102 articles
ONE REASON the coming war disturbs many Americans is that it seems optional. While the fight in Afghanistan was thrust upon us, this conflict is one our country enters by choice. It is a war we wouldn't be undertaking but for the conviction of our leaders--crucially, our president.
WE ARE NOW just weeks away from going to war to disarm and depose Saddam Hussein's regime, and beginning the difficult but necessary task of bringing the fresh breezes of self-government into the authoritarian hothouses of the Arab world. The arguments of the antiwar protestors--to the extent they…
ON TUESDAY, after winning approval from the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, agribusiness giant Monsanto gained consent from the EPA to sell genetically-altered corn designed to resist rootworm, one of the biggest pests to America's largest crop, corn.
ONE OF THE SLOGANS of the antiwar movement is "win without war." It means that somehow, some way, Saddam Hussein will be removed from power in Iraq or, through some miracle of geopolitics, he will decide to disarm his country of weapons of mass destruction--all without a shot being fired. It's a…
THE STARDUMB word of the week is "agreeance." We shout out a thanks to Fred Dunce of Limp Bizkit for the contribution, which he ad-libbed on stage at the Grammys, in defiance of the English language and rumors of a gag order handed down from CBS. Without him, we wouldn't have a Stardumb word of the…
FROM THE MOMENT listeners realized that terrorism had come to America, callers to my radio program have wanted to discuss various terrorism scenarios. Invariably the conversation begins, "If I was a terrorist, here's how I'd paralyze the country . . ."
GASOLINE PRICES are up by over 50 cents per gallon, have passed $2 in some places, and show no signs of moderating. Venezuela, one of our major suppliers, is in an uproar, with unions curtailing oil production. Never mind: We have a reliable supplier to fill the supply gap--Iraq. Our imports from…
The Justice Department likes to boast that it employs graduates of nearly every law school accredited by the American Bar Association. At last tally, Justice had on staff lawyers from top schools such as the University of Chicago and Yale as well as from nth-tier schools like the University of…
WHATEVER YOU MAY THINK of the filibuster, Senate rules provide for it. Rule XXII permits senators to block a vote on a given measure, unless no fewer than 60 senators invoke cloture. The filibuster thus requires a supermajority to get something done. That isn't what the Constitution envisions, nor…
IN THE COURSE of our adult lives, we all learn lessons about humanity that disappoint us, but, for me, this one has been stunning.
WHEN I WAS GROWING UP, every adult in my family smoked: both parents, all four grandparents, and every single uncle and aunt. It was Camels (and Dutch Masters "President" cigars) for the men, Viceroys for the women. There was an ashtray on every surface flat enough to accommodate one--coffee table,…
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
AMERICANS have been getting a crash course in French foreign policy lately. For further insight, it may be instructive to cast a glance at Ivory Coast, a charming and until recently peaceful country on Africa's west coast. Dissatisfied with the policies of the democratically elected president,…
WHILE INVESTORS are waiting for the Next Big Thing to emerge from the world of technology, the best business plans are emerging in an entirely different sector--lawsuits.
A New Deal for New York by Mike Wallace Bell & Weiland, 128 pp., $18.95 In 1918, the philosopher John Dewey wrote about the "social possibilities of war." World War I presented Progressives like Dewey the opportunity to voice support for their vision of government's role over the economy. Higher…
EACH YEAR, hundreds of thousands of women and children are trafficked into prostitution around the world, and join the millions of women and children already entrapped in prostitution by pimps and organized crime groups. Thankfully, this humanitarian catastrophe is finally attracting high-level…
After presentations by Hans Blix and Mohamed el-Baradei to the U.N. Security Council last Friday--in a session marked by enthusiastic applause for the dithering of the French foreign minister and chilliness towards the Americans--Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke forcefully of the need to take…
Scotty James B. Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism by John F. Stacks Little, Brown, 372 pp., $29.95 JOURNALISM is a character defect. I think most non-journalists would agree with this. It is life lived at a safe remove: standing off to one side of the parade as it passes, noting…
PRESIDENT BUSH invited his favorite class to the White House in early February for lunch in the Old Family Dining Room. It consisted of senators elected in last fall's election--the Bush class. Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove were on hand. After the president talked…
SENATE DEMOCRATS say they don't know enough about Miguel Estrada's legal views. That's the reason they give for filibustering his nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. As Sen. Charles Schumer told the nominee at the end of his confirmation hearing last fall, before the…
Books in Brief
"CATASTROPHIC" was the word picked last week by Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, to describe the exodus he expects from Iraq if the United States goes ahead and removes Saddam Hussein.
The Vanishing Voter Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty by Thomas E. Patterson Knopf, 196 pp., $25 Downsizing Democracy How America Sidelined Its Citizens and Privatized Its Public by Matthew A. Crenson and Benjamin Ginsberg Johns Hopkins University Press, 244 pp., $29.95 IS AMERICAN…
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AFTER JOE LIEBERMAN completed his unsuccessful campaign for the vice-presidency, I pretty much concluded that anti-Semitism was no longer a major feature of American life. I went around making the case that the Anti-Defamation League should close up shop, since the evil they were organized to…
THE URGE TO EMBRACE "Gods and Generals" is so strong as to be almost overwhelming. It is a beautiful, serious movie about the Civil War that holds tight to the trail of truth. It is well acted and scrupulously made. Anyone who has recently suffered through Hollywoodized history--Pearl Harbor, "The…
Editor's Note: Earlier today Sami Al-Arian was arrested for supporting the terrorist group Islamic Jihad (you can read the news account here).
CALL IT wishful thinking (or the fact that I attended the school), but I was sort of hoping that the Georgetown Hoyas would do to Pittsburgh, Notre Dame, and Syracuse what they did to a foreign team in an exhibition game last November. Back then, the mighty Hoyas crushed Latvia Select like the Red…
AS 150,000 U.S. TROOPS prepare for a war with Iraq, the soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen of America's legions aren't the only ones packing bullet-proof vests and kevlar helmets into their backpacks. In newsrooms and editorial offices around the country an army of journalists is also gearing…
OSAMA BIN LADEN, or some good likeness of him, spoke from the ether again on two occasions last week, releasing two undated audiotapes as Muslims completed their pilgrimages to Mecca. His call to Jihad did not stop at tying himself to Iraq's people, by which he had clearly hoped to provoke…
EVERY SO OFTEN, news is made that tells a story larger than first appears. That happened earlier this month when the Education Department issued a four-page document titled "Guidance on Constitutionally Protected Prayer in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools."
AS IF PRESIDENT BUSH didn't have enough on his hands with his so-called French and German allies, he finds himself in a second war at home with his one-time domestic-policy ally, Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan.
WFMT is the name of a religious cult in Chicago that disguises itself as a radio station. The religion is that of musical culture, classical music and opera chiefly. I happen to belong to this cult. Its announcers are careful never to mispronounce foreign names or words; the station eschews all…
THE PROFESSIONAL OPINION givers say manliness is back. And they may be right. The new economy has been replaced by the wartime economy. High tech's revenge of the nerd fizzled out, while September 11 left us fêting firemen, cops, and soldiers. Manliness has even taken the White House. The '90s…
CRANK UP CONSCRIPTION? Of course. On second thought, of course not.
Kish Island, Iran
POLITICAL NATURES do not always descend in straight lines, or according to party. As a politician and president, George W. Bush is being compared less to his father than to Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy. Since September 11, Bush has been governing along the lines of the Kennedy inaugural…
Cincinnati
The remembrances of the Columbia astronauts were deeply moving, dignified in their restraint. The president's eulogy at the Johnson Space Center recalled each of them individually, gave the simple reassurance that "America's space program will go on," and modestly offered the "respect and gratitude…
NOT SINCE RECONSTRUCTION had a Republican won a governor's race in Georgia--until last November, when Sonny Perdue pulled off a stunning come-from-behind victory over incumbent Democrat Roy Barnes. But after 120 years of Republican exile from the governor's mansion, it took Gov. Perdue only about…
Sultans of Spin, cont.
PRESIDENT BUSH has a keen sense of timing. When support slackens for the war on terrorism and regime change in Iraq, Bush strikes. After the liberation of Afghanistan, he used his 2002 State of the Union address to broaden the goals of the war and target Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as "the axis of…
I THOUGHT PERHAPS I was invited to the White House because Laura Bush likes my poetry. Maybe not--in fact, probably not, since there are much better poets around. Still, for one reason or another, a nicely printed invitation came, asking me to join Mrs. Bush on February 12 for a reception and…
Books in Brief
SCORE A BIG ONE for the Luddites, and maybe for al Qaeda. On January 23, the Senate voted unanimously to ban the use of revolutionary anti-terror software before it is even developed. (Research on the software can continue provisionally for 60 days.) A hysterical media and advocacy-group campaign…
THERE WAS A TIME--the 1960s, 1970s--when the political left in America favored wars of national liberation in countries ruled by dictators, some of them fascist dictators. True, the left would have installed communist dictatorships in their place. But at least leftists targeted enemies who were…
THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer's name, city, and state.
CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR Gray Davis is now the target of at least two voter recall drives that could bring an abrupt end to his second term, which Davis barely eked out last November. Admittedly, the idea that he might be recalled sounds ludicrous when you first hear it. Voter recalls have proven…
THE DEBATE at the United Nations today should have made clear several things even to those skeptical of a war in Iraq: Hans Blix and Mohammed el Baradei are not serious inspectors; the French and the Germans are not serious allies; and the United Nations is no longer a viable, relevant…
JUST AS THERE ARE Elvis men and Beatles men, there are DC men and Marvel men. Perhaps "men" is too strong a word, but nonetheless, among comic aficionados, there are two distinct camps. It has been a rough decade for DC lovers. The company has fallen on hard times and its properties have met with a…
MARTIN SCORSESE wins the Stardumb play-of-the-week award for this beaut: "It seems to me that any sensible person must see that violence does not change the world and, if it does, then only temporarily. . . There must be people who remember World War II and the Holocaust who can help us get out of…
DO THE FRENCH have the slightest idea about how obnoxious they seem to many Americans? I suspect not, but then the French aren't all that self-aware in the first place. And the American press, hung up on anti-Americanism around the globe, has done little to inform anyone of the rippling tide of…
IT'S HARD to get worked up over a Maureen Dowd column anymore. In fact, I usually skip not only her rants, but also the columns about Maureen Dowd columns. However her latest, about the new Osama bin Laden audiotape and the much-discussed al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein connection, deserves comment.
AT THIS LATE DATE, are there things left to say of the Poets' Revolt, the literati's defense of Saddam and bin Laden? (See J. Bottum's The Poets vs. The First Lady.) Well, yes--that poets weren't always this puerile and dotty, and sometimes could tell right from wrong. Exhibit A in this instance is…
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM puts California's 55 electoral votes out of the reach of President Bush in 2004. Bush-Cheney didn't just get beat in the Golden State in 2000, they got hammered. Al Gore pulled 5,861,203 votes to George Bush's 4,567,429--a 53 percent to 42 percent drubbing.
KIDS ARE DOING EVERYTHING earlier these days. That's not a fresh thought, to say the least. You have to figure that every generation of parents in history has said the same thing. Go back a thousand years to the Norman conquest, or two thousand years to the life of Jesus, or three thousand years to…
TOD LINDBERG knew he had something big. Lindberg is editor of Policy Review, a publication of the Hoover Institution. More than a year ago, he had commissioned several articles on the subject of American power. The one Robert Kagan wrote caught his eye. "It was quite apparent on first reading that…
I CAN'T RECALL WITNESSING such all-pervasive gloom as pervades Washington and New York. Washingtonians are focused on the coming war, and the disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia jolted them into a realization that risks taken can result in deaths realized. New York businessmen, surrounded…
Jerusalem
WHY THE HEAD FAKE by the White House? Why the chatter from aides suggesting Iraq would not be the focus of President Bush's State of the Union address? Why the insistence that reporters would be asking about matters other than Iraq the day after the president's speech? My guess is there's worry…
MUCH OF THE WORLD focused last week on Saddam Hussein's continuing failure to comply with U.N. demands for disarmament, and on President Bush's State of the Union address Tuesday. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle had a different agenda. He spent the week undermining the president by questioning…
With War Protests Like These . . .
A Moral Reckoning The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen Knopf, 362 pp., $25 IN ITS JANUARY 21, 2002, ISSUE, the New Republic devoted twenty-four pages to Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's "What Would Jesus Have Done?"--one of the most…
WHEN YOUR EYES TEAR UP at the singing of "God Bless America" during the broadcast of the Super Bowl on your favorite British television station, it's time to go home. That's what my wife, Cita, and I decided. London is a wonderful place, but it has suddenly become more foreign, more hostile, at…
Beware what you wish for. Conservatives have long hoped for the abolition of affirmative action on the grounds that racial preferences of any kind are not only destructive of the American ideal of equality but devalue minority achievement and poison ethnic relations. And the day now seems at hand,…
THE CAPITOL HILL PREGNANCY CENTER in Washington, D.C., where I've been working as a volunteer for over a year, is a pro-life Christian ministry to pregnant women and poor families. Like most pro-life pregnancy centers, it offers free pregnancy tests, confidential counseling, referrals to outside…
REGARDLESS OF HOW the Supreme Court rules this summer on affirmative action at the University of Michigan, its decision is bound to bring change to our racial spoils system. Because affirmative action is an intrinsically unstable practice, the awaited ruling, far from settling the issue, will only…
AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION IN 1976, as Ronald Reagan's challenge to Gerald Ford for the GOP presidential nomination was on the verge of falling short, the Reagan forces assembled for one last battle. They rallied behind a challenge to Ford's secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, and his…
Leadership by Rudolph W. Giuliani Miramax Books, 407 pp., $25.95 SIR RUDY GIULIANI has become such a commanding figure that the reviewers of his book "Leadership" have spent far more space on his persona than his policies. The reviews almost invariably buy into the line about 9/11 bringing forth "a…
FOLLOWING HANS BLIX'S devastating report and President Bush's compelling State of the Union address, Saddam Hussein looks more and more like a dead man walking. In all likelihood, Baghdad will be liberated by April. This may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history--events like the…
Contributing to the Debate
The Threatening Storm The Case for Invading Iraq by Kenneth M. Pollack Random House, 494 pp., $25.95 The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon Random House, 490 pp., $29.95 THE RECENT REVELATIONS of North Korea's duplicity have given second life to many former Clinton officials.…
THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer's name, city, and state.
POLITICAL HABITS sometimes repeat themselves. Twenty years ago, Democrats confronted a conservative Republican president in Congress--and in preliminary sparring before the 1984 presidential campaign--by moving to the left on war, taxes, social issues, and race. Today, facing another conservative…
SURELY THERE IS much sociology to be done on the buddy-cop movie. So far as my informal, non-academic training can pinpoint it, the buddy-cop genre crawled out of the primordial celluloid soup in the early 1980s with the seminal Eddie Murphy / Nick Nolte film "48 Hrs."
I MADE THE MISTAKE of watching French news the night of Colin Powell's presentation before the Security Council. The report on Powell's speech on A2, which is the second most important French channel, wasn't too bad. There was a sneering summary of Powell's argument that there is al Qaeda activity…
THAT SENATE DEMOCRATS are mulling whether to filibuster the nomination of Miguel Estrada is a telling measure of their reduced power to block Bush judges. Thanks to the midterm elections, Republicans now hold a two-seat majority in the Senate. And in the Judiciary Committee the 10-to-9 advantage…
THEY WAGE THEIR BATTLES wearing camouflage uniforms or the native shawal kameez and pakul hat, M-4 assault rifles slung over their shoulders, 9mm pistols strapped to their thighs. Some are qualified to jump out of aircraft and infiltrate villages deep in enemy territory. Others are trained to call…
ASK FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER Dominique "Sandbag" de Villepin what his country had in mind when it supported the "serious consequences" threatened in U.N. Resolution 1441 for continued Iraqi noncompliance, and he'd likely utter two words: more inspections.
SECRETARY OF STATE Colin Powell hardly had to make the case that Iraq is aggressively thwarting United Nations arms inspectors. The evidence is so overwhelming that even the French concede this point. More important was the compelling case Powell made about the weapons of mass destruction which…
COLIN POWELL travels to the United Nations today to "make the case" for war in Iraq. He will detail Saddam Hussein's possession, ongoing development, and continued concealment of weapons of mass destruction. It's a solid case, and most Americans buy it. As Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) told me last…
AS MARK THOMPSON of Time magazine writes, "Every war has its wonder weapon." And in an upcoming war against Iraq, we are told to "get ready to meet the high-power microwave." The way Thompson describes it, the "HPM" sounds almost too good to be true: They "fry the sophisticated computers and…
"FOR IF THE TRUMPET give an uncertain sound, who will prepare himself for the battle?" In the face of perceived economic uncertainty, certainly not the Federal Reserve Board's monetary policy committee, which decided last week that standing pat while the economy passes through a "soft spot" is the…
RETURN TO THE END of the Gulf War, when we did not go to Baghdad. The wave was taking us there, but we stepped off. To go on would have offended our coalition partners, and contradicted our original plans. So we stopped short. Stepped off history's rolling breaker. Have regretted it ever since.
THE COLUMBIA IS LOST, but what remains are all the things that make us human: our grief, our sympathy for the families of the astronauts and the larger family of NASA--and our darker impulses as well. It never takes long for shallow souls to use such an event to promote their own agendas. Already…
THE QUESTION of what to do about Iraq--and moving down the track, what to do about North Korea--typically gets described as a choice between deterrence and preemption (or perhaps better, "prevention"). If Saddam Hussein can be contained and deterred from using weapons of mass destruction, as some…
EDMUND L. ANDREWS, the "Economic View" columnist for the New York Times, is annoyed. It seems that President Bush won't stick with the plan favored by Andrews and most experts for reducing the marriage penalty in the federal tax code. "The big winners," he complains, "are the Ozzie and Harriets."…
MANY PEOPLE HAVE NOTICED similarities between our dealings with Iraq today and with Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis. Castro and Saddam are volatile, dangerous tyrants we had hoped the locals would get rid of, with some help from their friends. But it didn't work out that way; the Bay of Pigs…
LET US BE THE FIRST TO SAY IT: We owe a debt of gratitude to France, and particularly to its foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin. He has clarified the present geopolitical situation and put an end to illusions. This week M. de Villepin cast aside months of diplomatic pretense and revealed…
WIM DUISENBERG, the president of the European Central Bank, is the most powerful man in Europe, at least among men without troops. His decisions affect the economic future of 300 million Europeans; 20 percent of the world's goods and services are produced in the currency zone over which he…
Brussels
Weisbergisms
A STIGMA. THAT'S THE GREAT achievement of the pro-life movement: Having an abortion once again carries a stigma. The legal right to an abortion is one that almost no one boasts of exercising. Abortion is a medical procedure that fewer and fewer doctors and hospitals want to perform and not many…
OVER THE YEARS, Perry Mason has become an American archetype: the wily lawyer who always gets his client off regardless of the niceties of legal procedure. Yet in the eighty-two books Erle Stanley Gardner wrote about his lawyer detective, published between 1933 and 1973, Mason remains largely an…
The Bitch in the House 26 Women Tell the Truth About Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage ed. by Cathi Hanauer William Morrow, 304 pp., $23.95 "YOU WHO COME of a younger and happier generation . . . may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House," wrote Virginia Woolf. "She was…
The Monk by Matthew Lewis Oxford University Press, 442 pp., $20 THE LONDON STAGE, in the time of the first Queen Elizabeth, fairly swarmed with Spaniards and Italians. There are Antonios and Antonias, Lorenzos, Isabellas, and Claudios beyond counting. Shakespeare gives us both a Borachio and a…
Books in Brief
BY THE END of last week, months' worth of Bush administration talk about Iraq had been reduced, really, to one talking point: Time is running out.
London
FIRST, IRAQ VIOLATED ITS PLEDGE not to try to acquire nuclear weapons. Then North Korea did the same. Who's next? Bank on a slew of others, including a fair number of America's friends.
IT'S MIDNIGHT. I've just gotten home after 12 hours away from a computer, and before going to bed I trudge to the desktop to check my e-mail. As I watch, the little number in parentheses next to the word "Inbox" in my Outlook Express program begins to roll upwards like the point counter on a…
THE DAILY STANDARD welcomes letters to the editor. Letters will be edited for length and clarity and must include the writer's name, city, and state.