State of the Revolution
Andrew Ferguson's criticism of the supposed conservative revolution that petered out before it ever began a decade ago is harsh but quite accurate ("Symposium: Older & Wiser?" Sept. 19).
Ferguson is nothing if not subtle, and I had this funny feeling as I read the piece that he realizes the pachydermous "Rambo" (i.e., Newt Gingrich) portrayed on The Weekly Standard's cover 10 years ago celebrating the Republican takeover of Congress is now just a sad reminder of what might have been.
When the only powerful speeches at the 2004 GOP convention were delivered by a moderate-to-left Austrian bodybuilder and a Democrat, it seems that conservatives are just going through the motions when they talk about the "significance" of the Republican victory last year.
But I do have one question for Ferguson: What does he think he accomplished in his piece with his statement of the obvious regarding the narcissism that permeates the blogosphere, other than sounding like those in the "traditional" liberal media who are resentful that someone else is hogging their time in front of the mirror?
Tom Masciantonio
Philadelphia, PA
I have found some good blogs, but the state of conservative TV and radio is depressing. I am convinced, for instance, that Sean Hannity, who I take to be well-meaning, is unable to produce a cogent argument in his favor about anything.
It reminds me of Monty Python's Argument Clinic, in which the client says argument is a logical series of statements intended to establish a proposition rather than the automatic gainsaying of what the other person says. Hannity declares liberals wrong and shakes his head that they cannot see the weaknesses of their stances. If only he had an argument to support his own position . . .
Scott Schuler
Odenton, MD
Newer Orleans
Born and raised in uptown New Orleans, I hurried to read Matt Labash's "Notes from Under Water" (Sept. 19), and I was heartened to find this: "[I]t has occurred to many New Orleanians I talk to that if in fact the city is rebuilt, maybe this time it'll be done right."
I hope his words reach my own friends and relatives, now scattered throughout the South, who are yearning for and planning their own return.
I cannot be sure, though. During the decades since I left, I've watched my charming hometown decay. Crime, corruption, dismal schools, poverty, and potholes and trash in the streets seemed to draw little attention in what everyone liked to call "the Big Easy, the City that Care Forgot."
If New Orleans did not take care of itself when it was not under water, how could it have been expected to save itself from this disaster? Can a new New Orleans turn from self-indulgence to self-responsibility? How I hope Matt Labash is right.
Manon McKinnon
Falls Church, VA
Whatever, Dude
In Mark D. Tooley's "Three Cheers for the Syrians" (Aug. 29), National Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Bob Edgar is quoted as saying: "I support more than marriage the love between two people, and I don't differentiate whether it is between a man and a woman or a woman and a woman or a man and a man or whatever."
Whatever what, Rev. Edgar? A goat? A brother and a sister (or better yet, two sisters or two brothers)? NAMBLA? To those of us who are disgusted with the direction many Protestant churches are taking regarding moral virtue (and it goes way beyond homosexuality), the attitude of these churches seems to be just that--"whatever." It is why pews are emptying in those churches, and filling in others.
David Cruthers
Groton Long Point, CT
Pass the Malaise?
In "When Pointing Fingers . . . " (Sept. 19), John J. DiIulio Jr. writes that a key lesson from the Hurricane Katrina experience is that running (and controlling) the federal government successfully has become just too big a job for this or any president. I haven't heard such defeatism about the powerlessness of the office of president since . . . well, the Carter years.
Kevin Bruns
Potomac, MD
Sorting Out the Shoots
Terry Eastland's tribute to the late Chief Justice Rehnquist ("Farewell to the Chief," Sept. 19) begins with this observation: "In The Federalist, James Madison observed that judges are 'shoots from the executive stock.' With this phrase, Madison was making a point about where, in a government of separated powers, judges come from; and of course, the answer is the executive, since the Constitution plainly sets forth that it is the president who has the authority to select judges." From this, Eastland concludes that because "judges are shoots from the executive stock only, . . . a president can try, through his 'shoots,' to alter the jurisprudential direction of the courts--the Supreme Court included."
The problem with this attempted truism, though, is that Madison's metaphor of "shoots from the executive stock" can plausibly, and more interestingly, be read as referring not to the presidential appointment of judges, but to the conceptual relationship between the executive and judicial powers.
After all, many early discussions of separation of powers, including Locke's, assumed that the judiciary was just part of the executive branch, in that judges, like the executive as a whole, were charged with enforcing in particular cases the laws enacted by the legislative branch. Part of the genius of American constitutionalism, already apparent in The Federalist, was to meld a bit of Locke with a bit of Montesquieu and a lot of common law tradition, and to come to recognize that the judiciary, though a "shoot" from the "executive stock," nevertheless possessed a vital and distinct role, and required institutional independence to fulfill that role.
The best role the president can play is not to try, by his own exercise of sheer will, to "alter the jurisprudential direction of the courts," but rather, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to nurture a judiciary that is, as any good shoot should be, hardy and robust--and capable, in its own growth, of surprising us all.
Perry Dane
Camden, NJ
Spot On
The Bush administration should listen to Christopher Hitchens, who in "A War to Be Proud Of" (Sept. 5 / Sept. 12) shines light on the failure of the administration to communicate continually the gravity of the Iraq war and to conquer the ensuing political battle. Hitchens also provides readers with a clear and concise list of positive consequences of the Iraq war.
As Hitchens rightly suggests, if the citizens of the world truly understood what was and continues to be at stake, the political front of the war against terror would face a remarkably different horizon.
Zachary A. Davis
Lexington, KY
How 'Bout Demo-Bombs?
Richard B. Frank's "Why Truman Dropped the Bomb" (Aug. 8) certainly lends support for Truman's decision to drop the bomb. Taken at face value, a reader would reasonably conclude that the intercepted documents left the United States with little choice. One should keep in mind, however, that the fact that the Japanese were seeking an end to hostilities is a tacit admission that they were going to lose. Additionally, there are good reasons to believe that a demonstration could have accomplished the same result as the two bombs.
The official reason for not offering a demonstration was that we had only two bombs, and we could not risk a dud. Accepting the first part of that claim, Ithink the second is open to challenge. Isee no problem had we invited top Japanese diplomats and nuclear physicists to view the film of the Trinity experiment and to allow them to visit the site with Geiger counters. Should they still not be convinced, then a demo would follow.
As a former member of the Manhattan Project, Iknow that we could easily afford some duds, and we would only need one success. If the Japanese remained unconvinced after a successful demo, then we could proceed as we did. The onus of dropping the bombs on innocent civilians would then be on their shoulders, not ours.
Byron Arison
Watchung, NJ
Richard B. Frank responds: The information we now possess on the reaction of Japanese leaders to Hiroshima convinces me that even Mr. Arison's thoughtfully refined demonstration plan would not have worked. When the United States announced that an atomic bomb had destroyed Hiroshima, Japanese militarists instantly erected not one but two lines of defense. The first was that, whatever destroyed Hiroshima, it was not an atomic bomb, or at least that fact would not be conceded until there was an investigation.
Consequently, the Japanese dispatched an investigation team including the great Japanese physicist Dr. Nishina Yoshio. But Admiral Toyoda Soemu, the operational head of the Imperial Navy, also immediately articulated a second line of defense. Toyoda pronounced that even if the United States had destroyed Hiroshima with an atomic weapon, the United States could not have that many of them, or they would not be that powerful, or the United States would be dissuaded from using them by international pressure.
Ironically, Japan's own nuclear program explains this reaction. That program did not give them a weapon, but it did provide insight to the top levels of Japan's leadership on just how incredibly difficult it was to produce fissionable material in quantity. From what we know now, the Japanese reaction to a demonstration almost certainly would have been to demand a series of detonations to disprove Toyoda's argument.
This would have called the U.S. bluff since there were not that many bombs (nine between August 6 and November 1) and substantial intervals between when each would become available. Meanwhile, the Japanese could effectuate countermeasures, like moving Allied POWs and civilian internees into cities.