CALIFORNIA, MICHAEL WARREN THE ONE-PARTY STATE

OCTOBER 8, 2018 • $5.99 Climbing the Trump-Era Bestseller List

by ANDREW FERGUSON . . . in which our correspondent reads them all, so you don’t have to

WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents October 8, 2018 • Volume 24, Number 5

2 The Scrapbook The Quindlen Effect revisited, how to buy a stamp, & more 5 Casual Grant Wishard tells a deer-hunt story 6 Editorials The GOP’s Best Argument • We Haven’t ‘Wiped Out’ ISIS Return of the Bush Doctrine? 10 Comment The sexual revolution is over by Barton Swaim Just another reminder: Appeasement never works by Fred Barnes Gambling on sports—it’s what Americans want by Philip Terzian 5 Articles

14 Badness Personified by Thomas Joscelyn Jalaluddin Haqqani is dead; the terror network he created lives on

16 A Literary Lynching by James Campbell Ian Buruma hoped to stimulate discussion about #MeToo—the Twitter mob got him fired

18 What’s in a Name? by Stephen Miller The ‘progressive’ problem

19 19 Iran’s Enemies by Reuel Marc Gerecht Many of them are within its borders

Features

22 The One-Party State by Michael Warren Are California’s Democrats really charting a future path for the rest of the country?

29 How the GOP Became Trump’s Party by Charles J. Sykes The tribalization of conservatism

33 Pipeline Dreams by John Psaropoulos 22 Eastern Mediterranean gas creates new allies—and deepens old enmities

Books & Arts

37 The Groaning Shelves by Andrew Ferguson We read Trump-era bestsellers so you don’t have to

45 The Fun Tournament by Tom Perrotta The new Laver Cup competition is a blast—but will it last beyond Roger Federer’s reign?

47 Murphy’s Thaw by John Podhoretz The ’90s sitcom makes a creaky, predictable return

48 Parody China subverts Iowa 37

COVER: DAVE MALAN THE SCRAPBOOK The Quindlen Effect

eaders of The Scrapbook will the Washington Post. Many of these is Trump himself. How’s that? R remember New York Times col- newspapers’ columnists can’t stop Because Trump “resists” the river of umnist Anna Quindlen, author of denouncing a thing that 90 or 95 per- progress. Pretty clever, huh? some of the most widely praised cent of their readers already oppose and dumbest columns ever written. and/or loathe: the Trump administra- Every leap forward for American democracy—from slavery’s abolition Quindlen stepped down tion and Donald Trump to women’s suffrage to minimum- from the Times in 1995 in himself. This magazine, as wage laws to the Civil Rights Acts order to pursue a career readers will be aware, has to gay marriage—has been trace- as a writer of sentimental not been reluctant to criti- able to the revolutionary river, not novels, and it has to be said cize the 45th president, but the resistance. In fact, the whole of she’s done well for herself. we’re also aware that there American history can be described as a struggle between those who are other topics under the Those who remember truly embraced the revolutionary her as a Times columnist, sun. We’re not sure how idea of freedom, equality and justice however, will recall her many recent columns by for all and those who resisted. distinctive and pow- Paul Krugman, Charles One might wonder whether it mat- erful combination of Blow, and Gail Collins ters, in the end, whether we consider tired metaphors, glib have neglected the theme ourselves members of the resistance phrasing, and artificial of Trump’s all-around or part of the revolutionary river. Can’t we be both? outrage, and especially awfulness, but the number The answer, I think, is yes and her strong propensity must be low. The Post’s no. Yes, of course, we can and must to argue fiercely for E. J. Dionne and Eugene resist the horrors of the current points few of her readers would dis- Robinson never stray far from the administration—thousands of lives agree with. The critic Lee Siegel, in subject either. depend on us doing what we can a 1999 essay for the New Republic, Which brings us to the news that to mitigate the harm to our fellow called this propensity “the Quindlen the Times has hired a new columnist, humans and the planet we share. But the mind-set of “the resistance” Effect.” The object of her ire was Michelle Alexander. We are not oth- is slippery and dangerous. often something “no sane Times erwise familiar with Alexander, a civil reader would ever defend,” he wrote, rights lawyer and legal scholar accord- We often wonder if Donald but Quindlen would go on at length ing to her byline, but her debut col- Trump’s bewildering rise to power in a “surfeit of sentiment ringing with umn isn’t promising. In it, she takes didn’t owe itself in part to his ability an absence of true feeling.” on the challenging and controversial to make his most impassioned adver- Today’s New York Times is beset topic of—how did you guess?—the saries believe they can thwart him by by the Quindlen Effect. The same awfulness of Donald Trump. Her producing fifth-rate balderdash. Call is true, indeed possibly truer, of cutesy thesis is that the “Resistance” it the Quindlen Multiplier Effect. ♦

vote absentee, so they say, is that they the Fairfax County Office of Pub- Stamp Act can’t figure out how to buy stamps. lic Affairs, tells local radio station fficials in Fairfax County, Va., Lisa Connors, an official with WTOP that “the students O recently wondered why so “Stamp”? will go through the pro- few college students take advantage What’s cess of applying for a mail- of the county’s absentee ballot pro- That? in absentee ballot—they gram, so they did what government will fill out the ballot, officials normally do when they and then, they don’t know encounter a perplexing question: where to get stamps. . . . They all They convened a “focus group.” agreed that they knew lots of peo- That’s a fancy-sounding way of say- ple who did not send in their bal- ing: They asked some college kids lots because it was too much of a why they don’t vote. hassle or they didn’t know where The answer they discovered to get a stamp.” has generated some ridicule. The We will grant that a young

reason a lot of college kids don’t person bright enough to gain TRASH CAN AND FIGURES: BIGSTOCK

2 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 acceptance to college ought to possess sufficient intelligence to buy a stamp. Ha ha, those lazy millennials, etc., etc. Still, we view the students’ quan- dary with a smidgen of sympathy. It’s a shame and an outrage that the most advanced nation in the world still requires people wishing to send an envelope from one location to another first to obtain an overpriced govern- ment-issued sticker. We bear no ill will toward employees of the U.S. Postal Service, who mostly perform their jobs well under artificially con- strained circumstances, but federal laws preventing private companies from delivering envelopes have made the simple act of sending a thank-you note to Grandma one of the most irk- some and time-consuming activities in American life. We can sympathize with 18-to- 20-year-olds who, accustomed as they are to email and the hyperefficient delivery systems of UPS and FedEx, find the task of getting a stamp strange and confusing. When else does an ordinary American have to stand in an inert, almost Soviet-length line sim- ply to buy an everyday product? Why is it that declining demand drives the price of USPS stamps higher rather than lower? Sorry, we’re with the kids on this one. ♦

Religious Right and Left she finds that “religion appears to actu- years: Sincere religious belief tends to iven our inveterate mocking ally be moderating conservative atti- give believers some assurance that the G of the New York Times, we’d tudes, particularly on some of the most present life is not all there is and so be remiss if we didn’t draw atten- polarizing issues of our time: race, inhibits them from adopting extreme tion to an incisive op-ed published immigration and identity.” Indeed, beliefs in order to protect the nation in the paper’s September 20 edition “churchgoing Trump voters have they value from real or perceived by the Cato Institute’s Emily Ekins. more favorable feelings toward Afri- threats. It doesn’t always work that The headline: “The Liberalism of can-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, way, of course—some religious people the Religious Right.” Jews, Muslims and are wackos—but in our experience it Ekins upends the immigrants com- works that way more often than not. assumption that Don- pared with nonreli- “Secular conservatives lack church ald Trump’s most gious Trump voters.” membership to provide that sense of religious support- The findings persist belonging and may succumb to the ers are also his most across demographic temptation to find it on the basis of ideologically fervent factors such as educa- their race or the nation,” Ekins writes, supporters. In a report tion and race. “thereby bolstering white nationalism published by the This conclusion or the alt-right movement. We found Democracy Fund accords with what that secular Trump voters are three

Voter Study Group, we’ve suspected for times as likely as churchgoing Trump BIGSTOCK BELOW:

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 3 voters to say that their white racial identity is ‘extremely’ important to them; a majority of them report feel- ing like strangers in the country.” In one sense, it’s a touch galling www.weeklystandard.com that Times readers need to be told that Stephen F. Hayes, Editor in Chief religious belief can make people more Richard Starr, Editor Fred Barnes, Robert Messenger, Executive Editors reasonable rather than less. Yet most Christine Rosen, Managing Editor liberal Times readers, we suspect, will Peter J. Boyer, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Matt Labash, interpret a vote for Donald Trump National Correspondents (even one motivated by a desire to keep Jonathan V. Last, Digital Editor Barton Swaim, Opinion Editor Hillary Clinton from the presidency) Adam Keiper, Books & Arts Editor Kelly Jane Torrance, Deputy Managing Editor as prima facie evidence of unthinking Eric Felten, Mark Hemingway, malice. Ekins has performed a service John McCormack, Tony Mecia, Ralph Taylor Philip Terzian, Michael Warren, Senior Writers in reminding our liberal brethren that David Byler, Jenna Lifhits, Alice B. Lloyd, Staff Writers this is not so. the grounds that he is white, where- Rachael Larimore, Online Managing Editor For her next study, we suggest an upon he sued the Washington Office Hannah Yoest, Social Media Editor Ethan Epstein, Associate Editor attempt to answer the question: Does of Minority and Women’s Business Chris Deaton, Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editors Priscilla M. Jensen, Assistant Editor religious belief tend to moderate pro- Enterprises and the federal govern- Adam Rubenstein, Assistant Opinion Editor gressives’ views on race, immigra- ment. “There’s no objective criteria, Andrew Egger, Haley Byrd, Reporters Holmes Lybrand, Fact Checker tion, and identity—or to aggravate and they’re picking winners and los- Sophia Buono, Philip Jeffery, Editorial Assistants Philip Chalk, Design Director their zealotry? ♦ ers,” he tells the Seattle Times. His Barbara Kyttle, Design Assistant suit is now on the docket of the Ninth Contributing Editors Claudia Anderson, Max Boot, Joseph Bottum, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Tucker Carlson, Matthew Continetti, Jay Cost, Soul Man Terry Eastland, Noemie Emery, Joseph Epstein, Not surprisingly, Taylor is hoping David Frum, David Gelernter, alph Taylor, owner of the Orion to make a larger point. He told the Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Goldfarb, Daniel Halper, Mary Katharine Ham, Brit Hume, R Insurance Group in Lynnwood, Washington Post he “would like to see Thomas Joscelyn, Frederick W. Kagan, Yuval Levin, Tod Lindberg, Micah Mattix, Victorino Matus, Washington, is decidedly white. Sev- the minority-business certification P. J. O’Rourke, John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, eral years ago, though, he took a process scrapped and replaced with Charles J. Sykes, Stuart Taylor Jr. DNA ancestry test that determined a program that would be based on William Kristol, Editor at Large he was only 90 percent Caucasian. He socioeconomic status, not race. After MediaDC Ryan McKibben, Chairman was also, according to the ancestry all, he points out, the son of a million- Stephen R. Sparks, President & Chief Operating Officer test, 6 percent “indigenous American” aire such as Michael Jordan would be Kathy Schaffhauser, Chief Financial Officer Mark Walters, Chief Revenue Officer and 4 percent “sub-Saharan African.” considered ‘disadvantaged’ under the Jennifer Yingling, Audience Development Officer David Lindsey, Chief Digital Officer This led Taylor to apply to the state existing guidelines.” Matthew Curry, Director, Email Marketing for certification that Orion is a minor- He’s right about that. Government Alex Rosenwald, Senior Director of Strategic Communications Nicholas H. B. Swezey, Vice President, Advertising ity-owned business. In Washington, agencies can and should stop reward- T. Barry Davis, Senior Director, Advertising Jason Roberts, Digital Director, Advertising as in most states, minority-owned ing some people—and by extension Andrew Kaumeier, Advertising Operations Manager firms receive tax and other benefits. punishing others—for the possession Brooke McIngvale, Manager, Marketing Services Advertising inquiries: 202-293-4900 Taylor’s application was denied, on of preferred physical traits. ♦ Subscriptions: 1-800-274-7293

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4 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 CASUAL

hunter obsesses over accuracy, ammu- The Deerslayer nition, and his prey’s anatomy for the sake of a humane kill. Now he’d maimed a living thing. Noah always carries one extra round with him in tories of first deer hunts are a knocked the top off a bottle of adren- his pocket, a romanticized lucky bul- staple of family lore for many aline, clinked glasses, and drank to let that he plans to keep until they Americans. The genre peaks excess. The deer stood almost per- make that Duck Dynasty spin-off real- around the dinner table at fectly still, flicking his beautiful white ity show starring him, in which he SThanksgiving and Christmas, where ears. Noah remembered the existence wills the bullet to his son, Noah Jr., the token vegan relatives, already of his rifle. The deer, deep in deer during an emotional season finale. To feeling a twinge of guilt for demand- thoughts, failed to notice the first bul- clarify, that will be a new lucky bul- ing a meatless turkey molded out of let flying overhead. let—because Noah chambered the tofu, are obliged to hear how cousin Noah is a talented shot under nor- original lucky bullet and missed again. Johnny-the-future-serial-killer bagged mal circumstances. But at that critical Petrified, he climbed down and ran those antlers. That’s not the toward his victim. Up close, reason the story is being told, it was clear that the buck was of course. Hunting stories are about the size of a family dog. about honor and respect and I’ll spare you the gory details, other timeless values. The plot is but it took a hunting knife, a always the same: Johnny enters rifle butt swung like a croquet the forest a boy and emerges a mallet, and Noah running a man. For my younger brother mile through the snow to get Noah, however, the saga lacked a second gun to finish the task. all romance. “Congratulations,” the grand- It was the last day of his very father said, “you shot the first deer season. Noah had been smallest deer of the season,” hunting with his friends since watching one of the deer’s dawn on their grandfather’s tree limbs spin freely on a string farm, a wonderfully isolated of cartilage. On the way to stretch of wilderness in Culpeper, the butcher shop, the hunt- Virginia. He’d spent countless ers heaped character-building weekends there fishing in the shame on Noah. “It’s a tradi- pond, riding dirt bikes, and toss- tion that you eat part of the ing fireworks, but the sacred rite heart of your first deer,” they of deer slaying is reserved for told him, offering a Temple 16-year-olds. Now he was finally of Doom-style slice. Trauma- of age, but his first deer season tized and looking for redemp- was coming to an unsuccess- tion, Noah snatched it like a ful close. The fall had passed quickly moment my brother had no scope on Costco sample. “And then he actu- without a kill, and daylight was fad- his rifle (it had malfunctioned the day ally ate it,” his friend told me later. ing fast. before), no iron sights, and no com- “We were just joking!” Freezing and bored, Noah’s friends mon sense. He was guessing instead I hope the story of Noah’s first deer trudged uphill to the house. My of aiming, and somehow his second hunt comes up at the dinner table brother stayed in his tree stand, insu- guess went through the deer’s head. more often than Thanksgiving and lated by inexperience. It was 5:45. The Most whitetails run after they’ve Christmas. Hemingway might be season ended at 6:00. Swallowing a been wounded. This particular buck, unimpressed, but it’s one of the best lump of disappointment, he knew his at peace with himself and the uni- tales I’ve ever heard. Is hunting some- next chance was eight months away. verse, flopped to the ground like times a cruel, brutal sport? Clearly. He heard movement behind a World Cup soccer player hoping Love hunting, hate hunting, I don’t him. A buck stepped into the clear- for a red card. Noah took four more care. My brother went into the woods ing. Noah’s brain and heart gave shots and missed four more times. an adolescent and emerged a kinder, each other a sideways glance and The horror sank in. Three genera- gentler man. flipped out screaming in unison. The tions of men, all waiting for him up

BRITT SPENCER deer grazed. Noah’s brain and heart at the house, had taught Noah that a Grant Wishard

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 5 EDITORIALS The GOP’s Best Argument

onald Trump’s Washington is compelling TV. priority for his administration.” Spending on entitlements Every day, Beltway subplots take new twists. What is the primary driver of the national debt. The unwilling- D comes next with the Russia investigation? Trade ness to address this growing crisis is one of the president’s wars? North Korean rapprochement? Deep state intrigue? biggest failures, even if he deserves some credit for our cur- Mistress payoffs? What cabinet member or presidential rent economic growth. adviser is taking a shiv to the back today? News junkies Businesses deserve credit, too, of course. They are around the country have been binge-watching this show for responding to the incentives by investing and hiring, which more than two years. is making a tight job mar- Is it any wonder, then, ket even tighter and pushing that Republicans’ single big- wages higher. gest policy achievement—tax Economic growth and reform—receives scant atten- nearly full employment isn’t tion? An internal Repub- what Democrats and pro- lican National Committee gressives expected. New York poll earlier this month con- Times columnist Paul Krug- cluded that Republicans had man on the day after the 2016 “lost the messaging battle” election predicted: “We are on tax cuts. The survey, con- very probably looking at a ducted by right-leaning Pub- global recession, with no end lic Opinion Strategies, found in sight” because of a “regime that, by a two-to-one margin, Sign of the times: Unemployment’s at a two-decade low. that will be ignorant of eco- Americans believe that the nomic policy.” Senate minor- tax cuts benefited large corporations and the rich more than ity leader Chuck Schumer said in late 2017 that the effect middle-class­ families. of the tax law was a big mystery: “If the economy grows or Americans are failing to see the connection between the shrinks, if it creates jobs or loses them, who knows? Cer- new tax law and the booming economy. By slashing cor- tainly no one here.” Certainly not Schumer. Nancy Pelosi porate taxes and increasing incentives for investment, the called the tax bill “Armageddon” and “the worst bill in the Republican tax plan was intended to let loose the economy, history of the United States Congress.” which grew steadily but slowly in the latter Obama years. In ordinary times, such strong economic performance The results of Republican economic policy, led by the tax would be likely to keep a political party in power. But these overhaul and sweeping deregulation, are manifest. Growth are not ordinary times. Democrats are heavy favorites to is accelerating. Unemployment is at a two-decade low. The take control of the House and have a shot at a majority in stock market hit an all-time high on September 21. Even the Senate, too, even as economic worries have plunged to wages are finally growing, shooting up in August at their record lows. Americans see evidence of a solid economy all fastest rate in nine years. Business confidence, business around them—in their neighborhoods, at their jobs, and in investment, consumer confidence, corporate profits—all their retirement accounts. But they don’t hear a lot about point upward. that evidence when they follow the news. That so many economic indicators suddenly register It’s true that the media are generally reluctant to credit strength is astounding—especially given so many uncer- positive economic news when Republicans are in charge, tainties: the future of free trade, our swelling national but that doesn’t explain everything. The more compel- debt, and rising interest rates. We’re concerned about these ling explanation is lack of a clear message, and that comes things. As James Capretta and Yuval Levin wrote in our from the top. The president is too easily baited, his atten- last issue, Trump “promised voters big tax cuts, no changes tion span too short, to let a robust economy tell its own to entitlement spending, and a significant reinvestment in story. He talks about the positive economic news. The the military. With that combination of commitments, he trouble is that he talks about everything else, too, all the

signaled that restraining deficits and debt would not be a time. Trump has an unfailing ability to get the media / GETTY TY WRIGHT / BLOOMBERG

6 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 discussing and debating things other than the good eco- eye could focus like a laser on the economy. His 1992 cam- nomic news. As soon as there’s evidence of solid wage paign’s internal motto—“it’s the economy, stupid”—might growth or record investment numbers, he can be counted easily apply to the present cycle. Clinton’s success overseeing on to attack his own attorney general on Twitter or pick a the country’s longest economic expansion rightly belongs fight with NFL players. to the congressional Republicans who alternately forced and Almost nobody is reporting, for example, that the enabled him to scuttle left-liberal conventional wisdom. But House will vote this month on a second round of tax credit the 42nd president; he understood what got him into reform designed to lock in last year’s tax cuts, aid retire- office and kept him there. ment savings, and spur innovation. Everybody knows, by Tax reform passed last year with zero Democratic votes, contrast, about the latest tweetstorm and the ludicrous and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said, “If we White House melodramas. can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into What’s needed is relentless message discipline that another line of work.” Come next year, too many Republi- draws a straight line between the GOP’s economic policies cans will likely have to do just that. The good news? A lot of and boom times. In the 1990s, even Bill Clinton’s wandering companies are hiring. ♦

We Haven’t ‘Wiped Out’ ISIS

hanks to the United States military and our part- the group’s fighters carried out coordinated attacks in Paris, nership with many of your nations,” President killing 130 people. ‘TDonald Trump said in remarks to the United The trouble, as we’ve remarked before in this space, is Nations General Assembly on September 25, “I am pleased the blinkered insistence that the Islamic State’s strength cor- to report that the bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS have responds to the territory it holds. While it is true that ISIS been driven out from the territory they once held in Iraq has been forced to relinquish most of its territory in Iraq and and Syria.” The statement is technically true but mislead- Syria, thanks mostly to the work of the U.S. military, it is ing: ISIS has lost most of the territory it gained beginning also true that the group continues to carry out terror attacks. in 2011, but that does not mean the international terror Nobody knows how many soldiers pledge allegiance to the group is vanquished. Far from it. black flag of the Islamic State, but we do have some idea of Trump’s claim was only technically true, though, its operational capacity. In August alone, ISIS carried out because it was scripted. When he speaks off the cuff, as he roughly 200 operations in Iraq and Syria. The numbers for usually does, he puts the point in far bolder terms. On Mon- September will be about the same. That’s considerably fewer day, for instance, he remarked to Egyptian president Abdel than it carried out at the height of its power in 2013 and 2014 Fattah al-Sisi, “If you look at various parts of the Middle but hardly indicative of a group that’s been “wiped out.” East, you look at Syria, we’ve wiped out ISIS. [They’re] ISIS has tens of thousands of loyal fighters operating in the very final throes.” Vice President Mike Pence fre- around the world—in the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, quently makes the same claim. “ISIS is on the run,” he said and beyond. ISIS claimed responsibility for a bombing in in late August; “their caliphate has crumbled, and we will Syria two months ago that killed 166 people. It conducts soon drive ISIS from the face of the earth.” operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan on a near-daily Trump and Pence are politicians, of course, and politi- basis. The group has fighters in Malaysia, Indonesia, and cians like to take credit. We don’t know if these and many the Philippines, too, and has mounted operations as far similar statements are mere credit-taking or if they repre- afield as Australia. ISIS has branches in Niger, Somalia, sent the thinking of the administration’s top policymakers. and Libya—as well as other parts of Africa. A December Even if it’s just political rhetoric, though, declarations that 2017 report from U.S. Central Command estimated that the ISIS has been “wiped out” demoralize American intelli- ISIS presence in Yemen had “doubled in size over the past gence and military personnel working to defeat ISIS right year,” and the group uses “the ungoverned spaces of Yemen now and encourage quasi-isolationists such as Rand Paul to plot, direct, instigate, resource, and recruit for attacks and Bernie Sanders who want the United States to cede its against America and its allies around the world.” influence in the Middle East and elsewhere. The audience for Trump’s boasting, Egyptian presi- In this sense, at least, Trump and Pence sound a lot like dent Sisi, knows well the continuing threats from ISIS and Barack Obama, who famously told George Stephanopoulos other jihadists. In his own speech to the United Nations in 2015 that ISIS had been “contained” just hours before on Tuesday, Sisi described in detail the comprehensive

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 7 counterterrorism efforts undertaken by his govern- for every terror operation, but they are increasingly active, ment over the past 10 months—known as “Sinai 2018.” not just in Iraq and Syria but in Yemen, Somalia, Ethio- As Thomas Joscelyn noted in these pages in February, pia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and in the West. A United the threat is so significant the Egyptian government has Nations report issued in late July concluded that al Qaeda enlisted the help of Israel’s anti-terror experts to help fight is strong­er than ISIS, capable of carrying out more and it. An Associated Press story published two days after deadlier operations in the West and East Asia. Trump’s comments reports that the situation there is so The Trump administration deserves credit for the dire that Sisi has begun arming Bedouin tribes to fight progress it has made in its campaign against ISIS in Iraq the Islamic State. The Sinai Peninsula “is the center of a and Syria. But progress isn’t the same as victory; diminish- years ­ l ong, bloody conflict between the Egyptian military ing a threat isn’t the same as eliminating it. Rhetorically, and a local affiliate of the Islamic State group. . . . Egypt the Trump administration is making the same mistake the has struggled to defeat the insurgency, led by the IS affili- Obama administration made: declaring victory over jihad- ate known as the Sinai Province of the Islamic State.” ist terrorism across the globe. We understand the politi- There is furthermore the problem of al Qaeda. The net- cal and practical attractiveness of such triumphalism. It’s work once headed by Osama bin Laden hasn’t made head- far easier to pretend such threats have been eliminated, lines in Western capitals recently, but there is a growing particularly if your stated goal is to turn attention back to body of evidence that it is even stronger than ISIS. Ter- America. But it is not true. And we can say with confidence ror groups affiliated with al Qaeda don’t brand themselves that the Trump administration or its successor will come with the media savvy of ISIS and aggressively take credit to understand that reality in due course. ♦ Return of the Bush Doctrine?

n September 20, 2001, speaking to a joint ses- nuclear weapons could be considered in isolation from its sion of Congress, President George W. Bush malign behavior as a terror sponsor. All week, in anticipa- O famously articulated the key component of what tion of President Trump’s addresses at the United Nations, would later be called the Bush Doctrine: “From this day top administration officials have been making that case. forward,” the president said, “any nation that continues to They’re not short on material. harbor or support terrorism will be “Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, regarded by the United States as a and destruction,” Trump him- hostile regime.” It was an assertion of self said in remarks at the General great moral clarity. Assembly. “They do not respect their If the Bush administration didn’t neighbors or borders or the sovereign always adhere to its own doctrine in rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s lead- subsequent years, the Obama admin- ers plunder the nation’s resources istration repudiated it—nowhere to enrich themselves and to spread more so than in the Joint Comprehen- mayhem across the Middle East and sive Plan of Action (JCPOA), other- far beyond.” wise known as the Iran nuclear deal. Iran, he argued, has used the cash Supporters of the 2015 agreement it procured through the nuclear deal vehemently argued that the Trump to bolster its terror agenda, advance its Secretary of State Pompeo, September 25 administration should not pull the missile program, and more. He’s right. United States out of it because Iran was in compliance with Administration officials say any new deal must address its terms. We always doubted that claim—there was plenty these key deficiencies. In the meantime, the United States is of evidence that Tehran was flouting, for example, the agree- reimposing sanctions lifted under the agreement in an effort ment’s heavy-water limit—but the core problem with the to deprive the regime of its capacity to fund terrorist proxies. Iran deal wasn’t so much Iran’s compliance or noncompli- Europe, which is sticking with the deal, wants to cir- ance as what the deal set aside. In short: The JCPOA allowed cumvent these sanctions. Secretary of State Mike Pom- Iran to persist in rogue behavior—including its sponsorship peo sent them a stark message on September 25: “By of terrorism across the Middle East and beyond. sustaining revenues to the regime, you are solidifying The Trump administration rightly and vocally rejected Iran’s ranking as the number one state sponsor of terror,

its predecessor’s insistence that Iran’s promise not to pursue enabling Iran’s violent export of revolution, and making MANDEL NGAN / AFP GETTY IMAGES

8 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 the regime even richer while the Iranian people scrape by.” nism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.” Why Pompeo went on to note that Iran’s terror support is does Iran use proxy groups to do its dirty work? According not confined to the Middle East, as the State Department’s to the State Department’s report, “to shield it from the con- yearly terrorism report, issued last week, made clear. Tehran sequences of its aggressive policies.” In other words: to cre- has been caught conducting or supporting malign activities ate plausible deniability. on U.S. and European soil. The State Department report Iran also harbors al Qaeda (AQ) operatives and “has cites the June 2017 arrest of suspected Hezbollah opera- refused to publicly identify the members in its custody,” tives in New York and Michigan. Another example offered the State Department noted last week in its report. It “has by State’s coordinator for counterterrorism Nathan Sales allowed AQ facilitators to operate a core facilitation pipe- last week: “On June 30th of this year, German authorities line through Iran since at least 2009, enabling AQ to move arrested an Iranian official for his role in a terrorist plot to funds and fighters to South Asia and Syria,” the report bomb a political rally in Paris.” “Iran uses terrorism as a tool reads. Adds a separate State Department report released of its statecraft,” Sales added. “It has no reservations about this week: “As AQ members have been squeezed out of using that tool on any continent.” other areas, all indications suggest that they are continuing There’s also the usual support for terrorism across the to find safe haven in Iran.” Middle East, including cash, arms, and training for groups Focusing on this reality doubtless makes life more dif- like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which hold as ficult for our diplomats, but that’s thanks to the Obama their goal the destruction of Israel. Lebanese Hezbollah administration’s naïveté. Diplomacy ought to be rooted in also has a sweetheart deal with Tehran, which every year the world as it is, not as our leaders wish it to be, and above provides it with $700 million. And there’s Iran’s longstand- all else it should advance America’s interests, elevate our ing support for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, who has used values, and ensure our security. The Trump administration chemical weapons against innocent civilians. has the right approach, as President Bush did 17 years ago: Much of Iran’s terror activity is conducted by its Quds States that harbor and support terrorism deserve our hostil- Force, which has long been the country’s “primary mecha- ity, not our money. ♦

Small Business Optimism Soars

THOMAS J. DONOHUE a quarterly survey of employers. We business investments. This will enable PRESIDENT AND CEO recently released our third-quarter his company to expense the $600,000 U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE index, which reveals that almost 70% of cost of a new automated cylinder filing small business owners have a positive island and reinvest that money back The U.S. Chamber of Commerce outlook about their companies and into salaries and business expansion. is proud to represent Main Street’s today’s business environment. And And this is just one example—tax millions of small businesses—the this is the sixth consecutive quarter reform is lifting businesses of all sizes. engines of our economy. America’s where optimism has increased. Even as we celebrate pro-growth 28 million small businesses represent There’s no denying that small victories on tax reform and regulatory more than 99% of all employers, businesses have much to feel upbeat relief, there’s still work to be done. account for nearly half of all private about. Congress and the White House At the summit, we will also discuss sector workers, and produce more than achieved comprehensive tax reform this looming concerns on trade, health 60% of new jobs. year for the first time in three decades. care, cybersecurity, and workforce This week small business leaders The administration has rolled back preparedness. Together we will explore from around the country will join us in dozens of burdensome regulations that solutions to the problems left to solve. Washington, D.C., for the Chamber’s stifle innovation and economic growth. Advocating for small business is 14th annual Small Business Summit. Remarkably, members of our one of the most important things we We’ll hear from business leaders across small business community report do at the Chamber—and it’s also one industries and arm them with tools feeling appreciated by lawmakers in of the most inspiring. The enduring and best practices to bring home to Washington. Chamber member David optimism and enthusiasm of our their companies and communities. Mahoney, CEO of Noble Gas Solutions nation’s small businesses embody the One thing we expect to hear a lot in Upstate New York, speaks for very best of our free enterprise system. about at the summit—as the economy many small business owners when he There’s nothing small about that. finally gets back on track—is optimism. says, “I might start to feel the love, like MetLife and the Chamber have somebody else actually cares about me.” teamed up to track attitudes across Beginning next year, Mahoney and Learn more at the small business landscape through Noble Gas will be able to write off uschamber.com/abovethefold.

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 9 COMMENT

BARTON SWAIM The Sexual Revolution Is Over

t some point in the fall of broadly Christian cultural consensus ter of the loathsome Amnon, in the 2017, when nearly every day on sexual morality. Book of Second Samuel. A brought news of another At least one sensible way of under- The question, though, is whether famous man disgraced as a result of standing the ongoing succession of these things happen more frequently allegations of sexual misconduct, I men credibly charged with sexual as a result of the dissolution of sex- remarked flippantly to a liberal friend harassment and assault is that it’s the ual mores. Such a thing is perhaps that the sexual revolution had not highly predictable consequence of unknowable in a strict sense, but the worked out the way we were told it the revolution begun by Kinsey and important thing is this: It looks and would. “Oh, come on,” he responded. his fellow libertine ideologues. Men, feels like men behave badly much “Women were always treated this way. especially men of a hubristic bent and more often than they used to. It’s It’s only now that they can speak out in positions of authority, were only hard to believe that Harvey Weinstein about it.” I made the same would have dared to engage in the point to others of a secular systematic abuse of women if he had or liberal disposition and Liberal intellectuals achieved his fame and wealth in the got more or less the same 1890s rather than the 1990s. response each time. may defend the It’s for that reason, I think, that It’s impossible to know heritage of sexual public discussions of sexual misbe- when this “revolution” havior by men have become hope- began with any precision, liberation if they lessly confused. The old rules but perhaps we could date like, but it will be oppressed women, we’re told, but it from the publication of they also shackled men; now we want “sexologist” Alfred Kin- hard for them to do some rules back, for men anyway, but sey’s two famous stud- it’s never clear which ones or why. ies, Sexual Behavior in that while they’re Under the sway of the sexual revolu- the Human Male in 1948 tut-tutting the high tion, we were taught that restrictions and Sexual Behavior in the on sexual relations are irrational and Human Female in 1953. school party culture oppressive, manifestations of ancient Kinsey conducted hun- of the 1980s. prejudices, yet meanwhile the rules dreds of interviews and governing workplace sexual harass- concluded from these that ment year by year become more most Americans’ private sexual prac- too happy to discard the old rules gov- voluminous and complex. College tices differed sharply from their pro- erning the expression of their appe- campuses are places of license but fessed beliefs about sexual morality. tites, but those rules were put in place also places of endless debates about Holding as he did to a crassly Dar- over many centuries in large part rape, harassment, and the shifting winian worldview in which men and because such men were apt to behave lines between consent and coercion. women are highly developed animals like beasts without them. Setting The controversy over allegations and so merely animalistic in their aside morality and ontology, Kinsey’s against Brett Kava­naugh brought appetites, Kinsey believed Americans presupposition that men are animals these contradictions into sharp relief. could achieve greater happiness and isn’t entirely wrong. Most of the high-profile politicians, fulfillment only by expressing their The counterargument to this entertainers, intellectuals, and jour- sexual urges without deference to interpretation is the one made by nalists recently brought down by arbitrary cultural and religious rules. my liberal friends: These things credible allegations of sexual miscon- Except, of course, the rule of consent. have always happened, only now duct—not all but nearly all—have That one had to stay. it’s reported. It’s not an unreason- been left-liberal elites. Those politicos Kinsey’s many critics, then and able point—men have forced them- and pundits who deplored their con- since, have pointed out the laughably selves on disinclined women since duct in liberal media venues did not, unscientific nature of his research, but there were men and women. This is for the most part, have partisan moti- it didn’t matter. The second half of the experience of Pamela Andrews vation to assail them as monsters. the 20th century in the United States in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, pub- With Brett Kava­naugh it was is the story of the slow collapse of a lished in 1740, and of Tamar, half-sis- different. A disclaimer: I happen

10 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 to believe Kavanaugh­ is innocent they like, but it will be hard for them concupiscent behavior was commoner of the uncorroborated allegations to do that while they’re tut-tutting in the American colonies of the 1720s brought against him by Christine the high school party culture of the than it was after the First Great Awak- Blasey Ford, and the other allega- 1980s; and in any case very few liter- ening of the 1730s and ’40s. Already tions brought against him appear to ate Americans are likely to conclude there is evidence that sexual activity is me laughable. I also happen to think from these unlovely catastrophes that down among teens from what it was a many Democrats, for all their blus- the baby boomers who gave us Wood- generation ago—evidence, perhaps, of ter, don’t care one way or the other: stock and the Summer of Love had it more time spent on social media than They were not interested in nailing right all along. Young parents are far in physical gatherings, but also, per- Kava­naugh for sexual assault; they likelier to want something better for haps, evidence that their parents—the were interested in blocking him from their children than a world full of sex- kids who grew up watching Porky’s the Supreme Court. Their interest ual aggression and recrimination—a and MTV—have rediscovered the vir- in Ford’s allegations was primarily world in which one uncorroborated tues of reticence. instrumental, not substantive. accusation can bring the nation to an What comes next probably won’t be Even so, the allegations against acrimonious standstill. some 21st-century form of Victorian Kava­naugh seem to have provoked The idea that a society like ours can public morality. But neither, if I’m America’s liberal elites into launch- never pull back from its accustomed right, are we likely to advance further ing an unwitting attack on the cul- libertinism is not grounded in his- into the realm of sexual chaos urged ture of sexual license created by their tory. Britain of the 1820s and ’30s was upon our society by young radicals a ideological forebears. Day after day far more libertine than Britain of the half-century ago. Everything comes to in the New York Times and Washing- 1870s and ’80s. There is evidence that an end, including revolutions. ♦ ton Post we read accounts of the follies and dangers of youth culture in the 1980s. When Kavanaugh­ produced COMMENT ♦ FRED BARNES his calendars from 1982, the year of the alleged encounter, left-wing pun- dits scoured it for evidence of sexual Just another reminder: allusions. In Kava­naugh’s 1982 year- book he wrote, “Anne Daugherty’s—I Appeasement never works survived the FFFFFFFourth of July.” To which Democratic activist and here’s a worse way to deal question Ford, they imported Rachel lawyer Michael Avenatti responded, with members of a restive vot- Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor “We believe that this stands for: Find T ing bloc than fight them. It’s from Arizona, to ask the questions. them, French them, Feel them, Fin- called appeasement. And yes, that’s She did so gently. By the time she fin- ger them, F— them, Forget them. . . . the one that Republicans chose to ished, the odds on Kavanaugh­ ’s con- Perhaps Sen. Grassley can ask him.” boost Supreme Court nom- Never was a 17th-century New inee Brett Kavanaugh.­ England Puritan so pruriently inquis- It didn’t work. Of A text of the itive about the possible sexual misad- course it didn’t work. It’s nominee’s opening ventures of a teenager. never worked, at least Even now, with the country’s lib- when used by Republicans statement was eral journalists combing through in a crucial situation. So thrown away, Kava naugh­ ’s early life for any hint of it was no surprise it failed peccadillo, few if any of today’s elites when Christine Blasey and he delivered will question the premises of the sex- Ford, who claims Kava­ a fiery indictment ual revolution. They will continue naugh assaulted her in 1982, to insist that their interests lie only testified before the Senate of Democrats for in harassment and assault and not in Judiciary Committee. turning the hearings cultural norms. But eras don’t end Since they’re afraid of according to the facile arguments of losing the women’s vote in into a sham. day-to-day punditry. What matters is a landslide, Republicans the conclusion millions of Americans were terrified of Ford. In situations firmation had dropped significantly. will draw from this seemingly never- like this, they often adopt the liberal Mitchell stood in for all 11 Republi- ending succession of ugly accusations script and assume any unkindness to cans on the committee, some of whom and revelations. a woman will have disastrous elec- are tough and effective interrogators. Liberal intellectuals may defend toral consequences. I’m referring to Lindsey Graham the heritage of sexual liberation if To avoid having 11 GOP men (R-S.C.) and John Kennedy (R-La.),

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 11 who had to sit silently while 10 Demo- continued to falter. Now he may not in Washington and from Democrats crats lauded Ford as if she were a new have to. Two justices in two years and the media. And if it happens Joan of Arc. Senator Cory Booker would be a remarkable achievement now, it will be because Kavanaugh (D-N.J.) called her a “hero” for coming for a president who gets little respect fought back. ♦ forward to accuse Kava­naugh. Her tes- timony was warm and appealing. Republicans recognized what they’d COMMENT ♦ PHILIP TERZIAN done wrong. While they’re given to weak speeches on controversial issues, Republicans know when they’re dying, Gambling on sports— Kavanaugh­ and Graham especially. A text of the nominee’s opening state- it’s what Americans want ment that had been released the day before was thrown away, and he deliv- he local government in Wash- degree on revenue from lotteries, the ered a fiery indictment of Democrats ington, D.C., announced this moral argument for PASPA is com- for turning the hearings into a sham. T past week that if the police paratively forlorn. The Senate’s right to “advice and con- find you smoking marijuana in pub- This is not to say that there isn’t a sent” had become “search and destroy,” lic you will not be arrested but issued moral argument for outlawing sports he said. a citation to pay a nominal fine. How betting, or that statutes aren’t rife Kavanaugh­ was nervous and emo- rigorously this not-very-rigorous pol- with hypocrisy and inconsistencies. tional. But his opening statement icy will be enforced is an open ques- But it is to say that the Court reflects was as powerful as his comments tion but I am pleased about it, and not evolving social standards as readily as in a Fox News interview three days for the usual reasons. I loathe pot— it follows the election returns. Nor is earlier had been wimpy. And he the aroma, its effect, the “culture” this necessarily a one-way street. The took no guff from Democratic sena- associated with habitual use—but Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges tors. When they demanded yes or no cannot think of any plausible reason (2015) was clearly a reflection of soci- answers, he kept talking. outside custom to criminalize it while ety’s changing attitude toward homo- Before Kavanaugh­ spoke, there tolerating, say, alcohol (which, admit- sexuality. But one might also argue was some doubt among Republicans tedly, I do not loathe). that the Court’s affirmation of the Sec- about his ability to turn the tide. In I thought of this last spring when ond Amendment in District of Columbia four days of hearings, he had been the U.S. Supreme Court, in a stroke of v. Heller (2008) was a step that gun- impressive in providing detailed clarity and good sense, struck down control advocates would not have answers. But he turned up the inten- the 25-year-old federal Professional expected a generation ago. From the sity when his reputation was on trial and Amateur Sports Protection Act progressive standpoint, one step for- and his nomination in doubt. Demo- (PASPA), which had been intended ward and one back. crats weren’t ready for it. They were to ban states from legalizing gambling By contrast, from my standpoint, still focusing on micro-issues like on athletic events. both decisions were steps forward. I his high school yearbook. To be sure, the Court’s argument happen to believe that the language Graham delivered a full-throated in Murphy v. National Collegiate Ath- of the Second Amendment isn’t the condemnation of Democrats and letic Association was strictly constitu- least bit ambiguous and was clearly had a strong message for Republi- tional—PASPA violated New Jersey’s intended to ensure the right of indi- can senators who might be wavering. rights under the Tenth Amendment viduals to own firearms. By the “To my Republican colleagues: If (“The powers not delegated to the same token, while marriage has been you vote no, you are legitimizing the United States . . . nor prohibited by it regarded throughout the centuries as most despicable thing I have seen in to the States, are reserved to the States the union of women and men—a view my time in politics,” he said. respectively, or to the people”)—but it endorsed by Barack Obama himself Two good things may come of signified as well what we might call a until a few years ago—there is no par- this experience for Republicans. By cultural shift. ticular legal principle involved other itself, it would be important to win I have no doubt that if the social than custom. Custom, of course, is not confirmation of Kavanaugh.­ And if stigma attached to gambling were as a trivial consideration; but in a free he pulls it off, Republicans would potent today as it was, say, in the 19th society, just how much constitutional get a huge boost going into the mid- century, the Court might easily have weight should it enjoy? term election. It would be a reversal found a rationale to affirm the ban. Similarly, with the District govern- of GOP fortunes. But in a world where Congress grants ment’s newfound benevolence toward Kava­naugh’s rebound thrilled a statutory advantage to Indian tribes marijuana, custom has essentially Trump. And why not? He’d said he’d by allowing them to own and operate given way to widespread practice. In consider a new nominee if this one casinos, and states depend to some my view, arguments against the use

12 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 of any “recreational” drug apply as on “fantasy” football, which exposes I don’t entirely disagree, but my readily to booze as to pot, and we have real players to real temptation. own view is more cynical. Americans the sad example of the 18th Amend- The active ingredient in all of this, tend to romanticize, not to say idealize, ment—“the manufacture, sale, or trans- of course, is money. The NFL along athletes and athletics, and gambling portation of intoxicating liquors . . . for with Major League Baseball and will inevitably complicate relations. beverage purposes is hereby prohib- the National Basketball Association, Moreover, the romance tends to exag- ited”—to see where that trail leads. among others, stand to earn billions of gerate the virtues and ignore the reali- The arguments against drugs like dollars annually from legalized wager- ties of professional sports. Accordingly, cannabis are indistinguishable from ing. Inasmuch as these institutions I may be one of the few Americans the (reasonable) prohibitionist case exist primarily for commercial pur- who failed to be moved by A. Bartlett against liquor. Demon Rum was seen poses, I suspect they will swiftly and Giamatti’s famous declaration when, to imperil health, public order, and decisively come to terms with com- citing “the integrity of the game,” family life. But should the inability of mercial betting. Which, by the grace of the late commissioner in 1989 banned some to tolerate drink be held against Murphy v. NCAA, is fine with me. the Cincinnati Reds’ player-manager all those citizens who Pete Rose from baseball for betting on drink responsibly? contests, including games involving There are some social I like to think his own team. problems that legislation that I have an cannot solve. I believe baseball is a beautiful and In that sense, the future entirely disinterested exciting game, loved by millions . . . and I believe baseball is an important, of sports and betting is an perspective—I’m not enduring American institution [and] interesting one. The Con- must assert and aspire to the high- stitution is entirely silent much of a sports est principles of integrity, of profes- on both subjects but society fan and am bored by sionalism. . . . Because it is so much is deeply invested in each. I a part of our history as a people and like to think that I have an gambling—but American because it has such a purchase on our entirely disinterested per- national soul, [baseball] has an obli- society in particular gation to the people for whom it is spective—I’m not much of played . . . to strive for excellence in a sports fan and am bored feels otherwise. all things and to promote the highest by gambling—but Ameri- ideals. . . . Let there be no doubt or can society in particular feels otherwise. I have inherited few of my late dissent about our goals for baseball But in what way and for how long? father’s prejudices, but I confess that or our dedication to it. Nor about our The stigma attached to gambling has one of them is a certain snobbishness vigilance and vigor—and patience— in protecting the game from blemish about professional sports. Although in not entirely dissolved but is scarcely or stain or disgrace. as ubiquitous as it once was. More- his youth he was a fan of the Philadel- over, certain practices are embedded in phia Athletics and University of Penn- Eloquent words, even if applied to history—betting on horses and other sylvania football, in middle age my Major League Baseball. Yet now that creatures at tracks—or custom, such as father believed that grown men playing some tantalizing mercenary fruit is World Series/Final Four office pools. boys’ games for a living was unseemly, dangling before this “enduring Ameri- It is worth mentioning that the and that there was an inverse relation can institution,” it will be almost as governing bodies of professional ath- between the distinction of an institu- fun as a well-played game to see how letics were, in fact, opposed to New tion of higher learning and the size of those ideals fare when coming into Jersey’s appeal against the ban on its sports establishment. conflict with good old human frailty. ♦ sports gambling. But their opposition, based on the fear of corruption, was tinctured with a certain inconsistency. Worth Repeating from WeeklyStandard.com: The National Football League, for The only people to benefit from what the Democrats did with example, worried that legal gambling on games—or point spreads, or yard- Ford’s allegations is the group whose primary goal was stopping age statistics, or whatever—would Kavanaugh from getting on the High Court. They deserve the scorn open the door to player malpractice of all Americans. And special scorn should be reserved for Dianne of the kind that roiled pro baseball Feinstein, who—there is no other way to say this—simply used in 1919 (the “Black Sox” scandal) and Ford, even though she understood what it would cost the woman. college basketball in the 1950s. No doubt they have reason to be wor- —Jonathan V. Last, ‘Six Takeaways ried. But at the same time, the NFL from the Ford-Kavanaugh Hearings’ is entirely comfortable with wagering

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 13 recounted in The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Show- Badness down with the KGB, by CIA veteran Milton Bearden, who worked the Afghan portfolio, and journalist James Personified Risen. Haqqani’s men were happy to indulge Wilson’s wartime fantasy. They used chains to rake the dirt on one road, hoping to kick up clouds of Jalaluddin Haqqani is dead. The terror network dust that would attract the attention he created lives on. by Thomas Joscelyn of Soviet choppers. The Red Bear was unmoved, however, and Wilson didn’t n September 4, the Taliban get his opportunity to down a Soviet announced that Jalaluddin warcraft. Still, the episode highlights O Haqqani had “passed away how close Haqqani was to an Ameri- after a long battle with illness.” A can politician. notorious jihadist who was one of Haqqani and several other extrem- Osama bin Laden’s earliest and clos- ist commanders received the lion’s est allies, Haqqani had long been a share of assistance from the Ameri- recluse, with rumors swirling that can-Pakistani-Saudi coalition. The he left the land of the living some CIA relied on Pakistani intelli- years ago. But if the Taliban is tell- gence—the ISI—to pick winners and ing the truth, then Haqqani died losers in the Afghan jihad, and this only recently. The terrorist organiza- was a mistake. The Pakistanis pre- tion he built lives on, however, and it ferred extremists. has more influence today than ever. “The CIA’s leadership continued And a brief look at Haqqani’s career to regard Pakistani intelligence as the helps to explain how al Qaeda sur- jihad’s main implementing agency, vived America’s relentless post-9/11 even as more and more American counterterrorism campaign. trainers arrived in Pakistan to teach After the September 11 attacks, new weapons and techniques,” vet- some claimed that the hijackings were eran journalist Steve Coll writes in blowback—a consequence of Amer- Jalaluddin Haqqani in 1991 his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, ica’s decision to work with Osama Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the bin Laden and his men during the others, to provide Haqqani and other CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, jihad against the Soviets in Afghani- “mujahedeen” with funding and from the Soviet Invasion to September stan. This “blame America” argument weaponry during the war against the 10, 2001. “All this ensured that ISI’s is still popular in the fever swamps Soviets in the 1980s. There is noth- Muslim Brotherhood-inspired cli- online. But there is no publicly avail- ing in Wilson’s biography to suggest ents . . . and radical commanders who able evidence suggesting the CIA was he was a religious zealot—quite the operated along the Pakistan border,” ever in direct cahoots with bin Laden. opposite. Yet he was smitten with including Haqqani, “won the greatest Haqqani is a different story, however, Haqqani. In Charlie Wilson’s War: The share of support.” and a problematic one at that. The Extraordinary Story of How the Wild- Coll, who interviewed American CIA, along with its Pakistani and est Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA officials directly involved in the Afghan Saudi allies, did back Haqqani and his Agent Changed the History of Our Times, war effort, describes Haqqani as one of followers against the Russians. author George Crile writes that Wil- the “CIA’s favorites,” adding that he Congressman Charlie Wilson’s col- son even described Haqqani as “good- had the “CIA’s full support.” Haqqani orful life was first memorialized in ness personified.” “was seen by CIA officers in Islamabad a book and then a movie, with actor Shoulder-fired missiles, or MAN- and others as perhaps the most impres- Tom Hanks playing the hard-par- PADS (Man-Portable Air-Defense sive Pashtun battlefield commander in tying politician from Texas. Wilson Systems), such as the Stinger, proved the war,” a “proven commander who famously pulled levers in Washing- to be especially effective for down- could put a lot of men under arms at ton, with assistance from the CIA and ing Soviet helicopters. Haqqani was short notice.” The CIA and Pakistani among the mujahedeen command- intelligence relied on Haqqani “for Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the ers who received them. During a trip testing and experimentation with new Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Wilson weapons systems and tactics.” He “was

contributing editor to The Weekly Standard. sought to fire one. The story is briefly so favored with supplies that he was in ZUBAIR MIR / AFP GETTY

14 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 a position to broker them and to help in this same region, which includes al Qaeda was orchestrating a cam- equip the Arab volunteers gathering in Waziristan, for years. The United paign of terror inside Pakistan that his region.” States has launched hundreds of was intended to disrupt an Ameri- The “Arab volunteers” included drone strikes on the Haqqani strong- can-led counterterrorism campaign. Osama bin Laden and the jihadists holds in northern Pakistan. That same memo, as well as other who founded al Qaeda in 1988. It took nearly a decade for the evidence, indicates that some Paki- Haqqani gave them a foothold in United States finally to catch up with stani officials were willing to negoti- South Asia. His patronage was cru- bin Laden. Files recovered during the ate with al Qaeda to end the violence. cial for al Qaeda’s early development, May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Paki- Bin Laden’s correspondence also as some of bin Laden’s most trusted stan, reveal that the Haqqani family described al Qaeda’s cooperation with lieutenants trained in Haqqani-spon- remained closely allied with al Qaeda Siraj in conducting anti-American sored camps and fought the Soviets in the years following 9/11. Jalaluddin attacks inside Afghanistan. alongside Haqqani’s men. It is a rela- Haqqani eventually relinquished his Today, Siraj is the deputy head tionship that has survived more than leadership role, passing authority to of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of three decades of war. Afghanistan—a post that gives him After the Soviets retreated from broad power over thousands of insur- Afghanistan, the mujahedeen began America is not responsible gents fighting against the Afghan fighting one another for power. Even- for the Haqqanis’ actions, but government, the United States, and tually the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, their allies. Siraj has held that num- gained control of much of the country. Haqqani’s life story should be ber-two position within the Taliban Haqqani joined the Taliban’s Islamic a cautionary tale. Washington since 2015. After Jalaluddin’s death Emirate of Afghanistan, and he was was willing to work with was announced, al Qaeda honored the named a member of the group’s shura, senior Haqqani as Osama bin Laden’s or senior advisory council. Haqqani extremists to counter the “brother.” Al Qaeda also said in its was also named the minister in charge Soviet threat. That may have eulogy that it took “solace” in the fact of the Afghan-Pakistan border. been somewhat justifiable that Siraj had ascended through the Coll has written elsewhere that during the Cold War, when Taliban’s ranks. Haqqani was a “unilateral” asset of The United States is not respon- the CIA during the war against the communism was a nuclear- sible for the Haqqanis’ actions in the Soviets. So shortly after the 9/11 armed, worldwide threat. But decades following the anti-Soviet attacks, the agency made some fur- it was a deal with the devil. jihad. But Jalaluddin Haqqani’s life tive efforts to convince Haqqani to story should be a cautionary tale. turn against the Taliban and al Qaeda. Washington was willing to work The thinking was that the old alliance his son and ideological heir, Sirajud- with extremists to counter the Soviet could be rekindled against a different din (or Siraj). Like his father, Siraj is threat. That may have been some- foe. It didn’t work. Haqqani remained an al Qaeda man. what justifiable during the Cold War, loyal to his Arab comrades, declaring In the spring of 2010, about a year when communism was a nuclear- jihad on the Americans. before bin Laden’s death, the Haqqa- armed, worldwide threat. But it In fact, according to Osama bin nis acted as intermediaries between was a deal with the devil—a man Laden’s own bodyguard, Haqqani the Afghan government and al Qaeda. who was the opposite of “goodness sheltered the al Qaeda leader just They helped negotiate a ransom pay- personified.” And while the Soviet weeks after the 9/11 attacks. In Guard- ment, paid by the Afghans (in part Union crumbled, the threat of global ing bin Laden: My Life in Al-Qaeda, with CIA-provided funds), to secure jihadism, which Haqqani incubated, Nasser al-Bahri (also known as Abu the release of an Afghan diplomat lives on. Jandal) says that his master briefly who was kidnapped in 2008. Mil- In September, the State Depart­ “took shelter in Khost at his friend, lions of dollars in ransom flowed into ment released its annual Country Jalaluddin Haqqani’s house” before al Qaeda’s coffers. One memo to bin Reports on Terrorism. Among its find- moving on. Haqqani and his min- Laden described how the funds were ings: Pakistan continues to provide ions helped other al Qaeda opera- divvied up, with some of the money safe haven for the Taliban’s leader- tives escape America’s retaliation in being used to secure weaponry. ship, including the Haqqanis. The late 2001 as well. Indeed, Haqqani In another 2010 memo, bin Laden’s Trump administration has taken a had become a power­broker during top lieutenant explained that al Qaeda hard line with Pakistan on this score. the anti-Soviet jihad, in part because used Siraj as a conduit for threatening But there has been no change in he controlled key terrain straddling the Pakistani state, warning that “big, Pakistan’s behavior. As a result, the the Afghan-Pakistan border. Haqqa- earth-shaking operations” would take Haqqanis, along with their al Qaeda ni’s eponymous network has har- place if the Pakistanis didn’t negoti- allies, are poised to declare victory in bored al Qaeda operatives and leaders ate a truce with al Qaeda. At the time, Afghanistan once again. ♦

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 15 On September 24, a statement was sent from the email address of Rea A Literary Lynching Hederman, the owner of the New York Review of Books. It said: “we acknowl- edge our failures in the presentation Ian Buruma hoped to stimulate discussion and editing” of Ghomeshi’s article—a “we” that did not include the editor. about #MeToo—the Twitter mob got him fired. It also acknowledged “the validity of this criticism” the piece has attracted. by ames ampbell J C “Most members of the editorial staff (including six female members of staff, illiam Faulkner’s novel allegations. He was acquitted of the four of whom worked with Bob and Intruder in the Dust opens charges in a court in Ontario in 2016, Barbara) were excluded from the sub- W with the arrest of one of after the judge criticized the accusers’ stantive editorial process.” If he wasn’t Faulkner’s great vibrant characters, behavior and testimony. Few people already suffering maximum exclusion the “intractable” mixed-race Lucas have vouched for Jian Ghomeshi’s syndrome himself, Buruma must have Beauchamp. We learn that “the whole character, and I have yet to meet any- done so on reading that “Bob and Bar- town . . . had known since the night one who admired the piece Buruma bara”—Barbara Epstein was Silvers’s before that Lucas had killed a white co-editor for 43 years until her death in man,” and Sheriff Hampton escorts 2006. In response to Hederman’s mes- Lucas to the jailhouse. Even in jus- sage, a large number of distinguished tice’s waiting room, however, he is contributors to the magazine signed a not safe from the mob. There was no letter of protest against the sacking. Twitter in those days, but word cir- No one, not even Rea Heder- culated and a crowd gathered in the man, is under any illusion about street. “They seemed to fill it, block it, what brought down the curtain render it suddenly interdict as though on Buruma’s brief show: the reac- not that nobody could pass them . . . tion on Twitter. Whatever his other but that nobody would dare . . . as accomplishments, he will go down people stay well away from a sign say- in literary history as the editor who ing High Voltage.” was forced out of office for publish- Ian Buruma felt the shock of that ing an article that a small but highly voltage about 10 days ago. It lifted him vocal number of people objected to. I out of the editor’s chair at the New York would guess that the loudest among Review of Books after only 16 months them have spent but a small portion in the job. His predecessor, Robert Sil- Ian Buruma in 2013 of their lives reading the New York vers, had sat there immovably from the Review of Books. Had it not been for magazine’s founding in 1963 till his commissioned from him, “Reflections the public-shaming aspect, the dis- death in 2017. Buruma’s misfortune from a Hashtag,” in which the bleat of agreements between Buruma and his was not to be accused of any crime. Nor narcissism sounds regularly. It is adver- staff would have remained in-house, has anyone tried to pin the scarlet let- tised on the cover of the October 11 and perhaps led to a refinement of ter of sexual harasser on him. Rather, issue, along with related essays, under procedure; a good and civil outcome. his offense was to have commissioned the now-mocking banner “The Fall Editors are expected to take risks, a first-person essay by someone who of Men.” (Ghomeshi’s piece appeared and great magazines treat their readers had played nasty games on that field online in early September.) to articles that are “unexpected” (Wil- and to publish it without consulting Buruma was the editor, the man liam Shawn’s word for the ideal New the majority of his staff—a not uncom- who mattered, and in his opinion it Yorker piece). One person’s delight mon event in most magazine offices. was worth running. It is hard to imag- is another’s dismay. If you don’t like The Canadian radio host and some- ine him relishing Ghomeshi’s tone, but it, write a letter, publish an oppos- time musician Jian Ghomeshi was he felt that the piece spoke, however ing essay, skip the next issue, or— charged in 2014 with sexual assault clumsily, to the moment—the moment the extreme reaction—cancel your and was the subject of many more of #MeToo. Presumably, he imagined subscription. Again, these are civi- it would stimulate discussion. That’s lized reactions. In 1981, the New York James Campbell, a columnist what literary magazines exist to do, as Review published an unexpected set of at the Times Literary Supplement, is the well as to inform and entertain. “Two Notes” about prison life by the author of a biography of James Baldwin, Rather, Buruma believed he was convicted killer Jack Henry Abbott,

Talking at the Gates. the man who mattered. He was wrong. a protégé of Norman Mailer. They TIMES / GETTY M ZHAZO / HINDUSTAN

16 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 were brilliantly written. Nine days be interviewed onstage by David Rem- and editorial staff appear all the more after his release from prison that sum- nick at the New Yorker Festival, then dismal. It might well raise itself back mer, Abbott killed a young waiter in a to disinvite him, Bret Stephens noted: up to its customary height. Yet who- trivial argument. Silvers and Epstein “What this really means is that Rem- ever is appointed as the magazine’s remained in place. It would be surpris- nick is no longer the editor of The New fourth editor will be condemned not ing to learn that at no other point in Yorker. Twitter is. Social media doesn’t only to wrestle with the shadow cast its history has the journal published just get a voice. Now it wields a veto.” by Robert Silvers but also to accom- pieces by convicts or ex-convicts It was a well-aimed jab, provoked modate the climate of purification (as (Mailer himself had an ugly spot in by the news that not only had a clutch distinct from Puritanism) in which we his past). Ghomeshi, of course, is not of celebrities threatened to withdraw find ourselves living. among them. Unsavory though he from the festival, but that a member Another regular Review contributor may be, he has not been convicted of of the magazine’s staff drummed up I spoke to felt that Hederman would anything. “Am I dreaming?” I wrote opposition to her editor’s authority. be thinking, “It’s time we appointed in an email to a friend who happens “I love working for @NewYorker,” a woman,” overlooking Barbara to have been in the running for the Kathryn Schulz tweeted on Septem- Epstein’s 43 years. Epstein and the job before Buruma was appointed. ber 3, “but I’m beyond appalled by other cofounders—her husband Jason, “Did the proprietor of Robert Lowell, Eliza- a left-liberal publication beth Hardwick, and just sack his editor for Silvers—would surely printing an essay which expect the owner to was disapproved of by exercise independent the unruly mob?” judgment, not to make From the perspective a politically correct of anyone who holds appointment according freedom of expression to some right-thinking and editorial indepen- calendar. But the iro- dence dear, Buruma nies pile up as this story is a victim of rough continues to unfold. It justice. Twitter mobs, would be a fine one if Faulknerian mobs, real the Review were to be mobs in real streets made into an intellec- threatening real vio- tual safe space. lence, all have this in “The whole town common: The law by The mob gathers in a 1949 MGM version of Intruder in the Dust. had known since the itself will not satisfy night before that Lucas their demands. In the wake of succes- this.” She gave a link to a Times story had killed a white man.” From the sive Twitter storms, analogies are often about the planned Bannon event, then tenor of Faulkner’s opening decla- drawn with McCarthyism. Not only added: “I have already made that very ration, it is obvious that Lucas had in reference to those accused of actual clear to David Remnick. You can, too.” done no such thing. He was not guilty offenses: It is enough just to be sus- It was effectively a call to rouse the of any crime except being black and pected of skepticism of #MeToo and mob. Thereafter, the course of events intractable in the face of a rotten sys- the rush to judgment begins. We are was set (“they seemed to fill it, block tem. His saviors were of a surprising getting used to craven apologies for it . . . nobody would dare . . . ”). Rem- sort: an elderly white woman and two causing “pain” to fellow citizens, which nick proved himself to be no Sheriff teenaged boys, one black, the other have sparked comparison to “Soviet- Hampton—“I told you folks once to white. The themes of moral debt and style reeducation.” Seventeenth-cen- get out of here. I aint going to tell you the inescapable bonds of blood course tury Salem gets mentioned, too. But again”—and the mob had its way. The through this underrated novel— the best parallel is with the lynch New Yorker, onetime champion of the forces more powerful even than the mob—“Let’s get down to the jailhouse “unexpected,” joined that dubious High Voltage of mob justice. Nothing and string ’im up.” The surge of high- band of organizations willing to no- is simple in Yoknapatawpha County. voltage power. The relegation of due platform controversial speakers. Nor was it in the era of the McCarthy process to an afterthought. The differ- What now for the New York Review witch hunts, though true believers in ence between this and real lynch mobs of Books? The possibility of a bright the red menace tried to persuade the is only in degree. new dawn cannot be discounted. public that it was. Those of impecca- Writing in the New York Times Under Silvers and Epstein it was the ble virtue always do. They are always recently about the debacle over the finest periodical of its kind, which “beyond appalled” at the presence of a

VIA YOUTUBE decision first to invite Steve Bannon to only makes the pusillanimity of owner dissenter in the room. ♦

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 17 course, a liberal was someone who was strongly in favor of a market economy. What’s in a Name? The OED also quotes George Orwell, who disliked the progressives of his day because they usually were The ‘progressive’ problem. by Stephen Miller pro-Soviet. In “Inside the Whale,” Orwell writes: “There are the ‘pro- gressives’ . . . the Shaw-Wells type, rogress is our most impor- someone who supports a radical politi- always leaping forward to embrace the tant product,” Ronald Rea- cal agenda, usually including curbing ego-projections which they mistake ‘P gan used to say in the 1950s, the power of corporations near the top for the future.” Writing about H. G. when he hosted General Electric The- of the list. More liberal Democrats say Wells in the New Yorker, Adam Kirsch ater, a popular television drama series. they belong to the “progressive wing” says Orwell’s 1984 “reads like a dys- Praising progress is like praising of the Democratic party. topian rebuttal to Wells’s sinister uto- motherhood. Who is against progress A sign of the times in the party is pian fantasies.” in science, medicine, and technology? the recent announcement by Yasmine “The program Wells hoped to If at a social gathering I said “I’m for Taeb, a left-wing human rights law- implement,” Kirsch writes, “was progress,” most people socialist and progres- would yawn. But if I said sive.” Wells’s progressive “I’m a progressive,” I’d get agenda included eugen- a very different response. ics. “He could write with I’d be admired by liberals disconcerting eagerness and looked at with disdain about which categories of by conservatives. human beings would be For Democrats, pro- put to death in his utopian gressive has become the state,” says Kirsch. Wells go-to word in recent years, was also a great admirer replacing liberal. The old- of Stalin, writing, “I have school liberal columnist E. J. Dionne yer, that she will challenge Richard L. never met a man more candid, fair and talks approvingly of “American pro- Saslaw, the Democratic leader of Vir- honest, and to those qualities it is, gressives.” Chris Murphy, the Demo- ginia’s senate, in next year’s Demo- and to nothing occult and sinister, that cratic senator from Connecticut, says, cratic primary. Saying she wants “to he owes his tremendous undisputed “We have some work to do to explain champion a progressive agenda in the ascendancy in Russia.” to progressive voters why the courts General Assembly,” Taeb promises to It would probably be wrong to say should matter to them as much as it reject corporate campaign donations, that contemporary American progres- matters to conservatives.” favors a $15-an-hour minimum wage, sives are as foolish as Wells, but it is fair For those on the right, progressive is and opposes the death penalty. In a to say that they have a tropism towards now a pejorative term. In a fundraising dig at Saslaw, who has received cam- big government and a deep suspicion letter for the Cato Institute, George paign funds from Dominion Energy, of the corporate world. Will calls Woodrow Wilson “the first the state’s largest utility, Taeb said: Conservatives undoubtedly relish progressive president.” This is not a “Some elected officials are more inter- intraparty quarrels that roil the Dem- compliment. Victor Davis Hanson, ested in siding with powerful corpora- ocrats, but they too have a progres- the classicist who writes for National tions than the people they represent.” sive problem: They don’t have a good Review, speaks scathingly of “the pro- Saslaw claims that he too is a progres- word to describe their anti-progressive gressive street,” which he says is “lead- sive—and he sees nothing wrong with stance. The antonyms for “progres- ing fossilized Democrats into a sort of getting campaign funds from Domin- sive,” Merriam-Webster says, include collective madness.” ion Energy, which charges the lowest “backward, primitive, retarded, rude, Though Democrats proudly wear electricity rates in the region. rudimentary, undeveloped.” the label progressive, they strongly dis- For more than a century, progres- The New York Times recently spoke agree among themselves about what it sive has been a vague term that usu- of “the progressive fervor sweeping means. For some Democrats, all mem- ally signifies someone who favors big national politics.” To counter that fer- bers of their party are progressives. government. The Oxford English Dic- vor, conservatives must try to persuade For other Democrats, a progressive is tionary quotes a British political writer voters that the progressive agenda—a in 1892 who says: “There were Pro- preoccupation with diversity, propor- Stephen Miller is the author of Walking gressives who are not Liberals, but I tionality, equity, identity, and affirma- New York: Reflections of American think there are no Liberals who are not tive action—is in fact an impediment

Writers from Walt Whitman to Teju Cole. Progressives.” In the 19th century, of to progress. BETTMANN / GETTY

18 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 The second “progressive” problem Will is on the same page as the leftist Kurds of the northeast, the Arabs of conservatives face is that President economist Paul Krugman, who points the southeast, and even possibly the Trump is in some respects a progressive. out that “Trump has imposed tariffs Turkish-speaking Azeris, who may His micromanagement of the econ- on about $300 billion worth of U.S. represent as much as 25 percent of omy—protecting the steel industry in imports, with tariff rates set to rise as the country’s population and domi- the same way that Obama protected the high as 25 percent.” This is “a tax hike nate the four provinces of Iranian auto industry—is the sort of thing good on America,” says Krugman. Azerbaijan and the southern envi- progressives have always tried. George “We are all Keynesians now,” rons of the national capital, Tehran. Will thus criticizes Trump’s “industrial Richard Nixon reportedly said. Are When appropriately Persianized, policy, with government picking win- we all progressives now? No, but Azeris move easily within the cleri- ners and losers. . . . We now have a trade anti-progressives have become a cal regime’s elite, and yet “proper” czar in the White House who says he weak force. The former movie actor Iranians when among themselves wants to repatriate our supply chains— who said on General Electric Theater never fail to distinguish who is Irani which is a good way to make an iPhone that “progress is our most important and who is Turk. Azeris exercise the cost $3,000.” product” would be deeply dismayed same precision. And religious dif- In our volatile political climate, by this turn of events. ♦ ferences often sharpen these ethnic/ linguistic divisions: The Baluch are overwhelmingly Sunni and the Kurds are probably majority Sunni. The Ira- nians de souche—the inhabitants and Iran’s Enemies descendants of the Iranian plateau, Parsa in Old Persian—may even be a minority in the lands that now com- prise the Islamic Republic. Many of them are within its borders. “Proper” Iranians, of course, want to by Reuel Marc Gerecht believe that Persian culture transcends all the divides. The Persian language and literature and the pride that went he Arab Struggle Movement more openly hostile to Iranians and with them withstood the 7th-century for the Liberation of Al- the Iraqi militias allied to them, the Arab invasion and its magnetic tongue, T Ahwaz has claimed credit for ancient “Arab-Ajam” divide in Persia eventually absorbing most of the Arab the recent terrorist attack at a military can transcend Shiite fraternity. settlers into the Persian oikumene. Then parade in Iran’s Khuzestan Province In modern times, Iran has had appeared the Turks, who first came as that killed 25 people and wounded a stubborn, often violent minori- slave soldiers and then as all-conquer- 60. It should surprise no one that ties problem that goes far beyond the ing horse-mounted dynasties. The cen- this occurred in the heavily Arab Arabs. Kurdish leaders and opposi- tripetal eminence of Persian culture province. Separatist Arab groups tionists have been assassinated at home absorbed them, too. Ditto the Mongols. have regularly struck at the clerical and abroad, most famously by an Ira- (The stunning survival of Persian as a regime, killing regime officials, allied nian hit team at the Mykonos restau- spoken and written language deserves locals, and civilians. An autonomous rant in Berlin in 1992. Periodically, comparison to that of English, another region until the coming of Reza Shah large swaths of Iranian Baluchestan indefatigable and innovative language.) Pahlavi, who squashed independent become no-go areas at night for Ira- For the Iranians de souche, the geog- tribal confederations throughout nian security forces, especially when a raphy of modern Iran is settled. Any Iran in the 1920s, Khuzestan is oil- fierce localism overlaps with the drug ethnic irredentism is illegitimate if it rich but poor. Although Sunni Arabs trade that the Islamic Revolutionary threatens the sovereignty of the bound- may be on the cutting edge of anger Guard Corps tries more to control than aries that have held since Persians against the central government, many stop. Ethnic clashes often go unre- stopped losing territory to Russians Shiites, who are the overwhelming ported and misreported in the Western in the early 19th century. Go into any majority of the Arab denizens of the press. We really don’t know the exact Western foreign-language broadcast- region, appear to be similarly inclined ethnic balance in Iran—census figures ing company—for example, the BBC to remonstrate violently against in the Middle East, a region of frag- or Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty— their Iranian overlords. As in Iraq, ile national and competitive religious and watch the Persian service eye Azeri where Shiite Arabs are becoming identities, should never be trusted. broadcasters warily. When Azeri jour- The clerical regime rules over nalists try to get footage of Iranian Reuel Marc Gerecht, a contributing editor, many obstreperous peoples that might Azerbaijanis illegally singing Azeri is a senior fellow at the Foundation well bolt if they were allowed to do so: nationalist songs at soccer matches in for Defense of Democracies. the Baluch of southeastern Iran, the Iran onto Persian-service broadcasts,

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 19 the reception isn’t warm. It isn’t hard primary outfit enforcing the writ of the concealed advanced centrifuges, given to find Iranian Azeris in former Soviet clerical regime. More than any other the military alliance between Tehran Azerbaijan willing to talk about the Iranian security service, it’s the guards and Moscow and the retrenchment of Persian heavy-handedness that they who thump on the minorities when American power, Sunni Arabs and the endure. Hang out with Iranian expa- they organize or express themselves too Israelis will certainly try to find new, triates campaigning for democracy independently. It is the corps that has ideally low-cost, means to check, or at and human rights in their home- done the heavy lifting in Syria, where least harass, the clerical regime. With land and they can get cagey quickly Iran has been on the cutting edge of a Tehran having used the Shiite and mil- when it comes to the right of self- war that has killed hundreds of thou- itant Islamist cards against the Sunni determination for the minorities of the sands of Sunni Arabs and driven mil- monarchies and everyone in the Mid- Islamic Republic. Iran may be the last lions from their homes and homeland. dle East thinking about ethnicity and of the great Middle Eastern empires In Iraq, in the deep Shiite south that identity every waking hour, it would be but for Persians, a prideful people, it is revolves around Basra, the natives natural for the Gulfies and the Israelis an indissoluble nation-state. have been openly damning the influ- to explore the possibilities of turning The accusations of the Iranian for- ence of the Revolutionary Guards and ethnic pride against the Persians, hop- eign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif their proxies. Since the fall of Saddam ing that internal discord will weaken after the attack in the city the clerical regime abroad. of Ahvaz—blaming the That may be bad analy- Saudis, the Israelis, and sis: Legitimacy denied at behind them the Ameri- home, be it among Irani- cans—are a good example ans de souche or the minori- of the geographic paranoia ties, may lead Tehran to that Iranian officials can seek greater legitimacy often indelicately express. elsewhere, especially in its Although the regime has sectarian foreign mission become adept at certain and the continuing strug- kinds of self-criticism so gle against Zionism. But long as nothing cuts too if Iran did experience sub- deeply (the supreme leader, stantial internal discord Ali Khamenei, has cer- Iranians seek cover during an attack on a military parade, September 22. (and ethnic disquiet can tainly turned criticism of easily play into the larger, his underlings into an art form), this Hussein and the opening of the Iran- nondenominational Iranian distaste disposition stays far away from ques- Iraq border, Mesopotamian Arabs have for theocracy), then it could paralyze tions of ethnicity. Acknowledging again become kissing cousins. Ira- the central government. A small- some corruption, police brutality, even nian intrusion into Iraqi society likely scale version of this—the aftershocks the occasional ugliness of some sharia has an obverse that has so far gained of the nationwide December demon- law practices (child marriage remains little attention. strations, the American withdrawal a hot button in Iran) is acceptable; It may only be a matter of time from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of confessions about heavy-handed big- before the Saudis, the Emiratis, and Action, and the scary Donald Trump otry against the Kurds, Arabs, Baluch, the Israelis start thinking program- “he-might-just-bomb-us” factor—may or Azeris are verboten. matically about ways to make Iran’s have temporarily paralyzed Iranian To be fair to Zarif: It’s certainly pos- ethnic divisions bloody fissures. Ira- foreign policy on the nuclear issue. It sible that the Saudis had a hand in nian Shiite imperialism—the will- may well have caused Khamenei so far this attack. The Saudi crown prince, ful use of religious sectarianism to to avoid unleashing allied Arab mili- Mohammed bin Salman, has said extend Tehran’s influence throughout tias against Americans in Iraq. that he wants to fight Iran inside Iran. the Middle East—is deeply threaten- It costs little for Saudi Arabia It is far more likely, however, that ing to the Sunni Gulf monarchies, and Israel to investigate how to sup- Khuzestani Arabs who hate the Islamic and to Israel because of the clerical port “national” grievances inside the Revolutionary Guard Corps undertook regime’s implacable hatred of the Jew- Islamic Republic. It’s a decent guess this mission without Saudi guidance ish state. (Anti-Semitism is creedal that if Persian nationalism is rising in and support. Historically, Khuzestani among Iran’s revolutionary elite, espe- the Islamic Republic (and the increas- Arabs have had sufficient group iden- cially the Revolutionary Guards.) ing rot of the revolution’s Islamic ide- tity and anger at Tehran to generate Given Iran’s development of a deploy- alism appears to be amping-up the militant underground organizations. able foreign legion comprised of Shiite non-Shiite part of the Persian iden- They don’t need Saudi help to pull off Arabs, Afghans, and Pakistanis, given tity), its ascent may well increase such operations. The Guard Corps, its ever-improving missiles, given the the national consciousness of Iran’s

the target of the Ahvaz attack, is the continuing development of easily other peoples. Call it complementary MORTEZA JABERIAN / AFP GETTY

20 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 friction. And dream up all the worst- Turkish Kurds may not want to be opinion and style certainly existed, case scenarios of Iran fracturing along helpful (intra-Kurdish politics are but the kind of strategic approach ethnic lines or just exploding violently fluid, mind-bending, and, for everyone advanced by Barack Obama—a sus- in a spasm against the mullahs, and it’s involved, frustrating) would be chal- tained attempt to draw near the Islamic hard to see how any of these eventuali- lenging. The Pakistanis—that is the Republic, which led in 2009 and 2010 ties are bad for Saudi Arabia or Israel. Punjabis, Sindhis, and Pashtuns who to willful distancing between Wash- Loose nukes would be a problem, dominate the Pakistani military and ington and the millions of protesters but the clerical regime without the intelligence services—have zero reason who’d hit the streets in Tehran against JCPOA is still years out from develop- to aid Baluch separatism in Iran given tyranny and in 2015 to a short-term ing atomic weapons. A vengeful Rev- the spillover potential in Pakistan. nuclear deal that guaranteed the the- olutionary Guard military operation And we have seen no evidence that the ocracy a vast nuclear-weapons-capa- aimed against the Saudi oil industry Azeris, the Achilles’ heel of the Iranian ble infrastructure—would have been undoubtedly would worry Riyadh, but regime, want to make their grievances unthinkable. The most determined such attacks would immediately trig- violent. The Sunni Gulfies and the and “successful” American president ger the U.S. Navy, which could be life- Israelis could try the “shit-against-the- on Iran policy since 1979, Obama, sens- threatening for the Iranian military. wall” theory of covert action—keep ing that unsatisfying wars had opened The clerical regime probably isn’t stu- trying things until something sticks. new possibilities, shattered fundamen- pid enough to allow its outrage to open But that could lead to just sending tal attitudes about the Islamic Republic itself up to American firepower. money, which would probably rule out and the bipartisan will to resist Iranian The Saudis do have to fear Iranian the Israelis, who run the cheapest for- aggression. What is striking is that mischief among the Saudi and Bah- eign intelligence service in the West. Donald Trump, who also exuberantly raini Shia. But the Iranians haven’t Which brings us to the Americans ran on a foreign policy of retrench- been passive bystanders in attempts and the speculation that the Trump ment, has halted, for now, the Repub- to exploit enormous Shiite grievances administration might try something lican retreat on Iran. Republicans against the Sunni royal families in the beyond sanctions to heighten inter- remain, more or less, where Republi- peninsula. Saudi and Bahraini security nal unrest in Iran. By far, Washington cans and Democrats were in 1996, after services appear to have gotten pretty is the weakest player in this mix, since Tehran bombed the American military good at handling Shiite unrest and the age of lethal covert action—barring in Saudi Arabia at Khobar Towers. Persian mischief—better than Iranian another national trauma on the scale This could change rapidly, of course, if services currently trying to squelch vio- of 9/11—is over. Even if the Trump the president flipped. Although Trump lent discontent among Iran’s Arabs. In White House wanted to, and there is is adjectivally incontinent, his recent Saudi Arabia, the government has lit- scant evidence that the president has tweet about Iranian president Hassan erally built walls and trenches around any intention of adopting a muscular Rouhani being “an absolutely lovely the towns where Shiite radicalism and containment or regime-change strategy man” leaves open the possibility that rebellion may have taken hold in the against the clerical regime, any lethal Trump could follow Obama. Eastern Province. Whether from covert action would require the buy-in The Iranian regime, however, isn’t the bold, reckless temperament of the of both the leaders of the national-secu- likely to work through the covert- Saudi crown prince or a larger consen- rity establishment and the bipartisan action limitations of its enemies. The sus within the royal family that tradi- leadership of the concerned commit- paranoid ruling elite, always thinking tional Saudi timidity towards Iran is no tees on Capitol Hill. That isn’t likely. that the Americans, the Gulfies, and longer viable, Riyadh just might have Defense secretary James Mattis would the Israelis are driving their inter- the guts (or the hubris) to think that it have no part of this, and Democrats nal problems, will likely crack down can go head-to-head against the Islamic would leak like crazy, effectively killing even harder on the minorities since Republic in covert operations. any program. There are lots of good rea- they may fear that a bit of foreign aid But reality will likely intrude into sons why the United States shouldn’t could make the volcano explode. Can any Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli gam- support a clandestine policy of ethnic the Islamic Republic’s security ser- ing of possible ethnic tumult. Beyond friction in Iran (American interests vices keep a lid on all the unrest? A sending money to insurrectionists and ideals do not align perfectly on this betting man would say “yes.” They in Iran, which isn’t hard, Riyadh and issue with the Israelis’ and Saudis’), but have survived severe tests by mixing Jerusalem may discover that there those reasons are irrelevant given the extreme brutality, bribery, controlled really isn’t much potential in such larger reluctance of the Trump admin- elections, and clever neglect to neu- projects. Covert logistics is always a istration, particularly the White House, tralize popular disgust from effectively pain in the tush. With the possible to commit itself to a meaningful con- organizing against the theocracy. But a exception of the Arabs in Khuzestan, tainment policy. perfect storm may be brewing in Iran. Iran’s minorities are pretty hard to Once upon a time, Washington had “Proper” Persians are in an agitated reach efficaciously. Arming Iranian a pretty solid bipartisan consensus on state. So, too, it’s a decent guess, are Kurds, for example, when Iraqi and the Islamic Republic. Differences of the peoples of the Iranian periphery. ♦

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 21 The One-Party State Are California’s Democrats really charting a future path for the rest of the country?

By Michael Warren sharply toward the Democrats. The steady influx of immi- grants, not just from Latin America but from Asia as well, Sacramento only bolstered the Democratic party. So did the national o one can agree exactly how California shift of educated whites away from the GOP—a shift became a one-party state. For decades accelerated by the rise of Donald Trump, who is exceed- after World War II, Republicans regularly ingly unpopular in California. won statewide and local races. Between But Dan Walters, a longtime political journalist in Sac- 1952 and 1988, Californians preferred the ramento, will tell you it was the end of the Cold War that NRepublican candidate in every presidential election except really brought about Democratic dominance. He points Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide. The state has elected six to the decline of the defense and aerospace industries, Republican governors and six Republican U.S. senators major employers in Southern California, which prompted since 1950. Republicans commonly served as mayors of Cal- an exodus of Republican voters—middle-class, white, ifornia’s major cities—Los Angeles, San and suburban—to cheaper states. Los Diego, San Francisco, Fresno, Oakland. Angeles County regularly went for the Democrats dominated the state legisla- GOP in elections. It’s simple arithme- ture and the House delegation, but if the tic, says Walters. When the GOP lost term “San Francisco Democrat” evoked Los Angeles, it turned California over a defined political archetype, so too did completely to the Democrats. “Orange County Republican.” Today, the state is a liberal’s dream. But the Golden State is now deep It’s multicultural. It’s largely urban- blue. It hasn’t voted for a Republican ized. It is socially and environmentally for president since George H. W. Bush progressive. People here frequently in 1988. Since 1993, both of California’s boast, without a trace of smugness, that senators have been Democrats. Republi- if you want to see America in 10 years, can Meg Whitman lost the 2010 race for look at California. governor by 13 points despite spending Jerry Brown in May What you see, though, is not what $144 million of her own money on the you might expect in a true blue state. campaign. The only truly competitive statewide race today California is extremely wealthy—if it were its own coun- is for insurance commissioner, and the last Republican to try, it’d have the fifth-largest economy in the world—and win that office, Steve Poizner, is campaigning for it in 2018 the center of some of the world’s most important technol- as an independent. Voters who list “no party preference” ogy, financial, and entertainment industries. But the wealth now slightly outnumber registered Republicans, at around is concentrated at the top, and the squeezing of the middle 25 percent. Forty-four percent of registered voters in Cali- class out to Nevada and Utah and Arizona and Texas has fornia identify themselves as Democrats. left a bifurcated state of the very rich and the relatively poor. So what happened? A common answer is demo- The state has the most liberal environmental laws and graphics. Republicans were increasingly seen as hostile regulations in the country, which hamper the development to Latinos during the 1990s, culminating in the passage of affordable housing. A San Francisco Chronicle investiga- of Proposition 187, a GOP-backed initiative that targeted tion in 2017 showed rising housing costs driving lower- illegal immigration but was widely perceived as anti-His- income Californians out of their homes and into the streets. panic. It turned the state’s growing Latino population Homelessness has skyrocketed in both the cities and the rural areas of the state. While 12 percent of the U.S. popula-

Michael Warren is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. tion is in California, 25 percent of the country’s homeless / GETTY MORRIS / BLOOMBERG PAUL DAVID

22 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 live there. From Sacramento to San Diego, you can’t help his time on, it’s all been to ensure that he left the state from but notice the multitudes of people living on the street. a fiscal perspective in a much better place than when he Look at the housing shortage and homelessness, the started,” says Gale Kaufman, a veteran Democratic strate- decline of manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs, and gist. “And he has been dogged.” the growth of a tech economy that rewards disruption That doggedness has rankled progressives, who grew over predictability, and you see why some are suspicious of more frustrated with every stroke of Brown’s veto pen on the California way. Others just see potential: Without the hundreds of bills passed by the overwhelmingly Demo- middle classes to object, progressives think, the wealth can cratic legislature. He recently nixed a bill that would have be redistributed to help those who need food, health care, funded a state “advisory group” to look into how fake news and housing. California can be a place where social prog- spreads on social media. In 2012, amid the moral outrage ress is achieved and immigrants over neighboring Arizona’s anti- are welcomed with open arms, no illegal-immigration law, Brown questions asked. It can be the pic- issued a late-night veto on a bill turesque center of a movement that would have limited how to reverse the effects of climate much California police who stop change and save the entire world. illegal immigrants could cooper- ate with the feds. Another bill, avin Newsom is almost passed by the legislature last year, certain to be the next would have required large busi- Ggovernor of California, nesses to post their median and and he’ll be the first Democrat to mean salary data for both men succeed a Democrat in the job in and women on a public website, more than 130 years. The current in the name of transparency on occupant, 80-year-old Jerry Brown, the gender pay gap. Brown vetoed is at the end of a long career that that one, too. There were plenty of includes two eight-year stints as bills Brown did approve, but he’s governor (1975-83 and 2011-19). given every interest group on the Newsom, 50, is hungry and ambi- Gavin Newsom at a rally in Burbank, May 30 left something to grumble about. tious—for California, for the pro- Progressives wonder: What’s the gressive agenda, and for national office. Progressives see in point of having control of the levers of power—and a boom- him a chance to finally realize their dreams in the country’s ing economy to boot—if you don’t make some big changes? biggest laboratory for democracy. Newsom is aware of the simmering impatience, which “I’m not a profligate Democrat,” the lieutenant gover- explains why he cast himself in this summer’s jungle pri- nor told a small group of reporters during a bus tour this mary as a champion of progressive causes. He outflanked past May. “I have bold ideas, I want to be audacious in his top Democratic competitor, former Los Angeles mayor terms of the goals, but I’m not reckless.” What Newsom was Antonio Villaraigosa, by embracing the party’s left wing implying is that some Democrats are reckless and profligate: on health care, gun control, and social issues. Newsom the starry-eyed progressives in the legislature, the public- cast Villaraigosa as an opponent of the influential teach- sector unions that would like to see more returns on their ers’ union (easily done, since the L.A. mayor had fought political investments, the activist base that would be fine hard for education reform) and took advantage of the fact busting the state budget to get its wish list fulfilled. That’s that his rival’s bases of support—Southern California and not what Newsom is about. Latinos—are less likely to turn out in a primary than his But don’t think for a minute he isn’t bold, that he own multicultural, highly educated Bay Area-based sup- isn’t audacious. Put another way: Don’t think Newsom is porters. Villaraigosa only managed third in the June pri- Brown, who was elected governor in 2010 as a budget-con- mary, which means Newsom will face Republican John scious liberal pledging to right the state’s sinking fiscal ship. Cox in the November election. There’s little belief any- The man who earned the moniker “Governor Moonbeam” where in the state that Cox can pull off an upset. for his representation of California’s liberal idealists in the It will be a generational shift for California Democrats. 1970s will leave Sacramento next year with a budget sur- Besides Brown, there have been only two other Democratic plus and a reputation for setting the state on course after the governors in the last 75 years. One was Jerry’s father, Pat, disastrous Arnold Schwarzenegger years. “If you ask any- who lost in 1966 to Reagan. The other was Gray Davis, who

PATRICK T. FALLON / BLOOMBERG / GETTY / BLOOMBERG FALLON T. PATRICK one what is his major accomplishment, what has he spent was recalled in 2003. Even Democrats prefer to forget him.

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 23 The Democratic party of the two Browns, of Gray Davis, and eyeshades on, and socially conservative minority voters. of Senator Dianne Feinstein is reflective of the national party Without partisan competition from the GOP, the typical in the postwar era: split between its less ideological white, rifts and conflicts of politics are all within the tent—with working-class base and an emerging coalition of young, lib- interesting results. eral, and minority voters. Democrats who won statewide Dan Walters dubs an unofficial group of centrist office in California were standard-issue liberals, not radicals. Democratic legislators in Sacramento the “Mod Squad.” Feinstein has had a reliably progressive record in the Senate This coalition curbs the excesses of the Democrats’ but cultivated a reputation for bipartisanship on intelligence supermajority (they hold 55 of the 80 seats) in the assem- and national security. The elder Brown ran for governor in bly, halting everything from stricter and costlier emis- the late 1950s as a “responsible liberal” and spearheaded the sions standards to tax increases. “Mod Squad influence big infrastructure projects that created modern California. is rarely demonstrated in showdown votes on specific His son campaigned as both an environ- bills,” Walters wrote in a 2016 col- mentalist and a budget hawk. umn. “Rather, legislation that fails But Newsom’s ascent won’t be a politi- Without partisan because of their presence is usually cal revolution. For such a large party in placed on the shelf without votes such a large state, California Democratic competition from after legislative leaders count noses leadership is remarkably incestuous. The the GOP, the typical and come up short.” Democratic pri- Brown and Newsom families have long- rifts and conflicts of maries for legislative seats in recent standing ties. William Newsom II, Gavin’s politics are all within years have turned on issue-based turf grandfather, ran Pat Brown’s local cam- the Democrats’ wars between labor-backed progres- paigns in San Francisco. Gavin’s father, Bill sives and business-friendly challeng- Newsom, was appointed to the state appel- big tent—with ers. In 2016, the unions defeated San late court during his friend Jerry Brown’s interesting results. Bernardino assemblywoman Cheryl first term as governor. One of Bill New- Brown—dubbed “Chevron Cheryl” som’s sisters, Carole, was an adviser to Brown. Another, Bar- because of donations the Democrat received from the oil bara, was once married to Ron Pelosi, the brother-in-law of company—with their own Democratic candidate. But in House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. an open assembly seat in the East Bay region that same Another family important to this story is the Gettys. year, the teachers’ union-supported Mae Torlakson lost to J. Paul Getty’s vast oil fortune is the unifying thread in the pro-education-reform Democrat Tim Grayson. political fortunes of the Newsoms and the Browns. Getty’s California’s looming public-pension crisis reveals son Gordon, a philanthropist and composer, is a friend of another way Democrats are divided. The generous ben- Bill Newsom’s going back to prep school (St. Ignatius in San efits public-sector unions in California have extracted Francisco, which Jerry Brown attended a few years later). from state and local governments are prompting cut- Brown was unmarried during his first stint as governor, and backs in school funding and services—or, more typically, Gordon Getty’s wife often performed the first lady’s official tax increases and more bond issuances. A 2017 Stanford duties. Before joining the appellate court Bill Newsom was University study by former Democratic assemblyman Joe an attorney for Getty Oil and later left his judicial seat to Nation examined 14 governmental agencies in California run the multibillion-dollar Getty family trust, which Gor- from the state government itself to cities, counties, and don Getty controls. The trust provided the seed money school districts. Nation concluded that “public pension for PlumpJack, the winery and restaurant group started by costs are making it harder to provide services that have their two sons, William Getty and Gavin Newsom. The suc- traditionally been considered part of government’s core cess of PlumpJack laid the groundwork for Newsom’s polit- mission” and that government contributions to pensions ical career in San Francisco, first on the board of supervisors would have to double by 2030. And this is in a booming and then as mayor, which he was elected in 2003. Newsom economy with rock-bottom interest rates. briefly ran for governor in 2010 before being big-footed by But billions of dollars in campaign contributions from old family friend Jerry Brown. Prepared to bide his time, organized labor, plus the strict collective bargaining and Newsom ran for lieutenant governor. compulsory unionization laws in California, mean it’s dif- ficult for reformers to make headway in Sacramento or else- he top of California’s greasy pole may be full of where. “The public-employee unions control the state and familiar names, but the state’s dominant political control the Democratic party,” says Will Swaim, the presi- Tparty is a very big tent. There are still moderate dent of the conservative California Policy Center. Democrats in the legislature, big-city mayors with green One Democrat who wasn’t under their control was

26 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 Chuck Reed, the mayor of San Jose from 2007 to 2014. little to boost de León in the polls but guaranteed him party Reed is a good liberal and a staunch environmentalist, but money and headaches for other Democrats. “It was one of he couldn’t ignore the budget dilemma. “In about 2010, the stupidest things they could have done,” said one expe- San Jose was going into the tenth year of cutting services rienced party operative. “There’s a lot of candidates who to balance the budget,” Reed tells me. “Our spending was don’t want Kevin on the same materials they’re on.” about $800 million a year and our shortfall was around $115 million. We were facing service-delivery insolvency.” ewsom recognizes where the energy is among With the city council, Reed developed a plan to close that California Democrats. The lieutenant governor gap, which included significant entitlement reform. The N has few official duties, so he took on the role of proposal would have replaced San Jose’s defined-benefit cheerleading progressive initiatives. He claims partial credit health plan with a leaner one and opened up the benefits of for a number of victories, including the legalization of mari- current employees to renegotiation. The plan was put on the ballot in 2012, and 69 percent of San Jose voters approved it. But the unions were infuri- ated and challenged the measure in court. Reed’s proposal was mostly upheld, but the “California Rule,” an interpre- tation of state law that protects current benefits from rene- gotiation, meant that the key provision of the proposal was thrown out. San Jose is appealing. Jerry Brown, recognizing the threat of the unfunded liabilities of the state employee pension program, joined an amicus brief against the Califor- nia Rule. But there’s little to suggest the rest of the Demo- cratic party is ready to get on board with pension reform any time soon. Even Donald Trump, who unifies national Democrats in resistance, has opened up splits within the California state party. Dianne Feinstein, for instance, drew the left’s ire after making a relatively innocuous comment about the A homeless man sleeps in downtown San Francisco. president at an event last year. “Look, this man is going to be president, most likely for the rest of this term. I just juana and same-sex marriage, as well as a new law requir- hope he has the ability to learn and to change. And if he ing a background check for the purchase of ammunition. does, he can be a good president. And that’s my hope,” the During a staged interview at the Outside Lands music fes- 84-year-old Democrat said. It was boilerplate senator-speak tival in San Francisco this August, Newsom hinted that the that wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow in Washington, but it ammo law is just the beginning for guns in California. elicited boos from the audience at the Commonwealth Club “We have a unique obligation to step up and step in in San Francisco. Her chief Democratic challenger in this where others have stepped away, and I really feel pas- summer’s Senate primary, the ultra-progressive state sen- sionately that when we prove this paradigm and when we ate president Kevin de León, jumped on the remark, calling begin to apply these rules and when we begin to advance Feinstein “complicit” in the Trump administration. It was a these background checks, that is going to ignite a debate perfect example of the left’s argument against giving Fein- anew across this country and will raise the bar of expecta- stein a fifth term: She was out of touch with progressives tion on gun safety,” he said. and the #Resistance. He is skilled in delivering this kind of pabulum. Asked But Feinstein remains a formidable political figure and by reporters in May how he would approach the state’s easily won the crowded Senate primary with 44 percent of housing shortage and growing homeless population, New- the vote. De León finished second, but got just 12 percent, som promised “to be a lot more intentional on the housing suggesting the November runoff between the two would be and homeless issue, which is not just about more resources more of a snooze than the battle for the heart of the party but resourcefulness.” many were predicting. He has had trouble raising money, What progressives care most about, though, is a sin- and his lack of name recognition even in his hometown of gle-payer health-care system, and they expect Newsom to Los Angeles doesn’t help. Still, the activist Democratic base be more than just “intentional” with getting it passed into isn’t deterred by Feinstein’s strong position. In July, the law. The powerful California Nurses Association is the lob-

PATRICK T. FALLON / BLOOMBERG / GETTY / BLOOMBERG FALLON T. PATRICK state party voted to endorse de León. The endorsement did bying force, and the state senate passed a version of it last

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 27 year. Despite the big Democratic majority in the assembly, would allow him to do what his Democratic predecessors speaker Anthony Rendon declined to hold a vote on the have done and what many Democrats in California suspect bill, which had no funding mechanism and read more like Newsom would really like to do: tack to the center on fiscal a wish list than a serious reform. Rendon took the brunt of issues while focusing on things like guns, criminal justice, the criticism from the left for scuttling progressive dreams, and, yes, resisting Trump. If there’s one thing progressives but Jerry Brown has long expressed skepticism that sin- can count on from Newsom, it’s that he’ll be loud on the gle-payer is feasible for California. “Where do you get the national stage where Brown has been relatively quiet. extra money? This is the whole question,” he told report- At Outside Lands, Newsom positioned himself as the ers in 2017. Even if the assembly had passed the senate bill, anti-Trump—not just an angry resister but a counterargu- Brown would almost certainly have vetoed it. ment to the Trumpian vision for the country. “Here we Newsom has said countless times he supports sin- are in San Francisco, one of the most diverse cities in gle-payer. While he was mayor of San Francisco, the city one of the most diverse regions in the most diverse state implemented a subsidized medical-care program (paid for in the world’s most diverse democracy,” he said. “Those by taxing companies and so raising the cost of doing busi- are values worth protecting. Those are values worth ness in the city). All are eligible, no matter their citizenship, standing tall for, and those are the values under assault immigration status, employment, or preexisting condition. by not just the Trump administration, but by the Laura San Francisco has had near-universal insurance coverage Ingrahams of the world, by the Tucker Carlsons of the for more than a decade. world. By Trumpism more broadly.” “We can do this all across the state and all across this All of this suggests White House ambitions. Compari- country,” Newsom promised at Outside Lands. “I am com- sons between the handsome Californian and JFK have mitted to it, and we can make it happen, and we have an swirled for 15 years. In 2001, Newsom married Kimberly obligation to do that,” he told the approving crowd, add- Guilfoyle, a former model turned assistant district attorney ing that he has “long believed in a single-payer financing in San Francisco. (Her father, Tony Guilfoyle, was one of system” and “Medicare for all.” Then Newsom asked essen- Newsom’s top political advisers until his death in 2008.) A tially the same question Brown did, but with a more posi- 2004 profile of the San Francisco power couple inHarper’s tive tone: “Can a state do it?” Bazaar was titled “The New Kennedys” and featured a pho- His answer sounded like yes, but it wasn’t quite: “In my tograph of the two splayed out on an oriental rug, hands humble opinion, there is no other state better positioned to clasped together, staring broodingly at the camera. Out of do it than a state that already spends $367.5 billion a year the window behind them you can see an ornate balustrade on health insurance, a state that has one of the most robust on a balcony overlooking the San Francisco Bay. The photo health-care delivery systems of anywhere in the world, and was taken in a mansion owned by Gordon Getty. with all our remarkable ingenuity, capacity, and human Newsom and Guilfoyle divorced in 2006. The next year, capital,” he said. So is that a commitment to pass a single- it was reported that he had been having an affair with the payer bill? “I am committed to advancing that principle, wife of one of his top aides, and soon after, the young mayor advancing that paradigm, and seeing how far we can take announced he would get treatment for alcohol abuse. He it,” Newsom said. “The job of the next governor is to get in went on to win reelection in 2007 and, the following year, the ‘how’ business.” married actress Jennifer Siebel. They have four kids, and What astute political observers, including supporters of by all accounts, the former party boy has cleaned up his act. Newsom, wonder is just how quickly the “how” question (Guilfoyle, for her part, went on to a career as a Fox News for single-payer and other big progressive agenda items will star and is now dating Donald Trump Jr.) be shunted aside. As governor, Newsom’s first task will be Could Newsom challenge Trump for the presidency? A negotiating a budget with the legislature. Those close to run in 2020 isn’t likely given that he would have to start run- the candidate say he’s absorbed Brown’s public and private ning for president almost immediately after being sworn in warnings about a recession wiping out the surplus so care- as governor of California in January. But he’s likely to give fully built up. On August 6, Brown told reporters a reces- it a run in 2024 or even 2028, when he’ll only be 61 years sion is “going to happen” and predicted “we maybe have old. By then, the country will be more secular and socially two years if we are lucky.” progressive. It will be more ethnically diverse. It will have a Perhaps Newsom would be lucky to get a recession. The more automated and tech-driven economy. It will be look- realities of an economic downturn would make initiatives ing down the barrel of the entitlement crisis. It could be on like single-payer health care tough to justify and remove the cusp of adopting a single-payer health-care system. In the impossible political challenge of wrangling the progres- other words, 10 years from now, America really could look sive wing and the Mod Squad into agreement. A downturn like California does today. ♦

28 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 How the GOP Became Trump’s Party

The tribalization of conservatism

By Charles J. Sykes as “our very weak and ineffective leader.” The Wisconsin event was the culmination of Priebus’s peacemaking efforts. ate on the afternoon of October 7, 2016, I Like other members of the GOP mainstream, Priebus had texted an old friend, fellow Wisconsinite been a Trump skeptic, but as chairman of the Republican Reince Priebus. The Access Hollywood video- National Committee he had embraced Trump’s candidacy tape had just been released, showing the GOP with apparent enthusiasm. He was also one of Ryan’s best presidential nominee describing his approach friends, so the joint event would be a symbol of his efforts to Lto seducing and perhaps assaulting women. “You know I’m normalize Trump’s candidacy and rally the disparate wings automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing of the GOP behind the erratic billionaire. them,” Donald Trump said on the tape. “It’s like a magnet. But now all of Priebus’s friends and colleagues from Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let Wisconsin would have to stand on stage with their pussy- you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You grabbing nominee. It would be the photo-op from hell, a can do anything.” month before the general election. In the course of his campaign, Trump had insulted Despite our deepening political differences, Reince and POWs, women, disabled reporters, members of minority I had kept in touch throughout the campaign. At lunch in groups, and his opponents without derailing his candidacy. Milwaukee in September, we had talked about our lives But this felt like it might be different, and events were mov- after the election. He wanted to stay on as RNC chair to ing quickly. pick up the pieces before returning to law or perhaps a cable Trump was due to visit Wisconsin the next day for a television deal. I told him that I was writing a book; he said rally with Speaker Paul Ryan, their first joint appearance we should stay in touch because, unlike Trump’s campaign of the campaign. Relations between Trump and Ryan had staffers, he had never signed a nondisclosure agreement. been fraught, with the speaker accusing his party’s nomi- So that afternoon when the tape was released, I texted nee of “textbook racism” while Trump derided the speaker Priebus. He wasn’t going to allow Trump to drop a bomb on Wisconsin Republicans, was he? Charles J. Sykes is a contributing editor to The Weekly Priebus responded quickly: “I am the guy trying to fix Standard. This essay is adapted from a new, updated edition of this!” he texted. “I am in tears over this.”

his book How the Right Lost Its Mind (St. Martin’s). Within a few hours, Ryan withdrew the invitation to JASON REDMOND / AFP GETTY

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 29 Trump. For a moment, it seemed like a turning point. But it qualities as well. In January 2018, a Quinnipiac poll found wasn’t, or at least not in the way that I thought it would be. that the overwhelming majority of Americans—71 per- As we later learned, Priebus told Trump he should drop out cent of independent voters, 67 percent of male voters, and of the race (for which Trump never forgave him). Across the 68 percent of female voters—had come to the conclusion country Republicans rescinded their endorsements. Ryan that Trump was not setting a good example for children. announced he would no longer defend Trump. The one glaring exception? Seventy-two percent of Repub- But one by one, they drifted back. After Trump’s lican voters said they thought that Trump “is a good role improbable win, Priebus became White House chief of model for children.” Even after a year of juvenile taunts on staff. Ryan, who had so often expressed his disgust with Twitter, 82 percent of Republicans said that Trump shared Trump’s comments, became his most important ally in their values, and four out of five believed he “provides the Congress. A year after Trump’s election, Ryan declared: United Sates with moral leadership.” The percentage of “We’re with Trump. That’s a choice we made at the Republican voters who thought sexual misconduct by a beginning of the year. That’s a choice president was an important issue we made during the campaign; . . . we dropped from 70 percent during merged our agendas.” It is Trump’s party now, Bill Clinton’s presidency to just In retrospect, the Access Hollywood 25 percent under Trump’s. video foreshadowed the degree to marked not only by the Since Trump’s election, we which the right was willing to surren- GOP Congress’s rituals of have heard the same question again der its remaining principles and enable sycophantic abasement and again: What will it take? What many of Trump’s worst impulses. So but also by poll numbers has to happen for Republicans to it should not have come as a surprise suggesting the degree to break with their Mad King? The when the GOP stuck with Trump as he honest answer is: Who knows? became embroiled in a growing series which the conservative of scandals, fired the FBI director, and base has made itself NORMALIZING TRUMP tried to obstruct the special counsel’s over in Trump’s image. n early 2016, National Review investigation into his conduct. Nor In January, 72 percent of devoted an issue to essays should it have come as a surprise when Republican voters said I gathered under the head- evangelical Christian leaders gave the line “Against Trump.” By Feb- president a pass on reports he had an they thought that ruary 2018, the same magazine’s affair with a porn star and paid her Trump ‘is a good role cover featured a smiling President hush money. They were merely repris- model for children.’ Trump and the headline: “A Year ing the moral compromises they had of Achievement: The Case for the made during the campaign. Trump Presidency.” The right’s rolling acquiescence to Trump’s hostile Indeed, many Republicans insist that they support the takeover also foreshadowed the metamorphosis of the Trump agenda and policies, rather than the man. Tax cuts, conservative movement on issues ranging from personal they reasoned, were worth ignoring a few tweets, even the character and public ethics to fiscal conservatism, crony ugly ones. They convinced themselves that their cynicism capitalism, free trade, immigration, global leadership, and was savvy realism. There was uneasiness about his chaotic human rights. style, his management by humiliation, and his penchant In April 2018, Ryan, who had once been the party’s ris- for surrounding himself with a remarkable menagerie of ing conservative star, announced that he was stepping down misfit toys. But many conservatives rallied around Trump as speaker. “Ryan’s departure is not some kind of inflection in reaction to media bias and the hostility of his critics and point,” wrote Stephen Hayes, editor of this journal, “it is an opponents. Anti-anti-Trumpism has proven a powerful exclamation point.” glue among conservatives seeking a reason to stick with the It is Trump’s party now, marked not only by the GOP president; the more he is besieged, the tighter his support- Congress’s rituals of sycophantic abasement but also by ers cling to him and the deeper they dig in. poll numbers suggesting the degree to which the con- Other Republicans told themselves that if you squint servative base has made itself over in Trump’s image. In hard enough, Trump can look like a somewhat normal February 2018, in the wake of the passage of tax reform, Republican president who has delivered a series of conserva- 90 percent of Republican voters told Gallup pollsters they tive wins. Under Trump, they point out, the GOP has been approved of Trump’s performance. The approval of GOP able to pass sweeping tax reform, eliminate the individual voters seemed to extend beyond his policies to his personal mandate for health insurance, roll back the regulatory state,

30 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 toughen immigration enforcement, fund the military, and we have seen the degree to which conservative politics has install conservative judges throughout the federal judiciary, become not merely tribal but transactional. including, most notably, the Supreme Court. The stock Trump secured the GOP nomination with only a market has gone up, unemployment down. In any case, the minority of the primary votes. During the general election choice remains binary; whatever his flaws might be, Trump many conservatives voted for him reluctantly because they is still preferable to the ghastly alternative of Hillary Clin- saw the election as a binary choice. But the GOP submis- ton or the progressive left. sion since Trump’s election has a different feel: Now that In this telling, Trump’s lack of any fixed principles and it is in power, the Trumpian right often feels more like a invincible ignorance on policy means that he is an empty personality cult than a political movement. vessel that the establishment GOP can fill with many of its It is one thing to support tax cuts (a staple of GOP dearest objectives. “Trump has governed so far as more of politics for decades), quite another to cheer his attacks on a Republican and conservative than I expected,” National the special prosecutor, the Department of Justice, and the Review editor Rich Lowry wrote in 2017. FBI. The House Intelligence Committee became a vir- But claims that Trumpism had delivered major con- tual extension of the Trump White House, issuing reports servative wins were undermined by the GOP’s dramatic that sought to discredit findings of the intelligence com- abandonment of even the pretense of fiscal conservatism, munity about Russian interference in the election. The adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. Rather than Republican National Committee took the lead in attempts draining the swamp, they fully funded it. to discredit former FBI director James Comey even before In a series of votes on tax cuts and spending, Trump and the publication of his memoir, setting up a website with the the GOP Congress blew through spending caps imposed Trumpian title “Lyin’ Comey.” Of course, this had nothing during the Obama years. After Trump signed a massive to do with conservative principles or even making Amer- $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill in March 2018, econo- ica great again, but it has become the new normal for the mists estimated that it would add $2 trillion to the national GOP; Republicans have grown accustomed to the politics debt over the next decade. Within a decade, debt payments of rationalization and a daily diet of codswallop. alone could approach $1 trillion a year. The GOP’s aban- The president’s many rationalizers often insist that donment of fiscal prudence was followed by its retreat objections to Trump are merely matters of taste or style or from free trade. Trump threatened to derail the booming the president’s personality. But that is an obvious dodge economy and set off a trade war by imposing tens of bil- because Trump’s presidency is a reflection of his character lions of dollars of tariffs (taxes) on imports. Free-market and his judgment, and the consequences are substantive. conservatives denounced Trump’s protectionism, but again Trump did not adjust to the responsibilities of the presi- the GOP failed to push back in any meaningful way. This, dency, so conservatives adjusted to him. however, has been only part of the story. When Trump retweeted racist videos from a British fascist group, Republican leaders ignored it. As Trump’s WAS IT WORSE? lies became more flagrant, they shrugged. His conflicts of o has the Trump era turned out better or worse than I interest generated little attention, his juvenile taunts and expected? Back in May 2016, on what I’m pretty sure ignorance and indifference to policy hardly a blink. S was my last appearance ever on Fox News, I said: Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a caricature of law enforce- ment—living up to every stereotype of a lawless, brutal, Donald Trump is a serial liar, a con man who mocks the dis- racist cop who ignored fundamental rights and reveled abled and women. He’s a narcissist and a bully, a man with in calculated cruelty. When Trump used his presidential no fixed principles who has the vocabulary of an emotionally insecure 9-year-old. So no, I don’t want to give him control authority to pardon him, most Republicans shuffled their of the IRS, the FBI, and the nuclear codes. That’s just me. feet and changed the subject. Trumpists doubled down. In an appearance in Arizona in May 2018, Vice President Nothing that has happened since has changed my Mike Pence gave a shoutout to Arpaio, who was now run- opinion one bit. Even so, it has been worse than I thought, ning for the U.S. Senate, calling him “a great friend of this but not because of Trump. Nothing he has done as presi- president and tireless champion of strong borders and the dent should come as a surprise to anyone who paid atten- rule of law.” tion to his career or his campaign in 2015 and 2016. He is Early in his presidency Trump falsely accused Barack who we expected him to be; there was never going to be a Obama of ordering the wiretapping of Trump Tower and pivot. Conservatives have, unfortunately, been a different insisted that millions of illegal votes had denied him a story. The 2016 election dramatically highlighted the role victory in the popular vote. There was no evidence for of tribalism in American politics; but since the election either claim.

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 31 At the same time, he bullied critics, attacked and about issues. They want to know if you’re with Trump threatened the media, and used his office to enrich himself or not.’ ” Republican voters shifted so far that loyalty to and his family. Ushering in a new era of crony capitalism, Trump in the days after the release of the Access Holly- he rewarded his political allies while using his bully pulpit wood tape became a litmus test in GOP primary elections to vindictively attack successful businesses, like Amazon, in 2018. Campaign ads excoriated Republicans who had in part because its owner also owns the Washington Post, withdrawn their endorsements after the release of the tape. which has been critical of his presidency. Because the GOP has cast its lot so thoroughly with As the #MeToo movement gathered momentum, crit- Trump, he has succeeded in a remarkably short period in ics noted that he had been credibly accused of harassing moving the window of acceptability in our politics, espe- or assaulting women. His response has been to call them cially on the right. As a result, the rules of the game have liars and threaten to sue them. Throughout his first year changed in ways that are still hard to grasp, as conserva- in office, he stoked racial animosity by picking fights with tives accept behaviors and ideological shifts that would prominent African-Americans, including NFL players, have been unacceptable a few years ago. Although optimists and suggested that neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville continue to insist that our system of checks and balances is included many “fine people.” holding up well, many of our norms turn out to be based His refusal to sign the G7 summit’s final communiqué, on an honor system rather than hard and fast rules. And his repeated questioning of the value of NATO, his attacks when we no longer have honorable people in power, those on the European Union, and his disdain for traditional norms turn out to be more fragile that we had imagined. allies risk isolating the United States while undermin- Conservatives ought to have been alarmed by dema- ing the international order built up on a bipartisan basis gogic indifference to democratic norms, and to be sure, over more than seven decades. Trump’s bitter attacks on some were. But if anything, pressure to get on board the allies like Canada’s Justin Trudeau contrast sharply with Trump train has grown over time. While some commenta- his fawning praise of global thugs like North Korea’s Kim tors have tried to maintain their independence—mixing Jong-un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. criticism with praise—the tightrope has been treacher- Perhaps inspired by their example, he has repeat- ous. In conservative circles, the failure to go full #MAGA edly suggested prosecuting or jailing his political oppo- carries the risk of irrelevance and exile. Shortly before nents. In the weeks leading up to Trump’s first State of my book How the Right Lost Its Mind was published in the Union speech, the man who had begun his campaign the fall of 2017, I was fired by a conservative Wisconsin by lashing out at Mexican “rapists” derailed negotiations think tank for which I had edited a magazine for 27 years. over immigration reform by objecting to refugees from The group’s president, a longtime friend, had also been “shithole countries.” a Trump critic, but told me that I was no longer consis- There were dissenting voices, including former Pres- tent with their “brand.” Others paid a much stiffer price. ident George W. Bush and senators John McCain, Bob Friendships have ended and careers foundered. Corker, and Jeff Flake, but they found themselves rou- The consequences of the right’s capitulation are likely tinely derided by the loudest voices in the conservative to be far-reaching and of long duration. Tainted by asso- media. Flake took to the floor of the Senate to challenge ciation with Trump, Republicans are shedding support his colleagues. “We must never regard as ‘normal’ the reg- among young voters, who disapprove of the president by ular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and a margin of more than 40 points in one poll. For many ideals,” he said. Even though other Republicans shared of those voters, the face of conservatism will continue to Flake’s views, few were willing to speak out, and Flake’s be ignorant, bigoted, and cruel, and polls suggest that the decision not to seek reelection highlighted his isolation. right could face a generational political tsunami as a result. At the same time, Republicans are embracing hardline A TOTAL MAKEOVER immigration policies (travel bans, deportations, a wall) y any measure, the makeover was remarkable. and nativist rhetoric that alienate moderates and drive Until Trump, Republicans were members of a minority voters away from the party, perhaps for a genera- B party that insisted that character matters. But tion or more. goaded into a tribalism that treats ideas, facts, truth, and We do not yet know whether Trump’s presidency will basic decency as expendable, the GOP seems a party be farce or tragedy, but it is hard to imagine that it blanched of any fixed principles. “It’s more than strong; will end well. So this might be a good time to remember it’s tribal in nature,” Corker told the Washington Examiner. that in a Faustian bargain you can indeed get your heart’s “People who tell me, who are out on the trail, say, ‘Look, desire, only to find out that the price is far higher than people don’t ask about issues anymore. They don’t care you imagined. ♦

32 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 Pipeline Dreams Eastern Mediterranean gas creates new allies— and deepens old enmities

By John Psaropoulos These are just the latest in a spate of gas discoveries that are changing the strategic value of the eastern Medi- Athens terranean. The gas rush began in earnest in 2009 offshore n January 30, the deepwater drillship Israel, which has to date found about 35 trillion cubic feet Saipem 12000 sent its drill bit into a cav- of gas—enough to power the country for a century at cur- ern beneath one-and-a-quarter miles of rent rates of consumption. water and a mile of rock in the eastern This has satisfied a decades-long quest for energy Mediterranean. The Italian oil and gas security amid hostile neighbors—Israel now produces Ocompany Eni, which had contracted the ship, announced 60 percent of its electricity from its own gas—while also a week later that the cavern, called Calypso, was “an powering Israel’s regional diplomacy. It has already signed extended gas column,” containing an estimated six to agreements to sell gas to Jordan and Lebanon, which pre- eight trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The gas deposit lies viously relied on Egypt and Syria. Thanks to the speed under Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone—the area off a with which it is attracting investment, Israel has eclipsed country’s coast where it has sovereign rights to exploit, them as an exporter. manage, and conserve natural resources. Seismic studies The United States Geological Survey estimates that the suggest that the Calypso find is only a small fraction of the marine basin divided between Egypt, Cyprus, Israel, Leba- island’s future hydrocarbon wealth. non, and Syria may ultimately yield 350 trillion cubic feet of Meanwhile, ExxonMobil and the Qatar Petroleum gas and 3.5 billion barrels of oil. That’s enough to power the Company are embarking on their own exploratory drilling region for decades or the European Union for 20 years. It is off Cyprus’s southern shore in October. “We know the size this latter prospect—of exporting energy to a wealthy and of the structures and the possible hydrocarbons in them,” strategically important region—that is creating a new com- says geologist Konstantinos Nikolaou of the intended mercial and diplomatic alignment in the region. drill sites in an allotment called Block 10. “The sum of the deposits may amount to more than Zohr. . . . It is very BIRTH OF A PIPELINE promising,” he says. n the autumn of 2014, European Commissioner At 30 trillion cubic feet, Zohr is the eastern Mediter- Maros Sefcovic, responsible for the European Union’s ranean’s largest known gas deposit, discovered three years I energy security, met with the energy ministers of ago offshore Egypt. Egypt plans to be energy self-sufficient Israel, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy in Rome. The subject by the end of 2018, doing away with $3 billion a year in oil of the meeting was an aspirational project: a 1,200-mile and gas purchases. Similar deposits would make Cyprus pipeline that would convey gas from Israel and Cyprus, via not only self-sufficient, but an exporter. Greece and Italy, to the European market. Egypt and Cyprus are blessed with proximity to the The pipeline, dubbed East Med, was the brainchild of petroleum-rich Eratosthenes Seamount, now almost half Greek energy minister Yannis Maniatis. Greece’s Public a mile below sea level. Eight million years ago it was an Gas Corporation (DEPA) and Italy’s Edison had formed island surrounded by coral reefs. “These provided the bio- an alliance the previous summer to build it, but they matter that rotted and created the gas,” says Nikolaou. needed E.U. support. “The Israeli minister was due to speak before us,” John Psaropoulos is an independent journalist who has covered says Maniatis, recalling the occasion. “And he suddenly Greece and the Balkans since the fall of communism. He launched a verbal assault on the commissioner and the writes and broadcasts for, among others, the Daily Beast, the other Europeans present, saying, ‘I don’t understand why Washington Post, the American Scholar, and Al Jazeera you are not more actively promoting East Med, which will English. His blog is thenewathenian.com. convey natural gas from my country and Cyprus. Don’t

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 33 you want cheaper natural gas for your citizens?’ [Cypriot Stream pipeline, which would have carried Russian gas energy minister Yiorgos] Lakkotrypis and I looked at each across the Black Sea to Bulgaria. other, thinking that Israel had just emerged as our strong­ The supply disruptions of 2009 and the subsequent est ally. We had prepared a little speech of our own, but cancellation of Russian pipelines refocused E.U. efforts on we said nothing. We did not need to. Israel had just dis- creating a so-called Southern Corridor to transport gas to covered Leviathan, so we were effectively being supported Europe from the Shah Deniz field of Azerbaijan, through by the biggest gas supplier in the area.” Leviathan is the Turkey and Greece. Sponsored by a consortium of Euro- biggest of Israel’s gas fields, containing two-thirds of its pean oil giants, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP, has known reserves. now nearly completed a pipeline that will carry gas across Israel is a relative newcomer to hydrocarbons, but it is northern Greece to Italy, while a Turkish-Azeri consor- a pivotal player because its discoveries prompted the new tium is completing the Trans-Anatolian pipeline across explorations offshore Egypt and Cyprus. After a string of Turkey that will connect with TAP. The gas is on schedule Israeli discoveries in 2009-11, Egypt put up 15 offshore to start flowing in 2020. exploration zones for tender. And it was an American com- But Russia, which still supplies about 35 percent of E.U. pany operating in Israel, Noble Energy, that discovered gas, is proving hard to sideline. “Now gas production from Cyprus’s first offshore gas field, Aphrodite, in 2011. Shah Deniz I has fallen, and no one knows whether Shah Suddenly having found more gas reserves than they Deniz II will produce enough to make up the shortfall in could use domestically, Israel, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy its initial phase,” says Kostis Stambolis, executive direc- proposed creating a physical and diplomatic umbilical cord tor of the Institute for Energy for Southeast Europe. “The of sorts, to pump the East Med gas to the E.U. The proposal result is that TAP is now in advanced discussions with the could not have been more timely, because Europe’s main Russians about taking gas that the Russians want to send to source, North Sea gas, is beginning to dwindle, and Europe Europe. . . . So the whole European narrative about differen- had just rediscovered the dangers of reliance on Russia. tiating its gas supply—which was the point of the Southern Corridor—goes out the window.” RUSSIA’S LONG REACH Russia has meanwhile relaunched its canceled pipeline n January 2009, the political tensions between East across the Black Sea under the name TurkStream and is and West came to a head over Ukraine, which was then building it to Istanbul instead of Bulgaria. A sister pipeline, I seeking closer ties to the E.U. and the West. Ukraine’s TurkStream 2, is in the offing. DEPA and Edison may now and Russia’s state gas monopolies, Naftogaz Ukrainy and revive the idea of a second pipeline from Turkey to Italy, via Gazprom, played a game of brinkmanship over Naftogaz’s Greece, to complete the journey of TurkStream gas to West- payments for gas deliveries. On January 7, Gazprom shut off ern Europe. Events seem to be vindicating the Russians. supplies to Ukraine for a fortnight. “The vision was always that there will be enough gas The E.U. relies on Russia for a third of its gas, and discovered proximate to a corridor of three pipelines com- Ukraine is one of two transit countries for pipelines car- ing through Turkey, and that would constitute a supply rying Russian supplies. A complete cutoff had never hap- counterweight to Russian gas, and would happen by 2020,” pened since the building of the pipeline system in Soviet says Jonathan Stern, distinguished research fellow at the times, and it caught Europe unprepared. Domestic pro- Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Since that E.U. vision duction and deep reserves kept western Europe warm; but arose, however, Russia and Turkey have become close allies southeast Europe, lacking infrastructure and entirely reli- in Syria. Russia now supplies two-thirds of Turkey’s gas and ant on Russian gas, suffered industrial shutdowns and fro- is building Turkey’s first nuclear reactor. zen homes. Stern believes the Russian-Turkish energy alliance is The Ukraine crisis was a turning point in E.U.-Rus- going to prove durable, because it is based on hard-won sia relations. The European Commission sought to pun- experience in the region. “The Russians are very effective ish Gazprom for abusing its dominant position in the gas at making pipelines happen, and the Turks have found in market. In 2015, a three-year investigation found that this massive negotiation with everybody—the Iranians, Gazprom had contravened the E.U.’s free movement of the Iraqis, the Turkmens . . . —that you can negotiate with goods policy by prohibiting member states from reselling everyone, but the only ones who are going to deliver are the surplus gas to each other. Gazprom was forced to renego- Russians. Russians have got the gas, the finance, the part- tiate its contracts. Gazprom was also accused of making ners, and the desire to get these pipelines done, and every- exports to Bulgaria and Poland conditional on their allow- one else are basically time wasters.” ing new pipelines to be built across their territories. The The four countries backing East Med are thus hoping to E.U.’s actions against Gazprom effectively killed the South take advantage of waning European enthusiasm for Turkey

34 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 as an alternative to Russian gas. In their proposition, the it has also, in an Israeli bidding process, won the right to next major leg of the Southern Corridor would be entirely explore five smaller blocks, which remain unconnected E.U.-owned and would source its gas in or near the E.U. to any infrastructure and together could contain about “I’m not going to say [officials in Brussels] have given up on 5 trillion cubic feet of gas. “They may be smaller [than the Turkey as a transit route, but they’re less enthusiastic,” says major Israeli fields], but the new infrastructure would allow Stern. “They’re kind of caught between not wanting to take these structures to be commercially viable.” Russian gas and saying, ‘If we’ve got to take Russian gas . . . The head of Greece’s exploration licensing body, Hel- then we’d rather take it through an E.U. country where we lenic Hydrocarbon Resources Management, believes that an have more control.’ ” E.U. subsidy will be an easy sell given the pipeline’s politi- cal importance. “We’ll raise the price of gas a few cents, and COMMERCE VERSUS GEOPOLITICS we won’t even feel it. That’s how it’ll work. That’s how it ot everyone is convinced that bringing East Med always works,” says Yannis Bassias. gas to the E.U. is viable in purely commercial The E.U. seems to be seriously considering the project. N terms. “Unless considerable additional quanti- In 2013 it listed East Med as a Project of Common Inter- ties of gas are found in the eastern Mediter- ranean . . . I don’t think that this pipeline is commercially feasible,” says Sir Michael The Proposed Leigh, who runs a program on the implica- East Med Pipeline tions of eastern Mediterranean gas discov- Approximate distances A–B: 55 km E–F: 430 km eries at the German Marshall Fund. B–C: 675 km F–G: 150 km C–D: 205 km H-B: 235 km Gina Cohen, a university lecturer and D-E: 130 km consultant in the East Med gas market, ITALY G agrees. “Such a pipeline between Israel F TURKEY and Italy would be 2,000 kilometers long and would have to be laid in extreme GREECE LEBANON depths of over 3,000 meters of water, espe- E CYPRUS A cially between Crete and mainland Greece. D C The project would need to have four land- B Mediterranean Sea H falls and at least three compressors, all add- ISRAEL ing to complexity and costs.”

Cohen estimates the pipeline’s cost at LIBYA $10 billion, which would put Mediterra- EGYPT nean gas at a higher retail price than Gaz- prom’s. “For the project to be viable, the E.U. would have to est, one possibly worthy of E.U. funding. Two years later, provide billions of dollars of subsidies,” she says. it put two million euros into a pre-flow study, and this year Key players, however, see those subsidies as legiti- approved 34.5 million euros to help draft a detailed marine mate. “It’s not enough to see [East Med] as a commercial survey of the route the pipeline would follow on the seafloor project that will sell at prices comparable to Gazprom,” and an engineering design study. says Mathios Rigas, who formed Energean in 2007 for the DEPA, which has drafted the only existing feasibility express purpose of extracting Eastern Mediterranean gas. study, insists that “East Med is technically viable, commer- The Russian state monopoly “is producing on land using cially competitive, and economically feasible,” although it existing infrastructure,” he explains. “Someone starting out won’t say at what gas price these things hold true. Kostas now at depths of two to three kilometers will never be able Karayannakos, its executive director of gas supply, consid- to compete with that.” ers it “slightly more attractive” than piping the gas through Instead, he sees East Med very much like the inter- Turkey or liquefying and shipping it. state highway system—an “entirely necessary” public-pri- The key attraction of East Med is stability. It would be vate investment that causes private enterprise to spring up a risk-free, intra-E.U. route carrying committed volumes of alongside it. “The installation of pipelines allows companies gas to Europe for a quarter-century. Europe would in turn like ours to seek opportunities,” he says. Energean is build- be a reliable client, in contrast to cash-poor regional econo- ing the eastern Mediterranean’s only floating production, mies. “We used to seek out investors in East Med. Now they storage, and offloading platform as part of a massive invest- are seeking us out,” Karayannakos says.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD THE WEEKLY ment in two large Israeli gas fields, Karish and Tanin. But For Karayannakos, the pipeline brings tremendous

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 35 geopolitical advantages, rendering Greece “the E.U.’s Northern Cyprus, proclaimed in 1983, remains an interna- ‘bridge’ to the important resources of the Levantine while tionally unrecognized entity, and the ongoing occupation it is already Europe’s ‘gateway’ for Caspian gas,” making isolates Turkey diplomatically. Greece “an integral part of Europe’s energy security chain” The Cypriot government says it will share its min- and “ending the isolation of Cyprus.” The combined flows eral wealth with the Turkish-Cypriots in the north after a of TAP and East Med would make Greece the conveyor of reunification deal is struck. Concerned that this increases 6 percent of the gas the E.U. consumes. Cypriot leverage, Turkey insists on the wealth being shared now. To press the point home, Turkey has announced that TURKEY’S REACTION it will send its government-owned drillship, the Barbaros t is precisely this vision—of a pipeline that circum- Hayreddin Pasa, to explore for gas in Cyprus’s exclusive vents its exclusive economic zone, turns Cypriot energy economic zone. I interests into European energy interests, elevates the Turkey is something of an exception in the region. importance of Greece in the E.U., and offers Greece and Egypt, Israel, and Cyprus defined their exclusive economic Cyprus a leading role in the E.U.’s relations with the Mid- zones early this century. They ratified these bilateral agree- dle East—that concerns Turkey. Its displeasure has already ments, sold concessions to major oil companies, and found caused one high-seas standoff. gas. Israel and Egypt are already extracting it. On February 9, shortly after discovering Calypso, the Turkey is the only country in the eastern Mediterranean Saipem 12000 drillship homed in on a body of water east that has so far found no proven and probable resources even of Cyprus known as Block 3, where Eni also has explora- though, in Syrigos’s estimate, it has spent at least $560 mil- tion rights. Its intention was to bore a hole into a deposit lion on acquiring two seismographic research vessels and known as the Cuttlefish prospect. It never reached its a drillship. It is also the only country that hasn’t defined intended coordinates. Five Turkish navy frigates blocked its exclusive economic zone with neighbors, and disputes its path. The drillship trod water until February 23, when theirs. In 2004, Turkey suggested drawing a line midway it attempted to circumnavigate the blockade. One of the between its coast and Egypt’s, riding roughshod over the frigates threatened to ram it. The drillship turned and rights of the countries in between. Egypt politely refused. sailed for Morocco. During the same period, a Turkish In 2011, Turkey agreed on an exclusive economic zone coast guard vessel rammed a Greek one in the Aegean—an (EEZ) with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The unprecedented event many analysts attribute to the discov- zone claimed by the TRNC sits almost exactly on top of ery of Calypso. the zone the Republic of Cyprus had already settled on with Since the discovery of Calypso, “alarm bells have been its neighbors to the east. The zone claimed by Turkey sits on going off in Turkey, and officials have been saying, ‘the top of much of the zone Cyprus has agreed on with Egypt

Greeks are going to take advantage of this situation,’ ” says to the south. On the same day this agreement was signed, the Angelos Syrigos, associate professor of international law TRNC signed over the rights in its zone to the Turkish state and foreign policy at Panteion University in Athens. “Tur- petroleum company, thus pitting Cyprus directly against key has made a big investment since 2000 in becoming the Turkey in virtually all its hydrocarbon explorations. basic conveyor of gas to Europe, and to a great extent it has “Turkey’s problem is that it sees that it has been left out succeeded. . . . The discovery of new deposits in the Eastern of the bonanza, because all the interesting areas lie outside Mediterranean threatens this position. . . . But [Turkey’s] its territorial waters and EEZ,” says energy expert Stam- main concern—and where it faces a strategic threat—is bolis. “It’s trying to create problems for Cyprus because its that [the energy deposits] could alter the given situation in only hope is to take something from Cyprus. . . . So it’s very Cyprus ahead of a solution” to reunify the island. irritable right now.” Two decades of talks have so far failed to reunify Cyprus, The Southern Corridor is bound to give both Greece divided by a Turkish invasion in 1974. A Greek attempt to and Turkey added importance to the European Union, and overthrow the government in Nicosia that year led Turkey that creates a common interest; but in Cyprus their inter- to believe that the island’s union with Greece was imminent ests clash, and it will be up to their allies to help bridge dif- and that under such an arrangement Turkish-Cypriots would ferences. Regional governments are pushing for East Med, have no guarantee of political equality. Since then, Turkey and the size of deposits may eventually advocate in its favor. has maintained an occupying force of almost 40,000 troops This makes East Med a political as much as a commer- on the island and supplanted much of the original Turkish- cial project. “If the E.U. and the four governments [Israel, Cypriot population with settlers from the mainland who are Cyprus, Greece, Italy] are aligned behind it, it can find more sympathetic to Ankara’s vision of maintaining strate- financing,” says Energean’s Rigas. “There will be more dis- gic depth in the Mediterranean. The Turkish Republic of coveries in the region. We’re still at the beginning.” ♦

36 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 Books&Arts

Jeanine Pirro—Fox News host and booster of President Trump—takes a selfie with his son Eric and her bestselling book.

The Groaning Shelves

We read Trump-era bestsellers so you don’t have to. by Andrew Ferguson

seldom look at the New York the book-publishing industry the way tended by a man who is both the chief Times bestseller list, and when I he has swallowed up everything else. consumer and most notable creation of glanced at it a couple of months I bought all six, along with another by MSNBC, CNN, and, preeminently, Fox. ago I remembered why. Aside Ann Coulter, whose new book about Ifrom a pop-science book by the astron- Trump has failed to make the list. I like omer Neil deGrasse Tyson, there wasn’t Ann and she looked lonely. 1. THE VILLAIN anything on it I would want to read, Once upon a time, it was common hen I got home with my big, ever. I paged through the top 10 on for TV shows, their plots and stories, W very heavy bag from Barnes the bestseller shelf at my local Barnes to be spun off from books. Today books & Noble, I started at the top with that & Noble. There was a memoir by a are just as likely to be spun off from week’s number-one seller, Unhinged: writer in her thirties about her long TV shows. This is particularly true of An Insider’s Account of the Trump White struggle to do something worth writ- political books, which follow the pro- House. The nominal author, Omarosa ing a memoir about; a plump sermon tocols laid down by the chat’n’grunt Manigault Newman, acquired what on national piety called, of course, The fare of cable news. The book buyers are fame she has—she thinks it rivals Soul of America; a book about opioids. mainly TV watchers, and the books they Trump’s, others disagree—on the first And six books about Donald Trump. buy are meant to be rewarding in the season of Trump’s own reality show, Evidently Trump has swallowed up way they must find cable news reward- The Apprentice. She was cast as a selfish, ing: They’re fast-paced, personal, one- unscrupulous knife-fighter. From the Andrew Ferguson is a national correspondent sided, exaggerated, confident, dubious. book it’s clear the producers knew what

at The Weekly Standard. They are well suited for an era superin- they were doing. ROB RICH / WENN.COM ALAMY

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 37 Omarosa (she prefers the solo name, merizing. There’s a reason her first train, her answer, she says, was always like Napoleon and Cher) stayed in book was titled The Bitch Switch. the same: “Trumpworld needed me and touch with Trump over the years, trying She says she’s a lot like Trump, and I didn’t want to let them, or the nation, to stoke her fading fame with appear- it shows in the vanity, the thin skin, down.” She was blocked from the posi- ances on syndicated afternoon talk the relentless quest to settle scores. tion she craved, director of communica- shows and more reality TV. She calls Her treatment of Betsy DeVos, to cite tions. Reince Priebus slow-walked and her relationship with Trump “symbi- one instance, is brutal. She insists her double-talked her, but Omarosa soon otic”; I think she means to say “para- differences with the secretary of edu- discovered the real saboteur: Paula sitic.” Many of her post-Apprentice jobs cation were matters of principle. The White, the freelance pastor who is often were connected in some way to Trump, alert reader will find a more compel- described as the president’s “spiritual including a stint as “West Coast edi- adviser,” which must be something tor” of the company that owns the like Trumpworld’s version of the National Enquirer. Trump arranged a Maytag repairman. backroom deal for her to get the job White, it turns out, wanted to when she agreed to drop a lawsuit install her own candidate in the com- against the company. Seeing the work munications job. This calls for one of the Enquirer up close, she takes of Omarosa’s drive-by insinuations: the line of Captain Renault in Casa- “I could not stop myself from con- blanca. “I’m stunned”—stunned!— templating whether her position as “that I was involved in this kind of his spiritual advisor had ever been shady dealing.” missionary.” In time Omarosa settles As a liberal Democrat, Omarosa for another job as White House liai- was originally for Hillary Clinton son to the African-American com- as the 2016 campaign approached. munity—one thinks again of the She volunteered to raise money for Maytag repairman—and she recon- Clinton’s campaign. “As a celebrity ciles with White after what Omarosa my networks were vast.” But Clinton calls a come-to-Jesus meeting. The proved herself unfit for high office heart hiccups at the very thought of in mid-2015 when her campaign a come-to-Jesus meeting with Oma- declined to hire Omarosa as an out- rosa. Jesus wouldn’t come to a come- reach director to African-Ameri- to-Jesus meeting with Omarosa. cans. Clinton, you’ll remember, lost. She takes her place in the new There’s a lesson in there somewhere. administration. “As soon as I took Trump hired Omarosa and—nota my seat at my desk,” she writes, “I . . . bene—won. In her book, she spends was filled with awe at the magnitude too much time on the 2016 cam- of the responsibility of running the paign, rehashing events that will be government. What I would do from familiar to anyone unlucky enough this desk, and beyond it, would to have been alive at the time. Much impact many lives and make a differ- of what she thinks will be news to her Omarosa met Donald Trump on The Apprentice ence for families.” It didn’t work out readers, isn’t. She thinks she’s the and worked in his White House in 2017. that way, of course. Trump never did first one to discover that the pivotal let her run the government. Instead moment in Trump’s decision to run ling motive in the time DeVos’s trav- he used her as a kind of cowcatcher on for president was President Obama’s eling entourage stranded Omarosa at the Trump train, pushing aside nettle- pitiless mockery of him at the White their hotel because she was late. They some African-American critics when- House Correspondents’ Association told her to call an Uber. Nobody tells ever they appeared, as Trump huddled dinner in 2011—a theory that’s as com- Omarosa to call an Uber. As a conse- in the caboose. “Don’t leave me alone mon as dirt. There’s a “Yuh think?” quence, DeVos’s educational reforms with these people,” she says he whis- observation every few pages. She sus- will destroy the nation’s schools. “Be pered when she escorted him into a pects Dennis Rodman, an Apprentice afraid,” Omarosa tells America’s par- room with a group of pastors. Soon her costar, is high a lot of the time. Gary ents. “Be very, very afraid.” bands of loyalty began to fray, and when Busey has poor hygiene. “Donald was After the election, Omarosa lobbied John Kelly fired her not long after he not a student of history.” for a high-ranking White House job. became chief of staff, they snapped alto- These are minor shortcomings. Already she was beginning to suspect gether. At once her eyes were opened to Unhinged is otherwise pure pleasure. Trump was a lying racist—the evi- the Trump reality. The impress of Omarosa’s personal- dence piled up pretty quick—but when If Kelly hadn’t fired her, or if she’d

ity on the page is indelible and mes- friends asked why she didn’t hop off the left the White House under her own RW / MEDIA PUNCH ALAMY LIVE NEWS

38 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 steam with a suitable bon voyage party Three; probably not. In any case, she using the second-person pronoun. and a presidential pinch, this book misses the steady hand of Valerie Fran- Readers will wonder why she’s address- wouldn’t exist; or rather, it would be a kel. Her honor gets off to a rocky start ing them this way—and then they’ll much different book, and a much lesser and never quite recovers. “We know realize she’s decided to talk directly one. Unhinged is such a pleasure to what the liberal media think of Trump to Michelle Obama or Hillary Clin- read because it is unashamedly, thrill- voters,” she writes on page 2. “They’re ton or Meryl Streep or Robert De Niro ingly vindictive. Yes, she makes feints deplorables, idiots, rednecks, and peo- or any of several other people who here and there toward principle and ple who cling to God, guns, and reli- would rather be waterboarded than policy, as in her demolition of DeVos, gion. To those charges, I plead guilty— pick up her book and read it. “Meryl, but Omarosa isn’t really here to argue guilty and proud!” you say you didn’t know about Har- income inequality or abortion rights; Having pleaded guilty to being an vey [Weinstein]’s predatory behavior. she’s here for character assassina- idiot, she then proceeds to present her Really?” She can’t wait for an answer tion. The cartoon villain Omarosa has evidence—14 chapters’ worth, most because De Niro has come into view. played since The Apprentice comes viv- of them seething with alliteration: “Bobby, I think you’re taking your roles idly alive. For this we have to credit the “Lying and Leaking to Fix an Elec- too seriously.” Whoops, here’s Hillary. consummate skill of her ghostwriter, tion,” “Lying Liberal RINOS,” and so “Hillary, could it be you said nothing a have-pen-will-travel veteran named because you have experience with pedo- Valerie Frankel. In her epic acknowl- philes?” Then she collars Michelle and edgments—Omarosa seems to thank Judge Jeanine Pirro gives her a tongue-lashing about femi- everyone except the lumberjacks who believes, as so many nist hypocrisy. chopped down the trees to make the It’s terribly unnerving, like eaves- paper—she commends Frankel for Trump supporters do, dropping on a schizoid outside the helping her relive the “painful subject that there is a thing subway shouting at the people inside matter” of her time in Trumpworld. his head. “I don’t know about you,” she Pain? I’m not buying it. I bet she loved called ‘the media.’ writes in summary, meaning you the every minute of it. Treating the media reader, “but I’ve had it with all of them” meaning them her imaginary enemies. as a unitary object Them includes “the media” too, who 2. THE JUDGE are the foot soldiers of the anti-Trump mong the many figures Valerie can be a convenient conspiracy she mentions in her subtitle. A Frankel has served as wordsmith shorthand but it can also The judge believes, as so many Trump are Ivana Trump (Raising Trump), Jersey supporters do, that there is a thing Shore’s Snooki Polizzi (Baby Bumps), make you sound dumb. called “the media,” much in the way and Fox News’s “Judge” Jeanine Pirro that economists believe there is a thing (He Killed Them All). As it happened, on. When any of those titular words called “the economy” or environmen- the next bestseller from my B&N grab appears in the text, it is capitalized for talists talk about the thing called “the bag was Judge Pirro’s Liars, Leakers, and emphasis. “LIAR Obama liked what he environment.” If there weren’t such Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump saw in LIAR Brennan.” “LIBERALS, a thing, if there weren’t this unitary Conspiracy. For a couple decades now, you have a decision to make.” However object to concentrate on, they wouldn’t the judge has been, as Trump once was, questionable her legal skill, this judge have much reason to get out of bed in a third-tier demi-celebrity in her native knows from branding. the morning. New York, where standards for celebrity The book is marred by various sty- In truth, there are all kinds of are notably lax. She has fallen in and listic tricks that I believe are meant to media—print, digital, radio, TV, unfor- out of politics, in and out of TV. The make her sound as frightening as she tunately Twitter—and there are many “Judge” appellation used in the name looks in the cover photo. This too is ideological shades within those media: of her TV show and emblazoned on the branding. The judge’s ex-husband law- liberal, left-wing, conservative, right- cover of her book refers to her two years yered some of Trump’s real estate deals, wing, even moderate. It’s a gorgeous as an elected judge on the Westchester and she had Thanksgiving dinner at mosaic! In the current usage, however, County Court a quarter-century ago. Mar-a-Lago, so she claims a special “the media” is just a term for any per- For the moment she anchors a weekend intimacy with her leonine, lubricious son we encounter in print or on TV show with Fox, which her publisher has LEADER. She’s taken on the cadences or NPR that we find objectionable. now ­re-created in book form. of his speech, and her arguments have Treating the media as a thing can be a Given the alliterative scheme of her the meandering quality we expect convenient shorthand but it can also title, it’s a mystery why Judge Jeanine from the president. make you sound dumb. The judge has a didn’t include another of the presi- So there we are, just reading along, news talk show on a news network sur- dent’s favorite epithets, Losers. Maybe minding our own business, when sud- rounded by dozens of journalists who she decided not to violate the Rule of denly, out of nowhere, she falls into think the way she does, but you can be

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 39 sure when they trash the media they’re for the hardworking, forgotten men ory hole (they need a pretty big hole). not looking in the mirror. and women. . . . He reignited the flame Some of Trump’s behavior is so indefen- Distinctions are not helpful in a of liberty . . . a man whose views were sible that even his fans prefer to forget it. made-for-TV book, so she avoids them. most like the moral vision of the fram- At least they recognize it as despicable. It’s certainly true you could throw a ers of the Constitution—a man whose So we’ve got that going for us. brick through the newsroom of the philosophy was based not on politics, New York Times or NPR—who hasn’t but reason.” been tested in this way?—and never Pirro’s little lies and omissions are 3. THE CONSULTANT hit a Republican, except maybe the IT instructive. She praises Trump’s perfor- uess who I found lying under- guy. And you’d have a fair chance of mance and his “epic destruction” of Jeb Gneath Jeanine Pirro in my book knocking off several social justice war- Bush at a pivotal debate in 2016. “Can bag? Rick Wilson. He’s a frequent con- riors moonlighting as editors or report- you imagine any other Republican— tributor to MSNBC and a longtime ers. But distinctions must be made. A Republican political consultant. He’s careful and responsible reporter like also a prominent member of the Never Maggie Haberman at the Times or Rick Wilson seems Trump movement, which holds its reg- John Dickerson at CBS should not get much more comfortable ular meetings in the spare bedroom at tossed in with a much less responsible Evan McMullin’s house. Wilson’s book reporter like Philip Bump at the Wash- with liberal cant than is called Everything Trump Touches Dies. ington Post, who is nevertheless a great conservative cant. His With my own Never Trump sympa- improvement over the hysterical show- thies, I wanted very much to like it. But boat Jim Acosta at CNN, who, hard to sources range from the author kept getting in the way. believe, is superior to a frothing young- Nicholas Kristof and Like the judge, Wilson lets his read- ster at ThinkProgress. This myth of ers know right from the start that he’s the unitary media is irresistible because Michael Wolff on the one tough hombre. How tough? it allows you such wide latitude. Pirro left to Vogue and “Sure, I want to save the Repub- says that the “media” don’t give Trump lic from Trump and Trumpism,” he a fair shake, which is 90 percent true the Huffington Post writes in the introduction, “but I don’t if you’re talking about the editors and mind telling members of my party to reporters of the liberal media. Then she on the left. f— themselves on the way there. . . . says the “media” routinely make fun of I’m not some hand-wringing do- Trump’s 12-year-old son, which is not any other politician—having the balls gooder, and if you’ve fought either by true at all unless you’re talking about a to say the Iraq war was a colossal mis- my side or against me, you know I’m commenter at the Huffington Post. take in front of a hostile crowd in South down to scrap.” Worse, she doesn’t have the cour- Carolina?” In fact, Trump went much Pretty goddamn tough. age of her anti-media convictions. Her further. “We should have never have When he stops strutting, Wilson chapter on the LYING RINOS goes been in Iraq,” he said that night. “They writes with the zippy, rat-a-tat-tat pat- after Paul Ryan and Mitch McCon- lied, they said there were weapons of ter of a first-rate adman—a political nell for sucking up to the LYING mass destruction. There were none adman, at that. Political consultants media. She gets all her facts lined up and they knew that there were none.” tend to be vastly entertaining talkers. and commences firing. The chapter Which is effectively an accusation that His tone is slangy, sarcastic, and abu- has 20 footnotes. Sixteen of them rely George W. Bush and his advisers are sive, and he manages to keep it going on articles in the Times, the Washing- guilty of monstrous crimes—mass mur- for the entire book even though you ton Post, Time magazine, CNN, USA der and treason, just for starters. Now wish he wouldn’t. Imagine a “lightning Today, etc. I’m not sure she’s even pay- that’s balls. Judge Jeanine doesn’t quote round” of cable-news pundits that lasts ing attention. “The Fake News,” she this or any of a hundred other examples for six hours, without a tape delay to writes in disgust, “won’t tell you much of Trump’s verbal incontinence. In a bleep the bad words. Wilson is over- about the amazing women who hold pro-Trump TV book, you’ll never find fond of the word “f—.” His enemies senior positions in the Trump admin- mention of his famous dismissal of aren’t just insufferable; they’re “utterly istration.” She then lists Nikki Haley, John McCain’s heroism or of his insults f—ing insufferable.” Also, he needs to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Betsy DeVos, to a Gold Star family. find a synonym for “shitty,” another of Gina Haspel . . . all of them victims of a But they don’t call me Little Mary his go-to descriptors. (I suggest crapu- shameful media blackout. Sunshine for nothing; my unconquer- lent because it looks the part. It’s not LLL is a work of anger but also adu- able optimism leads me always to see a synonym for shitty but none of his lation. “As a Christian,” she writes of the bright side. It is indeed reassuring readers will check.) In fact, he needs Trump, “he took on those who made that Trump supporters like our judge to steer clear of that anatomical region believers uncomfortable for stating have let these repulsive episodes and altogether. We think of the author and their Judeo-Christian beliefs. He stood others like them slide down the mem- not Stephen Miller when he writes that

40 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 a nonplussed Miller, a Trump staffer, and “purge America of the brown peo- Trumpers do the cause no favor by pre- looked like he was going “to crap out ple.” “Not every Trump supporter is a tending this isn’t so. a kitten.” (We don’t think of the kit- racist,” he concedes. “However, every Tu quoque isn’t exactly a logical fal- ten either.) Freud taught us we would racist . . . is a Trump supporter.” Just so. lacy, though the people who use it in outgrow the anal stage of psychosexual And not every liberal calls the immigra- argument—which includes every polit- development by the age of 3. Freud was tion ban a “Muslim ban,” but everyone ical partisan today—think it amounts wrong about a lot of things. who calls the immigration ban a “Mus- to one. Really, it’s more a rhetorical Wilson says he’s criticizing Trump lim ban” is a liberal. trick. Veterans of the schoolyard wars from the right, and I think this is As with Judge Jeanine, the inten- remember the clever retort: “I know mostly true, but he also shows signs, sity of Wilson’s hatred pushes him into you are but what am I?” Lately it’s been like many Never Trumpers, of march- errors of fact and logic. It’s simply not referred to as “whataboutism.” It comes ing right past anti-Trumpism on into true that Paul Ryan will “defend any in handy as Republicans and Demo- crats switch places on issue after issue: the importance of character in poli- tics, the probity of the FBI, the value of special counsels, the evil of govern- ment debt and overspending, the geo- political ambitions of Russia, the need for civility, and on and on. Wilson devotes many pages to trying to trap Trump voters in his tu quoque. They hated Barack Obama’s cult-like fol- lowing, but what about their own Trump cult? They hated Obama’s “empty promises” about job creation in the solar industry, but what about Trump’s empty promises about job creation in the coal industry? They hated Obama’s Ivy League credentialism but love Trump’s boasting about his Wharton degree. Too true! But so what? Nearly every tu quoque can be easily reversed: Liberals Republican consultant Rick Wilson at Washington’s Politics and Prose bookstore were awed by Obama’s elite education and mock Trump’s degree from Whar- anti-conservatism. The sheer size of outrage” from Trump. He says Ted ton. They mock the Trump cult while his contempt for Trump voters, not Cruz “responded meekly” when Trump gazing adoringly at the official portraits merely Trump, forces him in that direc- insulted his wife and slandered his of Barack and Michelle. Whataboutism tion. When he writes that “MAGA-hat father. That’s not true either. He thinks doesn’t get us anywhere. It’s not argu- fans” “revile” elites, he feels compelled “the GOP is the party of big govern- ment, it’s self-pleasuring. to add: “ ‘Revile’ means hate. Sorry. I ment, and it’s all Trump’s fault.” Alas, I wonder if either Wilson or the judge, know you’re in an oxy stupor much of Trump arrived rather late to that party: the Never Trumper and the Forever the time, so I’ll try to move slowly and So far as I know, Fred Barnes coined the Trumper, see any of the other in them- not use big words.” So I guess crapulent term “big government conservative” to selves, assuming they give one another is out too. describe Jack Kemp and his allies in the any thought at all. You wouldn’t have One clue to his ideological direction late 1980s, and he didn’t mean it as an to worry about seating them side by is that he seems much more comfort- insult. A decade later, Robert Novak side at your dinner party. They could able with liberal cant than conservative accused the Republican congressional discuss how much they hate Paul Ryan cant. Wilson’s sources, to judge by his leadership of big government conser- for being a sellout; after an hour or so footnotes, range from Nicholas Kristof vatism, and he did mean it as an insult. of that they could start in on the sell- and Michael Wolff on the left to Vogue The administration of George W. Bush out Mitch McConnell—indeed the and the Huffington Post on the left. And was big government conservatism par entire Republican “establishment,” so: The Republican tax bill last year excellence. In fact, most of Trump’s they both believe, has relinquished the was a sop to the rich; Trump’s ban on agenda, from environmental deregu- right to call itself Republican. Wilson immigration from a handful of major- lation to education policy, is far less thinks he’s the real Republican around ity-Muslim countries was a “Muslim statist and more respectful of liberty here; the judge believes she and her fel- ban”; Trumpers are trying to suppress than Bush’s self-described compassion- low Forever Trumpers are the vessel of

VIA C-SPAN the free speech rights of NFL players ate conservatism could ever be. Never true Republicanism.

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 41 Another trait they have in com- era “ascent of man” charts that would tion of families, and the . . . um . . . slav- mon is that they’re both wrong about trace the evolution of humanity in ery. From its slave-owning founder, this. If the last 30 years have taught us silhouette, from chimp to knuckle- Thomas Jefferson, to the identity politi- anything, it is that there is no ideologi- dragging Neanderthal to club-wielding cian Barack Obama, the political blood- cal core around which the Republican caveman to, at the final phase, a Victo- lines of the Democratic party remain party revolves. There is no real Republi- rian gentleman with splendid posture. unbroken, having survived the Civil can. There’s just Republicans, corralled The chart was meant to demonstrate War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Brown together for reasons they’re increasingly scientifically that all human history v. Board of Education, and the civil rights uncertain about. The chief thing that had reached its perfection in the peo- era. “Racism,” D’Souza writes, “is the holds each party together is contempt ple who invented the chart. D’Souza’s defining characteristic of progressives for the opposite team. And many Never chart would show the chimp and the and the Democratic party.” Trumpers are losing even this bind- Neanderthal and the caveman evolving For D’Souza’s target audience this ing glue of ill will for the other is a deeply satisfying thesis, party—understandably, I guess, and there’s enough truth in it since they and Democrats share to allow Republicans the same a common enemy. Wilson wan- holier-than-thou preening they ders off into several digressions find so utterly f—ing insuffer- about the political ineptitude able in Democrats. And it’s a and overreaching of his former common theme in works of adversaries, but these read like right-wing revisionism like fraternal criticisms. He insults The Politically Incorrect Guide to Trump Republicans with a zest, American History. But if you’re bordering sometimes on cru- crazy enough to jump down elty, that he would never direct the rabbit hole of his footnotes, against any Democrat, no mat- you’ll see that D’Souza’s appar- ter how bovine or credulous. ently fastidious method covers a lot of hedging, speculation, and misinterpretation. 4. THE HISTORIAN To take one small example: artisan animus is the start- Lyndon Johnson is a pivotal P ing point, the very foun- figure in D’Souza’s tale. John- dation, for Dinesh D’Souza’s son, he writes, “is a man who, fascinating Death of a Nation: according to a memo filed by Plantation Politics and the Mak- FBI agent William Branigan, ing of the Democratic Party. It’s seems to have been in the Ku a Trump book that’s more Klux Klan.” He was? “This than a book about Trump and, Dinesh D’Souza and his wife Debbie at the premiere of memo was only revealed in among my pile of bestsellers, Death of a Nation, the film version of his latest bestseller recent months, with the release all the more refreshing because of the JFK Files. Progressive of it. into a tall, well-fed figure with Dream- media . . . have largely ignored it, trying D’Souza wants to usher his read- sicle hair, wearing an unbuttoned suit to pretend it does not exist. Branigan ers through American political history coat and long tie. We have, in other cites a source with direct knowledge.” from the origin of our political parties words, arrived. D’Souza then treats LBJ’s Klan mem- to the present moment. Much of his his- D’Souza’s tone is all business: sol- bership as settled fact and a building tory is accurate and well-told. D’Souza emn and pedantic and ostentatiously block in his case against the Democrats. may revile—it means “hate”—progres- careful. The plantation politics of the I’ve got to side with the progres- sives, with their fantasy of history’s subtitle is a nearly 200-year-old strategy sive media on this one. The FBI memo inevitable upward march to utopia. But of the Democratic party to maintain the that D’Souza is using to misinform his his own view of American history also power of its elite by keeping the lower readers was written in early 1964. It was shows a steady direction and end point: classes, particularly black people, doc- released last year in the (presumably) It climaxes with the appearance of ile and dependent. A few things have final dump of government documents Donald Trump on the world-historical changed since the antebellum South, about the Kennedy assassination. It stage and the subsequent vanquishing he acknowledges. The welfare state is is a piece of raw intelligence, unveri- of the Democratic party and its “planta- the new plantation; identity politics fied, repeated with no assessment of its tion politics.” and government handouts are the new credibility. Branigan, the FBI agent, His argument—and it is an argu- slavery, albeit without the violence, the writes that a “confidential informant”

ment—reminds me of those Victorian- degrading labor, the enforced separa- told him that the editor of a magazine GREG DOHERTY / GETTY

42 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 published by the Citizens’ Council of ism. History is full of little ironies. Unger is on the other team. His House Louisiana, himself a Klan member, had A dark and sinister story, yes, but of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold told the informant that he, the editor, as an experienced marketer, D’Souza Story of Donald Trump and the Russian had seen documented proof that John- knows the value of a happy ending. A Mafia is built on the assumption that son was a member in the 1930s. new Lincoln, he tells his readers, by Trump is guilty as charged, whatever No proof was provided. Even the way of bucking them up, has come to the charge is. website D’Souza cites as his source for rescue Republicans. The similarities The books are premature, to state this damning nugget, thehayride.com, between the two men are eerie indeed. the obvious. Nobody but Mueller and says the claim of Johnson’s Klan mem- “Trump, like Lincoln”—when a sen- his associates knows what information bership amounts to nothing more than tence starts like that, you’ve just got to he has collected or where it points. But a rumor. keep reading—“came out of nowhere; these are TV books. You never hear a D’Souza’s embrace of rumors is both men were outsiders.” Both won pundit say “I dunno” on TV, do you? selective. Another FBI memo in the close elections. The opponents of both Ignorance is no excuse not to publish. same document dump, for example, men portrayed them as dangers to con- Anyone with the patience to wait for reported that the KGB thought John- stitutional liberties. Both men were Mueller to finish his investigation will son had plotted to kill Kennedy. By hamstrung by a “befuddled Republican read the books with diminished enthu- D’Souza’s standard of historical evi- party.” Both men set out to smash the siasm. Since Watergate we have seen dence, this memo should be enough plantation and free the oppressed. so many promising scandals collapse to write, “Lyndon Johnson seems to And this time, D’Souza suggests under the weight of their own expecta- have plotted to kill his predecessor.” hopefully, Trump might just do it. tions: BCCI, Iran-contra, Whitewater, Wisely he keeps this bombshell from “Trump somehow knows all this, either the Plame affair, Uranium One—so his readers. through learning or just intuitively,” he many timelines to construct and mem- Johnson is a pivotal figure for writes. (I think I’ll go with “intuitively.”) orize, so many minor characters to keep D’Souza because he presided over the “With our support,” he continues, straight, so much testimony to parse, period in which the party of racism “Trump can bring to an end the vicious so much smoke and so little fire. The somehow became the party of the Civil train of exploitation that the Democratic Russian scandals, whatever they are, are Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Party has wrought for nearly two hun- beginning to have the anticipatory feel the Fair Housing Act. In an ingenious dred years.” of a letdown. and completely unsupported argument, Death of a Nation is as thorough­ By my count House of Trump, House of D’Souza tells us that these legislative going as a political polemic can be, Putin is the fifth volume in Craig Ung- landmarks constituted a spectacular malice from start to finish. If his politi- er’s ongoing series on the depravities of feat of misdirection. cal opponents are truly as depraved as the Bush family, neoconservatives, and As white racism dimmed follow- D’Souza asserts, then it follows—as he Republicans generally. He’s a freelance ing World War II, D’Souza says, John- would say in his pedantic mode—that scandalmonger. I’ve often wondered son knew the party of racism would they are probably unfit for the rewards from afar how he does it—how he keeps start losing white voters to the non- and obligations of democratic self-gov- his blood up under the mass of tedious racist Republican party, which already ernment. “The Democrats are like the details he collects and savors and claimed a large number of black mem- Corleones,” he writes. They’re running arranges and rearranges in sinister pat- bers. Political doom awaited John- a criminal operation, not a political terns. Now, having read House of Trump, son and his friends unless he could party. It is a small step from Lock her up! I have an answer: He suffers from a case replace those white voters as they fled. to Lock ’em all up! of permanent overstimulation. He decided to steal black voters from In his introduction, Unger prom- the Republicans. The Great Society, ises “explosive allegations,” which are including civil rights legislation, was 5 & 6. THE RUSSOPHILES different from explosive facts; in the constructed as a snare to draw them in. wish I had Dinesh’s gift for an telling they don’t offer much bang for When the trap was sprung at last, black I upbeat ending. But I don’t. At the the buck. For instance, he says Rus- Americans found themselves confined bottom of my bestseller pile—and you sian intelligence operatives “studiously to LBJ’s new “urban plantation” (which thought we’d never get there!—is a examined the weak spots in America’s in fact had been designed by Martin dispiriting sight: two fat books about pay-for-play political culture.” It would Van Buren in the 1840s—don’t ask). Trump, Russians, and the slow-moving be an explosive allegation if he said The civil rights bills thus prove the attempt by Robert Mueller to wrap they didn’t. Also, “millions of dollars Democrats’ undying commitment to them all around each other’s throats. have been flowing from individuals and racism, which has been demonstrated Gregg Jarrett’s The Russia Hoax: The companies from, or with ties to, Russia by their commitment to passing racist Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton to GOP politicians, including . . . Mitch civil rights bills, which were passed as and Frame Donald Trump is, as you will McConnell, for more than twenty a racist plot, which proves Democrats guess, an attempt to exonerate the presi- years.” This awkward sentence refers have an undying commitment to rac- dent by accusing his accusers. Craig to donations from Len Blavatnik, an

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 43 American citizen born in Russia. His erals, the surprise has been so great that Bruce Ohr; James Comey appointed explosive donations were finally uncov- they’ll believe anything to account for Andrew McCabe as his deputy to help ered, like the purloined letter, in filings it—even a fantasy lifted from the plot of handle the investigation into Hil­ with the Federal Election Commission! a Frank Sinatra movie. lary’s emails a few months after Terry Those Russians are tricky bastards. Gregg Jarrett, an analyst with Fox McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia And even when one of Unger’s alle- News, also warns us of the enemy and a friend of the Clintons, persuaded gations does explode, it promptly fiz- within. But he’s found a different McCabe’s wife to run for the state sen- zles. He promises his book “will show enemy: not Vladimir Putin, a former ate and came bearing $675,000 for her that President Trump . . . was likely KGB spy with a murderous back- campaign fund. the subject of one or more operations ground, but Robert Mueller, a former You’ll notice that none of these facts, that produced kompromat (compromis- Marine with a Bronze Star. pointed though they are, has anything ing materials) on him regarding sexual Jarrett’s book is breezier than Ung- to do with the Russians or whatever else activities.” Now we’re talking! Then the er’s book. Its narrative will be famil- Mueller is investigating. For a curious explosive allegation goes unmentioned iar to anyone who has jogged past a reader the most frustrating thing about until page 128, where we read: “Accord- television playing Fox News in the Unger’s and Jarrett’s books is that they ing to Oleg Kalugin [a Russian defec- last six months. Faced with theories seem to have been written in different tor], Trump likely had his first taste of universes. A book by a Trump sup- sexual kompromat in 1987. There were porter that addressed even the milder similar reports, unconfirmed, about Both books stretch the claims in Unger’s confetti machine possible comparable incidents in 1996.” would be a genuine public service; a “Likely”? There’s no footnote and only facts past the breaking Never Trump response to the Jarrett/ one more reference, on page 214: Unger point and caulk the Fox scenario would be nice too. Instead mentions an interview with an unnamed the two books here, though ostensibly American mobster who told him two of holes in their story on the same general subject, talk right his buddies in the Russian mafia have with pure speculation. past each other. “talked about” Trump’s kompromat but And yet, like Judge Pirro and Rick hadn’t seen it. Kaboom. Both authors appear Wilson, like Lincoln and Trump, the The ultimate explosive allegation, two books do bear similarities. Both of course, is that Trump is actually a to be consumed with authors say they are defending “the rule Manchurian candidate, “implanted” in paranoia. Neither book of law,” an unavoidable catchphrase the White House by the Russian gov- these days. Both overstate their themes; ernment—“a willfully ignorant or an is worth your time. Jarrett, after making an unsupported inexplicably unaware Russian asset in assertion, writes sentences like “no other the White House as the most powerful conclusion is reasonably supportable.” man on earth.” Unger proves no such about Trump and Russia, plausible and Both stretch the facts past the breaking thing and almost certainly never will. implausible, Jarrett and his colleagues point and caulk the holes in their story It’s hard to believe that even the Rus- have adopted a strategy long known to with pure speculation. In the acknowl- sians are incompetent enough to leave defense lawyers: If a story looks incrim- edgments, one author thanks two a trail that could be pieced together by inating, create another one and distract hatchetmen who work for the Clintons, an American freelance, no matter how the jury with that. Sidney Blumenthal and Cody Shearer; caffeinated he is. Jarrett’s story is studded with facts the other author thanks two hatchetmen Still, in its paranoia and credu- that MSNBC viewers have probably who work for Trump, Sean Hannity and lity, House of Putin offers a sense of never been exposed to: 13 of the 16 lead Lou Dobbs. Both authors appear to be why Trump’s opponents are so eager lawyers on the Mueller investigation are consumed with paranoia brought on by to believe the Manchurian candidate registered Democrats, none is Repub- the uncontrolled emotions President phantasm. Unger gathers in one place lican, and most of them have given Trump generates in his fellow citizens. what we know about Trump’s dealings money to Democratic candidates and Neither book is worth your time. with Russians beginning in the late causes; except in antitrust law, there 1970s. One thing is beyond doubt: As a is no such crime as “collusion”; there is nd voilà! Ta-da! Fini! After weeks businessman on the make in 1980s New such a person as Bruce Ohr, who works A of reading, all my TV books, dog- York, Donald Trump didn’t mind hang- for the Department of Justice and eared and spine-cracked, are back in ing out with very ripe characters, mob- whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, the the book bag, destined for Goodwill, sters in particular. The surprise isn’t research firm that wanted dirt on Don- assuming Goodwill will have them. As I that a New York City real estate devel- ald Trump and hired an intelligence put them away, though, my heart sank. oper is as sleazy as Trump. The sur- agent named Christopher Steele with I had forgotten Ann Coulter. There she prise is that a New York City real estate money funneled from Hillary Clin- was, still looking lonely, still unread. developer got elected president. For lib- ton’s campaign; Steele was friends with Maybe another time. ♦

44 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 Sunday evening. Attendance averaged B A over 31,000 per day—just shy of Wim- & bledon’s daily average of 36,000. There’s really only one question about this event’s success: Will it con- The Fun Tournament tinue once Federer leaves the profes- sional tour and no longer performs as The new Laver Cup competition is a blast—but will it much or at all? Many, including Karen last beyond Roger Federer’s reign? by Tom Perrotta Granby, said they would follow Federer even if he just came to a Laver Cup to coach or clap. “Oh yes, I’m interested in anything that he’s involved in,” she said. John Granby, a 72-year-old vice president of government relations at Lion, a company that makes protective clothing for firefighters, said the couple spent about $4,000 for close seats for all five sessions. Seats in the front row cost more, and there are other features for customers to buy, like the 200 Club, named for Laver’s 200 singles titles, the most in history. Fans in the club on Thursday watched Federer practice on a court in their private section, as nearly 1,000 others lined up in the free Fan Zone just to get a glimpse of him. Lisa Robeson, a 49-year-old who The winners of this year’s Laver Cup competition—Team Europe, including Roger Federer drove the two hours from Champaign, and, at right, captain Bjorn Borg—are joined by the cup’s namesake, Rod Laver. Illinois, is a Federer lover, too, but said that seeing him was just part of Chicago Baryshnikov on his feet,” she said. the attraction of the Laver Cup. “I’m rom their home in Ohio last “And he’s such a nice, nice guy. He’s a big tennis fan in general and I was week, John and Karen Granby just—what can I say, he’s the best, he also excited that Björn Borg and John drove five hours to Chicago, really is. That’s why I’m trying to see McEnroe were the team captains,” unpacked in a hotel, and pre- him any chance I get.” Robeson said. “Federer has done a lot Fpared to watch a three-day tennis tour- The event, known as the Laver to promote the game and I think he has nament featuring their favorite star: Cup, was conceived four years ago by a vested interest in keeping the excite- Roger Federer. Federer and his longtime agent, Tony ment in tennis and generating even Federer, 37 years old, is more popu- Godsick, and named in honor of Rod more excitement.” lar than ever and—at least for now— Laver, the best male tennis player in Federer told the press that he shows no signs of retiring. But like the last century, as Federer is in this doesn’t know yet what he will do later music fans who mob their beloved one. The competition cycles between in life, but the point of the Laver Cup performers during a final tour, Federer locations in Europe—the first edition, was to build an institution bigger than fanatics now want to see him every last year, was held in Prague—and himself. “Of course I hope I will be chance they get. This was Federer’s outside Europe. This year’s tourna- involved in some shape or form, but at first competitive appearance in Chi- ment brought many well-known play- the same time it’s not something I plan cago, a memorable moment for a city ers to Chicago, including star Novak for,” Federer said. “This is more some- that hasn’t had a professional tour-level Djokovic, the wild Nick Kyrgios, thing for legends—and legends down tournament since a women’s competi- young talent Alexander Zverev, and the road—that everybody can connect tion in 1997 (the last men’s pro event Americans John Isner, Jack Sock, here and have a great time. That was was in 1991). Karen, 68 years old, and Frances Tiafoe. They were split the idea behind it.” couldn’t have been more excited. into two teams: Europe versus the It may have been a great time but “Oh my God, he’s like Mikhail rest of the world. At Chicago’s United the players sure didn’t hit just for fun. Center, home of basketball’s Bulls and All the players were paid a fee, based on Tom Perrotta writes about sports for the hockey’s Blackhawks, most of the seats ranking, just for attending. But only the Wall Street Journal, FiveThirtyEight, were full from Friday afternoon, when winners received prize money, a total of

and other publications. the event began, until it ended early $250,000 for each player on the team. AGENCY / GETTYBILGIN S. SASMAZ / ANADOLU

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 45 The losers won zip. They didn’t try to match with a forehand winner and much bigger than any other event, with make their shots entertaining and flashy pumped both of his fists in the air. loads more prize money, while some rather than effective, as often happens “He’s a poet-warrior,” said John smaller events, now mostly filled by in exhibitions. They served hard (some Key, a 59-year-old Brit who flew in low-ranked players, are struggling. The over 130 mph) and sprinted to retrieve from his current home in Vancouver Davis Cup, which began in 1900, is in drop shots. If two sets were split, the to see his tennis hero. “It’s not just his the last year of its traditional format. opponents played an extended tiebreak play, it’s his outlook on tennis. He’s Historically, the event was divided into (first to 10 rather than 7). When Sock a gentleman. As an Englishman we several stages, which gave teams alter- lost his singles match against Britain’s respect that.” nate at-home advantages. Starting next Kyle Edmund in a tiebreak, he slammed The tournament ended when Zverev year, players from the top 18 countries his racket on his bag and walked off the came back from a set down against will arrive in Madrid in late November court without signing any autographs. South Africa’s Kevin Anderson. When and compete for the title over a week. One point, in doubles, caused shock Zverev won the match, he dropped to While many players and observers have in the crowd when Djokovic crushed a the ground and was soon covered by applauded the new design, it has also forehand that hit Federer, his partner, his teammates, who celebrated in a pile been criticized—especially in Austra- in his lower back. (Federer laughed as on the court. Eight of the 11 matches lia, where Davis Cup captain Lleyton Djokovic gave him a massage.) in the tournament ended in a tiebreak Hewitt said it was nothing more than a money-grab. Australia, for its part, will host a new ATP World Team Cup for men’s tennis pros in the first week of January 2020, before the Australian Open begins. It feels like the ideas are battling one another, not meshing with and complementing one another. It’s a worry for everyone, but Federer feels the Laver Cup is a separate issue. “I have a small concern that, you know, especially the Davis Cup and the World Cup that Tennis Aus- tralia and ATP are trying to orga- nize,” Federer said. “It’s hard to see those two coexisting. . . . I think the good thing is, and I mentioned this Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic together, is that everybody has to playing doubles get to the table and think a little bit what’s best for the game. Can we come together as a tour and figure it The best part of the competition: after splitting the first two sets. The out? I do believe Laver Cup’s a differ- Victories are worth more points each final score was 13-8 to Team Europe. ent situation . . . because it’s not just day, so the drama builds toward a cli- Federer and Godsick were among one country.” mactic finish. On the first day, wins are those who cooked up the scoring sys- The U.S. Tennis Association and worth a point, followed by two points tem. “We had a whiteboard and we Tennis Australia both supported the on the second day and three on the kept going through things and mak- Laver Cup, each having invested a little third. The team of European players ing changes, trying to come up with a more than $5 million, according to peo- headed into Sunday with a 7-5 lead, but format that we thought could easily be ple familiar with the matter. There are the opposing team, with players from digested by the fans,” Godsick said. other partners, too, and Godsick said five countries, had a chance to come “I think maybe my idea was to play this year’s event has made a profit. back. In a tense and entertaining dou- the doubles first on Sunday, I just “There’s no risk that this will not bles match, Sock and Isner beat Federer thought that would be a nice reverse keep going, at all,” Godsick said. “Our and Zverev 11-9 in the final tiebreak, situation, and it gets four guys out on goal is to build and invest in the brand while saving 2 match points. The crowd the court early,” Federer said. “It feels for the long run.” cheered as Isner and Sock jumped and like you’re never safe until two matches As for Karen and John Granby, they hugged teammates. About 15 min- are basically played on Sunday, which I hope to see Federer at the Laver Cup utes after the match ended, Federer think the spectators enjoy.” next year, too, in his home country, and Isner returned for a singles match. It’s a time of change in tennis, the Switzerland. Federer saved 3 match points and went most dramatic in the last few decades. “I’m already talking to John about

to a 10-point tiebreak. He ended the Grand Slam tournaments have become going to Geneva,” Karen said. ♦ CLIVE BRUNSKILL / GETTY

46 / The Weekly Standard October 8, 2018 the studio audience erupts in cheers, “Jurassic Park closes in an hour!” I’m B&A no Bannon fan, but I think he’d be able to deliver a retort. The first new episode begins with the Murphy’s Thaw retired Murphy expressing her horror on election night 2016, marching on inau- gural weekend, and returning to televi- The ’90s sitcom makes a creaky, predictable return. sion in order to combat the “fake news” movement. Series creator Diane English by John Podhoretz doesn’t even want to pretend Murphy Brown is anything but . . . Diane English. In that sense, the new Murphy Brown is inadvertently honest about the nature of the 2018 news business in a way it surely doesn’t understand it’s being. The dramatic situation the sitcom presents is that Murphy’s new show is in competition with another new show on the “Wolf Network” (get it—the Wolf Network? See, because a wolf is kind of like a fox). That show’s anchor is her son, Avery. But of course Avery couldn’t possibly actually be Trumpy himself. No, he’s gone on Fo—I mean Wolf—in Candice Bergen returns as TV journalist Murphy Brown. order to straighten things out there. So there will be no conflict—conflict being urphy Brown, which While the new Roseanne blended nos- the essence of comedy. There will be no returns this week to talgia with something unexpectedly political arguments that aren’t stacked so CBS, debuted in 1988 fresh—until its star destroyed her that the person on the other side is any- three weeks after the revived career with disgusting tweets thing but impotent. Mother sitcom sensation of that year— and snuffed out her own reanimated And here’s the thing. If you want Roseanne, its polar opposite. Murphy sitcom—the new Murphy Brown proves denunciations of Trump and Republi- Brown (Candice Bergen) was a high- to be just the same-old, same-old, a cans, you’ve got so many options, why flying singleton TV news icon living mouthpiece for liberal Hollywood pre- would you take this one? You could in a Georgetown manse perpetually tending to be liberal Washington. watch Samantha Bee herself. Or Stephen under renovation. Roseanne was the And with the same-old joke struc- Colbert. Or Jimmy Kimmel. Or John matriarch of a struggling working- ture: “Don’t tell me,” Murphy responds Oliver. Or MSNBC. Any second of any class family in the Midwest. Murphy when someone says something surpris- of these is more interesting. Brown featured what might be called ing happened. “Paul Ryan’s finally taken Demographically, the show makes no name-drop humor, its jokes usually a stand on something?” Her old col- sense. And what is the commercial argu- concluding with a punch line involving league Jim Dial, who has left the news ment for bringing Murphy Brown back a then-famous Washington grandee or business, “had the right idea: Buy a boat, anyway, except that people who liked two, kind of like this: “The last time I sail away, forget you ever heard the name it 25 years ago would want to revisit it laughed that hard was when Sam Don- Hannity.” I can maybe imagine Jennifer now? Well, what if those people are now aldson did the kazatsky at Joe Lieber- Rubin giggling here at the confirmation 72, like Candice Bergen? CBS is basi- man’s wedding!” of her priors, but anyone else? cally the old white person’s network, Now it’s back, only six months The septuagenarian Murphy is and its crime procedurals are among the after Roseanne debuted to precedent- simply Samantha Bee for the AARP, shows Trump voters are most likely to busting ratings and a fresh perspective complete with the humorless lectures. watch. According to the 2016 exit polls, in 2018—the perspective of the Trump You’ve never seen anything quite so white people over the age of 45 voted for voter. And once again Murphy Brown witless as Bergen attacking a Steve Ban- Trump about 60-40, and CBS’s audience is Roseanne’s polar opposite, only this non stand-in (David Costabile) at a bar, is disproportionately within that 60 per- time due to ideology rather than class. with the faux Bannon simply sputter- cent. The numbers suggest the audience ing impotently as she calls him (wait CBS wants to hug Murphy Brown to its John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, for it) a dinosaur. “You’d better hurry,” bosom would prefer to watch the Wolf

is The Weekly Standard’s movie critic. she cries as he flees her presence and Network instead. ♦ / CBS BROADCASTING, INC. FILO JOHN PAUL

October 8, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 47 “Twice Wednesday, President Donald Trump pointed to a Chinese government-backed advertising insert in the Des Moines Register as PARODY evidence Beijing is trying to interfere in the U.S. midterm elections.” — Des Moines Register, September 26, 2018

October 8, 2018