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July 5, 2010 49145 $3.95

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$3.95 Rob Long Ramesh PonnuRu The ediToRs 27 UNDER 17 REQUIRES ACCOMPANYING RESTRICTED PARENT OR ADULT GUARDIAN A Rahm Emanuel/ R For Strong Language, Incompetence Throughout David Axelrod Production 0 74851 08155 6 www.nationalreview.com base_milliken-mar 22.qxd 6/15/2010 11:32 AM Page 1 toc_QXP-1127940144.qxp 6/16/2010 2:00 PM Page 1 Contents

JULY 5, 2010 | VOLUME LXII, NO. 12 | www.nationalreview.com

ON THE COVER Page 29 Message: Andrew C. McCarthy on Turkey I’m Insecure p. 32 When a person emphatically declares something that sounds BOOKS, ARTS a little too specific, watch out. He’s not making a point; he’s telling & MANNERS you what he’s afraid you think of him, 44 HIS OWN DRUM Ronald Radosh reviews Hitch 22: A and he’s often correct. Rob Long Memoir, by Christopher Hitchens.

COVER: ROMAN GENN 46 ON LOOKING INTO ARTICLES THE ABYSS David M. Smick reviews 16 THE OBAMA ENIGMA by Ramesh Ponnuru Crisis Economics: A Crash Disconnection from the main currents of American life turns out Course in the Future of to be a political disadvantage. Finance, by Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm. 18 GOLDEN SPIKE by Stephen Spruiell On the dollar, hedge funds are hedging. 47 FREE ASSOCIATION Jacob Sullum reviews New Threats 21 PROGRESS PAINS by Duncan Currie to Freedom, edited by Adam Bellow. The Mexican political reforms we applaud have helped cause the Mexican drug violence we deplore. 49 MUSIC: AN OPERA APART Jay Nordlinger on Before Night GIVE FREELY 25 by John J. Miller Falls, a new opera by Jorge Martín. In California and elsewhere, the Left wants the government to oversee philanthropy. 54 FILM: CRYING ON THE INSIDE 28 YOUR MONEY BACK by Gary Wolfram Ross Douthat reviews Get Him to There is a strong economic case that the Federal Reserve should not exist. the Greek. 29 MESSAGE: I’M INSECURE by Rob Long 55 CITY DESK: TWILIGHT What the president’s oil-spill bluster revealed about him. OF THE IDOLS Richard Brookhiser witnesses a celebrity arrival. FEATURES 32 TURKEY TURNS by Andrew C. McCarthy In opposing the West, its leaders think they are joining the winning side. SECTIONS 36 IT’S COMPLICATED by Jeffrey Friedman 2 Letters to the Editor The world will belong to those who can explain why 4 The Week it must not be entrusted to central planners. 42 The Long View ...... Rob Long 43 The Bent Pin ...... Florence King 39 PREFERRED RISK by Iain Murray 47 Poetry ...... Michael Petti When it comes to insurance, go private, not political. 56 Happy Warrior ...... Mark Steyn

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JULY 5 ISSUE; PRINTED JUNE 18 Cuban Racial Demography

EDITOR Duncan Currie’s article “Spare Not the Stick,” which appears in the June 7 issue, Richard Lowry claims that Cuba is “a country that has been majority-black since the 1960s.” In Senior Editors fact, according to the CIA World Factbook, 65 percent of the population is white. Richard Brookhiser / Jay Nordlinger Ramesh Ponnuru / David Pryce-Jones Managing Editor Jason Lee Steorts Jonathan Daly Literary Editor Michael Potemra Executive Editor Christopher McEvoy Chicago National Correspondent John J. Miller Art Director Luba Kolomytseva Deputy Managing Editors DuNCAN CurrIe replIeS: According to the most widely cited estimate—which Fred Schwarz / Kevin D. Williamson Associate Editors comes from the State Department—62 percent of the island’s population is Helen Rittelmeyer / Robert VerBruggen Afro-Cuban (mixed or black). ethnologist Carlos Moore, a leading expert on Research Director Katherine Connell Research Manager Dorothy McCartney Cuban race relations, believes the actual figure could be as high as 70 percent. Executive Secretary Frances Bronson As Moore has written, Afro-Cubans were a minority of the population when Assistant to the Editor Natasha Simons Contributing Editors Fidel Castro first took power in 1959, but the white flight triggered by the impo- Robert H. Bork / John Derbyshire sition of Communist rule soon turned Cuba into a majority-black country. Ross Douthat / Rod Dreher / David Frum Roman Genn / Jim Geraghty / Jonah Goldberg Florence King / Lawrence Kudlow / Mark R. Levin Yuval Levin / Rob Long / Jim Manzi Andrew C. McCarthy / Kate O’Beirne Inquisition Inquiries David B. Rivkin Jr. NATIONALREVIEWONLINE In his review (“The light of reason,” June 7) of Melanie phillips’s book, “The Editor-at-Large Kathryn Jean Lopez Managing Editor Edward John Craig World Turned Upside Down,” George Weigel asks, “Ought Christians to feel Deputy Managing Editor Duncan Currie ashamed of the Inquisition?” He answers, “Yes, for using coercive state power Staff Reporter Stephen Spruiell News Editor Daniel Foster to enforce doctrinal claims is always an offense against the God who wishes to Web Developer Nathan Goulding Technical Services Russell Jenkins be adored by people who are free.” I would like to ask Mr. Weigel, “By what logic do you believe that people living CHAIRMAN & CEO Thomas L. Rhodes today ought to feel ashamed of something other people did hundreds of years ago?” EDITORS- AT- LARGE Linda Bridges / John O’Sullivan Arnold Knepfer Contributors Hadley Arkes / Baloo / Tom Bethell Corte Madera, Calif. James Bowman / Priscilla L. Buckley Eliot A. Cohen / Brian Crozier Dinesh D’Souza / M. Stanton Evans “Ought Christians to feel ashamed of the Inquisition?” George Weigel asks. Chester E. Finn Jr. / Neal B. Freeman James Gardner / David Gelernter “Yes, for using coercive state power to enforce doctrinal claims is always an George Gilder / Jeffrey Hart offense against the God who wishes to be adored by people who are free.” Is that Kevin A. Hassett / Charles R. Kesler James Jackson Kilpatrick / David Klinghoffer what was offensive about it? I thought the issue was something to do with, oh, Anthony Lejeune / D. Keith Mano burning people at the stake. Don’t worry too much about how that feels, we are Michael Novak / Alan Reynolds William A. Rusher / Tracy Lee Simmons effectively told; the real problem is that God wasn’t getting enough good free Terry Teachout / Taki Theodoracopulos adoration! Mr. Weigel is to be congratulated for the courage and independence Vin Weber Chief Financial Officer James X. Kilbridge of thought this theological condemnation must have required. Accounting Manager Galina Veygman Accountant Zofia Baraniak Treasurer Rose Flynn DeMaio Oscar DeWitt Business Services Oroville, Calif. Alex Batey / Amy Tyler Circulation Director Erik Zenhausern Circulation Manager Jason Ng GeOrGe WeIGel replIeS: As John paul II reminded us with his calls to cleanse WORLD WIDE WEB www.nationalreview.com MAIN NUMBER 212-679-7330 the Church’s conscience in preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000, Catholi - SUBSCRIPTION INQUIRIES 386-246-0118 cism exists as a community extended over time, such that it’s entirely proper, WASHINGTON OFFICE 202-543-9226 ADVERTISING SALES 212-679-7330 and indeed imperative, for the Church to seek God’s pardon for the times in the Executive Publisher Scott F. Budd Advertising Director Jim Fowler past when its children have sinned—and even more so when actions contrary to Advertising Manager Kevin Longstreet Gospel truths were taken in the name of proclaiming or defending the Gospel. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Paul Olivett That includes remanding those considered heretics over to what used to be PUBLISHER called the “civil arm” for capital punishment. perhaps in the future Mr. DeWitt Jack Fowler will treat such a subject with the seriousness it deserves. FOUNDER William F. Buckley Jr.

Letters may be sub mitted by e-mail to [email protected].

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n We con’t care what they say about him, Al Gore is still boring. See page 6. nMitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, says that the next president—some conservatives hope it will be Daniels him- self—will have to call a “truce” on social issues in order to address the national debt and the economy. If by that he means that social issues will be a lower priority than economic ones, as they were for Reagan and both Bushes, he is almost certainly correct. If, on the other hand, he means that the next president should make no moves to end the abortion subsidies in Obamacare, or should refrain from appointing judges who will allow policies on social issues to be set democratically, or should decline on principle to ask Congress to send him legislation on social issues—well, then, social conserva- tives might reasonably hope for a different president. Since the gov ernor’s record on social issues is impeccably conservative, we incline toward the former interpretation. Social conservatives, notably Mike Huckabee, have been criticizing Daniels for the remark. If Daniels clarifies that he does not mean to abandon the social issues, we would recommend that the critics call a truce.

n Pro-life women may be the most underrepresented group in American politics. They make up about a quarter of the population, n Former Nevada assemblywoman Sharron Angle came out of but 0 percent of senators, 2 percent of governors, and 3 percent of nowhere to win the Republican nomination to take on Sen. Harry House members. Those numbers are likely to improve this year. Reid. The Democratic line on her is that she is a kook. She has Four pro-life women, all Republicans, have serious shots at winning made some questionable judgments, such as advocating massage Senate seats; three are making credible bids for governorships. therapy for prisoners. Much of what the Democrats want to stig- Their success will help explode the myth that most American matize is, however, mainstream conservatism: Angle wants to women are pro-choice. As a bonus, one of these women—Carly downsize the federal government by, for example, shutting down Fiorina—may unseat the Senate’s most dedicated supporter of abor- the Department of Education. She would also abolish Fannie Mae tion, Barbara Boxer, who won election in what the media called “the and Freddie Mac, as against the establishment’s sensible, prag- year of the woman” (1992). May this be a year of better women. matic preference for letting them contribute to another financial crisis. Angle’s election could not possibly lead to all the dire n South Carolina politics are often dominated by a Republican consequences the Democrats are suggesting. If we had to choose, establishment that dishes out favors to its friends: unwritten though, we would take taxpayer-funded massage therapy in speeding tickets, personal drivers, jobs, a byzantine list of sales- return for the Senate majority leader’s retirement. tax exemptions. Large bills are passed on voice votes so no writ- ten record can show how each lawmaker voted. In the state’s n The Left is 0 for 3 in its big political battles with Democrats house of representatives, Nikki Haley made ending that last prac- it dislikes. First it had to eat its previous threats and support tice her crusade, and took on the old-boys’ network in a fight to Obamacare with no public option. Then in early June it lost establish accountability. When they succeeded in blocking her two primaries. Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.) beat back a chal- efforts, she decided to run for the GOP’s gubernatorial nomina- lenger supported by Howard Dean and the netroots, and Sen. tion. You may hear an echo of Sarah Palin’s career in this story, Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) survived a union-funded primary and so did Palin, who endorsed Haley and attended a heavily opponent. Our advice to Democrats: Ignore the Left’s bark— publicized rally for her. The establishment’s response to Haley’s there will be no bite. sudden momentum was ugly. Its candidate was Lt. Gov. André Bauer. One of his allies claimed a one-night stand with Haley but n Once upon a time, Florida governor Charlie Crist was a offered no evidence; another dismissed her as a “raghead” (she is Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. And once upon a time, Indian-American). In the end, Bauer took 13 percent, roughly the he had a section on his website touting his pro-life credentials. But same share of the GOP electorate that believed the affair claims. then he fell behind in the polls to upstart Marco Rubio—and Haley finished with roughly 49 percent of the vote, just short of declared that he was an independent candidate for the Senate. And the threshold to avoid a runoff. Palmetto State Republicans who he has scrubbed his website clean of references to any pro-life

ROMAN GENN are not party insiders can breathe a little easier. views. Who is Charlie Crist, and what does he believe? Those are

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THE WEEK increasingly boring questions: and Florida voters can make them n Rush Limbaugh is still America’s civics moot in November, by defeating Crist and electing Rubio. teacher (a Pew survey documents that Rush’s audience is better informed about public n Helen Thomas was a fixture—a reporter for 40 years, a colum- events than is CNN’s or the PBS News­- nist for ten—always a plus in Washington. She was a left-wing Hour’s) but Glenn Beck is now in charge of scold: another plus. Then she told a blogger with a videocamera the reading list: F. A. Hayek’s 1944 classic (a rabbi, no less) that Israelis should “get the hell out of Pales - The­Road­to­Serfdom has hit the No. 1 spot tine” and “go home”—to “Poland, Germany, and America and on Amazon thanks to Beck’s dedicating an everywhere else.” It is fashionable to be tough on Israel, and entire show to the book. Hayek argued that increasingly acceptable to say that Israel’s supporters in this coun- attempts at central planning of the economy try—begins with J, rhymes with news—control American policy lead to totalitarianism, and one can appreciate the appeal of that in the Middle East. The first is an old left-wing position, the critique for Beck, who has made the sweeping ambitions of second is soft anti-Semitism. Thomas’s vision of a judenrein progressivism a major theme of his program. The Democrats Palestine showed American Israel-bashers a disturbing midpoint (and some wayward Republicans) are eager to dismiss Beck and between their views and the exterminationist agenda of Hamas his audience, and the tea-party movement with which they over- and Hezbollah. To their credit as men, they drew back, appalled. lap, as unlettered rubes and yokels, though in fact they are of To their discredit as thinkers, they still do not see how short the above-average education and income. Mr. Beck is putting his intervening distances are becoming. Thomas has given up her showman’s gifts to serious and important work in promoting column. Good riddance. The­Road­to­Serfdom. Read it and weep.

Putting His Foot in It

HE other day on The Corner (NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE’s soccer into the Next Big Thing. I don’t much care about the addictive, indispensable, world-shaking, all-powerful substance of the underlying debate. Is soccer boring? Yes, T group blog, in case you didn’t know; then again, if you absolutely—except to the people who find it exciting. In a didn’t know that, you probably don’t know what a blog is world where biracial-dwarf porn has a dedicated fan base, it either), I called attention to a particularly idiotic screed from seems absurd to argue—outside of the orbit of bars, water- a writer at The Nation, reprinted on National Public Radio’s coolers, and sports-radio call-in shows—that a billion soc- website. The author, Dave Zirin, was explaining “Why the Far cer fans are wrong. Besides, we all know that cricket is the Right Hates Soccer.” official pastime of masochists and the brain-dead. After wondering whether we hate soccer because of our What I find vexatious is the failure to give America the ben- “racism and imperial arrogance,” he speculates that a more efit of the doubt that so many of these soccer proselytizers “shallow” motivation may be the culprit: extend to every Third World backwater or envy. The racist nativists dislike soccer totalitarian garrison state. When South because America isn’t good at it, and American tribes stand athwart globaliza- anything that contradicts American ex - tion, when Muslims cover their daughters ceptionalism must be bad. But if, as the in tarps, when Iranian ayatollahs suppress president might put it, we kicked ass at democracy, you can be sure to find some the sport, then the Glenn Becks and G. liberal defending their stance on the Gordon Liddys would come around. And grounds of “diversity.” “Why can’t you un - what a laugh riot that would be, cackled derstand that [Fill In the Blank] simply don’t Zirin. The conservatives would be “caught share our values?” Every exotic taste is in a vice [sic] between their patriotic fervor celebrated, every rejection of Western and their nativist fear.” values, American norms, or bourgeois To say this is all nonsense is to slander whatever is seen as something wonderful the nonsensical. It’s bigoted, sophomoric claptrap. Zirin and joyous. (And, to be fair, the liberals are sometimes overlooks the much-documented racism of soccer fans right about this—no conservative should want a global across fair Europa (where black players are heckled with mono culture. We simply don’t have to be idiots about it. monkey sounds) as well as the remarkable colorblindness Wife-burning is wrong no matter whose wife it is.) of American devotees of baseball, basketball, and football. But whenever it’s America that refuses to join, whenever And what of the soccer-boosting regimes that practice the damn Yankees don’t want to knuckle under to some ethnic cleansing and official bigotry? What of the fact that homogenized monoculture, it can’t be that there’s some- black Americans surely swell the ranks of the soccer - thing special and worth preserving here. It’s got to be p hobic—are they racists too? because we are racists, imperialists, etc. There’s something in Zirin’s smug jackassery that com- Yawn, etc. ports with a broader, if more civil, liberal campaign to make —JONAH GOLDBERG NEWSCOM

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THE WEEK n Paul McCartney, one of the two remaining Beatles, received unnamed, presumably, because there are none. Beyond attacking the Library of Congress’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. So straw men, he argued that judges must apply value judgments President and Mrs. Obama threw a party in the White House in because the Constitution advances several goals that sometimes his honor. At the end of it, McCartney gave the crowd this pearl: conflict. This is a non sequitur. It is true, for example, that the “After the last eight years, it’s good to have a president that Constitution aims both to create a limited federal government and knows what a library is.” They laughed like hyenas, because one strong enough to keep states from interfering with national Bush, you know, is like so dum!! In following days, some people commerce. But that does not mean that judges should, or may, pointed out that Bush is married to a librarian, and that they have substitute their own answers about how to balance these goals for made libraries a particular cause for many years. But the Bush- the Constitution’s. And if the Constitution does not provide clear dum line is impervious to reason. And the Obama White House guidance, it is hard to see why judges rather than legislators should sometimes seems impervious to a sense of honor and decorum. fill in the blanks. Anyone seeking a plausible answer to this ques- As JFK once put down Nixon, “No class.” tion will not find it in Justice Souter’s remarks, or his career.

n Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s latest book, Nomad, will surely displease n As though the issue of gays in the military were not sufficient- the Islamists who have already called for her murder. It is an ly fraught, Roland Burris, the man who replaced Barack Obama unsparing analysis of Muslim child-rearing and family dynam- in the Senate, has conjoined to it the even more charged issue of ics,which she says subjugate women and instill violence. It also abortion. A bill to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” earned a brush-off from New York Times columnist Nicholas policy is before the Senate, and Senator Burris has inserted a pro- Kristof, whose review was both hostile—“overheated,” “over- vision that would allow abortions to be performed at military stated,” “potentially feeding religious bigotry”—and patroniz- hospitals. While the abortionists’ fees would be paid privately, ing—“she never quite outgrew her rebellious teenager phase.” the procedures would be performed in facilities supported by Kristof himself campaigns against phenomena that brutalize American taxpayers, who will thereby be implicated in an uncon- women, specifically the sex trade. But, like too many liberals, he scionable evil. Whatever our concerns about the main bill, gay is made uncomfortable by the claim that there could be an Other soldiers do not seem especially likely to exacerbate the problem that systematically degrades and oppresses. Greed may ruin of unwanted pregnancies. What Burris has brought together, let lives; societies or religions never, unless they are his own (there somebody please put asunder. is corporal punishment, he notes, in Texas schools). Hirsi Ali challenges the evacuated inner world of liberals—which is why n Sen. Lindsey Graham is a man of fashion—political fashion. so many of them disdain her. And global warming is so five minutes ago. Senator Graham was the Republican most enthusiastic about climate-change legisla- n Former president George W. Bush defended his enhanced- tion, but now he’s making himself over as a skeptic: “The science interrogation program for top al-Qaeda detainees: “Yeah, we about global warming has changed. . . . I think the science is in waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I’d do it again to question.” The science has not much changed; what has changed save lives.” For all their posturing, Obama and the Democratic is that the tangle of fraud and malfeasance known as Climategate Congress have not enacted any specific criminal prohibition has left last season’s trendy green looking a bit dingy. And it’s not against waterboarding, and Attorney General Eric Holder has con- clear that Senator Graham is super solid on the science, in any ceded that, absent specific intent to commit torture, waterboarding case. “There’s a reason I don’t hang out in traffic jams,” Graham is not actionable. The technique was used only against KSM said, explaining his continued concern about carbon emissions. and two others, and the intelligence it yielded led to the capture “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the stuff float- of jihadists and the prevention of mass-murder attacks. As the ing around in the Gulf doesn’t get better for you when you burn pace of attempted attacks against the homeland has picked up in it. If you don’t want to go swimming in that stuff, why would you the last 18 months, there is more public support for waterboarding want to breathe it?” Given that the climate-change debate is terrorists than for Mirandizing them. Common sense is on Bush’s largely concerned with emissions of carbon dioxide—the stuff side, and history is likely to follow. you do, in fact, breathe out—Graham’s statement makes no rational sense, only political fashion sense. n President Obama spent more than a year telling Americans that if they liked their health-insurance arrangements, they could n Republican senator Lisa Murkowski hails from Alaska, where keep them under his reforms. His administration has just draft- they know about oil spills. The president claims that the BP spill ed regulations following the passage of Obamacare, and the fine demonstrates the need for more restrictions on the use of fossil print is coming into view. Most Americans get their health cov- fuels; Murkowski is leading an effort to stop Obama’s EPA from erage through their employers. According to the administra- imposing such restrictions. The EPA has decided, based on a tion’s own estimates, half of all employer-based plans will be sloppy and questionable U.N. climate report, that greenhouse subject to onerous new regulations. Union-negotiated plans get gases represent the kind of threat to human health the agency is a sweeter deal, naturally. The message from conservatives to authorized to regulate. A congressional resolution of disapproval the voters should be: If you don’t like your elected officials, can stop the agency from acting. Murkowski introduced such a res- you don’t have to keep them. olution in the Senate, where it failed. But the final vote of 47 to 53, with six Democrats and all 41 Republicans in favor, offered the res- n Former Supreme Court justice David Souter, speaking at olution’s supporters some hope. For one thing, the vote indicates Harvard’s commencement, criticized those unnamed folks who that Democrats lack the support to pass cap-and-trade-style carbon believe that constitutional interpretation is always easy— restrictions through the Senate this year. For another, it shows that

8 | www.nationalreview.com JULY 5 , 2 0 1 0 base_milliken-mar 22.qxd 6/11/2010 11:45 AM Page 1

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THE WEEK the Republicans are only a few votes away from having a Senate It seems unlikely to back the most troubling measures—those majority on this issue. If present trends hold, those votes should be that involve subsidizing the industry directly. It should also reject available after November. special loan programs for media outlets that promote the “public good”; the government should not decide which media outlets are nBradley Manning, a 22-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst, good and which are not. One idea it should seriously consider, is accused of leaking classified video of a military engagement in however, is making an exception to antitrust regulations so that Iraq in which two Reuters cameramen were killed. Of greater con- newspapers can simultaneously stop offering their content online cern, Manning claims to have provided over a quarter-million for free. (If one stopped on its own, it would be sunk by the remain- highly classified State Department cables—intelligence that, if ing free online competitors; hence the need for coordination, and revealed, could badly compromise military operations—to the snag on current regulation.) Given how little ad revenue online Wikileaks, an online enterprise strategically based in Sweden, readers bring in relative to print subscribers, we think it likely that where impregnable confidentiality laws help it encourage the local papers’ decision to offer their core product for free was a bad betrayal of U.S. national secrets. To wage war and protect its citi- one. An antitrust exception would give them a chance to get back zens in such an environment, a serious nation must be willing to on their feet in the free market without the need of a bailout or play diplomatic hardball with the world’s Swedens and throw excessive government entanglement in the press—both of which the book at our own Bradley Mannings; it must be deaf to the Americans should strongly resist. inevitable caterwauling of media adolescents for whom classified leaks are a game, not life-and-death. Are we still serious? n For 70 years, Turkey hewed to the reforms of Kemal Ataturk, a post-Ottoman, post-caliphate secularist and Westernizer. That n It is not often this magazine endorses the creation of a new gov- template had become increasingly rusty, so when the Justice and ernment bureaucracy, but gubernatorial candidate Sam Brownback Development Party (AKP) took power in the last decade, it was rea- has got onto a good idea with his proposal to bless the good people sonable to adopt a wait-and-see attitude. The AKP claimed to be of Kansas with a State Office of the Repealer. The new agency’s moderate Muslims and free-marketeers—Thatcherites with head- mandate would be to disestablish archaic, cumbrous, and outdated scarves. But they have shown themselves to be anti-American— The best way out of any hole, according to our president, is first to dig another $50 billion deeper.

laws and regulations. “People just love this idea,” Senator they bridled at the Iraq War, and spread vicious anti-American Brownback tells the New York Times. “They feel like they’re get- propaganda—and Islamist, tilting toward Syria and Iran. Now ting their brains regulated out of them.” He cites the general rejoic- Turkey has sponsored the Gaza flotilla (most of the nine armed ing that followed the repeal of an especially restrictive fireworks activists killed by Israeli commandos were Turks), with Prime law as evidence supporting his proposal. Alas, there are consti - Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling the Israeli raid “state terror- tutional barriers to enacting it at the national level—we’ll have ism.” (Andrew C. McCarthy looks more closely at the situation on to eliminate the Department of Education the hard way—but page 32.) Oddities of the Turkish electoral system inflate the AKP’s repealer still has a nice ring to it: Populist Republicans will be run- power, but if Turks choose to fall back into the Muslim world, which ning on the repeal of Obamacare this season, and Washington pre- gave the Ottomans a few centuries of power, and a few more of sents a target-rich environment for an ambitious repealer-general. corruption and impotence, the loss will be mainly theirs. If ever Ron Paul were perfectly suited for an office . . . n The U.N. Security Council passed another sanctions resolu- n Public-sector workers make, on average, more than their tion—its fourth—against Iran, which did its best not to care, private-sector counterparts, and have suffered far less during this announcing a few days later that it would begin construction of a recession: According to an analysis from Bloomberg News, the new uranium-enrichment plant by March of next year. The latest private sector has shed 7.4 percent of its work force since the last sanctions are but a modest escalation of their predecessors, and no peak while local governments have cut less than 1 percent. There serious observer expects them to alter Iranian conduct. Sanctions appears to be no limit to the amount Barack Obama is willing to that would truly cripple the regime, by targeting its energy sector, spend to spare government employees from sharing in the cut- will never win the blessing of Security Council veto-wielders backs. In a letter to lawmakers, the president urged Congress to Russia and China, both major trading partners of Iran (the latter its approve another $50 billion in aid to state and local govern - largest). The United States has unilaterally done much, and could ments, so that they will not have to engage in the same kind of belt- do more, to make pariahs of Iran’s banks, but these efforts too will tightening that private businesses have been forced to undertake. likely prove insufficient. The danger now is more of the status quo, The aid is essential if we are to “build momentum toward recovery, in which the West substitutes gesture for resolve, Iran defies the even as we establish a path to long-term fiscal discipline,” Obama gesture, and our diplomats then distract themselves readying their said. The best way out of any hole, according to our president, next piece of choreography. This approach both grants time to the is first to dig another $50 billion deeper. mullahs and dissipates our feeling that a crisis requiring urgent action is upon us. One is. Obama should signal that we have n The Federal Trade Commission is looking into numerous ways reached the end of the sanctions road, and that what lies beyond it that the government could help the struggling newspaper industry. is up to Tehran; but he is not that kind of president.

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THE WEEK n The regime of Iranian “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei and his Israel. As soon as Obama came to office, he had the U.S. join the hatchet man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is well aware that it stole the council. The other day, the Syrian representative said, “Let me presidential election a year ago, and that the first anniversary of its quote a song that a group of children on a school bus in Israel sing duplicity would be dangerous to it. Representing the millions who merrily as they go to school: ‘With my teeth I will rip your flesh, resent the regime and its ways, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi with my mouth I will suck your blood.’” We would not call them Karroubi have been leading the so-called Green Movement, and bloodsuckers, but the Human Rights Council does get much of its they planned a monster demonstration for this anniversary. The funding from American taxpayers. regime of course saw what was coming, and prepared for the occasion with brutality and cunning. Key figures in the Green n Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, gave a speech titled Movement were imprisoned after show trials. Five thousand peo- “Islam and the Environment.” As our Mark Steyn observed, thus ple at least have been arrested in the course of the year, and 115 did he bring together the two great religions of our time. The prince executed. Prison involves sexual abuse and even murder. At least said that Islam knows how to respect the environment, unlike the 80 people are reported to have died in street clashes and in deten- rapacious West. In related news, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her tion; the real number is probably significantly higher. Around 84th birthday, looking the picture of pink-cheeked health. Long 4,000 Iranians have fled to Turkey. In these circumstances, live the Queen. Mousavi and Karroubi understandably called off demonstrations, to save their supporters from certain bloody repression. In all like- n St. Andrew’s Church, in Collingbourne Ducis, England, was lihood, both men wish to overthrow the regime but cannot see quite erected in the reign of Henry II, but not until this spring did parish- how to do so. The anniversary of the stolen election therefore did ioners finally get around to installing its first toilet. The Rev. Mary little more than intensify the atmosphere of official intimidation Edwards was stumped for an appropriate way to celebrate the versus popular explosion that now envelops the regime. event; you would be too, probably. Then she remembered an act of Parliament from the time of Agincourt, under which priests n Call it The Sea Lane to Serfdom: Even as food becomes scarce could compel the men in their parishes to assemble for archery in its state-run groceries, the government of Venezuela, under practice. The act had never been repealed, it was said, and the bumblingly autocratic misrule of Hugo Chávez, has aban- although that seems not to be true, Edwards invoked it anyway. doned many thousands of tons of food to rot in shipping con- On a fine day in June, the citizens of Collingbourne Ducis and tainers. How much? Estimates range from 30,000 tons to 75,000 neighboring Everleigh (male and female, young and old) picked tons, the latter figure representing about 20 percent of the an nual up bows and dispatched some arrows in the general direction of imports taken by the Venezuelan food soviet, PDVAL. Boss the targets, amid widespread jubilation. Now, with the church’s Hugo is undeterred, declaring, “This will not divert us from our brand-new loo in place, sermons can last longer without testing route toward our main goal—socialism!” Note to Chávez: the congregation’s patience (a mixed blessing, perhaps), and You’re already there, and the food rotting in your warehouses although the archery practice uncovered no budding Robin Hood, while Venezuelans hunger proves it. eastern Wiltshire is quite safe from invading Frenchmen—at least until Britain’s meddlesome safety bureaucrats decide to confis- nGeneral elections in the Netherlands have long been exercises in cate its dangerous military equipment. confusion, and this latest is no exception. It has been decades since any one party had a majority in the parliament of 150 seats. Mark n In Malawi, southern Africa, two homosexual men who had cel- Rutte’s Liberal party has 31 seats, enough for him to explore some ebrated their “engagement” were given 14-year prison sentences, possible coalition. His opening choice is Geert Wilders’s Freedom with hard labor, by a judge who said that their actions went party. Pre-election polls gave no indication that the Freedom party “against the order of nature.” Then U.N. secretary general Ban Ki- would increase its representation from nine seats to 24. The surge moon came on a visit to Malawi, words were exchanged at high proves that Wilders has been saying what voters want to hear, in the diplomatic levels, and the two lovers were granted a presidential aftermath of the shock caused when an Islamist fanatic butchered reprieve. They are not to suppose, however, that “they can keep the well-known filmmaker Theo van Gogh in an Amsterdam street. doing whatever you keep doing.” They could be rearrested if they Wilders sees Islam as the country’s “biggest problem,” and he “continue doing that.” Those quotes come from Patricia Kaliati, wants to stop further Muslim immigration. He himself made a Malawi’s Minister of Gender and Children. How blessed the land short film to promote these views and for the six years since has whose economic, diplomatic, military, and administrative prob- needed police protection from death threats. The previous govern- lems are so thoroughly tamed it can afford a Minister of Gender ment charged him with inciting racial hatred, and it will be piquant, and Children! if not downright unconstitutional, should he really have to stand trial this October for putting forward a program that—as now n The National D-Day Memorial, in Bedford, Va., has just added seems the likely outcome—won him a place in the cabinet. a bust of Joseph Stalin to its assemblage of sculptures. Officials Opponents habitually demonize him as “far right,” but whether explain that while the USSR did not participate in D-Day, the he enters the coalition or not, he is already obliging his countrymen memorial seeks to place that event within the war’s larger con- to question the limits of their famous national tolerance. text, which is why there are busts of Chiang Kai-shek, Harry Truman, and Clement Attlee along with Roosevelt, Churchill, nSitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council are some of the dark- and numerous military figures (oddly for a memorial devoted to est regimes on earth—Cuba’s, China’s, Libya’s: You get the pic- D-Day, there is no bust of any Canadian leader). Yet amid these ture. George W. Bush detached the United States from this council, heroes and statesmen, Stalin is the only one who encouraged considering it a farce, and a body basically dedicated to defaming Hitler before the war started, neglected the Nazi threat after-

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Video Review in Baseball?

YES: The case for video review in baseball is obvious. So NO: After Galarraga’s near-perfect game, the adoption of obvious in fact that baseball already uses it to adjudicate con- video review is as inevitable as Barney Frank’s getting troversial home-run calls. According to baseball romantics, reelected, and as desirable. But in the interests of standing this should already have ruined the “imperfection” and the athwart history, here are a few objections. What if a game “rhythm” of the game. By their way of thinking, Game 3 of ends with a runner being called out, and then two minutes last year’s World Series must have been irredeemably soiled later the officials decide he was safe? Endless reviews will by taking the time to find out whether an Alex rodriguez shot only make games longer, and reversals in baseball can that hit a camera jutting over the outfield wall was a home run create more problems than they solve: If the umpire calls a (it was). Fans less besotted with abstractions were simply ball foul and then video shows it was fair, how can anyone grateful for the correct call. conservatism is not mindless know what would have happened? Video will not resolve nostalgia. We must adapt institutions to changing circum- all questions; instead, it will just create new controversy stances in order to preserve what’s best in them. If Armando about whether the reversal or non-reversal was correct. Galarraga had thrown his near-perfect game in 1920, it And standards like “indisputable visual evidence” are would have occasioned a timeless debate on whether meaningless, because there is no bright line between the 27th batter was really safe or not. Now we all “probable” and “definite.” Simply put, video re- know instantly that it was a blown call. Expanded view is not conservative. Its support rests on a video review might slow down games, but their pace handful of dramatic cases, while ignoring the can be increased by taking measures to rein in the wider problems it would create; it relies on ex - effects of the other innovations (e.g., batters con- perts and rules to eliminate all difficulties; and stantly leaving the batter’s box between it seeks to immanentize the eschaton with new pitches). Will this “perfect” baseball? Of layers of bureaucracy and fancy techno-fixes. In course not. It will only improve it. Edmund other words, video review is the Obamacare of Burke would approve. —rIch LOWry baseball. —FrEd SchWArz

wards, and enslaved the nations that his troops liberated—all this Manatees could use plenty of, judging by their last-place record). while killing tens of millions of his own people. The unimagin- The reason is that baseball slang for batting practice is “BP,” an able carnage on the Eastern Front certainly deserves mention in abbreviation that has recently become odious. As a club official any account of World War II, but to place a murderer at least as explained, “changing the term ‘batting practice’ and ‘BP’ to ‘hitting great as hitler alongside genuine fighters for freedom is a dese- rehearsal’ shows that we are deeply concerned and hurt by the cration of the cause for which so many brave men fought and disaster on the Gulf coast” (though for what it’s worth, Brevard died on the beaches of Normandy. county is on the Atlantic coast). That statement comes from Kyle Smith, who is the club’s general manager—a position customarily n If there’s a david Souter of linguistic analysis, it would have referred to as “GM.” No word on whether he will change his job title to be the philosopher Stanley Fish, a leader of the meaning-is- as well, to avoid arousing animosity in bailout-weary taxpayers. meaningless camp who rejects the concept of universal morals and thinks everything must be considered in relation to everything n In the early 1980s, the idea that the Soviet-dominated else—relatively speaking, of course. you won’t be surprised to communist regimes in Eastern Europe could be toppled anytime learn that Fish has spent most of his life on college campuses, soon was harbored by only a handful of visionaries. The collapse where such ethereal ideas still have some currency. yet in a recent of the tyrannies, so obviously inevitable in retrospect, was a dis- article, he looked back fondly and approvingly on his days at tant dream. To stand up to such immense power—with such a Providence, r.I.’s no-nonsense classical high School, where minuscule prospect of success—requires that one have in one’s “offerings and requirements included four years of Latin, three character the level of courage and commitment associated with years of French, two years of German, physics, chemistry, biology, saints. In Poland of the early 1980s, Fr. Jerzy Popieluszko algebra, geometry, calculus, trigonometry, English, history, civics demonstrated that precise sort of character. he told the truth . . .” Fish says grade-school education boils down to a few simple about the regime, uncompromisingly; and paid the price in rules: “Get knowledgeable and well-trained teachers, equip them martyrdom, murdered by the police in 1984. On June 6, in a cere - with a carefully calibrated curriculum and a syllabus filled with mony in Warsaw, he was beatified—declared a Blessed of the challenging texts and materials, and put them in a room with stu- catholic church. he did not live to see Poland free, but he lives dents who are told where they are going and how they are going to on: in the presence of the Almighty, and in the hearts of people, get there.” Assuming that we’ve managed to extract the proper from Iran to cuba, from china to Sudan, who dare to take on evil meaning from his words, that sounds like a good plan to us. powers even when they seem insurmountable. ICON SMI / n Breaking with many decades of tradition, the Brevard county n We don’t know what John Wooden’s political views were, Manatees of the Florida State League have changed the name of but whatever his affiliation, he was a conservative in the broad-

STEVEN KING their batting-practice sessions to “hitting rehearsal” (something the est sense. While coaching UcLA to ten NcAA basketball

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THE WEEK championships in twelve years, he stressed individual persever- leadership of this kind is an art, and each disaster is different, there ance and self-reliance within a team framework, and unlike today’s is no one answer. A president has to go with the strengths of his own film-obsessed coaches, he rarely bothered to scout the opponents, personality, and hope they fit the occasion. Obama’s cool has not telling his players to play their own game and make the other team worked so well; still less have his unfortunate attempts to “kick ass.” adjust. Over time he distilled his philosophy into a collection of Speaking from the Oval Office, he combined both aspects: “Woodenisms,” many of which have application far beyond the making a wonkish pitch for green energy, vowing to make BP pay world of sports (“Ability is a poor man’s wealth,” “Consider the for the damages it has caused. Will this hybrid of the two Obamas rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others carry more conviction? He and we will soon find out. before your own rights,” “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out”). An All-American for Purdue in the early 1930s, when two-handed set shots were the AT WAR norm and there was still a jump ball after every basket, he coached An Extension for Afghanistan into the era of skyhooks and dunks. Decades after his 1975 retire- ment, coaches still sought his wisdom, which he always dispensed fgHAnS are masters of hedging their bets, and generously. The Wizard of Westwood, dead at 99. R.I.P. Pres. Hamid Karzai is hedging his. Who can blame him? A After an agonizingly long period of deliberation, Presi - dent Obama approved an Afghan troop surge with an expiration THE PRESIDENCY date of July 2011 attached. Seeping Away That’s when Obama said we’d “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan.” for Obama, stuffed full of cautionary tales S the gulf oil spill approached the end of its second about LBJ and Vietnam, that was a clever way to limit his com- month, President Obama said an interesting thing to mitment and to placate his anti-war base. for the region, it was a A Politico columnist Roger Simon: “The overwhelming disastrous signal communicating a lack of resolve and staying majority of the American people” expect “the president to do power. It gave the Taliban yet more reason to believe that they can everything that’s within his power. They don’t expect us to be outlast us, and Karzai more reason to consider his options if we magicians.” Us here was not the royal we, but a shift from Obama leave precipitately. himself to all modern presidents. President Obama needs to walk back his deadline by making it for the moment perhaps he is right. Obama’s approval ratings clear that next July is the date for a review of the current strategy have hung steady since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon rather than its necessary endpoint. In his West Point speech, well exploded. “It’s hard to make the case that the BP oil spill” has Obama said he’d take account of “conditions on the ground.” If he had “a substantial impact,” said pollster Bill McInturff. does that now, he’ll realize the folly of July as the hard deadline Yet Obama’s claim defies recent history. As the federal govern- for the beginning of the transition to the Afghans. ment has taken control of more and more aspects of national life, There’s no rushing a war of counterinsurgency, especially in the the executive has been given a host of powers, including ineffec- difficult circumstances of Afghanistan. In Marjah, the Taliban tual ones, in an effort to manage the beast. In the gulf today, BP stronghold in Helmand Province that became a kind of early drills for oil on “land” a mile underwater owned by the federal showcase for the surge, gen. Stanley McChrystal has learned that government. government inspectors certified the safety of its there is no such thing as a “government in a box,” his unfortu- operations. now that disaster has struck, the administration leads nately glib phrase for the Afghan government he hoped to import the effort to contain on-shore damage. into the city after clearing it of the enemy. But Marjah isn’t At the same time, the attorney general has opened criminal and remotely as important as Kandahar, the country’s second-biggest civil investigations of BP. former mayor Rudy giuliani, no city and the spiritual home of the Taliban. shrinking violet when it comes to executive action, spotted the The timeframe for our move into Kandahar has been delayed. flaw in that: “I particularly don’t understand why you’d continue The power wielded by Karzai’s corrupt half-brother, Ahmed Wali to have BP solely in charge [of plugging the spill] when you’re Karzai, makes Kandahar a hideously difficult political problem. investigating them for a crime.” The administration has also We have to decide how aggressively to take on his network, the banned deep-water drilling for six months on the 30-plus rigs that depredations of which fuel the insurgency. That will take time, and have not exploded. Several thousand people will be thrown out of McChrystal shouldn’t have to make his decisions with an eye to a work when the gulf’s economy is already reeling. Such exercises looming artificial deadline. of power may be counterproductive, but the powers exist, so the We’ll also need a much shrewder diplomatic team. The ham- temptation is almost irresistible to use them. far better would be handed handling of Karzai by Obama’s envoy to the region, to impose order on the bureaucratically tangled response on shore. Richard Holbrooke, and our ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, has Beyond the realm of action, the modern president is also a mag- played into his worst tendencies. general McChrystal has the best ical being—elected royalty, almost divinity. no one has clutched relationship with the Afghan leader, but shouldn’t have to be top that mantle more than Obama. “This was the moment,” he general and top diplomat. Whatever this is, it isn’t “smart power.” claimed in 2008, after securing the Democratic nomination, Along with all the troubling news out of Afghanistan, there was “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began a ray of light: the discovery that it may sit atop $1 trillion in min- to heal.” Tell that to the pelicans. It must be especially bitter for eral wealth. This offers Afghanistan the promise of eventually him now that his loudest critics are the liberal pundits who invest- supporting itself, if these resources can be successfully exploited ed most heavily in his myth. and aren’t stolen by a kleptocratic government. All the more What can the magical president do in such a disaster? Since reason to take the time to get our Afghan campaign right.

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public that Obama the man is simultane- ously ruthless and weak. A kind of elitism may well be inherent in his political phi- losophy, but the imputation of snobbery to our first black president, who was raised without a father, is inapt. On the other hand, some of the charges stick. Obama is in some respects more lib- eral than previous Democratic presidents, and the evidence his defenders use to deny this fact consists chiefly of tactical retreats. Not fighting for single payer or a public option when Congress would not have passed either proves that he can count votes, not that he is a moderate. He is vain, even as successful politicians go: How many other politicians would say that they are better strategists than their strategist, better speechwriters than their speech- The Obama enigma writer, etc.? He is thin-skinned: Has he Disconnection from the main currents of American life ever responded to a criticism with self- deprecating humor, or grace? He regularly turns out to be a political disadvantage has an unpresidential air of being put upon. “Lying” is a strong term, but Obama also BY RAMESH PONNURU frequently says things that one would think he knows not to be true—such as that peo- serve as a blank screen on which tioner of “the Chicago way.” He is a radi- ple who like their current health plans will people of vastly different political cal. An elitist. A liar—as rep. Joe Wilson be able to keep them under his reform. stripes project their own views,” shouted. some of the critiques have clearly gotten ‘I Barack Obama famously wrote in During the 2008 campaign, Karl rove to Obama. He told Matt Lauer that he the prologue to The Audacity of Hope. He described him as someone who coasts on spoke to experts about the oil spill so he wrote as though this “blankness” were not his charm rather than doing hard work. A would “know whose ass to kick.” He was part of a conscious strategy for winning the republican Web ad, similarly, portrayed defending himself against the charge of White House. It was the emptiness of his him as a “celebrity.” since he got elected, being academic, unemotional, and passive. slogans—“we are the ones we’ve been republicans have labeled him “whiny” It was not, perhaps, the most persuasive waiting for”—that allowed liberals and whenever he has blamed the nation’s, or his thing this president has ever said. (At least moderates to consider him a soul mate. own, troubles on the Bush administration, he did not promise to create a new De - Being enigmatic also enabled him to be and “petulant” whenever he has attacked partment of Kick-Assery to be staffed by glamorous. Coolness and distance are current republicans. “vain” and “arrogant” the best and brightest.) not just an Obama strategy; they are also are also words they have attached to him. The president was, of course, overcom- clearly integral to his personality. But Obama’s sharpest mainstream critics pensating. But he was also condescending. they are a strategy. have questioned his patriotism. When it Perhaps all of the encomia to him for being That strategy has a flipside, which is that comes to “identification with the nation uncommonly thoughtful have gone to his his opponents can project unattractive and to all that binds its people together in head. He assumes that the public will see qualities on them. And oh have they tried. pride and allegiance,” Wall Street Journal the point of reason only if it is translated At the outer edges of our politics (and san- columnist Dorothy rabinowitz recently into terms of brute force. ity) are those who affix to Obama an iden- wrote, the president is deficient. “He is the Obama has long been considered an tity as a Muslim, or an Indonesian. At the alien in the White House.” As oil has kept exceptionally talented politician, but he beginning of his presidency, mainstream spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, even lacks some of the basic political skills one republicans were wary of attacking the some of the president’s fans have taken to expects of the breed. He does not have an president personally. But that reticence faulting him for showing too much aloof- instinctive feel for the country’s mood, and lasted only a few weeks. since then they ness and not enough emotion. They too so he cannot find the right pitch—even, or have ventured to define him in several believe that he is detached, even if they will especially, at moments of high national ways, all negative. He is weak and indeci- not add “from his countrymen.” anxiety. President Clinton’s reaction to sive, they have said, especially during the Not all of these critiques make sense, the Oklahoma City bombing revived his drawn-out debate over his Afghanistan or hang together very well. republicans presidency. This president, following the policy. He was acting like an “Ivy League might try to portray Obama as weak and shootings at Fort Hood, proved incapable professor,” holding “seminars” instead of indecisive toward the country’s enemies of rallying the country. His initial remarks acting. At other times his opponents have and savage with his domestic opponents; were off-key, coming as they did after praise

DARREN GYGI said he is a machine politician: a practi- but they are not going to convince the to some of his staffers and a “shout-out”

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toadistinguishedmemberoftheaudience atapreviouslyplannedTribalNations Conference.Obamathenallowedtopoffi- Golden cialstosuggestthatsacrificing“diversity” wouldbeagreatertragedythanthemas- Spike sacre. ItcanbesaidinObama’sdefensethatat On the dollar, hedge funds I M P O R T A N T afarmorecrucialmoment,hispredecessor are hedging deliveredamoredismayingperformance. N O T I C E PresidentBush’sremarksontheeveningof BY STEPHEN SPRUIELL September11weretheoppositeofreassur- to all National Review ing.ButBushrightedhimselfwithindays eADeRS of this fortnightly atGroundZero.Itishardtoimaginethis wouldnotbesurprisedtohear subscribers! presidentgrabbingthebullhorn. someone say, “The stimulus InpartObama’sdeficiencyisafunction R failed.”Mostwouldprobably oftheinexperiencethathisopponents nodinagreement.Buttheymightbe warnedagainstduringthe2008campaign. surprisedtolearnthatthesomeonewho ObamapledgedtocloseGuantanamoBay saiditisJeffreySachs,theColumbia       We are moving our withinayearofhisinauguration.Amore Universityeconomistmostfamousfor experiencedleadermightnothavehadany writingThe End of Poverty (unofficial subscription-fulfillment      illusionsabouttheprogressfromwishto subtitle:“Yetanotherbookcallingfor 
   office from reality.WithmoretimeonCapitolHill,he Westerngovernmentstoincreasetheir mightalsohaveseenthedangersofletting foreign-aid budgets”) (foreword by Mount   Morris, Ill. theDemocraticcaucussetthelegislative Bono).HealsowroteanarticleforTime    to Palm Coast, Fla. agenda.Thepresidentcouldhavegotten lastyearentitled“TheCaseforBigger Please continue abipartisanstimulusifhehadcutin Government.”Heis,inotherwords,not    big-spendingRepublicans—andwhocan easilydismissedasjustanotherright- to be vigilant: doubthewouldbeinbettershapenowif wingcrank.Forthisreason,itwasall      There are fraudulent hehad? themoreimportantforstimulusdefend- ButthedeeperproblemisObama’sdis- erstodismisshim,soeconomistPaul agencies
   soliciting connectionfromthemajorcurrentsof Krugman—thestimuluslover’sstimulus your    National Review American life.The country has been a lover—assumedtheroleoffreelancepsy- commercialrepublicsinceitsbeginning; chologistforthispurpose.“WhatIthink subscription !  renewal Obamahashadalmostnocontactwith ishappening,”Krugmanwrote,“isthat without    our authorization. businesslife.Healsogrewupinamuch we’reseeingthedeepseductiveness,for Please reply only to moreleft-wingmilieuthananyofhis manyeconomists(andothers),oftaking   predecessors,andthanthevastmajority whatsoundslikeatough-mindedposition National Review   
  ofAmericans.Duringthecampaign,he infavorofinflictingpainontheecono- renewal notices or remarkedthathewasgladtobeinHenry my.”     Wallace’shomecounty.Howmanypeople InKrugman’smind,thereisnoother bills—make sure the hisagethinkfondlyofWallace?(Reported answerforwhyagrowingnumberofleft-     return address is Politico:“‘Iwasamazedthatheknew of-centereconomistsareembracingthe aboutHenryWallace,’saidDianeWeiland, argumentthatthestimulusdidn’twork.     Palm Coast, Fla. thelongtimedirectoroftheHenryA. Theirreasoning—Americansareworried Ignore   all requests for WallaceCountryLifeCenter,whowasin aboutthedebt,andinthefaceofthis renewal that are not theaudience.”) uncertaintyaresavingratherthanspend-
    AmericansknewBarackObamawasto ing—doesn’taddupforKrugman.evi-     directly payable theleftofmostAmericanswhentheyelect- denceofsuchconcernsis“absentfrom to National Review. edhim.Theydonotbelievethatheisa thedata,”hewrites.Ifpeoplearesowor-     socialist.Theydonotthink—atleastyet— riedabouttheU.S.government’sability If you receive any mail or thatheisuntrustworthy.Butsomecharges tocarryitsdebtload,theninterestrateson telephone     offer that makes againstleadershavealongfuse.Liberal governmentsecuritiesshouldbegoing    you suspicious contact chargesthatPresidentBushwasaliarand up,tocompensatefortheperceivedrisk. afooldidnotpersuadeAmericansduring Instead,they’veremainedrelativelyflat [email protected]@nationalreview.com.. hisfirstterm,buthelpedtopoisonhis (andlow)overthepastyear.Norarewe Your cooperation second.Americansmaystarttothinkthat experiencingmonetaryinstabilityinthe     Obamaisarrogant,andthathedoesnot formofinflation,Krugmanargues,which      is greatly appreciated. understandthem.Thoseperceptionswill wouldbeasignthatthestimulatorshad bedevastatingiftheyalsoconcludethat gonetoofar.Oddlyforsuchadie-hard he’snotuptothejob. liberal,Krugmanistellingustoplaceour

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faith in the markets, which are saying that mostly in the form of loans to the nation’s “flash crashes” and unexplainable rallies, the U.S. government deficit is not a prob- commercial banks at 0 percent interest. is an even bigger gamble: Charts of its lem, and to ignore Sachs and Co., who are Over that same period, these banks have daily movements resemble the handiwork just trying to burnish their reputations as increased their purchases of U.S. govern- of a drunk with an Etch-a-Sketch. Even the tellers of unwelcome truths. ment bonds by $500 billion. cash, in the form of U.S. dollars, is risky: As is usually the case, however, Krug- David Smick, a financial consultant In the event of a debt crisis, dollar deval- man’s presentation of the data is a bit and author of The World Is Curved, uation would be a major concern. Under . . . selective. There’s another indicator, explained the phenomenon in an article crisis-level pressure, the government besides interest rates and price levels, that for Com men tary earlier this year: “The would probably pay its debts by printing tells us when people are feeling fearful perception now is that Washington has dollars, thus debasing the currency. and uncertain about the future, and lately entered a new era of ‘political banking.’ This brings us back to gold. While the it has been spiking to record highs: A lot . . . [Banks] can borrow from the central too-big-to-fail banks are buying T-bills in of people are buying gold, including peo- bank for next to nothing [and] use that bulk—and when you’re a de facto branch ple who don’t fit the profile of your typi- borrowed money to buy guaranteed gov- of the government, this is not a risky cal gold investor. (By way of illustration, ernment debt, taking the difference in move—the too-small-to-bail hedge funds the value of the gold in Krugman’s Nobel yields as riskless profit.” This is not a bug are buying metals and shorting other medal has increased by 40 percent since in the government’s strategy for dealing countries’ sovereign debt and, in some he received it in December 2008.) with weakness in the banking system; it is cases, our own. Hedge-fund managers

Democrats and other stimulus defend- the strategy’s central feature. The banking have no unofficial partnership with the ers have either ignored this trend or tried sector’s demand for low-risk securities, U.S. government distorting their invest- to portray the gold-price spike as a bubble and the Fed’s willingness to finance that ment decisions; they are just looking out at best, a conservative-talk-radio-driven demand at 0 percent, have helped banks for their clients and themselves. And, like conspiracy at worst. But some of the repair their damaged balance sheets while Jeffrey Sachs, most of them can’t be world’s smartest in vest ors—guys who so far keeping the government’s interest accused of having an ideological axe to saw the subprime meltdown coming—are rates manageable. With virtually no per- grind: They are by and large donors to also putting their money into what ceived risk and a Fed eager to finance the Democratic candidates and causes. Keynes once called the “barbarous relic.” purchases, banks don’t mind a low return Granddaddy Democratic donor George They are betting that the next “big short” on their investment. Soros recently doubled the size of his will be the U.S. government, and they Second, investors still see U.S. Trea - gold holdings; they now make up 7.5 per- aren’t the kind of investors the govern- sury bonds as safe relative to other invest- cent of his $8.8 billion fund. Former ment should feel comfortable betting ments. Look at the alternatives. Eu rope Goldmanite Eric Mindich, head of the against. is burning. Japan, with a debt load equal hedge fund Eton Park, has invested over 4 In some ways, gold is a better indicator to nearly 200 percent of GDP, is widely percent of his fund in gold. Mindich doled of investor concern about the govern- thought to be next. Corporate debt is a out around $94,000 in political contri - ment’s finances than are interest rates on gamble, particularly since the Obama butions in 2008, all to Democrats. John government bonds, because at least two administration set the precedent with Paulson, the investor who became famous forces are keeping those rates irrationally GM and Chrysler that the government for shorting the housing market and, CORBIS / low. First, since the crisis began, the can design bankruptcy plans that shaft more recently, for being named in the Federal Reserve has injected over $1 tril- secured creditors in favor of labor unions. SEC’s lawsuit against Goldman Sachs,

AMANAIMAGES lion of new money into the economy, And the stock market, with its schizoid started a separate fund devoted just to

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gold investments. Paulson is another other books, has argued that the obama major donor to Democrats. administration’s fiscal management has Perhaps the most trenchant critic of been so bad that “every single human Progress the obama administration to have made being” should short U.S. Treasury bonds. a major investment in gold is David And Kyle Bass, another investor who Pains Einhorn, director of Greenlight Capital gained fame by betting on a housing col- and another donor to liberal candidates lapse, explained in one of his letters to The Mexican political reforms and causes. Einhorn blasted the adminis- investors that “there is a ‘Keynesian end’ we applaud have helped cause the tration’s fiscal management in a speech to the policy du jour that governments can Mexican drug violence we deplore before the Value Investing Con gress last solve all their fiscal and economic prob- fall: lems with more debt. . . . In the end (and BY DUNCAN CURRIE there will be a reckoning for many coun- when I watch Chairman Bernanke, tries) nations, including the United States, ow bad is the violence in Mex - Secretary Geithner, and Mr. Summers on need to dramatically cut spending and get ico? According to a Time report, TV, read speeches written by the Fed their fiscal balances in order.” At the end “Frustration with the govern- governors, observe the “stimulus” black of the letter, Bass noted that his firm had H ment’s inability to protect the hole, and think about our short-termism increased its gold holdings and was “tak- citizenry against crime long ago reached and lack of fiscal discipline and political ing other steps to position ourselves for the boiling point.” will, my instinct is to want to short the the most likely outcome over the next Actually, that report was published in the dollar. But then I look at the other major few years”—which, in his view, will be a fall of 1996, several months before Mexican currencies. The Euro, the Yen, and the British Pound might be worse. So, I con- sovereign-debt crisis. drug czar Jesús Gutiérrez Rebollo was clude that picking one [of] these curren- At this point, Krugman might point out arrested for having links to the Juárez cartel. cies is like choosing my favorite dental that Bass has given money to the National The mid-1990s were a harrowing period for procedure. And I decide holding gold is Republican Congressional Committee our southern neighbor—a period in which it better than holding cash, especially now, and thus can’t be trusted. For all we know, experienced an armed rebellion among rural where both earn no yield. he might even be a fan of Glenn Beck—in Indians, a disastrous currency meltdown, its which case, according to Rep. Anthony worst recession since world war II, high- In the same speech, Einhorn explained weiner (D., N.Y.), he has fallen victim to profile political assassinations, an explo- how the low interest rates the U.S. gov- a conspiracy between conservative talk- sion of drug-related brutality, and major ernment currently pays—Ex hib it A in radio hosts and the gold companies, such corruption scandals. Since then, the country Krugman’s case against the deficit as Goldline International, that advertise has liberalized its economy, bolstered its hawks—could spike suddenly, without on their shows. In May, weiner issued a financial system, strengthened its democra- much warning. The collapse of Lehman formal report condemning Goldline, call- tic institutions, and seen its murder rate Brothers, which Einhorn predicted, set off ing on federal agencies to investigate the drop considerably. “Mexico has made tons a chain reaction when it caused invest - company. He explicitly accused Beck and of progress,” says Howard Campbell, an ors to reprice the risk of lending large others of impropriety in their relations anthropologist at the University of Texas, amounts of money on a short-term basis with Goldline, insinuating—never prov- El Paso, and author of Drug War Zone. to investment banks. None of the remain- ing, of course—that Beck’s criticism of Recognizing this progress can help us ing major wall Street investment banks the administration is at least partially keep Mexico’s current drug mayhem in survived the fallout. (The only two that motivated by a desire to scare up business perspective. The relentless, ghastly vio- remained independent, Goldman Sachs for an advertiser. lence in certain border cities—particularly and Mor gan Stanley, were forced to con- one way to look at weiner’s report is Juárez, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa—has vert into commercial banks in order to as a typical nanny-state intervention: fostered the perception among Americans receive federal assistance.) Einhorn point- Busybody Democrat with too much free that the entire country is a lawless, blood- ed out that a currency crisis in Europe, time wants to tell you what to buy (and soaked hellhole. In fact, the carnage has sparked by the collapse of a eurozone what not to buy)—news at eleven. But been concentrated in a relatively small member such as Greece, “could have a there is a darker possibility here, one fore- number of geographically important areas. similar domino effect on re-assessing the shadowed by U.S. government restric- “Parts of the country are probably more credit risk of the other fiat currencies run tions on short-selling and by officials’ peaceful than they’ve ever been,” says by countries with structural deficits and denunciations of the investors who are Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico large, unfunded commitments to aging betting on European fiscal incontinence Institute at the woodrow wilson Inter- populations.” In case you haven’t been as “wolf packs.” weiner’s report is a tinny national Center for Scholars. “And other paying attention, that’s us. echo of these broader alarms, an attempt parts are being torn asunder by violence Some financial thinkers have gone to delegitimize dissent by painting it as between competing cartels.” beyond recommending gold and now say self-interested. But Glenn Beck and oth- The regions that have been hit hardest are investors should bet on a sovereign-debt ers are trying to sound, for the nation’s thoroughly integrated into the global econ- crisis. Einhorn’s firm has made large small-dollar savers, the same alarm bell omy, but also function as points of entry or wagers that Japan will experience a sud- that the nation’s large-dollar money man- exit for illegal drugs. Northern Mexico ben- den interest-rate spiral. Nassim Taleb, agers have evidently heard loud and clear. efited handsomely from NAFTA, yet its author of Fooled by Randomness and That’s not against the law—yet. chief manufacturing and commercial

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hubs along the U.S. border have become deployed the army to confront it, but the cauldrons of violence. Campbell reckons increased violence does not necessarily that six of the 32 Mexican states—Chihua - reflect government ineptitude. Former Sal - hua, Durango, Guerrero, Michoacán, Sin - vadoran guerrilla Joaquín Villalobos, now a aloa, and Tamaulipas—are now “close to consultant to the Calderón administration, being narco-states.” argues that Mexican authorities have dis- On the other hand, he says, “the majority rupted DTO operational structures, and that of the country is basically okay.” Indeed, the subsequent bloodshed is a sign of cartel large swaths of Mexico have been insulated weakness rather than strength. from the drug havoc, and the capital city, Villalobos is obviously not an impartial though plagued by very real security prob- analyst. Yet when we review the available lems, has a much lower homicide rate than data, it becomes clear that innocent Mexican the District of Columbia. As Mexico-based civilians face less risk than commonly be - journalist Alexandra Olson has noted, the lieved. In a wide-ranging January 2010 Mexican national murder rate was higher study, political scientist David Shirk, direc- in 1997 (17 murders per 100,000 people) tor of the Trans-Border Institute at the than it was in 2009 (14 per 100,000). University of San Diego, affirms that “the Granted, because of the massive spike in vast majority of drug-related violence oc - drug-related killings, Mexico’s homicide curs between and among organized-crime rate has jumped since 2007 (when it was 10 groups. If you do not happen to be or have per 100,000), but it remains well below that ties to a drug trafficker, the odds of being of Brazil, which is frequently touted as an killed by one are extremely slim.” Last year, emerging superpower. he writes, the overall odds were roughly 1 in This is not meant to sugarcoat the terror 16,300, though they were much greater in that Mexican drug-trafficking organiza- the states of Chihuahua (1 in 1,600), Dur - tions (DTOs) and their gangland associates ango (1 in 2,400), and Sinaloa (1 in 3,400). have inflicted. All of the DTOs enjoy cor- Shirk uses statistics compiled by the rupt alliances with local officials, many of Mexican newspaper Reforma, which he whom feel they must accommodate the deems “a fairly reliable source” with a drug mafias in order to survive. Even those sound methodology for distinguishing courageous mayors and police chiefs drug-war murders from other homicides. who want to investigate and prosecute According to the Reforma data, the number DTO members often lack the necessary of drug-related killings in Mexico soared resources. Meanwhile, journalists aiming from 2,280 in 2007 to 5,153 in 2008 to to expose underworld activity risk getting 6,587 in 2009. More than two-thirds of the kidnapped or killed. Mexico is unquestion- 2009 killings occurred in just five states ably embroiled in a severe crisis that threat- (Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Guerrero, Durango, ens to erode its democratic gains. and Michoacán), with nearly one-third Yet we should not exaggerate the crisis. taking place in Chihuahua alone. Itonly The drug-related murders are heavily clus- The ongoing cartel conflicts trace their tered in a few pockets of the country; the roots back to the 1980s. Through the middle government continues to exercise full terri- of that decade, Shirk explains, “DTOs oper- takes a torial control; and Mexico is nowhere near ated with a level of impunity not seen before being a “failed state.” Pres. Felipe Calderón, (or since) thanks to the protection then moment. in office since December 2006, has made afforded to them by corrupt officials at very significant strides in rooting out federal cor- high levels in the Mexican government.” In Make a difference ruption, professionalizing Mexico’s police the late Eighties, this arrangement started to in the lives of the men and women forces, cultivating intelligence capabilities, unravel, and the DTOs began fracturing, who protect our freedom. and upgrading the judicial system. “For the which sparked a wave of internecine vio- VOLUNTEER. DONATE. REMEMBER. first time, the Mexican government is devel- lence. During that same period, the relative USO.ORG oping the tools to take on organized crime influence of the Colombian cartels was and uphold the rule of law,” says Selee. declining, and the Mexican DTOs saw their To be sure, Calderón’s decision to tackle share of the global drug business expand, a the DTOs with military muscle has led phenomenon that accelerated in the 1990s. to heightened competition and infighting By the dawn of the new millennium, says among them. The resulting surge of vio- Selee, Mexico had become the epicenter lence has led many critics to pronounce his of the hemispheric narcotics trade. strategy a disaster. That verdict seems pre- The government responded by adopting a mature. Calderón likely underestimated sterner approach to the cartels. After the 9/11 the magnitude of the problem before he terrorist attacks, elevated security at the

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U.S.–Mexican border made it more difficult strengthened the overall financial system. to smuggle drugs between the two coun- The Mexican economy is deeply en - tries, which further squeezed the DTOs meshed with that of the United States, and Give and exacerbated turf battles. Then Cal - was therefore pulverized by the Great derón launched his military offensive, and recession. real GDP shrank by 6.5 per- Freely the number of killings shot up. cent in 2009. However, the global credit While it’s easy to blame him for igniting bust did not spark a domestic banking In California and elsewhere, the current brushfire of violence, we should collapse, underscoring Mexico’s new the Left wants the government not overlook the fact that political reform resilience, which stemmed from low infla- to oversee philanthropy has also inflamed the drug wars. a quarter- tion, a reduced debt burden, and a healthy century ago, Mexico was effectively a stock of international reserves, among BY JOHN J. MILLER one-party state ruled by the institutional other things. While the country still needs revolutionary Party (Pri); today, it is a full- sweeping labor, energy, and tax reforms— arlier this year, Thomas Perrin blown democracy. Calderón represents the reforms that Calderón has championed but of the James Madison institute conservative National action Party, as did that probably won’t happen anytime visited the office of Florida state his predecessor, Vicente Fox, who in 2000 soon—its economic stewardship is much E representative Greg evers. as broke the Pri’s seven-decade stranglehold better today than it was two decades ago. he pressed a copy of his think tank’s lat- on the executive branch. Moving forward, Mexico should also est report into the hands of a legislative as Shirk points out, the relative peace embrace structural political reforms de - aide, evers walked by. “i overheard what and cooperation that prevailed among signed to enhance accountability and they were talking about,” says evers, a Mexican DTOs in the early 1980s was tighten the connection between voters and republican from the Panhandle. “So i put facilitated by ubiquitous corruption among their elected representatives. Calderón it in reverse and joined the conversation.” members of the Pri. Decentralization and has of fered a litany of proposals, such as Within a few minutes, evers had adopted greater pluralism upset the crooked rela- permitting citizen initiatives, establishing a new cause. “When i learned of what tionships that once shielded drug traffickers a second round in presidential contests (if was going on, i knew we had to take from internal competition and external no candidate secures a majority on the action.” law enforcement. in other words, Mexico’s first ballot), and allowing for the reelec- JMi’s paper was on philanthropic free- democratic progress has indirectly caused tion of federal legislators and local offi- dom—and specifically on an emerging splintering and strife among the DTOs, cials. These measures could serve to left-wing threat to it. in California, the which in turn has fomented violence. alleviate the persistent scourge of institu- state assembly had passed a bill that The more we appreciate this paradox, tionalized corruption, which continues to pried into the operations of private foun- the better we will understand the country’s hinder economic growth and impede dations. it demanded that they publish evolution. For all its warts, Mexico’s record Calderón’s anti-DTO campaign. the race, gender, and sexual orientation over the past 15 years is one of substantial How can the U.S. help? Michael Shifter, of their trustees and of the leaders of the political and economic maturation. Since president of the inter-american Dialogue charities they support through grants. in the completion of NaFTa, it has signed a (a Washington think tank), says the Obama other words, program officers at foun - slew of free-trade pacts, including deals administration should increase police- dations would have been required to ask with the european Union, israel, and Japan. training assistance and work more aggres- soup kitchens to identify their board The 2010 index of economic Freedom sively to curb the cross-border flow of members who are gay. (compiled by the Heritage Foundation and assault weapons. Of course, as long as the The California legislation didn’t the Wall Street Journal) ranks Mexico U.S. both prohibits drugs and consumes an become a law—more on that in a ahead of Costa rica, Portugal, France, and enormous quantity of them, Mexico will moment—but it came close enough to set italy. its score easily outpaces the global achieve only limited success in its fight off alarms in the Tallahassee offices of average, and is markedly higher than it against the cartels. Shifter and Campbell JMi, a free-market public-policy group. was in the late 1990s. estimate that Mexican DTOs derive any- “We keep an eye on Sacramento because “Mexico has a very well-managed econ- where from 40 percent to 50 percent of that’s where a lot of bad ideas are born,” omy,” says alberto ramos, senior latin their revenue from marijuana. legali - says JMi president Bob McClure. “We america economist at Goldman Sachs. za tion is hardly a silver bullet, but if made it a priority to protect Florida’s it has made huge improvements since america did legalize pot, the traffickers foundations and non-profits from what the days of Pres. José lópez Portillo would certainly feel a financial pinch. almost happened out there.” Their efforts (1976–82), who nationalized the banks, amid the grisly news of beheadings and paid off: On May 27, Florida governor and Pres. Carlos Salinas (1988–94), whose other drug-related atrocities, it can be Charlie Crist signed a bill that explicitly policy errors triggered the 1994–95 peso tough to remember just how far Mexico bans the state from adopting regulations crisis. Following its post-Salinas financial has come. Yet there are plenty of reasons modeled on those almost enacted in meltdown, the country adopted inflation to be encouraged. “i see Mexico respond- California. targeting and a flexible exchange-rate ing to a real crisis in a very determined The fight is finished in Florida, at least regime. as former Mexican central-bank way,” says Selee. Whether its response for now. But the war over government governor Guillermo Ortiz has observed, will be sufficient to quell the violence is control of philanthropies is set to break these reforms boosted monetary freedom, unclear; but the situation is not nearly as out in other state capitals as well as in aided capital-market development, and hopeless as many americans think. Washington, D.C. as politicians seek to

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close budget gaps, many are turning their the freedom of donors and foundations Angeles. “It was about generating polit- gaze to high-income givers and founda- to decide where to give away their ical pressure.” tion endowments—and wondering how money,” says Adam Meyerson of the The state assembly approved the bill, they can plunder the wealth that allows Philanthropy Roundtable, an associa - but then Coto yanked it. He had struck a Americans to give more than $300 bil- tion of grantmakers. “We are strongly deal with nine California foundations, lion annually to support everything from opposed to the use of the political including the William and Flora Hewlett churches to cancer research. President process to impose one set of preferences Foundation (the sixth-largest foundation Obama has proposed slashing the for philanthropy on the entire field.” in the United States) and the David and charitable deduction for the richest Last year, the Roundtable felt threatened Lucile Packard Foundation (the ninth- Americans. So far, Congress has resist- enough to put out a legal monograph on largest). In exchange for Coto’s drop- ed. Yet some of its members would like why tax exemptions for charity don’t ping the bill, the foundations pledged to go even further than the White House. transform private funds into public $30 million to “minority-led, community- California Democrat Xavier Becerra, money. based” groups. The political nature of who sits on the House Ways and Means Yet achieving this transformation the arrangement was obvious in the Committee, has referred to the tax- is the goal of groups such as the foundations’ euphemistic press release: favored treatment of charitable dona- Greenlining Institute, the Berkeley, It described the giveaway as the result of tions as a “$32 billion earmark” because Calif.–based organization that scored “productive discussions” with the chairs that’s the amount of revenue Washington an astonishing success in Sacramento of the black, Latino, and Asian Pacific supposedly forgoes each year. Becerra two years ago. It published a report Islander legislative caucuses. “The big wants Congress to play a stronger role claiming that California foundations foundations are fooling themselves in overseeing philanthropy: “I have an didn’t spend enough on non-profits led if they think they’ve bought off the obligation to make sure that those $32 by minorities. So its ally Joe Coto, a activists,” says William Schambra of the As politicians seek to close budget gaps, many are wondering how they can plunder the wealth that allows Americans to give more than $300 billion annually to support everything from churches to cancer research.

billion that would have gone to the fed- Democratic state assemblyman from Hudson Institute. “They’re going to eral government are used for a . . . public San Jose, introduced a bill to require keep coming back until they get their good.” foundations to disclose the race, ethnic- way. That’s how shakedowns work.” The “public good” is in the eye of the ity, and sexual orientation of their staffs The Greenlining Institute was any- beholder, of course. Last year, Becerra as well as their grantees. Supporters thing but bought off. As the California embraced a rather specific vision of it called for passage in the name of trans- foundations bartered with it, the organi- when he spoke at an event sponsored by parency, but the real motive was to zation set its sights on the Sunshine the National Committee for Responsive exploit feelings of liberal guilt at large State. It pursued the same strategy, Philanthropy. He praised the release of foundations and intimidate their boards starting with a study claiming that Flor - an NCRP report called “Criteria for and staffs into devoting more resources ida foundations weren’t giving enough Philanthropy at Its Best.” The document to an NCRP-style agenda. “This wasn’t money to minority groups. “The public called on foundations to spend at least about data collection,” says Wendy expects foundations to serve the poor half of their grant dollars on “lower- Garen of the Ralph M. Parsons Foun - and needy,” said Al Pina of the Florida income communities, communities of dation, which concentrates its resources Minority Community Reinvestment color, and other marginalized groups.” It on disadvantaged populations in Los Co alition, a local partner of the Green - also said grantors should spend at least a lining Institute. “Unfortunately, foun - quarter of their donations on “advocacy, dations in Florida and around the United organizing, and civic engagement to States have not held their end of the promote equity, opportunity, and justice bargain.” in our society.” As in California, there were problems Foundations that want to abide by with the Greenlining Institute’s narrow- these standards certainly are free to do minded notion of how philanthropy ben- so. The point of the NCRP report, how- efits minorities. The group claimed that ever, was not to encourage voluntary Publix, the grocery-store chain, gave compliance but rather to build a consen- less than 3 percent of its donations to sus among political elites for a one- minority-led organizations. Yet the com- size-fits-all approach to philanthropy. “How can you call yourself a paleoconservative? pany contributed almost $39 million to “There’s a growing movement to limit I think you have a very nice tan.” the United Way through an employee-

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giving program and its own charitable generate a temporary boom, drive down arm. in turn, the United way supports the market interest rate and distort these everything from helping the mentally Your Money signals. at a lower interest rate, producers disabled to feeding hungry seniors—no are inclined to borrow money and invest it matter the color of their skin. But Back in capital goods, on the assumption that because the United way doesn’t fit consumers are saving to purchase more Greenlining’s definition of a “minority- There is a strong economic case that goods and services in the future. in fact, led” organization, Publix stands accused the Federal Reserve should not exist consumers are not saving; they are contin- of exclusionary grantmaking. “How uing to consume goods in the present. absurd,” says McClure of JMi. “this is BY GARY WOLFRAM those artificially low interest rates the ‘aCoRNization’ of philanthropy.” eventually must rise, usually when the when McClure learned about the s Ron Paul’s suggestion that the government raises the interest rate to com- Greenlining institute’s success in Cali - Federal Reserve be eliminated a bat the inflation it created by lowering it. fornia and its new report on Florida, he “fringe position,” as Josh Barro sug- as a result, the cost of the labor and capi- had his think tank launch a counterattack. I gested in the last edition of NatioNal tal needed to produce capital goods rises it commissioned Matthew vadum of the Review (“Mend the Fed,” June 21)? beyond what producers expected, so they Capital Research Center, a washington, it depends on what “fringe” means. if it begin to lay off workers and abandon cap- D.C.–based group, to investigate the means simply that a large majority dis- ital investments. the end result is that pro- Greenlining institute and explain its agrees, then Representative Paul’s posi- ducers have used up resources in order to scheme. vadum’s eight-page report, pub- tion deserves that characterization. But if produce future goods for which there is lished by JMi last December, is what “fringe” is meant to imply that abolishing not a sustainable demand. this is what found its way into the hands of state the Fed is a lunatic idea that is not sup- Hayek calls “malinvestment,” and it is Representative evers and laid the ground- ported by economic theory, then Paul’s the fundamental cause of the boom-bust work for the legislation that now protects position is far from it. in fact, a number of cycle. Florida foundations from the harassment economists argue that the economy would the longer the boom is maintained, the that their California brethren have suf- operate more smoothly without a Federal worse the bust will be. Mises likened the fered. Reserve. process to a builder who designs a house it’s not clear where the Greenlining Paul’s position is supported by austrian thinking he has more bricks than he does. institute will strike next. Figures in the business-cycle theory, an economic analy- the longer he continues to build, the hard- philanthropic community have said sis that has its roots in the writings of er it will be for him to redesign the build- they’re keeping an eye on New Jersey, ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. ing once he discovers how many bricks he New York, Pennsylvania, and texas as this theory emphasizes the role of the actually has. possible targets. Meanwhile, the abuse interest rate in bringing together the plans what’s the alternative to the Fed? continues among lawmakers who refuse of producers and consumers. the interest Hayek, in a lecture delivered to the Gold to honor the intents of private donors. rate is the price of loanable funds—in and Monetary Conference in 1977, pro- earlier this year, arizona’s legislature effect, the price of money—and, like the posed “free banking,” the privatization of snatched a $250,000 bequest from the price of any good or service, it gives pro- the money supply: coffers of the arizona state Parks ducers information about consumers’ Board. the politicians decided that the behavior and the actions of other pro- as a result [of new research], i am more gift of asta Forrest, a Danish immigrant ducers. For example, if consumers wish to convinced than ever that if we ever again who had wanted to support a park sys- save—to put their money in banks, which are to have a decent money, it will not tem that she had grown to love, instead lend it out—they will increase the supply come from government: it will be issued by private enterprise, because providing would help close a budget gap. “she of loanable funds, putting downward pres- the public with good money which it can never would have given the money if sure on the interest rate. Producers can trust and use can not only be an extreme- she had known that the state was going then borrow that money cheaply and ly profitable business; it imposes on the to take it away from the parks board,” a invest in capital goods such as machinery, issuer a discipline to which the govern- friend told the Arizona Republic. factories, and housing—which they can ment has never been and cannot be sub- the next attack on foundations may use to create goods for consumers to buy ject. occur in washington. in February, in the future with the money they have CongressDaily reported that “senate saved. thus do producers and consumers there is no consensus on macroeco- aides are quietly exploring ways to tax arrive at the equilibrium interest rate, nomic policy among economists, and the massive wealth tucked away in chari- which matches producers’ plans to invest monetary policy is especially contentious, table foundations.” in his most recent in capital goods with consumers’ desire to but a good number of them argue that the budget proposal, obama once again pro- save. austrians got it right: the Fed causes the posed to reduce the charitable tax deduc- Central banks, by artificially expanding boom-bust cycle, and free banking is the tion on top earners. He thinks it’s smart the supply of loanable funds in order to solution. policy. But behind every governmental For example, Prof. lawrence white of act to control or influence the philan- Mr. Wolfram is the William Simon Professor of George Mason University, in a 2008 paper thropic sector lies a sentiment that is the Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College. He for the Cato institute (“How Did we Get exact opposite of charity: envy. blogs at www.hillsdale-econ.com. into this Financial Mess?”), explains how

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excessive credit expansion by the Federal cern about the actions of the Federal Reserve, along with government policies Reserve in expanding its role well beyond to feed the housing market, such as Fannie that of “lender of last resort.” Its purchase Message: Mae and Freddie Mac’s aggressive actions of vast amounts of commercial paper and to guarantee mortgages, led to the housing mortgage-backed securities, as well as its I’m Insecure bubble—where a good deal of malinvest- opening of special credit facilities to non- ment occurred, eventually leading to a bank financial institutions, certainly raises What the president’s oil-spill bluster collapse of housing prices and rising questions about how deeply ingrained in revealed about him unemployment. White is well known for the private sector we wish to have our cen- his works on free banking. He has laid out tral bank. The opaqueness of these trans- BY ROB LONG a strong theoretical case for it and offered actions should also be raising red flags. historical evidence for its efficacy. He The use of the massive power of the ULe One of great acting is, Do shows, for instance, that Scotland’s period Federal Reserve to provide credit to those not read the stage directions. of free banking, from 1716 to 1884, was a it favors should give every American You don’t, for instance, wrap time of “remarkable monetary stability.” pause. R up Hamlet’s big Act Two solil- George Selgin of the University of It seems that a mere audit of the Federal oquy—“. . . the play’s the thing / Wherein Georgia has written on free banking as Reserve, which Barro endorsed, will do I’ll catch the conscience of the King”— well. In a recent paper in The Independent little to stem the expansion of its powers. and then say “exit.” Review, “Central Banks as Sources of Perhaps there will be a political hue and Years ago, during the George H. W. Financial Instability,” he shows that in the cry if the Federal Reserve seems to be Bush administration, public-opinion sur- United States, the major financial crises favoring one party or group of businesses, veys began to register a troubling trend of the Federal Reserve era (1920–21, especially if there is evidence of political for a president campaigning for reelec- 1929–33, 1937–38, 1980–82, and 2007–09) payback. But limiting the power of the tion: More and more people felt that Bush have been more severe than the crises of Federal Reserve will require a long and just didn’t care about people’s suffering the free-banking era (1873, 1884, 1893, arduous political process. during the (fairly shallow) recession of the early 1990s. You’ve got to send them the message The importance of the interest rate that you care, they told him. So, dutifully, in his next big public outing, he tried to as a price must lead one to ask why send the message to the voters that he we would give the government cared. He wound up a boilerplate stump speech by declaring, with as much pas- the ability to set it. sion as he could muster, “Message: I care!” and 1907). He also makes the case that To simply shunt aside Representative No, no, Mr. President, you could imag- “the pre-Fed crises can themselves be Paul’s call for the elimination of the ine his advisers saying. The “message” shown to have been exacerbated, if not Federal Reserve as a crazy suggestion part is for us, it’s an internal thing. You’re caused, by regulations originally aimed from the fringe is to limit the search for the supposed to give them the message that at easing the Union government’s fiscal optimal public policy. Austrian business- you care. By showing that you care. burden.” In looking at the Canadian ex - cycle theory is undergoing a renaissance. Right, he might have replied, I did that. perience with free banking, he finds that The importance of the interest rate as a How much clearer could I have been? Canada’s system, “regulated solely by price—conveying all the information that You’re not supposed to say the “mes- unfettered market forces,” was highly suc- any price holds—must lead one to ask sage” part, they might have replied as cessful. why we would give the government the the presidential limo sped away. Steven Horwitz of St. Lawrence Uni - ability to set it. I suspect that many of the But it says right here on the talking- versity argues that disequilibrium between economists who believe in the importance points card you gave me, he could have the demand for money and the supply of of the Federal Reserve would be opposed shouted back. Right here! “Message: I money spills over into every sector of the to letting the government set the price of care!” economy and causes misallocations that potatoes, oil, salt, or dental services. Yet But by that time, a pudgy governor of lead to business cycles. In Microfoun - they are quite comfortable with letting the Arkansas had already bit his lower lip, dations and Macroeconomics: An Aus - government set the price for loanable felt our pain, and made us temporarily trian Perspective, he discusses why central funds, a price that has an effect on most of ignore his brittle wife. That was a guy banks are not able to respond effectively to the other prices in the economy. who understood Rule One. changes in the demand of consumers to It may well be that the arguments The truth was, Bush really didn’t care. save, and how this leads to distortions in in support of a central bank will win The 1990–91 recession was almost over prices that cause inefficiencies in produc- out, for as Hoover Institution scholar by the time he started getting walloped in tion. He then shows how free banking is Thomas Sowell has said: “There are no the polls, before someone had handed the system that is most likely to produce solutions; there are only tradeoffs.” But him a memo titled “Messaging That monetary stability. Paul’s suggestion deserves to be treated Bush Cares” or something equally futile. Mr. Barro is quite right to express con- seriously. Unemployment, slow growth, these things

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saw the president of the United States stretched out on a Mies daybed, and they scribbled in their notebooks, “Patient seems concerned re: not caring impres- sion. Patient may lack proper sympathy.” But psychiatrists don’t fire patients— not at $300 per session. Voters, on the other hand, positively relish it. All of this is a little unfair, of course. A president who spent his entire working life in either a crackpot left-wing non- profit or a law school—although when you say it like that, it’s hard to tell the dif- ference—couldn’t be expected to know anything about the complexities of deep- water drilling, the physics of oil under pressure, the trajectory of an oil slick as it slimes its way to shore. A deeply Freudian moment So, yes, it’s easy to imagine that there’s been a bit of the college seminar going on had already started turning around. There finds it impossible to describe something there, in the Oval Office. was nothing for him to do. And as all as simple and clear as Islamic fundamen- But why so defensive? Or, as we might grownups know, recessions happen. talism without weasel-wording equivo- have scribbled in our notebooks as But saying “Message: I care!” captured cation. Who, in other words, thinks this is President Obama took his place on the all of the loose threads out in the crazy- a college seminar. couch: “Patient v. v. defensive re: lack of town of public opinion and braided them I am not, let me stipulate at the outset, oil knowledge. Ego bruise? Anger due to together into part of the rope that ended a licensed psychiatrist. My understand - inflated sense of self vs. inability to stop up hanging the first Bush administration. ing of the works of Sigmund Freud are oil leak? Anger due to sense of self under Twenty years later, everyone seems to cursory—college psychology class; fire from oil leak, voters, etc.? Sense that be exercised over President Obama’s skimmed the reading, bluffed my way like college seminar, he is all talk, no recent declaration that his big project, through the exam—and it pains me to action?” when confronting the massive, gushing admit that I am, still, not legally allowed All of which is accurate. And all of BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, is to to prescribe drugs. which seems to be what voters are think- figure out “whose ass to kick.” But I know the basics. I know that we ing. Talking to Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today get weird in the pre-verbal stage of devel- Especially when he added, gratuitous- show, our skinny president said the fol- opment. I know that we have malignant ly, that he wanted to know “whose ass to lowing deeply Freudian thing: “I don’t sit egos. I know that we end up marrying the kick,” when everyone knew that what he around just talking to experts because this closest approximation to our most com- really meant was “whose ass to sue,” is a college seminar. We talk to these plicated parent. And I know that when we which doesn’t sound very butch. folks because they potentially have the say things, we often inadvertently reveal It’s been said that the Deepwater best answers—so I know whose ass to the truth about ourselves. A Freudian slip, Horizon oil spill is Obama’s Katrina, but kick.” for example, is when we say one thing that’s really not accurate. It’s Obama’s I’m not as interested as the rest of the when we mean a mother. Another. You “Message: I care” moment. It’s when he world is, I guess, in the “whose ass to know what I mean. started to read the stage directions. kick” part of the declaration. Show more When a person—especially someone A brilliant actor once told me that the emotion, I’m sure Obama’s advisers have as tightly wound as our president— hardest thing to play is drunk. And then been saying to him since the oil started to emphatically declares something that he told me how to do it. gush. Be more passionate. Send people sounds a little too specific, watch out. You play not drunk. You don’t play a the message that you care. And so he He’s not making a point; he’s reading the guy weaving and slurring and bumping did—absurdly, but that’s what happens to stage directions. He’s telling you what into stuff. You play a guy consciously, presidents when they hit the oil slick. At he’s afraid you think of him, and he’s deliberately, carefully not doing any of least he didn’t say, “Message: I’m going often correct. those things. The way you indicate how to kick some ass.” Psychiatrists love this little trick, immensely incapacitated you are, in Here’s the part I find the most interest- because it makes their work so incredibly other words, is to act super, super sober, ing: “I don’t sit around just talking to easy. You just wait for the patient to say to declare, in other words, that not only experts because this is a college semi- something weird about himself, and you are you not drunk, you’re the opposite nar.” This from the former professor who pounce. Voters do the same thing. When of drunk. Which just makes you seem ran a health-care-reform summit meeting George H. W. Bush tried to show voters incredibly drunk. like the cranky chairman of a faculty the scale of his caring by barking, Audiences find this hilarious. Voters,

TODAY SHOW committee at a third-rate college. Who “Message: I care!” they all suddenly well, we shall see.

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You deserve a factual look at . . .           
    Only a short time ago, many universities, goaded by left-wing professors and students and their substantial Muslim student bodies, “celebrated” Israel Apartheid Week in which divestiture from, boycott of and sanctions against Israel were demanded. Is there any truth, any justification at all in this odious characterization? What are the facts? But, yes, there is one difference: Jewish Israeli men are South African Apartheid. “Apartheid,” the Dutch-Africaans obligated to a three-year stint in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) term for separation, was the social order of the former South and serve in the reserve until they are 50 years old. For Arabs, Africa. It meant exactly that. The Black majority of the nation this service is voluntary. Except for the Druze, hardly any Arabs and the so-called Colored were kept strictly apart in all aspects of volunteer to serve in the armed forces. life. White domination over the native population was Israel has granted permanent residence and full citizen rights mandatory. For instance: Non-Whites had to carry a “passbook.” to a large number of legal and illegal foreign workers and their Passbook infringement could lead to deportation to one of the families – from the Philippines, Eritrea, Colombia, Nigeria, and Bantu “homelands.” Blacks and Coloreds were being kept from a from many other countries. Nobody, of course, is forced or wide array of jobs. Black-White sex was a serious jail-time requested to convert to Judaism as a condition of their being criminal offense. Hospitals and allowed to stay. Israel has accepted a ambulances were strictly separated. shipload of Vietnamese refugees who had Whites enjoyed free education until “To call Israel an apartheid state sought asylum. No Arab country has graduation. Not so for Blacks, whose is an expression of ignorance, accepted a single one of those refugees. education was strictly limited by the anti-Semitism, and malice.” Israel has brought in about 70,000 black oppressive “Bantu Education Act.” Ethiopian Jews, who despite their By law, no mixed sports were allowed. backwardness have become fully Park benches, swimming pools, libraries, and movies were integrated citizens of Israel. Everything that Blacks were not strictly separated. Blacks were not allowed to purchase or imbibe allowed to do in South Africa is totally open to non-Jews in alcoholic drinks – etc, etc, etc. And that is only a partial and Israel. small list of the many abusive impediments that non-Whites The “Apartheid Wall.” Another reason for which left-wing suffered under the South African apartheid regime. zealots and anti-Semites like to refer to Israel as the “apartheid Israeli Equality. To tar Israel with that kind of brush is utterly state” is the fence between Israel proper and the territories. This malicious. The exact opposite is the case. Not one single apartheid fence (which is indeed a fence and not a wall over most of its practice applies to Israel. Israel is by far the most racially mixed length) was constructed at great cost in order to prevent the and tolerant nation in the entire Muslim Middle East. Arabs, who suicidal attacks that had killed hundreds of Israelis and are about 20% of Israel’s population, enjoy, without any exception, grievously wounded thousands more. Thankfully, this “wall” is the same rights and opportunities in all fields as their Jewish exceptionally successful and has totally prevented any such fellow citizens. The total equality of all Israelis is assured in attacks since its completion. There is little question that this Israel’s founding document. All non-Jews (which means primarily separation fence is the cause of inconvenience for some of the Muslim Arabs) have full voting rights. At present, eleven Arabs sit Arab population. But it is an annoyance that they have brought in Israel’s Knesset (parliament): Three Arabs are deputy speakers. about themselves. And, of course, there are walls for protection Arabs are represented in Israel’s diplomatic service all over the all over the world. The Chinese invented it hundreds of years world. Arab students may and do study in all Israeli universities. ago. Our own country has a long, high, very sophisticated wall All children in Israel are entitled to subsidized education until across our border with Mexico. It is a wall, not to keep out graduation, without any restrictions based on color or religions. criminals who want to kill Americans, but people who want to In short, Muslim Arabs and other non-Jews are allowed everything come here only in search of a better life. To call the Israeli fence that Jews are allowed, everything that non-Whites were not an “apartheid wall” is an expression of ignorance and of allowed in apartheid South Africa. malevolence. Israel is a light unto the nations. It has, regrettably, many enemies – all or most of the world’s Muslim nations and left-wing ideologues who mostly hate the United States and who consider Israel to be America’s cat’s-paw in the Middle East. The reality, of course, is that Israel is the exact opposite of an apartheid state. It is a country in which all residents, all citizens, enjoy the same full rights. All other countries in the Middle East are benighted theocracies, ruthless tyrannies, or mostly both. To call Israel an apartheid state is an expression of ignorance, anti-Semitism, and malice.

        FLAME is a tax-exempt, non-profit educational 501 (c)(3) organization. Its purpose is the research and publication of the facts regarding developments in the Middle East and exposing false propaganda that might harm the interests of the United States and its allies in that area of the world. Your tax- deductible contributions are welcome. They enable us to pursue these goals and to publish these messages in national newspapers and magazines. We #"    $## "# have virtually no overhead. Almost all of our revenue pays for our educational  %  ! "
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Recep Tayyip Erdogan Turkey Turns In opposing the West, its leaders think they are joining the winning side

BY ANDREW C. M C CARTHY

ITH the “peace flotilla” effort to break Israel’s the Islamist movement calls its “civilizational” struggle against blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, the global the West. Islamist project—a self-acclaimed “grand jihad” Now, decades after their deaths in 1949 and 1938, respective- W to destroy the West—has achieved its greatest ly, Banna finally has his victory over Ataturk. coup since the attacks of September 11: After 80 long years, The Ottoman Empire’s defeat and the West’s post–World War Turkey, seat of the Ottoman Empire and the last Muslim I domination of Muslims was humiliating for Banna. But that caliphate, is back in the fold. wasn’t the half of it. He was enraged by Turkey’s conclusion that The United States has never been “at war with Islam,” and the Islam had to be suppressed. jihadist claim to the contrary is nonsense. Turkey, on the other For Ataturk, Islam was an insular force that retarded Muslim hand, really did wage a sustained, vigorous campaign against countries, preventing their embrace of modernity. If not sup- Islam. Across the Mediterranean, this purge of Allah’s deen pressed, it would deny newly independent Turkey’s return to (way of living) from public life by the modern Turkish repub- great-power status. The most telling thing about this is that lic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Ataturk), proved to be the Ataturk was a Muslim. In the U.S., where political correctness last straw for a charismatic Egyptian academic named Hassan has stifled inquiry into Muslim doctrine, we’ve conjured up a al-Banna. It spurred him, in 1928, to create the Muslim trendy, modern Islam: one fit for seamless assimilation in a Brotherhood. Ever since, the Brotherhood has spearheaded what Western society that denies religion authority over secular life. Ataturk knew better. In Islam there is no “secular life”—there Mr. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most is only life controlled in its every detail by sharia, Islam’s legal recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage and political system. Islam, Ataturk understood, is not merely a

America. religion but an all-encompassing social order. Sharia is non- ROMAN GENN

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negotiable: deemed by believers to be Allah’s verbatim, indivis- Indeed, the Turkish military has done precisely that on four ible prescription for how human life is to be lived; hostile to the occasions, the last in 1997, when Necmettin Erbakan’s Islamists idea that people should be free to make their own laws irrespec- were driven from power. tive of scriptural or ideological dictates. Ataturk concluded that to compete with the West, a nation would need to adopt the West’s separation of the spiritual from roM the Egyptian town Isma’iliyah, Hassan al-Banna the secular. He knew full well, however, that for Islam to be dri- looked at the same post-war world as had Ataturk but ven out of public life would be inimical to its nature. He further F drew the opposite conclusion. For him, Islam was the realized that Islam is not innately moderate and tolerant. To solution, not the problem: There had been too little of it, not too Ataturk, this fairy tale, so popular in the modern West, would much. And not just any Islam; Banna had in mind a very partic- have been laughable. Here he was at one with his contemporary ular brand: Salafism. and foe, Winston Churchill, another power politician who The term salafiyyah refers to the “righteous ancestors” or studied Islam’s history and experienced its ferocity first-hand. “rightly guided caliphs,” Mohammed and his companions. “Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytising faith,” Banna reasoned that by degrading the unalloyed Islam of the first Churchill concluded. “No stronger retrograde force exists in the Islamic community with countless accommodations to modern - world.” ity, Muslims had strayed from the prophet’s teaching and exam- Clearly, to tame Islam, or at least contain it, would require sus- ple. Banna, moreover, was a student of rashid rida, an intensely tained, adhesive state action. Making his intentions unmistak- anti-Western “reformer” who reaffirmed Islam’s indivisibility as able, Ataturk abolished the caliphate in 1924, a symbolically a religious and political enterprise. rida taught that “Islam is not shattering event for Muslims—in Turkey and beyond—even fully in being as long as there does not exist a strong and inde- though the institution had withered by then into a ceremonial pendent Muslim state that is able to put into operation the laws of office. The Turkish government drove Islam from the public Islam.” Like rida, Banna championed an “archaic fundamental- square and marginalized it in the classroom. ism,” according to Caroline Fourest, a critical biographer of Even in the spiritual realm, Ataturk’s new, secular Turkey Banna’s controversial grandson, Tariq ramadan. This was, in was taking no chances. As Iranian-born author Amir Taheri Fourest’s words, a “version of Islamism violently opposed to any recounts, the state took control of the country’s 80,000 form of rationalism that bore the slightest resemblance to mosques. It vetted the imams and controlled the content of ser- Western ways”—in particular, the separation of the secular and mons and literature. It assumed responsibility for the manage- spiritual realms. ment of Islamic endowments, enabling the government to only by returning to the Islam of the founders could the umma deprive jihadist causes of zakat—which, though often mis- reverse its economic, political, and social torpor. This called for leadingly translated as “Islamic charitable giving,” actually the faithful implementation of sharia, not its strangulation. With involves fortifying the umma, the collective international Allah’s injunctions firmly in place, the Muslim Nation would “Muslim nation.” Ataturk even regulated the travel of Turks to inevitably rise to the hegemony that was its due. “It is the nature Mecca for Hajj (an obligation of every able-bodied Muslim) in of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated,” Banna taught. The order to minimize their exposure to Saudi Arabia’s unadulter- mission of Islam is “to impose its law on all nations and to extend ated Islam. its power to the entire planet.” Ataturk knew that he would not live forever and that Turkey Banna was neither a dreamer nor an ivory-tower scholar. He would remain an overwhelmingly Muslim country. He therefore was a thoughtful, patient, practical man of affairs. He meticu- erected a legal and political framework to ensure—so he lously schemed his revolution as a ground-up, self-consciously thought—the permanent shackling of Islam. civilizational mass movement. It started with the Muslim indi- The U.S. guarantees freedom of religion, a necessity in a plu- vidual and built outward to the family, the community, the town, ralistic society that cherishes individual liberty. By contrast, the city, and finally the Muslim state. In each phase, the aim was Ataturk was seeking to forge a pluralistic society. For him, the to instill, install, and spread sharia. This is the divine mandate imperative was protection against a dominant and domineering known as jihad. religio-political system. Consequently, as Soner Cagaptay of Jihad is often violent, but not always. To be sure, Brotherhood the Washington Institute for Near East Policy has explained, ideology inspires terrorism—many top al-Qaeda members, for Ataturk imposed the French model of laïcité: freedom from example, started out as Muslim Brothers. Banna’s game plan, religion. Islam and its sharia were banned from legal and social however, is comprehensive. As he put it, “fighting . . . the unbe- policy. lievers . . . involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dis- Furthermore, once Turkey permitted multiparty politics after mantle the power of the enemies of Islam including beating them, World War II, the electoral system was rigged. While a hardcore plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship, and minority of Islamists dreamt of Turkey’s reversion to being an smashing their idols.” resort to terrorism would be necessary, Islamic republic, they could never form a parliamentary majori- Banna knew. Indeed, he stressed combat training and anticipated ty as long as other Turks, reprogrammed by decades of Ataturk’s that in the final stages, military action would be essential. But secularism, did not split into factions. Finally, there was the ulti- violence was to be used only when it advanced the cause. If the mate trump card, the “deep state”: The military, backed by the Muslims were ready only to agitate and not to prevail, the use of judiciary and the extensive bureaucracy, was constitutionally force would be counterproductive—prompting a blowback that designated the guardian of Ataturk’s secular society. The most would set the movement back. ruthlessly reliable institution in Turkish life, it stood ready to Victory, instead, lay in an incremental jihad. occasional vio- oust any coalition that turned away from Ataturk’s program. lence and intimidation would soften up the target, but the battle

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against secularism and the West would be waged on every front, In 2002, when the secular parties split, the AKP became the through dawah—the blend of propaganda, persuasion, and sabo- unintended beneficiary of the rigged electoral system designed tage that is the so-called missionary work by which sharia is to keep Islamists out of power, its one-third plurality in the pop- spread. In Banna’s framework, the revolution would begin in the ular vote translating into a two-thirds parliamentary majority. classrooms, the mosques, and the Islamic community centers that Installed as prime minister, Erdogan was determined not to would form the “axis” of the Islamist movement in every city. repeat Erbakan’s overreach. AEI scholar Michael Rubin’s diag- With the resulting sense of mission, breeding and conversion nosis hits the nail on the head: He “disavowed any intention to would swell the umma’s numbers. Media campaigns would asso- implement the Islamist agenda he had embraced in the past,” ciate the Islamic movement with morality, democracy, human even as “his government worked to weaken or disable all of the dignity, and “social justice,” while contrasting it with the greed inherent checks that would prevent the establishment of an and corruption of infidel regimes. Islamic state in the longer run.” As the movement grew in strength, it would find secular Erdogan emphasized stability and, as Middle East analyst governments increasingly accommodating, even as Islamists Daniel Pipes recounts, contented himself with the low-hanging undertook to supplant them. In this regard, Banna’s ideology con- Islamist fruit: The AKP moved to criminalize adultery, to con- trasted sharply with that of such uncompromising terrorist net- demn Christianity as a polytheistic religion (not a hard sell in a works as Egyptian Islamic Jihad, another forerunner of al-Qaeda. secular-Islamic country), and to loosen restrictions against glo- The latter reject any collaboration with rulers who fail to apply rifying Islam in public schools and against freelance Koranic sharia. The Brotherhood, instead, adopted a dual strategy of infil- instruction. More important, Rubin notes, Erdogan stacked the trating government and moving it closer to Islamist ideology civil service, the banking boards, and the judiciary with his polit- The perceived need to bring his country into compliance with EU standards has been a boon for Erdogan.

from within while pressuring it from without to appease devout ical allies, using his influence over the legal system to harass and Muslims by making concessions to sharia—violent revolt being silence his opposition. an ever-present threat. Erdogan’s masterstroke has been capitalizing on the specter Banna’s jihad required extraordinary patience and persever- of membership in the European Union. In point of fact, Turkey ance. It has had those attributes in spades, because it sees itself was never going to be in the EU. The Islamists have no intention as the vanguard of the worldwide Muslim Nation. Starting from of Westernizing, and leading EU nations (especially France and scratch, the Brotherhood quickly amassed millions of adherents Germany) did not seriously entertain the idea of admitting in Egypt and beyond. It now operates in every major country, its Turkey. But the perceived need to bring his country into com- constituents adaptable to conditions on the ground. Thus Hamas, pliance with EU standards—a precondition for the membership the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, is a combat operation (with Turkey has purportedly been working toward—has been a boon social-welfare components), while the Brotherhood’s American for Erdogan. It has enabled him to undermine Ataturk’s legacy spinoffs, such as the Islamic Society of North America, the Mus- of laïcité. Separation of the spiritual from the secular, he argued, lim American Society, and the Council on American-Islamic required that the government relinquish its stranglehold on Relations, are advocacy groups. Jihad and dawah, hand in hand. the mosques, the Islamic endowments, and religious affairs. European principles, he pointed out, demanded strong civilian control of the military—undermining Ataturk’s trump card HE Turkish military’s ouster of Erbakan was instructive against an Islamic revival. for the Islamists. They saw demonstrated the signature It has worked like a charm. Echoing European sentiment, suc- T lesson of Banna and his heirs: A movement that is too cessive American administrations, seduced by the mirage of an rash, that reaches beyond where the public is ready to go, will be evolving Islam with a Westernized Turkey at the fore, crowned crushed. So they reinvented themselves as the “Justice and Erdogan a leading “moderate.” They even seemed unembar- Development Party” (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). The rassed when the prime minister ridiculed the very suggestion AKP advertised itself as mainstream—deferential to Islam but that there is such a thing as “moderate Islam”: Such a term, he not overtly Islamist—the better gradually to pry centrist Muslims admonishes, is “very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our reli- away from secularists. gion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam Under the cautious leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the and that’s it.” With the West’s imprimatur and no emergent sec- AKP stressed good governance, a pro-business outlook, and a ular opposition, the AKP increased its electoral share to nearly steady foreign policy that ostensibly maintained Turkey’s cordial 50 percent in 2007. relations with Israel and the West. There was, however, little Realizing his hand would never be stronger, Erdogan turned doubt about who they were. Erdogan, who wrote and performed up the revolutionary heat, ordering mass arrests of his political in an anti-Semitic play (Mas-kom-ya) as a member of an Islamist opponents, including some military officers, for purportedly youth group in 1974, had grown up in Erbakan’s faction, which plotting a coup. When this did not rouse the deep state from its had explicitly sought to eradicate Ataturk’s secularist order. slumber, he raised the stakes in early 2010: a second round-up

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(internally dubbed “Sledgehammer”) was aimed exclusively at the military. Meanwhile, Turkey ended its military cooperation with Israel while adding its increasingly loud voice to the inter- It’s Complicated national condemnation of the Jewish state’s “occupation” of Palestinian territories. In a stunning 2009 confrontation at the The world will belong to those who World economic Forum in Davos, erdogan upbraided Israeli president Shimon Peres, exclaiming, “When it comes to killing, can explain why it must not be entrusted you know very well how to kill. I know well how you hit and kill to central planners children on beaches.” In late May, the “peace flotilla” was led by Turkey-based terrorists, operating with the knowledge and encouragement BY JEFFREY FRIEDMAN of erdogan’s government. The organizer, “International hu - manitarian Relief” (Ihh), is part of an umbrella organization he public’s support for vigorous financial regulation is called the “Union of Good.” Led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s a wake-up call for conservatives who imagined that the spiritual leader, the egyptian cleric Yusuf Qaradawi (a Banna tea party signaled the triumph of conservative ideas. disciple who promises to “conquer europe” and “conquer T Much as with health-care reform, where the public America”), the Union of Good has been a designated terrorist opposed the administration’s bill but supported its promised organization under U.S. law since 2008 because of its support benefits, a Rasmussen poll in late May found the public opposed for hamas—itself a designated terrorist organization since the to the financial-reform bill, 46 percent to 37 percent, even while mid-1990s. hamas has been the Muslim Brotherhood’s signal an earlier ABC News–Washington Post poll showed that stricter cause since its launching in 1987, with a charter calling for regulation of major financial companies commanded more than Israel’s destruction. erdogan praised the Ihh terrorists as two-to-one popular support. humanitarian activists, condemned Israel for forcibly defending even more ominously for conservative populism, an April its blockade against a transparently premeditated provocation, Pew survey found that the central tea-party idea, that modern and proclaimed that hamas is not a “terrorist movement” but a government is tyrannical, fails to resonate—and that it fails par- democratically elected resistance force that is merely defending ticularly among the college-educated. A mere 34 percent of its rightful territory. Americans with a high-school education or less agree that “the The Obama administration’s fecklessness has only encour- government is a major threat to their personal rights and free- aged the Turkish prime minister. erdogan has drawn Turkey into doms”; an even smaller proportion of those with some college deeper ties with Iran. Though a NATO ally, Turkey has worked education agree (31 percent), and a yet smaller proportion of to undermine U.S. and european diplomatic efforts to halt the those with college degrees (24 percent)—a 29 percent dropoff mullahs’ nuclear program. At the U.N. Security Council, it voted between the least- and the most-educated groups. As a record 70 against even the nigh-toothless sanctions the Obama State percent of all young Americans now get at least some college Department finally managed, after feverish lobbying, to push education, the implication for the future of conservative pop- through. Moreover, the invaluable Middle east Media Research ulism is dire. Institute reports that erdogan, at the urging of hamas chieftain In a subsequent poll, Pew asked for one-word assessments of Khaled Mishal, has invited hezbollah’s leader, hassan Nas - the tea party, and more respondents offered negative than posi- rallah, to come to Turkey for talks. tive answers, starting with “ridiculous” and working their way As Turkey slides deeper into the Islamist camp, Ataturk’s down through “stupid,” “ignorant,” and “nuts.” Why would ambitious experiment in Islamic secularism lies in tatters, and people respond so harshly? It is not because they aren’t worried Banna’s Islamist movement is ascendant. about government overspending; the polling shows that nearly In a 1991 memorandum, the Muslim Brotherhood’s American everyone is worried about that. No, it is because Americans are leadership described the movement’s work as “a kind of grand problem solvers par excellence; the appeal of activist, progres- jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from sive government has always been its dedication to “solving the within” by “sabotage.” Islam’s Western apologists—many of problems of ordinary Americans.” The tea party, in contrast, ele- the same people who hailed erdogan as a moderate—dismiss vates the principle of individual freedom above pragmatism. In such assertions as farfetched chest-beating. Look at it, though, the face of the greatest economic problem since the Great from the Islamist perspective. The Soviet Union, humiliated by Depression, doggedly resisting “problem solving” government the Afghan mujahideen, is no more. The Twin Towers, iconic action as a violation of individual freedom strikes most people symbols of Western economic might, have been reduced to a as blinkered or downright crazy—because most people think haunting crater. At the U.N., an organization easily bullied by that the financial crisis was caused by too much individual free- the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an American dom. Protesting “big government” in the wake of a crisis of administration joins in a resolution condemning Israel for “laissez-faire capitalism” seems ideological, unsophisticated, defending itself against jihadists pledged to its annihilation. And and uninformed to the non-tea-party majority. now, after an 80-year struggle, Turkey—whose defection This is merely to say that the financial crisis is the defining spawned the modern Islamist movement—is back in the umma and helping lead the civilizational jihad. Mr. Friedman edits Critical Review and directs the Hayek Project Banna’s progeny are certain that history is on their side. (www.hayekproject.org). He is also the editor of What Caused the Financial They fight on because they believe they are winning, and that Crisis and co-author of Engineering the Perfect Storm, both forthcoming they will win. from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

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event of our era. An April Rasmussen survey found that only 60 percent of Americans now believe that capitalism is better than socialism. Among those under 30, socialism and capitalism are nearly tied at 33 percent and 37 percent. The Erasmus This situation can be blamed, in part, on conservative intellectuals, who were flummoxed by the financial crisis and still haven’t recovered. The story of the finan- Institute of cial crisis is also a story of conservative intellectual crisis—but also opportunity. Neither conservative nor liberal intellectuals performed well in understanding the crisis; both sides have produced simplistic and, in fact, populist analyses of Liberal Arts what went wrong that bear little connection to the facts. Intellectuals who are will- ing to think outside the box, however, face a unique moment. The financial crisis lays bare what most intellectuals have been ignoring for more than a century: the complexity of modern society. The future belongs to anyone who can think through the implications of that. Unfortunately, too many conservatives formed their view of the crisis relative- ly early, in September and October of 2008, when everyone assumed that it was a “subprime crisis.” Conservatives therefore focused on Fannie, Freddie, and the Fed, all of which did contribute to the housing bubble and the prevalence of sub- prime and nonprime mortgages. But a popped housing bubble would not, in itself, have caused the biggest worldwide recession since 1929. The real problem was that, as Steve Forbes and Brian Wesbury have pointed out, commercial banks are required by law to “mark to market” the current value of their assets, even if they have no intention of selling them anytime soon. In July 2007, the market prices of mortgage-backed securities owned by commercial banks began to fall, and so did business lending. Mark-to-market accounting forced banks to contract lending; A Catholic education otherwise, they would have fallen under their legal capital requirements. The welcoming students events of September 2008 were the denouement of this process, which caused the recession. of all faiths To their credit, liberal analysts realized from the start that the cause of the reces- sion was a banking crisis, not a housing crisis. In explaining the banking crisis, however, liberals used a theory drawn straight from the rotten core of contempo- rary social science: the theory of “moral hazard.” It suddenly became conven- ‡Four-year humanities core tional wisdom that the crisis had been caused by banks that rewarded successful employees with big bonuses but failed to penalize losses. This was said to have ‡In-depth studies in Philosophy, encouraged recklessness. Later, conservatives came up with their own variant of moral hazard, according to which bankers took too many risks because they knew Literature, and Politics that their banks, being “too big to fail,” would be bailed out if their bets turned sour; so why not make the riskiest, most lucrative bets? ‡Sophomore semester in Rome The intellectual bankruptcy of these theories lies in their assumption that the bankers knew they were making “reckless” bets. This assumption is demonstrably ‡Personal mentorship between false: Ninety-three percent of the mortgage-backed bonds acquired by commer- teachers and students cial banks either were rated AAA—the safest possible rating—or were issued by Fannie and Freddie, giving them an implicit government guarantee. Because of ‡Experienced college faculty their perceived lack of risk, these bonds offered lower interest rates than did bonds with worse ratings. Revenue-hungry bankers who were oblivious to risk never and administrators would have bought Fannie, Freddie, or triple-A bonds; more lucrative double-A, single-A, and lower-rated mortgage-backed bonds were always available. Both ‡Associated summer program the liberal and the conservative moral-hazard theories are therefore wrong. For the for high school students most part, the bankers didn’t deliberately take big risks, or they would have taken big risks that paid a higher yield. ‡Affordable with generous scholarship opportunities he deeper problem with moral-hazard theory, as with so much of modern economics, is that it does not allow for economic actors to make unwitting T mistakes. The errors caused by human ignorance are unpredictable, so For more information, visit: economists simply ignore them. The result is a “model” of the economy in which www.theerasmusinstitute.com people are essentially omniscient; everyone knows what he needs to know. In such a world, however, nobody would ever lose money. It is a simple world that or call Dr. Peter Sampo, can be elegantly modeled only because it is wildly unrealistic. New Hampshire In this respect, the other social sciences are almost as simplistic as economics. (603) 203-9357 Political scientists tend to believe that the solutions to social problems are self-

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evident to “the people”; otherwise, why democracy? This has same ideas in business school, systemic risk increases, since been the progressive assumption from the start: The answer to what they learn may be wrong. On the other hand, regulation the problems of ordinary people is to enact “commonsense” inherently increases systemic risk by imposing one theory on all social legislation, meaning laws that the electorate perceives as market participants. If the theory is wrong, the whole system is obviously needed. In this view, the barrier to solving social prob- at risk. The Recourse Rule is an example of this. lems is not our ignorance of how to do so, but special interests Austrian-school economists have long wanted to reform their that malignly oppose the “obviously” needed reforms. Again, discipline to make it more attuned to the ignorance and error the result is a picture of the world that is so simple as to be caused by complexity. Their time is now, and the opportunity is absurd: Everyone knows what should be done to serve the com- ripe. The main competitor for the status of a more realistic brand mon good; all we need is someone in Washington who has not of economics is the economics of irrationality, not ignorance. been corrupted by the special interests, and who therefore will But irrationally exuberant (or irrationally downcast) people do do the people’s bidding. Note how friendly this worldview is to not live in a complex world; they live in a world that is simple populism: Not only is modern society portrayed as easy enough enough for them to understand clearly if they can just get a grip for anyone to understand, but evil people are all that stops us on their emotions. The Austrians should have a field day against from solving social problems. Like the risk-seeking bankers of such weak competition, but they may be so committed to liber- moral-hazard theory, the special interests deliberately oppose tarian philosophy, or so preoccupied by a peripheral aspect of the common good. This preoccupation with people’s good or Austrian economics (Hayek’s business-cycle theory, explained bad intentions is well suited to moralizing and sanctimony, but by Gary Wolfram on page 28), that they neglect the opportunity antithetical to the sine qua non of a sophisticated social science: to propose Hayek’s main insight—human ignorance in the face the explanation of unintended consequences. of complexity—as a cure for what ails their discipline. Even when political scientists concede that technical prob- Regardless of what happens in economics, a recognition of lems, such as financial regulation, are beyond popular compre- the central role of ignorance could restructure the other social hension, they tend to assume that with the help of “experts,” sciences. In my field, political science, there is already a huge lit- regulatory agencies will figure out how to solve technical prob- erature on the public’s underinformed and often incoherent lems. This assumption again oversimplifies, as we discover ideas, but it is methodologically naïve in failing to trace the by noticing that experts routinely disagree with one another. problem to the complexity of the society that modern politics Moreover, even expert consensuses are regularly proven wrong. tries to regulate. A more sophisticated approach would attend to The financial crisis underscores the latter fact, if one is willing the fallible ideas not just of voters but of bureaucrats, legislators, to do some historical digging. It turns out that in 2001, the Fed, and judges—and to the roots of these ideas, both mass and elite, the FDIC, the comptroller of the currency, and the Office of in cultural sources of (mis)information and ideology, such as Thrift Supervision issued the Recourse Rule. An amendment to the mass media and formal education. Philip E. Converse, a the international Basel I accords on bank capital, the Recourse University of Michigan political scientist, suggested in the Rule required banks to retain 80 percent more capital for business founding document of modern public-opinion research that “the loans or corporate securities than for asset-backed bonds, includ- broad contours of elite decisions over time can depend in a vital ing mortgage-backed bonds—as long as the bonds either were way upon currents in what is loosely called ‘the history of ideas.’ rated AAA or AA or were issued by a government-sponsored These decisions in turn have effects upon the mass of more com- enterprise, such as Fannie and Freddie. No wonder commercial mon citizens”—itself a very Hayekian idea. Political scientists banks overinvested in these bonds! have not taken up Converse’s suggestion, but there is no reason Why did the regulators issue the Recourse Rule? Were they they can’t. Historians, sociologists, and legal scholars can simi- deliberately sabotaging the banking system? Of course not. But larly explore the roots of the ideas that shape our perceptions of there was a consensus among economists that asset-backed a complex reality, and the flawed laws that we therefore make. bonds were far safer than ordinary loans or corporate securities. The masses probably will not be moved by “Hayekian” Unfortunately, neither the economists nor the regulators—nor thought. Hayek tries to understand error, not condemn those most bankers—predicted what would happen to asset-backed who err, but politics is about mobilization, not understanding. It bonds if the assets were mortgages issued during what turned is hard to mobilize people against an opposition that is merely out to be a housing bubble. The experts, the regulators, and the mistaken, not evil. Besides, Hayek’s epistemology is difficult to bankers were ignorant of a risk caused by a complication that slap on a placard (but here’s a try: “They don’t know what hadn’t occurred to them. They were wrong, but they were not they’re doing!”). evil. They were simply outwitted by a complex world. As conservatives recognize, however, ideas have conse- quences, even if the initial consequences are confined to the universities. No educated American would disagree that the APITALISTS (such as bankers) are as human as regulators world is complex, or that we are therefore ignorant of much that and academics, and they just as regularly err. But mar- is important—and that, in consequence, we may err. But “igno- C kets have a mechanism that tends to mitigate the effects rance” and “complexity” were abstractions before the financial of capitalists’ errors: competition. The prescient capitalists make crisis. Few of us have forgotten that the “experts” now being money; the ones who misjudge the future lose money. This is not tasked with preventing another crisis were clueless about the an open-and-shut case for capitalism, however, because the con- last one. Hayekian social theory not only is more sophisticated ditions under which competition works well need to be studied, than the academic intellectual mainstream, but it captures the not assumed. For instance, herd behavior among capitalists anxiety of every thoughtful person after the calamity that has reduces the advantage of competition: If all bankers learn the affected us all.

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shippers to use risk-management techniques such as assigning the more competent crews and ships to the higher-risk destinations, Preferred sailing in convoys to provide more security, and arming ships and crews. Shipping risks fell over time—in part because nation-states invested in navies to thwart pirates—driving down premiums even RISK further. As the highly successful Atlanta investor Frank Hanna notes, When it comes to insurance, this process deserves much credit for allowing America to grow go private, not political rapidly as the flow of ships from Old Europe to the New World greatly increased during the 17th and 18th centuries.Absent insur- ance, the massive waves of ship-borne migration across the BY IAIN MURRAY Atlantic might have never occurred.

SEEMINGLY endless parade of british lizards, winsome cavemen, and good neighbors populates our tV bOut the same time as Edward Lloyd’s customers were screens. they tell us how much money we could save by knocking back the java and concocting their deals, other A switching insurance companies. Here’s a real money- A minds were asking how insurance could protect against saving proposition: We, as a nation, could save many billions of everyday risks. the leading mind among them rejoiced in the name dollars by switching from government to insurance. You heard that of Nicholas If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-thee-thou-Hadst- right. Insurance, properly designed, can help us to manage the sort been-Damned barbon. (Yes, that was his real name.) Nicholas was of hazards from which we traditionally have looked to government the son of Praise-God barebone, a Fifth Monarchist preacher nom- to protect us. inated by Oliver Cromwell to the assembly that replaced the Rump Few phrases in the English language can put people to sleep as Parliament in 1653 and became known as barebone’s Parliament. quickly as “a brief history of insurance,” but please bear an An opponent of monarchy, Praise-God attempted to stop the overview of how the institution developed—until the growth of Restoration earned himself a trip to the tower of London. Nicholas government stopped its evolution. It’s a more interesting tale than wisely gave up politics for the building trade, which provided you’d think, involving the sons of revolutionaries, the Great Fire of immense opportunity following the Great Fire in 1666. London, and, yes, pirates. Nicholas soon became the devastated city’s leading builder. He Insurance owes its beginnings to one of mankind’s earliest for- recognized that real estate was a valuable asset that could form a ays into high-risk, high-return innovation: maritime shipping. As foundation of capital. this insight led him into two extremely suc- the technological revolution of navigation allowed first the cessful ventures. He founded a land bank that lent people money in Portuguese and then others to engage in expeditions overseas, the form of mortgages against their property; and he invented fire traders looked for ways to manage their risks. A successful ship insurance. the great fire had destroyed 13,000 houses. barbon and bringing back spices from Asia could make its investors rich, while some colleagues founded the Fire Office in 1680 to help reduce a ship lost to a storm or pirates could ruin them. this risk led to the such suffering in the future, offering policies to provide coverage first insurance against disaster: the “non-recourse loan.” Investors for 5,000 buildings. would pool their resources and underwrite a number of trading barbon did more than promise to defray costs in the event of dis- expeditions. this spread the risks, which made it possible for the aster. He formed a private fire brigade, staffed, as one observer put profitable voyages to offset the losses. When a ship returned, the it, with “watermen and other lusty persons,” to help put out fires. investment pool shared in the profits; when a ship was lost, the the Fire Office also instituted “fire marks,” identifying insured loan financing the expedition was forgiven, and everybody took buildings so that assistance could reach them more quickly in the a relatively small loss. event of a fire. Interestingly, the british government entered the In the late 17th century, such investors often gathered at a market shortly afterwards but was unable to compete with barbon, London coffeehouse owned by one Edward Lloyd, who provided who persuaded potential customers that the government could not his customers with reliable shipping information. the investors devote the attention necessary to the task. continued to meet there after Lloyd’s death in 1713 and later barbon was also a leading critic of mercantilism. He should be formed the Society of Lloyd’s, which became Lloyd’s of London, recognized as a great figure in economic history. the fact that so the first modern insurance institution. the non-recourse loan many people don’t know his name may be due to the myths that evolved into the premiums Lloyd’s members collected from ship- have grown up around the history of firefighting. Everyone who ping firms. Competition between Lloyd’s members (“names”) has seen Gangs of New York knows about private firefighters more ensured a reasonable rate. Competition also drove Lloyd’s to interested in brawling with rival brigades than in stopping fires, become increasingly expert in various types of ships, the compe- standing by as uninsured buildings burn down. Yet this is a carica- tency of the captains and crews, and the relative risks associated ture; there is no economic sense in it. Fire in an uninsured building with, say, a voyage into the baltic vs. a voyage to the East Indies. can easily spread to an insured one, and firefighters fighting with the premiums charged rose with the perceived risk. this helped rivals while letting fires burn present no great advertisement for to curb overinvestment in high-risk voyages and encouraged their services. Historians have suggested that this never even hap- pened in America. there is no reason to think it happened in Mr. Murray is vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. England, either, where London fire brigades acted cooperatively He is grateful to CEI’s president, Fred Smith, for his contributions to the ideas in the spirit of serving the public. G. V. blackstone reports in behind this piece. A History of the British Fire Service:

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Through keen competition the insurance companies had voluntar - many cases, a government insurance program simply drives pri- ily shouldered the public duty of fire extinction. One company vate insurers out of the market, as in Florida’s hurricane-insurance (ALBION) publicly stated in the early 19th century (1809) that as scheme, or causes massive increases in insurance rates, as with well as no longer putting up fire marks, its firemen were enjoined to Michigan’s crazy rule requiring companies to offer only their render the utmost assistance to all who needed it. . . . The houses of costliest auto policies to consumers. the poor—who could not afford insurance anyway—were dealt with out of charity and for the good name it brought to the company. hese situations arise when government officials listen to What led the insurance companies to get out of the fire- the complaints of special pleaders. such complaints often suppression business was what is known as the free-rider prob- T lead to the creation of government-sponsored insurance lem. In London by the mid-19th century, two-thirds of buildings pools—artificial groupings of high-risk parties who are offered were uninsured. This trend was reinforced by the rapid expansion policies at “fairer rates,” meaning rates set by politics rather than of cities during the Industrial Revolution. Private fire suppression by the market. Inevitably, insurers pass along those costs to their remained adequate, but it placed an increasing strain on insurers’ other customers. In this way, safer drivers subsidize less-safe business model. When municipalities began to take over fire- drivers; healthy individuals subsidize unhealthy ones; the young fighting from insurance companies, it was a relief to the com - subsidize the old. As individuals respond by shifting to the panies’ stockholders and partners—but the level of protection government-subsidy scheme, the private industry may find it offered did not improve. impossible to survive. This is how government provision of “insurance” came to This problem is exacerbated by another aspect of insurance— be. Today, government risk-management schemes include the “moral hazard.” Buying insurance weakens your attentiveness to National Flood Insurance Program, the Pension Benefit Guaranty risk. For example, if you know that your homeowners’ insurance Corporation (PBGC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, policy will reimburse you for losses from burglary, you are less social security, the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, and likely to take expensive steps to secure your home, such as buy- myriad other, less-known federal and state programs. These were ing a top-of-the-line alarm system. having automotive collision intended to create a more equitable system of risk management insurance might make you more likely to drive in a snowstorm than what private interests might have developed. instead of staying home until the weather clears up. But there is an important difference: While private insurers esti- Moral hazard is a problem for private insurance, but it is a big mate the risk of various activities, price it accordingly, and there- problem for government-run alternatives, too. Private insurers by encourage insured parties to carefully consider whether can address this problem in part by mandating that insured par- undertaking the activity is worth the cost, government insurance ties take certain precautions, by more intensive on-site investi - does the opposite: It minimizes losses from engaging in risky gations, by limiting coverage to specified parties, and by more activities by taxing less risky ones, encouraging hazardous prac- frequent rate changes. But all too often, state regulators limit tices. these options. A prime example of this is one of the most serious threats to our On balance, we’re probably better off in many situations rely- economy today, the deficits of the defined-benefit pension plans ing on private insurance rather than political programs for risk provided by large corporations, state and local governments, and mitigation. In many ways, America is already ahead of the game, labor unions. These schemes pay out today, seeking revenues to using insurance to manage health risks and unemployment cover the costs tomorrow. This business model works well when protection in innovative ways. the entities involved are expanding, as a growing payer base pro- But we should think more creatively about how to use insur- vides continued solvency. however, as large firms’ labor forces ance and related products, replacing our government-run social shrink thanks to productivity improvements, technological shifts, security with other strategies to manage the risks of aging and dis- or demographics—and union membership rolls shrink in tan- ability. Private, risk-based pension insurance could help secure the dem—the burden of supporting a large population of retirees with retirements of millions of Americans. Going even further, insur- diminished revenues from a smaller work force threatens the ance could help preserve endangered species. Today, landowners pension system’s solvency. find the value of their property dropping if an endangered species This dilemma has been recognized for years. The Pension is found on it, leading to a perverse incentive to prevent this risk Benefit Guaranty Corporation was set up to regulate and ensure the by clear-cutting that habitat. Insurance could be designed to pre- solvency of such pension plans. In theory, this pension-insurance serve the value of the land in the event that a protected species is program is funded through premiums assessed on covered com- discovered. Insurance offered early enough in a child’s life could panies. But the agency’s premiums are set by Congress and help fund his higher education, providing a much-needed hedge therefore do not adequately reflect the risks involved. This under- against rising tuition. And when managing the risks surrounding pricing of risk creates a perverse incentive to underfund pension emerging industries, such as cybersecurity, insurance could play a plans, the obligations of which can be pushed onto the PBGC critical role in helping develop the basic institutions needed for when they become unsustainable. Given this model, it is not sur- those industries to thrive—much as Nicholas Barbon did in devel- prising that the PBGC announced a deficit of $21 billion last oping firefighting. september. We should now expect a taxpayer bailout and a hol- Insurance can play a crucial role in shrinking the size of gov- low promise by the public insurer to do a better job in the future. ernment while protecting Americans against risk. In an America A similar dynamic characterizes the National Flood Insurance increasingly anxious about over-mighty government, expanding Program, which encourages building in high-risk areas, thus insurance into new areas should be a no-brainer—so easy, in fact, exposing taxpayers to huge liabilities in the event of disaster. In even a caveman could do it.

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The Long View BY ROB LONG who learned and grew so much from cider. Honestly, is anyone buying reading the books we wrote together that? What do they know about a about marriage, Joined at the Heart happy marriage? Where are their and The Spirit of Family. twin bestsellers on the topic? Dear Rusty, Both of those books are winners— Of course, I got exercised over Can I come stay with you, just for and I don’t mean in the financial nothing. Bill just wanted to make a couple of weeks, while I figure out sense, either, Rusty, or at least, not sure that I knew, as a newly single where I’m going to live? just in the financial sense. What I guy, that he had dibs on “everything Yeah, I know this is awkward. And mean is, Tipper and I, when we were in California south of Santa Barbara, I know that you don’t have that much married, were experts in what it takes everything on the island of Man - room down there in your tent on the to keep a marriage solid and happy hattan, Toronto but not Vancouver, Orinoco River. And I promise to and lasting. Right up until the sepa - France, the U.K., and all of Aus - bring only the essentials this time— ration. tralia.” He then told me I could just my Kindle and my MacBook Pro Now that we’re separated, of course, have first shot at any “talent” in Ger - and my iPhone and my Oscar. she and I are both working on books many, Mexico, East Asia, Northern Please? about that. Hers is going to be called California, the Rockies (he’s allergic As you probably have read, Tipper When the Home Climate Cools. Mine to most pine trees), the Midwest, and and I are separating. I know: unex- is titled Reuse and Recycle: Marriage the mid-South. We’ll take Florida pected. I mean, we were in many 2.0, which I think is a little catchier and South Asia on a “case-by-case ways the perfect couple. and a little less angry. Tipper’s going basis.” People keep asking me, what hap- to have to work on those issues if she He also told me that ladies these pened? My friends in Hollywood, expects us to go on another joint book days like the bearded look—he’s Bono, all of those guys, are surprised tour. been thinking about growing a Van and maybe even a little disappointed And it’s totally amicable, as I know Dyke—and that if I end up getting a in us. And I get that. It’s sort of what you’d imagine. We’re not squabbl - tattoo, it should be of one of those people said when we built our dream ing in the press or telling tales on neutral-sounding Chinese charac - house in Tennessee—oh, look at that each other. We’re keeping it digni- ters, like “wind” or “nature force” or big carbon footprint, oh, look how fied. Tipper’s going to live in the something. Also, according to Bill, as much oil it takes to heat that house— Montecito house. I’m going to live in of the official separation date, I must and you know what? I resented it. the San Francisco place. The upside never eat another piece of bread, rice, You need a house that big if your of having a big carbon footprint is, pasta, or any other carbohydrate at head is so full of dreams. when you get divorced, nobody has all. Women, apparently, are “brutal” Although in many ways, I think, a to move. about that stuff. He told me that I house that large allowed Tipper and The worst part of the whole ordeal, needed to lose at least 20 pounds if I me to drift apart. She could be in one really, was the phone call from Bill. I ever wanted any . . . well, if I ever wing doing something and I could be knew it was coming—I expected him wanted to date again, is what he in another and we’d never even pass to gloat. I had said some things about meant. each other in the hallway. In one of him and his sense of morality during What do you say, Rusty? Can I the hallways. In any of the seven the 2000 campaign that I knew got crash with you for a while until I get wings. under his skin. And now this. His my head together? And lose some It’s a big house. Not sure what’s marriage to Hillary is still intact; lbs? going to happen to it now. I might mine to Tipper isn’t. And I know that Your pal, turn it into a Hampton Suites. when I get their Christmas card this What I’m really worried about, year I’m going to want to rip it up— more than anything, is what this both of them in those awful red might mean for the millions of people sweaters, smiling over cups of mulled Sent wirelessly from my iPad

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The Bent Pin BY FLORENCE KING A Drink to Your Health

HREE cheers for NR’s John Derbyshire. I was drinking really is, but they don’t, so officially and for thrilled to read in his recent column that he posterity, I am a designated drunk. avoids doctors—is, in fact, what he calls an My doctor latched on to this, probably weighing addiction T “iatrophobe.” I’m one, too. specialists. “What do you drink?” The root cause of my iatrophobia is simple bad timing. “Vodka.” Back when I was healthy, going to the doctor was called “Straight?” going to the doctor, but now that I’m falling apart it’s called “No, I have Russian wetnurses.” She asked for a defini- Health Care. It’s a little about health and a lot about caring, tion. “It’s a vodka and milk highball,” I explained. especially caring about insurance, and it works both ways. “You drink that?” The lady who just became my ex-doctor practiced defensive “Don’t worry, it’s skim milk.” medicine like nothing I have yet seen or read about. To make It was my last appointment. Sniffing the air, she accused sure she could not be sued, she referred everything that me of having drunk vodka that very day, claiming she could moved to anything that billed. She kept urging me to see smell it across the room. specialist after specialist, undergo treatment after treatment, “You should leave your nose to the American Kennel test after test, therapy after therapy. When she noticed the Club,” I said, and left. age spots on my forearms she said they could be skin can- I have a new doctor now and so far I like him, but I am cer. When I refused to go to the dermatologist she plucked into terminal iatrophobia because Health Care is making from her referral list she abruptly changed the subject, say- everybody sick. The tea partiers accuse the feds of trying to ing she wanted to order another heart ultrasound even take it over, but in fact it’s the other way around. Whoever though I had just had one two weeks before in the hospital. acts like the government is the government: Getting sick has I refused this as well. become such a confused, time-wasting, bureaucratic mess Next, she got on the home-oxygen bandwagon. I gave it that Health Care has taken over the government. a try but, as I later explained, trailing a wire around after Much of the trouble lies in the nature of insurance itself. myself made for constant stress. Besides the danger of trip- You can insure a single thing—a life, a house, a car—but ping over it (I almost did once), it would get caught on you can’t insure a system or a method, and certainly not a things, so that I had to retrace my steps and untangle myself. philosophy or an outlook. Given my irascible temperament, this was much more like- Thanks to Health Care, American hypochondriacs are no ly to trigger a stroke than something grand and dramatic like longer fun, like poet Sara Teasdale, who was certain her a blood clot. thumb was going to fall off after she sprained it in a taxicab. She had yet another ace up her sleeve. Now she wanted Traditional hypochondriacs had a strong ego, a firm grip on to kit me out in what she called “ambulatory oxygen.” This eccentricity, and an appreciation of studied contrariness, one’s a real honey. It’s an oxygen tank for use outdoors; you especially in themselves. They also had a vocabulary that carry it in a shoulder-sling bag like a papoose. It made me infused medical science with high drama. They said “con- wonder if doctors had a problem with simple common sumption” because it sounded more deadly than the jaunty sense. Didn’t they realize that there is no such thing as a “T.B.,” they believed “descending womb” was more fraught “portable” oxygen tank? It weighs so much that it defeats with female martyrdom than “prolapsed uterus,” and they its own purpose. She said I should use it when I go out, were devoted to the word “croup” because it sounds like a but when I go out it’s always to the grocery store or the cough. library—where I get something heavy. I vetoed her yet Health Care has created the New Hypochondriacs, who again. pride themselves on being “Aware.” It’s easy to see how “I fail to see how lugging around what amounts to they got that way. Turn on the TV and nine times out of ten an artillery shell helps me breathe better.” it will come up on disease infos and ads for prescription Our final fight was about vodka. She had the records of meds full of prolix scientific lingo. The Awares aren’t fazed my hospital stay, when I had to answer all sorts of questions a bit. Merck Manual junkies and haunters of medical web- about my medical history from my 1943 tonsillectomy on sites, they can toss around the pros and cons of Marzipanus down to the present. They asked me how much I drank and Angelitrol EH versus Vercingetorix Gaulicillin IP. In their I said, “I don’t know. After I finish writing, I unwind with detailed queries to “Ask Dr. Donohue” they sound more like two or three or four, depending, then when I’m hungry I consulting physicians than laymen, and they refer to CNN’s eat.” The ER doctor quoted only the numbers and added, Dr. Sanjay Gupta by his first name. in that tight-sphinctered medical prose: “Patient admits Chalk up another flying leap for American equality. to doing this heavy drinking for many years.” If doctors Doctor-and-patient are no more. The Awares now see their worked on newspapers they would know what heavy healers as partners in a democratized version of the Stock - holm syndrome: Be your own kidnapper, hold yourself Florence King can be reached at P.O. Box 7113, Fredericksburg, VA 22404. hostage, and call it a Health Care Crisis.

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Now, Hitchens, who was born and authorities were absolute?” He was to raised in Britain, gives us an entertaining learn, he writes, after being up close with His Own and riveting memoir. His father, whom he major thinkers and world leaders, of how always called “The Commander,” was an “ignorant and sometimes plain stupid Drum officer in the Royal Navy during World were the people who claimed to run War II. In his first and most personally the country.” This realization would RONALD RADOSH moving chapter, Hitchens writes about give him the confidence to become the his mother, Yvonne, who committed sui- celebrity iconoclast we know him as cide when he was 24. It wasn’t until he today. was almost 40 that he learned she had Hitchens’s revolutionary movement been born Jewish, a fact that she had (International Socialists) led to many hidden from the family. Although bap- adventures in world travels. 1968 saw tized in the Church of England, Hitchens him on the revolutionary-tourist road to acknowledges that by Jewish law he is a Cuba, where he found that the heralded member of the “tribe.” But, as an atheist, revolution was anything but “a brave he has let this have little impact on his departure from the grim, gray pattern religious identity. In any case, he tells us, of Soviet socialism.” As he and his for him “the sage Jews are those who comrades heard the news about the So - have put religion behind them and be - viet invasion of prague from Havana’s Hitch 22: A Memoir, come in so many societies the leaven of shores, they expected that Cuba, a small by Christopher Hitchens the secular and the atheist.” country fighting for its own path in the (Twelve, 435 pp., $26.99) At the age of eight, Christopher was shadow of the American empire, would sent off to boarding school. As Yvonne reach out to and support the Czech rebels. HRISTOpHER HITCHENS is truly told her husband, “If there is going to be They were quickly to learn that Fidel sui generis: a popular televi- an upper class in this country, Chris - Castro heartily endorsed the Soviet inva- sion pundit, a raconteur par topher is going to be in it.” Fortunately sion. While his Cuban comrades imme - C excellence, an unpredictable for Hitchens, the very good education he diately changed their position to match analyst of contemporary politics, a for- would later receive at the Leys School that of Castro, Hitchens stood firm, only eign reporter who has hit almost every in Cambridge and at Oxford introduced to be denounced for the first time as a hot spot in the past two decades, a con- him to literature, philosophy, and grand “counter-revolutionary.” It was the first firmed atheist, and—perhaps above all— theory. But, in addition to his studies, by in a long series of attacks from the politi- a gifted writer and essayist. the time he arrived at Oxford he was lead- cal left. But he still believed, as he put it, At one time, Hitchens was well known ing a “double life”: a full-fledged social- that his comrades could clear “the way as a man of the political Left, an ally of ist militant, secretly living as an aristocrat for a ‘real’ and authentic Left to emerge at Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, and Edward on the side. Writes Hitchens, “I was de - last.” (As he admits, “I was still some- Said. Although he had already strayed termined as far as I could to have it both what imprisoned within the jargon of from his early orthodox Trotskyist roots, ways.” He would go from giving out Left sectarianism.”) his perspective was still well within the Trotskyist pamphlets at factory gates and It would take many more years for confines of acceptable leftism and his joining picket lines, to an evening out Hitchens to shed that last illusion. This, in columns in The Nation were de rigueur with the other set—“confident young a way, is the major theme that runs for those looking for a smart take on men who owned fast cars, who had throughout this memoir. In portugal cov- issues from that point of view. Then came ‘rooms’ rather than a room, who wore ering the attempt at revolution in 1975, he 9/11, and, like many others, Hitchens waistcoats and cravats and drank wine found himself in bed with those he used began to rethink many of his old assump- and liqueurs instead of beer,” part of the to see as the wrong kind of people: anti- tions. He soon emerged as a fierce defend- “more gorgeous and seductive Oxford” Communists of the social-democratic er of the invasion of Iraq even if carried his revolutionary comrades studiously Left. This pushed him over the edge and out by George W. Bush. Getting rid of Sad - avoided. forced him to formally leave the ranks of dam Hussein was consistent with his life- Some of his later confidence came the International Socialists, which he had long commitment to anti-fascism. from early revelations while at school not to acknowledge had become a “party-line only that those he regarded as heroes sect.” By then, he had even come to Mr. Radosh, adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute, were only human, but also that he already appreciate Margaret Thatcher, whom he is author of a memoir, Commies: A Journey knew as much as they did. “Was it possi- praises for “terminating the long reign of Through the Old Left, the New Left, and ble,” he writes, “that the class of cele- mediocrity and torpor.” After that, he the Leftover Left. Most recently he co-authored, brated ‘experts’ were all like this, that would leave for the United States, of with Allis Radosh, A Safe Haven: Harry S. there was an academic kingdom of which, decades later, he would become Truman and the Founding of Israel. Oz where it was only pretended that the a citizen.

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One of the frustrating things about dered about the remaining family’s fate aggressors, they argued, “could not by Hitchens’s reevaluations, however, is that during the Holocaust, but found that every definition be a moral or ethical action.” on many of the key issues of the Sixties Blumenthal he could find “had wound Hitchens admits, in a kind of Kronstadt and Seventies, he has not really managed up on the transports to Auschwitz.” And moment: to rethink old views. For him, the Vietnam he concludes, “So that was that.” As War was immoral, unnecessary, and part admirable as Hitchens’s concerns are I had wanted the moral arithmetic to add of the American empire’s forward march. about the injustices suffered by the Pal - up, while still hoping that it could some- Thus he can call the Vietnamese National estinians, he seems strangely unable to how be made to do this on the “left” side Liberation Front “the valiant guerrillas of empathize with the “tribe.” He says, for of the column. In Bosnia, though, I was the Vietcong.” In Central America, he example, that if anti-Semitism were to rise brought to the abrupt admission that, if the majority of my former friends got insists that the Sandinistas were heroic, in the U.S., he would stay put and resist their way about non-intervention, there and refers to their opponents as “the and would detest himself if he “fled from would be another genocide on European homicidal contras.” it in any direction.” But it’s all too easy soil. . . . This was an exceedingly clarify- Still, Hitchens began to move away to make such an assertion in the safe en - ing reflection. It made me care much less from old friends like Vidal and Chomsky. vironment of today’s America; the Blu - about the amour propre of my previous Once a fierce defender of Chomsky’s menthals of 1942 would have been happy loyalties. intellectual assault against the U.S. war in to have an Israel to go to. Vietnam, he grew to have doubts about Hitchens believes that the notion that By the time of Said’s death, the two the basis of Chomsky’s analysis. He also the “Jews made the desert bloom”—a were no longer speaking. Said had ac- came to find a “deep division” regarding “stock” phrase his mother repeated—is cused Hitchens of being a racist. Hitch - America. Chomsky, Hitchens writes, false, because it implies that the Pal - ens was not invited, nor did he intend to sees “almost everything since Columbus estinian Arabs were “desert dwellers” go, to Said’s funeral. He says he now as having been one continuous succes- when they were in fact “the agricultural experiences “a violent sense of repul- sion of genocides and land-thefts; he superiors of the Crusaders.” Once that sion” when he hears leftist apologetics

Whether or not one likes the positions Hitchens takes on events, one can only admire his resolve to be his own man.

[does] not really believe that the United might have been so, but by the time the and is more inclined to take on the States of America was a good idea to United Nations voted to partition Pal - “crimes and blunders” of the Left than begin with. Whereas I had slowly come estine into a Jewish and an Arab state in those of the Right. to appreciate that it most certainly was.” 1947, it no longer was. Every commis- Hitchens’s decision after 9/11 to sup- Yet, in his troubling chapter on “the sion sent to study the area and make port the Iraq War showed his determina- Jewish Question,” he applies precisely the recommendations noted the incredible tion to think independently of any camp. same Chomskyan logic to the existence of progress the Jews had made in land recla- He gives us a careful analysis that blows Israel. For Hitchens, the establishment of mation and development. The reaction of away the claim that the Bush adminis - Israel was just the Jews’ colonialist land an American member of one such com- tration lied our nation into war. He also grab in Palestine, similar to those of the mission was not uncommon: “I feel like satisfied himself “that those within the Turks and the British. And it was ironic, getting down on my knees before these administration who were making the case he says, that they became “colonizers at people. I’ve always been proud of my for ‘regime change’ were sincere in what just the moment when other Europeans own ancestors who made farms out of the they believed and were not knowingly had given up on the idea.” The very idea virgin forest. But these people are raising exaggerating anything for effect.” of a Jewish state seems to enrage him. He crops out of rock!” It was President Tru - Whether or not one likes the positions neglects to mention, however, that unlike man’s hope as well that Israel would be Hitchens takes on events and people, one in the case of America, Palestine had actu- able to contribute to the development of can only admire his resolve to be his own ally been the newcomers’ ancestral home the vast arid lands of the Middle East. man. My hope is that after continued re - for millennia, that they had kept a small Hitchens did, however, come to differ flection, he will reconsider some of his presence there, and that they longed with his old friend and erstwhile ally, the remaining positions that stem from the someday to return—hence, “Next Year in late Palestinian spokesman and Ameri - old Trotskyist Left. He gives us grounds Jerusalem.” can professor Edward Said. For Hitchens, for hope, writing that he favors “continu- After learning in 1987 that his mother it was one thing to defend Palestinian al doubt and self-criticism.” But even if was Jewish, Hitchens embarked on his rights, another to join those advocating he does not, he is a voice to treasure and “roots” trip to Poland, to try to find out jihad and Islamofascism. His break with to take seriously. Christopher Hitchens about his unknown relatives. The earliest Said intensified over Said’s and other will continue to challenge and entertain ancestor he could trace was a Nathan leftists’ opposition to the U.S. effort to us. He will also attempt to enlighten us, Blumenthal, who decamped for England fight for the Muslims in Bosnia. NATO and we know he is smart—he has that in the mid-19th century. Hitchens won- and American bombing of the Serb British accent.

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS victim. In this case, the Count had his eyes not to offend their Democratic friends, on the necks of the hapless finance minis- they describe the deregulation of the U.S. On Looking ters of Europe, who were about to bail out financial system as beginning in the 1980s, holders of Greek and Portuguese sover- culminating in the effort by Republican Into the eign debt. Roubini’s criticisms were, once senator Phil Gramm to repeal the Glass- again, devastatingly on the mark. Steagall Act’s separation of commercial Abyss His new book, Crisis­Economics, writ- banking from riskier investment banking. ten with Stephen Mihm, is an important Of course, former Clinton treasury secre- DAVID M. SMICK primer on how we got into today’s mess tary Robert Rubin’s fingerprints were all combined with a compilation of possible over the Glass-Steagall changes; and as for policy solutions. It is, in one regard, high- financial deregulation, it began in the late ly annoying. In the book’s world, Pres- 1970s under the Democratic administra- ident Obama doesn’t exist: It is difficult tion of Jimmy Carter. to find even a mention of him or his On the housing crisis, Roubini and administration. Decades from now, eco- Mihm offer up a straw man: they knock nomic historians will likely present down supposed “overblown claims that George W. Bush and Barack Obama as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac single- very similar figures: Both produced handedly caused the subprime crisis.” No unprecedented bailouts and mind- serious observer has ever claimed Fannie boggling levels of fiscal stimulus, in- and Freddie were the lone culprits for the cluding new entitlements without sources crisis. What the writers should have noted Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the of funding. Both were perhaps too cozy instead is the surprising rate at which bank Future of Finance, by Nouriel Roubini with the Wall Street banks. Yet, in this toxic waste is being off-loaded today to and Stephen Mihm (Penguin, accounting of the crisis, Obama and his Fannie and Freddie, and how this shift 368 pp., $27.95) team have largely vanished. threatens the viability of the U.S. financial Roubini and Mihm begin with a com- system. t has been a good financial crisis for monsense observation: “Crises—unsus- Despite these partisan lapses, the Nouriel Roubini. the once-obscure tainable booms followed by calamitous authors offer first-rate, commonsense New York University economist busts—have always been with us, and observations on the regulatory front, I and former Clinton White House with us they will always remain. . . . [they beginning with the wisdom that “regula- official is now a media superstar, and are] hard-wired into the capitalist ge- tions are only as good as the regulators roams the world advising his consulting nome.” they then describe the perfect who enforce them.” they acknowledge firm’s ballooning client base. storm of causes that came together to cre- that it is “astonishingly difficult to keep the seeds for this transformation were ate the worst economic crisis since the pace with financial innovation.” Drawing planted in 2006. Roubini warned of a com- 1930s. the book lays down principles by on Plato’s Republic, they offer the fasci- ing disastrous U.S. mortgage crisis. He which such crises can be predicted and nating idea that Washington should work predicted accurately that a global network even avoided. the writers pound away on to raise the status of the regulatory agen- of trillions of dollars of U.S. mortgage- the “lender of last resort” issue, asking cies, appealing to those in the workforce backed securities would unravel. this whether the actions by Washington to who are “convinced of their own good- would send the world financial system stem the crisis will “only encourage exces- ness” and might “scorn private gain and to the edge. Roubini is now referred to sive risk-taking in the future.” instead look out for the welfare of the as “Doctor Doom.” this label diminishes Roubini and Mihm compare financial republic.” In such a system, “the illusion his achievements: Four years ago, it took crises to nuclear power, which can be of virtue would be its own reward.” enormous courage to take such a public similarly “enormously destructive if all the book is most effective when cri- stand. Most in the economics profession the energy is released at once.” Given the tiquing Washington’s rescue operations in thought his dire pessimism absurd. inevitability of crises, say the authors, the financial crisis. the achieved econom- Roubini recently appeared on the Char­- what we need is a kind of “controlled ic stability may have come at a tremen- lie­Rose program. the Harvard-trained creative destruction,” relying not only on dous cost: “thanks to all the bailouts, economist, born in Istanbul of Iranian the ideas of Keynes but also on those of guarantees, stimulus plans, and other costs Jew ish parents, certainly makes an im - Schumpeter; but “the recent crisis has pro- of managing the crisis, the public debt of pression: Sitting stiffly upright, he an - duced precious little of the kind of creative the United States will effectively double as swered Rose’s questions rapidly and with destruction that Schumpeter saw as essen- a share of the nation’s gross national prod- precision. It was difficult, frankly, not to tial for capitalism’s long-term help.” uct.” Deficits over ten years are expected see him as Count Dracula eyeing his next the authors are particularly courageous to exceed $9 trillion. in attacking Washington’s “too big to fail” the writers characterize as “highly mis- Mr. Smick, author of The World Is Curved: financial firms, and suggest that the big leading” comparisons of America’s fiscal Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy, is banks, including Goldman Sachs, should situation today with the situation that editor of The International Economy magazine have been broken up. they regularly existed after World War II, when the size and chairman and CEO of the macroeconomic blame Alan Greenspan on both regulatory of the public debt reached an astonishing consulting firm Johnson Smick International. and monetary fronts. Again, being careful 125 percent of the nation’s GDP: “the

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United States of today is not the country of True, as Roubini and Mihm point out, 1946, and it’s naïve to believe it will be U.S. policy officials should have seen the able to escape the shadow of the crisis by effect this phenomenon was having on Free deficit spending alone. . . . We cannot res- soaring asset prices, led by housing. But cue everyone who made bad decisions in while targeting asset prices in a democra- Association advance of the crisis.” cy at a time of nonexistent inflation sounds Roubini and Mihm assume that Wash - easy in the academy, it is tougher to JACOB SULLUM ington politicians will eventually confront accomplish in real life. Obama economic the debt through spending cuts and/or tax adviser larry Summers once commented increases. Don’t count on it. The political on Fed chairman alan Greenspan’s fa - class globally is already flirting with an mous 1996 remark that the U.S. stock alternative route: having the central banks market reflected “irrational exuberance.” buy the public debt. Over the past year, for The level of the Dow then was only example, the Bank of England has pur- roughly 6,400. “That turned out to be a chased 85 percent of the British govern- bubble that wasn’t. later the housing ment’s new public debt. The European crisis turned out to be a bubble that was,” Central Bank recently began loading its said Summers. balance sheet with the murky debt of and here’s the scary part: Because of Greece and Portugal. The Federal Reserve the lack of any international consensus, is using proxies to do the same. The 20 today the world’s export-dependent econ - New Threats to Freedom, largest U.S. banks, while not lending, are omies, led by China and Germany, are not edited by Adam Bellow borrowing massively from the Fed to pur- about to change policies as they wait for (Templeton, 304 pp., $25.95) chase huge amounts of U.S. Treasury and american consumers to rebound, only to government-agency debt. The industrial- go further in hock buying things they can’t OMalI taxi drivers at the Min - ized world’s central bankers learned this afford. ne apolis–St. Paul International approach—an approach that is ensuring Contrary to his image as a mere sales- air port come up twice in New downward pressure on bond yields, at man of doom, Nouriel Roubini has par- S Threats to Freedom, a lively but least for now—from the Bank of Japan, ticipated in an important exercise. The uneven collection of 30 essays assembled which, ever since the early 1990s, has book is a useful policy encyclopedia, lay- by HarperCollins executive editor adam been loading up on Japanese-government ing out a variety of effective, desperately Bellow. Vanity Fair columnist Christopher ten-year bonds. needed reform initiatives. Yet given the Hitchens cites them to illustrate “the absur- The problem is, no one really knows still-frightening nature of the world dity and potential risk—the threat to free- the long-term consequences of having financial system, my guess is that Doctor dom—of confusing group rights with civil the industrialized world’s central banks Doom will be in business for some time rights.” Stephen Schwartz, executive di - directly or indirectly purchase toxic pub - to come. rector of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, lic debt. Inflationary expectations could blames the taxi drivers for “the most wide- eventually soar, or disinflation could con- ly acknowledged case of Shariah imposi- tinue as private capital needs are crowded tion so far known.” out to pay for expanding government LEDA AGAIN What exactly did these Muslim cabbies spending. But at least one thing is certain: do? according to Schwartz, “they would Let me compose love as a Romance, The world has entered a twilight zone in its not take airport arrival passengers carrying lying with you . . . handling of today’s mountains of sover- alcohol or accompanied by dogs (includ- upon moon white sheets eign debt. These are dangerous times, as ing guide dogs for blind customers), on the and window pane shadows. the cheapening of central-bank balance grounds that for them to do so would vio- No more than an eager prisoner here, sheets may be turning into a de facto form late Shariah.” Per airport rules, the drivers of currency intervention. In other words, desire’s fearful captive, had to go to the back of the taxi line every we may be seeing a race to the bottom in a you strive beyond this mortal reach. time they refused a fare. In other words, subtle form of exchange-rate competition. Strive—as glorious Leda long before, they paid a price in lost income for abiding Roubini and Mihm are right on the when the great Olympian god came by what they (correctly or not) believed to mark in their argument for a global game down in animal grace be an important religious injunction. plan to prevent another crisis. The place to to taste mere human form, I fail to see how this counts as a “threat start is by addressing the problem of huge leaving behind eternal poetry to freedom” or “Shariah imposition.” To global savings imbalances. For the last 15 in her every limb caressed. the contrary, these cab drivers are exercis- years, these imbalances were built up by Strive! even now ing their freedom to run their businesses as export-dependent developing economies to fool your god. they see fit; they may be inconveniencing that, in recycling their reserves into fixed- Put on his power and annoying people, but they are not income investments back in the industrial- with each painfully fragile act imposing anything on anyone. ized world, contributed to a dangerous I must perform for you. state of affairs. Financial risk became Mr. Sullum ([email protected]) is a senior editor severely underpriced. The rest is history. —MICHAEL PETTI at Reason and a nationally syndicated columnist.

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS Another incident that’s recounted twice ing the world. James Kirchick, a contribut- rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of in this book is considerably more dis - ing editor at The New Republic, worries conscience. And while Mangu-Ward men- turbing: the astonishing decision by Yale that “transnational progressivism” threat- tions a few examples of “public health” University Press to remove the Jyllands- ens “American hegemony abroad.” The paternalism in an essay that begins by Posten Mohammed cartoons from a journalist Tara McKelvey frets about “the provocatively comparing ice-cream crack- scholarly book discussing the controversy abandonment of democracy promotion,” downs in Afghanistan and New York, this over them. Washington Post columnist saying “President George W. Bush’s disas- excuse for meddling surely deserved a Anne Applebaum plausibly argues that trous efforts in this arena” should not chapter of its own, given its totalitarian the press’s cowardly self-censorship, moti- discourage the U.S. government from implications and the boost it is likely to vated by a fear of violence, illustrates “the attempting to “help establish democracies get from President Obama’s expansion of increasing power of illiberal groups and in other countries.” This time for sure! the government’s involvement in health regimes . . . to place de facto controls on McKelvey, by the way, is the author of care—another important and timely threat American publishers, newspapers, and Monstering: Inside America’s Policy on to freedom that is virtually ignored. Ama- media companies.” Her point is reinforced Secret Interrogations and Torture in the zingly, given the grand interventions our by Comedy Central’s recent decision, Terror War, so she might have had a thing government is contemplating to ameliorate driven by fear of touchy Muslims, to or two to say about unwise, unethical, ille- global warming, there is no discussion of heavily censor an episode of South Park gal, or unconstitutional methods of fight- that topic either, or of the general threat that satirized censorship driven by fear ing terrorism. Other contributors to the posed by orthodox environmentalism, of touchy Muslims. volume, including Hitchens and my Rea - including its opposition to biotechnology Still, it’s telling that both repetitions have son colleagues Katherine Mangu-Ward and its insistence on a prohibitive “precau- to do with the threat to freedom posed by and Michael Moynihan, likewise have tionary principle” as the basis for regula- Islamic radicalism, which looms large in some reservations about the War on Terror, tion. this book. By contrast, there is not a word but they were asked to address different “No doubt we have overlooked impor- about the threat to freedom posed by the topics. tant aspects of the subject,” Bellow con- reaction to Islamic radicalism. There Bellow’s decision to omit any substan- cedes, calling the collection “very far from

David Mamet is a brilliant playwright and screenwriter, but he leaves something to be desired as a policy analyst.

is nothing about the detention powers tial criticism of the Bush administration’s comprehensive.” Fair enough; he can’t be claimed by the Bush administration, which anti-terrorism policies does not reflect a expected to cover everything. Yet even were so broad that Supreme Court justice conservative consensus, since conserva- while omitting “important aspects of the Antonin Scalia, no one’s idea of a bleeding- tives have been known to express concern subject,” Bellow managed to include more heart liberal, felt compelled to insist (in about lawbreaking, an overweening exec - than a few essays that either do not fit in a case involving a U.S. citizen accused of utive branch, and military campaigns a volume on “threats to freedom” or do taking up arms for the Taliban) that the unmoored from national defense. The not deserve to be published at all. David executive branch cannot unilaterally sus- book’s most striking lacuna may instead Mamet is a brilliant playwright and screen- pend the writ of habeas corpus. There is reflect Bellow’s hope that the clash be- writer, but he leaves something to be nothing about the issue of how much tween Western civilization and Islamic desired as a policy analyst. In his essay on process is due to people accused of links to radicalism will unite liberals, libertarians, “The Fairness Doctrine,” he repeatedly terrorism (including American citizens and conservatives in the way that the clash misquotes the First Amendment and arrested in the United States), about the pri- between capitalism and Communism did. creates the impression that government- vacy implications of warrantless surveil- In his introduction, Bellow pines for the enforced balance in broadcasting is a lance, or about the claim that the president moral clarity of the Cold War and bemoans brand-new policy pushed by progressives need not follow the law if he thinks nation- “the abrupt disappearance of the discourse who hate Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, al security requires him to break it. There is about freedom and democracy that had as opposed to an old policy they want to no suggestion that a never-ending war to preoccupied the noblest minds of the 20th revive. make the world safe from terrorism might century.” Today this discourse should Slate columnist Ron Rosenbaum and imperil liberty, not only by justifying ex - include not only the illiberal influence culture critic Lee Siegel each contribute a traordinary measures at home but by of Wahhabi Islam but also the illiberal cranky rant about aspects of the Internet entangling U.S. forces in one doomed methods sometimes used to oppose it. that offend them. I suspect freedom will nation-building project after another, There are other puzzling gaps in the survive the nastiness of online commenters squandering trillions on misguided mili- book, which is supposed to be about “cul- decried by Rosenbaum as well as “untram- tary missions at a time when entitlement tural trends that are undermining our liber- meled individuality in popular culture,” spending is about to explode. ties.” I noticed only a single passing which Siegel says has given us both “an Indeed, two essayists suggest the U.S. is reference to drug prohibition, which has egalitarian antidemocracy” and a “partici- not devoting enough resources to rearrang- vast implications for privacy, property patory/popularity culture.” These are bad

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things, in case you were wondering, gays was Arenas. And the father of this though exactly why is not clear. Music prison system, the Cuban gulag, was It is hard to take “bad political theatre,” none other than Che Guevara himself: the subject of Alexander Harrington’s hero of a billion T-shirts. The Left is very essay, seriously at all, let alone as a threat to An Opera uncomfortable with this aspect of the freedom. To his credit, Harrington, founder revolution (when they know about it). of New York’s Eleventh Hour Theatre Apart Bring it up, and they’re apt to change the Com pany, does not really try to make that subject, angrily. case, and his open-minded discussion of JAY NORDLINGER Arenas was born in 1943. When a what makes for good political theater is teenager, he joined the revolutionaries, interesting, though it does not belong in Fort Worth, Texas fighting in the hills. But he soon discov- this book. Likewise GlobalGiving CEO ORT WORTH, they say, is “Where ered the revolutionaries for what they Dennis Whittle’s eye-opening discussion the West Begins.” And resi- were. A free and humane spirit, he could of international aid. dents of this city like to joke only oppose them: only be a “counterrev- The strongest contributions, which ad - F that nearby Dallas is “Where olutionary.” He started to write novels in dress the book’s ostensible theme in an the East Peters Out.” The opera company the 1960s. One of them was smuggled engaging, informative, and thoughtful in Fort Worth has a slogan of its own— out to be published in France. He was way, include Max Borders on “The Urge to a pun: “Where the Fest Begins.” Every tossed into the gulag, both for his literary Regulate” (which does mention the pre- year, usually in late May and early June, disobedience and for his homosexu - cautionary principle), Michael Goodwin Fort Worth Opera puts on a festival, and ality—which was also a form of diso- on “The Loss of the Freedom to Fail,” this year it consists of three operas: Don bedience. He went through the usual: Greg Lukianoff on the campus thought Giovanni, The Elixir of Love, and Before unstinting torture. And eventually they police, Naomi Schaefer Riley on state and Night Falls. The last of these is a new broke him. He renounced his dissidence federal interference with philanthropic opera by a Cuban-American composer, and his homosexuality. But he managed freedom, and Christina Hoff Sommers Jorge Martín. It’s based on the well- to escape the island during the chaos of on the U.N. Women’s Treaty. I count five known autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas, the Mariel boatlift in 1980. As an exile in essays, representing a sixth of the book, the Cuban novelist who was able to flee America, he lived only ten more years. that focus on left-liberal political correct- to America before he died. And it’s this Dying of AIDS, he committed suicide. ness, which is probably too many given all opera that I have come to see. His last act was to finish his autobiogra- the things the collection leaves out. By the way, Fort Worth Opera has phy, Before Night Falls. Bellow’s introduction and a few of the another slogan that catches the ear: “It’s The composer Jorge Martín was born essays—most notably political theorist Opera, Y’all!” in 1959 and came to America with his Mark T. Mitchell on “Ingratitude and the You may not think of Texas for opera, family in 1965. They lived in New Jersey. Death of Freedom”—suggest a proposition but you should. Dallas Opera put itself on He won the right to compose an opera that might have been the subject of a pro- the map—a world map—when Maria on Before Night Falls in 1995—that is, ductive debate. Bellow approvingly notes Callas sang some historic performances he reached an agreement with the Are - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s condemnation of there in the late 1950s. (Most of her per- nas estate. According to interviews, he decadence in capitalist democracies, which formances were historic, somehow.) And almost drew short of composing the he believed (wrongly, it turned out) crippled Houston Grand Opera—“HGO,” as it’s opera. He too is Cuban-born, creative, them in their struggle with Communism. known—is one of the most important and gay. And he despises “identity poli- “Destructive and irresponsible freedom has companies in America. It is known tics” (I am quoting him now). In the end, been granted boundless space,” the Soviet in particular for launching American however, he said, “Screw it, I’ll do it”— dissident complained. “The defense of indi- operas—although Fort Worth is doing he loved the story too much, and was too vidual rights has reached such extremes as the job this time. taken with its operatic possibilities, to to make society as a whole defenseless You may remember that a movie of pass it by. He wrote the opera without a against certain individuals.” Before Night Falls was made in 2000. It commission, which is not all that com- Many conservatives will, like Bellow, was directed by Julian Schnabel and mon; he just wanted to do it, possibly had nod in agreement with these claims, even starred Javier Bardem. When I wrote to do it. He and Dolores Koch collabor - as they concur with Hoover Institution about this movie, I received a letter from ated on the libretto. She was the trans lator scholar Shelby Steele (another contributor a reader. He said that he had seen the of Before Night Falls, and knew Arenas to this collection) that “modern American movie in a heavily gay neighborhood well. conservatism has been nothing if not a and overheard the conversation of two Can we talk about the opera world? freedom-focused politics.” To consistent men as they were exiting the theater. One We’re all adults here, right? We can speak anti-statists, however, the notion that too was saying to the other, “Wow, what an frankly. The opera world is very gay and much freedom threatens freedom, or that eye-opener. I had no idea.” No idea of very left-wing. There are a fair number protecting rights undermines them, seems what? of conservatives in it. Many are closeted, like an Orwellian excuse for tyranny. Of the persecution of gays by the Cu- and they sometimes come out to me Exploring the reasons for this cleavage ban revolution (i.e., Castro’s gang). They (swearing me to eternal secrecy, on pain might have given this book some much- threw gays into cells and camps, along of death). But the opera world is by and needed coherence. with other “undesirables.” One of the large strongly left-wing, as well as gay.

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NATIONAL REVIEW’S 2010 Sailing November 14–21 on Holland America’s M S Nieuw Amsterdam PPoosstt--EElleeccttiioonn CCrruuiissee

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his is your special opportunity to participate in one of the leading columnists Tony Blankley and Cal Thomas, Red Eye host most exciting seafaring adventures you will ever experi- Greg Gutfeld, terrorism expert Andrew McCarthy, GOP strategist T ence: the National Review 2010 “Post-Election” Vin Weber, scholar Michael Novak, conservative economist Alan Caribbean Cruise. Featuring a cast of all-star conservative speak- Reynolds, New Criterion editor Roger Kimball, acclaimed pollster ers (that will expand in coming weeks), this affordable Scott Rasmussen, European Parliament Tory star Daniel Hannan, trip—prices start at only $1,899 a person!—will take place conservative scholar Peter Schramm; and from NR: Liberal November 14–21, 2010, aboard Holland America Line’s MS Fascism author Jonah Goldberg, “The Long View” columnist Rob Nieuw Amsterdam, the beautiful new ship of one of the world’s Long, NRO editor-at-large Kathryn Lopez, NR Institute president most highly regarded cruise lines. Kate O’Beirne, senior editors Jay Nordlinger and Ramesh Fast forward to November 3—the morning after the elections. Ponnuru, Campaign Spot blogger Jim Geraghty, former editor Whether you find yourself bemoaning another two years of John O’Sullivan, reporter Bob Costa, and acclaimed NR artist Democrat control of Capitol Hill, or whether you’re flabbergasted Roman Genn. by massive GOP pick-ups in the House and Senate (and in state- NR trips are marked by riveting political shoptalk, wonderful houses), or whether the results are as mixed as a tossed salad, make socializing, intimate dining with our editors and speakers, making sure you’re packing your luggage and preparing for the Nieuw new friends, rekindling old friendships, and, of course, grand cruis- Amsterdam, your floating luxury getaway for scintillating discus- ing. That’s what’s in store for you on the National Review 2010 sion of the elections and their consequences—and on all other “Post-Election” Caribbean Cruise. major current events and trends. There are countless reasons to come, but none are better than You could spend the week of November 14 raking leaves and the luminaries who will be aboard this luxury trip. This truly extra- cleaning gutters. Instead, opt for seven sunny days and cool nights ordinary gathering is one of the best ensembles we’ve ever had on sailing the balmy tropics, mixing and mingling with the crew of an NR cruise, which guarantees that our seminar sessions (featur- exemplary speakers we’ve assembled to make sense of electoral ing ample audience “Q & A”) will be fascinating. matters and the day’s top issues. Confirmed speakers for NR’s aWatch Karl Rove, ex-congressman Vin Weber, and ace “Post-Election” Cruise include former top Bush-43 White House columnist Tony Blankley provide expert analyses of the elections, aide Karl Rove, historian Victor Davis Hanson, Islam scholar their consequences, and the state of the Republican party. Bernard Lewis, conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly, conservative aSome of our primo past cruise experiences have been the web guru Andrew Breitbart, liberal-media critic Bernie Goldberg, informed interchanges between Bernard Lewis and Victor Davis Hanson on the brutal revival of the J O I N U S F O R S E V E N B A L M Y D A Y S A N D C O O L C O N S E R V A T I V E N I G H T S age-old struggle between Islam and DAY/DATE PORT ARRIVE DEPART SPECIAL EVENT the West. These academic giants, and terrorism expert Andy SUN/Nov. 14 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 5:00PM evening cocktail reception McCarthy, will provide their razor- MON/Nov. 15 Half Moon Cay 8:00AM 4:00PM afternoon seminar sharp insights on America’s deal- “Night Owl” session ings in the Middle East and the TUE/Nov. 16 Grand Turk 12:00PM 6:00PM morning seminar Muslim world. late-night smoker aCan you find more insightful WED/Nov. 17 AT SEA morning/afternoon seminars social commentary than from the evening cocktail reception likes of Phyllis Schlafly, New THU/Nov. 18 Grand Cayman 8:00AM 4:00PM afternoon seminar Criterion editor Roger Kimball, columnist Cal Thomas, and scholars FRI/Nov. 19 Cozumel 10:00AM 11:00PM afternoon seminar Michael Novak and Peter Schramm “Night Owl” session (or from esteemed artist Roman SAT/Nov. 20 AT SEA morning/afternoon seminars Genn)? A more perceptive dissec- evening cocktail reception tion of the liberal media than from SUN/Nov. 21 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 7:00AM Bernie Goldberg, Greg Gutfeld, Rob Long, and Andrew Breitbart, or a carribian 5 cabins_no appl_carribian 2p+application.qxd 6/14/2010 3:35 PM Page 3

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And Before Night Falls will pose a dilem- hates my sexuality.” In that apartment, he houses, a lesson: You don’t need a big ma: On one hand, you have your 50-year ends it. budget to mount a good production, just love affair with the Castro dictatorship; And the music, which is what counts wit and taste. on the other hand . . . what about gays? supremely? It begins both pleasant and Finally, a word or two about politics, It’s one thing to persecute filthy capi- anxious: the story, the music seems to broadly defined. (very broadly defined.) talists who want to sell toothpaste in say, will come to no good end. the score It’s astonishing to see a work of art that the shadows, or who read NAtIONAl sounds like a lot of American opera, with opposes the Cuban revolution—that RevIew–style literature by candlelight. Bernstein hovering over. Often it is an knows it for what it is. I sat in wonder- But gays? amiable wash, with flashes of piquancy. ment, during particular scenes and mo - the Bass Performance Hall here in For a while, you may think that the opera ments. Did they really show a paredón, a Fort worth is a bright and beautiful thing. will expire from blandness: but the wall against which the revolution shot High on the façade, angels protrude, music, with the story, gathers force. “traitors”? Did they really put an image blowing long, long trumpets. this hall is like much of American opera, the of Che Guevara in a menacing light, the site of the van Cliburn Competition, music is eclectic, shifting from style rather than the usual adoring one? Did a held every four years, like presidential to style. early on, in that New York character really say, “the regime hates elections and the Olympics. (Cliburn, the apartment, Arenas hears a kind of any thought that’s free”? were we really legendary pianist who will be 76 this heavenly chorus. It is French-sounding, seeing events in the Cuban gulag—just as summer, is a texan.) A mixed and in - De bussyan—think “Sirènes,” from Noc - we see in escapees’ memoirs, trashed, teresting crowd walks into the hall for turnes. when the action moves to Cuba, sniffed at, or mocked in The New York Before Night Falls. there are some big the maracas start up, and we feel the Review of Books? mamas, in sleeveless and backless latin beat. Also, there will be what you the Cuban revolution is one of the dresses, sportin’ big ol’ tattoos. might consider Cuban classical music: most mythologized—i.e., lied about— Inside the hall, there is a stunning lecuona? the revolutionaries are ac - events in modern history. Not here, baby. dome, known justly as the Great Dome. corded fierce and stupid martial music— Before Night Falls may be the finest anti- And we will have surtitles, miles above just what they deserve. As Arenas is revolutionary opera since The Dialogues the stage—too high for comfortable use, typing, we hear some minimalism, of the Carmelites (which is about the from some seats. the surtitles will be in Reichian minimalism (very effective). monsters of 1789 in France). Is it the only english, the language of the opera, and when the talk is of escaping the island, I one? Spanish. Are the Spanish titles really nec- think I hear a wisp of “America” from Frankly, it’s hard to believe that they— essary or are they an affectation—like West Side Story. And at various points, they: the opera world, the keepers of the signers at conventions that may have no the music is Straussian—Korngoldian, culture—will let Martín get away with deaf audience members at all? too. the final pages are kissed with such this. with this gusano opera. (Gusano Before the opera begins, two men walk lyricism. they may put you in mind of means “worm,” and is what the Cuban out—opera officials—to make remarks. Rosenkavalier. Communists and their apologists abroad In my experience, nothing kills or de - Although Martín’s score is eclectic, it have always called any Cuban who flates a musical evening like talking from is not annoyingly pastiche-like. It is nice- opposes the regime.) I have already heard the stage. the men say how excited they ly shape-shifting. And it all coheres. the some grumbling: some grumbling about are, how excited we should be, what a orchestration often has a beautiful sheen: the opera’s harsh depiction of Castro’s great evening it will be. Really, music transparent but not thin or barren. And I gang. If the opera makes it to New York, should be allowed to speak for itself. the will tell you something extraordinary: what will they say? will the gay-rights best way to begin a musical occasion— Before Night Falls is full of arias, duets, angle win out, or will the honest portray- especially a premiere—is with the down- trios, and choruses. there are real, un - al of the revolution be too much to bear? beat: with the first note. abashed melodies and tunes. that is New York, like the opera world at large, As the opera begins, we see Arenas in old-fashioned; indeed, it is well-nigh is used to such operas as Osvaldo Goli - a New York apartment, dying. then he coun ter revolutionary. jov’s Ainadamar, which is about Fede - flashes back to his youth in Cuba, and the I will give Before Night Falls two high rico García lorca and the Spanish Civil story unspools from there. we see a lot of accolades that may sound like faint war. As directed by Peter Sellars, it puts frolicking on the beach—Where the Boys praise: It holds interest; and I would like Franco’s executioners in the uniform of Are, with only boys. All Frankies and to see and hear it again. You cannot say the American military. That’s your ticket no Annettes. Before long, we’re in the that about just any work that makes a to success! hills, with the revolutionaries. they are debut. Martín has said that Before Night Falls mouthing their slogans: “Poverty, no In Fort worth, Martín had the benefit is about beauty and hope, and so it is. An more! Ignorance, no more!” And they of some excellent performers, including article about his opera described it as dispatch their “revolutionary justice,” the baritone who portrayed Arenas, wes an “ode to freedom”—and so it is. It is which appalls the protagonist. He learns Mason: young, charismatic, and bold. He brave, both in its libretto and in its score that he can trust no one, or trust few: also had a winning production from (all that melodicism, unsanctioned by the Friends, in the grip of the state, betray. David Gately: modest in its materials music establishment). the opera is a wor- when he makes it to America, he is (scenery and such) but not so modest in thy work of art. It treats a moving story free but creatively stifled. And he says, its impact. this production could teach movingly. And, for telling a truth too “the left hates my politics, the Right the Metropolitan Opera, and other big seldom told, it makes you grateful.

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BOOKS, ARTS & MANNERS (played by Adam Sandler as a darker For a while, the movie that Get Him Film version of himself) facing up to the con - to the Greek most resembles is Ben sequences of a dissolute life. In response, Stiller’s recent Hollywood comedy Tropic the critics griped that Apatow had lost his Thunder. Like Stiller’s parody, it’s studded Crying on popcorn-movie touch—that his essen - with spot-on send-ups of contemporary tially tragic movie went on too long and pop culture, and all-too-plausible evoca- The Inside didn’t have the broad laughs and sunny tions of the ways that showbiz types relate spirit of Knocked Up or The 40-Year-Old to one another. Snow has a resentful father, ROSS DOUTHAT Virgin. (“Please, please, go back and make played by the Irish actor Colm Meaney, Judd Apatow movies,” Time’s richard who bellows about his genetic contribu- vEry week, New York magazine Corliss wrote, in a representative lament.) tion to his son’s success, and a gorgeous runs an “approval matrix” on its So now we have Get Him to the Greek, ex-girlfriend, the singer Jackie Q (rose back page, dividing the week written and directed by Apatow protégé Byrne), who specializes in music videos E in pop culture along two axes: Nicholas Stoller, which seems to have that make Lady Gaga’s oeuvre look mod- highbrow and lowbrow, and brilliant and been made with the disappointing reaction est. If you don’t mind laughing through despicable. Way out in the lowbrow/des- to Funny People uppermost in mind. No - the cultural catastrophe, these videos are picable quadrant last issue was the new body can accuse this movie of lacking just about the funniest thing in the movie, comedy Get Him to the Greek, which de - belly laughs: It’s frantic, profane, and fre- eclipsed only by the single that sent picts a music-industry ingenue’s hapless quently hilarious, a picaresque odd-couple Snow’s career into a tailspin in the first attempt to escort a hard-living rock star movie yoked to a satisfyingly savage par- place, a save–the–Third World ballad from London to Los Angeles—and which ody of the music business, and anchored whose chorus runs, “Trapped in me, New York’s matrixers described, disap- by the smoldering comedy of russell there’s a little African child . . .” provingly, as a movie “about a character Brand, the British funnyman who plays But Stoller, like Apatow, has more seri- who’s always getting into wacky shenan- the washed-up rocker Aldous Snow. ous ambitions as well. This is where the heroin addiction that so offended New York’s matrixers comes in: Snow is hilar- ious, yes, but he’s also dark and torment- ed and miserable, as empty as the lifestyle he’s embraced, and as the movie moves from one comic set-piece to the next, the note of tragedy gets sharper and sharper. The final act, in Los Angeles, features a brutal break-up, an appalling sexual encounter that plays like an Apatovian version of The Ice Storm, and finally a sui- cide attempt. At which point it is sudden- ly clear that the movie Get Him to the Greek is imitating is, well, Funny People: Its madcap hilarity notwithstanding, it’s Russell Brand in Get Him to the Greek another dark-dark-dark portrait of the igans because he’s addicted to heroin. Ha! Brand first appeared as Snow in For - costs of success, and the wages of sin. Ha?” getting Sarah Marshall, Stoller’s director- Alas, it doesn’t quite gel. you can’t start This surprisingly judgmental dismissal ial debut, where his outrageous supporting out broadly comic and end up in Leaving of what seems, at first blush, a harmless turn stole the movie out from under the Las Vegas territory without giving the send-up of rock-star culture encapsulates romantic leads. Here he’s paired with audience whiplash, and inspiring uncom- the dilemma facing the Apatovian school Jonah Hill’s Aaron Green, a very junior prehending reactions like the New York of filmmaking—the unusual blend of record-company executive who comes up approval matrix’s thumbs down. (Funny raunchy slapstick and heartfelt moralism with the bright idea of summoning Snow People was more artistically coherent, pioneered by Judd Apatow, and imitated to L.A.’s Greek Theatre for the tenth and a better movie as a result.) But it’s by a slew of disciples. Having mastered anniversary of a career-making concert. an honorable and interesting failure, and the art of the crowd-pleasing blockbuster, Assigned to be the rock star’s chaperone I hope that Apatow’s crew keeps work - the Apatovians clearly aspire to elevate by his music-mogul boss (Sean Combs, ing this comedy-meets-tragedy vein, their style into something closer to real art. surprisingly subtle in a broadly written rather than retreating wholesale into more But thus far, their attempts have left their part), Aaron falls through a trap door into adolescent territory. They’re trying to audience more baffled than inspired. the perpetual bacchanal of the rock-star entertain their audiences without just Last year, Apatow himself tried to make lifestyle, where he’s subjected to an esca- pan dering to them, and to get at truths this transition, with Funny People, a lating series of humiliations during the about human nature that Hollywood movie about the stand-up comedy busi- long 72 hours it takes them to hopscotch comedies rarely touch. And whether they ness whose jokes were less important than from Snow’s London flat to his appoint- misfire or succeed, the enterprise is worth

UNIVERSAL its searing portrait of a celebrity comedian ment in the City of Angels. applauding.

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Cameramen have been a feature of my onto the lawn, and a slogan: PresiDeNt City Desk professional life for 30 years. but over the [Her NAMe]. this was quite odd. this last five, the cellphone camera has made celebrity is not a holder forth, like bono or everyone a cameraman. High-school stu- sean Penn. And even though we have put Twilight of dents may not believe it, but there was a a comic into the senate, a roman of the time when people at the back of crowds most decadent page of tacitus would not The Idols did not hold their arms up to “see” what consider installing this celebrity there. the was happening; photographs of distant thought processes of fandom resemble historical events—lincoln’s funeral pro- those of dementia. An Alzheimer’s suffer- cession, V-J Day celebrations, 9/11—will er will say that, for Memorial Day, every- confirm this. Now we are all Cartier- one in the residence stood around the bresson. We are also all networks, for the Christmas tree. He meant, the flagpole; he video we take can appear in a matter of wanted a tall, festive totem, and Christmas minutes on Youtube. tree was what swam through the plaque. so who was coming? Maybe it would i lUV YOU + tHe PresiDeNt is be a woman. A woman at the table next to POWerFUl = PresiDeNt Celeb - ours began to exclaim: “she’s coming! ritY. she’s coming!” i thought she was joking, there are the doubters. “look at this RICHARD BROOKHISER just to stir people up, like throwing chaff, crowd,” said a man on the near fringe of it, not fish food, into a pond. then two fancy passing judgment on human sap-hood— elebrities are people you cars drew up. You knew they were fancy then added, in self-deprecation, “i’m in it know even though you don’t only because they were black and swollen. too.” irony will not save you, sir. the iron- know them. luxury cars have become cheesy and ic gawker still swells the headcount. if half C We know our family, friends, ugly—a bad legacy of rappers, who will the people at the execution of louis XVi and colleagues. We know of the officers of drive anything so long as it has a diamond- were ironic, or disapproving, future his - movements we belong to, and performers crusted steering wheel. these looked like torians will still write of the size of the in the arts and sports we enjoy. the people fat Jeeps. the celebrity stepped out of the crowd, and louis will still be headless. everyone knows are celebrities. You know, second of them. i assumed this from the Finally, there are the haters. in some say, your sister, your favorite writers on pandemonium; i never laid eyes on her cases, they are also fans. Contempt and the Huffington Post, and the bullpen of the myself. she was a typical young modern fascination can switch back and forth like Yankees. A small group will know your celebrity. she has had a sex tape, a reality alternating current. A woman, striding sister, a larger one will know the writers show, and a few records. she models a away from the event, shouted to the and pitchers. everyone knows Obama and little, acts a little, and eats very little. When diners, “the lady hasn’t been 18 for years!” A-rod. they are celebrities. she dates or goes out dancing, tabloids and she did not say “lady.” she was sim ply it was warm, not brutal, and my wife websites take note. ex pressing what every supermarket- and i went to eat dinner at our favorite out- Who composes crowds like the one that checkout-line headline about celebrity fat, door place. After two decades of steady gathered? there are the mercenaries, from bad clothes, adultery, and addiction says: custom every new generation of waitress- event planners to sweepers, who are paid the gods are just like us, unlovely, ill- es knows us (see the first category of to make the thing happen—a sector of the advised, uncontrolled, betrayed, beset. knowledge, above). We anticipated an economy that does not need stimulus. they can make us look at them, and as hour of service and people watching, the there are the fans—not the somewhat a result they have fame and lots more Versailles of the urban middle class. Next curious who, in their millions, are the con- money. that’s why we have to get our own door to our perch, however, there were stituents of celebrity, but the true fanatics, back whenever they stumble. every jeer is signs of an impending function—door- devoted to this particular saint. One man at a slave revolt. keepers, look-outs. the fleet was in, and i the event had brought a homemade poster One curious feature of the event was its saw uniforms. but this was a bigger bustle showing the south front of the White slipstream. After the celebrity had gone than an ordinary military Pr exercise. A House, with the celebrity photoshopped inside, and many of the onlookers had celebrity must be on his way. dispersed, another young woman, not i recognized cameramen, the comrades famous, began striking poses on the side- of my work when i have followed politi - walk. she was all dolled up—man’s straw cal candidates or made documentaries. hat, off-shoulder blouse, legs as far as the Cameramen are a different species from eye could see—and she knew how to work writers. My impressions can be rearranged it. the cameramen, having got their shots later, up until the deadline. Cameramen and figuring they might get a little b-roll, live for the shot. if they get it, paradise snapped away (as she had expected). so and 72 raisins. if they don’t, crap. this did the cellphone cameramen who were makes them insouciant until their mo - left. An aftershock? An expanding ripple? ment—sloven ly, easygoing. but when the More like a tic. How would we know we moment comes, they are Neanderthals “My blasphemous opponent has been trying to inject were alive if we were not on/behind the locked with the saber-toothed tiger. religion into this campaign.” camera?

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Happy Warrior BY MARK STEYN Non-Suicidal Tendencies

HE other day, noting Bret Stephens’s analysis in But let’s flip Brzezinski’s point around: An American Commentary as to why Iran cannot be contained, might conclude that Iran isn’t suicidal. But can the Iranians Jonah Goldberg made a very shrewd throwaway make the same confident claim about America? After all, T aside: “Arguments like this tend to get ignored not we’ve just let them go nuclear—not under cover of darkness, because they aren’t persuasive, but because they are,” he said. as Pakistan did, but in slow motion and in open contempt of “The political and psychological costs of accepting the the U.S. and its European negotiators. Why would you do premise are too high. So, denial inevitably triumphs.” that? Iran doesn’t observe even the minimal courtesies of And thus our Iran “policy”: There will be no U.S. military mutually hostile states: It seizes foreign embassies at home, strike. There will be no international sanctions regime. The and blows them up on the other side of the world; it kidnaps mullahs will go nuclear, because letting them go nuclear the sailors of permanent members of the U.N. Security requires least of us—and there will always be scholars and Council in international waters; it seeds terrorist proxies in experts ready to justify our inertia as farsighted realpolitik. Gaza and Lebanon, and backs terrorist attacks all over the Hence the rehabilitation of “containment”: That we can do. world. And it pays no price for any of this. If you can’t rouse Iran, says Zbigniew Brzezinski, “may be dangerous, assert - yourself to prevent a rogue state with a 30-year consistent ive, and duplicitous, but there is nothing in their history to pattern of malign behavior from getting nukes, what else suggest they are suicidal.” won’t you rouse yourself for? Mr. Brzezinski is a man who has been reliably wrong about On Sept. 10, 2001, America was the preeminent nuclear everything that matters for decades. His decision to route power in the world. We forget now that the following morn- American support for the Afghan resis- ing’s attack was aimed not only at the sym- tance through the malign double act of bols of U.S. military and financial power Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki and Pakistan’s but at the very heart of government. A ISI has had consequences we live with to com bination of the vagaries of scheduling this day. He is the master of unrealpolitik, and the bravery of Flight 93’s passengers and so naturally his is now the new con- saved us, on a day of horror, from the addi- ventional wisdom: Iran is not “suicidal”; tional burden of a Robert C. Byrd presi- therefore, it can be contained. dency or some such. Osama bin Laden set Even a non-suicidal Iran is presumably out to decapitate his enemy—and Mullah intending to derive some benefit from its Omar, al-Qaeda’s patron in Afghanistan, nuclear status. Entirely rational leverage cheerfully signed off on it. Presumably would include: controlling the supply of he’s not suicidal, either. Yet he made a Gulf oil, setting the price, and determin- calculation about the American response ing the customers; getting vulnerable emirates such as that concluded the attack would be worth it. Kuwait and Qatar to close U.S. military bases; and turning Remember how quickly the objections to retaliating American allies in Europe into de facto members of the against Afghanistan began? Suppose there were a “nuclear non-aligned movement. Whatever deterrent effect it might transfer” to Sudan or Hamas, and Iran were most likely have on first use or proliferation, there is no reason to responsible: Do you think an Obamafied Washington would believe any “containment” strategy would prevent Iran’s take action? Or would they express “grave concern” and go accomplishing its broader strategic goals. Besides, as Bret to the U.N. to get a resolution? I think we know the answer. Stephens points out, Soviet containment was introduced a Now let’s suppose one of those nuclear transfers detonates couple of years after we’d nuked Japan. Iranian “contain- somewhere or other and kills tens of thousands of people, but ment” would follow years of inaction, in which the aya - the provenance isn’t 100 percent clear: Bombing raids on tollahs have been allowed to nuclearize in full view of the Tehran? Or back to the Security Council? You might not be so world and with the acquiescence of many American allies. sure of the answer, but I’ll bet, after the last few years, Iran is. Unlike 60 years ago, there is a basic credibility issue: How about the big one? The ayatollahs nuke Tel Aviv and Despite President Obama’s line that Iran is “isolated,” it’s put Israel out of business. What’s the U.S. going to do? Flatten just been elected to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Iran? Or hit a couple of cities and leave it at that? Iran believes Women, and its president in the last year alone has been we are a hollow superpower. It concluded from our behavior received in China, Venezuela, Turkey, Denmark, Brazil, that it could go nuclear with impunity. And, whatever the Bolivia, Afghanistan, Senegal, The Gambia, and various unrealpolitik crowd say to themselves, it has now concluded other places, most of which are at least nominally American it can be nuclear with impunity. In a supposedly unipolar allies. If he were to be any more “isolated,” Ahmadinejad world, the planet’s wealthiest states, from Norway to New might get the occasional night at home to wash his hair. So Zealand, can project no meaningful force, while moribund AP / “containment” seems unlikely to impede any non-suicidal basket cases nuke up. moves by Iran. That sounds like a transitional phase, don’t you think? VAHID SALEMI

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The country that put a man on the moon can cure cancer.

We’ve always embraced big challenges in this country. It’s how the world sees us. How we see ourselves.

Now, President Obama has called on us to end cancer in our lifetime. America’s pharmaceutical research and biotech- nology companies share that goal. Today, our scientists are working on 800 new medicines to fight this deadly disease that touches so many lives.

It won’t be easy, and it won’t happen without a renewed emphasis on innovation and a sustained commitment to research and development. Last year, we invested more than $65 billion to discover and develop medicines to help patients live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Like President Obama, we believe that America’s best days are ahead of us. Working together, we can do anything.

www.PhRMA.org

3K50$ &DQFHU 15 SGI