THE OFHYPOCRISY THE NCAA RACHAEL LARIMORE

MARCH 12, 2018 $5.99

The #MeToo Generation Gap

by ALICE B. LLOYD

WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents March 12, 2018 • Volume 23, Number 26

2 The Scrapbook Woke publishing, D.C. trolley folly, & more 5 Casual Christopher Caldwell’s long goodbye 6 Editorial The Steel Follies Redux 8 Comment Time to pay the players by Rachael Larimore 5 All the news that’s fit for our readers’ sensitivities by Andrew Ferguson Georgia’s gesture politics by Barton Swaim Whose building is it anyway? by Philip Terzian An ever-widening gyre by William Kristol Articles

16 The Seasoned Vet and the Young Lamb by Haley Byrd A special election in Pennsylvania draws national attention 6 18 When to Turn the Cameras Away by Chris Deaton Yes, media self-restraint is possible

19 The Ultimate Crowded Field by Jay Cost Democrats may have an exceedingly difficult time choosing a candidate in 2020

21 Obliged to Kill by Wesley J. Smith The assault on medical conscience

24 When Liberation Parties Govern by James H. Barnett Judging the new leaders in South Africa and Ethiopia 26 Feature

26 A Woman’s World—If She Can Keep It by Alice B. Lloyd Minding the #MeToo generation gap Books & Arts

34 Scandal of the Self by Martyn Wendell Jones The rise and fall (and rise again?) of televangelist Jim Bakker

40 Wilde Tamed? by John Simon A revisionist account of the great wit’s post-prison life

41 Heaven Painter, Hell Painter by Franklin Einspruch Bryan Christie’s bodies transformed and undone

43 Not All Fun and Games by John Podhoretz In Game Night, the writer rules—and we all win

44 Parody Mamet on Weinstein 34

COVER: GRAPHICAARTIS / GETTY THE SCRAPBOOK The Era of Woke Publishing ublishers have long sup- live in a complicated, messy But Soloway might want to take P ported specialty imprints world where every day we have a more hands-on (or rather, detail- that feature particular kinds to proactively re-center our own oriented) approach to her publishing of books: There are imprints experiences by challenging work than she has to her television that promote conservative privilege,” Soloway said in a productions. The home page of the books, such as Sentinel at statement described by the Topple production company’s web- Penguin Random House Hollywood Reporter. “With site features a lengthy statement that and Threshold at Simon Topple Books, we’re look- reads, in part: “We live in a coun- & Schuster, and imprints ing for those undeniably try and world where the systems of that promote genres like compelling essential power have operated in favor of men, romance (Flirt at Ran- voices so often not heard. and this is especially true in Hol- dom House) and cook- I can’t think of a more lywood. The egregious and heinous ing (Anthony Bourdain perfect collaborator than behavior of those who perform, per- Books at HarperCollins).­ petuate, or passively condone acts of But we have now harassment or assault is one of the officially entered the era At left, Jill Soloway at the worst manifestations of this patriar- of the “woke” imprint, 2017 Outfest Los Angeles chal system.” with news that Jill Solo- LGBT Film Festival. Below, If this sounds a wee bit defen- way, LGBTQ activist on the same day, Soloway sive, it’s because one of the recently and creator of the Ama- greeting then-collaborator accused perpetrators of this “egre- zon series Transparent, Jeffrey Tambor. gious and heinous” behavior is about the adventures of a Emmy-award-winning Transparent transgender man and his star Jeffrey Tambor, who was offi- family, has struck a deal cially fired from the show after some with Amazon Publish- women accused him of harassing ing. Bookforum’s website them on-set. announced the venture, complete Unlike many men caught up in the with politically correct, grammati- #MeToo moment, however, Tambor cally hideous pronoun use: “Jill Solo- did not go quietly; instead, he pro- way is starting their own imprint.” tested the lack of transparency about The imprint, Topple Books, bor- the accusations made against him rows its name from Soloway’s televi- and the witchhunt-like atmosphere of sion production company and likely Amazon’s response. “I am profoundly shares its worldview. First among the disappointed in Amazon’s handling “principles” listed on the production of these false accusations against company’s website: “Our revolution me,” he told Deadline Hollywood. “I must be intersectional.” (Other prin- am even more disappointed in Jill ciples include: “Be Chill,” “Promote Soloway’s unfair characterization good vibes,” and “Gather Often” for of me as someone who would ever something called “heart-connec- Amazon Publishing to make our cause harm to any of my fellow cast tion.”) The Topple company has also dream of a revolutionary publishing mates.” He also called out the “toxic published several “manifestos” that imprint come true.” politicized atmosphere” on the set of advise readers to do things such as The life of the activist-TV-cre- Transparent, which doesn’t seem like “identify unused real estate in your ator-publisher is busy, however (the hyperbole. As one of Soloway’s writ- area or neighborhood” and use it to Topple production company says ers and fellow producers, Our Lady “dig mass graves” for guns, and go both a store of Topple merchandise J, posted on Instagram after Tambor to Jerusalem and “stand there, at the and a virtual reality component are was let go from the show, “We cannot borders forever, holding hands to Coming Soon!), so Soloway will let trans content be taken down by a protect that space. We declare a new serve as “editor-at-large,” which, single cis man.” inevitable of peace [sic] in which the according to BusinessWire, means Which gives us an idea for Soloway’s Female Face of God will show.” helping existing Amazon Publishing first Topple Books product: a reissue of Revolution appears to be the guid- editors “select books for publication Franz Kafka’s The Trial, with an intro-

ing force behind the imprint. “We and pen introductions.” duction by Jeffrey Tambor. ♦ DIAZ / WIREIMAGE GETTY BOTTOM: ARAYA RODIN ECKENROTH / FILMMAGIC GETTY. TOP:

2 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 Curricular Diversity t shouldn’t be either newsworthy or I controversial to discover that college students are learning about the work of Aristophanes, studying the Pelo- ponnesian War, or analyzing Aristo- telian notions of happiness. But this is 2018, when college administrators often seem more focused on the sub- tle colonialism of the cafeteria’s Taco Tuesday than on the necessity of a well-rounded curriculum. So perhaps it’s no surprise that the New York Times reports (or rather, tries to incite) controversy over some new course offerings in Arizona, where the state legislature recently approved $7 million for a School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leader- ship at Arizona State University. The ostensible goal of the school is to offer classes that encourage undergraduates to engage with original texts “from the ancient Greeks to the Founding Fathers,” as the Times described. The initial course offerings appear innocuous enough and are hardly lack- ing in diversity: A course on capital- ism explores the work of John Locke, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith, for example, but also Marx and Keynes. A class called “Women in Political Thought and Leadership” includes Catherine the Great and Golda Meir as well as Hillary Clinton. As Paul Car- rese, the director of the school, told the Times, “The program is not pursuing a party line or dogma. . . . It’s making space for debate.” new professors with intellectually ASU has long been replete with Such efforts at curricular hetero- conservative pedigrees.” classes guaranteed to satisfy even the geneity have not fooled some people, The portrait drawn by the Times most avidly liberal activist-in-train- however. As the Times notes, “Many suggests that ASU is at risk of becom- ing. It has a School of Social Trans- liberal professors view these efforts ing a hotbed of right-wing indoctrina- formation that offers undergraduate as reviving an antiquated Euro­ tion. But like most college campuses, and graduate degrees in social justice centric view of history,” and some and in women’s and gender stud- people derisively refer to ASU and ies, for example, and which another recently funded depart- lists dozens of courses such ment of political economy and as “Mapping Intersections of moral science at the Univer- Gender,” described as teach- sity of Arizona as “Freedom ing “theoretical concepts, Schools” (freedom being a metaphors, and frameworks suspect thing on college cam- employed by feminist schol- puses these days). Worse, evi- ars to understand the way dently, is the fact that some gender articulates with other of the money approved by the categories of difference,” as

ARISTOPHANES: LEEMAGE / UIG GETTY state legislature pays for “six well as a class on “Transgender

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 3 and Intersex Literature and Film,” attempt to offer classes where stu- among others. Undergraduates in dents can engage with and debate these programs complete internships classical texts rather than be spoon- with a wide range of liberal activ- fed fashionable academic theories ist organizations and unions such as about those texts. But it should be www.weeklystandard.com Arizona’s AFL-CIO. Are a handful unnerving to liberal readers of the Stephen F. Hayes, Editor in Chief of classes that study the work of dead Times to learn that on today’s college Richard Starr, Editor Fred Barnes, Robert Messenger, Executive Editors white men really such a threat? campuses, you don’t need to wear a Christine Rosen, Managing Editor As many colleges eviscerate Great MAGA hat to be denounced as a rep- Peter J. Boyer, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Matt Labash, Books and Western Civ courses, robate right-winger. You just have to National Correspondents it’s reassuring to witness Arizona’s read Aristophanes. ♦ Jonathan V. Last, Digital Editor Barton Swaim, Opinion Editor Adam Keiper, Books & Arts Editor Kelly Jane Torrance, Deputy Managing Editor Eric Felten, Mark Hemingway, The D.C. Trolley Folly far from Capitol Hill. The cost of John McCormack, Tony Mecia, this bauble? A scant $200 million. As Philip Terzian, Michael Warren, Senior Writers David Byler, Jenna Lifhits, Alice B. Lloyd, ashington, D.C., should have Barry pointed out back in 2012, when Staff Writers Rachael Larimore, Online Managing Editor W listened to Marion Barry. The the streetcar was still under construc- Hannah Yoest, Social Media Editor late four-time mayor of the nation’s tion, it had “not been well-thought Ethan Epstein, Associate Editor Chris Deaton, Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editors capital may have made problematic out and [was] too expensive for the Priscilla M. Jensen, Assistant Editor Andrew Egger, Haley Byrd, Reporters lifestyle choices—even if the you- number of riders it [would] serve.” Holmes Lybrand, Fact Checker He was right: The sys- Adam Rubenstein, Grant Wishard, Editorial Assistants tem is ridden by, at most, Philip Chalk, Design Director Barbara Kyttle, Design Assistant a couple of thousand peo- Contributing Editors ple a day. And they don’t Claudia Anderson, Max Boot, Joseph Bottum, Tucker Carlson, Matthew Continetti, Jay Cost, pay even a nominal fare, Terry Eastland, Noemie Emery, Joseph Epstein, David Frum, David Gelernter, Reuel Marc Gerecht, so the system is simply a Michael Goldfarb, Daniel Halper, money-sink. Meanwhile, Mary Katharine Ham, Brit Hume, Thomas Joscelyn, Frederick W. Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, buses already traverse the Yuval Levin, Tod Lindberg, Micah Mattix, Victorino Matus, P. J. O’Rourke, route frequently. John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, Charles J. Sykes Now comes news that William Kristol, Editor at Large a mere two years into MediaDC service, D.C. is looking Ryan McKibben, Chairman Stephen R. Sparks, President & Chief Operating Officer to replace the trolley cars. Jennifer Yingling, Audience Development Officer Kathy Schaffhauser, Chief Financial Officer If you build it, they won’t come. Two years is a bit short of David Lindsey, Chief Digital Officer their expected 31-year life­ Alex Rosenwald, Director, Public Relations & Branding Mark Walters, Chief Revenue Officer know-what did set him up—but give span, yes, but local news outlet WTOP Nicholas H. B. Swezey, Vice President, Advertising T. Barry Davis, Senior Director, Advertising him this: He was 100 percent correct reports that it’s increasingly difficult to Jason Roberts, Digital Director, Advertising about the city’s streetcar boondoggle. obtain repair parts, because the origi- Paul Plawin, National Account Director Andrew Kaumeier, Advertising Operations Manager For the last two years, Washington nal manufacturer went out of business. Brooke McIngvale, Manager, Marketing Services has operated a 2.2 mile, slower-than- Come to think of it, shouldn’t that have Advertising inquiries: 202-293-4900 Subscriptions: 1-800-274-7293 walking mode of “transportation” sent a message about the viability of the The Weekly Standard (ISSN 1083-3013), a division of Clarity Media Group, along a busy nightlife corridor not streetcar scam? ♦ is published weekly (except one week in March, one week in July, one week in August, and one week in December) at 1152 15th St., NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005. 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4 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 CASUAL

from the preceding winter. The wheels End of the Road found no purchase as I turned. The car just continued laterally, the wheels spinning as if they were on ball-bear- ings, until a telephone pole sheared off the whole right rear quarter-panel. A omorrow some people ing “Mama’s Opry.” In came Harry close call. My father was too relieved from Catholic Charities Nilsson’s “Turn on Your Radio” and to be angry. are coming to tow away Dave Davies’s “Strangers.” When, decades later, after my the beautiful BMW 740iL I thought a lot about my father father’s death, the time came to Tthat my father bought in Germany as I drove. He had taught me to return to Washington, I drove his at the turn of the century. Like the drive in our ancient Oldsmobile grand BMW cautiously down the vast majority of American males Vista Cruiser, starting about two Eastern seaboard​—​and, instead of he was until then a car enthusiast years before I was eligible to get my taking it to the scrapyard, took it who had never owned a nice car. license​—​not because I was that slow to a bunch of mechanics in Mary- He didn’t suffer from that​—​fancy a learner but because he wanted to land I had chosen for their pro- automobiles were, to his bity. They replaced the mind, a waste of money. belts. They went deep But he seemed to suffer into the engine and greatly from a surprise dammed the leak. They that hits most men when found a passenger door they retire​—​the sudden to replace the one that was curtailment of occasions rusting off its hinges. What for asserting control over it cost I won’t repeat. It is a situations, standing out disgrace to a man trying to as a man of distinction, raise a family on a writer’s showing oneself a person salary. It not only got the car to be reckoned with. back on the road​—​for the Buying the fastest, grand- past 30 months or so, it has est, most handsome car on mostly driven like a new car. the road did the trick. My But when I brought it father drove it for a decade into the shop for an oil and a half and kept it ship- change before Christmas, shape for most of that time. I got bad news. The 740iL But by the time he died in was in the state that the 2015 it was aging—​ ​dribbling oil every- impress on my 14-year-old mind dissolute jazz cor­netist Bix Beider- where it went, flashing airbag lights, that parental law trumps govern- becke was said to have been in at the losing power steering at odd moments ment law. (It’s a philosophy I have time of his death in 1931—​it was and costing him a ton of money. It fell inherited from him and tried to “dying of everything.” The oil leaks to me to dispose of the jalopy after his impart to my children, and it is and the belt problems were back. My funeral. But I was in no shape to. It was probably fortunate none of us has mechanic friend explained that, ide- full of his compact discs (mostly female ever seen it put to the test.) He hol- ally, cars cost 8 cents a mile in repairs. country singers), the golf pencils he lered at me for driving too far to If it cost 10 cents a mile, that was a had taken notes with, his notes, his the right​. As a beginning driver, of worry, but it was up to the owner. compact umbrellas neatly held down course, I did: Driving a yard too far If a person really loved his car, he with bungee cords in the trunk, boxes to the right might cost you a mirror, might want to keep driving it when of Good & Plenty. but driving a yard too far to the left it started costing 12 or 14 cents a What a wreck I was in those weeks, might cost you your life. I was right. mile. My BMW, he explained​​—​​and passing days in his house, tidying But I wasn’t always. One spring here he pulled out the papers​—​was up his affairs, visiting friends, driving night about five years later I totaled costing me $1.74. It was time to put his car slowly around my hometown, the Vista Cruiser returning to town an end to my crazy attempts to sum- loading it up with the most stoical along a stretch of road called Dead mon the past. That can wait until and heartbreaking used CDs I could Man’s Curve. (Probably every town I retire. find at the Mystery Train record has one.) I would have been fine had

JORI BOLTON shop. Out went Iris DeMent sing- the road not been covered in sand Christopher Caldwell

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 5 EDITORIAL

The Steel Follies Redux

n March 1, President Donald Trump was widely industries they protect, but they harm the wider economy. expected to announce a new round of trade When the George W. Bush administration imposed tariffs O restrictions on steel and aluminum. But that on imported steel in 2002, American steelmakers took the morning word leaked out that the announcement had been opportunity of diminished competition to raise prices. U.S. postponed—maybe permanently canceled. Then we heard manufacturers who bought steel for their products had to the president had called industry leaders to the White adjust to higher prices, and as a result 50,000 workers lost House for a “listening session” with Secretary of Commerce their jobs, according to a study by the economists Joseph Wilbur Ross. By midday, the president was telling reporters Francois and Laura Baughman. Overall, when combined invited into that roomful of business executives that he’d with other economic headwinds, the 2002 tariffs cost the decided to introduce a 25 percent tariff on all steel imports American economy 200,000 jobs and $4 billion in lost and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports. “We’ll be wages in just one year. And the Bush tariffs, which were signing it next week,” he promised. “And you’ll have protec- repealed after just 21 months, were far smaller and more tion for a long time.” targeted duties than the ones announced by Trump. The president has a way of misstating his own admin- Proponents of steel tariffs like to point out that conserva- istration’s intentions, so take these numbers as approxima- tive’s conservative Ronald Reagan imposed similar tariffs. tions, but it seemed clear late last week that steep tariffs But numerous studies have concluded that those restric- were on the way. tions cost the American economy as much as $2.3 million Though it was a logistical debacle (it often is with this for every job in the domestic steel industry they protected. White House), the reason for this chaos is not unique to the Tariffs also tend to sabotage our international objec- Trump era: Top administration officials disagree strongly tives. Earlier this year when the Trump administration over trade issues and were vying hard to persuade the presi- announced new levies on washing machines, the United dent. We’re told that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Sec- States in essence picked a fight with a nation—South retary of Defense James Mattis, and chief economic adviser Korea—whose friendship we need to manage the problem Gary Cohn were sharply opposed to the tariffs on the of North Korea. impeccable grounds that they sour international relation- The hard truth is that protecting domestic industries ships even as they harm our economy in both the short- and from foreign competition only encourages those industries to long-term. Ross and trade representative Robert Lighthizer relax, which quickly turns into lethargy. While the protected were for protections. Their support is unsurprising: The companies settle into an easier mode of profitmaking, their former used to own steel mills and the latter represented foreign competitors improve, and soon enough Americans them as an attorney and lobbyist. are stuck with higher prices and lower quality. The arguments for tariffs are almost exclusively politi- All this brings to mind the late Ken Iverson, who cal rather than economic. Tariffs are popular with cer- remade the nearly bankrupt Nucor Steel into one of the

tain demographics and with the specific companies and great steelmakers of the world. Iverson stridently opposed / GETTY / TASS ALEXANDER KRAVCHENKO

6 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 protective tariffs, believing they harmed the companies and like a fine idea, right? By protecting the American sweater industries they’re meant to help. In a 1986 interview, he was companies from cutthroat competition, the government fos- asked why temporary steel protections couldn’t be used by ters a domestic industry or even enables the creation of a the industry to regroup and modernize. “We’ve had this new industry that didn’t already exist. Hazlitt goes on: ‘temporary’ relief for a long time,” Iverson answered. But American consumers would be forced to subsidize We had a voluntary quota system in the early 1970s. We had this industry. On every American sweater they bought trigger prices in the late 1970s. And what happened during they would be forced in effect to pay a tax of $5 which these periods? As soon as prices began to rise so that the would be collected from them in a higher price by the steel companies began to be profitable, they stopped mod- new sweater industry. ernizing. It’s only under intense competitive pressure . . . Americans would be employed in a sweater industry who that the big steel companies have been forced to modern- had not previously been employed in a sweater industry. ize. . . . Unless you’re under intense competitive pressure That much is true. But there would be no net addition to the and it becomes a question of the survival of the business country’s industry or the country’s employment. Because to do it, you’re just going to lapse back into your old ways. the American consumer had to pay $5 more for the same There’s no other answer. quality of sweater he would have just that much less left over to buy anything else. He would have to reduce his expendi- Iverson was a brave and capable man. We wish there were tures by $5 somewhere else. In order that one industry might more men of his kind advising the president. grow or come into existence, a hundred other industries would have to shrink. In order that 20,000 persons might be But protective tariffs are not only a disaster for each spe- employed in a sweater industry, 20,000 fewer persons would cific industry, they are also harmful to the wider economy. be employed elsewhere. That is the point beautifully and simply made in Henry Hazlitt’s classic Economics in One Lesson (1946). Hazlitt In economic terms, a sweater is no different from asked his readers to consider what would happen if Congress a ton of aluminum or plate steel. All are created and imposed a $5 duty on British sweaters. “The cost of British sold for money. Assuming the Trump administration sweaters to the American consumer might thereby be forced imposes the duties announced by the president, so high that American manufacturers would find it profit- America’s steel companies will relax—and others will able to enter the sweater business,” Hazlitt wrote. Sounds suffer the consequences. ♦ Collaborating to Combat the Opioid Epidemic

THOMAS J. DONOHUE epidemic is responsible for 20% of the and stem the crisis. They covered PRESIDENT AND CEO drop in men’s labor force participation. legislative changes to increase U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE The business community has been treatment options and address drug affected by these trends and has a role tampering, state-based prevention Our country remains embroiled to play in helping our communities initiatives, and private sector advances in one of the most deadly and costly rebuild. The U.S. Chamber of in treatment and education. public health epidemics in recent Commerce is in a unique position to It is clear that solving this challenge history. Over the last several years, help because of our ability to convene will require a comprehensive the opioid crisis has taken tens of key voices from across the public and approach, with the help of local thousands of lives and forever changed private sectors. We did exactly that last leaders in businesses. True to communities and the lives of those week when we hosted an event that the can-do, take-charge spirit of left behind. While its costs are steepest brought together a diverse group of American enterprise, businesses are for those struggling with the disease leaders in an attempt to forge greater already voluntarily taking on opioid of addiction and their families, the consensus and collaboration. abuse. Many are offering help and problem cuts across our entire society. We heard personal stories from treatment—instead of an automatic It’s impossible to quantify the pain those who lost loved ones and are pink slip—to employees struggling caused by addiction, but there are now working to end the stigma with addiction. numbers that can give us a sense of of addiction. And we heard how Any business can play a role in the economic cost of the crisis. businesses in several areas of the combating the opioid crisis, and the Research shows that the economic country are partnering with the public business community as a whole must burden of the opioid epidemic hit sector and community initiatives to play a role. The Chamber is committed $95 billion in 2016, with the vast combat the epidemic. Senior officials to marshalling the business response majority coming from losses in the from key federal agencies, education and promoting greater collaboration workforce due to overdose deaths. entrepreneurs, health sector leaders, between the public and private sectors. Another $12.4 billion of the cost along with state officials and local stemmed from lost productivity. A business representatives, discussed Learn more at separate study found that the opioid opportunities to prevent addiction uschamber.com/abovethefold.

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 7 COMMENT

Louisville players celebrate after winning the 2013 national basketball title, which has now been ‘vacated.’

RACHAEL LARIMORE Time to Pay the Players

he numbers are staggering: education and seeking only healthy about the integrity of the sports they CBS and Time Warner competition and the joy of the game. regulate, they will consider major T together pay close to $1 billion This is mendacious cant, and every- changes. Let us make one modest pro- a year for the broadcast rights to March body knows it. For decades, players at posal: Abolish the strictures against Madness. ESPN pays $470 million a top programs have been paid via cash- paying athletes. We hesitate to suggest year to air the College Football Play- stuffed envelopes slipped under their adding more money to the river that is offs and related bowls. Nick Saban will dorm-room doors and endless other flooding college athletics. And lifting make $11 million to coach the Ala- in-kind payments. In many cases, the payment rules will create problems bama football team next year—and he these athletes are brought to campus of its own, but it will improve a system has several assistants making in the solely in order to play, their grades in which everyone profits but the ath- $1 million range. Schools make tens of and class attendance faked in a widely letes and in which athletes are con- millions of dollars when their teams known sham. stantly tempted by illegal offers from wear shoes and uniforms from Nike, An ongoing fraud investigation by boosters and agents. Under Armour, and Adidas. They the FBI is slowly exposing the corrupt Last fall, the FBI filed federal keep teams of attorneys on retainer to system of illicit professionalism. charges against four assistant basket- shut down any attempt to use their NCAA scandals come to light regu- ball coaches and six other men, some copyrighted logos. larly, but this one is sufficiently egre- with ties to Adidas, after an investiga- College sports is big business. gious to demand reforms. The NCAA tion revealed that representatives of the There’s plenty of money to go around is allergic to negative publicity and shoe company were, with the complic- for everyone—except the athletes. will surely propose weak or irrelevant ity of coaches, bribing or attempting to The NCAA has operated for remedies to make the whole thing go bribe high-school athletes to commit decades on the pretense that “student- away and protect the key programs to college programs that had contracts athletes” are wholesome amateurs, that generate so much attention and with Adidas. Coaching legend Rick

trading their athletic prowess for an money. But if its leaders care at all Pitino of the University of Louisville TREETER / LECKA GETTY

8 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 was the first to fall. An appalling point: inflated amounts. Credible estimates tions had enormous consequences. Of the $39 million Adidas paid Louis- suggest that the average Division I bas- The Colorado Supreme Court ulti- ville for its sponsorship deal, Pitino ketball player is worth nearly $300,000 mately agreed with the school’s con- received 98 percent. Louisville is a pub- per year to his school. tention that he was not eligible for benefits, since the college was “not in lic university and Pitino a servant of Student athletes face significant the football business.” the people of Kentucky. But his greed restrictions against earning money raised few eyebrows until one of his with part-time jobs—they’re actually Whatever was true in the 1950s, many assistants was discovered trying to forbidden to earn an income from NCAA colleges are now very much in arrange a $100,000 payment from Adi- doing what they do best. No school the football and basketball businesses. das to a recruit. we’re aware of tells students on music There is no easy or cost-free solu- Pitino won’t be the last to fall. New scholarships that they’re not permitted tion to this problem. Even if the asso- reports are emerging that the FBI to get summer jobs with orchestras or ciation lifted the ban on payment for investigation will implicate two dozen play in local bars on the weekends. Nor athletes, thorny questions remain. more schools—almost enough to fill are student athletes living like royalty: Once you decide who gets paid (what one side of the NCAA tournament A 2011 study shows that, even with about softball players? swimmers? bracket. Given that perennial favor- scholarships, 86 percent of student ath- wrestlers?), how would payments ites Duke, North Carolina, Michigan letes live below the federal poverty line. work? There’s a reasonable case for State, and Arizona are among creating trust funds that the ath- them, the odds are not long that letes can access after they have the NCAA could have to resort Corruption runs graduated, or at least after their to its favorite—and least effec- rampant. Institutions eligibility has ended. It’s tempt- tive—punishment once the dust ing to look at what is going on settles: “vacating” victories. rake in ungodly now and decide that the simplest Louisville just vacated its 2013 solution is to let athletes accept basketball national title, though sums for hosting endorsements directly. not because of the current scan- games played by Whatever the appropriately dal but because an athletic nuanced compromise, we can all department employee had spent ‘amateurs.’ The acknowledge that the status quo is thousands of dollars on escorts punishments for wrong and corrosive. What we’ve for players and recruits. already learned from the FBI That the NCAA thinks forcing violations are a joke. investigation is ugly. What’s guilty teams to vacate victories is uglier still is that the NCAA and an effective means of dealing with In fact, the NCAA’s very use of the its members have long made billions rampant corruption is risible. These term “student-athlete” was always an of dollars on the backs of athletes who games aren’t forfeited—the opposing exercise in cynicism; the term origi- are disproportionately minority and team doesn’t get a victory or hang a nated not as some philosophical ideal low-income while forcing them to banner. The NCAA merely pretends but as a formulation enabling the operate as “amateurs.” the game never happened. NCAA to block worker’s compensa- Other reforms deserve debate, Corruption runs rampant. Institu- tion claims. As Taylor Branch too—for instance, tying rankings to tions rake in ungodly sums for hosting pointed out in his landmark 2011 graduation rates, reducing the num- games played by “amateurs.” The pun- Atlantic article, “The Shame of Col- ber of games to make academic life ishments for violations are a joke. lege Sports”: more central for scholar-athletes, Refusal to pay players directly feels denying freshmen eligibility to play more and more like rank hypocrisy. The term came into play in the 1950s, for the same reason. But there is lit- It’s true, of course, that NCAA ath- when the widow of Ray Dennison, tle hope of returning college sports letes receive payment in the form of who had died from a head injury to any genuine amateurism. The sys- scholarships, which are worth any- received while playing football in tem simply will not reform itself as Colo­rado for the Fort Lewis A&M where from $20,000 to $60,000 and Aggies, filed for workmen’s-compensa- long as it remains a de facto profes- more a year in tuition and room tion death benefits. Did his football sional racket in which hosts of and board. But scholarship amounts scholarship make the fatal collision a administrators and coaches compete reflect the absurd costs of higher educa- “work-related” accident? Was he for massive salaries and universities tion, not the actual value. Does anyone a school employee, like his peers who compete for television and sponsor- really think a year’s education at the worked part-time as teaching assis- ship contracts. tants and bookstore cashiers? Or was In an ideal world, student athletes University of North Carolina, say, is he a fluke victim of extracurricular worth $25,407? And the money gener- pursuits? Given the hundreds of inca- wouldn’t be paid for performing. But ated by football and basketball players pacitating injuries to college athletes in such a world, no one would get rich for their institutions dwarfs even these each year, the answers to these ques- off them, either. ♦

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 9 COMMENT ♦ ANDREW FERGUSON member in good standing of the “queer community.” The ugly racial talk and the Nazi friend were part of her larger All the news that’s fit for evangelization efforts to racist louts. She was just code-switching, slipping our readers’ sensitivities into their lingo during her many attempts at online conversion. uinn Norton is an engaging, showed that in years past she had used Readers were having none of it; the funny, and stylish writer on racial and sexual slurs and had once disparaging tweets rained down upon Q technology and the odd com- referred to a neo-Nazi as a “friend.” the Times editors, especially the opin- munities that inhabit our digital With protests spouting from various ion editor James Bennet. Most of the world and make it so scary. She is also, social media, the Times editors quietly outraged critics (all critics of the Times to quote her own description, “a backed Norton toward an open win- are outraged) cited other editorial deci- bisexual anarchist pacifist, prison abo- dow and gave her a gentle push. sions made by Bennet that ran con- litionist, & vegetarian. Cur- trary to their own vision of the Times. rently I’m fretting about fair The preeminent offense was last year’s trade standards and ethical The New York Times hiring of the occasionally conservative food.” What’s not to like? Bret Stephens, late of the Wall Street Obviously that’s the ques- op-ed page was Journal’s opinion pages, to serve as a tion editors at the New York invented precisely regular columnist. His debut column Times asked themselves not expressed agnosticism about the long- long ago, and they arrived at to expose readers to term effects of global warming. Times the same answer Edwin Starr differing views— readers were scandalized, the cancella- reached when he wondered tions poured in, and the publisher, was what war was good for: abso- ‘providing a platform compelled to send an obsequious letter lutely nothing. Earlier this to his unhappy customers begging month they decided to offer for responsible their return, with a promise to be more her a job with the paper’s conservative opinion,’ careful in the future. op-ed page—the page where But he hasn’t been careful enough. columnists and opinion as one early Since then, the opinion pages have pieces appear, opposite the manifesto put it. published articles by the mercenary page that carries the institu- and paramilitary entrepreneur Erik tional editorials. She decided Prince, the controversial gun control to accept the job, thereby touching off A few brave souls came to her scholar John Lott, and other right- a revolt from Times readers that defense. In the dimly remembered wingers whose views many Times read- resulted in her firing. It was six hours past—two years ago, let’s say—their ers have ruled out of court. Another between the moment the Times explanations would have struck nearly recent hire from the Journal, a gifted announced her new job and the all Times readers as exculpatory, and and evidently armor-plated woman moment the Times let her go—in Inter- Quinn Norton, appropriately chas- named Bari Weiss, has already become net time, roughly the equivalent of the tened, would have kept her job. Wired a dark figure in the fevered dreams of Hundred Years’ War, except with more magazine, for instance, decreed that Twitter and Facebook. Right there in acrimony. The ejection of a slightly Norton’s ironic use of anti-gay lan- the New York Times she questioned unconventional leftist from the opin- guage was covered by something called some excesses of the #MeToo move- ion pages is the latest in a series of inci- “in-group privilege,” a kind of Get Out ment. And during the Olympics she dents that might give pause to the of Jail Free card that she’d earned as a praised the contributions immigrants Times’s less excitable readers. You would think Norton’s bisexual- ity, anarchism, pacifism, vegetarianism, Worth Repeating from WeeklyStandard.com: and anti-prison activism would place ‘To be clear: Harvard is disciplining a Christian student her only slightly to the left of most peo- ple who take the Times as their daily group for the group’s expectation that its student leadership meat. Indeed, her anxiety over ethical follow basic Christian ethical teaching on sexuality in food should have been enough to seal accordance with Christianity’s 2,000-year-old doctrine on the deal all by itself. But there were blemishes on her leftism, and Times such matters. This should not be controversial, at all.’ readers quickly discovered them. A —Andrew T. Walker, ‘Harvard Punishes Christian Student Group’ proctological probe of her Twitter feed

10 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 have made to American life—but she COMMENT ♦ BARTON SWAIM did so improperly, in unapproved lan- guage. Readers and even her fellow Times employees accused her of “oth- Georgia’s gesture politics ering” the “marginalized.” You’ve probably noticed that the great bulk of our culture—educational e live in an era of gesture relations with the NRA to exempt institutions, news and entertainment politics: walkouts, die-ins, themselves and their company from media, foundations, most corpora- W marches, boycotts, hashtags, the ire of gun-control groups demand- tions—is run by the kind of people retweets. Our most strident political ing a “boycott.” Fair enough. Delta is a who have been taught to misuse debates often aren’t debates at all but private corporation and free to with- “other” as a verb, always transitively, volleys of symbolic or metaphorical draw its support from any organization never ironically. As a rule they are gestures. The point of these national it wishes, even as I am free to call Delta impressively credentialed and well-to- pantomimes is not to make a rational a bloated mess of a company that treats do, not terribly familiar with history case but to proclaim one’s affiliations its customers about as roughly as it or with non-popular culture, safely and antipathies. They’re at their most treats their luggage. But in this case and lucratively employed as “knowl- repellent after emotionally harrowing gesture politics spilled over into the edge workers.” They also have an events like race riots and mass shoot- equally ugly world of crony capitalism. unrealistically high degree of confi- ings. Suddenly everybody— dence in the opinions they share with authors and intellectuals, their fellow readers. It is hard to over- politicians at all levels, Delta is free to estimate the importance of the New your aunt Phyllis—sets York Times to the world they inhabit. about transmitting little withdraw its Exposure to dissenting views is often signs of their crotchets support from any difficult for them.Times critics used to and convictions. describe unpopular op-eds as “offen- After news of the school organization it sive.” Now the term is more often shooting on February 14 in wishes, even as I “insulting.” The first implies a lack of Parkland, Florida, we went taste. The second implies a lack of def- at it again. A few multina- am free to call it a erence—to the reader, by the editors. tional corporations got in bloated mess that As it happens, the Times opinion on the action, too, mainly page was invented in 1970 precisely to for the purpose of distanc- treats its customers expose readers to views that could bal- ing themselves from the about the same as it ance the undisputed leftward tilt of the National Rifle Association, paper’s unsigned editorials— the organization that, in the treats their luggage. “providing a platform for responsible eyes of many progressives conservative opinion,” as one early and gun-control propo- manifesto put it. Today, the unsigned nents, was all but directly responsible The lieutenant governor of Georgia, editorials are more apocalyptically for the murder of 17 people. On Twit- Casey Cagle, responded to Delta by anti-Republican than they’ve ever ter, Delta Airlines announced that it tweeting: “I will kill any tax legislation been, but they’re not sufficiently hys- was “reaching out to the NRA to let that benefits @Delta unless the com- terical to satisfy an incorrigible and them know we will be ending their pany changes its position and fully rein- extremely sensitive readership. If there contract for discounted rates through states its relationship with @NRA. Cor- truly are stirrings of rebellion against our group travel program. We will be porations cannot attack conservatives the paper that these readers rely on requesting that the NRA remove our and expect us not to fight back.” Cagle every day—for self-affirmation as information from their website.” presides over the state senate in Geor- much as for news—the consequences Now you might wonder what Del- gia, and the capital of Georgia is Atlanta, could be large. For nowadays, in this ta’s executives knew about the NRA and Atlanta is home to Delta’s head- rough patch in journalism’s history, on February 14 that they didn’t quarters and international hub. As the paper relies on its readers, too; the know on February 13. If they credit a major corporation headquartered in a duty of the hack is not only to inform the argument that the NRA shares state capital, Delta is the recipient of but to ingratiate. Soon there may come responsibility for mass murders simply a dizzying array of local and state tax a time when the editors of the world’s because it opposes most regulations on favors. Cagle was referring to a sales- greatest newspaper will have to choose gun ownership, why were they in a tax exemption on jet fuel worth $40 mil- between their belief in unconstrained relationship with the gun-rights group lion to Delta. The legislature can strip debate and the undisturbed comfort of at all? Of course, Delta executives the tax code of that exemption and their readers. ♦ believe no such thing. They severed inflict pretty severe pain on the airline.

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 11 Delta’s opportunistic sanctimony ernmental power to single out one ing same-sex marriage, say, or censur- may irritate some of us on the right, company for special benefits. ing a Second Amendment advocacy but Cagle’s bluster is similarly off-put- The question is whether this gan- group—they can expect the politi- ting: Using the power of the law to glion of mutually profitable relation- cians to please their constituencies by threaten a private company is the sort ships can survive the era of gesture counterpunching. Casey Cagle has a of behavior one expects from a ragtag politics. Private companies want to point: When corporations involve dictatorship. It’s rare to see crony capi- please the public as much as any poli- themselves in gesture politics, they talism expressed so menacingly. tician does, and when they try to can expect politicians to fight back. Yet if we accept the propriety of the please their constituencies by flaunt- And we can expect things to get a relationship to which Cagle referred in ing their cultural allegiances—prais- lot uglier. ♦ his tweet—the relationship between­ governments and the companies pub- lic officials happen to like—we can COMMENT ♦ PHILIP TERZIAN expect much more of this sort of thing to happen. And the public does, for the most Whose building is it anyway? part, consider these relationships proper. State commerce agencies devote udge Frederic Block, meet Judge concluded (in the words of the New nearly all their attention to attracting H. Lee Sarokin. York Times) that the delay “seemed . . . specific companies to “invest” in their J Block, a federal district court to be a deliberate insult to the thou- states; they offer companies tax exemp- judge in New York, recently fined a sands of hours of work put into the tions and credits, free or cheap land, local developer who had whitewashed murals. Judge Block thought so as and sometimes outright cash in graffiti painted on a derelict warehouse well.” That, at any rate, would be the attempts to persuade the companies to in Queens. The developer, one Jerry charitable explanation for the curi- uproot from one location and settle in Wolkoff, has owned the warehouse for ously personal—indeed, injudicious— another. Many local and state politi- years and intends to demolish it and tone of Block’s ruling: cians base their entire political reputa- build condominiums on the site. tions on their talent for “attracting” or A dozen years ago, however, Wolkoff If not for Wolkoff’s insolence, these “luring” industry, i.e., for bribing them committed an act of generosity which damages would not have been assessed. to make decisions that sound like great he now must regret: He came to an If he did not destroy [the graffiti] until he received his permits and demol- economic news to voters. All those agreement with some 21 local graffiti ished [the building] 10 months later, groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting artists and granted them permission to the court would not have found that he ceremonies we see on local news chan- spray-paint his building’s exterior had acted willfully. nels—governors wearing hard hats and walls. When he whitewashed the walls wielding giant scissors—are the result of his property, in prepara- of just this sort of secret but perfectly tion for razing it, the artists My attitude toward legal bribery between corporate attor- sued Wolkoff under the Judge Block’s pique neys and politicians. 1990 federal Visual Artists There’s precious little evidence that Rights Act (VARA). is informed by my the states that spend more on eco- The statute, which was own view that graffiti­ nomic “incentives” targeted to specific largely designed to protect companies actually experience faster the rights of artists in barely qualifies as growth than states that spend less. But copyright disputes, has the lack of evidence doesn’t matter since been expanded to art—as well as a because the public likes hearing big protect art from misattri- lingering concern that jobs announcements, and politicians bution or alteration or (as like having their pictures taken with in this case) destruction. A property rights are golden shovels and sending out press jury agreed with the art- being eroded by releases about the thousands of jobs ists, and Judge Block fined supposedly coming with all these Wolkoff $6.7 million— court decisions. announcements. When President-elect roughly $150,000 each for Donald Trump boasted of having pres- some 45 separate graffiti murals. Or put another way, no good deed sured the air conditioner company To be sure, in assessing damages, goes unpunished. For if Wolkoff had Carrier not to leave Indiana for Mex- Block was merely affirming the jury’s simply forbidden the artists to disfig- ico, the media went to work factcheck- verdict. But because the walls remained ure his building’s walls with graffiti, he ing his claims, but very few registered standing for nearly a year after they would be $6.7 million richer today. any strong objection to the use of gov- had been whitewashed, the 21 artists VARA, which was designed to protect

12 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 Landlords, beware: Jerry Wolkoff’s building, before he whitewashed it the reputations of artists, has now tant to give permission” to graffiti art- hygiene or because their presence become a weapon to impoverish prop- ists to spray-paint their property. caused discomfort to readers. In his erty owners defending their property I would offer a further argument. As opinion, the real offense was not Krei­ against vandalism. Mayor Bill de Blasio settles into his mer’s behavior but the presumption I concede, of course, that my atti- second term, Judge Block’s ruling may of the library and the taxpayers who tude toward Judge Block’s judicial also be seen as part of a continuing supported it: “If we wish to shield our pique is informed by my own view repudiation of the “broken-windows” eyes and noses from the homeless,” he that graffiti barely qualifies as art—as doctrine of the Giuliani era, when the declared, “we should revoke their well as a lingering concern that prop- squalor and municipal disorder of condition, not their library cards.” erty rights have successfully been late-20th-century New York were sup- Of course, this was the height of eroded by recent court decisions. planted by a sense of security and civic the Reagan-Bush era, when the phe- Even the graffiti artists, in this case, decorum—civilization, if you will. The nomenon of homelessness was laid acknowledged that they knew the heyday of graffiti—when the subway exclusively at the doorstep of incum- Wolkoff building was destined to be trains were literally camouflaged by bent (Republican) administrations in torn down. Indeed, some explained to spray paint and the Times perceived Washington. Striking an attitude the Times that one quality of their romance where most saw vandalism— from the bench, instead of enforcing medium is its ephemeral nature: “I may be making a comeback. the law, is a constant temptation; and wouldn’t mind seeing my artwork go Which brings us to Judge H. Lee in those days, jurists were no less down with the building,” said Wil- Sarokin. In 1991 Sarokin, a federal inclined to substitute op-ed columns liam Tamontozzi. district judge appointed to the bench for legal findings than they are now. As it happens, the Times story by Jimmy Carter and later raised to H. Lee Sarokin’s judgment (which (“Graffiti Artists Find Validation in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals by was ultimately reversed) was symbolic Judge’s Ruling”) not only suggested Bill Clinton, earned some measure of of the same kind of legal transmuta- that the owner-developer got what he notoriety when he ruled against the tion that informs Frederic Block. deserved but that Block’s anger at public library in Morristown, New The tendency to idealize property Wolkoff’s “insolence” will lead to an Jersey, which had sought the occa- vandals posing as artists, or obnoxious expansion of the rights and preroga- sional right to ban a disorderly, mal- vagrants pretending to be readers, is tives of graffiti artists. TheTimes may odorous, and famously litigious irresistible to a certain sensibility. be right about that—or it might be homeless man named Richard Krei­ Judges are not just creatures of their wrong. For as one attorney specializing mer from its premises. time and circumstances; they read in “art law” warned, with Block’s Judge Sarokin ruled that the library newspapers and watch TV as well. $6.7 million judgment in mind, had no intrinsic right to bar patrons Justice can be blind in more ways

“building owners are going to be reluc- for their offensive conduct or poor than one. ♦ HOHLFELD / ULLSTEIN BILD GETTY

14 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 COMMENT ♦ WILLIAM KRISTOL us to rejoice,” thus his invocation: In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, An ever-widening gyre In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise. But Auden was under no illusions ext year will be the centenary touch falconers. But apportioning in the spring of 1939. He saw with clar- of one of the most famous blame is at this point less important ity the world around him and what was N poems of the 20th century, than recognizing reality. Abroad, the soon to come: W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming.” I horrors of Syria in particular—but In the nightmare of the dark presume there’ll be suitable acknowl- not only Syria—do resemble a blood- All the dogs of Europe bark, edgment of this in literary circles, and dimmed tide about which no author- And the living nations wait, even an occasional nod from those of us ity in the civilized world has done or Each sequestered in its hate; who labor in less rarefied intellectual proposes to do anything. At home, it Intellectual disgrace climes. But if poetry has the ability to has become clear that passionate Stares from every human face, bring home to us certain truths with a intensity tends to correlate inversely And the seas of pity lie focus and immediacy that mere prose with good sense and good character. Locked and frozen in each eye. has difficulty replicating, and if these So Yeats’s first stanza describes our Yeats and Auden were, I suppose, truths are important, why pessimistic that political and social wait for 2019? After all, by next The poets capture our action could avert a coming nightmare year some academic some- or could repair the broken bonds of where will have launched an plight with poignancy. society. Who am I to quarrel with attack on “centennialism” or them? But I would point out that we “decimalism” (some profes- But we who live in are not yet in 1939. Nor are the horrors sor probably already has), the prosaic world of our time remotely comparable to explaining that it’s intersec- those of 1914-1918. tionally illegitimate to privi- of politics can do The poets capture our plight with lege multiples of 10. So why more than lament. unparalleled poignancy. But we who not jump the gun and call to live in the prosaic world of politics mind now, 99 years later, his As Gladstone put it: and deeds can do more than lament. great poem? ‘The resources of William Gladstone, a figure from an Here’s the first stanza: earlier and more confident genera- Turning and turning in the civilization against tion, put it well: “The resources of widening gyre civilization against its enemies are not The falcon cannot hear the its enemies are not yet exhausted.” falconer; yet exhausted.’ But this means appreciating that Things fall apart; the centre there are enemies that must be con- cannot hold; situation. But his second suggests a dif- fronted. And it means understanding Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and ferent outcome from what we glimpse there is such a thing as civilization that everywhere on the horizon. There seems, for better is worth defending. ♦ The ceremony of innocence is drowned; or worse, to be no Second Coming at The best lack all conviction, while the hand. If some beast were slouching worst towards Bethlehem to be born, one Are full of passionate intensity. could at least analyze it and try to fig- This remains an extraordinarily ure out how to combat it. But all we evocative foreshadowing of what was seem to have ahead of us is an ever- to transpire in the quarter-century widening gyre, with birds of prey cir- after Yeats wrote. But after that, for the cling undisturbed and unconstrained, following seven decades or so, the cen- pouncing as they wish and as they are ter was more or less put back together. increasingly able. Subscribe today For all of the trials and tribulations of Yeats died in January 1939, just to Michael Warren’s the Cold War and the ’60s and 9/11, the before the “blood-dimmed tide” was center once again held. truly loosed upon the world. Another White House Watch via Does it still? One can’t help but formidable poet, W. H. Auden, com- the Newsletters page at feel that we are slipping back into a memorated him in verse weeks later. widening gyre. One can blame the Auden had hopes that Yeats’s “uncon- WeeklyStandard.com! intemperate falcons or the out-of- straining voice” could “still persuade

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 15 by a law degree in 2009. After serving in the Marine Corps, Lamb came back The Seasoned Vet to the area to work as a prosecutor. Saccone, 60, also has an impressive résumé: He served as a counterintel- and the Young Lamb ligence special agent in the Air Force for over a decade before becoming a television news anchor in South Korea. After that, he helped negoti- A special election in Pennsylvania ate the terms of nuclear power plant draws national attention. by Haley Byrd construction in North Korea as the only American living in the totali- Bethel Park, Pa. term before its victor will have to tarian country at the time, according f a congressional campaign won’t face voters again in November, so the to his website. He returned to the tell you the candidate’s schedule race is more significant for the les- United States and got his Ph.D. at I two weeks out from a tight spe- sons it could hold for the Democratic the University of Pittsburgh before cial election, it’s a safe bet to go to playbook than it is for the immedi- serving as a senior counterintelligence an American Legion post (it agent during the Iraq war, in doesn’t matter which one, any which he was tasked with “iden- post will do) and simply wait. tifying, capturing and interrogat- This is how I found myself at a ing insurgents.” He has visited Friday night fish fry at Ameri- 75 countries and has written can Legion Post 760 in rural nine books. western Pennsylvania. His legislative career as a Republican congressional state representative has been hopeful Rick Saccone showed lackluster by comparison. He up right on cue, about an hour is best known for introducing after I arrived. As the musta- a bill in 2013 to require pub- chioed state legislator made lic schools to post the words the rounds that night, shaking “In God We Trust” inside their hands and, presumably, kissing buildings. That bill failed. Dur- babies, some Trump support- ing his campaign, Saccone has ers told me they were excited embraced Trump enthusiasti- to vote for him. But others cally, going so far as to describe whispered that they were plan- himself as “Trump before ning to support the other guy, Trump was Trump.” He has because they had met him in Rick Saccone in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, February 2 split with his Republican pre- person a few weeks back and he decessors by unapologetically seemed nice. Underneath Saccone’s ate makeup of Congress. For Repub- alienating labor unions, claiming he carefree exterior, there had to be some licans, it represents the first electoral will receive support from their mem- unease: A Monmouth University poll opportunity to gauge whether their bers regardless. Lamb has relentlessly places him just three points ahead of tax cuts are enough to defend against sought union support. Democrat Conor Lamb, in an area a rising blue wave. “We will fight back, and I actually that has been a Republican stronghold But as the oft-quoted saying goes, all think it’s time for us to pick a few for nearly two decades. And the Cook politics is local. A Republican campaign fights of our own,” Lamb said at a Political Report switched its assessment aide involved in this race acknowledged downtown Pittsburgh rally in support of the election from “lean Republican” as much about the 18th District, where of unions on February 26, the day the to “toss-up” on February 27. Saccone is contending with a positive U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argu- Lamb, a 33-year-old retired Marine image Lamb has built up in the com- ments in Janus v. AFSCME, a case and former prosecutor, is running as munity. Lamb comes from a political that could cost public sector unions a conservative Democrat in the 18th family—his grandfather was majority millions if nonmembers can no longer District, which went for Trump by leader of the Pennsylvania state senate be required to pay them fees. “I have 20 points in 2016. The election’s win- in the 1970s. He attended a Catholic been happy and thankful to have your ner will serve only a seven-month high school in Pittsburgh and went on support throughout this campaign. to study at the University of Pennsylva- If you send me to Congress, we will Haley Byrd is a reporter nia, where he graduated with his politi- start picking those fights right away,”

at The Weekly Standard. cal science degree in 2006, followed Lamb pledged. / GETTYPETE MAROVICH

16 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 Lamb is walking a tightrope. support for Saccone before Election their Pelosi talking points, a GOP He religiously avoids attacking the Day, and GOP money is flowing into campaign aide argued, “You don’t go president, and he has taken meticu- the race. out defending yourself on TV if it’s lous steps to distance himself from “We’re going to spend what we not working.” the national Democratic party. He think we need to spend,” one Repub- But for Jeri, a lifelong resident of refuses outside Democratic help and lican campaign aide tells me. The the district I met at the Friday night is turning down donations from super- Washington Post estimated GOP fish fry, the Pelosi line of attack is PACs. He’s hoping his comparatively groups such as the National Repub- unconvincing. Jeri is in her sixties, conservative­ stances on issues like gun lican Congressional Committee and and she joined the American Legion rights (he doesn’t support gun control several super-PACs had already spent “for the bingo” a few years back. She proposals such as raising the minimum $4.7 million on airtime by early Feb- voted for Trump in 2016, and she sup- age to purchase rifles from 18 to 21) ruary. (Democratic outside groups, ported Republican Tim Murphy when and abortion (he tells me he’s person- for their part, had only spent around he represented the area. I ask her who ally opposed to abortion as a religious $300,000.) The NRCC alone has spent she’ll be voting for on March 13, and principle, but says he would make no “upwards of $2.5 million to $3 mil- she tells me she was initially lean- effort to legislate his views) will be lion” in advertisements, according to ing towards Saccone, but she is “dead enough for Republican voters to over- another GOP campaign aide. Repub- set against him” now. She blames his look the D next to his name on “mudslinging” campaign in part the ballot. Although there are for her decision. about 70,000 more registered “When they do those ads, Democrats than Republicans the one that they’re running in the 18th District, voters here now has Lamb, and when they consistently side with Republi- talk about Nancy Pelosi and she can candidates. goes, ‘crumbs.’ What was the Before Trump won the dis- rest of that?” Jeri asks. She’s trict overwhelmingly in 2016, talking about a GOP adver- Mitt Romney carried it by tisement that attacks Pelosi 17 points in 2012. Former GOP for comparing the raises and congressman Tim Murphy eas- bonuses middle-class workers ily won here in 2002, breezing were given by their employers through seven subsequent races after the passage of the GOP with at least 58 percent of the tax bill to crumbs in light of vote each time until he resigned the billions of dollars that cor- in October after the Pittsburgh porations received. Lamb has Post-Gazette reported he had an made similar comments. “Was extramarital affair in which he she thinking maybe we need encouraged the woman—who Conor Lamb accepting the Democratic nomination something better for the little thought she was pregnant with in Washington, Pennsylvania, November 19, 2017 people? I don’t know. That’s his child—to have an abortion. the way I see it. You never (Shannon Edwards, the woman from licans have tried to energize the GOP get to see the rest of the ad,” Jeri the affair, is now challenging longtime base by invoking consistently unpop- laments, shaking her head. Asked congressman Mike Doyle to repre- ular House minority leader Nancy how she feels about Pelosi, Jeri says sent the Pittsburgh area’s 14th Con- Pelosi, warning that a victory for she doesn’t know much about the gressional District.) Lamb would be one step closer to the California Democrat. “I know she Saccone does have some firm sup- return of Speaker Pelosi. doesn’t get talked about very good,” port among staunch Republicans in Lamb has countered the attack by she says. “I just don’t believe that’s the area. John Sarkis, a vocalist who saying he does not support Pelosi’s what she said.” sings with a Pittsburgh-based national continuing in a leadership role for Jeri tells me she is altogether frus- act called The Skyliners, tells me after House Democrats. “My opponent trated with government, and it is clear meeting Saccone at the fish fry that he wants you to believe that the big- she is inherently suspicious of Sac- will vote for him. “The people who are gest issue in this campaign is Nancy cone on account of his seven years really in touch with what’s happen- Pelosi. It’s all a big lie,” Lamb said spent in the Pennsylvania statehouse. ing are easily with Rick,” he claims. in a campaign ad released two weeks “The other one, he’s never been But this race is closer than usual, before the election. “I’ve already said in office, has he?” she asks, refer- compelling Republicans to pull out on the front page of the newspaper ring to Lamb. “Let’s see what he can all the stops to keep the seat. Trump that I don’t support Nancy Pelosi.” do. Because we can always get rid of

JEFF SWENSEN / WASHINGTON POST / GETTY JEFF SWENSEN / WASHINGTON is expected to hold a rally to shore up Asked about the effectiveness of him later.” ♦

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 17 by giving him valuable airtime,” its website reads. When to Turn the The good sense of this suggestion aside, is it practicable? A cynical read- ing of modern media implies that it Cameras Away isn’t: These days, if it bleeds it not only leads but must be aired around the clock with an excruciating level of detail—the pressure of competition Yes, media self-restraint is possible. and the morbid curiosity of viewers by Chris Deaton demand it. Given both the horror and newsi- ours after the Parkland, Fla., appears that yes, national media cov- ness of school shootings, it may be a school shooting, Zeynep erage does end up increasing the fre- fool’s errand to expect restraint from H Tufekci spent part of her eve- quency of these tragedies.” news executives, a deliberate deci- ning calling out major media that aired Advocates have used similar find- sion to downplay the sensational and video of students trembling while the dwell less on the personalities noise of gunshots ruptured the air. and profiles of the killers. But media “This is a snuff film,” she said of one execs, especially in TV, are regularly such clip, which was embedded atop confronted with decisions of how to a New York Times story. The video’s cover other attention-seeking indi- headline: “Filming a Rampage: Stu- viduals, even in real time. And in at dents Capture Florida School Attack.” least one type of case, they’ve demon- News consumers are accustomed strated a willingness to systematically to seeing such harrowing footage. focus the cameras elsewhere. Tufekci, a sociology professor at the Late in game four of the 2016 University of North Carolina who NBA Finals, a shirtless male streaker researches technology and society, jogged to center court from the base- maintains they shouldn’t be. Backed line opposite to where the ball was in by a growing body of scholarship that play. He was tackled from behind by mass killers inspire imitators, she security. Jon Healy, a reporter for the wants the media to restrain themselves Australian Broadcasting Corporation, in how much visceral evidence they distributed footage of the incident. broadcast of a shooter’s deeds. “This Don’t pay attention; it just encourages them. But no one from the other ABC did, doesn’t mean censoring the news or the ABC that was televising the game not reporting important events of obvi- ings to lobby the press for years. One to millions of American viewers. ous news value,” she wrote in the Times such campaign, “Don’t Name Them,” “A fan just ran on the floor,” nar- in 2015. “It means not providing the began in 2010 with the Advanced rated Mike Breen, the play-by-play killers with the infamy they seek.” Law Enforcement Rapid Response man. Viewers wouldn’t have known, Tufekci’s argument concerns a Training Center at Texas State Uni- otherwise: The camera was focused “contagion” effect. As researchers versity. It is a joint effort with the on LeBron James. Then it switched at Arizona State University wrote FBI and the “I Love U Guys” Foun- to Stephen Curry. Then to a replay. in 2015, “mass killings involv- dation, created by John-Michael and All the while, Breen explained the ing firearms are incented by simi- Ellen Keyes, parents of Emily Keyes, reason for the delay in the action. lar events in the immediate past.” who was killed in a 2006 Colorado “Security is right on top of him,” They found that school shootings school shooting. “Our efforts are in he said of the invader, who later was become more likely in the 13 days acknowledging that notoriety is often identified as a YouTube personality following a previous one. The fear one of the desired goals of some of infamous for pulling such stunts at is that media exposure helps fuel these perpetrators,” John-Michael sporting events worldwide. such “copycat” acts. While the ASU says. “And if we can reduce that, it’s The choice not to televise the antics researchers’ conclusion didn’t go that just one small piece that makes them was intentional for ESPN, ABC’s far—it determined only that conta- pause before they go.” broadcast partner. “We have a policy gion exists—physicist Sherry Tow- The campaign’s recommendations against it,” ESPN communications ers, who led the study, admitted, “it aim for the balance in coverage that director Dave Nagle tells me. “We do Tufekci encourages: “Sociologists and not want to glorify bad behavior.” Chris Deaton is a deputy online editor criminologists should study the crim- There is no convention or set agree-

at The Weekly Standard. inal—but let’s not glorify the shooter ment among networks not to air such TOM SZCZERBOWSKI / GETTY

18 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 court-storming. But many of them have adopted an informal code. A spokesman for CBS Sports told The The Ultimate Weekly Standard that while CBS doesn’t have a set policy, it doesn’t show field-rushers as a matter of prac- Crowded Field tice. Fred Gaudelli, the executive pro- ducer of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, said it’s an “unwritten policy every- where,” in a 2016 interview with Slate. Democrats may have an exceedingly difficult time This perspective is shared widely choosing a candidate in 2020. by Jay Cost by sports media. But there have been exceptions. During the 2009 men’s o president has been so We like to think of party nominees French Open final, NBC zoomed in consistently unpopular as the choice of the voters, but that on a streaker charging Roger Federer N so early in his term as Don- is only half true. Individual prefer- and attempting to place a hat on his ald Trump. Though there are three ences among the millions of primary head. The 30-second incident was years left to improve them, these weak voters have to be aggregated into a ominous: Tennis had been rocked in numbers are a bad sign for his reelec- collective decision, using some set 1993 when the number-one women’s tion prospects. The political betting of rules that serve as a social-choice player, Monica Seles, was stabbed in marketplace PredictIt gives him just mechanism. Those rules can easily the back during a match break. 1-in-3 odds of winning in 2020. sway the outcome. ESPN itself aired one court-storm- Little wonder that many Demo­ Consider, for instance, the 2016 ing incident, though it was after the crats are weighing a challenge. The Republican nomination. Donald fact. In a 2013 NBA game between the Democratic caucus in the Senate is Trump won 60 percent of available Cavaliers and the LeBron James-led full to bursting with potential con- delegates but only about 45 percent Miami Heat, a young Cavs fan came tenders. There has been chatter about of the primary vote. The difference onto the court during the game to senators Cory Booker of New Jer- was due to the fact that Republican plead with the departed star to return sey, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, rules award bonuses, sometimes sub- to Cleveland. (James complied two sea- Kamala Harris of California, Amy stantial ones, to the candidate who sons later.) The network turned the Klobuchar of Minnesota, Bernie finishes first in a contest, even if he saga into a lighthearted segment about Sanders of Vermont, and Elizabeth does not win a majority. the man. “We use content in our sto- Warren of Massachusetts. Former Democrats do not have anything rytelling that we typically wouldn’t use Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe like that. Their system is propor- other places, if we think it is a compel- has hinted he might run. There is tional, which is to say that delegates ling story for our fans,” says a spokes- buzz about Governor Tom Hick- are allocated, more or less, based on man for ESPN’s features unit. enlooper of Colorado and Montana the portion of the vote a candidate But these exceptions stand out. It’s governor Steve Bullock. Ditto Los receives in a given caucus or primary. evident that multiple network staffers, Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and for- Donald Trump’s glidepath to the from producers up to corporate brass, mer secretary of Housing and Urban GOP nomination after the Indiana have made a good-faith, often success- Development Julián Castro. Former primary in May 2016 would not have ful, effort to deny airtime to people who attorney general Eric Holder might happened if Republicans had the invade the field of play during televised run, as well. And then, of course, same rules as Democrats. Instead, sporting events. The logic is self-evi- there is Oprah Winfrey, who says she there probably would have been a dent: If the attention-seeking interlop- will run if God gives her a sign. four-way battle between Trump, Ted ers don’t get their 15 seconds of fame, This is a very long list. Several of Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich there will be fewer such incidents. these people will undoubtedly decide all the way to the GOP convention So the media can and do exercise not to run, but there will surely in Cleveland. No candidate would self-control in denying notoriety to be some surprise candidacies that have won a majority of delegates, so people who crave it. But so far only nobody has thought of yet. In sum, we there would have been some kind of in a realm where the stakes are low. should expect a very large field. brokered convention, with multiple Perhaps they can learn to do the same That raises the question: Can ballots cast and delegates having to when the stakes are life and death. Democrats select a quality candidate hammer out a deal. The perspective of too much from among this multitude? A lot will There is an inherent trade-off the of the media is, “ ‘This is today’s depend on how the party rules perform. two parties make with their respective news,’ ” says John-Michael Keyes. rules. Republicans prefer a quick and “And mine is, ‘No, you’re writing Jay Cost is a contributing editor tidy end to their process, even if the this into history forever.’ ” ♦ to The Weekly Standard. chosen nominee is not the consensus

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 19 of the party electorate. This has hap- Given this diversity, Democrats for a protracted battle are substantial. pened in the last three cycles, as both could use some sort of mechanism It is not hard to envision three, Mitt Romney and John McCain also that nudges their factions to come to a maybe four candidates contesting wrapped up the nomination at a point consensus choice in a timely fashion. the nomination all the way to the when they had won fewer than half But their rules lack such a unifying convention, each dominating some the votes. force. Indeed, the Democratic Unity factions within the party while still Democrats, on the other hand, Commission—the group impaneled falling short of a majority. Mean- have rules that stretch out the presi- by the Democratic National Commit- while, the elimination of the super- dential nomination contest unless tee to evaluate the party rules after the delegates would decrease the ability of and until somebody has won a clear 2016 nomination—has recently rec- the party leaders to preempt an ugly majority of the party, even if that ommended doing away with most of battle on the convention floor. And means the process gets a little messy. the “superdelegates.” These are party who is to say the eventual winner of And it certainly has. Democrats have officials who are able to vote as they such a knock-down, drag-out contest had knock-down, drag-out would reflect the values and fights many times since the interests of the whole party or current rules were set in place. serve as a winning alternative George McGovern in 1972, to Trump? Jimmy Carter in 1980, Wal- This is a general problem ter Mondale in 1984, Barack with the current nomination Obama in 2008, and Hillary process, one that Republi- Clinton in 2016 all had to bat- cans share as well: Primaries tle through to the end. Carter and caucuses essentially had to fight Ted Kennedy at import the general election the convention itself, even if the approach to settling politi- eventual outcome was clear. cal questions into the nomi- The composition of the nation—namely, campaigns, Democratic party lends itself to conflict, one candidate run- such infighting, too. The party ning against another. Is that has long been an accumulation really what parties should of factions with relatively few be doing? Partisans are all overlapping qualities, except a mostly on the same page, commitment to the expansion right? So why is spending of government. more than a year fighting This is as true now as it amongst themselves—com- ever was. The party as a whole pared to six months fighting is close to being minority-majority, please at the convention, unbound to against the political opposition—the meaning that Latinos, African Ameri- any candidate. DNC chair Tom Perez smart move? Partisans, in theory, cans, and Asians outnumber whites. has endorsed this idea, and it is likely agree on enough points that a more These ethnic and racial groups do to be enacted at the party’s next meet- consensus-driven approach could not always agree among themselves, ing this month. determine nominations in a more however. For instance, Latinos sup- What might this mean for 2020? efficient manner. The only clear win- ported Clinton in 2008, while African As Niels Bohr once said, “It is very ners in the current system are the Americans supported Obama. Among hard to predict, especially the future.” consultants and strategists who make white voters, a declining share of the It is undoubtedly possible that some a living working for campaigns. Democratic coalition is to be counted Democrat could emerge as the clear For all the calumny they’ve been as working class, although they still frontrunner, unite a sufficiently broad subjected to, the “smoke-filled rooms” play an outsized role in certain pri- swath of the party, and secure the of the old parties made a lot of sense maries, like West Virginia’s and Ken- nomination in an expeditious man- in that regard. Like-minded leaders tucky’s. Upscale white moderates ner. John Kerry managed this feat in of the party came together, hashed out have migrated to the Democratic 2004, catching fire at just the right some deal over an extended weekend, party over the last 30 years, but they moment to defeat Howard Dean in and chose a candidate that the whole coexist with an aggressively leftist, Iowa and New Hampshire. But given party, more or less, could live with. It activist base that often has disparate the multiplicity of factions within the wasn’t perfect, but these days it looks priorities among its own ranks—with party, the abundance of serious can- a lot more reasonable than the apoc- environmentalism, gay rights, abor- didates who might run, and the lack alyptic battle the Democrats might tion, gun control, and other issues of a mechanism to force a tidy con- wage amongst themselves just for the

vying for supremacy. clusion to the process, the chances privilege of challenging Trump. ♦ GARY LOCKE

20 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 would be a change in the nature of their practice if they intend to con- Obliged to Kill tinue practicing medicine in Ontario.” In other words, a Catholic oncologist with years of advanced training and The assault on medical conscience. experience should stop treating cancer patients and become a podiatrist. (An by Wesley J. Smith appeal is expected.) This isn’t just about Canada. Pow- court in Ontario, Canada, erful political and professional forces has ruled that a patient’s are pushing to impose the same pol- A desire to be euthanized icy here. The ACLU has repeatedly trumps a doctor’s conscientious sued Catholic hospitals for refusing objection. Doctors there now face to violate the church’s moral teach- the cruel choice between complic- ing around issues such as abortion and ity in what they consider a grievous sterilization. Prominent bioethicists wrong—killing a sick or disabled have argued in the world’s most pres- patient—and the very real prospect of tigious medical and bioethical profes- legal or professional sanction. sional journals that doctors have no A little background: In 2015, the An anti-euthanasia protest in Vancouver, right to refuse to provide lawful but Supreme Court of Canada conjured a Canada, October 10, 2013 morally contentious medical proce- right to lethal-injection euthanasia for dures unless they procure another anyone with a medically diagnosable But Ontario refused that accom- doctor willing to do as requested. condition that causes irremediable modation. Instead, its euthanasia law Indeed, the eminent doctor and ethi- suffering—as defined by the patient. requires physicians asked by a legally cist Ezekiel Emanuel argued in a coau- No matter if palliative interventions qualified patient either to do the deed thored piece published by the New could significantly reduce painful personally or make an “effective refer- England Journal of Medicine that every symptoms, if the patient would rather ral” to a “non-objecting available and physician is ethically required to par- die, it’s the patient’s right to be killed. accessible physician, nurse practitioner, ticipate in a patient’s legal medical Parliament then kowtowed to the or agency . . . in a timely manner.” request if the service is not controver- court and legalized euthanasia across A group of physicians sued to be sial among the professional establish- Canada. Since each province admin- exempted from the requirement, ment—explicitly including abortion. isters the country’s socialized single- arguing rightly that the euthanize- If doctors don’t like it? Ezekiel was as payer health-care system within its or-refer requirement is a violation of blunt as the Canadian court: bounds, each provincial parliament their Charter-protected right (akin to also passed laws to accommodate a constitutional right) to “freedom of Health care professionals who are euthanasia’s legalization. conscience and religion.” unwilling to accept these limits have Not surprisingly, that raised the Unfortunately, the reviewing court two choices: select an area of medicine, such as radiology, that will not put thorny question of what is often called acknowledged that while forced refer- them in situations that conflict with “medical conscience,” most acutely for ral does indeed “infringe the rights of their personal morality or, if there is Christian doctors as well as those who religious freedom . . . guaranteed under no such area, leave the profession. take seriously the Hippocratic oath, the Charter,” this enumerated right which prohibits doctors from partici- must nonetheless take a back seat to For now, federal law generally pating in a patient’s suicide. These the court-invented right of “equitable supports medical conscience by pro- conscientious objectors demanded access to such medical services as are hibiting medical employers from the right not to kill patients or to be legally available in Ontario,” which discriminating against profession- obliged to “refer” patients to a doctor the court deemed a “natural corollary als who refuse to participate in abor- who will. Most provinces accommo- of the right of each individual to life, tion and other controversial medical dated dissenting doctors by creating liberty, and the security of the person.” serv­ices. But the law requires admin- lists of practitioners willing to partici- Penumbras, meet emanations. istrative enforcement in disputes pate in what is euphemistically termed And if physicians don’t want to rather than permitting an individ- MAID (medical assistance in dying). commit what they consider a cardinal ual cause of action in civil court. sin, being complicit in a homicide? That has been a problem in recent Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow The court bluntly ruled: “It would years. The Obama administration, at the Discovery Institute’s Center appear that, for these [objecting] phy- clearly hostile to the free exercise on Human Exceptionalism and a consultant sicians, the principal, if not the only, of religion in the context of health

to the Patients Rights Council. means of addressing their concerns care, was not viewed by pro-life and / AP CANADIAN PRESS / DARRYL DYCK

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 21 orthodox Christian doctors as a reli- able or enthusiastic upholder of medical conscience. When Liberation The Trump administration has been changing course to actively sup- port medical conscience. The Depart- Parties Govern ment of Health and Human Services recently announced the formation of a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in the HHS Office Judging the new leaders in South Africa for Civil Rights, which would shift and Ethiopia. by James H. Barnett emphasis toward rigorous defense of medical conscience rights. n February 14, South Afri- South Africa has suffered from a Critics have objected belliger- ca’s president Jacob Zuma gradual erosion of its state institu- ently. The New York Times editori- O resigned amid widespread tions and subsequent economic stagna- alized that the new emphasis could corruption allegations, ceding power tion under both of Nelson Mandela’s lead to “grim consequences” for to his newly elected deputy, the busi- successors at the head of the ANC, patients—including, ludicrously, the ness tycoon and onetime anti-apartheid Thabo Mbeki and Zuma. The coun- denial by religious doctors of “breast activist Cyril Ramaphosa. Less than try was hit much harder by the 2008 exams or pap smears.” 24 hours later, Ethiopian prime min- recession than most emerging mar- The American College of Obste­ ister Hailemariam Desalegn resigned, kets, but it is corruption that has had tricians and Gynecologists joined the succumbing to the protests the most adverse effect. Physicians for Reproductive Health to by the ethnic Oromo and In 2016, a former govern- decry the creation of the new office— Amhara communities that ment ombudsman’s report which, remember, is merely dedicated have rocked the country for stated that corruption was to improving the enforcement of exist- nearly three years. so rampant in South Africa ing law—warning darkly that the These are two of the as to amount to “state cap- proposal “could embolden some pro- continent’s most strategi- ture”—when corrupt par- viders and institutions to discriminate cally significant countries, ties are powerful enough against patients based on the patient’s and Western commentators to shape national policy health care decisions.” quickly perked up to hope Cyril Ramaphosa for their own benefit. The Massachusetts Medical Soci- that the “winds of change” Zuma’s frequent squabbles ety joined the fearmongering cho- were once again sweeping Africa. with the finance ministry produced a rus, opining that the new office could These two resignations, unlinked and toxic investment climate that saw the allow doctors to shirk their “respon- distinct as they are, hardly presage the retreat of foreign capital. And while sibility to heal the sick.” Not to be dawn of liberal democracy across ANC rule has encouraged the rise of outdone in the paranoia department, the continent. But in a region where a coterie of empowered and well-con- People for the American Way worried we often reduce politics either to cari- nected black businessmen—includ- the new office might mean that “other catures of inscrutable tribal hostility or ing Ramaphosa—the average black staff like translators also refuse to to unnuanced questions of alleviating South African has seen far less mate- serve patients, which could heighten poverty, they can help us understand rial improvement. Unemployment disparities in health care for non-Eng- the evolution of Africa’s liberation par- is at nearly 30 percent, and stagger- lish-speaking patients.” ties and the complex interplay between ing economic inequality contributes The Ontario court ruling is a har- identity politics and economic develop- to high rates of crime, exacerbated binger of our public policy future. ment in nations that are still struggling race relations, and xenophobic attacks Judging by the apocalyptic reaction to define themselves. by blacks against African migrants against the formation of the Con- Both the African National Con­gress accused of taking jobs. science and Religious Freedom Divi- (ANC) of South Africa and the Ethio- The ANC’s continued dominance sion, powerful domestic social and pian People’s Revolutionary Demo- of South African politics is only puz- political forces want to do here what cratic Front (EPRDF) are liberation zling if you ignore the fact that while the Ontario court ruling—if it sticks parties that came to power in the 1990s race is not the only issue in South on appeal—could do in that province: with great international fanfare. Each Africa, it still frames the country’s dis- drive pro-life, orthodox Christian, has failed to live up to its promise— course. It has barely been a full genera- and other conscience-driven doctors, although in very different ways. tion since apartheid ended, which is nurses, and medical professionals from not very long to scrub such a violent their current positions in our health- James H. Barnett is a Public Interest fellow in and oppressive legacy from the nation’s

care system. ♦ Washington, D.C. psyche. Pervasive support for the party IMAGES / GETTY BRENTON GEACH / GALLO

24 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 that liberated more than 80 percent of groups are historically antagonistic) the EPRDF are viewed with suspi- the country is understandable, espe- but out of shared animosity towards cion by their own communities. Even cially when the majority of blacks are the Tigrayan-dominated regime. appointing a respected Oromo could still impoverished compared to their Despite the intensity of the protests trigger backlash from the Amhara, white compatriots. (which have been met with a bloody and vice versa. Any new prime min- Whereas Mandela’s ANC came to crackdown and the declaration of a ister faces the test of reconciling the power peacefully, eschewing the radi- state of emergency), Desalegn’s resigna- demands of over 80 distinct ethnic calism of its early years, the EPRDF tion appears to be little more than win- groups while keeping the country’s entered Addis Ababa on the back of dow dressing. He was already slated to development on track. tanks in 1991, ousting the genocidal step down this year and had never been Throughout its modern his- Marxist Mengistu Haile Mariam. And the preferred candidate of the hard- tory, Ethiopian governments have whereas the ANC has struggled to over- line TPLF faction (he is himself not attempted to hold the nation’s dispa- come the legacy of the old regime, the Tigrayan, but a member of the small rate communities together through a EPRDF, under first Meles Zenawi and Wolayta tribe). His departure does not combination of strong security forces, then Desalegn, has eliminated almost change the TPLF’s domination of the ill-fated development schemes, and all vestiges of Mengistu’s dictatorship government—or the security appara- some powerful national idea (the Sol- with years of amazing economic perfor- tus, where real power lies. Immediately omonic dynasty stretching back to mance. By scrapping central planning, after Desalegn’s resignation, the gov- the 13th century under emperors like modernizing agriculture, and attract- ernment implemented yet another state Haile Selassie or an Ethiopian van- ing foreign investment, Ethiopia has of emergency, squashing any hopes this guard to spread Marxism-Leninism boomed. In Addis Ababa, a modern would be a democratic transition. across Africa under Mengistu). The light rail glides past the abandoned If Desalegn’s departure was about EPRDF has eschewed ideology in parade grounds where residents once ethnic politics, Zuma’s was about cor- favor of maximizing economic growth, listened to Mengistu lecture on scien- ruption. Many are portraying Zuma’s offering little more than a thinly veiled tific socialism. Ethiopia was the world’s resignation as a victory of the techno- neoliberalism administered by security third-fastest growing economy from cratic, centrist wing of the ANC over officials who publicly extol the virtues 2000 to 2016—outpacing India. Eco- the party’s more disgraceful elements. of ethnic pluralism while brutally sup- nomic development has been uneven But Ramaphosa was only narrowly pressing the grievances of all but a slim across Ethiopia’s 100 million people, of elected ANC head by party delegates minority. If Ethiopia’s rising tide has course, but the macroeconomic outlook (rather than ordinary voters), and his lifted all boats, it hasn’t negated the for the country is bright. opponent, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma importance of identity in politics—just The EPRDF’s problems lie not in (Jacob Zuma’s ex-wife), is a populist as the industrial revolution didn’t tem- economics, but in a state model based who enjoys large support among the per nationalist fervor in Europe (quite on the contradictory ideas of develop- party base. His immediate challenge the contrary). ment autocracy and ethnic federal- is building a sustainable coalition Complex and messy questions of ism. The EPRDF is dominated by the within a party whose elites benefited history, culture, religion, and lan- Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front greatly during the Zuma years—and guage are as integral to politics in (TPLF), the most effective fighting his cabinet reshuffle made it clear he Africa as they are everywhere else. force of the Ethiopian civil war. The doesn’t yet have the power to sideline It isn’t unreasonable that the ANC TPLF represents the interests of the some of the former president’s key should remain popular despite its Tigrayan people, who constitute a allies. If he can manage this, he can poor leadership, while the EPRDF, mere 6 percent of Ethiopia’s popula- then turn his attention to tackling gov- despite the impressive development tion. The Oromo and Amhara, who ernment corruption, which if cleaned it’s shepherded along, suffers a crisis together constitute 61 percent of Ethi- up could lead to a return of foreign of legitimacy. We should be hesitant opians, are nominally represented in capital and an upgrading of South then to put too much faith in market- the EPRDF’s governing coalition, but African debt (which reached junk centric approaches championed by most Ethiopians nevertheless see the status last fall). Ramaphosa faces other international economists as one-size- EPRDF as a Tigrayan puppet and eth- challenges, too. Land reform, educa- fits-all solutions to Africa’s problems. nic federalism as a vacuous expression. tion, urban decay, and growing skepti- Sound economic policy matters, but Ethiopia’s protests began in 2015 cism of previous reconciliation efforts even in the ostensibly posthistori- with Oromo anger over expansion are but a few of the issues he cannot cal West, competing visions of iden- plans for Addis Ababa that would have long ignore. tity and nationhood pose a challenge seen unchecked urbanization and mas- Ethiopia’s prospects are even dim- to the technocratic consensus. These sive non-Oromo migration into the mer. No successor to Desalegn has dynamics are global, and we will traditional Oromo breadbasket. The yet been named, and the succession have to look beyond GDP figures as Amhara joined not out of any partic- is complicated by the fact that most we judge new leaders in Pretoria and ular affinity for the Oromo (the two Oromo and Amhara officials within Addis Ababa. ♦

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 25 A Woman’s World— If She Can Keep It Minding the #MeToo generation gap

By Alice B. Lloyd equal status in work and life tended to be practical revolu- tionaries. They were women who worked and who asked or anyone counting #MeToo casualties with to advance at work according to their abilities. a wary eye, one of 2018’s first will have stood It was only in October of last year that the Harvey out. On January 13, in a lengthy exposé pub- Weinstein stories started to hit, yet it already has the lished on a website for college-age women, unmistakable feeling of epoch-making history. Preda- a 23-year-old photographer charged comic tory men, perched on the ruling rungs of highly vis- FAziz Ansari with the crime of being a bad date. The ible professions, fell one after the next. They continue to pseudonymous “Grace” described yielding to his awk- drop. In droves, women they’d harassed, raped, abused, ward sexual advances and, even though she felt uncom- flashed, pinched, and embarrassed—often over decades fortable, declining to protest or get up and leave. While in power—confessed these long-hidden workplace night- women may rightly see a semblance of injustice in his mares and dream-killing disappointments. There’s no stop- arrogance and her all-too-familiar acquiescence, Grace’s ping it, per the dizzy refrain. assessment that their date amounted to sexual assault sent You can call it a “warlock hunt” (as essayist Claire Ber- the movement into crisis. Had #MeToo, cautious opti- linski did in an incisive critique of #MeToo—an article mists worried, gone too far? half a dozen journals turned down); a righteous excision Just as notable, though, was the ensuing intergen- of perverts, power-abusers, and predators; or an unwinna- erational feminist-journalist feud. When the television ble war for women’s freedom from worrying about sex at anchor Ashleigh Banfield criticized Grace on the air, the work. Whatever you call it, there’s no denying its purpose. reporter who had written her story, Katie Way, hit back What #MeToo’s critics all seem to miss is that the move- by calling Banfield a “second-wave-feminist has-been.” ment now underway represents a practical reorientation of What Way meant was that Banfield was 50 and held the the struggle for women’s equality. At its core is not a par- moderate feminist views typical of professional women tisan argument, but an exceptionally American one: that her age. These qualities put her out of touch with the we’re past due our equal freedom. dominant discourse, which equates male selfishness and An amnesia afflicts the current feminist revival if its insensitivity with sexual assault. proponents think “second wave” is a slur. Hard as it is to The “first wave” of feminism arose in the late-19th see from where Katie Way writes, the career women of and early-20th centuries, when women claimed the rights the 1960s and ’70s had the same inviolate goals as those of full citizenship: property ownership, the right to vote. of the #MeToo era. Understanding the historical real- Organizationally, it was indebted to the literal fron- ity of women’s evidently still-unequal status requires we tier, where women were indispensable workers, and to listen to the past to perceive what, after more than a cen- the widely popular temperance movement, which hard- tury of struggle, still stands in our way. headed ladies led. Betty Friedan birthed the “second wave” in 1963 when she named the American housewife’s nameless mal- OUT ON THE FRONTIER aise. And the feminists who under the second-wave ban- ot too long ago there were, for one thing, far ner rode the rising tide of civil rights, birth control, and more blatant barriers to entry, Shirley Tilgh- elite coeducation into a renewed, liberationist demand for N man reminds me. A microbiologist and former president of Princeton, Tilghman is a frank and thought- Alice B. Lloyd is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard. ful feminist. In 1993, she argued in a New York Times op-ed

26 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 A suffragette protest in Greenwich Village in 1912: Western states led the way in granting full voting rights to women.

for the abolition of tenured professorships, believing that her double life: “There is only one of me, I can only be in the vaunted tenure track, focused as it is on hard work one place at one time. I love my work. I love my children,” during a woman’s most viable child-bearing and -rear- she’d remind herself. “I’m not going to feel guilty when ing years, is fundamentally discriminatory. In 2001, she I’m in one place or the other.” Knowing they were some- became Princeton’s first female president—and only the place women hadn’t been before, working mothers of her second in the Ivy League. By then she’d already been out generation had to trick each other into thinking it could on the frontier for years. actually be done, Tilghman tells me—only half-joking. In In the 1970s, Tilghman was a groundbreaking research so doing, they proved that it could. scientist. She’d earned her Ph.D. at Temple University, Kenyon College political philosopher Pam Jensen and as a postdoc at the National Institutes of Health, recalls endemic self-doubt among her female peers in she worked on the team that cloned the first mamma- graduate school at the University of Chicago in the 1960s. lian gene. By the 1980s, she was a researcher at the Fox Can women be philosophers? They debated in earnest a prob- Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and a professor of lem few women today would entertain even under extreme biochemistry at Penn. She was also a single mother to her protest. The draft was on then, Jensen reminds me, and son and daughter. men’s lives depended on academic success sufficient to Her female colleagues at Fox Chase, several of whom defer their service. Doubts about the morality of a contro- were mothers too, drew strength from each other’s border- versial war and its soldiers’ sacrifice created a state of per- line-delusional assurances, she recalls: “We just kind of petual unrest in which women were not full citizens. On lived in this slightly made-up environment where we said, the wartime campus, context was king. ‘There’s no problem here.’ ” Her decision to leave Phila- And so it is today, she says. “It’s natural that women delphia for Princeton in 1986 came down, she says, to the students have a great deal more confidence: They will find needs of her two young children—the new job meant she open doors and support for what they want to achieve.” could afford a house mere minutes from the elementary But to Jensen, the conventional route of postgradu- school, the pediatrician, and her office. ate marriage and motherhood, the sort of life Friedan Tilghman said a mantra-like secular prayer for guilt- painted as a prison, relieved the pressure to be brilliant,

BETTMANN / GETTY free endurance to keep from drowning in the demands of “to be Plato.” “I had something to go home to, and that

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 27 was delightful. I think I felt the need to prove my useful- of activists and theoretical feminists, the stuff of the “third ness,” and a second life at home provided purpose to fall wave,” do not typically touch the lives of working women. back on. Men in the field, presumably, worried less about Any social movement with individual self-knowledge and whether they were “useful.” self-fulfillment as its collective aims has probably missed “The principle of equality is deeply, deeply embedded the point, says Tiefer, a professor at Columbia who studies in our American souls,” Jensen reminds me, moving to human sexuality within its always-complex social context. the subject of #MeToo’s civic usefulness. Making the most “Younger women seem to be concerned about themselves of it requires we remember: “Rather than being driven by as individuals and their lives in ways that I don’t think— our culture, we should allow our political principles—the and my mother didn’t think,” she observes. ones that argue for the equality of men and women, and In 1969, Tiefer was a Phi Beta Kappa with a newly the equal education of men and women—to come forth.” minted Ph.D. from Berkeley. Her adviser was Frank But as Tilghman notes, the question Beach, head of the American Psy- of whether women can succeed in their chological Association. “Frank careers often has a simple, practical set of They didn’t have lists wrote letters hither and thither,” answers. As president of Princeton, she back in the day. But recommending her to top research didn’t move against tenure, but instead there were lunches. institutions around the country. started a backup child-care benefit for But Beach believed, she recalls, students and employees, which sent a The earlier version “women were not suited to science clear message to working mothers. And of women in media jobs because they’re going to get she made it a point to hire women— watching out for each married and have babies. He did “Not because I had a quota and not other was subtler and not want to throw the whole weight because I set out to say, ‘No matter what, non-newsmaking. ‘I can of his reputation behind some- this is going to be a woman,’ ”—which body’s application when they were sparked a minor scandal. Her unofficial remember the first day only going to stay in the job two or affirmative action policy, critics said, was I went to work in the three years before bailing out.” born from an unfair, politically biased Washington bureau, But he did strongly recom- pro-woman agenda. Tilghman sees it two women reporters mend Tiefer for a professorship in differently. Many of the women she pro- took me out to lunch to psychology at Johns Hopkins and, moted have gone on to wider success, she remembers, “got a letter back, including Amy Gutmann, the president tell me everything: who which I have in my filing cabinet, of the University of Pennsylvania, and to watch out for, who saying, ‘It looks like a great person, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who served as was a real asshole,’ but we don’t hire women’—black director of policy planning at the State says Jill Abramson. and white. I remember Frank giv- Department and now leads the think ing me that letter and both of us tank New America. In reality, the differ- saying, ‘That’s really too bad.’ And ence in Tilghman’s hiring practice was simpler than some we kept looking. It’s not like you fall down dead and say, feminist conspiracy: “I could see women leaders more ‘Discrimination!’ I’m not sure I even knew the word.” clearly than some of my male colleagues,” she says. Colorado State came courting, and “They thought get- ting a Phi Beta Kappa to a second-rate school was a coup, which it was.” BANDING TOGETHER At CSU, she awoke to the women’s movement. And as omen witness each other’s trials and receive an overqualified professor—one every day more acutely their lessons together. Anita Hill’s testimony aware of what might have been had she been born a man— W in the early 1990s told American women “a Tiefer took to revolutionary leadership. “When I read that very familiar story” according to psychologist Leonore stuff in 1972, it wasn’t just that I sat up and said, ‘Oh my Tiefer. Now, with the Weinstein scandal and its unend- God, this is true. Why didn’t I know this?’ ” she recalls. It ing aftermath, “There’s a sense we’re not going to do it was the new sense of togetherness: “It was all validated by the same way again.” The old story is being revised, and other people’s stories.” “the consequences are going to be different.” In the living rooms of her female colleagues and There’s danger, though, in distraction from collective friends, she formed the Fort Collins chapter of the concerns. Feminist gains come from women’s real experi- National Organization for Women. In one campaign, ences and real opportunities. The impractical inventions they petitioned the local paper to desegregate men’s and

28 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 The 1970 press conference at which the women of Newsweek announced their discrimination lawsuit

women’s job listings. Changing the old stories about what TV or bought the book they had no idea women of my women could and couldn’t do, “It became my struggle. I generation were treated this way or this was what men had to do something about this. It was my job.” said or did.” For Lynn Povich it actually was her job. She led a 1970 For Povich, #MeToo manifests the same strength-in- sex-discrimination lawsuit against Newsweek—recounted numbers strategy of the complainants from the Newsweek in her 2012 book, Good Girls Revolt, which became an research pool: “If you do it as a group, it’s so much more Amazon-produced TV series in 2016. Forty-six women powerful—and nobody is retaliated against,” she says. fact-checkers were wasting their educations and talents in “Younger women have said to me they didn’t have, until the all-female research pool beyond which there were no very recently, a sense of sisterhood or protesting together opportunities for them at the magazine. Women with their as a group beyond the web.” journalistic ambition hardwired—Nora Ephron, for exam- #MeToo has touched her own work in a way, too. Good ple, and Ellen Goodman and Jane Bryant Quinn—quickly Girls Revolt was canceled after a single season. But the left for publications where they would be promoted. But Amazon Studios executive producer who decided its fate, Povich stayed and plotted. She was determined not just to Roy Price, had to resign in October after being accused of write the story but to be part of it. They announced their sexual harassment. lawsuit the day the magazine ran a cover on the women’s movement under the headline “Women in Revolt.” “I wouldn’t say we were braver,” Povich counters GOING IT ALONE my comparison to today’s fighters for workplace equal- y now, everyone who cares to has read a cached ity, “No.” But “I do believe you need to know your his- copy of the “S—ty Media Men” list—a Google tory to understand where you are and where you’re going. B spreadsheet deleted within days of its creation but Things are not being invented for the first time. They’re still working its way around the web. For a few days, it cir- progressing­ from these foundations. And so many young culated among the inboxes of women in media, mostly in

BETTMANN / GETTY women have said to me that until they saw the series on New York, collecting the names of men whose misdeeds

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 29 The Hillary Clinton campaign’s election night party at the Javits Center, as exultation collapsed into sobbing range from the possession of an abrasive personality to understandably, afraid of the response their comments multiple alleged rapes. Deserved firings and awkward would incur. “I’m not on Twitter, so I don’t live in that exposés swiftly followed fevered coverage of the list. world, thankfully,” Roiphe adds. “But I do think people The list’s originator outed herself early in January are afraid—of the anger, but also of professional repercus- when a rumor that she’d be named in an essay by feminist sions.” The list and its keepers served up a uniquely digi- skeptic Katie Roiphe whipped around Twitter. The result- tal-age destruction. ing controversy, in which an online activist offered to pay They didn’t have lists like that back in the day, for- writers to pull their pieces from Harper’s, where Roiphe’s mer New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson tells was set to be published, only proved what turned out to be me. But, she says, there were lunches. The earlier version her actual point. “Social media has enabled a more elabo- of women in media watching out for each other was sub- rate intolerance of feminist dissenters,” she argued in the tler and non-newsmaking. “I can remember the first day piece. Indeed, they have enabled a more elaborate intoler- I went to work in the Washington bureau, two women ance of everything. reporters took me out to lunch to tell me everything: who Contrary to her subjects’ suspicions, Roiphe’s piece is to watch out for, who was a real asshole.” far more occupied with the Twitterati than with the cre- She knew her place in the chain of women’s history ation of a list that bore a sometimes unthinking revenge. too, she recalls. At a New Year’s Eve party at some point “The need to differentiate between smaller offenses and early in the Clinton years—at Sally Quinn and Ben Brad­ assault is not interesting to a certain breed of Twitter femi- lee’s Georgetown townhouse, no less, “very glitterati”— nist,” Roiphe charged, citing several anonymous inter- Abramson caught three glamazons of mid-20th-century viewees who agree with her line of thinking but wouldn’t feminism putting their heads together: Lauren Bacall, say so on the record for fear of the feminist lynch mob. Betty Friedan, and Madeleine Albright. These were “One of them,” Roiphe tells me, “did say, ‘You’re taking a women whose power and success no man dared constrain. bullet for the team.’ ” “They were engaged in what was obviously a fun and

These anonymous critics of the movement were, quite lively conversation,” Abramson recalls. “I was thinking WIN MCNAMEE / GETTY

30 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 they were like a chain, one necessary for the other. Lau- “The climb is steeper and harder than you imagine,” ren Bacall being this cool, glamorous movie star who wore Abramson says she wants to tell them. #MeToo may have pants back in the Hollywood golden age. She begat, even “put the fear of God into men in the workplace, but is it though their age difference wasn’t that big, Betty Friedan. going to make them move over and promote more women And Friedan begat Madeleine Albright”—who was secre- into positions of power in society?” That, too, is women’s tary of state at the time. The willful women Bacall played work. “I’m the one,” Abramson adds, describing her deci- on the big screen suggested a sharp discrepancy between sion back in 2008 to move Jodi Kantor from editing Arts women’s intelligence and personal power and our domes- & Leisure to writing and reporting on political news. “I tic erasure during the baby boom, Abramson says. And could tell she would be a totally kickass reporter.” Not the feminism Friedan spun from the housewives’ empty quite 10 years later, Kantor’s reporting on Harvey Wein- lives certainly helped precipitate Albright’s appointment. stein helped set another wave in motion. Every president since Gerald Ford has made certain to appoint at least one woman to his cabinet. Abramson’s public firing in 2014 fits in this historical BUILDING THE FUTURE chain, too. Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. replaced ut before Jodi Kantor started reporting her first her after not quite three years atop the editorial food chain, Harvey Weinstein story, there was Susan Fowler, saying he believed “new leadership will improve some B a woman with a bad boss and a blog. And before aspects of the management of the newsroom.” Abramson, there was #MeToo, there was #DeleteUber. it was reported, had recently discov- Fowler was just 25 and had ered her salary and pension did not been at her dream job as an engi- measure up to her male predecessors’ Katie Roiphe is far neer at Uber for barely a year and had complained. Her inquiries to when she wrote the 2,900-word the “top brass,” Ken Auletta reported more occupied with the post that would upend the swag- in the New Yorker, were said to have Twitterati than with gery startup sector. Her man- “set them off.” “I had clashes with the the creation of a list ager had propositioned her for men who were above me,” she recalls, that bore a sometimes sex and, when she complained, “but I don’t think they were any more unthinking revenge. ‘The Uber’s HR department pro- acute than those of any of the male tected him because, based on [executive] editors.” What she had, need to differentiate his productivity reviews, his she recalls, was a reputation for being between smaller offenses value outweighed any unease on “pushy.” Her successor, Dean Baquet, and assault is not the part of the women forced to praised her in his inaugural remarks to interesting to a certain report to him. Those who com- the newsroom—for her ambition. breed of Twitter feminist,’ plained were, further, punished Abramson was the first woman to with negative reviews. An exter- hold the executive editor spot—argu- she charges. nal audit confirmed Fowler’s ably the pinnacle of American journal- account of Uber’s practices. ism. Sulzberger had offered it to her over the phone in 2011, And just four months after Fowler reflected on “One and she didn’t think to ask at the time what her predecessors’ Very, Very Strange Year at Uber,” the ridesharing giant’s compensation had been. “My advice to younger women now founder and CEO Travis Kalanick had to step down is don’t do what I did,” she tells me. “Just be very straightfor- amid a raging flurry of accusations. ward and ask those questions. I was stupid not to.” In Silicon Valley, it’s mostly men who are building the She’s especially sensitive to the disappointments future: Women hold just a quarter of computing jobs and, the next generation of women will inherit. And it’s not as of 2016, only 15 percent of executive positions at the just because of the last presidential election, although top tech companies. But it’s this female minority which it’s that too. Abramson was at the Javits Center on elec- has triggered a workplace reformation. Fowler was far tion night, planning to collect some color for a celebra- from the first to take her account of Silicon Valley sexism tory piece pre-written for the Guardian; instead, she public. But her writing resonated—the post went viral— saw exultation collapse into sobbing. “Seeing so many and her accounts of being sexually pursued by superiors, younger women literally prostrate with grief was gut- excluded from workplace camaraderie, and ignored when wrenching,” she recalls, noting these are the same young she complained through the appropriate channels got women who marched the day after the inauguration and women talking to each other about their own experiences. now tweet #MeToos. Sometimes women talking to women is enough.

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 31 Take the case of Justin Caldbeck, the fallen head of decisions defines a company’s “culture.” While her com- Binary Capital, who hit on women when they pitched him rades were the women who stayed, “Most of my mentors, for funding for their startups. Caldbeck’s habits were whis- throughout most of my career,” Whitney admits, “were pered about but only came to light when a female founder men. If I thought about what I wanted, the people who had who’d sought funding from Binary showed a reporter his done that were all men.” Working closely with mostly men late-night texts—instead of ignoring them and avoid- remains a prerequisite for success in Silicon Valley. ing him as other women had done or acquiescing­ , as he’d Seventy-four percent of women in computing jobs— hoped, in the interest of her career. Another founder told software developers, data engineers—complained of gen- the same reporter Caldbeck had groped her at a work der discrimination in a recent Pew report, compared with dinner. Significantly, the two women were friends who roughly half of women who work in science, technology, confided in each other before deciding to go public. Even- engineering, and math (STEM) fields more broadly. Tech tually, six women accused Caldbeck companies, Whitney explains, fol- of unwanted advances, and he had to low the same face-saving practices resign from Binary. for harassment allegations as con- It doesn’t surprise Telle Whitney Not quite three years gressional offices and Hollywood that the culturally aggressive, gatekeep- after Ellen Pao lost in studios. The nondisclosure agree- ing venture-capital sector feels some of court, it’s hard to imagine ments women sign in a settlement the valley’s sharpest “growing pains.” any PR campaign, no “really tie their hands” when it VCs’ make-or-break power over start- matter how expensive, comes to condemning predatory ups feeds a Weinsteinish sense of enti- behavior by powerful men in Sil- tlement. A veteran of the valley who could convince us that icon Valley. Plus, “It’s really con- led the Anita Borg Institute—which she wasn’t a victim of a sidered to be a career stopper to advocates for women in technology— discriminatory culture. report any kind of harassment”— until her retirement last year, Whitney Today, a public sympathy too often “people who chose to describes an increasingly anxious sense Pao could never have report it were sorry that they did.” of urgency to recruit and retain female Ellen Pao, in her 2017 mem- technologists. Ideally, fear of firings, seen coming would oir Reset, remembers discourag- costly legal battles, and public shame easily overpower Kleiner ing a junior female colleague at wouldn’t have been required. But it’s Perkins’s opposition. the powerful venture capital firm an encouraging type of male anxiety, Kleiner Perkins from report- she thinks, compared to the conditions ing the inappropriate actions of a under which she worked in Silicon Valley a generation ago. superior. At the time, Pao wrote, she was thinking of the “Most of the women I knew then—and quite candidly, retribution this woman might have in store. It was practi- it isn’t that different today—were often the only woman on cal advice. But, she came to wonder, was it right? the team,” Whitney recalls. “It was important to me to find The story of Ellen Pao stands today as the most telling other women who were doing some similar things.” Whit- of Silicon Valley’s feminist fables. Fired from Kleiner Per- ney met Anita Borg while she was working on a doctorate at kins in 2012, she sued for discrimination—and lost. They Caltech in the early 1980s. In those days, “I was so tired of had declined to promote her from junior partner because not having any women around. I was consciously searching she was a woman, she alleged, and then fired her for com- for other technical women.” And so was Borg. “She became plaining. The firm followed the old script throughout a my closest friend.” multiyear legal campaign against Pao. Kleiner’s attorneys Borg started an email list for women working in sys- convinced the press that her discrimination complaint may tems technology. Calling themselves “Systers,” they hoped have seemed like “the right issue” at the “right time” but they could guide each other through the mostly male tech was, on its merits, entirely wrong. They had a public affairs world. Yet in some respects, the outlook has worsened since firm, the Brunswick Group, spread this line far and wide. then. While women’s representation in law and medicine In the new context of #MeToo, Pao’s experiences sting has risen to around parity in this last generation, in com- afresh. One of Reset’s more searing moments recalls a futile puter science it’s plummeted. Women in tech quit at twice attempt to follow Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s ubiqui- the rate of their male counterparts, despite lavish paid-leave tous advice to “lean in.” The pushiness and self-promotion benefits. Look to the middle-management level, Whitney Sandberg encourages play well at a place like Kleiner Per- says, to see what work really remains. Somewhere between kins, where VCs are supposed to prove their worth by talk- the C-suite and the junior coders, the sum of many small ing over each other in partner meetings. (Pao’s bosses paid

32 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 for her to take professional coaching, so she could learn to to be that despite all they learn of the world as it is, women take charge and “own the room.”) With Sandberg’s words can never transmit these lessons to their daughters. Every- in mind, Pao arrived early and took a seat at the conference one has to learn them for herself. It was Leonore Tiefer who table on her boss’s private jet. But when the others, all men, showed me this generational barrier when she told me about arrived, they started talking about porn and prostitutes. her mother: a music teacher and opera lover who might have How can women “lean in,” she wondered, when it’s so clear been a composer or a famous critic. But, being a woman, they’re not wanted in the club? she taught music and history at the local high school all her Not quite three years after Pao lost in court, it’s hard to life—never even promoted to department head. imagine any PR campaign, no matter how expensive, could “I am my mother’s daughter,” Tiefer acknowledges, convince us this so-called “soft sexism” wasn’t feeding a dis- “and I think part of my availability to be affected by [the criminatory culture. Today, a public sympathy Pao couldn’t feminist movement] was a result of her lack of opportu- have seen coming would easily over- nities in the ’30s and ’40s.” Tiefer power Kleiner Perkins’s opposition. Yes, waited years to give her straight- something is very different now. Still, forwardly sexist rejection from Whitney says, women need to remain The cruel irony of Johns Hopkins a second thought, wary—of retribution, of losing their col- the American female but when she did—after what she leagues’ trust, of being branded disloyal condition seems to be refers to as her feminist awaken- or untalented and resentful. Fowler may that despite all they ing—she remembered her moth- have pushed into panicked soul-search- learn of the world as er’s professional disappointments. ing mode a class of men who had, not “When women say #MeToo,” long before, successfully smeared Pao. it is, women can never Tiefer tells me, “we’re really talk- There may be a world-changing move- transmit these lessons ing about our mothers.” ment afoot. But, Whitney reminds me, to their daughters. And it stands to reason that “Technical gurus are the future.” The Everyone has to learn a natural motherly bias pervades fastest-rising companies tend to depend them for herself. the most honest intergenerational on one or two brilliant men, she says, discussions of #MeToo. We don’t and “when a young engineer or intern ever really listen to our mothers. reports that he’s harassing her, management often doesn’t Second-wavers like Tiefer didn’t see what their mothers’ want to hear it.” lives had been until they read about their disappointments Counting the number of women in management at a in the feminist literature of the 1970s. “My mother had company remains the telling test. If there’s just one, she’s a told me all of this, but I hadn’t had the life experience to token. But find a C-suite at or near gender parity, and you’ll agree,” she tells me. “Who believes their mother?” see credible cultural evolution born from these women’s When I think about my own mother, who’s never not cumulative experience of a form of discrimination that not worked for long, she’s less a jilted genius derailed by family so long ago had no name. than a fairly typical woman of her generation (born 1953). Her first career, in publishing in the late 1970s and ’80s, was one of consistent meritorious promotion pockmarked WHAT OUR MOTHERS KNEW by boorish behavior from bosses. Her second, in nonprofit ur most insightful tourist may have seen it com- fundraising from the 1990s onward, was weighed down in ing. Alexis de Tocqueville celebrated American its early years by two demanding daughters. O women’s worldliness as a youthful humor that It’s the sort of story women of my generation know evolves into a matronly reserve. In Democracy in America, too well to listen to it. And it makes me wonder whether he described the daughters of our young republic and pre- a #MeToo conscious of its inheritance will be about much dicted “that the social changes which bring nearer to the more than women’s equal opportunity, unimpeded by pred- same level the father and son, the master and servant, and atory perverts in the workplace. The freedom to call a creep superiors and inferiors generally speaking, will raise woman a creep—and not just destroy him, but change the course and make her more and more the equal of man.” Between of history—means more when we remember how hard cloistered superiority—for America owes its “singular pros- women have worked, bit by bit, proving our equal measure perity and growing strength . . . to the superiority of their while also bearing our extra biological burden, just to claim women”—and free lives lived fully in the world, American our natural freedoms in the first place. In the sweep of his- women will choose as Americans must. tory, #MeToo is just another episode of liberal democracy The cruel irony of the American female condition seems setting right what stubborn inequalities remain. ♦

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 33 Books&Arts

Scandal of the Self The rise and fall (and rise again?) of televangelist Jim Bakker.

by Martyn Wendell Jones

im and Tammy Faye Bakker were mentalist Baptists in the wake of a sex a husband-and-wife televangelist PTL scandal. Tammy Faye divorced him team who rose to prominence in The Rise and Fall of Jim and Tammy Faye during his incarceration and withdrew Jthe 1970s and ’80s before their Bakker’s Evangelical Empire from the public eye. With their down- by John Wigger ministry was brought down by scandal, Oxford, 407 pp., $34.95 fall, the Bakkers became symbols, their trickery, and bankruptcy. They lived names a cultural shorthand for corrup- extravagant lives in front of the cam- tion and venality. They had embodied a era, inviting viewers into their beauti- Pentecostal healing evangelists, aspiring poor person’s dream of wealth and were ful homes for holidays and vacations. to their tradition’s extravagant belief in crushed by a public eager to see them While most children in this era grew a God who answers prayers in dramatic made small again. up on television, the Bakkers’ kids and miraculous fashion. They became But in the Bakkers’ heyday, their grew up on television. television superstars, broadcasting in voices were carried up into the atmos­ In the early days, Jim and Tammy 40 countries around the world, and then phere and sent back down to hundreds Faye carried on a centuries-old tradi- turned to a new dream of a theme park, of affiliate stations, which beamed them tion of religious enthusiasm that placed and even a whole community, where into the homes of millions of devoted them beyond the boundary lines of good Christian families could find fun viewers. Their network was one of the respectable mainstream culture. They and respite from the secular world. They very first to invest in a satellite uplink, began their career together as itinerant grew rich as they grew famous. which enabled them to broadcast their Then they broke apart. Jim was programming 24 hours a day to a global Martyn Wendell Jones is an American sent to prison for fraud after losing his audience. “God loves you. He really

writer living in Toronto. ministry to a group of shrewd funda- does,” Jim Bakker would say at the close JASON SEILER

34 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 of each episode of The PTL Club, their The American continent, wrote Puritans—terrified that “somewhere, signature program. Modeled on Johnny Monsignor Ronald Knox in 1950, “is someone might be happy,” as Mencken Carson’s Tonight Show, the Bakkers’ the last refuge of the enthusiast.” Knox, put it. But Edwards had a rich emo- show had dozens of guests from all cor- a Catholic writer and friend of Evelyn tional life, experiencing highs during ners of American culture in the ’70s and Waugh’s, considered the 600-page study his contemplations that seem nearly ’80s: Eldridge Cleaver, Pat Boone, Oral Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of inhuman, and at other times weeping Roberts, Evelyn Carter Spencer, Ruth Religion his life’s work. The primary over his sins with such violence “that Carter Stapleton, Gary S. Paxton, Ron- emphasis in religious enthusiasm, he I have often been forced to shut myself ald Reagan, and Billy Graham, whose wrote, “lies on a direct personal access up.” Edwards’s great achievement was childhood home Bakker reconstructed, to the Author of our salvation, with lit- not his famously terrifying sermon, one brick by brick, in his theme park. Their tle of intellectual background or of litur- of many to have elicited cries of spirit­ voices and the voices of their guests gical expression.” ual agony during the widespread 1730s mingled in impromptu conversation in In both Catholic and Protestant vari- revival movement that became known living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms ations, enthusiasm knocked established as the First Great Awakening. Rather, all over America. Christianity off the rails. This personal it was his magisterial treatise arguing University of Missouri historian of spirituality was often accompanied, against human free will, still excerpted religion John Wigger’s PTL: The Rise Knox wrote, by “a conviction that the in philosophy sourcebooks today. and Fall of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Second Coming of our Lord is shortly “When we ask what it is that Evangelical Empire captures the thrill to be expected” and “ecstasy, under Edwards chiefly worshiped in God,” the of the couple’s ascent and the scale of which heading I include a mass of critic Gilbert Seldes wrote in The Stam- their eventual collapse. The book also abnormal phenomena, the by-products, mering Century (1928), provides an opportunity for reflection it would seem, of prophecy.” Then, too, we find that it was neither Power on the meaning of their moment in there were the tremors and shakes, the nor Goodness. It was Will; and not American cultural history. The PTL falling into trances, and the glossola- strength of will, but freedom. God phenomenon is almost wholly unknown lia—outbreaks of “unintelligible utter- alone is infinitely free. The whole to those who were too young to watch ance” believed by the utterers to be a mystery of Edwards’ denial of free will the story unfold in the ’70s and ’80s, private means of direct communication to man is in this: that he would not diminish, by the slightest degree, the but it remains an important episode with the Lord. glorious freedom of God. in the recent past, a signpost along a Before the mid-18th century, such path to the cultural crises of the present. wild disorders were not widespread What would become of Edwards’s ideas Although it is easy to imagine televange- phenomena in the New World. Here if we were to remove God from them? lism as a fad that arrived suddenly and Jonathan Edwards becomes a pivotal There would still be left, Seldes writes, “a disappeared quickly, the Bakkers rep- figure. Born in 1703, he was a dour powerful impulse to self-development, to resent the upswell of a strong under- and serious-minded young man, end- exercise of the Will.” This is exactly the current in the American spirit—one lessly resolving to commit himself to course that many of Edwards’s innova- that still pulls powerfully on our more rigorous spiritual disciplines— tive spiritual descendants would take. social imagination. until one day, as he read the Bible, his Edwards also believed in the power soul was stirred with “a sense of the of the individual Christian’s personal o appreciate fully the Bakkers’ sig- glory of the divine being.” He later connection with God. Too humble to T nificance requires locating them in described this transformative moment: credit this dynamic in his own experi- a spiritual lineage that extends back to “I thought with myself, how excellent a ence, perhaps, he saw something trust- early American history. A post-Reforma- Being that was; and how happy I should worthy in the life and devotion of the tion phenomenon in religious culture— be, if I might enjoy that God, and be woman he married when she was 17, referred to as “religious en­thu­si­asm” in wrapt up to God in heaven, and be as it Sarah Pierpont. “They say,” he wrote— the combative literature of the 17th and were swallowed up in him.” Edwards’s can you imagine him blushing?—that 18th centuries in Europe—came to have study of Scripture took on a charge God “comes to her and fills her mind an enormous influence on American of delight and his pious reveries grew with exceeding sweet delight, and that Christianity. For religious enthusiasts, more intense. The experience of joy in she hardly cares for anything except the doctrines and traditions of Chris- his adult devotions would ripen into a to meditate on him.” The raptures tianity are sometimes less important fixation on what Edwards took to be the inspired by direct communion with the than individual intuition and personal bedrock of God’s glory: his divine sov- divine, the love-interest as a partner in experience. A grasp of the main themes ereignty over all things. seeking God—these, too, would become of American religious enthusiasm as it Edwards is remembered for his ser- major themes in American religious life. developed historically will help to shed mon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry light on the particular appeal of the Bak- God,” and high school history teachers ohn Wesley, an Englishman just a kers—as well as the appeal of those who paint him with the black, white, and J few months older than Edwards, have come after them. dirty linen colors of the buttoned-up was walking alone in 1738 while

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 35 reading Edwards’s accounts of conver- Kentucky in 1800 that the first Ameri- their loneliness,” Seldes writes, “and sions and revival in New England. can “camp meeting” commenced, inau- promised them a communion, an inter- “Surely,” Wesley wrote in his journal, gurating a form of worship responsible cession, a friend, in their friendless quoting the psalmist, “this is the Lord’s for embedding Wesleyan enthusiasm lives.” In this way they “smashed for doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.” deep in the American psyche. Revival- a moment the systematic impoverish- Greater things were still to come. Sel- ism spread rapidly. Within two decades ment of the American spirit.” des writes: “Three months after Wes- of that first camp meeting, most of New ley had read Edwards’ account of the England would be “burnt over” by o: From Edwards and Wesley, we work of God in Northampton, physical revivalism—so completely consumed S receive a fixation on the will, a manifestations first occurred in his desire to create enclaves of piety, own revivals.” and a belief in the possibility of Wesley was the founder of Meth- the individual’s direct experience odism, a believer in the free will that of God. In the work of their suc- Edwards denied, and, furthermore, cessors, such as Charles Grandi- a believer in the prospect of moral son Finney, we find latent belief perfection for the redeemed. He is in the sinlessness of the true the exemplary enthusiast in Knox’s self and an approach to revival study, and the Catholic writer lays at characterized by the appearance Wesley’s feet a large share of respon- of improvisation and spontane- sibility for wresting English religion ity. These preachers cultivated the away from doctrine and tradition spirits of the multitude through and surrendering it instead to the results-focused experimentalism experience, “real or supposed,” of in the context of camp meetings the individual. around the country, sowing in It is impossible not to marvel at the American character the seeds Wesley’s vitality: His biographers of enthusiasm that would yield all note that from the age of 36, he strange harvests in every decade traveled some 225,000 miles and thereafter. The later 19th century preached more than 40,000 ser- saw the development of quasi- and mons, some of them to crowds of post-Christian reform movements, tens of thousands of people. Knox fads, and pop-philosophies that depicts Wesley as an incessant would call individuals to embrace “experimentalist” who was “for- their higher selves—such as “New ever taking the lid off to see how Thought,” which centered the his gospel was working.” Across will in a larger project of spiritual the decades of his long life, Wes- self-advancement through the ley formed societies intended to unleashing of “the creative power pass along “methods” for faithful of constructive thinking.” Church of Englanders to grow in The 20th century inherited piety, and these societies were part from these enthusiastic forebears of a larger scheme, Knox writes, to an epochal optimism. Even in create “not merely a church within times of anxiety and despair, there the Church but a nation within the is a hopefulness in the Ameri- nation; a sort of enclave, not only in by spiritual mania that a traveling can self, and this hopefulness is built piety but in daily life.” preacher could hardly find a soul to upon that self ’s utter reality in a world In America, Methodist preachers save for hundreds of miles. of mere appearances; though circum- delivered their sermons and prayers Camp-meeting preachers shouted stances change, the self remains a firm extemporaneously. This practice not and gesticulated; they preached with foundation. The literary critic Har- only helped preserve Wesley’s “experi- their fists. Internally, they measured old Bloom captured something of the mentalism” but also made for more the response of the crowd and adjusted. strangeness of this in his provocative lively and exciting worship services. Their noteless orations gave confidence and infuriating book The American Reli- Pastors and preachers of other denomi- to their listeners that the words were gion. “The soul stands apart,” he writes, nations started to follow suit. And in true; they seemed authentic, and the “and something deeper than the soul, the years after the revolution, as the message they offered was preciously the Real Me or self or spark, thus is young country expanded west into consoling. When an itinerant preacher made free to be utterly alone with a God the forests and frontiers, the preach- would speak about Christ to an audi- who is also quite separate and solitary,

ers went along. It was in back-country ence, “he put an end to the terror of that is, a free God or God of freedom.” JASON SEILER

36 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 In essence, Bloom describes a post- underwent the “baptism in the Holy described his method as an ongoing Protestant Gnostic cult of the self: “The Spirit,” an experience of true intimacy response to the Spirit of God in each American finds God in herself or him- with God made manifest in the “gift” moment. American audiences—and self, but only after finding the freedom of glossolalia. For several years leading soon, audiences in countries around to know God by experiencing a total up to high school, Jim was abused by the world—responded to the sense of inward solitude.” an older man in his family’s church. authenticity that the Bakkers’ ad-libbed Bloom’s analysis hinges on a meta- Jim and Tammy Faye met at an programs conveyed. physical intuition: that the self is uncre- Assemblies of God Bible school, from The Bakkers came to call their TV ated, and it knows, rather than believes which they dropped out after their 1961 network PTL, for Praise the Lord or in, its own innocence and divinity. wedding. Not long into their marriage, People That Love, and their main pro- “Awareness, centered on the self, is faith John Wigger reports, the Bakkers were gram The PTL Club. They consistently for the American religion,” Bloom swindled by a traveling evangelist who refused to stick to prepared scripts for wrote, and this religion of the self “con- spoke of plans to buy a yacht that Errol their shows, giving the operation a pre- sistently leads to a denial of communal Flynn once owned in order to “cruise carious, even slapstick, feel. Tammy concern.” Christ is internalized to a up and down the Amazon River preach- Faye recorded an entire episode on a point of blurred identity with the “real ing to the natives.” Unable to join the merry-go-round, which caused a cast me.” Such are the fruits of what Bloom jungle preacher on account of his hav- member to vomit inside his dog cos- calls the “doctrine of experience”—an ing disappeared, the Bakkers became tume. Jim was almost pathologically outgrowth from the taproot of religious itinerant healing evangelists. They spontaneous in all parts of his life; even enthusiasm. Christianity, Bloom sug- traveled a circuit across the Bible Belt, in the network’s early days, he would gests, was too cramped for the young, developing a puppet show for children often invent projects on the air without unbounded nation. Abandoning doctri- who attended their events. They were consulting anyone. “The various depart- nal encumbrances such as belief in orig- once “paid with a live chicken, which ments all had televisions so the staff inal sin (or sometimes, belief in sin at Tammy turned into a pet.” could watch the show and find out what all), an intuitive and endlessly innova- The Bakkers were discovered in they were doing next,” Wigger writes. tive spirituality grew to meet this need. 1965 by Pat Robertson, who invited Early guests on the show gave the them to put their puppet show on the broadcasts a unique edge. Wild men ild spirits prepared the way air on the Christian Broadcasting Net- like Little Richard and Larry Flynt W for the coming of the Bak- work he was then creating in Virginia. could be featured one day and Colonel kers. Distinct from mainline, funda- “The show made the Bakkers local Sanders and Chuck Colson the next. mentalist, and evangelical varieties of celebrities,” Wigger writes. Jim Bak- Tammy Faye, ebullient and charm- Protestantism—but eventually influ- ker soon also proved himself a very ing, would sing gospel ballads and her ential in all three—Pentecostalism skilled fundraiser for the network, own music between conversations with grew out of late-19th-century Meth- and he helped launch—and was the guests; her struggles with addiction to odist holiness movements, dramati- original host of—The 700 Club, CBN’s prescription medication occasionally cally emerging through a revival in long-running talk show. After breaking gave her an electric, unpredictable air, San Francisco that began in 1906 and with Robertson and CBN, the Bakkers and her intense feelings were never far lasted for a decade. With a mandate spent much of 1973 in California help- from being broadcast across her heavily to seek out the signs and wonders ing Jan and Paul Crouch start another made-up face. Jim’s warm and disarm- attributed to Christ’s apostles in the TV project, the Trinity Broadcasting ing mien—he remained boy-faced well book of Acts, Pentecostals trembled, Network. But the Bakkers split with into his 50s—endeared him to visitors shouted, spoke in tongues, and did the Crouches, too. Jim and Tammy Faye and viewers alike. Wigger writes that much else to startle and shock the sen- began planning their own TV venture many of them came to feel as though sibilities of average Americans. Prom- and expected to run it from California. they were part of Jim and Tammy ises of dramatic spiritual and physical But a January 1974 telethon Jim Bakker Faye’s extended family. healing found great purchase among conducted in Charlotte, North Carolina, Jim and Tammy Faye embraced the those in poverty, and the new enthu- ignited into a full-blown revival, replete charismatic culture that had kept Pen- siasm became disreputable both for its with signs, wonders, and healings. The tecostals on the far margins for most excesses and its hard-up—and racially Bakkers soon decamped to Charlotte for of the 20th century—and anyway, by diverse—demographics. good. They moved into an old furniture the ’70s, charismatic experiences were The Bakkers both came up in Pen- store, set up a makeshift studio, and frequent enough to feel less unfamil- tecostal churches. James Orsen Bakker took to the air with zeal. iar even to worshipers in mainline and Tamara Faye LaValley grew up The forceful extemporaneity of early denominations. (Writing in 1976, Tom in the north—Jim, born in 1940, in a revival preachers found a new form Wolfe would describe “charismatic paper-mill town in Michigan; Tammy in Jim Bakker’s unscripted shows. faith” as an important sign of a “Third Faye, born in 1942, in a poor neighbor- From the beginning, he was a consum- Great Awakening”—the embrace of hood in Minnesota. When young, both mate improvisational performer and the self during the “ ‘me’ decade.”) The

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 37 Bakkers remained charismatics even broke in 1979 that the Federal Commu- ally intimate with him. Wigger relays as their organization bureaucratized the nications Commission was investigating a story told by Austin Miles—a profes- operations of the spirit: Phone counsel- PTL for misusing money, Jim Bakker sional clown who was a show regular ors during telethons used pink “praise went on the offensive, denouncing the at PTL—in his 1989 memoir: Miles reports” to record healings and answers agency. “Much of Bakker’s defiance opened the door to a sauna near the PTL to prayer that occurred during broad- toward the FCC and the press,” Wig- studio one day in the late ’70s to find casts in response to needs that were cata- ger writes, “was designed to motivate Bakker and three male staffers “frolick- logued using blue “prayer forms.” his supporters to give more, to convince ing about in the nude . . . absorbed in But God’s math was a bit funny from them that nothing short of heroic action playing with and massaging each other.” the beginning. “Remember, facts don’t could save Christian television, maybe Incredulous and shaken, Miles says he count when you have God’s word on the nation itself.” He even ordered a left, heard footsteps, and hid around a the subject,” Bakker said of his minis- supposed “counter-investigation” that corner; Tammy Faye came “storming try’s finances. Wigger writes that Jim became the basis of a PTL documen- across the room. . . . She banged her fist Bakker copied fellow charismatic tel- tary depicting the FCC as a wanton on the steam room door,” shouting for evangelist Oral Roberts’s idea of “seed persecutor. When the Charlotte Observer Jim to open it. An eyelash came free, faith,” which argues that those who followed up on the FCC investigation triggering a meltdown; Miles writes give money in faith will be materially in 1986, PTL kicked off a full-dress PR that Tammy slumped against the locked blessed in turn; those who don’t give campaign against the newspaper, com- sauna door, weeping—but Jim did not to the ministry may be holding back a plete with its own theme song (“Enough open it. Later, in his post-prison mem- greater material blessing for themselves Is Enough!”). The government and the oir, I Was Wrong, the defrocked Assem- by their lack of faith. Bakker combined press could not dent Jim Bakker’s belief blies of God minister wondered whether this abundant life message with the in his own righteousness. his sexual proclivities might be linked to self-help pop-philosophy of Norman the abuse he experienced as a teen. Vincent Peale, the preacher whose self- ut then it all fell apart. In March As Wigger describes, Tammy Faye improvement mega-seller The Power of B 1987, the Observer reported that had felt herself growing apart from Jim Positive Thinking directly reprised the Jim Bakker was resigning from the during the early ’80s. The young enthu- “constructive thinking” principles of leadership of PTL because of a sex- siasts who had joined the Bakkers on New Thought. Jim Bakker was finely and-money scandal. A church secretary their great adventure in starting PTL attuned to the desires of his audience named Jessica Hahn claimed that Bak- had gradually been replaced with fix- and helped to bless—even to sacralize— ker had forced himself on her in 1980. ers and yes-men who created a hard, those desires with his calm, affirming (In her recent interviews with Wig- dark shell around Jim through which message of prosperity and well-being. ger, Hahn shies away from describing Tammy Faye couldn’t see. PTL’s mas- As the ’70s bled into the ’80s, Bak- the encounter as rape.) John Wesley sive building projects left her cold. She ker became obsessed with the work of Fletcher, a healing revivalist and fre- just wanted to be on television. Utterly building out the grounds of his broad- quent guest on Bakker’s shows, had guileless, she was frank with viewers cast center into a Christian theme park. set up the encounter and may have about her problems with prescrip- Heritage USA was meant to offer visit- drugged Hahn before he left her alone tion drugs; afraid of flying, she had ing families a camp meeting experience with Bakker; Fletcher himself then to take tranquilizers to board a plane. in community with other Christians. allegedly raped Hahn after returning Nancy Isenberg writes in White Trash: At a building nicknamed the Big Barn to her hotel room later in the day. The The 400-Year Untold History of Class in Auditorium, PTL launched a new eve- day the story of the Hahn incident— America that Tammy Faye claimed to ning variety program called Camp Meet- and the $265,000 in hush money PTL derive her signature style from Lucille ing USA, and visitors to Heritage USA paid her in 1985—came out, Bakker’s Ball and Minnie Mouse, and Isenberg could join the studio audience during fall made all the national evening news quotes Roger Ebert as judging Tammy broadcasts. In 1986, Wigger writes, Her- shows. For weeks thereafter, the scan- to have spent more of her life on TV itage USA was the third-most-visited dal was splashed on newspaper front than any other living person. Isenberg theme park in America after Disney- pages and nattered about on radio and identifies Tammy’s persona as distant land and Disney World. There were TV talk shows. from both the understated dignity of plans to build an enormous church— The Hahn story is far from the only aspiring upper-middle-class women the world’s largest—as well as a fanci- incident of infidelity and sexual impro- and the earthy frankness of a true “rus- ful lodging and ministry center called priety in Wigger’s account. Fletcher tic”; rather, she was the calculating-yet- Old Jerusalem Village. Bakker hoped to would later claim in a Penthouse inter- spontaneous product of the medium eventually see the whole complex grow view that he also had three different she adored—her “authentic” persona to house 30,000 permanent residents. homosexual experiences with Bakker. curiously recalling that of the revival The ministry’s light and heat (Fletcher would later end his own life.) preachers of the 19th-century Ken- attracted the attention of critics and And he was apparently not the only man tucky backwoods. the scrutiny of authorities. When news in Bakker’s orbit or employ to be sexu- “Why do you love the camera?” a

38 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 producer asks her in The Eyes of Tammy admits to an affair with Hahn, but try—and he went back to work. He Faye, a 2000 documentary. Tammy Faye claims it was consensual. He writes would not tell Tammy Faye of the inci- answers, “Because it’s not a camera; that two days after the 1980 encoun- dent with Hahn for more than six years. it’s people. It’s someone to talk to.” We ter with Hahn, he visited a Christian see her make pitches for a comeback psychologist. The doctor “knew that ohn Wigger’s book straightforwardly show that never happens and watch the only way I would find emotional Jtraces the PTL ministry’s wild arc; as she waits in the California desert health and spiritual freedom was by he gives the complicated story elegance, with “dolls, dogs, and her faith” for seeking forgiveness from God, for- understated humor, and surprising emo- the return from prison of her second giveness from Jessica Hahn, and forgive- tional punch. Jim and Tammy Faye husband, Roe Messner. (Messner was ness from myself.” So Bakker lay down appear in its pages as deeply human the builder behind Bakker’s Heri- and sympathetic figures. The scale of tage USA project and the man who their eventual operations and their put up the hush money for Jessica personalities alike bring their dark Hahn in 1985; he was imprisoned in comedy to the cusp of tragedy; the the late ’90s for bankruptcy fraud.) early successes on the revival circuit Irrepressibly “herself,” Tammy Faye seemed to presage a different ultimate can’t help but spontaneously reveal outcome. Wigger expertly maps her feelings. “I like real. I’m an old the omnidirectional money farm girl; I like real,” she says in trails that perplexed the documentary—but her fake eye- investigators lashes are, like her relationship with for years as Christ, “just who I am.” She was one the Bakker of the first Christian public figures cohort pushed to embrace the gay community dur- PTL into ruin. ing the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and Often Bakker raised gained a cult following. The drag money for new projects to queen RuPaul, who narrates the pay off old ones, a trend that documentary, was a longtime friend continued until the dissolution of Tammy Faye’s and described her of the ministry under Chapter 11 in an interview as “an ascended protection. And Wigger’s descrip- master”—someone who “under- tion of the cloak-and-dagger dramas stood the complexities of life” of 1986, which found fellow televange- and “made a conscious decision lists Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Falwell to focus on the light.” Tammy seeking in different ways to take down Faye died of cancer in 2007, and Bakker, provides a fascinating look at to this day, she is regarded as an all three men—feuding captains of a icon of camp. burgeoning spiritual industry. As for Jim Bakker, even after Following Bakker’s conviction, the Hahn encounter became pub- Judge Robert “Maximum Bob” Pot- lic, even after his trial and convic- ter sentenced him to 45 years in prison tion in 1989 on 24 counts of mail and a $500,000 fine. The sentence was fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy reduced on appeal, and he was released to commit fraud, he continued to on parole in 1994, having served about claim that he had no real knowl- five years behind bars. During his sen- edge of PTL’s shadier dealings and tence, Bakker has said, he spent a great ran his ministry with nothing but deal of time trying to find his “real” self. good intentions. Wigger reports that on the floor of the office, “prostrate He remarried after he was released Bakker had refused to sign checks before God,” and his doctor pro- and found his way back into television and that he had required his security nounced him “forgiven of God.” The in 2003. Based in Blue Eye, Missouri, detail to keep cash on hand for him psychologist then counseled Bak- his current ministry is called Morn- at all times—without his knowing ker not to tell Tammy Faye about ingside. Bakker hosts a talk show in an where the money came from. Bak- the affair. indoor complex that resembles Heri- ker’s sense of his own essential right- Bakker was restored to his sense of tage USA; recently, Trump supporter ness seems unshaken. rightness, of “emotional health” rooted and charismatic televangelist Paula A shocking passage in Bakker’s in the knowledge of his essential self ’s White was on the show with her hus- post-prison autobiography recalls innocence, two days after he allegedly band, Jonathan Cain, the keyboardist

JASON SEILER Harold Bloom’s analysis. Bakker raped a 21-year-old fan of his minis- from Journey.

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 39 Bakker repudiated his prosperity preaching after he got out of prison, B A where he claims to have read the Bible & in full for the first time. In its thornier passages, he has found a new theme for his ministry: the imminent apocalypse. Wilde Tamed? Wigger visited tapings of Bakker’s new show and describes an episode A revisionist account of the great wit’s post-prison life. in which the second half of the two- by John Simon hour broadcast was dedicated to selling giant buckets of freeze-dried survival food. A journalist for the Daily Mail here are two ways of who also visited the ministry reported disliking my plays. One Oscar Wilde that a year’s supply of pancake mix is to dislike them, the The Unrepentant Years by Nicholas Frankel with a 30-year shelf life costs $550. As other is to like Earnest.” Harvard, 374 pp., $29.95 Ronald Knox wrote in 1950, “enthusi- ‘TIf it were not for that “my,” you might asm is not yet dead in countries where think this written by some philistine— they understand salesmanship.” after all, The Importance of Being Earnest Old-school prophecies are delivered is the wittiest comedy in the English between sales pitches for apocalypse- language. To be sure, Oscar Wilde, who prep, and Bakker’s wife Lori will occa- was right about a lot of things, could sionally speak in tongues during their also be wrong about others, such as broadcasts. According to the Daily his involvement with “renters,” young Mail reporter, Bakker is developing the male prostitutes, some of whom testi- 700-acre Morningside property into “a fied against him at his fateful trial. Christian community, complete with But Nicholas Frankel, author of Oscar its own water tower.” Wilde: The Unrepentant Years, is only Bakker still understands the nature passingly concerned with Wilde’s pre- of his country’s collective desires. The trial life; his book is mostly about the “me”-focused ’70s, the “greed is good” three and a half years between Wilde’s ’80s—all of that is behind us. Our release from prison in 1897 and his nation’s new outlook is grim. The great pitiful, untimely death. Frankel, who A statue of Oscar Wilde unveiled in 1997 tide of prosperity that came in after previously edited the uncensored ver- near his childhood home in Dublin 1945 and lifted up every social class sion of The Picture of Dorian Gray, has has receded; the millennial genera- done a thorough job of digging through pentant? He had paid heavily for a tion is projected to be the first that will the plethora of material about Wilde crime not unpopular in Britain, albeit earn less than their parents. In dark that has been committed to paper. His generally practiced more clandestinely. times, our nation’s intuitive spiritual- purpose is to refute the traditional view How it must have rankled that, for ity, its doctrineless faith, offers solace: of Wilde ending as a broken martyr, a example, Lord Rosebery remained free. Against the threats of an outer world, victim of hypocritical Victorian moral- Wilde, as he emerges from Frankel’s it offers an inward intimacy with a God ity. As explained on the book’s dust book, was basically a kindly, warm- of love. Against those who claim our jacket, Frankel aims to give us a Wilde hearted chap. He himself, and every- society rests on unjust foundations, it who pursues his “post-prison life with one he encountered, attested to his talk calls its faithful to recollection of their passion, enjoying new liberties while being superior to his writings, delightful own essential innocence. trying to resurrect his literary career.” as they are. Many people live by their What Bakker, prophet of that reli- Wilde was not successful in the attempt. wits, but the exiled Wilde largely lived gion, now promises is a survivable As Frankel shows, Wilde was unable to by his wit alone. No wonder he had sev- cataclysm. Bunkering down with the produce new work during these final eral devoted friends, starting with his Lord, we will emerge to find our- years—with the exception of The Ballad first gay lover and later literary execu- selves free again of the society that of Reading Gaol, by far his best poem, tor, the Canadian Robbie Ross, who restricts our freedom. Prepare, pre- about his and his fellow prisoners’ reac- commissioned and is buried in a small pare, Bakker says. Listen to me. Send tions to the hanging of a wife-killer. compartment of Wilde’s large, heroic checks. The apocalypse is coming and When you come right down to it, funerary monument by Jacob Epstein. most of humankind will be destroyed, why shouldn’t Wilde have been unre- Only at the very last did Wilde but you can make it. Try the maca- become anything less than a charming roni, and remember: God loves you. John Simon is an author and companion and exquisite conversa-

He really does. ♦ critic in New York. tionalist, when soliciting money from KEARLEY / GETTY ELIZABETH W.

40 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 everyone he knew, however slightly. grave. It was only several years after carved out of turnips. . . . Their cattle His estranged wife, Constance, pro- Wilde’s death that Douglas first read the have more expression.” vided him an allowance, which contin- long accusatory letter, known as De Pro- Even at the last, he could note that ued even after her 1898 death. Ross was fundis, that Wilde had written him from he was “dying above his means,” and another benefactor. So were the Ameri- prison but that had remained unsent. Douglas, much after Wilde’s death, can journalist and author Frank Harris Very touching, too, is Wilde’s rela- wrote that he “held his [café] audience and Wilde’s dedicated publisher, Leon- tionship with Jean Dupoirier, his land- spellbound as he discoursed in his ard Smithers. Of course there was his lord at the inexpensive Hôtel d’Alsace, exquisite voice of all things in heaven one true love, the much younger Lord who did not charge him for his room, and earth, now making his hearers Alfred Douglas, with whom he unsuc- redeemed his confiscated clothes, and rock with laughter and now bring- cessfully tried to set up housekeeping was one of the mourners at his funeral ing tears into their eyes.” On his last in Naples. Luxury-lovers both, they with a wreath reading simply “A mon legs, Wilde still managed expensive lived, chiefly in Paris, on what Oscar locataire” (to my tenant). clothes. He cadged gold-tipped ciga- made from promises of unwritten work While the pages in which Wilde rettes and, dying, requested fresh toi- and what Douglas could lure from his tries to touch for a handout anyone letries and cologne. loving mother. he knew make for painful reading, the Frankel observes that many of Wil- rest of Frankel’s history is scintillat- de’s friends “later said that his works ere are familiar anecdotes, such as ing enough. The quotes from Wilde’s are but a distant echo of his speech.” H the poet Ernest Dowson’s enticing sayings and writings sparkle, defiantly Wilde once wrote that “every civilized Wilde to a Dieppe brothel, which Oscar undimmed. Thus, during a boring visit man and woman ought to feel it is their was to refer to as “like chewing cold mut- to Switzerland, Wilde notes that the duty to say something, even when there ton.” Or his dying line about the hid- Swiss were “carved out of wood with is hardly anything to be said.” He prac- eous wallpaper: “One of us has to go.” a rough knife most of them, [or else] ticed what he preached. ♦ Or, less familiar, the dinners with Fer- dinand Esterhazy, whom Wilde dubbed the Commandant—the man who had B A committed the spying for which Alfred & Dreyfus was wrongfully sent to Devil’s Island. During one of these dinners, Heaven Painter, Esterhazy and Wilde debated which of them had suffered most in life, with Wilde reportedly responding to Ester- Hell Painter hazy’s claim of innocence: Bryan Christie’s bodies transformed and undone. The innocent . . . always suffer, M. Le Commandant, it is their métier. by Franklin Einspruch Besides, we are all innocent until we are found out; it is a poor, common part to play and within the compass hat would Leon- of the meanest. The interesting thing ardo have done with Bryan Christie is surely to be guilty and so wear as a radiography? What Every Angel Is Terror halo the seduction of sin. Matter & Light Fine Art, Boston might Michelangelo through March 31 The “fact of a man being a traitor haveW accomplished had 3-D model- and a liar,” writes Frankel, “was nothing ing been available? What heights of the against his conversation” as far as Wilde mind would a neo-Platonist like Piero Meanwhile, the artistic achievements was concerned. As he remarked, “If della Francesca have witnessed if he had of the Renaissance have never ceased Esterhazy had been innocent I should lived long enough to see calculus? to evoke awe. Their craft and emotional have had nothing to do with him.” Tools aren’t everything, and those effect seem somehow too mighty to The emotional leitmotif of Frankel’s men were products of their time as emulate. When it comes to art, we are book is the Wilde-Douglas love story, much as we are of ours. Yet here we are, more powerful than ever before and as one of vacillations and tergiversations, the beneficiaries of ingenious systems helpless as we’ve ever been. perhaps the most spectacular in the and electronic contraptions that make Into this overlap between the cen- annals of literary history. There were commonplace feats that were impos- turies-old Western figurative tradition various times when each of the lovers sible within not-very-distant memory. and the possibilities of technology steps declared he would kill the other, only Bryan Christie. Jazz musician by train- to rush back into his outstretched arms. Franklin Einspruch is an artist and ing, medical illustrator by vocation, and After Wilde’s death in 1900, Douglas writer in Boston and the editor-in-chief religious aspirant by temperament, as a jumped, Hamlet-like, into Wilde’s open of Delicious Line. visual artist Christie is taking part in an

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 41 ancient and ongoing effort to depict the trusions at the bottom of the composite field of ultramarine. The lines that one human body in a manner that expresses figure. Stacks of organs form its walls, would know from the other works in a reality beyond mere flesh. topped with wispy leg bones. They the show to have described bones or His method is to pose virtual 3-D surround an interior space, a kind of ligaments have abstracted into callig- models, the ones he uses in his work heart, glowing crimson. As the human raphy and curlicues. They form a float- as an illustrator, in positions inspired ing rooftop over the basin of backbone by Renaissance art. (Michelangelo is that holds the luminous point. In this an important touchstone for him.) He it’s possible to see an element of H. R. then renders these poses in multiple Giger, who worked this sort of twist- views, rotating a fixed distance around ing of human anatomy with mark- the figure until the model has been edly different results from Christie’s. completely spun in virtual space. Each It’s equally plausible to see a kinship of these views is then printed digi- with Morris Graves in the line quality tally onto silk, the silk is coated with and the watercolor-like fields of digital an application of wax, and the wax is color. Graves hated modern technol- fused to the supporting layers using a ogy but was a similar type in certain heat gun and a blowtorch. ways, moved by a widely informed Visually, wax is magical stuff, its religious syncretism to try to depict surface more greatly resembling the ineffable. skin than that of any other painting A remark made by Eric Fischl to medium. Here, its effect is something Art in America in the mid-1990s is like a hot fog. Out of that haze emerges helpful here: a mostly symmetrical abstraction Artists connected to the church in which one can, with some effort, were asked to imagine four things: pick out a lung, a womb, or a tibia. Above: Bryan Christie’s Every Angel Is Terror. what heaven was like, what hell was This aspect of the project would have like and what the Garden was like Below: Of Your Presence Just Passed. been recognizable to Leonardo. It’s before and after the Fall. . . . You still not hard to imagine the master trying can find heaven painters, hell paint- ers, and Garden painters, but you something like it, had he the comput- rarely find them in the same person. ing power. But the effect is more akin to the Christie is a heaven painter, with a bit paintings made by the anonymous of a taste for hell. Tantra practitioners in Rajasthan, in Beeswax aside, these are digitally which a geometric shape is placed printed images, and anything could in the middle of a rectangle and have been done with the color. A new imbued with such energy as to imply exhibition at the nearby Institute of an open channel to the divine. “It is Contemporary Art, Art in the Age of a mistake to think that spirituality the Internet, 1989 to Today, is the cen- is seen only through a mist,” said terpiece of a collaboration between Robert Henri, but as mists go these 14 organizations in the area to show multilayer wax veils are effulgent. art that has embraced technology’s In the series on display at Boston’s inherent anti-naturalism. Such art is Matter & Light gallery, the com- made on the RGB color model, and positions have a satisfying bottom- it heavily favors green. Consequently, weighted quality. They sit like vases. Christie’s push into orange is an inter- But prolonged inspection reveals the esting counterpoint to the tenden- forms to be built from inverted bod- is reconstructed into something oth- cies of the media on display around ies—that is, most of the figures are pic- erworldly, vestiges of organ and bone Boston at the moment. He seems to tured with heads down and legs up— remain in evidence. The transforma- have taken his color cues from Fra which conveys upset, disorientation, tion seems to have a holy end, but its Angelico (co­incidentally getting a thor- and flux. Are they dead? Submerged? midpoint, captured here, remains full of ough treatment at the Isabella Stewart Cast out of heaven? reminders of death. Gardner Museum). Yet Christie’s work This amalgam of stasis and flux is Bodies have come almost wholly shares with the Internet art much of the a source of intriguing tension. In the undone in Of Your Presence Just same genetic material, relying as it does work from which the exhibition takes Passed. Craniums rise atop vigorously on common platforms of computer its title, Every Angel Is Terror, one can arched spinal columns that meet at a graphics. Christie’s work is in the time

make out skulls and brains in the pro- point of light that glows in a heavenly of the Internet, but not of it. ♦ & LIGHT FINE ART GALLERY MATTER

42 / The Weekly Standard March 12, 2018 “Screenplays are structure,” writes William Goldman in Adventures in the B&A Screen Trade (first published in 1983 and still, 35 years later, the single best book ever written on the movies). That is in Not All Fun & Games part why screenplays look more like instructions for assembling electron- In Game Night, the writer rules—and we all win. ics than pieces of prose. They’re not by John Podhoretz prose works; they are instructions or blueprints. And good ones are always in danger of being compromised by the t’s rare—vanishingly rare—to exigencies of moviemaking itself. get the feeling in a movie theater Game Night Goldman points to the way in that the people who made the Directed by John Francis Daley which stars will insist on stealing and Jonathan Goldstein film you’re seeing know exactly good bits of dialogue from minor Iwhat they’re doing, know exactly what characters so they can have the mem- they’re trying to achieve scene by orable lines even when they don’t fit. scene, know exactly what Directors will misunder- plot they’re telling, know stand the plot and stress the exactly the characters they’re wrong things. Or nervous putting on display before studio execs will demand you, and know how it’s going that a morally compro- to end from the very min- mised lead character be ute the movie starts. That’s given a speech to explain what you get from the terrific that he really didn’t do the Game Night. bad thing he just did so It’s either a comedy dis- that the audiences won’t dis- guised as an action thriller or like the character and hence an action thriller disguised the movie itself. as a comedy, and you don’t One of the great oddities really know which until the of American popular culture very end. A couple played by is that while the writer is a Jason Bateman and Rachel relatively low-status person McAdams meet playing trivia, Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, and Kyle Chandler in Game Night in Hollywood moviemak- court playing charades, and ing, the writer is the central marry playing Dance Dance Revolution. also co-produced) plays his usual teeter- figure when it comes to the making of When we first encounter them, they ing-on-the-edge-of-intolerably-obnox- television shows. In a world where the are having trouble conceiving, and ious character, but even though we’ve director or the producer or the star is that problem seems to be connected to seen it before, he’s so good at it we don’t king, there’s a natural drift away from Bateman’s competitive feelings about mind. And McAdams makes spectacu- storytelling coherence—because there’s his far more successful older brother, lar use of her cute-as-a-button self—as a no one at the table arguing for it. For played by Kyle Chandler. When sort of running commentary on the way the past two decades on television, story Chandler comes into town and joins in which cute-as-a-button people know and character have reigned because the their weekly game night, farcical and they’re cute as a button and use it to showrunner is always a writer—and we violent hijinks ensue. their every advantage. have all reaped the benefits. Game Night is mostly populated with The real highlight here is the Game Night is the rare example of a new faces, like the incredibly fresh screenplay by Mark Perez. It crackles movie that let its screenplay be. It was, Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury as with lively dialogue and funny sketch after all, the reason everybody wanted a buppie couple who are nauseatingly comedy, but it’s the faultless structure to make Game Night in the first place. lovey-dovey until he finds out she once that propels Game Night forward from But the incentives of the mainstream slept with a celebrity. Even the requi- its first moment. And the able direct- movie business often tend toward the site dumb guy, played by the Broadway ing team of John Francis Daley and idea that everybody should get a crack actor Billy Magnussen, is surprisingly Jonathan Goldstein clearly know they at fixing the thing that probably wasn’t fresh in his stupidity. Bateman (who had a piece of gold handed to them broken in the first place—thereby and helmed the picture in service to breaking it in the process. It’s worth John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, the screenplay rather than looking for celebrating those rare occasions when

is The Weekly Standard’s movie critic. ways in which they could outshine it. that doesn’t happen. ♦ INC. BROS. ENTERTAINMENT HOPPER STONE / SMPSP WARNER

March 12, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 43 “David Mamet Says He’s Writing a Play About Harvey Weinstein” —Hollywood Reporter, February 23, 2018 PARODY

March 12, 2018