Can He Be Stopped? Peter J
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OCTOBER 9, 2017 • $5.99 CAN HE BE STOPPED? PETER J. BOYER on the state of America’s missile defense program ERIC EDELMAN & ROBERT JOSEPH on the sorry history of our North Korea policy THE EDITORS in praise of Trump’s sanctions WEEKLYSTANDARD.COM Contents October 9, 2017 • Volume 23, Number 5 2 The Scrapbook The Plame game, homeless in California, & more 5 Casual David Skinner, poseur 6 Editorials A Blockade by Any Other Name THE EDITORS Tax Reform, at Last THE EDITORS An Education in Civility BY JUSTICE NEIL M. GORSUCH Articles 5 10 Make America Gipper Again BY FRED BARNES Trump’s turn at tax reform 12 Moore Unmoored BY JOHN MCCORMACK Alabama Republicans out-Trump the president 15 Overruled BY KC JOHNSON & STUART TAYLOR JR. Campus kangaroo courts get a schooling in fairness 18 Getting Riled Up Over the Knee Jerk BY JAY COST Trump’s Kaepernick caper 12 19 The Kurds Get Under Way BY DAVID DEVOSS The allure and risks of independence Features 21 Now More Than Ever BY PETER J. BOYER The state of America’s missile-defense program 27 Cheney Was Right BY ERIC EDELMAN & ROBERT JOSEPH The sorry history of our North Korea policy 30 The Germans Turn Right BY CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL Merkel’s immigration hangover 30 Books & Arts 34 The ‘White Rat’ BY MAX HOLLAND The true motivation of Mark Felt, Watergate’s ‘Deep Throat’ 40 Soulcraft as Statecraft BY ADAM J. WHITE The many virtues of Scalia’s speeches 42 Good Writer’s Disease? BY BARTON SWAIM Scalia the communicator 44 Water and Light BY DOMINIC GREEN The scenes and portraits of John Singer Sargent 46 Chauvinist Racket BY JOHN PODHORETZ The not-so-historic clash of Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs 44 48 Parody Trump loves Puerto Rico COVER: AFP PHOTO / KCNA VIA KNS / GETTY THE SCRAPBOOK Poverty and the Pyrite State HE SCRAPBOOK visited Los An- this ranking, and the state’s high T geles for the first time around number of undocumented workers 20 years ago, and it was a delightful suggests that illegal immigration is experience in most every way. One likely a contributing factor. Still, it oddity stood out, though: the sheer strikes us as remarkable that the na- number of homeless people. We tion’s most progressive, left-leaning don’t mention this to denigrate the state also has more people in pov- needy, but the experience of being ap- erty, per capita, than any other state. proached on nearly every corner by California’s taxes are among the na- people asking for money—some of tion’s highest—the state consistently them, truth be told, not appearing all be in San Bernardino than Buffalo. ranks among the least friendly to that hard-up—is not easily forgotten. But the weather surely can’t ac- business—and it spends over a third We observed the same phenome- count for the fact that, as we learned of its total budget on welfare-related non on subsequent visits to San Fran- from a recent report by the Census programs, ranking fifth in the coun- cisco and San Diego and concluded Bureau, California has the high- try as of 2013 (the Census Bureau’s that the state’s perfect-year-round est poverty rate in the nation: A full latest data). climate is probably not unrelated to 20 percent of Californians live below If we didn’t know any better, we’d the phenomenon. Speaking only for the federal poverty line. start to think that maybe, just maybe, ourselves, if we were suddenly with- Readers may wish to quarrel the progressive welfare state doesn’t out shelter some January, we’d rather with the definition of “poverty” in actually work. ♦ The Plame Game band, Ambassador Joseph da all along. Just last month Plame Wilson, wrote a New York launched a fundraising effort to buy n September 22, ex- Times op-ed disputing the a controlling share of Twitter stock, O CIA agent Valerie intelligence the Bush ad- so she could kick President Trump Plame tweeted out a link to ministration relied on in off the platform. In the meantime, we an Internet article written deciding what to do about suggest that Plame lead by example by another notorious ex- Saddam Hussein. Plame and get off Twitter herself. ♦ CIA agent, Philip Giraldi. and Wilson were instant- The article was headlined ly embraced as the heroic Brighton, Rocked “America’s Jews Are Driv- opposition to the Iraq ing America’s Wars.” The war. They were featured ith all the drama of medieval article appeared on the Unz in countless glossy-maga- W jousting, or a good old fash- Review website, a dump- zine spreads. Two movies ioned tractor pull, liberal champions ing ground for anti-Semitic were made about their collided last week in separate con- nonsense. Among the ar- brave ordeal. They’ve tests: Buddhism vs. the environment ticle’s odious assertions: Jews dis- been dining out on the controversy and animal rights vs. art. cussing foreign policy on television ever since. These are conflicts, for socially should be identified as such, “kind- And yet, for all that, the real take- conscious justice warriors, as fraught of-like a warning label on a bottle of away from the imbroglio was one as Batman vs. Superman is for Com- rat poison.” relevant to the present moment: It ic-Con nerds: Who are you supposed It wasn’t the first time Plame has demonstrated, in the conviction of to root for? retweeted an anti-Semitic rant from Scooter Libby (who was innocent Two British Buddhists, in an effort the Unz Review, but this time people of outing Plame), how special coun- to keep lobsters out of the boiling pot, noticed. Plame publicly apologized sels run amok. got themselves into hot water. As part and resigned from the board of the Now might finally be the time to of ceremony meant to produce “good Ploughshares Fund (an organization admit that, whatever one thinks of karma,” they released hundreds of notable for its efforts to help sell the the Iraq war, embracing Plame and lobsters and crabs into the ocean at Obama administration’s Iran deal). Wilson as courageous truth-tellers the seaside town of Brighton. But, It’s been 14 years since Plame was was a mistake from the get-go. Theirs alas, they were American crustaceans, outed as a CIA agent after her hus- has been a highly politicized agen- nonnative species said to pose a threat TOP AND BOTTOM:FIGURES AT BIGSTOCK; PLAME, LARRY D. MOORE 2 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD OCTOBER 9, 2017 to the local ecosystem. (In Brexit Brit- ain, it seems, even the eco-warriors are anti-immigrant.) According to the Guardian, a court fined the Buddhists some £15,000 to recoup costs borne by the government in its efforts to recap- ture the shellfish: To incentivize local fishermen, the crown put a bounty on their exoskeletal heads. Of the 361 lobsters released, 40 some are still at large and may—horrors!—be breed- ing. Ever willing to do its part, THE SCRAPBOOK stands at the ready with drawn butter. On this side of the pond, the con- flict involved modern art. The Gug- genheim Museum has decided to remove three works from an upcoming exhibit, works that activists claimed promote animal cruelty. The works are certainly weird and perhaps unset- tling—including a short video of dogs running at each other on treadmills, ready to fight, but unable to reach each other, and a large cage full of amphib- ians, reptiles, and insects that eat each other over time (as critters are wont to do). The outrage has been spectacular. Hundreds of thousands committed to insect-welfare have signed petitions; animal-rights activists swamped the museum with stern letters of disap- proval; some in the bunny-and-duck crowd have threatened to give curators a right thrashing. said in a statement, expressing re- learned, are to receive $25,000 from gret “that explicit and repeated the foreign power, plus a retainer of threats of violence have made our $25,000 a month. In exchange for that decision necessary.” cash, the operatives schemed with the It isn’t just Nature that’s red in U.S. media to shape favorable cover- tooth and claw. ♦ age. Targets include journalists at pub- lications such as the Financial Times, Foreign Intrigue the Economist, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and t long last, THE SCRAPBOOK has Business Insider, as well as “top-tier A developed proof of foreign television and radio” such as CNN, meddling in our democracy. Justice Fox, and NPR; Sunday morning talk Department documents lay the plot shows; and “news programs such as The flabbergasted (and clearly bare: a secret deal between a foreign Charlie Rose.” feeble) Guggenheim backed down. power and two former administration Justice Department documents also “Although these works have been ex- officials at the highest echelons of the reveal the plot to plant favorable cov- hibited in museums in Asia, Europe, U.S. government. erage with newspaper editorial pages and the United States,” the museum The officials,T HE SCRAPBOOK has and blogs, which “have tremendous AND FRAME, BIGSTOCK LOBSTER OCTOBER 9, 2017 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 3 sway with policymakers.” The of- ficials confessed that they “use these pages regularly to influence legisla- tion, regulation and public opinion.” THE SCRAPBOOK reels at the enor- www.weeklystandard.com mity of it all. Stephen F. Hayes, Editor in Chief The two sometime government Richard Starr, Editor Fred Barnes, Robert Messenger, Executive Editors officials renting their names and their Eric Felten, Managing Editor connections are Anita Dunn, a former Christopher Caldwell, Andrew Ferguson, Lee Smith, Philip Terzian, Senior Editors communications director for President Peter J.