APRIL 16, 2018 $5.99 HOMELESS IN SEATTLE Why are wealthy cities with booming economies seeing a surge of the down and out? by ETHAN EPSTEIN

WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents April 16, 2018 • Volume 23, Number 30

2 The Scrapbook Vegetarians v. carnivores, Democrats fighting dirty, & more 5 Casual David Skinner, sans nickname 6 Editorials The Crown Prince Goes to Washington • Trump vs. the Economy 10 Comment The Legitimacy of Israel’s Borders by Christopher Caldwell The Once and Future Vladimir Putin by Priscilla M. Jensen The Conscience of Ann Coulter by Charles J. Sykes The Councilman’s Snowstorm by Philip Terzian Dimestore Leader-Worship by William Kristol 5 Articles

16 Johnny One-Note by Michael Warren The monomaniacal White House talking points

17 Trump and Syria by Thomas Joscelyn Another premature declaration of victory?

19 The Politicization of the MCAT by Devorah Goldman Why should we care about the opinions of aspiring doctors?

21 Worship Thy Ancestor by Dave Shiflett 6 . . . from a distance Features

23 Homeless in Seattle by Ethan Epstein Why are wealthy cities with booming economies seeing a surge of the down and out?

30 Campus Disrupter by Naomi Schaefer Riley Michael Crow’s quest to change higher education Books & Arts

35 Speak, Goddess by Susan Kristol Musings on two new translations of the Odyssey 21 38 Aaron Burr, Conspirator by James M. Banner Jr. The hard-to-untangle tale of how he became the villain in our history

40 Truly Grand Strategy by Aaron MacLean Drawing on the wisdom of history, philosophy, and literature to inform foreign policy

43 Witty Women by B. D. McClay Controversy-courting creators, critics, and cultural commentators

45 Ready (Or Not) by John Podhoretz Steven Spielberg’s messy, mostly animated virtual-reality spectacle

46 Obituary by Matt Labash Lefty Kreh, 1925-2018

46 48 Parody Politics at the egg roll

COVER: GEORGE ROSE / GETTY THE SCRAPBOOK The Winning Gesture n the era of gesture politics, when restaurant’s street window. Potential Michael Hunter, the owner of Antler, I political discourse consists of an customers were availed of the protest- told the Globe and Mail. But it didn’t. endless sequence of symbolic protests ers’ opinions on veganism and animal So Hunter took a creative approach. and counterprotests, there are few win- rights; the restaurant’s paying cus- He went to the front window of his ners. The shouting and sign-waving tomers were made to see the banner’s restaurant with three items: a knife, protesters look bitter and sanctimo- accusation while they ate. a cutting board, and a large leg of raw nious, the objects of their venison. He sliced up the leg, disgust are obliged to defend separating meat from fat, and themselves against fre- prepared the meat for roast- quently outrageous accusa- ing. Video of the exchange tions, and no one comes away shows Hunter slowly and more enlightened. calmly exhibiting his talent, In a recent exchange of and the protesters shouting, gestures involving a protest “That deer did not want to and counterprotest, how- die!” and “He’s mocking us!” ever, we’re pretty sure one of As of this writing, pro- the participants won. tests outside Antler Restau- A group of animal rights rant & Bar have noticeably activists assembled outside diminished, and the Face- Antler Kitchen & Bar, a book page created by the fashionable restaurant in protesters has been inun- downtown Toronto cater- Leg of venison, Antler Kitchen-style. Oh, the humanity! dated with taunts from car- ing to carnivores, in order nivorous commenters. It to protest the establishment’s policy The protest, which was legal, went doesn’t seem to have occurred to the of serving meat. The protesters held on for weeks. More protesters came; protesters that harassing and bully- a large banner emblazoned with some brought megaphones. “I hoped ing law-abiding citizens isn’t the most the word MURDER in front of the it would fizzle out and go away,” effective way to persuade them. ♦

attacks before they happened; a pro- restructured the man’s company. Books We Didn’t Finish Obama television ad holding Mitt Nonetheless we wondered if Faris new book recently caught our Romney responsible for the death of a might offer his fellow Dems some use- A attention: It’s Time to Fight Dirty: man’s wife by cancer because the man ful counsel. We got as far as page xix. How Democrats Can Build a Lasting lost his job after Bain Capital (which What the author wants, he writes, “is Majority in American Politics by David Romney didn’t work for at the time) not to institute single-party rule for the Faris, an associate professor of politi- Democrats in perpetuity.” Golly, we’re cal science at Roosevelt University in glad to hear that! So what is the point? Chicago. We weren’t aware that Dem- “It is to control the levers of power ocrats needed the advice of the title, long enough to permanently alter the having long taken an admittedly per- political trajectory of the country, to verse pleasure in cataloguing Demo- smash the current coalition of misfit cratic dirtiness. Nazi toys, misogynist creeps, and rich Some of our favorite moments: nihilists and replace it with a sensible, supporters of Democratic guberna- center-right opposition capable of tell- torial candidate Kathleen Kennedy ing the difference between fake news Townsend passing out Oreo cookies produced by Macedonian troll farmers to mock black Republican candidate and actual facts about the world that Michael Steele; Vermont governor we inhabit together.” Howard Dean suggesting it was an We never got to the part where “interesting theory” that George W. Faris explains how Democrats can

Bush knew about the September 11 win more elections, but we wonder GARY LOCKE BIGSTOCK; BELOW: TOP:

2 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 if he advises them to avoid sounding like arrogant jackasses. It’s Time to Fight Dirty is published by Melville House and may be pur- chased for $24.99. ♦ Cause of Death: Living n March 29, California superior O court judge Elihu Berle ruled that most coffee sold in the Golden State will have to bear a warning label stating that it may increase the likeli- hood of cancer. Roasted coffee contains traces of the carcinogen acrylamide, and so Californians, if the ruling stands, must be warned every time they buy a cup of coffee or a bag of beans that they’re risking their lives. The plaintiff in the case, a busy- body nonprofit called the Council for Education and Research on Tox- ics, argued that roasted coffee beans should be a regulated substance on the basis of Proposition 65, a 1986 state law otherwise known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforce- ment Act. The law mandates that businesses with 10 or more employees must disclose the presence of carcino- gens and other harmful toxins. Each year the state updates its list of toxic chemicals; the list now boasts more than 800 items and includes many chemicals that have little or no statis- tical link with cancer. Some of the chemicals, like bisphenol A (BPA), show up in just about everything. Hence a vast array of products sold in California now even when they’re not required to. to the deadly poison coffee since comes with some version of the The result? California’s warning 2002. In other words, someone had words, “Warning: This product con- means nothing. Taxpayers have to pay the bright idea to shake down the tains chemicals known for the labeling regime, coffee companies for multimillion- to the State of Califor- but no one’s any safer or dollar settlement payouts. The firm nia to cause cancer and better informed. handling the plaintiff’s suit also birth defects or other Of course, the whole managed to shake down potato chip reproductive harm.” So idiotic case, now in its makers several years ago, a similarly if you’re buying bottled sixth year, isn’t about regulated toxin having been found in water, canned food, public safety at all. cooked potatoes in trace amounts. potato chips, salmon, It’s about money. The As manifestly preposterous as Cali- cleaning products, or “council” demanded fornia’s Proposition 65 is, we think the furniture, you’re likely that coffee makers law doesn’t go far enough. We con- to be met with some version of this remove traces of acrylamide from ferred with a biomedical researcher, fearsome notice. Many businesses— the roasting process, almost cer- an old friend of The Scrapbook, drugstores, hospitals, hotels, banks, tainly knowing that to be unfeasible, who reminded us that the very act of parking garages—take the “CYA” then asked the court for fines of up ingesting food—virtually any food—

TWS ART / BIGSTOCK (CUP) approach and post the warning to $2,500 for every person “exposed” contributes to human death. The

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 3 natural process called glycolysis, the should have ignored its relentless mis- body’s way of breaking down glucose, characterization, but false pride does produces a byproduct called methyl­ not permit me to do so. Terzian writes: glyoxal, or MG, and MG is closely Judge Sarokin ruled that the library associated with a host of deleterious www.weeklystandard.com bodily processes—including aging. had no intrinsic right to bar patrons for their offensive conduct or poor Stephen F. Hayes, Editor in Chief This produces the counterintuitive Richard Starr, Editor hygiene or because their presence Fred Barnes, Robert Messenger, Executive Editors outcome that mild malnourishment caused discomfort to readers. Christine Rosen, Managing Editor often leads to longevity. Peter J. Boyer, Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Matt Labash, In other words: Eating and drink- My opinion (which I would bet a National Correspondents ing eventually kill you. It follows steak dinner that Mr. Terzian has Jonathan V. Last, Digital Editor Barton Swaim, Opinion Editor that every drinkable or edible item never read): Adam Keiper, Books & Arts Editor sold in California should come with Kelly Jane Torrance, Deputy Managing Editor One cannot dispute the right and Eric Felten, Mark Hemingway, a warning label. And why stop there? obligation of the library trustees to John McCormack, Tony Mecia, The activity of living eventually kills Philip Terzian, Michael Warren, Senior Writers assure that the library is used for David Byler, Jenna Lifhits, Alice B. Lloyd, everybody. Be warned! the general purposes for which it Staff Writers Rachael Larimore, Online Managing Editor California court-watchers tell us is intended. Libraries cannot and Hannah Yoest, Social Media Editor Judge Berle’s ruling is unlikely to should not be transformed into Ethan Epstein, Associate Editor hotels or kitchens, even for the needy. Chris Deaton, Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editors stand. If it’s struck down in the court Priscilla M. Jensen, Assistant Editor The public has the right to designate of appeals, we’ll send him a note of Andrew Egger, Haley Byrd, Reporters which of its institutions shall be uti- Holmes Lybrand, Fact Checker sympathy and a Starbucks gift card. Adam Rubenstein, Grant Wishard, ♦ lized for particular purposes. Editorial Assistants Philip Chalk, Design Director However, what I actually ruled Barbara Kyttle, Design Assistant Sentences Contributing Editors (contrary to the author’s claim) was Claudia Anderson, Max Boot, Joseph Bottum, Tucker Carlson, Matthew Continetti, Jay Cost, We Didn’t Finish that the library policy was unconsti- Terry Eastland, Noemie Emery, Joseph Epstein, David Frum, David Gelernter, Reuel Marc Gerecht, ong before Fun Home (2006)— tutional under both federal and state Michael Goldfarb, Daniel Halper, ‘Lperhaps the greatest, most con- constitutions, because it was vague, Mary Katharine Ham, Brit Hume, Thomas Joscelyn, Frederick W. Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, sequential graphic memoir since Art overbroad, violated the First Amend- Yuval Levin, Tod Lindberg, Micah Mattix, Victorino Matus, P. J. O’Rourke, Spiegelman’s Maus—Alison Bechdel ment right to access information, John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, Charles J. Sykes published a comic strip following the and gave unfettered authority to the William Kristol, Editor at Large entanglements of a group of queer librarian to determine who could or MediaDC women living in the Midwest. The could not be admitted. Ryan McKibben, Chairman Stephen R. Sparks, President & Chief Operating Officer comics were funny, sexy and very The Court of Appeals disagreed Jennifer Yingling, Audience Development Officer Kathy Schaffhauser, Chief Financial Officer frank—“half op-ed column and half and reversed. I made no ruling David Lindsey, Chief Digital Officer serialized Victorian novel,” Bechdel regarding the plaintiff or his behav- Alex Rosenwald, Director, Public Relations & Branding Mark Walters, Chief Revenue Officer said. It was also a . . . ’ (New York ior, but rather on the validity of the Nicholas H. B. Swezey, Vice President, Advertising T. Barry Davis, Senior Director, Advertising Times Book Review, March 25). ♦ policy. I would have made the same Jason Roberts, Digital Director, Advertising ruling if the plaintiff were a busi- Paul Plawin, National Account Director Andrew Kaumeier, Advertising Operations Manager nessman in a three-piece suit. I do Brooke McIngvale, Manager, Marketing Services Correspondence admit that I thought caring for the Advertising inquiries: 202-293-4900 Subscriptions: 1-800-274-7293 o the editor: homeless was more important than The Weekly Standard (ISSN 1083-3013), a division of Clarity Media Group, T Philip Terzian seems to take “revoking their library cards” and is published weekly (except one week in March, one week in June, one umbrage at the use of the words said so. Finally, I obviously do not week in August, and one week in December) at 1152 15th St., NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005. Periodicals postage paid at Washington, “Wolkoff’s insolence” in Judge agree with Terzian’s assessment that DC, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Weekly Standard, P.O. Box 421203, Palm Coast, FL 32142-1203. Block’s opinion in the graffiti case, the homeless (which includes tens of For subscription customer service in the United States, call 1-800- and somehow equates it with an opin- thousands of veterans) wishing to use 274-7293. For new subscription orders, please call 1-800-274-7293. Subscribers: Please send new subscription orders and changes of address ion I wrote decades ago (“Whose the library are “obnoxious vagrants to The Weekly Standard, P.O. Box 421203, Palm Coast, FL 32142-1203. Please include your latest magazine mailing label. Allow 3 to 5 weeks for Building Is It Anyway?” March 12). pretending to be readers.” arrival of first copy and address changes. Canadian/foreign orders require First (although I am totally unfamil- Judge H. Lee Sarokin, additional postage and must be paid in full prior to commencement of service. Canadian/foreign subscribers may call 1-386-597-4378 for iar with the case), I would suggest La Jolla, Calif. subscription inquiries. American Express, Visa/MasterCard payments accepted. Cover price, $5.99. Back issues, $5.99 (includes postage and that the use of the word “insolence” handling). Send letters to the editor to The Weekly Standard, 1152 15th by Judge Block was most likely fact- Philip Terzian responds: Street, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20005-4617. For a copy of The Weekly Standard Privacy Policy, visit www.weeklystandard.com or write to finding based upon hearing the evi- In the wisdom of retirement, of Customer Service, The Weekly Standard, 1152 15th St., NW, Suite 200, dence for three weeks, rather than an course, Judge Sarokin is entitled to Washington, DC 20005. Copyright 2018, Clarity Media Group. All rights reserved. No material in The Weekly “op-ed piece,” as Mr. Terzian claims. remember his reversal by the Court of Standard may be reprinted without permission of the copyright owner. As to my decision in the Morristown Appeals in his own way. But I stand by The Weekly Standard is a registered library case (one out of 2,500), by now I my account of Kreimer v. Morristown. ♦ trademark of Clarity Media Group.

4 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 CASUAL

Recently, however, I was reminded What’s in a Nickname? of the one time when some acquaint­ ances gave me a nickname, which they used only in secret and never to my face. always wanted a nickname, a Many times in my life a nickname Having just moved to Washing- moniker to set me apart and give would have been useful because, in ton, I was trying to get out and meet voice to the familiar fondness my generation, Davids are as com- people as often as possible. I began that everyone who knows me mon as male-pattern baldness. When hanging out with a crowd to which I Ifeels towards my special character— I joined the staff of The Weekly was connected by a single new friend, you know, that way I have, that unmis- Standard years ago, I became the a fellow journalist. This crew was takable something about me. fourth David working there. About mostly Southern, as was my friend, Oh him, they would say, everyone 20 people in all worked there at the and on the whole they struck me as knows him. But instead of him, they time, and a fifth of them were named good looking and cool and some of would say Patch or Babe or TJ. And David. So the inevitable happened, them just a little standoffish. what they would mean is our Patch or and I was referred to by my last name. Being around them made me feel a our Babe or our TJ. little more neurotic and clueless A nickname, it has always than I usually feel, but because I seemed to me, is a way of had few other options I ended up embracing, by word, another per- going to most of their parties and son’s character. Nicknames are hanging out with them whenever bestowed on people who are like the group was getting together. mascots to their friends, individ- After many months, I learned uals whom others rely on to be that some of them referred to me just the way they are. as OT. Only this, I have learned, is “Like overtime?” I asked my not how others see me. journalist friend, who couldn’t In the fifth grade, I took a quite explain why or how this silver marker to a new brick- had happened. colored bookbag and, with stars “No,” he said, “OT as in Oli- and wavy lines, announced the ver Twist.” nickname I deserved by merit of Was it my shabby clothing? the color of my hair: “Rusty.” In My freckled face, which some- quotation marks no less. times gives me the look of a The choice was inspired by Little Rascal all grown up? Was my admiration for the late Rusty there something forlorn or pov- Staub, the ginger-haired player-coach Something similar happened when erty-stricken about me? of the New York Mets and a memora- I joined an Irish football team. The I was more puzzled than hurt by ble designated hitter in the 1980s. But team was recruiting heavily and, the this nickname. It seemed to be some we don’t get to choose our own nick- first night I showed up, four new guys kind of English department putdown names, a fact my older brother taunted had come, and three of us were named from a couple of not-so-literary peo- me with when he noticed that I had David. I was again referred to by my ple who had never really hidden their turned my bookbag into a press release last name. opinion that I did not belong, but it for my new handle. I don’t mind being called Skin- amused me that someone had both- “Rusty, good old Rusty,” he kept say- ner, and sometimes I offer it up when ered to give a name to whatever it was ing in a voice that made him sound more than one David is present, but about me that they enjoyed mocking. like a dimwitted cartoon character, it reminds me that I simply don’t It still amuses me, and when a sock though any dimwittedness was being have the kind of jocular personality of mine has developed holes or a shirt imputed to me. After a few days, I grew that lends itself to being nicknamed. has lost its shine, my wife will say, tired of his abuse and covered up the Just the opposite: Most people decide “That’s kind of OT. Don’t you think “Rusty” on my bookbag with more sil- on their own that I should be called you should throw it out?” very magic-marker ink, which only led David instead of Dave. I should prob- But for some reason, I always strug- him to tease me more, saying now, “Oh ably be grateful that no one (other gle to throw such things away. my, where’s Rusty?” “Whatever hap- than children and grocery clerks)

BRITT SPENCER pened to good old Rusty?” calls me Mister. David Skinner

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 5 EDITORIALS

The Crown Prince Goes to Washington

DJT and MbS: President Trump confers with Mohammed bin Salman at the White House, March 20

here were many decades when the visit of a crown the Saudis were forced to think creatively about their coun- prince of Saudi Arabia to the United States didn’t try’s future. T cause much stir in world affairs. But these are dif- When the 79-year-old Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud ferent days for the Middle East and for the globe. The three- became king in 2015, his 29-year-old son Mohammed week visit of Mohammed bin Salman, in which he met with bin Salman became defense minister. MbS, as he’s widely the president and an array of congressional leaders, journal- known, showed himself to be a ruthlessly efficient admin- ists, and CEOs, may well prove one of the crucial events of istrator. He had no illusions about Iranian meddling. He this era. launched a military campaign to save the Yemeni govern- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a U.S. ally since ment from Tehran-funded Houthi rebels (an effort that has its founding in 1932. Its rulers relied on American arms and so far not been successful) and strengthened the Saudi mili- commerce, and the United States relied on Saudi oil. That tary against the threat from across the Persian Gulf. this alliance hasn’t been more useful to American interests In June of last year, King Salman shocked his country in the region stems from two problems. First, the kingdom and the world by removing the crown prince, Mohammed didn’t have much of an economy outside of its oil wells. Iran bin Nayef, and replacing him with the much younger MbS. and Iraq, both intermittent enemies of the United States, The new crown prince is charming, highly intelligent, fero- were the dominant economic powers. Second, Saudi rulers ciously determined, and—unlike many of his Western-edu- understood that radical Islamic forces wanted badly to over- cated siblings and cousins—deeply attached to Saudi Arabia. throw them—from the Muslim Brotherhood to al Qaeda The kingdom is under the nominal rule of the ailing King to ISIS—and they chose to buy off their enemies, funding Salman, but his son makes the decisions. On his U.S. visit, radical madrassas from North Africa to India and Pakistan. MbS outlined a complex and ambitious plan for Saudi Ara- For decades, international Islamic terrorism was to a large bia—he calls it “Vision 2030”—but it’s not unfair to charac- extent a Saudi-sponsored enterprise. terize his aims as a cultural and economic revolution. With the collapse of Iraq and an emboldened and MbS realizes, first and most importantly, that if the expansionist Iran, these arrangements no longer worked. House of Saud is to survive in power, it must develop a The hopelessly naïve Obama administration turned a blind robust economy that has more to offer the world than oil. eye to Iranian imperialism and knowingly strengthened a Saudi Arabia provides its citizens with a welfare state that’s

rogue regime. As the price of oil continued its long descent, impressive even by European standards: free education, MANDEL NGAN / AFP GETTY

6 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 free health care, subsidized prices in food and energy. The decades, MbS is sometimes evasive and sometimes direct. At decline of oil revenue makes reform all the more pressing. an event in Riyadh last year, he made the savvy argument To develop a domestic economy, MbS will have to lib- that he wasn’t liberalizing anything, but going back—back eralize Saudi culture without provoking the nation’s tradi- to an interpretation of Islam that (in his telling) prevailed tionalists to reaction. So far he has done so with skill and before the late 1970s when radicals overthrew Iran and success. Already this year, the kingdom has allowed women nearly did the same in Saudi Arabia. “All we are doing is to attend soccer matches, to drive automobiles, and to apply going back to what we were,” he said: “moderate Islam that for positions in the military. He’s also moving toward the is open to all religions and open to the world. . . . We will not abrogation of Saudi Arabia’s “guardianship” laws that forbid waste 30 years of our lives in dealing with extremist ideas. women to travel without male chaperones. We will destroy them today.” American journalists have been pressing MbS on Saudi If MbS means what he says, and if he manages to stay Arabia’s repressive policies—its many remaining restric- alive and in power long enough to test his ambitions, he’ll tions on women, its denial of religious freedom, and of need both luck and unwavering American support—not just course its absolute monarchy and vast internal security military aid but our taking steps to contain Iran’s regional apparatus. These are fair questions, but they overlook the ambitions. If MbS succeeds, both the United States and the fact that what MbS has already done is astounding. And Middle East’s only democracy, Israel, will finally have a effective. As Elliott Abrams noted in these pages in Janu- partner at the center of Islam. ary, while both Saudi Arabia and Iran are repressive regimes Our hopes and prayers go with him back to Riyadh. ♦ in many respects, Saudi citizens are relatively content with their government and Iranians are ready to topple theirs. Western commentators interpreted MbS’s anti-corruption moves as mainly a power-grab—11 princes, 4 government ministers, and a number of tycoons were arrested. But it Trump vs. is also true that the crown prince’s economic reforms are doomed if the kingdom’s culture of corruption is allowed to continue undisturbed. the Economy We applaud MbS’s program. Yet any sober assessment would not give him a high chance of success. Developing epublicans are just over six months away from the a functional economy would be a colossal task on its own, 2018 midterm elections, and there’s plenty to worry but the young prince has enemies inside and outside Saudi R about. Midterms almost always favor the party out Arabia. There are scores of Ibn Saud’s grandsons who may of power, and Democratic voters are far more enthused about feel equally entitled to the throne, and reactionaries and the coming elections than their Republican correlatives. And traditionalists are deeply opposed to the crown prince’s although one should never underestimate the present-day liberalizing policies. So are adherents of the Middle East’s Democratic party’s ability to wreck an easy win, the likeli- Islamist parties, especially the Muslim Brotherhood. MbS’s hood is that Republicans will lose the House, and they may predecessor as crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef, lived lose the Senate, too. Such an outcome could well mean Don- through four assassination attempts. ald Trump’s being impeached. Further inflaming Islamists against MbS—and mak- The one thing going decisively in Republicans’ favor is ing his success all the more necessary to U.S. hopes for the the economy. The jobless rate has dropped to 4.1 percent and region—he has gone beyond his predecessors in acknowl- may drop further, GDP growth seems certain to remain at edging Israel’s existence. “I believe the Palestinians and the around 3 percent, and wages are rising across the board. Israelis have the right to have their own land,” he said in Republicans can legitimately take credit for some of an interview published on April 2. Here, at last, is an Arab this success. The dramatic drop in the corporate tax rate, leader willing to locate the Middle East’s most intransigent denounced by Democrats as though it meant the end of the problems where they originate: not in the existence of the republic, has encouraged investment and infused the whole state of Israel but in what MbS calls, with refreshing can- economy with a sense of optimism not seen since well before dor, the “triangle of evil”: Iran and its Shia terrorist proxies, the 2008 recession. The Trump administration’s methodical including Syria; the Muslim Brotherhood; and Sunni ter- unmaking of Barack Obama’s regulatory state has enabled rorist groups. small and large firms to expand in ways they couldn’t What’s as yet unclear is whether the Saudi regime under 18 months ago. Mohammed bin Salman’s leadership can afford to stop The president can take ownership of this success if he buying off the Islamists and otherwise funding radicalism wants to, but he’ll have to keep from ruining it. First, the tar- abroad. When questioned on the extent to which the House iffs—the administration has imposed a 25 percent levy on of Saud is prepared to move away from the radical Wah- imported steel and a 10 percent levy on imported aluminum. habist ideology it has quietly promoted around the world for The question is not whether the tariffs will raise domestic

8 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 prices, slow growth, and prompt layoffs: Tariffs always do Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post. He that. The question is how much immediate damage the tar- tweeted a series of hostile remarks about the company— iffs will do. partly sensible if exaggerated criticisms, partly wild misin- Second, the tweets. Although it would be a wild exag- formation—and thus reduced the company’s market capital- geration to say the president’s torpedoing the U.S. economy ization nearly $60 billion. with his Twitter account, he’s doing his best. Trump has long Amazon will recover quickly. We’re far from feeling been in the practice of berating private companies for mak- sorry for the online retailing behemoth. Amazon, like many ing decisions he in his wisdom would not have taken: “gar- large corporations, seeks and gets favorable treatment from bage,” “terrible,” “really stupid,” and “STUPID” are epithets government—and thus unfair market advantage—all over Trump has hurled at companies as varied and successful as the country. Coca-Cola, H&R Block, and Sony. But the president’s regular practice of lashing out at pri- The practice continued, even intensified, when Trump vate-sector firms is both harmful to the economy and ugly. was elected president. On December 6, 2016, before even One consultant for large tech companies tells the New York taking office, he attacked Boeing, sending the airplane Times the great majority of his firm’s clients “now have a pres- manufacturer’s shares downwards. His antics have hurt idential Twitter strategy in place.” In other words, the people pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Merck. When running corporate America feel the president of the United Merck’s CEO Ken Frazier resigned from Trump’s manu- States could lash out at their company at any moment, and facturing council, for instance, the president retorted with they’ve planned for ways to contain the damage. an insult: “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has It’s hard to see how congressional Republicans can make resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will the case for pro-growth economic policies when the leader of have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” their party is famous for fulminating at private businesses: Merck’s stock price took a tumble, and although it recov- Those fulminations regularly pummel voters’ stock portfo- ered quickly, the idea that a U.S. president would seek to lios and 401(k) accounts. Should we expect affected share- injure a major corporation in a moment of irritation is, even holders—people who’ve lost money because the president at this late stage, mind-boggling. was annoyed one morning—to go on supporting that presi- The president did far more damage this week, when dent’s party? The GOP can’t be the party of free markets and he trained his scope on Amazon, at least in part because the party of anti-corporate hectoring at the same time. ♦ Shared Trade Goals Require Partnership

THOMAS J. DONOHUE waves across the global economy. leverage and send a clear signal that PRESIDENT AND CEO The White House first imposed China’s actions pose a threat. U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE global steel and aluminum tariffs that Indeed, we should work with risk alienating some of our strongest our partners to forge new trade U.S. trade policy has continued global partners. These measures won’t agreements that guard against China’s to make global headlines in recent help American metal-consuming model of state capitalism. The goal weeks with multiple high-stakes manufacturers that are struggling with would be to craft new trade pacts to issues coming to the fore all at once. soaring U.S. prices and shortages, promote cutting-edge technology and It’s more important than ever for the and they do little to address the real manufacturing jobs, enhance the digital American business community to have issue of Chinese overproduction of economy, protect intellectual property, a seat at the table in these unfolding steel and aluminum. Then, just last and compel state-owned enterprises international debates. This is why week, the administration announced to play fair in the marketplace. This I was pleased to participate in the about $50 billion worth of sweeping is what the U.S. sought to do in the B7 Business Summit in Canada last tariffs on a wide range of imports from Trans-Pacific Partnership, and it’s the week, and I will speak at the Summit China, which led China to retaliate by path that makes the most sense going of the Americas in Peru this week to promising tariffs on about $50 billion forward. stress the importance of international worth of U.S. exports. On all of the challenges and engagement and working together The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opportunities before us in the arena of with our global partners to solve shares many of the administration’s global trade, the Chamber will continue shared challenges. concerns about China’s problematic to work with our own government One of the hot topics of discussion policies and practices, as do most of and partners around the world to has been the trade actions by the our nation’s key trading partners. ensure positive outcomes that support Trump administration targeting But there is a better path to solving the goals of growth and jobs for the China’s problematic industrial policies them. The U.S. should work with our American economy. and unfair trade practices. A potential partners in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere trade war between the world’s two to confront China’s trade practices. Learn more at largest economies could send shock A united front would maximize our uschamber.com/abovethefold.

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 9 COMMENT

CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL The Legitimacy of Israel’s Borders

he borders around the scooter. Israelis, by contrast, say the Demonstrating a weapon is not 140-square-mile Gaza strip men they shot had made five attempts the same as firing it. But everyone T are guarded heavily by both to break through the border and who marches is carrying it. No mat- its neighbors, Israel and Egypt, and had laid booby traps in at least three ter how “innocent” or powerless these the sea lanes are blockaded. Israel has places. Several men had breached thousands are, they are marching to lately managed to stop the rockets that Israeli barriers the day before. Most of renegotiate the border. No matter who the Palestinian radical group Hamas, them were fighters for Hamas. Hamas manages to breach the border, whether which runs Gaza, has been firing into acknowledges that at least half a dozen it be a 7-year-old girl or a crippled its southern cities. Israel claims, too, of the dead were its fighters, and it man in an electric buggy, Hamas will to have come up with a system that provided buses that took the protest- be the beneficiary of the principle of by next year will allow it to close the ers to the border. breachability thereby established. The tunnels through which ter- very best reporting on the Palestinian rorists have long smuggled marches has been that of Gil Yaron in arms and goods. On the The division between the German daily Die Welt. Yaron last day of March, though, a peaceful protest quoted Issam Hammad, 52, founder of 30,000 Gazan protesters the march committee, who envisions massed at five sites near the and a forceful a political pilgrimage that will grow border. Gazan organizers uprising can never until millions of Palestinians from billed this as the first epi- neighboring countries somehow grav- sode in a mounting series of be taken for granted. itate towards the Gaza strip. “We’ll protests to climax in a Great Any large group of give the order, and everyone will rush March of Return on May 15, them at the same time,” Hammad the 70th anniversary of the people with a cause said. Part of what Israelis and Palestin- state of Israel. When people ians were fighting over on March 31 moved across the 300-yard should be understood, was whether this weapon would buffer zone towards the potentially, as prove effective—and whether it Israeli border, soldiers of would prove risk-free—before Ham- the Israel Defense Forces a weapon. mad’s promised millions showed up. shot 18 of them dead. Al Jazeera, Human Rights Watch, The IDF argue they were defend- But the role of Hamas in the dem- and the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz ing their country’s border. Palestin- onstration does not necessarily matter treated the encounter as if it were a ians (and much of the elite press in to the case for self-defense. The divi- matter of two individuals meeting on Israel and abroad) counter that there sion between a peaceful protest and a a street, insisting that the “protest- was no real threat from a dirt-poor forceful uprising can never be taken ers posed no threat to Israeli soldiers entity that lacks even clean drink- for granted. Satyagraha—the concept positioned across the border.” But ing water. Is this an act of legitimate behind the massive nonviolent dem- the issue is not whether soldiers are defense or an atrocity? It is the wrong onstrations that Gandhi introduced threatened. It is whether the border question—or, rather, it is an emo- to the world—is an ambiguous prin- is threatened, whether it is legitimate, tional way of asking the question of ciple. Human nature being what it is, and therefore whether the country it whether the border (and the country any large group of people with a cause defines is legitimate. it protects) is legitimate or not. should be understood, potentially, as This is not a question that can be Much of the argument has con- a weapon. That is how Hamas under- opened up to an “independent inves- cerned intentions—as measured by the stands it. “A peaceful protest is a new tigation.” It is not a question that can role Hamas took in the clash. Palestin- form of resistance,” one of its members be decided on considerations of “pro- ians say that the demonstration was a wrote in the online magazine Filas- portionality,” as if it were a joust. The civilian one, run by a march commit- tin, “but we have not forgotten other New York Times, in an editorial highly tee, that there were no major breaches forms of resistance, primarily the mili- critical of the IDF, admitted that the of the border on March 31, and that tary one.” A “demonstration” such as Palestinians at times have been “feck- the IDF fired tear gas at a disabled the one that took place on March 31 is less at pursuing peace.” Perhaps, man approaching them in a mobility always the demonstration of a weapon. rather, they’re effective at pursuing

10 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 hostility. The Palestinians are not out land behind the border they are facing Russia would pay for rent-a-mobs in protesting because they’re incompe- has been stolen. They are making that Ukraine around the time of its inva- tent peacemakers or bad people. They case the only way they can. The IDF is sion. Prices varied, depending on are protesting because they believe the rebutting it the only way it can. ♦ whether one wished to arrange email hacking or demonstrations. Every one of these events implicates COMMENT ♦ PRISCILLA M. JENSEN the government of newly reelected Russian president Vladimir Putin, and it’s very unlikely that he isn’t person- ally connected in some way, if only by The Once and Future implicit approval. So earlier in March, with the reelec- Vladimir Putin tion a foregone conclusion and the inevitable prospect of Putin, who sees eeping up with the news out be some sort of real information; one the dissolution of the Soviet Union of Russia has been like try- of them appears in a video in which as the “greatest geopolitical catastro- K ing to drink from a firehose a Russian oligarch widely considered phe of the twentieth century,” continu- for at least the last month, though that corrupt meets on a yacht with a dep- ing in power, chess champion Garry would be seriously inadvisable consid- uty prime minister. Kasparov, chair of the Human Rights ering what might have been added to n On March 31 there came the Foundation, was inspired to convene a the water. arrest of Dagestani billionaire busi- day-long conference to look at Putin in Just a partial recap: the round. “PutinCon,” Kasparov said, n At the beginning of was to be “a true 360 of Putin, his March a former British ‘It’s not ridiculous to KGB, his nature, his past, his accom- agent, Russian Sergei Skri- think of and plan for plices, his policies.” Hoping that “this pal, now living in Britain year’s program may be the last one after a spy exchange, and a post-Putin Russia,’ where we have to talk about the future his visiting daughter Yulia says Vladimir Kara- of Vladimir Putin,” Kasparov added to were hospitalized after the list “his unraveling.” being poisoned by one of Murza, director of The conversation, held in New the Novichok nerve agents York on March 16, commenced with developed by the Soviets the documentary descriptions of the diminution of beginning in the 1970s. A Nemtsov. ‘In fact, democracy in Russia in the late ’90s, British policeman who as Boris Yeltsin and his coterie looked went to their aid when it is ridiculous and for a successor. That this disappear- they were found dying on shortsighted and ance unrolled in tandem with mul- a Salisbury park bench was tiple murderous attacks on ordinary also poisoned; he’s been ­irresponsible not to.’ Russians is no longer a revelation. released from hospital but The 2004 attack on Beslan’s school, the Skripals remain under treatment. nessman Ziyavudin Magomedov on which ended in more than 300 deaths, At this point more than two dozen the now-go-to charge of embezzling half of them children; the 1999 apart- Western countries have declared more state funds. The fact that he appears ment bombings that killed almost the than 100 Russian diplomats persona to be close to people who are close to same number—these were arranged non grata and sent them packing. The Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to look like terrorist attacks, implic- Kremlin quickly responded in kind, adds a frisson to suspicions that the itly by Chechens but, as speaker expelling diplomats and—taking a move is rather a matter of Putin’s con- David Satter recalled, were almost page from the old provokatsiya man- solidating power at the beginning of certainly planned and carried out ual—charging the U.K. with having his new term. Magomedov, a construc- with the participation of the FSB, the poisoned the Skripals themselves to tion magnate involved in building KGB’s successor, at the time headed distract from problems with Brexit. venues for this summer’s World Cup by Yeltsin’s anointed heir . . . Vladi- n What the New York Times calls “a soccer competition, is estimated by mir Putin. pair of self-described sex instructors” Forbes to be worth about $1.4 billion. Other participants spoke about the imprisoned in Thailand say they are He denies the charges. worldwide effects of Putin’s exercise offering the United States evidence n There’s even a group of freshly of power: about the eradication of of Russian election meddling and hacked emails, says Business Insider, a free press, attacks on IT integrity other skullduggery in return for a apparently from Kremlin-linked fig- around the world, the involvement of guarantee of safety. There’s likely to ures, with price lists showing what Russia in wars from Ukraine to Syria.

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 11 Former U.S. attorney for the southern tests against the government in the last tion is invaluable. “It’s not ridiculous district of New York Preet Bharara year or so, he suggested “training and to think of and plan for a post-Putin spoke about the enormous kleptoc- educating and helping to prepare” the Russia,” said Kara-Murza. “In fact, it racy that has made Putin the “richest people who will be involved in politi- is ridiculous and shortsighted and man in history.” Talking with Bharara, cal change, including by encourag- irresponsible not to.” Bill Browder, founder of the stolen ing them to run even in today’s “fake, With its serious and thorough and eviscerated Hermitage invest- truncated, manipulated” elections as assessment of the current state of ment fund, continued his call for more a training ground. Along with seri- affairs, PutinCon thoughtfully raised countries to pass versions of the “Mag- ous work on the substance of law and and began to address one of the most nitsky Act”—legislation that makes policy that will need to be available if venerable of Russian questions: Chto possible economic sanctions and visa change comes quickly, such prepara- delat? What is to be done? ♦ denials for individuals implicated in human rights violations. It is named for his late associate, the accountant COMMENT ♦ CHARLES J. SYKES Sergei Magnitsky, who traced the gov- ernment fraud that gutted Hermitage and died when he was refused medical care while falsely imprisoned. The Conscience There was even a lively, if admit- tedly speculative, psychological con- of Ann Coulter sideration originally billed as “Inside Putin’s Brain: At Lunch,” which may ive her credit: Ann Coulter he hadn’t really been rolled on the have indicated a lack of data associated is a woman of strong convic- border wall (Congress allocated only with breakfast and teatime. G tions. Those convictions may $1.6 billion of the $25 billion he had And far from least: Alexei Navalny, be wrongheaded, bizarre, and even big- requested in the budget passed last the opposition politician who was oted, but she knows what she believes month), Trump has ramped up his prevented from being on the presi- and is willing to hold Donald Trump anti-immigrant rhetoric, killed the dential ballot, spoke to PutinCon via accountable. Unless he builds the wall deal to regularize the status of so-called remote link. Navalny called his lis- (and not just some candy-ass fence) “dreamers,” lashed out at Mexico, and teners’ attention to ongoing frauds she’s done with him—ready to turn on called for sending the National Guard perpetrated within and by the Rus- him with the white-hot bitterness to patrol the border. sian government, reminding them of the true believer who suddenly Long gone are the days that there are laws already in place awakes to betrayal. when he mused aloud in Western countries that could help It’s easy to mock Coulter, about a “bill of love.” Now identify and penalize them. who wrote a book titled In he’s reportedly listening “We are here today not to dream,” Trump We Trust, for ever think- intently to advice from said Kasparov, introducing the final ing she could trust Trump a menagerie of misfit panel, on “the end of Putin’s tyranny.” (and I will probably go on toys, including cable But he encouraged positive takes on doing so), but at least talking heads like Sean the subject by his interlocutors—Vlad- something mattered to Hannity and immi- imir Kara-Murza, director of Nemtsov, her. Unlike the cultists gration hardliner Lou a documentary on his murdered for whom Trump can Dobbs. And Ann is . . . friend and political associate Boris do no wrong, and who unhappy. (By her account, Nemtsov and a two-time survivor of will not hold him to any they engaged in an Russia-originated poisoning; Miriam of his promises as long as “obscenity laced” Lanskoy of the National Endowment he fights the right enemies, shouting match for Democracy; and David J. Kramer, Coulter has a very clear politi- in the Oval Office a former diplomat and a scholar in the cal standard. “We have been over his “betrayals.”) field of human rights. betrayed over and over and The message of the hard- Kara-Murza spoke about the unpre- over with presidents prom- liners is simple: If he goes dictability of political change in Russia, ising to do something about all squishy on immigration, in August 1991 as well as in 1917, not- immigration,” she explained to he will lose his base. Back in ing that Russians cannot afford to be the New York Times’s Frank Bruni. 2015, he launched his presi- as unprepared for Putin’s eventual exit “If he played us for suckers, oh, you dential campaign by adopting as for the earlier two episodes. Noting will not see rage like you have seen.” Coulter’s­ image of “Mexican the tens of thousands of Russian young Trump does seem worried. rapists” coming across the people who have participated in pro- After a few days pretending that border, and he never looked THOMAS FLUHARTY

12 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 back. This was the secret sauce of his ing the campaign, she bet me $100 with Trumpism. House Republi- improbable rise to power: He pro- that Trump would get the highest per- cans turned themselves into human posed banning all Muslims, deport- centage of the African-American vote shields to protect Trump from investi- ing millions of illegal aliens and their of any GOP candidate since Nixon. gations into his Russian ties; evangel- children, insulting Mexicans, and He didn’t.) ical Christian leaders have given him building a big beautiful wall. And But the point is that she has a a mulligan for his alleged dalliance it all worked. The message now: He conscience, and it would be deeply with and hush money payments to can’t go soft without dispiriting and offended if it turned out that Trump a porn star. As Trump stokes a trade disillusioning those voters who pro- had scammed her. This may strike war and uses his bully pulpit to vin- pelled him to the GOP nomination some folks as cynical transactional- dictively attack American businesses, and the presidency. ism, but Coulter is at least upfront many “free-market conservatives” This has been the one constant in about what she wants in return for her bite their tongues. his erratic, shambolic presidency: ardent puffery and her willingness to Presumably, many also have a red Whenever he feels this kind of heat, turn a blind eye to all of the lies, nep- line of principle tucked away some- he retreats to his base, fanning the otism, and incompetence she admits where. But so far, it’s only Coulter who flames that keep them angry, aroused, she sees in Trump’s presidency. has been willing to break with Trump and loyal. Coulter is hardly the only con- at full volume. In Trump World today, Trump once joked that his voters servative who has made tradeoffs this is what passes for conscience. ♦ were so devoted to his personal awe- someness that they wouldn’t care if he stood in the middle of 5th Avenue and COMMENT ♦ PHILIP TERZIAN shot someone. But Coulter is different. In an era in which “nothing matters,” this matters to her. She’s done things, The Councilman’s Snowstorm said things, made sacrifices for this man, even though she says she knew here was a snowstorm in Wash- Mayor Bowser and other members he was “a shallow, lazy ignoramus.” ington, D.C., a few days before of the council later claimed that they She did all that because she was T the arrival of spring, and while had either paid no attention to the a believer. She was one of the “ones it deposited a handful of inches on the comments or failed to comprehend who would die for Trump, who would ground and closed area schools for them. In any case, they said nothing defend him from anything, who the day, the evidence was gone nearly publicly in response and certainly did defend him and blew off the ‘Access as soon as it had arrived—and largely offered no criticism. Social media, Hollywood’ tape—blew off everything,” forgotten. Not, however, by a 33-year- however, are less forgiving, and when she explained to Bruni. “We kept com- old first-term Democratic member of the snowfall post appeared on Face- ing back. He could sell Ivanka Trump the District of Columbia’s city council. book, it elicited a global—and dis- merchandise from the Oval Office He posted a video of the falling snow tinctly unfavorable—reaction. if he would just build the wall.” Her on his Facebook page and admonished The councilman initially dug in, phrasing about selling merchandise friends in these memorable words: and then backtracked. Two Jewish is interesting here, because some of colleagues on the council, and a host us are old enough to remember when Y’all better pay attention to this of local rabbis and Jewish commu- she declared that Trump could actu- climate control, man, this climate nity leaders, organized a bagels-and- ally “perform abortions in the White manipulation. . . . That’s a model lox breakfast where the councilman, based off the Rothschilds controlling House,” as long as he took a hard line the climate to create natural disas- in due course, offered up an apol- on Mexicans. This is what really set ters they can pay for to own the cities, ogy: “Growing up as a young man [in Ann’s heart aflutter. man. Be careful. Washington],” he said, “I had no idea After Trump lashed out at Gonzalo what anti-Semitism was.” And as he Curiel, the Indiana-born Mexican- This was not the first time that later explained in a written statement, American judge who was presiding Councilman Trayon White Sr. had “I did not intend to be anti-Semitic, over the Trump University law­suit, interpreted events in this singular and I see I should not have said that a profile in Washingtonian described way. One month earlier, at a public after learning from my colleagues. . . . her reaction. Attacking Mexicans was gathering attended by fellow council I want to apologize to the Jewish Com- good racial politics, she explained. members and the District’s mayor, munity and anyone I have offended.” “Blacks hate Mexicans,” she said. Muriel Bowser, he explained that the His council colleagues declared “Mexicans move in and shoot black Rothschilds control the World Bank— themselves satisfied. people, the jobs have been taken. which, of course, is headquartered in Of course, this is not the first time Anything he says about Mexicans, his Washington—and “pretty much . . . that a public figure has been found vote goes up with the brothers.” (Dur- the federal government” as well. to harbor anti-Semitic opinions, and

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 13 when that happens—in the involving the Rothschilds­ (among oth- nation’s capital, at any rate— A public figure ers). Farrakhan has a substantial follow- a certain protocol tends to has been found to ing in Washington’s black community be followed. The miscreant and is the likeliest source for Council- is encouraged to dine and harbor anti-Semitic man White’s theorizing—about the converse with local Jew- opinions, and when World Bank, the federal government, ish leaders—Mr. White was and that late-March snowstorm. showered with seder invita- that happens—in the One of the discouraging trends tions—and often invited for nation’s capital, at across the Atlantic has been the recent an educational visit to the reemergence, two generations after the U.S. Holocaust Memorial any rate—a certain downfall of Nazi Germany, of anti-Sem- Museum on the Mall. itism in European public life, includ- Sometimes, unfortunately, protocol tends ing such unlikely venues as Britain’s things don’t work out so well. to be followed. newly radicalized Labour party. To be Some years ago, for example, sure, the ancient contagion never really a leader of the New Black Panther his reference to the Rothschilds. went away and, as in America, remains party named Khalid Abdul Muham- What little I have learned about the largely confined to society’s fringes. mad emerged from his 90-minute tour councilman’s background suggests And while social media has breathed of the Holocaust museum to declare he is unlikely to have known much new life into innumerable forms of on the sidewalk that the sufferings of of anything about the famous Anglo- bigotry, the casual anti-Semitism of a “so-called Jews” were trivial in com- German-Jewish banking family, Councilman White will be quickly parison to the “holocaust” inflicted on which first came to prominence in the identified and called to account. black people in American history. late 18th century, unless prompted by Yet Farrakhan, for whatever reason, Still, it is entirely possible that an obvious source of misinformation: enjoys limited immunity. This was Councilman White, as he says, “had Louis Farrakhan, longtime leader of first dramatized some three decades no idea what anti-Semitism was,” the Nation of Islam. ago when Walter Mondale ran for and I am prepared to believe that his Farrakhan is an unapologetic Jew- president against Ronald Reagan. It’s repentance is sincere. What intrigued hater and, like most of his brethren, largely forgotten now, but anti-Sem- me about this episode, however, was obsessed with conspiracy theories itism was a tangential issue in the

14 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 1984 campaign. Jesse Jackson, one of It was a political calculation, of Trump or Vice President Mike Pence. Mondale’s rivals for the Democratic course: Mondale could hardly ignore One sees how a Republican using nomination, had been quoted in the the sudden eruption of Jew-hatred, the U.S. mails could be annoyed by the Washington Post referring to Jews as but he couldn’t afford to alienate asymmetric treatment of the former “hymies” and characterizing New Farrakhan’s admirers, either. and current occupants of the Oval York City as “hymietown,” and Far- No wonder Mayor Bowser and her Office. Surely the obvious response rakhan—who was largely unknown at colleagues in the District government to this isn’t a law requiring equal dis- the time to the general public—casti- kept their counsel on the subject of play of silly photos, but an inquiry: gated Mondale for criticizing Jackson. the Rothschilds. Why are such photos there in the first Indeed, Mondale was critical of When a few hundred white suprem- place? Do we need this style of deco- Jackson—and not only for “hymie­ acists and anti-Semites descended on ration in our public spaces? town” but for Jackson’s reluctance Charlottesville last year, horror and vil- If something has to be featured on to disavow Farrakhan as well. Yet ification were swift and universal—and the walls of our post offices, why not I have never forgotten Mondale’s blame for their audacity was largely facsimiles of the Declaration of Inde- obvious discomfort when discussing assigned to President Trump. Who, pendence and the Constitution? Or the topic, as well as his punctilious then, to blame for the awkward silences rotating portraits of different Found- references to “Minister Farrakhan.” around Minister Farrakhan? ♦ ers? Or perhaps each post office could put up photos of local men and women who have acted with valor, COMMENT ♦ WILLIAM KRISTOL contributed to the community, or lived exemplary lives? In any case, perhaps this little inci- Dimestore Leader-Worship dent will prompt renewed apprecia- tion for the proper republican attitude ith our politics in 2018 Perhaps legislation that Rep. Dan toward our president, nicely captured transformed into a cartoon- Donovan (R-N.Y.) is planning to intro- by Abraham Lincoln addressing the W ish version of Caesarism, duce could spur a healthy reaction 166th Ohio Regiment on August 22, one wonders: Could this experience against this kind of dimestore leader- 1864: “I happen temporarily to lead to a revival of a healthy and robust worship. Rep. Donovan is talking occupy this big White House. I am republicanism in America? Given cer- about a bill mandating that U.S. Post a living witness that any one of your tain aspects of the Obama children may look to come here as my presidency as well, we’re One sees how a father’s child has.” now closing in on a decade This republican modesty far more of vaguely authoritarian, Republican could befits a self-governing people than the celebrity-focused, cult-of-per- be annoyed by faux-grandiosity of our current poli- sonality politics. Will Ameri- tics. And such republican modesty is cans finally decide enough the asymmetric in no way incompatible with a high is enough? Is it too much to view of the meaning of our republican hope for a rethinking of the treatment of the experiment. As Lincoln said in the tendencies that have pro- former and current same brief speech, explaining what pelled us in this direction? the soldiers were fighting for: Consider our post offices. occupants of the They, along with other gov- It is in order that each of you may Oval Office. But have through this free government ernment buildings, have which we have enjoyed, an open field tended for quite a while why are such and a fair chance for your indus- to display photos of our photos there in the try, enterprise and intelligence; that president and vice presi- you may all have equal privileges in dent. They haven’t been first place? the race of life, with all its desirable giant photos, and we’re not human aspirations. . . . The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an obliged to bow to them or take off Offices display official photos of the inestimable jewel. our hats in their presence—but why president and the vice president. He are they there in the first place? And came up with this idea after a constitu- Is it possible that a rejection of the haven’t they been something of an ent complained that a local post office costume jewelry adorning today’s entering wedge into a kind of obse- still displayed photos of former Presi- political scene might be the predi- quiousness toward our leaders that has dent Barack Obama and former Vice cate for restoring a true appreciation become too prevalent on all sides of President Joe Biden, but was not dis- of the real and inestimable jewel of our politics? playing photos of President Donald free government? ♦

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 15 “Immigration Crime News Round Up” for the previous several days. Sev- eral emails have focused on the bru- tal MS-13 Latino gang, and in recent weeks there’s been an emphasis on the proliferation of thousands of unaccom- panied alien children in the country. The result of Sadler’s efforts can best be described as a feedback loop. Her sensationalist headlines make it into conservative media, which the president himself digests and responds to, leading to more sensa- tionalist headlines. On February 21, for instance, she sent out a Washing- The ‘big Caravan of People,’ stuck in southern Mexico, April 3 ton Examiner story, “MS-13 spreads, fed by 300,000 illegals, DACA recipi- ents, tied to 207 murders,” which pro- moted a study from the Center for Johnny One-Note Immigration Studies, a restrictionist organization. That Examiner story was then linked on the Drudge Report and spread through conservative online The monomaniacal White House talking points. media. The producers at Fox & Friends by Michael Warren seem to have read it, too, because the president’s favorite morning show fea- hey are emails designed to come direct from the White House, tured a segment on the issue of MS-13 grab you by the lapels. “CRI- sent from an official government and an interview with the author of TSIS AT OUR SOUTHERN email address. They are the work of the relevant study, Jessica Vaughan. BORDER,” announced one. “MS-13 Kelly Sadler, the “Director of Sur- Minutes after the Fox & Friends seg- Is ‘Taking Over the School’ One Teen rogate & Coalitions Outreach” in the ment ran, Trump tweeted about it. Warned Before She Was Killed,” read White House communications office. “MS-13 gang members are being another. The subject lines are Sadler’s job is to disseminate removed by our Great ICE and Border always over the top: the White House’s thoughts, Patrol Agents by the thousands, but “CRIMINAL ALIENS views, and talking points to these killers come back in from El Sal- SET FREE BY SANCTU- friendly journalists, cable- vador, and through Mexico, like water. ARY CITIES” news pundits, radio and TV El Salvador just takes our money, and “National Security hosts and producers, and Mexico must help MORE with this Threats—Chain Migration anyone else who might be problem. We need The Wall!” and the Visa Lottery System” willing to put out the admin- Sadler’s emails feature the same “‘I wish I had killed more Kelly Sadler istration’s preferred line. sort of language that Trump-friendly of the mother------,’ says For most of 2017, Sadler media, from Fox News to the depths illegal immigrant accused of killing and the White House communica- of the alt-right blogosphere, are using two cops” tions staff used its general surrogate to describe the most recent flashpoint “U.S. PERMANENTLY RESET- list to organize conference calls and in the immigration debate: a caravan TLED NEARLY 142K BANGLA- blast out emails on every topic from of 1,200 or so Central Americans mov- DESHI NATIONALS ON BASIS OF tax reform to national security. But ing its way into Mexico and, possibly, FAMILIAL TIES” last fall, something changed. Sadler’s to the southwest border of the United “Previously Deported Mexican emails began to focus almost exclu- States. On April 3, the president him- National Convicted of Raping 9-Year- sively on immigration issues, with self tweeted about the march. Old Girl in Sanctuary City” the recurring theme that America is “The big Caravan of People from These aren’t news blasts from some facing a “crisis.” Since November, she Honduras, now coming across Mex- anti-immigration group or a right- has sent more than 50 emails to the ico and heading to our ‘Weak Laws’ wing news site like Breitbart. They general-surrogate list about immi- Border, had better be stopped before gration, including one nearly every it gets there. Cash cow NAFTA is Michael Warren is a senior writer weekday since late January. in play, as is foreign aid to Hondu-

at The Weekly Standard. An email on March 20 offered an ras and the countries that allow this / NEWSCOM BOTTOM: VICTORIA RAZO / AFP GETTY; TOP: RON SACHS / SIPA

16 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 to happen. Congress MUST ACT 10-month existence, which was part of but conservative surrogates got little NOW!” he wrote. a nationwide enforcement operation direction from the White House about One day later, the administration against gang activity that claims to the presidential thinking. A March 5 announced a presidential memoran- have made more than 3,200 immigra- email from Sadler highlighted a dum authorizing the deployment of tion arrests since 2012. A robust law story out of San Diego: “Mexican the National Guard to assist border enforcement effort combining federal man assumes American’s identity for agents along the border with Mex- and state and local resources to deal 37 years, steals $361,000 in govern- ico and a renewed push for border- with a serious problem, yes, but is it ment benefits.” And a couple of weeks enforcement legislation. part of a crisis? later, as Congress pushed through It’s unclear who at the White Immigration has crowded out all a giant spending bill that President House is behind the communications other concerns for Sadler’s office. After Trump would end up reluctantly sign- strategy. Sadler herself says she is not the February 14 school shooting in ing, Sadler was blasting out stories like authorized to speak to reporters, and Parkland, Florida, for instance, Sadler this one, from March 21: “Illegals who press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sand- provided no talking points on the escaped after Oakland mayor’s alert ers did not answer questions about the president’s message on gun violence. already committed new crimes, ICE email blasts. Republicans on Capitol As Congress and the country debated chief says.” Hill say the subjects are reminiscent measures over the next several days, A White House led by a mercu- of the interests of Stephen Miller, the Trump surrogates were sent news arti- rial and unpredictable president was former aide to Alabama senator Jeff cles that “prove why we need immigra- always going to be a communications Sessions who helped marshal opposi- tion reform NOW.” On February 23, challenge. West Wing officials have tion to comprehensive immigration the day after an emotional and well- the near impossible task of crafting a reform efforts in 2013 and who is now received meeting in the White House coherent message with Trump’s itchy one of the most powerful aides in the between Parkland families and the Twitter finger always just over their West Wing. president, Sadler sent out a poll show- shoulder. Immigration enforcement Miller is the most conversant—and ing “overwhelming support for Presi- may simply be the only area where combative—White House adviser on dent Trump’s immigration priorities.” the White House can push out a con- immigration issues. He conducted a On March 1, the administration sistent message. That’s another sort press briefing last August in which he announced steel and aluminum tariffs, of crisis. ♦ battled reporters over immigration sta- tistics and accused CNN’s Jim Acosta of advocating a policy of “unfettered, uncontrolled migration” and open borders. After an abortive interview Trump and Syria with CNN’s Jake Tapper in January, Miller went to a friendlier host, Tucker Carlson of Fox News, and joked that Another premature declaration of victory? if he “was a member of MS-13 here illegally, [CNN] would be clamoring to by Thomas Joscelyn get me into the voting booth.” Sadler’s emails routinely sex-up he White House declared on has vowed to withdraw the 2,000 or so federal agency press releases. An April 4 that the “military mis- American troops in Syria “very soon.” April 2 email read, “CRISIS AT OUR T sion to eradicate ISIS in Syria If the Trump administration’s lat- SOUTHERN BORDER | ICE: 99 is coming to a rapid end, with ISIS est rhetoric sounds familiar, that’s MS-13 Gang Members Arrested being almost completely destroyed.” because it is. President Obama and his in Latest Enforcement Operation While the United States is “com- advisers drastically underestimated Entered Country As Unaccompanied mitted to eliminating the small ISIS ISIS and its predecessor organization, Alien Minors.” This was a far from presence in Syria that our forces have referring to the group as the “jayvee” accurate representation of the accom- not already eradicated,” the Trump team of terrorism and acting as if it panying Department of Homeland administration already has an eye on were a purely “local” concern. Dur- Security press release. What DHS “future plans,” which will rely heav- ing the 2012 presidential campaign, announced was the arrest of 24 gang ily on other countries “to work toward Obama claimed to have brought the members in New York as part of an peace and ensure that ISIS never re- Iraq war to a “responsible end” by ongoing interagency program to tamp emerges.” Indeed, President Trump withdrawing the last of America’s down on transnational gangs that draw forces in December 2011. Obama des- their membership from immigrants. Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the perately wanted others to take the lead Those 99 unaccompanied minors Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a in fighting the jihadists in Iraq. But arrested? That was over the program’s contributing editor to The Weekly Standard. the hasty U.S. withdrawal, driven in

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 17 part by political concerns, paved the help their Kurdish brethren in Afrin. straddled both countries at the peak way for ISIS’s surge. By mid-2014, This forced the Pentagon to concede of its power, so the omission is odd— ISIS had seized large amounts of ter- in early March that the anti-ISIS cam- to say the least. Several areas of Iraq ritory across Iraq and Syria, declared paign had entered an “operational are still infested with ISIS members, itself to be a caliphate, and mush- pause”—a phrase that does not speak including the disputed Kirkuk Prov- roomed into an international menace. to an impending victory. ince, which the Iraqi government and Trump risks falling into the same This sequence of events demon- Kurdish forces fought over last year. trap as his predecessor. The presi- strates the perils of relying on others Unnamed Iraqi officials recently told dent is clearly itching to declare vic- to direct the war against ISIS. The the Associated Press that ISIS has tory over ISIS in Syria. But a retreat rival anti-ISIS parties operating in killed “between 150 and 200 members from Syria right now would only Syria have competing agendas, and it of the [Iraqi] security forces . . . across give ISIS room to survive and pos- is only the U.S. presence that keeps the country in the past few months.” sibly grow once again. ISIS isn’t fin- them focused on the caliphate’s loyal- Indeed, ISIS claims to have killed or ished in Syria—or Iraq. The latter ists. And ISIS has demonstrated a sig- wounded dozens of Iraqi security offi- country wasn’t even mentioned in nificant war-fighting capacity in Deir cials in Kirkuk alone since last Decem- the White House’s statement. ber. In recent weeks, ISIS has And Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s set up fake security check- zealots still maintain a cohe- points, burned the houses of sive global network outside of its rivals, detonated suicide car those two countries. bombs, and assassinated offi- As ISIS began to lose its grip cials in Kirkuk Province. Late on its capital city of Raqqa and last month, nine federal police- the surrounding areas of north- men were captured along a road ern Syria, some of its most from Kirkuk to Baghdad and senior figures were relocated to then executed. In other areas a string of towns nestled along of Iraq, such as in Diyala and the Euphrates River in Syria’s Anbar provinces, there are indi- eastern Deir Ezzor Province. cations ISIS has increased its The U.S.-led coalition adjusted operational tempo. accordingly. Since early 2017, A U.S. military base near Aleppo, Syria, April 2 Outside of Iraq and Syria, the United States and its allies ISIS branches conduct regu- have conducted a series of special Ezzor since the unintended “pause” lar attacks in several jihadist hotspots, forces raids and drone strikes against in the American-led campaign earlier including Afghanistan, Somalia, the high-ranking ISIS commanders in this year. The group’s Wilayat Furat Sinai, West Africa, and Yemen. There Al Mayadin and the surrounding (or “Euphrates Province”) regularly are strong indications that ISIS retains river towns. These operations suc- releases propaganda that glorifies the a significant presence in Libya and cessfully eliminated jihadists who jihadists’ targeting of fighters loyal to the Philippines, despite setbacks in were responsible for planning terror Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The scenes both countries. attacks around the world, as well as often feature ISIS members firing There is no question that ISIS has commanding guerrilla forces in Iraq Soviet-style SPG-9s (recoilless guns suffered great losses since the zenith and Syria. Simultaneously, the U.S.- mounted on tripods) or antiaircraft of its power in 2014. But the White backed Syrian Democratic Forces artillery, killing Syrian soldiers, or House is exaggerating the group’s (SDF) pushed into Deir Ezzor, pin- detonating explosives. ISIS’s Wilayat weakness. The White House also ning down many ISIS fighters. Furat still has the time to advertise its said nothing in its statement about al The noose was tightening on nascent governance and proselytiza- Qaeda or the group known as Hayat ISIS in eastern Syria until Turkey tion efforts as well. Tahrir al-Sham. But chances are that launched “Operation Olive Branch” ISIS operates elsewhere in Syria, these jihadists in northwestern Syria, in northern Syria in January. The too. The Khalid ibn al-Walid Army, who are opposed to ISIS and have Turkish offensive was intended to which is openly loyal to Baghdadi, been targeted by the U.S. in the past, roll back Kurdish militiamen belong- fights both the Assad regime and rival will require America’s attention in ing to the People’s Protection Units insurgents in the area surrounding the future. We’ve already seen what (YPG), which is affiliated with the Damascus. Other ISIS units conduct happens when a president wants to Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), a attacks in northern Syria. declare a mission accomplished before U.S.-designated terrorist group. SDF Although the White House state- it is. ISIS and al Qaeda have bounced fighters, many of whom are also mem- ment didn’t mention Iraq, ISIS hasn’t back before. It would be a mistake to bers of the YPG/PKK, left the front- been completely defeated in that coun- give them room to expand their oper-

lines against ISIS in eastern Syria to try either. The so-called caliphate ations once again. ♦ DELIL SOULEIMAN / AFP GETTY

18 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 on “the attitudes, values, and experi- ences” of applicants. The Politicization The AAMC has also successfully advocated for changes in medical cur- ricula. A philosophy major, Kirch of the MCAT likes to tell the story of his uncon- ventional journey to becoming a psy- chiatrist, stressing the importance of integrating perspectives from non- Why should we care about the opinions medical fields into medical training. of aspiring doctors? by Devorah Goldman He has repeatedly expressed his desire to move medical studies “away from n 2015, the Association of Amer- In that address and others, he the accumulation of facts” and toward ican Medical Colleges revised described the AAMC’s “Holistic “a new paradigm.” Whether this is sci- I the Medical College Admissions Review Project,” which the organiza- entifically sound or not, it has become Test (MCAT) for the first time in tion launched in 2007 with the goal of the norm in many pre-med programs, nearly 25 years, stretching the full “redefining what makes a good doc- which now offer “interdisciplinary” exam-day experience from around tor.” The project’s objectives included majors such as Columbia University’s five hours to eight or more. The test revising the MCAT and a wide range “Medicine, Literature and Society” drew attention at the time for its of other reforms. A series of new track or Cornell’s “Biology and Soci- sheer length; less widely noted was guidelines (some of which have yet ety.” A number of medical schools the explicitly ideological bent have also revised their mission of the new exam. statements to better align with The AAMC occupies a curi- the AAMC’s principles. ous place in the world of medi- These changes might not cine. It forms one-half of the seem worrisome at first glance. only government-approved But when combined with accrediting entity for U.S. Kirch’s political statements, medical schools, and it is the reforms raise questions solely in charge of administer- about what the AAMC’s “new ing both the MCAT and the paradigm” will entail. Kirch national standardized medical often insists that social justice school application. Unlike the is the neglected core tenet of American Medical Associa- medical ethics; in a 2015 essay, tion, which represents physi- he praised the White Coats cian groups without exercising for Black Lives movement, a much direct control over doc- medical-student organization tors, the AAMC has immediate and to be implemented) called on medi- inspired by Black Lives Matter, for significant authority over its constit- cal school admissions teams to place “sparking dialogue rather than divi- uent medical schools and academic less emphasis on applicants’ grades, sion” by “staging on-campus die-ins.” health centers. And in recent years, it changed the requirements for letters of White Coats for Black Lives lobbies, has used this leverage to fundamen- recommendation, and altered the stan- among other things, for the creation tally alter the way medical schools dardized application by requesting of “national medical school curricu- assess applicants. a great deal more information about lar standards” that would mandate the Dr. Darrell Kirch, president and students’ upbringing and life experi- teaching of “structural racism” and CEO of the AAMC, expressed his ences. The AAMC is also planning “unconscious racial bias” in medical vision in a candid 2011 speech at the to add “situational judgment tests”— schools. University of California, Davis: “I am carefully crafted interviews in which Kirch has also praised the AAMC’s a man on a mission. I believe it is criti- applicants will be presented with political advocacy efforts, which lean cal to our future to transform health a variety of hypothetical scenarios left on most issues. Anyone who reg- care. I’m not talking about tweaking involving ethical conflicts—to the cur- isters to take the MCAT automati- it. I’m not talking about some nuanced rent admissions requirements. Along cally receives frequent “action alerts” improvements here and there. I’m with the new MCAT, these changes issued by the AAMC’s Government talking about true transformation.” are part of Kirch’s plan to shift the Affairs and Advocacy division, which focus of medical-school admissions serves as the organization’s lobbying Devorah Goldman is assistant editor toward a “new excellence,” a standard arm. In recent months, the AAMC has

at National Affairs. based less on test scores and more weighed in on immigration reform TWS ART

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 19 and the Trump administration’s travel the AAMC’s executive vice president, by a group of 18 medical schools. ban. Kirch once boasted, half-jok- Dr. Atul Grover, referred to a set of If the AAMC’s objective were ingly, that “the AAMC was the author core principles guiding the organiza- merely to improve the bedside man- of some of the most vague language tion’s recent work. An AAMC report ner and general sensitivity of physi- [in the Affordable Care Act].” outlining those principles describes cians, or even to increase diversity But it is Kirch’s reform of the the organization as “a powerful voice in the medical field through conven- MCAT that raises the most concern. for compassion, equity, and justice” tional affirmative-action policies, few The AAMC began redesigning the test on behalf of the nation’s academic people would likely object. Unfor- in 2009, but only received approval for medical institutions, and stresses tunately, what Kirch in particular the revisions in 2012. In an announce- the importance of “advancing a well- seems to want to create is a medical ment reported by the New York Times trained, culturally competent, and community that aligns as closely as that year, Kirch explained, “The goal possible with his particular political is to improve the medical admissions views—and to insist that future doc- process to find the people who you and One MCAT practice question, tors accept those views as settled fact. I would want as our doctors. Being a for example, asks whether This leaves students who don’t share good doctor isn’t just about under- the wage gap between men Kirch’s (and the AAMC’s) transform­ standing science, it’s about understand- ative vision with a difficult choice: ing people.” One new section of the and women is the result Will they violate their own integrity exam, entitled “Psychological, Social, of bigotry, sexism, racism, in order to succeed? and Biological Foundations of Behav- or biological differences The AAMC is not alone among ior,” requires test-takers to respond to (no other options are accrediting institutions seeking multiple-choice questions in which to steer professions leftward. The both the question’s premise and the provided, and the ‘correct’ American Psychological Association, available answers are, at best, often dis- answer is sexism). Another which accredits a variety of graduate- tantly related to medicine. asks whether the ‘lack of level psychology programs, has taken One MCAT practice question strong positions on topics such as pay (from a collaboration between the minorities such as African equality and gun control. The Coun- AAMC and online-education non- Americans or Latinos/Latinas cil on Social Work Education, which profit Khan Academy), for example, among university faculty accredits college-level and graduate asks whether the wage gap between social work programs, has also been men and women is the result of big- members’ is due to symbolic outspoken on a range of issues, par- otry, sexism, racism, or biological racism, institutional racism, ticularly regarding “social and eco- differences (no other options are pro- hidden racism, or personal nomic justice.” Yet this shift among vided, and the “correct” answer is sex- bias (the correct answer is medical educators is particularly ism). Another asks whether the “lack alarming. One would expect the lead- of minorities such as African Ameri- institutional racism). ers of a scientific discipline to care- cans or Latinos/Latinas among uni- fully distinguish between verifiable versity faculty members” is due to diverse health and biomedical work- fact and opinion; the new MCAT symbolic racism, institutional racism, force.” Grover further explained that blurs that line. hidden racism, or personal bias (the the revised MCAT “tests students In his address at the AAMC’s most correct answer is institutional racism). on the knowledge and skills that recent annual meeting, Kirch said Yet another asks test-takers to select future physicians need to practice in a he “refuse[s] to live in a post-truth from a list of debatable definitions for changing health care system and serve world” and insisted that doctors can- “the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender.’ ” a changing patient population” and not “let bias influence patient care.” Taken on their own, these ques- establishes a foundation for learning But the AAMC’s policy of imposing tions may not seem particularly invid- “about the socio-cultural and behav- political litmus tests on future phy- ious. And it would be easy enough for ioral determinants of health.” sicians is contributing to this trend. a good test-taker to select answers that According to Grover, the periodic Integrity is among the most impor- would be marked as correct, whether review and updating of standardized tant qualities a doctor can possess—it he or she agreed with them or not. tests “are considered a best prac- entails doing the right thing when no But the changes nonetheless reflect tice,” and the changes to the MCAT one else is watching. With its politi- Kirch’s greater goal: to test “not just were called for “in part because the cally loaded MCAT questions and what students know,” as he said in a health system of tomorrow requires “holistic” admissions recommenda- 2015 interview about the test, “but a different kind of physician.” He tions, the AAMC is teaching aspir- how they think.” explained that the impact of these ing physicians to compromise their In response to questions about changes on applicants and medical integrity and adherence to the truth these developments and their effects, schools is currently being evaluated before their careers even begin. ♦

20 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 and Pocahontas spouse John Rolfe will be arraigned and prosecuted, along Worship with almost everyone else in a position of authority prior to 1964 or so. Traditionalists are of course hor- Thy Ancestor rified and defend their heroes along familiar lines. America was born into a world brimming with slavery. Belief in black inferiority was nigh . . . from a distance. on universal. “Vices the most noto- by Dave Shiflett rious seem to be the portion of this unhappy race,” said one appraisal of ou can get arrested for spank- the city square of Arcata, Calif. In New African Americans: “idleness, treach- ing an unruly tot these days, Orleans, mayor Mitch Landrieu hero- ery, revenge, cruelty, impudence, Y but flogging the immortal ically removed a host of Confederate stealing, lying, profanity, debauchery, bejesus out of once-revered ancestors monuments and lived to write a book nastiness and intemperance, are said can pay significant dividends. Pound- about it (In The Shadow of Statues). His to have extinguished the principles ing the Founders and other historic critics, to no surprise, insist he was of natural law, and to have silenced villains not only affirms one’s purity primarily interested in cleansing his the reproofs of conscience.” That and moral superiority but can help own spotty reputation. Meanwhile, in passage was lifted not from the pages achieve social dominance over of a Richmond newspaper but those who fail to recognize your from the Encyclopaedia Britan- excellence of spirit. On top of nica (1797). The finest minds that it can make you feel really agreed, including philosopher good and distract attention from David Hume, who likened a your own shortcomings. What black Jamaican who had gained more could you ask for? If I a reputation for intelligence to a knew the tricks of the app trade parrot, “who speaks a few words I’d create FounderPound on the plainly.” Even John Locke, Mr. double and start shopping for a “Inalienable Rights of Man,” nice island getaway. defended slavery and invested Yet there’s an overlooked in the Royal Africa Company, aspect to this phenomenon. We Great Britain’s pre-eminent assume our ancestors would be slaving enterprise. And here in hurt by modern-day criticisms. Dixie, defenders of the Cause We assume they would want never tire of quoting Abraham their names to grace our rubber Lincoln, whose views would be chicken dinners and dormito- very much at home in the skull ries. We are certain they would of a Grand Kleagle: want their monuments to for- ever grace our town squares. But I will say then that I am not, nor perhaps, as we shall see, a little ever have been, in favor of bring- humility is in order. Perhaps our Maybe they knew something we’ve forgotten. ing about in any way the social and political equality of the forebears would no more want white and black races, that I am our praise than they would covet a Virginia, the state’s Democratic party not nor ever have been in favor of mak- bite from a rattlesnake. changed the name of its annual Jeffer- ing voters or jurors of negroes, nor of In the spirit of context, it’s worth son-Jackson Dinner to the somewhat qualifying them to hold office, nor to remembering that flailing the dead clunkier Blue Commonwealth Gala intermarry with white people; and I finds enthusiasts in every generation, because both men owned slaves. (Jack- will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between son is also notorious for his Indian though the purge seems to have picked the white and black races which I up steam lately. Last week came word policies.) The lashing of Jefferson and believe will forever forbid the two that a statue of President William Jackson was something of an expan- races living together on terms of McKinley, the unrepentant colonial- sion of the Old Dominion’s version of social and political equality. ist, is being targeted for removal from the purification ritual, in which most fury is directed at Robert E. Lee and Yet traditionalists should recognize Dave Shiflett posts his writing and original his co-conspirators. In the fullness of that the conventional wisdom defense

music at www.Daveshiflett.com time it’s likely Captain John Smith isn’t going to get anyone off the hook. THE CARTOON COLLECTOR / PRINT GETTY

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 21 And they really should consider the cured of their affliction by having their the people who skip church would possibility that our forebears wouldn’t heads nailed to the pillory with a rail- take every available hand. What want the praise of modern Americans. road spike? would they make of our abortion While we often invoke them, the rev- The tongue wouldn’t be the only rate? (Abortion prior to the fourth erence wouldn’t likely be mutual. In organ to attract scrutiny. As in the good month or so of pregnancy was legal in fact, if a time-traveling group of them old days, fornicators could expect a early colonial times, though outlawed suddenly appeared and seized power, whipping while single mothers would starting early in the 19th century.) most of us might end up with slit face fines and banishment; those who Ditto for the national debt, man buns, nostrils or seriously stretched necks. couldn’t pay might be sold into serv­ warnings on stepladders, and a million They’d be way harder on us than some itude. Gays, meantime, should head other facts of modern life. After a few of us are on them. for the border—at a gallop. Accord- days they’d vamoose, no doubt leaving Consider, for example, the likely ing to scholar Louis Crompton, “it behind an indictment of a somewhat response to the modern phenomenon appears that in 1776 male homosexu- tendentious nature: of ubiquitous swearing. Not all that als in the original 13 colonies were uni- long ago (as the time flies) swearing versally subject to the death penalty.” You are all the most worthless of gen- earned a public whipping, while chil- Youthful sexual adventuring would erations. You have everything human- dren who cursed their parents could be be similarly risky, at least if the expe- ity has dreamed of and prayed for. You have all the food and drink imag- executed. Scolds, nags, slanderers, and rience of Thomas Granger, of the inable; your doctors can outfit you gossips faced a multiplicity of correc- Plymouth Grangers, is any guide. The with new hearts, hips, and wedding tive devices, among them the brank (or lusty teenager was detected having sex tackle; you have mosquito-free bed- “gossip’s bridle”), a cage that covered “with a mare, a cow, two goats, div- rooms, parasite-free intestines, a short the head and deployed an iron spike ers sheep, two calves, and a turkey,” workweek, and marvels you call air into the mouth to suppress the way- according to expert testimony. For his conditioning, smartphones, and auto- ward tongue. efforts—which were clearly consider- mobiles. Yet how do you spend your time? Watching The View. Eating While it is pleasant enough for some able he was hanged. The animals were until you are fat as pigs. Telling people to imagine Bill Maher and his enter- also executed. thousands of miles away about your tainment industry colleagues being This isn’t to suggest our American hemorrhoids. Making entertainments branked, a huge percentage of Face- forebears were uniquely cruel. Con- in which the Indians are the good book and other social media slaves sider the sentence meted out in 1725 guys! Your men marry men, your (no shortage of traditionalists in those to one Charles Hayon, as reported women marry women, and parents ranks) could expect the same treat- by Paul Tabori in his immortal work, often don’t marry each other. Your bartenders charge seven dollars for ment. Other idle-minded chatterbugs The Natural Science of Stupidity. Hayon a beer but won’t let you smoke. You would be rewarded with a trip to the was “sentenced to be laid with his face pay five dollars for a cup of coffee but dunking stool or pillory, a stand-up down, nude, upon a wooden grille and expect music to be free (they wouldn’t version of the stocks that offered the be dragged in such a state through the actually say this, but one can dream). option of nailing the visitor’s ears to streets of the commune of Chaussée.” You kill more children in the womb the headpiece. The attending official His crime? He had killed himself. than the death toll in your latest world war, and those you don’t snuff are sad- might further enhance the experience These days, of course, we cross the dled with a staggering debt. So where by slitting the offender’s nostrils. oceans to fight people with similar pol- do you get off looking down on us? There’s no doubting that it would icies. And on the bright side, we can Goodbye, good riddance, and while be nice if our compatriots didn’t reasonably assume our visiting fore- you’re at it—go to Hell! cuss so much. But who wants their bears would quickly conclude that we F-bombing, deity-damning children are beyond saving. Simply whipping And off they’d go. It’s also worth considering the possi- bility that our descendants might fully embrace our forebears’ indictment, TWS Senior Writer Mike adding whatever other shortcomings offend their sensibilities and standards. Warren brings you inside In fact, we should probably count on it. scoops from deep within Which is why the wisest among us will try to live in the moment while keep- the White House. ing in mind the advice of the pleasantly acerbic James Anthony Froude: “Each Subscribe today to White House Watch age would do better if it studied its own faults and endeavored to mend them at newsletters.weeklystandard.com instead of comparing itself with others to its own advantage.” ♦

22 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 Homeless in Seattle Why are wealthy cities with booming economies seeing a surge of the down and out?

By Ethan Epstein 8 feet—donated by local groups. Children aren’t allowed Seattle because of the open drug use. The village is operated by he northern wall at the office of the Licton local nonprofit SHARE/WHEEL, and the on-the-ground Springs Village on North Seattle’s gritty support staff are all formerly homeless themselves. Condi- Aurora Avenue features a poster containing tions are makeshift: There’s a shower, but the toilets are all a stark notice: “BOTULISM WARNING.” of the port-a-potty variety; there are no individual kitchens, “A suspected WOUND BOTULISM but residents are eligible to eat once each day in the com- Tcase has been reported in King County. Health officials munal dining area. believe the case may be related injecting [sic] black tar Licton Springs Village, unique in many ways, exists heroin,” it reads. “Injecting heroin that contains the bac- to address a common and once again growing problem: teria that causes botulism can cause serious infection and American homelessness. The problem is particularly acute even death.” Of course, one might think that the flyer could simply warn that black tar heroin con- tains . . . black tar heroin. Heroin is an unusually dangerous drug— wickedly addictive and far more lethal to its abusers than cocaine or alcohol. But Licton Springs Vil- lage, a microcommunity of 30 tiny houses and a couple of large dor- mitory tents—one that is officially sanctioned by the City of Seattle— takes a permissive view of drug abuse. It’s a “low-barrier” commu- nity, meaning that people can use drugs freely here. Most homeless shelters and encampments demand residents live drug and alcohol free. But here, clean needles are distributed to the residents to A ‘low-barrier’ community: two of the tiny houses of Seattle’s Licton Springs Village prevent the spread of disease, and Narcan is available to resuscitate people who overdose. on the West Coast. Here in Seattle, the homeless popula- Open since April 2017, on a formerly vacant lot tion skyrocketed by 44 percent between 2015 and the end squeezed between fast-food joints and low-budget motels, of 2017, mirroring the experience of other Pacific coast cit- Licton Springs Village is home to nearly 70 homeless peo- ies, notably those in the Bay Area, which is also experienc- ple who were “sleeping rough” until they moved in. The ing a homelessness crisis of mammoth proportions. King residents include several married couples who live together County, home of Seattle, now boasts the third-largest home- in simple, tiny homes—basically, wooden boxes 12 feet by less population in the country. “We’re in kind of a perverse competition with San Ethan Epstein is associate editor of The Weekly Standard. Francisco,” says Daniel Malone, the executive director of

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 23 Downtown Emergency Service Center, an advocacy group work. The pain became unbearable and, after years of in downtown Seattle, noting the extraordinary surge in vis- taking painki­ llers, she turned to heroin. With her sole ible homelessness throughout his city. Tents abound, even source of income her disability check, not nearly gener- downtown. It’s hard to find a bridge that doesn’t have peo- ous enough to cover Seattle’s sky-high rents, Bebe even- ple sleeping under it. Because of the growing number of tually became homeless. people sleeping in cars, city leaders are moving to scuttle Today, she tells me, sitting in the tiny home in Licton long-established parking restrictions. Springs Village that she shares with her husband Mike, The growth in the homeless population comes from she’s a “heroin addict.” She’s not a happy person—she all kinds of people experiencing homelessness; not just the wishes she could work, she says, and she hates being an chronically homeless, who are usually severely mentally addict—but the tiny house is a marked improvement. ill, but also people who not that long ago were gainfully Before the Village opened she and Mike “were sleeping employed and had fixed accommodations. under the freeway,” she says. Now, at least, she has shelter. Nationwide, the homeless population is ticking up Duane, a middle-aged Native American man originally at about 1 percent a year. According from Arizona, agrees. “Being to the Department of Housing and homeless sucks,” he says. “It’s Urban Development’s most recent The American homeless not a fun life.” Licton Springs point-in-time count, 554,000 Ameri- population is larger than Village is a huge improvement. cans were homeless, and the vast the populations of Miami, A gregarious man who worked majority were sleeping outside. (The Pittsburgh, or Atlanta, on horse farms in Louisiana, HUD census tries to assess how many Duane invited me into his small, Americans are homeless on one given but its growth is driven extremely messy, tiny home, day.) The American homeless popula- by a surge in just a few which Duane’s large frame domi- tion is larger than the populations of areas, chiefly Seattle, nates. I find a seat on the edge of Miami, Pittsburgh, or Atlanta. Portland, the Bay the cluttered bed. Before moving But growth is being driven by a Area, Los Angeles, and in here, he spent four months on surge in just a few areas, chiefly Seattle, the streets. Portland, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. What went wrong? “I’ve been and Washington, D.C. Dennis Culhane, a drunk all my life,” he tells me. a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a leading “And I can’t read or write.” Duane is clear-eyed about authority on homelessness, points out that because those the effect that homelessness could have on Seattle. “It’s areas are experiencing such rapid gains and the total popula- destroying the tourism industry,” he tells me. “You think tion has increased by only 1 percent, other areas of the coun- tourists want to visit downtown Seattle and see a bunch of try are actually reducing their homeless populations. Culhane homeless people?” says further that certain populations have been dealt with While tourism numbers have yet to fall in this pictur- effectively: Veteran homelessness has declined by about half esque city nestled on Puget Sound, it indeed was partially in recent years, he tells me, as HUD and Veterans Affairs due to concerns like Duane’s that Licton Springs Vil- have made addressing that particular population a priority. lage came to exist in the first place. For years, as Seattle’s But the broader numbers—and the simple experience homeless population grew, unsanctioned tent cities began of visiting San Francisco or Seattle these days—raise a to pop up. In a way, they demonstrated man’s impressive couple of questions. Why are some of the country’s most capacity to impose order. They were self-governing, and prominent cities seeing such a surge in homelessness? And many did not allow drug or alcohol users. The local gov- why now, when the economy is booming, nowhere more so ernments often assigned residents important tasks, like than in the Emerald City, which is drowning in Amazonian working security. riches? The answer may provide a cautionary tale about the Charlie Johnson, who lived in a tent city shortly after perverse impacts of a hypercharged tech economy. becoming homeless a few years back, said the tent city’s governance model was a plus for him. Within a few weeks TENT CITIES IN SEATTLE of moving in he was “in leadership, which was super here wasn’t a job Bebe wouldn’t do. Throughout helpful for me, because [when I became homeless] I was the 1990s, the Seattleite worked as a bartender despondent. . . . Just the fact that I had to be social, that T and a house cleaner. She worked in retail and there were people around” was beneficial. Johnson, a in delis. But in 2001, she was struck with a degenera- well-spoken middle-aged man, speaks to the diversity tive bone disease in her leg and slowly lost her ability to of Seattle’s homeless: A graduate of the University of

26 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 Washington who has lived abroad, he says simply that his to provide a safe, stable, relatively harmonious place.” To own dysfunctions led him to “blow up his life.” that end, only violence or theft can get somebody evicted. Greg Nickels, Seattle’s mayor from 2002 to 2010, regu- The leadership does not attempt to push residents into larly cleared the unsanctioned encampments. (In a cheeky treatment or, for that matter, encourage them to enter the protest, one roving tent community dubbed itself “Nickels- labor force. Originally billed as a way station before people ville.”) But Nickels lost reelection in a primary, and as the could transition into real housing, Licton Springs Village homeless population continued to grow, the city began to looks increasingly like a final destination. rethink its approach to the problem. Speak Out Seattle! (SOS), which bills itself as a In 2015, the city council voted to create Seattle’s first “grassroots coalition of residents, business owners and three legally sanctioned encampments. The logic, accord- neighborhood groups with members living and working ing to a city press release, was that “authorized encampments offer a safer alternative that can help stabi- lize the person before transitioning indoors.” They could be on either city or privately owned land. Three more were legalized in 2016. Each encampment is allowed to stay for 12 months, with the option to re-up for another 12. After two years, how- ever, they must be dismantled or moved. People found by the city of Seattle’s “Navigation Team,” which actively searches for homeless peo- ple to offer them services, would be funneled into one of the encamp- ments so long as there was room. Barbara Poppe, who served as executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness under Barack Licton Springs resident Anita Spann, who has been at the village for some 10 months Obama from 2009 to 2014, initially opposed the move to legalize the encampments. They in every district of Seattle,” led the charge against the con- “were not providing basic human needs,” she tells me, like troversial settlement. Last year, the group sent a fiery letter electricity and plumbing. In other words, they were barely to then-mayor Ed Murray, who had backed Licton Springs superior to sleeping rough. Poppe also feared that the Village’s establishment. SOS said it had “hoped to hear that setup of the encampments—the chain-link fences that sur- the city would be extending extra services to the area to pro- round them, in particular—was inherently “stigmatizing.” tect it from any adverse consequences of moving 50-70 peo- Today, the fears over utilities have been allayed at least, as ple with active addiction, mental illness, behavior problems the tent cities all have electricity hookups. But the chain- and criminal histories into an approximately 5,000-square- link fences remain. foot lot adjacent to a family neighborhood.” This was not Particularly controversial was the notion of legalizing the case, however: “This ‘make it up as we go’ approach is a “low-barrier” community like Licton Springs Village. a recipe for disaster and a significantly modified proposal After all, homeless shelters and encampments are almost is required,” the group charged. always contentious among their neighbors. One of the sell- Barbara Poppe, on the other hand, says there might be a ing points shelters make to the broader community is that use for such places. For one, if you insist on sobriety, “you they will insist that their residents be clean and sober. But keep out the neediest people,” she says. Also, a lot of people: Licton Springs Village turned this model on its head: “Our According to HUD data, a third of the homeless popula- main goal is to be nonjudgmental and just be cool as we tion are serious substances abusers. (When I asked experts can,” says Charlie Johnson, the former tent city resident whether the opioid epidemic was having an appreciable who now helps manage Licton Springs. “We just want to let effect on homelessness, they said yes—but only anecdotally.

ALL IMAGES: ANDREW CONSTANTINO people accept themselves, accept us. That’s our main goal: Little academic research has been done on the topic.)

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 27 Moreover, if you don’t allow addicts, you “eject peo- numbers have grown. “It used to be that the people who ple back into the neighborhood,” Poppe points out. In a were sleeping outdoors, five years ago and prior to that, way, places like Licton Springs Village, therefore, reduce they were in one or two kinds of conditions,” Malone says. neighborhood annoyances. Think of it as a form of con- “They were either in highly visible yet temporary places, tainment. Charlie Johnson, for his part, says the success of like doorways downtown . . . that often was sort of a solitary the settlement has allayed many concerns that neighbors group. Or they were in extremely remote locations where, to had beforehand. know they were there, you had to go looking for them. . . . Those people tended to be pretty solitary, but also very THE PARADOX OF PROSPERITY functional. They were very able to take care of themselves.” arty Hartman, executive director of Mary’s “We started to see this rise in 2013 of people in these Place, a nonprofit that helps families and areas where you never used to see people sleeping outside. M children facing homelessness, mostly by Now you just can’t miss them . . . it really is a rise.” In operating its own shelters, has been fighting homeless- other words, vast chunks of Seattle’s previously unoccu- ness for 18 years. pied land have become home to the She says something has gone terribly city’s homeless. wrong in Seattle. “For the first decade As of February, the Inside this growing population [at] Mary’s Place, we never saw children. average monthly tab are different kinds of homeless. We were open to having children, but for a one-bedroom “There are plenty of problems going very rarely did we see a mom and a baby. apartment within on with the lives of people who are Whereas in 2009, we saw a huge surge out there,” says Malone. “They’re in the numbers of moms with children a 10-mile radius not waiting to be called in for an seeking services and a place to stay,” she of central Seattle interview with Boeing or something says. That, perhaps, is intuitive: The is above $2,100, like that,” he says. But, he adds, United States was hit by a nasty reces- according to Rent while many of Seattle’s homeless sion in 2009, and what ended up being Jungle, which struggle with addiction, “they by the worst economic downturn since the and large are not people with serious Great Depression saw huge increases monitors real estate mental illness.” in unemployment. But Hartman has trends. The growth The inexorable rise in Seattle’s noticed a disturbing trend: Even as rate in rents has been homeless population has coincided, the economy has turned a corner, the among the nation’s seemingly paradoxically, with an number of homeless families has only highest for years. extraordinary economic boom in grown. This has manifested itself in this city. Before this trip, it had been appalling ways: Barbara Poppe told me about five years since I’d been here. she has seen babies living in Seattle tent encampments. Today, much of Seattle—particularly the northern part Daniel Malone of the Downtown Emergency Service of downtown, near the Space Needle—is unrecognizable, Center reports similar observations. His group helps the and not just because of the omnipresent marijuana smoke, long-term homeless—single folks, rather than families— since Washington state legalized pot a couple of years ago. focusing on people with “mental health problems or serious Shining glass towers, many owned by Amazon, now domi- addictions.” The people served by Malone’s group are, on nate the area, which used to be characterized by low-slung, average, in their 50s. (Nationwide, the average age of home- modest structures, like the famous Elephant Car Wash, less people has been rising for decades. It’s not entirely which happily still stands. And then there are the absurd clear why; some experts believe it might just be a function Amazon spheres: three glass bio-domes, housing tropi- of the demographic bump of the baby boom generation.) cal plants, conspicuously situated on a downtown plaza. The homeless often die young, and those who live into their (Known locally as “Bezos’s Balls,” the gauche structures 50s are already contracting illnesses usually associated with have reinforced my fervent hope that the Internet giant the elderly. James O’Connell of the National Health Care does not select Washington, D.C., as the site of its second for the Homeless Council examined the homeless popula- headquarters.) The numbers back up what is apparent on tion in several cities across the country and found that the the ground: According to the Bureau of Economic Analy- homeless died most often between the ages of 42 and 52. sis, a government agency, of the top 15 metro areas in the Malone says that the recession barely affected the size of country, Seattle’s GDP grew third-fastest in 2016, behind the single adult homeless population that his group serves. only Silicon Valley and Austin. Indeed, it was only over the past three or four years that the With great prosperity have come great rent increases,

28 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 however. As of February, the average monthly tab for a shelter beds or affordable housing units, simply because real one-bedroom apartment within a 10-mile radius of central estate is so expensive. Cities like Philadelphia and Houston, Seattle is above $2,100, according to Rent Jungle, which by contrast, have had a much easier time housing people, monitors real estate trends. The growth rate in rents has in part because property is so much more affordable there. been among the nation’s highest for years. Seattle has far fewer shelter beds than it needs to cope with A fascinating study commissioned by Zillow Research its growing homeless population. adds further ballast to what might seem at first like simple- And then there’s drug addiction, which dramatically minded Marxian analysis: higher rents, more homeless- affects individuals’ ability to earn a living— and the open ness. “The relationship between rising rents and increased question of whether places like Licton Springs Village homelessness is particularly strong in four metros currently encourage addiction through their tolerant attitudes. The experiencing a crisis in homelessness—Los Angeles, New closing of state mental institutions also had the perverse York, Washington, D.C., and Seattle,” authors Chris Glynn effect of throwing many mentally incompetent people and Melissa Allison found. The scholars “investigated the relation- ship between increases in the Zillow Rent Index and increases in the homeless popu- lation” to come to their conclusion. They determined, among other findings, that “in Washington, D.C., . . . a 5 percent average rent increase in 2016 would have translated to 224 additional people experiencing home- lessness, for a total of 8,722. In Seattle, that increase would add 258 people to the homeless population for a total of 12,498.” Cities such as Washington and San Francisco have strict limits on building heights and, like Seattle, are home to energetic NIMBY movements and restrictive zoning codes—all of which make it difficult to add to the housing supply. Elizabeth Bowen, a professor at the Uni- versity of Buffalo School of Social Work and The interior of a Licton Springs Village house a leading authority on homelessness, agrees with Zillow’s analysis and adds a second component: It’s onto the streets—a benefit neither to them nor the com- not just rising rents; it’s also the question of wage growth. munities they live in. Bowen tells me that in cities like Seattle, “housing costs Just about everybody who works on homelessness— are far outpacing wage [rises].” Ben Carson, secretary of from Secretary Carson to liberal advocates in Seattle—sup- Housing and Urban Development, concurs. “With rents ports a policy known as “housing first.” The idea is that you rising faster than incomes, we need to bring everybody immediately move people off the streets into housing, then to the table to produce more affordable housing and ease get to work on other issues, like drug addiction. But in a the pressure that is forcing too many of our neighbors market as expensive as Seattle, that would be an immensely into our shelters and onto our streets,” he said in a press difficult and costly undertaking. There simply is not a lot of release last year. vacant property to house the homeless. The relationship between rising rents and homeless- What does seem clear is that Seattle, a quintessential ness plays out in myriad ways; it’s not always as simple as 21st-century boomtown, offers a stark warning about what a working person’s losing his apartment to a rent increase. our society could look like as it is increasingly dominated by For one, many homeless people are disabled, and their only the tech economy. It also shows what happens when social source of income is their Social Security disability check. support organizations and local governments decide not to The amount they receive is not place-specific—it’s related try to end homelessness, but rather attempt sympathetically to how much they earned during their working years—so to “contain” it. Ultimately, Daniel Malone says, we need to people are receiving the same amount of money whether decide whether we’re okay “living in this third-world soci- they’re in low-rent Abilene or expensive Seattle. High ety where there’s a whole lot of affluence, and there’s a lot of costs also make it harder for the city and nonprofits to offer visible, Mumbai-like slums right in our midst.” ♦

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 29 Campus Disrupter Michael Crow’s quest to change higher education

By Naomi Schaefer Riley down in a conference room in ASU’s new building in Wash- ington, tricked out with screens and Smart Boards. He told ow many of you drive for a living? me about a recent trip to Greece he took with his wife. How many of you want to?” That’s With an extra day to kill in Athens, Crow went to visit the question Michael Crow, the the site of Plato’s academy. Getting out of his Uber, Crow president of Arizona State Univer- says he realized, “This neighborhood is really bad. All the sity, posed recently to an audience guys had these dogs with these big spikes in their neck that ‘assembledH in Washington, D.C., to learn about the future control them so they didn’t kill me.” Two thousand four of driverless cars. Crow, who participated in a discussion hundred years after the beginning of Western philosophy, called “Designing the Transition to Autonomous Mobility” Crow recalled thinking, “This is it. This is the epitome. with an executive from Waymo—Google’s self-driving car This is the birthplace of the modern university, the Gymna- company—reassured the audience that though there will sium. . . . Instantly I realize that everything changes, noth- ing is the same. And so, this notion that somehow the university is a static thing, that’s a fatal error.” Since 2002, when Crow became the 16th pres- ident of the school, ASU has been anything but static. Enrollment has grown to over 100,000 with more than 30,000 students taking courses online. At the same time, ASU’s four-year graduation rate has risen from 28.4 percent to 51.6 percent; for students who come in with an A-average in high school, the rate is 70.7 percent. And the student body has become more representative of Arizo- na’s population. Minority enrollment more than doubled, from 17.2 percent in 2002 to 35.2 percent today. As well, ASU’s budget has grown to over $3 billion, and it is doing half a billion in research Working the room: Michael Crow greets ASU prep student Jose Bataz. expenditures. U.S. News & World Report has named it the most innovative school in America for three be some disruption, “all this doom and gloom and fear” is years in a row, placing it ahead of Stanford and MIT. silly. “These are not replacement technologies. These are Crow credits much of this growth to technology—not augmentations of us.” (Later, after news of the death of a only the online courses that make an ASU education more pedestrian struck by an autonomous Uber vehicle in Ari- accessible but also the use of big data that has helped pro- zona, Crow told me, “The tragedy in Tempe was a sober fessors pinpoint what their students need to better under- reminder that all advances in technology carry risk. My stand their coursework. He says that technology is more hope is that as autonomous vehicles get better and smarter, important than ever at a university, not simply because they will far surpass the safety of human-driven cars.”) students will need to understand how it works to get good For a 62-year-old, pale, stocky former Ivy League pro- jobs but because technology’s share of economic growth fessor of political science, Crow sure does seem gung-ho has grown exponentially. In a recent TED-like talk he gave about the future. The day before the panel, Crow and I sat on the state of the university to its various constituencies, Crow explained that before 1900, 8 percent of economic Naomi Schaefer Riley is a visiting fellow growth could be attributed to technology. Since 1945, that at the American Enterprise Institute number has grown to something more like 75 percent.

and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. But Crow insists innovation is not an elite sport, and ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ASU

30 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 colleges that define themselves by who they keep out rather outlook of universities. With the blessing of Arizona gover- than who they let in are part of the problem. He says that nor Doug Ducey, ASU was offered money —$7 million— there was a time when the University of California, Berke- and a mandate to pay for a half-dozen new professors as well ley, and the University of Michigan, for instance, used as some funds for the acquisition of rare manuscripts and to to admit B-students, but that does not happen today. (Of fund student activities. course, given recent trends in grade inflation, this may not Needless to say, such an offer would have been summar- represent a change at all.) “Some public universities,” he ily rejected by most university presidents. Who do these tells me, “should still maintain the ability to admit every legislators think they are, telling an institution of higher qualified student.” ASU does not have an open admissions education how it should operate? That was the theme of a policy, he emphasizes, but if you earn a B-average taking recent New York Times article, “Arizona Republicans Inject college preparatory classes in high school, you’ll get in. Schools of Conservative Thought Into State Universities.” For that matter, if you attend com- But Crow is no ordinary uni- munity college for two years and get versity administrator; he is much a B-average, ASU will automatically shrewder. Not only could embrac- accept you as a transfer student. Even if Crow’s populist ing the idea improve his relationship you can’t manage that, ASU offers classes approach to higher with elected representatives in his online to help potential students reach education has state—something any public univer- ASU’s admissions standards. “We’re intrigued many of sity president needs to think about in using technology to overcome the cul- the sector’s most an era of shrinking budgets—but he tural system variables that may have could use it to attract more students defeated some of these kids,” he says. traditional critics. and more attention for his university. This populist approach to higher Michael Poliakoff, A couple of years ago, after the education has intrigued many of the sec- president of the legislature put aside this money for tor’s most traditional critics. Michael American Council the program, Harvard University’s Poliakoff, president of the American of Trustees and Harvey Mansfield got a call from Council of Trustees and Alumni, tells me Patrick Kenney, a dean at ASU that Crow “understands it is not okay for Alumni, says Crow who had been tasked by Crow with a public institution to confine its efforts ‘understands it is creating a plan for the new school. to the elite.” Poliakoff has been particu- not okay for a public Truth be told, it would hardly be larly impressed with ASU’s ability to institution to confine the first foray into “conservative” move students through courses that “are its efforts to the elite.’ thought at ASU. The university has typically bottlenecks.” He mentions received money from the Koch fam- how ASU has used data and individually ily as well as the Jack Miller Center guided technologies to help students pass math prerequi- to provide intellectual balance in its curriculum. The uni- sites or other courses that might prevent them from major- versity also has a thriving honors college where students ing in rigorous subjects like engineering. take a two-semester sequence of classes on the classics, including the great books of Western civilization. But this or a school that has become well-known for tech- was going to be something different. nological innovation and an embrace of new ideas, As Mansfield recalls the conversation, he advised Ken- F it was perhaps a little surprising to read that ASU ney against offering tit-for-tat political balance: “I said, recently launched a new program devoted to some old ones. ‘Forget conservative. Think Great Books.’ ” Mansfield, The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leader- who subsequently crafted the new school’s mission state- ship at Arizona State started offering classes as well as both ment and counts himself a “founding father” of the pro- minors and majors in the field in September 2017. A student gram, says, “At a certain point people have forgotten about studying classic works of Western civilization is preparing Great Books. A return to them looks like a new idea.” to become “a new kind of leader: trained in critical thought, And Crow loves nothing more than a new idea. The humble about human imperfection, and ready for anything,” new school has gone beyond its legislative mandate, hiring according to the description on the school’s website. 15 faculty members, and Crow tells me excitedly that they The school was not originally Crow’s idea. It owes its plan to add at least 5 more. Led by Paul Carrese, who was origins largely to the Arizona state legislature, which, like lured away from the Air Force Academy, the school is offer- many groups of Republicans and conservatives nationwide, ing courses like “Capitalism and Great Economic Debates,” has grown increasingly troubled by the lopsided intellectual “Tocqueville on Liberty, Equality, and Democracy,” and

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 31 “Ideological Origins of Anglo-American Liberty.” There Thought and Leadership represent in Crow’s mind? are nods to diversity—a course on “Women in Political “What we were looking for was a particular learning envi- Thought and Leadership” and one on “Political Thought ronment. . . . It’s not like the PPE [Philosophy, Politics, in Islam, Hinduism, and Confucianism”—but there is a and Economics] programs at Oxford or Cambridge . . . refreshing interest in the Western tradition. although it’s similar to those. It’s got pieces of those. It’s As Crow explains, “The new school is an expansion our sort of 21st-century version of a learning academy built of our intellectual engagement where we thought that we around these powerful ideas on which much of our civiliza- were not adequately getting enough learning—we had tion is based. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t lin- not created a sufficiently robust learning environment for eages and connections and content.” some faculty and some students in what I would call classic But to be clear, this school is not the first among equals. political thought, classic political theory, classic economic Though Poliakoff tells me he is “very sanguine that we’ll thought, classic philosophy. In the spirit of our other 20 or see coming out of ASU a stronger core curriculum,” there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Crow likes the classics but he likes a lot of other things too.

f you ask Michael Crow about his political affiliation, he declines to provide one. Instead he explains his philo- I sophical affinities. “I’m happy to be in an argument with anyone, and sometimes I’d be on this side of the table and sometimes I’d be on that side of the table. Maybe, to you, that might make me weak, but what it means is that I’m a pragmatist.” He admires the pragmatic philosophers, whom he finds to be “very, very thoughtful and capable and intelli- gent.” And he thinks that pragmatists would support “intel- lectual diversity” in the university. Indeed, Crow says the philosopher he “pays the most attention to” is John Dewey. Some 200 attend a free-speech seminar at the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, February 23. Carrese has also noticed Crow’s interest in Dewey, sug- gesting that’s where he derives his philosophy about the so transdisciplinary schools [into which he has divided the role of a university in a democracy. “Michael Crow is inter- university], we built another one.” ested in moral principles about equality. That’s a principle Indeed, for Crow, the School of Civic and Economic of justice for him.” For Crow that means not only increas- Thought and Leadership is simply “another one.” “We ing the number of students he serves from low-income have more than 200 majors,” he boasts happily. “Are you backgrounds—the school has enlarged its percentage of allowed to major in journalism at Harvard?” he asks me first-generation college students significantly—but also pointedly. “Or tourism management?” (The answer in both ensuring that the university (especially because it’s a public cases is no). If variety is the spice of life, Crow sees ASU as one) serves the larger community. Its total research expendi- a kind of educational jambalaya. (He has forced his own tures put it at 44 out of 876 institutions in the country. And three children, who have attended traditional elite insti- among universities without a medical school, ASU ranks tutions, to double-major in college.) Whether you want to ninth in research expenditures. The school also prides itself study health innovation or international trade or civil engi- on the economic contributions the university makes to the neering, there is a degree for you at ASU. state, listing wages in 2015 for those who earned bachelor’s Crow revels in ASU’s quantity of offerings and its flex- degrees between 1990 and 2015 at $5.5 billion. ibility in letting students study disparate subjects. He recalls Crow’s dedication to local communities isn’t just talk. going to a Jewish religious service on campus recently and The Great Hearts charter schools, a large network of Great admiring the voice of the cantor, an ASU student. She was Books K-12 schools in Arizona, have been looking for admitted to Juilliard, she told him, but decided to come to teachers and approached ASU to see if it might be inter- ASU so she could major in opera and biochemistry at the ested in helping out. Crow tasked Carrese with creating a same time. “For the other 52,000 undergraduates who are master’s degree in teaching for those who want to train to on campus, we have these hundreds of pathways for them. work at Great Hearts or similar schools. “This commitment Each of them are created for them to optimize their learning to the fundamental principles of liberal democracy and to outcomes when we’re trying to produce this master learner.” civic education,” says Carrese, means “he would look at this So what does the School of Civic and Economic new department and say we could be doing more.”

32 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 But not everyone is pleased with Crow’s leadership style, can’t you still work at that level” while also teaching? to say nothing of the new Great Books program. There are For one thing, Crow notes, the high-powered, big- the obvious complaints from the “Hey Ho, Western civ has name faculty members are often happy to go to the high- got to go” crowd. Karen Kuo, a professor of Asian Pacific est bidder—the place that will offer them the largest salary American Studies, told the New York Times, “They don’t for the smallest teaching load. It’s fine if you’re a private seem to be interested in looking at diverse political theorists university and you want to play that game, but Crow says in this country, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ida that’s not appropriate for a public institution. B. Wells, Native scholars or Asian-American scholars.” Though he insists that he has been able to recruit and But the complaints go much deeper. In a cri de coeur for retain high-level research faculty, he has also limited the the Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Brooks, a professor faculty’s power significantly. Crow hasn’t gotten rid of ten- emeritus of comparative literature at Yale University, wrote ure, but he has significantly restricted its use. “If you’re about how his own university narrowly averted the disas- on tenure or tenure-track, that means you’re doing schol- trous fate of ASU several years ago. “As I read the news of the [ASU School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leader- ship], memory came sweeping back. Something very similar almost happened at Yale when I was on the faculty there. It would have happened had not the faculty, myself included, said no. We might be less successful today.” In the case of Yale, it wasn’t the state legislature offer- ing money; it was the Texas oil billionaire Lee Bass, who gave the school $20 million for the creation of a West- ern civilization program. Brooks noted, “The announce- ment of a major new program before the faculty had been told of it—much less been given the chance to con- sider it—was unprecedented.” The faculty threw a fit and eventually succeeded in blocking the program. Yale lost its $20 million, but as Brooks explains, the news from Arizona is further proof that “the Associate professor Mike Tueller records a lesson in ancient Greek; tradition of faculty governance in academic affairs . . . has more than 30,000 ASU students now take courses online. suffered everywhere. The university has come to resemble a corporation, with a larger and less accountable bureaucracy, arship for which academic freedom is a necessary protec- and greater attention to the bottom line and to public repute tion for you to do that work.” But most of ASU’s faculty as measured by U.S. News & World Report.” Brooks is partic- do not fall into that category. “If you’re on a lectureship, ularly concerned about the deterioration of the institution of you are a teacher creating your own content . . . but you tenure. “As that system buckles under economic pressures, it have no scholarship measurement for which you’re being means that administrators and donors gain relatively greater held accountable,” Crow says, and so you are not eligible power to define the educational mission of the institution.” for tenure. “If you’re an instructor, you’re basically purvey- For Crow, this is not exactly bad news. In the second half ing someone else’s content.” No tenure. of the 20th century, he laments, “The university became too Even for tenured faculty, Crow says there are real lim- faculty-centric. It became unbalanced. . . . The university its he has imposed using “post-tenure review.” Sounding doesn’t exist for the faculty, particularly a public univer- more like the host of The Apprentice than a college presi- sity; it exists for the students and the community.” “The fac- dent, Crow explains: “If you do not perform, you’re fired. ulty,” he says pointedly, “are the means.” If you get lazy, you’re fired. If you act inappropriately, you For Crow, this problem was especially obvious in the get fired. If you act [in a way] unbecoming of a faculty way that faculty at big universities were allowed to push member, you get fired.” Tenure is, in Crow’s words, “an teaching aside in favor of their own research agendas. “At academic-freedom protection necessary to the advance- UC Berkeley, in 1950, full professors taught at least 2-in-2 ment of knowledge, which has been misappropriated and [that is, two courses each semester], if not 3-in-3 and now abused by many, many institutions.” they teach 1-in-1, maybe, and sometimes not at all.” They The original idea for tenure as necessary to guarantee can buy out their whole teaching load with their research. freedom for thinkers and researchers of the highest order But Crow also notes that in 1950, Berkeley was “already a was promulgated by none other than Crow’s hero, John world-class research university. Where did that go? Why Dewey. In 1915, Dewey coauthored with Arthur Lovejoy, a

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 33 philosophy professor, a “Declaration of Principles” for the he road ahead may not be easy, though. Yudof newly formed American Association of University Profes- thinks that many people are overestimating the sors (AAUP): T power of technology to save money. The evidence right now suggests that blended learning models—com- To the degree that professional scholars, in the formation bining classroom experience and technology—are the and promulgation of their opinions, are, or by the charac- most effective, but still accrue significant labor costs. ter of their tenure appear to be, subject to any motive other than their own scientific conscience and a desire for the Moreover, there is a lot of competition for the space that respect of their fellow-experts, to that degree the univer- ASU is trying to occupy. Not only are traditional for-profit sity teaching profession is corrupted; its proper influence schools offering some of the same vocational training ASU upon public opinion is diminished and vitiated; and soci- does, but new players like Purdue University (with its ety at large fails to get from its scholars, in an unadulter- ated form, the peculiar and necessary service which it is the recent acquisition of Kaplan, a big player in the world of office of the professional scholar to furnish. online learning) will give ASU a run for its money. Crow has wisely learned to pick his battles. He has The growth of the faculty’s power in the wake of this likely made the Arizona legislature happy with the estab- statement and the establishment of the AAUP was inten- lishment of the School of Civic and Economic Thought and tional. Though its ultimate effects may not have been Leadership, but he still has a long way to go to get what he foreseen by Dewey, his ideas about the formation of the really wants from it—more money and more freedom. The research university were partly to blame. Like his Progres- state’s investment in education has shrunk to $3,200 per sive colleagues, Dewey supported the idea that university student in inflation-adjusted dollars from a high of almost faculty were to be “experts” in their fields—and that their $8,000 per student in 2009. Crow wants to move away from fields were so specialized and their expertise so deep and a public-agency model—one in which the university is con- important that ordinary members of the public did not trolled by the state government and subject to various regu- have standing to question them. lations—to a “charter” model, wherein the school receives a As the number of academic specialties in American per-pupil dollar amount and operates independently but is universities continued to expand, it became increasingly held accountable by the state for its results. difficult—nay, impossible—for one segment of the faculty The regulation of universities (and public education in to judge the worth of another. Even within departments, general) by a centralized authority was a dream of Dewey were experts on kitchenware in Chaucer really qualified to and his cohort, as Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale understand the scholarship of experts on the literature of College, notes. So Crow’s idea of a “charter” public uni- former slaves during Reconstruction? Or, more reasonably, versity might end up undoing another bit of harm his were microbiologists prepared to determine whether their intellectual hero caused. “Charter schools are the best zoology colleagues were worthy of promotion? single idea of American education,” says Arnn. “It locates With no centralizing authority for such judgments, the authority where students and teachers and parents are university’s centripetal force weakened and each depart- gathered. They will come up with better solutions.” ment and discipline gained more and more power over Arnn suggests that Crow’s new model of a public uni- its own turf. Which is precisely the problem that Michael versity—and the School of Civic and Economic Thought Crow and others university leaders face. As Mansfield and Leadership in particular—has real potential. “It’s very notes, “Professors today go about concerning themselves common for every kind of college or university to make above all with protecting their turf.” enormous claims that they’re good for society and that Crow, says Mansfield, has developed a kind of they prepare people to lead,” he says. Arnn once heard the “Machiavellian” solution to this problem. By reorganiz- president of the University of Southern California claim ing the entire university into different transdisciplinary he is “stealing fire from the gods and bringing it down fields, he has left faculty squabbling among themselves to man.” But “what Crow is doing is different and bet- in this turf battle. “Reorganization has the primary func- ter. With this new school, he is giving some credence to tion of increasing the power of the reorganizer,” Mans- the venerable understanding of our nation and where one field chuckles. would want to lead it.” Mark Yudof, who served as president of the University Though Crow may not believe that the classics of of California from 2008 to 2013, tells me, “Meshing disci- Western civilization should be a foundation for every edu- plines is extremely difficult for public universities to do.” cation, they were clearly a foundation for his own. And as He says Crow is “extremely creative and ingenious,” which Mansfield notes, “People who study these books become is how he has “survived in a difficult financial environ- better public leaders.” Which may be one reason Michael ment. . . . He is a genuine thinker in our field.” Crow has an edge over the competition. ♦

34 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 Books&Arts

Otto Greiner’s Odysseus und die Sirenen (ca. 1902), showing the captain lashed to the mast as his crew rows past a group of physically alluring singers, typifies the modern iconography of the Sirens that Emily Wilson aptly criticizes: ‘The Sirens in Homer aren’t sexy.’ Speak, Goddess

Musings on two new translations of the Odyssey. by Susan Kristol

wo new translations of the island of Lesbos, and eventually from that poem of war to the Odyssey is Homer’s Odyssey offer an came to America to teach at the Uni- like “the sudden emergence of sunlight opportunity to enjoy this versity of Texas, where he is now an after a long grey winter. . . . There is a famous epic, which is not emeritus professor. sense, however evanescent, of freedom Tonly an adventure story but a reflec- The Odyssey, of course, tells the in the air.” The men and women of the tion on the nature and limits of hero- story of the Greek hero Odysseus’ epic, he believes, “combine a wholly ism. These editions also invite us to decade-long journey home to Ithaca alien background and ethos with all- consider the art of the translator. Emily after the Trojan War. Meanwhile, back too-familiar habits that are endearing Wilson, whose book was released in at his palace, his wife Penelope and or alarming according to circumstance.” November, was born in 1971. She stud- son Telemachus are beset by suitors Green has adopted a restrained approach ied at Oxford and Yale and is a profes- demanding that Penelope, presumed to translating the poem: “I have made sor at the University of Pennsylvania. a widow, marry one of them. After virtually no attempt to dictate the liter- She has also translated the tragedies of confronting dangerous enemies like ary terms in which anyone new to the Seneca and has written about Socrates, the Cyclops, Circe, and Scylla and Odyssey should seek to appreciate it as a tragedy, and other classical topics. Charybdis, the hero finally returns to poem. . . . First-time readers of the Odys- Peter Green, whose translation came reclaim his household and his wife. A sey should be allowed to establish their out in March, is a classicist and ancient 12,000-line poem with many stylistic own personal impression of it before historian. Born in 1924, he served in idiosyncrasies, composed in a mixture listening to the competing chorus of the Royal Air Force in Burma in World of Greek dialects, the Odyssey is amaz- professionals, who are all too ready to War II, worked as a literary journalist ingly readable and fresh in almost any shape their opinions for them.” and novelist, lived with his family on translation, especially given that it is at Wilson’s description of her intent least 2,500 years old. is almost the opposite: She wishes Susan Kristol has a doctorate in Green, who published a translation to understand the text of Homer

classical philology. of the Iliad in 2015, writes that turning deeply but then to create “a new and / GETTY CLUB CULTURE

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 35 coherent English text” that “operates frescoes from Knossos: “It is impos- women and other marginalized char- within an entirely different cultural sible to disregard the suspicion that acters in the epic is the dominant sub- context” from Homer’s. Her transla- their painters have tempered their ject of Wilson’s media interviews, her tion will be informed by “fresh, curi- zeal for accurate reconstruction with a interesting and prolific tweets, and ous, and critical eyes.” She also sees somewhat inappropriate predilection her introduction to the translation. herself as “shining a clear light on the for covers of Vogue.”) Green’s equally She does not hesitate to criticize the particular forms of sexism and patri- lovely dust jacket design is a bit more work of her predecessors. For example, archy that . . . exist in the text.” And relevant to the contents of the book, she writes: “I have avoided describing she doesn’t seem to like the hero very consisting of drawings of ancient the Cyclops with words such as ‘sav- much: The Odyssey “articulates some Greek sailing ships with oars and styl- age,’ which carry with them the legacy important questions about the moral ized waves. The voyages of a decidedly of early modern and modern forms of qualities of this liar, pirate, colonizer, male hero are, after all, the subject of colonialism.” With somewhat more jus- deceiver, and thief, who is so often in the epic, and the first word of the epic tification, she notes that earlier trans- disguise, absent, or napping, while is andra, or “man.” lators incorrectly depicted the Sirens other people—those he owns, those Wilson’s interest in gender issues as sexy seductresses by talking about he leads—suffer and die, and their song issuing from their who directly kills so many “lips” or “throats” as opposed people.” Contrast that with to their “mouths,” which is Green, who speaks of the the actual word in the Greek. hero’s “powerful, and praise- Likewise, she argues that all worthy, masculinity”: “After domestic servants in the poem very little time our sympa- are actually slaves, and should thies are completely with be consistently named as such. Odysseus in his struggle to In raising these issues, Wilson return to his island home.” heightens readers’ awareness There has been a flood of archaic verbiage and lazy of publicity about Wilson’s or blinkered thinking in many translation, along with many past translations, which is a deservedly positive reviews, valuable service—while also mainly focused on one fact: providing a peek into the world She is the first woman to of current academic trends. have published a translation At left, Emily Wilson’s translation (Norton, 582 pp., $39.95). of the Odyssey into English. At right, Peter Green’s (California, 522 pp., $29.95). hich of the two new (The discovery that other W translations is better? women beat Wilson to the punch informs her interpretation of the Odys- Each book comes well equipped with with translations of the Odyssey into sey. She asserts in an essay in the New informative and thoughtful introduc- such languages as Turkish must have Yorker that “the silencing of female tions, indexes, maps, glossaries, plot caused an annoying hiccup in her pub- voices, and the dangers of female agency, summaries, and notes. Both transla- lisher’s messaging strategy.) Of course are central problems in the poem.” tors achieve the difficult feat of match- other women have translated Greek Even seemingly admirable female char- ing the number of lines in English and Latin epics into English: Sarah acters, like crafty Penelope, come under to the number of lines in the original Ruden translated the Aeneid in 2008 her negative scrutiny. She criticizes the Greek. Wilson’s lines are shorter, her and Caroline Alexander translated the “sentimentalized” notion of male writ- diction more spare, more modern, and Iliad in 2015. Their translations have ers like Daniel Mendelsohn and the often more inventive and witty. Green not received a fraction of the attention late Robert Fagles that Odysseus and conveys the feel of reading an ancient that Wilson’s has garnered. Perhaps his wife have a truly happy partner- tale without the exaggeratedly archaic they did not deploy current progres- ship, writing: “Whereas Odysseus has language in which some previous trans- sive jargon as deftly as Wilson, who, many choices, many identities, many lators have indulged, and he is more for instance, described herself in one places to go and people to be and to see, faithful to the Greek text, word for word. interview as “a cis-gendered woman.” Penelope has only one choice, and it is I use the word “faithful” about The attractive dust jacket of Wil- defined exclusively by her marital sta- Green’s translation with some trepi- son’s hardcover suits the feminist mar- tus: she can wait for Odysseus, or marry dation, in light of this comment by keting scheme. The cover features a someone else.” Wilson’s description of Wilson: “The gendered metaphor of well-known, heavily restored Minoan Penelope’s role, like her overall assess- the ‘faithful’ translation, whose worth fresco of three women who look ready ment of the epic, seems unduly skewed is always secondary to that of a male- for a party. (Evelyn Waugh memora- by modern preoccupations. authored original, acquires a particular bly commented about this and other The heretofore neglected voice of edge in the context of a translation by

36 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 a woman of The Odyssey, a poem that She chooses to omit or vary these laic verse describes the completion is deeply invested in female fidelity Homeric epithets according to her own of a meal, a line that Green translates and male dominance.” Wilson here poetic judgment, declaring the varia- almost every time as: “But when they creates a kind of Catch-22 in which tion more appealing to modern read- had satisfied their desire for food and anyone who would disagree with her ers. And so whereas Green consistently drink . . .” Wilson, in contrast, trans- translation’s accuracy could be accused translates Homer’s famous formu- lates the line at least 10 different ways, of patriarchal insensitivity. One shud- laic line about dawn quite literally— from “till they could eat no more” to ders to think what she would say if one “When Dawn appeared, early risen the even more blunt “When they had called her translation “loose.” And yet, and rosy-fingered”—Wilson avoids had enough . . .” Green’s decision to in some respects, that would be a good this repetition. Instead, she composes preserve the Homeric repetition helps way to describe her version of the epic. a set of variations: “When Dawn to set in relief those many times in the There is more than one way to be appeared, her fingers bright with epic where meals are decidedly not reg- faithful to the text. When the poem flowers”; “Soon Dawn appeared and ular, such as the pitiful scenes in which alludes to the meaning of the hero’s touched the sky with roses”; “Early the men themselves are eaten. name, deriving from the verb root Dawn appeared, pink fingers bloom- In Homeric poetry, even humble oduss-, which denotes kitchen utensils have epi- the infliction of anger thets. While the suitors at and pain, Green does the palace loll on oxhides not attempt to replicate in the opening scene, serv­ the wordplay. Instead he ants are swabbing the inserts footnotes, two of tables with polutretoi spon- them annoyingly direct- goi—“porous sponges” in ing the reader to a substan- Green’s translation, each tive footnote in Book 19 in time they are mentioned. which he provides scholarly These sponges will have a information about Greek sad new purpose at the cli- verb tenses. Contrast this max of the epic when the approach with Wilson’s. fate of the formerly non- In two passages, she makes chalant suitors has been use of the similar sounds sealed. Little do the intrud- of “dis-” and “Odysseus”: ers know, as the dining “So why do you dismiss tables are sponged in Book Odysseus?” “I am dis- An Etruscan vase (ca. 530-520 b.c.) depicting the blinding of the Cyclops. 20, that it will be their final liked by many. . . . So name Green calls the Cyclops a ‘savage.’ Wilson writes that the episode ‘can be meal. After the suitors’ vio- the child ‘Odysseus.’ ” read as an attempt to justify Greek exploitation of non-Greek peoples.’ lent deaths in Book 22, the In another passage, she “porous sponges” come out writes, with amusingly self-referential ing”; “When early Dawn revealed again as the slave girls, themselves about wit, “Poor man! Why does enraged her rose-red hands”; “When newborn to die, are forced to mop up the blood. Poseidon / create an odyssey of pain Dawn appeared with hands of flowers.” Wilson, on the other hand, omits for you?” These are attractive images and well- the adjective polutretoi when it first An important distinction between composed lines, but they are not what appears, in Book 1. In Book 22, she the two translators—one that in my the Greek says. Wilson’s conceit that translates the same phrase first as view disqualifies Wilson from being she is a better poet than the Homeric “sponges fine as honeycomb” and then the next champion—is their disparate tradition deprives readers of the oppor- as “wet absorbent sponges.” From the treatment of the heart and soul of the tunity to confront the oddities as well high-flown to the aisles of Walmart in poetic style of the epic, the epithets as the beauties of the text on their own just a few lines, with no justification or formulaic adjectives that fill metri- and experience it as millennia of listen- from the text. And in so doing, Wilson cal slots and bond with specific nouns ers and readers have done. has made it a bit harder for the Greek- throughout the poem, such as “wine- Epithets and formulas are a feature less reader to grasp the poetic architec- dark sea” and “gray-eyed Athena.” of Homeric epic, not a bug. The rou- ture of the epic. Green reproduces the epithets and tine activities of a wealthy household, To Wilson the especially brutal long­er formulaic phrases fairly accu- even one in distress, proceed rhythmi- execution of the slave girls follow- rately: “A reader or listener very soon cally in Homer. Tables are brought out ing the killing of the suitors has acclimatizes to these and comes to and cleaned, animals are slaughtered, not received enough attention, and appreciate the subtly ironic way in hands are washed, bread is served, she has roundly criticized previous which they are often employed.” wine is poured—and the repeated translators who have not shown suf-

DAN DIFFENDALE VIA FLICKR (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) DAN DIFFENDALE VIA FLICKR (CC BY-NC-SA Wilson takes the opposite approach. language reflects that ritual. A formu- ficient outrage or who seem to place

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 37 blame on the slave girls. Looking at the SparkNotes discussion of the B A scene, she has tweeted: “Rape culture & is deeply intertwined with how this scene is read, and how it’s taught to impressionable teenagers.” Green, in Aaron Burr, this instance, perhaps proves Wilson’s point by his apparent indifference to the scene’s horrors. Instead, he Conspirator makes the strange decision to anno- tate the execution of the slave girls The hard-to-untangle tale of how he became with a scholarly footnote questioning the villain in our history. by James M. Banner Jr. the strength of the rope that would have been required to hang a dozen people at once. The Burr Conspiracy Uncovering the Story of an Early ilson’s somewhat iconoclastic American Crisis by James E. Lewis Jr. W approach to translating does Princeton, 715 pp., $35 find justification from within the poem itself. The epic poet knows that old tales must be made new for each audience. enough evidence, and probably never And therefore Homer’s narrator begins will be, to know precisely what, if any- by beseeching the Muse as follows (my thing, took place in the Ohio and Mis- translation): “About these things, god- sissippi valleys in 1805 and 1806. That dess, daughter of Zeus, speak also to us.” in turn means that there is little justi- Wilson’s imaginative alchemy trans- fication for yet another book on the forms the words into these splendid purported Burr “conspiracy,” a term lines: “Now, goddess, child of Zeus, / that has stuck despite Burr’s defenders’ tell the old story for our modern times.” efforts to prove him guiltless of any- On the other hand, Wilson’s insistence thing more than bad judgment. on unsilencing the female voice has led Accordingly, James Lewis wisely her to slight the deeds of men. When at forgoes trying to give us a new book a banquet the Muse inspires the bard Lithograph based on an 1834 painting by on the conspiracy. But then what’s Demodocus to sing about the Trojan James Van Dyck—the last for which Burr a gifted, deeply knowledgeable, evi- Horse, she translates: “The Muse / sat, which he considered the ‘best Likeness dence-digging historian like him to do prompted the bard to sing of famous ever Painted of me since 1809.’ instead? One option is simply to turn actions.” But what the text really says is to an entirely different subject—but what Green writes: “The Muse stirred et it be said at the outset that then we wouldn’t have this book. So the minstrel to sing of the famous this is a superb work of con- there’s another option: He can stick deeds of men.” Men. Andron, the plural temporary historical crafts- with his subject by examining what form of the word that begins the epic. manship. The question for contemporaries thought about the con- Despite Wilson’s unrelenting politi- Leveryone interested in its subject is spiracy that seemed to be unfolding in cal correctness, I like her translation. how to understand it. the southwest rather than by writing It has a bracing, dry feel with its short Ostensibly, that subject is the sup- about the conspiracy itself. Perhaps sentences and modern diction. It is posed conspiracy cooked up by Aaron this will tell us something new about already drawing a new crowd of read- Burr and some others to sever, so it the crisis. It does. ers to the text, a text that is strong was alleged, the southwestern part of Lewis’s approach—“focusing more enough to withstand any amount of the United States from the rest of the on the crisis and on the efforts to make interpretation or overinterpretation. union in the first decade of the 19th sense of the conspiracy rather than on Green’s intelligent translation is also century. The trouble is that, as Burr’s the conspiracy itself ”—is very much in a superb choice. In the end, readers biographers and historians of the keeping with current historiographical would do well to listen to his seasoned era have long concluded, there’s not trends and all very postmodern: You counsel: Read the poem more than keep events at arm’s length and instead once and establish your own view of James M. Banner Jr.’s second edition of examine how contemporaries reacted it. “If the experience leads you to learn The Elements of Teaching, coauthored to them. Your focus is not on what hap- Greek and tackle the original, so much with the late Harold C. Cannon, pened but on events, whether real or the better. You won’t regret it.” ♦ was recently published by Yale. supposed, experienced as “texts” that

38 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 people “read” in different ways. You the wisdom of trying to protect them personal wounds. Even today, none of use events as psychologists use a Ror- in the event that Spain warred against them is free from suspicion of having schach test—to tease out an era’s cul- the United States to regain the Louisi- acted to hide the truth, gain political tural and political realities. ana Territory, the great landmass that and ideological advantage, and protect For all the brickbats thrown at France, having earlier bought it from his reputation. The conspiracy had a a method drawn from Continental Spain, had ceded to Jefferson’s admin- happy outcome for none of them. theory and literary studies, in Lewis’s istration in 1803. Gathering a group hands this history of what he fittingly of armed men around him, he set out hile Lewis weaves the nec- calls “sensemaking” is deeply illumi- for the southwest—up to what we still W essary details of all this nating. It reveals as much about the don’t know. throughout his long book, his inter- realities of the early republic as any The trouble was that among those est lies elsewhere. In a display of account that’s limited to the passage in on his plans was James Wilkinson, exhaustive research into every con- of events. In many respects, it reveals governor of the Louisiana Territory, ceivable remaining written and pub- more. It does so with a bravura display commander of American forces at New lished source, an effort that took him of the newest kind of political history, Orleans, a man then in the pay of Spain, 20 years, he examines how contem- the history of “political culture,” of the poraries learned about, reported, and general context in which politics takes tried to understand a set of events that place. It’s a kind of history being prac- Burr’s actions drew seemed dizzying to them all. ticed nowhere better than in the his- That takes him into the day’s postal tory of the early nation. in most of the leading system and the spread of information, The main figure of the tale, Aaron figures and opinion- how Jefferson and others tried to spin Burr, was known to contemporaries as the story to their benefit, and how peo- a brilliant politician. Historians con- makers of the day. ple made sense of competing accounts, sider him the first professional politi- None of them emerged decided who could be believed, and dis- cian on the national scene. Grandson tinguished honesty from skullduggery. of the great theologian Jonathan unscathed. Even He takes readers into how contempo- Edwards, son of a president of the Col- today, none of them is raries struggled, as historians still do, lege of New Jersey (now Princeton), to figure out the veracity of conflicting himself a graduate of that institution, free from suspicion of reports of events, to decide whether and an attorney, Burr was a member Marshall’s acquittal of Burr was war- of the early nation’s elite. After a dis- having acted to hide ranted, even the way in which people tinguished military career during the the truth, gain political argued over how Burr should be treated revolution, he entered politics and car- socially during his trial in Richmond. ried New York state for Thomas Jeffer- and ideological Little escapes Lewis’s gaze—but he son in two presidential contests, those advantage, and protect must leave readers to decide the most of 1796 and 1800. In 1801, already con- freighted question of all: whether, as so sidered by many to be untrustworthy, his reputation. many then believed, the republic was a womanizer, and lacking the public in peril of disunion. Not even Lewis virtue of a truly disinterested patriot, can figure that out. Burr squandered much of his residual and by wide agreement one of the most In the end, the author joins every appeal by failing to stand aside during notorious scoundrels in American his- other historian who has tried to unravel that year’s Electoral College tie in favor tory. Whatever Burr’s scheme was or was the affair by throwing his hands in the of Thomas Jefferson, who became pres- said to be, Wilkinson, seeking as usual air in the face of “a mass of incomplete, ident only after the House of Repre- his own advantage, betrayed it to Presi- incompatible, and even incredible asser- sentatives broke the tie in a marathon dent Jefferson who, fearing the nation’s tions and explanations” in the surviving series of votes. Then, while serving as breakup, ordered Burr’s arrest. Hauled sources. In this, he joins the great his- Jefferson’s vice president, Burr fatally back east after trying to flee, Burr stood torian Henry Adams, who gave up on shot Alexander Hamilton in their cel- trial for treason in Richmond in 1807. publishing a book about Burr and the ebrated 1804 duel at Weehawken. It Acquitted of the charge in a federal court conspiracy after losing confidence that was after Burr left office in 1805 that presided over by none other than Chief he could understand either. the final notorious set of events of his Justice John Marshall, Burr—now “Cat- Yet even if warranted, giving up is public life unrolled. iline” to his detractors—fled to Europe, not a conclusion that brings things Burr had leased land in the part of his career and reputation in tatters. satisfactorily to a close. It offends the the Louisiana Territory that eventually Burr’s actions drew in most of the canons and aesthetics of tale-telling. It became the state of Louisiana. Journey- leading figures and opinion-makers leaves us hanging. We want a round- ing through the Ohio Valley toward of the day. None of them emerged ing out, not just a mystery. So what’s his holdings in 1805, he probably saw from the affair without political and a reader to do? Isn’t there more to say,

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 39 even more to be learned from the book? An era reveals itself most clearly in A its fears and fractures, not in its areas B& of concord. We see through Lewis’s book how early-19th-century Ameri- cans were deeply concerned about Truly Grand Strategy their nation’s integrity and about what Drawing on the wisdom of history, philosophy, and constituted honorable conduct in their public officials. The Burr conspiracy literature to inform foreign policy. by Aaron MacLean crisis brought their fears about both to the surface. Only 30 years after its birth, the United States, the world’s first constitutional republic, seemed threatened by secession—and by seces- sion at the hands of someone who had endangered Jefferson’s election to the presidency, as vice president had killed Hamilton, and now stood accused of treason, the greatest civic dishonor. Should we wonder that what was reported and debated throughout the union was a kind of screen on which the nation’s anxieties were projected and amplified? Read from this vantage, the tale of what Burr and the strange company of his accomplices were said to be attempting is what makes the book so important. It unveils the com- plex social and cultural ecosystem of early American public life. But what more is in it for the gen- Historian John Lewis Gaddis (left), with Paul Kennedy and Charles Hill, eral reader of history? Not, I think, the with whom he teaches grand strategy at Yale luxuriant details of Lewis’s book. After a while, the facts begin to feel precious ntil the late 1990s, and baroquely excessive—“too much,” John Lewis Gaddis On Grand Strategy as we used to say. One can however enjoyed a reputation by John Lewis Gaddis Penguin, 368 pp., $26 imagine why Lewis piles the details on. among his fellow his- His work, like much political history of Utorians for careful—even exquisitely the early republic, joins a growing num- careful—evenhandedness. His early But around that same time, some of ber of others in its implied criticism books—1972’s The United States and his fellow academics began to feel that of what the French dismissively call the Origins of the Cold War, which grew Gaddis risked becoming an embarrass- “events history”—the kind of history, out of his doctoral dissertation, and ment. In his 1997 book We Now Know, especially biographies and tales of elec- 1982’s Strategies of Containment—had which drew on materials released from tions and military conflicts, that contin- struck what appeared to be a virtuous Communist archives after the Soviet ues to pour from American presses. We balance between the kind of booster- Union’s fall, Gaddis argued that Sta- surely don’t much need many more of ism that tended to absolve the United lin’s ascendancy had made the Cold those histories. Lewis implicitly makes States of all responsibility for the War inevitable—even at that late date that point, even while overdoing it. onset of the Cold War and the rising a not entirely welcome view among his Yet we need more of the kind of his- New Left revisionism that pinned the peers. Then, in 2005, he published a tory that Lewis so brilliantly gives us whole regrettable affair on the capital- one-volume history of the Cold War in here, even without such an overabun- ists. By 1997, the year he started teach- which he came across as, well, pleased dance of detail. If that’s a danger inher- ing at Yale University, the New York that the United States and its allies ent in the new cultural history written Times called Gaddis “the respected had ultimately prevailed. This was in our purportedly postmodern era, dean of cold war historians.” going too far. Still more troublingly, perhaps it’s the price we have to pay for Gaddis had become associated with a it. It’s surely a price this splendid book Aaron MacLean is a writer and policy program at Yale devoted to educating

makes worthwhile. ♦ analyst in Washington. future masters of the universe about UNIVERSITY HARRY BISHOP / COURTESY OF YALE

40 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 geopolitics. Surely the whole thing was ters concern canonical authors who tives are in conflict with one another. ethically questionable at best—and wrote explicitly on strategy, sometimes On Elizabeth, Gaddis, relying on A. N. at worst, somewhat neoconservative. Gaddis’s own 20th-century intellec- Wilson, who is in turn relying on This last suspicion was only aggra- tual influences, sometimes the careers Shakespeare, writes: vated when Gaddis wrote articles and of pivotal statesmen. Thucydides, Sun a short book that were generally sup- Tzu, Machiavelli, Clausewitz, Tol- [Hamlet and Elizabeth] hardly at first seem similar. Shakespeare’s portive of the Bush administration’s stoy, and Isaiah Berlin jostle for space prince, dressed like Philip [II] response to 9/11 and when he became with Augustus Caesar, Elizabeth I, and always in black, lacks Elizabeth’s an occasional visitor in those days to John Quincy Adams, with mentions of lightness—except in his mad scenes, the Oval Office. people like Hermann Broch, F. Scott where he feigns irresponsibil- ity, even lunacy, to smoke out his It almost seems that for some of Fitzgerald, Virginia Woolf, and Milan enemies. Elizabeth used dithering, Gaddis’s critics his apparent rightward Kundera dusted throughout. which looks irresponsible, in some- drift was ipso facto evidence that his This highly personal approach— thing like the same way: to remind research was shoddy. An extreme ver- in which general strategic principles her advisers for whom they worked; sion of the indictment was laid out by are developed and honed dialectically to hold off her suitors, thus balanc- ing their states; and, when the bal- Tony Judt in the New York Review of through a method best described as ance at last turned against her, to Books, writing with respect to Gaddis’s literary anecdotalism—will do little lure the Spanish Armada into the 2005 Cold War history: to improve Gaddis’s standing among English Channel where, by trusting her admirals, she sprang a massive While it may seem tempting to dis- those already inclined to dislike his work. Neither will the unironic men- mousetrap. Precision and decisive- miss John Lewis Gaddis’s history of ness, in each of these situations, the cold war as a naively self-con- tion of “timeless principles,” the bal- could have entrapped her. gratulatory account which leaves out anced treatment of topics like the much of what makes its subject inter- American legacy of slavery, and This sort of gnomic insight—that esting and of continuing relevance, that would be a mistake. Gaddis’s ver- the generally favorable view of the precision and decisiveness are of the sion is perfectly adapted for contem- way in which the United States has utmost importance, except when porary America: an anxious country acted to secure the geopolitical bal- they are not—is characteristic of the curiously detached from its own past ance of the Old World. book. In Gaddis’s account, Elizabeth’s as well as from the rest of the world Justifying his method of explor- patience, ideological flexibility, and and hungry for “a fireside fairytale with a happy ending.” ing grand strategy—which he defines capacity for gaining leverage over pow- as the activity of aligning “potentially erful entities by playing them off one Few of Gaddis’s critics rose to quite the unlimited aspirations with necessarily another contrast with Philip’s prioriti- same altitude of dudgeon—but among limited capabilities”—across “space, zation of his religious calling (to unite the community of professional schol- time, and scale,” Gaddis writes: Europe under the church) and an arro- ars of foreign policy, a sense of distaste gance born of his empire’s abundant persisted, generally expressed in terms We need to see change happen, and resources; as a consequence, the future we can do that only by reconsti- of more-sorrow-than-anger, even as tuting the past as histories, biog- belonged to the British, not to Spain. Gaddis produced a volume widely raphies, poems, plays, novels, or considered to be a masterpiece: a 2011 films. The best of these sharpen and bsent from On Grand Strategy is biography of George Kennan, some shade simultaneously: they compress A the sort of specialized, “bottom- what’s happening in order to clarify, up” history that focuses on broad eco- three decades in the making, that was even as they blur the line between deservedly awarded a Pulitzer Prize. instruction and entertainment. nomic or social trends within highly Gaddis’s thought-provoking new circumscribed subject areas. The only book, On Grand Strategy, is lighter This is why one encounters Gaddis absence more conspicuous is of the fare, albeit dealing with grave matters. exploring Lincoln’s combination of fruits of two disciplines that concern Inspired in part by his experience co- moral principle and operational flex- strategic issues: political science and teaching in Yale’s Program in Grand ibility as much through Tony Kush- its close relation international relations Strategy (for two decades as its osten- ner’s 2012 screenplay for Lincoln as theory. Gaddis implicitly addresses sibly centrist instructor, flanked on the through the historical record itself, or such omissions early in the book, sug- left by Paul Kennedy and on the right looking at the struggle between Eliza- gesting that his own discipline of his- by Charles Hill, who has produced a bethan England and Habsburg Spain torical research has grown too narrow, comparable book), it is a series of essays with substantial reference to the 20th- while the work of the theorists has organized along similar chronological century novels Orlando and Pavane. suffered from a deleterious envy of the and thematic lines as the course. The Both discussions advance Gaddis’s hard sciences. What is needed is a kind approach is highly idiosyncratic and admiration for leaders who have an of healing synthesis: the structure loose; it has something of apparently super-rational ability to A gap has opened between the study the feel of a personal manifesto or intel- remain flexible in situations wherein of history and the construction of lectual memoir. Sometimes the chap- a host of moral and practical impera- theory, both of which are needed if

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 41 ends are to be aligned with means. come to serve as a kind of ur-text for eral education) ought not to ignore it. Historians, knowing that their field the predominant intellectual school Gaddis does not address the Cold rewards specialized research, tend among international relations theo- War at any great length, noting that to avoid the generalizations upon which theories depend: they there- rists: “realism,” which holds that states he has said plenty on the subject else- by deny complexity the simplicities behave rationally and naturally seek where; he also doesn’t discuss recent that guide us through it. Theorists, to expand their power, regardless of American strategic dilemmas, presum- keen to be seen as social “scientists,” the nature of their domestic politi- ably for the same reason. On the evi- seek “reproducibility” in results: cal structures. The academic adher- dence of the results of the last 25 years that replaces complexity with sim- plicity in the pursuit of predict- ents of realism tend these days to be of American foreign policy, it seems as ability. Both communities neglect associated with calls for American though the question of how to educate relationships between the general and “restraint.” As a set of arguments, the strategists ought to be acute for us. In the particular—between universal realist theoretical approach deserves particular, Gaddis’s general hostil- and local knowledge—that nurture ity toward dogmatism of any variety strategic thinking. And both, as if to something like the robust attention add opacity to this insufficiency, too that it receives; but as a primary basis deserves attention: He gets a great often write badly. for educating ambitious young people deal of mileage out of one of F. Scott interested in foreign affairs, it has Fitzgerald’s glittering and somewhat Gaddis does not linger on the fact that obvious shortcomings. glib aphorisms, that “the test of a first- the current state of play gives the theo- rate intelligence is the ability to hold rists the upper hand, and that the kind two opposed ideas in the mind at the of young person who wants to be rele- On the evidence of same time, and still retain the ability vant outside the academy will naturally to function.” For Gaddis, the strategic gravitate in the direction of theory. the results of the last value of such an observation is the sug- Moreover, young people interested 25 years of American gestion that one might take “the best in geopolitics are very likely to get from contradictory approaches while their first meaningful exposure to the foreign policy, it seems rejecting the worst.” subject not from a history department Fitzgerald’s remark ultimately leads or a classics-oriented course in grand as though the question Gaddis to the observation that ter- strategy like the one at Yale, but from of how to educate rible strategic dilemmas can only be an introductory course in international resolved by “stretching them over relations. A yet-unpublished study by strategists ought to be time. We seek certain things now, put the Alexander Hamilton Society—an acute for us. off others until later, and regard still organization dedicated to promot- others as unattainable.” The American ing debate on the first principles and project of self-government began with contemporary dilemmas of American a compromise between the high moral foreign policy—reviews the syllabi of ar from rejecting any role for principle of the Declaration of Inde- such courses at the 10 universities atop F“theory” in strategic thinking, pendence and the barbarity of slavery, a the 2017 U.S. News & World Report Gaddis insists it is essential. He holds dilemma that took a century to resolve; rankings and finds that of the most up Clausewitz as an exemplar of a use- we redressed the balance of power in commonly assigned readings, only one ful theoretician, one whose theory is Eurasia three times in the last century, author (Thucydides) was not born in deeply concerned with the “limitations and on two of those occasions suc- the 20th century; the other nine are of theory itself,” who keeps the enter- ceeded through cooperation with an contemporary or near-contemporary prise tied closely to experience, who ideologically hostile power (with Sta- political scientists of the likes of John sees it more as a way of training the lin to defeat fascism; with Mao and his Mearsheimer and Robert Jervis. Such mind than as a tool to be employed at successors to defeat the Soviet Union). a pedagogical approach implies that moments of decision. These moments Each resolved dilemma, each geopoliti- our knowledge of statecraft, like our tend to involve factors so complex, cal success, vindicated the reputation knowledge of materials science or of with information so imperfect, that of our bold project of self-rule. Act- how to treat cancer, is steadily accu- consistent success within them seems ing creatively within such tensions— mulating. Each generation of theorists to require an uncanny ability to grasp between the dreams of “idealism” will know more, or at least will know intangibles: Clausewitz’s famous “coup and the demands of “realism”—is the better, than the last. d’oeil.” A theoretical education can very stuff of the American approach The inclusion of Thucydides on help prepare one for such moments, to strategy. Or as Gaddis puts it, quot- these syllabi is indeed the excep- but so, Gaddis holds, can the study of ing Isaiah Berlin, “Perhaps there are tion that proves the rule: In gen- history and literature. The mediated other worlds in which all principles eral, the students are only reading experience to be gained from reading are harmonized, but ‘it is on earth that the same cherry-picked excerpt, the Tolstoy is of such value that a strate- we live, and it is here that we must Melian dialogue. This passage has gic education (we might add, a lib- believe and act.’ ” ♦

42 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 ston, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, B A Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Nora & Ephron, Joan Didion, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm—fill the book eas- ily, and there are enough other women Witty Women popping up in the background that one could imagine an entire other book Controversy-courting creators, critics, with a different cast. and cultural commentators. by B. D. McClay Dean writes perceptively, if some- times in a slightly detached way, about these women’s achievements and fail- cene: New York City, sometime­ ures, the sorts of things they wished in the sixties. Mary McCarthy, Sharp they could have done, and their blind former “dark lady” of Ameri- The Women Who Made an Art spots (notably, for West and Arendt, can letters, walks up to the of Having an Opinion blind spots related to racism). Occa- by Michelle Dean Syoung Susan Sontag at a party and says, sionally, Dean withholds her own judg- Grove, 362 pp., $26 icily: So I hear you’re the new me. (In ment a little too much; it’s hard to read some accounts: the imitation me.) This about all these opinionated women and exchange will become famous, though their controversies without wanting no one—least of all Sontag herself— the author to come down on one side seems to recall it actually happening. or another. But we like the story. Literary gos- But for the most part, Sharp is an sip has all the pleasures of the nor- insightful book that works well to mal sort and something a little extra. introduce its subjects to newcomers Knowing the quips and predilections while containing enough of Dean’s of the smart, famous, and dead brings analysis to be interesting to read- a special thrill; they were just like us, ers already familiar with them. Dean only somehow more so. They know highlights some of the obscure or their roles and, in stories like this one, even a little embarrassing works by seem to be aware of playing them. It’s these writers. (For instance: Susan almost, Michelle Dean wryly com- Sontag once wrote a piece for Vogue ments in Sharp, as if “intellectual life that advised cultivating optimism by were a kind of gothic novel.” assuming, among other things, “that In addition, a mystique can accrue to we suffer uselessly.”) While Dean care- particular circles and places—but over fully frees these women from their rep- time, as one encounters the same anec- utations for cruelty, she documents the dotes over and over, they can become Dorothy Parker, one of the 20th-century ways in which they are part of intellec- tiresome. “Bloomsbury is, just now, women writers profiled inSharp tual history, linked to and in conversa- like one of those ponds on a private tion with each other, not one-offs in an estate from which all of the trout have story of one bitchy intellectual accost- endless series of Dark Ladies. been scooped out for the season,” wrote ing another at a party, a sea of intellec- Elizabeth Hardwick in her 1973 essay tuals drinking hard and arguing about orothy Parker, long an inspira- “Bloomsbury and Virginia Woolf”: ideas and shoving each other around D tion to many a sardonic bru- “The period, the letters, the houses, the with their big personalities. In which nette, takes her place as the first in love affairs, the blood lines: these are sea there is only ever one exceptional Dean’s line of women—and her ghost private anecdotes one is happy enough woman at a time. Witty, beautiful, drinks lingers long after she’s left the page. to meet once or twice but not again too much, acid-tongued—you know the Parker made her name through a series and again.” type. One retires, another appears. of, well, sharp reviews, observational Nowadays it’s Hardwick’s own In Sharp, Dean, a journalist and pieces, light verse, and, eventually, circle—the so-called “New York intel- literary critic, recenters the New York short stories. lectuals”—that plays this role for us, intellectual world around its women. But it wasn’t very fun being Doro- not Bloomsbury. Hence the appeal of As her guiding theme, she takes these thy Parker, seeing through every- the McCarthy-Sontag anecdote, fished women’s reputations as “sharp,” cruel, thing, including herself. She didn’t out as many times as it has been. It’s a or ruthless, linking them together find much to celebrate in her own by how they were talked about. The success. The sort of work Parker B. D. McClay is a senior editor women she focuses on—Dorothy admired was being done by men like

at the Hedgehog Review. Parker, Rebecca West, Zora Neale Hur- Hemingway and Fitzgerald, to whom BOB LANDRY / LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION GETTY

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 43 she could pen tributes (in the former band that hid its nakedness of heart The women in this book were many case) or good-natured parodies (in the and mind under the out-of-date gar- things—brilliant, difficult, success- latter) but among whom she could ment of a sense of humor.” But one ful, frequently wrong—but they were not assume her place as an equal. irony of Parker’s intense self-hatred, all outsiders. (Often literally: Arendt, (In Hemingway’s case, not only was as teased out by Dean, is that of all Adler, and Malcolm were all immi- Parker’s admiration not returned, he the women in this book, she is prob- grants.) “A conscious pariah knows she seems to have hated her.) ably the one most read and remem- is different,” Dean writes, “and knows Being known for being sharp means bered today. Not because the other she may never, at least in the eyes of being recognized and marketed as a per- women are obscure—they aren’t. But others, properly escape it. But she is sonality rather than an intellect. Being while Parker might not have written also aware of what her individuality sharp is not the same thing as being the work she wanted to write—and gives her.” profound or even smart; it signals a tal- might not have had much feeling Fittingly, then, it’s Hannah Arendt ent for observation, rather than insight for what she wanted to write beyond who succeeds most at climbing or originality, and moves the kind of self-reproach—she captured a way of out of the shadow cast by the Dark work these women did into the realm seeing and understanding the world, Lady. Though Arendt would also be of natural instinct. a bruised romanticism. It’s that qual- reproached for her lack of feeling— To some extent, that’s still the case. ity—not the acid tongue or the good most sensationally, when she covered There’s Dorothy Parker, and then sport—that’s kept us reading her. the trial of Adolf Eichmann for the New there’s “Dorothy Parker,” and they Yorker—she does not have the thwarted aren’t really the same. If it’s the lat- quality that most of the other women ter you want, you can buy a Doro- in the book have. She might have been thy Parker gin; you can buy a Dorothy snidely dismissed by some of her male Parker shot glass; you can drink the gin peers, but she accomplished the work out of the shot glass and post a picture she set out to do and does not seem of them on Instagram to show you, too, to have been troubled greatly by the are sharp, sad, brown-haired, and drink opinions of others. And her warm irresponsibly. (Let the record show I friendship with Mary McCarthy belies have done all these things.) That’s the the idea that these women could only image—the screwball gal. The “good be each other’s rivals. sport,” as Parker characterized it in one Hannah Arendt, left, and Mary McCarthy None of the women in this book of her stories. had it easy. Some of them ended up What Parker put into her writing But the problem of being known in careers that were not the ones they was something more than this, but her as a personality as much as a writer really wanted: Susan Sontag tried to hatred of her image-self didn’t come remained for her successors. “Every- escape the essay-writing life to make from nowhere. It made her name, but thing is copy,” a young Nora Ephron’s films, which flopped. Before that, put her in a prison from which she mother once told her, and she took it she’d tried her hand at novel-writing could only try to escape by attacking to heart, writing essays about humili- and failed there too. Mary McCarthy, herself. Of all the women in the book, ating experiences, a novel about her much like Parker, tried to put her writ- she is the one who wrestled the most unfaithful husband. She struggled ing to the service of political causes, with the double-edged nature of her with the women’s movement, wanting without much success. Janet Malcolm own reputation; she seems to have to express both solidarity and criti- didn’t really want to be a journal- understood her situation more clearly cism when it came to magazines like ist at all but found herself working as than the other women portrayed in Cosmopolitan or somewhat schlocky one after the untimely death of her Sharp understood theirs. And when novels by prominent feminists, feeling husband. Others ran up against hard reading about Parker’s career, it’s trapped by the demands of feminism walls: Renata Adler would end her hard not to reach for present-day ana- and resentful of the mockery of men. journalism career by biting one hand logues—the hip websites that use (“Like all things about liberation,” she too many. Pauline Kael—again rather women’s cultural knowledge to build wrote, “sisterhood is difficult.”) For like Dorothy Parker—would be driven audiences while reserving the actual Ephron, selling your personality and by self-hatred as much as by ambition. power and prestige for men, or the your story was a way of avoiding being Rebecca West had to watch herself age women who rocket to fame by selling trapped, rather than the trap it became from young firebrand into irrelevance. their personalities and then burn out. for Parker. Zora Neale Hurston would never in Dorothy Parker eventually con- If the women in Dean’s book are her lifetime, and arguably not even demned her work and herself, writing incorrectly linked under the cat- after, get the respect she deserved. for a Communist publication that “the egory of sharp, they might be better It wasn’t easy being any of these only group I have ever been affiliated understood via a phrase coined by women. But in refusing to let things be

with is that not especially brave little Hannah Arendt: “conscious pariah.” easier, what a gift they gave to all of us. ♦ / PIX INC. LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION GETTY HORST TAPPE BETTMANN MCCARTHY: / GETTY; ARENDT:

44 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 others find themselves indentured to B A an evil corporation that sticks a VR & helmet on their heads and makes them walk perpetually on a treadmill—and that those scenes were cut to move Ready (Or Not) the thing along. Probably wise from a marketing standpoint, but what’s left Steven Spielberg’s messy, mostly animated makes little sense. virtual-reality spectacle. by John Podhoretz Instead, we have a series of set pieces, and while they’re intended to dazzle, mostly they’re just odd. We’re hy is Steven Spiel- told the dead Wonka is a techie named berg devoting so Ready Player One Halliday who was obsessed with 1980s Directed by Steven Spielberg much of his time pop culture and that the puzzle he to making cartoons? leaves behind is all about the 1980s. ReadyW Player One, his mammoth new That’s an amusing idea, and when movie, is the third film Spielberg remembers it, he he’s made since 2011 using has good fun with it (there’s motion-capture animation. a hilarious bit involving The first two—The Adven- Chucky, the murderous doll tures of Tintin and The BFG— from Child’s Play). were simultaneously hyper- But the highlight of the active and dispirited. Spielberg puzzle is when our boy is the most successful film- Wade and his friends have maker who has ever lived and to enter and interact inside one of the most adventurous, Halliday’s favorite movie— so he’s earned the right to do Stanley Kubrick’s The Shin- whatever he wants. Spielberg ing. Bzzzt. Game over. Yes, we wanted to play with the techni- know Spielberg loves Kubrick; cal advances conceived by his he directed Kubrick’s dream protégé and friend Bob Zem- Tye Sheridan as Wade and his avatar Parzival project, AI: Artificial Intelli- eckis in movies like The Polar in Ready Player One gence, after the master’s death. Express and even more fully But while The Shining was realized in James Cameron’s Avatar. We’re supposed to care about released in 1980, it has not a trace of the Tintin and The BFG were designed to whether a poor kid named Wade liv- fizzy, exuberant 1980s pop that we’re be popular, crowd-pleasing hits. They ing in an American favela will get told Halliday loved so much—John weren’t; both flopped at the box office. to own the entire Oasis by solving a Hughes movies, or Back to the Future, Nor did they seem like passion projects series of riddles in a game set up by its or even Spielberg’s own pictures from for Spielberg. Yet here he is again, with deceased proprietor based on his own those years. In the novel on which Ready a movie that’s probably 75 percent ani- life—or whether the Oasis will end up Player One is based, the movie in ques- mated. Set in a dystopian 2045 where in the hands of an evil corporate rich tion is WarGames. Spielberg decided to everybody spends as much time as pos- person who cheats. (Guess who wins.) amuse himself here and mucked up the sible inside a virtual-reality universe The storyline is largely borrowed from best part of the overall concept behind called the Oasis, Ready Player One can’t Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—only Ready Player One. decide if it’s a satirical portrait of a world here Willy Wonka is dead and Charlie Because, really, what’s happened in dangerous thrall to computer simula- Bucket is a 17-year-old played by an here is that Steven Spielberg has made tions or a sparkling celebration of gam- astonishingly dull young actor named a movie for the kid in everyone who ers and gaming. When the movie goes Tye Sheridan whose chief quality cares passionately about a postmortem inside the Oasis, it’s a cartoon. When seems to be that he resembles the teen- transfer of stock and assets. What do it’s outside, it’s live action. After about aged Steven Spielberg. I know? Maybe if you’re worth a few 20 minutes in the Oasis, how I longed Ready Player One has a lot of plot. billion nothing could be more inter- for the real world—and so I didn’t really Boy, is there plot. It needs to go on a esting. But for the rest of us? On the pick up on how wonderfully seductive plot diet, because there’s so much of it other hand, this could explain why the Oasis is supposed to be. that the plot becomes incomprehensi- Spielberg, one of the richest of all ble. I’m guessing there were a bunch of moviemakers, is so satisfied making John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary, explanatory scenes about how people cartoons in his 70s. It might leave him

is The Weekly Standard’s movie critic. in 2045 assemble into “clans” while more time for estate planning. ♦ INC. BROS. ENTERTAINMENT WARNER

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 45 OBITUARY

Journal, that there “ain’t nothing to catch on Antarctica but penguins.” The Cast Master He set scores of world records, from tarpon to blackfin tuna. And yet, being a good Maryland boy, his favor- ite fish was the comparatively modest Lefty Kreh, 1925-2018. smallmouth bass—basically a large- by Matt Labash mouth with a couple of Red Bulls in him. Fish the world when you can was henever I need to check it can fairly be said that he was the Lefty’s credo, though the world right out of the world, I head to sport’s all-time premier ambassador, in front of you has plenty of fine fish, W a place called Satan’s Creek. the Michael Jordan of fly fishing. Or, too. Be no discriminator. The greatest I go there to catch-and-release— putting matters in proper historical fish are the ones you can catch. or maybe catch-and-ogle—God’s context, Michael Jordan was the Lefty What Lefty did best of all, with his most perfect creatures: wild brook Kreh of the NBA. reverence for things that matter (fish, trout. They come small in rivers, people) and irrever- these mountain runs. An ence for that which doesn’t 11-incher would be con- (“there is more BS in fly fish- sidered trophy-size. Still, ing than there is in a Kansas bringing one to hand, with feedlot”), was make you its speckled reds and yel- want to fish just like he did: lows and blues, is like hold- full-on, without pretense, ing an opal with gills. doing what works, discard- Satan’s Creek is not its ing what doesn’t, grabbing real name, but I’ve so coined all there is to be gotten, then this riverine hideout because returning it right back to while fishing it, I often where you found it. “You have to dodge the refuse don’t burn your golf balls at left behind by Frederick the end of the day, do you?” County, Maryland, natives he once asked an interviewer. (“Frednecks” they’re some- Lefty Kreh in July 2015 Lefty knew and lived what times called—though never so many of us suspect: Our to their faces). They don’t have the He changed the game, as they say. days, even when we get 93 years’ worth same reverence for the land as I do Lefty caused us to think differently of them, are finite, and a lousy day of for their fish. I’ve circumnavigated about how we fly fishers cast, aban- fishing beats a good day of whatever cinch-sacked trash bags, animal rib- doning the rigid 10-and-2 clockface else you had in mind. cages (at least I think they were ani- instruction that tweedy trout priests I only met him once. When Lefty mals), a discarded toilet, and once even drilled into novices since Izaak was a spry 86, a friend hauled me an abandoned suitcase with nothing Walton was in short pants. Lefty along to the annual Tie Fest on in it but children’s panties, perhaps favored instead an extended stroke Maryland’s Eastern Shore. I don’t care left over from the human sacrifices. with the body pivoting that allowed much for tying flies myself. If I have And yet while I can catch brookies in him to throw effortlessly tight loops time to tie, I have time to fish, which more unspoiled climes, I still feel as previously unheard-of distances. He I’d rather be doing. But I wanted to though I’m fishing hallowed water. For also expanded where we fish. Lefty pay my respects to the master before Frederick was the birthplace and long- was catching big bad saltwater fish it was too late. Thronged by idola- time stomping grounds of Bernard with a fly rod when the rest of the fly- ters, there he was, an unlikely athletic “Lefty” Kreh. And if it was good fishing universe still had on its trout specimen—a gap-toothed 5’7” octoge- enough for Lefty . . . training wheels. His Lefty’s Deceiver narian in a frumpy upper-downer hat, Lefty left us on March 14 at the age fly, invented to entice Chesapeake Bay who on his knees and using half a rod of 93. And for non-fisherpersons who stripers, became such a staple that the could still throw a fly line 30 feet fur- never realized he’d been here in the Postal Service put it on a stamp. ther than any of us. first place, well, you missed out. For Lefty caught 126 species on the Back in his stunt-casting days, he’d fly on every continent but Antarctica. knock a cigarette out of a girl’s mouth Matt Labash is a national correspondent at He’d have scored there, too, if it at 60 feet, a practice he abandoned,

The Weekly Standard. weren’t for the fact, as he told Angler’s preferring to share knowledge rather EDWIN REMSBERG / VWPICS / NEWSCOM

46 / The Weekly Standard April 16, 2018 than show off. He instructed everyone The book in my hand that day at he fished his way across the world, from Jimmy Carter to Ted Williams, Tie Fest was Lefty’s autobiography, teaching untold sums of people along but he was a man at ease in his own My Life Was This Big and Other True the way, but always staying humble skin, in no need of lording his prow- Fishing Tales. There are better writ- enough to absorb more knowledge ess over fishing partners. ten fly-fishing books, yet this is per- himself. A true fisherman under- Despite people tugging from every haps the most treasured volume in my stands the importance of humility. side that afternoon, Lefty sat down fishing library. Not just because Lefty For as Tom McGuane once put it: with me for a drink. I had a whiskey signed it—“Keep showing me the “The uncertainties of fishing under- to calm my nerves, he had a Coke. He way,” he wrote, which I use to taunt mine all forms of smugness.” spoke with that mouthful of working- rivals—but because it’s a beautiful Lefty’s voice, even stilled, keeps class Maryland—all elongated “O” portrait of a life well-lived. rattling around in your head. I hear sounds—and called the waitresses In it, we learn of a man whose dad it when I’m trying to dupe strip­­ “hon.” He looked at the book of his died when he was six years old and ers into eating my Deceiver from a I was holding, immediately admit- whose family slid from the middle Chesapeake jetty. I hear it when I’m ting, “I didn’t write it,” giving credit class into poverty and into a Frederick stalking wild browns in Maryland’s to the ghostwriter who took down his Gunpowder River, along what has tales. And then he told more hilarious been christened “The Lefty Kreh stories, none of which I can remem- Back in his stunt- Fishing Trail.” I heard it a few years ber, but one of which ended with one casting days, Lefty’d back, when a friend dragged me along of his fishing buddies, Tom Brokaw, on a guided trip. I usually fish to get calling another, the novelist Tom knock a cigarette out away from people trying to tell me McGuane, a “c—sucker.” Being polit- of a girl’s mouth at what to do. ically correct was never Lefty’s strong We were casting for snakeheads, suit. Even as he lay dying last fall, an 60 feet, a practice he the Asian invader that looks more like email made the rounds in which he abandoned, preferring a reptile than a fish. My boatmates bucked up saddened friends, assuring had already gone to spinning rods, them that he was staying “busier than to share knowledge since there was little hope of fly-fish- a Syrian bricklayer.” rather than show off. ing success. Snakeheads were laying Being gracious was the constant up so far in the thick spatterdock that refrain of his life. As fishing writer I’d have stood a better chance with a Dan Blanton put it, “He made you ghetto. His embittered mother rake than a fly rod. But I kept casting feel as though you were the celebrity, warned him she couldn’t afford the my weedless popper, hoping for light- not him.” Bill May, another angling clothes and lunches it took to send ning to strike. The guide, watching author, has told how Lefty took over him to public school, so Lefty’d have my form, offered, “You’re sidearming, an hour out of a fishing exhibition to to earn his way. He did so, by hook or you shouldn’t do that.” console May after his wife had died, crook: bush-bobbing for catfish to sell I was casting a little more sidearmed waving off all other comers. (Lefty’s and trapping muskrats for their hides, than usual—so as not to hit him in the wife had passed away a few years ear- all the while learning his future trade face with my backcast. Though he was lier, after over 60 years of marriage.) as an outdoorsman. “Frederick was now tempting me. Everyone who has Angus Phillips, the longtime out- far from paradise,” he wrote, “but you watched Lefty videos or read Lefty doors writer at the Washington Post, couldn’t have told us that.” books knows that such concerns don’t who, when he started in the late ’70s, Lefty served in the artillery in matter. Just observe the laws of natu- “didn’t know a fish from a duck,” tells World War II, fighting at the Battle ral motion: Keep your thumb behind me that Lefty, who was then his theo- of the Bulge, where a friend had the cork. Keep your elbow on the shelf. retical rival at the Baltimore Sun, had his head literally blown off right in Accelerate then stop hard on the long Phillips over to a pond near his house front of him. Back from the war, he stroke, like you’re flinging a potato off for casting lessons. Lefty taught him worked at Fort Detrick, growing a fork. tricks that would’ve taken years to anthrax cultures for the Army. He When the guide started up the boat, learn on his own, all while making and a couple coworkers were exposed. I muttered to my friend under the him feel better about his thinning The coworkers died. Lefty survived. motor’s hum, “If I try to drown your hair: “Tell ’em it’s not a bald spot, His casting arm turned black, but he guide, stop me.” He smiled, knowing it’s a solar panel for a love machine.” recovered, and the U.S. government what I was thinking, without me hav- “Lefty had it all,” says Phillips. “He eventually named the strain after him. ing to say it. And what I was thinking was talented, generous, and funny, a He shook the shackles of govern- was this: “What does the guide know? friend to anyone he met.” ment work, and the rest is history, as If it’s good enough for Lefty . . .” ♦

April 16, 2018 The Weekly Standard / 47 “‘The Democrats Have Really Let Them Down.’ President Trump Brought Politics to the White House Easter Egg Roll” PARODY —TIME, April 2, 2018

April 16, 2018