Pseudo- Socialists Clueless Capitalists
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THE WORLD ACCORDING TO OBAMA LEE SMITH WILLIAM KRISTOL & MICHAEL MAKOVSKY APRIL 11, 2016 $5.99 PPseudo-seudo- SSocialistsocialists & Clluelessueless CCapitalistsapitalists DAVID AZERRAD IRWIN M. STELZER WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents AprilApri 11, 2016 • Volume 21, Number 29 2 The Scrapbook Misbehaving models, parsing the president, & more 5 Casual Andrew Ferguson, nostalgic for newsprint 6 Editorials The Costanza Approach BY WILLIAM KRISTOL & MICHAEL MAKOVSKY Donald the Menace BY STEPHEN F. H AYES Articles 1010 Hobbled Lobby BY MATTHEW CONTINETTI K Street says it’s ready for Donald Trump—it’s wrong 1212 Without Exceptionalism BY DANIEL KRAUTHAMMER Trump doesn’t know what makes America great 12 14 When No Means No BY FRED BARNES The principled politics of Paul Ryan 16 Vietnam’s Agincourt BY MAX BOOT The fi erce jungle battle that brought down an empire 18 Blind Mistrust BY ANDREW STARK Donald Trump and the federal confl ict-of-interest laws 19 How to Win Friends and Kill People BY LEE SMITH Strange new respect for Syria’s Assad 20 Opiates of the Masses BY JOHN P. W ALTERS, DAVID W. M URRAY, 20 Obama talks smack about the overdose epidemic & BRIAN BLAKE Features 22 The New Red Scare BY DAVID AZERRAD Are the socialists coming? 25 Clueless Capitalists BY IRWIN M. STELZER What has happened to support for America’s market economy? Books & Arts BY AMY HENDERSON 25 29 America on Exhibit Yale’s Peabody and the birth of museums 31 Word from the Ashes BY KIP EIDEBERG Chronicling the collapse of Syria and the rise of the Islamic State 32 High Anxiety BY DANIEL ROSS GOODMAN The anguished vision of Edvard Munch and his school 33 Life Within Lives BY JOSEPH EPSTEIN Who reads—and who writes—biographies, and why? 38 Men of Steal BY JOHN PODHORETZ After this, even Ed Wood might ask for a refund 31?? 40 Parody Scandalous Adlai COVER BY DAVE CLEGG THE SCRAPBOOK The Selling of the Librarian 2016 n the good old days, Democrats especially inner-city branches; and as librarians. Her immediate predeces- I would complain about the invasion President Obama pointedly mentions sor is James K. Billington, the distin- of Madison Avenue into the sacred pre- in his nominating statement, “She’d be guished Russian scholar from Harvard cincts of politics (see The Selling of the the fi rst woman and the fi rst African and Princeton who was appointed by President 1968 by Joe McGinniss). But American to hold the position—both Ronald Reagan in 1987. Billington, those days are long gone; and, in fact, of which are long overdue.” in his turn, had succeeded Daniel our Democratic friends have long since Of course, the problem is that J. Boorstin, the famous University mastered the techniques of advertising hardly any of this has anything what- of Chicago historian, who had been in the service of partisan warfare. soever to do with being librarian of named by Gerald Ford. Past librarians THE SCRAPBOOK was prompted Congress. Hayden describes a library of Congress include the poet/diplomat to think along these lines last week as an “opportunity center,” a haven Archibald MacLeish. These were not after watching what must be an un- for young people, a neighborhood role models for kids, or race/gender precedented four minutes of televi- refuge in times of civil strife, a place “fi rsts,” or even credentialed special- sion: a promotional video, produced to “apply for a job” or, better yet, “get ists in library science. by the White House and (presum- the latest Harry Potter.” All of that Indeed, Hayden’s appointment ably) paid for with public funds, to describes the modern urban public seems to emphasize a philistine streak support the nomination of Carla library; none of it describes the Li- in Barack Obama. While George W. Hayden as the 14th librarian of Con- brary of Congress, which (as its name Bush populated such positions with gress. To our knowledge, no presi- would imply) is the principal source artists and intellectuals, Obama’s dential nominee for any position in of information for Congress, a schol- fi rst director of the National Endow- government has ever before been the arly research institution, and archive. ment for the Humanities was an ex- subject of a campaign commercial. Nobody in Washington walks in off Iowa congressman, and his head of the This would suggest that the White the street to the Library of Congress National Endowment for the Arts was House is either oblivious about the in search of the latest Harry Potter— a Broadway theater owner and Demo- precedent or nervous about Carla which in any case, they wouldn’t be al- cratic bundler. Now, for the principal Hayden. Perhaps it’s a little of both. lowed to borrow. scholarly/cultural post in the federal What is genuinely surprising about As far as THE SCRAPBOOK can tell, government, Obama has chosen to the video, however, is its content. Dr. Hayden seems like a nice person highlight Carla Hayden’s gender and Hayden is a veteran librarian, a prod- and would probably make a fi rst-rate race at the expense of her meager uct of the Chicago public library sys- director of the public library system in scholarly credentials. And produced tem, and, for the past several years, any large city. But she’s almost wholly an embarrassing four-minute promo- chief of the library system in Balti- unqualifi ed for a post that, in mod- tional video, at taxpayers’ expense, more. She communicates her obvi- ern times at least, has been reserved which THE SCRAPBOOK hopes will be ous enthusiasm for public libraries, almost exclusively for scholars, not the fi rst, and last, of its kind. ♦ Misbehaving Models models used by climate scientists put than that drawn by the current con- the worst-case scenario at 3 feet of sea- sensus. And so, naturally, it has been ust three years ago, the U.N. Inter- rise, and those models are off by 3 feet, praised and highlighted. Jgovernmental Panel on Climate then doesn’t that mean the oceans Suggest that global warming cli- Change predicted that, by the end of may just stay put? mate models are possibly faulty pre- this century, sea-levels will rise some- Of course not. Because if some- dictions and you are lambasted as an where between 1.7 and 3.22 feet. A one had presented research showing antiscience, know-nothing no-good- new report has found, however, that that computer models overestimate nik. Even to question the believabil- prediction may be off by some 3 feet. the consequences of climate change ity of the computer models is to bring “Study jolts sea-rise predictions” the they would have been denounced or an immediate charge of denialism. Washington Post headlined its article ignored. The new research, by con- That is, unless one is asserting that on the research. trast, asserts that climate models the models have it all wrong because And what a jolt it is, a full-blown have been underestimating the dire they’ve been insuffi ciently apocalyptic. challenge to “current consensus pre- effects. The “startling fi ndings,” you Still, it’s remarkable to discover that dictions.” After all, if the existing see, “paint a far grimmer picture” the much-vaunted scientifi c consensus 2 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD APRIL 11, 2016 on the effects of global warming can indeed be wrong—and, what’s even more remarkable, that the error can be gladly and openly acknowledged by the very same scientifi c community that has been telling us that their com- puter models are unassailable. The key, as any career-savvy scien- tist knows, is to fi nd the models to be wrong in a politically correct way. Pre- dict less doom and you are a potential- ly criminal skeptic putting the world at risk; predict more gloom and your research is fêted on the front page. It doesn’t take a computer model to predict the sort of scientifi c climate those incentives create. ♦ Just Show Up? late’s legal correspondent, Dahlia S Lithwick, has had it up to here with Senate Republicans, who are refusing to hold hearings on Presi- dent Obama’s Supreme Court nom- inee, Merrick Garland, with the presidential election so soon. Some- thing must be done, she claims, and, well, here’s something: After a suitable period of time— let’s say by the end of September of 2016—Judge Garland should simply suit up and take the vacant seat at the court. This would entail walking into the Supreme Court on the fi rst Monday in October, donning an extra black robe, seating himself at the bench, sipping from the mighty silver milkshake cup before him, and looking like he belongs there, in ments became so contentious. After is, however, historically illiterate the manner of George Costanza. Senator Joe Biden took over the to say that Republicans share equal Judiciary Committee in 1987, Demo- blame with Democrats, who have Lithwick reckons if Garland did crats, under his leadership and that of done far more to destroy comity this “he would be doing his job and Ted Kennedy, proceeded to blow up and deference on this issue. Indeed highlighting that this is precisely the nominations of Robert Bork and the problem with violating insti- what Senate tantrum throwers are Clarence Thomas in ways that were tutional norms is that once such refusing to do.” Lithwick further positively slanderous. In 1992, Biden violations become acceptable, it argues such radical gestures are personally argued for waiting out only encourages more—and more necessary because there’s both an Bush’s term before confi rming any egregious—violations.