Doing Justice to Justice Thomas by Dan Mclaughlin

GREECE VS. THE EU

CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL

JULY 20, 2015 • $4.95

DOING JUSTICE TO JUSTICE THOMAS BY DAN MCLAUGHLIN

WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents July 20, 2015 • Volume 20, Number 42

2 The Scrapbook Rights for trans fats, the ultimate in consent contracts, & more 5 Casual Philip Terzian, The Reverend 7 Editorials Open Season • Can We Rise to the Occasion? Articles

10 The Unending Conversation BY ANDREW FERGUSON It just goes on and on, my friend

12 Into the Abyss BY GERTRUDE HIMMELFARB From the halls of academia to the cover of Vanity Fair

13 Alexander the Great BY MICHAEL W. M CCONNELL Leave Hamilton on the $10 bill

14 Hillary’s Headache BY JAY COST Bernie Sanders can cause her a lot of pain

16 What Happens in Vienna . . . BY LEE SMITH Could spell disaster for the Middle East 2 17 The Fate of the Senate BY FRED BARNES Coattails will be everything in 2016

18 A Misguided FDA Crusade BY ELI LEHRER The case for leaving cigarette ﬂ avorings alone Features

20 Giving Thomas His Due BY DAN MCLAUGHLIN The justice who stands alone

26 Greece Monkeys BY CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL The European Union is bailing itself out, not the Greeks

30 Free to Shut Up BY MARK HEMINGWAY The collision of religious liberty and gay rights in Oregon

10 Books & Arts

34 Highway to Heaven BY DANIEL LEE Building the yellow brick road to sunny Florida

36 Loss of Feeling BY PARKER BAUER ‘Men, trying to make themselves immortal, manage only to make themselves inhuman’

37 The Turning Points BY MARK TOOLEY One theologian’s journey from there to here

39 Let George Do It BY HENRIK BERING A bumpy ride for America’s last king

40 Magnetic North BY JOHN C. CHALBERG A personal and political drama on the Korean peninsula

41 The Salter Version BY JEREMY BERNSTEIN Why the novelist’s prose was better than his ﬁ ction

43 Bland Exterior BY JOHN PODHORETZ Inside Riley Anderson is the better place to be 26 44 Parody In the clouds COVER: NEWSCOM THE SCRAPBOOK Where Have You Gone, Mr. Arbuthnot? he old New Yorker used to have a language and empathy and search- predecessors, has a “panoramic T contributor named “Mr. Arbuth- ing intellect,” but the current occu- vision of America” in an “echoing not the Cliché Expert”—actually writ- pant of the White House talked about continuum of time,” and (here come er Frank Sullivan (1892-1976)—who, “the complexities of race and justice,” those metaphors again) “he spoke between 1935 and 1952, specialized in managed to “crystallize the mean- of how history ‘must be a manual’ identifying and analyzing the puerile ing of the occasion,” confronted “the to avoid ‘repeating the mistakes of thoughts and hackneyed phrases of sin of slavery and the terrible scourge the past’ while building ‘a roadway American politics and journalism. of war that was part of its price,” and, toward a better world.’ ” THE SCRAPBOOK has always lament- most important of all, “drew upon his And on and on. ed the passing of Mr. Arbuthnot— own knowledge of Scripture and lit- Of course, THE SCRAPBOOK tends indeed, the very science of laughing at to be cynical about these things, and clichés—because, while the thoughts even Michiko Kakutani concedes that and phrases have evolved with the all the beautiful thoughts and phrases decades, the problem remains. were the work not of Obama but of We were reminded of this the other a speechwriter, Cody Keenan, who week when President Obama flew “spoke with the president . . . about down to Charleston, South Carolina, the speech and hoped to emulate to deliver a eulogy at the funeral of Lincoln’s tone of reconciliation and the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state healing.” Did he succeed? Well, not senator and the murdered pastor of without the healing touch of Barack the Emanuel African Methodist Epis- Obama, who “spent some fi ve hours copal Church. revising it . . . not merely jotting notes The circumstances were pain- erature and history—much the way on the margins, but whipping out the fully sad, to say the least, and the [Abraham] Lincoln and Dr. [Martin yellow legal pads he likes to write president’s moving and sensible sen- Luther] King did.” on”—shades of Richard Nixon!— timents rose to the occasion. What And speaking of history, as only “only the second time he’s done so for caught THE SCRAPBOOK’s attention was the president can, Kakutani remind- a speech in the last two years.” not the eulogy itself but the near-uni- ed us of the “long view of history,” Granted, it’s been a tough few years versal, and astonishingly banal, trib- “the prism of history,” the “arc of his- for the president’s admirers; and as utes to the president’s oratory. Indeed, tory,” the “broad vistas of history,” anyone who has attended a Bernie for the New York Times’s book review- and, in a smorgasbord of metaphors, Sanders rally can attest, the promise er Michiko Kakutani, in particular, Obama’s particular conviction—fi rst of the 2008 Barack Obama—and the it was 2008 and candidate Obama all expressed in his “deeply felt” mem- attendant prose and poetry of those over again. oir—that “history . . . is an odyssey, days in his honor—has been some- Once the worshipful, elegiac tone a crossing, a relay in which one gen- thing of a disappointment. So we can was established, the clichés were eration’s achievements serve as the understand Michiko Kakutani’s in- fi red from her keyboard like artillery. paving stones for the next genera- ability to stem the tide and resist the Not only did the president’s remarks tion’s journey.” pressure of those gathering clichés. draw “on all of Mr. Obama’s gifts of For Barack Obama, unlike his But we sure miss Mr. Arbuthnot. ♦

How About Rights fat” out of their food. Trans fat, as bonds with each other. This increases you may know, is a type of fat that’s rigidity and gives you a more solid, for Trans Fats? partially hydrogenated—reacted with “saturated fat”—think of a chunk of n all the hubbub around the Su- hydrogen—to discourage its melting coconut oil. (The term “saturated” re- I preme Court’s big end-of-session at room temperature. Basically, the fers to saturation with hydrogen.) Par- rulings on same-sex marriage and idea is you take a liquid fat—a veg- tial saturation leaves you with a softer, Obamacare, some high-level banana- etable oil, for instance—and pump more malleable fat that’s spreadable republicanism was overlooked. The it full of hydrogen, which means the at room temperature but melts in the FDA has given American food manu- fat’s carbon atoms form bonds with microwave. (The “trans” preﬁ x refers

facturers three years to get the “trans hydrogen atoms instead of double to a conﬁ guration of hydrogen atoms NEWSCOM

2 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 on opposite sides of the carbon chain.) Trans fats became popular in the United States a couple of decades ago after the food police frightened everyone into using them instead of wonderful saturated fats like butter and lard, wrongly deemed an imminent threat to the nation’s arteries. (As an aside, THE SCRAPBOOK rarely feels sorry for millennials, but those of us old enough to remember the pre-1990 McDonald’s fries, cooked in beef tal- low, can attest that the world really was a better place then.) And, with apologies for the chemistry lesson, that brings us to today. If the FDA gets its way, trans fat in processed foods will go the way of lead in paint and asbestos in insula- tion. But there’s a major difference: Lead is inherently toxic and asbestos is inherently carcinogenic. Trans fat is inherently harmless—what’s dangerous is using it to excess. Eating trans fats increases the quantity of low-density lipoprotein in your bloodstream—that is, LDL cholesterol, or so-called bad cholesterol. LDL transports fat around your body; without it you’d die. It’s only bad if you have too much of it. Of course, almost any harmless thing can kill you in excess. You could be crushed to death sleeping under too many quilts, but the quilts themselves aren’t dangerous. Too much exercise can blow up your heart, but the FDA isn’t going to ban exercise. A ban on trans fat, in fact, The Ultimate in the “friendly amendments” offered has nothing in common with bans by Phil Lawler in his column at on toxins or carcinogens—all it does Consent Contracts CatholicCulture.org. Writes Lawler: is take something safe off the market f you were on social media last because you might not use it safely. I week, you no doubt heard about the Rather than just a selfi e, hire a profes- The FDA is substituting itself for new contract being promoted to col- sional photographer to take pictures your self-control. lege students by the activists at the as the consent is given. We used to call that “prohibition”; Affi rmative Consent Project in their And rather than relying exclusively on photographic evidence, it used to require a constitutional effort to beat back the supposed “rape have human witnesses. Invite family amendment. Under the new regime, culture” on U.S. campuses. The group and friends. all it takes is bureaucratic aggression. suggested that amorous couples, after We all make silly spur-of-the- (Of course, in reality, all it takes are signing the model contract, take a moment decisions at times. To be market forces: About 10 years ago, selfi e to document their decision to sure this isn’t one of them, plan the people decided they didn’t want to hook up (and presumably provide a exchange of consent well in advance. eat too much trans fat anymore, and defense in any disciplinary hearings Send out invitations. Since this is (we hope) a joyous occasion, throw Big Food dropped trans fat from 86 down the road should an accusation a party. percent of their products, reducing of misconduct be leveled). Most To be very sure that the young national consumption by 78 percent. free-thinkers recoiled in horror, but woman is giving informed consent “Ta-da,” says Adam Smith.) ♦ THE SCRAPBOOK was impressed with (the ACP notes that if she’s drunk,

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 3 it doesn’t count), let’s involve some- was called a marriage. Once the ties one who will be sure to watch out for between marriage and sex were bro- her best interests. Her father, say. If ken—and we heard the last thread she walks into the party on his arm, pop on June 26—the question of con- we’ll know that everything is as it sent became insoluble. should be. How do you really—I mean www.weeklystandard.com Still this shouldn’t be just a party, really—know that full consent has because this is serious business. So been given, if it’s not given in public, William Kristol, Editor let’s have the exchange-of-consent before witnesses? How do you know Fred Barnes, Terry Eastland, Executive Editors ceremony in a venue that suggests a that your partner will be faithful, if Richard Starr, Deputy Editor serious purpose. Can’t beat a church there isn’t a pledge of fi delity? How Claudia Anderson, Managing Editor Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, for that, can you? can you be confi dent that things won’t Victorino Matus, Lee Smith, Senior Editors You see where I’m headed. For go terribly wrong, unless your partner Philip Terzian, Literary Editor centuries, society has had a simple, vows to stay with you through good Stephen F. Hayes, Mark Hemingway, reliable way to ascertain whether a times and bad? You don’t. You can’t. Matt Labash, Jonathan V. Last, couple had exchanged mutual con- John McCormack, Senior Writers sent to engage in sexual relations. It Game, set, and match to Lawler. ♦ Jay Cost, Michael Warren, Staff Writers Daniel Halper, Online Editor Kelly Jane Torrance, Assistant Managing Editor Ethan Epstein, Associate Editor Julianne Dudley, Jim Swift, Assistant Editors David Bahr, Erin Mundahl, Editorial Assistants Philip Chalk, Design Director Barbara Kyttle, Design Assistant Teri Perry, Executive Assistant Max Boot, Joseph Bottum, Tucker Carlson, Matthew Continetti, Noemie Emery, Joseph Epstein, presents David Frum, David Gelernter, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Goldfarb, Mary Katharine Ham, Brit Hume, Frederick W. Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, Politics & Virtues: Yuval Levin, Tod Lindberg, Robert Messenger, P. J. O’Rourke, An evening with The Weekly Standard John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, Contributing Editors seattle . august 13 MediaDC Ryan McKibben, Chairman Stephen R. Sparks, President & Chief Operating Offi cer Grace Paine Terzian, Chief Communications Offi cer Kathy Schaffhauser, Chief Financial Offi cer Catherine Lowe, Integrated Marketing Director Mark Walters, Sr. V. P. Marketing Services & Advertising Paul Anderson, T. Barry Davis, Andrew Kaumeier, Brooke McIngvale, Jason Roberts, Elizabeth Sheldon Advertising Sales Advertising inquiries: 202-293-4900 Subscriptions: 1-800-274-7293

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4 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 CASUAL

that respected “all beliefs,” realized at Marriage à la Modesto some point that there was a lucrative market for ordination (for a modest fee, no questions asked) among people who didn’t want to be bothered with attend- s a lifelong student of the & Company—but not always. Indeed, ing a seminary, or would welcome a manners and habitat of the contents are often so predictable, clerical deferment from the draft, or the American upper-mid- and the details interchangeable, that just liked to acquire certifi cates. dle, and upper, classes, I am I have no doubt that the Times could As a wiseacre undergraduate, in Aof course a weekly reader of the Vows produce fi ctitious notices by juggling the summer of 1969, I fell into that (weddings) pages in the Sunday New various names—Phillips Exeter, last category; and so, after watching a York Times. The tone of these notices Scarsdale, PricewaterhouseCoopers, bemused television report on the Rev- has evolved with the years—the week- Massachusetts General Hospital, erend Mr. Hensley and his ministry, I ly essays on one featured couple tend Tuscany—from lists of familiar places. mailed a dollar to Modesto and waited. to emphasize politics rather than love, With one exception: Each week, But not for long! Very nearly in the and single-sex mergers are now rou- almost without fail, three or four cou- return mail I received a blank Univer- tine—but the substance remains the ples are married not by a priest or judge sal Life church certifi cate of ordination, same: These are people who take pride or rabbi but by “a friend who became a featuring Hensley’s printed signature, in their meritocratic status. and the latest issue of his tabloid To be sure, as such features go, Universal Life News. The certifi- this is hardly a national cross-sec- cate was promptly fi lled out, dated, tion. More rabbis and prep school and framed, and the Universal Life chaplains and Episcopal priests News eagerly devoured. The News, conduct the services here than I regret to say, has long since disap- you would fi nd in, say, a midsized peared, but I still have my certifi - city in the Upper South or Pacifi c cate of ordination, now unframed. Northwest. And academic creden- At the time, I regarded the entire tials are heavily weighted toward enterprise as a joke—it was always the Ivy League and the Little Ivies, rewarding to watch the puzzled or other institutions ranked highly expressions of visitors examining by U.S. News & World Report. the “certifi cate of ordination” in There is a disproportionate number my dorm room—and you don’t of brides and grooms who work in have to do much research on Kirby fi nance or publishing in metropoli- J. Hensley before stumbling on his tan New York, and if somebody’s laughing self-description as a “con grandfather was an assistant sec- man.” So why would people who retary of commerce in the Johnson Universal Life minister for the event.” have carefully crafted their lives for administration, or a Vogue photogra- This discordant note is a mystery to success, and advertise their impres- pher, that will not go unmentioned. me, and for two reasons. First, I am sive credentials in the New York Times, There are poignant touches, now myself a minister of the Universal Life choose to enter the holy estate of mat- and then: A widow and widower, church, and in the nearly half-century rimony under such ludicrous auspices? who work in Wall Street, will fi nd since my ordination, no one has ever I can understand a certain devil- one another, or a radiologist will asked me to perform a wedding cer- may-care attitude that might impel marry a kindergarten teacher. There emony. And second, it strikes me that a couple to repair to Las Vegas and are comparatively few Romeo-and- the sort of people who announce their Pastor Elvis, or earnest types discard- Juliet sagas—a Democrat marrying nuptials in the pages of the New York ing the notion of any celebrant. But a Republican, say, or a groom Times seem the least likely on earth to the Universal Life Church, Inc.? The from Massachusetts and bride from have anything whatsoever to do with combination of a venerable New Eng- Alabama. But occasionally an unlikely the Universal Life church. land boarding school, fair Harvard, union will be featured: the daughter of The Universal Life Church, Inc. Morgan Stanley, and the Reverend a federal appellate judge, for example, was founded in Modesto, Califor- Kirby J. Hensley makes no sense in marrying the son of a heating-and-air- nia, in the late 1950s by a pentecostal my orderly universe. Perhaps Kirby conditioning man. There is usually preacher from North Carolina named Hensley’s joke is on me. some mutual connection—Cornell Kirby J. Hensley (1911-1999). Hensley,

JORI BOLTON University, for example, or McKinsey who aspired to found a denomination PHILIP TERZIAN

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 5 EDITORIALS Open Season

e turn now to the suburbs of Philadelphia. Mercy, however, isn’t the fi ring of its director of religious Waldron Mercy Academy is a private school ed—it’s the response of a local Democratic politician. W in Merion Station which takes children all the In 2010, Lower Merion Township passed an ordinance way from daycare at three months through eighth grade. banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. The It is not cheap—tuition for grades one through eight is ordinance provided an exception for religious organiza- $13,250 per year. Its campus sits nestled around an old con- tions, but this exception had its own exception: Religious vent in an upscale suburb and boasts all the bells and whis- organizations that are supported “in whole or in part by tles. It has a long, low stone wall surrounding green lawns governmental appropriations” would not be allowed to dis- and athletic fi elds. In 2009 it criminate. And so Democratic was designated a Blue Ribbon state senator Daylin Leach, School of Excellence. It boasts who represents Merion, pointed a diverse student body, cata- out to the Philadelphia Inquirer loguing gender, race, and eth- that Waldron Mercy has got- nic make-up down to the tenth ten more than $270,000 in the of a percent. Seriously: School last two years from the state’s administrators want you to Opportunity Scholarship Tax know that 0.6 percent of the stu- Credit program, and that 70 students are Muslim and 0.2 per- dents have attended since 2005 cent are Armenian Apostolic. under a similar state program, The only problem with the Educational Improvement Waldron Mercy is that the Tax Credit. school is Catholic. “So they’ve received a good You might miss that from bit of money from the State of the “Who We Are” section of its Waldron Mercy Academy Pennsylvania,” Leach noted website, where Waldron Mercy ominously. The Inquirer con- mentions “Faith” and talks obliquely about “Christian val- cluded, “[Leach] said that state money might override ues” and the “charism of Mercy.” But the school doesn’t the religious exemption for the township ordinance.” We explicitly say, right there, that it’s Catholic; there’s no cruci- shall see. fi x. And just to make sure you don’t get the wrong idea about There’s a good reason why we, along with so many what sort of “Christian values” they’re into, the school does others, are concerned about religious freedom after Oberge- explicitly say it teaches children “to serve not merely out of fell. Religious organizations—ranging from para-church charity, but from a developing sense of social justice.” groups and charities to schools, and even to churches But Catholic it is, and last week, as the radioactive themselves—are going to be, and in some cases already fallout from the Obergefell ruling was settling across the have been, targeted by lawmakers and government agen- country, Waldron Mercy fi red its director of religious cies. Here’s a partial catalogue: education, Margie Winters. ■ Any religious organization that requires a govern- Winters had married her lesbian partner in Massachu- ment license to operate—such as an adoption agency or setts in 2007. From 1996 until 2014, the state of Pennsyl- hospital—may fi nd its existence in jeopardy. The case vania had in place a statutory ban on same-sex marriage. study here is the Catholic Charities adoption service in But in 2014 a federal district court ruled this statute uncon- Boston. After the Massachusetts Supreme Court decreed stitutional, and Obergefell put an end to any hope that the a right to gay marriage in the state, Catholic Charities state might once again decide its own laws. And so Wal- announced it would not place children with same-sex cou- dron Mercy decided that it could not be Catholic and have ples. The state then refused to renew the group’s license, a director of religious education for its students living in claiming that Catholic Charities was engaged in discrimi- direct contravention of the church’s teachings. natory behavior. Without a license, the archdiocese of Bos- What is most interesting about the case of Waldron ton was forced to shut down its adoption services.

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 7 ■ Any religious charity that receives government directly, in grants made to the school, or indirectly, in the money in the form of grants is now at risk of having those form of government grants to students (such as Pell grants), funds withdrawn. Consider the case of World Vision, an which could be disallowed for use at schools that fail to evangelical group devoted to helping poor children across recognize the state-mandated view of same-sex marriage. the globe. In the course of its fundraising, World Vision And, fi nally, they could lose their tax-exempt status. sometimes benefi ts from government grants. In 2007, for A loss of tax exemption means both higher costs, as instance, World Vision sought guidance from the Depart- the organization must pay property taxes, and a drain on ment of Justice concerning a $1.5 million grant it had funds, since donations are no longer tax-deductible for applied for under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency donors. Such a loss increases the tax burden on the institu- Prevention Act. World Vision maintains an ethical code tion itself and on the individuals who support it. for employees, insisting that they be practicing Christians There are 29,000 religiously affi liated pre-, primary-, and forbidding them from engaging in extramarital sex, and secondary-schools in America. There are 1,700 including same-sex “marriages,” and they wanted to be religiously affi liated colleges. As Waldron Mercy and a sure they weren’t running afoul of nondiscrimination laws. host of commentary and legal analysis from gleeful pro- In 2007—remember, this is back when Barack Obama gressives over the last two weeks show, the fate of these believed “in his faith” that “marriage is between a man and schools will be the main front in the culture war for the a woman”—the Justice Department advised that World immediate future. Vision should be given an exemption from nondiscrimina- It is important to remember that these assaults on reli- tion law. What do you think the government will say the gious freedom can come from legislative bodies, the courts, next time World Vision, or any other religious group that or even faceless government agency bureaucrats. And there takes a traditional view of marriage, applies for a grant? are more subtle threats, too. Last week National Review’s ■ Religious schools face three levels of exposure. They David French reported that, cognizant of coming lawsuits, could be denied accreditation, which would threaten at least one large insurance company, Southern Mutual their long-term sustainability. (Why should the govern- Church Insurance, had sent a memo to client churches ment accredit an institution that practices discrimina- informing them that their liability coverage would not tion?) They could be denied government funding—either apply to any lawsuits resulting from same-sex marriage Overtime Rule Would Hurt More Than Help

By Thomas J. Donohue threshold is scheduled to go up each year employee compensation at the same level. President and CEO so that it continues to reflect the 40th Government wage mandates are no U.S. Chamber of Commerce percentile of earners. substitute for economic growth, and contrary In this arbitrary and intrusive way, to the administration’s assertions, they do President Ronald Reagan once said the administration has decided that little to lift the middle class. If our leaders that the nine most terrifying words in Washington knows best when it comes to want to see hiring accelerate and incomes the English language are “I’m from the how each job should be classified and how climb, they should pursue pro-growth government, and I’m here to help.” much employees should be paid. And, as policies that enable employers to expand, Indeed, what the government may see usual, the administration fails to consider invest, and create more high-paying as a helping hand often winds up being a the impact on employers and the potentially opportunities for workers. ham-handed effort to impose its will on harmful consequences for workers. That’s why the U.S. Chamber continues America’s job creators, resulting in more Many employers—especially small to advocate for commonsense regulatory harm than good. Such is the case with the and midsize businesses—wouldn’t be and legal reform, a simplified tax code that Department of Labor’s proposed overtime able to absorb the increased labor and lowers rates for businesses and individuals, rule, which the administration claims will litigation costs. These added costs would long-term investment in infrastructure, and extend eligibility for overtime pay to some mean fewer opportunities for growth and policies that will allow the United States to 5 million workers. could even result in a curb on hiring. And capitalize on its vast energy resources. Under current regulations, a worker employees—those who the rule purports In the meantime, we’ll use every qualifies for overtime pay if his or her to “help”—may gain overtime eligibility, tool at our disposal to fight onerous rules wages for 40 hours of work per week fall but they are likely to lose hours, health care and regulations that hurt workers and below a $23,660 threshold. The proposed and retirement benefits, opportunities for employers more than they help them. rule would more than double that threshold, advancement, flexible work schedules, and making employees earning up to $50,440 actual income earned. Members of the eligible for overtime when the regulation U.S. Chamber are already saying that to takes effect in 2016. In addition, this stay in business they will be keeping overall www.uschamber.com/blog

8 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 claims. In other words, if a church is sued for declining to erties but the question of religious liberty and even liberty perform a same-sex wedding, it’s on its own. itself; not just worries about creeping political correctness So what is to be done? Congress could pass legislation but alarm about the soft (or not-so-soft) despotism in which designed to shore up protections for religious groups. Until leftist elites use mob-like tactics to enforce their views; a president who would sign such legislation is elected, that not just the case for strengthening our military but the might simply be a marker, but it would be a helpful one to urgent need for a wholesale rebuilding; not just ques- erect. After that, what’s needed is to elect a Republican in tions at the margins of family law but fundamental issues 2016 who pledges to appoint judges and justices willing to about the meaning and status of the family. And more. defend religious freedom. Given all that, does the debate we’re seeing on the Hill Much, much more will need to be done to shore up reli- and among the presidential candidates capture the gious freedom—indeed, freedom—against the ominous urgency and match the magnitude of the moment? Does it trends around us. But this would at least be a start. do justice to the scale of ongoing troubles and the import —Jonathan V. Last of impending diffi culties? No. Does it ever? Did it in 1928 or 1932 or 1940? In 1980 or 1988? In 2000 or 2008? Crises at home and abroad were present or looming. A hard look back at those campaigns would show, we suspect, an awful lot of avoidance, distrac- tion, silliness, even blindness. Maybe that’s the way it was, the way it is, the way it will always be. There are limits to democratic deliberation and Can We Rise to campaign discourse. So perhaps one should temper one’s expectations of congressional leaders and presidential candidates. Perhaps one resigns oneself to choosing a person the Occasion? judged capable of dealing with the big events, even if no candidate in the fi eld is adequately addressing the current and looming challenges. To be fair, the challenges are complicated. And it’s not as if we conservatives outside the electoral process have entirely done our duty. No one thinker or set of thinkers, no one magazine or journal, has melded together the elements of truth in the libertarian critique of big government, the originalist critique of constitutional law, the Tocque villean critique of the nanny state, the Churchillian critique of our foreign policy weakness, the manly critique of our cultural decadence, the Burkean critique of “progressivism,” and the Millian critique of political correctness. We lack a fully coherent and comprehensive critique of the moment—to say nothing of a comprehensively charted path forward. So the conservative movement is entitled to complain about the candidates among whom we’ll choose. But the GOP senators: Can they measure up to the moment? Can we? candidates may also be entitled to complain that the idea- omeone joked this past week that for the fi rst time in mongering community is failing them. What about our 2,500 years, Persia and Greece are dominating world responsibility and obligation? It would be great if at least S news. But now, as then, the questions raised by Per- one of our candidates could rise to the level of Ronald Rea- sia and Greece go beyond Persia and Greece. gan. But it would also be great if we could rise to the level of Every serious conservative of any stripe has the sense that Bill Buckley and Irving Kristol and Bob Bartley, of Jeane big issues are on the table in 2016. For example: not just dif- Kirkpatrick and Midge Decter and Phyllis Schlafl y, of Mil- ferent interpretations of constitutional law but the future of ton Friedman and James Q. Wilson and Walter Berns. constitutional government itself; not just disputes about for- The good news is their work is accessible to us. So is the eign policy choices but fundamental decisions about Amer- work of the thinkers on whom they in turn depended—of ica’s role in the world; not just the merits and demerits of Leo Strauss and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, of C. S. Lewis various government programs but the size and scope and and Friedrich Hayek, and so many more. debility of our current welfare-state big government in gen- The candidates need to rise to the moment. So do we.

NEWSCOM eral; not just line-drawing questions about particular lib- —William Kristol

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 9 Note the capital T on “The”: It is the Blumenthalian touch. Capitalizing The Unending a noun is impressive enough. Instantly the reader sees you’re not monkeying around. But capitalizing the defi nite Conversation article that modifi es a noun that is already capitalized—now the reader is alerted that the writer is escorting him into the realm of the Doubly Pre- It just goes on and on, my friend. tentious. There might be other conver- BY ANDREW FERGUSON sations out there that deserved a capital C, the writer is saying; but this Con- versation, the conversation I’m talking about, is the only one that’s got a capital T. The One, The Only. The Conversation, as Blumenthal explained it, was a kind of Freema- sonry, and while neither you nor I, he made clear, was a part of it, we were destined to be its benefi ciaries. The Conversationalists were, like Bill and Hillary Clinton, proud products of Ivy League schools, and many of them, like Bill, were Rhodes Scholars to boot. Some readers of the New Repub- lic—honestly, there used to be lots of them—might not have been familiar with this husband and wife team from Arkansas (by way of Oxford and New Haven) in 1992. But “he is one of the best known people among the party elites,” and “his wife, Hillary, fi ts right in.” While everyone else was off doing other stuff, the Clintons and their friends had spent the 1970s and ’80s talking and talking and talking, laying the groundwork for the future that we henever the annual Clin- brought The Conversation to the atten- all would enjoy. ton Global Initiative con- tion of the world. In February 1992, Bill “The Conversation is not about W venes, as it did in Denver Clinton’s fi rst presidential campaign the nuts and bolts of getting elected,” last month, and I watch the billion- was just beginning its rollercoaster run Blumenthal wrote. “It is about why aires and their hired policy experts to the big victory in November. Blu- one should get elected and what to do rearing up to compliment one another menthal, then a writer with the New if one is.” for their plans to bring our troubled Republic magazine, smelled a winner. Indeed, nuts and bolts of any kind species ever closer to perfection, my He wanted to do his part to help. His are the last thing The Conversation mind detaches itself from the windy gift for fl attery was well-developed. was about. Those who recall the cha- present and sails back to the more So he published an article explain- otic early years of the Clinton admin- innocent days of February 1992. I ing the Clinton phenomenon to the istration will doubt that the president remind myself that I’m watching the readers of the magazine, which at or his colleagues had anything like a latest version of The Conversation. the time had readers. plan of “what to do if one is elected.” As Already this spring the tubes of the “The essential principle of Clin- we have come to see over the years, Internet have been thrumming with ton’s agenda,” Blumenthal wrote, “is public discussions initiated by the news of Sidney Blumenthal, the Clin- the result of a rethinking of the future Clintons and their friends are nota- ton journalist/bootblack who first of liberalism and the Democratic party bly abstract and not terribly practical. that he and his wife have been part Blumenthal’s piece gave a fl avor of The Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of for years. This long project may be Conversation, what it must have been

at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. called The Conversation.” like to be a ﬂ y on the wall listening in. THOMAS FLUHARTY

10 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 Once, he tells us, he asked Bill Democratic Conversation (no capital one Clinton organization or another. Clinton “how he squared the seeming T) the same thing as The Conversa- So The Conversation continues as contradictions between the extensive tion? Was there fusion, and if so, how? the Conversers reach retirement age. research of [pollster Stanley] Green- Certainly every Conversationalist was Many if not most of them are intimately berg on the fears and hopes of work- a Democrat. Yet not all Democrats connected with the various Clinton ing-class Reagan Democrats who have were ﬁ t for The Conversation. Blu- foundations, which have raised nearly been alienated from the party with the menthal was not only the chief publi- $2 billion. The work of the founda- notion advanced by [Robert] Reich in cist for The Conversation but also its tions bears the unmistakable stamp of his latest book, The Work of Nations, Robespierre, exiling his elders with a The Conversation. They are not chari- that the realities of the global economy tap of the keyboard. ties as that word is traditionally under- render only human capital non-porta- Michael Dukakis, for example, the stood. Only a relatively small portion of ble across national boundaries, making 1988 Democratic presidential nominee: the foundations’ work is material, so to education the salient priority.” “Dukakis was not really part of The speak: feeding the hungry and cloth- You’ll notice that this sentence Conversation,” Blumenthal wrote. And ing the naked, housing the homeless begins to degenerate at about the half- Bob Kerrey (University of Nebraska, and healing the sick. Instead the work way mark, roughly around the word Lincoln), the Vietnam war hero and is abstract and discursive. “party.” By the end, when the Ivy Clinton’s rival for the nomination in The Washington Post not long ago League word “salient” pops up out of ’92—“Kerrey is not part of The Con- asked spokesmen for the foundations to nowhere, it has become nonsensical. versation.” Walter Mondale, New Deal describe what it was precisely that their But it is an elevated kind of gibber- liberal? “Catastrophic.” Jimmy Carter, organizations do. Here is a partial but ish, the kind you’d hear as the adjuncts the Deep South governor? “Vacuous.” representative list: drained the seventh bottle of Chardon- For fogeys like them The Conversa- “conducted a world wide survey” nay at the faculty club cheese tasting. tion might as well have been in Urdu— “partner[s] with celebrities like Jenni- The Conversation was quite comfort- totally incomprehensible. The phrase fer Garner who encourage parents able with words and phrases that sug- “non-portable human capital” prob- to talk to their children” gest expertise even when they betray ably never passed the lips of old Walter “organizes health care organizations” the opposite. In a list of programs Clin- (University of Minnesota). “promote[s] development in regions ton favors, for instance, Blumenthal It turned out that the entire pre- where mining is common” lists “fast track free trade with Mexico.” Clinton generation of Democrats was “encourages economic growth” It certainly sounds official! Yet not sophisticated enough to grasp The “promotes conservation and renew- there is nothing called “fast track Conversation. It was a baby boomer able energy” free trade.” Presidents can win “fast thing. The torch was being passed to a “aims to improve the standing of track authority” from Congress to new generation of talkers. It’s instruc- women and girls” simplify and accelerate trade negotia- tive that so many names in Blumen- “convenes global political and busi- tions. Maybe that’s what Blumenthal thal’s 1992 article are still familiar to us, ness leaders.” meant. Maybe. In any case, the astute still in the news. Al Gore is a high-tech Promoting and convening and aim- reader quickly understood that The centimillionaire. Robert Reich, too, ing and partnering and conducting and Conversation wasn’t about policy got wealthy serving a variety of non- encouraging . . . How would you spend expertise; it was about creating an profit organizations, from Common $2 billion? image of expertise, while something Cause to the University of California. As innovative as this approach to else entirely was going on behind it. George Stephanopoulos has done well charity is, there is something antique The real fruit of The Conversation, by doing good—or is it the other way about The Conversation nowadays. Blumenthal said, were “circle squar- around? Ira Magaziner now oversees Can it really revive itself, as Blumen- ing formulas” that resolved appar- various aspects of the Clinton charita- thal and Cody and their colleagues ent opposites in the ﬁ eld of public ble empire. At Yale the Conversation- doubtless hope, as a vehicle for Mrs. policy. All those formulas constituted alist Derek Shearer had roomed with Clinton’s presidential ambition? Can an agenda. The Conversation’s eco- Strobe Talbott who, after rooming they talk and rethink and dialogue and nomic policy was “tough and smart.” with Bill Clinton at Oxford, went on to brainstorm all the way to the White It would install a “leaner, activist marry Shearer’s sister, a Hillary Clin- House one more time? government.” It was idealistic; it was ton staffer whose twin brother Cody For my own part, I doubt it. Today pragmatic. Clinton himself thus rep- is now running an international busi- The Conversation’s relevance is mostly resented “a genuine fusion of various ness that Blumenthal helped promote to the Conversers themselves. It has converging strands within the Dem- when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of transcended politics completely. The ocratic Conversation.” state, whose advisers included Derek, Conversationalists are still talking, of At this point in Blumenthal’s old Strobe, and Sidney, the last of whom, course—they will never stop talking. article a reader may succumb to con- according to Politico, receives just-gen- But now they are talking all the way to versation fusion confusion. Was the erous-enough monthly stipends from the bank. ♦

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 11 the founding documents of postmodernism. The preface by the translator Into the Abyss was euphoric. “The fall into the abyss of deconstruction inspires us with as much pleasure as fear. We are intoxi- From the halls of academia to the cover cated with the prospect of never hit- ting bottom.” Almost half a century of Vanity Fair. BY GERTRUDE HIMMELFARB later, the striking image of the abyss was evoked for another postmodern- he Caitlyn (née Bruce) Jen- the “hegemonic” groups in society, ist eminence, Paul de Man, Derrida’s ner case has engendered if not and knowledge itself an instru- friend and colleague at Yale. De Man, a new subject at least a newly ment and product of the “power struc- his biographer tells us, was “the only T ture.” Thus traditional discourse and publicized and sensationalized one. man who ever looked into the abyss learning are impugned as “logocen- For an old-timer like myself, trans- tric” (dominated by the word), “phal- and came away smiling.” genderism is reminiscent of the post- locentric” (dominated by the male), The abyss de Man confronted, and modernism that swept the universities and “totalizing” or “authoritarian” (in came away from smiling, was the Holo- several decades ago. Indeed, transgen- the presumption that reality can be caust. After de Man’s death in 1983, it derism now looks like a more dramatic, contained and comprehended). was revealed that during the war he had audacious, and, it may be, perilous In literature, postmodernism written hundreds of antisemitic articles form of postmodernism. Like post- entails the denial of the fixity of for a pro-Nazi journal in Belgium (and any text (not only the immutabil- modernism back then, so transgender- ity of meaning but the immutability had led a rather unsavory life in gen- ism today is moving very far, very fast. of the text itself); of the authority of eral, including criminal fi nancial deal- Before it goes much further, one might the author over the critic or reader in ings and a bigamous marriage). Even look back upon its prede- more revealing than the anti- cessor as a cautionary tale, semitism was the response of recalling its aspirations but other postmodernists. The also its tribulations. “soft deconstructionists” (as A passage from an they called themselves) dis- article I wrote almost 20 sociated themselves from de years ago may help put Man, although not from post- the current issue in his- modernism. But the “hard” torical perspective. ones, including Derrida, hotly defended him, not on Imported from France From Friedrich...... to Jacques...... to Caitlyn the grounds that the antise- (which had acquired it mitic articles were an unfor- from Germany), postmodernism made its appearance in the determining the substance and mean- tunate youthful lapse (he was then well United States in the 1970s, fi rst in ing of the text; of any canon of great in his twenties), but by deconstructing departments of literature and then books and, more signifi cantly, of the those “texts” until they appeared to say in other disciplines of the humani- very idea of greatness. In philosophy, very nearly the opposite of what they ties. Its forefathers are Nietzsche it is a denial of the constancy of lan- obviously said. guage, of any correspondence between and Heidegger, its fathers Derrida and The de Man affair was a wake-up call Foucault. From Jacques Derrida post- language and reality, of any proxi- modernism has borrowed the vocabu- mate truth about reality, indeed, of for postmodernism—and for its pres- lary of deconstruction: the “aporia” any essential reality. In history, it is a ent manifestation in transgenderism. (the dubious or enigmatic nature) of denial of the objectivity of the his- As postmodernism had made its way discourse, the “indeterminacy” of lan- torian, of the factuality or reality of through the university deconstructing guage, the “fi ctive” nature of signs and the past, and thus of the possibility one after another of the humanities, symbols, the self-referential character of arriving at any truths about the past. so it now seems to be deconstructing For all disciplines it induces a radical of words and their dissociation from humanity itself. The “indeterminacy” any presumed reality, the “problema- skepticism, relativism, and subjectiv- tization” of all subjects, events, and ism that denies not this or that truth and “problematization” of the disci- tests. From Michel Foucault it has about any subject but the very idea plines, the denial of the “fi xity” and adopted the focus on power: words of truth—that denies even the ideal of “immutability” of “texts,” indeed, the and ideas as a means of “privileging” truth, truth as something to aspire to denial of any “essential reality” in even if it can never be fully attained. the postmodernist “project” (as we now Gertrude Himmelfarb is the author, most say) may be refl ected in a similar denial recently, of The People of the Book: Derrida’s Of Grammatology, which in of reality in the transgenderist project. Philosemitism in England from 1967 introduced the concept of decon- The transgenderist would protest

Cromwell to Churchill. structionism, is now regarded as one of that it was not a denial but precisely JENNER: NEWSCOM

12 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 an affi rmation of reality that was being sought, a sexual reality that had been obscured or belied by the accident of Alexander birth. To which a skeptic might reply that reality, once deconstructed, is not so easily reconstructed. The fact that the Great transgenderism requires for its comple- tion not only hormonal treatment but nothing less than genital surgery may induce serious second thoughts. The Leave Hamilton on the $10 bill. removal—the deconstruction, so to BY MICHAEL W. M CCONNELL speak—of the very organs that defi ne gender and enable the reproductivity ith all the grave issues con- als—and Hamilton belongs on a bill. that is of the essence of gender is surely fronting the nation in these But Hamilton’s role in creating our a denial of reality of the greatest order. W dangerous times, it may fi nancial system was but one of his The Caitlyn Jenner affair, one seem frivolous to worry overmuch accomplishments. As a penniless and reporter recently observed, sent Ameri- about whose picture appears on the illegitimate immigrant to our shores cans on a “crash course in transgender $10 bill. But public symbols matter. who rose to the highest positions of acceptance” and sent Europe even fur- They are one of the ways we tell each statesmanship, he is an especially fi t- ther, “toward an even higher plane . . . other, and the world, what we honor ting symbol of the American dream, a post-gender world that critics say as Americans. Treasury secretary Jack representing the aristocracy of talent is leaving no room for women to be Lew announced in late June that Alex- and hard work—not of birth. No one women and men to be men.” Recalling ander Hamilton will be was more responsible for the checkered experiences of the post- replaced on the $10 bill by the calling of the Consti- modernist world, we may be wary of an a woman—no particular tutional Convention, or for even more venturesome, and hazard- woman, not yet, but some- defending its work during ous, postgender world. Instead of the one of the female sex, to be the struggle for ratifica- resplendent image of Caitlyn Jenner on selected at some point in tion. James Madison wrote the cover of Vanity Fair, we may see the the future. two of the most celebrated agony of people who regret the ordeal I agree it is high time of the Federalist Papers, of the transformation—such operations an American woman but Hamilton originated are taking place at an ever younger age, should grace the currency. the project and wrote most even early childhood—and who then But there are three things of the essays, including want to return, psychologically if not wrong with Jack Lew’s decision. Con- those on the presidency and the judi- physically, to their original sex. gress should not let it stand. ciary. He almost single-handedly led We might wish to take comfort First and most important, it is the charge for ratifi cation of the Consti- today in the thought that after the ini- wrong to scuttle Hamilton. Other tution in New York, where anti-Feder- tial enthusiasm for transgenderism than Washington and Lincoln, our alist sentiment ran high. If New York has subsided, a more wary approach most important and admired presi- had not ratifi ed, it is hard to see how to the real problems of sexual dysfunc- dents, Hamilton is the worthiest and the Union could have come into being. tion may prevail. So some of us once most appropriate person to honor in It is not an exaggeration to say that, thought in the case of postmodern- this way. As the fi rst secretary of the without Hamilton, there would have ism. When postmodernism began to Treasury, he was the architect of our been no Constitution. lose its novelty about the turn of the fi nancial system: His plans for money, It is an act of historical vandal- century, it looked as if the humani- banking, taxation, trade, manufactures, ism to tear Hamilton’s image from ties might revert to type—poetry and control of the public debt set the the currency. retrieved from the literary critic, his- course of American prosperity forever. Second, if one of the current subjects tory recalled as narrative, philosophy Great presidents belong on Mount is to be removed from the currency, it rediscovered in the classics. But that Rushmore, great generals belong on should be Andrew Jackson. The cruelty reprieve was short-lived. If postmod- equestrian statues in parks, great civil and racism of his Indian removal policy ernism is no longer the modish term rights leaders belong on memori- is one of the great stains on our national it once was, it is because its spirit has honor. And Jackson also engaged in been so integrated in the culture that Michael W. McConnell is unilateral executive action in defi ance it no longer needs affi rming or con- Richard & Frances Mallery professor of the law—both violating enacted stat- troverting. One can only hope that it at Stanford Law School, director of the utes, for which his attorney general was won’t require a new abyss, a new de Stanford Constitutional Law Center, and censured by Congress, and refusing Man, to transcend transgenderism. ♦ a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. to enforce a decision of the Supreme

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 13 Court he disagreed with. Finally—and honoring a woman to proceed as Sec- the Treasury to remove Jackson, not most pertinent to the currency—Jack- retary Lew proposes: to announce Hamilton, from the currency, and it son destroyed the Second Bank of the that the new image on the bill will be should select the replacement for Jack- United States and deliberately infl icted female, leaving the determination of son after full national consideration of monetary instability on the nation for who it will be to a later date. This way plausible candidates. A public debate the next 90 years. of going about the choice necessarily on the honoree would be an uplifting Perhaps worst of all, Jackson was creates the impression that the hon- national conversation on America’s the fi rst president to be an aggressive oree will be on the bill because of her past and future and the signal contri- defender of slavery. All the southern sex and not because of her accomplish- butions of so many of our people to slave-owning presidents before Jack- ments. That turns what should be an the triumph of freedom and equality. son—Washington, Jefferson, Madi- honor into an insult. I hope and predict that the new image son, and Monroe—regarded slavery as This is a matter of suffi cient impor- will be of a woman, but she (or he) a moral evil and either spoke or took tance for Congress to get involved. should be given the dignity of being modest steps against it. Not Jackson. Congress should pass a bill instructing chosen on the merits. ♦ Not only did he defend slavery where it existed, but he supported the spread of slavery to the territories. He publicly called opponents of slavery “monsters.” He appointed to the Supreme Hillary’s Headache Court the future author of the Dred Scott decision. Jackson’s political party, the Democrats, became the avowed Bernie Sanders can cause her a lot of pain. champion of slavery and later of opposition to civil rights—a stance that BY JAY COST would persist for generations. After Britain ended slavery in the ernie Sanders, the socialist sena- insurance companies, and other left- West Indies in 1833, reformers initiated tor from Vermont, is surging in ist bugaboos (so long as they cough a concerted effort to abolish slavery in Bthe polls against Hillary Clin- up campaign contributions). On the the American states. The legislature ton. A Quinnipiac University survey other are left-wing activists who want of Virginia actually debated abolition. has him within 20 points in Iowa, while to upend the status quo by reducing the But Jackson’s administration prevented three of the last four polls have found role of money in politics, corralling cor- the circulation of abolitionist litera- him within 15 points in New Hamp- porate America, and radically redistrib- ture through the mail by the insidi- shire. Judging by state polls alone, uting income. ous method of publishing the names Sanders is in about as good a spot vis- Interestingly, a large portion of of those who chose to receive it. This à-vis Clinton as Barack Obama was at Democrats do not fall cleanly on either effectively ended the movement, at a this point in 2007. So perhaps it is time side. Working-class whites, African cost to freedom of speech and of the to ask whether Sanders can Americans, and Latinos press as well as emancipation. pull off a similar upset. are all major players in Hamilton, by contrast, was a lifelong Probably not. Clinton Democratic primary poli- opponent of slavery, an early member should win, but Sanders tics, yet none is a main of the New York Manumission Society. could give her a headache combatant in this strug- What would it say about our national whose effects last through gle. It is a quarrel among values to keep Andrew Jackson on the the general election. socioeconomically upscale $20 bill while striking Hamilton from The Clinton-Sanders whites. While average the $10? Secretary Lew claims that the contest has rekindled an Democrats tell pollsters reason for striking Hamilton instead of old tension in the Demo- they prefer left-wing poli- Jackson is that the $10 is the next bill cratic party. On one side Bernie Sanders cies, historically they have up for redesign. This is obviously a pre- are professional politicians in charge backed establishment candidates. text. The sad truth is that the Demo- of maintaining the coalition in gov- The establishment-activist schism cratic party still reveres Jackson as its ernment. They are progressive, but is not apparent in every Democratic founder, with annual Jefferson-Jackson they generally like the status quo and nomination. A lot depends on who dinners honoring his legacy. At a time will bargain with Wall Street, health runs. There was no serious left-wing when southern states are ridding them- champion in 1976 or 1992. Jesse Jack- selves of public displays of the Confed- Jay Cost is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY son was on the far left in 1988, but his erate battle fl ag, the Democratic party STANDARD and the author of A Republic support was limited to African Ameri- should do the same with Jackson. No More: Big Government and the cans. In 2008 Obama won the hearts Third, it defeats the purpose of Rise of American Political Corruption. of activists as well as broad support

14 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 among the establishment, which is Walter Mondale pulled off a similar feat Still, Sanders will ultimately fall why he raised so much money. Simi- against Gary Hart in 1984. Though the short, because his appeal outside the larly, Ted Kennedy’s challenge to latter won the California primary, Mon- antiestablishment left is limited. Clin- Jimmy Carter in 1980 was an attempt dale claimed the fi nal victory because ton won white working-class and to unite the left wing of the party with of “superdelegates” who were free to Latino votes in 2008 and should do so the establishment against a president support any candidate. again. While she lost African Ameri- deemed too conservative. Based on this history, it is a good cans to Obama, it is hard to imagine The divide has been pronounced bet that Clinton will dispatch Sand- them backing Sanders. Nobody but the five times in 50 years: 1968, 1972, ers. There are only two avenues of most naïve leftists thinks Sanders can 1984, 2000, and 2004. In some cases, potential trouble for her: She suffers be president, so the party establishment the candidates themselves did not fi t a Muskie-like collapse or a fusion can- will vigorously dispatch him should he neatly into either category, but still didate enters the race. The former is get too close to victory. became proxies for this larger confl ict. very unlikely, but the latter is a pos- Clinton nevertheless has a lot to lose. Moreover, foreign policy has been sibility. The parallel would be 1968, The 2008 primaries helped Obama important several times, which does when McCarthy’s strong showing refine his skills as a candidate and not translate directly to domestic pol- in New Hampshire against Lyndon build campaign operations in the swing icy. Yet all these battles were, at least in Johnson prompted Robert Kennedy states. Clinton may derive similar ben- part, plebiscites on whether the next to enter the contest. RFK broke deci- efi ts from Sanders’s challenge, but the Democratic administration should sively from LBJ on foreign policy, downside is substantial. The longer she govern like the previous one or break but he corralled a substantial portion is in the national spotlight, the worse decisively from past practices. of the broader party (although, given she wears. This pattern has recurred The establishment has won every Humphrey’s control over the nomina- in each of the last three decades, with contest except 1972. Edmund Muskie tion process, he probably would have steady declines in her ratings in the won early primaries against George lost eventually, even if he hadn’t been ’90s, ’00s, and ’10s whenever the pub- McGovern but badly mishandled cam- assassinated during the campaign). lic examined her closely. A protracted paign attacks, leaving McGovern to win Thus Clinton should fret not about fi ght with Sanders will force her to lin- by default. Muskie’s collapse was pecu- Sanders beating her, but rather Sand- ger in the glare just to win the nomina- liar; most of the time establishment ers damaging her enough to attract an tion. This has never been good for her. candidates run superior campaigns. So insurgent with broader appeal—per- Worse, it could undercut the image the better question is not whether the haps Elizabeth Warren. she seeks to cultivate. She clearly establishment will win, but how tidily Even if Warren remains sidelined, hopes to mimic Richard Nixon’s 1968 its candidate will defeat the insurgency. Clinton should worry about an ugly campaign: present herself as a reliable In 2000, Al Gore dispatched Bill victory. This is where the calendar steward of the national interest, appear Bradley with surprising ease after the becomes nettlesome. Dates are still above the fray, and bolster the sense New Hampshire primary, thanks in in flux, but the Iowa caucuses will of inevitability. Her various scandals, part to John McCain. The Arizona come fi rst, in early February, followed combined with the Obama adminis- Republican drew independent vot- quickly by the New Hampshire pri- tration’s foreign policy, have already ers to the GOP primary, undercut- mary. Iowa facilitated McGovern’s rise damaged public confi dence in her lead- ting Bradley. And McCain’s surprising in 1972, and its low-turnout, high- ership. A stiff challenge from Sand- showing captured the media’s imagi- intensity caucus makes it perfect for a ers might undercut the other premises nation, starving Bradley’s campaign grassroots insurgency. New Hampshire of her candidacy. Sanders is bound to of attention. In 2004, Howard Dean has also been unpredictable over the highlight her ties to Wall Street, which claimed to represent the “Democratic years, and, worse for Clinton, it is next will not help her favorables. She can’t wing of the Democratic party,” but he door to Sanders’s home state. be above the fray, moreover, if she’s peaked too early. John Kerry surged Sanders could win both contests, pandering to the left to beat Sanders. late to win Iowa, prompting Dean to at which point Clinton would have a And who will think her inevitable if collapse and giving Kerry smooth sail- real mess on her hands. Clinton would she loses Iowa or New Hampshire to a ing the rest of the way. probably win Nevada and South Caro- septuagenarian socialist? In other cycles the contest was mess- lina, but she would not get to secure Ultimately, Clinton has nobody ier. The 1968 nomination predates the the nomination until Super Tuesday, to blame but herself. A strong candi- modern system of open primaries and March 1. Even then, depending on the date could unite the grassroots and caucuses, but it is illustrative. Eugene states that participate, Sanders could the establishment, but Clinton is McCarthy mounted a principled cam- hold his own. He might win some cau- weak. Her limited appeal was evident paign that wooed grassroots liberals, cuses in the West and primaries in lib- in 2008, when Obama beat her. Sand- but Hubert Humphrey ultimately eral redoubts like Massachusetts. That ers cannot replicate that victory, but won the nomination because he could postpone the date of Clinton’s he may yet remind the country of her controlled the party’s machinery. triumph further. substantial liabilities. ♦

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 15 So what if the administration was let- ting Iran set the terms of engagement What Happens by equating college kids, backpackers, with felons who were clearly working for the regime’s intelligence services? in Vienna . . . The point was to build confidence with the Iranian regime. Eventually they’d settle the nuclear issue and dis- cuss a number of other matters impor- Could spell disaster for the Middle East. tant to both parties. BY LEE SMITH There were other secret overtures, like Obama’s letters to supreme leader Vienna the Iranians are saying, to make war. Ali Khamenei. But much more impor- n 1815, the European powers met The purpose of the Congress of tant were the White House’s public here to establish the post-Napole- Vienna was to create order. In con- shows of confidence-building. The I onic order and through a balance trast, the talks with Iran have jeop- White House gave the regime room to of power arrangement bring peace to ardized the order of the Middle East crack down on the Green Movement the continent. Obama surely appre- that the United States has main- that took to the streets in June 2009 ciates the historical echo, since 200 tained for more than half a century. to protest likely fraudulent elections. years later he, too, means to create a The nuclear talks have legitimized And it also left alone Tehran’s friends, peaceful order in an especially vola- and further emboldened a revolu- like Bashar al-Assad, who is still the tile part of the world by balancing tionary regime. The White House’s president of Syria even though Obama the regional powers—Israel, Saudi string of concessions—from sanc- demanded he step aside four years ago. Arabia, and Iran—to tions relief to acknowl- Further, and this was perhaps the ensure that none of edgment of Iran’s right most important aspect of engagement them gets too large to enrich uranium—is with Iran, the administration showed a piece of the pie and tantamount to bank- that it could control and even beat up frightens the others into rolling Napoleon and on Tehran’s enemies, like Israel. The making war. The Iran arming him. The peace administration not only made a habit nuclear talks are impor- that Obama believes of excoriating Prime Minister Ben- tant because Obama, a his diplomats are nego- jamin Netanyahu, it also repeatedly U.S. diplomat circularly tiating in the Austrian leaked sensitive items, as if it were mes- explained here last week, Oh, sure, you can trust us. capital increases the like- saging Tehran directly. Among others, “believes a peaceful Iran lihood of war. the White House leaked the Stuxnet could be . . . the key to peace.” The Iran nuclear talks were never exploit that had damaged Iran’s nuclear The difference between 1815 and exclusively about the clerical regime’s infrastructure, it leaked the fact that 2015 is that Napoleon had to be defeated nuclear program. The administration Israel was using Azerbaijan’s air space, at Waterloo before the peace forged by has repeatedly insisted that a ﬁ rewall it leaked Israeli strikes on Iranian the Congress of Vienna could hold, separates the nuclear ﬁ le from all other arms convoys heading to Hezbollah. It lasting nearly a century. The Islamic issues we might have with Iran—the boasted that it had deterred Netanyahu Republic of Iran, on the other hand, is Syrian civil war, the future of Iraq, from striking Iranian nuclear facilities. on the march throughout the Middle Iran’s support for terrorism—but from Of course these leaks were damaging to East, controlling four Arab capitals, the very beginning of his presidential Israel’s security interests, but the real and waging war from the eastern Medi- term, Obama’s engagement with Iran point was to show Iran that Obama was terranean to the Persian Gulf. Nonethe- meant everything was up for grabs. sincere about wanting to bring them less, over the last two and a half years The White House believed the two into the international community. of negotiations with Iran, the Obama governments had to learn to trust each They could trust him. administration has offered Tehran vir- other and was therefore quietly willing Indeed, maybe Iran could even be tually every concession it sought, which to do favors for the mullahs. made to understand that it didn’t need only spiked its appetite for more. Most According to a recent Wall Street a nuclear weapons program if it saw recently, the Iranians have demanded Journal article, the White House and Washington as an honest broker. This that Western powers lift the U.N. arms Iran had “secret dealings” starting in White House, after all, didn’t automati- embargo, a demand that could hardly 2009, when the two sides discussed cally come down on the side of Iran’s be less subtle—we want weapons, a number of issues—like the three nemeses in Riyadh and Jerusalem. American hikers detained by the Ira- Obama may once have meant what Lee Smith is a senior editor nians, eventually exchanged for four he said about preventing a bomb, and at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Iranians held in American prisons. the administration’s ostensible red

16 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 lines were in keeping with decades of American policy opposing prolifera- tion: The Iranians were going to have The Fate to dismantle their entire program; there would be no enrichment at all; they would have to ship their enriched of the Senate uranium to Russia; Fordow would have to be shut; the ballistic missile program was a threat that would have to be addressed; Tehran would have to come Coattails will be everything in 2016. clean about its past nuclear activities, BY FRED BARNES to satisfy concerns regarding the program’s possible military dimensions. enate candidates aren’t as senators, giving Republicans control, But there is a very simple reason important as they used to be. 53-46. When Barack Obama won in why the administration started to cave SRepublican and Democratic 2008, Democrats netted 8 seats and on all these issues with the Joint Plan presidential nominees have intruded. their control of the Senate grew to of Action in November 2013, and why The outcome of Senate races in 59-41. Democrats gained 2 seats with it continues to cave in Vienna today. 2016 will be heavily affected, if not Obama’s reelection in 2012. Even before the Iranians began to talk determined, by which party’s presi- What is new, however, is that the publicly with the administration about dential candidate wins a state. This outcome of the presidential race has the nuclear program, they saw that the is especially true in tossup states. greater sway than ever. As the two negotiations had already been decided There’s a “new rule parties have gradually in their favor. When Obama declined of politics in a polarized, become more ideologically to strike Assad in September 2013 and partisan era,” says Larry divided, there is less split- enforce his prohibition against the use Sabato of the University ticket voting. Instead, as a of chemical weapons, the nuclear nego- of Virginia. “The party state’s vote for president tiations with Iran were effectively over. winning the presidency in goes, so goes the vote in If he wouldn’t lob a few missiles into a state carries the Senate down-ticket races. Voters the Syrian desert to protect his own seat that’s up in that state today are more inclined to prestige, he certainly wasn’t going to about 80 percent of the stick with one party. That order strikes on Iranian nuclear facili- time. Could possibly be was Sabato’s point. ties and risk a larger war. The Iranians even higher in 2016.” Mark Kirk For Republicans, this had nothing to lose by sitting with the This means the Demo- means two senators are Americans and could in fact earn more cratic nominee must win in serious jeopardy: each time they threatened to walk away. the White House for Dem- Mark Kirk in Illinois For nearly two years then, the Iran ocrats to have a credible and Ron Johnson in Wis- nuclear talks have been something like chance of taking control of consin, both elected in a puppet show. Neither side is really the Senate. If a Republican 2010, a non-presidential negotiating about Iran’s nuclear pro- wins the presidency, “the year. Republicans haven’t gram since that’s already been decided. top of the ticket is going won a presidential race And besides, from Obama’s perspec- to help keep [Republican] in Wisconsin since 1984 tive, the nuclear ﬁ le wasn’t the major Mitch McConnell the and in Illinois since issue—the larger point was the regional majority leader,” says Scott 1988. Johnson would be order and the new balance of power he Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Ron Johnson helped if Wisconsin gov- was building. Commerce’s chief political ernor Scott Walker were The real subject of the nuclear adviser. Republicans now have a 54-46 the GOP presidential nominee and talks is the role that Iran will play in advantage in the Senate. won the state. that order. The White House seems What Sabato calls a rule isn’t an It’s not that Senate candidates don’t to be hoping that if it keeps feeding iron rule. And it’s not new that pres- matter at all. But they matter less in Tehran concessions, the Iranians will idential contests have an impact on presidential years than in midterm ﬁ nally see it is in their interest to help state races. They always have, thus elections. That’s when they have less stabilize the Middle East. Obama is the phenomenon known as presiden- control of their fate. And long-shot counting on Iran to be a cornerstone tial coattails. When Ronald Reagan Senate candidates are sometimes of a regional peace similar to what won in 1980, he pulled in a dozen new elected, as a little known Republican, the Congress of Vienna built in 1815. Al d’Amato, was in New York in 1980 The more likely result is that he has Fred Barnes is an executive editor when Reagan won the state.

IMAGES: NEWSCOM unleashed a monster. ♦ at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The enhanced role of presidential

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 17 nominees puts a premium on their Democratic seats regarded as vulner- North Carolina’s governor, legisla- ability to win swing states, where able in 2016. But Republicans have ture, and both senators are Republican. their infl uence on Senate races is the had trouble fi nding a Senate candidate Still, the state is closely divided politi- greatest. In 2016, fi ve states top the list: seen as competitive with Bennet. Still, cally. Senator Richard Burr is running Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and a strong Republican at the top of the for a third term. Democrats failed to North Carolina. In 2012, ticket could lift the pros- persuade Kay Hagan to challenge Burr. Obama won four and lost pects of a less than stellar After one term, she lost her Senate seat narrowly in North Caro- Senate candidate. Obama to Republican Thom Tillis in 2014. lina. So the GOP candi- won Colorado twice. Burr, a strong fi nisher in his two elec- date for president needs to Nevada was a Republi- tions, is favored. It would take a victory stage a major turnaround can state until a surge of by the Democratic presidential can- to help in Senate elections. Hispanic voters, mostly didate for him to be defeated. Obama Let’s start with Ohio. Democrats, changed the won North Carolina in 2008 but lost It would be advantageous political equation. Gov- the state in 2012. if Governor John Kasich ernor Brian Sandoval, In 2016, Republicans are in the were on the Republican a Republican, would be unenviable position of defending 24 Brian Sandoval ticket, as either the presi- favored to win the Sen- Senate seats while only 10 Democratic dential or vice presidential nominee. ate seat being vacated next year by seats are at stake. It’s almost inevitable He won reelection for governor over- Harry Reid with or without the ben- Republicans will lose several seats. If whelmingly in 2014. His presence— efi t of presidential coattails. He was their losses are limited to Illinois and and his popularity—would improve reelected in 2014 with 70 percent of Wisconsin, and they win the open Republican chances in Ohio in 2016, the vote. But Sandoval has declined Nevada seat, Republicans should con- including those of Senator Rob Port- to run for the Senate. Now Represen- sider themselves fortunate. But accom- man, whose reelection would be jeop- tative Joe Heck has stepped in, a cred- plishing even this modest feat probably ardized if a Democrat, presumably ible candidate but without Sandoval’s requires a Republican presidential vic- Hillary Clinton, captured Ohio. In a broad appeal. tory. Nothing less will do. ♦ nonpresidential election year, Port- man would likely be a strong favorite. With Marco Rubio’s decision to run for president, Florida has an open Senate seat. If either Rubio or former A Misguided Florida governor Jeb Bush emerges as the Republican nominee, that will give Republicans a good shot at winning the state—and holding the Senate FDA Crusade seat. If not the nominee, Rubio might be chosen as running mate. Veep choices are usually dismissed as having The case for leaving cigarette fl avorings alone. no political effect, but I think Rubio BY ELI LEHRER would be an exception. He would aid Republicans in winning Florida in the rom Brussels to Chicago to also is the second-most-popular fl avor presidential and Senate races. the headquarters of the Food (after “tobacco”) in the fast-growing One could argue a Republican ticket F and Drug Administration in e-cigarette market. with Kasich and Bush or Rubio on White Oak, Maryland, public health But menthol remains in many pub- board would be formidable in both offi cials, antismoking crusaders, and lic health offi cials’ sights. The Euro- Ohio and Florida. And by winning mayors are waging a battle against pean Union has voted to ban it from both states, Republicans would surely fl avorings for both tobacco cigarettes cigarettes starting next year. Chicago win the presidency. By the way, Bush and newer e-cigarettes. has outlawed the sale of menthol cig- and Rubio probably won’t be on the Calls for an all-out ban on fl avor- arettes near schools, a directive that ticket together. The Constitution bars ings began as a limited fi ght over covers most of the city, and Baltimore electors from choosing both a presi- menthol. This minty flavor is big City Council is considering similar dent and vice president from their business. The second-most-popular regulations. The FDA, which was home state. cigarette in the United States, New- granted broad power to regulate ciga- In Colorado, Democratic senator port, has been sold only in menthol rettes and banned fl avors like clove Michael Bennet will be diffi cult to beat form for most of its history. Menthol and cherry in 2009, has been fi ddling unless the GOP presidential candidate with the idea of a national ban on

wins the state. Bennet’s is one of two Eli Lehrer is president of the R Street Institute. menthol since 2013. SOBYRNE99

18 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 In the United States, it appears that particular method of quitting works and other municipalities are consider- cities are cracking down on menthol more than 10 percent of the time. ing the same. to target a specifi c portion of the pop- New York City, home to the nation’s The confl uence of these trends in ulation. About 80 percent of African- highest cigarette taxes and most public health—toward banning fl avor- American smokers prefer menthol concerted public health efforts, has ings and treating e-cigarettes the same cigarettes. Both Chicago (33 percent) actually seen smoking rise since 2010. as their deadlier combustible cousins— and Baltimore (63 percent) have large Five decades of stern public could get ugly fast. It could herald a black populations. health warnings, high taxes, market- new Prohibition. It would be Prohibi- Despite this widespread hostil- ing restrictions, and smoking bans tion in all but name for cigarettes, as ity, there’s little evidence that men- brought the share of adults who the law would allow few attractive alter- thol cigarettes are appreciably worse smoke down from almost half to less natives for those who crave nicotine. than any other kind (which is to than a quarter. But progress This policy probably would reduce say that they’re has largely ceased. For those smoking at least a little, saving some very unhealthy). who continue to smoke, all- lives. But with thousands of smokers Some research sug- out cessation may be nigh still craving a nicotine fi x, an already gests menthol ciga- on impossible. ample black market for cigarettes rettes are somewhat If someone like Siegel, would explode. According to the Tax harder to quit and who favors increased use of Foundation, the black market for slightly more popu- e-cigarettes to reduce the cigarettes has already surpassed the lar among teenage legitimate market in two states smokers. But all (New York and Arizona). And at common nicotine least one cigarette-smuggling ring products are very has been linked to international addictive, and most terrorism: In 2005, Buffalo busi- youthful smokers nessman Aref Ahmed was con- start with plain old tobacco fl avor. victed of smuggling cigarettes and It also bears noting that, except funneling his profi ts to terrorist for a few niche brands, nearly all training camps. cigarettes are fl avored in one way When the FDA last held pub- or another, although the common lic hearings to consider banning fl avorings tend to be subtle. First- At left, selling menthol in the 70s; at right, an e-cigarette menthol, many of the objections time smokers will fi nd any addi- and calls for reconsideration tive-free cigarette much less tolerable harm of tobacco, were in charge of came from law enforcement groups than the options currently on the mar- public health policy, a ban on men- like the National Troopers Coalition ket. But that’s the point: A menthol thol and other fl avorings might be and the National Black Police Asso- ban is a foot in the door to banning worth further review. It almost cer- ciation. Most cigarette smugglers almost all current brands of cigarette. tainly would have to be coupled with doubtless won’t fund terrorism, but a Michael Siegel, a former FDA offi - public education campaigns encour- ban on menthol or fl avorings gener- cial and professor at Boston Univer- aging smokers who can’t quit to fi nd ally could amount to handing a siz- sity’s School of Public Health who is other, safer sources of nicotine. E-cig- able portion of the tobacco industry’s among those leading the effort to ban arettes also would have to continue to more than $30 billion in 2014 U.S. menthol, is straightforward about the be available in the very fl avorings that revenues over to criminal gangs. goal. If menthol is banned, he stated in cigarettes would then lack. Someone In the right context, more strin- an email, there will be “hardly a justifi - who enjoys “dark chocolate mint”- gent regulation of cigarette fl avorings cation for the FDA to not simply ban fl avored vapor solution is unlikely to could make sense. But the prepon- all additives.” want to go back to harsh tobacco. derance of evidence indicates that “Since all the additives are put in But the prevailing tilt of public banning menthol and other addi- with a marketing purpose in mind, health policy has been away from this tives would have uncertain benefi ts banning the additives will, by defi ni- tobacco harm reduction approach. and signifi cant costs. A ban on fl a- tion, make it harder to sell these prod- Major cities like New York, Chi- vorings for e-cigarettes might actu- ucts, reducing sales,” Siegel wrote. cago, and Los Angeles already have ally increase the number of people Some surveys of menthol smokers banned vaping in most indoor public who smoke and discourage would- suggest many would quit smoking places. Senator Richard Blumenthal be vapers from quitting combustible if menthols were pulled from the (D-Conn.) has launched an effort to cigarettes altogether. For now, gov- market. But empirical evidence ban fl avored e-cigarettes nationally. ernments concerned about cigarette demonstrates that smokers today In California, Sonoma City Council additives and e-cigarette fl avors are

E-CIGARETTE, TBEC REVIEW have a very hard time quitting. No has voted to ban e-cigarette ﬂ avorings, best off leaving things alone. ♦

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 19 Giving Thomas His Due The justice who stands alone

BY DAN MCLAUGHLIN (Justice Samuel Alito was second with 30, Justice Elena Kagan last with 11); the most concurring opinions, 11 or political observers, the story of the Supreme (Alito was second with 9, Roberts and Kagan last with 2 Court’s recently concluded term was the clash each); the most dissenting opinions, 19 (Scalia was second of two great colliding forces. On one side stood with 15, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last with just 1); and the Court’s always-unifi ed liberal bloc, fortifi ed the most total pages of opinions, 432. This is the second by the apostasies of Republican-appointed Jus- time in three years that Thomas has written the most Ftice Anthony Kennedy and sometimes Chief Justice John opinions, and they are not fi lled with breezy rhetoric, Roberts, most prominently in cases involving same-sex mar- but thick with citation to the roots of our constitutional riage and Obamacare. On the other side stood system, from the Magna Carta to John Locke Justice Antonin Scalia, a lion in winter, caustic to Blackstone’s Commentaries. and witty in his dissents. But for close watchers of the Court, another theme ran through this term: the breadth and depth of Justice Clarence STANDING APART, Thomas’s institutional critique of the Court EVEN FROM SCALIA itself for straying from the Constitution, fail- ut mere volume is not the measure ing to apply its own precedents evenhandedly, of Thomas’s jurisprudence. For that, neglecting the separation of powers and federal- B one must take a closer look at the ism, and allowing itself to be manipulated by many times he has stood against the prevail- runaway executive agencies. ing winds, warning his colleagues that the Like a medieval monk preserving Western Court should consider its own errors and culture through the Dark Ages, Thomas sol- Clarence Thomas limitations. The cases in which he has split diered doggedly on, carrying the largest writing from Scalia—his closest colleague philosophi- workload on the Court, pressing his point in cases small and cally—are telling. large, sometimes at odds with his conservative colleagues, In Johnson v. United States, the Court struck down part often alone. Perhaps history will never return to the path he of the 1984 Armed Career Criminal Act, which greatly is marking, but no one can say we weren’t warned. enhances prison sentences for felons in possession of a Supreme Court justices are often little known or fi rearm who have three prior convictions for a “violent understood by the general public, and in Thomas’s case, felony.” Scalia wrote the majority opinion. It was a sweet his image is further obscured by his race, the controversies victory for Scalia, who in several prior dissents had argued surrounding his 1991 confi rmation, and his famous refusal that the ACCA was unconstitutionally vague in defi n- to ask questions at oral argument. Thomas’s critics outside ing “violent felony.” Thomas—noting that he had always the legal profession tend to fall back on open attacks on thought the ACCA unconstitutional for allowing a judge his race (a “clown in blackface,” said Star Trek actor, Face- to impose a long sentence based on facts not found by a book meme-sharer, and gay-rights crusader George Takei jury—nonetheless refused to join the opinion on the recently) or unsubtly coded attacks (such as Harry Reid’s grounds that the “void for vagueness” doctrine should be assertion that Thomas wasn’t smart or a good writer like reconsidered. He cited its (comparatively) recent origin, Scalia, though Reid couldn’t name any of his opinions). which he traced to 1914 (before that, courts simply refused But behind the slings and arrows of politics and to enforce criminal statutes in cases where their applica- punditry, Justice Thomas has been this term’s workhorse, tion was unclear). And he lamented that the Court has not and not for the fi rst time. According to SCOTUSBlog, he applied the doctrine consistently: wrote more opinions than any other justice this term, 37 This Court has a history of wielding doctrines purportedly rooted in “due process of law” to achieve its own policy

Dan McLaughlin is a lawyer in New York City. goals, substantive due process being the poster child. . . . AP / CHARLES DHARAPAK

20 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 Although our vagueness doctrine is distinct from substan- so open-ended as to be a potentially unconstitutional dele- tive due process, their histories have disquieting parallels. gation of Congress’s law-making power to the agency, and Thomas traced how the Court’s “vagueness” cases have that the EPA’s request for the Court to defer to its interpreta- struck down whatever kind of law was out of fashion with tion—given the lack of meaningful standards for the Court the Court’s majority in a given era, from economic regula- to evaluate its decision—also risked unconstitutionally strip- tion in the pre-New Deal years (but not after) to obscenity ping the Court of its power to decide what the law means: laws in the 1940s to abortion laws (but not laws regulating speech by abortion protesters) today. Should EPA wield its vast powers over electric utilities to protect public health? A pristine environment? Eco- Johnson is not the only example this term of Thomas nomic security? We are told that the breadth of the word calling out the Court’s own institutional biases. The Court “appropriate” authorizes EPA to decide for itself how to split 5-4 in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent answer that question. . . . Although we hold today that EPA Redistricting Commission on whether an Arizona ballot ini- exceeded even the extremely permissive limits on agency power set by our precedents, we should be alarmed that it felt tiative could give an “independent” commission power to suffi ciently emboldened by those precedents to make the bid for draw congressional district lines, despite the Constitution’s deference that it did here. . . . As in other areas of our juris- explicit command that rules for elections to Congress “shall prudence concerning administrative agencies . . . we seem be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” to be straying further and further from the Constitution without so much as pausing to ask why. We should stop to consider Ginsburg’s opinion for the Court held that a ballot initia- that document before blithely giving the force of law to any tive could be a rule of “the Legislature,” given that the Ari- other agency “interpretations” of federal statutes. zona constitution (unlike the federal Constitution) grants some legislative power to the voters through initiatives. Zivotofsky v. Kerry concerned a 2002 federal statute Thomas, tracing the long history of the Court’s fi nding of requiring the State Department to record on passports new and different ways to invalidate and frustrate state bal- and “consular reports of birth abroad” that an American lot initiatives in areas ranging from marriage to term limits citizen born in Jerusalem was born in “Israel” despite the to immigration to affi rmative action, was blistering: longstanding presidential policy of ambiguity on whether Israel owns Jerusalem. The Bush and Obama administra- Reading today’s opinion, one would think the Court is tions, each for its own reasons, protested this as a congres- a great defender of direct democracy in the States. . . . These sentiments are diffi cult to accept. The conduct of sional invasion of the president’s foreign policy power the Court in so many other cases reveals a different atti- to recognize foreign sovereigns and their borders, and a tude toward the States in general and ballot initiatives majority of the Court agreed. Scalia, Roberts, and Alito in particular. . . . The Court’s characterization of this as dissented, taking issue with the Court’s view of presiden- direct democracy at its best is rather like praising a plebi- scite in a “banana republic” that installs a strongman as tial powers and its view of statements on passports as the President for Life. And wrapping the analysis in a cloak equivalent of recognizing a foreign government. of federalism does little to conceal the fl aws in the Court’s The Court and the dissents glossed over the consular reasoning. I would dispense with the faux federalism and reports of birth abroad on the procedural grounds that Zivot- would instead treat the States in an evenhanded manner. That means applying the Constitution as written. ofsky had argued the two documents should be treated the same. Only Thomas thought the two documents should be In Michigan v. EPA, the Court considered a provi- treated differently because Congress had power over one but sion of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 that not the other: Congress’s enumerated power over naturaliza- required the EPA to study emissions by power plants and tion laws gave it the power to dictate the contents of a con- stated that the EPA “shall regulate” the plants if the EPA sular report of birth abroad, which is primarily a document “fi nds” that “regulation is appropriate and necessary after used to prove citizenship, whereas no enumerated power considering the results of the study.” The EPA concluded permitted Congress to dictate the contents of passports, that it did not need to consider the nearly $10 billion cost which therefore must give way when they confl icted with of regulation in making this fi nding. Scalia’s majority opin- the president’s power to recognize foreign governments. ion (which Thomas joined) refused to defer to the agency’s reading of the statute and found that this language, for reasons of statutory context, required the EPA to consider costs. TAKE THE RAISINS. LEAVE THE TRAINS. Kagan’s dissent, for the Court’s four liberals, did not quarrel ften, Thomas argues that the Court is ignoring a with this reading of the language but argued mainly that it fundamental issue that cuts to the core of a case. was suffi cient to consider costs later in the process of shap- O In Horne v. Department of Agriculture, Chief Justice ing the scope of regulation. Only Thomas, concurring alone, Roberts’s majority opinion concluded that a raisin-market- argued that the “appropriate and necessary” language was ing program that involved federal confi scation and resale of

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 21 raisins amounted to a “taking” of the raisin handlers’ prop- to make the rules, the courts’ power and duty to say what the erty without just compensation under the Fifth Amend- rules mean, and the president’s power and duty to enforce ment. Justice Sonia Sotomayor disagreed that the program them. And that sometimes puts him in the seemingly sur- amounted to a taking, while Justice Stephen Breyer agreed prising position of defending the courts. In Perez v. Mortgage that it did but thought further proceedings were needed to Bankers Association, the Court ruled that the Administrative see if the raisin handlers were justly compensated after con- Procedures Act does not require agencies to give the pub- sidering how they benefi ted from the program as a whole. lic notice and an opportunity to comment before an agency Justice Thomas wrote separately, citing his dissent in Kelo changes its interpretation of one of its rules. Thomas, Scalia, v. New London, to argue that because the program “takes the and Alito all wrote separately to urge the Court to reconsider raisins of citizens and, among other things, gives them away why agency interpretations should be entitled to any def- or sells them to exporters, foreign importers, and foreign erence by the courts in interpreting agency rules. Thomas governments,” the government may not have been able to again delved deeply into the Founding-era documents and justify taking the raisins on the grounds that they were “for contrasted the Framers’ view of judicial review with the ten- public use” at all. As he wryly added, this would make the dency of courts to defer to agencies’ interpretation: question of just compensation “a fruitless exercise.” This accumulation of governmental powers allows agen- In Department of Transportation v. Association of American cies to change the meaning of regulations at their discretion Railroads, the Court unanimously ruled that Amtrak was act- and without any advance notice to the parties. . . . To regu- ing as part of the federal government and not a private corpo- lated parties, the new interpretation might as well be a new ration when a 2008 federal statute empowered it to join with regulation. . . . Today . . . formal rulemaking is the Yeti of administrative law. There are isolated sightings of it in the the Federal Railroad Administration in issuing “standards ratemaking context, but elsewhere it proves elusive. and metrics” to judge other passenger rail lines. The Court thus rejected a claim that the Constitution was violated by Thomas lambasted the Court’s frequent invocation of having a private company make federal law. Thomas wrote administrative agency expertise, which he traced to Wood- separately about the deeper constitutional issues, concluding row Wilson and the progressive era’s “move from the indi- that Amtrak—indeed, any federal agency—could not, con- vidualism that had long characterized American society to sistent with the separation of powers, receive by delegation the concept of a society organized for collective action” that Congress’s power to “formulate generally applicable rules of “refl ected a deep disdain for the theory of popular sover- private conduct.” Thomas’s opinion carefully traced the his- eignty.” Thomas quoted Wilson on democracy: torical roots of the separation of powers all the way back to In President Wilson’s view, public criticism would be ben- ancient Greece and Rome; by contrast, he pointedly noted of efi cial in the formation of overall policy, but “a clumsy nui- Kennedy’s opinion for the majority, “We never even glance sance” in the daily life of Government—“a rustic handling at the Constitution to see what it says about how this author- delicate machinery.” . . . Refl ecting this belief that bureau- ity must be exercised and by whom.” And he offered a blunt crats might more effectively govern the country than the American people, the progressives ushered in signifi cant assessment of the competing visions at stake: expansions of the administrative state.

We should return to the original meaning of the Constitu- In B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Industries, Inc., the Court tion: The Government may create generally applicable rules held in a 7-2 opinion by Alito that decisions of the Trade- of private conduct only through the proper exercise of legislative power. I accept that this would inhibit the Government from mark Trial and Appeal Board—an administrative tribunal— acting with the speed and effi ciency Congress has sometimes found are binding in subsequent court cases. Thomas, joined by desirable. . . . We have too long abrogated our duty to enforce Scalia, dissented on the grounds that Congress should not be the separation of powers required by our Constitution. We presumed to delegate such traditional powers of the courts have overseen and sanctioned the growth of an administrative system that concentrates the power to make laws and to an agency without a clear statement that it was doing so. the power to enforce them in the hands of a vast and unac- A similar concern animated his separate dissent in Wellness countable administrative apparatus that fi nds no comfortable International Network, Ltd. v. Sharif. While Roberts split with home in our constitutional structure. The end result may be Sotomayor’s opinion on whether private parties could agree trains that run on time (although I doubt it), but the cost is to our Constitution and the individual liberty it protects. to have a non-life-tenured bankruptcy judge decide cases that were supposed to be decided by a federal trial judge, Thomas wrote separately to explain why cases involving PROTECTING THE ROLE OF THE COURTS core private rights to life, liberty, or property are required ustice Thomas’s opinions this term refl ect his preoccupa- to be handled by an independent judiciary in the fi rst place. Jtion with the administrative state’s tendency to transfer Thomas often stands up for clear lines of separation of an ever-growing share of authority from Congress’s power powers and consistent application of individual rights even

22 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 when the outcomes may not be “conservative.” He con- showed that the Griggs decision had emerged from a delib- tinued his critique of the Court’s cases striking down state erate EEOC campaign to subvert the law Congress had laws that confl ict with federal rules in Oneok, Inc. v. Learjet, passed and charged the commission with enforcing and to Inc., and of the Court’s cases striking down state laws that replace it by means of “creative interpretation” with some- regulate interstate commerce in Comptroller of the Treasury thing much broader: of Maryland v. Wynne. Both doctrines are often favored by federally regulated businesses to avoid state taxes and state EEOC’s strategy paid off. The Court embraced EEOC’s theory of disparate impact, concluding that the agency’s tort suits. In Ohio v. Clark, he refused to join an opinion for position was “entitled to great deference.” . . . With only the Court by Alito on the Sixth Amendment’s confronta- a brief nod to the text of [the relevant part of Title VII] in a tion clause, arguing that the test for using out-of-court state- footnote . . . the Court tied this novel theory of discrimina- ments in criminal trials should be the same whether the tion to “the statute’s perceived purpose” and EEOC’s view of the best way of effectuating it. . . . But statutory provi- statement was made to the government or to a private indi- sions—not purposes—go through the process of bicamer- vidual and shouldn’t depend on the “purpose” behind the alism and presentment mandated by our Constitution. We questions that led to the statement. And in Elonis v. United should not replace the former with the latter, . . . nor should States, he broke from Roberts’s majority opinion on threats we transfer our responsibility for interpreting those provi- sions to administrative agencies, let alone ones lacking sub- made on a Facebook page, arguing that speech that falls out- stantive rulemaking authority. side the First Amendment’s protection—whether because it is threatening or for some other reason, such as obscenity— In an unusual footnote, Thomas also accused the Jus- should not depend on the intention of the speaker but only tice Department of manipulating the Court’s docket to the objective content of the speech. prevent it from hearing the FHA case, noting a congressional report fi nding that after the Court agreed to hear the same issue four years earlier, UNEQUAL JUSTICE homas’s critiques of administrative overreach and then-Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez—now Secretary of Labor—entered into a secret deal with the institutional bias came together most directly this petitioners in that case, various offi cials of St. Paul, Min- T term in his (again, lone) dissent in the Court’s 5-4 nesota, to prevent this Court from answering the question. decision in Texas Department of Housing and Community Perez allegedly promised the offi cials that the Department Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. There, the Court of Justice would not intervene in two qui tam complaints then pending against St. Paul in exchange for the city’s dis- ruled that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 allows “disparate missal of the case. impact” lawsuits for housing discrimination that don’t require proof of any intentional discrimination, just evi- The FHA case is one of a number of examples this term dence that different groups had different results from the of Thomas’s distaste for racial paternalism and the particu- same practice. Kennedy’s opinion imported this rule to lar obligation he seems to feel—as the Court’s lone African- the FHA from the Court’s 1971 decision in Griggs v. Duke American justice—to point out the consequences of this type Power Co., which had ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights of bias. Drawing on the work of Thomas Sowell, he noted Act of 1964 banned employers from using intelligence tests the many ways racial disparities have arisen in societies and requiring a high school diploma if that would have a across the globe, even disparities favoring minority groups, larger impact on black job applicants. Like Title VII and and rejected the implicit assumption “that a given racial dis- other federal antidiscrimination laws, the FHA bans only parity at an institution is a product of that institution rather discrimination “because of ” race and other prohibited fac- than a refl ection of disparities that exist outside of it.” And tors—language a normal person would understand to imply once again, he pointed his fi nger at the Court itself: intentional discrimination. Thomas wanted the Court to overrule Griggs or at least stop repeating its error. And his It takes considerable audacity for today’s majority to criticism of disparate-impact law extends to areas more tra- describe the origins of racial imbalances in housing . . . without acknowledging this Court’s role in the develop- ditionally favored by the Court’s conservatives: In EEOC v. ment of this phenomenon. In the past, we have admitted Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., he criticized Scalia’s major- that the sweeping desegregation remedies of the federal ity opinion for imposing what amounted to a disparate- courts contributed to “white fl ight” from our Nation’s cit- impact test for religious discrimination in a case involving a ies . . . in turn causing the racial imbalances that make it diffi cult to avoid disparate impact from housing develop- Muslim woman denied employment because her headscarf ment decisions. Today’s majority, however, apparently is as violated Abercrombie & Fitch’s dress code. content to rewrite history as it is to rewrite statutes. In his FHA dissent, Thomas—himself the head of the EEOC in the 1980s—traced how the agency’s own records Similarly, his dissent in the 5-4 decision in Alabama

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 23 Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama blasted the Court and Like Brumfi eld, Warrick’s father was not a part of his life. the Department of Justice for creating more problems But, unlike Brumfi eld, Warrick did not use the absence of than they solved in enforcing the Voting Rights Act of a father fi gure as a justifi cation for murder. Instead, he recognized that his mother had been “the family patriarch” 1965 to require “majority-minority” legislative districts— when she was alive, and that he had a responsibility to take as he called it in a prior case, “segregating the races into on that role after her death. political homelands”: I do not pretend that Alabama is blameless when it comes Thomas’s history as a son of Jim Crow-era Geor- to its sordid history of racial politics. But, today the State gia may also explain his joining the majority (breaking is not the one that is culpable. Its redistricting effort was with the Court’s other conservatives) in Walker v. Sons indeed tainted, but it was tainted by our voting rights juris- of Confederate Veterans, Inc., in which the Court held that prudence and the uses to which the Voting Rights Act has been put. Long ago, the DOJ and special-interest groups Texas could properly refuse to sell Confederate fl ag van- like the ACLU hijacked the Act, and they have been using ity license plates. Thomas has a history of weighing in it ever since to achieve their vision of maximized black on one particular symbol, the burning cross in the hands electoral strength, often at the expense of the voters they of the Ku Klux Klan; he spoke up uncharacteristically purport to help. at oral argument during 1995 and 2003 cases involving If race is the text of these opinions, it is surely the the Klan and the cross and wrote separately in both cases subtext of Thomas’s dissent in Brumfi eld v. Cain, one of to emphasize the particular meaning of that symbol as a two death penalty decisions handed down the same day political statement of racist terror. Then again, the Con- (the other being Davis v. Ayala) in which he wrote sepa- federate fl ag’s history is more fraught; Thomas himself rately to contrast the Court’s solicitude towards mur- was criticized at his confi rmation hearings for having the derers with its relative indifference to their victims. To fl ag of his home state of Georgia, which then incorporated underline his point, Thomas insisted on concluding his the Confederate fl ag, in his offi ce. And the Walker major- opinion in Brumfi eld by inserting, for permanent inclu- ity’s view of when the state government has the power to sion in the United States Reports, a photograph of the vic- control its own message when issuing license plates is con- tim, off-duty Baton Rouge police offi cer Betty Smothers. sistent with Thomas’s view in Zivotofsky of when the State The Court in Brumfi eld put off, yet again, the execution Department has the power to control its own message of Kevan Brumfi eld, who murdered Smothers in 1993, when issuing passports. Thomas’s willingness to draw a in order to let another federal court review evidence that clear line between the government’s power to send mes- Brumfi eld’s learning disability, fourth-grade reading level, sages and the individual’s right to tune out those messages IQ of 75, low birth weight, and long history of behavioral taps into the deeper philosophical currents that animated problems and crime sprees showed that he was too “intel- his most controversial opinion of the term, his dissent in lectually limited” to be executed despite criminal activ- the same-sex marriage case of Obergefell v. Hodges. ity that—as Sotomayor’s opinion conceded—“required a degree of advanced planning.” Before launching into his legal analysis, Thomas offered DIGNITY AND THE RIGHT TO BE FREE an extended contrast between two black men from disad- ennedy’s 5-4 opinion for the Court in Obergefell vantaged backgrounds: Brumfi eld and Warrick Dunn, the rested heavily on the doctrine of “substantive due now-retired NFL running back who was orphaned at 18 K process,” whose lineage goes back to the Court’s along with his fi ve younger siblings when Brumfi eld mur- most infamous decision (Dred Scott v. Sandford, which dered his mother. Dunn wrote about the impact on his Thomas is apt to cite as a cautionary tale) and which has family life and his subsequent charitable works in his auto- returned, Zelig-like, in many of its worst misadventures biography, from which Thomas quoted. There’s an unsub- since, particularly Roe v. Wade. The Fifth and Fourteenth tle critique of the glacial pace of death-row appeals in the Amendments forbid the federal and state governments, fact that the teenage Dunn had time to grow up, become respectively, to “deprive any person of life, liberty, or prop- a college and pro-football star, retire seven years ago, and erty, without due process of law.” Somehow, in defi ance of write a book while Brumfi eld’s as-yet-unfi nished legal odys- the language of this text, the Court has repeatedly ruled sey was winding its way through the justice system: that it also prohibits the government from infringing certain forms of “fundamental” liberty with or without due [Brumfi eld] has spent the last 20 years claiming that his process. Naturally, the Court’s opinion in Obergefell spent actions were the product of circumstances beyond his con- not a word analyzing the language or history of the due trol. . . . Brumfi eld’s argument that his actions were the product of his disadvantaged background is striking in light of the con- process clause before proceeding to wield it as a hammer. duct of Corporal Smothers’ children following her murder. . . . Each of the four dissenters—Roberts, Scalia, Thomas,

24 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 and Alito—wrote his own opinion. Thomas focused on degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within two related points. First, he traced the history of the due me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being process clause in the Fifth Amendment to its roots in the degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are Magna Carta and the political philosophy of John Locke infl icting it upon me.” to show that whatever “liberty” the due process clause protects from invasion in the fi rst place, it is not the Court’s asserted right to have the government use a marriage TRUST LAWS, NOT MEN license to endorse the “dignity” of relationships: larence Thomas is an affable man, if one who does not forget his scars, and by all accounts Since well before 1787, liberty has been understood as freedom from government action, not entitlement to govern- C he gets on well enough with his colleagues. But ment benefi ts. . . . As used in the Due Process Clauses, given that few of them other than Scalia bother respond- “liberty” most likely refers to “the power of loco-motion, of ing to his lone opinions, one wonders if some of them changing situation, or removing one’s person to whatsoever look at him a little funny—“that guy who keeps going on place one’s own inclination may direct; without imprison- ment or restraint, unless by due course of law.” . . . Even about the Constitution.” He is known to prefer the com- assuming that the “liberty” in those Clauses encompasses pany of almost anyone to the company of his fellow judges something more than freedom from physical restraint, it and lawyers; he meets more often than any other justice would not include the types of rights claimed by the major- with groups of visitors to the Court and travels the country ity. In the American legal tradition, liberty has long been understood as individual freedom from governmental in his RV during the Court’s recesses. But that distance action, not as a right to a particular governmental entitle- makes him uniquely suited among the justices to look at ment. . . . The founding-era idea of civil liberty as natural this country not from the perspective of a member of the liberty constrained by human law necessarily involved judicial high priesthood, but as a citizen ruled by it. Some only those freedoms that existed outside of government. critics suggest that he may be biased by the fact that his Second, in the portion of his opinion that drew the most wife is active in Tea Party groups, but after his nearly quar- controversy, Thomas delved deeper, observing the hollow- ter of a century on the Court, suggesting that Thomas’s ness of the majority’s defi nition of dignity as a thing con- view of the Constitution is infl uenced by the Tea Party is ferred by government: rather like suggesting that Newton’s physics were infl u- enced by Einstein. Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the Framers proclaimed in the Dec- Thomas’s opinions this term form a coherent whole, laration of Independence that “all men are created equal” one that places no trust in institutions—in the wisdom of and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable judges, the expertise of bureaucrats, or the evenhanded- Rights,” they referred to a vision of mankind in which all ness of either—but depends instead on clear, written rules humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which and structural checks and balances. And his philosophy, this Nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that while grounded in the same principles as our Constitution human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. itself, should not surprise us. Thomas is not so far removed Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost from his upbringing in segregated Georgia that he cannot their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose remember what it was like to live in a place and time in their dignity because the government confi ned them. And which the government was staffed and run by people who those denied governmental benefi ts certainly do not lose had no intention of treating you fairly. their dignity because the government denies them those Two strategies are available to a citizen confronted by benefi ts. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away. such a government. One is to keep for himself as large a space as possible free of the government, in which to exer- Besides the deep roots of this view of human dignity cise true liberty. The other is to insist on the punctilious in both Christian theology and the Enlightenment observance of the letter of the law. The whims of adminis- political philosophy embodied in the Declaration—the trative agencies and the discretion of judges to fashion new “natural law” sources that were a subject of contention rights and rules according to their own policy preferences at Thomas’s confi rmation hearings 24 years ago—the threaten both of these strategies, to the detriment of whom- critics of this passage missed another aspect of particular ever the people in power regard as beneath their concern. It importance to Thomas: its roots in African-American is perhaps a supreme irony, but a fi tting one, that the man thinking about humanity in the face of oppression, from most concerned with keeping alight the fl ame of these old Frederick Douglass to Booker T. Washington to Marcus concepts of liberty and dignity is the justice of the Supreme Garvey to Malcolm X to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “street Court who grew up under a government that wished to sweeper” speech. As Douglass observed, “They cannot accord him neither liberty nor dignity. ♦

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 25 Greece Monkeys The European Union is bailing itself out, not the Greeks

BY CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL economy. For fi ve years, Greece has run as tight a fi scal ship as any European country, yet its debt-to-GDP ratio mass outbreak of syphilis, the radical has nearly doubled, to 178 percent. A third of the loans economist and member of parliament at the country’s four largest banks are in arrears. In June, Costas Lapavitsas told an interviewer, is Greece became the richest country to default on a payment about the only thing the European politi- to the IMF. Certainly there has been corruption. Greece is cal establishment did not threaten Greece’s a country of 11 million with 2.65 million retirees. But, as it votersA with before the country’s early-July referendum. was in the Asian currency crises of the late 1990s, corrup- European Union offi cials had delivered their ump- tion has turned out to be a red herring. The larger problem teenth plan for Greece to continue making payments on is the misdesign of the euro. its unpayable debt, which now runs into the hundreds of billions. To their horror, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, head LENDING TO STAVROS of a coalition government led by the neo- reece’s euro trouble arose in the Communist Syriza party, put the question wake of the U.S. subprime cri- to the Greek people. Despite a heavily Gsis—and largely because it struck funded campaign in favor of the debt plan, investors as analogous. In both cases a voters rejected it by 61 percent to 39. As credit system was distorted by an ulterior we went to press, Greece was meeting with motive. Depending on whether you like EU offi cials to work out whether it will be the motive, you could call it idealism or possible for the country to remain in the social engineering. In the United States euro, the currency that 19 of 28 EU coun- in the 1990s, we were told that the dif- tries share. Christian Noyer of France’s ference in rates of loan approval between central bank has warned that without a neighborhoods was due largely to rac- deal Greece could face “riots and chaos.” ism—what the Clinton administration The European fi nancial press, overwhelm- Back in ’02, it was all things euro. called “redlining.” Once you got over your ingly sympathetic to the project of bind- bigotry, it was as safe to lend to people in ing Europe’s countries ever more closely into the EU, says the slums as to people at the country club. At about the same Greece is facing its last chance. time, apostles of the EU convinced Germans (who borrowed That is only half the story. This may also be the EU’s at 5 percent) that a currency it shared with Greeks (who bor- last chance. In 2010, its two dozen countries discov- rowed at 18 percent) could be as strong as the deutsche mark ered that Greece, one of the weakest economies among they had spent half a century fi rming up. Once you got over them, had accumulated debts equal to its annual output. your bigotry, it was as safe to lend to Stavros as to Stefan. Europe’s economists and journalists had a fi eld day expos- For a while it appeared so. On both continents, lenders ing Greek cronyism and featherbedding. Experts from the took the rhetoric as a sign that the government would make so-called Troika (the European Central Bank, the Euro- them whole if loans went bad. In America, Fannie Mae and pean Commission, and the International Monetary Fund) other government-protected lenders could offer loans at crafted a Memorandum of Understanding to get matters a lower rate than nongovernment ones. In Europe, Greek, under control. Their program of tax hikes, budget cuts, Irish, Italian, and Portuguese interest rates converged with and regulatory reforms has been a catastrophe, turning a the German ones. Naturally, borrowers in those countries heavily indebted economy into a heavily indebted and idle took advantage of the credit. It is easy to forget that, 20 years ago, consumers did not expect to be preyed upon by fi nancial Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor institutions, as they do now. It had been generations since

at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. the last wave of bank runs. To Greeks, those unbelievably NEWSCOM

26 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 cheap loans in Germany’s currency appeared risk-free. to the conservative sloganeers in the United States, who That did not make Greece Germany. Globalization often write as if the virtuous party in any dispute were brings prosperity because it brings specialization. Ger- always the one with the most money. “The currency union many specialized in making Mercedes and designing pre- itself is delinquent,” Evans-Pritchard asserts. He is right. cision machinery. Greece specialized in growing olives Greeks could borrow what they did because they were now and changing tourists’ beds. Southern European countries members of a rich family. If Brad Rockefeller walks into a began running large current-account defi cits, which were casino in a soiled T-shirt and runs up a million-dollar debt covered by money borrowed from the north, and in 2010, that neither he nor his family will repay, what was the casi- the system blew up. no’s mistake? Trusting some T-shirt-wearing guy or trust- Europe resolved the collapse in a way that has brought ing the Rockefellers? discredit on the Troika. Greece’s budgets were certainly a mess—but what made them a mess worthy of emergency summits is that most Greek debt was held by opaque TIRAMISU INSTEAD OF DEMOCRACY French, German, Dutch, and Italian private banks. Less ad Greece’s government demanded total debt than two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, offi - forgiveness back in 2010, a time of severe fi nan- cials feared that any forgiveness of Greek debt might cause H cial jitters, they might well have got it. By elimi- these banks to collapse in turn. The “bailout” was not nating the dangers of contagion, the EU seemed to have intended to bail Greece out. It was intended to eliminated any threat posed by Greek remove risk from the banking system and democracy to the smooth running of to transfer it, in violation of EU treaties, to its institutions. But there was another the countries that belonged to the EU. Ger- It is easy to source of problems: German democracy. man banks, which had held about $35 bil- forget that, In a way, democracy-evasion is the lion of Greek debt, reduced their exposure to 20 years ago, EU’s point. When referenda are decided under $10 billion or so, or about as much as consumers did in favor of EU institution-building, they the United States had. French banks’ expo- not expect to become part of the acquis—written-in- sure, which had been around $60 billion, fell stone, irreversible laws, as when the close to zero. It was they who were “bailed be preyed upon French joined the Maastricht arrange- out.” Greece’s debts remained what they were. by fi nancial ments that led to the euro by a handful The Jubilee Debt Campaign, a London-based institutions, as of votes in 1992. When referenda run lobby, claims that, of the quarter-trillion euros they do now. against EU institution-building, citizens ($277 bilion) that has been “lent” to Greece are invited to vote again until they “get it since then, all but $21 billion has gone into right”—and add these new institutions to debt payment; $256 billion has passed directly to creditors. the acquis. That happened when Denmark rejected Maas- The International Monetary Fund was raided by the EU. tricht, and when Ireland rejected the Nice treaty in 2001 Part of the postwar economic system set up by the Roosevelt and the Lisbon treaty in 2008. (The principle is similar to administration, with the help of John Maynard Keynes, the the one under which three dozen U.S. referenda rejecting IMF oversees the world currency system, much as its sister a right to gay marriage are meaningless, but three accept- organization, the World Bank, oversees economic devel- ing it constitute a profound and irrevocable statement of opment. Over the years, a cozy arrangement developed in values.) Where votes have gone so badly against the EU which a European always got to lead the IMF and an Ameri- that they are unlikely to be reversed (as in the rejection by can the World Bank. Under Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the the French and the Dutch of the EU constitution in 2005), IMF made a highly irregular loan (called an “exceptional authorities agree to forget the whole thing ever happened, access standby arrangement”) to Greece, the largest in its and pass the same measures in the form of treaties. history. The European political class put the collateral of the Vague complaints are often made about how, under world’s countries, including the world’s poor countries, on Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany “rules” Europe, as if the line to allow an orderly unraveling of a bank deal gone Germany had lately begun throwing its weight around. But wrong. The ultimate purpose was to rescue a utopian project this misreads the source of Germany’s dynamism, which, of the same European (not Greek) political class: the euro. all in all, has been a good thing for the EU. Germany is Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of London’s Daily Telegraph powerful only partly because it has lots of dough, a current- has therefore asked whether we are right to focus on Greece account surplus, and a badass attitude. The more important at all. Evans-Pritchard is a conservative writer whose well- source of its power is that it has been slower than its neigh- informed essays on European fi nance are a bracing contrast bors to dismantle its democracy. For self-evident historical

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 27 reasons, the German constitution, drafted with American crises.” EU leaders often behave as if they have arrived help in the late 1940s, was made unusually robust against at the stage of continental brotherhood in which virtue the blandishments of charismatic utopians. It was meant to requires the smothering of national interests in the name slow things down and limit handovers of traditional powers of a wider sovereignty. But their project is looking more to madmen, even if they have ideas that sound really, really like yesterday’s wave of the future. Paradoxically, Europe- exciting at fi rst blush. Every fresh European bailout needs ans can be asked to get over their differences and melt into to pass the Bundestag and every handover of German sover- a wider Europe only if Europe is identifi ably different from eignty needs to be scrutinized by Germany’s supreme court. elsewhere—culturally, ethnically, religiously, politically. A fresh extension of credit to Greece would require a Europe’s leaders have been reluctant to assert that their German vote. A Greek default would require Merkel to hand continent is superior, special, or even idiosyncratic in any her taxpayers a bill for loan “guarantees” that reaches almost way at all, in contexts ranging from the welcoming of mass a hundred billion dollars. And Germans have had enough migration to purging Christian references from its laws to of Greece. In recent days, even the Greeks’ traditional negotiating membership with Turkey. Those who believe defenders in the Social Democratic party Europe is no better or worse than anyplace have taken to insulting them in public, as else do not need a European Union. They a way of demonstrating their bona fi des to already have the United Nations. voters. But German democracy has served The other problem is that, as their uto- the Greek “side,” too. Thanks to their own pia has grown less convincing, Europeans constitutional punctiliousness, all German have grown less tolerant. They cannot han- Bundestag members were recently given a dle ideological diversity. As the University copy of a stunning new report on debt sus- of Texas economist James Galbraith, an tainability by the IMF. It was then leaked to adviser to Syriza, wrote of the excesses of the Munich newspaper the Süddeutsche Zei- European reformers in the American Pros- tung. It showed that Syriza’s narrative about pect: “They aim to reduce the state; in the utter unpayability of Greece’s debt is, as this sense they are ‘market-oriented.’ Yet IMF economists see it, correct. Even under they are the furthest thing from promot- rosy assumptions, accepting the present ing decentralization and diversity. On the reform package would leave Greece’s debt contrary they work to destroy local institu- over 118 percent of GDP by 2030. The doc- Now, not so much. tions and to impose a single policy model uments also showed that European Com- across Europe.” mission president Jean-Claude Juncker tried to con Greeks This is exactly right. Former Belgian prime minister into believing that a $38 billion program to which all mem- Guy Verhofstadt, the eurocrat par excellence, harangued ber states are entitled was some kind of fresh “investment” Tsipras on the fl oor of the European parliament in Stras- he had decided to bring to the table as a sweetener. bourg days after the referendum. He denounced any While Germany and Greece are adversaries in the mat- choices Greece’s sovereign government might make— ter of Greece’s debt, they share a constitutional predica- about cutting Greece’s military by 5 or 10 percent, about ment. In every European country, people were made a lot of tax exemptions for churches, about tax rates in tourist promises about the neat things they’d be able to do in the towns—as defenses of “privilege.” Verhofstadt said: “Let’s euro, like traveling passportless and eating tiramisu in Irish end the privileges of your ship owners, of the military, country towns. But no one was ever told the truth about of the Orthodox church, of the Greek islands, and the the ultimate goal of the European project—the extinguish- political parties who receive loans and money.” Galbraith ing of the continent’s various nation-states and, with them, calls this attitude “market Stalinism.” One can see his their cultures. What often hangs up the EU’s leaders is that point when one considers the political capital expended this part of the project is incompatible with democracy, and in recent months by governments in France and Brit- the work of neutralizing democracy is incomplete. ain to pass laws allowing Sunday shopping everywhere. France’s prime minister Manuel Valls even risked a vote of no-confi dence to ensure his fellow citizens could troll ADULT ENTERTAINMENT the mall for Xboxes and Wiis instead of eating coq au vin he intellectual godfather of Europe, the business- with their widowed mothers. Hungary’s prime minister man, diplomat, and lover of America Jean Monnet, Viktor Orbán has been accused of extremism for resisting Tonce enthused that “Europe will be forged in cri- the Sunday-shopping trend. Capitalism is apparently such ses, and it will be the sum of the solutions brought to these a fragile and delicate plant that no vestige of non-market NEWSCOM

28 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 culture can be left standing, not even a centuries-old pro- understanding basic obligations and made clear the EU vision for a Day of Rest. would be better off if the country went back to its own cur- Syriza has plenty of Marxists in it. But what was really rency. Greece’s former fi nance minister Yanis Varoufakis, an worst about communism in its heyday was not left-wing economics professor in Australia and Texas, called the Troi- economics. It was the way Communist governments bul- ka’s policy makers “the biggest idiots in the history of eco- lied their publics, jammed them into procrustean political nomics.” Tsipras may be in the position of an employee who arrangements nobody wanted, and punished free think- can collect unemployment if he’s fi red but not if he quits. ing. And in the battle between Syriza and the country’s On the other hand, Tsipras may just be chickening creditors, it is by no means obvious that Syriza is the out, and indications on July 9 were that he would sub- more authoritarian of the two sides. EU offi cials and their mit to a tough new austerity program. His party relies for defenders often act as if belittling the Greeks will do the its majority on a coalition with a conservative party that work of making coherent arguments against them. Their wants Greece to get its sovereignty back, and he has made elected government is dismissed as a bunch of children. nationalistic appeals to memories of the Greek resistance in Ilmars Rimsevics, Latvian central banker, says Greece World War II. But most “leftists” today are so frightened “has not done the necessary homework.” Chris Giles of the of nationalism that they would not know what to do if put Financial Times writes: “You do not give treats to a misbe- in charge of a nation. While Tsipras has said little on such having child.” IMF head Christine Lagarde said at a press matters, his closest ideological ally, Pablo Iglesias, founder conference in June: “The key emergency, in my view, of Spain’s radical Podemos party, has. “The strategy we have is to restore dialogue with adults in the room.” (This is followed,” Iglesias told the New Left Review this spring, apparently an IMF priority, given the success of Lagarde’s “is to articulate a discourse on the recovery of sovereignty, predecessor and compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn in on social rights, even human rights, in a European frame- turning the IMF into an “adult” institution.) work.” He hastens to add that he likens this to the Popu- lar Front strategy of 1930s Communist parties in Spain and elsewhere. Those parties made temporary common cause IS TSIPRAS CHICKENING OUT? with the bourgeois left and center as a stepping stone to n the eve of the July 12 emergency summit over power, but had no intention of compromising over the long Greece’s fate, the situation was paradoxical. term. So Podemos is an internationalist party. The parts of O Syriza was elected to run Greece because Syriza its message that involve “getting one’s country back” are an was the only party with the courage to state that the debt electioneering tactic, and the same may be true of Tsipras’s is not serviceable. And yet party leader Tsipras appeared Syriza. At the end of the day, Tsipras favors the multilateral open to another bailout deal built on the premise that it utopianism of the EU, but he wants it to refl ect the values is. The Greeks gave a landslide majority in their referen- of the lecture hall, not the boardroom. That would explain dum to steps that would hasten the country’s exit from why, in the aftermath of his triumph, he fi red Varoufakis. the euro, yet 70 percent of voters tell pollsters they don’t Still, Tsipras’s gambit has unleashed thoughts among want that. Every policy argument Tsipras makes points to other political actors that cannot be unthought. Indebted the need for his country to reclaim the sovereignty that peoples, leftists, and nationalists across Greece and Europe it handed over to Europe in 1981, yet every philosophical are beginning to realize that they have not only reason to pronouncement he makes leaves no doubt that he would distrust the EU but also opportunity to change it. Russia, regard leaving the EU as a catastrophe. which in early July hosted a summit of the BRICS coun- On legal grounds, Tsipras may not feel he can say he tries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), has wants to leave the eurozone. In case of a rupture who would grown close to Greece of late (president Vladimir Putin be liable for the unpaid debts to European taxpayers? talked to Tsipras on Monday) and sees a chance to tip over Greece? Or Europe’s central bank and rescue funds? Hard to the wobbling European consensus on the U.S.-led pro- say, but here one does not want to be the party that reneges gram of sanctions occasioned by its annexation of Crimea. on a contract or violates a law. The left-wing economist And there are other countries in Europe. Were Greece Lapavitsas says in an interview with Jacobin magazine that, kicked out of the euro, now or later, some other nation, in the event of a rupture, fi guring out where responsibility possibly Italy or Spain or Portugal, would emerge as the lies for various payments would take “an army of lawyers.” community’s new laggard, its sick man, its black sheep. It A weird thing about negotiations between Greece and the would look to see whether Greece had done better inside Troika is that both sides have acted as if they are trying to get the EU or outside. A terrible fear began to motivate the the other side to leave the table in a huff. Germany’s fi nance EU’s leaders this week—the fear not that Greece might die minister Wolfgang Schäuble has accused the Greeks of not outside of the euro but that it might thrive. ♦

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 29 Free to Shut Up The collision of religious liberty and gay rights in Oregon

BY MARK HEMINGWAY desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published . . . any communication to the hey have good days and bad days, effect that any of the accommodations . . . will be refused, but I will tell you they are resolute,” withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination attorney Herb Grey says of his cli- will be made against, any person on account of their sex- ents, Aaron and Melissa Klein, two ual orientation.” bakers from Portland who are facing The state insists that this is not a gag order, that it nar- ‘Ta $135,000 ﬁ ne from the state of Oregon for refusing to rowly restricts what the Kleins may say about who they bake a cake for a lesbian commitment ceremony in Janu- will serve. (Their bakery, Sweetcakes By Melissa, was ary 2013. “They know that today it’s them, but that there’s shuttered in 2013 thanks to negative publicity surround- nothing they can do to escape from it, and they’re willing ing the case, though the couple are trying to keep their to stand up, knowing what the potential implications are business alive online.) But according to Grey, who is one for other people.” of three lawyers working with the Christian legal group It’s safe to say that July 2 was not one of the Kleins’ Alliance Defending Freedom to represent the Kleins, the couple have never stated an intention to discriminate, only stated why they took the stand they did in the instance that got them into trouble. Besides, the Kleins have no problem serving gay customers. They had previously served the lesbian woman who ﬁ led the complaint against them. They simply decline to make cakes for same-sex weddings, since to do so, in their view, would betray their Christian conscience. This didn’t stop Avakian, in the July 2 ruling, from citing the following statements by the Kleins as proclaiming their intention to discriminate:

I didn’t want to be a part of her marriage, which I think is wrong.

Melissa Klein chats with a customer prior I am who I am and I want to live my life the way I want to to her bakery’s closure, February 5, 2013. live my life and, you know, I choose to serve God.

better days. Brad Avakian, a commissioner with the state It’s one of those things where you never want to see something you’ve put so much work into go belly up, but on the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), issued a ruling other hand, I have faith in the Lord and he’s taken care of that upheld the $135,000 ﬁ ne for violating state pub- us up to this point and I’m sure he will in the future. lic accommodation laws suggested by an administrative judge in April. The couple were told to pay the ﬁ ne by We will continue to stand strong. Your religious freedom is becoming not free anymore. This is ridiculous that we July 13 or the state would place a lien on their home. Not cannot practice our faith. The Lord is good and we will only that, but Avakian added an astonishing wrinkle. He continue to serve Him with all our heart. issued a gag order that effectively prevents the couple from saying much of anything about the case: “The Com- Another statement that Avakian singles out seems missioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries hereby more clear cut: “We don’t do same-sex marriage, same-sex orders Respondents Aaron and Melissa Klein to cease and wedding cakes.” Yet even here, Avakian is being willfully obtuse. The transcript of the radio interview in which

Mark Hemingway is a senior writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Aaron Klein said this shows that he was merely recounting EVERTON BAILEY JR. / THE OREGONIAN AP

30 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 what he told the customer at the time he declined to bake In other words, the fact that the Kleins justify their her cake, not announcing his future intentions. actions as fi delity to beliefs that are far from atypical in “The way we look at it, and if you put it in First a country that is nominally 70 percent Christian only Amendment terms, if you don’t know where the line is meant that they were infl icting additional pain on the drawn, you don’t know how close you can get to it, which complainants. But there is nothing reasonable about means that you tend to engage in less speech to try to stay citing the lesbian couple’s own religious baggage to away from going over the line,” says Grey. “Our perception reinforce their claim to emotional damages against an was that it was in fact a gag order that basically limited us ignorant third party. Under this logic, had they been from talking about the case really at all. . . . [The Kleins] denied a cake for secular reasons, the damage would have don’t know what might trigger a future violation and fur- been less and the fi ne accordingly lower. It’s hard not to ther complaints and further action by the commissioner.” conclude that Avakian is punishing the Kleins for their The hefty fi ne and the gag order are hardly the only Christian beliefs. outrageous things about Avakian’s decree. On page 34, the ruling reads, his is just what can be “In addition to any emotional suffer- The hefty fi ne and the concluded from the ing experienced by Complainants as a gag order are hardly T state’s public pronounce- direct result of Sweetcakes’ refusal to the only outrageous ments in the case. But there are bake them a cake (‘denial of service’), a number of circumstantial and the agency also seeks damages for suf- things about Avakian’s political factors that make what is fering caused to the Complainants decree. On page 34, going on more suspect. by media publicity and social media the ruling reads, ‘In For the Kleins, the process response to this case.” addition to any emotional is the punishment. So far, all of The state ultimately rejected the suffering experienced by the actions against them have idea of additional damages for suffer- been taken not by any court of ing caused by negative publicity, but Complainants as a direct law but as a result of administra- its raising the possibility is cause for result of Sweetcakes’ tive hearings by BOLI, the state alarm. The state is essentially saying refusal to bake them labor bureau, which has both that if it charges you with violating a cake (“denial of prosecuted the complaint and the law, you can’t speak out against service”), the agency sat in judgment. What’s more, what’s happening to you without the Kleins and the complainants potentially subjecting yourself to also seeks damages for disagree sharply about what was increasingly harsh penalties—never suffering caused to the said when one of the complain- mind that the Kleins are the ones who Complainants by media ants and her mother were told seem to have suffered the most from publicity and social media the bakery could not provide the the attendant publicity. Their once- response to this case.’ cake. The complainant’s mother thriving bakery is closed, and Aaron says that Aaron Klein called Klein is trying to make ends meet and the lesbian couple’s children take care of their children by working as a trash collector. an “abomination,” whereas Klein insists he did nothing What’s more, the ruling leaves little doubt that Avakian more than quote Scripture to her when she tried to argue is not just determined to punish the Kleins—he’s hostile to with him that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality. Christian morality writ large. Consider this passage: The labor department saw fi t to take the complainant’s version of events as fact when it is pure hearsay. In addition to other emotional responses, [complain- In addition to the absence of any respectable eviden- ant Rachel Bowman-Cryer] described that being raised a tiary rules, the standards for determining damages are Christian in the Southern Baptist Church, Respondent’s ridiculous. The 178 claims of emotional damage quoted denial of service made her feel as if God made a mistake are so vague and unprovable as to be absurd: One com- when he made her, that she wasn’t supposed to be, that she wasn’t supposed to love or be loved, have a family, or go to plainant “felt mentally raped, dirty and shameful” and heaven. [Laurel Bowman-Cryer], who was raised Catholic, “pale and sick at home after work.” Some complaints interpreted the denial to represent that she was not a crea- consist of isolated words: “shock,” “stunned,” “surprise,” ture created by god, not created with a soul and unworthy “uncertainty,” “torture.” According to Grey, there’s a of holy love and life. . . . These are the reasonable and very real responses to not being allowed to participate in society reason the complaints sound fi shy: “BOLI actually had like everyone else. a list of symptoms which they gave to the complainants,

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 31 and the complainants checked the ones that they thought no desire to be impartial in clashes over gay rights. In applied to them.” 2009, the mayor of Portland, Sam Adams, admitted he As if that weren’t bad enough, both the fi ndings of had lied about sleeping with a teenage boy when he was the Kleins’ legal team and reports in local newspapers a 41-year-old city council member. Adams, who had been point to questionable ties between state offi cials and gay seeing the boy since he was 17, claimed that they hadn’t rights advocates. become physically intimate until the boy’s 18th birth- According to Herb Grey, his team’s efforts to do dis- day—when a sexual relationship would have been legal. covery in the case were hampered by the state, but some The state government’s progressive image, however, was startling information came out at a hearing. The brother heavily invested in Adams as the fi rst openly gay mayor of one of the complainants, Aaron Cryer, on cross exami- of a major city. So the state attorney general conducted nation was asked about a conversation he had had with a brief investigation in which no witnesses were placed his sister. “And he said, completely unsolicited—this is a under oath, and no charges were fi led. Adams survived BOLI witness—he said something to the effect of, well, two recall attempts and served out his term as mayor. That what we were talking about because we had met with the state would only casually investigate statutory rape BOLI and with [the gay advocacy group] Basic Rights charges against a prominent gay politician—but spend Oregon, and we were working really hard on marriage years and considerable resources throwing the book at a equality, we were trying to fi gure out how best to use small business for refusing to bake a cake—is telling. this case basically to advance the agenda.” This, Grey In Oregon, it seems there is little price to be paid for explained, “was totally different from anything we’d the appearance of collusion when it means advancing the heard in deposition testimony or anything else. We state’s popular progressive causes. On the contrary, it’s moved to reopen the record to be allowed to inquire fur- smart politics. So far, the only statement the labor bureau ther into that, which was denied.” has given to the press about Avakian’s ruling was to Meanwhile, a story in the Oregonian last summer Media Matters, a discredited left-wing website dedicated reported allegations that Avakian should not be prose- to attacking conservative media. According to Portland’s cuting the case as he had cheered gay rights advances on alt-weekly Willamette Week, Avakian is rumored to be run- his Facebook page and had been quoted in the Oregonian ning for secretary of state next year, and prosecuting the saying, “The goal is never to shut down a business. The Kleins has likely elevated his profi le with all the right goal is to rehabilitate.” Then this June, the Daily Sig- organizations in the state. nal obtained emails from a public records request showing that Avakian had met and communicated regularly with Basic Rights Oregon and had purchased tickets at he Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision legalized a cost of hundreds of dollars to attend Basic Rights Ore- gay marriage across the country, and many in gon’s galas and events, even as he was prosecuting the T the gay community are likely content with the Kleins. (Also notable: Earlier this year the Kleins had victory and happy to coexist with peaceful Christians an Internet crowdfunding effort to help pay their fi ne who still regard homosexual conduct as sinful. The con- shut down by an online campaign pressuring the website tinuing persecution of people like the Kleins, however, GoFundMe.com to drop them. This campaign was led suggests that gay marriage is not the endgame for many by the owner of Cupcake Jones, a competing bakery that gay activists. has won awards from and is an ardent supporter of Basic In the wake of Obergefell, the journalist Jonathan Rights Oregon.) Rauch, a prominent advocate of same-sex marriage, Avakian and the labor bureau may or may not have called the new right a “vaccine against homosexual self- colluded with gay marriage activists, but it’s a matter of hatred.” And same-sex marriage supporters pilloried public record that Oregon’s attorney general declined Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas for his Oberge- to defend the state’s ban on gay marriage—and her fell dissent, in which he said that the state can neither senior staff helped draft the complaint that eventually confer “dignity” upon individuals nor deprive them of overturned the ban. As a consequence of the Supreme it. Thomas quoted Frederick Douglass to the effect that Court’s Hollings worth v. Perry ruling that overturned even those trapped in American slavery possessed dig- California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, only nity. For merely expressing the American creed that our state governments have standing to defend gay marriage rights and worth as individuals are innate and independ- bans. By not intervening, Oregon in effect overturned ent of government, Thomas was called “vile” by Salon the ban by default. and, by Star Trek actor and gay activist George Takei, “a It seems that government authorities in Oregon have clown in blackface.”

32 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 Popular support for gay marriage has increased rap- against her. The state attorney general and the aggrieved idly in recent years in no small part because it was seen customer are not just suing her business, but going after as an expansion of freedom with no real consequences her personal assets. for the existing order. If the gay rights movement now ■ Hands On Originals, a printer in Kentucky, ran seeks to use the force of law to insulate gay people from afoul of a local human rights commission for refusing opinions that allegedly encourage “self-hatred”—if the to print T-shirts for a gay organization. He was told that legalization of gay marriage comes to mean that dis- he had to use his printing press to print messages he agreeable personal judgments about others’ behavior are disagreed with. After years of administrative proceed- an affront to some state-enforced notion of “dignity”— ings, a state court ruled in the printer’s favor in April: then the coming political battles are going to be ugly. A “It is clear beyond dispute that [Hands On Originals] number of prominent gay activists are being quite public and its owners declined to print the T-shirts in question about their intentions. After a blog post on the Alliance because of the message advocating sexual activity out- Defending Freedom’s website asked, “Are we supposed side of a marriage between one man and one woman.” to accept the idea that, for That ruling is being appealed Christians in America, we to a higher court. must divorce our belief from ■ In Atlanta, the city’s Afri- our actions?” Zack Ford— can-American fire chief Kel- who writes about gay issues vin Cochran was summarily for the in-house publication fi red after he published a book of the Center for American about helping Christian men Progress, arguably the most avoid sexual temptation. The influential think tank with 162-page book scarcely men- the Obama administration— tioned homosexual activity but replied simply, “Yes.” did include it in a list of sex- It’s hard to see how such ual sins. Cochran’s job record attitudes won’t result in a is spotless; he was previously Complainants Laurel, left, and Rachel Bowman-Cryer parade of First Amendment the top fi re-fi ghting appointee horribles. Already, the clients in the Obama administration of the Alliance Defending Freedom include a host of and was named Fire Chief of the Year in 2012. But toler- ordinary Americans who have run afoul of such omi- ance has its limits. Atlanta city council member Alex Wan nously expansive views of gay rights: explained, “I respect each individual’s right to have their ■ On July 7, Jack Phillips, another baker, this time own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions, but when you’re a in Colorado, appealed the state civil rights commission’s city employee and those thoughts, beliefs, and opinions ruling against him for refusing to serve a same-sex cou- are different from the city’s, you have to check them at ple. The pair wanted a rainbow-themed cake. Phillips the door.” The Alliance Defending Freedom fi led a fed- argued he could not be forced to make a cake that com- eral lawsuit earlier this year to get Cochran reinstated. municated a message he did not agree with. A Colorado If cases like these come to defi ne the post-Obergefell civil rights commissioner compared Phillips’s argument gay rights movement, it’s hard to imagine there won’t to those employed by Nazis and slave owners. be a backlash. In the meantime, rooting out and pun- ■ In Washington state, the attorney general is suing ishing small-business owners and public employees with fl orist Barronelle Stutzman, 70, for refusing to provide retrograde ideas about sex and morality seems to be an fl owers for a same-sex wedding. The gay would-be cus- increasingly common and acceptable tactic. tomer was a longtime friend with whom she had done But those on the extreme end of the gay rights move- business for nine years. Stutzman and the customer were ment shouldn’t expect this to be an easy fi ght. For now, so close they hugged each other after she informed him the Kleins have vowed not to let the threat of the state’s she couldn’t make a cake for his wedding. The customer gag order stop them from calling attention to their did not initially press charges, and the state attorney plight. And even Barronnelle Stutzman, a soft-spoken general initiated the case on his own after hearing about grandmother of 23, is calling on others to join the fray. it on social media. One of Stutzman’s former employ- “I get a lot of notes that say, ‘I stand behind you,’ ” she ees, who is gay and a same-sex marriage supporter, has says. “But I don’t want you standing behind me. I want fi led an affadavit on her behalf. But now the ACLU and you standing beside me. I’m just one voice. I can’t do

FACEBOOK national gay rights organizations have taken up the case this alone.” ♦

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 33 Books&Arts

Remnants of the brick Dixie Highway, Espanola, Florida Highway to Heaven

Building the yellow brick road to sunny Florida. BY DANIEL LEE

ne hundred years ago this Highway in 1915, and Ingram gives us a spring, rowdy automobile thorough overview of how, when it offi - Dixie Highway caravans from all over the Road Building and the Making cially passed into history 11 years later, South and Midwest rolled of the Modern South, 1900-1930 its dirt roads were mostly still dirt, fund- Ointo Chattanooga for the inaugural by Tammy Ingram ing debates still raged, roadwork still just meeting of the Dixie Highway Associa- North Carolina, 272 pp., $29.95 washed away after a few hard rains, and, tion (DHA). It would have been no Sun- in the Deep South, much of the labor day drive, according to Tammy Ingram: was still performed by unskilled gangs of American roads at the time comprised a including Henry Ford’s endlessly adapt- convicts—usually African Americans— disconnected tangle of trails and coun- able Model T, had put untold thousands chained together and sweating along the try paths; most were shoulderless as behind the wheel, but to little purpose. dusty right-of-way. a snake and twice as curvy, rutted tail- As Col. Albert Pope, a bicycle-maker- But that same period also saw thou- bone breakers in good weather and turned-auto-producer observed, “The sands of motorists traveling the Dixie, bottomless bogs in the rain. American who buys an automobile primitive as it was. Their tourist dol- A near-convoy of new automobiles, fi nds himself with this great diffi culty: lars supported hundreds of mom-and- He has nowhere to use it.” pop businesses that opened up to serve

Daniel Lee is a writer in Indiana. Construction began on the Dixie them. Convoys and travel clubs hit the EBYABE

34 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 road, presaging decades of enthusiastic The raucous meeting in the publicity, including printing their own, motor travel that resonate in American shadow of Lookout Mountain—just very popular, illustrated magazine, Dixie memory and culture to this day. 50 years after the end of the Civil Highway. Fisher understood that sell- Beyond that, the Dixie Highway’s War—quickly became known as ing the Dixie meant selling the South success as an idea, if not as a fi nished the Second Battle of Chattanooga. as a destination. The magazine’s writ- transportation route, demonstrated The panel of governors Fisher had ers spun idyllic tales of sunny warmth, that roads needn’t—and shouldn’t— recruited to designate a route tossed Smoky Mountain vistas, pecan groves in be the almost exclusively local matter the hot potato to a study committee. full bloom, live oaks ragged with enough they had always been. They plainly A month or so later, the committee came Spanish moss to beard Sherwood For- contributed to the public good—eco- back with a plan that didn’t so much est, overfl owing peach baskets, and jolly, nomically, culturally, and socially— choose a path for the Dixie as expand it. rolling communities of vacationers. and deserved the attention and sup- There would be two parallel It worked. Travelers hit the road port of the federal government. routes, a western track running south in droves, with 7,000 cars carrying An Indianapolis auto-parts mil- from Chicago through Indian apolis, 27,000-odd children, grandmothers, lionaire named Carl Fisher thought Chatta nooga, Atlanta, and Tampa; mothers, and fathers to the Southland the Dixie Highway would be a great and an eastern one from upper Michi- during the winter of 1916-1917 alone. fi rst step toward his goal of build- gan through Cin cin nati, Ashe ville, They spent nearly $3 million, roughly ing a contiguous all-weather motor Savan nah, and Jackson ville. $400 per car, boosting the chronically route that would improve and link Together with several east-west con- depressed southern economy and spur- existing roads from the Great Lakes nectors, this would more than double ring the creation of untold numbers of to the new tourist mecca of Miami the mileage of Fisher’s original plan. quirky roadside businesses. Beach, where (as it happened) he was Though overall this would have been But as travelers raised clouds of a major property owner. Fisher was a very benefi cial—transforming a dis- dust on the Dixie Highway, the stand- born salesman who had once shocked tinctly limited tourism artery into a off between state and federal road Hoosiers by wafting an automobile over more useful network of interregional offi cials and local politicians contin- downtown Indianapolis beneath a hot roads—in reality the DHA’s capacity ued, especially in the South. There, air balloon. He was also part-owner of to get the work done was limited. This Ingram writes, the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was especially true down south, where home of the Indianapolis 500. Wildly roads were in the worst shape and White Democratic hegemony depend- successful as the producer of chemi- funds were almost nonexistent. ed upon an array of mechanisms designed to guard local control and cal auto headlamps, Fisher had sold limit state and especially federal inter- that company and plowed the proceeds iven the broad support for better ference in local affairs. Consequently, into an overgrown sand-spit just off the Groads—especially in the form of while many Northeastern and Miami shore, which he was marketing an organized Good Roads Movement, Midwestern states had developed at as a warm and welcoming Eden for formed originally by bicyclists but least minimal forms of state highway aid as early as 1911, Southern states Yankees who were sick of vistas of hijacked by motorists and auto manu- had not. They relied on property taxes, frozen corn stubble. facturers—the hope was that govern- forced labor, and occasional local But when the DHA convened in ment money would become available bond issues to fi nance all roadwork. Chattanooga to choose a route to later on. Exactly how that should hap- Fisher’s holiday haven, the meeting pen proved to be controversial. Southern resistance in Congress quickly devolved into a scrambling Local offi cials distrusted federal led to compromise road bills that, in donnybrook, as 5,000 boosters from and state government and supported 1916, “provided $75 million in federal Michigan to Florida thumped to bring “pay-as-you-go” gasoline taxes that money over fi ve years but . . . left con- the highway and its rolling business had a pennywise appeal to cautious trol over construction, improvements, through their respective hometowns. citizens. More progressive advocates and maintenance of roads and high- There were just too many communi- argued vainly for more remunera- ways to state governments rather than ties and too little road to include them tive state bond issues. Nervous vot- to thousands of county governments.” all. Soon, suspecting that the fi x was ers turned these down, time after Demand for good interstate roads already in, they went for the organizers. time. Federal matching funds helped had simply outpaced the government’s “People were shouting at each in some areas, but they were often ability to produce them: “The full other,” Ingram writes. “All these dif- extremely limited in scope. And they vision of a federally funded interstate ferent communities sent delegations were chronically beyond the reach of system was, in 1916, too radical and thinking that if they just showed up small, poor, rural counties, which had too foreign a project to garner con gres- with a lot of cars, ticker-tape and a big trouble with the “matching” part. sion al support,” Ingram writes. presence, they could sweet talk their As various levels of government Dixie Highway could have used a way into the project. But everybody argued about how to solve the prob- bit more discussion of the ins-and- else thought the same thing.” lem, Fisher and the DHA focused on outs of this confl ict in Congress—who

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 35 the roadblocks were, so to speak—but segments meant portions ran every In a larger sense, it was another that absence is easily balanced by which way, the government ruled it example of America’s ongoing, and attention to the local and state scene, ineligible for a single-number desig- possibly permanent, balancing act especially in Ingram’s native Geor- nation throughout its length. Pieces between a strong central government gia. Ingram focuses extensively on ended up as US 41, US 17, US 1, and and robust local independence, both the 1926 Democratic gubernatorial others, although some sections retain key elements of our country’s ani- primary in Georgia that pitted two the Dixie Highway name in local mating spirit. In the end, it was the avowed members of the Good Roads usage to this day. thousands of travelers voting with Movement against each other. The change effectively formalized their feet, or, rather, their frequently Georgia Highway chairman John what had been a creeping transition patched tires, that forced this extra- Holder advocated more aggressive away from local control of highways legislative settlement. The demand for state-level road fi nancing, such as that had evolved as Congress (and vot- good roads simply outweighed the con- through bond issues. Opposing him ers) failed to come to grips with the tinuing inability to deal with the prob- was Lamartine G. Hardman, a wealthy question of who would manage road lem—call it gridlock—and a shortcut planter and physician who instead development. It was a bureaucratic had to be found. campaigned for pay-as-you-go gaso- solution to the polarization that had Put another way, it wasn’t the suc- line taxes. Hardman won, partly on the developed as pro-local and pro-federal cess of the Dixie Highway that pre- strength of frugal voters’ distaste for activists maneuvered for control within pared the ground for a useful national bond issues, but also because he was the Better Roads Movement. road system, but its failure. ♦ able to paint Holder as possibly corrupt and a supporter of road crew shovel- leaners, the kind of thing that, even A today, can trigger behind-the-wheel B& muttering by impatient motorists. No doubt, it was pleasant to vote against state bonds for somebody’s idle Loss of Feeling brother-in-law; but the bottom line was that road work was simply too expen- ‘Men, trying to make themselves immortal, manage sive for many jurisdictions to manage only to make themselves inhuman.’ BY PARKER BAUER on their own. Grading and smoothing a rutted country lane into a dirt roadway could run $1,000 to $2,000 per ll fi ction, it’s been said, mile, while rural counties typically had boils down to two plots: Singularity only $300 to $600 to spend. And even Either a stranger comes by Christopher Bryan that, complained one southern high- to town or someone Diamond Press, 196 pp., $14.99 (paperback) way commissioner, was “washed into goesA on a trip. Gatsby lands on Long the gutters with every rain.” Federal Island, drawn like a luna moth to matching funds to install more dura- Daisy’s green light. Huck and Jim country town in North Devon is torn ble and (in the long run) less expen- raft away in an idyll of racial amity by the coming of U.N.I.T.E.D.—the sive brick or other hard-surface roads that today seems, in a term dear to United Nations Institute for Technol- were beyond the reach of such poor Mark Twain, a stretcher. ogy and Development—and its mono- countryside counties. Christopher Bryan’s third novel, lithic new headquarters, likened to As a result, the Dixie Highway Singularity, set in a slightly futuris- the Tower of Babel. The head of this didn’t last all that long as a named tic England, brings together both feral bureaucracy, Sir James Harlow, entity, at least formally. In 1926, the plots, one inside the other—in effect, is a respected negotiator on behalf of federal government, in the form of a a travel brochure tucked inside the Britain with canny governments in temporary panel of state and federal pages of the Apocalypse. Bryan, emer- the Middle East. He serves also as a road offi cials appointed by the Bureau itus professor of theology at Sewanee, lay reader in the Church of England of Public Roads, fi nally stepped in is not so well known for his fi ction as and observes that diplomatic negotia- and stripped “marked trails” such as for his lucid biblical studies, notably tion is “a lot like hearing confessions, the Dixie of their unitary, named sta- The Resurrection of the Messiah (2011). at least in the Anglican tradition.” tus. Instead, they designated east/west His novels, which take faith seriously, The mission of U.N.I.T.E.D.—regard- roads with even numbers and north/ are ideal antidotes to the crypto-farces ing “the environment, world health, south roads with odd numbers. It’s of Dan Brown. and the problem of renewable fuels,” the same system still in use. In the larger plot of Singularity, a inter alia—is anyone’s guess. Unfortunately for the Dixie, where The locals get on poorly with parallel routes and several connecting Parker Bauer is a writer in Florida. U.N.I.T.E.D., resenting its armed

36 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 security force and its consumption of her ancestry—she faces the challenge when men, trying to make themselves a chunk of that manicured farmland of turning back the would-be German immortal, manage only to make of which the English are so fond. A occupiers at the gates, a reversal of themselves inhuman. Enter Cecilia’s vicar rhapsodizes: history if she succeeds. That, and the IT expert, who puts things in perspec- lesser challenge of somehow escaping tive: “Computers are idiots whose Nothing could be more beautiful than the computer’s lethal clutches alive. only virtue is that they can count up walking home on a cold evening with In this, she’s aided by a 17th-century to two extremely fast.” cows—feeling their breath warm on your back and hearing them snort priest who turns up as a living entity, Harlow, it develops, is not the with interest at things they’ve found existentially distinct from the rest of worst evil in U.N.I.T.E.D., yet he’s to chomp in the hedgerows. her cyber transport. He offers a hint, ready to blow up a busload of school- not quite a hand. children so that humanity—his own— This homely sentiment, easy to The title, Singularity, refers to the can survive. He comforts himself with mock, points to the real trouble with theoretical point at which computers fi ctions, keeping two contrary plots U.N.I.T.E.D. The loss of cow pasture become more intelligent than men going at once. In that, perhaps, he’s is the least of it; the deeper program, and subsequently take over. It is also the rest of us, writ large. ♦ we discover, is the purging of sentiment itself. To spot the clues, it’s not neces- B A sary to have read C. S. Lewis’s That & Hideous Strength (1945), but it helps. That book lurks always in the shad- ows of Bryan’s story: Both are set in The Turning Points the fi ctional town of Edgestow, and one of Bryan’s fi dgety townsfolk mut- One theologian’s journey from there to here. ters that U.N.I.T.E.D. reminds him BY MARK TOOLEY too much of N.I.C.E.—the sinister agency set up there in the Lewis tale. A police detective, Cecilia Cavaliere, homas Oden is a Method- sniffs trouble while investigating the ist, ecumenist, evangelical, A Change of Heart highway deaths of two Nigerian illegal and patristics scholar who A Personal and Theological Memoir immigrants en route to U.N.I.T.E.D. was dissuaded from liberal by Thomas C. Oden Learning too much, she’s seized and Tmodernism by a Jewish conservative, IVP Academic, 384 pp., $40 subjected to the grim experiment of becoming himself a theological paleo- which the Nigerians were to be vic- orthodox and devoting the last half of tims. The men at the top are perfect- his life to the reaffi rmation of Chris- fi guratively, with his fi ngers crossed, ing computers “capable of removing tian orthodoxy rooted in the early and he enthusiastically appropriated much of the uncertainty and pain of church fathers. As the author of doz- Saul Alinsky as a model for subvert- human life, of creating something like ens of books, including a 3-volume ing Christianity for class struggle and paradise.” The sole benefi ciaries—no work on systematic theology, and political mobilization. surprise—are the bureaucrats them- the general editor of the 29-volume A Change of Heart recounts his dra- selves, who mean to become immortal Ancient Christian Commentary on Scrip- matic turnabout. After he arrived at by downloading, in due time, the entire ture covering eight centuries, Oden, Drew University in 1970, his older contents of their consciousness onto now 84, is one of the most important colleague, the former Communist silicon chips. They’re paragons of pure theologians of the last half-century. Will Herberg—by then writing for scientifi c rationalism: heartless types He also has the distinction of National Review, having returned that Lewis, in a famous essay, called having renounced most of the fi rst to his own Jewish faith at Reinhold “men without chests.” In their hyper- two decades of his work, from the Niebuhr’s urging—implored Oden to progressive view, all emotion, ethics, 1950s and ’60s, when he was a move- read the early church fathers before and transcendent values are mere fall- ment theologian and political leftist, presumptuously rejecting their faith. backs for the weak-minded. devotee of a radical Methodist youth After months in the library absorb- In the inner plot, it’s Cecilia Cava- magazine, and willing captive to the ing Sts. Athanasius, Vincent, and liere who takes a trip. Hooked to a assumptions of such modernist icons Augustine, among others, Oden was computer in an upper room of the as Marx, Freud, Nietzsche, and Dar- stunned by their persuasive pow- U.N.I.T.E.D. tower, she’s abruptly win. He recited the Apostles’ Creed ers, which he credited to the Holy transported, in virtual reality, to Rome Spirit. He would spend his next three on September 8, 1943. As commander Mark Tooley is president of the Institute decades at Drew as a respected but of the Italian forces—an apt role, given on Religion and Democracy. lonely voice for Christian orthodoxy,

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 37 tutoring several generations of “young songs, hearkened to Woody Guthrie, As a Protestant observer at Vatican II, fogey” orthodox scholars and clergy. and dreamed of a remade world that Oden recognized further change in his No less important, Oden connected they would lead. He admired Norman thinking when he debated the Catholic with a wider network of conservative Thomas and Ho Chi Minh, the not- theologian Charles Curran, his friend religious voices who shared his critique yet-fashionable peasant rebel against who was later ousted from the Catho- of liberal modernity, including the French colonialism. lic University faculty in the 1980s for Vatican theologian Joseph Ratzinger— Oden became a frenetic political heterodoxy. Oden was expected to be who, of course, would become Pope organizer and networker on campus the Protestant liberal in the debate, but Benedict XVI and whom Oden credits through Methodism and the newly he found himself defending natural law for inspiring his Ancient Christian Com- forming and infl uential ecumenical while Curran touted contextual ethics. mentary project—and the Lutheran- movement embodied by the National Another transformative moment was turned-Roman-Catholic Richard John and World Councils of Churches. He when Oden marched behind Margaret Neuhaus, who joined Oden in the would later explain to students that Mead in a 1966 anti capital ism dem- ecumenical project of Evangelicals he had been infl uenced by the same onstration in Geneva during a World and Catholics Together. Oden also social-gospel Methodism that had Council of Churches confab. Realizing befriended Avery Dulles, the Catholic- the extent, in the ecumenical move- priest son of John Foster Dulles who ment, to which political dogmatics had excelled as a crisply orthodox theolo- replaced confessional doctrine, Oden gian and became a cardinal. realized he was in the wrong place, his Unlike other Protestant intellectu- idealism turning to “revulsion.” als who turned conservative in collab- A key episode illustrating Oden’s oration with Catholic thinkers, Oden theological and political turnabout seems never to have been seriously was his attendance at a 1988 consulta- tempted to leave Wesley for Rome. tion on biblical interpretation, led by He insists that he would never leave Joseph Ratzinger at a Lutheran church the church that baptized him, which in New York. Angry gay demonstra- means the small-town Methodism of tors tried to disrupt the conference. To Depression-era Oklahoma, where he reach a reception at the archbishop’s was shaped by the preaching, prayers, residence, the leading guests were and hymn-singing of traditional Wes- transported by police in paddy wagons, leyan piety. with Oden sharing a bench with Judge In 1930s Oklahoma, Oden’s fam- Robert Bork. A decade later, Oden ily would cover windows with news- joined the board of the Institute on papers to guard against frequent dust Religion and Democracy. storms. In a similar fashion, the sim- Because of a heart condition, Oden ple Methodist faith Oden acquired can no longer travel, but he continues guarded him against a complete col- to churn out books and receive guests lapse of faith, even across several at his home in Oklahoma, where he decades of intense spiritual experi- Thomas C. Oden has lived since the death of his wife. mentation, when mainline Protestant- He is admired by orthodox mainline ism was moving leftward. The faith of shaped a young Hillary Clinton. Her Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Oden’s youth and his years as a young infl uential youth pastor became Oden’s evangelicals for his robust scholarship pastor in rural churches provided a colleague at Drew, and her Wellesley on behalf of Christian unity. Liberals foundation to which he would return thesis on the “Alinsky Model” paralleled mostly ignore him, perhaps because as he entered middle age. Meanwhile, Oden’s own form ative years, when he they are unwilling to challenge his he would transit through commit- tried “covertly to make his unprincipled pervasive knowledge and personal his- ments to the social gospel, one-world amoralism work in the church.” tory. He remains a committed United government, pacifi sm, existentialism, Yet Oden, despite all his left-wing Methodist, having battled furiously Rogerian psychotherapy premised mobilizing, seems never to have been and successfully at the Methodists’ on “unconditional acceptance,” and completely at home in such circles. 1988 convention in defense of Wes- modernist theologians such as Paul He broke with pacifi sm as early as leyan beliefs as binding doctrine. Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann, who 1956, reacting to the Soviet suppres- “Funny I was put on the path to a sought to demythologize Christianity. sion of the Hungarians, to Niebuhr’s genuine Christian new birth by a Jew,” As a student at the University of “stunning” essay “Why Is Commu- he concludes. “I who had once been a Oklahoma during the Korean War, nism So Evil,” and to an esteemed social radical became a ‘mere Christian’ Oden and his friends joined Students colleague’s scholarly defense of the and fi nally became a theologian after for Democratic Action, sang solidarity 1945 atomic bombings. only having pretended to be one.” ♦

38 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 the virtue of the king—the goodness B A of his actions as both a public and pri- & vate man—that formed the source of all his power,” writes Hadlow. To succeed, George considered a Let George Do It harmonious family life crucial, and, here, his great-grandfather George I A bumpy ride for America’s last king. and grandfather George II had afforded BY HENRIK BERING powerful examples of how not to proceed, having both fought with their heirs with an almost pathological ne of the benefi ts of liv- intensity. Thus, everything hinged on ing in a monarchy is A Royal Experiment fi nding the right spouse. Sarah Len- that whenever an Eng- The Private Life of King George III nox, his fi rst pick, had been rejected lishman feels miserable by Janice Hadlow for political reasons, so the role fell to Ohe can always point to some hapless Holt, 704 pp., $40 Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a royal whose lot is worse. As the British Prussian backwater duchy. Once, in her aristocrat Richard Grenville-Temple grandfather’s day, Frederick the Great noted back in the days of George III: (while still crown prince) had visited Charlotte’s tiny family seat and found it Consider what a sad dog a prince of the blood is, who cannot by law distinctly odd that the ladies were darn- amuse himself with any women ing socks during the evening meal. The except some damned German prin- fact that Charlotte’s father, the duke, cess with a nose as long as my arm, had embroidered his own dressing and as ugly as the devil. In my opin- gown made Frederick consider the man ion, a prince of the blood is the most miserable being on Earth. to be slightly cracked. But despite her modest background The comment appears in this vivid and plain looks, Charlotte was a clever review of the reign of George III, which woman, vivid and cheerful. She was details the king’s efforts to renew the interested in botany and an avid reader. monarchy and create a harmonious Like the king, she loved music, and her family life. Though he failed in the lat- sense of duty matched her husband’s. ter ambition, the book makes plain how She was also extremely fruitful: Their today’s notion of royalty owes a greater union produced 15 children, two of debt to “Farmer George”—his nick- whom died at birth. Though generally name because of his fondness for agri- conservative, the queen, notes Had- culture—than most people realize. Napoleon in the palm of George III, low, was up on the latest ideas on George III became king at the age of by James Gillray (1803) child-rearing—including Locke’s essay 22, in 1760, and was warmly received. “Some Thoughts Concerning Educa- “No British monarch has ascended to his lack of experience. Acutely shy tion” and Rousseau’s Emile—as evi- the throne with so many advantages and awkward and with a nervous tic denced by the increasingly informal as George III,” wrote Horace Wal- that made him say “what, what” at the portraits of the royal offspring in pole. The country had triumphed in end of a sentence, he would have pre- more natural settings. The king him- the Seven Years’ War, and trade was ferred to be “a Berkshire gentleman self participated wholeheartedly in fl ourishing. Walpole was especially and no king.” Meeting the demands his children’s games. impressed by the new king’s openness: of the job, writes Janice Hadlow, Under the pressures of the job, “This sovereign does not stand on one required an almost superhuman effort however, harmony did not last. The spot with his eyes fi xed on the ground to recast his personality. war against the American rebels came and dropping bits of German news. He To prepare him for his task, the close to breaking George III, and famil- walks about and speaks to everybody.” earl of Bute, John Stuart, who became iar patterns were reasserting them- George III was determined to avoid fi rst minister, supplied him with a selves. Hadlow examines the king’s appearing like a transplanted German, vision of kingship that was very dif- fraught relationship with the clever but as had been the case with his predeces- ferent from that of his predecessors. debauched George, Prince of Wales, sors, George I and George II. This vision was one in which the whose favorite pastimes were gambling, But he was also painfully aware of king keeps himself above the politi- drinking, and whoring. At one ball, cal fray and, together with his family, noted a participant, the prince “was so

Henrik Bering is a journalist and critic. provides a model for society: “It was far overcome with wine as to fall ﬂ at WORLD HISTORY ARCHIVE / NEWSCOM

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 39 on his face in the middle of a dance, over his family’s happiness. Hadlow inheritor of his ideas, which have con- and upon being raised from the fl oor, sees George’s granddaughter, Queen tributed greatly to the resilience of the to throw the load from his stomach Victoria, with her stress on duty, as the British monarchy in the modern age. ♦ into the midst of the circle.” Even worse, the rakish leader of the Whig opposition, Charles James Fox, had B A recruited the prince into his fold and & encouraged his bad behavior. What we have here, notes Hadlow, is a classic father/son confl ict for which Magnetic North both parties shared responsibility: The prince was morally weak, but the king A personal and political drama was envious of his son’s easy charm. on the Korean peninsula. BY JOHN C. CHALBERG George III was incapable of passing on a sense of mission to his son that might have given some purpose to the crown t took the Bolsheviks a good prince’s existence. while, but they eventually learned The Girl with Seven Names Further darkening the picture was something that may still be elud- A North Korean Defector’s Story George III’s illness, which struck in ing their North Korean counter- by Hyeonseo Lee 1788 and produced a manic state that Iparts. By as early as the 1930s, Stalin with David John mystifi ed his doctors and necessitated and his accomplices seem to have come William Collins, 320 pp., $26.99 putting him in a straitjacket. A “war by to terms with two fairly basic facts of proxy” ensued between the royal phy- life: The family is a real institution, and sicians, with the prince of Wales’s man there is no substitute for it. home-away-from-home. The most dra- pushing for a diagnosis of madness and We have no clear idea of what has matic and improbable scenes occur in a regency; but the king improved just been occupying the minds of the three Laos; the most telling—and compel- in time. (In the 1930s, George III’s ill- generations of madmen who have ruled ling—ones take place in South Korea. ness was diagnosed as porphyria, while half of the Korean peninsula for nearly But this is not a story of high drama the latest research favors an inherited three-quarters of a century. For that or political intrigue. In truth, it isn’t psychological disorder.) matter, we know precious little about really a political story at all. It’s a fam- The women perhaps paid the heavi- the lives of the people who have been ily story, fi rst and last, as well as a tale est price. The queen, exhausted by two forced to live in that dark land. Now, of limits twice over. Those would be decades of childbirth and her husband’s thanks to this memoir written by a the limits placed on the lives of North illness, withdrew into her own shell, young North Korean woman, we know Koreans by the regime and the lim- while their daughters saw themselves more than we might otherwise have ited reach of that very same regime. A as “a parcel of old maids,” consigned to known. More specifi cally, we know that totalitarian regime it pretends to be, lives of isolation and boredom due even in this godforsaken place, the fam- but it fails at being totally totalitarian. to the king’s failure to fi nd husbands ily remains a real institution. We also It’s not that Lee is out to paint a for them. He simply could not bear learn that the author knows—and acts picture of east-west convergence, or parting with them. Eventually, the as if—there is no substitute for it. even of North and South Korean princesses Charlotte and Elizabeth Presumably, it’s fair to speculate that communalities. Far from it. Life in had to settle for middle-aged German Hyeonseo Lee (her seventh and self-cho- North Korea was (and is) overfl owing princes, one of whom was so mon- sen name) is far from alone in her think- with privations. Persecution is real. strously fat that Napoleon later said ing, if not her acting, among her fellow Oppression—physical and mental, that “God had put him on Earth to North Koreans. Whether the regime has ideological and actual—is inevitably see how far skin could stretch.” Prin- come to terms with the family is another part of the routine of ordinary life. cess Sofi a, who became pregnant with matter entirely. Given Lee’s story, we And yet, life on a daily basis was, to an equerry, was of course forbidden to can at least conclude that those in charge borrow from Lee, by and large “man- keep the child. haven’t yet managed to destroy the fam- ageable.” At least that was the case for The threat from Napoleon restored ily—and maybe they are smart enough her small family of mother, stepfather, George III’s popularity, but the king’s not to undertake such a project. and younger brother. Of course that illness recurred on several occasions, Lee’s story reads like detective fi c- manageability required cunning and fi nally resulting in a regency in 1811. tion, as she proceeds from place to determination, not to mention adapt- He died in 1820, aged 81. Though he place and name to name. Most of the ability and resignation. A little bribery was fundamentally well-meaning and action takes place in China, her fi rst here and there helped as well. So did his concept of kingship was sound, his the ties and demands of family. own needs ended up taking precedence John C. Chalberg is a writer in Minnesota. Home for this small crew was the

40 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 city of Hyesan. Located on the Yalu River, it was “on the edge of the world” A and virtually a stone’s throw from B& China. By Lee’s own account, her “happy childhood” of the 1980s and early ’90s included the arrest and pre- The Salter Version sumed execution of the military offi cer she knew and loved as her father. It also Why the novelist’s prose was better than his fiction. featured intrusions into (and ransack- BY JEREMY BERNSTEIN ing of) the family home. Toss in the ideological indoctrination that constituted her formal education from the ames Salter died last month ciation with him some decades ago. fi rst day of her schooling, and it’s no at age 90. His death took place In its October 30, 1971, issue, the wonder that she defected from all this J in a gymnasium not far from New Yorker published an article of mine happiness while still a teenager. his home in Sag Harbor, New entitled “On Vous Cherche.” It was one Actually it was a wonder: Not only York. There was something fi tting of several articles I had published in the was her happiness apparently genuine, about this. As a West Point graduate, magazine about climbing in the French but her initial leave-taking was almost he was always very physically fi t. The Alps in the region of Chamonix. This a lark and intended to be brief. Moti- obituaries were fulsome. He was spo- one had to do with mountain rescue, vated by curiosity, not politics, the girl ken of as a “writers’ writer.” This was, in particular one that had occurred who was still fi ve names removed from in the summer of 1966 on Hyeonseo Lee did not so much escape the Aiguille du Dru. There from North Korea as make very care- is no easy route on this ful arrangements to visit relatives in mountain, and two Ger- China. Yet, when her departure was mans who (it turned out) imminent, she somehow felt that her were not strong enough “life was about to change forever.” attempted to climb it and In a fundamental sense, it did. But got stuck on a ledge. They in an even more fundamental sense, it could go neither up nor did not. Once in China, she remained down. They managed to and eventually managed to pass as signal that they needed Chinese. Reunion with her family was to be rescued. always a dream, while building a life At this time in Cha- in South Korea was not. In the end, Gary Hemming on Mont Blanc (1966) mo nix, mountain rescue she was reunited with her mother and had been assigned to the brother—in South Korea, no less. But I think, shorthand for the fact that French Army. They launched what all was not necessarily well: If the tug many readers fi nd his fi ction unread- was called an invasion of the Dru. of family proved to be powerful for all able. There is something unnatural They tried to lower a cable from three, the pull of their North Korean and pretentious about it. above. Not only could they not reach home proved to be equally powerful On the other hand, his nonfi ction the climbers, but one of the soldiers for mother and brother. A free life has is very readable. This has always been died in the attempt. The situation its glories, but for those who have been puzzling to me. I thought that it might now received national attention. unfree, it can have its terrors as well. have something to do with the fact In the meantime, there was an Now thirtysome thing, the author that he had changed his name from American climber named Gary Hem- tells us that her political education is “Horowitz” to “Salter” so as not to be ming who had offered his services fi nally underway. Her happy child- identifi ed as just another Jewish writer. and had been refused. He knew the hood behind her, she seems poised for I kept thinking of something that the mountain very well and had even put a different sort of happiness as a free physicist I. I. Rabi once said about his up a new route on it. But he had the woman. Nonetheless, she concedes friend J. Robert Oppenheimer: that if reputation of being a “beatnik,” and that she will “never truly be free” of the he had studied the Talmud rather than the army did not want to have any- gravitational pull of the North Korea Sanskrit, he would have been a much thing to do with him. Hemming went that she still “loves and misses.” One better physicist. But Salter’s death off to Italy to climb with a friend but wonders what she will eventually have brought back memories of my asso- heard on the radio that the Germans to say about the pull of family in a West were still stuck, so he insisted on that seems to be gradually unlearning Jeremy Bernstein, theoretical physicist returning to Chamonix and, again, those twin lessons that even the Bol- and former staff writer at the New Yorker, offered his services.

PHILIPPE LE TELLIER / PARIS MATCH / GETTY IMAGES MATCH PHILIPPE LE TELLIER / PARIS sheviks could not dismiss. ♦ is the author, most recently, of Nuclear Iran. This time he was accepted, and he

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 41 led a somewhat outré group of climb- Chamonix in August and would be novels and decided that they were ers to rescue the Germans. They were willing to introduce him to the scene. not very good. They lacked the bril- successful, and Hemming became So, Salter came to Chamonix. liance of his conversation, which was a celebrity, the Beatnik of the Alps. We spent a lot of time together. We replaced by pretense. It helped that he was very striking did some guided climbing and even A couple of months later, the door- looking and could produce zen-like traveled to the base of the north wall man in my building called to say that answers to questions. When asked of the Eiger, where Clint Eastwood was an envelope had been dropped off for what he did, he always said that he fi lming The Eiger Sanction. (Eastwood me and that he would send it up. It was writing a book. When I had the was not very friendly, to put it mildly.) turned out to be Salter’s treatment. chance to ask him about this, he told me I found Salter a wonderful conversa- When I read it, I thought it was ter- that this was something he told people tionalist. He told many stories about rible. It opened with some bizarre he was doing since it seemed to please his days as an Air Force fi ghter pilot in scene involving an army sergeant those who asked. Korea. I told Salter what I thought the in front of a tombstone. I also noted I was saddened, but not overly sur- fi lm should be about: To me, Hemming that it contained items taken from my prised, when I learned that, on August was a perfect example of what I called article, without attribution. 5, 1969, he died of an apparently There was a note from Salter self-infl icted gunshot wound while saying that we were expected at encamped at Jenny Lake in the Redford’s apartment on Fifth Grand Tetons of Wyoming. It was Avenue that evening. An address said that he was playing Russian and a time were supplied. I roulette. He had a violent streak thought of chucking all this in and could not deal with fame. In the wastebasket, but my curios- my New Yorker article, this came ity to meet Robert Redford got as the ending. the better of me. I also thought, In the early summer of 1972, naïvely, that I would have the I returned to Colorado, where I opportunity to explain to him was doing research at the Aspen what this fi lm was really about. Center for Physics. I planned to At the appointed time, I stay there until mid-July, when showed up to fi nd Salter in I would return to Chamonix the lobby. I told him that I had for a month of climbing. I was noted the quotes from my article. quite surprised when, sometime I forget what he replied. Redford in June, Jim Salter appeared in could not have been more gra- my offi ce. He knew where to cious. He served a bottle of very fi nd me because his then-wife, expensive red wine, of which Ann, worked at the center. I I drank a good deal. Salter did had never met him, but I was a James Salter, Robert Redford (2011) most of the talking, and I never great admirer of the fi lm Down- had the chance to explain the hill Racer, starring Robert Redford, the “dung beetle complex.” (A dung fi lm. But now I was determined to which Salter had written. I had not beetle climbs out of the dung into fresh take some legal action in connection read anything else of his. air but, after a quick look around, can’t with the use of these quotes. I had a After some small talk, Salter came stand it and dives back into the dung.) friend who was a well-known lawyer, to the point—sort of. He had read What I did not know was why Hem- and he arranged a modest settlement. my New Yorker article, and Robert ming had this complex. This was some- The fi lm was never made, I was told, Redford, it seemed, was interested thing that needed to be investigated. because Redford did not want to com- in doing some kind of fi lm in which Our time in Chamonix went on for a pete with The Eiger Sanction. the life of Gary Hemming would couple of weeks, until Salter announced All this was decades ago. I used to play a role. The problem was that that he was going back to Aspen to see Salter from time to time in Aspen, Salter knew nothing about climbing write his fi lm. Goodbye, it’s been nice and I followed his career. He won in Chamonix—or indeed, anywhere knowing you; that was that. I felt that many prizes and always complained else—and could I be of some help? I had been had. In any event, I went because he was not more widely read. What I should have done is ask what back to New York and tried to put the I liked the prose pieces he published precisely he had in mind and have matter out of my mind. If Salter could in places like the New Yorker, but I something spelled out in a contract. pull this material together as he had always felt that his fi ction was not more Knowing what I know now, I think done with Downhill Racer, I thought, widely read because it was unreadable. that would have ended the matter. bravo for him. He did not need me. One wonders if any of it will be read

Instead, I said that I was going to In the meantime, I read his published in the future. ♦ / NEWSCOM / SIPA BFA

42 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD JULY 20, 2015 artisanal food. “Congratulations, San B A Francisco, you ruined pizza!” shouts & Anger as a slice laden with broccoli is put before Riley. Joy’s efforts are mirrored by those Bland Exterior of Riley’s distracted parents, who seem to want to know only that she is doing Inside Riley Anderson is the better place to be. well, even though they have just pulled her away from everything she’s ever BY JOHN PODHORETZ known. “Where’s my happy girl?” each says to her, as though being happy is he new Pixar fi lm about an her primary responsibility. 11-year-old girl’s moment Inside Out Things begin to go south when of crisis and change is Directed by Pete Docter Riley is asked to introduce herself called Inside Out, and it’s and Ronaldo Del Carmen to her classmates. She begins to cry, Ta perfect title—maybe too perfect for and Joy notices that Sadness has its own good. Everything the movie touched one of the controls and then shows going on inside Riley’s has touched a memory. In a head is glorious. And that’s desperate effort to expunge the most of what we see, so Inside long-term effects of Sadness’s Out deserves to be called the intervention, Joy tries to inter- best American movie of the year cede before the memories can be so far. Still, Inside Out does not made permanent—and Riley’s reach the heights of Pixar master- childhood personality begins to pieces such as Toy Story, Monsters, literally disintegrate. Inc., and Toy Story 3. Everything From this point on, Joy and out—meaning Riley’s interactions Sadness end up together on a with her parents, her friends, her journey through the other parts of school, and the outside world Riley’s mental and psychological during a diffi cult family move— machinery. The degree of inven- is kind of blah. Anger, Disgust, Joy, Fear, Sadness tion codirector and co writer Pete Yes, the great irony here is Docter and his Pixar colleagues that in a movie that tells the story of but by Joy (voiced beautifully by Amy bring to offering a visual portrait of the inner workings of Riley Ander- Poehler), one of Riley’s fi ve primary both consciousness and the uncon- son, Riley Anderson is the least inter- feelings and the one to whom the oth- scious is all but beyond praise. They esting character. ers—Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sad- took four years to work it all out, and The other great irony is that this ness—have ceded leadership. the time was very well spent. wonderful movie for children (my The world inside Riley’s head is a Alas, there is a cipher at the cen- 11-year-old daughter thought it was marvel. The different aspects of her ter of Inside Out. Riley’s emotions the most brilliant thing she’d ever personality appear outside the control- are dynamic and well-conceived, but seen, and “brilliant” was her word, room window in the form of theme the person who embodies them is an not mine) is based on a segment of parks—her childish silliness is repre- excessively ordinary little girl. I’m a self-consciously dirty movie from sented by Goofball Island, for exam- sure that’s intentional on Docter’s 1972. That movie was Woody Allen’s ple. When Riley makes a memory, it part—he wants us to realize that Riley sketch-comedy fi lm Everything You appears as a kind of white marble that is unformed at the beginning, and Always Wanted to Know About Sex *But rolls down a marble run and then that by the end of the movie she has Were Afraid to Ask, which concludes with drops into a storage facility. If Sadness matured into a more complex crea- a screamingly funny scene set inside a gets near one, the marble turns blue ture. But an unformed character is modernistic control room that turns out (like Sadness herself). not an interesting character, even if to be the brain of a man in the midst So Joy spends a great deal of her an unformed character fi ts the movie’s of carnal fl agrante delicto. boundless and cheerful energy try- clever scheme. What it means is that Here, the control room is headed ing to keep Sadness (given indelible we don’t care what happens to this kid, up not by Tony Randall and Burt voice by Phyllis Smith) busy or idle or even though what’s happening to her Reynolds, as it was in Allen’s fi lm, as far away from Riley’s thoughts and is supposed to be the whole point. memories as possible. The other emo- It’s Everything You Always Wanted to John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, tions have their moments—Anger and Know About Riley Anderson *Not That

is THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s movie critic. Disgust team up when Riley must eat You Asked. ♦ DISNEY PIXAR

JULY 20, 2015 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 43 “Bill deBlasio [sic] v. Andrew Cuomo in two word clouds” PARODY —headline, Washington Post, July 1, 2015

JULY 20, 2015