Chump upc REVISE 8/20/01 3:27 PM Page 1

TURALWYERS BORN NA LA J. BUDZISZEWSKI

AA ChumpChump onon thethe StumpStump Donald Trump Pretends to Run for President BY MATT LABASHABASH

DECEMBER 20, 1999 • $3.95 Log Cabin Blues BY TUCKER CARLSON McCarthy and His Historians BY ROBERT D. NOVAK Iss14/Dec 20 TOC2 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 1

Contents December 20, 1999 • Volume 5, Number 14

2 Scrapbook . . . . . Forbes’s faxes, Love Canal Al, and more. 6 Correspondence . . . . . on Bush’s smile, the Clintons, etc. 4 Casual ...... J. Bottum, Christmas shopper. 7 Editorial ...... Mindlessness about Homelessness

Articles

19 Reagan, McCain, and Sam McGee The unlikely revival of Robert Service, presidential poet. . . BY ANDREW FERGUSON

11 Log Cabin Blues Bush, McCain, and the controversy over gay Republicans...... BY TUCKER CARLSON

13 The Importance of Beating Hillary The New York Senate contest may eclipse the presidential race. . BY JOHN PODHORETZ

15 White Candidates Seek Black Voters Bradley tries to narrow Gore’s lead among African Americans. . BY MATTHEW REES

18 Ethnic Cleansing, Russian Style This isn’t the first time Moscow has targeted Chechens...... BY ANNE APPLEBAUM

20 The Unpardonable Leonard Peltier Why the Left wants to release the murderer of two FBI agents. . BY MARK TOOLEY

Features

22 A Chump on the Stump Donald Trump pretends to run for president...... BY MATT LABASH

27 Appeasing North Korea The Clinton administration strengthens a very dangerous tyranny...... BY WILLIAM R. HAWKINS

AP/Wide World Photos

Books & Arts

31 Natural Born Lawyers Why natural law theory is staging a comeback...... BY J. BUDZISZEWSKI

35 McCarthy’s Historian Tailgunner Joe, retried at the bar of history...... BY ROBERT D. NOVAK

37 King of the Hill Stephen King is more serious than you think—and more conservative, too...... BY JONATHAN V. L AST

40 Parody ...... The newest college entrance exam.

William Kristol, Editor and Publisher Fred Barnes, Executive Editor David Tell, Opinion Editor David Brooks, Andrew Ferguson, Senior Editors Richard Starr, Claudia Winkler, Managing Editors J. Bottum, Books & Arts Editor Christopher Caldwell, Senior Writer Victorino Matus, David Skinner, Associate Editors Tucker Carlson, Matt Labash, Matthew Rees, Staff Writers Kent Bain, Art Director Katherine Rybak, Assistant Art Director Jonathan V. Last, Reporter Lee Bockhorn, Editorial Assistant John J. DiIulio Jr., Joseph Epstein, David Frum, David Gelernter, Brit Hume, Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, P. J. O’Rourke, John Podhoretz, Irwin M. Stelzer, Contributing Editors David H. Bass, Deputy Publisher Polly Coreth, Jennifer Felten, Business Managers Nicholas H.B. Swezey, Advertising & Marketing Manager John L. Mackall, Advertising Sales Manager Lauren C. Trotta, Circulation Director Doris Ridley, Carolyn Wimmer, Executive Assistants Ian Slatter, Special Projects Colet Coughlin, Catherine Titus, Edmund Walsh, Staff Assistants

THE WEEKLY STANDARD (ISSN 1083-3013) is published weekly (except the second week in April, the second week in July, the last week in August, and the first week in January) by News America Incorporated, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, P.O. Box 96127, Washington, DC 20077-7767. For subscription customer service in the United States, call 1-800-274-7293. For new subscription orders, please call 1-800-283-2014. Subscribers: Please send new subscription orders to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, P.O. Box 96153, Washington, DC 20090-6153; changes of address to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, P.O. Box 96127, Washington, DC 20077-7767. Please include your latest magazine mailing label. Allow 3 to 5 weeks for arrival of first copy and address changes. Yearly subscriptions, $78.00. Canadian/foreign orders require additional postage and must be paid in full prior to commencement of service. Canadian/foreign subscribers may call 1-303-776-3605 for subscription inquiries. Visa/MasterCard payment accepted. Cover price, $3.95. Back issues, $3.95 (includes postage and handling). Send manuscripts and letters to the editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, 1150 17th Street, N.W., Suite 505, Washington, DC 20036-4617. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. THE WEEKLY STANDARD Advertising Sales Office in Washington, DC, is 1-202-293-4900. Advertising Production: Call Ian Slatter 1-202-496-3354. Copyright 1999, News America Incorporated. All rights reserved. No material in THE WEEKLY STANDARD may be reprinted without permission of the copyright owner. THE WEEKLY STANDARD is a trademark of News America Incorporated. www.weeklystandard.com Iss14/Dec20 casual 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 1

extra $1.43 to buy my older sister the metal stands instead of the plastic to Casual hold her dolls, it was at the well- understood cost of getting the plastic SPENDING CHRISTMAS tea set instead of the china for my younger sister. If I bought the Irish handkerchiefs for my grandfather, it was at the heartbreaking expense of hat fades in memory is A children’s toy catalogue came in the potholders for my mother. Very not the fact, but the the mail the other day—or rather, an little in my life has ever been judged feeling. I can call up adults’ toy catalogue, filled with the as carefully; and yet, even now, I’m every detail of those opportunity for grown-ups to buy at not convinced that I shouldn’t have ChristmasesW of my childhood. A cold outrageous prices the toys of their gone with the taffy for Aunt Helen sparrow peering out across the lawn childhood: Sting Ray bicycles with and saved the money the chocolates from under the snow-covered lilac banana seats, slinkies, pogo sticks, cap cost to buy my grandmother the larg- hedge, while I sat at the window, wait- guns, and the kind of open-springed, er size of glass ornament. ing for my parents to wake. My father bouncing nursery horses no liability- When I was 8, I decided that what cocking his head to the side to con- conscious manufacturer would dare my 9-year-old sister really needed was centrate on cutting out the sections of offer children anymore. Just hearing the savings bank I found on the dis- a grapefruit for breakfast. The heft of the names of those desperately hoped- count counter of a junk store, carved the Swiss Army knife from Uncle for toys is like listening to an ancient, from a coconut shell in the shape of a Howard, smuggled in the pocket of beatnik monkey, complete with beret, my dress pants to church. The steam sunglasses, and bongo drums. But rising while we washed the endless It’s the buying of then, five blocks from home, Scooter Christmas dishes, until the fog North’s mother pulled over to offer formed into little rivulets that raced presents, rather than the me a ride. And it was while I was each other down the kitchen window receiving, that remains struggling to hold my packages, panes. The ink-and-paper new-book thank Mrs. North, and climb inside smell of Kipling’s Jungle Books, read my strongest memory. that I slammed the car door on the with a flashlight under the blankets monkey and cracked it down the after my mother had come in to shut There was the middle. The grief was so sudden and off the lights and whisper one last simultaneous feeling of precise, the desire not to let Scooter’s Merry Christmas. mother see me cry so strong, the look I can call up every detail—except titanic generosity and on my face, reflected in the window the emotion, the overwhelming of her Buick, so perfectly preserved, waves that beat upon my sisters and utter miserliness, love that I can almost relive that sorrow me down the long stream of days in measured to the penny. just by remembering it. the Christmas season. To dwell on And the next year as well, I was those memories is more to remember almost in tears as I walked home, lis- that I did have a certain feeling than half-forgotten litany of secularized tening to the dry snow crunch to recapture just how that feeling real- Christmas. Tinker Toys, Erector sets, beneath the black rubber overshoes ly felt. They come faded like last and Lincoln Logs. Creepy Crawlers, my father made us wear, and with year’s pine needles that fall from the Flexible Flyers, Raggedy Ann, and nothing but a Christmas card to give box of Christmas ornaments when Raggedy Andy. They have the rhythm my mother after the store where I’d you bring it down from the linen clos- of plainchant, paeans lifted up to planned to get her genuine rhinestone et. Why should I remember the long- Santa Claus. earrings closed earlier than I expected needled ponderosa tree we had when I But it’s the buying of presents, on Christmas Eve. But while I was was 6? The heavy-scented balsam rather than the receiving, that trudging past the almost deserted tree, bending under the weight of the remains my strongest memory. There Christmas-tree shop in the school ornaments, when I was 8? The Dou- was the simultaneous feeling of titan- parking lot, a salesman suddenly glas firs, the Black Hills pines, the ic generosity and utter miserliness, an leaned over the fence to ask if I want- juniper? The scalloped holly sprigs endless calculation of love measured ed a wreath. “I don’t have enough set on the sideboard and mantel, with to the penny, and an irrecoverable money left,” I said. “That’s okay, a stern warning every year not to eat sensation—the proud knowledge that kid,” he answered. “We’re closing up the berries? The silly-looking plastic one has, in a rage of magnanimity, here. Give it to your mother. It’s mistletoe my mother would hang, gig- squandered every cent, matched with Christmas.” gling with my father over some joke the shameful awareness of just how they wouldn’t explain to the children? paltry the result looks. If I spent the J. BOTTUM

4 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 letters 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 2

Correspondencepp

A REVIEW TO IGNORE BILLARY’S HYPOCRISY other countries. It is a strange situation when the president of the United States NDREW FERGUSON SETS a new stan- HE JUXTAPOSITION OF TWO ITEMS in can be treated as though he “doesn’t nec- Adard for bias and superficiality in his Tthe SCRAPBOOK of your Dec. 6 issue essarily speak for the United States” shallow “review” of George W. Bush’s exposed yet another example of Clinton while the president’s wife, who holds no autobiography A Charge to Keep (“George administration doublespeak. One item elected or appointed position in the U.S. W. Bush, Author,” Dec. 6). I place (“The President and His Marbles”) government, is said to be severely con- “review” in quotes because Ferguson cav- revealed the controversy created when strained in her public statements because alierly dismisses the 253 pages of the President Clinton, during a visit to anything she says might be taken as book’s text, deeming his interpretation of Athens, expressed, unsolicited, his opin- reflecting the official position of the Bush’s smile in a picture as revealing far ion that the Elgin Marbles should be United States. Surely if the president can more about him than the book’s words. returned to Greece. According to THE express “privately” held opinions that are The picture shows Bush, then part-owner SCRAPBOOK, the president’s spokesmen offensive to the British government, the of the Texas Rangers, in a front-row seat told reporters that the president’s views president’s wife can express “privately” as he talks with pitcher Nolan Ryan. on this matter should be considered irrel- held opinions that are offensive to the Why was Bush smiling? My humble, evant to the dispute between Greece and Palestinian authorities. That is assuming, non-pundit interpretation is that he was the United Kingdom because they were of course, that the first lady actually has a simply happy to have the best pitcher in merely views that the president holds privately held opinion that Palestinian baseball on his team. But the omniscient slanders against the Israeli government pundit Ferguson declares that “the pic- are despicable. It is still difficult to tell ture says” the following: “He has the look whether any such sentiment actually of a man to whom life has dealt an inside resides in the mind of Mrs. Clinton. straight: handsome, wealthy, with a pret- STAN WATSON ty and intelligent wife, a pair of charming Helena, AL daughters, a lucrative and not terribly taxing job that allows ample time for lunch, working the phones, snapping K.C. MASTERPIECE towels with the fellas in the locker room after a morning run—a man who has UDOS TO JACK CASHILL for reporting arrived where he is by a series of happy Kin fascinating and entertaining accidents, and who, but for the happiest detail why federal judges make lousy edu- accident of them all, his birth, would cation czars (“Free at Last in Kansas have been quite content to stay there.” City,” Dec. 6). Whew! That’s some smile! In the One can hope that, with control same picture, a woman sitting a few rows returned to their hands after 22 years, behind Bush is also smiling. Using the “the people of Kansas City” indeed can Ferguson omniscient mind-meld tech- do better by their children. But if that nique, I interpret that she was thinking means handing the schools back to the the following: “There’s George W. Bush. same old education establishment that I hope he runs for governor and does well “privately.” watched inequities fester to the point of enough to earn voters’ trust and reelec- This was followed by another item federal takeover, the prospects are not tion. Then, in case a president disgraces (“Great Moments in Clintonian bright. his office, a brown-nosing vice president Diplomacy”) referring to the controversy Parental choice can bring about true terms such a poltroon ‘one of our greatest the first lady recently caused during her freedom in Kansas City, and with it will presidents,’ and both compromise visit to Israel. In that case, Mrs. Clinton come those elusive gains in pupil national security in exchange for illegal failed to express (promptly) her opinion achievement and parental satisfaction. campaign contributions from China, with regard to the slanderous comments Researchers of diverse political stripes are Bush can run on his record and restore made by Suha Arafat. Of course, the finding in cities like Milwaukee, integrity to the White House. He seems explanation Mrs. Clinton gave was that Cleveland, and San Antonio that choice such a compassionate conservative.” Pre- she could not immediately express the works not just for choosers but for those Ferguson, I would’ve thought her smile outrage that she surely (?) felt because, as who remain in public schools, which just reflected joy at being at the ballpark first lady, she represents the U.S. govern- come under competitive pressure to on a sunny day. Since he absurdly stated ment and could not risk damaging U.S.- shape up. The time is propitious for that the picture of Bush revealed more Palestinian relations. Kansas Citians to throw off the remain- than the autobiography’s text, I didn’t Yet within a few days we are told that ing shackles that impede education bother reading the rest of his “review.” the president is free to express “privately” progress. JAMES J. HOGAN held views, and that these should be con- ROBERT HOLLAND Silver Spring, MD sidered irrelevant to our relations with Arlington, VA

6 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 editorial 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 1

EDITORIAL Mindlessness About Homelessness

aris Drake is quite a piece of work. His criminal Instead, they have worked ever more aggressively over the career started when he was 14, and he has been past year to topple Giuliani and roll back his programs. The Parrested 22 times in the intervening 18 years. Drake, Al Sharptons of the world still equate orderly streets with a New York native who has no fixed address, has served racism. Hillary Clinton tries to breathe new life into the lib- time for drug-dealing, assault, weapons possession, larceny, eral orthodoxies of the mid-seventies, as if homelessness and burglary. His prison sentences have ranged from a day were a failure of capitalism to provide cheap housing and to four years, and each time he was released he picked up not a consequence of the bungled deinstitutionalization of where he left off. Then, on November 16, he became the mentally ill. Some minds are permanently closed. enraged because he couldn’t raise enough money to buy Let’s be clear about the true state of play in New York. crack. So he picked up a six-pound paving stone and hurled The city has some of the most generous social provisions it at the back of Nicole Barrett’s head. Barrett is a young for the homeless in the country. It devotes $850 million a office worker who just happened to be walking by. She suf- year to homeless services. New York is the only city in the fered terrible head injuries and almost died. country that by law must offer shelter to every homeless The attack reminded New Yorkers that for all the amaz- person who requests it. No one is turned away. ing progress that has been made in bringing order to the The problem is that many of the hardcore homeless do city, there are still a lot of evil, dangerous people around. not want shelter. These are not just unfortunate individuals Mayor Rudolph Giuliani responded with measures to assert down on their luck. They are not families cast out of hous- some authority over the hardest of the hardcore homeless. ing because of economic crisis. Disproportionately, they are He proposed that street vagrants who refuse offers of shelter mentally ill, often schizophrenic. Most have some serious and violate the law should be issued summonses or arrest- addiction. Most lead horrific lives. They are beaten and ed. He also announced that able-bodied homeless people robbed, and occasionally beat and rob in turn. Hillary Clin- who could work in exchange for their benefits should be ton may have some romanticized image of the homeless as asked to do so. Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, but this has nothing to do All hell broke loose. Rev. Al Sharpton rounded up the with the reality of homelessness as it is experienced by peo- usual suspects for street protests. Hillary Clinton went to ple who don’t ride in motorcades. the New York Theological Seminary and blasted Giuliani’s The city of New York and private groups have under- policies. She said they violated the Christmas spirit, which taken noble and high-minded efforts to try to coax these celebrates “the birth of a homeless child.” She implied that people into shelters, where they can be given medication Giuliani was driven merely by polls and said, “Criminaliz- and treated. The Times Square Business Improvement Dis- ing the homeless with mass arrests for those whose only trict (BID) procured over $2.5 million in state and federal offense is that they have no home is wrong.” Mrs. Clinton money to hire teams of social service professionals to roam promised that if elected senator, she will instead work to the streets, trying to persuade vagrants to visit the new triple the value of new housing vouchers. Last Wednesday, “respite center.” Over the first year of the program, BID Judge Elliot Wilk, a longtime activist judge on homeless spent $700,000 and managed to persuade all of two people to matters, temporarily halted the mayor’s plans. accept housing. To its credit, BID hired a journalism profes- The whole episode serves as a depressing reminder of sor to write up a candid report on the effort, which was in how tough it is to change a political culture. Giuliani has turn picked up by Heather Mac Donald in the City Journal. spent the past six years trying to restore public authority in (If there were any justice in the world, Mac Donald would New York. His efforts have produced obvious and remark- be knee-deep in Pulitzer Prizes and National Magazine able improvements. You would think that some of his ene- Awards for her pioneering work on homelessness and other mies would have been moved to rethink their policy views. urban issues.)

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 7 Iss14/Dec20 editorial 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 2

The report describes the non-threatening approach less off the streets. Mrs. Clinton talks of mass arrests for the adopted by the BID social workers. One day the workers crime of lacking shelter, but that is sheer demagoguery. came across a large cardboard box on the sidewalk across Since Giuliani ordered New York police to intensify their the street from the New York Times building, with a dirty efforts to rein in homelessness, the cops have had contact hand sticking out. They noticed the hand was moving, so with 1,674 homeless people. Of those, 380 were taken to a figuring the body attached to it must be okay, they moved shelter, 67 were taken to a hospital for physical or mental on. They came across a man known as Shoeshine Bill with treatment. Only 164 were arrested, often because there were swollen ankles sitting in a puddle of his own urine. He prior warrants out for their arrest. The fact is, the Giuliani assured them he was doing fine so they moved on. A young policy does distinguish between the many different sorts of couple was lying on the street, the woman in the advanced people who are homeless. Compared with Mrs. Clinton’s stages of alcoholism. They declined to go to the shelter, crude attacks, his policy is a model of nuanced sophistica- though the man joked they’d be willing to go for an hour if tion. they could get a private room with a bed. Another vagrant, Over the past 20 years, city after city, run by Democrats known as Heavy, barricaded himself behind some mail and Republicans, has tried to reassert public order. Mayors carts when he saw the social workers coming. have argued that the liberty of the homeless doesn’t neces- Many of these people are not capable of thinking in sarily trump the interests of the community. Nobody has a their own long-term self-interest. In the short term, they right to defecate in doorways, intimidate pedestrians, and see little need to go to places where they can get treatment, menace store owners. In this new era, an attempt is being because activist groups bring food and clothing straight to made to balance liberty and license with civility and order. their boxes—a delivery service that keeps the homeless But as with most political struggles, there is never a untreated and fresh in the minds of the public. conclusion. The liberationists sense they are gaining The Giuliani administration says it is time to impose strength. They sense that the voters in New York now take the sort of tough-love approach to the hardcore homeless the gains of the past decade for granted and are weary of that seems to be producing positive results as part of welfare Rudy Giuliani’s aggressive style. They sense an opportunity reform. That means prodding the homeless to take respon- to return to the old policy regime, and they may be right. If sibility for themselves, whenever possible, by working for they are, there will be more Paris Drakes out on the streets, their benefits. It also means building on serious efforts, and more Nicole Barretts in the hospitals. undertaken in dozens of cities nationwide, to get the home- —David Brooks, for the Editors

8 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 1

Robert Service can recite Robert Ser- vice. By the yard. Reagan, McCain, And that’s what McCain did. After a bumpy push-off, by one witness’s account, he ran through all 14 stanzas and Sam McGee of “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” Service’s great ballad that deathlessly The unlikely revival of Robert Service, poet of begins the presidents. BY ANDREW FERGUSON There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; HE GAME OF “GOTCHA,” as we professor on Gilligan’s Island?” But The Arctic trails have their secret tales practitioners of gotcha jour- this is hindsight. And besides, beat- That would make your blood run Tnalism call our craft (we call it ing a gotcha journalist at his own cold . . . a “craft” too), is getting way out of game never makes any difference. hand, people now tend to agree. The The game remains in play. Service is best known for his narra- turn in the road seems to have come Even for John McCain. As a former tive poems set in gold rush-era with George W. Bush’s famous inter- POW and bona fide hero, McCain is Yukon, where the poet himself lived view several weeks ago with Andy generally inoculated against the jour- for many years at the turn of the cen- Hiller, a “television journalist” (as nalistic heel-snapping that bedevils tury. “Sam McGee,” like his other they call themselves) from a TV sta- other presidential candidates. But two great ballad, “The Shooting of Dan tion in Boston. As the world knows, weekends ago, as he was campaigning McGrew,” is a celebration of men in Hiller asked Bush to name a number extremity, leavened by a black-humor of international personages—the pre- joke at the end. With their march- mier of Absurdistan, the president of The Comedy Central beat rhythms and simple rhyme Fredonia—and predictably enough schemes, his poems were written to the governor, having spent most of team was ignorant of the be memorized and recited, and as a his political life in Texas, failed to ironclad rule of modern result Service was second only to fetch their identities from a memory Kipling as the poet of choice for at bank already choked with the names poetry: Anyone who least two generations of American of the Atascosa county commission- boys. ers, the fire marshal in Nocogdoches, likes Robert Service can In his autobiography, Ronald Rea- and the deputy finance director of recite Robert Service. gan recalls discovering a book of Ser- Jim Hogg county. vice poems during his boyhood. “I It is of course a cheap trick, this reread ‘The Shooting of Dan gotcha stuff, an exercise in smugness across New Hampshire, a team of McGrew’ so many times that years and condescension to which there is, comics with a camera crew from the later, on the occasional nights when I by definition, no acceptable retort. cable network Comedy Central clam- had trouble falling asleep [Reagan? Bush discovered this when he tried to bered aboard his campaign bus to Insomnia?], I’d remember every word disarm Hiller in mid-gotcha. Hiller enlist him in their own little game of and recite it silently to myself until I asked him to name the new prime gotcha. bore myself into slumber. If I still minister of India. Who’s your favorite poet? they couldn’t sleep, I’d switch to ‘The Cre- “The new prime minister of India asked McCain. mation of Sam McGee,’ and that usu- is—no,” Bush said. “Can you name According to the cosmology of the ally did it.” the foreign minister of Mexico?” sophisticates at Comedy Central, Manly, sentimental, easily “No, sir,” Hiller replied. “But I politicians are not supposed to have digestible, Service might be consid- would say I’m not running for presi- favorite poets. ered a poet of the Reaganite school— dent and I don’t write foreign policy.” McCain hesitated, and then said, not the most crowded school in the Upon hearing this weaselly dodge, “Robert Service, I guess.” world of poetry. Reagan was noted which is perfectly in keeping with the Okay, the comedians pressed as the among his friends for his tendency to spirit of gotcha, Bush should have cameras rolled, then recite some of his let fly with Service at odd moments. switched fields, to Hiller’s own area of poetry. In his book he describes a state din- expertise. “You’re in television,” Bush Gotcha? Here again, the Comedy ner with the Queen Mother on one might have said. “Who played the Central team revealed their own side of him and Pierre Trudeau, the provincialism. They were apparently insufferable pseud who served inter- Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor of THE ignorant of one of the ironclad rules minably as premier of Canada, on the WEEKLY STANDARD. of modern poetry: Anyone who likes other. Trudeau said he’d heard that

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 9 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 2

rolling cameras pushed forward for pore-penetrating close-ups while the subject’s facial muscles go spastic. But an ambush would require us to leave the office. Our survey was undertaken by phone, and the candidates had plenty of time to respond. Not that it made any difference. By deadline, only three had chosen to do so. Pat Buchanan had a tie for his favorite poet, between W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot, and through a spokesman he said (impishly?) that his favorite poem was Auden’s “Sep- tember 1, 1939”—a lamentation on the outbreak of World War II, which Buchanan thinks was unnecessary (the war, not the poem). Gary Bauer chose Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Henry V. And Orrin Hatch, who as a hobby writes words for country music songs, selected a lyric by his favorite poet, Sara Teasdale. “The restless rumble of the train / The drowsy people in the car / Steel blue twilight in the world / And in my heart a timid star.” Sara Teasdale, not surprisingly, committed suicide. Voters can weigh these selections as they wish. A taste for poetry is surely no prerequisite for high office—indeed, too great a fondness for it could sug- orld Photos gest a temperament ill-suited to poli-

ide W tics, as the experience of Adlai

AP/W Stevenson and Eugene McCarthy, both of them published poets, shows. Reagan could recite “Dan McGrew” Robert Service—can only be a salu- Jimmy Carter too is a poet, though from memory and challenged him to tary development, notwithstanding readers of Always a Reckoning, his do so. The Queen Mother urged him that it came through the shenanigans book of poems published in 1995, on, saying she was a great fan of the of the poetasters from Comedy Cen- may disagree. But the question of how poem’s central character, “the lady tral. In fact, the injection of any poet- one acquires a poetic taste can be that’s known as Lou.” Reagan ry at all, short of Neil Diamond lyrics, instructive. obliged, unburdening himself of all would be salutary for a campaign so On the bus in New Hampshire, the 11 stanzas, with the Queen Mother otherwise lacking in rhetorical zip. wise-asses from Comedy Central were chiming in at each mention of Lou. THE WEEKLY STANDARD therefore apparently impressed with McCain’s When they were finished, according canvassed the various presidential performance. As they were breaking to Reagan’s account anyway, the table campaigns to discover the favorite down their camera equipment, erupted in applause—probably poet and poem of each of the eight McCain mentioned offhandedly how excepting Trudeau, that snot. Royal- other major candidates: Bush, Gore, he had come to memorize “Sam watchers, by the way, will be pleased Bradley, Buchanan, Forbes, Hatch, McGee.” to know that the Queen Mother’s Bauer, and Keyes. THE WEEKLY “The guy in the cell next to me,” favorite, the lady that’s known as STANDARD defines “major candidate” he said, “it was his favorite poem. He Lou, is a homicidal slut. generously. used to tap it to me on the wall, in The injection into presidential pol- At best our survey was slo-mo Morse Code. That’s how I memorized itics of a robust, popular poet—espe- gotcha. Real gotcha requires the sud- it.” cially an all-but-forgotten poet like den intensity of an ambush, with He gotcha. ♦

10 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 3

Republican convention in Fort Worth in the summer of 1998, Bush prompt- Log Cabin Blues ly issued a statement on the group’s behalf, declaring that “all individuals Bush, McCain, and the controversy over gay deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.” When word spread among Republicans. BY TUCKER CARLSON conservative activists that Bush was in league with Log Cabin, Karl Rove, AST MONTH during an interview seems inconsistent with Bush’s Bush’s chief strategist, called Kevin on Meet the Press, host Tim instincts (as governor he has happily Ivers to laugh about it. According to LRussert asked George W. Bush made alliances with groups further to Ivers, Rove said that while some if he planned to meet with the Log the left than the Log Cabin Republi- social conservatives might believe Cabin Republicans, a gay political cans). And Bush could easily have that being linked to gay Republicans group. “Oh, probably not,” Bush pledged to meet with the group for “will make us look bad, I think it’ll replied. How come? asked Russert. purposes of explaining why he dis- make us look good.” “Well, because it creates a huge politi- agrees with them. Then Rich Tafel A few weeks later, Rove faxed Tafel cal scene,” Bush said. “I mean, this is never would have had his Times pro- and Ivers a news release from the gay- all—I am—I am—I am someone who file. baiting Westboro Baptist Church of is a uniter, not a divider. I don’t Why did Bush pick a fight with Topeka, Kansas. “Is George W. Bush a believe in group thought, pitting one media-savvy gay Republicans? Rich stealth candidate for fags?” asked the group of people against another. And Tafel claims to have no idea. For more headline. Below was a drawing of all that does is kind of create a huge than a year, Tafel and Log Cabin Bush wearing high heels and a dress. political, you know, nightmare for spokesman Kevin Ivers were in “Did you see this?” Rove said in a fol- people.” friendly, regular contact with Bush’s low-up call. “It’s hilarious.” Back at Bush’s response, which was meant office. When Log Cabin delegates Log Cabin headquarters in Washing- to avoid trouble, instead kind of creat- were denied a booth at the Texas ton, Tafel and Ivers thought that ed something of a minor political, you know, nightmare for his campaign. Within days, Rich Tafel, the head of the Log Cabin Republicans, had made the rounds on cable television, been the subject of a sympathetic pro- file in the New York Times (“Gay Republican Cleaves to the Party Despite a Bush Snub”), and given numerous interviews to reporters writing Bush-in-clutches-of-far-Right stories. In one, Tafel described Bush’s remarks on Meet the Press as “fright- ening.” Bush campaign aides later explained that Bush had decided not to meet with Tafel because he didn’t want to give Tafel’s organization any more publicity. If so, it’s fair to say that Bush’s Log Cabin strategy has turned out to be, you know, counter- productive. That’s assuming there ever was a strategy. Some Bush advisers have said the candidate was caught off guard by Russert’s question and sim- ply gave the first response that came to mind. This doesn’t make much sense, in part because his answer

Tucker Carlson is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 11 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 4

Rove’s message to them was clear: associating with the Log Cabin terrible mistake. There are 1,000,000 Can you believe these gay-bashing Republicans: “They were in fund- gay Republicans.’ And they have their right-wingers? Aren’t they horrible? raising mode,” Tafel says, “and they little litany about how significant this Tafel and Ivers liked the message. ran a fund-raising campaign first. vote is and what needs to be done to Soon there was a positive article about Then it became a policy campaign.” cultivate it, and you know, through Bush posted on the front page of the Karl Rove snorts at the theory. The them is The Way.” Rove wasn’t Log Cabin website (“Bush Takes Big real reason Bush refused to meet with impressed. “We’ve got a lot of gay Step in Favor of Gay Rights”). A the Log Cabin Republicans, he says, Republicans involved in the cam- number of Log Cabin members began is that they are media hounds with a paign, on task forces and steering raising money for Bush, some quite hidden agenda and a penchant for committees and so forth. But our successfully. At the Log Cabin nation- embarrassing front-runners. (Bob thought was that it was not a high pri- al convention in New York this ority to meet with these two guys summer, Charlie Francis, a close because their interest was in gen- friend of Bush’s, gave a speech erating publicity for them- urging members to support the selves.” Not only that, says Rove, Bush campaign. Log Cabin never planned to sup- Then, in October, the rela- port Bush anyway. “They’re tionship began to fall apart. doing a fund-raiser for John Columnist Cal Thomas wrote a McCain.” piece in the Washington Times It’s true that Log Cabin is about a meeting that took place holding a McCain fund-raiser. in Washington this fall between McCain first met with Log Cab- Bush and a small group of politi- in representatives in mid- cally active social conservatives. November. At the meeting, Ivers According to Thomas, Bush says, McCain’s staff asked Log assured the group (which includ- Cabin to raise money for the can- ed Free Congress Foundation didate. But Ivers swears it was president Paul Weyrich, home only after Bush insulted the school activist Mike Farris, and group on television that Log former senator Bill Armstrong of Cabin agreed to do it. As it Colorado) that “he would not stands, the fund-raiser is sched- ‘knowingly’ appoint a practicing uled for December 14. Log Cab- homosexual as an ambassador or in members from around the department head.” country will meet over the Inter-

Such a promise seemed flatly orld Photos net and make their donations by

to contradict Bush’s previous ide W credit card. “McCain is going to

statements on gays; less than two AP/W address everyone by speaker- months earlier, an editorial in phone,” Ivers says excitedly. the New York Times had congratulated Dole, you’ll remember, reaped an Howard Opinsky, McCain’s cam- the Texas governor for having “no enormous amount of bad press in paign spokesman, says he is unaware qualms hiring homosexuals.” The 1996 as he deliberated over whether of the fund-raiser, but makes the Washington Blade, a widely read gay or not to return the group’s $1,000 point that McCain has not been a not- paper, noticed the inconsistency and donation.) For over a year, says Rove, ed gay rights activist during his years ran a long story about it. The Blade Tafel and Ivers demanded a meeting in the Senate. McCain (like Bush) quoted Rich Tafel speaking of gay with Bush in Austin. “They were very opposes gay adoption and gay mar- Bush supporters: “They’re like, ‘Oh, insistent when the legislature was in riage. He supports the military’s my God, I want to work on that cam- session that they needed to come “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He voted paign and I could be judged by that immediately. And it was all because for the Defense of Marriage Act. “On standard.’” there were issues in the legislature. an issue by issue basis, he doesn’t line Tafel and Ivers say that it was Ivers was very direct about it: ‘Rich up on most of their issues,” Opinsky around this time that Rove stopped wants to come down and have a dia- says. returning their calls. Then came the logue with the governor about hate Still, a fund-raiser is a fund-raiser, Russert interview. Tafel’s theory is crimes.’” and even Karl Rove doesn’t seem that once Bush had raised all the When Rove explained that Bush eager to dismiss the idea of reconcilia- money he could from gay supporters, was too busy, he says Ivers gave him a tion. “The governor did not say he there was no political benefit to be lecture about the importance of the would not meet with them,” Rove gained (and much political risk) from gay vote: “‘We think you’re making a points out. “He said ‘probably not.’”♦

12 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 5

The Importance of Beating Hillary The New York Senate contest may eclipse the race for the presidency. BY JOHN PODHORETZ

New York celebrity at a time when Entertainment E’RE STILL nine months Tonight has more viewers than the away from the day when evening news. In the year of the Stunt W voters get to cast even a pri- Candidacy—Warren Beatty, Cybill mary vote in the contest to fill Pat Shepherd, Donald Trump—Mrs. Moynihan’s Senate seat. Neither of Clinton’s is the only race in which the the two expected candidates has for- Stunt Candidate might actually win. mally announced. But already the • The media continue to lavish race has garnered more headlines, amazingly patronizing special atten- television time, and gossip at home tion on women candidates. This and nationwide in this “out year” “Gee, isn’t it great that a woman is than 1998’s exciting and important running” attitude has become the Senate battle (in which Democrat negative image of Dr. Johnson’s Chuck Schumer defeated two well- misogynistic crack that “a woman’s known primary challengers and then preaching is like a dog’s walking on wiped out three-term Republican Al his hind legs. It is not done well; but D’Amato in a landslide) did during you are surprised to find it done at the year in which it actually took all.” There’s no longer any reason to place. be surprised that women run for As things stand, this is going to be office, and given the propensity of the the most watched, written-about, press to grant a female candidate an talked-about, and closely-analyzed extra moment or two in the spotlight, Senate race in the history of this they probably do it a little better than country. men these days. Still, the breathless There are obvious reasons for this. boosterism continues, and it’s an The Republican candidate, Rudolph advantage for Mrs. Clinton. Giuliani, is now in the sixth year of a • Last year, she became the most mind-bogglingly successful mayoralty publicly humiliated wife—24 hours a that has transformed New York City. day, 7 days a week, on five cable news The mayor is such an iconic figure networks—the world has ever known. that he is known by those who love Which makes Mrs. Clinton’s race for him and hate him by his nickname Senate the ultimate test of the power alone—he’s become the best known and prevalence of the culture of vic- Rudy in the United States. timization—whether voters will elect But the real draw is, of course, the someone not because she’s seen as unprecedented presence in the race of strong, but in large measure because the first lady of the United States, a she’s seen as weak. candidacy that offers an equally There’s another, far less obvious unprecedented combination of atten- reason for the intensity of interest in tion-grabbing qualities: the Hillary-Rudy race: It may repre- • Hillary Clinton is a pop-culture sent the only clear-cut ideological bat- tle we’ll see in the next year in which Contributing editor John Podhoretz is a stark differences between Republi- columnist for the New York Post. He is cans and Democrats will be aired in a writing a book on the 2000 campaign for far more open and direct way than in, ReganBooks. say, the presidential race.

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 13 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 6

The presidential candidates in demonstrations was to drive the may- both parties apparently believe it’s in or’s poll numbers down from their their interest to blur ideological lines. stratospheric levels and make a Dem- Republicans are speaking sentimen- ocratic candidacy against him seem tally about Social Security and how like more than just a joke. many Indian tribes support them, Well, it’s no joke. Indeed, for many while Al Gore attacks Bill Bradley for people, the outcome of the New York considering tax increases. It’s not Senate contest is of more pressing hard to see where all this goes: In the concern than any other race in the general election, the Republican will country. In the past month alone, at spend half of his time speaking Span- least a dozen conservatives have told ish and talking diversity, while the me that they care more about defeat- Democrat goes to church every day ing Mrs. Clinton than they do about and talks about the moral crisis facing the Republicans taking back the the nation. The Republican will be White House. doing his best to seem cheerful and At first glance, this seems insane. compassionate, the Democrat sober What could be more important than and virtuous. Each party’s choice will the ideological orientation and parti- work frantically to buff his raw edges. san affiliation of the man in the Oval None of that is going to happen in Office? But consider. These two can- the New York Senate race. The candi- didates are both political superstars. dates are already chosen, the battle Hillary Clinton is one of the most plans already clear. Hillary Clinton famous people on earth. Rudolph

needs a massive minority turnout riedman Giuliani is an astonishingly fluent while trying to appeal to suburban and powerful speaker and a remark- women. Giuliani needs a massive Drew F ably confident proponent of the views turnout among upstate Republicans he holds. Although Giuliani has some even as he reminds New York City The Clinton campaign thinks it lingering problems with conserva- voters of all he’s done to make their can convince voters that Rudy is tives in New York, particularly given lives better. mean and nasty by calling dramatic his support for partial-birth abortion, As a result, Mrs. Clinton is run- attention to his new homeless poli- this race will inevitably make him a ning as an unapologetic liberal-leftist. cies. In the first direct attack on her hero to the Right—especially when Her core supporters are the state’s putative opponent, Mrs. Clinton the Clinton machine begins assault- teachers’ unions (it was local union hauled out the old saw that Joseph ing him. head Randi Weingarten who asked and Mary were homeless, too, when Whichever one makes it to Wash- Mrs. Clinton the staged question a they ended up in the stable (untrue; ington, the next senator from New few weeks ago whether she was run- they had a home, but it was in York will be a national figure and pos- ning or not) and the immensely pow- Nazareth, and they had journeyed to sible national candidate. New York erful hospital workers’ union run by Bethlehem to pay taxes). could well be picking a future presi- Dennis Rivera. (Hospitals are a colos- On December 5 in Union Square dent in the year 2000. sal business in the state; they employ Park, a thousand people turned out Ultimately, though, the importance some 400,000 people and are support- for a 24-hour protest against the may- of the Senate race has to do with the ed by some $2.4 billion in public sec- or and his homelessness policies. meaning of Hillary Clinton’s can- tor spending.) Demonstrations like this will be a key didacy. Whether the Democrats Giuliani has shifted to the right tactic of this Senate campaign: Mrs. choose Gore or Bradley, the party’s this fall. He has taken an uncompro- Clinton was first convinced Giuliani nominee next year will be fleeing Bill mising stand against the Brooklyn might be vulnerable to her challenge Clinton. For better or worse, Hillary Museum of Art’s sponsorship of the after the well-coordinated two-week Clinton will be carrying the mantle of offensive “Sensation” exhibit and has demonstrations early this year in Clintonism into November 2000, and instituted strong policies to cope with front of police headquarters following that means the New York election is the problem of homelessness. He the mistaken shooting of the unarmed going to be the true referendum on wants homeless parents to join wel- Amadou Diallo by police. The com- Bill Clinton’s presidency. For all who fare-to-work programs or be thrown plaint seemed to be that the mayor consider this presidency a moral out of shelters and their kids removed didn’t apologize enough for the calamity, a Giuliani victory on to foster care. And he has ordered killing, even though he had apolo- November 3, 2000, would be a partic- police to roust the hard-case homeless gized almost every day for two ular and most welcome cause for cele- into shelters. months. The clear purpose of the bration. ♦

14 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 7

warmly received his speech in Balti- more. Afterwards, I spoke with a White Candidates number of people in the audience who said that while they weren’t entirely familiar with Bradley, they Seek Black Voters liked what they heard. “Based on what I saw,” said Charles Hudson, a Bradley tries to narrow Gore’s lead among Louisiana state representative, “I would have no problem supporting African Americans. BY MATTHEW REES Senator Bradley.” Having watched Gore’s speech the day before, Hudson Baltimore wrapped up many, many more also believes that in his district F BILL BRADLEY WINS the Demo- endorsements from black elected offi- “Bradley would be a much easier sell cratic nomination for president, cials: Twenty members of the Con- than the vice president.” Ihe may have Omeria Scott to gressional Black Caucus are backing It’s clear from talking to black leg- thank. him; none are with Bradley. And in a islators that there’s no great enthusi- Scott is a state representative from recent Associated Press poll of black asm for Gore. Typical was the Mississippi, chairman of the legisla- voters nationwide, the vice president response of Kay Patterson, a South ture’s black caucus, and an Al Gore was leading by 33 points, 57-24. In Carolina state senator, when I asked supporter. Or at least she was a Gore hopes of building on this lead, Gore him why he was a Gore supporter. He supporter. was scheduled to attend a major rally cited Gore’s service with Bill Clinton After listening to both Gore and in Atlanta on December 11 to show- and mentioned that Gore has been Bradley speak here earlier this case his popularity with black voters. endorsed by Jim Clyburn, a black month, at the annual convention of The good news for Bradley? Scott congressman from South Carolina. the National Black Caucus of State was not the only black legislator who When I pressed him for more rea- Legislators, she was so impressed with Bradley she retracted her Gore endorsement on the spot and is now enthusiastically backing the former New Jersey senator. “I liked what Bradley said,” Scott told me, “partic- ularly on the living wage. I think he will be gaining more and more sup- port from African Americans.” Scott’s endorsement will be signif- icant if it can be used as leverage to persuade undecided black voters, if not more of Gore’s black supporters, to take a closer look at Bradley. The logic is simple: If Bradley is to have a real chance of defeating Gore, he must boost his support among blacks in early contests like South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida, where they will be anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent of all Democratic voters. “The black vote will be pivotal in determining the Democratic nomi- nee,” says Ron Lester, a Democratic pollster and expert in black voting patterns. At the moment, that’s a problem for Bradley. Gore, for example, has

Matthew Rees is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 15 Iss14/Dec20 log 9/25/01 5:28 PM Page 9

sons, he said, “Over the years Gore demonization of Bradley’s plan for plan as a reason not to support him. has been friendly toward black overhauling Medicaid. A bigger concern for Bradley is name folks.” But he conceded, “I could just Last month, Gore was speaking recognition. A Joint Center for Politi- as easily go with Bill Bradley.” outside a southern California com- cal and Economic Studies poll in Others agreed that Gore’s support munity center—it just happened to August found 42 percent of blacks was soft—and that it didn’t seem to be named for baseball trailblazer didn’t know who Bradley was. Ron be getting any stronger. Donald Bon- Jackie Robinson—and observed that Lester, the Democratic pollster, ner, a North Carolina state represen- one-third of all black children points out that if black voters are tative who hasn’t endorsed either depend on Medicaid. “I call on Sena- introduced to Bradley as racially candidate, said, “Gore’s lead over tor Bradley,” thundered Gore, “to insensitive—the goal of the Gore Bradley could change very easily.” reconsider a program that has such a campaign—it could greatly under- Kenneth Melvin, a member of Vir- harsh impact on low-income and mine his candidacy. ginia’s House of Delegates, said “The working families in this country!” The immediate problem facing more he distances himself from Clin- Gore’s campaign manager, Donna Bradley is time. If he’s going to win ton, the more he risks alienating his Brazile, upped the ante in a subse- over southern black voters, he needs core support from black voters.” (In quent television appearance, charging to be campaigning in the South. But his entire speech, Gore mentioned that Bradley’s “plan to eliminate if he wants his campaign to be alive Clinton only once, in passing.) Chris Medicaid has serious complications in March, he needs to fare well in Smith, a Florida state representative, and risk in the African-American February in Iowa and New Hamp- had a slightly different complaint: community.” Speaking on the day of shire. He’s received three letters from the Bradley’s Madison Square Garden Bradley’s other problem is that Gore campaign, and all three have fund-raiser, Brazile said, “I don’t have he’ll be up against a well-oiled been addressed, “Dear Black Elected to read a poll or look at statistics, and machine when votes start being cast Official.” Said Smith: “The least they I’m sure Dr. J wouldn’t have to as in the South. Gore’s campaign man- should be able to do is a merge file.” well if he called . . . some of his fami- ager, Brazile, developed a highly-suc- The Gore campaign seems to ly and relatives.” cessful strategy for getting southern understand it needs to firm up its Bradley responded a few days later black voters to turn out in 1998, and black support. It’s begun running ads with an appearance at a black medical there’s no doubt she’ll be using it on black radio touting Gore’s efforts school in Atlanta, where he chided again in the presidential primaries. to preserve affirmative action and his Gore for using “scare tactics” (he was Indeed, in an interview last month support for Carol Moseley-Braun, the introduced by black historian Roger with James Brosnan of the Memphis ethically challenged former senator Wilkins). But the attacks have con- Commercial Appeal, she was candid whose ambassadorial nomination was tinued. In connection with Gore’s about the campaign’s game plan: until recently being held up by Sen- speech to the black legislators, his “I’m pushing to win Iowa, do very, ate Republicans. (Bradley is not yet campaign issued a press release high- very well in New Hampshire, make running any ads in the black-orient- lighting how blacks would be “dis- [Bradley] defend his base in the East, ed media.) And late last month Gore proportionately harmed” by and force him to come South, where rearranged his schedule so he could Bradley’s Medicaid proposal. Says we can take him on and beat him.” attend a tribute to Rosa Parks in Jacques DeGraff, the top black staffer Bradley’s aides may be tempted to Detroit. It conveniently yielded a on Bradley’s campaign, “These tac- chalk that up to campaign bravado. photo of them posing together, which tics are not going to work.” But unless they launch a major Gore aides are sure to feature in cam- Maybe. Maybe not. At the Balti- organizational effort in the South— paign literature. more convention of black state legis- and do so quickly—it’s hard to see Gore and his operatives haven’t lators, I didn’t speak with anyone how Brazile’s prediction won’t come stopped there. They’ve also cast who mentioned Bradley’s Medicaid true. ♦ Bradley as racially insensitive. In September, after Bradley proposed amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to provide protection for gays, the Gore campaign said the move would be an invitation for Republicans to repeal other portions of the landmark legislation. That criticism tapered off once Coretta Scott King, the wife of Martin Luther King Jr., said she sup- ported Bradley’s stance. But in the meantime Gore had escalated his

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 17 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 10

to say, “they are not like us; they can- not live among us; therefore, they Ethnic Cleansing, cannot live.” Over the past century, Russia’s leaders have proved expert at thus Russian Style dehumanizing their enemies. The use of biological designations (“poisonous This isn’t the first time Moscow has targeted weeds” or “parasites”) and political insults (“enemies of the people”) Chechens. BY ANNE APPLEBAUM dates back to Lenin himself, who in one infamous essay proposed to IRST THERE WERE “miserly case because, they said, I didn’t look “purge the Russian land of all kinds Jews.” Then there were “sneaky like a “black.” So powerful is this of harmful insects.” Stalin refined the FOrientals.” Now, thanks to the rhetoric, that Russian politicians are technique and pioneered its use power of the media to transmit ideas afraid to oppose it. “It is repulsive,” against particular ethnic groups, as across borders, another ethnic stereo- writes Yevgenia Albats, one of Mos- well as class enemies and political type has entered the English lan- cow’s braver journalists, “that even opponents. As early as 1937, Nikolai guage. Translated from the Russian, politicians with democratic leanings Yezhov, chief of the Soviet secret the hitherto unfamiliar “Chechen ter- are keeping silent for fear of slipping police, signed an order: “On the fas- rorist” is slowly becoming part of our in the ratings.” cist-rebellion, espionage, defeatism, political lexicon. So powerful, in fact, is this diversion and terrorist activity of Pol- Here is how Boris Yeltsin used it, rhetoric, that it has filtered its way ish spies in the USSR.” Although just before stomping off from the into popular understanding of the similar to other orders of the time, European security summit in Istanbul Chechen war—or rather wars—in the which demanded the arrests of kulaks last month: “We want peace and a West. I’ve lately heard, several times, or Trotskyites, this one surprised even political solution to the situation in an argument which goes like this: some of Yezhov’s colleagues, who Chechnya . . . to achieve this, there Terrorism is bad. International terror- understood it as an order to arrest has to be complete elimination of the ism is worse. Aren’t the Russians anyone with Polish blood, a Polish gangs, eradication of the terrorists.” therefore right to be fighting this law- passport, or any Polish connections at Here is how one of Russia’s generals less Islamic republic? Aren’t they all. Over the next few years, 180,000 used it: The war in Chechnya will not right to attack them for setting off Poles or alleged “Polish sympathiz- be halted, he said recently, until after bombs in Moscow apartment blocks? ers” resident in the Soviet Union “the full destruction of terrorists.” He In response, I could point out that were duly imprisoned or shot, among went on to claim that the Chechen nobody except the Russian govern- them (rather satisfyingly) Nikolai president had “directly linked up ment has linked the Chechens to Yezhov. with terrorist formations,” that two of international terrorism. I could add During the war years, the number the leading Chechen military com- that nobody has proven their connec- of enemy ethnicities rose. As the Red manders were “terrorists,” and that tion to the still mysterious Moscow Army marched west, orders were vari- the entire Chechen government bombings. But why should I or any- ously given for the murder and depor- worked closely with “terrorist and one need to make either argument? tation of Lithuanians and Latvians, bandit formations.” Given the history of this part of the Ukrainians and Estonians, Mol- In Moscow, this language is repeat- world, it is not the Chechens who dovans, Armenians, Greeks, Bulgars, ed constantly—except that away from need to be defended from racist in- Hungarians, and other peoples who the television cameras, Chechens are sults, but the Russians who need to happened to live in the newly occu- referred to as “blacks.” On a recent explain the hubris that allows them to pied Soviet territories (or even in the trip there, I was stopped walking into speak of the Chechens in anything old territories) and seemed less than a government building because I but embarrassed and apologetic tones. accommodating to the Soviet regime. didn’t have the Moscow residency For the Russians have reduced the Then, as the war turned in Stalin’s permit that the security guards, then Chechens to the status of “bandit favor, he ordered even more brutal in a frenzied search for illegally resi- state” before, and for similar reasons. attacks on those “enemy nations” dent “Chechen terrorists,” required. Before one group of people can feel who remained within the Soviet bor- Eventually they let me in, however: itself justified in destroying another, ders. Not satisfied with the slow They would make an exception in my it is first necessary to remove its method of arresting “spies” or “diver- humanity. First you say, “they are not sionaries” and shipping them off to A journalist based in Warsaw and London, like us.” Then you say, “they are not camps, he found a faster method to Anne Applebaum is writing a history of Soviet like us, and they cannot live among eliminate completely a few, not espe- concentration camps. us.” From there, it is a very short step cially popular, tiny nations whose

18 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 11 orld Photos ide W AP/W Russian soldiers shelling Grozny, the Chechen capital

existence disturbed him. These in- deride the Chechens as a “bandit felt—that what Stalin did to the cluded the Crimean Tatars, the Volga nation” or to speak of “total elimina- Chechens was evil, it is not only Boris Germans, the Balkars, Karachai, tion” of this “bandit nation” than Yeltsin who would be unable to bom- Kalymyks, Ingush, and, more to the Germans could speak comfortably bard Chechen civilians now, but we point, the Chechens. Before attempt- about the total elimination of the who would be unable to sit back with ing to destroy the Chechens, Stalin Jews. equanimity and watch. The West’s first labeled them “war criminals.” What we are now witnessing in response to the first Chechen war was Under this rubric, the entire nation contemporary Russia is no ordinary shocking: We turned away and called was accused of Nazi collaboration, outbreak of racism, no simple case of it an internal Russian matter. Our and the entire nation suffered. abuse of military enemies. The Rus- response this time is still insufficient. All of the Chechens—all of them, sian leadership’s insistence on using There have been calls for a “peaceful men, women, and children—were the adjective “terrorist” before every solution” and some mumbling about given a few hours to pack what pots mention of the word “Chechen” is not humanitarian issues, alongside some and pans and warm coats they could merely a piece of successful wartime carefully worded support for the carry, crammed into cattle trucks and propaganda, although it is also that: Russian “fight against terrorism.” No goods trains, and unceremoniously 65 percent of Russians support the one, however, has expressed moral dumped in the wastes of northern use of force against Chechnya. What horror. But the assault on the Kazakhstan, where half of them died we are witnessing, with the encir- Chechens is a moral horror. of starvation. Those who survived clement of Grozny and the killing of Of course, we cannot force the Rus- returned home only in the late 1950s, civilians is the first concrete conse- sians to study their history, any more after Stalin’s death. quence of the Russian refusal to come than we can force the Russians to If it was not quite genocide, then it fully to terms with the Soviet past. withdraw from Grozny. We are not was ethnicide: Stalin intended that For the past decade, those Russian going to bomb Moscow as we bombed the Chechen people should, sooner or historians and journalists who have Belgrade, even if that were the right later, cease to exist. As a culture, as a labored to uncover and describe the thing to do. But in Western public nation with a language and a history, crimes of the past have found them- reactions and statements, we might at they were meant to vanish, having selves working in relative obscurity least express some outrage, manifest been removed from the land which and silence. Among most Russians, some awareness of what was done to had been theirs. Which is why the there is no popular understanding— the Chechens in the past. How often Russians, if they knew their history, and no willingness to understand. have you heard that “history which is if they really remembered what they Our own reaction, although not as not remembered is liable to be repeat- had done to the Chechens in the past, dramatic, is hardly better. Again, if we ed”? The truth, alas, is that we don’t would be no more able today to really felt—if we really, viscerally even live by our own clichés. ♦

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 19 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 12

armed only with service revolvers and a single rifle in Coler’s trunk. The Unpardonable Williams was hit first, in the arm and side. Coler seems to have crawled to the back of his car for his rifle, but Leonard Peltier he got off only a single shot before his arm was nearly severed by return fire. Why does the Left want to release the murderer of Despite his own wound, Williams managed to apply a tourniquet to his two FBI agents? BY MARK TOOLEY colleague. But Coler was unconscious, and, realizing further resistance was URING THE COLD WAR, Soviet imprisoned hero. Peltier, they insist- futile, Williams apparently attempted propagandists and Western ed, is only the most recent major vic- to surrender. The two agents had D“progressives” routinely tim of a centuries-long U.S. assault on managed to get off only five shots. charged that the United States had Native Americans. Their cars had been hit at least 125 “political prisoners” of its own: “free- “Leonard Peltier is typical of the times by long-range rifles, semiauto- dom fighters” locked up by the Jus- abuse of other native people,” said matics, and an AR-15 assault rifle. tice Department for “crimes of con- Jennifer Harbury at a Lafayette Park Some number of gunmen—dozens science.” The complaint has lost rally a few weeks ago. Harbury directs of Peltier’s fellow militants may have steam in recent years. There is no a “human rights” group in California joined the battle from a nearby longer a Cold War to animate it. And and has waged a long battle to impli- camp—then walked down the rise many of the most celebrated Ameri- cate the Guatemalan government in toward the FBI agents. Williams held can “political prisoners” of the 1960s the death of her husband, who was a up a hand in front of the executioner’s and 1970s simply aren’t prisoners any leftist guerrilla in that country. Peltier gun; a bullet blew off three of his fin- more. “is a symbol of the campaigns of gers and the back of his skull. Coler One such Cold War-era case oppression” waged by white people was shot in the head and throat from remains alive, however. Millions of throughout the Americas, she less than two feet away. Soviet citizens once “spontaneously” announced. “It seems the federal gov- An FBI rescue party killed one signed petitions demanding the ernment is using this as an example of AIM suspect and captured another release of Leonard Peltier, a mid- what could happen to us if we are out but the rest initially eluded them. A 1970s American Indian Movement of line,” added Coki Tree Spirit, witness at the scene identified Peltier (AIM) gunman serving a life sentence another pro-Peltier activist. as the driver of the van Williams and for murder. The Russians have since Peltier himself addressed the Coler had been following, and his forgotten about the matter. But an Lafayette Park rally with a recorded thumbprint was found inside. In astonishing number of Western message. “I still cannot understand November 1975, an Oregon state would-be do-gooders—Amnesty In- that with the millions of people trooper stopped a vehicle that Peltier ternational, the European Parliament, around the world demanding my free- was driving. Peltier responded with rock bands, the National Council of dom the government can still ignore gunfire and escaped into the woods. Churches, and Hollywood celebrities it.” He left behind Agent Coler’s like Danny Glover and Susan Saran- Maybe the fact that he is guilty has revolver—again, with Peltier’s in- don—have refused to let it drop. something to do with it. criminating thumbprint on it—along Indeed, their efforts have lately inten- On June 26, 1975, two FBI agents, with eight other guns, a collection of sified, even as their claim that Peltier 28-year-old Jack Coler and 27-year- hand grenades, and 350 pounds of is innocent has never seemed weaker. old Ronald Williams, were on the dynamite. November was “Freedom Month Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in In February 1976, Peltier was final- for Leonard Peltier” in the nation’s South Dakota, searching for a torture ly arrested in Canada by the Royal capital, a series of events organized by and robbery suspect named Jimmy Canadian Mounted Police. After a his defense committee. Using the Eagle. They spotted a vehicle match- lengthy appeals process, he was extra- United Methodist Building on Capi- ing the description of Eagle’s van and dited to the United States. At his trial tol Hill as their headquarters, these followed it into a pasture near where the next year, three witnesses said activists demonstrated in front of the Peltier and other AIM members were they had seen Peltier walk toward White House and lobbied congres- residing. Then, Williams called in a Coler and Williams with the AR-15 sional offices on behalf of their report that the van had stopped on a murder weapon moments before they rise and that its occupants had were executed. The Mounties who Mark Tooley is the director of the United emerged with rifles and appeared captured Peltier testified that he had Methodist Committee at the Institute on ready to shoot. The agents were volunteered an explanation for the Religion and Democracy. trapped in their cars in an open field, killings: The agents, he had mistak-

20 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 log 8/20/01 3:29 PM Page 13

guard” for AIM, hired “muscle” with a long and frightening history of armed violence. None of which seems to matter to the people massed in Lafayette Park last month. They have been encour- aged by President Clinton’s recent pardon of the 1970s Puerto Rican FALN terrorists. Peltier, too, has a long-pending clemency petition on file at the Justice Department. Per- haps, come Christmas, the president will finally “free Leonard,” who—his defenders continue to imagine, against all logic—has long been tar- geted by the U.S. government for destruction simply on account of his beliefs. Then again, perhaps Clinton will not free Peltier. He certainly shouldn’t. Peltier has never expressed any regret for his crimes and contin- ues to deny the worst of them. “I was there that day,” he grudgingly acknowledges of the murders for which he was convicted. “But we were attacked, and we had a right to defend ourselves, and so I fired back”— though “Mr. X” delivered the coup de

eleny Leonard Peltier grâce. Peltier sees himself a martyr

Earl K and gladly accepts the mythology that has grown up around him. He signs enly believed, were looking for him— was later withdrawn from circulation his letters “In the Spirit of Crazy to arrest him for the 1972 attempted for several years in the face of libel Horse.” shooting of a Milwaukee police offi- suits. In a striking departure from com- cer. A jury in Fargo, North Dakota, But In the Spirit of Crazy Horse mon practice, FBI director Louis took 10 hours to convict Peltier on helped spark the “Free Leonard Freeh has publicly opposed any possi- two counts of murder, for which he Peltier” movement. Oliver Stone pur- bility of clemency for Peltier. would be legally guilty even if he had chased the film rights. Robert Red- “Leonard Peltier was convicted of not fired the actual bullets that killed ford used it as the basis for a highly grave crimes,” he said in 1994, “and the FBI agents. He was given two distorted documentary. And when the there should be no commutation of consecutive life sentences. book was reissued in 1991, his two consecutive terms of life in Journalist Peter Matthiessen’s 1983 Matthiessen produced a new piece of prison.” Organizations representing book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse quib- “evidence” in the case: a filmed inter- both current and former special bled with the overwhelming forensic view with a hooded “Mr. X,” who agents of the Bureau also actively evidence that Coler and Williams claimed to be the “real” murderer. oppose clemency, calling Peltier a were killed by Peltier’s AR-15 rifle. Except that he wasn’t. In the course “vicious, violent, and cowardly crimi- The book suggested, instead, that a of an exhaustive 1995 investigation of nal who hides behind the Native vast conspiracy involving the FBI, the Peltier controversy, Scott Ander- American Community.” judges, prosecutors, coroners, and the son of Outside magazine interviewed Before he gives even a thought to Canadian Mounties had contrived to one of Peltier’s original codefendants, pardoning this man, President Clin- frame Peltier because he threatened who told him flat-out that “there is no ton should listen to his FBI. Jack Col- white corporate America’s interests in Mr. X. Those are all lies.” Anderson er, Ronald Williams, and their fami- valuable uranium deposits on the also made clear that Peltier was never lies still deserve our sympathy. Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. the significant American Indian Leonard Peltier, the man who killed Those uranium deposits have never Movement leader his advocates make Coler and Williams, deserves many been found. And Matthiessen’s book him out to be—but only a “body- more years in prison. ♦

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 21 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 2

A Chump on the Stump Donald Trump pretends to run for President.

BY MATT LABASH “and she’s a real celebrity.” The Trump camp tries unsuc- cessfully to get the Goldberg camp to relocate. So instead Los Angeles of conducting the press conference by the shaded pool, the f all the bizarre twists Campaign 2000 has Trump press conference moves to a sun-scorched section taken, there is none so strange as the one of the terrace, making The Donald squint even more than that finds us on the rooftop of L’Ermitage usual. hotel in Beverly Hills. The media have As he takes the podium, Trump’s entire entourage is come to explore the possible presidential present. There’s Roger Stone, his political consigliere, who candidacyO of Donald Trump, who has himself formed an is, as always, immaculately and ornately haberdashed in exploratory committee, blanketed the talk shows, and café-au-lait suede shoes and a gangster boldstripe suit. “I threatened to spend $100 million to win not just the haven’t bought off the rack since I was 17,” says Stone. Reform party nomination, but “the whole megillah.” There is Trump’s bodyguard, all muscle and menace. His L’Ermitage is a magnet for studio junkets and celebri- name is Matt Calamari, so we immediately start calling ties convalescing after rhinoplasty. The hotel’s suites run him “Matty the Squid,” though not to his face. Most up to $3,800 per night, so demanding guests can expect important, there is Melania Knauss, Trump’s 26-year-old amenities like personalized cell phones and 88-inch pool supermodel girlfriend, who is four years removed from towels. It’s what The Donald would call a “class facility,” her native Slovenia. Melania. Her name is like a song. Her and he knows of what he speaks. Not only is Trump, in his skirt is short, her heels are high. Her legs are so long that own demure phraseology, “the biggest developer in the her torso seems an afterthought. She’d make a class first hottest city in the world,” but his very pores emit class. In lady. fact, he uses the word frequently—as an adjective, not a Trump tells us that he will be forgoing individual noun. Thus, everything associated with him is classy, even interviews because of the crush of media present. There unauthorized biographies, like The Really, Really Classy are only ten of us, and three of us are from German televi- Donald Trump Quiz Book. sion; The Donald would have time to do interviews, close Standing on the panoramic rooftop next to the classy a deal, and still take Melania shopping before his next pool, reporters anticipate Trump’s arrival for a press con- engagement. But no matter. Though he will ultimately ference. While waiting, we help ourselves to the Purel decide on running for president after “going by my gut,” hand-sanitizers that Trump aides have kindly set out in a he says his internal “polling has been amazing.” He will fishbowl. The Donald thinks shaking hands is “barbaric” not tell us the name of his pollster. Nor will he tell us the and unhygienic. Politics, however, is about compromise. names of the economists he consulted for his debt-reduc- Twenty yards away, a television crew sets up for an inter- tion plan, which calls for a one-time 14.5 percent tax on view with actress Whoopi Goldberg. I have spent so much the entire net worth of the richest Americans (and Trump time talking to Trump’s aides over the past week that I feel calls Bill Bradley a socialist). Trump quickly wraps up the qualified to speak not only for them, but like them. So I press conference, promising us more later, and disappears approach the Goldberg camp, informing no one in partic- with Melania and the Squid. He does not shake our Purel- ular, “Mr. Trump doesn’t like to share the spotlight.” coated hands. “Whoopi doesn’t either,” snaps a Goldberg lackey, Stone immediately swoops in for spin, assuring us that the polling, which Trump seemed suspiciously vague Matt Labash is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. about, is concerned with issues, not the horse race. Stone

22 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 3

ly swell model. “I’m a person first,” she says in her Slovenian accent, “and then I have a great career.” (Good answer: Decisive. Evasive. Conveys confi- dence without conceit.) When asked whether, as first lady, she would have a pet initiative like Barbara Bush’s literacy or Betty Ford’s alcoholism, she responds, “Yes, I love children.” (Textbook: When in doubt, invoke children.) When asked if she is creeped out by Trump’s germ pho- bia, she says, “You know, there are a lot of germs from colds and flu, and nobody is really talking about this.” (What a pro.)

hat night, we follow Trump to a taping of the Jay Leno show in Burbank. As Trump Tcools his heels in the dressing room before the show, Leno pops in for a visit, and sees Stone in his Bugsy Siegel rig. “Hey Donald,” cracks Leno, “you brought your bookie.” We journalists are briefly permitted into the studio to watch the pre-show festivities. Warm-up comic Bob Perlow plies the crowd with stale jokes and show tunes. Then, spotting Melania in the audience, he insists she come up to the stage, where she is asked to dance seductively while throwing souvenir t-shirts into the audience. Tonight Show staffers claim this is a pre-game tradition, but one suspects they invented it as an excuse to watch Melania gyrate. She is supremely uncomfort-

Thomas Fluharty able and refuses to comply, darting back to her seat, which is a piano wire’s says they are smoking Pat Buchanan in polls of Reform width away from Matty the Squid’s. Wisely, Perlow does party members, but have not polled the general election. not persist. Stone comes out and stands next to me. He is This seems an odd claim, in light of Trump’s “whole concerned for Melania’s well-being. But mostly, he is con- megillah” strategy. But we are quickly on to more impor- cerned about my newly double-dimpled tie. “No good,” tant things, like how Stone is able to achieve a perfect he says, shaking his head disapprovingly. double-dimple below his tie knot. Stone insists I remove Back in the green room, after the show begins, we my tie, and as we document his every move, he puts on a munch melon wedges and finger sandwiches with singer double-dimple clinic. “It takes a while to learn,” he says. Michael Bolton’s entourage. A Leno staffer says we will “We’re gonna have to work on it.” not be permitted into Trump’s dressing room after the With Trump off-limits until that evening, Stone sets show. I protest to Stone, who, like any Trump devotee, up a media availability with Melania. Next to a lobby tries to make a deal. He’ll get us access, “but you’ll refrain anteroom where Melania sits, Whoopie Goldberg waltzes from making fun of Mr. Trump’s hair again.” Stone is by. I ask her if she’d support a Trump candidacy. “What referring to an article I wrote some months ago in which I does he stand for?” she asks. “Donald Trump,” deadpans charged that Mr. Trump’s coif resembled an abandoned another reporter. Melania is getting used to this sort of nest. Having now seen Trump’s hair up close, I make no cynicism, and she is not easy pickings for interrogators. I promises. ask her if she considers herself a supermodel, or just a real- Though Leno mercilessly rags Trump, alleging at one

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 23 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 4

point that he caught a sexually transmit- ted disease—from himself, Trump has the audience eating from his antiseptic palm. Of the women of the Clinton scandal, he says, “You have some beauties in that deal.” Of his competition, Pat Buchanan, he says, “he’s obviously been having a love affair with Adolf Hitler.” One of Trump’s loudest applause lines, which works everywhere he goes, is “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I’ve never had a cup of coffee.” It comes as a surprise, but tea- drinkers may be the soccer moms of the 2000 election. In Trump’s dressing room after the show, five reporters and a 60 Minutes cam- era crew are chatting with The Donald. Leno stops by, holding a copy of Trump’s upcoming campaign manifesto. Unable to obtain a review copy less than a month before publication, I ask Leno to see it. He passes the book, but it will not open. “It’s a dummy copy,” quips Leno, “[the book] hasn’t been written yet.” Trump asserts to skeptical reporters that his flir- tation with the presidency isn’t just a pub- licity drive for his book. The revenue the

book generates, he says, will pay for his orld Photos

“airplane fuel to go back and forth from ide W

California.” Besides, he repeats several AP/W times in the same conversation, he’s already had three number-one bestsellers. Likewise, he is when eight Reform party presidential “candidates,” “running the biggest real estate empire in the world” and including Pat Buchanan, met on December 3 for a debate. he’s “very competent and very rich,” though “I don’t want At the Portland, Oregon, Marriott, about 100 people to toot my own horn.” It’s not his way. assembled to hear the views of several crackpot prospects, Trump invites us back to L’Ermitage for a reception while a microphone stand repeatedly toppled over, one with about 100 Reform party activists who pack The Don- candidate’s name was misspelled, and Buchanan’s speech ald’s cavernous Governor’s Suite, two floors below the was overshadowed by a Native American dance ceremony Presidential Suite. He serves them goat cheese on black in the neighboring ballroom. A week before this Califor- olive ciabatta and good Merlot, not the boxed Zinfandel nia swing, I asked a Trump aide why Trump wouldn’t be they are accustomed to. The California crowd is stylish by attending this debate. “What debate?” he asked, convinc- Reform standards, but there are still a fair number of dou- ingly pretending ignorance. ble-knit suits and visible nosehairs. As Trump takes the Holding court in his suite, Trump answers Reformer podium, Melania stands at his side, her Piaget watch concerns. He casts aspersions on the WTO and the U.S. refracting light as she shifts restlessly on her sinewy, trade representative. “Where does she come from?” he tanned stilts. Trump takes questions from the audience, asks. “Has she made billions of dollars?” He rubs turpen- warning, “the camera is 60 Minutes, don’t worry about tine in the wounds of black-helicopter types, saying that them. It’s this little program on television . . . so don’t he believes in the United Nations so strongly that “I’m worry about embarrassing ourselves with questions.” building a 90-story building right next to it.” Though Trump, it seems, is a bit sensitive to the media percep- some hecklers ding him for dumping on other Reformers, tion of the Reform party, which falls somewhere between Trump tears into Pat Buchanan and his new ally, the radi- comic relief and sad joke. This was reinforced yet again cal Lenora Fulani. “We have the ultra-right and a Com-

24 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 5

munist, you can have that party,” Trump says. When one Phillips. “I think so, yeah,” responded The Donald, “I gentleman asks Trump if he’ll support the party platform, always have a shot.” Classy. Trump says, “Nobody knows what the platform is.” Some- one brings him a copy. Trump says he’ll read it, but leaves it on the podium when the Q&A session ends. he next day, we rise at dawn to follow Trump to It’s a virtuoso performance. Trump has disagreed with, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Toler- chided, and even insulted his constituency, and yet they Tance, which bills itself, in Trumpian fashion, as a mob him afterwards, won over by either his Merlot or his “world-class human rights laboratory.” Trump says he was candor. As Melania disappears into a back room to avoid asked to come here, though Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the getting pawed by the double-knits, Trump lunges into the center tells us Trump made the request. Whatever: It’s a throng, shaking hands—shaking hands!—and signing natural photo-op for Trump, who may wind up running campaign literature. He looks my way, beaming. Holding against a man who’s having “a love affair with Adolf up a picture of himself, he asks, “Isn’t he handsome?” Hitler.” The Donald, Melania, and the media scrum fol- A few hours after the reception, a small group of low Cooper through exhibits like the “Point of View Din- reporters are off to The Ivy. The Ivy is one of those insider er,” and a film montage depicting atrocities throughout Hollywood restaurants where out-of-towners come to the world. The Donald gazes intently, brow knitted, his experience the epicenter of cool, though since we know lips fixed in puckered protrusion. In profile, he looks like about it, it’s likely on the verge of a distressed mallard. extinction. We are shunted off to a As we walk through the museum, lonely patio corner with an obstruct- Trump lunges into the he and Melania occasionally lock fin- ed view. Trump’s fellow Tonight Show throng, shaking hands— gers, while Trump tries to impress the guest, Michael Bolton, sits at the next Rabbi by dropping the names of Jew- table, temporarily unaware of our shaking hands!—and ish friends. “Do you know Nelson existence. After about ten minutes, signing campaign Peltz?” he asks, “Fantastic guy.” We the Trump entourage, having already walk through the Holocaust section, eaten, emerges from an inner sanc- literature. Holding up a where there are re-creations of every- tum where they’ve been chatting up picture of himself, he asks, thing from the Warsaw Ghetto to Rod Stewart. Seeing us in the corner, Auschwitz. Throughout the trip, Trump walks over and says to Bolton, “Isn’t he handsome?” Trump keeps saying things like in a voice loud enough for the entire “Good job, Rabbi” and “Great loca- restaurant to hear, “Watch out for these guys, they rule the tion,” as if he is assessing one of his Atlantic City proper- world.” Trump then vanishes into his limo, but the very ties. molecular structure of the patio changes around us. Food At the end of the tour, I approach Roger Stone, who is tastes better. Wine flows freer. Strange women strike up wearing “Nixon Is the One” cufflinks, to ask if Trump will conversations with us from distant tables. Michael Bolton make news. “Is that what you want?” asks Stone, handing rises to his feet and starts sucking-up profusely to Adam me a press release in which Trump will again denounce Nagourney of the New York Times. We are, thanks to the Buchanan. Trump gives a modified version of the state- Donald, what Matty the Squid might call “made men.” ment in the museum atrium, praising the center but omit- Bolton bores us with earnest accounts of how he’s ting the Buchanan references. By the end of the Q&A, campaigning for Hillary Clinton. But he strikes pay dirt however, he’s again fitted Buchanan in brownshirt and when he tells us how, after Trump once broke up with for- jackboots. After the press conference, I try to talk about mer wife Marla Maples, Bolton began dating her. It made the speech with Stone, but his mind is on other things. Trump so jealous that he took her back. But then, “when He’s looking me straight in the cravat. he could have her,” says Bolton, “he didn’t want her any- “Your knot needs work,” he says. more.” As his presidential campaign seems to suggest, From the Wiesenthal Center, we board Trump’s 727 at Trump is most attracted to things he can’t have. Just two LAX for the 15-minute ride to Long Beach, where Trump months after the death of Princess Di, for example, he will make $100,000 for 20 minutes’ work addressing expressed profound sadness to Dateline. “I would have 21,000 people at self-help guru Tony Robbins’s seminar. In loved to have had a shot to date her,” he told Stone a word, the plane is classy. Everything is fashioned from Phillips, “because she was an absolutely wonderful mahogany and teak. Crystal bar glasses and decanters line woman.” the cabinets (though The Donald doesn’t drink), and “Do you think you would have had a shot?” asked priceless works of art hang throughout the cabin (the art,

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 25 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 6

Trump says, is “off the record” for security reasons). With Commandment, I watch Melania. She forces a smile. But all these mangy journalists in tow, Trump has several mild the lovelight momentarily flickers out in her eyes. panic attacks: “Don’t put the glass on the table”; “Watch In a VIP tent after his performance, Trump faces a the paintings, fellas.” But he quickly settles into boys-club select group of tortellini-eating businessmen who’ve paid gregariousness, punching reporters in the arm, talking additional sums to ask questions of the celebrities. Ever about hot supermodels, and fielding compliments about the charmer, Trump chooses his interrogators by identify- Melania. “Pretty incredible, right?” he asks. “She’s a beau- ing their salient physical characteristics: “the bald guy in ty, and it’s not just here,” he says, pointing to his face. “It’s the suit” or “the beautiful woman in the semi-blouse.” Of the inner beauty, too.” a Yorba Linda resident seeking Trump’s advice about run- I catch up with Trump in his kitchenette as he tears ning for city council, Trump asks, “Are you a Reform can- into a bag of Lay’s potato chips. Still curious about the didate?” Wiesenthal tour, which one could categorize as pretty cyn- “Yes,” the man says. ical political theater, I ask if Donald Trump is good for the “Lotsa luck,” Trump replies. Jews. “Yes,” he says immediately. Another woman asks how she can create capital “when “How?” I ask. all I have is my knowledge and training.” Trump thinks a “Not now,” he says, crunching into a chip, “I gotta moment, then says, “Meet a wealthy guy.” He distills his think about my f—in’ speech.” political philosophy into a very simple formula: “In busi- ness and in life, people want to hear straight talk. We’re tired of being bull—ed by these moron politicians.” The t the Long Beach Airport, we deplane and board a crowd is nearly speaking in tongues. chartered bus, appropriately titled, “A Touch of After the event, Stone enters our bus: “I’m here, who AClass.” We head to Arrowhead Pond arena, home needs to be spun?” I ask how The Donald expects to sus- of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks hockey team, which is tain support when he so frequently expresses obvious con- filled with Tony Robbins seminarians who’ve spent hun- tempt for everyone but himself. “You piss 50 percent of dreds of dollars to glean success secrets from celebrity the people off no matter what you say,” says Stone. By his guests like Larry King (marry eight times, ask softball ques- reckoning, Trump needs “only” 35-40 percent of the vote tions). in a three-way election. That seems like a lot. Could that Tony Robbins, remember, was once invited to Camp many Americans possibly want Donald Trump to be their David to give success advice to President Clinton. Here, president? You wouldn’t think so. On the other hand, at on stage, Robbins dons a headset mike and dances like an the Tony Robbins seminar, 21,000 people have just paid epileptic to a mega-mix version of “Real Wild One.” Mid- $270 apiece to derive wisdom from Billy Blanks, the dle managers are instructed to knead each other’s necks. founder of Tae-Bo. “It’s okay for guys to rub guys!” Robbins exclaims. Back- Before boarding the plane with reporters for a return stage, Trump has a case of nerves, skittishly pacing and ride back to Manhattan (the hottest city with the biggest shaking his legs to the beat. I tell him to picture his audi- developer), Trump is still discussing the Robbins “love ence naked, and he seems to accept my counsel, wiggling fest” in colorful terms: “Did you see that one woman? She his bushy brows as a female Robbins staffer walks by in a had an amazing body, but a schoolmarm’s face.” Wisely, he tank top that threatens her circulation. decides to go off the record for the rest of the flight, so we Robbins introduces Trump to a receptive crowd, and “can relax and have fun.” Trump enters to two stageside explosions that nearly “Who wants to take up the plane?” he asks, allowing ignite his hair. Trump is not opposed to the nerf platitudes reporters to sit in the cockpit. The in-flight movie choice of self-help gurus; he and first wife, Ivana, were married is Midnight Express or The Godfather. Trump picks the for- by Mr. Positive Thinking himself, Norman Vincent Peale. mer, though Matty the Squid looks disappointed. Melania But today Trump offers a different kind of success recipe, has shed her Blahnik pumps and pads barefoot around the one that sounds like a song-of-the-street beatitude uttered cabin like an exotic cat. “We have pizza,” she purrs. For by Frank Sinatra and transcribed by Jilly Rizzo. Com- the next six hours, we share locker-room banter that if mandment One: “People tend to be very vicious, as the transcribed could put an end to several careers. Trump’s boxers say, ‘Keep the left up.’” Commandment Two: “Get candor makes John McCain look Nixonian by compari- even. When somebody screws you, screw ’em back, but a son. As the adventure ends, Trump repeatedly taunts lot harder.” Commandment Three: “Always have a pre- reporters, wondering how we’ll ever go back to covering nup.” The crowd is ecstatic. Robbins is embarrassed. “It’s Al Gore and flying coach. It seems a sensible question. not exactly my values,” he says offstage. After the Pre-nup Here’s hoping The Donald runs. ♦

26 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 7

Appeasing North Korea The Clinton administration’s policy has strengthened one of the world’s most dangerous tyrannies.

BY WILLIAM R. HAWKINS ment of weapons of mass destruction an attractive course for despots clinging to power in failed states. As for the It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, idea that the United States should press for political and To puff and look important and to say; economic liberalization in North Korea, Perry rejected it. Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to “The policy team believed that the North Korean regime meet you. would strongly resist such reform,” says the report, “view- We will therefore pay you cash to go away. ing it as indistinguishable from a policy of undermining. And that is called paying the Dane-geld; . . . A policy of reforming . . . would also take time— But we’ve proved it again and again, more time than it would take [North Korea] to proceed That once you have paid him the Dane-geld with its weapons and ballistic missiles programs.” For the You never get rid of the Dane. same reasons, U.N. emergency food aid is not used as —Rudyard Kipling, “Dane-Geld” leverage for the agricultural and economic reforms (notably the shifting of resources from the military indus- ipling’s verses, written at the dawn of this tries to civilian development) needed for North Korea to century about the tribute the Saxons paid to feed itself. the Danes a millennium ago, capture the Not surprisingly, the North Koreans have concluded conservative view of history as a recurring that defiance works. Their delegation arrived at the new pattern of problems and competing solu- round of talks with the United States in Berlin on Novem- tions.K The latest manifestation of the Dane-geld folly is ber 15 with their usual stony faces and militant posture, the Clinton administration’s policy toward North Korea. confident that the threat of force will protect them from Believing that the heavily militarized, Stalinist regime international pressure to reform. This sends a message in Pyongyang is simply too dangerous to confront, the about the usefulness of nuclear weapons that is heard well administration has chosen instead to pay it tribute: When beyond Korea. It is a louder message by far than the North Korea challenges with weapons, the United States pieties about nonproliferation that Clinton administration responds with concessions. This is the gist of the report officials trot out whenever necessary and convenient. released on October 12 by the president’s North Korea Just such brave words were heard recently during the policy coordinator, former defense secretary William Per- debate over the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Earlier, ry. As Perry explained to CNN a few weeks before the they could be found in the Counterproliferation Initiative report was issued, with provocations by the North chal- contained in the 1995 report of the secretary of defense, lenging the “uneasy deterrence” on the Korean peninsula, none other than William Perry. The core purpose of the it was “necessary to move forward in a more positive way initiative was deterrence through strength: to retain “the with North Korea. We have proposed a comprehensive military, political, and economic capacity to retaliate move towards normalization with Korea.” against those who might contemplate the use of [weapons The lesson here—bellicosity is rewarded with of mass destruction], so that the costs of such use be seen improved relations—would seem to make the develop- as outweighing the gains.” The report cited the experience of Desert Storm, noting that Saddam Hussein had William R. Hawkins is visiting fellow at the U.S. Business and refrained from using his large stock of chemical weapons Industry Council. against the coalition forces. Although the report did not

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 27 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 8

elaborate, there were, in fact, two major reasons for Hus- States. In the meantime, the United States is supplying, sein’s “restraint”: The United States threatened mas- free, roughly half of North Korea’s oil supplies as compen- sive—implicitly even nuclear—retaliation for any use of sation for the closing of its Soviet-supplied 25-megawatt such weapons. And Saddam Hussein feared provoking the reactor at Yongbyon, the source of the country’s existing coalition to go beyond the liberation of Kuwait and over- supply of weapons-grade plutonium. The advisory group throw his regime. found, however, that the new reactors will not end This is precisely the approach the United States Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program in and of them- should apply to North Korea. Washington should leave no selves. Indeed, they will provide North Korea with doubt whatever in Pyongyang that any deployment of enough plutonium to produce 100 bombs a year, should weapons of mass destruction would be met with superior the regime decide to reprocess the material. Thus, the strength, and that any use of such weapons would bring Framework Agreement is not the technological fix the the regime to a swift end. Since survival is the top priority administration has claimed it to be. Though Washington of the North Korean leaders, that survival should be made could refuse to supply the new reactors with fuel, other dependent on good behavior, not saber-rattling. sources of supply might be available. Though Russia and China are generally cited as potential suppliers, global competition in the nuclear industry might open up other, he Clinton administration’s policy achieves the ostensibly commercial, possibilities. opposite. As a new assessment of relations with The Framework Agreement covers only nuclear facili- TNorth Korea by House Republicans confirms, ties. The advisory group found that Pyongyang “is gener- Washington has been rewarding ally credited with possessing a full Pyongyang’s militancy ever since the range of chemical warfare agents, two nations signed a Framework Since survival is the top including nerve, blister, choking, and Agreement in 1994 “freezing” North priority of North Korean blood agents. The North Koreans Korea’s nuclear program in exchange have recently emphasized their work for substantial economic assets. The leaders, that survival on nerve agents. It is also believed new report, released November 3, is should depend that [they are] interested in develop- the work of the North Korea Adviso- ing binary nerve agents.” As for bio- ry Group, a panel of nine Republican on good behavior, logical warfare, Pyongyang’s “effort is members appointed by speaker Den- believed to have focused on the tradi- nis Hastert. Ben Gilman, chairman of not saber-rattling. tional agents: plague, typhoid, the International Relations Commit- cholera, anthrax, smallpox, yellow tee, headed the group, whose members included the chair- fever, botulinum toxin, and hemorrhagic fevers.” Having men of Armed Services (Floyd Spence) and Intelligence learned tactics from the Soviet Union, North Korea has (Porter Goss). The crux of their findings: that Pyong- weaponized these chemical and biological agents for use yang’s development of weapons of mass destruction “has on a variety of systems, from heavy mortars to ballistic advanced considerably over the last five years.” In particu- missiles. lar, the panel cited evidence that North Korea is still North Korea’s missile program is also not covered by developing nuclear weapons, even though activity was the Framework Agreement. Pyongyang has produced and frozen at the Yongbyon and Taechon sites targeted by the deployed missiles and has exported them to Iran and Pak- 1994 agreement. istan. Its three-stage Taepo Dong 1 was test-launched in According to the advisory group, the goal of nonprolif- 1998, and it continues to develop the larger and more eration has not been achieved. North Korea has had powerful Taepo Dong 2. Although Pyongyang suspended extensive contacts with the nuclear establishments in Pak- long-range missile tests in September in exchange for the istan and Russia and has attempted to acquire uranium easing of economic sanctions, the advisory group con- enrichment technologies from Europe and Japan. As the cludes that, “Unlike five years ago, North Korea can now report states, “This means that the United States cannot strike the United States with a missile that could deliver discount the possibility that North Korea could produce high explosive, chemical, biological, or possibly nuclear additional nuclear weapons outside of the constraints weapons.” The United States remains vulnerable to this imposed by the 1994 Agreed Framework.” threat because the Clinton administration has refused to Under the Framework Agreement, North Korea is to move forward with the deployment of a national missile receive two light-water nuclear reactors, valued at over $4 defense system. billion, financed by South Korea, Japan, and the United Economic sanctions combined with the collapse of

28 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec20 well 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 9

much of North Korea’s unreformed Stalinist economy vent its being used first and foremost to sustain the have greatly undermined Pyongyang’s conventional mili- regime, its loyalists, and its instruments of tyranny and tary strength. The lack of hard currency has curtailed the aggression. importation of modern weapons, and fuel shortages and Five years of economic aid has accomplished what starvation (which has claimed an estimated one million appeasement usually does. North Korea “is a greater lives in a country of 24 million people in the last five threat to international stability primarily in Asia and sec- years) are taking their toll on military readiness. But ondarily in the Middle East” than it was in 1994, con- maybe not for long. The Clinton administration’s lifting cludes the advisory group. “Current U.S. policy is not of sanctions, allowing investment in North Korea and the effectively addressing the threat posed by North Korean opening of the U.S. market for Pyongyang’s exports, could weapons of mass destruction, missiles and their prolifera- enable the regime to reverse this decline. tion, . . . [while] U.S. assistance sustains a repressive and The advisory group concluded that the aid already giv- authoritarian regime.” In short, appeasement is buying en to North Korea has helped the regime to maintain con- Pyongyang the time it needs to extend the reach of its trol. “U.S. aid to North Korea has grown from zero to weapons, until they can threaten the United States itself. more than $270 million annually, totaling $645 million All of which only validates Kipling’s final verse: over the last five years. Based on current trends, that total So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, will likely exceed $1 billion next year,” says the advisory You will find it better policy to say: group, adding, “This aid frees other resources for North We never pay any one Dane-geld Korea to divert to its weapons of mass destruction and No matter how trifling the cost, conventional military programs.” The group found that For the end of that game is oppression and shame, the flow of U.S. aid is not well-enough monitored to pre- And the nation that plays it is lost! ♦

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 29 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 1 Bo o k

Natural s &

Born Arts Lawyers Why natural law is staging a comeback By J. BUDZISZEWSKI

t is thought rude these days to say so, but there are some moral truths UPI/Corbis-Bettmann.

that we all really know—truths a . normal human being is unable not toI know. They are a universal posses- sion and an emblem of the rational mind. This doesn’t mean that we know them with unfailing clarity or that we

have reasoned out their implications. Declaration of the Rights Man Nor does it mean that we never pretend not to know them or that we never lose our nerve when told they aren’t true. Yet, such as it is, our common moral

knowledge is as real as arithmetic and J.J. LeBarbier’s 1789 probably just as plain—so plain, in fact, that we appeal to it even to justify our least twenty-six books published in relations among the unmarried may wrongdoing: Rationalization is the America over the last two years. be viewed leniently. Incest is a heinous offense. This universal moral code homage paid by sin to guilty knowledge. To make sense of this deluge—to agrees rather closely with our own These basic moral principles, togeth- grasp why it’s happening now—it’s nec- Decalogue taken in a strictly literal er with their first few rings of implica- essary to begin, not precisely with what sense. tions, are what philosophers refer to we all really know (which is quite a lot), Cooper’s reminder was lost at the when they use the phrase “natural law.” but with what the great majority of time among other travelers’ tales: Mar- The last time natural law theory made a human beings in all times and places garet Mead’s story of a Pacific free-love splash in America was shortly after admit that we know (which is rather paradise among the Samoans, for World War II, under the influence of less). Back in 1931, John M. Cooper instance, or Colin Turnbull’s account of such Continental exiles as Jacques Mari- offered this summary: the conscienceless Ik in Africa. Of tain, Yves Simon, Heinrich Rommen, The peoples of the world, however course, as it has since been revealed, and Leo Strauss. There followed some much they differ as to details of moral- Mead and Turnbull were wrong: The dry decades, but now books on natural ity, hold universally, or with practical Samoans turn out to have been fierce law are once again pouring from the universality, to at least the following defenders of chastity, and the Ik to have basic precepts. Respect the Supreme presses: new ones written, old ones reis- Being or the benevolent being or had a strong sense of mutual obligation. sued, and yet more about to be released. beings who take his place. Do not And, in fact, the discrediting of Mead “Natural Law” appears in the title of at “blaspheme.” Care for your children. and Turnbull’s sort of anthropology is Malicious murder or maiming, steal- ing, deliberate slander or “black” one cause of the revival of interest in J. Budziszewski is an associate professor of lying, when committed against friend natural law—for part of our common government and philosophy at the University or unoffending fellow clansman or moral sense is the notion that there tribesman, are reprehensible. Adultery actually is a common moral sense. of Texas at Austin and the author of two recent proper is wrong, even though there be books on natural law, Written on the Heart exceptional circumstances that permit Philosophers call it “natural” to convey and The Revenge of Conscience. or enjoin it and even though sexual the idea that it is somehow rooted in the

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 31 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 2

way things really are. Chinese wisdom natural rights. Even in the late Middle Little by little, instead of reasoning traditions call it the Tao; Indian, the Ages, certain Scholastic thinkers had “Because of this total picture, we have dharma or rita. The Talmud declares begun to give natural rights prominence these rights and duties,” they came to that it was given to the “sons” of Noah, in the theory of natural law. But in reason “Because we have these rights, which means all of us. St. Paul says that Scholasticism, those rights were per- we have the duties we have agreed to in when gentiles do by nature what the law ceived to be only part of a complete pic- the exercise of our rights.” Once philo- requires, they show that its works are ture of morality. We have rights for the sophical thought moves in this direc- “written on their hearts.” same reason we have duties. We have a tion, it becomes difficult to say exactly natural inclination to use our sexual where our rights came from in the first f course, much of modern philoso- powers, for example, and this inclina- place. One Enlightenment thinker tried Ophy has turned on the attempt to tion must be good, since everything in to derive rights from “preservation,” deny any specific content to this com- nature is good (by Scholastic definition) another from “sociality,” another from mon moral knowledge. And the endless “happiness,” and every other from hectoring—by utilitarians (who try to The Natural Law somewhere else. At least eight new nat- ignore everything but pleasure), liber- A Study in Legal and Social History ural law theories were published at tarians (who try to ignore everything and Philosophy every Leipzig booksellers’ fair in the but rights), Kantians (who try to ignore by Heinrich Albert Rommen early 1780s—all of them detailed and all Liberty Fund, 306 pp., $27 everything but the will), and relativists of them completely different—and (who try to ignore everything)—has had In Defense of Natural Law within a very short time the very idea of its effect. When, in the 1992 Planned by Robert P. George natural law seemed a discredited gim- Parenthood v. Casey decision, the Oxford University Press, 354 pp., $65 mick for passing off one’s personal prej- Supreme Court announced a “right to Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law udices as eternal truth. define one’s own concept of existence, of An Analytic Reconstruction meaning, of the universe, and of the by Anthony J. Lisska nd yet, though Rommen would mystery of human life,” it was widely Oxford University Press, 336 pp., $24.95 paper Aargue that we need to return to the thought to have at last banished from Natural Law in Judaism place where we got off the track, American jurisprudence any appeal to by David Novak unlearning the bad habits we picked up the idea of natural law. Cambridge University Press, 210 pp., $54.95 in the Enlightenment and going back to A little reflection, however, reveals A Preserving Grace the old theory of natural law we some- that what the Court was really doing Protestants, Catholics, and Natural Law how forgot, it may be that the Enlight- (and this is yet more proof of the fact edited by Michael Cromartie enment didn’t get everything wrong. that we can’t succeed, try as we might, at Eerdmans, 201 pp., $20 paper This, at least, is the argument made by the attempt to ignore our common Narrative and the Natural Law Princeton University’s Robert George moral sense) was not rejecting the theo- An Interpretation of Thomistic Ethics in his new In Defense of Natural Law, ry of natural law, but asserting it—in a by Pamela M. Hall which is not, in fact, a defense of natural degenerate and self-annihilating way. University of Notre Dame Press, 168 pp., $16 paper law as such, but a defense of the “new” But even a self-annihilating theory is Natural Law natural law theory George shares with still a theory. Your rights are powers to and Contemporary Public Policy such modern thinkers as John Finnis make moral claims upon me, and thus if edited by David F. Forte and Germain Grisez. I want to deny those moral claims (as Georgetown University Press, 416 pp., $65 When St. Thomas Aquinas used the the Court said I could do with the Feminist Ethics and Natural Law phrase “natural law” back in the thir- unborn child’s), I must pretend that you The End of the Anathemas teenth century, he meant that the law is are not a human being. We turn out to by Christina L.H. Traina natural because it is grounded in the be following the logic of natural law Georgetown University Press, 389 pp., $27.95 design by which God made the uni- even while we’re trying to escape it; the verse. Yes, of course, certain moral right to define one’s own existence ends when it works toward its natural end. truths are self-evident and we can’t not up as an effort to define other people’s The natural end of sex is plainly the know them, but the important thing is non-existence. making of children and the uniting of that they are self-evident truths about the Perhaps the best place to start for dis- spouses. It is proper, then, to recognize order of creation. That’s why St. Thomas covering how we got to this point is in our sexual powers both a right and a doesn’t just call our natural inclinations Heinrich Rommen’s The Natural Law: duty—the right to marry and the duty good but defines goodness in terms of A Study in Legal and Social History and to reserve sex for the permanent, poten- inclinations. “Good,” he says, “is that Philosophy, a recently reissued volume tially procreative union of marriage. which all things seek after.” from 1936 that deserves to be better Today’s rights talk works differently. This is the sort of reasoning that known. Rommen would lay the blame For various reasons, Enlightenment George, Finnis, and Grisez reject. They for the Planned Parenthood v. Casey deci- thinkers lost confidence in the possibili- agree with the Enlightenment rebuke sion on the Enlightenment’s concept of ty of saying what the total picture is. that the old natural law theory commits

32 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 3

It’s a little troubling that George’s defense of the Finnis-Grisez line of nat- ural law reasoning has to bring in the complex and difficult doctrine of double effect to explain why I should lay down my golf clubs to save a drowning child—as though the decision were as difficult as figuring out whether to bomb a terrorist rocket launcher on the roof of an orphanage. The theory of nat- ural law, after all, is supposed to explain the philosophical possibility for what everyone already knows—and we prob- ably ought to be suspicious of theories that turn easy cases into hard ones, even when it settles them correctly. The old natural law didn’t present us with this difficulty. Although it did hold a few things inviolable, it didn’t list so many, and it didn’t refuse to call any basic good better than any other. So

UPI/Corbis-Bettmann. Anthony J. Lisska argues in Aquinas’s An 1879 French allegory, La République. Theory of Natural Law. In Lisska’s view, there was no need to develop a “new” the “naturalist fallacy,” which means “rhythm method” of natural family natural law theory, because the worry trying to derive a moral conclusion planning, for periodic abstinence about “naturalist fallacies” in the old from a factual premise—in Thomas’s doesn’t make a fertile act infertile, while one was misplaced. Lisska doesn’t deny case, “X fulfills nature, so X is good.” a barrier does. Under the new theory it that such a fallacy exists. Like other We must rather assert that although is hard to see a difference, for both con- contemporary defenders of St. some truths are self-evident, they are doms and periodic abstinence are Thomas—Ralph McInerny, Henry self-evident for a different reason than intended to prevent procreation. Veatch, Russell Hittinger—he just St. Thomas thought. It isn’t because And the new natural law theory pro- denies that the old theory commits it: they are built into nature for the reason- poses so many things one must not act Yes, it’s faulty reasoning to derive a nor- ing mind to reflect, but because they are directly against. The “basic goods” mative moral conclusion from a merely built into the reasoning mind itself. include not only life, but even such factual premise; but what if the “facts” Self-evidence lies not in the way the things as “skillful play,” all inviolable aren’t “mere”—what if the starting world is put together, but in the way the (in the sense that it is wrong to act point is normative already? What if we mind is put together. against them) and incommensurable (in aren’t pasting values into the order of the sense that it is impossible to call one creation, but eliciting from that order o see what a difference this new better than another). R.G. Wright the values that are already there? Tsort of reasoning makes, consider objects that, under this scheme, I cannot an issue in sexual ethics. The old sort of even justify taking off from my golf f course, making good on this natural lawyer reflects that it is wrong to game to rescue a drowning child. Not Oclaim requires an understanding use the sexual powers in a way which only is life no better than play, but I of nature in which the properties of thwarts their built-in working—as, for must not act against play directly. Now things are not “simple” but “disposi- instance, in the use of artificial contra- George has an answer, which on logical tional”—which is a technical way of ception, which fights the design of the grounds cannot be faulted. Of course I saying that you have to view each thing sexual powers instead of cooperating should save the child, he says, for the in the universe as though it were an with it. The new natural lawyers, fact that life is no better than play arrow directed naturally to a goal. instead of saying that it is wrong to act doesn’t mean I have no other considera- That’s what St. Thomas thought. The against the design of the sexual powers, tions to bring to bear; there is always nature of a thing, he said, is “a purpose, argue that it is wrong to act directly the Golden Rule. And besides, I am not implanted by the Divine Art, that it be against “the basic good of life,” some- acting directly against the good of play, moved to a determinate end.” And, thing condoms plainly do. Different because ruining the game was not my regardless of philosophy, it’s the way we argument, same conclusion? Maybe not. intention but only a result—a “double all naturally tend to think of things. An Under the old theory it is easy to see a effect,” to use the technical term—of acorn is not essentially something small difference between condoms and the saving the child. with a point at one end and a cap at the

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 33 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 4

other; it’s something that wants to be an Cromartie, the elegant Natural Law in not good news (the literal meaning of oak. A boy is not essentially something Judaism, by David Novak, and the inter- the word “gospel”), but bad news—a with baggy pants and a foul mouth; he’s esting but rather more specialized Nar- standard which in this fallen world we something that wants to be a man. rative and the Natural Law: An Interpreta- cannot keep, which serves primarily to In this way of thinking, everything in tion of Thomistic Ethics, by Pamela Hall. allow us to measure our failures. creation is a wannabe. You just have to The Rabbinic Jews and Protestant recognize what it naturally wants to be, Christians who are skeptical about nat- omparison of the Novak and Cro- and natural law turns out to be the tech- ural law ought to pick up these books, Cmartie books suggests an interest- nical spec sheet, the guide for getting for present in all three of them is an ing parallel between the situations of there. For the acorn, this isn’t law in the awareness of the fact that the Bible does natural law in Judaism and in Chris- strictest sense, for law must be not claim that there is no knowledge of tianity. Each tradition contains some addressed to an intelligent being capa- God and His moral requirements out- who wish to slight the natural law and ble of choice and the acorn can’t be in side Holy Writ. What the Bible claims is some who wish to slight the divine conflict with itself. But a boy can—and rather that there is no knowledge of sal- law—some who snub the general revela- that’s why we need philosophy to for- vation outside God’s word, which is a tion, and others who snub the special. mulate the natural law. very different thing. Indeed, at least five In Novak’s punning way of putting it, there are people who reduce reason to nd yet, according to the old theory B&A revelation, and people who reduce reve- Aof natural law, the human arrow is lation to reason. Just as he seeks a mid- unlike all others because it is directed to The more headway dle path for Jews, the contributions edit- a goal its natural powers cannot reach. ed by Cromartie seek a middle path for We have one natural longing that nature natural law theory Christians. Cromartie’s book is an cannot satisfy. God is not only the anthology, the record of a conference. author of human nature but the direc- makes, the harder That usually spells dull reading, but in tion in which it faces and the power on this case the prophecy is wrong. The which it depends, its greatest good. every ideologue great hit of the volume is Susan That boy on the corner is something Schreiner’s piece on John Calvin, an that wants to be a man, but a man is will work to reinterpret eye-opener because Calvin thought something that wants, on top of all its much more highly of natural law than other difficulties of fulfillment, to be in and distort it. do many who fly his flag today. Also friendship with God. And that, short of appealing is the deftly edited audience a supernatural grace, is impossible— discussion, in which the reader cannot which creates a massive problem. God, modes of extra-biblical knowledge of help noticing the way that some of the in such religions as Judaism, Christiani- right and wrong and God are acknowl- Protestants sound like Roman Cath- ty, and Islam, has offered direct revela- edged in the Bible: the witnesses of con- olics, and some of the Catholics like tion concerning this supernatural need science, of God’s handiwork, of God- Evangelical Protestants. of human beings. Suddenly we appear ward longings, of our inbuilt design, For those more interested in know- to have two laws, the natural and the and of the “harvest,” i.e. the conse- ing what practical difference natural law divine. Suddenly, the God who implant- quences of our deeds. makes in law and politics, the volume to ed law in nature announces another law Theologians typically distinguish get is Natural Law and Contemporary in words. “general revelation,” corresponding to Public Policy, edited by David Forte. Embarrassed, some natural lawyers natural law, which God gives to all Proponents of several theories of natural rush to assure us that the natural law human beings through His creation, law are included, and it provides a good would make perfect sense even if there and “special revelation,” corresponding sampling of the issues: privacy, homo- were no God at all—forgetting that if to divine law, which He gives to believ- sexuality, bioethics, education, and half there were no God there would be no ers through His word. Novak argues a dozen more. nature either. On the other hand, some that natural law is not only compatible Consider just Christopher Wolfe’s believers say that since we have the with divine law but presupposed by it; if piece on judicial review. Despite their Bible to tell us what to do, we don’t need you didn’t have the general revelation, moral traditionalism, some conserva- a natural law. In fact, maybe there isn’t you wouldn’t be able to understand the tives are wary of the claim that there is a any. The Old Testament doesn’t even special. Hall grasps that the relationship natural law higher than written law. mention “nature.” The New Testament also works in the other direction, for the Aren’t activist judges too full of them- does, but says there is something wrong salvation story puts natural law in its selves already? Do they really need with it. context: If you didn’t have the special another excuse to throw their weight This is the problem taken up in A revelation, then you would still have the around? What these conservatives for- Preserving Grace: Protestants, Catholics, general, but it would be a message of get to ask is how these judges got that and Natural Law, edited by Michael futility. Indeed, by itself, natural law is way. Even when they don’t know it, our

34 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 5

activist judges are already working with a theory of natural law—it’s just a bad one. And the antidote isn’t no theory, B&A but a better one. Wolfe points out that the core principles of the natural law are very general, and their application to McCarthy’s Historian the detailed circumstances of actual communities is hard work. Prudence Tailgunner Joe, retried at the Bar of History. suggests a division of labor. Let legisla- tors use natural law to make the statutes, BY ROBERT D. NOVAK for otherwise they will be unjust. Let judges use natural law to understand the early half a century after much more. No one can condone statutes, for otherwise they will be his death, the wraith of McCarthy’s behavior, and Herman opaque. No guideline is immune from Joe McCarthy has re- doesn’t try. His audacious mission is abuse, but so far as it goes, Wolfe’s pro- turned to arouse fear and rather to strip away two generations of posal makes good sense. Nloathing in the hearts of American lib- propaganda and myth-making that vili- erals. Aided immeasur- fied McCarthy and ele- nd yet, perhaps those conservatives ably by his own self- Joseph McCarthy vated the likes of Dean Aare not entirely wrong to be wary of destructiveness, they Reexamining the Life and Legacy Acheson to such Olym- the effect of recent efforts of natural law long ago buried him of America’s Most Hated Senator pian heights that cur- theory on political and judicial deci- and reduced his legacy by Arthur Herman rent Republican presi- Free Press, 403 pp., $26 sions. The more headway the theory to a dictionary defini- dential candidates com- makes, the harder every ideologue will tion of unfairness. Even pete in celebrating his work to reinterpret it, to distort it, to conservatives routinely apply the label memory. This biographer contends that turn it to advantage. One theorist will of McCarthyism to the most despicable McCarthy, the loser in the high-stakes try to use it to justify same-sex mating. behavior of their opponents. But now political game, was right and Acheson, Another to explain euthanasia and abor- the junior senator from Wisconsin is the winner, was wrong. tion. A third to argue that “natural law’s rising Rasputin-like from his ideologi- That does not require cleansing of concrete conclusions are dynamic and cal grave. McCarthy’s personal reputation. Her- humanly generated to the same degree It started with the release of the man acknowledges the senator’s “lies or that humanity itself is”—which is to say Venona decryptions last year, leading distortions.” He depicts FBI director J. that the unnatural is natural, if we say left-wing journalist Nicholas von Hoff- Edgar Hoover as contemptuous of so. If you want to see how this sort of man to muse that maybe McCarthy was McCarthy’s exaggeration of the thing might be done, you might look at right after all about Communist agents pro-Communist Owen Lattimore as Christina Traina’s Feminist Ethics and in the U.S. government. Next came The the leading Soviet spy in America. Natural Law. Redhunter, a William F. Buckley Jr. nov- “Those who knew McCarthy,” Herman But none of these misuses invalidates el depicting McCarthy as a sympathetic writes, “were constantly discovering to natural law theory; in fact, they mostly and tragic though often reprehensible their astonishment how little Mc- serve to help prove its validity, for a lie advocate of a great cause. But now Carthy knew about theory or practice of travels furthest on the back of truth. comes a little-known academic with a Communism itself.” Indeed, by the We’re seeing in America in recent years forceful vindication of McCarthyism, if time he exploded on the national scene a rebirth of interest in natural law, partly not McCarthy: Joseph McCarthy: Reex- with his 1950 speech in Wheeling, West because of the failure of Enlightenment amining the Life and Legacy of America’s Virginia, claiming proof of Commu- ethics to propose a successful substitute, Most Hated Senator, by Arthur Herman. nists in the State Department, Mc- partly because of the intellectual dis- In the November 28 New York Times Carthy “had largely lost the confidence crediting of 1950s-style anthropological Sunday magazine, leftist journalist of even his fellow party members.” relativism, and partly because Ameri- Jacob Weisberg contended that Arthur After Wheeling, McCarthy “did dis- cans may finally be remembering that Herman, adjunct professor of history at tort” the lists of alleged subversives at there really are, after all is said and done George Mason University, “sets out to State, says Herman. “When cornered or to deny them, some moral truths that rehabilitate” McCarthy. In fact, Her- challenged, he preferred to exagger- we know—truths a normal human man is attempting much less and yet ate—even lie—about what cards he being is unable not to know. But as one actually had in his hand. During his reads one’s way through recent judicial Robert D. Novak is a nationally syndicated short and meteoric career as the decisions, one comes upon what may be columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times Senate’s leading red-baiter, McCarthy the best reason for the revival of inter- and a CNN commentator. His latest book, learned to bluff his way through in est: We need the authentic natural law Completing the Revolution, will be hopes that subsequent research would to save us from its impersonators. ♦ published in January. confirm the bulk of it.”

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 35 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 6

All this fits the old stereotype of history as neanderthals, “instinctively eral actually desired the Communist McCarthyism. But Herman breaks new grasped that trying to deal with the takeover of China, is properly dis- ground in arguing forcefully that Mc- Soviets as a conventional power, in con- missed by Herman as “fallacious.” But Carthy did uncover State Department ventional geopolitical terms, would be he adds: “McCarthy in his own unrea- officials who were “really too inclined to lose the larger struggle.” sonable way had raised a reasonable to accept Communism’s premises to Herman describes the conventional issue. To what extent had a floundering resist its conclusions.” A prime example picture—of the Truman administra- New Deal establishment, including is Philip C. Jessup, an establishment tion’s “Wise Men,” headed by Acheson men like Marshall, helped the Soviet expert on international law who was and General George Marshall, leading Union become a superpower by their given the rank of ambassador-at-large in the nation through the deadly con- own poorly considered actions?” 1949 by Acheson. Jessup is remembered frontation with Moscow—as constitut- Herman’s comparison: “He [Joe Mc- as one of the early victims of McCarthy- ing “one of the most persistent myths Carthy] was working class, while they ism, but Herman contends that this top of the McCarthy era.” Defense Secre- [the Wise Men] were varsity class. He Acheson adviser “could with the best tary James Forrestal was alone in Tru- was hairy, loud and sweaty; they were intentions direct policy towards ends that man’s team in appreciating that cool, clean and antiseptic. Acheson actually promoted Communist rather “bombers and tanks, and even the reviled him as ‘the gauleiter and leader than American interests.” atomic bomb, were of no real safeguard of the mob.’” Nevertheless, at his peak, The issue is broader than Herman’s against a Marxist ideology.” McCarthy represented millions of ordi- characterization of Jessup as a “well- Nothing has exposed McCarthy to nary Americans. Their votes, Herman meaning dupe.” He adds: “At the core more abuse over the years than his argues, enabled Dwight D. Eisenhower of the Jessup case was the clash between attack on Marshall, who held the State to become the first Republican presi- liberals and conservatives over how to and later the Defense portfolio under dent in twenty years. conduct the Cold War.” Herman sides Truman. While deified by the establish- But once Eisenhower was in office, with McCarthy and his Senate Republi- ment as the ideal public servant, Mar- his non-ideological approach to the can allies William Jenner of Indiana shall is described by Herman as a dupe Soviet Union was an extension of Tru- and Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska of Chou En-Lai and the man who more man’s. The new Republican president’s against such elegant foreign service than anybody else can be said to have enmity doomed McCarthy, who was professionals as George Kennan and “lost China.” McCarthy’s claim, burdened by his own and his new aide Charles Bohlen. The senators, con- embodied in his notorious Senate Roy Cohn’s calamitous mistakes. As he signed to oblivion in the Cold War’s speech attacking Marshall, that the gen- faced political destruction and approached death, McCarthy “realized that the anti-Communist cause was fad- ing away, forever tainted with the label of ‘McCarthyism,’ and that liberalism of the soft, yielding sort he despised was Visit weeklystandard.com gaining ground.” Herman adds: “McCarthy’s disgrace had completely vindicated men like Acheson, Marshall, and Jessup in the eyes of the media and opinion makers.” This is strong medicine, defying the bipartisan conventional wisdom. Her- man’s condemnation of the Wise Men perfectly fits Whittaker Chambers’s analysis (in his 1952 autobiography Witness) of the failed Truman approach to Soviet communism. Chambers broke with McCarthy when the senator, typi- cally, misrepresented Chambers’s posi- tion on Chip Bohlen. In essence, how- The new and improved ever, Chambers and McCarthy were Web site for the nation’s allies, supported by their fellow citi- most influential zens, in a cause smothered by the estab- political weekly. lishment until Ronald Reagan as presi- dent inveighed against the Evil Empire. This is McCarthy’s legacy, asserted now after all these years. ♦

36 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 7

Hanks), a death-row prison guard in 1932 Louisiana. A large black man named John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) comes under his care, convict- ed of raping and murdering two young girls. Coffey, however, has mystical pow- ers of healing, and the film tells the moral struggle of a prison guard who must, to perform his duty, put to death a man he gradually comes to believe is innocent. The Green Mile is sure-fire Oscar material, but the real revelation in the film is the growing power and confi- dence of the author himself.

orn in 1947 in Portland, Maine, BKing grew up poor, the younger of two children. His parents, Donald and Ruth Pillsbury King, were Down-East Yankees to the core (his maternal grand- father had been Winslow Homer’s handyman), but when King was two, his father left and his mother took a variety of jobs to keep the family solvent. Mercifully, King himself rejects the pop psychology that would look to the arner Bros.

W traumas of those days for the explana- tion of his adult writing. He attributes his infatuation with the macabre to his discovery, while rooting through his King of the Hill aunt’s attic, of a trove of pulp books Stephen King is more serious than you think— when he was twelve: Frank Belknap Long, Zelia Bishop, A. Merritt, and, and more conservative, too. BY JONATHAN V. L AST most important, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Lurking Fear and Other Stories. He was here are conservatives, most- along with him as he rises from low- instantly hooked and began writing his ly among the followers of brow pulp to solid middlebrow fiction. own pulp fiction, diligently submitting Russell Kirk, who hold a spe- King is back in the news this week, short stories to magazines. cial place in their hearts for thanks to the just-released movie ver- After winning a scholarship to the theT old pulp fiction of Ray Bradbury. sion of his 1996 serial novel The Green University of Maine, King continued And there are others, mostly libertari- Mile, directed by Frank Darabont. writing feverishly, finishing his first stab ans, who hold a special place in their “Darabont has the world’s smallest cin- at a novel before his freshman year be- hearts for the old pulp fiction of Robert ematic specialty,” says King: “Stephen gan. (It went unpublished until 1977.) It Heinlein. But they may all wish to King prison movies.” And he’s right. was there at school he met Tabitha reconsider, for what’s become apparent The forty-year-old Darabont has direct- Spruce, whom he married in 1971. With in recent years is that the single most ed just three films: a thirty-two minute college finished, King embarked on life popular pulp writer of the twentieth short based on King’s short story The as a struggling writer, working at a laun- century is also the most conservative. Woman in the Room, and two full-length dry during the day, typing away at short And his name is Stephen King. The features, the 1994 Shawshank Redemp- stories during the night. At one point he champion of horror fiction is proving tion and The Green Mile, both screen took a job teaching high school English. with his latest efforts to be able both to adaptations of jail-themed King books. Gradually, however, his stories began express a surprising level of moral More than any other of the directors appearing in men’s magazines. And sophistication and—in a much harder who’ve created the thirty-five King sto- then, in 1973, he wrote a short novel trick—to bring his enormous audience ries now on film, Darabont brings both called Carrie and showed it to an editor. seriousness and a light touch. Based on He was never a struggling writer again. Jonathan V. Last is a reporter at THE a six-part novel, The Green Mile tells the Carrie became a bestselling horror fran- WEEKLY STANDARD. story of Paul Edgecomb (played by Tom chise: hardcover and paperback books, a

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 37 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 8

fourteenth, and fifteenth on the New York Times paperback bestseller list. In all this writing, King has demon- strated his commercial craftsmanship. When he submitted his 1,200-page manuscript for The Stand in 1978, his editors told him that he needed to trim 400 pages so the printing costs could be kept in line with the book’s $12.95 cover price. Without throwing a tantrum or campaigning for his “artistic rights,” King made the cuts. “Writers are made, not born or created out of dreams or childhood trauma,” he declared in Danse Macabre, his non-fiction study of the horror genre. “Of course there has to be some talent involved, but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the tal- ented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a

Columbia Pictures. Below: Dutton. constant process of honing.” Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption. Below: “Richard Bachman.” ut he has also done the hardest movie and sequel, and even a short- times lectures. He subsidizes the Bthing of all for an enormously pop- lived Broadway musical. Since Carrie, National Poetry Foundation, and he is a ular and highly rewarded author: He King has published more than forty champion of other writers, trying to has improved himself, and his audience books in thirty-three languages, selling give recognition to men such as with him. The earliest King books are over three hundred million copies. Thomas Williams, Don Robertson, good, juicy, satisfying pulp, but nothing David Goodis, and Jack Ketchum, more. Carrie, The Shining, Firestarter, ing may be the richest writer in whom he calls “American crafts- Cujo, all share an urgency to K American history, but unlike most men who’ve been over- shock. From the pig’s blood contemporary wealthy authors, he has looked.” at Carrie’s prom to Cujo’s been generous with his money. In 1998 All of this makes attack on young Tad, he recounted to the New Yorker the day sense after one reads there is a reliance on he sold the rights to Carrie: his books. While his the lesser angels of his popularity suggests audience’s nature, as Ruth King was working at Pineland Training Center, a home for the men- comparison to such King himself now tally retarded. “She served meals, writers as Tom Clan- seems to realize. cleaned up s—, wore a green uniform,” cy, John Grisham, or “Mostly I cringe,” King said. “One day I went to Michael Crichton, he says about his Pineland to tell her I’d sold this book. his prose is more on early books. “I really She was pulling a truck of dishes. She looked so strung out. She’d lost forty the level of Elmore cringe. I think, boy, pounds and was dying of cancer but it Leonard or Cormac this is raw.” hadn’t even been diagnosed. I looked McCarthy—and that, So he strove for bet- at her and said, ‘Mom, you’re done.’ despite his staggering ter. His prose, never And she was. That was her last day level of production. He immortal, got good enough working.” typically writes a novel a year, that you rarely noticed it. After she died, King built the Ruth and early in his career, wrote so Then, in a conscious way, he began King Theatre at the school his sons much that he published some under the to raise the level of his tales. Misery, attended. penname “Richard Bachman” to avoid Needful Things, Bag of Bones, and The His philanthropy has been wide- saturating the market. In 1996 alone, he Green Mile all carry firm moral under- spread. He built the Shawn T. Mansfield brought out the six parts of The Green pinnings, and his non-horror short sto- Baseball Complex in Bangor in memory Mile in addition to a pair of interlacing ries, such as Rita Hayworth and the of the son of one of his friends, and novels, Desperation and the Bachman- Shawshank Redemption and The Body recently bequeathed $4 million to the penned The Regulators. In one week, (later made into the movie Stand By Me) University of Maine, where he some- King was first, fourth, tenth, twelfth, showed a growing sense of humanity.

38 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD DECEMBER 20, 1999 Iss14/Dec 20 BOB 8/20/01 3:28 PM Page 9 arner Bros. W David Morse, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Tom Hanks in The Green Mile.

Suddenly his legions of readers found the necessity of a moral framework in return to the mad universe we call themselves reading passable fiction successful middlebrow fiction. “The home.” But then he realized “that the instead of Weird Tales schlock. horror story,” King says, “beneath its survivors would be very likely to first The Stand, which remains by far fangs and fright wig, is really as conserv- take up all the old quarrels and then all King’s most popular book, is also his ative as an Illinois Republican in a the old weapons.” most explicit morality play. In The Stand three-piece pinstriped suit; its main The only truly pure characters in a minor mishap results in a govern- purpose is to reaffirm the virtues of the King’s work are children or adults who ment-engineered plague. The plague norm by showing us what awful things act like children. At the end of The virus, known as “Captain Trips,” kills all happen to people who venture into Green Mile, John Coffey, who is slow to but a handful of people, and the sur- taboo lands.” the point that he’s considered daft and vivors assemble into two camps, one led But for all his understanding of the is so afraid of the dark that he asks the by Randall Flagg, “the devil’s imp,” and necessity for moral structure, King does prison guards to leave a light on at the other led by an elderly black woman fall prey to one thoroughly modern sen- night, is put to death by a guard who named Mother Abigail who is expressly sibility: the notion that true moral wis- believes that Coffey is innocent. The identified as an agent of Christ. Follow- dom can be found only in the hearts of guard, Paul Edgecomb, is sympathetic ing God’s orders relayed through Moth- children. Adding together the Victori- in every way, a kind man who under- er Abigail, four members of her camp ans’ belief in the sexual purity of chil- stands his stern duties. Yet because he is make a pilgrimage to Flagg’s base of dren, the American Transcendentalists’ part of the adult world, working for “the operations (in Las Vegas, of course) to Romantic belief in innocence as the system,” King visits a horrible fate upon take their stand against evil. When they highest moral condition, and modern him at the film’s end. arrive to confront Flagg, the hand of pop psychologists’ belief in indulgence, God reaches down and smites the devil. the first wave of Baby Boomers pio- t last, the component missing from neered the idea that children are moral- AKing’s view of the world is what ing’s novel is riddled with religious ly superior to their parents. They firmly the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur K references—and not the feel-good believed that good parenting meant calls “second innocence”—an aware- stuff either. The Stand concerns tests of allowing their children to express them- ness that the highest moral condition is faith and crucifixions and sins of pride. selves without being tainted by adult not the retreat into the first innocence It even showcases the most daring of constructs, all of which were sympto- of childhood but an advance through contemporary views: a small brief matic of some fall from grace. adult guilts into a new and grownup against abortion. “The horror story And secretly King believes this too. form of moral life. most generally not only stands four- “Children see everything, consider But if King’s moral sophistication square for the Ten Commandments, it everything; the typical expression of a isn’t yet whole, so be it. By elevating his blows them up to tabloid size,” King baby which is full, dry, and awake is a pulp and pulling his readers along with wrote in Danse Macabre. wide-eyed goggle at everything,” he him, he’s done the broader culture a ser- It may be precisely because he comes writes. About The Stand, he says, “I was vice. He’s brought his thinking and out of a pulp tradition—with its card- able to envision a world in which all the writing a long way from Carrie to The board figures representing good and nuclear stockpiles would simply rust Green Mile. Maybe he’ll go even further. evil—that King understands what his away and some kind of normal moral, At his present pace, he has another forty contemporaries seem to have forgotten: political, and ecological balance would or fifty books in which to try. ♦

DECEMBER 20, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 39 Iss14/Dec20 Parody 8/20/01 3:30 PM Page 1

“Nine selective institutions have agreed to admit a total of 100 students next year who score well on a new test that involves Lego blocks and in-depth interviews.” Parody — The Chronicle of Higher Education , December 3, 1999

Institute For Advanced Legological Research

Lab Notes Prof. A. Einstein Chuck E. Cheese Professor of Legodynamics

October 19, 1998: A day both thrilling and daunting. The Lego blocks arrived this morning from the Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. There is no inci devised greater challenge in all of science than stacking Lego. Da V plans for the legendary Four-Stack, but lost them in a tub of pesto. Under- standing Lego properties will be harder than I imagined. There are strange bumps on top of them. I hope this won’t be a repeat of the Lincoln Logs fias- co. Sinking feeling in my stomach. ty and damp. No December 19, 1998: Days without sleep. My room is draf ’t interest in food. Gravitational pull of Lego blocks too weak. They won stick together when I put them side by side. To cheer myself up, I waste an egg of Silly Putty trying to copy the funny pages. But all the letters are back- wards. How I long for the days exploring theory of relativity. t Lego in E-Z January 23, 1999: Weeks of work wasted! Lab assistant lef Bake Oven overnight. If the lightbulb hadn’t burned out, there would have been a conflagration! In any case, blocks melted. Meanwhile word comes that at Penn State, Schugens and his team have completed a game of Candy- land. Kiss my Nobel goodbye.

March 7, 1999: Burnout. Have spent the winter reading “Goodnight Moon.” After six weeks, I’m halfway done. Eliot’s criticism misguided. Cow jumping over moon, not bowlful of mush, serves as symbol of human con- dition.

August 11, 1999: Eureka! Blocks do not stack side by side. They go back to back. The indented holes on the bottom create a suction effect, bonding them together. I hope this works. e must November 9, 1999: Defeat. I am utterly unable to assemble Lego. W e must scour the country searching for the most brilliant Legologists. W conduct tests on our top high-school seniors. Admit only the most promis- ing Lego stackers. Humankind cannot go on with so much Lego unstacked. We must pay any price, bear any burden! By the time this decade is out, we will have placed a Lego block on top of another—or at least one of those big Duplo ones, which are easier for child-sized fingers.

DECEMBER 20, 1999