A HIGH-CULTURECOMMUNITY JOSEPH HOROWITZ

DECEMBER 10, 2018 • $5.99

Adventures in the Word Trade DAVID SKINNER on the demise of the American Heritage Dictionary’s usage panel

WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents December 10, 2018 • Volume 24, Number 14

2 The Scrapbook Alex Trebek’s microaggression, ‘inclusion’ that excludes, & more 5 Casual Dennis Byrne’s no-name generation 6 Editorials Putin Poses a Test • The Second Time as Farce 9 Comment

A cutthroat competitor like any other by Christine Rosen

President Trump’s precarious position by Fred Barnes

6 There’s no such thing as an overnight transformation by Philip Terzian ALEX WONG / GETTY Articles

14 The ACLU’s J’Accuse by KC Johnson & Stuart Taylor Jr. The group comes out against equal treatment before the law

16 Nevertheless, She Persisted by Dominic Green Theresa May’s Brexit deal means the end of sovereignty and democracy

19 No Easy Repeat by Richard E. Burr Trump will struggle to win Michigan again 14 GAGE SKIDMORE! Features

21 Going High (Culture) by Joseph Horowitz Orchestras and universities are working together to feed our hunger for community and a shared American identity

25 How He Played the Game by Daniel McGraw Ex-NFL receiver Anthony Gonzalez’s impressive political debut in the suburbs of Cleveland, Akron, and Canton

16 Books & Arts

28 Defining Characteristic by David Skinner Now that the American Heritage Dictionary’s ‘usage panel’ has been shuttered, a look back at the dictionary’s evolution

38 Strange Saddles by John Podhoretz Watching the Coen brothers’ new Western on screens large and small

39 High-Altitude Hideout by Tony Mecia A Bond villain’s Alpine lair now houses a museum for 007

42 Celebration of a Curious Character by Dan Alban Ricky Jay, 1946-2018

44 Parody Presidential report card 25

COVER BY HAL MAYFORTH THE SCRAPBOOK Criminally Negligent n late September, FedEx driver rumpuses and altercations when those that America is still a racist nation. I Timothy Warren was driving stories have anything to do with some- The savvy reader may have sus- through a neighborhood in Port- body’s being a racist. If some idiot pected our use of the phrase “local land, Ore., when Joseph Magnuson in Topeka or Syracuse or Lubbock crime story” is just a little mischie- shouted at him that he was going too shouts a racial insult and somebody vous. In April 2013, when the trial of fast. When Warren, who is black, got else catches it on a smartphone video, serial killer and abortionist Kermit out of the truck, Magnuson berated you can be pretty sure that a young Gosnell drew to a close with multiple him with numerous insults, includ- reporter from the Post will dutifully guilty verdicts, Sarah Kliff, then the ing, according to witnesses, a series of explain all the details. Indeed, you Post’s health policy reporter, explained racial insults. When Magnuson took could be forgiven for thinking that to Mollie Hemingway on Twitter a swing at Warren, Warren hit back, the Post’s editors and reporters are that she had not covered the Gosnell whereupon Magnuson lost conscious- deeply invested in the proposition trial because she did not cover “local ness and died a few hours crime.” The revelation of Gos- later. Prosecutors declined to nell’s murder and abuse factory charge Warren, saying he was was, for Kliff, of a piece with a acting in self-defense. (And news item about a robbery at the from our reading of the story, Circle K in Waco. the prosecutors got it right). To her credit, Kliff later We mention the story said she was wrong to charac- because we read about it in terize the case as local crime. the Washington Post, and there She has since moved to the would seem to be little reason left-wing news site Vox.com. for the Post to cover what is in Still, the glaringly selec- every sense a local crime story. tive partiality of the Post’s Not even that, since there were coverage rankles. Maybe if no criminal charges. Readers of someone had been caught the Post, however, or at least of the on video calling Gosnell a new Jeff Bezos-owned Post, will racially insensitive name, have noticed how frequently the then the paper would have paper covers local stories about given him some attention. ♦

Liberté, Égalité, in all the nakedness and solitude of the habit of using abstractions as all- metaphysical abstraction,” Burke purpose moral guides is still very Inclusivité wrote in Reflections on the Revolution much à la mode. The word du jour is dmund Burke famously ridi- in France. “Am I to congratulate a inclusion. Use it, and you can defend E culed the radicals and revolu- highwayman and murderer, who has just about anything you want to do. tionaries of his day for justifying Consider: At Rider University violent and unjust acts by simple- in New Jersey this week, campus minded appeals to abstract values. administrators decided to remove The abstract value he had in mind Chick-fil-A from a list of potential was liberty, which the mountebanks ® campus franchises on the grounds of France and their cheerleaders in that the restaurant chain is “widely England used to justify murder and perceived to be in opposition to the sedition. Wasn’t Burke for the revo- LGBTQ+ community.” “We sought lution? his adversaries wanted to to be thoughtful and fair in balanc- know. Wasn’t he for liberty? “I can- ing the desire to provide satisfying not stand forward and give praise or options for a new on-campus restau- blame to anything which relates to broke prison, on the recovery of his rant while also being faithful to our human actions and human concerns, natural rights?” values of inclusion,” explained Rider’s on a simple view of the object, as it Today’s radicals are a much more president, Gregory G. Dell’Omo, and

stands stripped of every relation, peaceable lot (most of the time), but the school’s vice president for student FISH: BIGSTOCK

2 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 affairs, Leanna Fenneberg, in a letter. This little intellectual pirouette surely equals anything the Jacobins pulled off: By proclaiming the vir- tues of inclusion, you can literally exclude people and organizations you don’t like. We’re inclusive around here—now get out! Rider’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion is organizing a campus forum “so that the voices of stu- dents, faculty, staff and others can continue to be heard” and that all involved can “grow from this expe- rience.” What a relief to know that the school’s students are working through such momentous problems. Annual tuition: $42,000. ♦

Leave That Unsaid uch has already been said about M Donald Trump’s rambling, semicoherent statement on the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia in light of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s mur- der. We would only like to say a quick word about a single phrase in that strange document: “That being said.” It occurs at the beginning of the state- ment’s penultimate paragraph: “That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder . . .” The Scrapbook wishes to go on record as loathing this phrase and its miserable siblings—that said, hav- ing said that, with that said, that having been said—and to plead with readers neither to use it nor tolerate those Articles We Tried host Alex Trebek mispronounce the who do. The phrase serves no legiti- name of the ethnic group from which mate purpose except to sug- Not to Read she is descended: the Igbo people. gest that everything prior e tried to look away, but it was Trebek pronounced it Ig-boh, with to it was stated only to get W no use once we read the head- a hard g. But it’s pronounced Ee-boh. it “said” and so may be line: “Why It Matters That Alex The g is silent. safely forgotten. If it’s a Trebek Mispronounced The Name Of Whereupon the author banged transition you want, the My People On ‘Jeopardy!’ ” The piece out a 900-word complaint about language offers a smor- ran, fittingly, at the Huffington Post. how Trebek flawlessly pronounces gasbord of alternatives: The author, Ngozi Nwangwa—Shir- European names and words like but, yet, however, on the other ley, to use her anglicized name—is a La Rochefoucauld and Reichs- hand, nonetheless, and so on. New York-based writer and “a queer marschall but can’t say the name If you have already said it, you Nigerian-American who is passion- of a marginalized Nigerian ethnic don’t need to point out that you said ate about giving marginalized folks group correctly. All through her it—unless you’re afraid your readers a space to be heard.” She grew up childhood, she recalls, Americans are not paying attention. And who watching Jeopardy! with her family. mispronounced her name and the can blame them, if you persist in While recently binge-watching old name of the Igbo people, but not using pointless filler phrases? ♦ episodes of the show, Nwangwa heard until she was older was she “able to

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 3 “has a whiplash effect. . . . I don’t remember this hurting so much— when did I get this old?” The question is touching, in a way. But of course she didn’t just get old. www.weeklystandard.com She got manipulated and jaded by Stephen F. Hayes, Editor in Chief the American left’s grievance racket, Richard Starr, Editor and now the poor woman can’t even Fred Barnes, Robert Messenger, Executive Editors watch a game show without search- Christine Rosen, Managing Editor Peter J. Boyer, Christopher Caldwell, ing for microaggressions and carping Andrew Ferguson, Matt Labash, National Correspondents about being branded “other” by Euro- Jonathan V. Last, Digital Editor Barton Swaim, Opinion Editor contexualize the term ‘microaggres- American ignoramuses. Adam Keiper, Books & Arts Editor sion.’ ” Watching old shows from We’ll take “Liberalism & Its Dis- Kelly Jane Torrance, Deputy Managing Editor Eric Felten, Mark Hemingway, her younger years, Nwangwa writes, contents” for $1,000, Alex. ♦ John McCormack, Tony Mecia, Philip Terzian, Michael Warren, Senior Writers David Byler, Jenna Lifhits, Alice B. Lloyd, Staff Writers Rachael Larimore, Online Managing Editor Hannah Yoest, Social Media Editor Chris Deaton, Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editors Priscilla M. Jensen, Assistant Editor Adam Rubenstein, Assistant Opinion Editor Andrew Egger, Haley Byrd, Reporters Holmes Lybrand, Fact Checker Sophia Buono, Philip Jeffery, Editorial Assistants Philip Chalk, Design Director Barbara Kyttle, Design Assistant Contributing Editors Claudia Anderson, Max Boot, Joseph Bottum, ACCESS gives you exclusive content Tucker Carlson, Matthew Continetti, Jay Cost, Terry Eastland, Noemie Emery, Joseph Epstein, and savings, including: David Frum, David Gelernter, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Goldfarb, n Exclusive pricing on Windstar Cruises, Daniel Halper, Mary Katharine Ham, Brit Hume, Thomas Joscelyn, Frederick W. Kagan, Yuval Levin, Tod Lindberg, Micah Mattix, Victorino Matus, Weekly Standard conferences, & merchandise P. J. O’Rourke, John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, n Early access to editorial content Charles J. Sykes, Stuart Taylor Jr. William Kristol, Editor at Large n Subscriber-only Facebook group, conference MediaDC calls with editors and other notables Ryan McKibben, Chairman Stephen R. Sparks, President & Chief Operating Officer Kathy Schaffhauser, Chief Financial Officer ACT NOW to take full advantage Mark Walters, Chief Revenue Officer Jennifer Yingling, Audience Development Officer of these subscriber-only benefits. David Lindsey, Chief Digital Officer Matthew Curry, Director, Email Marketing Visit subscribe.weeklystandard.com today! Alex Rosenwald, Senior Director of Strategic Communications Nicholas H. B. Swezey, Vice President, Advertising T. Barry Davis, Senior Director, Advertising Jason Roberts, Digital Director, Advertising Andrew Kaumeier, Advertising Operations Manager Brooke McIngvale, Manager, Marketing Services Advertising inquiries: 202-293-4900 Subscriptions: 1-800-274-7293

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4 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 CASUAL

But that’s not us. We don’t whine. Generation No Name We’re content to be ignored. We don’t need approval to be proud. We’re unlikely to talk about our achieve- or some reason yet to be fath- tional and conventional, more likely ments, but I’ll make an exception, just omed, the 50 million Ameri- to want to work within the system this once. cans born between the greatest than to overthrow it. We supposedly Early members of our generation generation and the baby boom- took to heart the warnings that we survived the Great Depression and Fers were never assigned a name—at shouldn’t do stuff that will leave a many fought in Korea (the forgot- least not one widely recognizable. black mark on our permanent records. ten war) and a few of us latecomers I’m in it, and that’s just fine by me. An unsigned, oft-cited Time maga- in the Vietnam war. We helped grow Living in demographic obscurity is one zine essay labeled us the silent gen- America’s economy into perhaps the of my generation’s virtues. Sure, those eration in 1951, before we even had most productive and prosperous ever. marketers, journalists, and, ugh, soci- an opportunity to show our stuff. It We set the stage for an unprecedented ologists who coin generational labels called our generation “a still, small explosion of creativity in the arts and tried to tag us the “silent generation.” flame.” Historian William Manchester technology—otherwise known as the But it hasn’t stuck because, well, who piled on: “Never had American youth ’50s. We saw the free world through cares? Besides, the moniker is so the Cold War. Despite all the insulting that I prefer “no name.” credit given to the boomers for As if to prove our irrelevance, the civil rights movement, we no- the presidency skipped over us, names started it. going directly from George H. W. Martin Luther King Jr. and Bush of the greatest generation Gloria Steinem were no-namers, to baby boomer Bill Clinton. But but they were hardly silent. Elvis who has noticed our absence in Presley ushered in the age of the White House? rock and roll. No-name Beatles According to the Center for advanced it. Jimi Hendrix rede- Generational Kinetics (I’m not fined it. making that up), my generation’s Our Neil Armstrong was the birthdays run from 1925 to 1945, first man to step on the moon the end of World War II and the and 11 of the 12 astronauts who official beginning of the baby walked on the moon were no- boom generation, which concluded in been so withdrawn, cautious, unimag- namers. There’s Dustin Hoffman and 1964. (Mine is in 1942.) inative, indifferent, unadventurous— Muhammad Ali. Robert and Ted Ken- The impulse to hang names on gen- and silent.” nedy. Generals Colin Powell and Nor- erations is just another form of ste- Gee, what a pathetic lot we must be, man Schwarzkopf Jr. Warren Buffett reotyping, the goofy obsession with deservedly bumped aside by boomers, and Michael Eisner. Liz Claiborne. herding each and every one of us into millennials, Gen Ys, Gen Zs, and who- I could go on, but the point is made. clusters of sweeping clichés. Baby ever else is about to follow. By the way, If people can characterize us as but- boomers, for example, are described some might be inclined to assign Pres- toned-up and mousy, we could peg variously as goal-oriented, hardwork- ident Donald Trump to my no-name boomers as the most coddled Ameri- ing, self-assured, individualistic, rebel- generation, which would be wrong on can generation ever. Or are the most lious (in a positive way), open to change, two counts: He’s never silent, and he coddled ones the generations just idealistic, etc., etc. All good stuff. was born in 1946, which makes him arriving? Broad brushes can sweep We no-namers, on the other hand, all yours, boomers. many ways. are said to be risk-averse. We kept Right about now, you might expect But who needs this? If we’re to quiet when growing up because chil- to hear me plead that someone should generalize about generations, con- dren should be seen and not heard. do something about our generation’s sider some other words for silent: We are (overly) respectful of author- deplorable state: government grants reserved, placid, modest, serene, and ity. As adults, we also keep our mouths to behavioral and social scientists to we don’t give a flying fig. Ignore us, shut and refuse to rock the boat. We study how to end the victimization of please. We’re content without a name. believe hard work gets you ahead in the no-names. Inclusion in a protected As John Updike, also a member of my life, oblivious to the current dogma class to provide a boost up and out of generation, said, we’re quietly grateful. that privilege and whiteness are deter- our sorry condition. New programs to

DAVID CLARK DAVID minants of advancement. We’re tradi- meet our desperate needs. Dennis Byrne

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 5 EDITORIALS Putin Poses a Test n November 25, Russian military forces opened the United States and Russia. Vladimir Putin wants to con- fire on three Ukrainian ships off the coast of solidate his gains in Ukraine—wants to make them de jure O Crimea, rammed one of them, and seized all three. instead of merely de facto, as they are now—and has every The ships were manned by 23 crew members. Ukrainian reason to precipitate low-level crises in order to find out how authorities say between three and six were injured. feasible this is. President Trump has only encouraged such Russia claims the boats had illegally entered its sovereign testing by fawning on the Russian dictator at every oppor- waters, but this is untrue. The Ukrainian vessels—two gun- tunity, even to the point of publicly taking Putin’s word boats and a tugboat—were sailing from Odessa around the over that of his own national security advisers. Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea toward the Kerch Strait Trump likes authoritarians who like him—or at least pre- and Mariupol on the north bank of the Sea of Azov. A 2003 tend to. In recent months, he’s had kind words for China’s treaty between Ukraine and Russia guarantees both nations Xi Jinping, the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, North Korea’s the right to use the Kerch Strait and Azov Sea for commer- Kim Jong-un, and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman. cial purposes. The same treaty allows both nations to use the Trump publicly contradicted the assessment of the U.S. intel- waters to transport military vessels so long as the transport- ligence community that MbS directed the murder of Jamal ing nation notifies the other. A Russian oil tanker nonethe- Khashoggi and made clear that whatever punishment follows less blocked the ships from passing through the strait, fighter the brazen murder of the prominent Saudi regime critic, the jets passed overhead as if the three were an invading force, Saudi monarchy will escape serious consequences. If Putin and Russian troops boarded and took control of the ships. had concerns that the president might take a real stand Ukraine insists that it notified Russia of the tiny flotilla, against new Russian aggression, Trump’s figurative shrug of and there is no reason to doubt its statement. Russia claims, the shoulder over the Saudi crime had to ease them. in typically melodramatic fashion, that the ships “crossed How will the United States respond to the Black Sea the Russian state border and illegally entered the temporar- incident? It’s anybody’s guess. U.N. ambassador Nikki ily closed waters of the Russian territorial sea.” Haley issued a robust criticism of Russia’s aggression. But This stunt isn’t about protecting Russia’s borders she’s leaving the administration. Secretary of State Mike from aggression. It is a test. Vladimir Putin wants to Pompeo’s condemnation included forceful language but know how far the United States is willing to go to check lacked any specific promise of consequences. As Russian Russian expansionism. dissident Garry Kasparov put it on Twitter: “Translate this The testing began in earnest in March 2014, during US statement on Russia’s latest act of war against Ukraine the previous administration, when Moscow annexed the into dictator-speak, Putin’s language: ‘We aren’t going to Crimean peninsula under the pretense of protecting a pro- do anything about it.’ That’s how he will read it. Putin will Russian minority. (Russia now considers Crimea part of scan this looking for ‘unless Russia . . .’ or ‘if Russia doesn’t Russia, although Ukraine and most of the rest of the world comply . . .’ and, seeing nothing like that, no deterrence, he hold it to be an illegal annexation.) At the same time, Rus- will continue as planned.” sian-backed mercenaries streamed into eastern Ukraine to Trump’s own comments gave Putin no reason to take back pro-Russian separatists for the purpose of taking east- a different view: “We do not like what’s happening either ern Ukraine for Russia. More than 10,000 have died in the way,” Trump said while leaving the White House on conflict. The fighting goes on despite the Minsk II cease- November 26. “And hopefully it will get straightened out.” fire signed in February 2015. Either way? Hopefully it will get straightened out? In Ukraine has responded to this quiet invasion by vastly response to widespread international condemnation of the increasing its military preparedness. The East European Black Sea incident, Putin upped the ante: restricting mari- nation has doubled the size of its army in just four years: time traffic into the Sea of Azov (which a Kremlin spokes- It now has around 250,000 active-duty soldiers and roughly man blamed on “bad weather”), beefing up the Russian 80,000 reservists. They are also better equipped. In 2017, military presence on Ukraine’s border, and deploying more the Trump administration approved the sale of lethal defen- S-400 missile systems to Crimea. Moscow also aired confes- sive weapons to Ukraine. sions from three sailors that were obviously forced. In short: At any moment Crimea and eastern Ukraine On November 29, Trump sensibly canceled his sum- could explode into a large-scale hot war between proxies of mit with Putin set for the G20 meetings in Argentina. But

6 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 getting this “straightened out” will require much more righteousness, so today’s Democratic powerbrokers in the than putting off a meeting. It will require insisting Rus- House are united only by opposition to Trump and appear sia immediately free the vessels and release the crews. It destined for conflict with a young and arrogant minority will require Ukraine to have full rights to traverse the who consider the senior members of their own party to be seas around its borders and a clear message that failure to just as much the enemy. afford Ukraine these rights will result in diplomatic and The Congressional Progressive Caucus, in which this military consequences. More than anything else, it will bellicose band of left-wing ideologues resides, grew by 18 require the president to lead rather than follow. ♦ in the recent election and now numbers 96. Many of them campaigned on the abolition of the Immigration and Cus- toms Enforcement agency, ending private health insur- ance, and, of course, the impeachment of the president at the earliest opportunity. As one of the Democrats’ young guns, Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, put it to the New York The Second Times: “I’m not so wedded to this seat or a seat in Congress to now begin to compromise the things that I believe in.” For Republicans who watched for eight years as their party Time as Farce failed to achieve major victories and even struggled for the little ones, the sentiment sounds familiar. n November 28, Democrats officially nominated The real challenge for Democrats, though, and for liber- Nancy Pelosi to be the next speaker of the House. als generally, isn’t so much political as intellectual. Progres- O No one ran against her; she received 203 yeas sives have no new ideas—which is rather a problem for a against 32 nays. Democrats who vowed during the campaign philosophy based on novelty. On domestic policy, they’re to vote against the former speaker were always a small group. content to dress up old failures as though they were cutting- Their opposition—largely rhetorical, since nobody else edge innovations (“Medicare for All”) and to engage in cul- threw a hat in the ring—had less to do with ideology than ture-war radicalism on issues of racial and sexual identity arrogance. Pelosi’s progressive credentials are almost unim- that alienate much of the public. On foreign policy, their peachable. What the mostly young and further left members one original contribution—an alliance with Iran and con- want is power, and they’re not interested in waiting for it. comitant cooling toward Israel and Saudi Arabia—was With all races in the House of Representatives accounted an unqualified disaster that obliged them to side with the for, Democrats have a commanding majority of 35. The party regime in Tehran against hundreds of thousands of Iranians gained 40 seats in the recent election. Republicans will pass demanding human rights and representative government. no significant legislation in the next Congress, and the White The deficiency of ideas is one reason Democrats attri- House will almost certainly spend the preponderance of its bute their losses to anything and everything but their own energy responding to subpoenas and investigations and stav- party. Whereas Republicans blame each other for their ing off Democratic threats to impeach the president. defeats—this side was too rigid on abortion and same-sex Many conservatives are bracing for the worst, but we marriage, that side was too lax on immigration—Demo- are more sanguine. The incoming Democratic majority is crats blame everybody but each other: Russian trolls, ger- no cohesive, unified crew. Indeed, the 116th Congress looks rymandering, voter suppression, white racism, or whatever a lot like the 112th, in which Republicans held a 49-seat other conspiracy theory looks momentarily plausible. majority. The 2010 election had been a blow to Barack If the rise of the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus was Obama, but the GOP on the Hill was hopelessly divided the tragic version of the play, the next two years are likely to between “establishment” Republicans, Tea Party Republi- be the farce: a reenactment, only with unworkable ideas and cans, and establishment Republicans trying to pass as Tea vastly more hatred. The progressive left will simultaneously Party Republicans. It led to the creation of the House Free- push the party toward a fanatical and unpopular radical- dom Caucus, a group of around 40 members whose chief ism—“free” health care and higher education, a $15 mini- aim, it often seemed, was to block any legislative reform on mum wage, a dramatic expansion of the welfare state, a the grounds that it “didn’t go far enough.” What began as a rollback of military spending, a slew of identity-based laws good and necessary corrective to the unprincipled transac- and regulations—and undermine any attempt to work with tionalism of the GOP leadership turned into obstruction- Republicans. Meanwhile the one thing both leftists and prag- ism for the sake of obstruction. matists are likely to agree on is the need to cripple the presi- House Democrats seem determined to reenact this dent with their investigatory powers. There will be plenty of drama, but the divisions are more or less the inverse. As action, but little if any of it will move the plot along. Republicans were dominated by lawmakers whose chief aim As Pelosi ascends the speaker’s rostrum, worried con- was staying in power but who were thwarted at every point servatives can take heart: She takes charge of an ungovern- by a vocal minority increasingly preoccupied with its own able mess. ♦

8 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 COMMENT

CHRISTINE ROSEN A cutthroat competitor like any other

acebook has had many moments the blame to underlings, and issued Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was called of supposed reckoning in recent a press release (strategically dropped the “Instagram candidate” (Instagram­ F years. Is this one different? into the news void on the day before is owned by Facebook). And unlike After the New York Times reported Thanksgiving) announcing that the other PR-challenged large corpora- on November 14 that the company token head on a pike would be that of tions (alcohol, tobacco, firearms, or had hired Definers Public Affairs, an Elliot Schrage, the communications pharma, for example), Facebook was opposition research firm headed by and policy chief who had already viewed by many on the left as a wildly a former Republican operative, to announced his intention to leave successful expression of capitalism engage in skullduggery against its Facebook (“Schrage is effectively that nevertheless embraced progres- critics, and that it had refused to jumping on the grenade here,” Tech- sive values—the corporate hooker acknowledge or stop the with a socialist heart of gold. spread of fake news during But as the Times piece revealed, the last presidential election, Facebook has Facebook wasn’t purely the progres- Facebook found itself once sive, anti-Trump, pro-immigrant, again facing global criticism deftly exploited pro-lefty place so many hopeful pro- for its business practices. tribal politics for gressives (including its own employ- It was especially shocking ees) thought it was. Zuckerberg could to some observers to learn years by behaving denounce Trump’s Muslim travel that Facebook chief oper- like a free-market ban on his personal Facebook page ating officer Sheryl Sand- by talking earnestly about his and berg was heavily involved conservative in its his wife’s immigrant relatives (“My in all of these questionable business practices great grandparents came from Ger- goings-on. Wasn’t Sandberg, many, Austria, and Poland. Priscilla’s maven of corporate “lean-in” while talking like parents were refugees from China strategy and feminist hero, and Vietnam”) while doing noth- supposed to be the “adult a well-intentioned ing to stop Facebook’s being used to in the room” at Facebook? progressive. encourage ethnic genocide in Myan- She was—only it turns out mar, for example. He could wax phil- she’s the kind of adult who, osophical about diversity and liberal like the mom of “Affluenza Teen” Crunch noted). Zuckerberg and Sand- values while his hired minions spread who helped her son flee to Mexico berg remain in charge, and Facebook anti-Semitic-inflected conspiracy after he killed four people while emerges, yet again, free from mean- theories about liberal activist George driving drunk, does everything she ingful consequences for its actions. Soros. Hypocrisy: It’s not a bug, it’s can to help her wayward kid avoid For the growing number of people a feature! punishment. concerned about Facebook’s power, But these revelations offer a rare If the latest Facebook scandals however, there are some potential opportunity for bipartisan coopera- have revealed anything with cer- silver linings to be found. Face- tion going forward. “Instead of turn- tainty, it’s that behind the sunny book’s recent problems have elic- ing this into another lazy debate about rhetoric of making the world “more ited responses that blur the usually the left, the right, and the 2016 elec- open and connected,” Facebook is clear boundary lines that define left tion, Silicon Valley and Washington as ruthless as any other major cor- and right in our politically polarized should be working to combat the very poration hellbent on maintaining age. Facebook has deftly exploited real threat that information operations its market dominance and that its tribal politics for years by behaving can pour gasoline on nearly every leader, Mark Zuckerberg, has trans- like a free-market conservative in its culture war that divides the Ameri- formed seamlessly from hipster mil- business practices while talking like can people,” Sen. Ben Sasse told lennial founder to skilled political a well-intentioned progressive. It Recode. Senators on the other side of operative. In fact, his response to was considered a compliment to the the aisle raised similar criticisms. It’s this most recent crisis proved his company when Barack Obama was a “chilling reminder that big tech inside-the-Beltway bona fides: He dubbed “the Facebook president” and, can no longer be trusted,” said Sen.

LIKENESSES: DAVE CLEGG LIKENESSES: DAVE refused to take responsibility, passed more recently, when incoming Rep. Richard Blumenthal.

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 9 Even conservatives who support cautious about obstacles that might choices when they “have issues.” In markets free from burdensome gov- impinge on their efforts to achieve it. Silicon Valley, ethics, if present at ernment regulation should consider “In our society, we often don’t do big all, tend to be like a vestigial tail, the impact companies like Facebook things because we’re so afraid of mak- dropped when a company grows past and Google and Amazon might be ing mistakes that we ignore all the the embryonic stage. Which is why having on innovation and competi- things wrong today if we do nothing,” Zuckerberg’s vow that Facebook will tion. If you’re a budding entrepre- Zuckerberg said. “The reality is any- develop new “transparency tools” and neur in the “tech space,” you don’t thing we do will have issues in the never, ever hire shady opposition invent the next Instagram to make future. But that can’t keep us from research firms to do mischief on its something cool (and independently starting.” If Zuckerberg’s views have behalf again, as well as his claims that profitable). You do it with the hope of evolved since then, it’s in a more the company is very, very sorry for its getting bought by Facebook (which bellicose direction. The Wall Street sins, aren’t persuasive. will then turn your creation into yet Journal reports that earlier this year, The platform that handed a mega- another engine for advertising). Dis- Zuckerberg told his executives that phone to purveyors of fake news and cussing Facebook on Face the Nation the company was “at war.” genocide while touting its progressive back in April, Republican senator As the recent (and likely not the values, and that eagerly churned out John Kennedy said he wasn’t looking last) scandal at Facebook reveals, hav- fake news of its own (or at least some “to regulate them half to death, but we ing a purpose isn’t the same thing as questionable PR) to undermine its have a problem. Our promised digital having a system of ethical practices critics, is unlikely to reform. There utopia has minefields in it.” that prevent people from doing the can be no dark night of the soul for a American lawmakers could take a wrong things and making the wrong company that’s never had one. ♦ cue from Parliament, which recently seized a trove of legal documents related to an American lawsuit against COMMENT ♦ FRED BARNES Facebook and called on Zuckerberg to testify about the company’s privacy policies. In hearings on November 27, President Trump’s British lawmakers questioned Face- book vice president of policy solutions precarious position Richard Allan, who failed to assuage their concerns. Labour MP Ian Lucas resident Trump is in deeper they accepted his “embrace” shows compared Facebook’s practices to the political trouble than he how off-kilter his sense of political approach of Captain Renault in Casa- P thinks. And I’m not talk- reality is. And relying on Democrats blanca, who ostentatiously shut down ing about whatever special counsel to nominate an unelectable oppo- gambling activity in the bar only to Robert Mueller has up his pocket his own roulette winnings on sleeve. Trump has real-life the way out. reelection trouble. The midterm And what of Zuckerberg, who The midterm results results were clear: not long ago embarked on a nation- were clear about this. Mil- wide listening tour many observers lions of voters whom Trump Millions of voters believed was a first step in a planned needs to win a second term whom Trump move to enter national politics? Has in 2020 expressed their dis- he been chastened by events? It’s dain for him in the only needs to win a worth revisiting the commencement way they could—by voting second term in address he delivered at Harvard in against Republicans. Those 2017. He talked about the principles GOP candidates were his 2020 expressed he embraced as he built Facebook, surrogates, like it or not. from a whim in his Harvard dorm Voters were willing to their disdain for room into the behemoth it is today. brush aside Trump’s suc- him in the only “It’s good to be idealistic,” Zucker- cesses on taxes, judges, berg said. “But be prepared to be and deregulation. This way they could. misunderstood. Anyone working was unprecedented. And it on a big vision will get called crazy, shows how strongly they felt about nent in 2020 is risky in the extreme. even if you end up right.” He went his personal behavior. As luck would have it, a political on to urge Harvard’s graduating class Trump doesn’t appear to under- recovery by Trump is not only pos- to find purpose in their lives—and stand this. Telling losing Republican sible, it would be easy. It takes three once they’d found it, not to be overly House members they’d have won had things. And these include neither a

10 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 personality transplant nor a month at say that is. A suggestion: seize oppor- Reagan’s great lines was that having a monastery where no one speaks. tunities to act in positive ways and been an actor really comes in handy First, he needs to recognize he’s tweet about them. How painful could in politics. He wasn’t kidding. headed for defeat. He didn’t get to this that be for the tweeter in chief? People who meet privately with point in 2016 until the Access Holly- For instance, the president could the president invariably say how con- wood tape leaked a month before the have responded to a report last week genial he is. I doubt he’s faking on election and his campaign almost col- that life expectancy in this country these occasions or has a double per- lapsed. He saw doom ahead, had to declined again in 2017. The presi- sonality like some Jekyll and Hyde clean things up quickly—with tele- dent isn’t being blamed for this. character. I’m no psychologist, but prompters and nicer talk—and did. But what if he declares (or tweets) I think he simply acts differently in Second, he’s got to jettison the his distress and says: “We can- different situations, a quite normal most unhelpful of his rules of politi- not let this continue in America. trait of most people. cal combat—that is, never apolo- We haven’t done enough to stop it. I The hardest thing will be con- gize. Trump’s fear is that apologizing haven’t done enough.” vincing him he’s in a political ditch shows weakness. For most politi- The point here is Trump and his and won’t be able to climb out unless cians, including a few presidents, it aides should be on the lookout for he alters his act. He’s not likely might. But not this one. Trump has legitimate opportunities for the to believe negative polls or advice persuaded the entire world he’s not president to involve himself in a from anyone. What’s needed is a wimp. positive way. The model for this was what a political strategist referred to What would apologizing entail? It created by President Reagan when as a “moment.” That’s when some- wouldn’t require him to abase him- a highly publicized report on the thing unplanned and unexpected self by saying, “Please forgive me, growing shortcomings of American happens in a flash with the whole I’m so sorry,” though uttering those schools was issued. His administra- world watching and it instantly words a time or two wouldn’t be a tion leaped to embrace solutions and changes how millions regard the bad idea. thereby avoided any political harm. person involved. I’d start with Mexico. It’s unwise The notion that Trump can’t One happened with George W. for an American president to be on change is ridiculous. People change Bush in his visit to Ground Zero. He bad terms with a populous neigh- in many ways, especially politicians seized the moment and his reputation bor with whom we do business. And who are always looking for better as a leader soared. Trump ought to pray Trump has gone beyond that by ways to present themselves. One of for a moment where he can shine. ♦ insulting the Mexican people. But Trump’s luck has struck again. A new Mexican president will soon be COMMENT ♦ PHILIP TERZIAN inaugurated, providing Trump with an opportunity to make amends and move ahead. A political lesson often A deal has already been worked out, tentatively, for Mexico to keep forgotten: There’s no such thing all those illegal immigrants in cara- vans from Central America from as an overnight transformation crossing the border. Their asylum hearings will be held while they’re in used to write a fair amount ments in a glass receptacle—and Mexico and few are expected to qual- about West Germany and report “the former East Germany” joined ify to enter the United States. I on the federal elections. Like the Federal Republic in 1990. That’s not all Trump can do. I most American journalists, histo- In retrospect, it was a surprisingly suspect the Mexican president isn’t rians, political analysts, and politi- swift transition; and it is often forgotten expecting to be love-bombed with cians—and most Germans, for that now that a unified Germany, the cause attention from Trump. Why not matter—I could not imagine the col- of much sorrow and tragedy in the 20th surprise him by announcing you no lapse of the Soviet empire and the century, was controversial at the time. longer expect Mexico to pay for the unification of the two Germanies. Still, the process was irresistible: Cen- wall? His explanation: Mexico is Not in my lifetime, at any rate: The tral and Eastern Europe had suffered helping more than ever at the border Berlin Wall, which was built when I under Moscow since the end of World and paying for it. was 11 years old, seemed destined to War II, and the languishing East Ger- Third, Trump doesn’t have to remain a permanent fixture. But of mans were eager to join their free, pros- stop tweeting. Senate majority leader course, as we know now, the Soviet perous brethren in the West. Mitch McConnell says tweets aren’t Union did disintegrate, the wall came Yet I was always surprised, when the problem. It’s what some of them tumbling down—I keep a few frag- visiting Germany in subsequent years,

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 11 by the widespread sense of disappoint- and politically isolated, and Mugabe and modern, is that revolutions don’t ment and impatience. Chancellor was displaced not by popular uprising necessarily make people happy, or Helmut Kohl, who underestimated but a kind of palace coup. The cur- improve their lot, any more than leg- the economic backwardness of the rent regime is headed by a man named islation alters human character. Upris- East, had promised “blooming land- Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was one ings, especially against the Mugabes scapes” (blühenden Landschaften) once of Mugabe’s most fearsome lieutenants. of the world, appeal to the emotions, Germans were rid of their Russian tor- Things could well get worse, if possible, and there is a kind of ecstasy in mass mentors and working together again. before they get better. demonstrations. But you would think But it was not so easy: The cost But in my view, it’s also a besetting that the example of Paris in the 1790s of absorbing impoverished East Ger- sin of journalism to overestimate the or Moscow in the 1930s might prompt many into the booming West German promise of resistance, upheaval, lib- would-be insurgents (and the peo- economy was (and remains) high, eration, and regime change. Or mis- ple who write about them) to pause and easterners felt like second-class read it entirely. Joy at the downfall of and reflect. The Batista regime in citizens in their new land. I well Mugabe was understandable, but joy Cuba was surely unpleasant in many remember a (West) Ger- respects; but the New York Times- man financier telling me, certified romance of his replacement, with wonder in his voice, The sad fact of history, Fidel Castro, only yielded a deeper, that revitalizing an indus- and infinitely crueler, tyranny. trial project in the East was ancient and modern, This is not to suggest that there like “operating a factory is that revolutions is no point in resisting oppression in Indonesia, but everyone or battling dictators. But it is to say speaks German.” don’t necessarily that journalists, writing their much- To my mind, anyone make people happy, advertised first drafts of history, who had spent time in both ought to strive for less romance and East and West Germany, as or improve their more realism. The intoxicating Arab I had done, could harbor lot, any more than Spring of 2010-12 was both surprising no illusions about the costs and, to some degree, unprecedented; or timetable for unification. legislation alters but while its promise was realized in Kohl was right about the some places (Tunisia) its perils were blooming landscapes, but human character. revealed beyond measure in others the process was bound to be (Syria). The collapse of the Soviet slow, very arduous, and expensive. Yet quickly dissipates in the cold light of Union was a Good Thing, by any the Germans, in their understandable dawn—especially when the names measure; but in its aftermath, there excitement, seemed to have expected change while the system prevails. have been varying degrees of good- an overnight transformation. Of course, this was not the theme ness (Germany, the Czech Republic, I was reminded of this elementary of last year’s reporting, which largely Lithuania) and its opposite (Belarus, lesson in human nature by a recent consisted of images of street celebra- Azerbaijan, Russia itself). Washington Post story about Zim­ tions and analysts predicting a swift Poor Zimbabwe, in the meantime, babwe. The southern African repub- infusion of foreign capital to revive will be lucky if its agony attracts lic’s autocratic leader, 93-year-old the economy—Zimbabwe is espe- much press interest. In the 1950s Robert Mugabe, had been forced from cially rich in mineral resources— and ’60s there was no more widely office in 2017 after 37 years of terror thereby lifting Mugabe’s long-suffer- reported story, or cause for editorial and misrule. “Euphoric tears are what ing subjects out of oppression. optimism, than the independence many Zimbabweans remember shed- In that sense, however, Zimba- movements in colonial Africa. But ding a year ago,” wrote reporter Max bwe’s new autocrat is correct: Politi- while imperialism remains a term of Bearak, on “the most momentous day cal reform, if it ever happens, will opprobrium, the verdict on postcolo- in the country’s post-independence indeed “take time [and] patience.” nial Africa (when it’s rendered at all) history.” But one year later: And if the example of rich, indus- is decidedly mixed. trialized Germany is any guide, the There was much excitement about Zimbabwe’s optimism has dimmed. transition of the onetime colony of Rhodesia-turned-Zimbabwe in the Depending on whom you ask, things Rhodesia from Mugabe’s long tyr- media when the British handed are as bad, or perhaps slightly less bad, as before. The current govern- anny to blooming landscapes will over power to Mugabe and friends ment says reform takes time and asks take a very long time, near-infinite (1980)—and four decades later, even for patience. patience—and considerably more more excitement when Mugabe’s reform than President Mnangagwa friends placed him under house arrest I have no doubt that the report is seems inclined to tolerate. (2017). But shouldn’t journalism do accurate: Zimbabwe is desperately poor The sad fact of history, ancient more than chronicle excitement? ♦

12 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 Project. Though their article claimed that the ACLU “is equally committed The ACLU’s J’Accuse to ensuring students can learn in envi- ronments free from sexual harassment and violence and to guaranteeing fair The group comes out against equal treatment process for both respondents and com- plainants,” its tone and contents con- before the law. by KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr. firmed the thrust of the Twitter thread. They closed by characterizing the pro- ore than four years ago, achieved justice in the past. Whether posed rule as just another in “a long 28 members of the Har- someone is a ‘victim’ is a conclusion line of actions taken by the Trump M vard Law School faculty to be reached at the end of a fair pro- administration to attempt to roll back publicly criticized the sexual-assault cess, not an assumption to be made at civil rights for some of the most vul- adjudication procedures adopted the beginning.” nerable students.” by the university under pressure from As all of these developments Roth and Medley alleged three spe- the Obama administration. They occurred, the American Civil Liber- cific problems with the proposed reg- noted that these were “overwhelm- ties Union (ACLU) remained silent. ulations, only one of which directly ingly stacked against the accused.” For more than seven years, the ACLU addressed the procedures afforded The law professors, including some never criticized the evisceration of to accused students: that the regula- with stellar feminist credentials, said due process and fundamental fair- tions would allow schools to choose that the university’s goal should “be to ness in campus Title IX tribunals— between “preponderance of the evi- fully address sexual harassment while although it also never endorsed the dence” (50.01 percent) and “clear at the same time protecting students Obama-era standards. But in case after and convincing evidence” (around against unfair and inappropriate dis- case, it ignored egregious unfairness 75 percent) as the standard of proof cipline, honoring individual relation- to accused students who had strong in adjudicating the innocence or guilt ship autonomy, and maintaining the claims of innocence. The organization of accused students. (It is worth not- values of academic freedom.” Similar finally broke its silence on Novem- ing that the ACLU has not criticized expressions of concern about the basic ber 16, after Education Secretary Betsy the existing use of the clear-and-con- unfairness of the federally dictated DeVos proposed new regulations on vincing standard mandated by some Title IX procedures, which most col- campus sexual misconduct designed schools’ union contracts to adjudicate leges had adopted enthusiastically, to make campus procedures fairer to sexual harassment complaints against would also come from groups of law both parties. In an inflammatory Twit- professors.) The two further problems professors at Penn and Cornell. ter thread, the ACLU described the they adduced are that the proposed Since April 2011, when the Obama new regulations as “inappropriately regulations use the Supreme Court’s administration sent thousands of favoring the accused.” definition of sexual harassment, rather schools its “Dear Colleague” letter It was a broad attack, and the ACLU than the far more expansive language reinterpreting Title IX to mandate did not exempt the fundamental pro- of Obama-era guidance, and reduce guilt-tilting sexual misconduct proce- tections that DeVos’s effort is designed the number of university adminis- dures, colleges and universities have to restore—the right of accused stu- trators legally obligated to act if they been on the losing side of 117 court dents to be presumed innocent; the receive a Title IX complaint from an decisions in lawsuits filed by accused right of accusers and accused alike to accuser. The official ACLU statement, students; 53 more lawsuits (at the cross-examine witnesses through a issued by the organization’s deputy federal level alone) were settled lawyer or an advocate; and the right legal director, simply summarized the before a court could render any deci- of the accused to examine all the evi- points raised by Roth and Medley. sion. Summarizing judicial concerns dence uncovered in the campus inves- It is difficult to discern a connec- about universities’ one-sidedness in tigation and all the materials used to tion between the wildly inflammatory a 2016 decision involving a student train campus adjudicators. The thread claim in the ACLU’s tweet—that the from Brandeis University, U.S. Dis- closed with a promise: “We will con- proposed regulations would be “inap- trict Judge F. Dennis Saylor wrote, “It tinue to support survivors.” propriately favoring the accused”— is not enough simply to say that such Ten hours after the tweets (which and these three specific complaints. changes are appropriate because vic- were surely posted before the ACLU In practical terms, it’s unlikely that tims of sexual assault have not always had fully digested all 149 pages of any of the three provisions would have DeVos’s proposed rule), the organi- much effect on students who experi- KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor Jr. are the zation issued a broader analysis by ence sexual misconduct on campus. authors of The Campus Rape Frenzy: Emma J. Roth, a fellow at the ACLU’s Since September 2017, DeVos has The Attack on Due Process at America’s Women’s Rights Project, and Shayna allowed every college and university Universities (2017). Medley, a fellow at its LGBT & HIV in the country the option of using

14 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 the clear-and-convincing standard of ACLU resorted to unlikely hypotheti- Association of University Professors proof in Title IX cases—and, as far as cals to criticize the proposed remedy. has made a similar point. So has the we have been able to determine, not The ACLU’s position is odd for American College of Trial Lawyers. one has chosen to do so. In the current an organization that purports to be This year, moreover, federal judges campus climate, any university presi- devoted to civil liberties. Roth and hearing lawsuits against the Univer- dent who moved in the direction of Medley argued that for colleges to sity of Colorado and the University of protecting possibly innocent accused use the clear-and-convincing stan- Mississippi suggested that the prepon- students would almost certainly be dard would “weight the scales against derance standard in Title IX sexual- subjected to a wave of campus protests complainants in civil disciplinary pro- assault proceedings is itself unlawful. and risk losing his or her job. ceedings.” But this view imagines the U.S. District Judge James Browning While it’s possible that a tighter Title IX process as a contest between of New Mexico went further, hold- definition of sexual harassment would accuser and accused, rather than what ing that “preponderance of the evi- exclude some Title IX complaints, it is: a process in which representa- dence is not the proper standard for the ACLU didn’t cite a single campus tives of the college effectively inves- disciplinary investigations such as the complaint against an accused student tigate and prosecute the accused, one that led to [the accused student’s] over the past seven years that would with the accuser as the chief witness. expulsion, given the significant conse- have qualified as sexual harassment As the Foundation for Individual quences of having a permanent nota- under the Obama-era standard but Rights in Education (FIRE)—which tion such as the one UNM placed on not under the Supreme Court’s defini- has become the nation’s preeminent [his] transcript.” tion. Colleges, of course, could retain champion of civil liberties on campus Perhaps there are other occasions in the Obama-era definition in their own and been tireless on the issue of the the ACLU’s history in which it main- disciplinary codes. And the manda- 2011 guidance—noted, “Given the tained that multiple federal courts were tory reporting issue focuses mostly marked lack of core due process pro- worrying too much about the rights of on bureaucratic minutiae rather than tections in the vast majority of cam- the accused. But there can’t be many. broader questions of principle. pus judicial systems, the adjudication The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf In short, after spending seven years of such serious, life-altering accusa- observed that ACLU “staffers weighed ignoring myriad and severe due- tions requires more than our lowest what most meaningfully excludes process deprivations on campus, the standard of proof.” The American someone from equal treatment in Hope and Help for California

THOMAS J. DONOHUE provides guidance, assistance, and NBCUniversal has pledged $1.1 million PRESIDENT AND CEO resources to local businesses harmed or in cash and in-kind support for U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE destroyed. More than 2,000 businesses firefighters and victims through local have been impacted by the Camp Fire, relief organizations, and it opened In recent weeks, communities in including nearly 1,400 that are located in 51,000 XFINITY WiFi free hotspots. IBM Northern and Southern California were the burn areas. donated $250,000 in cash and is allowing ravaged by wildfires. The Camp Fire As the fires began to escalate, employees to use three additional in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada the Chamber began activating our days of paid time off to volunteer. And mountains was the most devastating resources. We set up our 24-hour besides a cash contribution, United fire in this country in a century, burning Disaster Help Desk to field questions Airlines launched a new Crowdrise by the entire town of Paradise to the and supply information to area business GoFundMe campaign to award up to ground. The Paradise Ridge Chamber leaders. We distributed our Recovery 5 million bonus miles for individuals of Commerce was one of more than Quick Guides, outlining practical who make donations of $50 or more to 4,200 buildings destroyed. Yet in the steps businesses can take to help their support affected communities. aftermath of the blaze, local business and employees, seek financial assistance This is a great start, but much more community leaders vowed to rebuild. through insurance and other means, is needed, especially in the weeks The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and eventually restore operations. and months to come. This is only the is committed to helping them do it. Now that both fires have been beginning of the recovery process. The Our message to all those who have contained, we’re helping lead longer people of Paradise face the daunting been impacted: Paradise as it was once term recovery efforts. Last week we task of rebuilding their city, businesses, known may be lost, but hope is not. And hosted a disaster coordination call and homes from the ground up. As more help is on the way. with FEMA, state officials, and local efforts proceed, all of those affected For years, the U.S. Chamber chambers of commerce. More than 160 must be able to count on the enduring Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship companies also joined the call to learn support of the business community. Center has helped marshal support how they can help. and coordinate private sector recovery Many companies have already been Learn more at efforts following disasters. Our team involved in relief efforts. Comcast uschamber.com/abovethefold.

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 15 education—and they decided new due- great work. But damn is it ever disap- Whatever the merits or flaws of the rest process protections are more problematic pointing to see this organization, with of the ACLU’s activities, it has become than expelling someone after a process all its history, use the phrase ‘inap- an adversary of due process and free wherein they were unable to see evi- propriately favoring the accused.’ ” speech on campus. ♦ dence, or question their accuser, or be judged by a neutral party.” As to the definition of sexual harass- ment, schools’ aggressive applica- tions of the Obama admini­stration’s Nevertheless, more expansive definition have been denounced by many civil libertarians as infringing on constitutionally pro- She Persisted tected speech. And for good reason. Federal agreements settling investiga- tions of the University of Montana and Theresa May’s Brexit deal means the end the University of New Mexico indi- cated that “sexual harassment should of sovereignty and democracy. by Dominic Green be more broadly defined as ‘any unwel- come conduct of a sexual nature,’ ” very leader dreams of uniting prefer the subjugation of a return to including “verbal” (speech)—even the people, but Theresa May is the E.U. or the economic disorder of if the allegedly harassing statements of E the only postwar British prime leaving the E.U. without a deal or to the accused student or faculty member minister to have pulled it off. It has continue looking skywards for assis- would not be offensive to an “objec- taken time, hard work, toughness of tance while mumbling, “I don’t know.” tively reasonable person of the same Admittedly, the anti-deal consensus gender in the same situation.” It’s hard still has 16 percentage points to go. But to fathom a civil liberties organiza- that sort of unanimity is only obtain- tion—especially one that decades ago able under a dictatorship or banana stood up for the free speech rights even republic. Which might be exactly what of Nazis—showing such hostility to May’s Brexit deal would create: a Par- federal protection of speech. liament without legal sovereignty and Roth and Medley provided a final elections without meaning. reminder of the ACLU’s newfound The draft withdrawal agreement indifference to the plight of the accused for Britain’s March 2019 departure by asserting that the ACLU is espe- from the E.U. betrays the voters who cially concerned about “students of approved the 2016 Brexit referendum color” and other vulnerable campus and puts the lie to May’s own policy populations. Yet there is ample evi- statements and electoral promises. As dence in the reporting of Emily Yoffe, Christopher Caldwell wrote last week Ben Trachtenberg, Jacob Gersen, and in these pages, the deal would cast Jeannie Suk Gersen that the Obama-era Perhaps up there: May in Northern Ireland Britain into an open-ended “transition Title IX guidance has disproportion- in search of support, November 27 period” that means “all the taxation of ately harmed accused students of color. being in the E.U. with none of the rep- At the few universities for which race- character, mastery of detail, skin thick resentation” along with ingesting into based campus statistics exist, such as as tortoiseshell, and a willingness to do British law whatever legal delicacies Findlay and Colgate, men of color are or say anything. Nevertheless, Theresa strike the E.U.’s fancy. dramatically overrepresented among May persisted. Today, the British peo- The deal also commits Britain to those punished for sexual assault. “If ple are about as united as they can be. maintaining regulatory alignment and we have learned from the public reck- No one likes her Brexit deal with open borders between Northern Ire- oning with the racial impact of over- the E.U. On November 28, a tele- land, which is part of the U.K., and criminalization, mass incarceration, phone poll found that only 16 percent the Republic of Ireland, which is part and law enforcement bias,” Suk Gersen of respondents support the draft deal of the E.U. In effect, the deal threat- wrote in the New Yorker in 2015, “we that May announced in late Novem- ens to sunder Northern Ireland from should heed our legacy of bias against ber. The other 84 percent presumably the United Kingdom. The negotia- black men in rape accusations.” tors of the E.U., abetted by domestic As the Washington Post’s Radley Dominic Green is the Life & Arts editor grandstanding from Irish premier Leo Balko observed after the group’s Twit- of Spectator USA and a frequent contributor Varadkar, have succeeded in extract-

ter attack, “The ACLU still does some to The Weekly Standard. ing from Theresa May by trickery and / GETTY LIAM MCBURNEY / WPA

16 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 threats what the IRA failed to obtain Minister Heath claimed that the EEC relations between Britain and the E.U. by murder. was just a customs union and that Brit- On Sunday, November 25, the lead- Britain will not be able to escape its ain’s laws and sovereignty were not at ers of the other 27 E.U. states took all of juridical limbo until the E.U. allows it. stake. Privately, Heath admitted the half an hour to agree to the withdrawal If Britain objects, it will have to appeal economic borders of the EEC were, agreement and the nonbinding, non- to the European Court of Justice, like Bismarck’s Zollverein, destined to specific nonstarter that is the political which is a Potemkin court for the fur- become political borders too. declaration. This typifies how the E.U. thering of E.U. policy. That duly happened two decades stage-manages its deals and agreements The one question on which May later with the Maastricht Treaty of and declarations. From its postwar ori- does deliver is on freedom of move- 1992 that birthed the European Union, gins to its current imperium, the E.U. ment. For the last two years, Remain- beloved today by its subjects for its has seen itself as a bulwark against ers have accused Leavers of masking undemocratic deliberations, stagflating popular sovereignty, just like the Holy anti-immigrant sentiment with talk currency, and sub-Kantian delusions Roman Empire or the Dual Monarchy. about sovereignty. May, a Remainer of legislative grandeur. In 1992, when In Brussels, the fix is always in. herself in 2016, seems to believe this. John Major, erstwhile bank clerk, told In London, however, the fix no lon- She reckons that if she gives the white the British that they couldn’t afford ger is. As usual, a Conservative prime plebs what they want on immigration, not to jump aboard the Eurotrain, minister has promised security and sta- they’ll be too thick to notice the sur- he insisted that Britain’s sovereignty bility while signing away sovereignty. render of sovereignty. would be unimpaired by the Maas- But Brexit has squeezed the red, white, So this is not a deal for withdrawal, tricht Treaty—despite the fact that and blue toothpaste out of the tube. but BRINO: Brexit in Name Only— Europhilic Conservatives had found it In the next two weeks, probably on which is to say, Remain, the option that necessary to throw Margaret Thatcher December 11, May must bring her deal lost in the 2016 referendum. It is a con- overboard in order to make Britain’s to the House of Commons. Labour and ditional surrender, and the conditions appointment with Eurodestiny. the Liberal Democrats have already include the dismemberment of the After another two decades of the said they will vote against it. The Ulster United Kingdom. Nations defeated in E.U.’s insidious annexations of national Unionists, on whose informal support war have obtained better terms from sovereignty, Euroskepticism among May’s minority government depends, their conquerors. Conservative backbenchers, party are against it. More than 80 Conserva- Britain’s Conservative party is members, and voters forced Prime tive MPs have said they will ignore the the oldest and most successful party Minister David Cameron to attempt to whips, and no more than 30 Labour in the history of Western democracy. recover some of it. In 2016, when the MPs are thought to be willing to defy How it managed that is beyond reck- E.U. rebuffed him, Cameron called a their own whips and vote for the deal. oning. The party’s great achievement referendum on Britain’s membership May doesn’t have the numbers for a of 1938, “Munich,” is now a byword for in the E.U. He expected to win, which deal that hardens the borders to immi- diplomatic treachery and self-delusion; is to say for Britain to continue losing gration but erases the legal and parlia- Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain its independence and for Britain’s lead- mentary borders entirely. So Brexit sold out the Czechs, only to discover ers, especially the Conservative ones, to isn’t just about immigration or racism. that Hitler’s promise of peace was a continue treating their voters like serfs. It really is about democracy and sover- bouncing check. Its great achieve- But by some freak of democracy, the eignty. Yet again, a Conservative prime ment of 1956, “Suez,” is now a byword referendum’s outcome represented minister has misread the public and for the imperial folly of managing to the will of the British people. And misled the voters. shoot oneself in the foot while trying thus it fell to Theresa May to push What happens next depends on to punch above one’s weight. Prime Britain’s foreign dealings back onto the the scale of May’s defeat in the Com- Minister Anthony Eden was so busy traditional Conservative path of error mons vote. If she can lose by only mistaking Nasser for Mussolini that he and duplicity. She has failed beyond 20 or 30 votes, she could obtain some forgot to ask for American permission our wildest dreams. small and theatrical “concessions” before invading Egypt. May pretended not to notice the from Brussels and then try to whip Since Munich and Suez, Con­ wave of ministerial resignations that through a second vote. Her team is servatives have been in and out of followed the announcement of the said to be hoping for a panic in the office but have kept up their diplo- draft withdrawal agreement. Instead, markets like the one that encouraged matic batting average, contriving to she did what all clever diplomats do Congress to consent to an emergency club themselves on the back of the and channeled Neville Chamberlain. financial bailout in the fall of 2008. head every other decade. In 1975, it By the end of that week, she had in If May loses by more than 50 votes, was Edward Heath, tricking the public her hand a piece of paper—actually, she won’t have the credibility to push into retroactively endorsing Britain’s 13 pieces of double-sided, close-printed on to a second vote. Preparations for entry into what was then the European paper. This was a draft of the “politi- a “No Deal” exit will accelerate, and Economic Community (EEC). Prime cal declaration” concerning post-Brexit an extension past the March 2019

18 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 deadline may be sought. Conservative MPs will launch a party vote of no- confidence if only to forestall Labour No Easy Repeat from calling a parliamentary one, which would mean a general election that Labour could well win. The Con- Trump will struggle to win Michigan again. servative leadership contest would be a death match between Leavers and by Richard E. Burr Remainers. If the Remainers were to win, the Conservatives would rally around a diluted version of May’s deal. May could preempt both of these no-confidence votes by calling a gen- eral election first. Remainers have been calling for a second referendum, the People’s Vote—as opposed to the non-people who voted the wrong way in the 2016 referendum. May could present her general election as a refer- endum on her deal. That would mean her way or the highway of Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. This is a choice between disaster in the long term and the short. May has an impeccable record for picking the worst option. A general election would present the two worst options. She may well find the Trump rallies supporters in Washingtown Township, Michigan, April 28. combination irresistible. Two personal observations about Detroit the advantages of incumbency. Only what might happen in the medium resident Donald Trump’s Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and term: One is that since 2016, the mar- expressed “love” for Michi- George H. W. Bush have lost re-elec- kets have been betting on Brexit, P gan will be tested during his tion bids since World War II, notes despite the apocalyptic predictions of 2020 reelection bid if trends from the Steve Mitchell, pollster and Repub- Remainers, the governor of the Bank midterm election are any indication. lican strategist at Mitchell Research of England among them. I’d take the Trump won his slimmest victory of & Communications in East Lansing. serious money of the markets over 2016 here, edging Hillary Clinton by The Democrats choice will also be the dishonest comedians of May’s 10,704 votes, or about two-tenths of a important for Trump’s prospects, as government any day. The other is that percentage point, 47.5 to 47.3 percent. an unpopular Clinton proved in 2016. if you want to find a true Brexiteer He did so in part, Michigan pollsters Still, Trump faces serious challenges, among Britain’s party leaders, look left. say, because of a drop in turnout among some of them of his own making. Jeremy Corbyn is a lifelong enemy independent and Democratic voters as n Trump’s style. While the presi- of the European superstate. His Stali- well as the presence of third-party can- dent can take credit for a strong econ- noid grip on his party also makes him didates: the Libertarians’ Gary John- omy and a traditional conservative the only party leader capable of deliv- son and the Green party’s Jill Stein. foreign policy that has slapped sanc- ering a Commons vote for Brexit. The But in a record-setting midterm tions on Iran for its nuclear weapons electoral cycle is against the Conserva- turnout, Democrats elected a gover- ambitions, treated Israel like a “true tives, too. In power since 2009, they nor, attorney general, and secretary ally,” and improved the climate with can retain the premiership until 2022 of state, their first such trifecta since North Korea, his “unpresidential” but are unlikely to win a third election 1986. Two issues helped drive the bearing is a problem, says John Trus- in a row. The price of a Corbyn Brexit intense interest in voting in 2018: an cott, a Lansing-based consultant who would be economic collapse. unpopular president and an initia- worked for three-time Republican Conservatives still have a chance to tive to legalize recreational marijuana, governor John Engler. deliver a market-friendly, democrati- which voters approved. “Many people are turned off by cally accountable Brexit, providing Of course, the president will have his attitude and approach,” Trus- they ditch May as soon as possible. But cott says. “The very things that have then, the Conservatives are the party of Richard E. Burr is assistant city editor for brought him success are also the same

CHIRAG WAKASKAR / SOPA IMAGES / LIGHTROCKET GETTY / SOPA CHIRAG WAKASKAR Munich, Suez, and Maastricht. ♦ politics and government at the Detroit News. things that turn many people off. In a

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 19 campaign environment, it may be dif- informal coalition with indepen- be in very deep trouble if he cannot ficult to distinguish between the two.” dents in the Trump era, “making hold his margins in the smaller rural About 57 percent of likely voters them an unbeatable force in pure counties,” Czuba says. have viewed Trump unfavorably dur- numbers” if they are motivated to n The third-party factor. The ing the past three years, says Rich turn out, Czuba says. Green party likely sapped votes from Czuba, head of Glengariff Group in n A double-edged trade war. Clinton in 2016 as much as the Lib- Lansing and a pollster for the Detroit While getting tough on trade plays ertarians cost Trump support. Having News during the past two elections. well in Michigan, the tariff wars with someone like a Ralph Nader or a Jill Besides the marijuana ballot pro- China and other countries could cost Stein on the ballot would aid the pres- posal, the subject most on Michigan more votes than they gain. ident. “Michigan will be a heavy lift voters’ minds this year was Trump. If the auto industry continues to be [for him] without a strong third-party Both supporters and opponents hurt by tariffs, it could be a problem candidate,” says Mitchell. “But until brought up Trump unprompted with in the greater Detroit area, where the the Democratic candidate is learned, Detroit News reporters outside poll- state’s dominant auto industry is con- it is hard to predict what will happen ing places. Republicans lost two U.S. centrated. This issue was heightened here in Michigan or nationally.” House seats and a Michigan supreme during the past week when General Former vice president Joe Biden court seat and suffered their largest Motors said it might lay off as many as is a potentially formidable candi- loss of state senate seats since 1974. 5,750 salaried employees and perhaps date who could siphon off voters now n Democratic turnout. There’s a some union workers as it prepared to attracted to Trump. Progressives such myth that a GOP surge propelled the idle five factories, including three in as senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie New York magnate to victory in 2016, Michigan and Ohio, as part of a com- Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Cory the first time a Republican had won in petitive restructuring. The Demo- Booker would have a tougher fight Michigan since 1988. But Michigan cratic National Committee pounced, with Trump and be dependent on Republicans always turn out in strong repeating a quote from Lordstown, high turnout by African-American numbers, as Czuba and Detroit News Ohio, factory worker Bobbi Marsh: voters in Detroit, says Dave Dulio, editorial page editor Nolan Finley “I can’t believe our president would head of the political science depart- have noted. The wild cards are Demo- allow this to happen.” ment at Oakland University. crats, who have the clear registration “Union men are increasingly Without unity among the Demo- edge in the state, and independents. becoming attracted to the GOP, but a crats, Trump’s prospects improve mark- When Democrats are highly moti- bad economy could stop that attrac- edly. “If Democrats can give both the vated to vote, their candidates at the tion,” Czuba says. mainstream and the liberal wings of the top of the ticket usually win by 9 to Still, Trump has been adept at using party a reason to be excited as they did 10 percentage points, as gubernato- auto industry executives as foils. He in Michigan in 2018, they can win sim- rial candidate Gretchen Whitmer did attacked Ford Motor Co. for its pro- ply on the volume of Democrats over in November, Czuba points out. On a duction of vehicles in Mexico during Republicans in Michigan,” Czuba says. scale of 1 to 10, Detroit News polls found 2016 and hit back hard at GM’s plant West Michigan could be a barom- that Republicans, Democrats, and announcements, saying he would eter for the president’s chances. independents all said their desire to somehow cut off the automaker’s Trump and Mike Pence spent a lot of vote was higher than 9 in 2018, which electric vehicle subsidies if it didn’t time during the last two weeks of the spelled widespread GOP defeats. reverse course. But scheduled auto 2016 campaign in the region, trying to Independents also are a poten- union contract talks next year may calm traditional conservative voters tial problem for Trump, and they produce a face-saving compromise in spooked by Trump’s bombastic style usually help decide races in Michi- which GM “saves” certain factories and lewd remarks on the leaked Access gan. College-educated independent and blue-collar jobs, as has happened Hollywood audiotape. women voted mostly for Democrats in recent contracts. These factories Trump’s final 2016 speech occurred in November, Czuba says, noting that haven’t been shut down yet, as some in the early morning hours on Elec- the former Republican stronghold of have reported, but are targeted. tion Day in Grand Rapids in the GOP wealthy Oakland County “was the The tariffs also pose a problem stronghold of Kent County. Educa- epicenter of this shift.” Equally trou- among Trump’s supporters in rural tion Secretary Betsy DeVos hails from bling: College-educated men also areas. Michigan soybeans, pork, that area. But Democrats have been are backing Democrats in south- apples, and cherries have been hit by making gains, and Whitmer won east Michigan, where the bulk of the China’s retaliatory levies, and Trump there by three points in November. state’s votes are cast. Republicans lost strongholds in rural areas are increas- Says Czuba: “If Trump has trou- state house and senate seats in cities ingly dependent on agriculture. ble in Kent County and motivation like Birmingham and Troy that used “If farmers and rural voters reliant to vote is high, then the new realign- to be synonymous with the GOP. on the ag industry in Michigan start ment will deliver Michigan to the Democrats have assembled an recoiling at the trade war, Trump will Democratic column.” ♦

20 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 Going High (Culture) Orchestras and universities are working together to feed our hunger for community and a shared American identity

By Joseph Horowitz “sense of place” and shared American identity via our his- tory and culture. And, yes, I mean high culture. n his thoughtful new book Them: Why We Hate Our colleges don’t teach much history any longer. Each Other—and How to Heal, Nebraska senator Many cultural institutions seem increasingly adrift. And Ben Sasse writes: “More Republicans and Demo- yet I have stumbled upon an unlikely alliance that works: crats are placing politics at the center of their lives. orchestras in partnership with universities. Both sides seem to believe that a grand solution to This may sound risible. But there was a time when the Iour political dysfunction can be found inside politics. . . . symphony orchestra was a civic bulwark. Before World But nothing that happens in Washington is going to fix War I, it was already a certified and admired American what’s wrong with America. . . . The problem is that our ever more ferocious political tribalism and mutual hatred don’t originate in politics, so politics isn’t going to heal them.” Amen to that. What needs to heal, Sasse continues, is the nation’s torn fabric. The agents of destruction he adduces include the digital age, which undermines “any sense of place by allowing us to mentally ‘escape’ our homes and neighborhoods.” He observes the diminishing pertinence of friends, church, and community. He cites studies documenting an epidemic of “loneliness.” In Fremont, his hometown, immigrants are moving in and wealthier Nebraskans moving out. The senator and his wife are vigorously engaged in social service— “one person-to-person relationship and one local insti- tution at a time.” Joseph Horowitz, center, with students during Music Unwound’s February 2017 program with the El Paso Symphony Orchestra and That all sounds laudable and feasible for rural the University of Texas at El Paso Nebraska. But as a secular American living in Manhat- tan, I’m a stranger to the senator’s world of church and specialty, distinct from the pit orchestras of European picnics. I worry that religion may be as much divisive as opera and theater. Over a period of mere decades, orches- binding in America’s map of red versus blue. My profes- tras of consequence proliferated throughout the northeast sional world is one of orchestras (with which I work) and and Midwest: Every self-respecting city established one. cultural history (about which I write). My perspective sug- Theodore Thomas is the Johnny Appleseed in this gests another opportunity for healing—regaining a lost story. His itinerant orchestra rode the “Thomas Highway” coast to coast. “A symphony orchestra shows the culture of Joseph Horowitz directs Music Unwound, a national consortium the community” was his credo. Americans believed him. of orchestras and universities funded by the National Endowment Many musically inclined Americans were European for the Humanities, and is executive director of PostClassical immigrants for whom Beethoven and Schubert were Ensemble, the ensemble-in-residence at the Washington National already a necessity. But there was also widespread antici- Cathedral. Both groups seek to re-envision the orchestra as a pation of an American canon; it was assumed that by the humanities institution. He is the author of 10 books about the 21st century American orchestras would mainly perform

history of classical music in the United States. American music. And this cause, peaking with a tidal wave ARMANDO TRULL

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 21 of “American Composers Concerts” at the turn of the 20th funding a “pipeline” to propel young musicians of color century, was popular and exciting. It possessed urgency. into the ranks of major orchestras. These are important An ignition point was the U.S. sojourn (1892-95) of the initiatives. But they attack symptoms, not causes. And Czech composer Antonin Dvorak. His Ninth Symphony, they risk exciting the same divisive energies that afflict written in 1893 and subtitled “From the New World,” identity politics more generally. provoked a fierce national debate over American identity. If orchestras are ever to regain their role as agents of Keying on Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha and on the national unity, they will need to undertake a larger mis- “Negro melodies” he adored, Dvorak enshrined in his sion and curate the American past. Dvorak, in 1893, symphony the notion that African Americans and Native prophesied a “great and noble” school of American con- Americans were self-evidently representative Americans. cert music: a foundation for the future. It’s too late to In New York, his idea was taken to heart. In Boston, he revive that. But our orchestras can nevertheless engage was denounced as a “negrophile.” in a mission of American self-understanding. And that’s This symphony, a pivotal part of the early history of where universities come in. classical music in the United States, illuminates the count- less ways in which cultural expression can powerfully foster ight years ago, I launched Music Unwound, a personal and national identity. So does Longfellow’s poem. national consortium of orchestras supported by And so do the canvases of Frederic Church; the elegiac E the National Endowment for the Humanities. The majesty of his iconic New World landscapes forecast the idea was to remake orchestras as humanities institutions. sublime Largo of Dvorak’s symphony. For good measure, They would curate our musical past in the form of multi- the Czech composer’s American sojourn also furnishes a media concerts exploring key components of the Ameri- complex and timely study in cultural appropriation. can experience. Scholars would take part. So, I hoped, According to stereotype, the orchestra is an elit- would museums and universities. The result would be ist institution. But look at its early history in the United immersion experiences lasting days and even weeks. States. Henry Higginson, who created the Boston Sym- Music Unwound has explored four topics: “Dvorak phony in 1881, insisted on reserving blocks of 25-cent and America,” “Copland and Mexico,” “Charles Ives’s tickets for nonsubscribers. Leopold Stokowski, who made America,” and “Kurt Weill’s America.” Issues of Ameri- the Philadelphia Orchestra matter, produced the Ameri- can identity are ambitiously investigated. The Dvorak can premiere of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in 1916 partly program is intended to connect to African-American because he knew it would require many hundreds of ama- and Native American audiences, and also to Longfel- teur singers. The performance was an epochal community low and to the painters of the Hudson River School. The event. Remember that symphonic conductors once stayed Copland program links to the Depression and to the com- put—there were no airplanes to fly them from one musi- posers and muralists of the Mexican Revolution: political cal capital to another. In Chicago, Frederick Stock was art. The Ives program links to the Transcendentalists that not an international celebrity. He was, instead, something the Connecticut composer cherished, Emerson above all. of greater civic consequence: a local celebrity, a popular The Weill program, about a German-Jewish opera com- favorite who in summertime led his orchestra in outdoor poser who became a leading creator of Broadway musicals, concerts at which multitudes sang along. probes immigration. But over the course of the 20th century, American We’ve enjoyed successes and suffered disappoint- classical music disappointed expectations and remained ments. But there has been a central surprise—that uni- a Eurocentric import. Orchestras succumbed to formula. versities are more eager to participate than orchestras. They sacrificed local identity based in community for itin- And where the two have collaborated, the results have erant star power. They squandered their potential to instill been transformational. a sense of place. It must be understood that orchestras in the United Today, the marginalization of the orchestra in Ameri- States have evolved very differently from museums. can culture is a pressing cause for concern within the There are no scholarly curators on staff. The American shrinking classical-music milieu. Emergency measures musical past is little known or exhumed, nor is any cul- are afoot. The latest remedies of choice are “inclusion” tural context outside of classical music. With the excep- and “diversity.” Women composers are belatedly being tion of Aaron Copland, the composers we feature via programmed and celebrated. Both the League of Amer- Music Unwound are little played—the American Dvorak ican Orchestras and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (how is it possible that we don’t regularly hear his viv- (the lone survivor of a national philanthropic community idly observed American Suite of 1894?), George Chadwick, once dedicated to sustaining orchestral performance) are Arthur Farwell, Silvestre Revueltas, Weill, Ives. But they

22 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 form a vital narrative of New World cultural develop- sold automobiles in Sioux Falls and supported the local ment. It is the intellectual heft of this programming that NAACP. Her family housed Harry Belafonte because no opens the door to the university classroom. hotel would take him. Black workers were resented as out- The synergies have been obvious in El Paso, Texas—a siders. Anti-Semitism was virulent. Her father’s favorite city of immigrants, 80 percent Hispanic, at the crossroads recordings included Weill’s anti-apartheid musical Lost in of today’s immigration debate. Here the quarterback for the Stars. Only now, she told us, did she understand why. Music Unwound has been Lorenzo Candelaria, a music Toni Torres, a UTEP undergraduate, wrote that the fes- historian who was until recently associate pro- vost at the University of Texas at El Paso. There have been three El Paso Music Unwound festivals, beginning with “Dvorak and America” in 2016— which so penetrated the graduate and undergradu- ate classrooms of UTEP that hundreds of young Hispanics attended their first symphonic concerts thanks to the partnering El Paso Symphony. Many brought their families. (Music Unwound furnishes free tickets to participating students.) Their keen appreciation of what they heard— including the full New World Symphony with a visual presentation extrapolating its American accent—had been honed by campus talks and concerts. The festival pervaded the curriculum. Brian Yothers, a specialist in 19th-century Ameri- can literature at UTEP, explored the significance Above, the El Paso Symphony Orchestra in February 2017 during Music of Longfellow to Dvorak in a variety of music Unwound’s ‘Copland in Mexico,’ looking at Mexican creativity during the classes. Kevin Deas, a leading African-American 1930s; below, the orchestra performs the score of iconic Mexican filmRedes . concert singer, arrived with Music Unwound both to sing with the symphony and to teach and per- form at UTEP. When Deas signed CDs during the intermission of two El Paso Symphony subscrip- tion concerts, the line both nights trailed down the lobby and around a corner. Most of the people waiting were under 25 years old. “Copland and Mexico,” celebrating a decade of Mexican cultural efflorescence wholly unknown to El Paso’s young Mexican-Americans, followed in 2017. But it was the 2018 Weill festival—about a ref- ugee from Hitler’s Germany who “felt American” from the day he landed in Manhattan—that seemed to most strike home. It lasted seven days and included five concerts, three master classes, seven classroom presentations, and a trip to a local high school. The first class I visited was Selfa Chew’s Afro-Mex- tival “gave me a new perspective on my citizenship: I need ican history at UTEP. The immediacy of ­Weill’s story for to be doing way more for my country and its music. I have Chew’s students was electrifying. One asked with a trem- no excuse, because Weill, an immigrant, devoted his life bling voice: How was Weill able to do it? She missed Mexico to it, and what he left is breathtakingly beautiful.” Cande- intensely. Another wanted to know if Weill ever composed laria said: “I found a real hunger for Kurt Weill here in El music in America that alluded to his German past. The stu- Paso. Its intensity (even among high school students) sur- dents had me thinking about Weill in new ways. prised me. I was very moved by audience reactions. Even All Music Unwound events incorporate discussion. At though I grew up here, I wasn’t prepared for the surge of one of the symphony concerts, a Jewish El Pasoan remem- patriotic feeling. It was a unique experience for me—I’ll

IMAGES: ARMANDO TRULL bered her childhood in South Dakota, where her father never forget it.”

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 23 nother orchestra-university partnership initi- every text or tweet—informed, earnest, and extended con- ated by Music Unwound is in Las Vegas, where versation. This doesn’t bode well for the arts or for soci- the Las Vegas Philharmonic and the University ety as a whole. I’m of the radical mindset that orchestras, A bands, and choirs can do something about this and should. of Nevada, Las Vegas are about to undertake their second festival. Here the key players are the orchestra’s music The most fortifying aspect of Music Unwound has director, Donato Cabrera, and Nancy Uscher, the dean been the intensity of the public discussion it engenders. of the university’s College of Fine Arts. For “Dvorak When the Las Vegas Philharmonic undertook “Cop- and America” this coming April, the Las Vegas Phil- land and Mexico,” everyone knew it would be controver- harmonic and the UNLV orchestra will give linked con- sial. Copland traveled far to the left in the 1930s—and certs—both scripted and with visual accompaniment. paid for it when he was subpoenaed in 1953 by Senator In Sioux Falls, the South Joseph McCarthy. The phil- Dakota Symphony’s Music harmonic concert told the Unwound festivals have story of Copland’s politici- connected with Augustana zation (“Mexico turned out University, South Dakota to be even grander than I State University, and the expected—and I expected Lake Traverse Indian Reser- pretty grand things. The best vation. In Buffalo, the phil- is the people—there’s noth- harmonic’s Music Unwound ing remotely like them in festivals have included the Europe. They are really ‘the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, people’—nothing in them the Burchfield Penney Art is striving to be bourgeois,” Center, and the University he wrote in 1932). The cen- at Buffalo. Horowitz, left, with South Dakota Symphony music director terpiece was the filmRedes If Music Unwound receives Delta David Gier, center, and Lorenzo Candelaria in January (1936), a tale of fishermen funding for its next cycle, an uniting to overthrow an expanded consortium will also include the University of unjust system. The galvanizing musical score (performed Arizona Fred Fox School of Music, in partnership with the live) was composed by Silvestre Revueltas. The cinema- Tucson Symphony, and the State University of New York at tographer was Paul Strand. Both were restless artists bent Purchase. The latter institution will join thanks to Lorenzo on igniting social and political change. Candelaria, who is the incoming dean of the School of the When the concert was over and we gathered onstage to Arts. He is intent on building on his experiences in El Paso talk with the audience, a woman in the front row was eager and refashioning SUNY Purchase’s music conservatory as a to speak. “I hated it!” she announced. Our presentation humanities laboratory. He wrote to me: had failed to “entertain.” We all answered as best we could. An hour later, when the hall began to clear, she ventured We’re in a “now or never” moment in the arts and I’m feel- to the lip of the stage to talk some more with Roberto ing a sense of urgency. The pressures of research agendas Kolb, Mexico’s leading Revueltas scholar, who had joined fueled by antiquated tenure systems have created siloed us from Mexico City. Their conversation settled nothing, mindsets in higher education for a long time now. Social media have isolated us even further. The performing arts but it all felt terribly worthwhile. It was red; it was blue; it offer a necessary counterbalance because the success or was thoughtful and sincere. A divide was bridged. failure of a project depends on how well people can set aside Ben Sasse, in his new book, writes of “an almost per- personal and creative differences and work together to cre- manent state of dissociation, punctuated only by the most ate something new—in front of other people, and in real time. Orchestras, bands, and choirs create priceless oppor- urgent demands of life, to which we tend halfheartedly”— tunities for this type of community-building in our K-12 “a growing vacuum at the heart of our shared (or increas- schools, colleges, and universities. But these resources ingly, not so shared) everyday lives.” Theodore Thomas are typically dismissed as entertaining or ornamental. took his orchestra throughout the American West. And As budget pressures increase, they become regarded as expensive, extravagant, and expendable. That’s a big mis- readers of Willa Cather know of the importance of prairie take. Relevant arts programming—thematic, planned in opera houses. I have no idea to what degree these efforts close consultation with humanities faculty, and strategi- at cultural infusion (which were not perceived as elitist) cally engaging students across campus—has the power to fed a Nebraska hunger for Beethoven or Gounod. But I’m transform individuals and the communities they serve. I’ve seen this first-hand. But this type of transformative work certain that they fed a hunger for community. With some

requires something that humans are getting worse at with fresh thinking, they still can. ♦ TORY STOLEN

24 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 How He Played the Game Ex-NFL receiver Anthony Gonzalez’s impressive political debut in the suburbs of Cleveland, Akron, and Canton

By Daniel McGraw A novice politician in his first campaign, Anthony Gonzalez, 34, easily won Ohio’s 16th Congressional Dis- Wooster, Ohio trict and will start his term in January. It was a seat already n late October, a few weeks before the election that held by a Republican and a district Donald Trump won in would send him to Congress, retired NFL player 2016, so not the sort of victory to make a lot of news. Yet Anthony Gonzalez informed an Ohio pastor that he the district is also an agglomeration of suburbs—of Cleve- wanted to check out the church’s food pantry distri- land, Akron, and Canton—and many Republicans strug- bution center. A former wide receiver for Ohio State gled in the suburbs this year. IUniversity and the Indianapolis Colts, Gonzalez stopped by “White, suburban women are ‘fleeing the Trump party’ ” the Wooster Hope Center on a Wednesday afternoon, put on ran a fairly typical headline going into the midterms. Of a sweatshirt, and hauled food for two hours to the cars and course, those stories tended not to drill down to specific dis- trucks of the working poor. tricts. About 40 percent of the Richard Frazier, a non- votes in Gonzalez’s heavily denominational pastor who’s gerrymandered district came been running the food pan- from the western suburbs of try for about seven years, saw Cuyahoga County, and Hillary something different in Gon- Clinton did take two-thirds of zalez. “First, he wasn’t there the votes in that county in the to just shake hands and do a 2016 election. However, it’s photo-op,” Frazier says. “He the upper-middle-class and worked alongside our volun- white side of the county, with teers and acted like he was a history of voting GOP, that’s one of them. In fact, he didn’t drawn into the 16th District. even call up any media to say But Gonzalez’s 57-43 mar- he was going to be there. I had gin came down to more than to call the local paper to come a favorable district. He dis- by because I thought it might tanced himself from Presi- help us get more donations.” Gonzalez, right, is brought down after a catch by Zavier Adibi dent Donald Trump and “You couldn’t even tell, of the Houston Texans, November 16, 2008. the GOP on occasion, espe- unless he told you, he was cially during the primary. running for Congress,” Frazier continues. “He repeated that He called the budget bill passed by the Republican-led he was there to learn about what we do and how we operate. Congress “a complete disaster” and described himself as And that maybe he could be helpful to us in the future.” “embarrassed by the Republican party.” He said he wanted “He never mentioned anything about Republicans or to use “rainy day fund” taxpayer money in Ohio for opioid Democrats,” Frazier adds. “I never felt like he was trying addiction treatment. to sell me something. He seemed very much compassion- And when asked by Canton Repository editors if the ate and down-to-earth. What I got from him is that he office of the presidency was above scrutiny by the special thinks all of us should use our intellect and the need to counsel, Gonzalez sounded more like Adam Schiff than care about others as a way to evolve. To bring good ideas Jim Jordan: “No, it’s not,” Gonzalez said. “Nobody in the together, not separate people from good ideas.” country is above the law.” But Gonzalez is far from being a RINO who changes his

Daniel McGraw is a writer living in Lakewood, Ohio. positions based on the fashions of the day. His father is a HARRY HOW / GETTY

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 25 Cuban immigrant, yet he supports a border wall and “merit- 2010, announced in January he was running for the Ohio based” standards on immigration. He blasts former presi- Senate seat held by Democrat Sherrod Brown. Renacci lost dent Barack Obama on his economic policies and blames to Brown, but his Senate bid opened up the House seat. him for the decline of manufacturing in the Midwest. And Gonzalez, never previously mentioned as a possible candi- he thinks Obamacare­ needs to be repealed completely. date, saw a unique opportunity “where the stars started to Gonzalez’s father, Eduardo, fled to America from Fidel’s align.” He was recently married, and his wife was pregnant Castro’s Cuba in 1961 and today owns a steel processing fac- with their first child. So they moved back to the Cleveland tory group based in Cleveland. The congressman-elect has area and took up residence in the open district. backed the Trump tariffs on steel but was against Trump’s From the beginning, Gonzalez seemed to know how the restricting travel to Cuba after the Obama administration political campaign game was played, even though he had no opened it up. His father has been somewhat politically experience with it. His opponent in the Republican primary active in the Cleveland area, sponsoring events “to promote was Christina Hagan, 29, an Ohio house representative federal immigration reform and local ‘immigrant-friendly’ whose family has a long history in Ohio politics. She got cities.” Eduardo, as it happens, played football in the early the endorsement of Freedom Caucus members Jim Jordan ’70s for the University of Michigan, Ohio State’s archrival. and Mark Meadows, as well as backing from Steve Bannon Ohio families can break up over such splits. What father acolyte Sebastian Gorka and short-term White House com- and son have in common, though, is that both weighed in munications director Anthony Scaramucci. at under 200 pounds and less than six feet—little guys who That front-and-center, pro-Trump message ended up played against the big boys. hurting her more than it helped, and it also opened up an opportunity for Gonzalez. He could create a contrast by o what kind of Republican is Anthony Gonzalez? In pursuing the endorsements of suburban mayors, middle- some ways he may be the sort of hard-to-categorize of-the-road GOP state legislators, and main street busi- Stalent the party will need in the post-Trump world. ness leaders. The Trump-praising Hagan did well in the The key issues, he tells The Weekly Standard, are “gen- district’s outlying rural areas but not so well in the more erational challenges that I haven’t seen much thinking on at populous suburbs. Gonzalez won the May primary 53-41. the congressional level.” Hagan “tried to be Trump personified, and Gonzalez “We really need to emphasize that we are about every- took a different tack, one where he came off as himself one getting that opportunity to participate in the American and not someone else,” says Robert Alexander, a politi- dream,” he says, admitting Republicans have sometimes not cal science professor at Ohio Northern University. “She taken that goal into communities they avoid because of age wasn’t compelling enough being the Trump candidate, and race differences. “We have an educational system that is and I think in some of the Midwest swing states [voters about as outdated as it can be,” he continues. “Is it an educa- think] that less Trump might be better going forward. tional system that prepares students to work in an economy Anthony Gonzalez seems to have figured that part out.” that is disrupted and changes continually? Of course not.” And “that part” is pretty basic politics. “People in this “What we really need to do in this country is to find area are not very concerned about Russian collusion or jour- a way to come together, and even though we might some- nalists being killed or tweets about the media,” says North times disagree, we need to never let that move into hate. Canton mayor David Held, who backed Gonzalez. “They Unless we heal that cultural divide, we won’t get anywhere think about having their toilets flushing properly and near the policy decisions.” streets plowed of snow, safety and security, good jobs. Some- The reason Gonzalez ran for Congress has less to do times the East Coast media thinks we are stupid for think- with healing cultural divides and more to do with a sudden ing that way. We aren’t. Gonzalez understood that.” opportunity presenting itself. He was born and raised in Gonzalez didn’t pop off against Trump; he mostly just Cleveland, graduated from Ohio State with a degree in phi- kept quiet about the president. That tactic appeared to open losophy in 2007, was an Academic All-American, and then the fundraising doors, bringing $1.8 million into his cam- was drafted in the first round by the Colts. He played well paign (about five times as much as his two opponents). It his first few years, but knee injuries put him out of action was enough to crush both Hagan in the primary and Demo- more often than not and he retired in 2012. He decided to crat Susan Moran Palmer in the general election. get an MBA at Stanford and began working as the chief Of course, Gonzalez had one undeniable asset not avail- operating officer for an educational technology develop- able to most candidates: his fame as a former pro athlete ment company in San Francisco. and Buckeye star. Name recognition matters in the voting The political door opened when Rep. Jim Renacci, who booth, and Ohio State fans still talk about “The Catch”— had held the 16th District seat for four terms starting in Gonzalez’s leaping, less-than-a-minute-left-in-the-game

26 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 reception in a victory over Michigan in 2005. In most of Of the 36 House seats that flipped for Democrats (not his ads, he appeared either in scarlet and gray football counting the 4 Pennsylvania flips aided by a court-ordered uniforms or in a factory hard hat. Both of those play well redistricting), 18 were in Virginia, New Jersey, New York, in Ohio. Maine, California, and Washington, all coastal states that Will Gonzalez use his sports background as a way to voted for Clinton and will likely go for the Democratic pres- move Congress on his generational policy issues? It is idential candidate in 2020. hard to see him doing so, as he does not seem to play up In the Midwestern states that will be in play and critical his short pro-football career as his in the 2020 presidential election— calling card in life. In the past, ex- Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, athletes like Jack Kemp and Bill notably—the wave is harder to Bradley made a huge splash with detect. In statewide races, for U.S. their sports fame, using it to open Senate and governor, the only doors and entertain presidential change in party for those three aspirations. But most ex-jocks— states was for Wisconsin governor. think Dave Bing, Steve Largent, In Ohio and Wisconsin, there were Jim Ryun, Heath Shuler, Jim Bun- no party changes in any House dis- ning—have had relatively nonde- tricts. In Michigan, two House script political careers. seats (out of 14) changed from Gonzalez’s sports fame might Republican to Democrat, but both even have become a political liabil- were in the Detroit area and one ity had he not deftly sidestepped was because of retirement. the great NFL controversy of the At this point, Gonzalez’s elec- year. When President Trump railed tion may mean only that he was against NFL players who kneel an attractive candidate who ran during the national anthem and a smart campaign. He denies he said team owners should fire them, went against Trump in any way; Gonzalez quietly posted a message he based his campaign plan on on his Facebook page that said hear- who the opponent was. Others, ing the national anthem at games though, may see in his low-key made him realize “how lucky I am example—neither running away to be an American, endowed with from nor toward Trump—a way all the freedoms that she gives us.” for millennial Republicans to run When Trump insulted then- and win in the suburbs. Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron As for how Ohio will trend James on Twitter for making politi- in 2020, the state looks to be as cal comments, and Fox News host unpredictable as ever, especially Laura Ingraham told James and with retiring governor John other athletes to “Keep the political Kasich waiting in the wings. “If comments to yourselves. . . . Shut you see a poll right now about how up and dribble,” the sports world— the 2020 presidential race will be athletes, reporters, and many team going in Ohio and the rest of the owners—was up in arms. Gonzalez had nothing to say. country you should just look at it and laugh,” says Barbara This deft political touch would be impressive in a vet- Palmer, professor of political science at Baldwin Wallace eran candidate. Along with his astute assessment of the lay University and director of the school’s Center for Women of the land in the 2018 midterms, it shows that Gonzalez and Politics of Ohio. has real skills for his new game. She thinks it’s still a bellwether state, though that could be changing. “Ohio used to be on the cusp of population he political media intelligentsia kept talking and economic changes,” she says, “but it’s not anymore. about a “blue wave,” but they didn’t quite get But it will be interesting to see how Trump plays here in a T the geography of how the wave would break. few years. I think the undecideds that got him elected are It crested impressively on the coasts but dwindled as it getting a little tired of him. But it will all depend on the

moved inland. economy. It always does.” ♦ GARY LOCKE

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 27 Books&Arts Defining Characteristic A ‘usage panel’ of writers and other experts distinguished the American Heritage Dictionary. Now that the panel has been shuttered, a look back at the dictionary’s evolution.

by David Skinner

ne evening in the spring Johnson once definedlexicographer . malapropisms, redundant phrasing, of 1977, at the elegant St. Bohle was stirring his drink with his and cliché-mongering (marathon talks, Regis Hotel in New York, index finger when the reporter asked swank hotel, uneasy truce). He asked in 40 or so intelligent, dis- him what it means to be the usage the book’s first sentence, “Will Ameri- Otinguished persons came together and, editor. He said, “It means that I get can be the death of English?” with drinks in hand, talked about the used a lot.” Usage panelist Theodore American English, however, was English language. They were especially Bernstein, former copy chief of the not really the problem, as any careful interested in words and phrases that reader would have discerned. What reflect poorly on people who use them. truly bothered Newman was the On this peculiar subject—of what not to scripted melodrama of press secretar- say and when—several attendees were ies, speechwriters, and journalists. He reputed to be experts. All of them, how- disapproved of how these spokesmen ever, could claim at least some degree of of the educated class recycled favored authority as members of the usage panel tropes and hyped their own minor of the American Her­i­tage Dictionary. insights into major revelations. And he It may have been the only time the reserved a special contempt for the legal- usage panel—which was terminated, ese of the Watergate proceedings, not without ceremony, on February 1 of just the infamous banality “at that point this year—met in person. Fortunately, Above, the usage note for ‘irregardless’ in in time,” but the whole pompous sub- a reporter for the New Yorker was on the fifth edition of theAmerican Heritage species of circuitous Nixonian blather. the scene, and to him or her we are Dictionary. On the facing page, every “In Watergate,” Newman observed, indebted for the unsigned article that edition of the dictionary, from the first “nobody ever discussed a subject. It appeared in the Talk of the Town sec- (1969, atop the pile) to the fifth (2011, on was always subject matter. The discus- tion a few weeks later. the bottom). The second edition (1982) was sion never took place before a particu- Guests made light of the term collect­ strikingly different, inside and out. lar date. It was always prior to. Nor was ible, which had appeared on the most anything said, it was indicated; just as recent usage ballot. Was it in bad taste? New York Times, discussed the contro- nothing was done, it was undertaken. Bruce Bohle, who wrote the ballots versy surrounding hopefully and then, If it was undertaken, it was never after for the usage panel, played the “harm- by accident, dropped his wine glass. the indications about the subject mat- less drudge,” which is how Samuel “Hopefully, that won’t happen again,” ter; it was subsequent to them.” said another guest. To an outsider, the usage panel would David Skinner is the author of The Story The chairman of the usage panel, seem to be an important institution of Ain’t: America, Its Language, and Edwin Newman, was on hand. His within the American Heri­ tage­ Dictionary. the Most Controversial Dictionary book Strictly Speaking was the Eats, The impression they made together, Ever Published. He was also a member of Shoots & Leaves of its day, a number- of a well-bred snobbery about correct- the usage panel of the American Her­i­tage one bestseller. In it, Newman lodged ness and a willingness to take pains in

Dictionary. the usual complaints against hopefully, the name of getting things right, was an STANDARD IMAGES: WEEKLY

28 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 essential part of the dictionary’s mar- how men and women were represented usage, and tracking the many changes keting. Yet inside the dictionary’s lead- in classroom literature. wrought by history as it comes barrel- ership the value of the usage panel “Overall,” Graham wrote, “the ratio ing through a dictionary is a major part was a point of contention. Even as the in schoolbooks of he to she, him to her, of the work of professional lexicogra- publisher maneuvered to place usage and his to hers was almost four to one. phers. In 1972, for instance, usage edi- panelists on The Today Show, internal Even in home economics, the tradi- tor Bohle pointed out that the courtesy documents reveal that the modest cost tional preserve of the female, the pro- title Ms. had become common enough and effort of keeping the panel going noun he predominated by nearly two that it could no longer be ignored by a was scrutinized and debated. to one.” One might ask whether the standard English dictionary—this was And it was not just the green eye- totals were at all distorted by sentences shortly before Ms. magazine popular- shades who questioned the value of using a generic he, but a separate ized the term even further. Graham the usage panel. There were also com- examination of 100,000 words found wrote the entry, and Ms. appeared for plaints from the full-time editorial that only 3 to 4 percent of he’s referred the first time in a dictionary, along staff: Quite often the dictionary’s pub- to an unspecified gender. with the first definitions for sexism and lisher, Houghton Mifflin, let stand or “The reason,” said Graham, “most liberated woman. even promoted the idea that the usage of the pronouns in schoolbooks were Graham took up the argument for panel played a major role in the mak- male in gender was because most of female equality outside the dictionary ing of the dictionary. In fact, the panel the subjects being written about were as well. The New York Times refused played a very modest role that quietly men and boys.” Thus began an exten- to use Ms. for women of unknown or factored into the creation of a couple sive effort to achieve gender parity in ambiguous marital status. On March 8, hundred usage notes, written not by the dictionaries and textbooks brought 1974, about 50 feminists lined up out- the usage panelists themselves but out by American Heri­­tage and Hough- side the New York Times building on by the dictionary’s editors. ton Mifflin, pointing the way for many West 43rd Street to protest this edi- The working stiffs on the masthead other publishers to follow suit. torial policy. Graham issued a press possessed much more influence over Time, obviously, makes it own deci- release on American Heri­­tage letter- the dictionary than the usage panel, sions about what is right and wrong in head, saying, “Ms. is in the dictionary,” especially after the first edition, pub- lished in 1969. “We report, but do not always endorse, their findings,” said executive editor Alma Graham in 1973 in a memo where she also objected “to Houghton’s crediting them with work they did not do.” The New Yorker did not mention Graham in its short article, so I don’t know whether she was there, chat- ting with her colleague Bruce Bohle or trading peeves with Edwin Newman and Ted Bernstein. As it happened, Graham was a big linguistic story in her own right, one that touches on another piece of political history. Starting in 1969, as the first edition of the American Her­i­tage Dictionary was hitting bookstores, editor Peter Davies and Graham began work on the American Heri­­tage School Diction­ ary. In an article for Ms. magazine, Graham described how American Her­i­tage lexicographers used com- puters to examine 10,000 passages of 500 words each, drawn from textbooks and readers for children. This corpus, though tiny by today’s standards, was examined to answer questions about word frequency, vocabulary, grammar, and other interesting topics, such as

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 29 and “it is the New York Times that is five were labeled slang, but the sec- used orally in most parts of the U.S. by behind the times.” ond five were not labeled at all. And in many cultivated speakers esp. in the Working on the second edition, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, the phrase ain’t I.” Graham warned her supervisors in first five were not labeled at all but The latter part irked, especially “used 1974 that usage notes reflecting the the latter five were all labeled slang. orally . . . by many cultivated speakers.” findings of the panel needed to be “How is the student,” an exasper- Was there really room in the lan- updated or else they would become ated Dobbins asked, “to recognize guage of the cultivated for ain’t, which painfully out of date. For example, these terms which are inappropriate to for decades had been, in classrooms in 1965, only 48 percent of the usage the highest level of usage and style— and at kitchen tables, the most ill- panel had approved of the transitive inappropriate to the writing of culti- regarded and censured non-expletive verb bus as in the phrase “to bus chil- vated people?” in the English language, possibly the dren.” As the logic of Brown v. Board It is easy to see why Dobbins was most condemned of all words? of Education reverberated across school frustrated. Was it really so hard to say “Cultivated, our foot,” said the systems, however, it became much categorically that bonehead—so juve- Chicago Daily News, one of countless harder to ignore this usage, to which nile and insulting—was once and for newspapers and magazines to shake its 91 percent of the usage panel gave its all slang? Wasn’t it just, you know, masthead at the new unabridged dic- approval in 1970. But this dramatic written down somewhere? tionary. “Ain’t still makes its user stand shift in opinion, Graham noted, had The answer is yes and no. Some out like Simple Simon in a roomful of not yet been captured in the usage note lexicographer or grammarian may nuclear physicists.” of their marquee dictionary. have written down that bonehead is Yet the controversy over Webster’s Graham also pointed out that slang, but that by itself wouldn’t make Third was about much more than its 57 percent of the panel had once dis- it so, and it wouldn’t stop some other awkward, equivocating usage note for approved of the term sexism “because expert from clearing her throat and ain’t. A major issue it raised again and they didn’t know what it meant.” Writ- saying, “Ahem, I disagree.” Worse yet, again was the disintegrating consen- ing just a few months after she had it wouldn’t stop the word’s status from sus among educated people regarding called out the New York Times on Ms., shifting all on its own, making the proper usage and good English. Graham added, surely with some satis- label utterly misleading. On the one hand you had linguists faction, “that situation has changed.” A “slang” label may, in the best and lexicographers such as Philip Gove, scenario, help by addressing the great pointing to the record of usage itself as rogress and change were not on the likelihood that a blunt term like bone­ the only legitimate source of authority. P calling card for the first edition of head will come across as impertinent In which case, if educated people some- the American Her­i­tage Dictionary. Cor- and humorous, i.e., slang, but labels times said ain’t, well, then ain’t had some rectness and authority were, in answer also carry an air of certainty that makes standing, some measure of respectabil- to a growing complaint that dictionaries the careful lexicographer nervous. And ity, however hard to delineate. and grammars were unable and, increas- in the 1950s, smarting from the many On the other hand, you had tradi- ingly, unwilling to deliver clear advice instances when their confident pro- tionalists such as Dwight Macdonald on what constituted good English. nouncements were shown to have been in the New Yorker, Wilson Follett in In 1956, an English professor ill-informed or even prejudiced, lexi- the Atlantic, and Jacques Barzun in the named Austin C. Dobbins wrote a cographers were very nervous indeed. American Scholar insisting that Gove’s journal article called “The Language In an acute case of lexicographi- refusal to carry the flag for proper of the Cultivated.” A simple piece cal hesitation, Philip Gove, the edi- usage was an abdication, a failure of of research, it highlighted confu- tor in charge of Webster’s Third, whose conviction, and a crisis of authority sion and disagreement among college production was underway at the time, that, in the case of Webster’s Third, had handbooks and popular dictionaries responded by dropping the “collo- enabled a dangerous sneak attack on on words and phrases of question- quial” label out of Webster’s Third, radi- the language itself. able respectability—by which I mean cally reducing the use of “slang,” and While the denunciations continued, those words usually called slang. employing a “substandard” or “non- publisher James Parton mounted an To illustrate the farrago of advice standard” label. When the dictionary increasingly serious attempt to buy a between one desk reference and the was published in 1961, language guard- controlling share of stock in Merriam- next, Dobbins made a list of 10 terms, ians were scandalized by its reluctance Webster. President of the American any of which might be considered out to pass judgment. Her­i­tage Publishing Company, Parton of place in a formal piece of writing: The direct descendant of Noah had been sniffing around the diction- boondoggle, corny, frisk, liquidate, pin­ Webster’s pioneering work in Amer- ary business for years, looking for a head, bonehead, carpetbagger, pleb, slush ican lexicography, Webster’s Third way in. Strange as it may sound today, fund, and snide. became notorious for describing ain’t the book business, especially the col- Now came the problem. In the as “though disapproved by many and lege market, was hot stuff in the late American College Dictionary, the first more common in less educated speech, fifties and sixties, as returning veterans

30 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 took advantage of the GI Bill and baby as editor William Morris put it. No more discriminating than other dic- boomers began their ascent through mere reference work, its pages were tionaries, and the evidence for this higher education. designed to “invite reading.” was always its panel of expert language Parton was a buccaneering entrepre- Even its defining method was con- users whose opinions were solicited on neur with a genuine feel for history. He genial: Working off definitions copied many contentious points of usage. This thought Merriam-Webster, the great- out of the old but esteemed Century usage panel was presented as a major est brand in American dictionaries, Dictionary among other sources, Ameri­ feature of the dictionary and became was ripe for a takeover. It didn’t turn can Her­i­tage definers began with what a point for endorsement and criticism. out that way, but the startling contro- they took to be the “central meaning,” versy over the new edition had shown after which they presented other mean- he history of debate over good that people were clamoring for what ings of the same word. This helped T English is mostly written in the Philip Gove and Merriam-Webster distinguish the new dictionary from pages of grammars, textbooks, profes- had refused to give them: clear and the elaborately nerdy style of Webster’s sional style guides, and that whole forthright guidance on what language Third, an unabridged dictionary that, genre of single-author monographs that was cultivated and what was can be lumped under the ban- not. After considering his ner of How You Really Ought options James Parton decided to Speak and Write Your Own that American Heri­­tage would Native Language. Yet, appar- bring out its own dictionary. ently, this is not enough. Every The circumstances of its once in a while, some well- birth led many a linguist to meaning soul has to come for- raise a wary eyebrow at the ward with the bright idea that American Her­i­tage Dictionary. what the English language Professors of linguistics, by really needs is an academy and large, had rejected the along the lines of the Acadé- overheated criticism of We b ­ mie française, an official body ster’s Third. It is even fair to of so-called immortals who say they were wounded by the expound rules and maintain overheated criticism of We b ­ an official dictionary for the ster’s Third. French language. In a 1964 report to Fed, apparently, by the same the National Commission impulse that leads to blue-rib- on the Humanities, the Lin- Color images first appeared in theAmerican Heritage bon commissions, innocuous guistic Society of America Dictionary’s fourth edition (2000). motions in favor of the metric stated that because of the furor system, and arguments for a over Webster’s Third, “a fair portion of like the Oxford English Dictionary and two-person presidency, these propos- highly educated laymen see in linguistics other historical dictionaries, began als for an academy of English embody the great enemy of all they hold dear.” with the earliest meaning and moved an otherwise sane observation, which But given the chance to take revenge on forward from there. is that certain people know a lot more the American Her­itage­ Dictionary, many Though marketed to squares, the about usage than others. But none of linguists found there was not all that American Her­i­tage Dictionary was hip these proposals, from Jonathan Swift’s much in it to complain about. to the F-word and willing to report the in the 18th century to Jean Stafford’s Anyone expecting an encyclopedia most common non-Latin used for sex call in 1973 for “a new kind of cen- of stock wisdom and tired old shib- acts such as fellatio (see blowjob) and sorship” to fight unwelcome euphe- boleths must have been surprised by cunnilingus (see eat, sense 4). No doubt misms and jargon, has succeeded in how up-to-date American Her­i­tage Dic­ this spread of lexical coverage led to establishing a body of any authority tionary was in its methods. One of the an increase in sales as the new diction- or landed any punches stronger than first dictionaries to benefit from cor- ary sat on the bestseller list for months. a glancing blow on the language itself. pus research conducted by computer, Morris took to saying that if he had only The usage panel of American Her­ its editorial team knew more about known that putting fuck in a diction- i­tage Dictionary, though modest in word frequency than possibly any lexi- ary would help him sell so many books scope, may be the closest anyone has cographers before them. It was also (an estimated five million copies by the come to establishing such an academy. an exceptionally readable dictionary: time the second edition was published), Its purpose was to discover and pres- Well written and well illustrated, with he would have demanded royalties. ent an enlightened consensus on “how generous margins and legible type, the But what always seemed most the language is used today,” as editor first edition was designed to make this remarkable about the American Her­ Morris put it, “especially with regard

WEEKLY STANDARD WEEKLY dictionary “an agreeable companion,” i­tage Dictionary was its promise to be to dubious or controversial locutions.”

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 31 Although Parton himself understood burn asked, “could such a huddle of ster’s Third. Where the usage panel split, the commercial advantages of recruit- arthritic ancients tell about the lan- many of its most interesting and use- ing intellectual all-stars to his roster, it guage of 1970?” ful opinions were found. Panel opinion was Morris who came up with the idea, It was a good question: The usage was 50-50 on the split infinitive in “To according to American Heri­­tage corre- panel was so old that just a couple years better understand the miners’ plight, spondence with the usage panel. after the dictionary was published, he went to live in their district.” Using From its first ballot in 1964, the usage more than 10 percent of the panelists will instead of shall to indicate futurity panel survived through February of this had died and needed to be replaced. in “We will be in London next week” year, when Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, But the panel was never marketed as was acceptable to 62 percent. Sixty-one the dictionary’s sole publisher since the an up-to-the-minute weather report on percent disapproved of comprise in “Fifty second edition, announced that it was the state of American English. Instead states comprise the union.” ending the usage panel, citing the “con- it was described as a body of “profes- As a snapshot of educated opinion tinuing decline in consumer demand sional speakers and writers who have on disputed usages, the usage panel for print dictionaries.” This news demonstrated their sensitiveness to the warned the conscientious writer that caused hardly a yawn, even in lexicog- language and their power to wield it some might disapprove of a given word raphy circles, yet it marks the end of a effectively and beautifully.” A good bit while also letting peevologists know, striking episode in the history of Ameri- of gray hair and the occasional walking especially in later editions, when the can English when the idea of organizing stick were perfectly consistent with the ground was moving beneath their feet. a distinguished group of expert users to desired image of a fairly large body of provide guidance on disputed usages experts all of whom qualified as Per- inguists sometimes profess a com- was put to the test. sons of Consequence. L pletely neutral attitude toward lan- If you imagine that the point of an What else they had in common was guage. Yet spotting errors, flabbiness, academy is to uphold classroom rules, a foreboding about the future of the and questionable assumptions in other especially those trampled by the young language. “They tend to feel,” wrote people’s words is an important part of and the careless, the original Ameri- usage panel member Morris Bishop in how we educate ourselves as language can Her­i­tage panel would have been to an essay at the front of the first edition, users. William Morris and the editors your liking. Its biases were writ large “that the English language is going to of the American Her­i­tage Dictionary col- with the inclusion of Jacques Barzun, hell if ‘we’ don’t do something to stop lected favored putdowns and obser- Sheridan Baker, Dwight Macdonald, it.” Whether this was hyperbole or para- vations by panelists and circulated and several other critics of Webster’s noia is hard to say, since eternal damna- them to other panelists. On the topic Third. A handful of others came armed tion is a common reference point for the of myself as in “He invited Mary and with usage guides of their own. Theo- worriers of our linguistic culture. myself,” Katherine Anne Porter called dore Bernstein of the New York Times, In preparation for the first edition, the usage “detestable,” while Gilbert also a critic of Webster’s Third, was the usage panelists reviewed 600 items, Highet complained about “prissy eva- author of a few popular books on usage. organized alphabetically and portioned sions of me and I.” Roy Copperud, the words columnist out over the course of several question- These brickbats read like so many for Editor & Publisher, had written his naires. It was a slow march and the tweets—brief, intensely judgmental, own dictionary of usage. selection of items was not entirely sys- dismissive even—but quite smart in a The usage panel was more august tematic, as more than one critic later likably old-fashioned way. About the than representative. It included sev- pointed out. Yet it did capture the most term nicely, as in “The dinner turned eral Pulitzer Prize winners (Walter prominent language peeves of the time, out nicely,” the usage panelist Basil Lippmann, Katherine Anne Porter, starting with those items singled out in Davenport said, “This is a lost battle. Virgil Thomson), one Nobel Prize the clamor over Webster’s Third: ain’t, Nice had ceased to mean anything at all winner (Glenn T. Seaborg), a gaggle of irregardless, uninterested versus disinter­ by the time of Jane Austen’s Northanger poets (John Ciardi, Langston Hughes, ested, like versus as, due to, imply versus Abbey.” To which the only proper Marianne Moore, Allen Tate), and the infer, and several others. The usage response is to draw on your pipe and usual overstock of former association notes in the first edition all came down say, “Quite right, sir.” presidents and suspiciously promi- firmly against more permissive inter- nent journalists. pretations of these disputed terms, and The group was very male and very the usage panel’s reaction was reported Opposite, the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt old and, of course, very white. Of 105 in percentages. (HMH) archives in Boston house many members, only 11 were women. The Ninety-nine percent of the panel dis- paper ballots from the usage panel’s final years scholar Patrick Kilburn investigated approved of the example sentence “It as well as a scrapbook of clippings about the the ages of the original panelists and ain’t likely,” though a not-trivial 16 per- American Heritage Dictionary. This discovered that 28 had been born in cent approved of ain’t used orally in page includes newspaper articles noting the the 19th century. Only 6 of the 105 the first person (ain’t I?), thus agreeing dictionary’s launch. Pictured in the article at were under 50 years old. “What,” Kil- with the notorious usage note in We b ­ right is founding editor William Morris.

32 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 JACKIE RICCIARDI

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 33 William Morris grew so fond of sible expansion of the lexicographical a corporate product. Anne Soukha- usage panel comments that after he left project, but the only reason that an nov, a lexicographer who had worked American Heri­­tage he started co-edit- ever-shrinking number of people were at Merriam-Webster for several years ing, with his wife Mary, Harper’s Dic­ ever able to earn a living making dic- before joining American Heri­tage­ in tionary of Contemporary Usage, which tionaries is that there is a market in 1979 to work on the second edition, had its own rival usage panel whom the helping the young and ignorant sound told me it was “a marketing decision Morrises quoted for pages and pages as smart and educated. Consider that in and one of the stupidest things anyone one illustrious writer after another set Thackeray’s great novel Vanity Fair, ever did.” Commercially, she added, “it torch to countless expressions. a certain ladies’ school owes its entire was a big flop.” Not everyone liked this kind of reputation to the fact that Samuel Former editor William Morris had a thing. It didn’t help that when the first Johnson once paid a visit. very low opinion of the second edition edition of the American Her­i­tage Dic­ Wolk’s complaint also overstated as well, and it is easy to see why. Take tionary came out, several panel mem- the influence of the usage panel on the irregardless, a malapropism that the bers published reviews of the new dictionary as a whole. Examining the first edition treated with an admoni- dictionary, praising it. And to some, 1971 printing, the scholar Thomas J. tory usage note: “Irregardless, a double the very idea of a usage panel was Creswell counted 502 usage notes, only negative, is never acceptable except offensive. Wasn’t a “non-randomly 226 of which reported the opinions of when the intent is clearly humorous.” chosen panel,” asked Anthony Wolk, the usage panel, and sometimes only in The second edition shortened this an English professor at Portland State passing, while the remainder, like the usage information to one word, “non- University, “inevitably a biased and rest of the dictionary, were written on standard,” sounding exactly like We b ­ hence suspect instrument”? the staff ’s own authority. ster’s Third, the all too curt dictionary Where William Morris once held to which American Her­i­tage was sup- up the American Her­i­tage Dictionary as a nside American Her­i­tage during posed to be the antidote. Gone was the defender of “linguistic propriety,” Pro- I the 1970s—after founding editor air of cultivation, of people talking to fessor Wolk accused the usage panel of William Morris had moved on—the one another and thinking about words. “linguistic racism.” Wolk wrote that usage panel did not get a lot of respect. The result was yet another categorical he had taught a class of about 40 black As Houghton Mifflin bought the usage label that did nothing to explain to the students who frequently used ain’t, panel drinks at the St. Regis, it was person who needed, or simply wanted, and not for folksy or humorous effect shelving a plan to publish a stand- more information on what exactly was but because it was a mainstay of their alone volume on usage that would have wrong with irregardless. working vocabulary. “I see,” wrote expanded on the dictionary’s usage The second edition was at odds with Wolk, “the AHD on ain’t linguistically notes and comments from the panel. its own mission. It was and was not disenfranchising just about all those In the second edition, published in James Parton’s or William Morris’s dic- students I worked with.” 1982 (for this article, I relied on a 1985 tionary. Neither Edwin Newman’s nor Today, of course, Wolk’s words reprint), many usage notes were rewrit- Alma Graham’s dictionary, it was no sound absolutely woke, but they misun- ten to minimize the impact of these one’s dictionary, really, and it made this derstand—intentionally, perhaps—the crotchety outsiders. Actual percentages fact plain by listing no one as its editor. aims of a dictionary. For good or bad, were replaced with simple mention of a Whoever was in charge did not popular dictionaries like American Heri­­ minority or majority; lively comments think of the usage panel as the diction- tage and Merriam -Webster’s Collegiate are from the usage panel were deleted; ary user’s “presumed betters,” which not warehouses of American English many usage notes that might have been is how usage panelist Morris Bishop in all its earthy and dialectal variety updated were summarily dropped or had described them in his essay in the like, say, the great Dictionary of Ameri­ had their usage information integrated, first edition. Instead of regarding them can Regional English. They are products without any special emphasis, into the as ornery yet interesting, staff editors of our print culture, sold as guides to text of the definition. treated the usage panel like the crazy standard American English or what That was not the only change. The mean uncle you were embarrassed to that English professor Austin Dobbins second edition was a shrunken and be seen with. called “the language of the cultivated.” faceless descendant of the first. The In the first edition a usage note for A desk dictionary or collegiate dic- font became scrawny and the page bimonthly had insisted, with 84 percent tionary need not apologize for fixat- cramped. Instead of listing proper of the usage panel supporting, that its ing on the standard language, even names and place names in the main meaning was restricted to every two as it “disenfranchises” nonstandard lexicon, the second edition repack- months and should not be used to mean usages: A single dictionary, even an aged all this highly readable material every two weeks. The editors of the sec- unabridged one (which American Her­ into appendices. ond edition simply removed the usage i­tage once aimed to become but never Designed to compete with Merriam- note and said the word meant both was), can only serve so many purposes. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, the Amer­ every two months and every two weeks. Word lovers may applaud every pos- ican Her­itage­ Dictionary became merely Another usage note had reported that

34 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 the panel was divided 55 percent to liam Safire gave up the fight over Ms. The second edition presented itself 45 percent over using boast to mean “to (Geraldine Ferraro’s candidacy for vice not as the heroic voice of civilization take pride in possessing”; in the second president had made, Safire said, all but as a neutral party interested in edition, the controversy went unmen- other courtesy titles seem inadequate), both sides of the debate. The linguist tioned and the example sentence that the second edition provided a fine Dwight Bolinger wrote, in an introduc- had divided the usage panel (“The col- usage note, without ever saying where tory essay, a painfully careful defense of lege boasts one of the finest auditori- the usage panel came down, on Ms. the idea that “the prevailing usage of its ums in New York”) was turned into an A usage note at everyone never men- speakers should be the chief deter- example sentence, without comment. tioned the panel but argued for five minant of acceptability in language.” It was better to forget: Such was the paragraphs in favor of a more liberal With more wit, William F. Buckley Jr. attitude of the second edition toward understanding of singular versus plu- defended authority and expertise: “The the first. My own close examination of ral in pronouns referring to subjects other way is mobocratic, undifferenti- half the usage notes in the first edition of uncertain number and gender. Thus ated.” A dictionary needed to embrace shows that approximately 40 percent the same dictionary whose usage panel its lawgiving role, wrote Buckley. “It is were jettisoned in the second edition. in 1969 had disapproved, by a land- not a sign of arrogance for the king to The second edition was also less slide of 95 percent to 5, of their own in rule. That is what he is there for.” eccentric. A usage note at balding in the first edition said that, as an adjective, balding enjoyed the support of only 55 percent of the usage panel. It quoted Isaac Asimov, who thought the word “distasteful but necessary” and Kath- erine Anne Porter, who dismissed bald­ ing as “entirely vulgar.” This odd but entertaining digression was dropped by the editors of the second edition. In the first edition, only 47 percent of the panel considered senior citizen accept- able, with several complaining that it was an irritating euphemism for old people like, well, the members of the usage panel. In the second edition, senior citizen was defined without any usage note at all. In several cases when the second edition preserved a usage note from In 1964, the editors used this sheet to tally results from one of the first usage panel ballots. the first, it reported on the feelings of the usage panel with open disap- “nobody thinks the criticism applies Geoffrey Nunberg, later made chair- proval: “Première as a verb is unaccept- to their own work,” was in 1982 stak- man of the usage panel, closed the dis- able to a large majority of the Usage ing out a bold position in favor of the cussion with a longer essay casting the Panel, despite its wide usage in the gender-neutral “singular they.” (I hap- idea of good usage as a doctrine that world of entertainment.” The first edi- pen to favor the arguments for “singu- developed, historically, with the fall tion had reported that only 44 percent lar they,” but still.) of the aristocracy and ever since had of the usage panel accepted hopefully A generous interpretation would be been making it difficult to justify one in “Hopefully, we shall complete our that the dictionary was developing new set of usage preferences over any other. work in June.” The second edition strengths; a more sensible interpreta- The usage panel, Nunberg wrote, was asserted that this same usage was “jus- tion would be that it was doing so at the an obviously flawed attempt to deliver tified by analogy to the similar uses of expense of its old strengths. But even in answers to a public hungry for guidance. happily and mercifully. However, this its diminished state the second edition It was, in short, better than nothing. usage is by now such a bugbear to tra- contained the seeds of renewal for both Nunberg went on to become a well- ditionalists that it is best avoided on the dictionary and the usage panel. It known critic on usage matters and the grounds of civility, if not logic.” was, after all, a book that drew, to vary- semantics, his commentaries broad- Where the second edition proved ing degrees, on the formidable talents cast on NPR’s Fresh Air program and expansive and interesting was on the not only of William Morris, but also of distilled in several witty, readable books. editors’ own preferred set of usage the Edwin Newmans and the Alma Gra- Under his leadership, but even more problems. A couple years before the hams of the world: bunk-spotters and importantly that of the American Her­

JACKIE RICCIARDI conservative language columnist Wil- timekeepers, critics and lexicographers. i­tage staff, especially executive editors

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 35 Anne Soukhanov, Joseph Pickett, the scholarly insights of Nunberg, was Toni Morrison’s genius as opposed and Steve Kleinedler, the dictionary among many others, started paying to Toni Morrison (a question of posses- recommitted itself to many aspects of real dividends to the dictionary user. sive antecedents) did not delay me as I William Morris’s original vision for wrote a short essay attacking the logic the dictionary and the usage panel, confess that I did not take a great of the sentence—in short, the idea that whose membership was expanded I interest in the American Her­i­tage Dic­ merely writing about a given subject and diversified in several directions. tionary or the usage panel before being (“the injustices African Americans have In some ways, the changes jerked the invited to join in 2004. My work as a endured”) was an act of genius. This dictionary in a vaguely progressive staff editor at The Weekly Standard, brought me an invigorating pile of hate direction, but that didn’t keep it from however, had made me a close reader mail, especially from Toni Morrison being Antonin Scalia’s favorite mod- of the Merriam-Webster dictionaries at fans, and numerous accusations that ern dictionary. (The late justice also the office and deeply interested in what I was a “prescriptivist authoritarian.” I favored Webster’s Second, a graceful is revealed unintentionally by one’s vaguely remember one blogger writing dictionary published in 1934 that that he simply could not get over the is all but stuck in the 19th century fact that a person like me lived and yet has become an unlikely object breathed and that, of all things, I had of veneration among certain liter- woken up that morning and decided ary conservatives.) that mocking socially approved liter- At Houghton, the second edition ary preferences as stated in insipid came to be viewed as a regrettable example sentences was a reasonable mistake and the values of the first way to spend my time. I still smile at edition were held up once more as “a the memory. gold standard.” The original Ameri­ A week or two later I opened the can Her­i­tage Dictionary had done four New York Times to discover that I things well, according to Soukhanov: was now being schooled on the (1) well-written definitions; (2) usage grammatical aspect by no less an guidance; (3) interesting and under- authority than Geoffrey Nunberg. standable etymologies; and (4) good Not knowing much about him, I typography and design. These would read several of his commentaries for be the guiding lights of the third and NPR and other outlets. Impressed later editions. by his work, I reached out to him Soukhanov was put in charge and we talked by phone and then of the third edition (1992) and began an email correspondence. I given the resources and author- In 2009, journalist Robert Manning, then continued looking for usage stories ity to conduct fresh research and aged 89, submitted this scorched usage panel to write about and the next year I rebuild the brand. Pages became ballot. ‘I wish that I could claim,’ he wrote, was invited to join the usage panel. larger and more spacious. A cel- ‘that the incandescence of my intellect is Clearly I had not been chosen ebrated feature of the first edition, responsible for the condition of these pages— for my prestige, having no major an essay and materials about Indo- but the fact is that I absentmindedly set the or even minor prizes to my credit. European roots by the scholar Cal- document near a burning candle.’ That I was both young and politi- vert Watkins, was brought back and cally conservative counted in my expanded after being dropped from the choice of words. One day an article­ favor: Not long afterward, I was asked second edition. Encyclopedic infor- in the Washington Post about a con- to recommend other conservatives and mation about people and places was tested PSAT question caught my eye. Republicans who might make good expanded and returned to the main An English teacher had successfully usage panelists. The irony of a once- lexicon. Usage notes became more dis- argued that according to some authori- conservative body making a special cursive and interestingly historical, as ties, there was a grammatical error in effort to recruit conservatives did not, it was now possible to discuss how the the sentence “Toni Morrison’s genius at the time, register with me. usage panel’s feelings (reported more enables her to create novels that arise Although I felt honored to be on often in exact percentages) had shifted from and express the injustices Afri- the panel, it made me nervous to fill over time. Once again, the diction- can Americans have endured.” On the out the surveys, which arrived in ary page was written and designed to multiple choice question where this the mail the first few times, maybe “invite reading.” The fourth edition sentence appeared, the official correct once a year, before they were sent out (2000) introduced color imagery. And answer was “This sentence contained via email. The first ballot I received William Morris’s quixotic attempt to no errors.” contained a question about posses- build an informal academy, augmented Whether it was acceptable to use sive antecedents, and I could certainly

by lexicographical thoroughness and her when the only possible referent handle that one, but often I felt like the IMAGES: JACKIE RICCIARDI

36 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 slow kid in class. Example sentences in changing. The very idea of a tradition- usage and identity the American Her­ which I saw nothing wrong drove me alist usage panel became incrementally itage­ usage panel has played a produc- to ransack other dictionaries and usage less relevant as preferred usages of tive role. The usage notes for he, man, guides, looking for whatever the prob- gender, race, and ethnicity grew into they, and other key terms in the fourth lem might be. the most prominent features of a new and fifth editions exemplify how a dic- Even as I matured in my knowledge prescriptivism on the left. The source tionary can provide thoughtful guid- of usage and grammar, one difficulty of this trend could be traced to those ance on usage debates without a heavy stood out: In example sentences, it was 1970s feminists investigating, airing, hand, while acknowledging differing hard to focus on the ostensible usage and prosecuting a case against sexist and shifting views. Of course, this problem when there was anything assumptions encoded in the language. and all of American Her­i­tage’s other else in the sentence that smacked of In this way, Alma Graham’s importance triumphs have been realized in an era bad writing. “Members of the League went well beyond the internal history of when the book business is not a hot of Women voters will be manning the the textbook industry. She was hardly market. As the American Her­i­tage Dic­ registration desk,” read one example alone, but her work at the American Her­ tionary has become more beautiful and sentence, with the survey asking if i­tage Dictionary and on a McGraw-Hill intelligent, dictionary content, though manning was acceptable in this context. guide to gender-neutral writing might usually of a degraded sort, has become Acceptable? I wondered. Only if the free for the googling. writer was trying to gently mock the American Her­i­tage, as its fifti- League of Women Voters. eth anniversary is celebrated with The performance anxiety I expe- a new printing of the fifth edition, rienced about being a good panelist gives away most of its content on helped make me, over time, a bet- its website and app and, like other ter student of usage controversies dictionaries, licenses its databases to and, as it happened, more forgiving other websites and software devel- of others’ shortcomings in putting opers. Wordnik, the well-regarded thoughts into words. But while I search engine dictionary, spits out became less of a snob about other definitions from the fourth edition people’s usage (and less likely to of American Her­i­tage minus its usage troll fans of famous writers), I tried guidance. The super-brief entry for to become more discriminating in hopefully mentions a “usage prob- my own usage, not by slavishly fol- Usage panel ballots stored in the HMH archives lem” but says no more than that. lowing any old rule handed down It may seem faintly ridiculous to by Fowler or Strunk and White or even serve as early sketches for the ideas mourn the passage of an inconsequen- Theodore Bernstein, but by reading of those who monitor language for evi- tial panel of writers and intellectu- more carefully and listening more dence of unsavory attitudes towards als whose bookish opinions can seem closely to American English, espe- women and minorities and seek to use like molehills next to the mountains cially but not exclusively of the stan- language prescriptions as a lever to of linguistic and technological change dard variety. reverse those attitudes. wrought by time itself, but the usage Another thing I noticed, from this Today’s liberals may not recognize panel ultimately provided an example and other work involving dictionaries, themselves as the heirs of Lindley Mur- of traditionalist critics in conversation is how rarely the failure to be articulate ray and Richard Grant White, to name with lexicography. Thus was the panel- is caused by a single word or phrase. two influential 19th-century American ist—and more importantly, the diction- Yes, jargon, euphemisms, and ill-cho- grammarians, or as the descendants of ary reader—confronted with the reality sen clichés can gum up the works, but the tradition-mad Wilson Follett and of ought versus is. Which was good not writing that is thoughtful and interest- Dwight Macdonald, both of whom only for the language critic. Lexicog- ing to begin with can overcome any saw great blows to civilization in the raphers, too, need to be reminded that number of little flaws. We often think lexicographical peculiarities of We b ­ feelings about usage can be as impor- about writing as if excellence were the ster’s Third, but theirs is the court where tant as the record of usage itself. same thing as being free of error. They the rules of usage are promulgated. The demise of the usage panel, are, I came to think, very different, Theirs are the original writings posit- though, especially after so much prog- actually. Studying the dreary history of ing usage conventions as a moral and ress had been made in returning to fruitless, irrational groaning over terms cultural code for The Good and The William Morris’s original vision and like hopefully and “singular they” helped Decent. No one gets busted for split- upgrading that vision with relevant lin- me see beyond such modest concerns. ting an infinitive anymore, but choose guistic scholarship, is unfortunate. Pos- Even as the usage panel was coming the wrong pronoun in some places and sibly the only kind of English language back to life in preparation for the third serious tut-tutting will ensue. academy many of us can live with has edition, the terms of the debate were Yet on many such questions of been toppled and is no more. ♦

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 37 storytelling. The first tale runs all of B A 15 minutes, the second only 12. And & these are perfect lengths, because both segments are live-action cartoons, very funny ones at that, and over Strange Saddles and done in just the right amount of time. It’s possible Netflix decided this Watching the Coen brothers’ new Western thing couldn’t be released as a series. on screens large and small. by John Podhoretz Who knows? What we do know is that the Coens insisted The Ballad of Buster Scruggs be released in theaters as well as online. Netflix has done so in what appears to be an extremely grudging fashion, stashing it in just a few the- aters in a handful of cities for very limited runs. Netflix says openly that its own model has nothing to do with conventional Hollywood measures of success and that it produces work to serve its online audience through its proprietary algorithm. The act of dumping The Ballad of Buster Scruggs seems foolish on first blush; after all, the last time the Coens made a Western it was True Grit, which grossed $171 million. But Netflix has bigger fish to fry. After all, why make a few million in profit at the box office when your company is in debt to the tune of $12 billion? Tim Blake Nelson as Buster Scruggs (I say a “few million” because Buster Scruggs is too offbeat a piece of work here has been some con- to have been anything more than an fusion about whether The Ballad of Buster Scruggs art-house success.) Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen the series of filmed tales I decided to view Buster Scruggs joined together under twice. I watched it on streaming first Tthe title The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and then went to see it in a theater. And and just released for public view is a here’s what I have to say about that. movie at all. It was made for Netflix, taking Netflix for the same kind of I found it difficult to surrender and the original reporting about the ride—cashing in extravagantly on the myself to the Netflix stream, in part project in 2017 said this Coen broth- capital of their reputations with junk because I watched it the way I watch ers production was going to be a TV they’d stashed in the bottom drawer anything online now. I saw some of series somewhat in the mold of the because the streaming service wanted it on my phone on a plane, some of it dreadful show Woody Allen made their imprimatur to send a signal to on an iPad in a hotel room, and some for Amazon for which he received the world it was willing to do whatever of it on my big-screen TV at home. I a reported $80 million. It was called it might take to work with great artists was distracted by the things that dis- Crisis in Six Scenes, and now that you in its relentless pursuit of eyeballs. tract one when watching things in this know it, forget it immediately. Well, the Coens say their six-part fashion, and my attention wavered Indeed, the idea of a six-part West- compendium is a movie and they when I was trying to focus on it. ern anthology seemed so defiantly always intended it to be a movie, but Then I went to the theater. Hav- pointless a storytelling gambit in the they are notoriously unreliable inter- ing sat through Buster Scruggs once, second decade of the 21st century that viewees whose rare conversations albeit in multiple sittings, I knew the one hoped Joel and Ethan Coen were with the media are full of trickery and plots, knew the characters, and knew guile. In the end, the running time the performances. Only I didn’t. See- John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs comes ing it on a big screen in a dark audito-

is The Weekly Standard’s movie critic. to 2 hours and 4 minutes of actual rium was a magical and spellbinding NETFLIX

38 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 experience. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs has a dark and deep beauty to B A it, and its stately pacing allows you to & sink deep down into it. The defiant nihilistic silliness of the opening chapter, in which Buster High-Altitude Hideout Scruggs proves to be both a cheer- A Bond villain’s Alpine lair now houses ful singing cowboy and a crazed psy- chopath, gives way to the sensational a museum for 007. by Tony Mecia deadpan joke of the second part, in which a hapless bank robber keeps finding himself at the end of a noose. Mürren, Switzerland mountains, the gondola lift is head- The black humor turns positively s our gondola ascends to ing to the world’s leading pilgrimage obsidian in the third part, with Liam a high Alpine peak, above site for Bond fans: a peak known as Neeson as the impresario of a travel- the waterfalls and lonely the Schilthorn. It was the lair of Bond ing theatrical troupe made up of a mountain goats, there super­villain Ernst Blofeld in 1969’s On single performer—a gorgeous-voiced appearsA to be no 7-foot-tall James Her Majesty’s Secret Service. boy with no arms and no legs who Bond villain waiting to snap the cable More than three million visitors declaims Shakespeare and Shelley and with his steel teeth. came here last year—most, presum- Lincoln beautifully but is drawing No, that’s a scene from the 1979 ably, for the Alpine views. In a quirk smaller and smaller crowds by the day. film Moonraker, where a menacing bad of marketing, Switzerland’s peaks Then we find ourselves in a gor- guy named Jaws battles with Roger compete against each other for visi- geous valley with a lone prospector Moore’s character high above Rio de tors, so each looks for strategies to played by Tom Waits who is sure he Janeiro. But you can’t blame me for stand out. At 13,600 feet, the nearby has found a motherlode of gold. His being in a Bond state of mind. Here Jungfrau sells itself as the “Top of good cheer and serious intent make in the Alps, among majestic snowy Europe,” site of the continent’s you dread the bad news that will come highest-elevation railway station (at his way, and it does, but it’s not what Tony Mecia is a senior writer 11,300 feet), though nowhere close to you think. The same is true in the at The Weekly Standard. its highest peak. The Schilthorn, at fifth segment, “The Gal Who Got Rattled,” a tale about a lonely young woman alone in a wagon train going to Oregon that compresses a novel’s worth of story into 25 minutes. And finally, we get the classic “six charac- ters on a stagecoach,” only this one is more Sartre than John Ford. At the risk of sounding horribly pretentious, I’d say the subject here is nothing less than the remorseless- ness of the universe and the mostly hapless efforts men undertake to (as we Jews say on Yom Kippur) “avert the evil decree.” The Coens speak of it in six different ways in six different styles from six different perspectives, and the overall result is nothing short of magnificent. Since you will probably not be able to see it in a multiplex, and since it was in some sense made to be seen on Net- flix, my advice is to do what you can to simulate the theatrical experience.­ Photo Caption Watch it all at once. Turn the lights off. Put your phone away. Help The Ballad of Buster Scruggs work its magic on you. George Lazenby and some of the ‘Bond girls’ take a break from filming

LARRY ELLIS / EXPRESS / HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY LARRY ELLIS / EXPRESS / HULTON It will be worth the effort. ♦ On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to pose for a picture in Mürren.

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 39 Blofeld’s supposed ‘allergy-research institute’ in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) is now the site of the Bond World 007 museum. just 9,700 feet, proudly embraces its years on a project to build a cable car In real life, the filming location 007 heritage. and mountaintop restaurant. Produc- called Piz Gloria was not destroyed. The two dozen films in the Bond ers agreed to help with the financing to For decades, it was merely an observa- canon follow a formula: Create a complete construction in exchange for tion point and restaurant. In 2013, its villain bent on world domination. the right to shoot here. owners decided it needed more. They String together a barely plausible In the book and film, Piz Gloria added a small museum, known as plot that features gadgets, fist- masquerades as an allergy-research “Bond World 007,” and have been add- fights, chase scenes, cool cars, explo- center. But Bond infiltrates it and ing Bond-related features ever since. sions, and attractive young women. discovers that the supposed allergy Among serious Bond fans, the site Then—spoiler alert—have James patients—young women who happen “is the Holy Grail of Bond film loca- Bond improbably save the day. Oh, to wear scanty clothes—are actually tions,” says Martijn Mulder, a Dutch and set all the action against some of being hypnotized by Blofeld to spread journalist who leads occasional Bond the world’s most beautiful backdrops, biological weapons. Bond escapes by tours and coauthored On the Tracks of including Egyptian pyramids, Carib- skiing down the mountain, then enlists 007: A Field Guide to the Exotic James bean beaches, and Venetian canals. help to attack the building and blow Bond Filming Locations Around the In 1968, as producers were scout- up Blofeld’s lair. A farfetched plot, yes, World. That’s because filmmakers bank- ing locations for their sixth Bond film, but one with plenty of entertaining rolled construction of Piz Gloria, which they came across central Switzerland’s action. The movie version stars George looks just as it did in the late 1960s. Bernese Oberland region, about 70 Lazenby as Bond, Telly Savalas of Kojak Bond enthusiasts list other prime miles south of Zurich. In the Ian Flem- fame as Blofeld, and Diana Rigg— destinations, too, such as a site near ing novel on which the movie was to then known as a star of the British TV Phuket, Thailand, that has come to be based, the fictional 10,000-foot-high show The Avengers and today known to be called “James Bond Island” after location called Piz Gloria is in eastern younger audiences as Olenna Tyrell in appearing in 1974’s The Man with the Switzerland near the border with Italy. HBO’s Game of Thrones—as the main Golden Gun. Last year, Mulder led But filmmakers found the peak above Bond girl. In rankings of Bond films, 40 people on a two-week tour of Japan Mürren ideal for their purposes, as con- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service usually to visit locations used in 1967’s Yo u struction had been underway for five lands near the top. Only Live Twice. He was forced to scrap

40 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 a two-hour hike to a volcano crater that through the museum finishes with a say, the Schilthorn’s director of sales. was an earlier Blofeld hideout because short film showing action highlights As Lazenby admitted in the 2017 the volcano showed signs of erupting. from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Hulu documentary Becoming Bond: In July, a new Bond museum opened The attention to detail continues in the “There were a lot of women on the in the Austrian Alps at a spot where restrooms, which won—no joke—an film. Thank God for that, because I scenes from the most recent Bond International Toilet Tourism Award was there nine months. And you get movie, Spectre, were filmed. this year and feature Bond and Bond- to know them, like, which one do you Mulder, 46, says he watched the girl silhouettes on stall doors and signs fancy first? .. . I’d find somewhere to Bond films repeatedly as a kid. As he encouraging men to “Aim like James.” go every night. I was drinking at least a grew older, he became curious about A recording of Bond in the women’s bottle of vodka a day, smoking as many how the movies were shot. “Obviously, restroom whispers: “Tonight. My weeds as I could. I didn’t go to bed until as a guy, you want to be like James place. Just the two of us.” 3 or 4 in the morning every night.” Bond,” he says. “But the older I got, The real draw, of course, is to be One of the top-grossing movies of the more interested I got in how these found upstairs past the restaurant and 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is films were made.” gift shop, where there’s a stunning also notable for being Lazenby’s only Next year, to mark the 50th anni- appearance as Bond. He was an Aus- versary of On Her Majesty’s Secret tralian former auto mechanic with Service, he’s arranging an 11-day no acting experience. Producers cast tour of filming locations in Portugal BERN him in the role for his rugged good and Switzerland, including Piz Glo- looks and self-confidence. Despite ria. The price: $3,100 (double occu- Interlaken the new fame and fortune, he refused pancy, airfare not included). an offer for six more Bond films and Mürren a $1 million signing bonus in a move he first sign that you are near a sure to go down in the annals of poor TBond mecca comes upon board- career decisions. He has provided a ing the aerial tram up the mountain, Area of number of explanations, including as the electric-guitar riff of the James Geneva detail chafing at the onerous terms of his Bond theme music plays on loud- contract, believing Bond speakers. Upon reaching the summit, films were becoming you can head upstairs to the restau- Mürren can be reached by train anachronisms, and spec- rant and observation deck or to the (3 hours from Zurich, 4+ from ulating he could make museum on the lower level. The July Geneva, 4½ from Milan). From more money elsewhere. weekday morning I was there, every- Mürren to the Schilthorn summit Lazenby’s acting career body else headed upstairs, leaving my via gondola costs $83 roundtrip for never recovered. His wife and me to explore the museum adults, ages 6-15 half-price. Fare refusal led to the debut by ourselves for about 15 minutes— included with Swiss rail pass. of a more durable Bond, really about all the time we needed. Roger Moore, in 1973. After walking down a hallway lined 360-degree view of snow-capped moun- Piz Gloria has endured, too. There’s with Bond movie posters in different tains. The owners have added Bond plenty else to do in the Swiss Alps, of languages, we reached the beginning accents there, too. In 2015, they intro- course, like hiking, mountain biking, of the exhibit: a red telephone you pick duced the 007 Walk of Fame honoring and skiing. Only the most die-hard up to receive instructions from “M,” the movie’s actors and stuntmen, many Bond fans will design a vacation around Bond’s MI6 boss, to locate Blofeld. of whom, including Lazenby, returned a mountaintop restaurant, overlook, and “He plans to destroy the world. Set off for the ceremony. The museum exhibit museum tied to a 50-year-old movie. But immediately. Find him,” the voice says depicts villagers as happy to return to should you find yourself in Switzerland, in a British accent. “Hunt the man their lives free of the production’s ava- and the weather forecast is clear, you down, Bond, quickly. A license to kill is lanches, explosions, and gunfire. By might consider spending a couple of useless unless one can set up the target.” most accounts, the filming was a rau- hours enjoying the views and whimsical The museum includes interactive cous time. Bond nostalgia. features that simulate flying a helicop- The filming certainly benefited “The thing is, for the James Bond ter and racing a bobsled. You can graft Mürren, which today has a popula- movies, they always use the top loca- a photo of your face onto Lazenby’s tion of under 500 but offers roughly tions, the best hotels, the most beau- body as he aims a pistol. There are 2,000 hotel beds. “The village prof- tiful houses,” Mulder explains. “It’s also plenty of memorabilia, a map of ited from people spending vast sums always very high class. When you visit filming sites, and photos and displays of money keeping the actors happy these places, you step into that life- of the several months the crew spent with alcohol and food and women style a little bit. It’s the closest you can

TWS ART on location around Mürren. A walk and the rest of it,” says Alan Ram- get, I suppose.” ♦

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 41 OBITUARY

up over his sagging eyelids—quite effectively portraying him as a dark, Celebration of menacing figure of mystery and danger. Jay’s mystique was further enhanced by seemingly impossible yet appar- a Curious Character ently spontaneous conjuring stunts that he sometimes pulled off to satisfy impromptu dares by friends or merely his whimsy. Profiles of Jay—such as Ricky Jay, 1946-2018. Mark Singer’s must-read 1993 New by Dan Alban Yorker article “Secrets of the Magus”— are replete with mind-boggling tales of agician, actor, and By his twenties, he had begun to his legerdemain derring-do. scholar Ricky Jay, who achieve renown under the stage name One such incident—recounted passed away on Satur- Ricky Jay, a long-haired, bell-bottom- by British journalist Suzie Mack- day, November 24, at wearing illusionist who performed enzie in the documentary Deceptive Mage 72, was a one-of-a-kind entertainer at venues ranging from rock concerts Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors who lived out of step with the modern with Ike and Tina Turner to television of Ricky Jay—brought its viewer to age but managed regularly to evoke tears (of amazement). On their way awe—genuine, gobsmacked awe—in to an outdoor café for a lunch inter- an era beset by casual cynicism. Jay was a prodigious view, Mac­kenzie and Jay spent over Jay was a prodigious polymath polymath who achieved an hour stuck in Los Angeles traffic who achieved renown in at least four together on a hot summer day. When different areas: magic, card-throwing, renown in at least four they finally arrived and were seated, acting, and scholarship on the history different areas: magic, Jay—who had been in plain view of of trickery, peculiar people, and puz- Mac­kenzie the entire time—suddenly zling events—topics he sometimes card-throwing, acting, lifted his menu to reveal a large block called “anomalies.” of ice on the table in front of him. In On stage, Jay was one of the great- and scholarship. the heat, the ice began melting imme- est sleight-of-hand artists. He was diately, but no tell-tale drips could also a first-class raconteur who deliv- programs such as The Tonight Show be found under the table or nearby. ered riveting performances filled with with Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Mackenzie was left wonderstruck. incredible tales and bawdy wisecracks. Live, and even his own TV specials. But Jay’s skills of dexterity were not lim- He combined his profound skills of unlike other famous magicians, who ited to the dark arts of deception. The prestidigitation, his gift of gab, and indulged in increasingly absurd grand author of the strange-but-true Cards his wicked sense of humor with a stunts such as making a Learjet or the as Weapons, Jay could throw playing deep knowledge of the history of Statue of Liberty disappear, Jay contin- cards at up to 90 miles per hour to dis- conjuring and con artistry. He would ued to focus on performing close-up tances of nearly 200 feet, according to unleash mind-boggling wizardry with magic that was far more dependent on the Guinness Book of World Records. He playing cards while delivering a color- his dexterity than high-tech artifice. could accurately hit a variety of targets ful, ribald patter about the history of After establishing himself on tele- with cards from across a room and was magic and mountebanks, filled with vision as one of America’s leading especially known for throwing cards so charmingly antiquated terminology magicians, Jay appeared in three live, powerfully that they would penetrate a and sly double-entendres. one-man shows directed by David watermelon rind, which he memorably Richard Jay Potash began learning Mamet, including the brilliantly described as the “thick, pachyderma- his craft at age 4, from his grandfather, named Ricky Jay and His 52 Assistants. tous outer melon layer.” He could also Max Katz, a magic enthusiast who His shows typically fused sublime solil- make thrown cards return to his hand introduced Jay to many famous magi- oquies about famous charlatans and like boomerangs, sometimes slicing cians of the era, including Slydini, Car- sideshow performers with an intimate them in half with scissors as he did so. dini, Al Flosso, and Francis Carlyle. By performance featuring card effects, a As an actor, Jay mostly played small age 7, Jay was performing publicly. cups-and-balls routine, and his famed roles—often gamblers, con men, and, card-throwing. Promotional images of course, magicians—appearing in Dan Alban is an attorney at for Jay’s shows frequently featured him several films by Mamet and Paul the Institute for Justice who has been posed in the famed “Kubrick Stare,” Thomas Anderson, including House reviewing Jay’s work since 2005. with his head tilted down, glowering of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, Heist,

42 / The Weekly Standard December 10, 2018 Boogie Nights, and Magnolia. Jay also years as a magician and whom he con- teenth-century poem about con men had success with fictional roles on tele- tinued to associate and share research filled with evocative Victorian slang vision programs, playing The Amazing with for as long as they lived. that features a refrain about how no Maleeni in a 2000 X-Files episode and Jay himself authored nearly a dozen matter how successful a grift may be, card sharp Eddie Sawyer on the first books on topics such as the history all the money will soon be blown on season of HBO’s Deadwood, for which of conjuring, confidence games, card alcohol and women. The line appears he also wrote an episode. cheats, and outlandish people and in the final stanza, entitled The Moral: Jay’s deep, gritty voice was used to amusements, including the classic Until the squeezer nips your scrag / Booze great effect as the narrator in Ander- Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women and and the blowens cop the lot. son’s Magnolia, in which he delivered Celebrations of Curious Characters. Four In addition to his natural talents, a particularly powerful opening mono- years of his brief-lived quarterly jour- Jay’s preeminence in his various fields logue about chance that neatly summa- nal of such wonderments, Jay’s Journal of expertise can be credited to his rizes his interest in weird phenomena. of Anomalies, were collected in a vol- obsessive devotion to his niche hob- After describing three increasingly ume of the same name. He also deliv- bies to the exclusion of virtually all else, unnerving coincidences, he intones ered lively, laugh-filled lectures on as reflected in his relentless pursuit of that “it is in the humble opinion of perfection through thousands of hours this narrator that this is not just ‘Some- of practice manipulating (and throw- thing That Happened.’ This cannot ing) playing cards. In interviews, he be ‘One of Those Things.’ This, please, talked about spending so many hours cannot be that. And for what I would every day shuffling and playing with like to say, I can’t. This was not just cards alone in a room that he consid- a matter of chance.’ Noooo. These ered the cards his friends. (He mar- strange things happen all the time.” ried quite late in life, in 2002.) He was Although he routinely played omi- so devoted to collecting and reading nous underworld characters, his vul- arcane tomes on the ancient history nerability as soft-hearted thief Don of magic, card play, confidence games, “Pinky” Pincus in Mamet’s Heist was carnie acts, and many other obscure particularly poignant. He plays a rue- topics that he joked with a Harvard ful criminal who likes to talk tough audience in 1999, “I know absolutely (“My motherf—er is so cool, when nothing about the twentieth century . . . he goes to bed, sheep count him”) but and I’m not just talking about magic.” wants to avoid any violence—a doting This claim comes from the man uncle who will do anything to protect who taught coin magic to Robert Red- his niece from harm. Jay’s watery eyes, ford for The Natural, appeared as a card soft features, and understated deliv- these and other esoteric topics at muse- dealer in a Bob Dylan music video, ery of cryptic lines like “Cute as a pail ums and universities. designed the wheelchair that hid Gary full of kittens” make Pinky a believ- Among the many ludicrous char- Sinise’s legs in Forrest Gump, played a able, relatable, and endearing figure acters Jay chronicled was 29-inch-tall Bond villain in Tomorrow Never Dies, struggling to survive in a bleak, merci- Matthias Buchinger, who was born and was involved in two high-profile less world of backstabbing grifters. without hands or lower legs. Despite feature films about magicians in the Finally, as a scholar, Jay was a his disabilities, Buchinger was an art- same year (2006), appearing as Milton Renaissance man who relished racon- ist and calligrapher of tiny illustra- the Magician in Christopher Nolan’s teurs, rogues, and rapscallions. A tions known as micrography, as well as The Prestige, while creating magical bibliophile and collector of antique a skilled magician and musician. Jay effects for Neil Burger’s The Illusionist. ephemera, magical props, and other liked to note that Buchinger had been Fortunately for us, Jay enjoyed curiosities, Jay assembled a massive married four times and fathered at least showing off his hard-earned skills. private library filled with manuscripts 14 children. Jay’s final book, Matthias After performing a particularly difficult on all sorts of bizarre topics related Buchinger: “The Greatest German Liv- card-throwing trick to win a proposi- to magic, oddball entertainers, card ing,” was devoted to this subject. tion bet with actor John C. Reilly at the sharps, and the like, sometimes loan- There was substantial crossover end of Ricky Jay Plays Poker, Jay turns ing them out to museums for display. between Jay’s scholarship and his mag- to the camera, beaming, and chortles, He also had a particular nostalgia for ical performances. In one prominent “Ain’t life grand?” Then the credits roll. vaudeville performers and the carnies example, Jay would take a break from Sadly, the squeezer has finally of Coney Island, many of whom served card effects to recite “Villon’s Straight nipped his scrag. There will never be

KEN HIVELY / LOS ANGELES TIMES / GETTY / LOS KEN HIVELY as his mentors and friends in his early Tip to All Cross Coves,” a racy nine- another Ricky Jay. ♦

December 10, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 43 “Trump Grades Himself as President in New Interview: ‘I Would Give Myself an A-Plus’” PARODY —Rolling Stone, November 18, 2018

December 10, 2018