Obamacare “looks like America.” defined by their ters shouldn’t be de- is going. It’s the purpose of Comparative A faculty that looks fned by their sexuality Efectiveness Research, the Independent like America. A ladies’ sexuality unless unless it’s crucial to the Payment Advisory Board, and end-of-life garden club that looks it’s crucial to plot. But if these gay counseling. like America. A flm characters, seeming- But Dr. Emanuel says that life after 75 industry that looks the plot. ly included to satisfy isn’t worth living anyway. Really? Ronald like America. In fact, GLAAD’s demands,

Reagan was 76 when he stood before the flms are now skewed { aren’t defned by their Brandenburg Gate and said, “Mr. Gor- in their representation sexuality, what’s the bachev, tear down this wall.” Mahatma of homosexuality. Hollywood’s America is point in the frst place? After all, there are Gandhi was 77 when he saw his dream of now, well, gayer than the America which ex- lots of details that make up an average per- Indian Independence come true. Nelson ists in the real world. Shouldn’t GLAAD de- son’s life, but not all of them would move Mandela became President of South Afri- clare victory in their self-interested crusade the plot of a movie forward. If they ever pro- ca at 76. And Benjamin Franklin attended for token diversity? duce my epic screenplay “Bill Zeiser: Action the Constitutional Convention at age 81. Of course, anyone who follows the narrow Hero” (tagline: he may be alphabetically What would the latter have said about Dr. special interest groups which have sprung up last, but he always comes in frst), they likely Emanuel’s wisdom concerning the opti- in our identity politics driven world knows wouldn’t include the fact that I am a Yankees mum age to die? As Franklin put it in his that they’d never do any such thing. Ac- fan, since it wouldn’t be germane to the plot. autobiography, “Life’s tragedy is that we get cording to Erich Schwartzel writing over Should silver screen heroes declare their Wall Street Journal Photo: The Aspen Institute/Flickr Aspen The Photo: old too soon and wise too late.” at the ’s Speakeasy blog, homosexuality for no reason other than

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 11 GLAAD’s insistence? Because that would Tere’s a scene in Mitt where Romney tells would be president, sadly. President Romney make for some stilted and awkward scenes. the workers in his Boston campaign head- would have been the man who outplayed “Are you feeling lucky, punk? By the way, the quarters after losing the 2012 election that Barack Obama in 2012. teachings of the social justice movement dic- to an extent he had to “steal the nomination” Presented with a blitz of TV ads making tate that although it has no bearing on how because the GOP is southern, conservative, the outrageously stupid claim that he was re- many rounds are left in my .357 Magnum, I and populist, while he’s a rich moderate from sponsible for a Kansas City steelworker’s wife must inform you that I am an openly homo- the Northeast. While some would call that dying of cancer because of a plant closing in sexual detective. Dirty Harry was a name I was an unnecessary surrender given in San Francisco’s leather subculture. to a liberal premise, it’s also Now please do not dwell on my sexuality.” a key reason why Romney One wonders if author J.K. Rowling’s failed to turn out the three ridiculous decision to retroactively declare or four million conservative Harry Potter character Dumbledore gay voters he needed. would satisfy GLAAD’s “Vito Russo Test.” On one level, this sen- After all, he was central to the plot of the timent for Romney Part books, ergo the movie franchise, and his Tree can be seen as desper- sexuality was so inessential that it wasn’t ation on the part of a GOP even mentioned. Te logical extreme of establishment which is rap- GLAAD’s request is to push gay characters idly losing power among its back into the ol’ celluloid closet. base voters. After all, Rom- ney was the overwhelming choice of the party’s insiders and K Street crowd in 2012, and yet he still struggled to put away the which Bain Capital played a role, President A Romney Redux Is the GOP nomination against a crowded but ul- Romney would have taken the opportunity timately uninspiring feld. to destroy Obama’s chief means of attack. Last Ting the GOP Needs Tings have only become worse be- President Romney would have ensured the tween the GOP’s conservative voters and American people knew that, in contrast to by SCOTT MCKAY the big-money insiders since then. Te the out-of-touch plutocrat Obama and the savage treatment of Ted Cruz and other media wanted to paint him as, he had given conservatives during and after the govern- more money to charity than Obama has ever he netflix documentary Mitt ment shutdown last year, the loss of a win- earned. President Romney would have gone ought to be required viewing for nable gubernatorial seat by Ken Cuccinel- so far as to make sure that at every campaign TAmerican voters, and particularly the li in Virginia (complete with accusations stop he brought one of his fellow out-of- low-information types who cast their ballots that with more support from the party he touch plutocrat friends to descend upon a for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election. Mitt could have prevailed), and the appalling Ronald McDonald house or homeless shel- chronicles the 2008 and 2012 presidential corruption of the establishment in saving ter or some other charitable facility to very campaigns of former Massachusetts gover- the Mississippi GOP primary for Tad publicly “make it rain,” and in the obliga- nor Mitt Romney, and in it one can see the Cochran over Tea Party challenger Chris tory mugging for local TV cameras he’d say efects a long and grueling presidential cam- McDaniel have only widened the chasm something like: paign can have on a candidate and his family. between the factions. One can also see the chasm between who As a result, the likely moderate candidates Is having my friend Mr. Warbucks donate a man really is and what he’s portrayed to in the 2016 race look unelectable—Chris $200,000 to the Greater Roanoke Center For be by his political opponents and the me- Christie for his unnecessarily combative Poor Kids a shameless campaign trick? Sure. dia. Te Romney in Mitt is a man America statements and whif of corruption, and Jeb We’re running for president. Everything you do would happily choose as its president: suc- Bush for his support of amnesty and backing is in pursuit of positive publicity. But that man cessful in business, faithful to God, blessed of Common Core. With Christie and Bush in the White House is running TV ads suggest- with family, easygoing with friends, and pos- appearing unacceptable, 2016 might be the ing I’m out of touch with regular folks, and I sessed of the intelligence and skill to serve in frst year where the Republican electoral dy- can tell you I’ve been all over this country in the a high executive role. He’s funny and down namic is turned on its head; rather than the last year and I’ve talked to tens of thousands of to earth. Te Romney clan is straight out of base having to choose the most palatable people. I’m as in touch as you can imagine, and a Norman Rockwell painting. option among establishment candidates, the my heart is broken over all the sufering I see in He’s a man you can root for. establishment will have to stomach someone Obama’s America. Why, then, was Romney also the out-of- whose political roots spring from something So this campaign will be about helping to touch plutocrat who found a way to lose closer to the Tea Party. relieve that sufering. We will give to and raise what many on the right thought was an un- Romney is therefore the last gasp of the money for charity everywhere we go, because loseable election? Tat’s the question which establishment—and that makes the prospect win or lose we’re going to try to help people who must be answered by those who are now pin- of a “third time’s the charm” result for him need it. And we’re going to show that there’s a ing for a third bite at the electoral apple for even less likely. better way to help the poor than to have the government rob the people who make the country the former Bain Capital CEO. Tere is a Mitt Romney who already Lawrence/Flickr Dave Photo:

12 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 work and forcibly redistribute their wealth. obviously not going to fght the whole of fronts, it is doubtful ISIS could hold out for Saddam’s army at such a distance. Instead, six weeks. President Romney also wouldn’t have President George Bush, in what was proba- What has prevented President Obama stayed quiet when CNN’s Candy Crowley bly the brilliant diplomatic efort of the cen- from acting? Tere seem to be two things. took it upon herself to save Obama from the tury, spent a half year assembling a coalition First, he would be unable to “lead from be- political efects of his incompetence and lies of 36 nations from fve continents lined up hind” but would have to get out front in over the Benghazi attack. President Romney against Saddam. Te entire Middle East directing this global efort. Unfortunately, would have ofered something like: “Can- signed on—they feared Saddam’s incursions the President is surrounded by scholars and dy…what are you doing? I didn’t come here were only beginning—but countries from advisers who spend their time lamenting to debate you, I’m here to debate him. Let the Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia that America no longer has the power and presidential candidates talk.” signed on as well. prestige it once had in the world. Terefore And then he would have demanded In the end, it was the world against Sadd- these things are no longer possible. But this Obama account for the fve appearances am. Te shooting war fnally broke out in is a self-fulflling prophecy. Te less we try by Susan Rice on the Sunday shows follow- January 1991, the fnal ground phase in late to do in the world, the more helpless we being the massacre in which Rice infamously February lasting only 100 hours. Te U.S. come. blamed a YouTube video for a military-style sufered 186 casualties and Saddam’s army Probably equally important, assembling al Qaeda attack occurring on September 11, was completely routed. President Bush’s ap- a coalition to oppose an enemy halfway of all days. proval ratings rose to 92 percent, the highest around the world is not the kind of thing A President Romney also would have re- ever recorded. the President wants to engage in right now. minded Obama of his words at the UN: Te U.S. faces an almost identical situa- He frankly sees the Middle East mess as a “Te future must not belong to those who tion now with the Islamic State of Iraq and distraction—probably as something that would insult the Prophet of Islam.” He Syria. ISIS is a rogue government that has never would have happened if George would have demanded that Obama explain very little local support even among the areas Bush, Jr. had not invaded Iraq—and has to America how that wasn’t an attempt to it is occupying. It relies on terror and con- been hoping the whole thing will go away. blame the YouTube video for Benghazi in quest. Even in areas { He would much rath- front of the entire world. where it was originally er spend his last two Unfortunately, we only met President welcomed, its harsh years pursuing his do- Romney in that glorious frst debate, after regimen and inhuman If we do not mestic policies of re- which he disappeared, leaving the country to tactics have cost it the distributing wealth in wither under Obama’s misrule for the next support of the popu- strangle the this country, and im- four years. lation. Surrounding Islamic State in plementing the “green Republican voters can’t count on the it are national gov- agenda” for the Amer- re-emergence of President Romney. As a re- ernments that live in its cradle now, ican economy than in sult, we’re more than satisfed with wishing fear of its incursions. dealing with foreign the guy in Mitt had won…and moving on Syria, Turkey, Jordan, the problem will adversaries. (We still to give someone else a chance. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, only continue to haven’t heard Secretary Iran and the Kurdish of State John Kerry say Regional Authority grow to world that ISIS represents a all see ISIS as an alien proportions. greater threat to the intruder that must be world community We Need Another contained. Moreover, than global warming.) the threat of terrorism { ISIS represents a Gulf War Efort carries far outside the region. With a secure, threat to Western civilization of a kind not Al-Qaeda-like “base,” ISIS is in obvious po- seen since the Mongol Invasions of the thir- by WILLIAM TUCKER sition to threaten any country in Europe or teenth century. Ten Europe found itself North America with random acts of terror. prostrated before a warrior nation of armed So why hasn’t President Obama dupli- horsemen intent on destroying everything n august 1990, Saddam Hussein led cated George Bush’s efort and, working in their path and who treated their con- what was then the fourth largest army in through the United Nations, assembled a quests with unbelievable cruelty. Te Ot- Ithe world, a battle-hardened group that coalition of forces that could put the stran- toman Empire continued this tradition for had just fought the ten-year Iran-Iraq War, glehold on IS? It might take many months centuries afterward, beating on the gates of into Kuwait to seize its oil felds. but an alliance of nations could line up on Vienna several times before fnally being It was a clear violation of international ISIS’s perimeter and advance in a coordinat- turned away by a united Europe in the later law and national sovereignty, but as usu- ed efort from all sides. American air pow- seventeenth century. al, Saddam had his own list of rationaliza- er would obviously play a crucial role but Te ISIS threat is not going to go away. It tions—northern Kuwait really belonged to a huge commitment of U.S. ground forc- is driven by a faith in conquest and violence Iraq—plus the law that might makes right. es would not necessarily be needed. Much plus the conviction that Moslems are des- So what did we do? America’s interests more important would be providing these tined to rule the world. If we do not strangle were clearly at stake—we were much more national armies with sufcient weapon- it in its cradle now, the problem will only dependent on foreign oil—but we were ry. Faced with a coordinated attack on all continue to grow to world proportions.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 13 every moment of my life to bring into reality gious Left once marched for population con- Climate Worship the beautiful peace prayer that my tradition trol based on urgent fears of imminent global has given us. Because protecting our species, mass starvation and overcrowding. Later it at the Cathedral defending the climate, and protecting the marched for unilateral nuclear disarmament rights of people, is about making peace with based on theories of nuclear winter and the the earth, and peace between people.” illusion of moral equivalence with the Sovi- by MARK TOOLEY An Eskimo elder from Greenland pledged ets. Ever in search of imminent apocalypse with his stone to “somehow melt the ice in to justify its worst apprehensions, in recent the heart of man,” as he summoned help years the Religious Left has pleaded against aturally there was a religious aux- from his ancestors with what one report fossil fuels as the ostensible poison that will iliary to the Global Warming jam- called a “deep, piercing call that echoed of sufocate the earth. Nboree in the form of the Interfaith the walls and arches of the cathedral.” Of course, all of these apocalyptic caus- Summit on Climate Change, sponsored by Episcopalians often cherish their blue es demanding precipitate political action the World Council of Churches, among oth- blood genealogy, but shrieking out for dead conveniently have synchronized with the ers. And of course it included earth-friendly ancestors in church is not typical at tradi- Religious Left’s hostility to political and worship at the famboyant Episcopal Cathe- tional Episcopal worship. Not bound by or- economic liberty in favor of heavily central- dral of St. John the Divine, whose theolog- thodox tradition, the Cathedral of St. John ized authority. Te increasing plentitude of ically provocative services some critics have the Divine has for decades experimented inexpensive fossil fuel supplies benefting labeled earth worship. with and hosted highly non-traditional rites the American and global economy is a spe- Tose critics would have found vindica- often focused on earth veneration that verge cial threat to hopes for curtailing economic tion at the cathedral on Sunday, September on pantheism. growth and free markets. 21, when “Te Religions of the Earth Multi- Al Gore preached at the cathedral climate Te greatest benefciaries of cheap, plenti- service of course, although his ful fossil fuels are the global poor, who are less remarks seemed relatively tame, and less dependent on the old oil cartel, and amid the rock piles, piercing ap- for whom environmentalist dreams of com- peals to the ancestors, and giant plete reliance on expensive and unreliable so- phoenixes fying overhead. lar and wind alternatives were never feasible. “We have a duty to be watch- Hundreds of millions in Asia, Africa, and ful, not just by opening our eyes Latin America need more oil, gas and coal if but by opening our hearts,” Gore they are ever to escape chronic poverty and intoned in his Baptist voice. “It ever hope for living standards approaching is time to be wakeful and to be the wealth of typical worshippers at the Ca- alert. Tat is my pledge. To be thedral for St. John the Divine in New York. wakeful, to be alert and to call “By this stone, we are reminded life is on others to do the same.” Gore about circles,” pronounced one celebrant insisted the evidence for hu- cradling a rock at the cathedral’s climate rally. man induced cataclysmic global Circles and metaphors might be fne for gu- warming is “incontrovertible.” rus and activists. But for most of the world’s But skeptics of Global Warm- population struggling to survive, progress ing scare talk point out that and growth ofer more tangible hope. global temperatures have largely faith Service” paid homage to Mother Earth been fat for nearly 17 years. And a former by asking worshippers to pile stones on the Obama administration ofcial from the En- altar to confrm their climate commitment. ergy Department declared in a Wall Street Scotland Stays Over a thousand concerned religious activ- Journal op-ed in time for the New York cli- ists flled the pews, praying for and at times mate festival: “We often hear that there is a by DANIEL J. FLYNN seemingly to the earth, beneath two giant ‘scientifc consensus’ about climate change. sculptures of feathered phoenixes that soared But as far as the computer models go, there overhead in the huge gothic worship space. isn’t a useful consensus at the level of detail hen scotland “voted” on Urging on the stone bearers was Chief Ar- relevant to assessing human infuences.” union with her southern neigh- vol Looking Horse, Lakota spiritual leader Such modesty and nuance were largely Wbor 307 years ago, English and 19th Generation Keeper of the White absent from the secular and religious hoopla troops fowed to the border and English Bufalo Calf Pipe Bundle. He explained that surrounding “Te People’s Climate March.” pounds fowed through the Scottish par- rocks were frst in the Great Spirit’s creation, Te Interfaith Climate Summit and espe- liament. English force sought, unlike worriedly adding, “Spirit Mother is sick, and cially its fulsome, rock-strewn worship at the Hadrian, to welcome and not repel. Te has a fever.” Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine parliamentarians quietly voted “yes”; their “Tese [rocks] are not inert matter, they better illustrate that much of the intense constituents loudly shouted “no.” are not dead matter,” further explained In- Global Warming activism is more based on Robert Burns eloquently agreed with the dian environmentalist Vandana Shiva. “Tey dogmatic theology than objective science. screaming sentiment of the people rather are life. And with this rock, I commit myself With similarly fearful devotion, the Reli- than the pols: Commons Kripaks/Wikimedia Photo:

14 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 What force or guile could not subdue Conversely, Englishmen, not Scots, Tro’ many warlike ages should chart England’s course. Is England Solar Plant Fries Is wrought now by a coward few more English by diluting the British Parlia- For hireling traitor’s wages. ment with the 59-member Scottish delega- Birds in Midair tion that boasts exactly one Conservative More than three centuries later, Scots- Party member? by GREG WALCHER men—rather than representatives who Such a better-of-without-them attitude don’t represent—voted whether to part characterized the antebellum secessionists from the Englishmen they had so con- in the American North. Outrage over the t the most modern solar power troversially joined. Enjoying about as full addition of the foreign slaveholding nation plant in the world, researchers are a democratic expression as modern times of Texas to the Union by simple majori- now saying the magnifed sun rays are { A have known, and ty votes in Congress setting birds on fre in midair — by the thou- minus the coercion, (rather than through sands. Tey call them “streamers,” because of Scots apparently de- the more stringent re- the smoke plume that is quite visible as they cided that diferences Alas, the quirements of a trea- ignite and plummet to earth. Stories of the did not dictate di- course of ty or constitutional scorched birds were so widespread that alert vorce, after all. amendment) sparked investigators from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife In what way, Scots- Scotland, even secessionist sentiment Service decided to visit the plant — built by men certainly contem- in New England in BrightSource Energy near the California/Ne- plated, would unteth- if the wrong the 1840s. vada border. Te Feds watched in horror as ering the crosses of St. course, remains More scandalized they saw an average of one “streamer” every Andrew and St. George that their fag few two minutes. change matters? for the Scots over slavery than Coincidentally, the company is asking Would trade barri- to map. some Englishmen California regulators to approve an even ers restrict commerce must be that their fag larger version of the solar plant, and the between Adam Smith’s fies over socialism, Feds are—predictably—urging the state to homeland and Wil- { anti-slavery activists, halt the application until more Feds can liam Gladstone’s? Would Scots opt to drop stoked by the speeches of William Lloyd conduct more studies. English en masse for the ancient tongue? Garrison and Wendell Phillips, resolved at Te Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Sys- Would England prevent Scottish tourists a meeting held a mile from my home 168 tem is an amazing engineering achievement, from visiting London and Scotland prevent years ago: “Tat for Massachusetts to re- harnessing the sun’s energy on a massive English tourists from visiting Edinburgh? main as a partner in a Union, in which her scale. Te $2.2 billion plant, just launched If the component parts of the whole people are deprived of every constitution- this spring, is the world’s largest solar thermal fy separate fags and feld separate soccer al right, and continually subjected to the plant. Some 300,000 mirrors refect solar rays teams, then to some extent the “nation” most atrocious insults and outrages, is to onto three boiler towers, each the height of a isn’t much of a nation. But a nation ain’t make herself a willing bond slave, traitor- 40-story building. Te water inside is heat- what it used to be, as indicated by the ous to the cause of human liberty, and reed to produce steam, turning turbines that Scottish “yessers” who hoped had the refer- sponsible for every act of usurpation which can generate 392 megawatts a year, enough endum passed to share a currency. So what has stained the Federal Government with electricity to power 140,000 homes. A feder- would have been the efect of this parting pollution and blood.” al government that claims to encourage such between friends? Fifteen years later, some of the same ac- renewable energy ought to be proud, but in- Strangely, the English might have won tivists who had supported secession sup- stead wants to hit the brakes. had “no” lost. Scottish members of parlia- ported killing secessionists. Everybody be- Te rash of sensational news stories about ment, overwhelmingly belonging to left- lieves in their right to leave. It’s the right fried birds is not surprising—for two reasons: wing parties, necessarily make the United of others to go that plays as such a sticking First, any kid who ever used a magnifying Kingdom more socialist. Scotland may point. glass to scorch ants could tell them that if you have become a Scandinavian paradise, as Patriots, in England now and America focus the sun’s rays that intently, anything in some Scotsman had hoped. But such par- then, obsess over subtraction. Tey over- the path will get burned. We also learn at a adises rarely work in the world as they do look what William Lloyd Garrison and very young age that light attracts bugs. Tus, in the imagination for the simple reason the abolitionists certainly did not: addi- if you fll the desert with intensely focused that fewer people work in them. In efect, tion. Bringing outsiders into a deal doesn’t light it will attract legions of bugs, which the socialist Scots traded the cry of “Free- strengthen the original stakeholders. It di- will attract legions of birds. Estimates of the dom!” from William Wallace, or at least his lutes power. number of birds fried while fying through thespian medium Mel Gibson, for one of Te empire on which the sun never set the area range from at least 1,000 to as many “Serfdom!” may be more powerful today than yester- as 28,000 a year. Alas, the course of Scotland, even if the day. It’s less English than it might have Second, some federal agency can always be wrong course, remains for Scots to map. been. And that’s the problem—oft seen in counted on to oppose anything—especially But following nationalist socialists, as his- advance but seldom in hindsight—with any use of any form of energy anywhere at tory strongly suggests, isn’t a course that Empire, Manifest Destiny, and their many any time. Te coal industry is struggling to winds up in the right place. relatives. Tere isn’t power in a union. survive the EPA’s newly proposed greenhouse

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 15 gas regulations, the efect of which will be to Tis musing overtook me as I watched the er up and double down. But somewhere the essentially ban coal-fred power plants. Te presiding plenipotentiary of the podium, self-restraint broke down and another great feeding frenzy about “fracking” has spawned Josh Earnest (I promise I am not making this national institution lost its conscience. political initiatives across the country seeking name up), feld a query about a contradic- It is hard to pin down just when the job to ban drilling for oil and gas, and the EPA tion between Second Term Obama and his became that of a spin doctor. During the also wants to federalize that issue. Te Obama popular predecessor, First Term Obama. Ap- Clinton days, there was a lot of pressure on Interior Department imposed a moratorium parently old First Term was recorded saying Dee Dee Myers and Mike McCurry to be- on further leasing of oil shale lands (with de- he could not go about changing immigra- have as full-time apologists for Bill Clinton’s posits equal to all the known oil reserves of the tion law on his own because that power was misadventures. Tey were both nice people world). Te fedgling biomass energy indus- reserved to Congress by the Constitution. with a basic integrity to their character and try is still sputtering in the West because the However, Second Term has been saying that they had to get out of there before too long, Forest Service does not make enough timber since Congress won’t do their job because with some shreds of their consciences intact. available to create signifcant energy. Finally, they are busy trying to stop him from doing In the case of Barack Obama, the press numerous organizations are up in arms about his job he must stop doing his job and do secretaries have adopted all his faws from the impact of wind farms on birds, some their job for them instead. For the uniniti- Day One. While he traveled the country threatening to sue the Administration for ated, this is the translation into Flapdoodle granting waivers to the wind industry. of promising to change immigration law by Combine these two facts and you have the his lonesome. perfect recipe for controversy, so lots of tax Earnest was so shocked that someone money will be spent fghting, and defending, would deign to match First Term twaddle to the newly proposed solar expansion. We can Second Term swagger that he lapsed into a look forward to more studies, from the feder- circular stream of incoherence. Something al agencies themselves and from their friends along the lines of “the President has always in the environmental industry. And just in believed that immigrants are the backbone of case you think federal agencies are consistent, our democracy,” which crosses nobility with the Fish and Wildlife Service is in the same redundancy to produce meaninglessness. Department as the BLM, which owns the Watching this spectacle, I could not help land and permitted the Ivanpah plant. thinking it is time to write this ofce of as In their defense, the plant’s owners are a lost cause. saying that not all the “streamers” are birds. Once upon a time it had a fairly lofty pur- Some of them, they say, are actually in- pose. Te idea was not to be the President’s sects. If so, shouldn’t the Feds be shocked campaign manager but to inform the people at that? Never mind the need for electricity - through the press - of things they needed to at 140,000 homes — let’s worry about the know about the day-to-day deliberations in callousness of a corporation that thinks it’s the highest echelons of the executive branch blaming everything on George W. Bush, OK to fry insects like schoolboys with a of government. It was never designed as a Mr. Gibbs and then Mr. Carney echoed magnifying glass! tell-all Freedom of Information Act outpost. his refrain. Everything Obama did was No one expected to hear exactly what was right and motivated by the noblest in- said at that day’s Cabinet meeting, but it was tentions; everything the Republicans did possible to deliver some substantive sense of was wrong and motivated by the crassest what was on the table at a given time. With- intentions. out spreading classifed material, a good At this point, it is time to just shut this press secretary could give the citizen some thing down. It has become an abomina- Eliminate the Position perspective on events. tion. How do I explain to my children It was also a vehicle for a President to that every word out of the mouth of the of White House get out messages to the nation, to give a latest sweet-faced shill is deliberate distor- broad sense of his direction and the goals tion? Tat the whole image of a responsi- of his administration. Te President was ble representative ofering an insight into Press Secretary shocked to hear about the passing of… the President’s mind is an elaborate scam Te President was proud of the young lady to gull sincere people into swallowing rank by JAY HOMNICK in Oregon who risked her life to… Te partisan propaganda. President was appalled at the behavior of Oddly enough, the ideal press secretary the shopkeeper who refused to serve… Te would be a combination of joshing and don’t mean to josh; I mean this in ear- President was inspired by the victory of the earnestness. A kidding relationship with nest. I think it is time to eliminate the underdog high school basketball team that the pack of journalists baying at his heels Iofce of White House press secretary. overcame injuries and the tragic death of a for more than he can give, tempered by an T ere is no point in having a permanent teammate to… earnest efort to present fairly the facts that Commender in Chief to tell us how great a What it never became was a license to lie he can share. Tere seems little chance of job the President is doing, without regard and fake and feint and defraud and misin- that happening anytime soon, certainly in a

to reality, actuality, verity or accuracy. form and mislead and misrepresent and cov- Democrat administration. House/Flickr Souza/White Pete Photo:

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Does interest in the World Cup show that Americans are fnally taking to soccer?

Football vs. Fútbol— opposed to fútbol). A late addition to my the Cup extravagantly and took to nagging No Contest in El Norte sports lineup has been hockey, a game ab- Americans to like soccer, for no other reason sent from my Southern upbringing. than that the rest of the world likes it. It’s Most American men, and some fne suggested, by the crowd that treats the arriv- by LARRY THORNBERRY women, engage with one or more of these al of the frst openly gay player in the NFL as fve sports (not forgetting the tennis and a fabulous cultural event, that anyone who t’s never as bad an experience, and golf afcionados amongst the Izod set). For doesn’t appreciate soccer is a mouth-breath- I don’t have to assume an undigni- sportsaholics who like all fve, there simply ing, knuckle-dragging, nativist yahoo. fed position. But the quadrennial isn’t room for yet another entry. Tese scoldings aren’t really about soccer, World Cup has this in common with Were there but world enough and time, nor even about sport. Tey’re about cultur- my annual exam by my urologist: at sport No. 6 for me wouldn’t be soccer. Mr. al politics, about how elites look down on some point I’m sure to ask, “Good Nice Guy musings that you like what you Joe and Jill Americano and like to strike grief, isn’t this over yet?” learn frst aside, please allow me some mea- moral poses at their expense. Tese are the It’s not that I begrudge America’s small sured and totally objective observations: same scoundrels who hector us about glob- Iband of true soccerphiles the chance to en- Soccer is slow, low scoring, low on action, al warming and want us to watch women’s joy a game they like on a large stage. (Tese and, as we learned during this year’s Cup, basketball. Tey needn’t be taken seriously. folks are well represented by my friend features an alarming undercurrent of canni- But they can sure get up a guy’s nose. Wlady Pleszczynski, whose appreciation balism. Besides, the matches last a day and a With all the nagging, the extravagant cov- of fútbol is opposite my harrumphs.) But half, a long time to attend to any game that erage, and the once-in-four-years chance I’m mildly annoyed by the fogging and fnishes nil-nil. Soccer has an ofside rule for patriots to pull for an American team, over-coverage of a sport few Americans that is as mysterious as the infeld fy rule Cup TV ratings increased by about 20 per- know or care much about. and makes less sense. cent over 2010 (at least until the U.S. was Te dreamy prediction by the soccerati that Soccer is the metric system of sports. It eliminated), and at least a few sports bars futbol will soon break out as a major Amer- charms Lexus leftists who’ve visited Eu- overfowed with twenty-somethings drink- ican sport has been making the rounds since rope and should stay there. (Precincts with ing beer, firting with each other, and pos- Pelé was a pup. It hasn’t happened and won’t high densities of soccer fans correspond to sibly watching soccer on the conveniently unless Barack Obama succeeds in his eforts those with high sales of bidets.) Te most located big-screens. Tere was even a front- to erase the southern border of the U.S. and fascinating action produced by the sport are page story with photos in my local Tampa shoehorn every Central American into the the fghts in the stands between rival fans, Tribune about companies whose employees lower 48. Sure, non-Spanish-speaking folks brought on, my guess is, by boredom, be- spent part of the work-day watching Cup like soccer too. But how central soccer will cause all these testosterone-besotted and matches. Advanced as evidence that soccer be in America’s sports future will depend to beer-soaked young men are shoved togeth- is coming on in America, this in fact just a large degree on how Spanish that future is. er in tight quarters with nothing to do but confrms that some people would rather Te gradual increase in interest in soccer here watch fútbol. Perhaps TV cameras should watch a sporting event on TV than work. closely tracks immigration, legal and other- focus on these fghts rather than on the wiry Not an impressive haul considering the wise, from south of the border. guys leisurely kicking a ball around a big, entire American elite was acting as a halle- Most people who play, watch, and/or green cow pasture. lujah chorus for “the beautiful game.” After care about sports usually stick with the the Cup concluded, Major League Soccer in ones they learned early on. I was mari- his world cup year, coming as it America has done no better in attendance nated at a young age in baseball and box- did after the politicization of the or TV ratings than it did last year. Soccer is ing, the sports my dad and his blue-collar Tsports media, my annoyance escalat- still a niche sport in El Norte. Roger Good- mates down at the plant knew and loved. ed to irritation. Te drones at ESPN (Every ell needn’t worry that his NFL will be kicked I later learned basketball and football (as Sport Political Now), and their imitators at of of page one of America’s sports sections national broadcast outlets and newspapers any time soon—at least not for another four Larry Thornberry is a writer in Tampa. down to the River City Daily Bugle, covered years, when the nagging will begin again.

18 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 The World’s Game

by WLADY PLESZCZYNSKI

his is going to be as easy as a penalty kick. Of course, if you’re not a fan TI can’t help you. I don’t mean a fan of soccer itself, just of any major sport. Openness to one leaves one open to all. Growing up in southern California, I quickly became a fan of baseball (the Dodgers) and soon enough of football (the Rams, USC) and basketball (the Lakers and UCLA). Soccer I don’t know when I frst heard of. A 1967 documentary whose name I’ve just now had to look up— Goal! Te World Cup 1966—introduced me to Pelé and the great tournament itself, but more delightfully to such very English-sound- est Soviet player, a European player of the available—and in the U.S. it helps that ad- ing soccer names as Nobby Stiles and Bobby year, and a member of Pelé’s all-world team. vertisers and broadcasters have found a way Charlton. Tere was a world out there. He later became independent Ukraine’s head to televise games without having to insist on My sense of it expanded soon enough coach. It’s always more than a game. two-minute warnings or even streaming ads. when I found myself in Poland for a sum- And it’s hardly the kinder and gentler sport Te quadrennial World Cup is an amaz- mer, cut of from Major League baseball and of our social planners. In the 1970s I remem- ing selling point, a well-organized, efciently American sports pages. Soccer came to a res- ber the emergence of Kyle Rote, Jr. as the face run month-long pageant involving countries cue of sorts. Poland’s national team played a of American professional soccer. As the son from most every continent and countless “friendly” against Norway. It was nationally of an NFL star and a golden boy in his own players and at least some teams of unmatched televised and my introduction to the host right he was perfectly positioned to represent competitiveness and skills. Tere’s of course

country’s great star Wlodzimierz Lubanski. the new alternative to America’s most{ pun- the setting—sold out stadiums under majes- (My wife still swoons at his mention.) Poland ishing sport. It never tic sky for a game that won easily, and I was impressed. really got going, start- showcases the uses of Five years later Polish soccer peaked, the ing in my California space on and above the team qualifying for the 1974 World Cup hometown of Santa The World Cup feld below. Tere are and preventing England from advancement Barbara, where Rote is an amazing the players’ unique set of thanks to the two sides’ epic 1-1 tie in Wem- often came calling. skills—of foot, leg, knee, bley Stadium on October 17, 1973. Tat’s Te city’s professional selling point, a and head, for starters— when I learned the phrase “A Tie Worthy of team folded at mid- month-long and seemingly efortless Victory!” (It sounded more dramatic in the season. Co-ed ele- stamina. Even American original Polish: Remis Godny Zwyciestwa!) In mentary school soccer pageant involving skeptics appear to give the Cup itself Poland surged to the fnals and had a better chance credit to those attributes. defeated Brazil for third place. Te country of survival. I mention countries from (Ever notice how any shut down not because of anything the com- this only because it all most every NBA player immediate- munists did. seemed such a far cry ly receives extra recog- A few years after that I found myself deeper from actual soccer. continent. nition when someone behind the Iron Curtain, summer-studying To my mind nothing notes he’s a former soccer in Kiev. Sports there were barely visible, until captured it more than player?) { I caught wind in late August of an upcoming a not so friendly “friendly” in Hamburg be- And then there’s the scoring—supposed- soccer game in town, featuring the storied tween West Germany and Brazil in April ly always not enough of it in non-fans’ eyes, Kiev Dynamo against the Moscow Army 1978, in which the opening minutes consist- but all the reason to respect it in soccer itself. team. Imagine such a match-up today. But ed of nothing more than each side taking out A single goal can make all the diference, as back then it was a rather desultory afair. Te the other at the shins at midfeld. Until the Germany demonstrated in the World Cup stadium was at least half empty and thanks referee restored control, that was soccer left fnale last summer. And too many goals in to the usual front row of KGB troops on all to its own devices. a game cheapens their efect, as Germany sides even deader than that. Ah, but the re- It’s been slow going, but American soccer also demonstrated in the Cup’s semifnal last sults: 5-0 Kiev, with Oleg Blokhin scoring has grown up some since that naïve era. Not summer. It wasn’t Germany’s fault it played three of the goals. You haven’t heard of him? that the tough play required at the interna- perfect soccer that day—simply Brazil’s, for Even before 1977 he was regarded as the fn- tional level has become any easier as com- being such an unworthy opponent. Implicit petition only intensifes as it becomes more here is soccer’s profound understanding that Wlady Pleszczynski is editorial director of widespread. At the same time, technology glory in this world has to be earned, not giv-

Photo: Bill KLeb/Flickr Bill Photo: Te American Spectator. makes access to live soccer that much more en away, penalty kicks notwithstanding.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 19 in the COLOSSEUM

by AMANDA C. ELLIOTT Te Negotiator Raul Labrador on government shutdown, voter outreach, and John Boehner’s honor.

ashington is a city full ation after budget negotiation. A government If nothing else, his leadership bid made peo- of dueling egos, a kind shutdown that snuck in there along the way. ple sit up and start paying attention. of bubble of exaggerat- Te class of 2010 came to Washington Up until that point, Labrador was proba- ed self-awareness. But with a clear mandate. So far they’ve been bly best known for his championing of com- it’s where Raul Labra- thorns in the side of the Obama adminis- prehensive immigration reform, a position dor,W the forty-something immigration law- tration. But that’s easy. What’s more dif- informed by his background as an immi- yer-turned-Congressman, has made his bed. cult is staying true to conservative principles gration lawyer and very much in line with Tere is something brutally honest about and getting things done, all without turning the aspirational Reagan-era conservatism in Labrador. And it’s not just that he tells it like Americans of. Labrador, for one, is perfect- vogue when he came of age politically. Like he sees it or that he has a diagnosis for every ly honest about it: his party’s messaging and Marco Rubio in the Senate, Labrador was problem (though he does). He’s in the nego- negotiating techniques stink. young-ish, afable, articulate, and, of course, tiating business. From afar, his fellow conser- Take last year’s government shutdown. Hispanic: well-suited, in other words, to vatives in the House seem to be wandering Many have blamed the sixteen-day mess on taking up the task of reaching out to Latino leaderless through a desert, chasing budget Labrador and his fellow Republicans in the voters on behalf of his party. Many observers cut mirages, hunting for Obamacare oases. House, but won’t mention that to his face. In were surprised last June when he dropped In Labrador, they may have found their man. fact, he outwardly bristles when I suggest that out of the so-called “Gang of Eight,” the Today, it’s mid-summer and Labrador the shutdown was right out of his playbook. bipartisan group devoted to pursuing immi- is sitting in his tiny ofce in a back corner “It actually wasn’t, because we never had a gration reform in the House. At the time he on the ffth foor of the Longworth House consistent message. We kept changing the told reporters that he disagreed with his col- Ofce Building. Outside, the Capitol is playbook. So one day we’re asking for X and leagues about immigrants’ health care, say- engulfed in the kind of steamy, blistering the next day we were asking for Y,” he says. “If ing in a statement, “Like most Americans, I humidity Washington, D.C., is known for. you’re going to negotiate, you have to be con- believe that health care is frst and foremost Inside isn’t much better. A portable fan is sistent and be clear what your demands are.” a personal responsibility.” running to try to cool things down. He continues: “What House conservatives Principles aside, it is hard not to see his It’s been four years since the wave that were asking for was pretty simple: give us a retreat as a concession to political reality: swept him and so many of his conservative one-year delay of Obamacare and we will hard as it may have been to predict back in colleagues into the marbled halls of Con- give you a one-year CR. Tat was a pret- 2010, the GOP grassroots has turned out gress. Like so many others, Labrador fell ty simple message,” he says, clearly mifed. to be thoroughgoingly opposed to compre- into the hardline camp almost immediately. “Tat was never the message that came out hensive-style reform and, some would say, to Now, credibility in tow, he’s working to re- of our leadership. Our leadership said give us the optimistic view of immigration Labra- fne that image. a complete repeal of Obamacare and we will dor and Rubio made their names espousing. Tough he says he disagrees with the ac- give you…nothing.” Without walking back anything he’s com- cepted Washington narrative about disillu- mitted himself to, he’s beginning to sound sioned pols in a dysfunctional Washington, sat down with Labrador less than a week like more of a hardliner. there’s no denying things have been rough for afer the congressman had attempted the Take the recent infux of child immigrants him and the rest of the 2010 class. Debt ceil- Iriskiest move of his political career. He at the border: “Tis is why I said for a year ings. Continuing resolutions. Budget negoti- threw his hat in alongside heir-apparent Kev- that we shouldn’t be talking about immigra- in McCarthy to replace the defeated and out- tion, because I predicted what’s happening at Amanda C. Elliott is a writer in Washing- going Eric Cantor as majority leader. In many the border now,” he says. “Now I didn’t think ton, D.C. ways, it was the political story of the summer. it would be at the level that it’s happening

20 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 right now, but I knew as soon as you send a people think they know about conservatives Boehner’s lack of achievements as Speaker. message to Mexico and Central America and is just plain wrong. I’ve put the target right in front of him; all South America that we’re not actually fol- Labrador leans back. It’s almost time for he has to do is pick up the blade. But he de- lowing the law in the United States that they him to leave for a briefng—as his press murs. “I actually think Speaker Boehner is a would rush to the border because everyone secretary reminded him more than once— very honorable man, and he assumes that the wants to live in the United States.” but he appears to be in no hurry. He tells a people on the other side of the table are just “Nothing would send a stronger message story about the debt limit fght during the as honorable as he is,” says Labrador. “And I to these families than if all these children summer of 2011. During that frst budget think that’s a great mistake in negotiations. were returned,” he adds. “People say that showdown, he says, he actually reached out And I think he goes in there saying imme- is inhumane, and I totally disagree. What’s and helped John Boehner get some of the diately what he’s willing to give up without inhumane is what is happening to these more conservative lawmakers on board with realizing that the other side wants to cut his children in their trajectory to the U.S. in a compromise continuing resolution. And throat.” Spoken like an experienced haggler. order for them to get through Mex- Labrador is probably the only pol- ico. Tey’re sufering. Tat is the real itician I’ve ever interviewed who, human tragedy, and I think the most when I ask whether there’s anything humane we can be is letting them he’d like to add right before I turn of know there is no amnesty for them. the recorder, declines to keep talking. Tere will be no pathway for them to I prod him some more. Awkward remain in the U.S.” silence ensues. Still, he declines to Born the only child to a single volunteer anything beyond what I’ve mother, Labrador spent the frst thir- directly asked him to respond to. In teen years of his life in Puerto Rico the context of our entire discussion, while his mom worked in the hotel it’s so strikingly unlike the Boehner and restaurant industries—and even approach he has derided. as a television personality—to make It may be Labrador’s biggest asset. ends meet. As Labrador tells it, she was Unlike many politicians, he knows the kind of parent who would “drive when it’s time to stop talking. It’s me to the areas where people had nice certainly why he’s so bothered over homes. And she’d say, ‘Tis is some- the current leadership’s message to thing that you can have someday.’” the country. “Instead of putting them down,” “I think there’s a void in telling he adds, “she actually wanted me to the American people what we’re aspire to be in that environment.” His for,” he says. “We have spent the last mom, he notes, “always taught me four years telling the American peo- pretty simple rules. If you want to be ple what we’re against. We’re against successful in life, study hard, play by Obama. We’re against Obamacare. the rules, learn the keys to success.” We’re against everything this admin- When he was thirteen, the family istration does. But if you think about moved to Las Vegas. It was here, says it, that’s not how you win elections.” Labrador, that his life really began to turn around. He refned his grasp of abrador’s got a bill of the English language. He found mentors. he took plenty of heat for it. goods to sell to the American He joined the Church of Latter-day Saints “I was the one who brought both sides to- Lpeople, and with the midterm and became interested in politics. After at- gether,” he says. “I just think there’s this false election just a few months away, he’s almost tending Brigham Young University and the narrative that I’m not willing to work within running out of time. Last time around, Re- University of Washington School of Law, he the system and negotiate.” But the delicate publicans squandered every election-year idea settled down to his legal work in Idaho. balance always remains: “I’m willing to ne- they tried to advance. Te American people For ffteen years he assisted companies in gotiate as long as we stay within our com- never really got anything except disenchant- bringing workers to the United States and mitment to our voters.” ed. Tis didn’t, and still doesn’t, sit well with helped spouses of American citizens become It’s why he was willing to work with Dem- the congressman. legal permanent residents. He also defended ocrats in the Gang of Eight. Tings ultimate- “We are talking not just about opposing illegal immigrants slated for deportation af- ly didn’t work out and his abrupt departure the Obama administration and their ideolo- ter being convicted of crimes. raised some eyebrows, but part of negotiat- gy and really downright bad management of Tese days, the father of fve is focused ing is knowing when the debate’s parameters this nation, but also talking about what are the on making a diferent sort of case: selling have stretched too far and it’s time to walk things that we are for,” says Labrador. “What his version of conservatism to the American away. It’s also about knowing when to stick would we do with the tax system? What would people, one that proves that Republicans your neck out in the frst place. Labrador we do with NSA reform? What would we do are about more than just big corporations wants, and is willing, to go to the table. when it comes to treating everyone the same?” and the wealthy. He spends the better part At this point, Labrador could easily twist It’s with that he realizes what time it is.

Illustration: Yogi Love Yogi Illustration: of half an hour explaining how everything the knife in the gaping wound that is John He’s running late.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 21 Rick The Reformer by JON CASSIDY

Te Texas governor has a solid record. But can he make voters forget 2012?

hree years ago, a Texas partments he proposed to eliminate, was just leg, and foot pain, not to mention sleep ap- reporter named Jay Root the fnal indignity in a short campaign full nea. He hadn’t recovered from the surgery as set out to chronicle the be- of them. Remember that ad in which Perry fast as he’d hoped. Te morning before one hind-the-scenes maneuvers complained that “gays can serve openly in the debate, Perry told an aide: “I didn’t sleep a that would land Governor military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate wink.” Ten he went onstage and said this: Rick Perry in the White Christmas or pray in school,” or the parodies House. He couldn’t have it provoked? How about that rambling, free- I think Americans just don’t know sometimes guessed that, in the end, the story wouldn’t and-easy speech Perry gave in New Hamp- which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with. Is it the Thave much to do with ad buys or endorse- shire that caused everyone to assume he was Mitt Romney that was on the side of against the ments or personality conficts. Te real either drinking or still taking painkillers Second Amendment before he was for the Second event, of course, played out in public, in the from his back surgery three months earlier? Amendment? Was it was before he was before the on-stage meltdown that gave Root the title of It was, according to James Carville, the worst social programs, from the standpoint of he was for his 2012 e-book: Oops! campaign in American history. standing up for Roe v. Wade before he was against Yet that unforgettable moment when, But it turns out there may have been a verse Roe v. Wade—he was for Race to the Top— during a nationally televised debate, Perry behind-the-scenes explanation after all. Per- he’s for Obamacare and now he’s against it—I could recall only two of the three cabinet de- ry’s campaign had insisted all along that he mean we’ll wait until tomorrow and, and, and see wasn’t taking painkillers—which might have which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight. Jon Cassidy is the Texas bureau chief for been the problem. According to Root’s re- Watchdog.org and a regular columnist for Te porting, the governor was a sleep-deprived Even that teen Miss South Carolina had to American Spectator online. zombie in the fall of 2011, thanks to back, cringe.

22 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 But if you go back and watch the clips now, the word “oops” again. “While it is quite un- leaves too many out in the cold. But the skies you can see the bags under Perry’s eyes. At likely that Perry will win the GOP primary or in Houston are blue, whatever you’ve heard. the time Texans were bafed to see Perry so the presidency,” Jones says, “he can still emerge Te schools do reasonably well, considering bafed. Tis is not the governor they’ve been from the 2016 primary process as a winner by the large population of English language watching for fourteen years now. Around running a solid and respectable campaign and learners, and they do it for very low cost. here, Perry’s known for bluf and bluster, not therein largely erase the less than fattering im- It’s true that a quarter of the population has delirium. Texans just don’t do shambolic. age created by his failed 2012 bid.” no health insurance, but this could actually Perry’s job now is to obliterate the nation’s help Perry in the primary, given the unpop- frst impression of him, and he’s been hard erry’s most obvious asset, in a time ularity of Obamacare. You can trust that he at work on that: talking about marijuana de- when polls show that voters still care truly does not think it’s his job to insure ev- criminalization with Jimmy Kimmel; show- Pmore about jobs than just about any- erybody. Unlike more than a handful of other ing up on the Sunday morning talk shows thing else, is the fact that the Lone Star State GOP governors who have folded to demands and in the New York Times Magazine; tour- is booming. Te governor travels the coun- to expand Medicaid, Perry makes the case ing the border with Sean Hannity; visiting try—particularly in overregulated, slow- that the program is broken, given that sever- Iowa four times in eight months; picking a growth states with Democratic governors— al studies have found that Medicaid patients fght over foreign policy with Rand Paul in talking up Texas, and his tours have sealed sufer worse outcomes than the uninsured. the op-ed pages of the Washington Post. the popular image of the state as hospitable Instead, Perry’s approach to health care Much hay has been made of the governor’s to business. (Although there’s still work to has been to try to lower costs, in part by lim- new look, including the square-framed glass- be done: Texas ranked thirtieth in regulatory iting malpractice damages with a 2003 tort es he has been sporting lately. “Rick Perry’s freedom in the most recent “Freedom in the reform law that attracted so many doctors run for the Republican presidential nomina- 50 States” study by the Mercatus Center.) that even the New York Times took notice. tion was, arguably, doomed when he couldn’t Democrats have tried to challenge the idea At a speech I caught recently, he told the sto- count to three,” jabbed Noreen Malone in that Texas is an economic powerhouse, but ry of a doctor who had moved his practice the New Republic. “Is it any wonder that since they keep failing for reasons the journal- from Arizona to Texas, thereby cutting his the summer, Perry’s been appearing in pub- malpractice insurance costs from $77,000 a lic wearing hipster-professorial glasses? Now year to $7,000. “We are now approaching this looks like a man who could remember at 34,000 more licensed physicians in the state least ten pieces of information.” More pot- of Texas than in 2003,” Perry told Texas shots came when word broke that Perry, hop- Monthly recently. In a process that mystifes ing to alleviate continuing back pain, had de- so many liberals, the increase in supply has cided to take of his cowboy boots for good. kept prices down. Between 2003 and 2009, “Tell Rick that boots can be purchased with insurance premiums in Texas grew between normal heels,” Texas’s state land commission- 33 and 44 percent slower than in Massa- er quipped to a reporter. “I lament the fact chusetts, according to a comparison Roy that our governor could now pass for a West conducted. “Te Perry-led reform of Texas’ Coast metrosexual and has embarrassed us all medical malpractice system yielded dramat- with his sartorial change of direction.” ist Erica Grieder lays out in her book Big, ic results,” Roy concluded. Dress shoes…nerdy spectacles…does Hot, Cheap, and Right: What America Can Tat focus on the bottom line isn’t limited this all add up? When reporters ask Per- Learn from the Strange Genius of Texas. Te to the doctor’s ofce. During Perry’s time as ry whether he’s running for president, he most common misconception is that the governor, the state’s budget has stayed roughly doesn’t play coy. “It’s a possibility.” “I’m not state’s numbers are infated by the oil and in line with infation and population growth. going to ride of into the sunset.” “Over the gas boom, but Greider cites data from June Te credit’s not all his: Texas has a weak gov- last eighteen months, I have focused on be- 2011—when “the Texas oil and gas industry ernor’s ofce, the legislature is controlled by ing substantially better prepared.” was at a high point”—that show the industry Republicans, and low taxes, with correspond- Tat preparation has included long meet- accounted for just 13 percent of job growth. ingly reduced public services, have a long his- ings with scholars at Stanford University’s Some Democrats also try to argue that low tory. Still, it’s a track record of fscal restraint Hoover Institution and most of the major unemployment in Texas just means a surfeit that none of his competitors can match. conservative think tanks. Avik Roy, whose of badly paying jobs, but they’re misreading brilliant work for the Manhattan Institute the efects of mass immigration by unskilled ome of Perry’s eforts to grow the econ- and Forbes earned him a spot advising Rom- laborers. Te Federal Reserve Bank of Dal- omy, however, might not sit well with pri- ney on health care policy, has been meeting las put out a report in March showing that Smary voters. Te governor has convinced with the governor, too. “I think that the from 2000 to 2013, Texas has been the en- the legislature to put a billion dollars at his media is underestimating Governor Perry,” gine of middle-class job creation for the entire disposal in two economic development ac- Roy says. “If Perry does decide to run in country. Te rest of the United States added counts—slush funds, really—called the Texas 2016, I bet he surprises a lot of people with to the payrolls in the top and bottom wage Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Tech- how improved he is as a candidate.” quartiles, but actually lost 720,000 jobs in the nology Fund. A state audit of the Enterprise Mark P. Jones, chair of the political science lower-middle and upper-middle brackets. On Fund published in late September found stag- department at Rice University, thinks Per- the other hand, Texas created 811,000 mid- geringly weak controls: hundreds of millions ry will run, foremost, to restore his national dle-class jobs (out of some two million in all). of dollars given away without applications or reputation. Te next twenty years will be a lot Democrats also cry that the Texas mod- formal assurances that jobs would be created.

Photo: Gge Skidmore/Flickr Gge Photo: more pleasant for him if he never has to hear el—low taxes, low government services— By contrast, a proper job-creation program

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 23 may give away just as much on empty prom- science professor at Texas A&M, points out specifc exercise of his ofcial power…” A ises, but it flls out all the forms correctly. Te that the Tea Party is supposed to be Perry’s Travis County grand jury decided, however, Austin political class, even the guys who helped base. Te governor is supposed to be the guy that Lehmberg’s actions didn’t qualify. Perry run it, feigned outrage, but that sort of that “appealed to Tea Party conservatives, but Ten came another Travis County grand crony capitalism has deep roots in the state. A he had political credentials that appealed to jury to say that Perry’s actions—when he New York Times investigation in 2012 found the Republican establishment.” Will voters vetoed the funding for this dissolute public that Texas leads the nation in corporate welfare, fgure out that so-called economic develop- integrity unit after suggesting that Lehmberg with some $19 billion in giveaways each year. ment is mostly just a multi-billion scam that really ought to resign—did count as criminal Perry says the funds help close deals and lets politicians take credit for job creation? coercion. Te man responsible for this novel create jobs. Lately, he’s been talking up a legal theory is one Michael McCrum, $40-million payment to Toyota, which a former Obama nominee for U.S. At- recently agreed to relocate its 4,000-em- torney and a very special prosecutor. ployee headquarters to a Dallas suburb. Perry had been working under the Toyota, however, is the rare company assumption that governors have the au- that couldn’t even pretend to be grateful thority to veto legislation. It’s an easy as- for the sweetener, which amounted to a sumption to make, since the state con- rounding error in the company’s $23 bil- stitution explicitly allows it, and it has lion proft margin for the year. A Toyota been standard practice nationwide since spokeswoman told the Houston Chronicle the founding of the republic. Against that the incentive “wasn’t one of the ma- this mountain of historical fact we are jor reasons” for the move, and its CEO ofered by McCrum a higher, mystical for North America told the newspapers understanding of the law. Like some that he wanted headquarters to be clos- beardless Jerry Garcia, McCrum got er to the company’s plants. “At any giv- shown the light in the strangest of plac- en moment, there are going to be some es by looking at it right. Start with Texas companies moving into Texas,” says Greg Penal Code section 39.02, which pro- LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs hibits ofcials from misusing govern- First. “What happens is he sees a few ment property in their possession. Te high-profle relocations, like Toyota, and right way to look at it is to let your eyes he jumps to the front of the parade.” glaze over, wave your fngers in front of Te companies that Perry can more your face, watch the tracers, and then credibly claim to have lured with incentives wait for the universe to whisper a secret and subsidies are responsible for a small directly into your soul. Or something. fraction of the state’s job creation. LeRoy Because it’s not there in the text. I’ve cites data for the frst seven years of the Per- tried squinting fve diferent ways, and ry administration showing that Texas im- still can’t see how a law meant to keep ported 28,375 jobs from other states, which is owever modest Perry’s chances bureaucrats from stealing ofce supplies has a gain of just 0.23 percent. “Almost all the net might seem, two recent events seem anything to do with veto power. job creation over time comes from expansions Hto be pushing the narrative right in his Yet McCrum wouldn’t be swayed from and start-ups,” LeRoy says. “He’s clearly using direction. Te frst, of course, is the governor’s his hallucinogenic epiphany: this veto was a natural market event—he’s presiding over a ongoing legal troubles. In September, Perry a criminal misuse of government property large state economy—and he’s using it for po- was indicted for vetoing the funding of the because it, like, harmed the person who was litical gain.” Travis County District Attorney’s Public In - supposed to get that property. He’s going to For years now, Republicans have blurred tegrity Unit after its chief proved herself less blow his own mind when he realizes what the distinction between pro-market and interested in public integrity and more inter- that theory means: any veto involving mon- pro-business, nowhere more than in Texas. ested in public drunkenness. When she’s so- ey is a crime. On its face, the idea is absurd, Tere are signs that this is changing. In June, ber, D.A. Rosemary Lehmberg fres assistants which is why liberals from former Obama House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost a who refuse to lie to internal afairs investiga- advisor David Axelrod to Harvard professor primary election in Virginia to an unknown tors and persists in unethical vendettas against Alan Dershowitz to the New York Times’s edi- economics professor named Dave Brat, who Republicans such as Tom DeLay long after torial board have all belittled the indictment. ran a populist campaign against crony cap- they’ve been exonerated. When she’s drunk, But let’s rejoin McCrum on his acid trip italism. Te party’s leadership in Washing- she drives all over the road, and then berates and consider the nearly cosmic implications. ton seems to be taking the message halfway and threatens the ofcers who arrest her. He realizes that all of the governors have been seriously; for a minute it even looked like “Y’all are gonna be in jail, not me,” she breaking the law whenever they veto funding, a few rowdy backbenchers had convinced said at one point during her infamous and he must save them. “Stop,” he cries out. their leadership to kill of the Export-Import booking video. You might think that’s just “You’re breaking the law. I’ll have to bring Bank, which exists mainly to subsidize the the sort of thing lawmakers had in mind charges.” Ten another McCrum materializes exports of large American corporations. when they created a felony for anyone who to warn our frst McCrum that in threatening Te anger over crony capitalism might just “by means of coercion…infuences or at- to accuse and indict the governors, he is ille- be a Tea Party thing, but Jon Bond, a political tempts to infuence a public servant in a gally trying to infuence the exercise of an of-

24 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 cial power. Ten McCrum C shows up to tell arrest anyone, the governor basically admit- He’s reformed laws on jailhouse lineups, McCrum B that he has just illegally attempt- ted that the operation was expensive theat- confdential informants, evidence discovery, ed to infuence McCrum A in the same way. rics. But theatrical doesn’t mean frivolous. and DNA testing. But more than any single Ten D appears. McCrum’s trip has turned “Tey need to be right on the river,” Perry law, Perry has ushered in a remarkable peri- into a nightmare of infnite regression, like told Hume. “Tey need to be there as a show od in the history of the state, one in which those fractal posters and M.C. Escher draw- of force, because that’s the message that gets Texas has begun to come to terms with the ings beloved of acid freaks everywhere. sent back very quickly to Central America.” excesses of its hang ’em high jurisprudence. Te problem here isn’t just McCrum: it’s Perry understands that rumors and percep- Henson cautions that Perry’s role in many bad laws. Te Texas legislature meets for just tions afect migration. Congress may not of the bills was more passive signer than three or four months every other year, and have understood the signifcance of its 2008 architect or advocate. Would he push for the lack of practice shows in its handiwork. law requiring most unaccompanied child mi- sentencing reform at the next level? “Prob- Law professor and free speech expert Eugene grants to be released from custody—it passed ably not, based on his record,” Henson says. Volokh points out that case law indicates co- unopposed—but ercion is only criminal when the threat itself Hondurans and is unlawful—e.g., “Let me go or you’ll be the Guatemalans sure Perry was bold enough three years ago one in jail!”—and that statutes refected that did. Te number understanding from 1989 until 1994, when of children com- to call Social Security a Ponzi scheme. the legislature mysteriously and thoughtlessly ing illegally from erased the distinction. A court would have to Central America Te way to get votes on that decide whether the distinction still exists. If shot from 3,933 it doesn’t, then all sorts of lobbying, opinion in 2011, to more issue is to lie like everyone else. journalism, and routine politicking are po- than 20,000 in tentially criminal. And that’s all Perry’s guilty 2013, to almost of here—routine politics. 40,000 in the frst nine months of the cur- “Although, he’s owning the criminal justice rent fscal year. Perry may have been the frst reform issue much more now than he has hen there’s, the child migrant crisis at American politician to notice. during most of his governorship, for what it’s the border. Perry has always been able to Back in May 2012, he wrote President worth.” Tat won’t be enough to get a lib- Tfnesse the immigration issue, pounding Obama a letter advising him that there had ertarian to abandon Rand Paul, but it’s the border security without alienating the Latino been a 90 percent year-to-year increase in sort of thing that makes Perry much more voters who will eventually determine Texas’s child migrants apprehended over a six-month appealing than a generic tough-on-crime Re- future. In the last primary, the rest of the feld period. By “failing to take immediate action publican. He didn’t sign those bills because tried to seize upon his support for a 2001 state to return these minors to their countries of they were good politics; he took a little risk law allowing the children of illegal immigrants origin and prevent and discourage others because it was the right thing to do. to pay in-state tuition, and Perry killed his own from coming here, the federal government is Te same goes for Perry and entitlement re- popularity by insisting that anyone who dis- perpetuating the problem,” Perry wrote. form. He was bold enough three years ago to agreed with him didn’t “have a heart.” Tat was Te letter seems prophetic now, but the call Social Security a Ponzi scheme. Te way a rare misstep. He usually has an intuitive feel administration didn’t even reply to him, to get votes on that issue is to lie like everyone for the sweet spot, which Northerners lack: more or less dismissing Perry as a grand- else. Perry’s honesty was treated as just another hammer “increased security” all you want, just stander. Other Republican candidates may gafe by reporters too lazy to look up the trust- don’t start talking deportation. think they can get to Perry’s right on the is- ees’ reports on Medicare and Social Security. When Perry announced in July that he was sue, but all they’ll have is their talk, while he sending 1,000 National Guard troops to the will have action and foresight on his side. he bottom line is that if Perry can border, he struck precisely the right balance— Not all tough talk is created equal, how- stick around long enough for voters even if that balance meant being perched just ever. Expressing concern about terrorists Tto take a good look at his résumé once over the edge of non-sequiturdom: from Syria sneaking across the border ap- jockeying for 2016 begins, he’s got a shot at peals to hardliners without alienating immi- becoming the consensus candidate. He may Te plight of these unaccompanied alien children grants, but it’s also nonsense. Scott Henson, not inspire the excitement of a Ted Cruz or a has rightfully captured the national attention as who writes the widely read Texas crime blog Ben Carson, but he could be everybody’s sec- we learn the details of their harrowing journeys. Grits for Breakfast, says that Perry tends to ond choice. Te Texas economy continues to Equally as concerning, however, is the fact that use demagoguery as political cover for sen- hum along like a well-oiled Toyota. Te gov- unaccompanied children only make up twenty sible reforms, at least in the area of crimi- ernor knows how to work the immigration percent of those crossing the border illegally. And nal justice. Perry trumpets his enthusiasm issue without alienating Hispanics. He talks as the brave men and women of our border patrol for the death penalty so often that nobody the talk on entitlement reform. If the legal are pulled away from their law enforcement du- would think to call him soft on crime, which case against him goes to trial, and barring a ties to give humanitarian aid, drug cartels, human has allowed him to sign into law dozens of jury of Forrest Gump’s peers, he will be able to trafckers, individual criminals are exploiting this sensible bills that a Bill Clinton or a Gray brag about having fought the law without the tragedy for their own criminal opportunities. Davis would never touch. Tese include law having won. laws establishing drug courts and expand- All Rick Perry needs now is an opening— When Brit Hume asked Perry what the ing probation, parole, and mental health along with a good chiropractor and some point was, given that the troops couldn’t programs, while closing three state prisons. comfortable shoes.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 25 Why Israel Won’t Listen to Critics Te war in Gaza leaves the Jewish state united against its enemies and righteously indiferent to international opinion.

by JONATHAN S. TOBIN

t the end of weeks of Te contrast between the Israeli mood when hundreds of thousands turned out fghting in Gaza, inter- and the growing chorus of condemnation to demonstrate against Menachem Begin’s national condemnation across Europe and even in the American government when it was accused of involve- for Israel’s conduct has press is stark. In the media and on the streets ment in the massacre of Sabra and Shatilla been increasingly harsh flled with large and noisy pro-Palestinian in the First Lebanon War. But this time the with each passing day. demonstrations, critics of the Jewish state rising Palestinian casualty count has had vir- With the toll of Palestin- have excoriated it for the sufering in Gaza. tually no impact on Israeli resolve. Aston- ian casualties rising to nearly two thousand Even in the United States—where support ishingly, even after weeks of heavy losses for Aat press time, and with Israeli fatalities still for Israel has remained relatively steady— the army units operating in Gaza, polls have only several dozen and shown that nine out of most of them soldiers, ten Jewish Israelis en- the Jewish state faces thusiastically endorse fresh opprobrium from the war and their gov- the press as well as even ernment’s conduct of it. senior fgures in the Opposition leaders in Obama administration the Knesset have backed as combat in the dense- the government, and ly populated strip yields even some of Netanya- new horrors. hu’s most prominent But Israel’s resolve left-wing critics can be remains remarkably heard dismissing those cemented, its peo- same foreign detractors ple self-assured, as I they had often cited in observed personally the past as proof of the during the opening prime minister’s incom- weeks of the fghting. petence. In virtually every other Why? Some of the confict in which Israel country’s detractors has been engaged in the would argue that Israe- decades since it came lis have grown self-sat- into possession of the isfed and smug behind West Bank and Gaza as their security fences and a result of the Six Day War, public opinion many of those who claim to be its friends army, and that they no longer care about the has faltered. Tis stands as an exception. A have bitterly and publicly admonished the cost of the ongoing war for their foes. But country whose politics are generally char- government of Prime Minister Benjamin that answer fails to take into account both acterized by bitter ideological divisions and Netanyahu for the bad publicity generated the reality of the confict that is rarely un- whose elections have almost never yielded a by pictures of young Palestenian casualties. derstood abroad and the nature of the threat majority to any party suddenly fnds itself Israelis have often been quite sensitive to Israel. If Israel is demonstrating that it no more united now than at any point in re- to foreign criticism. Tey have turned on longer gives a fg for the good opinion of the cent memory. even popular governments in the past when world, then it is not because it has stopped allegations of Israeli complicity in the kill- listening to its conscience. Rather it is be- Jonathan S. Tobin is senior online editor of ing of Palestinians in the midst of war were cause it thinks critics are either dead wrong Commentary. broadcast. Tat’s what happened in 1982 about the facts or malicious or both.

26 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 To understand why this is so, one must any alleged grievances against Israel and terrorist group to hold onto power as well not only unravel how this particular round everything to do with the Islamist group’s as to outfank Abbas. Te dynamic of Pal- of fghting began but also the events that own predicament heading into the summer. estinian politics has always given a perverse preceded it in the last year as the United Hamas has ruled Gaza as an independent advantage to the group depicting itself as States pressed hard for negotiations to end Palestine in all but name since the coup the loudest voice in favor of violence against the historic impasse between the two sides. with which it seized power from its Fatah the Israelis. Kerry had predicted that the rivals in 2007. But its hold on the strip was failure of his initiative would lead to a new s far as most of the world is con- weakned in 2013 when the Muslim Brother- round of violence, a self-fulflling prophe- cerned, the current confict began hood government of Egypt was overthrown cy that earns him a share of the blame for Ain June when terrorists believed to by the military there. Te new government the current confagration. Te failure of the be of a Hamas cell in the West Bank city of rightly regarded Hamas as an ally of—if not peace talks as well as the blockade by Egypt Hebron kidnapped and killed three Jewish the creature of—the Brotherhood, an or- gave Hamas an incentive to launch a new students hitchhiking home. Te search for ganization that, after its year of misrule in confict that would both undercut their pu- the trio transfxed Israel, a small nation where Cairo, the military was determined to sup- tative partner and might force the Egyptian the crime was seen as a direct attack on the press. As a result of this, Egyptian leaders government to loosen the isolation of Gaza. country’s children. Conversely, Palestinians shut down the smuggling tunnels between Tus, although most of the international celebrated the crime with a social media Gaza and Egypt and heightened the iso- press is prone to blame Israel for any up- campaign mocking the victims’ plight and lation that had been imposed on the strip swing in violence, it’s Hamas that sought demonstrations in the streets aimed at ob- since the Hamas coup. Tat in turn created this confict. Just as important from the structing the Israeli Defense Forces’ search fnancial shortfalls for Hamas and made it point of view of the Israeli public, which for the kidnappers. more difcult for the organization to con- is inclined to see skeptically any knee-jerk Te victims had been almost immediately tinue to import the weapons and building impulse to launch an ofensive against Gaza murdered by their captors, a fact that was materials from abroad that it was using to by their center-right government, Netanya- not generally known for some time. Te fortify the small area under its control. hu was slow to order his troops to attack. general expectation among Palestinians Meanwhile, Sec- was that the students would turn out to be retary of State John “three Shalits,” a reference to Gilad Shalit, Kerry had been Israeli citizens have not apologized for the soldier kidnapped by Hamas terrorists pushing renewed and held from 2006 to 2011 before being peace negotiations the fact that, thanks to Iron Dome, they ransomed by Israel in exchange for more between Israel and than one thousand imprisoned Palestinian the Palestinian Au- are not dying in sufcient numbers to terrorists, including many guilty of egre- thority in the West gious atrocities. But Hamas’s expectation of Bank. Given the generate international sympathy. profting from the crime was dashed when divide among the the Israeli government decided the students’ Palestinians, Ker- kidnapping was reason enough to re-arrest ry’s mission was given little chance of success When, after the West Bank kidnapping, many of those freed in the Shalit deal. and events proved the skeptics right. Hamas Hamas began to fre missiles into Israel, Yet the next twists in the plot might well opposes Israel’s existence; its charter demands Netanyahu showed himself reluctant to do have forced Netanyahu to stand down. Vi- not only its foe’s obliteration but the slaugh- anything more than order air strikes against olent protests in the West Bank led to the ter, or at least the eviction, of Jews. So long as Hamas launch sites. It was only when deaths of Palestinian demonstrators. Even Hamas remained in control of Gaza, it was Hamas repeatedly refused cease-fres in worse, a group of Jewish soccer hooligans impossible for Mahmoud Abbas, president which Israel ofered “quiet for quiet” and it from the Jerusalem area decided to take of the Palestinian Authority, to sign a treaty became clear that the border between Gaza personal revenge for the deaths of the three that would recognize Israel’s legitimacy, no and Israel was riddled with tunnels designed students and kidnapped and killed a Pales- matter where its borders were drawn. But to facilitate terrorist attacks that the prime tinian teenager in a gruesome fashion. Te Kerry, who had little patience with the Net- minister fnally ordered the Israeli Defense crime was widely condemned by the Israeli anyahu government’s demands for both secu- Forces to launch a limited ground ofensive. government and throughout the country. rity guarantees and a commitment to end the It also lessened the international sympathy confict for all time, chose instead to blame rom the start of the confict the that had been generated by the kidnapping his failure on Israel when Abbas refused to main point about the fghting as far as of the students. continue negotiating in April. Abbas, rather Fthe international press has been con- But Hamas decided that this was just than suing for peace, then surprised Kerry by cerned is the lopsided death tolls for the two the excuse it needed to intensify the con- choosing to sign a unity pact between his Fa- sides. In the frst month of fghting, Hamas fict. Militants launched massive barrages of tah party and Hamas. launched more than three thousand missiles rockets at Israeli cities, forcing the Israelis to Te American government saw this as a at Israeli cities in the hope that some might hit back with air strikes aimed at the launch sign of Hamas’s desperation and a chance for get through the country’s defenses and cause sites and setting in motion the series of es- the Palestinian Authority to regain control devastation. But thanks to the Iron Dome calations and subsequent denunciations of of Gaza and moderate the Islamists’ intran- missile defense system—designed by Israel Israeli conduct. sigent attitude. But this naïve interpretation but developed as a joint U.S.-Israeli project—

Photos: Israeli Defense Forces/Flickr Defense Israeli Photos: Hamas’s decision had little to do with of events underestimated the resolve of the almost all of Hamas’s rockets were either

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 27 intercepted or fell harmlessly into the sea or had no bomb shelters to fee to when the similar civilian casualties have provoked into empty felds. Te Islamists were clearly shooting started. But this was not for lack anger on the ground in spite of highly re- outmatched. But their arsenal’s increased of facilities in Gaza that could have been strictive rules of engagement for troops, re- range—in previous conficts only those parts used to prevent injuries to civilians. Gaza is strictions matched or even exceeded in their of Israel adjacent to Gaza were hit—forced actually honeycombed with underground stringency by those placed on Israeli soldiers nearly two thirds of the Israeli population to structures built by Hamas at enormous ex- and airmen. take shelter amid wailing air sirens. Tis was pense. But rather than sheltering the civil- All that said, Israelis couldn’t help but something of a victory for Hamas. When one ians who were being victimized by the war notice that the sufering of Palestinians at rocket fell harmlessly a few miles from Israel’s the Islamists started, the underground city the hands of their Jewish foes was somehow international airport, it was given an addi- protected Hamas fghters and their arsenal. deemed more signifcant or egregious than tional bonus in the form of a ruling from Fed- Tese were indeed “bomb shelters,” in the the far greater casualties incurred in the Syr- eral Aviation Administration shutting down unusual sense that they were shelters for ian civil war going on at the same time or fights to Ben Gurion Airport by U.S. air- bombs, not people. any other of the far bloodier conficts that lines. Tough the ruling was soon reversed, Israel has been accused of waging “to- simmered in the region. Te horrors of war it created havoc for travelers not booked on tal war” against Palestinian civilians. But only seem to generate outrage when Israelis Israel’s El Al airline. throughout the fghting, convoys of food and are involved, even though they are objec- Tough Israelis faced the terror of con- medicine and other essential materials passed tively speaking on the defensive. Nor were stant attack from the air, few were injured, each day from Israel into Gaza as they had be- citizens of the Jewish state inclined to apol- as both Iron Dome and the country’s excel- fore the fghting started. Te only holdups in ogize for the fact that, thanks to Iron Dome, lent civil defense system, with shelters and this fow of aid came from Hamas attacks on they were not dying in sufcient numbers safe rooms included in all new buildings, the border crossings. Te same concrete that to generate international sympathy. saved countless lives. Tat was not the case Israel had been allowing into Gaza in recent Nor did it escape their notice that the years to help re- battalions of foreign reporters who fooded build damage done tiny Gaza during the fghting and produced Te Israeli Defense Force claimed to have by recent conficts harrowing videos and pictures of Palestin- was used to create ian casualties never seemed able to fnd a found plans for a mass attack this year on an infrastructure of single Hamas fghter out of the thousands terror. Hamas dug of terrorist cadres operating there. Te fail- Rosh Hashanah. But whatever the imme- dozens of tunnels, ure of foreign camera operators to snap a many of which single picture of a rocket being launched diate goals of Hamas, the discovery of the extended for miles in the strip during a time when hundreds inside the strip in were going up every day was also rightly tunnels raised alarms inside Israel, forcing order to facilitate considered proof that whether due to in- terrorist attacks timidation or self-censorship journalists Netanyahu to order more troops into the across the border. were keen to avoid ofending the rulers of Te Israeli Defense Gaza. CNN’s denials of restrictions on its strip to clear the border area. Forces claimed to activities also conjured up memories of their have found plans similar statements about such operations in for a mass attack Saddam Hussein’s Iraq before his overthrow. in Gaza, where Hamas fghters continued this year on Rosh Hashanah. Whatever the But there were no similar difculties fnding to conduct operations from civilian areas in immediate goals of Hamas, the discovery of shots of dead Palestinian children, and the the densely packed strip. Tey used schools these tunnels raised alarms inside Israel, forc- context of their plight—being caught in the and other facilities operated by the United ing Netanyahu to order more troops into the crossfre between the Israelis and the Hamas Nations as operations centers or to store strip to clear the border area. Te result was gunmen sheltering in their midst—rarely arms. Tree times rockets and other arma- more intensive fghting and dozens of Israeli came across. Te picture the world was giv- ments were found cached in UN facilities; deaths along with far higher Palestinian ca- en of Gaza was merely of Israelis attacking in one case the UN ofcials helpfully turned sualties. as if their heavily armed foes didn’t exist. over the rockets to Hamas. But as Israelis coped with the fact that Further deepening the disillusion among Te same was true of mosques and hospi- their enemies had constructed this under- Israelis about international opinion was the tals. Hamas’s military leadership sat out the ground maze—a notion that struck most nature of many of the protests being con- war in the bunkers under Gaza City’s Shefa as somehow more horrifying than the daily ducted against them abroad. In Europe, Hospital, dodging their own rockets, which assault from the air—all the international the mass demonstrations conducted by in one instance fell short and hit the facility. press seemed to focus on was the fact that those who sympathize with the Palestinian Every time Israeli air strikes or artillery many more Palestinians than Israelis were cause were tainted by anti-Semitic slogans fre aimed at terrorists fell on such places, dying in this war. and signs. One such protest turned into a hitting also sheltering civilians, the ensu- All armies forced into asymmetrical war- violent siege of a Paris synagogue. Similar ing slaughter fueled the growing anger at fare face a difcult problem when seeking incidents were reported elsewhere in Eu- the Jewish state. Compounding this prob- to combat terrorists who use civilians as hu- rope. Even in the United States, where polls lem was the oft-reported claim that, in man shields. American troops encountered showed a majority of Americans still sup- contrast to the Israelis, Palestinians in Gaza it in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, where porting Israel, such anti-Semitic outbursts

28 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 American left did not object. Yet Israelis are expected to allow murderous fanat- ics with similar designs to operate with virtual impunity next door lest they err and kill civilians behind whom the Isalmists take shelter. Israelis see this as not so much a double standard but as an indicator of the anti-Semi- tism and support for Israel’s eradi- cation that seems to characterize many of the protests generated by the war. in the form of ofensive placards were seen come. Te creation of a terrorist state there Coupled with fve years of tension with at demonstrations across the nation. Te stands as a permanent obstacle to peace, an Obama administration that seems de- rising tide of anti-Semitism whose existence since Israelis rightly fear that any withdraw- termined to pick counterproductive fghts in Europe even the State Department has al in the West Bank would simply mean, as with Netanyahu at every opportunity, this acknowledged seemed to be fnding a foot- Netanyahu put it, “twenty more Gazas” ad- war has, more so than any previous con- hold among Palestinian sympathizers on jacent to Israeli population centers. fict, bred in Israelis a contempt for world campuses as well as cities across this country. But rather than encouraging Israel to take opinion and even the views of their Amer- out the Hamas terrorists who were efective- ican ally. Grateful as they are for American or many of Israel’s critics, this new ly holding more than a million Palestinians military aid (especially the funding for Iron round of violence is fresh proof that hostage to their ideological commitments, Dome), they have come to question the sin- Fthe “occupation” that enraged Pales- the United States has spent most of the war cerity of those who claim to be their friends tinians has to end. But what Israelis—even either criticizing the Israelis’ tactics or try- and support their right of self-defense but those most committed to the peace pro- ing to broker cease-fres that would not only scream bloody murder every time it is excess—understand is that Hamas’s activities leave Hamas in place but give them political ercised even in circumstances in which have had nothing to do with the diplomatic concessions that would strengthen them at Hamas has been the instigator. stalemate over the future of the West Bank Abbas’s expense. At a time when international opin- that had stymied Kerry. When Hamas Tis is not merely situational irony. It ion seems to be tilting against the Jewish spokesmen noted their group’s “resistance” is a testament to a worldview, one that Is- state and when even American support- to the occupation, they were not referring raelis believe has given short shrift to their ers worry that it is losing support, Israelis to controversial West Bank settlements, but dilemma in this war, as well as their hopes appear to have lost interest in the advice rather to the cities inside pre-1967 Israel, for peace. As much as they regret the loss of of those who ask them for restraint. Te such as Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Jerusalem at life in Gaza, Israelis are fummoxed at the contrast between the hypocritical criticism which their rockets were aimed. Tough the notion that rather than have their army act to which they have been subjected and the Obama administration seems fxated on the against what is undoubtedly a weaker force, constant frightening specter of tunnels and idea of using the fghting to revive Kerry’s they should be content with sitting back air raids—and all this after decades of seek- talks, even Israeli lef-wingers who despise and absorbing daily barrages of rockets that ing the moral high ground in the public the settlers have acknowledged that Hamas’s send them scurrying to shelters or live with relations war with the Palestinians—seems decision to launch a war had tabled the two- the sinister threat of terrorists tunneling to have bred a contempt for moralizing state solution for the foreseeable future. into their country. It should be remembered foreigners even among left-wingers. Sad- After all, Israel had withdrawn every last that when Islamists attacked Americans dened as they might be about the sufering soldier and settler from Gaza in 2005 only on September 11, the U.S. sent its armed on the other side of the confict, they have to see it transformed into a hub of terror- forces to the other side of the world to wipe come to the conclusion that the safety of ism rather than the incubator of Palestinian out terrorist bases and to eliminate the mas- their families takes precedence over the ap- development that many hoped it would be- terminds of that atrocity. Te mainstream plause of an indiferent world.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 29 Death by Pension

California offers a case study of what happens when public employee unions control everything.

by STEVEN GREENHUT

hen the No- members appointed by the governor and 50, and paid for the life of the retiree and vember elec- the legislature, both of which are wholly that retiree’s spouse. Te median pay and tion was still owned subsidiaries of California’s pub- beneft package for a California frefghter a long way lic-sector unions. is more than $175,000 a year. of, Sacra- And there are four “ex ofcio” members: As the Orange County Register reported in m e n t o - a r e a state ofcials and employees that also— 2011, the city of Newport Beach had four- streets were surprise!—have close ties to the union teen full-time lifeguards, with thirteen of already plastered with campaign signs for movement. Tat includes state Treasurer them earning more than $120,000 a year aW little-noticed political race: candidates Bill Lockyer, who in a 2011 speech about in total compensation. “More than half the are running to serve on the board of the CalPERS had this to say about the daunt- lifeguards collected more than $150,000 California Public Employees’ Retirement ing unfunded liabilities that might force for 2010 with the two highest-paid collect- System, better known as CalPERS. While pension reform: ing $211,451 and $203,481 in total com- not as high-profle as the statewide and pensation respectively,” according to the congressional races, these seats are argu- If we need to do it, then we ought to do it— report. Tese are not aberrations. ably of equal importance to Golden State but on our terms. We must not allow the de- California salary schedules are flled with taxpayers. CalPERS, the largest state pen- bate on retirement security to be framed by city managers earning $300,000 or more a sion fund in the country, not only manages those who simply seek to eliminate altogether year and low-level administrative employ- more than $257 billion in assets, but also defned benefts, the social and economic pow- ees earning around $100,000 a year. Tis is loves to use its political muscle to prod cor- er of public pension funds in the market, and true at the state-government level and even porate America into “socially responsible” the power of workers and their unions to be a in the poorest cities. Te San Joaquin Val- (read: leftist-friendly) investing. balancing force to business and the unregulated ley city of Stockton paid its workers at 125 Sacramento, as the state capital, is Public marketplace in American life. percent of the California state average—and Employee Central, so the race has become gave them a “Lamborghini-style” health- heated and costly. Te campaign signs that Te treasurer’s staf underlined those care plan that provided lifetime benefts af- caught my eye promised “pension security” words in the ofcial text of the speech. ter working for the city for as little as two and were paid for by the Service Employ- When Lockyer said reform should only months. Big surprise that Stockton now is ees International Union. Tis election is a be undertaken on “our” terms, he meant in bankruptcy court. touchstone for the entire pension issue in those of the public sector unions and the In the private sector, most workers re- California—and, per usual, it doesn’t look government workers. He clearly was not ceive 401k-style defned-contribution good for the taxpayer. sympathizing with California’s hard-pressed plan, in which fnal retirement income is In short, the people who beneft from taxpayers. Te governor and most others in based on the amount the worker puts in CalPERS have complete control over it. state government have the same attitude. and the success of the stock market. Cali- Tose who pay the tab have little if any Tey don’t care about pension debts and the fornia’s public workers, in contrast, receive say. Six of the board seats are set aside for burden on taxpayers. Tey care about pro- what are called defned-beneft retire- various groups of CalPERS “members”— tecting the current system as it now exists. ment plans, in which guaranteed payment for example, one for retirees who receive amounts are based on a formula. Most pensions, one for eligible current state em- nd what a system that is, if one so-called “public-safety” employees—po- ployees, and so on. Ten there are three happens to be a government em- lice, frefghters, prison guards, billboard ployee. California’s entire pub- inspectors, school security guards, cooks at Steven Greenhut A is the California colum- lic-sector compensation system is absurdly prisons, etc.—are eligible for the “3 per- nist for U-T San Diego (formerly the San Di- generous. For instance, the median pen- cent at 50” plan. Tat means they receive 3 ego Union-Tribune). Write to him at steven. sion for a recent state Highway Patrol re- percent of their fnal pay times the number [email protected]. tiree is $98,000 a year—available at age of years worked, and it is available to them

30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 at age 50. (It’s usually calculated on base work the rules to infate their retirements Tis isn’t just a dire projection. Cities pay and not overtime, but overtime counts even further. across the state are facing massive infra- in some jurisdictions.) Tus, if a Newport It’s also important to note that pensions structure breakdowns and they lack the Beach lifeguard earns $150,000 a year, after are guaranteed against any reductions money to fx them. Consider this picture thirty years he receives 90 percent of that once they have been granted. “Pension painted by the New York Times earlier this pay—or $135,000 a year—for the rest of payments are senior his life and his spouse’s life. Te retirement obligations of the ages are so low that in some cities taxpayers state to its employ- Te median pension for a recent are paying for an entire second ghost work- ees and accordingly force behind the one that’s actually doing have priority over California Highway Patrol retiree is the job. (New York City already is past that every other expen- tipping point, as taxpayers there pay more diture except Prop- $98,000 a year—available at age 50, retired cops than active ones.) osition 98 [K-14 Pension funds such as CalPERS invest education] expendi- and paid for the life of the retiree and the retirement contributions paid by work- tures and arguably ers or their employers (in many agencies, even before debt that retiree’s spouse. workers don’t contribute a cent to their service,” said Da- own retirements) in stocks and bonds. vid Crane, former Tey guess at how well those investments Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s chief year: “Te scene was apocalyptic: a torrent will do. Te higher the forecast returns, pension adviser, in 2010 testimony be- of water from a ruptured pipe valve burst- the better funded the system; the lower the fore the state senate. Crane is a self-styled ing through Sunset Boulevard, hurling predicted returns, the bigger the “unfund- progressive Democrat, yet he is outraged chunks of asphalt 40 feet into the air as it ed liabilities.” If things go well, the public at the way CalPERS has gamed the sys- closed down the celebrated thoroughfare employees split up the loot. If they don’t tem—to the detriment of every public and inundated the campus of the Univer- go well, taxpayers must backfll the losses. service. “All of the consequences of rising sity of California, Los Angeles.” Te key Union activists insist the average Califor- pension costs fall on the budgets for pro- point was buried deeply in the news sto- nia pension is in the low $30,000s, but that grams such as higher education, health ry: “And here, as in other cities, the de- includes people who retired eons ago and and human services, parks and recreation mand for public works comes as the costs ones who worked only a short time in the and environmental protection that are ju- of municipal pension plans are shooting system. Te formulas are the formulas, and nior in priority and therefore have their up—a confuence that has alarmed busi- they have increased dramatically since the funding reduced whenever more money ness leaders.” late 1990s. Some workers have fgured out is needed to pay for pension costs,” he Even when cities go belly up, they can’t

Photo: AkosSzoboszlay/Wikimedia Commons AkosSzoboszlay/Wikimedia Photo: pension-spiking gimmicks, as well, ways to added. dislodge the main expense that is pushing

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 31 them over the brink, thanks to the power toward pension payments, it highlighted dishonest mantra: we reformed pensions of CalPERS and to the elected ofcials the problem to voters. and the system is fne! who owe their seats to the state’s mus- In June 2012, the electorates in the Tey’ve also since claimed to have “fxed” cular public-employee unions. Tree re- state’s second- and third-largest cities— the debts faced by the state’s second-largest cently bankrupt cities—Stockton, Valle- San Diego and San Jose—approved signif- pension fund, the California State Teach- jo, and San Bernardino—city ofcials cant pension-reform initiatives. Both cities ers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS. came up with recovery plans that did have solid Democratic voting majorities, Because of complex statutory reasons, not touch public-employee pensions. but both measures passed with around 70 CalSTRS is dependent on the legislature City ofcials preferred instead to stif percent support. San Jose’s Democratic to backfll any losses, whereas CalPERS bond-holders, raise taxes on residents, Mayor Chuck Reed pointed to his city’s can simply raises its contribution rates on and slash city services. I know Stockton 350-percent increase in pension costs over participating cities. well—and that beautiful old Gold-Rush the past decade and to the declining public It became clear that CalSTRS would go city on the edge of the California Delta services. He championed the city’s reform belly up in thirty years if the legislature is falling apart because of a lack of public as a model that could be followed in other didn’t start sending another $5 billion or services. Vallejo ofcials publicly stated struggling California cities. so its way annually. So Brown and compa- that they were unwilling to challenge Indeed, the public’s concern over penny concocted another plan to ratchet up CalPERS, which holds that all pension sion debt was so noticeable that polling state contributions. But it, too, was largely promises must be paid in full come hell showed it endangering Governor Jerry phony. Under the plan, the state sends a or municipal bankruptcy. San Bernardi- Brown’s signature initiative for the No- pittance extra each year to CalSTRS, with no halted its payments to CalPERS, but vember ballot—a large tax hike to help fll the really large bumps in contributions eventually buckled under to that agen- a red-ink-stained budget. Voters wondered pledged to take place years from now when cy’s threats. When exorbitant pensions why they should entrust this government it will be someone else’s problem. for an elite class of government workers with more of their money if it wasn’t even are protected at all costs, everything else tackling the problem of big debt. rankly, brown, Democratic legisla- sufers. Late in the session, the governor and tive leaders, and even the courts have legislature threw together a modest pen- Fbeen doing everything to derail any few years back, these realities sion reform bill that basically ended the manner of reform. were dawning on the state’s lead- practice of pension spiking— infating a Te courts gutted the most signif- Aers. Even Lockyer’s “reform on our public employee’s fnal salary to enhance cant part of the San Jose initiative. And terms” speech was in the context of need- his retirement payments for life. It was po- while San Diego continues to implement ing to reform. California faced a gener- litical window-dressing that helped Brown its reform, Brown’s appointees to the al-fund budget mess, and although only a and his fellow union-backed legislators get union-controlled Public Employment Re- small portion of the budget directly goes their tax hike. Tey since have echoed the lations Board have been suing the city to Rhodes/Flickr Steve Photo:

32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 stop the voter-approved measure. PERB t keeps getting worse. In Septem- CalPERS is suing the credit agencies, claims the public vote was illegal because ber, the California Supreme Court gave but no one is holding CalPERS account- the city frst had an obligation to negoti- ICalPERS the OK “to sue credit-rating able for the false information it provided ate with the unions representing the new giants Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s for in the capitol. workers who will face lower beneft levels. hundreds of millions of dollars over the top Union demands even trump the right to ratings they gave to investments that col- alifornia pension reformers con- vote, in the administration’s view. lapsed in 2007-08,” reported the San Fran- tinue to come up with new ideas to Furthermore, a judge in Ventura Coun- cisco Chronicle. Crein in out-of-control spending, to ty pre-emptively halted an election that CalPERS is blaming the credit agencies protect public services, and to create a gen- would have asked voters to reform that for its poor performance, which has led to erous but sustainable system. Every poll and county’s pension system. CalSTRS did higher-than-expected unfunded pension li- indication shows that even the state’s Dem- pass a reform that required teachers to abilities. Tis really is something when you ocratic electorate supports these eforts. A pitch in a little more toward their pensions consider what CalPERS has been promising number of Democratic local ofcials such as (in exchange for vesting other benefts, giv- taxpayers over the past many years. In 1999, San Jose’s mayor have the courage to try to en that it is illegal in California to reduce for instance, CalPERS pressured the legis- reform their local systems. Tey are stymied public-employee benefts without giving lature to pass a massive pension increase— at every turn by the union machine, and something equal or greater in exchange). and to do so quickly and without all the though they are a hardy group and they keep In late August, the CalPERS board—you normal committee hearings and vetting ses- regrouping, it’s looking fairly hopeless. know, the same board run by union activists sions. Tat CalPERS action has led to the Bankrupt cities are desperately afraid and union-controlled politicians—voted on bulk of the state’s current pension problems. of standing up to CalPERS and its enor- a measure that efectively obliterates even the Te law, SB modest pension reform that Brown and com- 400, boosted Cal- pany passed as a tax-raising window dressing. ifornia Highway Bankrupt cities are desperately afraid Here’s how it works: Currently, existing Patrol pensions state and local employees get all sorts of by 50 percent, of standing up to CalPERS and its special pay. Tere are ninety-nine extra-pay instituting that categories, most of which should induce “3 percent at 50” enormous political and legal might. mockery and anger. Librarians, for instance, pension formu- are paid extra for helping library patrons la mentioned Eforts to go around the machine and fnd books. Police are paid extra for driving above. Legislators alone in patrol cars. Fire chiefs get special did so retroac- take the matter directly to voters via a management pay. Gardeners get paid extra tively—meaning for fxing sprinklers. Tose categories have that even ofcers statewide ballot measure cannot existed since the 1990s, but a few years ago a day away from CalPERS decided that they should also be retirement got the get past the union favoritism. used when it’s time to calculate an employ- boost going back ee’s pension—thereby infating the fnal to the day they base pay and ensuring higher pension bene- started working. Te law practically begged mous political and legal might. Eforts to fts for many years to come. local governments to follow suit. I recall go around the machine and take the matter Brown’s ballyhooed reform applied only when even in conservative Orange County, directly to voters via a statewide ballot mea- to new hires. So the CalPERS board passed Republican legislators tripped over them- sure cannot get past the union favoritism. regulations that allow these ninety-nine selves to ofer the huge pension increase. For instance, state Attorney General Kamala categories to be used in a pension-spiking As Crane said in his senate testimony: Harris gets to author the titles and summa- bonanza for these new hires, too. It seemed “Promising that ‘no increase over current ries for all statewide ballot measures. Twice like a giant middle fnger to Brown, al- employer contributions is needed for these now, she has given such unfair ballot sum- though the governor’s reaction suggests beneft improvements,’ and that CalPERS maries to pension initiatives that even liberal that he wasn’t upset by the scam. would ‘remain fully funded’ despite the editorial boards argued that they sounded as Brown is joined at the hip with the increases, the CalPERS Proposal claimed if they were written in the union hall. unions, even if he talks a good game about that enhanced pensions would not cost tax- What to do? In a recent verbal ruling, the fscal responsibility. He claimed to be out- payers ‘a dime’ because investment returns federal judge overseeing Stockton’s bankrupt- raged by the CalPERS decision, but of the would cover the expense.” Instead, it led to cy said that pensions are not protected when ninety-nine categories used in the scheme, massive debts, billions of dollars in taxpayer cities go bankrupt—the frst good news in he said that he only objected to one. He expense, and obliterated public services. a long time. It’s the only hope left to keep has yet to follow even this half-hearted Crane noted that CalPERS’s promises California from being doomed to a slow protest with any serious action. In other would have “required the Dow Jones to reach destruction of its public services and an ev- words, he seems fne with a CalPERS rule roughly 25,000 by 2009 and 28,000,000 by er-increasing tax burden to fund these lush that destroys any gains made by his own 2099 for no such defciencies to rise.” He retirements. But maybe politicians and voters pension reform, even as he championed an reminded senators that CalPERS never dis- in other states can take heed of the situation end of pension spiking during his guberna- closed that its own employees would receive and learn that all is lost once the looters are torial debate. these massive pension increases. given complete control of the treasury.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 33 In Defense of Liberal Arts Who will speak up for Socrates?

by B.D. Mc CLAY

oor liberal arts. People writers point out the need for global leader- has begun to retreat. Even my own alma don’t esteem the term—or ship or an “adaptable and creative workforce.” mater, St. John’s College, a liberal arts col- its cousin, “liberal educa- Tere’s a focus on almost everything but what lege par excellence, has recently dropped tion”—very much these liberal arts students actually study—or what both “liberal arts” and “liberal education” days, it seems. Evaluating the liberal arts even mean. from its own self-description—which is a the success or failure of an Such defenses fall fat in that they present bit like the canary you brought down into education now requires mea- liberal education as the most self-indulgent of the coal mine drawing out a little pistol and surable outcomes, such as test scores or fnishing schools, where one is prepared for the shooting itself in the head. St. John’s now Ppost-college employment. Learning speaks about an education that de- is, more and more, about return on velops “critical thinking and collab- investment. K-12 education is in- oration”—good things, to be sure, creasingly focused on testing. In ev- but skills one can learn behind that eryday conversation, the evaluation notorious Starbucks counter, where of a college major generally assumes you’re at least getting paid. Or, for the form of a question: “What can that matter, in kindergarten. you do with that?” Tis is a reasonable question, hat is liberal education? albeit one that liberal education For most people, it means fnds itself mostly unable to answer. education that isn’t a form

BACK TO CAMPUS BONANZA W Conjuring the image of a thousand of job training; if you take the phrase English majors working behind quite literally (which I do), it means the counters of a thousand cofee an education that’s meant to free stu- shops, critics of liberal education dents in some higher sense. demand to know what could pos- I called St. John’s a liberal arts col- sibly justify this outcome. Tough lege par excellence, but a better turn of the most popular major in America phrase might have been ad absurdum. is, in fact, business, followed by the Tere, “liberal arts” and “liberal ed- social sciences, nursing, education, ucation” are approached with an ad- and psychology—none of which mirable open-mindedness. Te goal are liberal arts subjects—it’s the of the program is self-consciously useless liberal arts student, under- considered to be freedom. Students employed and deep in debt, that study philosophy and literature, but comes in for scrutiny. also mathematics (which is, after all, a From time to time, a few brave souls liberal art) and the sciences. Since St. do pick up a pen to defend the liberal John’s has no majors, even the most arts. Teir justifcations generally fo- wispy and poetic souls are expected cus on some intangible characteristic at some point to get up and demon- students acquire along the way: im- strate proofs of Maxwell’s equations proved critical thinking skills, increased empa- day-to-day reality of white-collar work by writ- to their peers—often without notes. And if thy, better memo-drafting ability. Sometimes, ing about Kant and Emily Dickinson. Tey do you think that’s bad, just wait until you’re ex- as in Te Heart of the Matter, a 2013 report not even argue that the promised benefts— pected to do the same thing with Einstein’s by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, critical or creative thinking, for instance— theory of special relativity. could not be taught equally well by studying, Tese demonstrations come direct from B.D. McClay is the associate editor of the say, engineering, a discipline that requires both. Maxwell and Einstein, for the school

Hedgehog Review. Under this pressure, liberal education follows a program of study wherein the Wikipedia Photo:

34 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 students read primary texts only and dis- Newman complains in Te Idea of a Uni- teach. A few are freelance writers or full- cuss them in seminars. A faculty member versity of the critics who insist time journalists, who perhaps employ their (called a “tutor”) guides these as a kind education most explicitly (I recall fondly of Socrates but doesn’t ofer authoritative that Education should be confned to some the friend of mine who asked a politician, opinions. Tere are no tests, though stu- particular and narrow end, and should issue in “What is justice?”). dents do undergo an oral examination on a some defnite work, which can be weighed and Ten there are the ones who chose book of their choice every year (and write measured.…Tis they call making Education something diferent: a frefghter-in-train- a paper investigating some question, which and Instruction “useful,” and “Utility” becomes ing; a part-time welder and part-time they then defend in another examination). their watchword. With a fundamental principle Alaskan fsherman; a park ranger. And so Extramural reactions vary. Te school’s dis- of this nature, they very naturally go on to ask, on. Tese people use their educations as dain for expertise raises a certain degree of in- what there is to show for the expense of a Uni- much as the others. Maybe more, since tellectual ire, as does the extreme impracticali- versity; what is the real worth in the market of they also have the courage to pursue ty of the subject matter. Te school’s erstwhile the article called “a Liberal Education,” on the something diferent from what they is ex- refusal to present its education as job prepa- supposition that it does not teach us defnitely pected. ration in any sense certainly added to this how to advance our manufactures, or to im- As for me, I sufered a period of pro- doubt. Indeed, it demanded of its applicants prove our lands, or to better our civil economy; longed underemployment. But though I that they consider why they intended to go to or again, if it does not at once make this man a was doing a job I neither was supposed college at all. Which—as the job-preparation lawyer, that an engineer, and that a surgeon…. to be doing (given my degree), nor es- route turns out to be a dead end for many— pecially wanted to do long-term, I still is a question applicants everywhere should be All those not-lawyers and not-doctors, it learned a great deal from my experience. made to ask themselves. If your liberal arts seems, have been disappointing their par- What I found was that even when I was

degree doesn’t prove to { ents for a long time. working at a low-prestige, low-paying be the golden ticket to Much of Newman’s job, my so-called useless education con- white-collar employ- concern in Te Idea tinued to provide me with something ment, the dirty secret of a University is with genuinely valuable. It was at that time is that neither do many Of course, defning a specifcally that I discovered how freeing a liberal people’s degrees in busi- success is a Catholic form of liber- education truly is. ness or engineering. al education, but one A defense of liberal education on its But as someone tricky word; needn’t be Catholic to own terms, the idea that education is one who went through the appreciate his point: of freedom’s necessary conditions, that the program with a few it depends a serious liberal edu- humanities teach us how to be human, will deep reservations— rather on the cation frees the pupil strike many as elitist. which included my and forms the soul, But sooner or later, people take stock leaving for a year and ruler you are and encourages the of life and wonder what it is for—and we then coming back— using to measure. pursuit of the truth as ought to prepare them to answer. No mat- there is, I think, no an end in itself. Such ter how successful we become, none of us other place where an education requires gets to escape this question, any more than these higher goals can { both seriousness of we can escape the questions of how to live, be pursued so openly purpose and willing- or how to understand the world, or of how and so easily. And if there are two diferent, ness to be an amateur. It’s not for intellec- to organize our society. Te person with mutually exclusive ends to education— tual dilettantes who fit from interest to the successful job and the nice home will freedom and job-preparation—it is good interest, but it doesn’t create experts either. still, one day, be called to make an account that there is (or was) at least one institution Knowledge is acquired, but the goal is not of himself. in the world that made that choice so clear. the acquisition of knowledge. Of course, success is a tricky word; it Subjects such as philosophy, classical lit- depends rather on the ruler you are using eflexive contempt for liberal ed- erature, and mathematics should be studied to measure. In that confrontation between ucation is not a new thing. It goes all because they are themselves goods that the Callicles and Socrates, after all, which of Rthe way back to the Athenians who student should aspire to understand and them is successful? We know, of course, found Socrates’ notably public philoso- make his own. Tey are—to put it strong- what Callicles would say. He ends his phy self-indulgent and embarrassing. “It’s ly—among the good we live life for. Like admonition by conjuring up the idea of not shameful to practice philosophy while Socrates, who was poor and shabby, the Socrates on trial and put to death without you’re a boy, but when you still do it afer student of the liberal arts may never make being able to defend himself—prophetic: you’ve grown older and become a man, the much of himself. But for Socrates—and for though Socrates did defend himself, it was thing gets to be ridiculous, Socrates!” says his students—that was never the goal. to people who did not understand what he Callicles in the Gorgias. “When I see an old- was saying. er man still engaging in philosophy and not ince graduation, I have kept tabs Look around you: There are many giving it up, I think such a man by this time on what my former classmates are do- Callicles in the modern world. Let us needs a fogging.” Get a job, Socrates. Sing with themselves. Some have taken raise our voices on behalf of Socrates— Or, to pick a more recent example (less the traditional routes of law or graduate before he’s judged and put to death than two hundred years old), John Henry school. Some work at non-profts. Some once more.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 35 Americans, Right and Left, seem to agree accepted Duke’s claim that the tests were Pop the Student on is that college is an unquestionable good. designed to ensure that the plant operated Daring to speak out against the lem- safely. Duke bolstered its case by pointing out ming-like charge toward the higher edu- that it ofered to pay for employees to obtain cation precipice seems to invite only scorn high school diplomas and that white appli- Loan Bubble? from reporters in the press, who, like me, cants who failed to meet the requirements are a tad self-conscious about their useless, were also denied promotions. Ten overturn over-priced, fraudulent, academically bank- Te Supreme Court wasn’t buying it. Griggs v. Duke Power Co rupt journalism, communications, gender Tis was North Carolina after all. Te court . studies, and poli-sci diplomas. Yet a few men compared the tests to Aesop’s fable of the are taking on the challenge. Serial entrepre- Fox and the Stork, in which a fox ofers a neur Peter Tiel uses the millions he made dish full of milk to a stork, whose beak pre- by BILL Mc MORRIS from shorting housing to issue $100,000 vents it from satisfying its thirst. Te impli- investments to get promising students out cation that black and white workers were of usiness reporters and talking of college and into the marketplace. Mike a diferent species did not strike any of the heads are tripping over themselves to Rowe, of Dirty Jobs fame, is telling techni- justices as racist, unlike the objective tests. Bpredict the next bubble. It’s the least cally minded youths there’s neither shame, Griggs found that if blacks failed to meet they can do afer so many of them fueled the nor poverty, in a hard day’s work. Both men a standard at a higher rate than whites the dot-com and real-estate booms and busts should be lauded for their realism about standard itself was racist—a legal doctrine that tanked the economy and robbed mil- America’s education obsession. But neither known as disparate impact. lions of Americans of their hard-earned (or at Tiel, nor Rowe, nor any college bubble “What is required by Congress is the re- least borrowed) money. Many have identifed apostle has ofered anything but superfcial moval of artifcial, arbitrary, and unnecessary higher education as the next Big One. Col- scratches to the well-armored tank that is Big barriers to employment when the barriers op- lege spending has all the makings of an eco- Education. Tat’s because none has addressed erate invidiously to discriminate on the basis nomic bubble: supply that exceeds demand; why young Americans are a market wildly infated by government inter- forced to go to college in vention; a return on investment on par with a the frst place. Teir mon- Tulsa, Oklahoma timeshare; art history. ey and brainpower would Te doomsayer’s case amounts to this: teen- be better spent overturn- agers take tests, score poorly, apply to safety ing Griggs v. Duke Power schools, and borrow tens of thousands of Company. dollars to major in Film Studies, guzzle beer, Te 1971 Supreme smoke weed, borrow more money, get into Court decision remains cocaine, pawn the Playstation, discover the largely unknown, but

BACK TO CAMPUS BONANZA concept of gender identity, sleep with anyone no ruling of the past accordingly, study little, earn high marks and forty-fve years (except a quarter-million-dollar piece of paper, apply for Roe v. Wade) has for jobs beyond their qualifcations, settle for done more harm to the jobs that refect their qualifcations, default American way of life. It on their student loans, declare bankruptcy, changed the way com- discover that student loans are the only kind panies hire, pay, and of debt that can’t be discharged in bankrupt- promote workers, ensur- cy, die, and pass on the debt to their heirs, ing that America would parents, or taxpayers. And you thought fra- be a country defned by ternity initiations were cruel. credentials rather than merit. Griggs is why of racial or other impermissible classifcation,” Yet records for new college enrollment we’re wasting money and time on a dubious Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in Griggs. continue apace. Parents, desperately seek- good like a B.S. degree—pun intended. “Diplomas and tests are useful servants, but ing a marquee university bumper sticker to Congress has mandated the common sense show of to the neighbors, tell their children he saga began in 1969 when Willie proposition that they are not to become mas- that college is the ticket to the high life, de- Griggs, a black man born in the segre- ters of reality.” Burger may have intended to spite the fact that half of recent graduates are Tgated South, decided he was overdue free America of bureaucracy, but his decision working jobs that do not require a college for a promotion. In order to get one, per in fact bestowed that title—“masters of reali- degree. Politicians bend over backward to Duke Power Electric Company rules, he had ty”—on college administrators. boost student loans and keep interest rates to pass two aptitude tests and possess a high Diplomas do little to alter the dynamics of artifcially low, despite $1 trillion in loans school diploma. Griggs smelled racism. Te innate ability and intelligence—even less so outstanding and default rates that would tests surveyed employees on basic math and now that institutions have lowered standards. make Bear Stearns blush. Te only thing intelligence questions. None of Duke’s four- Te knowledge gap between college seniors teen black workers passed. Griggs and twelve and freshmen is negligible (see: Academically Bill McMorris is a labor reporter for the others sued the company for discrimination. Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses). Washington Free Beacon. A district court and federal appeals court Other studies have found that class ranks at Photo: David Staedtler/Flickr

36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 graduation closely mirror testing ranks upon Te test revealed that he had an advanced ronment conducive to meaningful personal matriculation. If businesses could recruit and understanding of physics and mathematics. relationships, and a curriculum so free that screen candidates using testing metrics, it Within a few years, he was given the oppor- it doesn’t sound like college at all,” academic would allow workers to begin their careers ear- tunity to take the entrance exam to General Caroline Bird noted in her 1975 essay “Col- lier, advance quicker, and do it debt-free. Motors University. After two years at GMU, lege Is a Waste of Time and Money.” Te lie that props up our Big Education where he combined shiftwork with educa- Colleges, aware of their newfound utility regime is that the GI Bill, which paid for tion, he emerged an engineer in manage- and the easy money pouring in from stu- World War II veterans to attend college, ment. It’s no bachelor’s degree, but judging dent loans and Pell grants, jacked up prices. produced the upward mobility and eco- by the patents he helped generate, it was a Education costs, as George F. Will has not- nomic boom of the postwar period. It’s a worthy investment. ed, grew 440 percent in the post-Griggs era. heartwarming story, the veteran who would Te Griggs de- Tat trend con- have been a dust farmer but for the grace cision has made tinues today. Te of government generosity. But it just isn’t that organic rise Project on Stu- true. Only one out of every eight returning through the ranks dent Debt found veterans attended college. Te rest, the vast impossible, as dis- that total college majority, benefted from something even parate impact left loans increased 6 more egalitarian: aptitude testing. Te for- businesses liable for percent annually mat favors raw talent above all else, allowing those who failed to between 2008 and companies to hire high-potential candidates pass hiring tests. 2012. Te aver- from any background and groom them to “Most legitimate age student today ft the company’s needs. job selection prac- takes out nearly Tese tactics came to commerce from a tices, including $30,000 in debt to familiar source.Te armed services were those that predict buy a ticket to the forced to process hundreds of thousands of productivity better good life. Tey’d recruits during the war, and in order to flter than alternatives, be better of tak- and assign soldiers, the government devel- will routinely trig- ing that money oped aptitude tests. Businesses witnessed ger liability under and buying a new the U.S. defeat the two most efcient peo- the current rule,” Mercedes CLA ples known to man, thought there must Wax wrote in a and faking the be something to this whole testing thing, 2011 paper titled good life. and followed suit. Te chief hiring metric “Disparate Impact in the postwar era was not whether some- Realism.” he com- one had a degree, but whether he had the Te solution mon sense aptitude that would enable him to succeed. for businesses post-Griggs was obvious: out- Tidea would Every industry from blue-blooded high f- source screening to colleges, which are al- be to help people avoid this debt altogether. nance to immigrant-heavy manufacturing lowed to weed out poor candidates based on Te solution we’ve received from policy- employed testing to determine who would test scores. Te bachelor’s degree, previously makers on both sides of the aisle is to double rise through the ranks, regardless of lineage, reserved for academics, doctors, and lawyers, down, to pour more money into universi- heritage, or education. Testing enabled men became the de facto credential required for ty cofers, and to force more and more kids who set out to be blue-collar workers to as- any white-collar job. into an environment for which many are cend based solely on their ability. By the late 1970s, universities were in cri- ill-suited. Te numbers are daunting for these Above all, tests are efective. sis mode. Te baby boom produced more reluctant fellow travelers. More than three “Despite their imperfections, tests and students than they knew what to do with, quarters of college freshmen who fnished in criteria such as those at issue in Griggs but declining birth rates left them with a the bottom 40 percent of their high school (which are heavily…dependent on cogni- smaller pool of tuition-paying students. class will not graduate in eight years. Four tive ability) remain the best predictors of Teir new role as the gateway to respectable out of ten college enrollees will not graduate performance for jobs at all levels of com- careers and higher salaries solved that prob- in six years. More than 20 percent of gradu- plexity,” University of Pennsylvania Profes- lem. Tey replaced comprehensive liberal ates defaulted on their loans in the last year, sor Amy Wax has found. arts education with career-oriented majors dwarfng the mortgage defaults that spurred Two years ago I interviewed Den Black, a that displaced the apprentice, rise-from-the- the Great Recession. Te dropouts lose their former automotive engineer at GM supplier bottom system that had previously defned ticket to a good job, but get to keep the debt. Delphi whose pension was slashed to speed the American labor market. Curriculum No group has been hurt more by this up the auto bailout. His backstory interest- quality and homework rates plunged, but arrangement more than black men, those ed me nearly as much as his grievance with endowments swelled. Griggs was supposed to help. Chief Justice the Obama administration. A few years be- “To keep their mammoth plants fnan- Burger noted in his decision that whites had fore the Supreme Court issued the Griggs cially solvent, many institutions have begun an innate advantage over black workers be- decision, he set out to join his brother as a to use hard-sell, Madison Avenue tech- cause 34 percent of white males in North line-worker at General Motors. He hadn’t niques to attract students. Tey sell college Carolina had high school diplomas, near- been the best student, didn’t care much for like soap, promoting features they think stu- ly double that of blacks. Te gap remains school, but submitted to the hiring exam. dents want: innovative programs, an envi- roughly the same in Bachelor’s degrees to- Photo: Robert S. Oakes/Library of Congress of Oakes/Library S. Robert Photo:

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 37 day among black and white men, while rewarding the “wrong” person. A compen- aggrieved labels politicians award with pro- both groups lag far behind women. sation manager at a leading technology frm tected status next. Your negotiations with “Tat so many employers require college told me that an engineer fresh from graduate the company will not refect your impact diplomas, tacitly or otherwise, means the school simply has to be paid more than a self- on the bottom-line, but your impact on court decision accomplished very little in made engineer—the Den Black who learned the payroll. MIT summa cum laude or re- blunting biased company hiring practices,” the business over a twenty-year career, rising cord sales growth may be a big deal where reads a 2011 editorial at the Vault Education from basic laborer to accomplished engineer you come from, but in the business world blog. “In fact, it’s probably true that it’s only on his own merit. “Tere’s too much risk in it won’t mean a thing if your salary brings helped make discrimination more rampant. paying a guy without a diploma more even white males too far ahead of the demograph- Te more the college degree became a stan- if he is a better contributor,” she said. “God ics Democrats treat like endangered species. dard employee-screening device, the more forbid the college graduate is a woman or a Workers already suspect that meritocracy college degree holders there were vying for minority: Tey can sue you and claim that no longer governs America’s economy— jobs of comparable skill level, jobs which they were paid less because of discrimination, more than half of respondents to a 2011 weren’t increasing at a equivalent rate. It was so we designed a system to pay people for their Yahoo Finance survey said “ofce politics” really only a matter of time before the bar education, not their job.” Tus the credential was responsible for how people are promot- raised up again, and again, giving employers becomes a force of downward mobility for the ed, double those who said hard work. And more factors to discriminate against.” educated and uneducated alike. when they say ofce politics, they’re refer- Which brings us to the next stage of the ring to the illegitimate monarchy installed problem: infation. Te glut of bachelor’s de- he up-by-your-bootstraps man- by government regulations that rewards the grees means even the undergraduate diplo- tra of America wasn’t killed by busi- man who waltzes into a company with doc- ma is beginning to lose its value. About 17 Tnessmen; it was killed by the lawmak- uments that trace his educational bloodline million college graduates work in felds that ers and regulators who made the diploma to Yale or Harvard, a lineage that makes him don’t require a college diploma. Tere are into the bootstrap. So why are the same poli- the rightful heir to the management throne. 100,000 postal workers, 317,000 waitresses, ticians and pundits who condemn inequality Te company obliges, breeding distrust and 18,000 parking lot attendants with un- zealously defending credentialism? among the workforce. dergraduate degrees. One out of every four Well, for one thing, there’s money in dis- Not only does the credentialing system bartenders has a diploma, and though they parate impact for the Department of Labor. undermine ofce comity, it’s bad for busi- listen to moping for a living, few majored in “Essentially it’s a revenue machine for the ness, too. A number of critics cited the MBA psychology. Nearly 6,000 janitors have doctor- DoL,” Keith Gutstein, a labor and employ- as a chief culprit for the housing bubble and ate degrees, like something out of a Twilight ment partner at a law frm in Woodbury, stock market crash. Forty percent of grad- Zone Good Will Hunting. College trium- New York, said of new federal wage dis- uates from elite business schools went into phalists brag about the 4.9 percent unem- crimination laws. “In recent years the DoL fnance, rather than traditional businesses, ployment rate among graduates—lower than has started to insist on CMPs—civil money at the time of the crash. Tey brought the the national average. But, as Ohio University penalties—and that money goes to the gov- formulas that dazzled in Harvard Business

BACK TO CAMPUS BONANZA economics Professor Richard Vedder pointed ernment.” School to Lehman Brothers and Bear Stea- out, that’s triple what it was during the malaise President Obama’s Labor Secretary, Tom rns. Tose equations never failed in college. of the 1970s. Workers are acutely aware of the Perez, acknowledged this at a confrmation Academics called for more business ethics overcredentialing crisis. Nearly 60 percent, in- hearing before the Senate Health, Education, courses. In the wake of the crash, think tanks cluding 40 percent of college graduates, told Labor & Pensions Committee. He came under said admissions committees should screen Gallup in 2013 that they do not need a college fre from the GOP for orchestrating a quid pro out narcissists. Investors said there should be degree to perform their job. quo with the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, to pre- a renewed focus on risk management. Occu- Te indebted former student is not the only vent a case that threatened to overturn dispa- py Wall Street called for guillotines. one to sufer under the current arrangement. rate impact from reaching the Supreme Court. I’m with Occupy. Occupy thought the Research has shown that when graduates Perez’s deal potentially cost taxpayers hundreds problem was the golden parachute, but the food the unskilled job market they hurt the of millions of dollars. Republicans ripped him most gilded aspect of the advanced degree career prospects of their less-educated neigh- to pieces for being a poor steward of taxpayer isn’t the sizable severance check; it’s the ac- bors. Te Ph.D, janitor waiting on the sale money. Te committee chairman, Iowa’s Sena- cess and employment guarantees that come of his Great American Novel has displaced tor Tom Harkin, stepped in to save him. with the graduation cap. a worker without the résumé needed to get “Isn’t it true that applying disparate im- Te Supreme Court could resolve many of any other job. Consider how the gap between pact principle, the [Justice Department’s] these issues by beheading disparate impact high-school and college wages has grown. Te Civil Rights Division under your leadership and the diploma-as-credential. Does Wall 1972 census estimated that over the course has reached settlements totaling over $600 Street need humble, ethical young men and of their working lives (ages 22 to 64), college million?” Harkin said. women? Ten give them tests, start them graduates would net $199,000 more than “Yes, sir,” Perez replied. at the bottom, and let them earn their way high school graduates. By the late 1970s, col- Te government has made it so that you up based on merit. Want to teach risk man- lege graduates earned 55 percent more per cannot be paid based on your individual agement? Pull students out of the classroom year than their high school counterparts. Te performance. Businesses need to craft ever goldfsh bowl and put them in the real world. gap shot up to 85 percent in 2012. Fear of more narrow metrics that lump all employ- Te real world doesn’t operate in ide- litigation plays a role. A company that pays ees together by education, job title, race, alized, rational markets. If it did, no one based solely on performance could fnd itself gender, sexual orientation, and whatever would go to college.

38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 Judge Us By Our Enemies...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

If Bloomberg terminals worked as poorly as New York City government does after a decade of Mr. Bloomberg’s leadership, the world fnancial system would grind to a halt. But it’s not just the incompe- “ tence; it’s the ideology. Tis is the Bloomberg-knows- best elitism that gets the mayor’s nanny-state initiatives lampooned on late-night talk shows and in editorial cartoons. His efort to limit the portion size of sodas as part of a battle against obesity was such a bizarre overstretch that it was too much for even the New York Times editorial board—not exactly famous as a hotbed of free-market libertarianism. Te mayor and his health commissioner announced the results of a “National Salt Reduction Initiative” just three months before a new national study that the Times put on its front page under the headline “No Beneft Seen in Sharp Limits on Salt in Diet.”

Te mayor’s initiatives on other national issues, such as guns and immigration, have brought little in the way of legislative results—though not for lack of trying. Bloomberg and his coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns have trumpeted settlement agreements in lawsuits against gun dealers in Vir- ginia, Georgia, and South Carolina, as well as a voluntary deal with Walmart to videotape frearms sales.…Bloomberg’s argument is that the guns from the South wind up being used to commit crimes in New York City, but the impression left is that he wants to impose his own Big Apple sensibilities on the rest of the country. By Ira Stoll, from the Spectator, July-Aug” 2013 If you love to watch The American Spectator skewer the enemies of liberty and tradition— purblind harridans like Michael Bloomberg—then consider supporting the cause. The Spectator is a 501(c)3 non-profit that relies on reader donations to keep the lights on, the coffee hot, and the sabres sharp.

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by EVE TUSHNET The Gift Shop of the Dead A visit to D.C.’s Museum of Crime and Punishment.

or the past twelve years I’ve life behind bars? It’s not. Not for you, not for the the brutality of the dead. Tere’s a soundtrack volunteered at a crisis pregnan- victims, or for your family….Eventually everyone of clanking chains. “It is considered an age be- cy center serving mainly low-in- faces judgment. Some pay the ultimate penalty. fore enlightenment...” etc. Te middle-school- come women in the District Others are sentenced to what many consider a ers ahead of me are vocally horrifed by a “Wa- of Columbia, and I’ve noticed fate worse than death. ter Torture Funnel” which has an efect similar something about how our cli- to waterboarding Neither the wall captions ents talk: Nobody ever says I doubt many visitors hear this entire nor the kids make this connection, since it “prison.” Boyfriends, husbands, fathers, sons spiel. It plays on a loop, meant to set a cer- doesn’t ft the narrative of enlightenment. I’ve Fwere never “locked up,” “in jail,” or “serving tain atmosphere. I like { read Jack Chick tracts time”; they were always “incarcerated.” the queasy theology with more nuanced ap- Tere is an unexpected poignancy to the of it—a promise of proaches to history. bureaucratic term—a lacy Latinate word judgment without the To the extent Let me pause and say sufused with so much pain, as if standard- hope of mercy—and that there is that I genuinely appre- ization and abstraction could dissolve shame. the chop-licking refer- ciated the museum’s fo- Hesitation frst, and then that careful, strict- ence to prison as “a fate any continuity cus on the use of shame ly-speaking “incarcerated,” like the set phras- worse than death,” and and public humiliation es we use in the confessional. I like how it answers between exhibits, as punishment. It’s all Nothing could be further from these its rhetorical questions it lies in framed as, “Look at women’s delicacy than the National Muse- just in case. I like how these horrible ‘medie- um of Crime and Punishment, a giant KFC it addresses us as poten- the museum’s vals’!” But recognizing bucket of sufering. I spent about four hours tial criminals who roll besotted swoon humiliation as a form in this glitzy memorial-without-memory, ac- out of bed each morn- of dehumanization— companied by at least two school feld trips. ing feeling like Raskol- in the presence and maybe the central Admission is $23.21 and, you know, your nikov. I like, too, how organizing principle of self-respect. the news headlines proof power. torture, since you have Te Museum of Crime and Punishment is jected onto the walls of to dehumanize the sub-

one big ad for a lot of things: law-enforce- the stairwell contradict { ject before you can tor- ment jobs, America’s Most Wanted, the myth the voiceover’s message: oj simpson found ture him—is somewhat countercultural these of progress. In the dark entrance stairwell, not guilty. convicted killer found in- days. We hide prisoners away so we don’t have clusters of televisions show disjointed, con- nocent after dna test. to take responsibility for what happens to them textless crime footage. A man’s voiceover (and then make jokes about not dropping the gives the museum’s mission statement: he museum’s exhibits are arranged soap). But tacit complicity is a little better than in rough chronological order, starting active participation. And maybe some kid will In a free society like ours, some think nobody Twith what the museum calls “Medieval see the line, “In all cases the punishment was has the right to tell us what to do. But the law is Times” (or “Te Dark Ages”) but which ac- intensifed by the fact that the victim was ex- on your side. It’s there to balance the scales and tually seems to cover a period from about the posed to public insult,” and wonder why the restore the victims’ rights. Remember, you wake fourteenth to the eighteenth century. Tese Museum of Crime and Punishment has a gal- up each morning with a choice: Play it straight, exhibits are history horror shows of gibbets, lery of celebrities’ mug shots. Would you trade or press your luck. So is what you plan to do in leg irons, “scold’s bridles,” a “shame fute” sup- a day in the stocks for a chance to get rid of the your life worth a month, a year, or the rest of your posedly afxed to the faces of bad musicians, worst parts of your online, searchable, inescap- whips, chains, and baroque torturous bric-a- able public persona? Or to ban the showing of Eve Tushnet is a writer in Washington, D.C. brac, accompanied by wall texts which gawp at “your episode” of COPS?

40 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 Te wall texts here decry Te museum’s attitude “Double Standards” for toward power is exempli- men and women, rich and fed in the opening to the poor, consistently empha- section on American pun- sizing our distance from ishment. You go through a the past. (“As Court Fees doorway and on the wall Rise, Te Poor Are Paying there are brief tributes to the Price,” National Public prison wardens who were Radio, May 19, 2014.) Te considered more humane Puritans criminalized crazy than the norm: James stuf like “dice cogging”! Johnston, nicknamed (“Bill Winters...will spend “Te Golden Rule War- the rest of his life in prison den,” or Tomas Murton, for a string of petty crimes, who reformed Arkansas the pettiest his fnal book- prisons after major abuse ing in 2009 over a box of scandals. But as you’re try- candy swiped in a burglary.” ing to read these wall texts, Lafayette Independent, Au- a video plays on a loop in gust 2, 2013. “Why Should which a fake warden snarls Tousands of Prisoners Die like something out of a Behind Bars for Nonvio- nightmare—or at least lent Crimes?” Liliana Segu- Cool Hand Luke: ra, the Nation, November 13, 2013.) Within these walls, we are Clumsy or ungrammat- the law, and your freedom is ical phrasing and spell- just a memory. In your cell check errors plague the the sink and the toilet are ex- museum. We get “Jessie posed, and you will be too.... James,” twice, but my fa- Remember, no one put you vorite was the description here but yourself. You are of Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo now in my custody, and the being built in “the dessert life you had no longer exists. town of Las Vegas.” One exhibit titled “Medieval Benevolent use of power Executions” features a guil- is kinda sexy, in a dad-like lotine and a quote from way. We can all get behind Georges Danton, as if the those nice wardens. But French Revolution were abuse of power is really sexy. medieval rather than the A big wheel on the wall opposite of medieval. At says, “Hero or Villain? least they spelled “Georg- Turn the wheel to see if es” right. In the Old West these legends were good section there’s a quotation from one of the all show super-cool, well-tanned pirates shoo- guys or bad guys.” Te wheel is broken. William Pitts. (Not sure which one.) tin’ guns and havin’ funs. But then, “Hanging Tere are things to notice in this muse- Judge” Isaac Parker is glorifed too. um, quiet hints of something. Tere’s a lot t would be a mistake to attribute any phi- Te museum is very “meta”: It spotlights, of glossed-over sadness in the description of losophy or even a consistent mood to this and claims to critique, the glamorization of the fatherless Barker Gang: “From the age of Idesultory, sentimental museum. But to the violence in which it participates. Some re- 10, [Alvin] Karpis ran with an ugly crowd extent that there is any continuity between searcher trufed up a terrifc Ford Motors of gamblers, bootleggers and pimps in his exhibits, this continuity lies in the museum’s advertising card from the Dillinger years, hometown of Topeka, Kansas. He spent time besotted swoon in the presence of power. which reads, “When will they catch Dil- in reformatories, but his crimes only escalat- Lawmen, bank robbers, even Pancho Villa linger?” on the front. On the back: “Not Un- ed. It was while doing time at the Kansas State (“atención gringos!” his recruiting poster til Tey Get Him Out of a Ford V-8!” Te Penitentiary that he met Fred Barker.” A lot of reads, “for gold and glory”)—if you’ve museum highlights the way the James Gang, these criminals met their partners and learned got a gun and you look cool, without that and Bonnie and Clyde, sought to create their the tricks of their illicit trades in the prison creepy serial-killer dead stare, you will be glam- own legends—and mostly succeeded. A wall system, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. orized here. Tere’s a section on pirates and text reads, “In many cases, the public actual- In other areas, hard truths are simply ig- although the wall text says that pirates were ly rooted for the bad guy,” before reassuring nored. Tere’s a big serial killer section— poor, and modern piracy is bad, kids, don’t be a that “ultimately, the bad guys got what was where nobody seemed to linger—and the

Photos: Judson Weinsheimer, Chris Kelly, Oliver Willis/Flickr Oliver Kelly, Chris Weinsheimer, Judson Photos: Somalian pirate when you grow up, the images coming to them....” description of Jefrey Dahmer talks about his

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 41 victim who escaped and fnally drew police explains the 1971 riot by listing some of bullet-riddled “death car” (and Bonnie’s attention to Dahmer’s murders. It doesn’t the abuses to which inmates were subject- terrible, terrible poetry), quotations from mention the earlier escapee who got to the ed, including assaults by guards, and vivid Edmund Campion and Edmund Burke. I cops but was returned to Dahmer, because details like, “Inmates were only allowed gave up somewhere in the basement level, cops sometimes look at drugged, nonwhite one bucket of water per week as a ‘shower.’ in the sprawling “CSI” section. I skipped youths who say they’re feeing a killer and Tey were issued one roll of toilet paper the America’s Most Wanted wing. shrug their shoulders. Domestic dispute. per month.” And yet in this warren of sunny-side-up “But the law is on your side,” the stairwell But all of these text-heavy displays are hard misery, so many things aren’t mentioned. voiceover reminds us. to read, because the museum has seen ft to Tere is one mention of “making amends,” Te exhibit on police gear works hard to display them behind fake prison bars. In or- in the description of a computer genius

convince us that we are no longer living in der to make the displays more visually{ appeal- who, perhaps unwittingly, unleashed “the “Medieval Times.” Cops use safe “compli- ing or more “branded,” frst computer worm.” ance weapons” like tasers, pepper spray, and the curators (if that’s Now he works on fashbangs. (“Cops Beat, Taser Man to Death: the word I want) made making Internet com- ‘Tey Just Weren’t Done Until He Was Dead’,” it much less likely that In this warren merce secure. Tere’s Daily Caller, May 15, 2014. “New Mexico anyone would actually of sunny-side-up nothing on restorative Woman Sues Over Pepper-Sprayed Vagina,” read them, instead of justice or on returning Toronto Sun, November 28, 2013. “Georgia skipping to the color- misery, nothing ex-ofenders to their toddler critically injured by police’s fash gre- ful display of prison even attempts to communities, no dis- nade,” Washington Post, May 30, 2014.) tattoos. Te prison play on the enormous Te museum’s good-citizen instincts are history section, where I answer the ques- number of “collateral at war with its show-business urges. Sober spent a lot of time, was tion of whether consequences” that text is often contradicted by fashy, mis- almost empty. can follow some- leading “interactives.” Tere’s a surprising- Maybe the most incarceration one who has served ly solid display about the unreliability of interesting thing in his time, nothing eyewitness evidence, including discussion the museum is its reduces crime. on moms in lockup of the Innocence Project, which works to treatment of prison- (about one in twen- use DNA evidence to free wrongly-con- ers’ artwork. Te text ty-eight American { victed prisoners. But this is followed by a strains to ensure that we don’t identify with children have a parent in prison; some of crime-solving game where you “witness” a prisoners. Tey’ve been caught, so they’re them have been on feld trips to this place), man running from an apartment, and the helpless, rather than powerful like the pi- nothing that even attempts to answer the text is all about how memory is tricky and rates and gunmen we’re encouraged to ad- question of whether incarceration reduces eyewitness evidence is shaky—and then mire. But this is our only sustained glimpse crime. No interactive exhibit asking which the man in your video stops, the camera of prisoners as people who do things other things you believe should be crimes—with zooms in, and he stands there so you can than crime. Tere are intriguing bits about the huge, unexplored exception of Prohi- get a good long look at him. Later, when how you make art supplies in prison and a bition, “crime” is treated as an Aristotelian you’re asked to give details about his ap- note that artists can earn as much respect as natural kind rather than a category defned pearance, the video replays frst to help you tough guys. Some of the art is crude, col- by the powerful. While there’s a graphic out! I have a mind like a steel sieve, my orful, and moving: One prisoner’s “pano” comparing recent incarceration rates in dif- memory is mostly made of wishful think- or handkerchief art shows a sunlit woman ferent states, there’s no graphic comparing ing, and I got every question right. (Te holding a fower, the brightest painting you the United States with other countries, even only question I can remember was some- ever saw. Some of it is normal in the worst though we are the world’s leading jailers. thing along the lines of, “Did the man have way: Tere’s two eagles crying over 9/11, And for all its self-righteousness toward long or short hair?”) and a kitsch painting of a soldier hugging his the guilty, the museum has virtually noth- Similarly, the descriptions of actual fa- daughter as she clutches an American fag. ing about their victims, or about the expe- mous prisons like Leavenworth and Attica, rience of being a victim of crime. Tere’s and some of the texts on prison history, he museum is exhausting. You can nothing about trauma, recovery, the cycle include novelistic details and empathetic learn to crack a safe, do a police train- of abuse (unless that sad depiction of the descriptions of prisoners’ sufering. Tere Ting simulation, shoot carnival-style Barker Gang counts), forgiveness and rec- are glancing references to the horror of sol- guns at an Old West-themed range, learn onciliation with the person who hurt you, itary confnement (today between 20,000 about the suit used in the Robocop movies, or the debate over victims’ rights move- and 80,000 prisoners are in solitary, which and on and on. I haven’t mentioned the au- ments. Victims are not powerful. the museum doesn’t mention—as always, topsy table with the fake body, or the small In the gift shop you can buy JonBenét cruelty is confned safely to the past) and quiet tribute to law-enforcement ofcers Ramsey’s father’s book, and Aileen Wuor- the overall tone is one of pity for prisoners who died in the line of duty, or the bizarre nos’s. Tere’s a onesie that says, i just spent who were isolated, forbidden from speak- text about Prohibition in Washington that nine months in solitary, and a gun to ing, or beaten by racist guards. Te Leav- doubles as an ad for local cocktail bars. I shoot ketchup onto your hot dog. You can enworth exhibit notes that inmates raised haven’t mentioned the various entertain- buy an ofcial Museum of Crime and Pun- and collected money for the 9/11 Relief ing criminal knickknacks and attractions: ishment lanyard with your name, or with the Fund after the attacks. Te Attica display Al Capone’s rosary, Bonnie and Clyde’s message, god is love.

42 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 POLITICS the economy and shrink the government is to defeat her in 2016. A Hillary Clinton victory would cement in place and validate all the havoc and “transformation” that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi have inficted on America. It could swing the Supreme Court to the left for two decades, meaning those 5-4 and 6-3 decisions will by STEPHEN MOORE start tilting irretrievably against us. In short, a Clinton victory will be a colossal setback. Te fact that Mitt Romney lost in 2012 only doubles the stakes in 2016.

Can’t We All Get Along? o why are all the guns in the cen- We have to if we’re going to, you know, win. ter-right coalition aimed at one other, not Sagainst the Death Star that is the modern Democratic Party? Te t a recent small dinner kind of squabbling that at the end of the fabulous I saw in Vegas between Freedomfest gathering at social conservatives and the Paris Hotel in Las Ve- libertarians is breaking gas, major supply siders, out all over these days. libertarians, Tea Partiers, Te Chamber of Com- and traditional conser- merce is at war with the vatives gathered to discuss strategies to regain Tea Party groups, and Apolitical power in Washington. Te libertarian both factions are spend- faction fumed with the familiar complaint that ing money to defeat the the GOP will only win back young and female others’ candidates. Te voters in 2016 by abandoning social issues like conservative super PACs abortion and gay marriage—which would in have waged a war against efect toss the evangelicals of the bus. Republican congressional Yet this has also become a common rec- leaders Mitch McCon- ommendation from the country-club Re- nell and John Boehner. publicans who may not be members of the Once upon a time con- Tea Party movement but who write the big servatives (including your checks. “We must have a truce on the social correspondent) declared issues; it is turning of voters” complains Gallup shows the electorate split almost war against real tax-and-spend GOP liberals one prominent Wall Street fnancier who evenly today, at 46 percent pro-life and 47 like Arlen Specter and Lincoln Chafee. Now raises money for the party. By “truce,” he percent pro-choice, compared to 41-51 in some people’s litmus tests are so strict that a means “surrender.” 2006, or 33-56 in 1995. Te issue may be life-long conservative like Mitch McConnell Regardless of how one feels about these a net plus for the GOP in most states out- is judged impure. Jeb Bush, one of the most social issues, does anyone honestly believe side of liberal bastions like California and innovative free-market reform governors of the GOP can put together a winning coa- New York—places that Republicans aren’t the last two decades, is denounced as “too lition without the reliable voters and activ- likely to win anytime soon anyway. moderate” at Tea Party events. When I wrote ists who make up around 40 percent of the I would propose an altogether diferent a column earlier this year defending Republi- party? Will replacing a pro-life platform strategy: Pull together the old Reagan coali- can House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for protecting the sanctity of the unborn with, tion, which is still unbeatable when united. his efective leadership in budget negotiations say, one on drug legalization make the big To borrow the immortal words of John Be- against Barack Obama in 2011 and for help- tent bigger? It turns out Mitt Romney did lushi in Te Blues Brothers: it’s time to “put ing bring down the defcit from $1.4 trillion to a pretty good job “de-emphasizing” social the band back together.” Liberals can’t win a $400 billion, I was attacked as a sell-out and a issues, and look where that got him. Sever- majority when this coalition holds. Add up member of the “establishment.” My colleague al million white evangelicals stayed home the Americans who identify as libertarians Dan Henninger at the Wa l l S t r e e t Jo u r n a l tells in 2012. Tis is an especially misguided or conservatives, and you get 56 percent. me he gets similar rant emails from Tea Par- political strategy given that the electorate is Just 34 percent call themselves liberals. ty conservatives. “Wait a minute,” he replies, becoming more, not less pro-life over time. Pursuing this fusion strategy may not “I’m one of the original Reagan Republicans.” be, as Dan Aykroyd put it, “a mission from Tat’s not good enough? Stephen Moore is chief economist for the God.” But undoubtedly the highest priority Even on the economic issues, dangerous Heritage Foundation and economics editor of for conservatives, free marketeers, libertari- fssures have appeared. A group calling them- Te American Spectator. ans, and everyone else who wants to grow selves “reform conservatives” has sprouted Photo: Marc Nozell/Flickr Marc Photo:

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 43 with some good ideas about regulation and law and economy SPECTATOR welfare reform, and some bad ones about tax policy. One plan being foated would increase the child credit to help families with children, but marginal tax rates would have to rise to pay for it. Te New York Times has written fawningly (which says a lot) about reform conservatism. To supply-siders it is exactly the wrong way to go on tax reform. by F.H. BUCK LEY When it comes to tax policy, the reformers’ agenda ignores the primary economic lesson of the last forty years, namely, that lowering tax rates ignites growth. Tax rates matter most at the margin, or on the last Te Lois Lerner Curve dollar earned, and credits and deductions are dead weight losses. Tis isn’t dogma: it’s a matter of economic history. Te problem for the middle class today is not that their income taxes are too high; it is orrupt countries, where pledged my loyalty to the Constitution that their incomes are not growing—in fact, the rule of law is weak and when I was sworn in.” Predictably, the they are shrinking relative to infation. Te political pilfering is com- whistleblower, Inspector General Russell middle class has been fattened fnancially mon, are poor countries. George, found himself under attack. over the last eight years, and putting more Entrepreneurs and inves- money in their pocket won’t make up for $2 tors cannot safely start or hen a federal agency such trillion of lost growth. fnance businesses in states as the IRS goes afer free market What is worse is the idea of taking mil- that don’t respect property rights and honor Winstitutions, such as the Tea Par- lions more families of the income tax rolls Ccontracts, or that use the levers of the govern- ty groups whose applications were held up, entirely. Currently about four out of ten ment to go after political opponents. And it’s there’s always an element of self-protection. Americans pay no income tax, and that not as though America doesn’t have a corrup- Afer all, there wouldn’t be much lef of that could grow to more than fve out of ten un- tion problem. On Transparency Internation- big IRS building on Constitution Avenue if der this new tax plan. Tis smacks of “repre- al’s Corruption Perceptions Index, the U.S. the Tea Party had its way. “Why does baloney sentation without taxation.” Te better way comes in at number 19, behind most of the resist the grinder?” asked William F. Buckley. to go is to ensure that nearly everyone—ex- rest of the First World. However, there’s another reason why the cept the very poor—pays at least some in- For anyone following the Lois Lerner Lois Lerner scandal was to be expected: we come tax. But everyone pays a manageable scandal, that’s not surprising. What should have an excess, not an insufciency, of laws. rate. If the party intellectuals are looking for be surprising, perhaps, are her defenders. Now, we do need laws to police corruption something to really electrify voters, some- Lerner tampered with IRS nonproft ap- of the obvious sort, such as bribery and ex- thing like Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan will plications, and revealed them only when tortion. But anti-corruption laws can cause be far more potent than a child tax credit. an Inspector General was about to re- more corruption than they prevent when Of course there’s nothing wrong with airing port on them. Ten the cover-up began. they rely on complicated fve-point standards out diferent ideas in a presidential primary Te IRS put out a story that blamed the of the kind loved by Anthony Kennedy and campaign, but the core principle of prosper- shenanigans on low-level Cincinnati em- law school professors, with balanced and ity-based tax reform that should unite us all ployees. We were told that the IRS hadn’t nuanced rules that seek to apply a scalpel to is “broad base, low rates.” picked on conservative any more than lib- tasks better suited to an earthmover. We end My friend April Ponnuru, a prominent eral groups. All lies. Ten Lerner pled the up giving politicized bureaucrats a weapon reformicon, says that Republicans have Fifth, and her emails mysteriously disap- to use against their opponents. It’s like hand- “nothing to say to a mother with three peared. ing a match to a giddy pyromaniac. kids” in the bottom half. Yes, we do: it’s Not to worry, the Left tells us. Joel I call this the Lois Lerner Curve. With called growth and opportunity, which come Achenbach of the Washington Post be- few laws policing corruption, there’s a lot of from businesses and jobs, which come from seeches us not to “sacrifce civil servants it. Ten, as law enforcement increases, cor- things like supply-side tax cuts. Tese dots for the sake of short-term political optics.” ruption declines, down to point zero on the aren’t that hard to connect. From on high, Rachel Maddow proclaims curve. Tereafter, however, additional laws Te challenge is to fuse a winning co- that “to continue to believe this story has result in more corruption, because citizens alition united against a common and merit and deserves to be taken seriously is and bureaucrats alike become lost in the dangerous enemy. Saying that the GOP deeply, painfully foolish.” About Lerner’s complexity and enforcement is unevenly can’t win with the Tea Party or with the refusal to testify, Rep. Carolyn Maloney of applied. pro-lifers or with the business wing is New York primly observed that “I would If’s there’s one thing tyrannical regimes short-sighted. Tose who think it’s hard like very much for her to testify, but she believe in, it’s the law. Vladimir Putin to win with these groups forget how pain- pleaded the Fifth Amendment and she doesn’t just lock people up. Rather, he ac- ful it is to lose without them. has the Constitutional right to do so. I cuses them of corruption, tries them, and

44 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 sentences them to prison, thus proving that husband, which makes one wonder about Russia stands steadfast against corruption. D’Souza’s judgment. Still, now he’s a felon, Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a tax cheat, you and one can’t help wondering whether there CLASSIFIEDS see, and in Ukraine so was Yulia Tymoshen- were political motives behind eforts to jail ko. Te problem isn’t isolated in Eastern one of the most prominent critics of Barack European basketcases. Why, we Americans Obama and Hillary Clinton. POLITICAL almost elected a felon in the 2012 presi- I think of this when I read about pro- dential election. Remember when Obama’s posals for campaign fnance reform. Sure, VOTE MONARCHIST—AND YOU’LL deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cut- there’s room for cleaning up the pay-for- NEVER HAVE TO VOTE AGAIN. Repelled ter, suggested that the Republican nominee play politics of crony capitalism and the by populism, egalitarianism, unrestrict- had committed a crime under federal secu- gerrymandering that makes most Congres- ed suffrage? American Monarchist Par- rities law? “Either Mitt Romney, through sional seats into fefdoms for life. And there ty forming. Contribution of $50 covers his own words and his own signature, was are well-meaning people, like Harvard’s above bumper sticker and inequality misrepresenting his position at Bain to the Larry Lessig, who for honest motives want button (≠). Send check to AMP, 45 Con- SEC, which is a felony,” she said, “or he was to limit campaign spending. Whatever their stitution Ave., Washington, D.C., 20001. misrepresenting his position at Bain to the intentions, however, what they would do American people to avoid responsibility is take our election laws up the right-hand PERSONALS for some of the consequences of his invest- side of the Lois Lerner Curve, resulting in ments.” Te charge went nowhere, except more corruption. Lurking behind them NICE SINGLES with Christian values are Lois Lerner’s du- wish to meet others for consensual Te Lois Lerner Curve plicitous partisans, the bondage, sadomasochism. No carnal bare-knuckled street knowledge to be conferred. Just simple Corruption fghters who seek to end erotic flagellation. Bring own switch or the scandal of Republi- cat o’ nine tails, or select one from our can money in politics, amply supplied torture toolbox. Write and who would give us Dungeonmaster Daniel, PO Box 4819, a country as free of cor- San Francisco, CA 94101. ruption as Russia. Tey are scoundrels in the OBJECTIONIST CORRESPONDENT want- cause of honor, whores ed. Strong desire to experience another who clamor for morali- rational entity. John c/o TAS. ty, thieves in defense of property rights. MERCHANDISE Was that a little rough, Anti-Corruption just now? Ten let me Does anyone have an Esperanto trans- Laws remind you about True lation of the Tridentine Mass? Koran the Vote, the conserva- dankon, kara amiko. Mi rekompencos tive vote-monitoring vin grande. Stuart Altman, 17 Burleigh as one more element in an ugly campaign. organization led by Catherine Englebrecht. Lane, Ipswich, UK, IP10. What was remarkable, however, was that no True the Vote trains volunteers to record one noted how the U.S. had firted with a and report on suspicious voter registrations. It’s almost impossible to win—which is descent into Khodorkovsky territory. We’re not talking about the New Black Pan- half the fun. SEPARATION OF POWERS, We’ve already been there, mind you. In thers with their baseball bats, but neverthe- the Constitutional board game. Can 1996, Republican Al Salvi ran for the U.S. less Rep. Elijah Cummings opened up a you accumulate enough public opinion Senate in Illinois against Dick Durbin. Salvi congressional investigation into the group. points to leash a rogue executive? Just had contributed $1.1 million of his own His stafers wrote to Lois Lerner about it, when impeachment proceedings begin, money to the campaign, as he had every right and subsequently the IRS questioned its the president plays a UNIFYING NATION- to do. Te Federal Election Commission ob- tax-exempt status. In in short order Engel- AL CRISIS card. Better luck next time. jected, however. As Salvi recently recounted brecht’s business was visited by the FBI, ATF, Just $25—BOX 15, Omaha, NE 68007. to the Arlington Heights Daily Herald, an and OSHA. She testifed about this in Feb- FEC ofcial “told him the case would be ruary, and what’s interesting is how Demo- MISC. dropped if he promised never to run for of- crats treated her. Cummings questioned her fce again.” Tat ofcial was Lois Lerner. about her possible racist motives, and Gerry To save four billion people, you’ll need four We’re seeing it now too, in the prosecu- Connolly complained of McCarthyism and new concepts—straight from the horse’s tion of Dinesh D’Souza for breaking an elec- mocked her “paranoia” for thinking the au- mouth. Send a SASE to Globular Snobular, tion law. Last May, D’Souza pleaded guilty dits might have been politically motivated. PO Box 731, Youngstown, OH, 44420. to exceeding campaign contribution limits Remember that next time a moderate by parking money under the names of two conservative “reformer” proposes a biparti- PLACE AN AD: [email protected]. other people. Te other people in question san collaboration with Democrats to rid us ONLY $5 PER WORD (12-WORD MINIMUM). were D’Souza’s mistress and her cuckolded of the scourge of political corruption.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 45 letter fom PARIS More typical of recent attacks are the two young Jews who were badly beaten on their way to synagogue; the yarmulke-wearing teenager shot with a stun gun; the mother of two punched out by a gang of Muslim girls as she walked on the Champs Elysées; another young mother strolling with her baby by JOSEPH A. HARRISS carriage who was jostled by a niqab-clad woman shouting “dirty Jewess, you Jews have too many children.” Besides such physical assaults, there are the almost daily insults like “Jew, France is not for you,” and the Star of Racist, Moi? David spray-painted on houses. Some Ortho- dox men have taken to wearing baseball caps Excuse me Marianne, but your anti-Semitism is showing. over their yarmulke to avoid harassment. As a Figaro editorial put it, “Te way things are going, France will soon look like the most an- srael’s summer offensive against ti-Defamation League has found that France ti-Semitic country in the Western world…it’s Hamas in Gaza sparked the predict- now has the highest percentage of people with becoming dangerous to be a Jew in France.” able pro-Palestinian demonstrations anti-Semitic opinions in Western Europe: 37 across Europe. Organized by groups percent, compared with 27 percent in Germa- or natan sharansky, the chess prod- ranging from pro-Arab associations ny, 20 percent in Italy and 8 percent in Britain. igy who spent nine years in a Soviet to far-left fringe parties, they were for And in the land that gave us the Dreyfus Afair, Fprison for his attempts to immigrate to the most part peaceful, but the Conti- anti-Jewish slurs are becoming socially accept- Israel and who now heads the Jewish Agency, nent’s centuries-old anti-Semitism resurfaced able. Tat means Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder French anti-Semitism signifes something big- Iin countries like Germany, the Netherlands, of the far-right National Front, can get away ger and more sinister. “Something historic is and Italy. In Paris they turned particularly with suggesting that a Jewish folk singer might happening,” he told the Jewish Daily Forward ugly and vicious, with hateful slogans and be better of in an oven. And that a popular this summer. “It may be the beginning of the violent attacks on Jewish synagogues, busi- comedian can pepper his nightclub stand-up end of European Jewry….What is happening nesses, and individuals. Aware that France is routine with jokes about today’s lamentable in France, the strongest of Europe’s Jewish a racial tinderbox as home to both Europe’s lack of gas chambers and the “exaggerated” fuss communities, refects processes taking place largest Muslim population, some six million, over the Holocaust. Te attacks are not only elsewhere in Europe.” But no one who knows and its biggest Jewish community, around verbal. Te Council of Jewish Institutions in France and French history should be surprised 500,000, President François Hollande had France says anti-Semitic { by today’s treatment of vowed beforehand that “no anti-Semitic or threats and acts are get- its Jews. racist act or word will be tolerated.” ting worse by the day. Te fact is that the With his popularity at 18 percent—the Although Jews form No one who French are endemi- lowest of any postwar French head of state— less than 1 percent of knows France cally, refexively rac- he was largely ignored. Often wearing head- the population, com- ist. It’s part of their scarves and fying Palestinian fags, marchers pared with 10 percent and French history and culture. overwhelmed riot police and ignored clouds for Muslims, they are Napoleon, for one, of tear gas to joyfully burn Israeli fags, trash the target of fully 40 history should refected the coun- kosher shops, and toss Molotov cocktails at percent of the country’s be surprised by try’s anti-Semitic at- synagogues. In the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, ongoing racial violence. titude, considering known locally as Little Jerusalem due to its Te attacks are now today’s treatment Jews degenerate and large Sephardic population, the rampages running at an average of its Jews. “the most despicable were accompanied by chants including “Is- annual rate seven times of men.” His so-called rael assassin,” “Jews out of France,” and the that of the 1990s; in the Infamous Decree of

ever-popular “Death to Jews.” frst three months of { 1808 attempted to as- this year alone, 140 such incidents were report- similate them by force, limiting where they ll in all, the riots were an accurate ed to authorities—surely only the tip of the could live, encouraging intermarriage with refection of what French Jewish lead- iceberg—a 40 percent increase over the same gentiles, and creating obstacles to doing Aers are calling the worst climate of period last year. To be sure, France’s anti-Semit- business. I still remember the day when my anti-Semitism they have seen in many years. ic violence rarely reaches the level of the March son came home from his Paris elementary With the country’s Muslims increasingly rad- 2012 premeditated shooting of three Jewish school and informed me that, according to icalized by jihadist preaching, New York’s An- schoolchildren and a young rabbi in Toulouse his teacher, the French were not a people by a French Muslim of Algerian descent. Or or polity, but a race apart. Tis overempha- Joseph A. Harriss is our Paris correspon- last spring’s killing of four people in the Jewish sis on race might help explain why certain dent. His latest book is An American Specta- Museum in Brussels by a Frenchman just back ideas about the Aryan race often fell on tor in Paris. from fghting with Islamists in Syria. fertile soil during the German occupation.

46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 Re-Elected Obama, Re-Elected His Friends!

Anyone who has lived here has heard in rue as far as it went. But he How much do we casual conversation the xenophobic racial failed to mention the root cause of really know about slurs and insinuations that roll trippingly Tthis virulent new anti-Semitism: of the French tongue as easily as bonjour. France’s growing and aggressive Muslim Mr. Obama? When Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an artil- population. Also avoided was the subject lery ofcer of Alsatian Jewish descent, was of France’s close relationship with Palestine, abusively convicted of treason in 1894, it while ofen criticizing Israel—Charles de More importantly, how much do came at a period when French prejudice Gaulle scorned it as “dominating and sure we know about his friends—the toward Jews had been incited publicly by of itself.” Tat pro-Arab posture was un- people who advise him daily, who books like Edouard Drumont’s vicious derscored ten years ago when PLO founder Jewish France and half-a-dozen hate-flled Yasser Arafat was fown to Paris in a French shaped his political decisions, and anti-Semitic newspapers illustrated with air force plane for treatment in a French helped get him re-elected? grotesque racial caricatures. Dreyfus spent military hospital afer falling mysteriously fve years in the atrocious conditions of the ill. Afer his death, President Jacques Chi- Devil’s Island penal colony before Emile rac publicly mourned beside his casket and Te American Spectator Zola prodded the nation’s conscience with ordered an ofcial ceremony complete with launched a special investigation his J’Accuse open letter accusing the army military honor guard and national anthems. into Obama’s inner circle of corruption in the case. Despite such obvious favoritism toward Te Vichy government’s anti-Semitic Palestine, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius that exposes their ties to policies actually went further than ofcial and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve co- communism, corruption, Nazi regulations. While the latter defned signed an op-ed piece in the New York Times and terrorism. Jewishness loosely as a religious practice, last July in an implausible attempt to reassure Vichy’s ofcial Statut des juifs defned Jews the worldwide Jewish community. Tey pro- as a race. Its avowed goal was nothing less tested too much, with their heavy-handed Subscribe to than the total elimination of Jewish cul- declaration that “France is Not an Anti-Se- Te American Spectator ture from France. Jews were forbidden to mitic Nation.” Teir argument, that there join the civil service, their access to higher were fewer insults and violent acts last year today and receive our education and many professions was lim- than in 2004, simply made the unintended FREE* special report, ited by a quota system, and their property point that anti-Semitism has long been a Obama and Friends— could be “Aryanized.” constant in the country. Tis national shame was ofcially covered Nice try, but not enough to reassure many Exposing the Inner Circle! up for decades—the postwar government French Jews, who are increasingly heeding destroyed all documents related to the treat- the advice of the late Ariel Sharon in 2004: www.spectator.org/obama ment of Jews—until ofcial recognition of it “Move to Israel, as soon as possible.” Polls began timidly in the 1990s. Tus the impor- show that as many as 75 percent of French *New subscribers only. (Book available for sale. $10. Call 800-524-3469) tance of Premier Manual Valls’s speech this Jews are now considering the move. Others, summer, when he commemorated the anni- undaunted by the prospect of walking into versary of a mass roundup and deportation a barrage of Hamas rockets, ready to forgo to Nazi death camps of 13,152 men, women fve-week vacations and a thirty-fve-hour and children in 1942. He acknowledged that workweek, have already left. Last year they code : H13P27 “a new form of anti-Semitism” was spreading numbered 3,289, up 60 percent from the in France, “on the Internet, on social net- year before, with over 5,000 expected to works, in working class areas, among unem- follow this year. French Jewish émigrés to ployed young people who have no awareness Israel are now second only to the exodus of of history, who hide their ‘hatred of the Jews’ Russians. For the frst time since Israel was behind the facade of anti-Zionism and be- founded in 1948, they outnumber those Photo: Marcella/Flickr Photo: hind hatred of the Israeli state.” from the United States.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 47 PRESSWATCH lead author, who was permitted to choose his own editor, a colleague. Te Environmental Protection Agency undertook an investigation of the atrazine claims. “As the agency investi- gated, it couldn’t even use those papers about atrazine’s alleged efects because the research they were based on didn’t meet the criteria for legitimate scientifc work,” Campbell wrote. by JAMES TARANTO “Te authors refused to hand over data that led them to their claimed results—which meant no one could run the same computer program and match their results.” Te ’s Little Saint Nick Blum had opened her post by describing her- Times self as a “long-time fan” of Kristof, specifcally of “his work in social justice journalism, his passion- Evaluating the error-prone Nicholas Kristof. ate reporting of problems others ignore.…It’s outstanding work and, oh, how I wish he would e often assume that ond-deadliest storm—2012’s Sandy—and stick to it. Because his secondary crusade of the racism or sexism is the correlation fipped direction. Excluding last few years, you know, the one against evil in- primarily about in- Sandy and Katrina, male-named hurricanes dustrial chemicals, is really starting to annoy me.” your-face bigots or were deadlier. Tat points to another prob- misogynists,” op-ed lem with the notion of a hurricane’s sex. espite considerable in-the-feld report- columnist Nicholas Te researchers classifed Sandy as a female ing, Kristof’s “social justice journalism” Kristof lectured his New York Times readers in name—as did the World Meteorological Or- has ofen proved fact-challenged as well. June.W But no, it turns out “research” has demon- ganization, which sandwiched “her” between DA December 2009 column made a pitch for strated “that the larger problem is unconscious Hurricane Rafael and Tropical Storm Tony. Obamacare under the headline “Are We Going bias even among well-meaning, enlightened But when naming human beings, Sandy can to Let John Die?” Kristof told the story of John people who embrace principles of equality”— refer to someone of either sex. Broadniak, a young Oregon man with a brain tu- people like Nicholas Kristof. Kristof not only swallowed whole the mor. “Without insurance, John has been unable Scientists, claimed Kristof, have proved that study’s bogus claims but did so “females don’t get any respect”: after critics had debunked it. He regurgitated it along with Researchers fnd that female-named hurricanes “embellishments not supported kill about twice as many people as similar male- by the study, such as asserting named hurricanes because some people underes- the causality between implicit timate them. Americans expect male hurricanes beliefs and action,” noted Slate’s to be violent and deadly, but they mistake fe- Jane Hu. male hurricanes as dainty or wimpish and don’t It was a characteristic perfor- take adequate precautions. mance for Kristof, who over the years has developed quite a record Just one problem: the study, published in of advancing dubious factual the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci- claims. In a May 2012 column, ences, was bunk. For one thing, the researchers he asserted: “A widely used her- skipped Katrina (along with 1957’s Audrey), bicide acts as a female hormone counting it an “outlier,” so we can still blame and feminizes male animals in the George W. Bush. wild. Tus male frogs can have female organs, to get surgery or even help managing the pain,” he For another, National Geographic’s Ed Yong and some male fsh actually produce eggs.” wrote. “John says the principal obstacle to treat- noted that the researchers had considered hur- “What herbicide exactly?” asked science jour- ment appears to be simply his lack of insurance.” ricanes during the period 1950-2012. But until nalist Deborah Blum in a critical blog post for But Michelle Malkin reported that three 1979, all hurricanes had women’s names. “Tis the Public Library of Science. “Here, reader, weeks before Kristof’s column ran, Brodniak, matters because hurricanes have…been getting you are just out of luck. Because he is just not who was on Medicaid, had arranged to be less deadly over time,” Yong observed. When going to tell you that.” She guessed it was atra- treated at the Oregon Health Sciences Uni- the dataset was limited to 1979-2012, there was zine, which had been fngered as causing frog versity. Malkin’s scathing conclusion: “John only a “marginal correlation.” sex changes in two papers published—like the Brodniak, a man who already has govern- What’s more, Slate’s Eric Holthaus tried hurricane study—in the Proceedings of the Na- ment health insurance and is already being running the post-1979 data without the sec- tional Academy of Sciences. treated for his illness, is the New York Times’s But as Hank Campbell of Science 2.0 not- poster boy for why we need a new, massive James Taranto, a member of the Wall Street ed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, those papers nationalized health care system.” Journal’s editorial board, writes the Best of the exemplifed PNAS’s lackadaisical peer-review A January 2009 Kristof column told the sto- Web Today column for WSJ.com. process. Both atrazine studies had the same ry of Long Pross, a Cambodian teenager who Photo by Monika Flueckiger./Flickr Monika by Photo

48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 claimed to have been kidnapped at age thirteen campaign CRAWLERS and sold to a brothel: “Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile,” Kristof wrote. “Ten move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye.” Tis past June, more than fve years after the column appeared, an “Editor’s Note” was appended to it on the Times’s website: “Tis by GROVER G. NORQ UIST column reported the story of Long Pross, who said that she was forced to work in a Cam- bodian brothel, where a pimp gouged out her eye. A Newsweek article has raised funda- Governors Under Seige mental doubts about her story, citing medical records showing that a surgeon removed her Scott Walker and Sam Brownback must win re-election. eye because of a nonmalignant tumor.” Te Newsweek story raised similar doubts about Somaly Mam, a Cambodian anti-trafcking activist who had been a major Kristof source. he math looks good. Very ture. In Wisconsin, Democrats organized “I wish I had never written about her,” he good. One can presume recall elections for a host of state-level lamented in a blog post this June. that when the American Republicans, including Governor Scott Similarly, in an April 2011 column Kristof people head to the polls this Walker, but the efort failed for the most had to distance himself from the work of Greg November, the GOP will part. Democrats trying to tackle Wiscon- Mortenson, who ran a charity called the Cen- hold the House and per- sin looks, from the national level, like Sisy- tral Asia Institute and whose memoir, Tree haps strengthen its majority phus taking one more crack at rolling the Cups of Tea, described his work building schools there. Te Senate is a tantalizing six seats from rock uphill. in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Montana’s attor- TRepublican control, and Republicans have ney general was investigating the institute’s f- twelve prospects. In three red states—Mon- ut the left is evil, not stupid. Tere nances. Te case was settled a year later without tana, South Dakota, and West Virginia— is a big diference. Democrats are wisely criminal charges, but Mortenson had to repay strong, experienced, Republican candidates Btargeting the two most dangerous Re- more than $1 million to the institute, leave its are running ahead of second and third-string publicans running for ofce in 2014. Kansas board, and promise not to oversee its fnances. Democrats. In another four states that voted Governor Sam Brownback has passed legis- “I’ve counted Greg as a friend, had his for Romney—Louisiana, Arkansas, North lation that will phase out the state income family over at my house for lunch and ex- Carolina, and Alaska—frst-tier Republi- tax. Te tax rates were 6.45 percent, 6.25 per- tolled him in my column,” Kristof admit- cans are challenging incumbents who vote in cent, and 3.5 percent before his two tax cuts. ted. Mortenson even gave Kristof a book lockstep with Obama. And in another fve Tey stand to phase down to 3.9 percent and blurb. Little wonder, then, that Kristof states—Iowa, Colorado, Oregon, Michigan, 2.3 percent by 2018. Afer that point, every was pained to acknowledge that Morten- and New Hampshire—particularly strong year that state tax revenues increase by more son might have done wrong: “I don’t know Republican candidates could upset seeming- than 2 percent, income tax rates will be au- what to make of these accusations. Part of ly stronger opponents. tomatically ratcheted down until they reach me wishes that all this journalistic ener- Republicans now have majorities in both zero. Afer that, the corporate tax rate simi- gy had been directed instead to ferret out chambers of the legislature in twenty-eight larly phases to zero. abuses by politicians who allocate govern- states, while Democrats fully control only Zero. No more income tax. No oth- ment resources to campaign donors rather seventeen. Come November, Republicans er votes are needed. Just time and a than to the neediest among us…” have a good shot at seizing control of the post-Obama rate of normal economic West Virginia House, the New Hampshire growth. Kansas once had the second high- hat wish is telling. Moral crusaders are House, the Iowa Senate, and the Oregon est income tax among its four neighboring especially vulnerable to confrmation bias, House and Senate. Tere are no likely pick- states. Soon it will match the rate in Texas Tthe tendency to be insufciently rigorous ups for the Dems in state legislative bodies. and Florida: zero. about testing information that bolsters one’s pre- All that good news aside, forward-think- Kansas is the model for a dozen other conceptions. Kristof fancies himself a champion ing conservatives would be well advised states firting with phasing out their in- of social justice, and especially of the interests of to consider how their opponents see the come taxes. Tying future rate reductions to women. Te latter preoccupation has led even chessboard. Nationwide resources are incoming revenue from growth is the per- feminists to mock him as a “white knight.” fowing into two unlikely governors’ races fect strategy. No huge tax cuts are called for No doubt Kristof means well. And some of in Kansas and Wisconsin. in any given year. Democrats had always his reporting is surely solid. But with a reputa- Why those two states? Kansas has an seen revenue from growth to be their own tion like his for errors, one would have to be as overwhelmingly Republican state legisla- personal piggy bank. Now growth is the credulous as Kristof himself to take anything he taxpayer’s friend. Already North Carolina writes without a grain of salt. In the end, a cyn- Grover G. Norquist is president of Ameri- is heading in this direction. Te top tax ic is a more honest man than a sincere naïf. cans for Tax Reform. rate has been reduced from 7.75 percent to

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 49 5.8 percent. As in Kansas, the rates will continue to fall automatically to 3 percent as revenues increase over time. Next year Phil Berger, president pro tem of the state senate, plans to pass a law putting North Carolina on the road to zero personal and zero corporate income taxes. South Dakota, Nebraska, Arizona, Oklaho- ma, and Louisiana have all shown signs of wanting to head this way, too. Hence the attacks on Gov- ernor Brownback. His opponents know that it will work, and they fear that governors in other states will adopt the same tactic. State Senator Laura Kelly has claimed that Kansas will be short $1 billion over the next four years. But real projections suggest that the state need only reduce spending or presented a template to the twenty-four fallen by millions of dollars. If this were to even reallocate existing tax dollars by a to- states that Republicans control. Act 10 happen in twenty-four red states, organized tal of $315 million over the next few years: abolished tenure for teachers. It made labor and its friends in the Democratic an easy fx. (One often done by previous union membership voluntary and for- Party would lose billions of dollars. Half Democratic administrations, we might bade mandatory withholding of union of all union members work in the public add.) But Kelly and her allies in the lefty dues from workers’ paychecks. Now, if sector. Meanwhile, many in private sec- { media are not bound the union wants its tor unions work in industries Tom Steyer by actuarial reality. $1,000 from a teach- and Barack Obama wish to destroy—or at If Brownback were er earning $50,000 leave move ofshore. defeated it would Wins in Kansas in wages (the stan- slow the drive to add and Wisconsin dard 2 percent of lready things are picking up. a dozen states to the salary), it must ask Louisiana, Florida, Idaho, and Indi- march toward zero will clear the for it. Workers can ana have abolished tenure for pub- income taxes. Tis way for further say, “No, thank Alic school teachers. Michigan and Alabama would reduce the you.” Unions cannot have banned the withholding of union dues. pressure on Illinois, victories in doz- negotiate on pen- But in Pennsylvania and Florida, GOP ma- California, and New sions or benefts or jorities in the House and Senate have balked York to reform their ens of states workplace rules: just at following suit. Some are terrifed of union own spending so as to and cities. wages. And wages bosses; others feel beholden to them. compete with low or can only be negoti- When Walker and his legislature are no-income tax states. ated up to the rate of re-elected this fall, now for the third { infation. Anything time, it will be a powerful signal that it is cott walker has long had a target higher must be approved by a referendum safe to go the full monty against the abuse stapled to his back for the same rea- of the people in the afected town, city, or of government workers at the hands of Sson. His decision to reform public school district. unions. In Wisconsin, even liberal Dem- sector unions hurts progressives where it Every year each union must “recertify”— ocratic mayors have all taken advantage counts (which is to say, in the pocket book) meaning its members must vote to contin- of their newfound fexibility under Act 10 and frees up state and local ofcials to spend ue the union. If a majority of the union’s and reformed their own governments. money more efciently. members (not a majority of the votes) do Wins in Kansas and Wisconsin will clear States control the unionization rules for not cast “yes” ballots, then the union disap- the way for further victories in dozens of all non-federal public sector employees. pears. Tis is a signifcant hurdle, since most states and cities liberated from union control. Te National Labor Relations Board— unions today are flled with people who So the Democrats are very smart to be whose members at this point have all been never once voted to put a union in place. fghting. If they win, they buy precious appointed by Obama—writes the rules It is estimated that over 100,000 pub- time, perhaps allowing the courts to for private sector unions. When Walker lic-sector workers in Wisconsin have cho- change the rules. To lose in November is signed Wisconsin’s Act 10 in 2011, he sen to leave a union. Union dues have their doom. Sandridge/Flickr Reed Photo:

50 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 ben stein’s DIARY dle East that guarantees full religious rights to every minority—Yazidi, Chaldean Chris- tian, Assyrians, Catholics, the Presbyterians, Muslims—is Israel. And yet Mr. Obama sees moral equivalence between Israel and the Islamists. Amazing. (Meanwhile again, my Word Perfect does not know the word “Nazarene”!!!!) by BENJAMIN J. STEIN So, I keep thinking back to my old boss at the Wall Street Journal, Bob Bartley. I was a lowly scrivener on the edit page, writing mostly about popular culture. Bob was editor of the editorial page. By total chance, In the Time We Have Lef he lived very near me in Brooklyn Heights. Once in a great while, we would take the subway to work together. One day, when some crisis between Ger- Tuesday ald Ford and Israel about arms for Israel was his cannot be happen- homes, marked with an “N” for “Nazarene.” brewing, and Ford was being led into bad ing. Just can’t be. I am in Good God, we are all busy with our work, behavior by some anti-Israel people around my condo at the Shoreham with our golf, with our investments, with our him, I asked Bob what he thought about it. Towers getting my toe- kids. But please dear God, move the heart of Once again paraphrasing, what Bob Bart- nails cut by my manicurist, Mr. Obama to save these children. To save ley said was this. “Te United States has to Mickey, a beautiful but not their mothers and fathers and sisters. help the Jews in Israel. Yes, there are a lot young woman. I am too old Can this kind of barbarity really be hap- more Arabs than Jews. Yes, they have a lot and my eyesight is too poor to really see my pening in this world? It can be and it is and of oil. Yes, none of our European ‘allies’ are Ttoenails well enough to clip them. Mr. Obama is playing golf. On Martha’s with us on this. I switched on my TV, to Fox News. Tere Vineyard. “But we still have to help Israel because are two people talking about the most grue- And that dear woman is totally right. What it tells the world and it tells us what kind some genocidal massacres I have ever heard do we have our military for if not to prevent a of people we are. Are we going to help the of or at least in a long, long time. genocide like this or anywhere else? most persecuted people in history, who are ISIS, the wildly insanely cruel, fanatical Meanwhile, I am going to shock you right also our friends, or are we going to just go radical Islamist group that has seized large now. RIGHT NOW. by the numbers at the UN? We stand with parts of Syria and Iraq, is apparently killing I am proud of HRC. She gave a speech Israel because it’s a moral matter.” as many Assyrian Christians and Chaldean recently and took questions. What she said I can still recall walking out of the subway Christians as it can get its hands on. It is was like a fash of God’s truth. She was stop under the World Trade Center with killing young boys by cutting their heads of asked if the riots and demonstrations in Bob, my head reeling at the great man’s slowly with a pen knife. It is raping young Europe about Israel’s bombing of the Gaza great moral sense. I miss him keenly every women, then selling them into slavery. Strip had its roots in anti-Semitism. Basi- day. But the edit page at the Journal still Tere were representatives of the Chal- cally, paraphrasing again, she said, “Look, consistently takes the moral high road and dean and Assyrian Christians on TV, on the demonstrations about Israel, which is God bless them. Fox, speaking with extreme emotion. Tey just trying to protect its life, have been ex- Anyway, it is incredible that someone with were asking where President Obama is. Te ponentially larger and more ugly than any as little moral sense as Obama is president. host, Hannity, told the truth. Mr. Obama demonstrations at all about the shoot down Hannity also showed him campaigning on is playing golf on Martha’s Vineyard. Yes, of the Malaysian Airlines jet with the loss taking the last U.S. troops out of Iraq—and while the Christians of the Middle East are of 300 innocent people by the pro-Russian then just recently blaming George W. Bush getting tortured to death, the President is separatists of Ukraine, armed by Russia. Of for ending U.S. involvement in Iraq. playing golf, admittedly a difcult game. course it’s Arab anti-Jewish feelings—and How long, I wonder, until Mr. Obama Te woman speaking for the Assyrian Arabs are a large part of Europe now—com- becomes a big enough man to admit his Christians said boldly, “We have an Army. bined with ultra-right parties in Europe. So, mistakes and stop blaming George Bush for We have Marines. We have the Navy. What of course it’s anti-Semitism.” everything that happens? are they for if not to prevent horrors like WHY THE HECK COULDN’T By the way, I miss Mr. Bush. He was not this?” (I am paraphrasing.) OBAMA HAVE SAID SOMETHING especially eloquent, but he had a strong Tis horror show, worse than a horror THAT HONEST AND HARD HIT- moral sense. And as my pal Renae Garcia movie, gets more gruesome. After the young TING? Why can’t our Republicans? I guess says, it’s wrong to blame him for Iraq when boys are killed, their heads are put on wires Senator Graham, my hero, does, and so everyone in the country wanted to go to and displayed outside what were Christian does the greatest guy in the Senate, John war with someone over 9/11. Yes, he made McCain. But what is Rand Paul going to a huge mistake. But war fever was running Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and say about it? He scares me. high so it’s not really entirely his fault. Pres- lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu. Meanwhile, the only nation in the Mid- idents can catch war fever, too.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 51 Thursday conservative TASTES his has been an amazing day. Yester- day, I had a so-called PET scan from a Tmachine made by GE. Tis was because an earlier test by a CAT scan machine had detected something in my lungs that was abnormal. Te PET scan was to determine if that abnormality was something life threatening. I can tell you I was scared. Tere is way too by JAMES BOWMAN much cancer in my family and I have already had some experience with a very mild form of it. “Tree score and ten are the days of a man’s life.…” Tat’s what kept going through my brain. I am almost there. I have a lot of fling Tere’s No Breaking Away to do before I die. I don’t want to leave my wife with all of this fling. So, as I say, I was scared. I did my usual Fox News show this morning with the incredibly witty Neil Cavuto as host and the perennial his year for the eighth movies, the look inward also tends to involve a witty crew. But I was nervous throughout. summer in succession I look backward. Sometimes this portrait of the On my way home, I called my doctor. presented—along with free American past is only allusive, as in the two “How are you, Bill?” I asked. pizza—a collection of old flms already mentioned, and sometimes it is “I’m good,” he said, “and so are you. Noth- movies on a theme. Te more direct, as in the other four flms in the ing lit up so there is no cancer in your lungs.” theme of this year’s series, series, all of them set in the past. Tree of the I think that might have been the happiest jointly sponsored by the four—King’s Row and Te Magnifcent Am- minute of my life. Ethics and Public Policy Center, where I am bersons (1942 both), and On Moonlight Bay I like my life a lot. I have the world’s great- Ta resident scholar, and the Hudson Institute (1951)—take as their temporal locus the pe- est wife. A genuine angel of God. Te sweet- in Washington, where the flms were shown, riod around the turn of the last century up to est, most beautiful dog on the planet, Julie was “Middle America and the Movies.” Tere America’s entry into World War I in 1917. On Good Girl. My challenging but adorable were six selections, all of them having some- Moonlight Bay ends with the hero, William son. My stone gorgeous daughter-in-law thing to do with the Midwest as seen from Sherman (Gordon MacRae) on the point of and our granddaughter, the adorable Coco. Hollywood and, therefore, as in some sense going of to war, but with no slightest hint on Plus I live in America and I have interesting representative of the country as a whole in a the part of the flmmakers—Roy Del Ruth work and a swimming pool and a Cobalt way that Hollywood itself never quite man- directed this adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s boat. Plus I have the world’s greatest sister. aged to be—though it used to come a whole “Penrod” stories by Jack Rose and Melville And I have Phil DeMuth. Plus, I have my lot closer than it does today. Four of the six Shavelson—that he might not come back 12-step program that I love beyond words. movies were set, wholly or partly, in Indiana, to his Indiana home in the same mental and And Wlady and Bob and John and Aram which I take to be the movie capital’s Platonic physical condition as when he left it. and Becki and Jerry and Nancy and Mike ideal of a Midwestern state, and which was as In that picture, as in Remember the Night, and Tim and Penny and Barron and Steve. well the original home of Te American Spec- which was written by the great Preston Sturg- So, I’m a happy guy. tator. In fact, Steve Tesich, the Oscar-winning es and directed by Mitchell Leisen, the early I had lunch with Phil at a humble car screenwriter of Breaking Away (1979), the f- years of the twentieth century are seen as a wash burger joint. Ten I was part of a nal movie in the series, was a fraternity broth- time when America was at her best, and when group that interviewed young people about er and roommate of the Spectator’s own R. there must have seemed a general agreement their fnancial plans and how they plan to Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., at Indiana University in that the best of America was the Midwest. By provide for retirement. I am doing this on Bloomington, where the flm was set. contrast, King’s Row and Orson Welles’s Te my own. No one has paid me to do it. But I Breaking Away, directed by Peter Yates, Magnifcent Ambersons, also an adaptation am fascinated with the ultra-importance of along with the frst of this year’s flms, the from Booth Tarkington, show the progressive savings. I don’t want to miss an opportunity less well known Remember the Night (1940), impulse looking back on the same period, al- to spread the good gospel of prudence in re- may also give us the best clue as to what it is though not without afection, as more a time tirement planning. that the movies fnd evocative or signifcant of innocence, not to say naiveté, with little to Te best advice I ever got about it was about the Midwest and its distinctive brand of ofer the present but a lesson in the advisabili- from Ray Lucia—diversifcation plus a lot Americana and Americanism. For in all these ty of submission to the onward thrust of mor- of liquidity. Makes total sense. Maybe even al and material progress. Te backward look better advice from Mr. Bufett: an idiot with James Bowman, our movie and culture crit- in the fnal two flms in the series, Terrence a plan can beat a genius without a plan. ic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Malick’s Badlands (1973) and Breaking Away, Hmmm. What the heck is my plan? Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A is toward the much more recent past of the For today, to be on my knees with gratitude. History and Media Madness: Te Corrup- 1950s, though Badlands, like the other flms Tank you, GE, for that machine that took such tion of Our Political Culture, both published Mr. Malick has made since—notably Te New a weight of my mind. THANK YOU, GOD. by Encounter Books. World and Te Tree of Life—also has its eye on

52 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 an imaginary or mythical past of unspoiled the animal level achieved by its two morally the illnesses of mind and spirit which seem to purity before the shackles of society and civ- unschooled heroes, played by Martin Sheen afict so many more of us than they did sev- ilization were placed on us. And by “us,” of and Sissy Spacek. Te movie achieves a kind enty years ago. course, I mean those of us who allow ourselves of emotional quiescence by reassuring us not Yet in a pop cultural environment more be fattered into joining him and other fash- only that Mr. Sheen’s serial killer, Kip, simply riddled with fantasy than it has ever been, ionably lonely survivors, in imagination, after doesn’t know any better but that it is pointless there is something that looks reassuringly civilization’s disappearance. It describes a time to expect him or his kind to know any better. real about the Indiana of Remember the Night when what there is of humankind is supposed Te fantasy of innocence here is also a fan- and Breaking Away. Both dare to suggest that to have lived in harmony with nature and tasy of exemption from moral responsibility, American civilization is not the malign and away from the corrupting infuence of, you which is swallowed up along with the former corrupting thing it is to Mr. Malick, nor yet know, people. Te idea of the unspoiled fron- American civilization in the vast, indifer- the unlovely commercial-industrial expres- tier, whose potency throughout the history of ent prairie that is the movie’s central image. sion of ambition and greed that it mostly the movies to that point had always had to do Yet it must be admitted that Badlands has appears to be in Te Magnifcent Ambersons with its being seen as past and settled, took on proved a better predictor of the future than or the pullulating mass of neuroses of King’s a new lease of life with Terrence Malick, as it King’s Row—at least to the extent that the Row. Instead it is prefgured in the loving did with the hippies at about the same period, future, now present, is refracted through the families that are at the center of both movies when it was re-imagined as a freer alternative to the disappointing American present for those willing to simplify their lives. Innocence is also a central theme of Break- ing Away, but there it is a more down-to-earth sort of innocence presented to us without that distinctively American longing for those imagined wide open and empty spaces. One of the main characters, it’s true, fantasizes about sleeping under the stars in Wyoming, but this remains as much a fantasy as the hero’s afectation of an Italian accent and culture. In- nocence is ignorance in this movie, not a sentimental romantic fantasy but something that must end with the youth that an old world realism tells us must and should be lost before we can take up our natural and inevitable position in an inevitable community and economy. Steve (birth name Stojan) Tesich, now alas deceased, was a Serb, a refugee from the former Yugoslavia, who always had a refugee’s love for and gratitude toward this country, as well as a critical perspective on it quite unlike that of Terrence Malick and other progressives of the 1970s who believed in the fantasy of extended innocence of the hippy philosophers, and that our transplanted European civilization had only destroyed some better thing that it had displaced. Mr. Malick’s independent flm Badlands media’s lens. Kip, who was based on a much and that are still, for most of us, our frst and and King’s Row by Sam Wood, a typical prod- less photogenic—and much, much less sym- best lessons in how to get along with others uct of the studio system, are both manifes- pathetic—serial killer from Nebraska named and the importance of taking responsibility tations of a kind of innocence-ignorance on Charlie Starkweather, is the prototype of all for our actions. Tat is made explicit in one of the part of the flmmakers that answers the the fame-hungry moral retards whose enthu- the fnal scenes of Remember the Night in the more common kind they both portray, and siastically reported rampages from Columbine words of Barbara Stanwyck’s character, who which keeps me from being as hard on them to Sandy Hook have made Middle America a gets her lesson in love comparatively late in as they no doubt deserve. Te diference is by-word for crazy killers to much of the rest of life: “When you make a mistake, you have to , 1940 , that King’s Row, starring Ronald Reagan in the world. Tey, like Kip all those years ago, pay for it; otherwise you never learn.” What a his greatest screen role, is innocently hopeful have been schooled in moral ignorance by concept! And yet once a people who thought about the power of science and enlightenment our wonderful celebrity culture. Meanwhile of themselves as free took it for granted as to bring human life on earth nearer to per- psychiatrists, like the early prototype of one the foundation of their free society. If Holly- fection, while Badlands strikes one—it strikes played by Robert Cummings in King’s Row, wood and the media have forgotten that, it is Remember the Night me, at any rate—as close to despair about are now mostly pill-prescribers and seemingly still possible to believe that there are those in

Photo: human possibility as anything much above further away than ever from being able to cure Middle America who haven’t.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 53 arts & LETTERS

A Lady With the Spark of Wit

indeed sparkling. that “the transcendent function of the nose is Te Informed Air: Essays Tere isn’t a bor- to proclaim humankind.” She cites Genesis By Muriel Spark ing sentence in the on man, which tells us that God “breathed (New Directions, 352 pages, $24.95) whole book. into his nostrils the breath of life.” Hence, as Te Informed Air Spark puts it, “Te frst thing that happened Reviewed by Lydia Sherwood is divided into four to Adam happened to his nose.” Perhaps the parts: “Life,” “Lit- most amusing bit is Spark’s observation that erature,” “Miscel- all of Botticelli’s nymphs and goddesses have ow do you do it?” asked Evelyn lany,” and “Faith.” pink-tipped noses: Waugh in a letter to Muriel Spark. Jardine clearly had HHe had just fnished reading Te a bit of fun decid- He understood that they exist, by nature, in an Bachelors, her ffth novel, and was “dazzled” ing which pieces element so purifed and perfect that when they by it. “Most novelists fnd there is one kind of go where. Spark’s came into a natural framework they would fnd book they can write (particularly humorous retrospective essay on Gone With the Wind the atmosphere odd. Giving them form, in their novelists) and go on doing it with variations is placed in “Miscellany” rather than “Liter- immortal poses, he gave them a human reaction until death. You seem to have an inexhaust- ature,” though in this case the decision seems to change of climate, a cold. ible source.” justifed given Spark’s assessment of the nov- How did Spark do it? Twenty-two novel: “To evaluate a mammoth labor like Gone What more can I say? Spark has me totally els and not a dud in the bunch. And then with the Wind, whether it is a good book or convinced. there are the critical biographies, plays for a bad book, seems irrelevant. Of course it is stage and radio, a children’s book, a volume bad art. But you cannot say fairer than that ardine notes in her preface that bi- of memoir, and collections of short stories it is, like our Albert Memorial, impressive.” ographers have failed to capture Spark’s and poetry. Spark, known for her wit, dark Even more amusingly, Spark’s essay on cats, J“brave and generous spirit…the optimism humor, and versatility, was the queen bee of “Ailourophilia,” has been fled under “Faith” and joy of her personality.” I’m not sure that I the postmodernists, and arguably one of the rather than “Miscellany,” which is also, in its agree: Martin Stannard’s biography is favor- most innovative British novelists writing in way, ftting. “If I were not a Christian,” the able and touches on all these characteristics. the second half of the twentieth century. essay begins, “I would worship the cat.” But But the pieces collected here under “Life” do It’s about time that Spark’s nonfction was the piece isn’t all metaphysics: “Whereas the show us Spark at her most jovial. In “Te Ce- collected. She died eight years ago; it has bourgeois dog needs a kennel or a freside in lestial Garden Party” Spark writes about her been a decade since her last novel, Te Finish- order to be a somebody, even the sleek alley mother’s compulsion to buy wide-brimmed ing School, was published. Te Informed Air cat retains the incomprehensible importance decorated hats perfect for the gatherings that has been edited by Spark’s literary executor, of its catness.” she never ended up attending. At the time best friend, and late-life companion Penelo- Spark could always make the humdrum her mother was buying these hats, Spark was pe Jardine, who has written a preface won- wildly interesting. My favorite piece in this learning about Plato at school. “I formed derfully tender toward Spark. Like nearly all collection is “Eyes and Noses.” An editor at the opinion that my mother’s hats were de- her books, Te Informed Air is a slim beast. the Observer asked her to write an essay about signed for an ideal Garden Party which took Here pictures get their own pages; often there eyes, but Spark, in her typical mischievous place somewhere in the sky.” Fast-forward to are blank pages between pieces; and several way, forwent the eyes-window-soul cliché Spark’s later life and she has couture dress- of the works collected are no longer than and decided to write about noses instead. es in her closet that “beautifully hang there 200 words. Still, everything here is excellent, “Te more I thought about eyes,” she tells us, for some useless celestial occasion.” It is a fun “the less I had to say about them, and the read, light and exuberantly feminine, but it Lydia Sherwood is a librarian in Virginia. more I ponder noses.” She goes on to argue has almost nothing to do with Spark’s life. A

54 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 few experienc- the essay “My that sin necessitates sufering. Tose interest- es serve as the Conversion,” ed in this topic will fnd writing collected in springboard, often quot- Te Informed Air, including the introduction but the essay is ed by scholars to Te Only Problem, well worth reading. really a playing when discussing For those who have only read her fction, out of Spark’s Spark’s religion, the essays on Mary Shelley or the Brontës complicated was not written serve as wonderful introductions to Spark’s but whimsical by her, but about critical work. Like her novels, Spark’s crit- metaphysics. her by a priest to icism is smart and complex. Her greatest Te same sort whom she gave achievement was her biography of Mary of thing hap- an interview. We Shelley. Child of Light: A Reassessment of pens in “What know that Car- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (later revised as Images Return,” dinal Newman Mary Shelley: A Biography) argues that the an essay written was the catalyst author of Frankenstein possessed intellectu- about the days for Spark’s con- al and literary sympathies independent of surrounding her version and that those of her famous husband and her par- father’s death. she was not ter- ents. Of chief interest among the pieces col- Te essay is not ribly orthodox, lected here is Spark’s proposal for the biog- about her father, instinctively raphy, which reminds us what an excellent her family, her feeling the par- businesswoman she was. estrangement ticulars of the Drawing attention to Spark’s critical from them in faith to be fex- achievements will dampen the popular mis- middle age. In- ible. I always conception that her literary career began at stead we see think of Vatican age thirty-nine with Te Comforters; she Spark looking II as tumultu- was of course busy doing brilliant things out the window of an Edinburgh hotel, re- ous, but the chaos it brought was masked with long before then. Besides, Spark never fecting on the birth of her aesthetic con- a respectability that probably suited Spark’s considered herself a novelist. Tis bizarre sciousness. She focuses her attention on the personality. It is a pity that she failed to write insistence is a theme sprinkled through- prehistoric Castle Rock that stands tall be- about the most complex facet of her complex out speeches, introductions to books, and tween the old and new sections of the city. “I personality, but I suspect her religious experi- pieces published in the New Yorker and the imbibed, through no particular mentor, but ence was too mystical for even her talent. Te Daily Telegraph. “I thought in many ways by breathing the informed air of the place, closest we can get to understanding her faith that novels were a lazy way of writing po- its haughty and remote anarchism.” When is to look at the religious topics that interested etry, and above all I didn’t want to become the call comes that her father has died, Spark her most. a ‘lady novelist’ with all the slop and sen- looks out the window to see “that the rock She was obsessed with the Book of Job. At timentalism.” She saw herself as primarily and its castle loomed as usual in the early one time she planned to write a critical study an artist and secondly a poet claiming “a

light. I noticed this, as if one might have ex- of it. She spent almost a { poetic perception, a pected otherwise.” year on the project, but poet’s way of looking In the pieces that touch on her life there is eventually put it aside at the world, a synop- a certain joy at work, an electric energy; but in order to “get on “If I were not tic vision.” there is also an air of artifciality, an obvious with my life.” Tough It is always temp- distance between Spark and her raw material. the study never materi- a Christian,” ing to fnish a review In her fction this element seems to give her alized, Job was a recur- of a book published books their clever edge, but in what should ring presence, one who Spark’s essay posthumously with be autobiography, it makes her seem cold. seeped into her fction, Ailourophilia speculation about Ten again, Spark herself made it clear that too: her frst novel, Te its author’s reputa- she disliked writing about the past. In anoth- Comforters, gets its title begins, “I would tion. Personally, I’m er piece collected here, “Te Writing Life,” from the friends of Job worship nervous in the case she admits that “I fnd it difcult to re-read who try to convince of Muriel Spark. the novels and abundant stories I have writ- him that his sufering the cat.” I’m sure she won’t ten in the many years since then.” is a product of sin; in be embraced by the her seventeenth, Te academy. Her work { he smallest section in this collection is Only Problem (which is seriously lacking in actually “Miscellany,” but “Faith” seems is sufering, of course), the protagonist is trendy liberal moralism and the tedious se- Tthe slimmest, pufed up as it is with es- obsessed with studying the book. Questions riousness favored on undergraduate sylla- says on cats, cannibalism, and Guy Fawkes (all about sufering—why we sufer and, espe- buses. Really I am sure of only two things: wonderful, but not quite faith-related). Spark cially, why so many of us are fascinated by that those who do read Spark will be just wrote almost nothing about her conversion to sufering—is a theme running through all as dazzled by her as Waugh was, and that Catholicism, or her religious experience there- Spark’s work. Like Job, Spark was not con- Te Informed Air is a nice addition to my

Photo: Franz Marc/Wikimedia Commons Marc/Wikimedia Franz Photo: after. Jardine reminds us in her preface that vinced that sufering is the product of sin or shelves.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 55 Mini-Me to the Man Who Would Not Die

Te Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority By Patrick J. Buchanan (Crown Forum, 392 pages, $28)

Reviewed by Aram Bakshian, Jr.

o begin at the beginning, I happen to believe that Pat Buchanan is one of Tthe ablest, most eloquent political writers alive today. If his take-no-prisoners style and love of the mischievous quip occasionally cause him to charge a bridge too far, it never diminishes his mastery of the language. Agree with him or dis- seeing production of the daily press digest, had smugly—and a bit prematurely— agree with him—and I tend to producing policy memos for the president’s declared Nixon dead: “Barring a miracle agree with him more often than eyes alone, and something more. his political career ended last week,” they not—Pat is always a delight to If not quite a political surrogate for the wrote in their November 16, 1962 issue. read. Even a critic reviewing son Richard Nixon never had, Pat was one of Pat’s earlier books for the certainly the chief’s Mini-Me, the aide he miracle duly occurred, thanks Washington Post conceded that whose gut beliefs and political instincts mostly to Nixon’s incredible ability “Buchanan is a muscular writer, most closely matched Nixon’s own. I don’t Tto pick himself up of the foor, dust fully in command of the English think there was anyone else on the White himself of, and fgure out how to get it language…adept at linking his- House staf with whom Nixon was quite right the next time. Get it right he did, in tory, statistics, and the writings as comfortable. Even when he had already 1964 and 1966 as a party unifer and tire- of philosophers and economists decided to steer a diferent course for rea- less campaigner for hundreds of GOP can- to profer forceful arguments,” while a review- sons of Realpolitik, { didates. Ten he went er for the Philadelphia Inquirer would praise Nixon relished Pat’s on to craft and con- him as “an honest writer who opens his mind forceful, forthright tinuously fne-tune a and psyche in a way few people can….He polemics, which prob- If not quite a polit- campaign for the pres- minces nothing except an occasional oppo- ably represented what idential nomination nent.” What the eighteenth-century poet and Nixon really believed ical surrogate for and the White House playwright Oliver Goldsmith said of that ram- and would have liked itself. Pat Buchanan bunctious old Tory Dr. Samuel Johnson could to do if only he dared: the son Richard was there from the equally be applied to Pat: “Tere is no arguing for example, Pat’s sug- Nixon never had, start, seeing it all and with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fre, he gestion that he make shaping a lot of it him- knocks you down with the butt end of it.” a bonfre of the Oval Pat Buchanan self. In Te Greatest But before reviewing Pat Buchanan’s latest, Ofce tapes. was certainly the Comeback he provides and in many ways most interesting, book, a An added reason for the reader with a fun- bit of up-front disclosure is in order. From the Nixon-Buchanan chief’s Mini-Me. ny, moving, incisive 1972 until Richard Nixon’s resignation four afnity was the fact account of history as

decades ago, Pat and I were next-door neigh- that, while there were { it happened. As such, bors, occupying adjoining suites in the Old a few old Washington his book will make Executive Ofce Building, I as one of the and California hands who had known fascinating reading not only for Nixon lov- president’s full-time speechwriters and Pat as Nixon from his earliest political days, Pat ers and haters old enough to remember the a sort of speechwriter emeritus, still lending was one of a handful of bright, energetic, events covered, but for future historians in his hand on major addresses, but also over- and dedicated men and women, most of search of an informed, intimate account of them fairly young at the time, who were one of the greatest political resurrections of Aram Bakshian, Jr. served as an aide to at the heart of Richard Nixon’s incredi- all time. Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan. His writ- ble political resurrection after he had lost At its very heart is a portrait of the Rich- ing on politics, history, gastronomy, and the both the 1960 presidential election and ard Nixon few others knew and understood arts has been widely published in America and the California gubernatorial race two as well as Pat Buchanan did. Besides bring- overseas and he is a contributing editor to Te years later. After the latter humiliating ing Nixon alive in all his contradictions in National Interest magazine. defeat, the anonymous pundits at Time the narrative, Pat also includes a fascinating Photo: Ollie Atkins/Wikimedia Commons Atkins/Wikimedia Ollie Photo:

56 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 appendix of notes and memos he sent to on his style—especially the red-state identity Nixon along with RN’s handwritten edits Reading the he shared with Bachmann and Sarah Palin— and responses, a real glimpse into the in- than his policies. Tere was a certain amount teraction of two very sharp, highly attuned Reformist Manifesto of warmed-over compassionate conservatism political minds. and not much rethinking of the Bush-era over- Tis past August, which marked the Room to Grow: Conservative Reforms spending and foreign-policy Wil- fortieth anniversary of the Nixon resig- For a Limited Government and a sonianism—two areas that cried nation, I was asked to do a short remi- Triving Middle Class out for true conservative reform. niscence for the website of the National By Peter Wehener, Yuval Levin, et al. All that said, Room to Grow, Interest on the end of the saga that began (YG Network, 121 pages, Free) a free collection of essays about with the events described in Te Greatest reform conservatism hailed as Comeback. I mentioned that I had had By W. James Antle III the movement’s manifesto, suf- the privilege of working closely with three fers from few of these defects. It presidents: Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, and is a smart introduction to some that I had come to like and admire each of onservatism, properly understood, reformist ideas mostly centered them in diferent ways. requires a healthy respect for the past on the following insight: conser- Each one had entered ofce at a time Cas well as a clear-eyed appraisal of the vative economic policy has be- of crisis, each one had to tackle massive present. So on paper, reform conservatism— come sharply divorced from the inherited problems, and each one had billed by proponents as a movement to fnd actual fnancial anxieties experi- made a substantial contribution against new ways to apply conservative principles to enced by the middle class; but that conserva- heavy odds. But Richard Nixon was the contemporary problems—should appeal. tives need not morph into low-budget liberals most fascinating and complex of the Many conservatives, however, fnd reform in order to appeal to voters in Ohio. three, a man who rose from the political conservatism elitist, if they think of it at all. Yuval Levin, founding editor of National dead more than once and lived to attain In the movement’s earliest iterations shortly Afairs and one of the intellectuals who spear- hard-earned standing as an elder states- after Barack Obama was elected president, it headed this project, deserves a lot of credit man after being driven from ofce in dis- seemed to be pitched as a self-conscious alter- for helping to make reform conservatism grace. Nothing came easily to him. Tere native to the kind of conservatism embodied congenial to the Tea Party. He acknowledg- were no inherited privileges, none of the by the Tea Party. es the importance of constitutionally limited superfcial charisma that often covers a Tese reform conservatives were seen as an government and the right’s reticence to mere- multitude of sins, and no loyal cadre of ivory tower phenom- { ly tinker with the levi- establishment cheerleaders to rally public enon rather than a athan. He is especially opinion. But it was Richard Nixon and grassroots one. While thoughtful when writ- many of the team members he assem- they were supposed There is zero ing about the left’s use bled—Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, to be re-creating the of the welfare state to and Patrick Moynihan to name only three, winning formula pi- evidence that “liberate” us from real plus scores of less well-known policy ex- oneered by Ronald family and communal perts and skilled specialists—who would Reagan and the old working people ties, so we may all live lend intellectual strength and depth to domestic-policy neo- whose tax liabil- the Life of Julia. domestic and foreign policy for the rest of conservatives, instead Ramesh Ponnuru of the twentieth century and beyond. the kind of people who ities have been National Review also And then there were the millions of wrote at David Frum’s wiped out by contributes a solid essay blue-collar, independent, and Democrat- Frum Forum website on constitutionalism ic voters who, for the frst time, cast their mostly sounded like Republican tax to Room to Grow. Te ballots for a Republican president, hesitant- they were pining for policy vote for takeaway is that the ly in 1968 and overwhelmingly in 1972. the way Republicans Constitution is too im- Tey and their descendants returned to used to lose elections big government. portant to be left just to the Republican fold again in 1980 to make before Reagan—deci- judges. Popularly elect- the Reagan Revolution possible, just as sively, but civilly and ed ofcials must also the “lasting structure for peace” crafted by moderately. { make judgments about Richard Nixon made the historic collapse If the Tea Party was a little too Michele the constitutionality of laws and programs, of communism achievable without global Bachmann for some people’s tastes, reform defending the document from unconstitu- confagration. conservatism was Jon Huntsman all the tional encroachments. “Not all that bad,” I concluded, “for what way—without Huntsman’s most attractive Both of these points are important to res- most historians continue to dismiss as a feature, his critique (however restrained) of cue reform conservatism from the charge that ‘failed’ presidency.” One hopes that, even George W. Bush’s foreign policy. it is simply interested in replacing Democratic now, Pat Buchanan is at work on a successor In fact, what criticism of Bush existed in technocrats with Republican ones. A smaller volume, ofering his unique insider’s view of early reform conservatism concentrated more federal government that is more obedient to the triumphant and tragic events that fol- the Constitution and a more robust civil soci- lowed Te Greatest Comeback. No one could W. James Antle III is editor of the Daily ety are the main goals. tell that story better. Caller News Foundation. Someone who helped make this point is

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 57 Senator Mike Lee of Utah. Lee isn’t a Room percent” fxation. Is it wise to further decrease Pace Romney, there is zero evidence that to Grow author, but he is quoted in the collec- the share of Americans who pay income taxes, working people whose tax liabilities have tion and he is the member of Congress most which expanding the credit would do? been wiped out by Republican tax policy— likely to act on its policy recommendations. Stein ably rebuts most of these objections. including the Reagan, Gingrich, and Bush A dedicated constitutional conservative and Te truth is that cutting the current 39.6 tax cuts—vote for big government. Tere is major Tea Party fgure, Lee has proposed lim- percent tax rate would have signifcantly a lot of evidence, however, that married par- ited-government solutions to everything from smaller supply-side efects than did cutting ents of children vote Republican. And who college costs to family fex time. the 70 percent rate Reagan found when he believes it is more conservative or libertarian Lee is no Bush-league compassionate conser- took ofce in 1981. We’ve seen this in prac- to spend money on the government than on vative. He teamed with Ted Cruz in last year’s tice. Compare the clear-cut growth and the supporting your own kin? attempt to defund Obamacare and he has favorable shift in incentives to work, save, Similarly, James Capretta makes valuable joined forces with Rand Paul on civil liberties. and invest caused by the Reagan tax cuts to points in his chapter on health care, where ris- He was elected by unseating a Republican in- the more ambiguous results following sub- ing costs have gobbled up growth in cash wag- cumbent who voted for the Wall Street bailout. sequent fuctuations in the top rate. es for much of the middle class. By allowing Te son of a Reagan solicitor general, Lee has It is difcult to meaningfully cut mid- themselves to be seen as defenders of the pre- written that many federal entitlement programs dle-class taxes in a revenue-neutral way by Obamacare health care status quo—which, are hard to square with Washington’s enumerat- focusing only on marginal rates. Moreover, Capretta reminds us, was no small-govern- ed powers. His interest in reform conservatism such rate cuts would also have little efect ment, free-market wonderland—conserva- could help it reach the grassroots. on the work incentives of someone whose tives have made it easier for liberals to grow Some of the proposals will need his help. income tops out in, say, the 15 percent government. He sketches some helpful, genu- In Room to Grow, Robert Stein makes the bracket. Te end result is that quadrennial inely free-market alternatives. case for cutting taxes for families, chiefy by Republican tax plans are viewed skeptically expanding the child tax credit. Lee has in fact by the middle class and can easily be por- oom to Grow is unfortunately silent on introduced legislation advancing a version of trayed by Democrats as tax cuts for the rich. foreign policy. Te author who has pre- this idea, and you would think that a pro-fam- Te tax code has always recognized the Rviously been most outspoken on the ily tax cut in the classic fusionist sense would burden of supporting dependents. Tis is issue, Peter Wehner, served under Bush and be universally popular among conservatives. not social engineering. Stein merely propos- has never given the impression he thinks his es that the tax code do this more efectively former boss’s approach to world afairs needs ou would think wrong. Many for families with children, while recognizing reform. (Wehner’s chapter is a fne discussion conservatives and libertarians, rightly our entitlement programs’ implicit tax on of conservatism and the middle class.) Yconcerned about cluttering up the tax childrearing. Writes Stein: “Even as the old- Overall, Room to Grow is a decent frst code with credits and carve-outs, view this age pension system collectively depends on step toward a solutions-oriented conserva- as “social engineering.” Others feel that ex- a population of productive young workers, tism that won’t make red-blooded Tea Part- panding credits detracts from the supply-side it diminishes the incentive for adults to raise iers automatically want to tune it out. Tat emphasis on marginal rates and economic them—and so undermines its own sustain- may not sound like a ringing endorsement,

Photo: Terence Burlij/PBS NewsHour/Flickr Burlij/PBS Terence Photo: growth. Finally, there is the Mitt Romney “47 ability.” but it is.

58 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 herents now.” Why Does Language is Prof. McWhorter fogging a dead hy- Shape Tought? pothesis? Te Language Hoax: Why the World Tings become Looks the Same in Any Language even odder as the BY JOHN H. MCWHORTER author reveals him- (OXFORD, 208 PAGES, $19.95) self to us. Whorf’s ideas belonged to Reviewed by John Derbyshire the egalitarian reaction against early anthropological hinese has an extraordinary num- attempts to rank ber of verbs meaning “carry.” If I peoples, and by ex- Ccarry something on a hanging arm, tension their lan- like a briefcase, the verb is ti; on an out- guages, as primitive stretched palm, tuo; using both palms, peng; or sophisticated, less gripped between upper arm and body, xie; developed or more. in my hand, like a stick, wo; embraced, Te keynote for this reaction was struck in For another thing, a school of neo-Whor- like a baby, bao; on my back, bei; on my the 1860s by German anthropologist Adolf fanism has come up, devising psych-lab head, ding; on my shoulder, kang; on a pole Bastian, who coined the phrase “the psychic experiments that show language shaping over my shoulder, tiao; slung on a shoulder unity of mankind.” Bastian’s student Franz thought in tiny ways, under contrived cir- pole between two guys, tai…. Boas carried these ideas to the U.S.A.; Sapir cumstances. Every foreign language learner encounters studied under Boas; Whorf under Sapir. Russian, for example, has diferent words similar curiosities. Te question naturally Of my two propositions above, only B is for “light blue” and “dark blue.” OK: set occurs: Since speakers of diferent languag- compatible with the psychic unity of man- up an experiment where Russians and es carve up the world so diferently when kind. Proposition A suggests innate mental non-Russians have to match of blue squares they speak, do they likewise do so when diferences—kryptonite to egalitarians, al- by shade as fast as they can. It’s been done, they think? Do they conceive of the world though reasonable on evolutionary grounds. with all the cross-controls you can think of. diferently? McWhorter is himself a keen egalitarian. Russians do better. McWhorter accepts the If so, in which direction does the arrow He twice quotes, in scandalized tones, the results, but labors mightily to show that it of causation point? Which of the following defnition of “Apache” from a Whorf-era doesn’t matter. propositions is the case? edition of Webster’s Dictionary: “of warlike What then accounts for all those “carry” A: Conceptions shape language, or disposition and relatively low culture.” I words in Chinese? “Tere is an endless vari- B: Language shapes conceptions. can’t myself see the objection. Ancestors of, ety of life’s nuances that a language may end Proposition B, that language say, Victorian Britons had lived in societies up marking….Which ones they mark is a shapes thought, occurred to very much like the Apaches’. When had an- matter not of what its speakers need or what many people—Nietzsche, for cestors of the Apaches lived like Victorians? its speakers are like, but chance.” instance—but is nowadays as- Again, on page 67: “One might expect Not only does comparative linguistics sociated with the American an- that complex grammar would be more typ- not show up diferences between peoples, it thropologist Benjamin Whorf. ical of “advanced” civilizations.” proves that we are all exactly the same! “If you Whorf died young in 1941, I suppose one might (though there is a want insight as to what makes all humans but his friends publicized and good counter-argument in the book, lucidly worldwide the same, beyond genetics, there popularized his ideas, and presented); but why the scare quotes? are few better places to start than how lan- Whorfanism—most often as Because McWhorter’s egalitarianism is of guage works.” “the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis”: the most fercely extreme kind, that’s why. Leaving aside the profound ignorance of Edward Sapir was Whorf’s Terein lie his issues with Whorfanism, genetics revealed there, this is just obscuran- mentor at Yale—became part and the reason for this book. Whorfanism tist. No need for further research! It’s all just of the common furniture of Western intel- is not egalitarian enough. chance! lectual life in the later twentieth century. For one thing, it is condescending. “To It’s also incoherent. It is true in a trivial In Te Language Hoax John McWhorter, scorn diversity is antithetical to egalitarian- sense that human beings, as members of Professor of Linguistics at Columbia Uni- ism. However, to fetishize it, while perhaps one species, are the same in major structure. versity, pooh-poohs Whorfanism. Tis is seeming progressive, can be equally elitist. So are dogs. Tat doesn’t mean the difer- an odd sort of thing for him to do. Do we feel people as interesting in studied ences aren’t interesting, worth studying, and It’s odd for anyone to do it. Among schol- ways…ultimately because we can’t quite feel biological in origin. ars of linguistics, Whorfanism was out of that they are our equals just in being hu- It’s hard to write a dull book about lin- favor by the 1960s. My 1987 edition of Te man?” guistics, and Te Language Hoax has many Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language says Hoo boy, it’s tough to be a progressive! fun facts about obscure languages. Its overall of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that: “in its You have to respect other people, but not tone, though, is that of a fanatically extreme

strongest form it is unlikely to have any ad- too much. egalitarian protesting too much. Davidson/Flickr Duncan James Photo:

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 59 public NUISANCES ening the American Idea is progressivism. In the second half of his book Ryan writes lucidly about how progressive programs have grown beyond the limits of the sustainable. How with such new programs as Obamacare we are approaching national bankruptcy. Ten Ryan outlines very clearly how these extravagant, mostly unmonitored by R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR. programs can be replaced with sustainable programs. He would repeal Obamacare and replace it with “market-based, patient-centered reforms.” Before Social Security goes Paul Ryan’s Mysterious Way a regimen of strict physical ftness. Even- belly up he would reform it with personal tually he gave up hard liquor, returned to retirement accounts, among other reforms. WASHINGTON the Church, and increasingly threw him- He would reform taxes, return to sound self into what he calls “the battle of ideas,” money, end crony capitalism, and adopt here is a mystery about Congress- frst in college, then in Washington as a regulatory reform. All of this will have to man Paul Ryan’s new and very good junior member of the conservative group, be done eventually because we are going book, Te Way Forward: Renewing the Empower America, headed by Bill Ben- broke. When Barack Obama took ofce the T nett, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick. national debt was $10.6 trillion. Today it is American Dream. Perhaps there are several mysteries. He returned to Janesville in 1998 and ably up to $17 trillion and growing. By 2024 the Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget assisted by a gang of Ryans, plus energetic Congressional Budget Ofce predicts it will Committee and Mitt Romney’s vice presi- others, he deposed his district’s Democrat- total $27 trillion. You could expropriate the dential running mate, begins by writing at ic representative to the House of Represen- wealth of the top 1 percent and you would length about the place he has lived all his tatives. Congressman Ryan was now ready still not cover our debt. What is more, the life, Janesville, a town of 60,000 in south- to devote himself to public policy, a thing debt would continue to accumulate. ern Wisconsin. It is rural, but it also has he loves almost as much as deer hunting. In a word, progressivism is moribund and industry. Moreover it has Ryans. Sixty-sev- Hence the second part of this well-written it needs to be replaced. Ryan’s book con- en of his cousins live nearby. Te Ryans and well-paced book, “Where We Go From tains the blue print to save the American have lived there for generations along with Here,” in which he makes his famous apol- Idea. Still, it is a mysterious book. In the other Catholics, Protestants, and presum- ogy. In the 2012 campaign, fetched by the memoir section of his book he adumbrates ably citizens utterly { report that 60 percent a rising young man with near perfect char- oblivious to religion’s of the American peo- acter. In the policy section of his book he call. But the point is ple took some form lays out very compelling programs for get- that most of the citi- Progressivism of government subsi- ting America out of its present drear. Did zens of Janesville are dy, he began talking Ryan intend to give us his credentials for the decent, law-abiding, needs to be about “takers” and presidency? In the past he has convincingly can-do citizens. Ryan replaced. Paul “makers.” A listener argued that he is comfortable in the House describes it as an ideal objected to his charac- of Representatives. Recently I sense that he community to grow Ryan’s book terization of “takers,” is wavering. up in and to discover contains the and Ryan refected: At dinner a month or so ago there was the American Idea. It on the closing of Gen- a sense of urgency in his concern for the is his idea of how we blueprint to eral Motors’ Janesville country. Now in Te Way Forward he live as Americans. It plant leaving the town quotes Mitt Romney as saying he is “deeply is also the Founding save the without its $220 mil- worried” about the wobbly direction of the Fathers’ idea, and the American Idea. lion annual payroll, country. Ryan adds, “Tat’s what motivates basic idea of modern on the Social Security me, too.” Read the book, and I think you conservatism of which survival benefts that will agree with me. Ryan has the character

Ryan is a leading { sustained him and and the programs to lead us out of this mess. member. his mother after his father’s death, on his Ryan grew up very religious, very mor- mother’s receiving Medicare. He writes, “I Marijuana vs. Scotch al, and very can-do, but there were bumps realized that I’d been careless with my lan- and a Low IQ along the way. At age16 he found his fa- guage. Te phrase gave insult where none ther dead in bed, a victim of alcoholism was intended. Ultimately it was also inef- WASHINGTON and a heart attack. Tat is when the young fective, because the problem I was trying to man decided he could “sink or swim.” He describe was not about our people. Rather, urning once again to what the decided to swim, and while giving up his it was rooted in a very diferent philosophy sociologists call “coping mecha- faith in college and taking aboard a bit too of government that I believe threatens to nisms”: there is marijuana and then destroy the American Idea.” T much recreational hooch, he applied him- there is alcohol. Tey are increasingly the self to his studies in earnest and followed Te philosophy of government threat- civilized options.

60 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 Consider alcohol. Consider a suave at frst, but mainly one becomes steadily broad legalization.” In sum, the studies scotch and soda. One does not sit down more isolated, more alone. Is this really show that in teenagers and young adults to a scotch and soda to get blitzed, unless civilized? A pot party, as opposed to a regular use of marijuana—which means one is a veritable drunk. One sits down cocktail party, can be a pretty gray afair. about once a week—leads to cognitive and sips a scotch and soda while convers- With contemporary marijuana the tet- decline, poor attention and memory, ing with friends. Perhaps one reads a book. rahydrocannabinol (THC) rate, that is and a decline in IQ of about six points— One enjoys the scotch for the taste. With to say the psychoactive ingredient in the and our young people’s IQ rates are low scotch there are scores of diferent tastes. drug, is about 15 percent higher than it enough already. Tis mental impairment One drinks a single malt. One drinks a was in the 1960s or 1970s. Te increased seems to last for years. One study found blend. Te same is true with bourbon and level of THC makes the drug at least fve that teenagers who smoked marijuana all manner of alcoholic drinks. One im- times more powerful and brings with it daily developed abnormal brain structure. bibes for the taste, then for the refresh- increased medical problems. Tis little Moreover, there are psychiatrists who for ment, fnally for the relaxed feeling it known fact hints at how widespread our years have argued that extended use of imparts. Very very fnally, some drinkers ignorance of marijuana really is during marijuana was linked to psychosis and to drink a scotch and soda to get blitzed and the current debate about marijuana, or I permanent brain damage. drop out. Maybe the pathetico drinks to should say the current non-debate Possibly these fndings might bear on pass out or to throw up. A true alcoholic Recent polls indicate increased toler- Michael Brown’s erratic behavior in Fer- guson, Missouri, before his tragic death. We know that the 6’4”, 292-pound teenager was at least on marijuana. We know that ten minutes before he was shot he robbed a liquor store of cheap cigars. And, at least some of us know, that those Swisher Sweet cigars are used as a conduit for ingesting a mixture of PCP and marijuana. My guess is that Brown’s senseless death was brought on by what the psychiatrists mentioned in the above paragraph have referred to as psychosis and permanent brain injury. Yet, marijuana despite these fndings is increasingly considered the civilized alternative to moderate use of alcohol. How can this be? How can a country that has recently driven out tobacco—whose problems most people were well aware of—suddenly legalize a drug found to be so dangerous by modern science? Lung dis- is a sad spectacle. A drunk is a person who ance for a drug that until recently was ease is terrible, but mental health disorders has ruined many a good drink. considered malum prohibitum across the are arguably worse and they occur across a Consider the increasingly civilized op- nation. In January a CNN/ORC Interna- wide range of human behavior. tion, marijuana. One smokes a joint to tional study found 55 percent of Amer- My answer is weariness. We have been get stoned and steadily to dropout. Is icans favoring legalization of marijuana. fghting marijuana and other drug use that really civilized? I have never heard Most consider it harmless. I would not be for years and it seems to me the country of a connoisseur savoring a joint for the surprised if they adjudged it less harm- is fatigued with throwing up the same taste. One smokes it for the efect. One ful than scotch and soda. Yet in a very arguments. Tey are valid arguments, takes it in a brownie or cookie for an even instructive piece in the Wall Street Jour- but many fellow citizens, especially the more immediate efect—some times a nal, former drug czar William J. Bennett young, are tired of them. Another way of deadly efect. Colorado, which has legal- and attorney Robert A. White wrote that saying it is that Americans have become ized recreational marijuana, has already “while almost all the science and research bored by the subject. So, as Colorado reported at least two casualties and many is going on one direction—pointing out goes so goes America, and recent events more hospitalizations. Possibly the mar- the dangers of marijuana use—public in Ferguson, Missouri, may just be a har- ijuana smoker becomes more convivial opinion seems to be going in favor of binger.

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 61 current WISDOM

our souls. It is this soul that allows us to be New York Times bearers of rights and obligations and rational Paul Krugman, flled with laughing gas, as he agents capable of holding religious beliefs. reads of President Barack Obama slipping on yet Hobby Lobby would have us believe that cor- another banana peel: porations, too, have souls. Tis is not the case. I am horrifed by the thought that the owners Te truth is that these days much of the of Hobby Lobby as Christians think their commentary you see on the Obama admin- corporation has a soul, and I’m even more istration—and a lot of the reporting too— appalled that the Supreme Court agrees. emphasizes the negative: the contrast between the extravagant hopes of 2008 and New York Magazine the prosaic realities of political trench war- Confessions of two rising Hollywood sex goddess- fare, the troubles at the Department of Vet- es, Shailene Woodley and Brie Larson, during a erans Afairs, the mess in Iraq, and so on. New York Magazine interview conducted Te accepted thing, it seems, is to portray apparently in a public toilet: Mr. Obama as foundering, his presidency as troubled if not failed. Tis free-spiritedness does not come without But this is all wrong. You should judge opinions. Both Woodley and Larson have leaders by their achievements, not their been acting professionally since they were press, and in terms of policy substance Mr. tiny children, and they are keenly aware of Obama is having a seriously good year. In how Hollywood works and they aim to chal- fact, there’s a very good chance that 2014 lenge conventional notions of emerging star- will go down in the record books as one of dom, especially female stardom. Tey are those years when America took a major turn outspoken about their goals and philosophy, in the right direction.” part of a New Age continuum, on everything (June 16, 2014) from what parts they want to play to what they want to eat. On the healthy-living front, The Progressive both are particularly passionate: Larson is an Prog columnist Miss Kate Clinton tells of the avid locavore (as well as a vegan), and Wood- grim treatment accorded our canine fiends at ley has seriously considered becoming an the hands of the incarcerated ladies of herbalist. When she’s feeling ill, she makes Hoosierland: tea out of pine needles (apparently a great source of vitamin C); she brushes her teeth If I have the time in a town, I appreciate a with clay and whitens them by swishing sesa- good tour. Each tour guide’s particular inter- me oil in her mouth for 20 minutes. She ests shape the highlights. staves of yeast infections by giving “my vagi- In Indianapolis, my guide, a passionate na a little vitamin D” sunlight.” animal rescuer, took me through a shel- (June 2-8, 2014) ter that sends dogs to the women’s prison, where women train them to be companions Washington Post for people with special health needs. Te cartoon fantasy world of E.J. Dionne Jr. as (June 2014) related by him in his column on the Opinion Page of the estimable Post, not to be confused StreetInsider.com with the comic pages: Another theological determination by the pious Rev. Serene Jones, president of the Union Teo- You cannot talk for very long to a conservative logical Seminary, on the occasion of the infa- these days without hearing the words “consti- mous Hobby Lobby decision: tutional” and “constitutionalist.” Formulations such as “I am a constitu- As a Christian, I believe that God creates tional conservative” or “I am a constitution- human beings individually, and that the mark alist” are tea party habits, but they are not of our individual blessedness before God is confned to its ranks. Many kinds of conser-

62 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014 vatives contend that everything they believe cent of residents look like the people in with my community?’, then you begin to is thoroughly consistent with the views and those pictures. question all these inequities.” intentions of our 18th-century Founders. “You can look at all those journals and (July 8, 2014) Wielding pocket-sized copies of the you’ll not see one woman of color,” said Constitution, they like to cite it to settle Raja Michelle, herself a white woman, who New York Times Book Review political disputes. founded the studio. “We associate yoga with A bookish interview with novelist Amy Bloom (July 7, 2014) being skinny, white, and even upper class.” in which she longs for the literary style and qual- “You go to classes and you’re the only ity of mind of the late Dr. Kevorkian: Washington Post black person, or there are very few,” said More fantasies, this time fom Richard Cohen, Robin Rollan, who practices yoga in New What’s the one book you wish someone else who provides irrefagable source material while York and D.C. and runs the popular blog would write? he builds his Ark in preparation for the hellish Black Yogis. “People who fnd my blog say, I wish someone else would write a book future we face underwater: ‘I thought I was the only one.’”… that clearly and persuasively articulated why “Racism is so implicit that you never women’s reproductive rights are so import- It is a stunning thing, when you think about even notice that it’s a white girl on the cov- ant to this country, on both moral and legal it: GOP conservatives adopting a position of er every single time,” added Amy Champ, grounds. When I say “clearly and persuasive- studied ignorance or, to put it more humor- a PhD from the University of California, ly,” I mean that, after reading this wonderful ously, a version of what Chico Marx said in Davis, who wrote her dissertation on book, all opposition to women’s reproductive “Duck Soup”: “Well, who you gonna believe, American yoga. “But when you begin to rights would evaporate, like morning mist. me or your own eyes?” ask yourself, ‘What does yoga have to do (August 3, 2014) My own eyes show rising ocean levels. Tey show the Arctic ice cap shrinking. From the Archives: Tey show massive beach erosion, homes Timeless Tosh from Current Wisdoms Past toppling into the sea and meteorological records indicating steadily increasing tem- September 1994 peratures. Te Earth, our dear little planet, just had the hottest May on record. My eyes read projections that are even New York Times Magazine more dire—drought, stifing heat, massive You’ve never met a physician like Michael Kinsley: and more frequent storms, parts of coast- al cities underwater and, in the Amer- ican Southeast, an additional 11,000 to STAHL: I just want to make the point that we’re handling 36,000 people dying per year from the Paula Jones completely diferently by really holding back extreme heat. Tese and other ghoulish and trying not to jump out of the gate before we know and statistics are taken from a report on global by saying in almost every story that maybe she isn’t telling warming funded by former treasury sec- the truth; let’s really look at this. retary Hank Paulson, former New York QUINDLEN: Is that why we’re handling the Paula mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) and hedge Jones story diferently, Jef? GREENFIELD: First of all, fund manager Tom Steyer. it would be good to make the point that we ought not (July 1, 2014) to talk about the media monolithically. Tere’s an old joke where a guy says, “Do you want a book for your TheAtlantic.com birthday?” and the other guy says, “No, I already have At the Atlantic liberal guilt reaches a heretofore a book.” Te American Spectator is not Te Washington Times and it’s not Te unimaginable climacteric upon fnding White New York Times. Anglo-Saxon yogis in league with the Ku Klux KINSLEY: But Te Washington Times is Te American Spectator. Klan. Shame!: (June 26, 1994) Washington Post Tick, glossy copies of LA Yoga, Yoga Journal, A blurt fom Columnist Richard Cohen, another sufering victim of Elders Syndrome, a and Yoga Magazine cover the rickety folding syndrome named for our historic surgeon general and referring to her capacity to speak table in the lobby of Green Tree Yoga and passable English despite having no brain at all, not even a headache: Meditation. Te magazines share tales from Malibu, Santa Monica, and Pasadena. Nearly More to the point, she [Paula Corbin Jones] waited until the very last minute to fle every spread features a thin woman, usually in her suit She did so only afer Te American Spectator, a journal of political por- slim yoga pants and a tight tank, stretching nography, alluded to her in a story about Clinton’s allegedly rambunctious extra- her arms toward the sky or closing her eyes in marital sex life. Pardon me for suspecting that Jones is more interest in meditation. Nearly all of these women are clearing—or promoting—her name than in proving she was sexually harassed. white. To say the least, those are not worthwhile reasons to damage a presidency or to But in South Los Angeles, where Green fnancially bust the Clintons. Tree opened last year, fewer than one per - (July 1, 1994)

www.spectator.org THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 63 last CALL

by KYLE PETERSON Shopper’s Delight

ew things can buoy the human ations removed from subsistence farming. remains a mystery—and please, please don’t spirit more than a trip to the local Our forebears watered the crops they plant- enlighten me. I have no idea what a yucca store. Tere, on endless shelves, ed in tiny plots of land with their own sweat; root is, but yucca’n get one for less than a buck stacked ceiling high, sit the pro- we stand in air-conditioned bazaars and pick a pound. I came home from the grocer’s a few gressive fruits of thousands of from an endless array of produce—pears from weeks back and excitedly proposed to the dear years of civilization, just waiting Chile, and chilies from Mexico, and kiwis lov- wife that we work our way around the produce to be plucked into a shopping cart. Some- ingly cultivated by actual Kiwis—and then section and sample the unfamiliar wares. Tis Ftimes I come home giddy, and, while putting complain about the Muzak. culminated in my butchering a squishy, yellow, the cereal and milk in their proper homes, I Te spice section of a grocery store con- football-sized orb known as a crenshaw melon, regale my wife with the magic of it all. You tains a hundred history lessons all their own. which was underripe (how were we to know?) probably think I’m kidding. Herodotus remarked, as Andrew Dalby re- but still good. Maybe the best way to explain my height- counts in Dangerous Tastes: Te Story of Spices, Even the most banal-seeming products re- ened state of mind is to quote a little from that cinnamon sticks were main pinnacles of cumulative genius. In one comedian Louis C.K., a guy with twenty-fve of libertarians’ favorite parables, I, Pencil, our Emmy nominations to his name. A few years brought to Arabia by large birds, which carry narrator, the eponymous No. 2 writing in- back Mr. C.K. did a bit on late night TV— them to their nests, made of mud, on moun- strument, refects that no one person actual- the video subsequently whooshed around the tain precipices which no man can climb. Te ly knows how to make him—how to cut the Internet—on how “everything’s amazing and method invented to get the cinnamon sticks is cedar, and mine the graphite, and mix the nobody’s happy.” My favorite part is when he this. People cut up the bodies of dead oxen into lacquer. Markets is the moral. As I pass each makes fun of airline gripes, the horror stories very large joints, and leave them on the ground grocery shelf, I hear foodstufs of all shapes friends and relatives tell about their arduous near the nests. Ten they scatter, and the birds and sizes shouting out similar tales: journeys after arriving in a matter of hours fy down and carry of the meat to their nests, from thousands of miles away. which are too weak to bear the weight and fall I, Box of TGI Friday’s Frozen Crispy Bufalo-Style to the ground. Te men come and pick up the Boneless Chicken Bites! “First of all, we didn’t board for twenty minutes. cinnamon. Acquired in this way, it is exported to I, Can of Progresso Loaded Baked Potato Soup! And then we get on the plane, and they made us other countries. sit there on the runway for forty minutes.” Nobody knows how to smelt ore, and man- Oh, really. What happened next? Did you Nonsense, retorted Pliny the Elder. Te ufacture tin-coated steel cans, and fll them fy through the air, incredibly, like a bird? Did Ethiopians buy cinnamon from neighboring with liquid nourishment made from dozens of you partake in the miracle of human fight, you troglodytes and “bring it over vast seas on other similarly complicated agricultural com- noncontributing zero? You’re fying! It’s amazing. rafts which have no rudders to steer them, no modities. From our perspective it seems as if Everybody on every plane should just constantly oars to push them, no sails to propel them, somehow, some years ago, we just sort of fg- be going “oh my god! wow!” You’re sitting in a indeed no motive power at all but man alone ured it out. Tus turn the gears of commerce. chair in the sky. and his courage.” Once upon a time men Truly, shopping has its frustrations. Te such as da Gama and Magellan chased spice cart inevitably has only an odd number of Wandering into Safeway or Kroger is a far to the ends of the Earth; now spice chases good wheels, causing it to careen wildly into cry from sitting in a chair in the sky. But aisle man, as competing purveyors redesign their endcap displays of corn chips or the occa- by sparkling aisle, it’s a miracle all the same. packages to catch the consumer’s eye. sional seeing-eye dog. Te elderly dame lead- Hard as it may be to believe, as we lie nestled Sheer selection at the supermarket over- ing the self-checkout queue is always ill-pre- comfortably in the cushions of modernity, whelms. I was struck recently by the alarming pared for the task. But take a deep breath. most Americans are but a handful of gener- number of items of whose history, use, and A few minutes standing in line is simply a preparation I am completely ignorant. Pitted further opportunity to refect: that laser bar Kyle Peterson is the managing editor of loquats are $3.19 a can, and whole lychees in code scanner is pretty amazing! Who the Te American Spectator. syrup only two quarters more. Head cheese heck invented that?

64 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR September/October 2014

HOW WOULD BILBO VOTE?

“Can the Shire really be a model “Brilliantly delves into the most for our complex times? The Hobbit profound depths of Tolkien’s end- Party makes the case that it can be, lessly fascinating soul. This work should be, was meant to be, and offers us a true feast of nobility, that The Lord of the Rings expands truth, goodness, and beauty.” the argument to give us images of —Bradley Birzer, Author, American Cicero: an ethical as well as an ecological The Life of Charles Carroll politics, so badly needed today.” —— ◆ ◆ ◆ —— — Tom Shippey, Author, The Road to Middle-Earth “Lifts the veil on Tolkien, revealing a political and economic —— ◆ ◆ ◆ —— thinker who constantly surprises “Beautifully written! A tour readers with insights even more of the important issues of our valuable for our time than his own. world through Tolkien’s eyes, Tolkien fans will never think including limited government, about this great author the man’s temptation to power, same way again.” freedom, just war, socialism, —Samuel Gregg, Research Director, distributism, localism, love, The hobbiT ParTy Acton Institute and death.” The Vision of Freedom that —— ◆ ◆ ◆ —— Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot — Art Lindsley, Ph.D., The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics here is a growing concern among many that “Witt and Richards do a brilliant Tthe West is sliding rapidly into political, eco- job of rescuing Tolkien’s —— ◆ ◆ ◆ —— nomic, and moral bankruptcy. legacy from the clutches of the Anyone who has read The Hobbit and The Lord “This is a ‘drop everything’ of the Rings can gather that their author, J.R.R cultural left. The Hobbit Party and read it book. Should be Tolkien, hated tyranny, but few know that the renews our appreciation of made Required Reading #1 in all great novelist was a zealous proponent of eco- Tolkien’s contribution to courses in Political Philosophy. nomic freedom and small government. In his be- literature and his profound It’s a glorious work.” loved novels of Middle-Earth, Tolkien has drawn impact on our culture.” us a map to freedom. Thomas Howard, Author, —David Goldman, Author, Dove Descending: A Journey into No previous work on Tolkien’s thought and How Civilizations Die T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” vision have centered on how his passion for liberty and limited government shaped his writing, or how this passion grew directly from his theological vision of man and creation. The Hobbit Party flls this void. Jonathan Witt and Jay Richards bring to The Hobbit Party a combined expertise in literary studies, political theory, economics, philosophy, and theology. ISBN 978-1-58617-823-9 HOBP-H . . . Sewn Hardcover, $21.95 www.ignatius.com

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