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Jay Nordlinger on Paul Ryan ON THE COVER Page 16 p. 24 The Party of Work BOOKS, ARTS For Republicans, who will always & MANNERS be the party of social orderliness compared with the Democrats, work 40 PRESENT AT THE CREATION David G. Dalin reviews Menachem is the most basic cultural issue. As Begin: The Battle for Israel’s the party struggles to forge a new, Soul, by Daniel Gordis.

more appealing identity, it should 41 THROUGH A GLASS, VERY endeavor to become the party of DARKLY Andrew Stuttaford reviews work. Reihan Salam & Richard Lowry Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret COVER: ROMAN GENN History of the Russian State, by Mark Lawrence Schrad. ARTICLES 43 THE MASTER 16 THE PARTY OF WORK by Reihan Salam & Richard Lowry Lisa Schiffren reviews Things That It was once the Republicans, and it should be again. Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics, 19 TO WORK IS TO LIVE by Kevin D. Williamson by Charles Krauthammer. The dignity of a day’s labor. 45 MESSAGE MOVIE 20 AMNESTY WON’T WORK by Jeff Sessions Peter Tonguette reviews Mad as How the Republican party can help struggling Americans, and itself. Hell: The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the 22 WE FEW, WE VERY FEW by Arthur Herman Angriest Man in Movies, Chuck Hagel’s defense cuts would imperil the nation. by Dave Itzkoff.

24 THE WOULD-HAVE-BEEN VEEP by Jay Nordlinger 50 FILM: BRICK HOUSE And should-have-been veep—Paul Ryan. Ross Douthat reviews The Lego Movie. 25 THE GREATEST by James Rosen When Ali earned his nickname. 51 THE ENCHANTER Richard Brookhiser discusses craftsmanship and spalted maple. FEATURES 29 CROSS PURPOSES by Ramesh Ponnuru SECTIONS Religious freedom vs. anti-discrimination law in Arizona. 2 Letters to the Editor 31 REPLACE OBAMACARE, STAT by John C. Goodman 4 The Week We don’t have time to wait for a new president. 38 The Long View ...... Rob Long 39 Athwart ...... James Lileks 34 OIL FLOWING FREELY by Mario Loyola 45 Poetry ...... Sarah Ruden Mexico’s energy reforms are good for Mexicans, Americans, and the world. 52 Happy Warrior . . . Jonah Goldberg

NATIoNAl RevIeW (ISSN: 0028-0038) is published bi-weekly, except for the first issue in January, by NATIoNAl RevIeW, Inc., at 215 lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mailing offices. © National Review, Inc., 2014. Address all editorial mail, manuscripts, letters to the editor, etc., to editorial Dept., NATIoNAl RevIeW, 215 lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016. Address all subscription mail orders, changes of address, undeliverable copies, etc., to NATIoNAl RevIeW, Circulation Dept., P. o. Box 433015, Palm Coast, Fla. 32143-3015; phone, 386-246-0118, Monday–Friday, 8:00 A.M. to 10:30 P.M. eastern time. Adjustment requests should be accompanied by a current mailing label or facsimile. Direct classified advertising inquiries to: Classifieds Dept., NATIoNAl RevIeW, 215 lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016 or call 212-679- 7330. PoSTMASTeR: Send address changes to NATIoNAl RevIeW, Circulation Dept., P. o. Box 433015, Palm Coast, Fla. 32143-3015. Printed in the U.S.A. RATeS: $59.00 a year (24 issues). Add $21.50 for Canada and other foreign subscriptions, per year. (All payments in U.S. currency.) The editors cannot be responsible for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork unless return postage or, better, a stamped, self-addressed envelope is enclosed. opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors. letters -- READY:QXP-1127940387.qxp 3/5/2014 3:01 PM Page 2 Letters

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EDITOR Richard Lowry Seeger Singing Senior Editors Richard Brookhiser / Jay Nordlinger If I were sure that more than 10 percent of NatIoNal RevIew readers were Ramesh Ponnuru / David Pryce-Jones Managing Editor Jason Lee Steorts fully aware of the range of contributions to music by Pete Seeger—his rep- Literary Editor Michael Potemra utation as a musician, composer, and singer—I could comfortably believe Executive Editor Christopher McEvoy Roving Correspondent Kevin D. Williamson that the brief indictment of his political activism in the week (February National Correspondent John J. Miller 24), delineating his bias for Communism, would be viewed as a study in Art Director Luba Kolomytseva Deputy Managing Editors tragic contrasts. But I doubt that recognition of the complete Seeger is Nicholas Frankovich / Fred Schwarz Associate Editors widespread. like hundreds of other devotees of traditional and folk music, Patrick Brennan / Katherine Connell I listened to Seeger sing over the years, admiring his ability to enlist audi- Production Editor Katie Hosmer Research Associate Scott Reitmeier ence participation, such as in “wimoweh.” Assistant to the Editor Madison V. Peace If his calling was activism, he did a lousy job. His preaching never made it Contributing Editors to me, only his songs. I accept as true everything NR wrote about his ques- Shannen Coffin / Ross Douthat / Roman Genn Jim Geraghty / Jonah Goldberg / Florence King tionable loyalties. as an american, I find his beliefs and his expression of Lawrence Kudlow / Mark R. Levin those beliefs as reported by NR to be objectionable; his achievements as an Yuval Levin / Rob Long / Jim Manzi Andrew C. McCarthy / Kate O’Beirne entertainer do not excuse them. However, NR lost the opportunity to mention Reihan Salam / Robert VerBruggen his contributions and the poignancy of a generation watching an enviable tal- NATIONALREVIEWONLINE Editor-at-Large Kathryn Jean Lopez ent being tainted by an uninformed and wasteful obsession. Seeger gave us Managing Editor Edward John Craig “turn, turn, turn” and wrote the quintessential book on playing the five- News Editor Tim Cavanaugh National-Affairs Columnist John Fund string banjo, undoubtedly resulting in thousands of new banjo pluckers—and Media Editor Eliana Johnson america is better for that. NR is no doubt aware of that side of Seeger, but he Staff Writer Charles C. W. Cooke Associate Editors is labeled as a “force for bad.” Don’t overlook the gold in the rush to discard Molly Powell / Lucy Zepeda the dross. the write-up came across as merely a footnote to the fortunate Editorial Associate Andrew Johnson Technical Services Russell Jenkins passing of a subversive activist who also happened to sing. Web Developer Wendy Weihs Web Producer Scott McKim

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2 | www.nationalreview.com MARCH 2 4 , 2 0 1 4 base:milliken-mar 22.qxd 2/3/2014 4:17 PM Page 1 week:QXP-1127940387.qxp 3/5/2014 3:31 PM Page 4 The Week

n Maybe the president should visit Alaska: He can’t quite see a credible Russia policy from his house.

n Following the path of least resistance, Republicans have decided on a 2014 strategy of trying to avoid mistakes and hoping that the unpopularity of Obamacare delivers them election victories. What they miss is that loss of confidence in Democrats does not signify an increase in confidence in Republicans. Of course Republicans should continue to prosecute the case against See page 14. Obamacare. But they must also run against the federal impulse to micromanage Americans, pervasive within liberalism, that Obamacare typifies. And part of that case has to be that there are better ways of addressing Americans’ concerns about health care, energy, and so on: that there are policies that address those concerns by freeing markets and limiting and reforming government. That’s the way to make the most of the opportunity 2014 presents to start moving our country rightward.

n If you believed the media, Arizona tried to institute a system of Jim Crow for gays and straights, until Governor Jan Brewer swooped in to save the day with a veto. The legislature had passed clarifications to the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, establishing that the protections of the law extend to businesses and apply in proceedings where the government isn’t directly a party. The law has been on the books for 15 years in aggressive campaign to impose same-sex marriage nationally, Arizona and was modeled on the federal Religious Freedom by judicial fiat. The administration’s view of its constitutional Restoration Act championed by Ted Kennedy and signed by Bill duties has been evolving apace with its view of marriage, and Clinton. These laws say that the government can’t substantially just as conveniently. burden someone’s exercise of religion unless there is a compelling governmental interest at stake and no less burdensome n The new Pentagon budget is Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s way to achieve it. By clarifying the law, Arizona lawmakers announcement of American retreat. The budgets Congress and hoped to provide a more reliable safe harbor for small-business the president have written deeply cut funding for the military, and people who prefer not to bake cakes or take photos at gay wed- a leaner, not meaner, military is what we get: an army with just dings for religious reasons and who then get fined or sanctioned 450,000 troops, a navy with fewer than 300 ships, and an air force for it. But the bill was doomed by a smear campaign abetted by with just 425 of the fighters it will rely on for the next 50 years. business interests and craven Republicans. The episode bodes ill Defense drawdowns are sometimes justified—when threats have for the potential for reasonable debate about anything touching diminished, enemies have left the stage, allies have grown on gay rights, and for the future of religious liberty. stronger, or weapons have gotten cheaper. None of these has happened. The only justification for this Pentagon budget is . . . the n Attorney General Eric Holder urged state attorneys general budget. Voters are understandably worried about high levels of to emulate his practice of politicizing law enforcement on debt and conservatives are rightly concerned by the size of our behalf of left-wing constituencies. He exhorted the AGs to federal government. But the past couple of years and Hagel’s ignore state laws defining marriage as the union of a man and a announcement reflect what we have maintained all along: The woman. During his confirmation hearings, Holder piously told sequester brought welcome spending discipline at home but senators that an attorney general owed fidelity to the law and deals a devastating blow to the federal government’s capacity to was not there to rubber-stamp executive policy preferences. But carry out its most fundamental responsibility. One problem with Holder has conveniently “evolved” on same-sex marriage in this peace dividend is that it will be spent on domestic entitle- line with his boss: ostensibly defending the federal Defense of ments, which is very far from the federal government’s first pri- Marriage Act—but quietly sabotaging the pro-DOMA legal ority. Another is that there isn’t any peace to pay for it. arguments—while Obama was still feigning opposition to it; then abandoning DOMA when Obama dropped the pretense; n Dave Camp (R., Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and

ROMAN GENN and now—with Obama facing no more elections—leading an Means Committee, has done a brave thing: introduce a compre-

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THE WEEK hensive tax-reform plan. Much of it is good: It’s hard to object, year before he was first elected), is said to be interested in occu- for instance, to the 89 sections of the bill devoted just to remov- pying his seat. ing “deadwood” (provisions that no longer affect taxes paid) from the tax code. It would cut the top corporate tax rate, one of n My Brother’s Keeper, an initiative announced by President the highest in the world, to 25 percent, while the top individual- Obama at the end of February, looks beyond the clash of ordi- income rate would fall to 35 percent. It would reduce the com- nary politics to ask: What can be done for young black men? plexity of the code significantly and improve incentives while Reciting the doleful statistics on education and crime, Obama maintaining revenue levels. Proposals like capping the mortgage- said, “It’s like a cultural backdrop for us in movies, in televi- interest tax deduction and eliminating the exemption for state and sion. We just assume, of course it’s going to be like that.” He local taxes paid are quite welcome. Not all of it is good, though: contemplates government action, but also leadership from busi- It fails to eliminate marriage penalties in the tax code, increases ness, churches, and celebrities. And from young black men the child credit only modestly, and probably raises taxes on new themselves. “It will take courage,” Obama said, “but you will business investment. But his proposal is better than the status have to tune out the naysayers who say if the deck is stacked quo—and an apt complement to the wave of new policy ideas against you, you might as well just give up or settle into the coming from congressional Republicans of late. According to the stereotype.” Obama also drew attention to the epidemic of absent Joint Committee on Taxation, under Camp’s proposal the U.S. fathers, though without mentioning its roots in the collapse of economy would be $400 billion bigger in 2024, with 2 million marriage. Obama has made use (sometimes cunning, some- more jobs. Camp deserves credit for being the man in the arena. times powerful) of his life story, which includes dark pages: a vanished father, a peripatetic childhood. Encouraging young n Harry Reid said that “all” of the “horror stories” being told men in the same boat is a noble cause. about Obamacare “are untrue.” He must be relying on the same sources that told him Mitt Romney had not paid taxes for ten years. President Obama himself acknowledged that his law was n When Fusion TV’s Jorge Ramos, in a recent interview, causing some hardship by leading to the cancellation of some asked Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards when plans. The New York Times, not to our knowledge owned by the life begins, she equivocated. “I feel it’s not something that’s Koch brothers, has reported on the premium increases many part of this conversation,” she said uncomfortably, and then people have experienced. Liberal journalists have reported tried to divert the conversation to the “options for health (happily) that Obamacare will cause patients to have less choice care” Planned Parenthood provides. But Ramos wouldn’t be of doctors. Either Reid is disconnected from reality or he is diverted. “Why would it be so controversial . . . for you to lying. Sadly, the press won’t call him on either. say when you think life starts?” he asked. It wouldn’t, Richards said, it just isn’t “really relevant to the conversa- n The world of academic critical theory got a little smaller in tion.” She then concluded that “I’m a mother of three. Um, February when the Federal Communications Commission, fac- for me, life began when I delivered ing a backlash over its plan to subject journalists to invasive ques- them.” This answer was perhaps tioning, canceled its $900,000 “Critical Information Needs” a slight improvement over the study. The CIN study sought to determine “what barriers exist in one Senator Barbara Boxer our media ecologies,” in order to make sure “underserved com- gave in legislative debate some munities” were not starving for necessary news. But its plan for years back, that life begins “voluntary” interrogations of media professionals (including “when you bring your baby print and online journos not under FCC jurisdiction) stalled, home.” You can see why advo- especially after FCC commissioner Ajit Pai criticized it on First cates of unlimited abor- Amendment grounds in the Wall Street Journal. The FCC even- tion would prefer tually pulled the plug, but we did learn something: The agency is not to ponder looking around for things to do, and is willing to find them in this question goofy pomo theories about disfranchisement and microaggres- too deeply. sions.

n “The five pillars of aristocracy,” wrote John Adams, “are n In New York City, the number of black children being beauty, wealth, birth, genius, and virtues.” These advantages, aborted now exceeds the number being born; in Mississippi, a he argued, elevated certain people over their nominal peers even predominantly white state, three out of four abortions are of in democracies. John Dingell Jr. stood on the third pillar. His black children. Life can be dangerous and difficult for black father was a congressman from the Detroit area from 1933 to Americans, especially for young black men, but statistically 1955. When he died, John Jr. won the special election to fill the speaking the most dangerous place for a black American in seat. Old-line liberalism then kept the younger Dingell in it for 2014 is the womb. New York City and Mississippi may be poles the next 59 years. He supported gun rights and opposed busing— apart culturally, but the landscape between them does not look Neanderthal positions for Democrats today. But he was a life- much better: Blacks make up about 12 percent of the population long backer of national health insurance, which Obamacare has but the number of black children aborted comes to nearly the finally given us. The man who clung to office even longer than same total as in the much larger white population. Economics Robert Byrd has announced that he will not run again in 2014. explains only a little of that: According to the Guttmacher But aristocracy abides: Dingell’s wife, Debbie (who was born the Institute, the majority of women seeking abortions are not liv-

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THE WEEK ing in poverty. But black, white, or other, the mortality rate And the kids who are cast back to substandard schools because associated with abortion is always the same: one per person. of his actions? In de Blasio’s New York that is an extra-credit question, purely optional. Liberal Democrats who say they are in n Mayor Bill de Blasio treats children in charter schools the same favor of charter schools, including his patrons Bill and Hillary as the horses that pull tourist carriages around Central Park: He Clinton, should be asked what they think. wants to get rid of them. De Blasio shut down three charter schools that used classrooms in city school buildings, and cut n De Blasio recently marched in the St. Pat’s for All parade, a back the space available to a fourth. (Two of the schools are run gay-friendly pre–St. Patrick’s Day parade in Queens. “This is a by a former city councilwoman and current de Blasio target, Eva parade that celebrates inclusion,” he said. But de Blasio cele- Moskowitz, so there is also a game of Gotham inside baseball brates seclusion of those who do not share his views. He will being played here.) The success of charter schools is a rebuke to not march in New York’s actual St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the regular city schools and to the teachers’ unions that serve them so carnival of green that dates back to 1762, because, for reasons of poorly. De Blasio, beholden to the latter, must defend the former. religion and tradition, it bans gay groups. Yet his predecessor East Is Least

HE dramatic events in Ukraine the past few weeks Bloc countries (such as the Czech Republic) that have were ignited when Ukrainian president Viktor joined the EU. T Yanukovych, a Russian ally, said he would suspend The three lines on the bottom of the chart depict what efforts to bring Ukraine closer to the EU and thousands has happened to those nations that have not joined the EU. took to the streets to protest. Clearly, the threat of Russian Each of these countries has stagnated, seeing a standard political oppression was in the minds of the protesters, but of living that has barely budged since the fall of the USSR. the economic stakes were enormous as well. Indeed, a look The experiences have been so different that the increase in at the data suggests that Yanukovych’s act was against the welfare for citizens in former Soviet countries that have economic interests of his own people. joined the EU is larger than today’s level of welfare for coun- When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, former Soviet tries that have not. and Eastern Bloc countries chose between two distinct Vladimir Putin’s desire to maintain a zone of influence paths. Ten Central and Eastern European nations (the so- has had a dramatically negative effect on the economic called CEE-10) made integration with the European Union well-being of citizens of the affected countries. It is hard to a top priority. The rest, like Ukraine, moved much more imagine how anyone could look at such data and not con- slowly toward Western standards, and some even settled clude that Putin supporters outside Russia are traitors, if under a new Russian umbrella. not to their nations at the very least to their compatriots’ Prior to the breakup, Eastern Europe was underdevel- prospects of economic security and prosperity. oped relative to the West, mostly because of the failure created by central planning. When a market economy is — KEVIN A. HASSETT unleashed in such a setting, “convergence” of the standard of living to that of the developed world can be quite rapid. If the U.S. wants to grow sharply, it needs to push the very The Putin Effect

frontier of what is possible farther out. A former Soviet or Former Eastern Bloc Countries in EU Eastern Bloc country, on the other hand, could grow rapid- $14,000 Former Soviet•Countries in EU Former Eastern Bloc Countries Not in EU ly simply by copying the developed world. Some did. Former Soviet Countries Not in EU, $12,000 Excluding Ukraine A large academic literature has emerged analyzing the Ukraine impact of “going west.” The literature documents that those nations that assimilated into the EU saw dramatic $10,000 economic growth. A recent EU study co-authored by Ryszard Rapacki and Mariusz Prochniak of the Warsaw $8,000 School of Economics, for example, concluded that full convergence of the CCE-10 is so far along that it might be $6,000 complete in as little as eight years. The countries, like Ukraine, that failed to take that path $4,000

have stagnated. The nearby chart documents how radi- Capita GDP (Constant 2005 Dollars) Per Average cally different their experience has been. The chart plots $2,000 real per capita GDP (in 2005 dollars) for former Soviet and $0 Eastern Bloc countries other than Russia. The purple and 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 dark blue lines on the top illustrate the findings of the study SOURCE: WORLD DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS—WORLD BANK NATIONAL just mentioned. Income per capita has grown sharply since ACCOUNTS DATA AND OECD NATIONAL ACCOUNTS DATA FILES. NOTE: THE FORMER EAST GERMANY IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE EASTERN the mid 1990s, more than doubling for the former Soviet BLOC CATEGORY. FORMER SOVIET COUNTRIES OUTSIDE EUROPE ARE countries, and increasing about 50 percent for the Eastern NOT INCLUDED IN THE FORMER-SOVIET CATEGORY.

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THE WEEK Michael Bloomberg, who was strongly pro–gay rights, did. other day, Begg was arrested, and he is facing a charge of Strange to think that the Boston-born billionaire should have instruction in terrorism, plus funding it. He certainly has the been a better mayor of all the people than the self-styled populist knowledge to do the one and the dough to do the other. activist. But the politics of sex drives its votaries to strange positions. n Oriella Cazzanello, 85, of Arzignano, in northern Italy, went missing last month. Her relatives told the police. Eventually they n Marco Rubio has just reminded everyone what the fuss was were sent her ashes and a death certificate from Dignitas, a about when he burst onto the national scene a few years ago. On euthanasia clinic in Basel, Switzerland, where Cazzanello, who the Senate floor last month, Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) held forth on was in good health, had gone to end her life, paying 10,000 euros the blessings that Cubans are supposed to enjoy from their for the service. Sixteen percent of people who visit such facili- Communist government. Rubio, who has some well-formed ties in Switzerland have no serious medical issues, according to a opinions on the subject, rose up to take down Harkin’s hoary recent study from the University of Bern. Cazzanello is reported leftist truisms by contrasting them with the truth—about health to have been sad about growing old and losing her looks. The care, infant mortality, government censorship, and the general principle of individual autonomy is an important value, but not misery that Cubans suffer under the Castros. For good measure, the only one, and it has limits. The loved ones of those who have the Florida senator reminded his audience of the dictatorship’s died from suicide tend to have strong opinions on the issue. alliance with the regimes in North Korea and Venezuela. He said he would pursue a measure to impose sanctions on the latter. His n To nary a squeak of regret or complaint, CNN announced in remarks were cogent and passionate, and made all the better by February that it would be putting Piers Morgan’s disastrous the knowledge that his career is still in its early chapters. prime-time show out of its misery. Conservatives, especially, were cheered, relieved that Morgan’s crusade for expanded gun n At the end of February, a senator, Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.), and a control, a subject on which he offered a heady mixture of House member, Jim McGovern (D., Mass.), hosted six “reli- unchecked passion and unbridled ignorance, would be coming gious leaders” from Cuba. They are official types, approved and to an end. But they were not alone. As the likes of Alistair Cooke sent by the dictatorship, “religious leaders” who denounce and and Craig Ferguson have shown, it is generally preferable for bedevil the independently religious. They are also the kind to the recently arrived to admire the people that they have joined, sign petitions denouncing human-rights activists and political and for them to attempt to comprehend where their political prisoners. Every totalitarian dictatorship has had stooges of this opponents are coming from. Morgan, whose mercurial career in sort. The Russian Jews who staffed the old Soviet Anti-Zionist British tabloid journalism did not prepare him well to be the Committee come to mind. The recent mission of the Cuban successor to Larry King, did neither, exhibiting a reflexive dis- officials is to spread the lie that Cuba is a place of religious dain for his audience that alienated even his ideological allies. freedom, not religious (and other) persecution. The same week He was already disliked in Britain, and his American experi- Flake and McGovern were hosting the Castroite stooges, Óscar ment appears to have served only to extend the territory in Biscet, the Afro-Cuban physician and democracy leader, who which he has thus far rendered himself unpopular. Good night, draws his inspiration from the Bible, was being rearrested and and good luck. savagely beaten. No hearing for him. n In February, climate scientist Michael Mann discovered that n Half a world away from Ukraine, but inspired partly by events two could play at his game. Having accused Australian journalist there, protests against the poverty and oppression of Venezuela’s Andrew Bolt of being a “threat to the planet” who was paid by Chavista regime have led to battles in the streets, deaths, and Rupert Murdoch to “lie” to the general public, Mann was threat- arrests. The image of Génesis Carmona, a 22-year-old beauty ened with legal action. “Normally,” Bolt explained, “I do not queen, being carried to a hospital on a motorcycle after being sue.” In this case, though, he saw fit to make an exception, shot in the head was particularly poignant (she died of her demanding that Mann rescind his allegations and apologize wound). But more than a dozen other protesters have shared her publicly—or “risk facing from me what you’ve done to Steyn.” fate. Opposition leader Leopoldo López was merely arrested. Bolt’s irritation was well founded. As he noted, not only had Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s uncharismatic successor, has turned Mann failed to identify a single lie in the course of his charge, for help to Cuban enforcers. Not a peep from America’s lefty but he had got basic details wrong to boot. Bolt isn’t paid by amen chorus (Sean Penn et al.), though Jared Leto to his credit praised Venezuelan (and Ukrainian) protesters in his Academy MARK . Award acceptance speech. Rightly so: It’s a drama, in real time,

NABIL K with no script, and no body doubles. ),

n Our old friend Moazzam Begg is back in the news. Remember

KNIGHT RIDDER him? He is probably Britain’s most famous jihadist. Trained in ( al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, he was a Guantanamo prisoner for three years. He sued the British government, receiving a reported 1 million pounds in compensation. He founded a group

CENTRE DAILY TIMES called Cageprisoners, whose claim was that Guantanamo in - / mates are really human-rights victims. Amnesty International

AP PHOTO embraced this group, causing an uproar among AI’s friends. The

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Rupert Murdoch, is one of the most popular commentators in can or a box of something, you squinted at that little tiny label, Australia, and has nothing to do with the parody website to and you were totally and utterly lost. So there you stood, alone which Mann had linked. Recognizing his error, Mann backed in some aisle in a store, the clock ticking away at the precious down, removing the offending tweets and half-apologizing. little time remaining to complete your weekly grocery shopping, “These are not necessarily lies,” he wrote, ungraciously. Not a and all you could do was scratch your head, confused and bewil- great day’s work from a man who considers himself to be an dered, and wonder, Is there too much sugar in this product? . . . arbiter of truth. So you felt defeated, and you just gave up and went back to buying the same stuff you always buy.” Ladies and gentlemen: This n Global warming is seemingly responsible for everything from is how your rulers view you. the Cubs’ failure to win the World Series to the lousy second sea- son of House of Cards. Now a study says it will increase crime, n Son of God, the new feature film about Jesus’ life that grew too—an extra “22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 mil- out of last year’s hit History Channel miniseries The Bible, has lion aggravated assaults, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 so far been a box-office success. Produced by actress Roma robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny, and Downey, herself a believing Christian, and her reality-TV- 580,000 cases of vehicle theft” in what’s left of the 21st century. producer husband Mark Burnett, the movie brings high produc- The idea seems to be that, as one scholar explains, “to the extent tion values to what is a mostly faithful retelling of the Gospels. that climate change causes people to be out and interacting more, There are a few cringeworthy embellishments—Jesus tells Peter there will be more crime.” Ah, that pesky human interaction— at the outset that together they’re going to “change the world”— find a way to get rid of that and we’ll all be better off. To be sure, and Diogo Morgado, the Portuguese model turned telenovela colder weather causes problems of its own (accidents, reduced star who plays Jesus, and who inspired the Twitter hashtag #hot- agricultural yields, tongues stuck to lampposts), Alaska ranks jesus, looks more like a bearded Adonis than a Jewish carpenter. third in per capita violent crime, and the national crime rate has But while the first half of the film, which glides over the main dropped with the population shift to the Sunbelt. No matter; this events of Jesus’ public ministry, can feel schmaltzy, the depic- is science, and every bit as rigorous as the climate-change pro- tion of the Passion does not. In any attempt to dramatize the jections on which the study was based. Biblical accounts of Jesus’ life, there is the challenge not just of presenting the historical narrative of his incarnation, ministry, n Last September, Robert van Tuinen, a student at Modesto and death but of pointing toward their significance. The film Junior College in California, was passing out copies of the falls short of the latter, admittedly difficult, aim, but that’s what Constitution on campus in honor of national Constitution Day. the book’s for. But because he was standing outside the college’s designated free-speech zone and was distributing unapproved materials, van n It doesn’t happen every day, it only seems like it: a janitor Tuinen was told by a campus police officer and a college admin- throwing away a piece of modern art. Famously, it happened in istrator to stop his illicit activity. Supported by the Foundation 2001, when a janitor at a London art gallery threw away an opus for Individual Rights in Education, van Tuinen settled a lawsuit by Damien Hirst—quite understandably. It has happened several with the school, winning $50,000 in damages and forcing the times since. Most recently, it happened in Bari, Italy, when the school to repeal its restrictive policies. Sometimes a college cleaning lady threw away not one piece of modern art, but two. administration’s best efforts cannot keep something educational One of these creations included bits of cookie scattered on the from transpiring. floor. The lady’s boss said, “She was just doing her job.” And the janitorial service actually has insurance that covers this sort of n “We, the Concerned Asian, Black, Latin@ [sic], Native, thing. The two artworks are, or were, worth about $14,000. Undocumented, Queer, and Differently-Abled students at Dart - Question: To whom? mouth College, seek to eradicate systems of oppression as they affect marginalized communities on this campus.” So began an n A tractor-trailer overturned on U.S. 129 in Gainesville, Ga., eight-page list of demands sent to Dartmouth faculty members by “the poultry capital of the world,” back in January. None of the an unknown number of anonymous students. High on their list of drivers involved in the accident were hurt, but avian passengers over 100 demands was the immediate institution of racial quotas in the trailer were killed, and Sarah Segal has asked the Georgia lifting the black, Latino, and Native American populations each Department of Transportation for permission to a build a ten- to 10 percent of the student body. (Apparently, the quota was foot-tall tombstone in their honor. The monument would read, considered unnecessary for their Asian, undocumented, queer, “In memory of the dozens of terrified chickens who died as a and disabled peers.) Students should have to take multiple result of a truck crash. Go Vegan.” It would include an image of classes to challenge their “understanding of institutionalized a chicken. PETA supports her initiative. Monty Python could not justice around issues of race, class, gender, [and] sexuality,” be reached for comment. and the term “illegal immigrant” must be henceforth banned. If their demands are not met by March 24, the students threaten n You might say that Mike Parker was a man of letters. As “physical action.” Dartmouth’s response should be simple: director of typographic development at Mergenthaler Physical action will be met with expulsion. Linotype Co. from 1959 to 1981, he oversaw the design of well over a thousand typefaces, many of which became n Speaking in favor of new food labels, first lady Michelle industry standards in the days when type consisted of Obama presented shopping for groceries as a nearly unbearable physical bits of metal and remain ubiquitous today, when ordeal. “So you marched into the supermarket, you picked up a everyone has a superabundance of fonts at his fingertips.

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THE WEEK Most notably, Parker was the guiding spirit behind Hel - In most of Ukraine he is hated. To intervene further risks get- vetica, the most famous and, to many, the most beautiful ting bogged down in a prolonged guerrilla war; to sit tight in sans-serif typeface. Parker, a British native, graduated Crimea could degenerate into an endless crisis; to withdraw from Yale a year after Bill Buckley and served with the would be a humiliation. Corps of Engineers in Korea. Dead at 84. R.I.P. Some have tried to excuse Putin’s seizure of Crimea: Its population is majority Russian, and it was part of Russia as n When Huber Matos was a 40-year-old schoolteacher, he made recently as 1954. But the world is full of disputed boundaries, a mistake for which he paid for the rest of his life: He helped Fidel and the general view is that they can be adjusted only by Castro come to power. Matos joined Castro’s rebellion against agreement among the nations concerned. Putin’s seizure of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, a tin-pot kleptocrat, then Crimea also violates the Budapest declaration of 1994, in realized, shortly after Castro conquered Cuba in 1959, that he which Russia and other nations guaranteed the independence intended to hold on to it himself in the name of Communism. and territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for Kiev’s sur- Dissent in the new Cuba was impossible; Castro shut Matos in render of nuclear weapons. Putin’s violation of this agree- prison for two decades, subject to savage beatings and years-long ment reveals his intentions to challenge the 1989 and 1991 stretches of solitary confinement. Released in 1979, he moved to velvet revolutions and claim Russian suzerainty wherever Venezuela, then Miami, where he tirelessly criticized Castro. Russian interests are under threat. “The system failed completely,” he said in 2009. At the end of This violation poses a special problem for the U.S. and February, as he lay prostrate from a heart attack, his last words Britain, because in the Budapest declaration they guaranteed were: “The struggle continues, long live a free Cuba.” Dead at Crimea’s status as part of Ukraine. They can’t simply shuffle 95. R.I.P. How long will the despots he helped, then scorned, off this crisis onto the U.N.; it is their responsibility. And all continue to sit on their thrones? Western nations need to ensure that this episode ends in failure for Putin. While they must respect Russia’s legitimate secu- n Trite as it may sound, a piece of history has died. Maria von rity and geopolitical rights, Russia must accept that these do Trapp was the last of the children—the last of the seven siblings not include prohibiting other nations (as Russia has done in portrayed in The Sound of Music. She was the third eldest. In the Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, and elsewhere) from exercising musical and movie, her name was changed to Louisa, so as not to their own rights. cause confusion with the governess, also named Maria. The What all this implies is a two-sided policy. On one hand, younger Maria spent most of her life in Stowe, Vt. She also the West should raise the costs—diplomatic, economic, worked as a lay missionary in Papua New Guinea, adopting a boy financial, military—to Moscow of its adventure, while giving she met there. She did not ask to be famous, but she handled it Ukraine the trade and financial help it needs. On the other well, living by all accounts a good and humble and useful life. hand, we must make clear, in public and private, that we Maria, born in 1914, as World War I was beginning, and made would be happy to see a democratic Russia take its place as a a refugee in World War II, has died at 99, in our own free and senior partner in the euro-Atlantic institutions that provide glorious country. R.I.P.—or rather, “So long, farewell, auf the world with its main leadership. The condition for Russia’s Wiedersehen, good night.” entry is that it must surrender the neo-imperial mindset that still shapes Russian foreign policy. If the West can quietly UKRAINE assist Putin to withdraw without losing face, we should do so. But we are more likely to be assisting his successor when that A Manufactured Crisis moment comes. He first and last thing to be said about the Ukraine crisis is that it was made in T Moscow. Ukraine would today be enjoy- ing the shabby peace of economic stagnation if Vladimir Putin had not coerced President Viktor Yanukovych into abandoning a modest free-trade deal with the european Union and joining a Moscow-led Zollverein. Ukrainians occupied the main square to protest this sale of their country, and when Yanukovych fired on the crowd re - peatedly, he lost whatever democratic credentials he had enjoyed. But he fired the shots as Putin’s lieutenant. When Yanukovych fled, Putin lost the first round of the crisis. He immediately set about winning the second. After eastern Ukraine failed to rally to Yanukovych, thugs seized a few government buildings; in Crimea, Moscow simply

IVAN SEKRETAREV occupied the province. It may seem that Putin is / winning this round, but he has overreached

AP PHOTO twice, and the second gamble is still undecided.

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work, in multiple senses. They should extol work and demand it; they should advance a broad job-creation agenda and narrowly tailored measures for the long- term unemployed; and they should fight every government disincentive to work. Worklessness is a central challenge of our time. In October of last year, America’s labor- force-participation rate, which reflects the number of Americans with jobs or actively looking for jobs, fell to its lowest level since 1978. Some of this is due to the aging of the population and rising higher- education enrollment. But when we take account of the surge in part-time employment, we see that full-time-equivalent employment is well below trend. One consequence of stagnant employ- The Party of Work ment growth has been the emergence of a It was once the Republicans, and it should be again heartbreakingly large phalanx of long- term unemployed: 3.6 million people who BY REIHAN SALAM & RICHARD LOWRY have been looking for work and haven’t found it for six months or more. When we hE Democratic party has long eral debt is a bloodless green-eyeshade factor in workers who want full-time prided itself on being the party of issue, and, as our colleague Ramesh work but who’ve had no choice but to workers. But an extraordinary Ponnuru often points out, most people work part time for months, and in some T thing happened the last few aren’t and never will be entrepreneurs. cases years, the number is larger still. weeks in the debate over Obamacare. Work is different. It stands for a con- The numbers are even more disturbing When the Con gressional Budget Office stellation of values and, like education, is when we focus on adult men. Nicholas said the law would reduce the number of universally honored. Even Democrats Eberstadt, a political economist and demo - full-time-equivalent workers by 2.5 mil- usually try to associate themselves with grapher at the American Enterprise Insti - lion by 2024, Democrats considered it it. Every night during prime time of their tute, writes, “Over the past 60 years, the not a bug but a feature. The law was lib- 2012 convention—after the encomiums to employment[-to-population] ratio for erating people from the constraints of abortion were over—Democrats invoked adult men has plummeted by about 20 working. hard work. The high point of the conven- percentage points. Which is to say: If This tack suggests an opening for Re - tion was a moving portrayal by Michelle America’s male employment ratios were publicans. As the party struggles to forge Obama of her father struggling to get up back at their Eisenhower-era levels, well a new, more appealing identity, it should and go to work every day despite his mul- over 20 million more men would be at endeavor to become the party of work. tiple sclerosis. work today.” During Andrew Jackson’s presidency, For Republicans, who will always be What are the effects of worklessness? Alexis de Tocqueville noted the central the party of social orderliness compared As one would expect, it blights people’s role of work and aspiration in American with the Democrats, work is the most economic prospects. “Even in good eco- life: “The first thing that strikes one in the basic cultural issue, and one that is an nomic times,” Robert Rector and Rachel United States is the innumerable crowd of easy sell compared with others; whereas Sheffield of the heritage Foundation those striving to escape from their original it is difficult, for example, to talk about write, “the average poor family with chil- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS social condition.” Some years later, the the central importance of marriage before dren has only 800 hours of total parental , Republican party was established with this childbearing to personal advancement. work per year—the equivalent of one idea of social mobility through work at Work is a proxy for all sorts of desirable adult working 16 hours per week. The its ideological core. Flash forward to the habits and attitudes. Work means respon- math is fairly simple: Little work equals present and very few Americans associate sibility. It requires diligence, punctuality, little income, which equals poverty.” In Republicans with the dignity of labor. and sociability. Expanding Work Programs for Poor Men,

As some party leaders are beginning to It is no accident that the biggest Repub - Lawrence M. Mead, a professor of poli- PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION realize, Republicans have been overin - lican political and policy triumph since the tics at New York University, observes , 1909 . C

vested in debt reduction as an agenda item 1980s is welfare reform. It was a change that the worklessness problem persisted , and in entrepreneurship as an ideal. Both that put Republicans on the side of per- even during the tight labor markets of the are important things, and they are worthy sonal responsibility and work, and one that late 1990s. Worklessness contributes to of being pursued and celebrated, respec- was hugely successful because it moved poverty when we are at the peak of the tively. But they have limited political welfare recipients into the job market. business cycle as well as the trough.

salience. For all its importance, the fed- The Republicans should be the party of As for long-term unemployment, we LINCOLN THE RAIL SPLITTER

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know its devastating effects on workers. pages that if the Federal Reserve keeps the ways in which means-tested govern- Besides the tremendous financial blow, it the growth of nominal spending and nom- ment benefits can actually discourage erodes their skills, and employers are less inal income on a steady path, we will see work. Eugene Steuerle of the Urban likely to hire people who have been out of a far more robust labor-market recovery. Institute has written extensively on the work force for a long time. More fun- Achieving full employment is a crucial income cut-offs for Medicaid, food damentally, it eats away at people’s sense first step, as periods of full employment stamps, and other benefits that make it of identity and even increases the odds are also periods during which inflation- costly for many poor workers to earn that they will commit suicide. Work is adjusted incomes rise for all households, more income. This is one of the reasons good for people. including those at the bottom of the ladder. that Obamacare, according to the CBO, One of the most disturbing develop- Tax reform, and particularly cuts in discourages work—people lose the sub- ments of the past 40 years is that though taxes on business investment, has great sidy as their income rises. the United States as a whole has grown potential as a spur to job creation. In One idea, which has been championed more affluent, poverty and worklessness 2006, the economists Kevin A. Hassett by everyone from Harvard economist have grown more concentrated. Even as and Aparna Mathur found that higher cor- Edward Glaeser to Representative Paul racial segregation has declined, the phys- porate taxes lead to lower wages. The Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget ical separation of the jobless poor from higher wages that would result from Committee, would involve consolidating the rest of society has continued apace. lower corporate taxes would go a long transfer programs. This would allow for The problem with this extreme concen- way toward making work more attractive. a work-friendly simplification of the tration of poverty and joblessness is that And, on a smaller scale, Republicans way in which people are phased out of children who grow up in these environ- should, of course, oppose anything that these programs. ments find it very difficult to acquire the tends to reduce jobs or lock people out of More broadly, there are two counter- norms and habits essential to flourishing the job market, from restrictions on car- vailing big proposals for a new version of in mainstream American life, and as a bon emissions to occupational-licensing welfare reform. On one hand, Robert result they find themselves stuck in requirements at the local level. Rector wants to restore the badly eroded place. According to Scott Winship of the All of this would be to the end of federal work requirement in Temporary Manhattan Institute, 70 percent of children achieving full employment, but that is Assistance for Needy Families and extend raised in low-income households never easier said than done. Some thinkers, it to other means-tested programs, such as make it into the middle class as adults, and such as Evan Soltas, observe that we’re food stamps and public housing. On the one of the reasons is that many children now looking at a segmented labor mar- other, Oren Cass has called for replacing raised in low-income households are ket, in which finding work is relatively today’s complex welter of low-income extremely isolated from the world of work. easy for many people while the long-term programs with a state-administered safety The factor in all this that liberals have unemployed languish on the sidelines. net for poor Americans who are not work- been emphasizing the most in recent Essentially, workers in the economic ing and a direct federal wage subsidy for months has been stagnation in the mini- mainstream feel more and more comfort- those who are—an idea that Florida sen- mum wage. It is true that a recent Con - able quitting their jobs to find something ator Marco Rubio has embraced in a new gressional Budget Office analysis found better, as they’re not at all concerned that legislative proposal. Either approach— that a substantial increase in the mini- jobless workers waiting in the wings pose one depending on federal rules for these mum wage would lift 900,000 low-wage much of a competitive threat. programs, the other transferring them to workers out of poverty. But a minimum- So we will need targeted policies to the states—would encourage work. wage hike would be very poorly targeted address the labor-market challenges This agenda should be wrapped in an if our goal were to help poor families. facing workers stuck at the bottom. ethic of respect for and insistence on work. Specifi cally, the CBO found that only 19 One important step would be to reduce Never should anyone associated with the percent of the income gains that would the minimum wage for long-term- Republican party say that there are “jobs follow an increase in the federal mini- unemployed workers. As Michael R. that Americans won’t do.” Republicans mum wage to $10.10 would go to house- Strain of the American Enterprise Insti - should honor the dignity of every job, holds whose earnings fall below the tute has explained, employers hiring celebrating its economic contribution no poverty line. And the CBO also projects workers who’ve been out of the labor matter how small and the effort of the that the U.S. work force would become force for a long time are taking a risk. laborer no matter how humble. The other smaller by an amount equal to 500,000 Lowering the minimum wage for these side of the coin, though, should be a stern, workers as employers found large num- workers reduces the cost of taking this no-nonsense demand that able-bodied bers of Ameri cans unemployable at a risk, thus making it more likely that adults fend for themselves. higher wage floor. That is, a minimum- employers will do so. He also proposes a The party could do worse than to wage hike risks making the worklessness federal wage subsidy to shore up the liv- take inspiration from this statement of problem worse rather than better. ing standards of these workers, the cost of Lincoln’s in 1861: “Whatever is calculat- So what can we do about the workless- which would be offset over time as the ed to advance the condition of the honest, ness crisis? formerly long-term unemployed gained struggling laboring man, so far as my First, Republicans need to back macro- the experience and the skills they need to judgment will enable me to judge of a economic policies that will bring us closer earn higher, unsubsidized wages. correct thing, I am for that thing.” He was to full employment. David Beckworth and This points to another thorny problem. on the way to Washington, to take leader- Ramesh Ponnuru have argued in these A party of work will also need to address ship of a party of work.

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new land and plant it. Somebody has to do the work. To Work The unspoken premise of 21st-century progressivism is that downscale American Is to Live formerly blue-collar workers are wearing the scarlet “ZMP”—“zero marginal prod- The dignity of a day’s labor uct.” This is an intellectualish way of saying that they are worthless, that they have BY KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON nothing of any value to contribute to the economy of their families, their commu- hY do people work? With nities, their country, or the human race. millions upon millions lin- For progressives, a jobless worker is not a gering in unemployment potential resource to be employed but a W with no relief in sight, the problem to be kept at bay by stuffing wel- answer may seem obvious: We work for a fare benefits into its ravening maw. paycheck. But if we were to send every- Progressives have, without usually saying body in the country—or the world—a pay- as much, committed themselves to the check every two weeks prorating $100,000 from the ranks of the employed (more idea that some non-trivial share of the a year—or $100 million a year, pick your precisely, the equivalent of that number, potential American labor force should be figure—people would still need to work. In with two half-timers equaling one full- paid to exist—because they do not believe fact, they would still need to work exactly timer, etc.), the Democrats celebrated as if that those poor hapless slobs without as much as they do now in order to main- they had struck oil. This is a good thing, MFAs or public-policy degrees or even a tain our current shared standard of living. they honestly tried to convince both them- single lousy year in law school are going This is not to go all reductio ad absur- selves and the general public, because to get paid for anything else. dum on the Democrats’ arguments for they obviously didn’t like those jobs very And after a childhood spent sitting in ever-extended unemployment benefits much anyway. Obamacare has saved progressives’ schools and marinating in and ever-more-generous welfare pay- them from job lock, and they now will no progressives’ culture, the American worker, ments, but to illustrate something much longer have to work for the things that I am afraid, may have come to share their more fundamental and physical. The they used to be working for. low opinion of him. If a man is not going point of work is not to collect a paycheck, As it turns out, a great many people to be a rock star, an investment banker, but to produce something: food, shelter, have jobs that they do not like. That’s an industry-changing entrepreneur, or a custom automotive upholstery, orderly why they have to pay you to do them. wildly successful member of an occupa- business offices, artisanal glassware. You can make the statutory minimum tion about which they make reality- Every good thing in this world is the prod- wage whatever you like—$10.10 or television shows, what is he going to be? uct of somebody’s work. Under the influ- $110.10—and it will not change the phys- A $10-an-hour loser hoping to work his ence of naïve Keynesianism in the Robert ical reality that the value of an hour’s labor way up to being a $13-an-hour loser? Reich mode, our policymakers have fall- is not what you get paid for it but what Consider the case of immigrants over en into the error of thinking about practi- you produce. Money is just a means of the past 40 years or so. If you’re old cally all economic action as playing out facilitating trade, and the real problem enough, you might remember the tall on the consumption side. Call it “leaky facing low-skilled American workers is wave of Iranians who came here after the Keynesianism,” the osmotic transmission that they don’t have enough to trade—a ayatollahs decided that they would try to of consumption-side thinking to the pro- condition that will not be relieved by create a new society combining all the duction side of the equation. So leaky is price-fixing, which is what the minimum nastiest aspects of Castro’s Cuba and the current fashionable Keynesianism wage is. Trying to improve the condition Khalid’s Saudi Arabia. They started call- that we now think about work in terms of of the working poor in real terms by ing themselves “Persians” and started little consumption, those “good-paying jobs” manipulating statutory wage floors is like businesses (they had very high rates of that politicians are forever going on trying to improve the life of a farmer with self-employment) or took jobs driving about, rather than in terms of production. one acre by putting a floor on the price of taxis and operating bodegas. The thing is, Good-paying jobs doing . . . what? wheat and doing the same thing with the those Iranians who had the personal That is the question that our leaky- one-acre corn farmer down the way: They wherewithal to escape revolutionary Iran minded friends on the left refuse even to each have so many bushels to consume and come to the United States to be bode- think about seriously, though they may or to trade with one another, little green ga owners and taxi drivers were not, for mumble something about wind turbines pieces of paper notwithstanding. What the most part, bodega owners and taxi dri- from time to time. Instead, they have gone they need isn’t higher commodity prices vers back home. They were educated pro- all reductio ad absurdum on themselves: but superior seed, more acreage, tractors, fessionals, many of them members of the Witness the ascendency of the phrase “job fertilizer, etc. Progressives think that they Iranian elite. Starting over in the United lock.” When the Congressional Budget can make the community as a whole richer States had a very steep downside for them, Office estimated that the Affordable Care by reassigning acreage from one farm to but not so steep a downside as being Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, would result in the the next and shuffling the seeds around. clapped into prison or worse. Even in their

HANS HANSEN exit of some 2.5 million full-time workers To grow more, somebody has to clear reduced circumstances, they had enough

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self-respect to do what needed doing, and aligned with the core interests, concerns, sufficient sense of family obligation that, and beliefs of everyday hardworking cit- like Indians, Chinese, Lebanese, and Amnesty izens. Eastern European Jews before them, they But the immigration “principles” made meaningful investments in the next Won’t Work offered by House GOP leaders imply that generation, which is why your kids are record immigration levels must be in - working for their kids. The parents must How the Republican party can help creased further to meet “the needs of have felt the loss of status deeply, but struggling Americans, and itself employers.” One such GOP proposal—to they were playing a longer game. provide the food industry with half a mil- Status is a funny thing. My mother was BY JEFF SESSIONS lion low-skilled workers each year—was a secretary, and the man to whom she was polled by Rasmussen. Nearly 70 percent married during my teenage years was a HEN Americans went to the of independent voters opposed it. janitor at a high school. With four children polls in 2012, the following “Most business leaders have long and a combined income that I would be was true: Work-force par- favored more open immigration. Diffe - shocked to learn touched $35,000 in W ticipation had sunk to its rent businesses want different kinds of today’s terms, money was a constant lowest level in 35 years, wages had fallen people,” a prominent GOP fundraiser issue, but you eventually figure out how below 1999 levels, and 47 million Ameri - declared on TV. “A restaurant may want to live on what you have. (To this day, cans were on food stamps. Yet Mitt Rom- waiters and cooks, a hospital wants nurs- exactly how they managed remains a ney, the challenger to the incumbent es and doctors, a university wants physi- mystery to me.) What really pushed their president, lost lower- and middle-income cists, a business like Exelon needs more buttons was the issue of status. He had had voters by an astonishing margin. Among engineers.” Asked by the interviewer a re spectable job with a trucking company voters earning $30,000 to $50,000, he about hiring U.S. workers for open jobs, before a long and fairly dispiriting bout of trailed by 15 points, and among voters he replied that many of those now unem- unemployment, and while I suspect that earning under $30,000 he trailed by 28 ployed are “unable to compete for them.” his total compensation working for the points. Is that the message of a winning party? local school district was about as attractive And what did the GOP’s brilliant con- It might win a majority of votes at a dinner as that from his old trucking job, he was sultant class conclude from this resound- party in a gated community in Bel Air, but keenly aware of the low esteem in which ing defeat? They declared that the GOP it is an act of profound delusion to think janitors are habitually held, especially by must embrace amnesty. The Republican that plan can form the basis of a nation- snooty high-school kids—and he worked National Committee dutifully issued a wide Republican resurgence. at Snoot High. My mother, on the other report calling for a “comprehensive immi- Democrats in Washington have already hand, was paid approximately the same gration reform” that would inevitably cast their lot. A recent report from the pittance as any other secretary was paid, increase the flow of low-skilled immi - Center for Immigration Studies shows but she worked for the most prestigious gration, reducing the wages and living that all net employment gains from 2000 institution in town, the local university— standards of the very voters whose trust to 2013—a period of record legal immi- in a dean’s office, at that. She was treated the GOP had lost. gration—went to immigrant workers, as a colleague by the professors, dealt with Over the past four decades, as factories and yet the immigration plan champi- representatives of foreign governments, shuttered and blue-collar jobs were out- oned by the White House and con- proctored exams for master’s candidates, sourced or automated, net immigration gressional Democrats would triple the and generally felt herself to be a valued quadrupled. Yet the corporate-consultant number of immigrants given permanent member of an important institution. class has pronounced that an insufficient legal status over the next decade, and it Same money, roughly; very different level of immigration is the problem. A would double the annual flow of guest jobs. more colossal misreading of the political workers to compete for jobs in every sec- I cannot recall hearing her complain moment has rarely occurred. tor of the U.S. economy. The Democrats’ about her pay (though I am sure she did), Perhaps the most important political plan delivers for international corpora- but I have vivid memories of her throwing development now unfolding in the U.S. is tions, open-borders groups, and even enraged, weeping fits after being told that the public’s growing loss of faith in our workers now living in other countries. she could not do something for want of a political and financial elites of both par- But the interests of American workers are credential beyond her high-school diplo- ties. To open the ears of disaffected voters, sacrificed completely. ma, or when she believed (often wrongly) the GOP must break publicly from the Republicans can either join the Demo - that her ideas and suggestions were being elite immigration consensus of Wall Street crats as the second political party in dismissed out of hand because “I’m noth- and Davos. Republicans have a clear path Washington advocating uncontrolled ing but a dumb secretary to them.” to building a conservative majority if immi gration, or they can offer a princi- Of course money matters. But it is not they free themselves from the corporate pled alternative and represent the Ameri - all that matters. The first step toward consultants and demonstrate to the Ameri - can workers Democrats have jettisoned. changing our national attitude toward can public that the GOP is the only party The Left embraces an agenda that bene- work is remembering what work is for— fits only the fortunate few: nationalized it is how we live, and everybody has a part Mr. Sessions is the junior U.S. senator from Alabama health care; intrusive government; surg- to play, none dishonorable unless we and the ranking Republican member of the Senate ing welfare costs; high taxes; endless choose to make it so. Budget Committee. deficits; Federal Reserve stimulus, which

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helps big firms at the expense of small policies they are pushing on these groups’ worker while reducing costs for the tax- savers; government climate regulation behalf? Isn’t it time we made President payer. that drives up energy costs; maze-like Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and What if, instead of applying for guest regulations that only the largest compa- each of their rank-and-file members workers, companies applied to hire nies can navigate; bureaucratic inter- defend their near-unanimous embrace of workers receiving relevant job training ference in schools and homes; and an an immigration plan that is so contrary to at a local welfare office? Able-bodied increasingly open-borders immigration the wishes and interests of the American adults, in turn, would be required to plan. Each of these policies directly people? accept employment or lose benefits. In harms working Americans. Each of these Republicans should then outline a de - other words: instead of a guest-worker policies serves the political interests of tailed agenda animated by the moral goal program, a welfare-to-work program. Democrats while entailing lower pay, of easing the burden on workers while Would that not be in the national fewer hours, and higher unemployment helping millions now unemployed transi- interest? Would that not improve the for dedicated American workers. tion from joblessness and dependency to quality of life in struggling families, Wherever the policies of the Left have work and rising wages. schools, and communities? been faithfully implemented, as in Detroit, The last 40 years have been a period of Such a plan should be combined with a human tragedy has followed. The future uninterrupted large-scale immigration into series of conservative policies all united offered by the Left—a shrinking work the U.S., coinciding with increased job- by that common theme: shrinking the The current welfare structure is unfair both to the taxpayers who fund it and to the struggling Americans it has failed to rescue from poverty. force struggling to fund a growing welfare lessness, falling wages, failing schools, welfare rolls and growing the employ- state—is not only unsustainable but un- and a growing welfare state. Would not the ment rolls. This pro-worker conservative compassionate. Compassion demands sensible, conservative thing to do be to agenda would create millions of good- that we spare no effort in helping millions slow down for a bit, allow wages to rise paying jobs without adding a dime to our now jobless to realize the dream of finan- and assimilation to occur, and help the dangerous debt: cial independence. This is the urgent millions struggling here today—immi- Producing more American energy to economic task of the 21st century. grant and native-born alike—transition create good-paying jobs right here in the Too often, Republicans have offered a from dependency to self-sufficiency? U.S. passive reply to the Left’s refrain that the Indeed, the heart of the GOP’s pro- Streamlining the tax code to allow our GOP does not care for those in need. The worker, pro-middle-class agenda should businesses to grow and our workers to usual GOP responses—that the Left is be a bold reforming of our welfare sys- compete on a more level global playing engaged in “class warfare,” or is not pre- tem. The current welfare structure is field. senting “credible solutions,” or is “kick- unfair both to the taxpayers who fund it Cracking down on illicit foreign trad- ing the can down the road”—fail to rebut and to the struggling Americans it has ing practices that close our plants and the underlying slander. Instead, Repub - failed to rescue from poverty. send our manufacturing jobs overseas. licans should hold the Left accountable Currently, the federal government Eliminating every unnecessary regula- for the social and moral harm its policies administers roughly 80 means-tested tion that destroys jobs and reduces pro- have inflicted on every community that poverty-assistance and welfare productivity. has suffered for decades under its disas- grams, on which it spends $750 billion a Repealing Obamacare to save Ameri - trous policy regime. year—that’s a larger cost than defense, can jobs and maintain wages. The GOP cannot win a bidding war Medicare, or Social Security. It is a Enforcing an immigration plan that with Democrats, carried from election sprawling, growing bureaucracy with serves the national interest, not the special cycle to election cycle in perpetuity, about almost no meaningful oversight or guid- interests. who is willing to embrace the most gen- ing vision. Federal agencies seek higher Converting the welfare office into a erous amnesty and the most expansive enrollment to swell their budgets (the job-training center. immigration policy. Moreover, polling USDA, for instance, trains food-stamp Balancing the federal budget to make shows that a majority of Americans wish recruiters on how to “overcome the word the government more efficient and the to see immigration curbed and that, by a ‘No’”), while states have an incentive future more confident and secure. margin of three to one, those earning to overlook fraud so they can get a larg- Each of these policies would help strug- under $30,000—the very group the GOP er slice of the federal budget. gling workers transition from joblessness is hemorrhaging—favor a reduction over If these myriad programs were com- and dependency to work and rising wages. an increase. bined into a single manageable credit, Each of these policies would grow the Is it not time for the GOP to make a with clear job-training and work re - middle class—not the government class in clean public break from the special-interest quirements, not only would it cut down Washington, D.C. And each of these poli- immigration lobby and to let Demo- drastically on fraud but it would help cies would provide Americans with a clear crats own—solely, completely, and ex - struggling Americans rise out of poverty answer to the following question: Which clusively—the unwise and unpopular and into good-paying jobs—uplifting the party in Washington represents you?

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us the world’s leading military power, from our army, air Force, navy, and one that can “defeat any aggressor.” Marines simultaneously, this would be a We Few, that is patent nonsense, and it’s impor- way of doing it. tant to realize why. In fact, the hagel budget leaves us with We Very Few here is the most significant number: only one answer in the case of a protracted hagel’s plan will shrink the u.s. army conflict: the draft. It was the draft that Chuck Hagel’s defense cuts would from its current 520,000 active-duty per- enabled us to surge from 280,000 men in imperil the nation sonnel down to 440,000 to 450,000, about 1940—the last time the army’s numbers the same size as Vietnam’s or turkey’s. were this low—to 1.46 million a year BY ARTHUR HERMAN again, hagel defenders argue that this later. But those draftees entered a standing just returns the army to the force level we force that, after World War I, was pre- eFense secretary chuck ha - had before 9/11. that actually should be a pared and ready to train a large conscript gel’s proposed Defense De - source of alarm, not reassurance—espe- expansion. Quite apart from the pressures part ment budget for fiscal year cially when secretary hagel himself that would make reimposing a draft polit- D 2015, unveiled in late February, admits he is “diminishing our global readi- ical suicide today, no one currently serv- has set off a firestorm of outrage, and for ness” in a “world that is growing more ing in uniform below the rank of general good reason. volatile, more unpredictable, and . . . more remembers how to work with draftees, or Of course, in one sense, its long list of threatening to the united states.” has knowledge and experience in train- cuts only extends the defense cuts Presi - an army of 440,000 to 450,000 troops ing and motivating unwilling bodies torn dent Obama has been making since he is demonstrably too small to handle any from civilian life and thrust into a full- took office—some $480 billion worth— wars larger than Iraq and afghanistan, time military routine—let alone combat. in addition to those imposed by the which at their peak stretched a force of and even in World War II, it took two Budget control act, which will eventually 570,000 to the breaking point. Despite years before those draftees were ready add up to another $600 billion when and the years of headlines and heartbreak to fight and win a modern war. no such if the moratorium on the cuts in the those wars brought, they were actually leisurely time frame exists today. since ryan–Murray budget deal expires. fairly small-scale, guerrilla-type conflicts, Vietnam, the bedrock of our national secu- From that perspective, we’re simply on especially compared with a head-on colli- rity has instead been a large and highly the same track as before: toward a navy sion with china in the Pacific or with trained military force of professionals, with smaller than it was before World War I, Iran in the Persian gulf, or even with a salaries and benefits meant to attract as an army smaller than it was in 1940, and nuclear-armed, ballistic-missile-equipped many of the best and brightest as possible. an air Force that is smaller than it’s been north korea on the korean peninsula. yet cuts in those incentives are in the at any time since World War II and is no one has bothered to explain how budget as well, including reducing the acquiring fewer new aircraft than it did an army smaller by 120,000 will handle subsidies for service com mis sar ies— back in 1915. that’s an air Force less able those crises, or a ramping up of cold which means military personnel will pay to sustain missions because it can’t re - War tensions over ukraine that requires more for food and clothing—and making place planes lost to break down, accident, putting american boots back on the them and their families pay more for their combat, or retirement—and already from ground in Western europe. health care. By turning the military into 2008 to 2012, the air Force retired 700 again, critics will argue that we will still a less attractive career, we will make it more planes than it purchased. have our reserves and army nation al harder to hit the minimal numbers needed But these cuts represent something dif- guard units as a backup. But in fact the to keep the army, navy, air Force, and ferent. they deliver a lasting blow to our term “reserves” has become a misnomer. Marines even at these reduced levels. force structure and ensure that our mili- those part-time reservists and national Finally, it’s no good insisting that we’ll tary won’t be able to fight any conflicts guardsmen have evolved into the full- just have to learn to avoid conflicts that larger than Iraq or afghanistan anytime time support and logistical backbone of require large numbers of boots on the soon—perhaps ever, unless we see a our current force, as a manpower-starved ground and stick to the ones we can massive shift in political will to rebuild Penta gon has increasingly shifted those resolve with a navy seal team or two an american military that Obama has burdens onto them. In 2012, in fact, the (the hagel budget, we note, boosts spend- been steadily tearing down. army na tion al guard made up 32 percent ing for special Ops) and a couple of hagel supporters will claim that this of army personnel, 38 percent of the hellfire-missile-wielding drones. is a necessary shift, after Iraq and army’s operating force, and 11.5 percent the sad fact is that we don’t choose afghanistan, to a leaner force that’s of the baseline budget of the entire army. wars—the myth of Iraq as a “war of equipped for the high-tech wars of the cutting its numbers will directly affect the choice” notwithstanding. they choose future—which assumes, of course, that viability of the standing force that remains. us. as the greatest defender and repre- our future wars will be high-tech. yet yet that is precisely what the hagel sentative of freedom on the planet, we hagel still insists that his budget leaves budget envisages, a 5 percent reduction are automatic targets for every thug and in national guard units and a similar cut authoritarian regime, and under Obama Mr. Herman is the author of, among other books, for army reserves. If an enemy wanted they’re all feeling bolder and more con- Freedom’s Forge: How American Business to make sure we had no way to relieve fident of success than ever. Produced Victory in World War II. He is and replace combat troops in a prolonged Moreover, historically, armed conflicts currently working on a biography of Douglas MacArthur. campaign that demanded the maximum for the united states have tended to come

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in twos, not one at a time. There was Europe and the Pacific in World War II; Korea, then Vietnam, and the Cold War in the Fifties and Sixties; and Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade. It isn’t simply American military dominance that this Obama budget “puts into question,” as even Hagel admitted in his press conference. It’s America’s ability to defend its interests around the globe when Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea all know we e Best Two Weeks of Your Summer! lack the means to deal with two major crises at the same time. How will Obama Great Books or some future president decide, when a looming war in the Mid dle East coincides Engaging Conversations with a major aggressive move by China in the East China Sea, which is the priority Authentically Catholic conflict requiring American mobilization and which he or she will have to let slide? July 20–August 2, 2014 It’s far more likely that, after examin- ing the risks, a future commander-in- chief will, like Buridan’s mule, choose High School neither—delivering a blow to Amer i can Great Books Program power and prestige that will encourage at Thomas Aquinas College our enemies and discourage allies such as Japan and Israel. See the video: The bottom line is that, while the rest thomasaquinas.edu/summerprogram of the world, including our biggest foes, is busy arming, we are disarming. In that sense, it’s ironic that Hagel concluded his press conference by quoting Henry Stimson—the secretary of war who had to ramp up the sadly diminished military that his predecessors, just like Hagel, had left him on the eve of World War II. The line was to the effect that Americans must learn to live “in the world as it is, and not in the world as we wish it were.” In fact, this budget does the exact opposite. It is an exercise in utopian fantasy—or perhaps, even worse, in political grandstanding, in which Obama and his advisers are using the budget to scare Republicans into going along with more tax increases, or lifting automatic sequestration, to prevent these cuts from going through—and to fix the blame on Congress if they do go through. Hagel would have done better to re - member the words of Douglas Mac - Ar thur, who, as Army chief of staff in those dark pre-war days, saw the impact of similar cuts on our forces and warned, “From the dawn of history to the present day it has always been the militant aggres-

quinas sor taking the place of the unprepared.” A C s o a l This budget moves us closer to being Thomas Aquinas College m l e

e T unprepared for war than we’ve been Truth Ma ers C since Pearl Harbor—and as close as 1 al 7 if 19 we’ve ever been to being unable to see a ornia - war through.

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ples “or even the policies we want to the House, even as a major committee achieve.” Just tactics. chairman? The Would- His advice for fellow Republicans is, “It took me about 36 hours, I suppose.” “Take a deep breath and put it all in per- I must say—and do say—it would have Have-Been spective.” Infighting can be “dangerous,” taken me longer. Ryan says, “I’m from he says, because “we don’t have time to Janesville, Wisconsin, and I never expected have a civil war. We could lose this country to be a member of Congress in the first Veep if we don’t win in 2014 and 2016. Obama place.” has done a lot to advance liberal progres- He is not one to cry over spilt milk, but And should-have-been sivism and put it on a trajectory that could he regrets that Romney did not get the veep—Paul Ryan be irreversible if they get another term or chance to be president. Not only was he two in the White House.” superbly qualified, “he came at a moment BY JAY NORDLINGER Ryan says that Republicans are going in history that was perfect for him.” Yet to have to unify, and that there is time to the voters disagreed, or thought they did. Washington, D.C. do so. “But the thing is, we’ve got to win Indulging in a little “what if,” Ryan AuL RYAN is having a quick a majority of Americans. We’ve got to says, “I worked on a 200-day plan with lunch in his office. And he’s win elections. We can’t have an Electoral Mike Leavitt,” a key Romney adviser eating what you might expect College strategy with a margin of error who might well have been Romney’s P him to eat: a salad. He does not of one state. You know what I mean?” presidential chief of staff. The plan was have the build of a cheeseburger-eater. (Yes.) “We’ve got to focus more on win- for the first 200 days of a Romney In his office is a bust of Churchill, and a ning converts than on purging and burn- administration. “We were going to take it photo of Lincoln, and a photo of Vince ing heretics.” all on. By this time, we would have had Lombardi. The third of these men, as you In Ryan’s view, President Obama has entitlement reform done, tax reform done, know, was the coach of the Green Bay greatly heightened the differences be - Obamacare would have been gone, we Packers. tween the two major parties. “I think would be working on a rewrite of all the Ryan, as you also know, is a Wis- Obama sees himself as having more regulatory stuff ...” And this would have consin congressman. He is chairman of than just a paragraph in history. I think happened whether the Democrats or the the House Budget Committee. And, in he sees himself as writing the final Republicans controlled the Senate. There 2012, he was the vice-presidential nomi- chapter of the progressive experiment.” were plans either way. nee of the Republican party, running with The good news, says Ryan, is that Obama As Ryan sees it, Obama and the Demo- Mitt Romney. We talk a little football— and the Democrats have to sell their pro- crats won in 2012 by a galling combina- and then get down to business. gressivism “misleadingly,” “indirectly.” tion of 21st-century technology, identity I say, “I think I’ve heard the word They cloak their intentions and program politics, and the advantages of incum- ‘establishment’ more in the last year in the rhetoric of the Declaration, the bency. Republicans need to be ready the than I have in all the preceding years of Constitution, and American traditions. next time, and can be, says Ryan. “I’m not my life.” Chuckling, Ryan says, “Isn’t They can’t be candid—because people demoralized. We’ve got our work cut out that funny?” Many Republicans position wouldn’t buy it. for us, but it’s doable”—“it” being a pres- them selves as true conservatives fighting Further good news, says Ryan, is that idential victory. the establishment—an establishment that people are now seeing what Obama-style Watching the vice-presidential debate, I includes Ryan. I ask him, “Are you an big government looks like in practice. In thought that Joe Biden was blowing it, big establishment politician?” He says, “I’m 2012, Romney and Ryan had to run time, by behaving like ...well, such a not even going to touch that one.” He against the idea of Obamacare—a funda- jerk. He was rude, snorting, and foolish. then gives a sample of his conservative mental change that was looming. Now Did Ryan, too, think that Biden was blow- bona fides. people can see the dismaying results. ing the debate? Yes. “I was excited.” Ryan In 2008, he says, he put out a budget It’s not enough, says Ryan, for Re - and his team had figured that Biden’s aim that everyone tried to talk him out of. It publicans to say “I told you so.” “We have would be to rattle him—to get under his was known as the “roadmap,” and it to be the alternative party,” showing how skin, and make him lose his cool. That was widely considered too severe, or too conservative ideas can work for all. way, he could show that the 42-year-old principled. “The political hacks were Obama and the Left are “intellectually congressman lacked the temperament for livid,” he says. The National Republican exhausted,” he says. “They’re talking national office. Instead, Ryan was unflap- Con gressional Committee told everyone about income inequality because they pable, and Biden was flapping. to run away from it. Ryan had only eight can’t talk about growth.” Sitting on the stage, Ryan thought this: co-sponsors. And now that budget is When I was a kid, I tell Ryan, I was His tactics aren’t working, and it’s bother- thoroughly mainstream. Once a right- amazed at John Quincy Adams: How ing him. He is increasing his crazy antics. wing “pariah” (his word), Ryan is today could he go to the House of Repre - I’m in control of my emotions, and he’s “establishment.” He and his like have sentatives after being president? That not in control of his. I’m going to stick to shifted the center of gravity in the Re - must have taken great humility. Ryan my path, because I want him to keep publican party, he says. was never president. But he was on a doing what he’s doing. The current Republican debate, international ticket, with all that hoopla. Did In fact, Ryan tells me, “I had to pull, I nally, is over tactics, he says—not princi- he have any trouble returning to life in don’t know, four or five punches, rhetori-

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The Greatest When Ali earned his nickname

BY JAMES ROSEN

VEN before Liston had be - come world heavyweight champion,” Muhammad Ali ‘E recounted in The Greatest: My Own Story, “I knew he was the fighter I would have to beat if I were ever to be recognized as what I declared I was: The Greatest.” In the early 1960s, Charles “Sonny” cally,” just to stay out of Biden’s way. He win elections. That’s within our control as Liston was the scariest man in America. Six did not want to engage in tit-for-tat. He a country. We know how to make Social feet, 218 pounds, ebony-dark and musta- thought: Some things are better left Security work, how to fix Medicare,” chioed, broad torso and arms powerfully unsaid, and seen instead. He looks ridicu- etc. “But we don’t control the mullahs, sculpted, hands like bricks, Liston had lous. It may be good for his base, but not we don’t control Putin, we don’t control done time for armed robbery. His true age for the country at large. the arms race in the Middle East that’s was unknown. Reputed to have broken legs The “base” and others reelected Obama about to get sparked, we don’t control for a St. Louis union, Sonny learnt to box in and Biden on Election Day. Did that sur- the appetite we’re whetting with the prison and absolutely annihilated his oppo- prise Ryan? Yes. He expected to win. Chinese by shrinking our force and giving nents. One was carried away with seven I ask, incidentally, how Obama and them an incentive to catch up . . .” All this teeth in his mouthpiece and blood trickling Biden are treating him now. Nicely, he could be “a deeper hole” the country will from his ear. Liston’s chief weapons were a says. Respectfully. They are complimen- have to climb out of. stiff left jab, crushing hooks, and patience tary to him. “I think because I sort of To me, Ryan looks peppy and purpose- in the ring that belied quickness to anger shared the stage with them, so to speak, ful—far from defeated or defeatist. “You outside of it. The hooded robes he favored they consider me more of a peer, and they haven’t lost your appetite for politics,” I evoked the Grim Reaper. No one had ever treat me that way.” say. He says, “I prefer policy, to be honest seen anything like him. We discuss some issues, including de- with you. I put up with politics as a nec- Liston captured the heavyweight belt in fense: Some of us are worried that the essary means to do policy.” He likes September 1962, and retained it in July Republican party is going wobbly on campaigning, though. “That’s fun, being 1963, with a pair of first-round knock- defense. They seem happy, or at least with people.” outs—swift obliterations—of the righteous, willing, to see the defense budget shrink He started out, after college, as an econ- pitiable Floyd Patterson. “His menace was perilously. Ryan says this worry is under- omist, congressional staffer, and think- intimate,” wrote Norman Mailer of the new standable. “We’re not all hawks any- tanker. He thought he would continue in champion. “One held one’s breath when more.” Ryan is a hawk, and, when he first that direction. Think-tankers, pundits, near him.” It wasn’t just the ham-fists and came to Congress, in 1999, “we were all and similar types would do well to “get underworld aura; it was Liston’s dead, hawks.” But “that caucus has shrunk a bit, in the arena,” he says. It’s not as easy to expressionless eyes, his ill-concealed soul- because we have a libertarian stream.” win elections as it may look. Those who lessness. In the racial morality play that had Still, Ryan is “not too stressed,” because blame candidates should maybe try it attended the heavyweight division since the party leadership is foursquare behind themselves. 1908, when Jack Johnson’s triumph over defense. Thinking about Ryan, I think of Wil - Jim Jeffries sparked deadly riots, poet The problem, he says, is that “the pres- liam E. Miller. Remember him? A New LeRoi Jones saw “Liston the unreformed, ident really determines how this stuff York congressman, he was Barry Gold - Liston the vulgar, Liston the violent.” goes.” The challenge for the Republican water’s running mate in 1964. Barely Liston is the big black Negro in every House, he says, is to “prevent him from more than ten years later, he was making white man’s hallway, waiting to do him in, hollowing out our force.” The Republi- a TV commercial for American Express, deal him under for all the hurts white men, cans are trying to “buy time,” hoping for saying, “Do you know me?” Later, he through their arbitrary order, have been Republican electoral victories in the near would say he was more famous for that able to inflict. . . . Sonny Liston is “the future. In a broader discussion, Ryan says ad than for having been the Republican huge Negro,” “the bad nigger” . . . finally that the “greatest lasting damage” of the vice-presidential nominee. here to collect his pound of flesh. Obama presidency may come in the realm Anyone who predicts politics should “Big bad niggers weren’t supposed to be of defense and foreign policy. be taken with many grains of salt. But I that big and that bad,” wrote Nick Tosches in

EVAN VUCCI The Devil and Sonny Liston. Tosches, who

/ “I look at the domestic stuff, which is have a feeling Paul Ryan will be “in the what I’m known for and spend a lot of arena” for years or decades to come, and

AP PHOTO time on, as fixable. All we have to do is prominent in it. Mr. Rosen is the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News.

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was sympathetic, nonetheless reckoned Sonny landed a few placebic shots to Clay’s from all angles!” Forty seconds in, the chal- him “a beast . . . not only something that midsection, then missed a roundhouse left. lenger snapped Liston’s head back with a was inhuman, but also something in which A minute in, measure taken, Clay planted vicious right cross that opened a cut on the humanity was not even vestigial.” his feet and unloaded two lightning combi- champ’s face. Across 36 professional bouts, Cassius Clay, on the other hand, was nations. He landed several jabs and—in the this had never happened to Liston before. beautiful: six-foot-three, lithe and light- seven seconds where they continued fight- “Well, that proves one thing,” exclaimed colored, handsome and charming at 22. ing past the closing bell—a sharp left hook Jimmy Brown, the football star, at ring- He loved his parents, won Olympic gold, to the champ’s face. The universe was side. “Liston’s got blood.” “I was one of and enjoyed kibitzing with sportswriters. upended: Sonny Liston’s Aura of Invinci - the many who subscribed to the Liston In sophomoric verse, Clay cheerfully pre- bility was gone. “One of the greatest rounds mystique,” recalled Howard Cosell, calling dicted the rounds in which his oppo- of any fight we’ve seen in a long time,” the fight for the 75.3 million listeners tuned nents would fall. This he accomplished marveled former champ Joe Louis. in to ABC Radio. But here, Cosell would with a speed and sharpness unprecedented From his corner, Clay made clowning recall in Cosell, “Liston was slow and pon- amongst heavyweights, and ring savvy faces, and Round 2 witnessed the birth of derous, and suddenly I was in the process beyond his years. Clay pranced backwards the rope-a-dope: Clay leaning on the ropes, of seeing the Big Black Bear exposed.” in circles, edging out of danger’s way, patiently absorbing the heavier man’s graceful and poetic, hands held invitingly hooks to midsection. By Round 3, Clay Liston’s face was just slit from the eye low, before darting back in to deliver blind- was all business, pounding Liston into the down to the lip. It was like a zipper, and ing combinations—one-two-three-four- ropes—unthinkable!—and the crowd, elec- out gushed the blood, which he tasted. [Former champ] Rocky Marciano, who five!—like a cobra aroused. He was also, as trified, was on its feet. “Cassius has him was doing the fight with me, leaned over the press had recently sniffed out, a convert hurt!” cried Ellis. “He is getting hit with all and said, “Jesus Christ, Howie, he’s to the Nation of Islam. No one had ever the punches in the book!” Liston recovered, become an old man.” seen anything like him. and the tempo slowed, but the champ’s face Campaigning for a title shot, Clay stalked looked puffy. Then came Clay’s crucible. Liston collapsed on his stool. “[Corner Sonny at ringside, at casinos, at his home, His eyes burned. Seated on his stool be - man] Joe Pollino trying to keep that cut even, staging wild scenes where handlers tween Rounds 4 and 5, Clay blinked mani- closed,” reported Ellis. Soon the official pretended to restrain him. “You big ugly acally, demanded manager Angelo Dundee physician was leaning in for a look, and bear! . . . The world’s champ should be stop the fight. Gripped by paranoia that had Liston spit out his mouthpiece. Clay saw pretty like me! . . . You gonna fall in eight!” seeped into his training camp, the result of that. Arms aloft, legs shuffling in a wil- Younger sportswriters ate it up, but the tension between his white handlers and lowy victory dance, he was the first per- Elders resented Cassius’s antics, thought the Black Muslims, Clay wondered if the son in Convention Hall to realize Liston them an elaborate tonic for mortal fear, Italian-American Dundee, who adored his wasn’t coming out for the seventh. Amidst hoped Liston would shut the Louisville fighter, had taken mob money to poison the ensuing bedlam in the ring, now Lip for good. Once, Liston responded to his water bucket. In fact, salve applied to mobbed with newsmen, handlers, leeches, the provocations by slapping Clay’s face; Liston’s battered face had simply migrated, and Black Muslims, the new champion another time he whipped out a pistol and in clinches, to the challenger’s. Forget the recalibrated his target: “I wasn’t even shot blanks; but mostly the champ just bullshit! Dundee screamed. This is the thinking about Liston—I was thinking kept up The Stare. “He’s a fag, I’m a championship! “Angelo now is telling him about nothing but that hypocrite press.” man,” he growled to the New York Times’ off a little bit,” observed Ellis from ringside. Clay bulled his way over to the sports- Robert Lipsyte. Mailer, covering the fight With Barney Felix about to terminate writers. I am the king! Eat your words! he for Esquire, saw another side: “Liston was the bout, Joe Louis shouted, “Somethin’ shouted over the ropes at the Elders. Eat secretly fond of Clay. He would chuckle wrong with Clay’s eyes!” Dundee shoved your words! Few did. Dick Young, the when he talked about him.” his man into the ring. Clay ran; the champ crotchety New York Daily News columnist, The showdown finally came in Miami’s sensed weakness. “Sonny’s gonna try to wrote: “I never saw Joe Louis run away and Convention Hall on February 25, 1964. pour it on!” yelled Ellis. Liston flailed win, or Rocky Marciano, and I’m sure my Oddsmakers favored Liston eight-to-one. madly, throwing 24 consecutive punches. father never saw Jack Dempsey run away Though the champion enjoyed a two-inch Here Clay’s ringmanship, his innate gifts and win, and my grandfather never saw advantage in reach, Clay was three inches for spatial relations and evasion, took over. John L. Sullivan run away and win.” taller, a fact that dawned on many sports- But it was no cakewalk: “Sonny fired his Unintentionally, Young was paying writers only when the two stood at ring cen- best left hook so far!” By round’s end, tribute to the stunning singularity of the ter for referee Barney Felix’s instructions. sight restored, Clay reassumed control, new champion, his radical newness in a Clang! “Cassius Clay on the move,” dabbing his glove at Sonny’s balding head decade where change was profound and began Theatre Network Television an - like a boy taunting his kid brother. in escapable, radicalism already chic. The nouncer Steve Ellis (né Armand Yusem), as Round 6—three minutes that unfolded next day, Clay spoke at a news conference Liston missed his first nine punches. Clay three months after JFK’s assassination, so softly the press strained to hear him. danced and ducked, feinted here and there, three weeks after the Beatles invaded Now he openly embraced the Nation of coolly took the measure of the only man America—marked the third clarion call of Islam, and his mentor, Malcolm X. “I know who’d ever frightened him (“He was one of the Sixties revolution. Clay was now hitting where I’m going and I know the truth,” he the most scientific boxers who ever lived; Liston at will with stinging left jabs. “Easy said, “and I don’t have to be what you want he hit hard; and he was fixing to kill me”). target,” winced Ellis. “Cassius throws it me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”

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Cross Purposes Religious freedom vs. anti-discrimination law in Arizona

BY RAMESH PONNURU

he good news coming out of the just-concluded leg- headlines in the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA islative battle in Arizona is that religious freedom Today, and many other outlets either used that label or repeated remains what it has been there, undiminished by that claim. In their limited defense, the proximate reason for the T Governor Jan Brewer’s veto of a bill meant to protect legislation does have to do with homosexuality: Conservatives it. The bad news is that the debate over religious freedom has were concerned that without the law, business owners who taken an ominous turn. here are six takeaways from the contro- object to same-sex marriage might be forced to take actions versy. they regard as participating in, facilitating, or condoning it. The media cannot be trusted to report accurately on social They were moved by cases such as one in neighboring New issues. I mention this first not because it is the most important Mexico, where a wedding photographer was punished for part of the Arizona story—though it is very important—but refusing to serve a same-sex commitment ceremony. because it has made understanding that story so difficult. The The legislation itself, however, did not mention gays, homo- press leans to the left, as everyone knows, and especially on sexuality, or same-sex marriage, and largely tracked the federal social issues. CNN anchors more or less openly advocated for Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): a law that was a veto of the bill, which they would generally not do on tax leg- enacted by large bipartisan majorities that included many liberals islation. and was signed by President Clinton in 1993. It would not have Political journalists tend to accept social liberals’ framing authorized business owners to turn away gay customers— of issues, their terminology, and their claims, and to believe which, by the way, is something Arizona law already allows but the worst about social conservatives. In the Arizona debate, that businesses have not been eager to do. It would not even these tendencies manifested in widespread reports that the have authorized bakers to refuse to make a cake for a same-sex bill authorized businesses to refuse to serve gay people who wedding, which is a scenario both sides of the debate often wanted to be their customers and in the labeling of the legisla- mentioned. It would have given those bakers a claim in court

tion as “anti-gay.” but not guaranteed their success with it. DARREN GYGI

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The RFRa says that religious believers can get exemptions banned pornography: The question is whether they will grant it from a generally applicable law if they can convince judges that official recognition. (The fact that even NaTioNal Review the law imposes a substantial burden on the exercise of their faith oNliNe headline writers frequently describe laws defining mar- and is not the least restrictive means of advancing a compelling riage as the union of a man and a woman as “bans on gay mar- interest of the government. That is the same rule that the Supreme riage” is a testament to how deeply confused the debate has Court followed, as a matter of First amendment law, from 1963 been.) The libertarian argument for same-sex marriage is rooted through 1990. Neither the Court during that period nor the RFRa in discomfort with marriage as a separate legal category of its says that the religious believer’s conscience will always trump own rather than as one of an infinite variety of contracts indi- laws. The arizona bill would not have said that either. viduals can make. That argument has not played an important in cases where the government was trying to force a religious role in the public debate. believer to do something he considered contrary to his faith— in the dispute over the arizona law, people who profess or a private party was trying to use a law to force him to do themselves to be dead set against using government to impose that—the believer would be able to ask the court to grant him morality have cheered on exactly that. They see it as the only way an exemption if his case passed the law’s tests. The arizona bill to keep religious-conservative florists, bakers, and other busi- differed from the federal law, and clarified previous state law, in nessmen from imposing their moral views on their customers. two ways. it explicitly allowed businesses, not just individuals, But this is true only if an insult, or a perceived insult, is an impo- to make conscience claims in court, and it explicitly allowed the sition. only then can the old-fashioned pluralist answer to how to claims to be used against private litigants. whether the federal get along in the presence of differing moral views—keep the state law applies in these cases is disputed. out of it, and go to the shop down the street—be dismissed. Neither difference would seem to justify labeling the arizona The regime of anti-discrimination law has worked a revolu- bill as “anti-gay” given that almost nobody labels the federal tion in American liberalism, and American life. The reason the law that way. pluralist answer is no longer the default one is, of course, the What has changed since 1993 is American liberalism’s view struggle against Jim Crow, which is why its specter has of religious freedom. The RFRa was not something liberals appeared in the debate over the arizona law. a few defenders of conceded to religious conservatives. it was something they the arizona bill have argued that private actors should have affirmatively sought. Then-representative Chuck Schumer (D., the right to discriminate at will. But not many people are will- N.Y.) was a sponsor, and Senator Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.) was ing to follow that thought to the conclusion that the Civil a strong supporter. Rights act of 1964 has to go. even the idea of a religious Now liberals regard religious exemptions from laws as suspi- exemption from laws against racial discrimination makes most cious privileges for religious believers. Brian Beutler, writing in of us queasy, since we remember that some segregationists used Salon about the arizona bill, makes the point thus: “To support religious justifications. SB 1062 you must conceive of religious liberty as a social it is not impossible to devise an argument for leaving in trump card. . . . This view writes democratic norms and com- place the rules against discrimination based on race while peting liberties entirely out of the equation. . . . That view refusing to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. reflects an old, reactionary conception of liberty.” The strongest argument is that discrimination against gays and Beutler’s account is an overstatement but not an invention. lesbians is not comparable to discrimination against blacks in The old, reactionary conception of liberty championed by its historical effects. while they have been shamefully mis- Ted Kennedy really did regard religious liberty as a trump, treated, their oppression is not as terrible as slavery and segre- in many instances, over laws that were enacted democrati- gation were, and does not justify the same kind of extraordinary cally to advance other values. The same is of course true of measures that we have taken to destroy and prevent the reemer- any other liberty: if it does not sometimes act as a trump, it gence of those latter evils. does not exist; and if it does not often act as a trump, it hardly if we thought about freedom and discrimination that way, we exists. would start with a presumption in favor of tolerating private Beutler suggests that churches that refuse to marry same- discrimination that we would overcome only for a very strong sex couples should lose their “privileged tax status.” i doubt reason. The moral force of the attack on Jim Crow has instead many liberals are there yet. They will probably move first created a strong tendency in our culture to think of anti- against groups such as the Knights of Columbus, demanding discrimination as something close to an absolute principle—a that their halls be made available to same-sex weddings. But tendency with far-reaching implications that Thomas Powers give them time. pondered in a 2001 essay in The Public Interest. The advance of gay rights has at best an ambiguous rela- He noted that tolerance, government neutrality, and depoliti- tionship to the older conception of liberty. obviously, liberal- cization were once the guiding ideals of liberalism. The anti- ism’s growing coolness toward religious liberty is intimately discrimination regime, he argued, weakens these ideals or related to the growing place of gay rights within it and within even replaces them with a moralized politics and politicized american society. Those americans at the forefront of this trend morality. it takes the reshaping of opinion, through the mar- see it, and describe it, as a straightforward victory for liberty. ginalization and stigmatization of views it considers bigoted, and some of its important milestones fit the libertarian or as one of its main goals. a same-sex couple with a psychology classical-liberal template perfectly: in particular, the abolition shaped by classical liberalism might have seen the baker who of laws against sodomy. refused to make them a wedding cake as sadly misguided, or a Same-sex marriage is a different sort of issue. Governments jerk. The new regime encourages them to see him as a civil- do not “ban” it in the way some of them ban marijuana or once rights violator.

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This mindset, far from being confined to a left-wing fringe, is now the dominant one in America. Ari Fleischer, a White house press secretary in George W. Bush’s administration and still an Replace influential figure among Republicans, reflected its influence when he said of the Arizona bill, “This bill instinctively struck people as a violation of individual liberty.” The idea that an individual’s liberty is violated when a florist refuses to make arrange- Obamacare, ments for his wedding can be conceived only in a culture in which the old, negative concept of liberty is no longer instinctive. So Republicans have not been reliable champions of religious Stat liberty. Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Jeff Flake—both of Arizona’s Republican senators and both of the last two Re - We don’t have time to wait for a new president publican presidential nominees—urged Governor Brewer to veto the bill. Maybe they believed the media’s description of that bill, although one might expect Republicans who have run for BY JOHN C. GOODMAN president to have some sensitivity to bias. even some of the legislators who voted for the bill counseled a veto, saying they had he American people realize that Obamacare is a very not understood what they had approved. (Perhaps they had not bad policy. But more and more conservatives agree understood how controversial it would be.) Perhaps they thought that we need to offer a solid alternative before voters that there was no need to approve controversial legislation until T reject Obamacare root and branch. Recently, three Arizona actually had a case like the one in New Mexico. prominent Republican senators—Richard Burr (N.C.), Tom If Romney, McCain, and Flake truly believe that a baker Coburn (Okla.), and Orrin hatch (Utah)—unveiled an alterna- should have to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, even if he tive proposal. In this article, I would like to outline my own. considers doing so participation in and endorsement of some- The proposal I suggest would achieve four remarkable thing he thinks wrong, then they have taken a decidedly odd things: It would be more progressive than Obamacare, because position. All of them oppose legal recognition of same-sex it would involve more distribution from higher- to lower- marriage. They would be saying that it is all right for the gov- income households. It would provide genuine protection for ernment to discriminate against same-sex couples, by refusing people who have a preexisting condition, as opposed to the bait- to treat their unions as marital, while also forbidding private and-switch promises of Obamacare. It would provide genuine actors to do the same. They would be saying that the govern- access to care for everyone, as opposed to leaving 30 million ment can symbolically say something that it can also forbid uninsured, as Obamacare does. And it would work in practice, private actors to symbolically say. If this is the way they think, primarily because it would confine the role of government to then the private–public distinction really has collapsed. setting a few simple rules of the game, leaving individual For all that, the fight for religious liberty is not over. “GOP’s choice and the marketplace to do the heavy lifting. ‘religious liberty’ scam just died” was the headline on Beutler’s I call this reform a “consensus reform” because it draws not Salon article, and the claim has been widely echoed. But we do just on such right-of-center think tanks as the heritage not have much evidence on whether the bill, or the idea of pro- Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the American enterprise tecting religious dissenters even at the risk of discrimination, is Institute but also on such left-of-center think tanks as the unpopular. Same-sex marriage now appears to have the support Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, and various of a small majority of the population. Surely some significant scholars including President Obama’s former and current eco- number of those supporters do not regard the opponents as the nomic advisers, Peter Orszag and Jason Furman. It takes the equivalent of Bull Connor. best ideas these folks have offered and combines them with an Formal religious affiliation may be on the decline in the important principle: No plan designed by those at the top can United States, but religion is not going away and neither are ever work unless people at the bottom have an economic religious objections to same-sex marriage. We are not going to incentive to make it work. reach a point where there are as few traditional Christians as Further, the ideas presented here are consistent with the there are segregationists. (In that sense, the ultimate cultural health-care plan John McCain endorsed when he ran for pres- ambition of the movement for same-sex marriage is bound to be ident and with health-care-reform legislation introduced by frustrated.) Republicans may not want to fight this fight, but Senator Tom Coburn, Representative Paul Ryan (Wis.), and they will be forced to have it. Their supporters will not stand by other Republican members of Congress. So it could easily be idly while the expression of their beliefs—beliefs connected to adopted as the Republican alternative to Obamacare. some of their deepest ones—is criminalized. here are the essential elements. Social conservatives will be better prepared next time. The Choice. People should be able to choose a health-care plan coverage of Arizona made them look like aggressors in a cul- that fits their individual and family needs, rather than a plan ture war; in time, cases will accumulate that make them seem designed by bureaucrats in Washington. This means no man- more like victims. And the kind of media hysteria that sank the date. Men shouldn’t have to buy maternity coverage; women Arizona bill is hard to sustain for extended periods. Round One shouldn’t have to buy coverage for prostate-cancer tests; tee- of this struggle went badly for the partisans of the older, sounder concept of liberty. Future rounds may show that it still Mr. Goodman is the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis and the has life in it. author of Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis.

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totalers shouldn’t have to buy substance-abuse insurance; etc. With a uniform tax credit, 90 percent of the problems the And no one should have to buy coverage for preventive pro- Obamacare exchanges are now having would go away in a cedures that health researchers have known for years are not flash. Signing up for insurance would be easy. Insurance com- cost-effective. panies and brokers would be able to sign people up outside the It is commonly believed that, without a mandate, people exchanges without asking privacy-invading questions about will game the system—waiting until they get sick to enroll. their income and assets. But we have found a way to handle this problem in Medicare If a goal of health-care reform is to insure millions of unin- Part B, Medicare Part C, and Medigap insurance without any sured people, enrollment has to be easy. The more complicated mandate. In all three cases, the insurance is guaranteed-issue (no the process, the lower will be the success rate and the more one can be turned down) and community-rated (no one can be likely that only the sick will persevere—causing the insurance charged a higher premium because of a health condition). But pools to experience “death spirals,” in which the premiums people are not permitted to game the system. If you don’t enroll needed to cover medical costs increase until no one can afford when you are first eligible, you will be charged a penalty, and, in to pay them. the Medigap market, you may be charged a premium that does Jobs. A uniform health-insurance tax credit combined with reflect your health status. the absence of a mandate would also get rid of all the chaos Had we accepted the principle of choice in designing a Obamacare is creating in the labor market. Businesses would health-care reform, we would not face the prospect of up to 10 no longer have an incentive to stay small (avoiding the man- million individual policyholders’ losing insurance they were date by hiring fewer than 50 full-time employees). Nor would promised they could keep. We would also not face the pros - they have an incentive to shift employees to part-time work pect of millions of additional people’s fearing the loss of their (avoiding the mandate with work weeks that are less than 30 employer plans. hours). With a universal credit, they would no longer have an Fairness. Everyone at the same income level should get incentive to drop coverage for their active employees or end the same help from government when obtaining private their post-retirement plans because of more generous subsidies insurance. Obamacare flagrantly violates this principle. For available in an exchange. Health-care reform should be neutral example, a family at 138 percent of the poverty line is able to with respect to the number of hours you work and the number enroll in Medicaid in about half the states and obtain insur- of people you work with. ance worth about $8,000. Since the coverage is completely Further, with a tax-credit approach, employers and employees free, that’s an $8,000 gift. If they earn one dollar more, they would no longer face perverse incentives to buy wasteful will be entitled to enter a health-insurance exchange and insurance. (Under the current system, the more costly the obtain a private plan that costs, say, 50 percent more in return insurance, the greater the tax benefit.) Instead, they could buy for an out-of-pocket premium of about $900. That’s a gift of insurance that meets their core needs and increase take-home more than $11,000. But because the subsidies in the pay with the savings, with no tax penalty. This would lower the exchanges are not available in the workplace, the employees cost of employment and encourage hiring. of a hotel earning pretty much the same wage will be forced Universality. Experts predict that, after all the havoc to buy an expensive family plan, and they and their employer Obamacare will cause, most of the uninsured will still be will get no new help from the government. After calculating uninsured. In fact, since millions of people are having their the value of employers’ ability to pay premiums with pre-tax insurance canceled, we may end 2014 with more people unin- dollars, let’s call that a newly created $10,000 burden. This is sured than a year earlier. Along the way, Obamacare will only one of scores of ways in which Obamacare’s treatment of reduce federal spending on the very safety-net institutions that people is arbitrary and unfair. deliver care to uninsured people. There’s a better way. Fairness means that if government subsidizes health insurance There will always be some people who will turn down the though refundable tax credits, the credit should be the same offer of a tax credit. But instead of having the Treasury keep for everyone at the same income level. Should those credits the value of those unclaimed credits, the money should be sent vary by income, age, geography, or other factors? There are to safety-net institutions in the communities where the unin- good arguments for a variable credit. But there is a counter - sured live. (The money needs to go to the places where they argument I find persuasive: simplicity. Suppose we offer every seek care, and the number varies from place to place.) adult an annual tax credit worth $2,500 and every child a credit Uninsured patients will probably be asked to pay their medical worth $1,500. People would get this subsidy so long as they bills, but if they cannot, the safety-net institutions will have a obtained credible private health insurance, no matter where they source of cash to pay for “uncompensated care.” obtained it—at work, in the marketplace, or in an exchange. Under this idea, money follows people. The federal gov- Think of how many problems we are currently having that ernment promises a credit to every man, woman, and child in would vanish. the country. If they all buy private insurance, the funds subsi- Since a person’s income would no longer be relevant, the dize premiums. If they all decide to be uninsured, the funds go exchanges would not have to link to the IRS, the Social to safety-net institutions. This is a way of ensuring universal Security Administration, and other federal agencies (which is access to health care. (There will still be a wait for care through the main technical reason the exchanges aren’t working). It many of these institutions, just as there is a wait in Britain and wouldn’t matter whether you were offered “affordable cover- Canada. But this proposal would provide just as much access age” at work. It wouldn’t matter whether you were eligible for to care as those countries do.) Medicaid. If you show up at the exchange and buy private There is something else we could do to promote universal insurance, you get the credit. Period. health insurance: We could allow everyone—regardless of

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income—to enroll in Medicaid, and at the same time allow supply side of the market is responding to patients who control everyone on Medicaid to leave the program, claim the tax their own health-care dollars. credit, and buy private insurance. This, of course, is the “public Still, we are not taking full advantage of the opportunities option” that the Left has been clamoring for. It’s hard to here. Instead of the rigid restrictions under current law, con- understand why conservatives are so resistant to it: If a private tinued under Obamacare, HSAs should be completely flexi- insurer can’t outperform Medicaid, it doesn’t deserve to be in ble—and allowed to partner with third-party insurance in the market. innovative ways. Then the market should determine the The specific tax-credit levels I am proposing are the appropriate division between third-party insurance and indi- Congressional Budget Office estimates of the cost of enrolling vidual self-insurance by means of an HSA. The private sector new people in Medicaid. Under my proposal, people who are also needs the ability to create special accounts for the chroni- already eligible could use their tax credit to buy in, no ques- cally ill. A model is the highly successful Cash and Counseling tions asked, but people with higher incomes might have to pay program, under which disabled Medicaid recipients have man- a premium on top of their tax credit if they have higher-than- aged their own health-care dollars. average expected costs. Health status wouldn’t be considered, Real Insurance. Here is the greatest irony about Obama - but age and other factors would be. To prevent gaming of the care: The prime motive behind health-care reform was to give system, no one would be able to move from one plan to another everyone access to care. But the way things are panning out, at a premium that is way below his total expected costs. (See millions of people are losing insurance that offers very rea- below.) sonable access to providers and are being forced into an This proposal may appear to be unconservative, but in fact exchange where the typical plan excludes the best doctors and it is consistent with minimizing the role of government. the best hospitals. In some areas, these plans are dubbed Medicaid would be an insurer of last resort, but, beyond their “Medicaid Plus.” In Massachusetts, it appears that patients uniform tax credit, people who are not poor but enroll in with subsidized private insurance have worse access to care Medicaid would not be getting an entitlement. They would than do people on Medicaid. have to pay their own way. The reason people are losing access to care is that we are Portability. In most states today, it is illegal for employers creating a market in which insurers have to compete with one to buy for their employees what they most want and need— another in light of very perverse incentives. With community insurance that travels with them from job to job and in and out rating and guaranteed issue, insurers are not allowed to charge of the labor market. Employers can buy group insurance with actuarially fair premiums, reflecting each enrollee’s expected pre-tax dollars, but they can’t buy individually owned insur- health-care costs. But since this means that healthy enrollees ance (they could buy it with after-tax dollars, but this probably will be profitable and sicker enrollees will cause losses, every never happens). This means that people lose their insurance insurer will go to great lengths to attract the healthy and avoid when they leave their employer, and that is the primary reason the sick. The insurers are convinced that the healthy buy on preexisting conditions are a problem for the uninsured in this price and thus look for cheap plans, and that only the sick care country. about networks, so they are keeping premiums down by cre- This policy needs to be reversed. Employers should be ating networks that include only those providers who agree to encouraged to provide insurance for their employees that is accept rock-bottom fees. portable in the same way as 401(k) plans and employer-paid How could things be different? life insurance. NFL football players and United Mine Workers We don’t have to look far. One out of every four seniors members already have portable insurance, with premiums (including about 40 percent of younger, i.e., newly eligible paid by their employers, because of special federal legislation. seniors) has enrolled in a private insurance plan through the It’s time to extend this opportunity to everyone else. Medicare Advantage program. You can think of this program as Employers, by the way, can be very effective portals into an exchange in which insurers have to community-rate and take the insurance system, solving problems that are hard for indi- all comers. However, the actual premiums the plans receive are viduals to solve on their own. We should encourage, rather not community-rated. Through a complex formula, Medicare than discourage, their participation. adjusts the payments based on the expected health-care expenses Patient Power. Health savings accounts (HSAs) and of the enrollee. As a result, the private Medicare Advantage health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) are very effec- plans do not run from the sick—they compete to enroll them. tive ways to eliminate waste and to control costs. That’s why There are even “special needs” plans that specialize in catering 30 million people now have these accounts. The RAND to seniors whose average annual cost is about $60,000. They Corporation estimates that more widespread use of these compete for these patients because Medicare pays them a pre- consumer-directed health-care plans would make savings of mium of more than $60,000. up to 30 percent possible. (Ironically, even though many One of the complaints about Medicare Advantage is that it Democrats regard HSAs as a Republican idea, Obamacare is is too political: Because of special-interest politics, the likely to result in a large expansion of HSA-compatible govern ment overpays some plans. Congress even dictates plans—because so many plans sold on the exchanges have what Medicare has to pay these plans in various counties high deductibles.) around the country. In addition to their incentive effects on buyers of health An alternative to having government manage the risk adjust- care, these accounts are also having a big impact on the ment is to let the market do it. The idea is that no insurer should providers of care. Walk-in clinics, mail-order pharmacies, and ever be allowed to dump its costliest enrollees onto another Walmart’s $4 generic drugs are just some of the ways that the insurer without paying the full cost of the transfer. So if an

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expensive-to-treat patient moves from Plan A to Plan B, the former has to compensate the latter for any above-average expected costs—just the way Medicare compensates private Oil Flowing plans. Right now, Obamacare is destroying the market for individual insurance. It’s allowing state risk pools to dump high- cost patients into the exchanges and get off scot-free. The Freely federal government is about to do the same thing with the risk pools it manages. So is Detroit. Cities and counties across Mexico’s energy reforms are good for the country that have promised post-retirement benefits they can’t pay for, and even many private companies, are poised Mexicans, Americans, and the world to drop their high-cost problems right into the lap of the Obamacare exchanges. The Obama administration has BY MARIO LOYOLA decided that hospitals can sign up patients for exchange insurance and pay the premiums for them even from their Mexico City hospital beds (thus shifting the hospitals’ bad debt to an lTHOUgH the neoliberal dogma was already forgot- unsuspecting insurance company). And there are countless ten in other countries, including those that imposed ways in which the employer community will be able to game it decades ago,” writes Jesús Ortega, editor of a the system by keeping employees out of the exchanges when ‘A prominent Mexican left-wing magazine, “in our they are healthy and sending them to the exchanges if they country the current leaders continue using it.” The observation is get sick. worth pondering, because it is so wrong-headed—and so true. This is worse than bad public policy. It is unconscionable. The countries that “imposed” the neoliberal free-market “dogma”—an obvious allusion to the United States—do indeed seem to be forgetting it. The statist policies of the Obama OMe of the problems we are dealing with are social administration belie what little free-market rhetoric remains in problems, and any reasonable solution should therefore its pronouncements. In Mexico, strangely enough, rather the S spread its cost over the entire population. Instead, opposite has been true. Since the terrible Revolution of 1910, Obamacare is heaping all the costs on an insurance market Mexican governments have stopped far short of their populist that is serving less than 10 percent of people with private left-wing rhetoric. insurance. The key campaign slogan of the current government in its push Untangling the disastrous mess in which we are about to for energy reforms is a case in point: “No to privatization! Yes to find ourselves will be extremely difficult. However it is reform!” In fact, the country’s energy sector is being privatized— done, there are two points we should remember. First, the in spades—and the consequences could go far beyond making president’s promise that you won’t be denied coverage Mexico a strategically powerful oil producer. In just a decade, because of a preexisting condition was a bait and switch. As North America could eclipse the Middle east as the world’s lead- insurers run from anyone who has an expensive-to-treat ing energy-producing region. Under the aegis of NAFTA, this in health problem, those patients will find that the only afford- turn could lead to a new North American century—and to a his- able policies they have access to are little better than toric global victory for the neoliberal model. Indeed, if Mexico Medicaid. Second, real protection against the cost of develop- does it right, it could become a compelling model even for the ing a preexisting condition requires a market for insurance in United States, where a suffocating and unpredictable regulatory which insurers find it in their self-interest to solve the prob- regime spells big trouble ahead. lems of the sick. Mexico’s decision to lay its energy industry wide open to How much would this alternative to Obamacare cost? foreign investment represents a dramatic leap forward in its Starting from where we are now, it’s almost a free lunch. If we political culture, and it’s particularly surprising given the take all of the current subsidies for employer-provided insur- country’s problematic history with the United States. The tur- ance and add all of the subsidies Obamacare is providing, we bulence and misery of 19th-century Mexico were greatly will have more than enough money for reasonable reform. In worsened by the loss of Texas and the ensuing loss of half fact, we have enough money to buy off resistance to reform by the country’s territory in the Mexican–American War of 1846. In giving large companies and labor unions a choice of tax regimes: 50 years, 50 different governments ruled, ending finally in the They can continue with the current system of tax subsidies, or dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, whose famous lament was “Poor they can switch to the tax-credit system. My bet: Very few will Mexico, so far from god, and so close to the United States.” choose to stay in the old system. America’s heavy-handed interventions during the Revolution However, there will never be enough money to fix things if of 1910, which left one of every ten Mexicans dead, carved deep we do not stop the red-ink hemorrhaging that is about to and lasting scars in Mexico’s psyche. The United States invaded occur. We must act as quickly as possible to prevent the twice during the seven years of the Revolution, deposed a presi- states, the cities and counties, and the private companies dent who was subsequently murdered, and generally left the per- from dumping their high-cost patients into the individual mar- ception that Americans were stealing the country’s natural ket with impunity. There is an urgent need to reform Obamacare. We really can’t Mr. Loyola is a former counselor for foreign and defense policy to the U.S. Senate wait until 2017, when we will get a new president. Republican Policy Committee.

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resources. By the time President Lázaro Cárdenas came to power quotas. In a matter of months, they more than doubled their oil in 1934, Mexico had become the world’s second-largest oil production. World oil prices plummeted, leading to a glut of producer, after the United States—owing largely to the fact that ultra-cheap oil that would last for decades. Within months, the Americans had invested heavily in Mexico’s oil sector and Mexican government found itself in one of the worst crises since owned most of its oil wells. the Revolution. The economy ground to a halt. Lázaro Cárdenas remains among the most revered leaders in And yet, while much of Latin America doubled down on Mexican history. A former teacher with a genius for the common left-wing policies, Mexico boldly turned the other way. The touch, Cárdenas not only redistributed land to poor peasants on a Reagan–Thatcher revolution of free trade, low taxation, and low massive scale but also traveled widely through the countryside, regulation went international with the G7’s Bonn Declaration of visiting remote villages on horseback and even on foot, usually 1985, and few countries embraced those principles as whole- with no security detail and often with just one or two friends and heartedly as Mexico. Beginning in the late 1980s with the a handful of aides at his side. Harvard-educated Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the PRI slashed the This beloved figure has greatly complicated the effort to budget, reined in both inflation and debt, dramatically lowered reform Mexico’s oil sector, because, by a tragic coincidence, he trade barriers, adopted nAFTA—and voluntarily ended its 70- also happens to be the one who in 1938 shocked governments year monopoly of political power in Mexico. around the world by expropriating all foreign oil assets, forming In 2000, Vicente Fox, of the overtly pro-business opposition the world’s first national oil company and to this day one of its national Action Party (PAn), was elected president. Fox largest—namely, Pemex. According to Juan Pardinas of the seemed bent on pushing the free-market model further still. Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, the 1938 nationalization But soon, production at the Cantarell oil field peaked and was one of Mexico’s “greatest moments of national dignity.” began to plummet, along with declines in oil and gas production throughout Mexico. Pemex had systematically gone after the easiest oil in one field after another, neglecting to invest in n this epic arc of revolution, humiliation, and redemption, potential resources, as the private market would have done. oil played a major role, with the United States more often Despite a quadrupling in Pemex’s budget once the decline started, I than not cast in the part of chief villain. Hence the gravity oil production slid from 3.4 million barrels per day in 2004 to with which one Pemex official said to me, lowering his voice and less than 2.5 million today; it was recently projected to bottom slowing his cadence, “Oil is the most delicate subject in Mexico.” out at 1.4 million by 2025. From the reign of Lázaro Cárdenas until the very last year of This was a real disaster, and but for the grace of God—a the 20th century, Mexico was ruled by the Institutional Revo- simultaneous tripling of oil prices starting in 2004 owing to lutionary Party. The PRI, as it is known, brought political sta- increased demand from China and years of underinvestment in bility and economic progress only at the expense of democratic capacity by national oil companies—it could have been even participation. Predictably, the benefits didn’t reach the masses. worse. The national government depends on Pemex for a third Despite the party’s populist and often socialist rhetoric, eco- of its revenue. If low oil prices had lasted just five more years, nomic policy consistently favored companies. Inflation padded the national budget would have taken a hit of 20 percent or corporate profits, and real income fell persistently. more. With plummeting export earnings, the shock to Mexico’s The PRI had organized poor peasants, labor unions, and the current account and reserves would have devastated the petite bourgeoisie, in order, so it was believed, to represent their country’s economy, destroying a huge fraction of GDP, which interests. In reality, the PRI was controlled by a political elite that among other things might have turned the United States’ had not just captured the government but even taken control of illegal-immigration wave into a tsunami. the very constituents it was supposed to represent. To this day, for It didn’t take long for Mexico’s political elites to realize that example, the heads of major labor unions are appointed by the they had been saved from catastrophe by what amounted to government. divine intervention in the world oil market—and that they had By the 1970s, this political arrangement was losing popular also missed a huge opportunity. As a result of America’s fracking support, and as the country’s economic fundamentals worsened, revolution, which arose purely in the private sector and took the the PRI embraced the same state-heavy policies that had become Obama administration and everyone else completely by surprise, depressingly familiar among post-colonial states. Government America’s long-dwindling oil production has soared from 5 mil- control of formerly private companies expanded dramatically, lion barrels per day to 8 million in only a few years, with similar from 80 enterprises in 1970 to 1,155 by 1982. The PRI was finally increases in Canada—and with little end in sight. The United embracing policies that matched its left-wing rhetoric. Disaster States is projected to become the world’s largest oil producer in was not far behind. the next four years. nor has the oil boom been confined to north Mexico’s discovery of one of the largest oil fields in world his- America. Brazil and Colombia have each doubled their oil pro- tory—Cantarell, in the southern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of duction in recent years—by opening their energy sectors to com- Campeche—didn’t help matters much in the short run. The field petition and private investment. came on line in 1979. Because the windfall went to the govern- As for its newfound abundance of natural gas, the United ment rather than to the private economy, not only did the gov- States hardly knows what to do with it. Electricity here now ernment embark on a huge spending spree, it also started costs a third of what it does in Europe and an even smaller frac- borrowing like there was no tomorrow. The national debt quadru- tion of what it costs in Mexico, even though Mexico has some pled in just a few years. of the world’s largest natural-gas reserves. As predicted by no Then, in 1981, disaster struck. With no warning, the Saudis less reliable a source than George Soros, abundant natural gas decided to ditch the oil embargos of the 1970s and ignore OPEC has added more than a million manufacturing jobs in the

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United States in recent years and has made American manu- do, the process will begin of putting every other current and facturing increasingly competitive not only with Europe but potential production block in Mexico up for competitive bids also with China. from national and international companies; and with respect to “How did oil production go down when investment went those, Pemex will have to compete on the same terms as any up?” asks the PRI’s Enrique Ochoa, until recently under - other company. secretary of energy for hydrocarbons and now head of the Similarly, the electricity sector will be opened up to com- national electricity company. He answers his own question peting power generation, the natural-gas pipelines will be pri- simply: In the United States, thousands of companies are vatized, and the petrochemicals and refinery sectors will be engaged in oil and gas extraction, while in Mexico one com- open to competition. As one Mexican essayist writes: “We are pany has a monopoly of the entire supply chain, from oil wells going from alpha to omega. Everything will be different.” to gas stations. “Pemex can’t do this all by itself,” he says. The constitutional reforms provide for four kinds of contracts, covering most of the investment types that are common in the global energy market. These contracts were a major point HEN the PRI came back to power in 2013 under of contention. The Left had taken the position that it would be President Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexicans across the okay to permit standard service contracts as well as profit-sharing W political spectrum had reached consensus about the arrangements in which the company receives royalties but the need for sweeping reforms, and not just in the energy sector. In government takes the risks and the profit. However, the Left 16 months, 16 major reforms were enacted, in telecommunica- adamantly opposes production-sharing contracts, in which the tions, election laws, the budget, education, corruption laws— government receives royalties but companies take the risk and and energy. the profit. It is even more stridently opposed to concessions of Because much of Mexico’s antiquated energy policy was oil under the ground, on the cardinal principle that the nation’s enshrined in the constitution, reform would need to start with oil wealth must never be ceded to foreigners. broad constitutional amendments, which were adopted in Alas for the Left, nobody seems to be listening to its protests December 2013. Pulling on one cigarette after another in his anymore, and the question of production-sharing contracts has office, Juan Gabriel Valencia, a senior adviser to the Mexican been largely decided. In lip service to the rhetoric of sovereignty, senate’s energy committee, explains that the reforms have two the constitutional amendments proclaim that oil under the objectives: “to open the energy sector to competition and to ground will remain the property of the Mexican nation. But the provide legal certainty to international investors.” transitional provisions make it clear that foreign investors can Javier Treviño, chairman of the energy committee in the expect to be able to book oil reserves as assets on their balance lower house of Mexico’s congress, also stresses the impor- sheets—and when it comes to who really “owns” the oil under- tance of a predictable regulatory framework. “Business deci- ground, that’s what really matters from an investor’s point of sions are based on rule of law, clear rules, and legal certainty, view. This issue could turn acrimonious in the months ahead, which should be provided by the government,” he tells me. but the secondary legislation needs to pass Mexico’s congress The Left now vehemently opposes the energy reforms, but only by a simple majority, and the Left simply doesn’t have the the political debate in Mexico seems to be leaving it behind votes to stop it. like a relic of the past. As Enrique Ochoa puts it: “The Left The reforms will also create a national sovereign oil fund still has not recognized the problems demonstrated by the like those in Norway and other countries. U.S. experts have technical diagnosis of what has gone wrong in the Mexican noted that the fund will be among the most transparent on energy sector, or the opportunities for Mexicans that reform earth, and that distributions from the fund will be capped; but could bring.” Technical diagnosis! I couldn’t help wishing that the Mexican government, unlike Norway’s, will still depend phrase were more common in the United States, where policy on the national oil fund for its revenue up to 4.7 percent of issues that should be discussed in technical terms are often GDP, about what the government gets from Pemex now. Thus, politicized to the point of inanity. the specter of the “resource curse”—visible in countries such The professional detachment with which Mexico’s leaders as Venezuela, where government plunders the nation’s natural seem to have approached the emotional issue of oil is a hope- resources to create a dependency society—still looms over ful sign. At an early stage in the reform effort, Mexican offi- Mexico’s energy reforms. cials traveled the world, visiting Norway, Azerbaijan, “The name of the game now,” says Treviño, “is execution Colombia, Brazil, and other countries. “Many national energy and implementation.” The constitutional reform contemplates models have been studied,” Valencia says, “in order to learn more than two dozen laws on a variety of subjects ranging from best practices and not make the same mistakes.” from hydrocarbons to the national oil fund to environmental Reform proponents worked hard to put the most contentious regulation and transparency measures. The December consti- issues to bed at the outset, and they’ve largely succeeded. The tutional amendments mandate that this secondary legislation reform package amends three articles of the Mexican constitu- be enacted in the current session of the Mexican congress, tion and contains a complex set of “transitional” constitutional which adjourns at the end of April. On the specific provisions provisions. Pemex will remain the national oil company, but it of these bills rests the success or failure of the energy reforms. will now have to be a “productive enterprise.” It is given a kind But, in the words of former U.S. ambassador Tony Garza, a of right of first refusal with respect to current and future pro- wily Texan now at the law firm White and Case in Mexico duction “blocks,” but it must demonstrate to the government City: “They’ve taken the guys who quite literally live at the that it can operate them profitably if it wants to keep them. intersection of policy and politics and put them in charge of the Once Pemex has done that, which it has just a few months to process. You can’t beat that.”

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HE biggest worry from a policy point of view, according to David Goldwyn, who T was a senior energy adviser to former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, is the specific form the contracts will take and whether the government will keep the business terms competitive enough to secure substantial private investment. The issue here is complex, because different parts of the bidding and contracting process fall (in principle) under any one of five different regulators. Which set of regulators will decide the key business terms will depend on the type of contract. The potential for overlap and confusion, and for regulatory turf battles to gum up the process, is considerable. If Mexican legislators don’t get it right the first time, investors might stay away, an political support for the reforms be sustained? especially given the increasingly attractive opportunities else- That is yet another worrisome question. President where. C Peña nieto’s approval ratings have already dipped. another potential problem—to which Mexican officials seem What’s worse is that Mexicans simply don’t trust their gov- dangerously oblivious—can be gleaned from america’s increas- ernment: Polls show that people in argentina, Venezuela, and ingly onerous and unpredictable regulatory regime. From the Ecuador have far more confidence in their government than Clean air act to the approvals process for major energy projects Mexicans have in theirs, despite the fact that those govern- such as the Keystone XL pipeline, federal regulators in the ments are embarrassing clown shows compared with United States have been delegated expansively vague and often Mexico’s. But in truth those polls highlight a congenital overlapping authority. Under the Obama administration, regu- weakness of democracies, one that was clearly visible lators have used that authority in ways that Congress never throughout the 20th century: When it comes to popular sup- intended and that those subject to the regulations could never port, demagogues have a decided advantage over regular have anticipated. new federal regulations on coal production, for democratic politics with its endless infighting. example, are designed not to make the coal industry cleaner but “Demagoguery works very well for a while,” says Juan to drive it out of business altogether, despite tens of billions Pardinas, “but destiny always catches up to the demagogues invested in clean-coal technology to meet the standards set just a and presents them and their people with a very high bill for their few years ago. as this experience shows, Mexican legislators immoral irresponsibility.” as argentina and Venezuela enter a should be very careful about the precise language they devise to period of painful dislocation, and perhaps major upheaval, one delegate regulatory authority, because regulatory uncertainty can is tempted to think Pardinas is right. “The best way to consoli- be crippling, and reining in regulators run amok can be nearly date democracy is through economic growth,” he says. impossible. In the long term, the former ambassador Tony Garza be - another major concern is that Mexico remains rife with cor- lieves, transformation in Mexico’s political culture will be the ruption. The problem is as much economic as cultural. Mexico’s key. “Mexican society is aligning itself very rapidly with U.S. economic-growth model has depended on cheap labor far more values,” he says. “Middle class. Free trade. Justice and the rule than on productive labor, and opportunities for economic of law. These are all things that Mexican society has fully advancement therefore remain out of reach for much of the pop- embraced.” Once Mexico doubles its production and “starts ulation. Faute de mieux, the only reliable way to wealth is punching above its own weight,” he adds, “Mexico will be able through political power—and corruption. anti-corruption mea- to bolster U.S. strategic interests simply by following what it sures will be a significant part of the secondary legislation, which perceives to be in its own interests.” is set to create one of the most transparent bidding processes in Because of government policy, Mexico was left behind by the world. But, as Juan Pardinas tells me, “the bridge between the north american oil boom of recent years, and its leaders are public exposure of corruption and prosecution of the guilty is determined not to let that happen again. as Treviño tells me: broken.” Scandals are reported, but nobody is prosecuted. If “The Left wanted to be an icon of oil isolationism. That wasn’t bribery becomes a factor in winning bids, investors are likely to our vision. We needed to be part of the new energy revolution shy away from Mexico’s energy sector. in north america. among other things, because of dropping “The rule of law has been and will continue to be a persistent energy prices, we are seeing the reindustrialization of north challenge that Mexico faces as a society, as a government, and as america, and Mexico needs to be a major player in that.” a nation-state,” admits arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican ambas- Mexico’s oil reforms could thus benefit america in ways that sador to the United States. Ultimately, the reforms can succeed go far beyond the millions that U.S. investors stand to make in only if government institutions weed out corrupt practices and Mexico in the years ahead. By setting an example, Mexico could establish the rule of law. If that happens, the reforms could help revive the model of small government and free-market become a lever for change throughout the government. But if competition among developing countries. Hence the oil reform instead kickbacks and the like become the norm in the new could be a milestone not just for Mexico but for the world. With energy sector, it will only further entrench corruption as the any luck, it will also remind an increasingly forgetful america modus operandi of the entire state. of the principles that made it great.

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The Long View BY ROB LONG

did not make that clear. Everyone on POTUS: “I don’t think we are my list must be dead. Okay. Makes communicating.” sense more now, I think. One of my Vladimir Putin: “I think we are. I guys here in room is nodding and think you just don’t want to hear me. telling me, Yes, this is the way to Okay, okay. You call me and I know say it.” why. You call me to say, Vladimir, you POTUS: “This is totally unaccept- mustn’t invade the Ukraine! You NSA SURVEILLANCE able to us.” cannot have varenyky with Beyoncé! Vladimir Putin: “Who is this, us? You must be a good boy or I will do DOCUMENT ExTrACT: Who is us? You and . . . you and something small and loud. Okay, okay, TELEPHONE INTErCEPTS, Beyoncé? Did you ask Beyoncé Mr. President. I assure you that I have OVAL OFFICE about this? Hahahahahahahahahaha! no plan to invade the Ukraine. Does No, no. I am kidding! But, seriously, that make you feel better?” 10:43 Begin Extract: for a moment, do you personally POTUS: “A little.” POTUS: “Hello?” know this Beyoncé? Very pretty girl Vladimir Putin: “I will kill the Unidentified Female Voice: “Yes? I think. Maybe you could send her people I need to kill very quickly and Hello? Who is this please?” here for . . . what you say, top-level then I will leave and people will say, POTUS: “May I speak to Mr. talks? I like that! Top-level talks! Hey! How did these people become Putin, please?” Everyone here is laughing. Okay, killed? Did anyone see it happening? UFV: “Oh, no, no. Mr. Putin is now, are we done? I have many peo- And they will say, No, no, must have very busy right now with famous ple to kill.” been the wind. Okay, let’s clean up singing star Beyoncé. They are hav- POTUS: “Vladimir, I want to put the dead bodies and have varenyky! ing varenyky and singing and—” this as clearly as possible. We cannot Will be like that. Bip, bip, bip. Fast. POTUS: “Vladimir, I know this is allow you to intervene in the affairs Promise.” you.” of a sovereign nation.” POTUS: “I don’t—” UFV: “What? No, no, no. This is Vladimir Putin: “You say this so Vladimir Putin: “And then maybe not me.” much. You always say ‘cannot I will get to meet Beyoncé, yes?” POTUS: “Vladimir . . .” allow’ and ‘will not stand for’ and POTUS: “I don’t really have—” Vladimir Putin: “Okay, okay. Was things like these words. And then Vladimir Putin: “And then maybe making little joke. Talking in high somehow it is allow and stand for I will get to meet Beyoncé, yes?” voice and squeaking like a womens. anyway. This is funny to me. But POTUS: “She’s not under my con- C’mon! Is fun! Is funny joke. Talking maybe it is my English. My English trol, sir . . .” like the lady who is your secretary of is not good, this I know. So maybe I Vladimir Putin: “And then maybe state.” hear you say ‘no’ and ‘cannot allow’ I will get to meet Beyoncé, yes?” POTUS: “Hillary Clinton is no but you are actually saying ‘yes’ and POTUS: “I can’t send you an longer the secretary of state.” ‘well, take what you want,’ because American citizen—” Vladimir Putin: “I know that! I that is what I do anyway and nothing Vladimir Putin: “And then maybe meant the new lady over there.” happens.” I will get to meet Beyoncé, yes?” POTUS: “Okay, okay. Can we POTUS: “Vladimir, I assure POTUS: “I mean, I suppose I please get down to business now?” you—” could call her.” Vladimir Putin: “What business? Vladimir Putin: “You assure me Vladimir Putin: “Hey! Everyone! This is a nice conversation. I make of this, you assure me of that. It’s I will get to meet Beyoncé!” joke, you don’t laugh at joke. This is crazy in Ukraine right now. Crazy 10:58 End Extract. typical conversation. But tell me town. It will be very simple: You go what is on your mind, as you say. You in, you kill who needs to be killed, 19:02 Begin Extract: sound like a little bit stress.” you fold it all up together like Unidentified Female Voice: POTUS: “We’re concerned about varenyky. You know what varenyky “Hello?” the situation in Ukraine.” is?” POTUS: “Beyoncé?” Vladimir Putin: “Nothing to be POTUS: “I don’t think this is—” UFV: “Mr. President?” concerned about. Will all be over in a Vladimir Putin: “Is a dumpling. A POTUS: “Is this a bad time?” week once everyone is dead.” Ukrainian dumpling. Very delicious. UFV: “No, sir! Not at all! What POTUS: “Excuse me?” Also squirts hot liquid when you bite can I do for you?” Vladimir Putin: “Is not the right it! Is fun! Send me Beyoncé for the POTUS: “Well, I’ve got a question way to say it? Everyone is dead? Is Top Level Talks and we will have for you. Do you know what a that wrong way to say? Not every. Not varenyky together and become hot varenyky is?” every one. But on the list. I have list. I and juicy.” 19:05 End Extract.

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Athwart BY JAMES LILEKS Everybody Wants to Rule the World

ell Vlad that after my election, I have more Drago, a steely-eyed, contemptuous slab of state- flexibility. Even at the time, it sounded like sponsored homicide. He was scientific and remorseless your daughter’s sleazy boyfriend saying, and looked spectacular in a Red Army uniform. A man T “You know, dude, after her 16th birthday, it’ll who grew up drinking antifreeze and standing in line for be legal”—and expecting you to nod and respect him for seven hours to get six squares of corrugated cardboard his forthrightness. Speaking of lines that come back to for the monthly toilet-paper ration, he is hard. He will haunt you, here’s John Kerry at the 2012 Democratic prevail. Convention: It’s been a while since I saw the movie, although I “Folks: Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from recall that Rocky trained like a Russian—running Alaska; Mitt Romney talks like he’s only seen Russia by through the drifts carrying frozen pails of water while watching Rocky IV.” pulling a sled loaded with dead reindeer, or something— It was a cheap laugh line at a political convention, and and in the end he prevailed because Drago ran out of it shouldn’t diminish Kerry’s reputation as a deep thinker ideas. He was hampered by ideology, and Rocky, being steeped in history; his tenure at State will do that nicely. American, improvised a strategy that came down to President Obama avoided the Rocky IV swipe but crafted “being hit in the head repeatedly without suffering a his own: During a presidential debate, you’ll re call, he cerebral hemorrhage.” Eventually his pluckiness won told Mitt that the ’80s had called, and they wanted their over everyone, including Gorbachev, who was in the foreign policy back. The proper retort was, “I hope it audience. This was like Hitler bolting to his feet in the wasn’t at 3 A.M. while the embassy was under at tack,” 1936 Olympics: Run, Jesse! Mein Gott, run! but Romney was visibly rocked back by the president’s Anyway. Drago was a Soviet movie cliché, one sel- remark. Oh! Good one! On the ropes! some may have dom seen anymore. The other big Movie Soviet was the thought, but in retrospect Romney may have been chummy, lovable, alcoholic bear, given to song and soul- attempting to conceal his surprise that the president is a ful poetry and mad cackling and protestations of friend- glib naïf who thinks Russia is an elongated France with ship. In the movies this fellow would always be friendly more snow. It wasn’t the suggestion that Russia was our and say comical things like “But Russia, she invent the geopolitical foe that Obama dismissed; it was the idea television!” and “In Russia, we have sayink, not to be that we had geopolitical foes at all. waking dogs of sleep.” In the last act he dropped all pre- Perhaps Obama’s worldview paraphrases Will Rogers: tense and usually shot someone. A geopolitical adversary is just a friend you haven’t con- If there was a Movie Soviet you could depend upon, it cluded a treaty with yet. Never mind that the Putin was the scrawny, cynical, world-weary guy whose Slav ic regime has adopted Lenin’s attitude towards treaties. As soul shone through the thin, stinking sheet of Bolshie Lenin famously noted, “Treaties are like pie crusts. orthodoxy draped over the face of Great Mother Russia. Made to be broken—with the crumbs swept up into a You could see Alan Arkin playing him in a movie. These mailed fist and smashed into the face of the capitalist, guys were smart, bitter, but proud. All of their relatives while the baker is being beaten for using nutmeg. It’s not had died at Stalingrad, sometimes twice. If they had a that I don’t like nutmeg. But let it be an example to any story, it was how they were given Medal for Hero of who might hoard nutmeg, or transport nutmeg, or sug- Cosmodrome. Is true! At last minute before Gagarin’s gest that the Five-Year Plan for nutmeg production will first flight he discovered some dolboyop had substituted fall short. These are the falsehoods of the kulaks and an inferior part on the rocket, and he had to fix it with wreckers, and we have a bullet for each, more bullets cheap Soviet masking tape (“Volga Canal brand, the than there are grains of nutmeg in the average pie whose worst”) as the rockets fired. “But we got Yuri up. And we crust is a metaphor for our international obligations.” got him back.” Cue the massed choirs. Then he picked up a kitten and absent-mindedly snapped They were interesting adversaries. Worthy foes. Putin its neck while staring out the window at the future, and may not want to bring back the USSR, but it would be everyone backed out of the room. clarifying if he did. We have cultural contexts for that. The quote has been cleaned up for brevity’s sake. Modern Russia, with its ghastly arriviste architecture You get the gist: Nations have interests, which vary; the and McDonald’s and resurgent Orthodox identity and only constant is self-interest. President Obama has sought dissident bloggers who write iPhone apps—it’s all over to abolish this antiquated notion. Once he’s done with the map. that, he can work on changing the temperature at which Literally, in the case of Crimea. You hope the ’80s do water freezes. call the Oval Office again, except with a difference. But back to Rocky IV. Remember the villain: Ivan Want to borrow our foreign policy? Sorry, the president would say. I’ve got the ’70s on the other line, and I really Mr. Lileks blogs at www.lileks.com. want to take this call.

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considered one of the greatest of Israel’s Ben-Gurion’s obvious mendacity.” statesmen. As Gordis persuasively documents, Present Like all of Israel’s founding fathers, Ben-Gurion’s mendacity—as well as his Menachem Begin was born in Eastern desire to destroy Begin politically—was At the Europe: in the Polish city of Brisk, in also apparent in the controversy over the 1913. He was a youthful follower of Irgun’s involvement in the 1948 attack Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of the on Deir Yassin, an Arab village on the Creation Revisionist Zionist movement, which outskirts of Jerusalem, in which numerous DAVID G. DALIN militantly believed that a Jewish state innocent Arab civilians were killed. The should exist on both sides of the Jordan attack had been approved by Ben-Gurion River, and which rejected the socialist and the Haganah, but, Gordis writes, ideology of the mainstream Zionist they subsequently “libelously denied leadership. that the Haganah had approved the oper- Begin arrived in Palestine, then gov- ation” and called the attack “a premedi- erned by the British, in 1942. The fol- tated act which had as its intention lowing year, he assumed command of slaughter and murder only.” the Irgun in Palestine and achieved In the first parliamentary elections of instant notoriety for the Irgun’s devastat- January 1949, Israel’s right-leaning ing bombings of British installations, Herut (Freedom) party, which Begin had including the 1946 bombing of Jerusa - founded to oppose Ben-Gurion’s socialist- lem’s King David Hotel, which had labor Mapai party, won only 14 of the served as the British mandatory govern- Knesset’s 120 seats. With this election, ment’s military and administrative however, Begin’s party became a fixture Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel’s Soul, headquarters since 1938, and for other of the parliamentary opposition to the by Daniel Gordis (Schocken, 320 pp., acts of violence against the British. Labor-dominated governments of the $27.95) While Begin’s participation in the King next three decades. Its successor was the David Hotel bombing established his Likud party formed by Begin in 1973. N May 17, 1977, to the sur- reputation as an anti-British “terrorist,” During his 29 years in opposition, and prise of Israeli voters and that bombing was considered by many his five as prime minister, Begin became pundits alike, Menachem a historic turning point in the British the spokesman for the Sephardim of O Begin’s Likud party won decision to leave Palestine: Within seven Israel, the impoverished Jewish immi- Israel’s elections, ending close to 30 months, the British announced their in - grants from North Africa and the Middle years of continuous rule by the socialist tention to depart. Nine months after that, East, who constituted close to 50 percent Labor party and other political parties the United Nations voted to create a of the Israeli electorate. These Sephardic of the Israeli secular Left. Begin’s elec- Jewish state. voters, whose economic plight and polit- tion as Israel’s sixth prime minister In his very balanced discussion of ical interests had long been ignored by marked a dramatic upheaval in Israeli Begin’s involvement in the King David Labor’s socialist elite, became the key politics: Begin, the leader of the under- bombing and other controversial mili- electoral component of the new conserva- ground paramilitary Irgun group before tary actions against the British, Gordis tive majority that brought Begin’s right- and during Israel’s War of Independence, analyzes the emerging political rivalry of-center coalition to power. Greeting had long been reviled as a terrorist by between Begin and David Ben-Gurion, Begin’s election with exuberance, cele- David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, and the political leader of Israel’s pre- brating in the streets with shouts of other Labor-party leaders; he had now independence Jewish Agency for Pales - “Begin, King of Israel,” they recognized defeated Peres to become the country’s tine, who would, in 1948, become Israel’s Begin’s electoral triumph as the dawn of political leader. first prime minister. On July 1, 1946, a new era in which Israel would no longer In this immensely thoughtful and the head of the Haganah, the Jewish be a one-party socialist state. During his nuanced new biography, Daniel Gordis, Agency’s paramilitary arm, sent Begin, tenure as prime minister, Sephardim for the senior vice president of Jerusalem’s with Ben-Gurion’s approval, “a secret the first time were appointed to cabinet Shalem College and one of Israel’s most note authorizing the bombing of the positions, and their prominence is an important public intellectuals, reflects King David.” And yet, in the aftermath enduring aspect of Begin’s legacy. on Begin’s enduring contribution to the of the attack, which resulted in the Perhaps Begin’s greatest achievement State of Israel, and on why he should be deaths of 92 people, Ben-Gurion, “under as prime minister was negotiating a fire, denied any involvement,” while peace treaty with Egypt. He became Mr. Dalin, a rabbi and a professor at Ave Maria Begin assumed full responsibility. It was prime minister just four years after the University in Florida, is the author or co-author of “an astonishing display of nobility” on Yom Kippur War and, writes Gordis, eleven books. Begin’s part, writes Gordis, “given “made it clear that he was willing to

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negotiate with Egypt”—a willingness no Revolution and America’s founding era a Labor prime minister had shown. Wel- precedent and model for the Zionist coming Egyptian president Anwar Sadat movement’s fight for political indepen- Through a to Israel and co-signing a peace treaty dence from England and for the new with him on the White House lawn in State of Israel’s evolving democracy in Glass, Very 1979, Begin accomplished what his the years following independence. For Labor-party predecessors could not. He is, Begin, the American Revolutionary War to this day, one of only two Israeli prime patriot Nathan Hale was a model for the Darkly ministers to have succeeded in negotiating freedom fighters of the Irgun, who played a peace treaty with an Arab nation. For an instrumental role in bringing about ANDREW STUTTAFORD this, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize, an the new Jewish state. So, too, was George achievement his great political rival Ben- Washington: As Gordis reminds us, “an Gurion could never boast. (As Gordis American brigade [that] volunteered to reminds us, Begin’s leftist critics, both join the Irgun was named the ‘George outside and within the Jewish state, Washington Legion.’” begrudged his receiving the Nobel.) Given these parallels, asks Gordis, His decision to send Israeli jet planes why is it that “Jewish Americans bow This book is beautifully written and insightful, and demonstrates conclusively that Menachem Begin Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret was one of the two most important and History of the Russian State, by Mark Lawrence influential of Israel’s founders. Schrad (Oxford, 512 pp., $35) F you cannot face going to to bomb Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak their heads in respect to Nathan Hale, Russia to see the real thing—in a in June 1981 was once a subject of con- but whine in shame” at the mention of dank Moscow underpass per- troversy but is now regarded as an act Begin and the other freedom fighters of I haps, or a broken attempt at a of courageous foresight. Amid interna- the Irgun “who sought precisely what it village—the best introduction to that tional condemnation, Israel’s prime was that Hale died for? Why is George nation’s drinking culture is to meet up minister issued a statement that would Washington, who conducted a violent, with Venya, the narrator of Venedikt be come known as the Begin Doctrine, fierce, and bloody campaign against Erofeev’s Moscow to the End of the which held that “Israel would not the British, a hero” while, for many Line, a strange, bleakly comic, forbidden countenance any of its mortal enemies Jews, Begin—who helped rid Palestine masterpiece of the early Brezhnev era. seeking to develop or acquire a nuclear of the British—“remains a villain or, at In the course of its first page, he drinks weapon.” Israel would not wait to be the very least, a Jewish leader with a four vodkas, two beers, port “straight attacked first. Gordis points out that the compromised background”? Part of the from the bottle,” and then, more vaguely, Begin Doctrine “would endure long answer, Gordis points out, is that Begin’s “something else.” It’s downhill from after Begin himself was gone from the reputation has been unjustly tarnished there. political arena.” It “was reasserted in “by David Ben-Gurion’s refusal to In meandering, chaotic prose, Erofeev 2007 when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledge his own participation in describes a drink-sodden, phantas- decided to destroy the nuclear reactor some of the events for which Begin is magoric train journey, punctuated by that Syria was building, and was vilified.” In his concluding chapter, depictions of decay, echoes of Russia’s power fully invoked, some 30 years Gordis convincingly refutes the version past, and recipes for cocktails that after Begin destroyed Osirak, when of Begin’s career presented by Ben- would make Appalachia blanch. With Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that if the Gurion and other political rivals and luck, no Russians ever drank “The international community did not prevent critics. Spirit of Geneva” (White Lilac, ath- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran from This book is beautifully written and lete’s foot remedy, Zhiguli beer, and going nuclear, Israel would do it alone.” insightful, and demonstrates conclu- alcohol varnish), but, as Mark Schrad, One of Begin’s most important lega- sively that Menachem Begin was, to - an assistant professor at Villanova cies is that he recognized and invoked gether with Ben-Gurion, one of the two University, notes in his absorbing, no the greatness of the American Revolution most important and influential of Israel’s less drink-sodden, not much less mean- in justification of—and as precedent founders, without whom the State of dering, and even more horrifying Vodka for—the revolutionary Zionist enter- Israel might well not have come into Politics, they came close, not least dur- prise that created the democratic State of being. It is an important contribution to ing the time when Mikhail Gorbachev Israel. More than any other Israeli polit- contemporary scholarship about the ical leader, Begin admired America’s political history of the modern Jewish Mr. Stuttaford is a contributing editor of founders and recognized in the American state. NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE.

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS was cracking down on alcohol produc- reassurance. According to the WHO, and futility was the norm. Under the tion: Russia’s alcohol consumption in 2011 circumstances, why not drink up? was near the top of the international But boozing one’s way through The most hard-up drinkers turned to range, but it was far from the only Brezhnev was also a reversion to older alcohol surrogates: from mouthwash, country to cross the eight-liter thresh- patterns of behavior that the early eau de cologne, and perfume to gaso- line, cockroach poison, brake fluid, old (the U.S. clocked in at 9.44 liters, Bolsheviks—in some respects a puri- medical adhesives, and even shoe pol- the U.K. at 13.37). Beyond obvious tanical bunch—believed they had ish on a slice of bread [a recipe that dif ferences in standards of health care, swept away for good. In 1913, the requires some additional preparation]. Russia’s catastrophe was clearly due wicked old empire’s per capita con- In the city of Volgodonsk, five died to something subtler than the overall sumption stood at just under that per- from drinking ethylene glycol, which volume of alcohol consumed. What ilous eight liters, and that was less of a is used in antifreeze. In the military, may have mattered more is that so gulp than the swigging that had preceded some set their thirsty sights on the much (6.88 liters) of the Russian tally it a few years before. Vodka was not only Soviet MiG-25, which—due to the was accounted for by spirits (the U.K., a familiar presence in the Russian troika, large quantities of alcohol in its no stranger to the binge, came in at it had also become one of its drivers, a hydraulic systems and fuel stores— was affectionately dubbed the “flying 2.41). That suggests that what is drunk wild, erratic, and destructive driver, to be restaurant.” (and, more specifically, how it is drunk) sure, but one so powerful that attempts counts. Schrad quotes another Erofeev, to unseat it contributed to the fall of It’s difficult not to smile at that, but the contemporary writer Viktor: “The both Gorbachev and (Schrad makes the then thoughts turn to those five dead in result, not the process, is what’s case well) quite possibly the last czar Volgodonsk, just a tiny fraction of a important. You might as well inject too. death toll from alcohol poisoning that vodka into your bloodstream as drink How demon drink grabbed the reins ran into the tens of thousands, casual- it.” is the question that lies at the heart of ties of the burgeoning zapoi (a binge A disaster of this magnitude—on Vodka Politics, which comes with the that lasts days or weeks) that finally some estimates as many as half a mil- subtitle “Alcohol, Autocracy, and the lurched out of control during the eco- lion Russians each year are dying as a Secret History of the Russian State.” nomic implosion that followed the consequence, directly or indirectly, of That “secret” is something of an over- Soviet collapse. Post-Soviet Russia had alcohol abuse—was not the product of statement (as Schrad acknowledges, little realistic alternative to the princi- economic implosion alone. Other this is far from being the first work on ple of shock therapy (how it was car- hard-drinking countries in the former this topic), but it is a claim not incon- ried out is a different matter), but Soviet space went through comparable sistent with his occasionally excitable Schrad is right to stress the depths to traumas in the 1990s. But none, with style (“While the cold wind howled which the country sank. The bottle, the possible exception of Ukraine, a beyond the Kremlin walls . . . ”). As often filled with dubious black-market land long exposed to the worst patho l - told by a chatty and engaging author, hooch, was one of the few sources of ogies of Russian rule, tippled quite so this is Russia’s past seen, one might solace left. This, rather literally, added far over the edge. There was something say, through the bottom of a glass, a further fuel to the fire already raging that singled Russia out, and it predated perspective that is certainly skewed through Russia’s demographics: “Aver- the collapse of Communism by a very (sometimes too much so—the liberal age life expectancy for men—65 at the long time. As early as 1967, the rapid Decembrist rebels of 1825 were rather height of [Gorbachev’s] anti-alcohol growth of alcohol consumption in the more than an “inebriated Petersburg campaign in 1987—plummeted to only post-war years—something helped mob”) but is undeniably fascinating 62 in 1992. Two years later, it dipped along by growing prosperity and a and often enlightening. below 58.” state that had replaced the anti-alcohol Schrad’s central thesis is simple According to Schrad, “the best esti- militancy of the earlier Soviet period enough: It is the tale of vodka as a “dra- mates are that in the 1990s, Russians with a sharp appreciation for the rev- matic technological leap” (like a can- quaffed some 15 to 16 liters of pure enues that vodka brought in—had non, it has been said, compared with the alcohol annually,” a figure that, telling- taken annual per capita consumption “bows and arrows” of wine, beer, and ly, does not appear to be so different of pure alcohol (exclusive of bootleg more traditional drinks) that was adopted today, and is well above the “eight-liter samogon) to 9.1 liters. Drinking was by Russia’s rulers (and how—if it’s maximum the World Health Organi - an accessible pleasure for a society epics of alcoholic excess that you are zation deems safe.” These are per capita that had cash, but—in a still-austere after, this is the book for you) and then data, kindly averages that mask the Soviet Union—not much to spend it ruthlessly exploited by them, a story extent to which it is mainly men who on. There was also something else: that, with brief interruptions, has con- are drinking to excess, a fact that helps Vodka may have been used to soothe tinued essentially unchanged for more explain why Ivan can expect to live the pain associated with the collapse of than half a millennium. some ten years less than Natasha. Communism, but it had also been a Ivan III (reigned 1462–1505) was the All those liters might alarm even way of anaesthetizing people through first to establish a state monopoly on skeptics legitimately suspicious of the the dreary decades that preceded that distillation, but Schrad prefers to credit WHO’s nannyish side, but the results long-overdue change, decades in which his grandson, a rather more terrible for other nations offer context, if not aspiration was stifled, life was hard, Ivan, with “being perhaps the first to

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realize the tremendous potential of the newspaper columns aren’t as critical to liquor trade.” In between debauches the national political debate as they were and atrocities (if you are on the hunt The before the deluge of opinion on social for Grand Guignol, chronicled with media, radio, and TV. So Krauthammer is faintly unseemly relish, this is also the Master now best known for his nightly Fox news book for you), he outlawed privately commentary on issues of the day. His held taverns and replaced them with LISA SCHIFFREN views have weight with millions of ordi- state-run kabaks. This was the next nary conservative viewers, and with stage in, as Schrad describes it, the evo- political elites, because he has excep- lution of a system of “macabre beauty” tionally good judgment about the nature under which the state built itself up by and importance of issues. using mechanisms designed to increase Still, he is an improbable TV star. He the dependence of its subjects on a is smarter, more measured, and less par- product—cheap to produce, profitable tisan than most TV pundits. He doesn’t to sell, potent to consume—that gave seem to need the attention as badly as them the illusion of release only to most. He’s not so telegenic. And, of enslave them still further. course, there is the now familiar fact of The catch was that the state itself Krauthammer’s paralysis. This might became dependent on this dependency. have been judged off-putting, at a net- At the height of the Russian empire, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, work that is exceptionally obsessed with vodka funded a third of what became Pastimes, and Politics, by Charles Krauthammer the appearance of its commentators. But known as the state’s “drunken budget.” (Crown Forum, 400 pp., $28) as it happens, Fox news’s millions of Toward the end of Soviet rule, vodka’s right-of-center viewers have embraced contribution was roughly a quarter. Ince its publication last October, Krauthammer and made him a star; and And vodka was a pleasure too tempt- charles Krauthammer’s Things they have now put his book near the top ing to be confined to those at the bot- That Matter has been a run- of the national bestseller list. For all that tom of the heap. It seeped through all S away bestseller. As of this writ- liberals denigrate Fox, it says something social classes, high and low, at im - ing, it has spent 17 weeks on the New impressive that conservative America’s mense cost to the country’s progress York Times bestseller list, where it cur- most respected columnist is a Jewish then and now, its spread facilitated by rently sits at no. 2. Krauthammer has intellectual who began his career as a lib- the unwillingness of the czarist and become a ubiquitous presence—more eral psychiatrist. Soviet regimes to allow room for a widely quoted than ever, on the Obama not surprisingly, the introductory per- civil society strong enough to push administration’s abuse of power, the fail- sonal essay explaining how he got where back, not to speak of their failure to ures of Obamacare, and the decline of the he is, how his thinking has evolved, and nurture a nation in which the bottle U.S.’s standing in the world at a time of what he values most in life, has been the would not seem like quite such an upheaval. Fox news, the network on focus of most critical discussion of attractive escape. which he practices punditry, saw fit to run Things That Matter. So what now? With Russia’s economy an hour-long TV special devoted to the Though the book contains many fas- in somewhat better shape and (thanks, man, his personal story, and his thoughts cinating essays on his personal pas- primarily, to higher oil prices) vodka’s (a distant third, to be sure) in conjunction sions—science, chess, dogs, and some percentage contribution to the state’s with the book’s publication. remarkable non-political figures—Kraut - income having shrunk to comparatively The astonishing popularity of what is, hammer argues that we have no choice modest mid single digits, the chances— after all, a book of warmed-over news- but to pay attention to politics foremost, one might think—ought to be good that paper columns has ratified the position grubby as it is, because politics inevitably something serious could be done to of the cerebral Mr. Krauthammer as the shapes our world. “You can have the most address a public-health cataclysm that most influential conservative columnist advanced and efflorescent of cultures. has not gone away. After all, the ostenta- of our time. In this he succeeds the Get your politics wrong, however, and tiously sober Vladimir Putin is at the equally brilliant but far more acerbic everything stands to be swept away.” He helm. Some measures have indeed been George Will, who explained, defended, alludes to Germany, 1933. But it applies taken, but this is still Russia, a top-down and even embodied the Reaganite con- here, everywhere, always. place where the people come last, where servative ethos of the 1980s. Kraut - Raised in Montreal, Krauthammer vodka profits accrue to the state and to hammer has earned this status by was a canadian-style social democrat the well-connected, a country where writing op-eds that are consistently in college, but always a staunch anti- outside, maybe, some metropolitan cen- incisive, thoughtful, and intellectually communist—even as an undergraduate ters, hope remains in short supply. forceful, for 30 years, at the Wash ington in the radical 1960s. After college, he Moscow to the End of the Line draws Post, Time, The New Re public, and The headed to Oxford for graduate studies in to a close with the drunken Venya miss- Weekly Standard. political philosophy, where he encoun- ing his stop and returning to the point at tered John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, the which he began. Lisa Schiffren is a senior fellow at the Independent “foundational document of classical lib- And then things get worse. Women’s Forum. eralism.” Though Mill’s embrace of indi-

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS vidual liberty and a small state resonated Krauthammer eulogizes a fascinating Too many liberals cannot see that state with Krauthammer, he came to view phi- man named Hermann Lisco. Dr. Lisco and society are not, and should not be, the losophy as too self-indulgent. Shortly left Berlin in 1936 with a newly earned same thing. before his second year, he called Harvard medical degree, to teach at Johns Krauthammer is not an old-school Medical School, to which he had been Hopkins. From there he was recruited conservative. And, as a Jew, he does previously accepted, to ask for admis- to join the Manhattan Project, studying not rely on Catholic and/or Evan - sion. Days later, he enrolled. In time the effects of plutonium on the human gelical Christian doctrine on those Krauthammer became a psychiatrist, body. He wound up as a professor at matters—abortion, stem-cell research, though he typically chose a program Harvard Medical School. In the course etc.—where Christianity offers abso - more biologically than therapeutically of recording Lisco’s many acts of bril- lute moral instruction. He is pro-science. oriented. liance and thoughtfulness, Krauthammer And he is, in the largest sense, pro-life. Seven years later, in 1978, his resi- slips in a short mention of the diving So essays on these subjects, some dency ending, he went to Washington, accident that left him fully paralyzed, longer and more nuanced, make com- D.C., as assistant to a senior Harvard at the end of his first year in med pelling, secular arguments that cut professor to direct planning in psychi- school. When Lisco asked what he through the high-minded rationaliza- atric research for the Carter administra- could do to help, Krauthammer, ban- tions for accepting as normal activities tion. Over the next two years, from that daged and in traction in a hospital bed, that will inevitably lead to callousness position, he published a few freelance announced that he wished to stay in toward human life. articles in The New Republic, then school and graduate with his class. Finally, Krauthammer has written at required reading among D.C. elites. Without ever discussing the extraordi- length, in Commentary and elsewhere, Those pieces led to a stint in 1980 as a nary efforts needed by teachers and about Israel, its treatment in the media, speechwriter for Vice President Walter staff, Lisco made it happen, even to the and other Jewish issues. Because I tend Mondale. The Carter-Mondale defeat point of designing extra-long medical to agree with him, I will say that they are allowed Krauthammer to complete his tools. Understandably, Krauthammer smart, sensitive, and worth reading. transition to full-time journalism. He omits any mention of what he personally What is notable about their inclusion in started work at TNR on the day in went through, or how hard he must this book is the presumption that they are January 1981 that Ronald Reagan was have struggled to overcome his physi- of interest to the huge majority of his sworn in as president, and the pendulum cal limits those years in medical school readers who are not Jewish. That sug- began to swing back toward political and as a resident. It is hardly necessary gests great confidence in the current sanity. to note the personal strength and char- philo-Semitism of American conserva- In short order he joined other “neo- acter required for that feat. tives. conservatives” in following Reagan’s Perhaps my favorite essay in the book As the columns in this book remind path from the Democratic party to the is “Reflections on the Revolution in us, Krauthammer is a master of the op- GOP, from being a social democrat to France,” written in 1989. It distills the ed form. He packs much thought into supporting a “restrained, free-market then-new revisionist scholarly view that prose that looks effortless. Op-eds are an government,” individualism, and civil the French Revolution was a disaster for art form, shaped by space constraints. society. By 1983 he was also writing a human freedom, not the liberating event Too long for assertions, too short for Time magazine column, in which, inci- generations had been taught about. The extended arguments, the best ones rely dentally, he coined the phrase “the much quieter American Revolution led on the author’s ability to make a serious Reagan Doctrine,” about the administra- to revolutionary amounts of individual case, with an illustration or two, while tion’s foreign policy. In 1985 he began liberty. The “murderous revolutionary alluding to more of the surrounding his Washington Post column, for which regime” that followed the French Revo- debate than he has room to spell out. In he won the Pulitzer Prize a mere two lution became the model for expansions turn, this requires a readership knowl- years later. of state power, even to our own time. edgeable enough to comprehend the His anti-Communism was constant, “The line from the Bastille to the gulag said and the unsaid. Krauthammer is he writes: “On foreign policy, as the [the Cold War had not yet ended] is not lucky to have the Washington Post’s cliché goes, I didn’t leave the Demo - straight, but the connection is unmistak- uniquely politically savvy readers as his cratic party. It left me.” On domestic pol- able.” Which is to say that socialism, audience. New York Times readers are icy, he changed. Why? “I’m open to Communist brutality, and other outrages rarely exposed to serious conservative empirical evidence. The results of Great against freedom were the real long-term thinking, and have trouble comprehend- Society experiments started coming in result of that revolution. ing even the most straightforward con- and began showing that, for all its good That essay is followed by a more recent servative position. intentions, the War on Poverty was caus- one, on President Obama’s astonishing Wonderful as the short-form newspa- ing irreparable damage to the very com- “You didn’t build that” speech—which per column is in addressing issues on the munities it was designed to help.” This illustrates the socialist view of the prima- fly, it is disappointing that Krauthammer explanation forces a reader to consider cy of the state in all human endeavor. has not yet given us a book-length dis- why so many political writers seem not Besides dismissing the argument as cussion of one of the recurring political to be open to empirical evidence. bunk, Krauthammer does a nice job matters on which he has coherent, in- In one of the collection’s most personal, explaining the role of civil society, medi- depth views. That is something to look touching, even tear-inducing essays, ating between the state and individuals. forward to.

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only does Itzkoff document the fasci- her Oscar, or that Holden mailed nating interplay between Chayefsky Chayefsky Christmas cards on which Message and Lumet on Network—the domineer- he suggested they see each other the ing scribe working mostly tranquilly next time Chayefsky was in Palm Movie with the well-established auteur—but Springs? he goes on to describe what happened As the tangential anecdotes mount, PETER TONGUETTE afterward, with Lumet feeling insulted MadasHell starts to feel like a heap of when asked to essentially take a pay Internet Movie Database–style trivia cut on Chayefsky’s follow-up, Altered bound between two covers. Devoting a States. full-length book to a single artistic While much of this is interesting, at a creation is not the easiest assignment. certain point—perhaps when Itzkoff By contrast, countless films course has taken us to the conclusion of Net- through the 500-odd pages of Peter work’s editing process, but we still Biskind’s EasyRiders,RagingBulls, have another 100 or so pages to go—it which is also set in the American film starts to feel like padding. It is one scene of the 1970s. Those familiar with thing to detail the tragically inoppor- Network will remember the early tune death of Peter Finch, who so mem- moment in which producers at a mid- orably played Howard Beale and who day meeting meticulously whittle away was struck down by a heart attack while at news items to get them to fit the time Mad as Hell: The Making of Network and the doing publicity for the film that re - allotted on air—perhaps the point is Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies, by launched his career, ultimately winning how regrettable it is to turn current Dave Itzkoff (Times Books, 304 pp., $27) him a posthumous Oscar for Best Actor. affairs into sound bites, but we wish But is it essential to accompany Holden Itzkoff (a reporter for the New York n this authoritative telling of the and Dunaway on highlights from their Times) had had a similar appetite for making of Sidney Lumet’s widely pre- and post-Network careers—to brevity here. admired 1976 film Network, know that Dunaway was at odds with Of course, Itzkoff accords Network I Dave Itzkoff leaves no stone her agent, Sue Mengers, after she won such comprehensive treatment because unturned. Included are endlessly de - tailed accounts of every stage of the inception, production, and exploitation of the tale of schizoid television news- man Howard Beale and the forces in the LEGACY media who stand to benefit from his sickness. You will learn how screen- Let God persuade you writer Paddy Chayefsky researched the What it’s going to mean, film by paying visits to nBC and CBS, How thoroughly and how the project took shape through You will be off the scene; Chayefsky’s laborious writing process. You will learn how mathematically pre- And hand it over now: cise Lumet had to be in staging a sex The shade you chose scene with anxious participants William For the walls, your coffee maker, Holden and Faye Dunaway. You will Climbing rose. learn not only what Chayefsky said the night he won an Oscar for writing Net- No archive and no work, but also what he said the follow- Velvet ropes for you. ing year, when he was there to announce Lay down your life that night’s winner. And see what it will do And there is more. Although Itzkoff frames the book as a quasi-biography of Without you. That’s Chayefsky (an unusual and admirable What our Redeemer did decision given how much ink is spilled in After His agony— books of this kind on directors), he does Rose up and hid, not give short shrift to any of the film’s other main figures, Lumet, Holden, and Not asking if Dunaway among them. For example, not We loved him there above us— But free of us as well, Mr. Tonguette’s criticism has appeared in the Wall Because He loved us. Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and elsewhere. He is writing a book on Peter Bogdanovich. —SARAH RUDEN

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Sailing November 9–16 on THE NATIONAL REVIEW Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas 22001144 PPoosstt--EEleeccttiioonn CCrruuiissee Join over three dozen speakers, including Victor Davis Hanson, Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Kyl, Luis Fortuño, John Yoo, Brent Bozell, Mona Charen, Jonah Goldberg, Ralph Reed, Bing West, Rich Lowry, Tim Phillips, Guy Benson, Michael Ramirez, Brian Anderson, Ned Ryun, Charles Kesler, Andrew McCarthy, Sally Pipes, Cleta Mitchell, Kathryn Lopez, Jay Nordlinger, Ramesh Ponnuru, Deroy Murdock, Charles Cooke, Kevin Williamson, Rob Long, James Lileks, Christina Hoff Sommers, Michael Walsh, John Fund, Jim Geraghty, John Hillen, Ed Whelan, Cal Thomas, John Miller, William Jacobson, Christian Robey, Roman Genn, & Jennifer Marshall

ign up for what’s certain to be one of the most exciting sea- editor Brian Anderson, Claremont Review of Books editor Charles faring adventures you will ever experience: the National Kesler, NRO editors-at-large Jonah Goldberg and Kathryn Jean S Review 2014 Post-Election Caribbean Cruise. Featuring Lopez, NR editor Rich Lowry, terrorism and defense experts Bing an all-star conservative cast, this affordable trip—prices start at West, Andrew McCarthy, and John Hillen, policy experts Sally $1,999 a person—will take place November 9–16, 2014, aboard Pipes, Jennifer Marshall, and Christina Hoff Sommers, novelist Royal Caribbeans’ MS Allure of the Seas, the acclaimed ship of one Michael Walsh, NR senior editors Jay Nordlinger and Ramesh of the world’s leading cruise lines. From politics, the elections, the Ponnuru, NR essayists Charles Cooke and Kevin Williamson, NR presidency, and domestic policy to economics, national security, columnists Rob Long and James Lileks, ace political writers John and foreign affairs, there’s so much to discuss. Fund, Jim Geraghty, John J. Miller, and NR That’s precisely what our conservative ana- cartoonist Roman Genn. lysts, writers, and experts will do on the Allure No wonder we’re expecting over 700 peo- of the Seas, your floating luxury getaway for ple to attend! scintillating discussion of major events, The “typical” NR cruise alumnus (there trends, and the 2014 elections. Our wonderful are thousands) has gone on four NR voyages group of speakers (over three dozen so far!), and knows our trips provide riveting political there to make sense of politics, elections, and shoptalk, wonderful socializing, intimate din- world affairs, includes acclaimed historian ing with speakers, making new friends, rekin- Victor Davis Hanson, former senators Jon The beautiful ms Allure of the Seas dling old friendships, and grand cruising. Kyl and Fred Thompson, former governors Tim Pawlenty and That and more awaits you in November. Luis Fortuño, legal experts John Yoo, Cleta Mitchell, Ed Whelan, Here’s our exclusive event program: nine scintillating seminars and Legal Insurrection publisher William Jacobson, liberal-media featuring NR’s editors and guest speakers; two fun-filled “Night scourges Brent Bozell and Christian Robey, syndicated columnists Owl” sessions; three revelrous pool-side cocktail receptions; a late- Mona Charen, Cal Thomas, and Deroy Murdock, top political night “smoker” featuring world-class H. Upmann cigars (and com- strategists Ralph Reed and Ned Ryun, Townhall.com political edi- plimentary cognac); and intimate dining on two evenings with a tor Guy Benson, Americans for Prosperity president Tim Phillips, guest speaker or editor. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez, City Journal The best reason to come is the luminary line-up. This tremendous ensemble (we’re awaiting more JOIN U S FOR SEVEN BALMY DAYS AND COOL C ON SERVAT IVE NIGHT S RSVPs) guarantee fascinating and informative seminar sessions. DAY/DATE PORT ARRIVE DEPART SPECIAL EVENT a Listen and learn (and Q&A SUN/Nov. 9 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 5:00PM evening cocktail reception too!) as Victor Davis Hanson, Bing West, John Kyl, Fred MON/Nov. 10 Nassau (Bahamas) 7:00AM 2:00PM afternoon seminar Thompson, and John Hillen sizing “Night Owl” session up America’s standing in the TUE/Nov. 11 AT SEA morning/afternoon seminars world’s most troubled hot spots. WED/Nov. 12 St. Thomas (USVI) 9:00AM 6:00PM afternoon seminar a Hear from former guvs Tim evening cocktail reception Pawlenty (MN) and Luis Fortuño (PR)about the ups and downs of THU/Nov. 13 St. Maarten (NA) 8:00AM 5:00PM afternoon seminar late-night Smoker stateside conservative governance. a Watch Brent Bozell, FRI/Nov. 14 AT SEA morning/afternoon seminars Christian Robey, John Miller, “Night Owl” session Brian Anderson, Michael Walsh, SAT/Nov. 15 AT SEA morning/afternoon seminars and Rob Long discuss just how evening cocktail reception deep the media (and Hollywood) is SUN/Nov. 16 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 6:30AM Debark in the liberal tank. a Legal experts John Yoo and two page Caribbean 2014 cruise March 24 issue:Panama cruise.qxd 3/4/2014 11:51 AM Page 2

Andy McCarthy will provide razor-sharp insights on national securi- LUXURIOUS, AFFORDABLE CABINS! ty, and join Ed Whelan, Cleta Mitchell, and William Jacobson to score judicial decisions and the Justice Department’s political hijinx. RATES START AT JUST $1,999 P/P! a Our post-dinner “Night Owls” will showcase Jonah Goldberg, Superior service, gourmet cuisine, elegant accommodations, and great James Lileks, Michael Walsh, Rob Long et al. venting, ruminating, entertainment await you on the Allure of the Seas. Prices are per-person, and joshing about anything and everything. based on double occupancy, and include port fees, taxes, gratuities, meals, a Political aces Ralph Reed, Tim Phillips, Ned Ryun, and Guy entertainment, and admittance to and participation in all NR functions. Benson will analyze the numbers and strategies to explain why this Call The Cruise Authority at 800-707-1634 for 3rd/4th person rates. candidate won and that one lost, while Rich Lowry, Jim Geraghty, Mona Charen, Cal Thomas, Deroy Murdock, Charles Kesler, John GRAND SUITE WITH BALCONY Magnificent 371 square feet, plus 114 s/f private balcony. Two lower beds convertible to Fund, and Andrew Stiles provide expert analyses of the conservative queensized bed, private bath with shower, large sitting area, pri- movement and the GOP. vate balcony, flat panel TV, floor-to- a Picture Jay Nordlinger and John J. Miller leading Christina ceiling windows, safe. Hoff Sommers, Jennifer Marshall, Sally Pipes, Ramesh Ponnuru, Kevin D. Williamson, Charles Cooke, and Kathryn Jean Lopez in Category GS scintillating discussions of the economy, health care, education, and DOUBLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 4,999 P/P the day’s other top domestic policy issues. SINGLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 7,999 a They’re funny, and they can draw! Watch and laugh as Pulitizer Prize-winning cartoonist Michael Ramirez and NR cover artist JUNIOR SUITE WITH BALCONY Spectacular 287 square Roman Genn get their art on to discuss ink, paper, pens, and politics. feet, plus 78 s/f private balcony. Two lower beds convertible to queensized bed, private bath with shower, large sitting area, pri- As for the ship: The luxurious and fun-filled (rock climbing walls! vate balcony, flat panel TV, floor-to- zip lines! comedy clubs!) Allure of the Seas offers well-appointed, spa- ceiling windows, safe. cious staterooms and countless amenities, with a stellar staff providing unsurpassed service and sumptuous cuisine. Category JS And don’t forget the sunny itineraryof Nassau, St. Thomas, and St. DOUBLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 3,999 P/P Maarten! SINGLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 6,299 Our 2014 Post-Election Cruise will be remarkable, and affordable. Prices start as low as $1,999 a person (double-occupancy-only SUPERIOR OCEAN VIEW WITH VERANDAH Delightful 182 “Category Q” cabins are limited), and there’s a cabin for every taste square feet, plus 53 s/f private balcony! Two lower beds convertible to queensized bed, private bath with shower, large sit- and circumstance. Take the trip of a lifetime with America’s preemi- ting area, private balcony, flat panel nent intellectuals, policy analysts, and political experts. Reserve your TV, floor-to-ceiling windows, safe. cabin online at www.nrcruise.com, (it has complete info on the trip). Or call The Cruise Authority (M-F, 9AM to 5PM EST) at 800-707- Category D8 1634. Or mail in the handy application form on the next page. DOUBLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 2,999 P/P We’ll see you—in the company of Victor Davis Hanson, Jon Kyl, SINGLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 4,499 Fred Thompson, Tim Pawlenty, Luis Fortuño, John Yoo, Cleta Mitchell, Ed Whelan, William Jacobson, Brent Bozell, Mona OCEAN VIEW Comfortable 174 square feet. Ocean-view win- Charen, Deroy Murdock, Ralph Reed, Ned Ryun, Guy Benson, dows, two lower beds convertible to Tim Phillips, Michael Ramirez, Brian Anderson, Charles Kesler, queen-sized bed, flat panel TV, pri- Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Rich Lowry, Bing West, vate bath with shower, safe. Andrew McCarthy, John Hillen, Cal Thomas, Christina Hoff Category F Sommers, Sally Pipes, Rob Long, Michael Walsh, Jay Nordlinger, DOUBLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 2,499 P/P Ramesh Ponnuru, Charles Cooke, Kevin Williamson, James Lileks, SINGLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 3,099 John Fund, Jim Geraghty, John Miller, Jennifer Marshall, Roman Genn, and Christian Robey—this November in the Caribbean INSIDE Spacious 150-172 square feet. Two lower beds con- aboard the Allure of the Seas! vertible to queensized bed, flat panel TV, private bath with shower, safe. For more information or to apply online go to Category N DOUBLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 2,099 P/P www.nrcruise.com SINGLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 2,599

or call The Cruise Authority at Category Q SPECIAL INSIDE! DOUBLE OCCUPANCY RATE: $ 1,999 P/P 1-800-707-1634 or e-mail (Category Q availability is very limited! NOT available as a single.)

[email protected]. WOW-INDUCING ‘CROWN LOFT SUITES’ ALSO AVAILABLE! 2014 caribbean cruise application:carribian 2p+application_jack.qxd 3/4/2014 3:26 PM Page 1

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he considers the film to be greatly sig- rants, it is an overstatement to claim, as nificant. There is no question that it is Itzkoff does, that he is “severely pun- among the finest works of many of ished for enunciating some necessary those involved, especially Chayefsky. and uncomfortable truths.” To the con- “It’s as if you’ve been rehearsing all trary, there is little doubt that we are your life to write it,” filmmaker Peter meant to agree with the assessment of Bogdanovich wrote to Chayefsky. If UBS News president Max Schumacher the summit of his screenwriting career (Holden)—“I think you’re having a had remained Marty or The Hospital breakdown”—and that Chayefsky is not (his best-known works prior to Net - valorizing Beale. We have the distinct work), it is unlikely he would be spo- impression that Beale’s viewers tune in ken of very much today. Similarly, few not to hear someone “talking sense to films can be said to have introduced a the American people,” as it were, but meme as potent as Howard Beale’s instead to watch broadcast journalism’s “mad as hell” speech, though it irked equivalent of a car wreck. Itzkoff sug- Chayefsky to see it poached thought- gests that Glenn Beck and Jon Stewart lessly (as it is in the film itself). are among Beale’s progeny, but it is left At the same time, is Network really to Stephen Colbert to issue the neces- that much better than other films about sary caution, as quoted in the book, that postwar American culture? Its acrid Beale is “a hopeless character who ulti- satire calls to mind Dr. Strangelove, as mately does not succeed in what he Chayefsky himself recognized in notes wants to do, and is killed. He’s not a he made when he was hatching the messianic figure.” project: “Now, all this is Strangelove-y But Itzkoff properly prizes Network’s as hell, can we make it work?” And as unexpectedly conservative political ori- a portrait of the media, it is certainly entation, which is as against the grain less reverential, but not necessarily for a Hollywood movie of this era as more effective or accurate, than All the Chayefsky’s was among his colleagues. IF YOU’RE President’s Men (also released in 1976 This is the man who sounded dubious ASAS SICKSICK ASAS and a winner of four Oscars). about working on Warren Beatty’s Reds Itzkoff’s claims for Network rest for the simple reason that its protago- largely on how its various predictions nist, Communist journalist John Reed, I AMAM panned out. In the film, the sudden onset “had given his life for an inherently aboutabout thethe back-and-back-andd- of mental illness in Beale (his response flawed and ultimately wrongheaded to forced retirement is to announce plans movement.” According to Itzkoff, to forthffoorth betweenbetween thethe to kill himself on live TV) inspires his Chayefsky, the values of his son’s gen- partiesparties wherewhere nothingnothinng bosses at the fictitious UBS network to eration—that is, those who came of age ggetsets donedone – resemblingresemblinng forgo traditional newscasts in favor of in the 1960s—“were a mystery.” This is tthehe lmlm GGrroundhogoundhog giving the floor to Beale’s nonsensical manifested in Network’s devastating DDayay – thenthen thisthis isis thethhe philippics, and hastens changes in the portrayal of the hilariously named structure and ownership of the net- Ecumenical Liberation Army. They are bookbook fofforor you.yyoou. InsteadInsteaad work. But while Itzkoff rightly notes a revolutionary gang handpicked by ofof ppartisanshipartisanship let’slet t’s that the film anticipated “the unravel- UBS to star in The Mao Tse-Tung Hour, focusffoocus onon whatwhat works!workks! ing of the monolithic broad casting but as witty as this scenario is, for ever- companies, the diminishment of their serious, ever-angry Chayefsky, Itzkoff once-mighty news operations, and the writes, “there was no discernible differ- ON SALE path to a fragmented and unrecogniz- ence . . . between an organization such Everywhere able media environment,” these things as Students for a Democratic Society haven’t occurred because the media and a group such as the Symbionese Books are Sold have been taken over by a legion of Liberation Army. Whatever their stated April 1, 2014. Howard Beales. goals, all that interested these groups Itzkoff is unconvincing when he gin- was the destabilization of the country, PRE-ORDER YOUR gerly compares Edward R. Murrow’s the sowing of discord, and the spread- COPY TODAY! “urbane small talk” on Person to Per son ing of violence.” to the off-the-wall candor of Howard In the end, more than Network’s oft- Beale, who delivered his “mad as hell” mentioned prescience, it is Chayefsky’s speech after spending the day prowling despairing view of the media reck- the city in a raincoat and pajamas dur- lessly hitching their wagon to “anti- ing a thunderstorm. While Chayefsky establishment” or “counterculture” forces scatters pieces of wisdom in Beale’s that surprises—and delights.

4 9 books:QXP-1127940387.qxp 3/4/2014 4:57 PM Page 50

BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS Film Brick House

ROSS DOUTHAT

ontemporary Hollywood is built around projects that stu- dio types like to describe as C “pre-sold,” meaning that they have titles and stories that prospective audiences instantly recognize, and brands that require no effort to explain. your (the “piece of resistance”) for everyone to But the plot’s twists and turns are superhero movies, your sequels, your chase, a Gandalfesque wizard supplying also designed to disarm conservatives remakes and reboots all fall into this cate- orotund advice, a Scottish-burred evil inclined to bristle at an anti-capitalist gory, as do adaptations of mega-selling henchman—the works. message. Some such bristling has hap- (but not, I fear, merely bestselling) books. But then—presumably because Lego pened, on Fox and elsewhere, but more and so does what you might call the “tie- has created sets, at one point or another, sophisticated right-of-center writers, such in” film—a movie that doesn’t so much for just about every story imaginable— as mollie Hemingway at The Federalist, adapt a story as attach one to some pre- there’s also a growling Batman and a gag- have pointed out that The Lego Movie existing pop-culture property, like a gle of rival superheroes, pop-ins from could just as easily be read as a libertari- board game, or a theme-park ride. abraham Lincoln and William Shake - an message movie instead. Lord Busi - of all the varieties of pre-sold cinema, speare, a cameo from Shaquille o’neal, a ness’s world is, in a sense, a consumerist it’s easy to regard the tie-in as the crass- visit from C-3po and Lando Calrissian, dystopia, with $37 cups of coffee and the est and most artistically bankrupt. and and then a host of more random support- same pop songs and sitcoms playing on sometimes (cough, Battleship, cough) the ing players (a pirate named metalbeard, a an endless loop. But it’s ultimately more results vindicate that assumption. But giggling unicorn–kitten hybrid named collectivist than capitalist—a microman- there are exceptions: there was no reason Unikitty, a 1980s-vintage astronaut) to aged monoculture, a corporatist nanny to expect any kind of creative spark from round out the master Builder cast. State (“everything is awesome,” runs the the original Pirates of the Caribbean, for the talent assembled for their voices, hit song, “everything is cool when you’re instance, but then Johnny Depp and Gore meanwhile, is remarkable—from Will one of the team”) where true creativity Verbinski turned Disney’s shameless Ferrell blustering as Lord Business and earns banishment or worse. ride-sploitation into an unexpected plea- Liam neeson growling as his right-hand So there’s a touch of Atlas Shrugged sure. (then, alas, came the sequels.) man, to Will arnett’s pitch-perfect parody in the story, with the master Builders the same feeling, of suspicion melting of the Christopher nolan Batman’s standing in for the visionary, unappre- into delight, has come over just about rasp, to anthony Daniels and Billy Dee ciated inhabitants of Galt’s Gulch. every critic to review The Lego Movie, Williams showing up to voice their Star except that the movie also critiques which is set in a world built entirely out of Wars characters, to a longer roster of liber tarian excesses, through a visit to Denmark’s most famous interlocking comedians and stars (morgan Freeman, the rule-free, value-free, happy-clappy export, and populated by yellow-faced elizabeth Banks, Jonah Hill, and so on), to “Cloud Cuckooland,” and in its insistence hominids familiar to anyone whose child- his Shaqness as himself. and as they did on the value of ordinary Legofolk like hood included at least one visit to a toys in another, somewhat different pre-sold emmett as well as Legoland’s visionary “r” Us. that the movie is essentially 90 project—2012’s 21 Jump Street—the Howard roarks. minutes of propaganda for a global toy filmmakers, phil Lord and Chris miller, So its true values, then, are obviously conglomerate is clearly a strike against its simply stuff the film with jokes. actually, Burkean, or maybe oakeshottian . . . okay, existence. But that those 90 minutes are laugh-out-loud, funny-as-all-heck jokes. no, I’m kidding. Its true values are still brilliant fun is undeniable as well. as the villain’s name suggests, they corporate: It’s just trying to wrap its pro- the plot is part pastiche, part send-up, also stuff it with ideological themes, but Lego propaganda in as many clever con- and part jam session. It has the structure in a way that’s clearly calculated to con- cealing layers as possible, to flatter our of a quest narrative, in which an every- fuse potential critics, left and right. this intelligence with one hand while it grabs man named emmett Brickowski—a con- is, obviously, a deeply corporate pro- for our wallet with the other, and—per- struction worker in Brickopolis—must duction, so the fact that its bad guy is a haps most important—to smooth away em brace his prophesied destiny as “the corporate overlord named “Business” the tensions inherent in a product that’s Special” and rally his world’s “master seems like a kind of self-critique—or, pitched as a spur to kids’ creativity but Builders” to thwart the dictatorial Lord more accurately, a preemptive attempt comes with rigorous instruction manuals. Business’s plan to freeze the entire Lego - to disarm or seduce viewers who don’t oh, yes, I see right through you, Lego world in the amber of Krazy Glue. there’s want to feel like they’re simply surren- Movie. . a love interest who initially looks down dering their children’s imaginations to and yes, okay, I kind of can’t wait to

on emmett’s ordinariness, a macGuffin Big Lego. see you again. WARNER BROS

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trees, but spalted maple is the most went to see why; he had found pinking Country Life beautiful. shears, and was pinking every leaf of That is what the things were; but there every potted plant in the room. But he is was also a story behind them. on one of even prouder of his cleverness than of his The the back roads (there are two roads of the patience. So he made himself a one-off same name, one called upper, this one device, a razor attached to a ring; by Enchanter called Lower) sits the home farm of a pulling the colored wire through it he family with a german surname. They sliced off the insulation a foot at a time. came to the country in the 19th century, So jewelry gets made, and will go to but they married into a Dutch family who Doug’s friends. Some will pay, some will had arrived two centuries earlier. Next receive it as gifts. There will be no line of door is an old fieldstone house that Spalted Eveningwear, though. Doug has was recently sold. The exterior is land- worked in factories, and he once helped marked but the new owner put in mod build a Burger King in the town next door, cons and made various other improve- but repeated tasks go against his grain. ments. Among the improvements: He After he casts a spell, he moves on to the took down two immense old trees. It was next one. When routine enters the picture time for them to go—the center of one the story is lost. Will he chop down more RICHARD BROOKHISER was rotted out—but Doug noticed that the trees by the old stone house? Snowblow wood of the other trunk was spalted. The more extension cords? The uniqueness of oug came over during one of owner was happy to be rid of it; Doug the finished product is lost as well: Who the cold snowy spells. He was would be happy to take it off his hands— wants two Sistine Chapels? An avenue of described by ovid in Book XI there are tabletops, countertops, who Parthenons? D of the Metamorphoses, when knows what in there—but he needs trans- Tmolus, a mountain in Asia Minor, judges portation. He has no truck and his current a musical contest between Pan and cars are not doing well. The weather is Apollo: “[He] ridds his eares / From trees, also uncooperative—he saw the fallen and onely on his head an oken garland trunks in a balmy interval, but now they weares, / Whereof the Acornes dangled are sealed in snow tombs. As a trial he downe . . .” Yet Doug has the most careful took one of the miscellaneous fragments hands, with which he knows how to make lying about and milled it into discs. or fix anything. “But where did you get the wire?” we He recalled a similar cold spell when he asked. one of the discs had a copper wire had to bury a beloved dog. The ground attached to its rim—the first step to mak- was frozen so hard he could only dig out ing it an earring, or stringing it into a the beast’s silhouette. If you want to lie in necklace. But Doug would not have a box, don’t die until spring. bought the wire. The cost of materials has Then he took out of a jacket pocket a gone through the roof in the past decade; handful of wooden discs. Like many he haunts the free-stuff section at the artists and artisans, Doug is a showman, local dump, and will grab almost any- displaying his handiwork with a con- thing wooden—desk drawers, doors. If juror’s flair, as if to say, I do magical they can’t be made into something else, things with wood or stone or metal; now they can always go into the stove. Even in for my next trick . . . “Do you know what the best of times copper was an expensive There is another thing that is often lost these are?” he asked. item (which is why urban scavengers strip in regular production: noticing. The Each disc was not quite two inches pipes from abandoned buildings). wooden earrings began with a man dri- across, and maybe three-quarters of an The copper on Doug’s disc came from ving around, with his eyes open. one day inch thick. Their flat surfaces had pat- an accident: When he was using the he saw something beautiful that was a terns, horizontal or vertical depending on snowblower he cut an outdoor extension bonanza. other days it is something how you held them, of dark lines, which cord. The cord had been underground for merely beautiful or interesting. one made irregular jags or waves. The discs years; maybe this winter’s freezes pushed time Doug left us a message that he had looked like pieces of desert sandstone it up to the surface. Doug retrieved it and spotted a roadkill owl. He had put the from the Southwest, though they were stripped off the outer sheath, to the white, deceased in the back of a pickup truck in obviously wooden. black, and green lines within. Then he a friend’s driveway and left directions so My wife and I have been around could have peeled the colored insulation we could pay our respects. Doug long enough to recognize what he off these lines to get down to their copper Doug took his discs and parted with a held. They were slices of spalted wood, cores—a laborious process. Doug is a wish for spring. Then he will be able to spalting being a condition caused by very patient man; when he was a little work in earnest. His work space is out- fungi. Different fungi leave a variety of boy, his parents noticed that he had been side; he used to have a roof over it, but a discolorations in the wood of different unusually quiet in the next room, and fallen tree took that down.

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Happy Warrior BY JONAH GOLDBERG Multiply and Be Fruitful

AST May, Harvard economic historian Niall (or ungrateful brat, if you prefer). The successful busi- Ferguson stepped on a cultural landmine. He nessman’s children don’t become businessmen; they joked that sainted liberal economist John become lawyers, journalists, poets, social workers, writ- L Maynard Keynes supported deficit spending ers, teachers, academics, activists, and the like—in short, because he was gay. Spoken by an “effete” childless the intellectuals. They can do this because education guar- homosexual, Keynes’s famous bon mot “In the long run, antees a nice minimum income. Risk-taking is where the we are all dead” takes on a special meaning, Ferguson real money is, but risk-taking is by definition risky. mused. Why not live—and spend—for today? Lawyers move out of the house; failed inventors never As I wrote at the time, Ferguson’s mistake was to have leave the basement. missed the fact that the statute of limitations had expired Intellectuals are the storytellers of civilization, and in on such observations, never mind that—unfair to Keynes capitalist societies the stories they tell are usually some or not—the thought had been utterly mainstream not long variant of Balzac’s dictum that “behind every great for- before. Conservative intellectual historian Gertrude tune lies a great crime.” The richer the body politic gets, Himmelfarb and left-wing economic journalist William the more intellectuals it creates, much the same way the Greider both speculated similarly. In his 1946 obituary of human body produces more and more of the bad kind of Keynes, no less than Joseph Schumpeter wrote that cholesterol. The result is the same. The arteries harden. Keynes “was childless and his philosophy of life was The New Class long ago achieved class-consciousness, essentially a short-run philosophy.” recruiting the best and brightest even from the ranks of the But Schumpeter’s jab, to be fair, wasn’t aimed at homo- poor and disadvantaged, teaching them to reject capital- sexuality but at childlessness or, to be more accurate, what ism for a better way. The fruits of this effort have been he called the “decline in philoprogenitivity”—the desire to well chronicled in these pages and elsewhere: a wave of have as many kids as God or nature will allow. This desire rent-seeking, cronyism, and corporatism has been was deeply tied up in an “extra-rational” worldview of unleashed to the point where the greatest profits lie in the bourgeois morality that, according to Schumpeter, was manufacture not of things but of laws. “Stakeholders” are responsible for the success of capitalism. Capitalism wasn’t rewarded for their subservience to the state by being per- born from the discovery of credit, surplus capital, the rule mitted to circle the wagons against the innovative Huns. of law, underpants gnomes, or even private property—as A new kind of noblesse oblige holds that we must in effect various theorists, of varying quality, have surmised. What socialize health care in order to liberate workers from created capitalism was the sudden social acceptance of the paying jobs so they can become, in the words of Nancy nobility, or at least respectability, of the entrepreneur and Pelosi, “poets.” And, as the family continues to melt the innovator. Starting in the 1700s, writes maverick away, the state acts in loco parentis for the Julias left Schumpeterian economist Deirdre McCloskey, “a great behind. shift occurred in what Alexis de Tocqueville called ‘habits President Obama is a throwback not so much to of the mind’—or more exactly, habits of the lip. People Marxism but to the old norm of sneering at innovativeness stopped sneering at market innovativeness and other bour- and the bourgeois virtues. As a politician, he has use for geois virtues.” (The Oxford English Dictionary didn’t even the language of bourgeois dignity but, as a member of the allow a positive sense of “innovation” until well into the New Class, he has very little passion for it. The passion is 19th century.) reserved for sneering comments like “You didn’t build Schumpeter noted that such men were driven by a that.” He recalled his one stint in the private sector as romantic and heroic—not necessarily a rational—desire working “behind enemy lines.” His wife is quite fond of to build up, and provide for, a sprawling philoprogenitive boasting how she turned her back on the big money of the home. “Economists have not always given due weight to private sector, preferring the fairly large money of the this fact,” Schumpeter observed. “When we look more public sector. (Again: The New Class takes care of its closely at their idea of the self-interest of entrepreneurs own.) and capitalists we cannot fail to discover that the results it The capitalist revolution happened exactly once in was supposed to produce are really not at all what one human history. On that timeline it is very young indeed. would expect from the rational self-interest of the And during its brief time on this earth it has alleviated detached individual or the childless couple who no longer more poverty than all the systems that ever came before it. look at the world through the windows of a family home.” The problem, as Friedrich Hayek noted, is that “capital- The economists assumed Homo economicus was selfish ism depends upon values that it did not create and cannot Randian Man, when he was in fact romantic Family Man. replace.” The burning question is whether the culture out- But there’s an ironic catch. Perhaps Schumpeter’s most side of capitalism is capable of replenishing capitalism. If brilliant insight was to notice how the capitalistic Family it’s not, then Keynes was right: Live for today, for in the Man tended to breed the anti-capitalistic Ungrateful Man long run we’re all dead.

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