Grantings

Escort Services, Nickel Poker, and Suicide Bombers

2004-10-11T05:10:00.000-04:00

This, really, is all one needs to know about John Kerry (from yesterday's NYT interview):

When I asked Kerry what it would take for Americans to feel safe again, he displayed a much less apocalyptic worldview. "We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance," Kerry said. "As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life."

(Hat tip: Gene Volokh.)

Harken Unto Them

2004-10-06T21:10:00.000-04:00

Posting has been, ah, light lately.

Not much spare time, but more importantly, not much to say that isn't being said far better elsewhere. Would you prattle on if the Disciples were among us spreading the Word? I find it hard.

So here are the Apostles of the gospel (small "g"--these are catechists of the war for our political souls) whose electronic epistles I eagerly endorse. I wouldn't presume to rank them, so in alphabetical order:

Andrew (Not him. Sorry, I don't have an Andrew.)

James

John and Paul (with the venerable Scott) are here.

Mark--two of them, actually: here and here.

Matthew (I don't have a Matthew either, but I like this satirical anti-Matthew.)
Peter
Phillip (Phillip-Phil-Bill--does that work? Anyway, that's all I've got) here.
Thomas

No Judas; though I'm strongly tempted.

Thaddaeus and Bartholomew are just implausible, so here are some untraditional names. (This is a canon of right reason, not tradition.)

Hugh
Pejman
Roger
Wretchard

There. I've posted something. Go read them.

I'll be back with a widow's mite this weekend.

The Long Road

2004-09-30T08:05:00.000-04:00

George Will reprises one of his favorite themes today--the deep and inherent difficulties of bringing democracy to Iraq:

Bush believes, as most Americans always have, in natural rights: He believes a particular kind of civic order -- democracy, representation, the rule of law, a large sphere of privacy and individual autonomy -- is right for the fulfillment of human nature. But Bush also seems to believe -- at least the slapdash non-planning for the Iraq project suggests this belief -- that a natural right implies a natural (meaning a spontaneous and omnipresent) capacity.

This is indeed a trenchant criticism.

President Bush's belief in natural rights is evident in his frequent references to the Declaration of Independence, which he correctly interprets to mean that the rights derived from nature and nature's God do not depend on race or color. But such rights--or rather the recognition and responsible exercise of them--do depend on reason... and reasonableness.

In claiming their natural rights the signers of the Declaration appealed to "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind"--a sentiment not abundantly evident in the Arab Muslim world. Likewise, the Declaration's political theology--its understanding of "nature's God," "the Supreme Ruler of the world," and "Divine Providence"--is conducive to democratic constitutionalism in a way that contemporary Islamic culture does not seem to be.

So building democracy in this part of the world is, to be sure, a daunting prospect. Yet it seems to be the president's belief that it is nevertheless possible, and indeed the only sure path to ultimate victory. Wretchard apparently agrees.

The least that can be said of this is that it is not self-evident--which does not mean it is not true.

UPDATE: Leave it to Mark Steyn to slice the Gordian knot with surgical prose:

The real divide [in conservatism] is between the neocons (for want of a better term) and the ‘assertive nationalists’ — that’s to say, those who think we ought to bomb rogue states, smash their regimes and rebuild them as democratic societies, and those who think we ought to bomb rogue states, smash their regimes, and then leave them to stew in their own juices, with a reminder that if the next thug is foolish enough to catch Washington’s eye, then (as Arnie says) ‘Ah’ll be back!’ This difference can seem like a big deal — those who think we need to win their hearts and minds vs those who think they’re mostly heartless and mindless, so who cares? But in truth it’s only a difference of degree.

To Hold the Scales of Destiny in Our Own Hands

2004-09-28T07:50:00.000-04:00

The International Herald Tribune , September 28, 2004 (hat tip: Powerline):

France said Monday that it would take part in a proposed international conference on Iraq only if the agenda included a possible U.S. troop withdrawal, thus complicating the planning for a meeting that has drawn mixed reactions. Paris also wants representatives of Iraq's insurgent groups to be invited to a conference in October or November, a call that would seem difficult for the Bush administration to accept.

Alexander Hamilton, December 13, 1798:

[D]uly considering the rapid vicissitudes, at all times, of political and military events; the extraordinary fluctuations which have been peculiarly characteristic of the still subsisting contest in Europe; and the more extraordinary position of most of the principal nations of that quarter of the globe; it can never be wise to vary our measures of security with the continually varying aspect of European affairs. A very obvious policy dictates to us a strenuous endeavor as far as may be practicable, to place our safety out of reach of the casualties which may befall the contending parties and the powers more immediately within their vortex.
The way to effect this is to pursue a steady system—to organize all our resources and put them in a state of preparation for prompt action. Regarding the overthrow of Europe at large as a matter not entirely chimerical—it will be our prudence to cultivate a spirit of self-dependence—and to endeavor by unremitting vigilance and exertion under the blessings of providence to hold the scales of destiny in our own hands. Standing, as it were, in the midst of falling empires, it should be our aim to assume a station and attitude which will preserve us from being overwhelmed in their ruins.

The Non Sense

2004-09-20T22:16:00.000-04:00

Nothing is more important to us than our credibility and keeping faith with the millions of people who count on us for fair, accurate, reliable, and independent reporting.
--CBS News President Andrew Heyward

"I see brain dead people."

Memorandum: Fair Warning

2004-09-17T20:36:00.000-04:00

To: The Democratic Party and its Surrogates in Journalism, Publishing, Academia, and Entertainment
From: Many Republicans and Conservatives
Re: Rathergate

If you do not act quickly to denounce--unequivocally and broadly--this outrage, you will do great damage not only to the nation, but to your party and your cause.

Rather than condemning and quickly distancing yourselves from this transparent fraud, you have actually incorporated it into your candidate's campaign! This is very unwise.

You are fond of giving us unsolicited advice. Let us return the favor:

Are you sure you want to start a war over documents with the party of constitutional textualists and Biblical exegetes?

Are you sure you want to challenge the party of free-market entrepreneurs to privatize election campaigns through individual initiatives and independent organizations?

Are you sure you want to throw down the gauntlet of dirty tricks to the party of clandestine operations and national security?

Beware.

The time is coming when we may--at long last--pick up that gauntlet. We know you will find this risible, even absurd, but most Republicans believe that it is you, not we, who practice the whatever-it-takes-to-win approach to politics. This latest scandal is for us simply additional proof of what we have long believed.

The fraud is blowing up in your faces, yet even now you rise to object only back-handedly or not at all. This foolish choice will simply lead many more of those quiet, ordinary, home-and-hearth, non-CSPAN-watching Americans to recognize the following (which we will be at great pains to point out to them):

You accuse us of scorning "the rules." Yet you are the party whose modern founder violated the tradition--set by no less than George Washington--to serve only two terms as president, and it is your current leader who now violates the equally ancient custom that ex-presidents do not publicly criticize the incumbent.

You call us the divisive, unethical, ruthless party of hate. But you are the party of voter fraud, "Borking," Nazi epithets, racial demagoguery, and class warfare. And for all your hue and cry, the only episodes of actual intimidation and violence in political campaigns seem to be those committed by your union thugs.

We know you have your own list of horribles to wave against us. We do not think these compare, either in kind or degree. We believe it is you, and not we, who have degraded our discourse, coarsened our public life, stretched the rule of law to the breaking point, and abused both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution.

We have endured all this and, to our minds at least, held back from responding in kind, even though it has meant for us over the years higher taxes, bigger and therefore less responsible government, more intrusive and feckless regulation, and less liberty.

For decades, (however mind-boggling you may find this) we believe that we have restrained ourselves--because of our attachment to decorum; our concern for the greater good of the country; and because we do not make a religion of politics.

Your candidate this year is weird, undisciplined and off-putting, and the electoral prospects look promising for us. So our self-imposed restraints will likely hold for now. But rest assured that if you continue heedlessly down the path you have blazed these many decades, those restraints will finally buckle.

We believe--as some of you seem inclined to forget--that we are in a war with a depraved and implacable enemy. We take this war seriously. If we thought you did too, and would therefore fight it relentlessly, we would probably regard this latest CBS scandal and your reaction to it somewhat more placidly. But it is clear that you do not take the war seriously, and therefore cannot be trusted to wage it. That is the context in which we view this new crime against the public trust.

What baffles us about your listlessness in the face of the jihadists is that--unlike the Cold War--the enemy today consists of medieval religious fundamentalists who, were calibrations of their hatred possible, despise the party of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll even more than the party of suburban church-goers. That you do not see this alarms us. The rapid return of your anti-American reflex since the days immediately after 9/11 alarms us. We find it deeply disturbing that you were quick to send tanks to Waco, but seem unwilling even to talk about sending tanks to Damascus or Tehran.

Today, it is no longer our property and our liberty we worry about losing. The lives of many of our families and fellow citizens have already been taken by the enemy, and unless we win the war decisively, many more are in great peril.

If the outcome of the war does not cause you particular concern, remember this: the silly ephemera in which you like to indulge (e.g. a "Department of Wellness"); the crass interest-group politics you like to practice; the spoils, handouts, and favoritism with which you succor your constituencies--all these depend on the survival of the republic.

And the survival of the republic--at the very least its peace, freedom, and prosperity--are now threatened. You apparently do not recognize this. We do. Which is why we are no longer prepared to indulge the illicit tactics which you now seem to think you can conduct even out in the open.

Democrats: Do not bring it on.

Miles to go before we sleep

2004-09-14T23:01:00.000-04:00

Glenn Reynolds is right that this latest development is jaw-dropping. It is important, however, that we get our jaws back under control and clench our teeth for the battles yet to come.

The egregious display of hubris, hauteur and hokum by CBS has led many of the conservative bloggers to predict that the mainstream media is about to come crashing down.

Not so fast.

The bloggers are understandably, but unduly, giddy. This is a great, but only partial, triumph. The strategy now must be to pursue the scattered ranks and prevent the opposition from regrouping.

The establishment media have known for some time that they were being challenged. Their whining has betrayed them. For more than ten years they have squealed about the illegitimate Limbaugh. Before they could reconcile themselves to talk radio, they were confronted with the flagitious Fox News. As for the bloggers, the MSM did not appreciate their power, but they certainly knew the Internet existed, and that conservatives used it to communicate outside traditional channels. (Even Dan Rather must have heard of Matt Drudge.) The question then arises: what sort of frauds were perpetrated before the MSM knew they were being watched? This is not a question to be elided in the flush of a few substantial, but insufficient, victories.

Much of the establishment media will remain standing after the conclusion of this ugly election campaign. They will say, by way of exculpation and escape, "this is not the time for recriminations." To the contrary, it will be exactly the time for recriminations--long overdue.

Dan Rather's withered head on a pike is a start. But only a start.

Truth and Consequences

2004-09-13T22:19:00.000-04:00

I wonder if the Democrats wouldn't be better off if they stopped nominating presidential candidates who are crazy.

The simplified liberal critique of conservatives is that they are wicked. (Although liberalism otherwise denies the idea of morality--a conundrum we here leave aside.)

The simplified conservative critique of liberals is that they are foolish or--what amounts to the same thing in extremis--so detached from reality as to be, well... what is the word for it?

John Kerry has not yet undergone the public mental breakdown of his predecessor. That is perhaps due to the fact that, as Hugh Hewitt points out, he refuses to meet with the press on camera--this in the midst of a presidential election.

This blog has commented on the war against reality that John Kerry and his campaign seem to be waging. The absurdity of his eight--is it only eight?--positions on the war in Iraq is only the most notable example. The notion that he will win the election by appealling to kite-surfing plumbers is another.

Now, Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard notes the following (quoting from a telephone interview Kerry initiated with the New York Times):

"When Mr. Kerry was pressed about how he would handle the threat of a North Korean nuclear test if he was in the Oval Office, he declined to be prescriptive, other than to say that the issue would probably have to be taken to the United Nations Security Council. 'Hypothetical questions are not real,' he said, arguing that North Korea was a case for preventive diplomacy, and that Mr. Bush's 'ideologically driven' approach had kept him from truly engaging North Korea. 'The Chinese are frustrated, the South Koreans, the Japanese are frustrated,' he said.'"

"He declined to be prescriptive." Fantastic! A presidential candidate calls a reporter to highlight a topic, and then has no policy to prescribe--except going to the U.N. Security Council, three of whose five permanent members are already involved in the negotiations the Bush administration is conducting.

It is not, perhaps, too much to say that Senator Kerry seems to think that strategic and foreign affairs are matters that exist only in the realm of rhetoric, or rather demagoguery. He seems genuinely detached from the idea that, should he be elected, he will have to confront the world as it actually exists.

What is the word for that?

James Madison Anticipates the Blogosphere

2004-09-12T11:41:00.000-04:00

From Federalist 10:

...it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practise with success the vicious arts, by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to center on men who possess the most attractive merit, and the most diffusive and established characters.

Madison was not, of course, anticipating blogs. But still a nice quotation, under these circumstances. (CBS's "memo" superimposed on the same text typed in Microsoft Word. Courtesy of LGF.)

Consider also this, from Thomas Jefferson's "Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments":

All attempts to delude the people, or to abuse their understanding by exercise of the pretended arts of witchcraft, conjuration, inchantment, or sorcery or by pretended prophecies, shall be punished by ducking and whipping at the discretion of a jury, not exceeding 15. stripes.

And from Dante's Inferno:

We had descended on the furthest bank
From the long crag, upon the left hand still,
And then more vivid was my power of sight
Down tow'rds the bottom, where the ministress
Of the high Lord, Justice infallible,
Punishes forgers, which she here records.
I do not think a sadder sight to see
Was in Aegina the whole people sick,
(When was the air so full of pestilence,
The animals, down to the little worm,
All fell, and afterwards the ancient people,
According as the poets have affirmed,
Were from the seed of ants restored again,)
Than was it to behold through that dark valley
The spirits languishing in divers heaps.
This on the belly, that upon the back
One of the other lay, and others crawling
Shifted themselves along the dismal road.
We step by step went onward without speech,
Gazing upon and listening to the sick
Who had not strength enough to lift their bodies.
I saw two sitting leaned against each other,
As leans in heating platter against platter,
From head to foot bespotted o'er with scabs;
And never saw I plied a currycomb
By stable-boy for whom his master waits,
Or him who keeps awake unwillingly,
As every one was plying fast the bite
Of nails upon himself, for the great rage
Of itching which no other succour had.

Another Self-Inflicted Wound

2004-09-06T08:17:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: The Kerry campaign site has removed the item discussed here.

The long list of quotations from the Republican Convention posted on Kerry's website is almost too bizarre for words. (Hat tip: Powerline.)

Not only does it contain no rebuttals to the quotations, but if you snip off the title ("The 2004 GOP Convention: Four Days Filled With Lies, Mischaracterizations, Distortions, And Half-Truths") the first four-fifths of it could easily pass for post-convention talking points distributed by the Bush campaign.

Even the helpful sub-heads ("America Safer Under Bush," "The Democrats are Politicizing the War," "Trial Laywers to Blame for Health Care Costs," etc.) are written to provide the Republican point of view. You have to read all the way down to item #125(!) to find anything with a pro-Kerry spin: "Pataki Distorted Kerry's Record".

I've actually copied and saved the list as a handy summary of all the arguments supporting Bush made at the convention. Thanks Senator; you saved me a lot of work!

You Read it Here First! (or would have, if anyone visited this blog)

2004-09-04T16:19:00.000-04:00

As predicted here on August 24th.

Ryan Sager reports:

I watched President Bush’s acceptance speech tonight at a sushi bar on the Lower East Side with a group of reporters from a prominent Washington, D.C.-based publication. The whole time: heckling. Every. Single. Line.

Now, we’ve all seen the polls (or read about them) where the press corps routinely leans Democratic by a factor of about ten-to-one. Still, it was a bit shocking....

The punch line here, however, is this: Everyone at the table expected Bush to win. No anger. No denial. Just acceptance.

Hat tip: Instapundit

The Stormy Present

2004-09-04T06:54:00.000-04:00

Death abroad and deceit at home further clarify, as if further clarity were needed, the stakes in this election.

Fortunately, the Republican convention succeeded in the one thing needful. It demonstrated that the Republicans see the war, and will seek victory in the war. Despite being the party of conservatism, they demonstrated that it is the Democrats who are mired in what Lincoln called "the dogmas of the quiet past."

For the first time in a long while, the Republicans appealed to the American people as Republicans--or rather they did so explicitly and without a faint air of embarassment. Rather than suggesting, "Yes, we're Republicans, but vote for us anyway," the speakers--most forcefully Arnold Schwarzenegger--said, "vote for us because we're Republicans." That the most thunderous jeremiad against the Democratic Party came from a Democrat only underscored this appeal to partisanship. Partisanship is necessary, and even good, because it clarifies; it makes the choice simple.

The Democrats forget this at their peril. For a case of complicated forgetfulness, consider this essay, a fine instance of complex thinking by one of our most complicated thinkers, Loius Menand. Its backhanded defense of political parties arises from the belief that the American people are too ignorant and unaware to vote on the basis of their own subtle and personally-formed opinions. Parties serve only as lamentably crude, barely rational substitutes for real thinking. That this sentiment animates much of Leftist elite opinion may explain John Kerry's frustration over the fact the people don't appreciate his nuance.

Simplicity must, of course, be grounded in a clear moral purpose. Many conservatives recoiled at Mayor Giuliani and Governor Schwarzenegger--whose views on important moral questions are certainly open to question--being put forward as the face of the party. And there is much to sympathize with in this objection. Yet surely Arnold was right to culminate his list of appeals with this: "if you believe we must be fierce and relentless and terminate terrorism ... then you are a Republican! "

It is worth remembering that the Republican Party was founded on a similar dedication to a single, overriding purpose--a purpose that, of necessity, put aside many other differences. A more famous Elihu, Elihu Root, put it this way in his essay "Lincoln as a Leader of Men":

One of the most valuable results of Lincoln’s training was that he understood the necessity of political organization for the accomplishment of political ends. He knew that to attain a great public purpose multitudes of men must be induced to lay aside or postpone or in some way subordinate their minor differences of opinion, and to move together on the lines of major policy. He used all the resources of party organization to hold the people of the North to the support of the Northern armies in the field.
Lincoln was a politician, the best practical politician of his time. If he had not been that, the Northern armies would have been abandoned; the Union would have been broken, to the infinite injury of both sections; and slavery would have continued, no one knows how long--probably until another war had been fought.

The "major line of policy" around which Lincoln built an electoral victory came down to this: "You think slavery is right and should be extended; while we think slavery is wrong and ought to be restricted." Republicans then, as today, saw in this the president's single-mindedness. The Democrats, then as now, regarded it as simple-mindedness. Like Lincoln, President Bush is likely not much troubled by this. Nor should he be.

Ronald Reagan used to say, "the solutions are simple, they just aren't easy."

Two Conventions

2004-08-31T17:30:00.000-04:00

In addition to the Republican convention this week, there is also the 100th annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. For those interested in this sort of thing, your humble blogger has reviewed a book on the founding of the APSA, and the relationship between academic political science and practical politics. It appears in the current issue of The Claremont Review of Books.

At the opening of the other convention, Rudy Giuliani's bravura speech invoked the name of Winston Churchill. This was fitting, as the mayor's speech was, in some respects, Churchillian. This is not to say the speech rivalled the great man at his best--or even less than best. And it is certainly impossible to imagine Sir Winston pantomiming a construction worker's bearhug. But Giuliani's speech did embody certain lessons that Churchill explicated in an essay called "The Scaffolding of Rhetoric." The mayor has almost certainly never read this obscure article. Yet perhaps he has, in some degree, what Churchill called "the peculiar temperment and talents of the orator... by nature."

Consider these excerpts from the speech, interposed with passages from the essay:

"Now, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, John Kerry voted against the Persian Gulf War. But he must have heard you booing because, because, because later he said he actually supported the war. Then in 2002, as he was calculating his run for the presidency, he voted for the war in Iraq. And then just nine months later, he voted against an $87 billion supplemental budget to fund the war and support our troops. He even, at one point, declared himself as an antiwar candidate. And now, he says he’s a pro-war candidate. At this rate, with 64 days left, he still has time to change his position four or five more times. My point about John Kerry being inconsistent is best described in his own words not mine. I quote John Kerry, ‘I actually did vote for the 87 billion before I voted against it.’"

The climax of oratory is reached by a rapid succession of waves of sound and vivid pictures. The audience is delighted by the changing scenes presented to their imagination. Their ear is tickled by the rhythm of the language. The enthusiasm rises. A series of facts is brought forward all pointing in a common direction. The end appears in view before it is reached. The crowd anticipate the conclusion and the last words fall amid a thunder of assent.

***

"Frankly, I believed then and I believe now that Saddam Hussein, who supported global terrorism, slaughtered thousands and thousands of his own people, permitted horrific acts of atrocities against women, and used weapons of mass destruction, was himself a weapon of mass destruction."

An apt analogy... appeals to the everyday knowledge of the hearer and invites him to decide the problems that have baffled his powers of reason by the standard of the nursery and the heart.... Whether they translate an established truth into simple language or whether they adventurously aspire to reveal the unknown, they are among the most formidable weapons of the rhetorician.

***

"For me, when I arrived there and I stood below the north tower and I looked up and seeing the flames of hell emanating from those buildings and realizing that what I was actually seeing was a human being on the 101st, 102nd floor that was jumping out of the building. I stood there, it probably took five or six seconds. It seemed to me that it took 20 or 30 minutes. And I was stunned. And I realized in that moment and that instant, I realized we were facing something that we had never, ever faced before.... We did the best we could to communicate a message of calm and hope, as we stood on the pavement watching a cloud come through the cavernous streets of lower Manhattan. Our people were so brave in their response. At the time, we believed that we would be attacked many more times that day and in the days that followed. Without really thinking, based on just emotion, spontaneous, I grabbed the arm of then Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and I said to him, “Bernie, thank God George Bush is our President.”

Before he can inspire them with any emotion he must be swayed by it himself. When he would rouse their indignation his heart is filled with anger. Before he can move their tears his own must flow. To convince them he must himself believe.

***

"Have faith in the power of freedom. People who live in freedom always prevail over people who live in oppression."

A tendency to wild extravagance of language--to extravagance so wild that reason recoils is evident in most perorations. The emotions of the speaker and the listeners are alike aroused and some expression must be found that will represent all they are feeling.... The effect of such extravagances on a political struggle is tremendous. They become the watchwords of parties and the creeds of nationalities.

Good speech Mr. Mayor

"Cruel and Sanguinary Laws"

2004-08-26T19:42:00.000-04:00

Roger L. Simon reprints an article about a 16 year-old girl recently hanged in Iran:

On Sunday August 15, 2004, a 16 year old girl by the name of Atefe Rajabi, daughter of Ghassem Rajabi, was executed in the town of Neka, located in the province of Mazandaran, for "engaging in acts incompatible with chastity". The execution was carried out by the order of Neka's "judicial administrator" and was approved by both the Supreme Court of the Islamic Republic and the chief of the nation's "judiciary branch."

He includes this comment from Iranian doctor Ramin Etabar:

The murderous mullahs of Iran have executed another minor. The interviews of locals in the city of Neka conducted by Radio Farda revealed that this child was either mentally retarded or was suffering from a psychiatric illness. As a physician and human right's activist I can not express my outrage enough. The terrorist regime in Iran has been killing children for the past twenty five years. The virgin girls are raped by these Islamic hooligans the night before their execution in order to "prevent them from going to heaven".

Jihadwatch.org adds: "[T]his girl's reference to the fact that punishment should be meted out to the perpetrators, not the victims, makes it likely that she was a victim of rape."

Americans unfamiliar with their own history are sometimes shocked to learn that Thomas Jefferson's revised criminal code for the state of Virgina stipulated castration as the punishment for rape. Although Jefferson was in fact ameliorating the inherited English criminal law, under which rape was a capital offense, his revision may still seem gruesome to modern sensibilities. Even the most sensitive or ignorant, however, would instantly understand that the punishment--whatever it might be--was to be applied to the rapist, and not his victim.

If Islam is to free itself from Islamism, it must retrieve those ennobling elements that still exist--however tenuously--in its own heritage. Another entry in Jefferson's code provides a starting point: "Pardon and Privilege of clergy shall henceforth be abolished."

Follow-Up

2004-08-26T13:35:00.000-04:00

Over at Redstate.org Thomas Crown makes a point similar to my last post (just below), but argues that in addition to Democratic meltdown, George W. Bush may be constructing a platform for a true electoral realignment.

The estimable Steve Hayward, on the other hand, takes the opposite view on the staying power of liberal anger.

Grantings is new, and doesn't have many entries yet. So when I see another blog making compelling arguments in such lucid prose as this one I wonder whether I should go on. The question everyone is asking is: real or parody? (Start with this gem.)
Hat tip: Stuart Buck.

Going Out on a Limb

2004-08-24T20:43:00.000-04:00

The 2004 election will at last quell the resentment of the Left over the 2000 election. Paradoxically, this will happen because John Kerry will lose.

Kerry's defeat will not enrage the liberal wing of the Democratic Party because they will have spent their rage--as they have nearly done already. They will not claim that Bush stole the election, because he will win by a substantial margin. They will not be stupified by the ignorance and gullibility of the American people, because they will recognize, if only privately, the colossal falsehood at the heart of the Kerry campaign. And they will not wage a rearguard action against the election results because they will see that in the campaign they deployed cavalry against repeating rifles, a phalanx against longbows: the establishment media stuck out their chins for Kerry and were cold-cocked in the undercard fight with the Internet samizdat.

For that reason, among others, the election of 2004 will sound the death knell of the Left as it exists today. The "short century" of our time will be seen as the period from 1968 to 9/11. In November, the Left will belatedly accept that this century is over--something most Americans already intuit.

The soul of post-modern liberalism will survive, of course. And will most likely continue to make its home in the Democratic Party, which will take the next step in its long, weird descent from Jeffersonianism to slavery to libertine statism. But it will not be same.

This is only a prediction. "The future," Churchill observed, "is imminent, though obscure." What is not obscure is that the country cannot exist indefinitely half red and half blue. One way or another, the deadlock must break. Whether it will break the right way is not certain. But the signs look promising.

The Flog of War

2004-08-23T07:14:00.000-04:00

John Kerry is now reduced to lashing out at the most unstoppable force of nature in American politics: the frank and open deliberations of the American people. Thus, he is calling for censorship of his critics, and dismissing all challenges to his implausible Vietnam (and Cambodia) claims as beyond-the-pale-of-discussion "lies."

These are the convulsions of being confronted with a reality that serenely refuses to bend to one's will.

To escape from his abysmal national security record in the Senate, Kerry attempted to become a hawk on the basis of his brief--first repudiated, and then later embraced--military service 35 years ago. But, like Icarus failing to heed his father's advice, Kerry over-reached, and his wax wings are now melting.

Nature will always, in the end, have her way. But the Left--unable to comprehend any limits on its own whims--must learn this lesson again and again. Mark Steyn gives a typically hilarious example:

Consider Sir Elton John, taking tea on the balcony of his Italian hotel suite a few years back: The poor man became irked by the wafting breeze and wound up screaming at the room service waiter, ''Can't you do something about this f---in' wind?''

''She's lost it,'' sighed a member of his entourage. ''She's finally lost it.''

This hubris plagues modern liberalism, but it is not altogether new. The historian Herodotus recounts that during his attempted invasion of Greece, the Persian king Xerxes constructed a bridge across the Hellespont. Before his army could cross, the bridge was destroyed in a storm. Xerxes, unable to cope with this intransigence toward his desires, had the sea whipped.

To no avail. Xerxes crossed the straits, but his massive army was ultimately repulsed, after a heroic stand by the Spartans at Thermopylea gave the Greeks time to assemble their forces.

Kerry may flay the Swift Boat Veterans, but he is about to meet the gathering armies. The Republican convention begins next week.

On Language and War

2004-08-19T20:16:00.000-04:00

May we please stop referring to the "war on terror"?

There is no such thing.

Senator Kerry uses this term. But so, unfortunately, does President Bush. The President has, of course, been admirably clear at times. Nevertheless, there is more than a quibble at stake here.

It is more natural that Senator Kerry adopt this vaguery, as it comports with the liberal view of war--and indeed all government policy. In 1941 Franklin Delano Roosevelt promised, among other things, "freedom from fear"--as if this were possible. Precisely because it is not, the pursuit of such a chimera implies a government that is, in principle, unlimited.

This is not to suggest that Kerry, as president, would wage an "unlimited" war againt our current enemy. It means only that a war against "terror" is a war against a phantom. Terror, an extreme form of fear, is a state of mind, an emotion.

The terrorist is one who seeks to elicit this emotion--this sub-rational reaction--through mass murder and destruction. But it is the man we are at war against, not the feeling he produces. Better, then, to speak of the war on "terrorism"--some action or plot. Better yet, the war on "terrorists"--actual human agents of this destruction. And better than that, to identify precisely the nature of the enemy: the network of jihadist, or Islamist, terrorists and their sponsors who crushed and incinerated thousands of our citizens on our own soil.

The mainstream news is disinclined to show its ample footage of the planes crashing, the towers burning, the men and women leaping to their deaths to escape the flames. Hollywood has yet to produce a single major film with the dramatic purpose of avenging, let alone commemorating, 9/11. There has, in fact, been very little from any quarter to "sear" this memory in the national conscience. Whether there is in this some conscious attempt to induce forgetfulness or lassitude is not ventured here. But, given the circumstances, the necessity of the utmost strategic, political, and moral clarity is self-evident.

Let us then stop speaking of a war on an abstraction, a feeling.

UPDATE: Nicholas Thompson of the Boston Globe makes a similar point. Is Grantings one of the "other commentators"?

Be of Good Cheer!

2004-08-19T16:39:00.000-04:00

First of all, thanks beyond measure to the fine folks at Powerline for the link, not to mention the overly kind words.

As my first post was a bit lugubrious, here is something that I hope will gladden the heart and bring a smile to the lips.

The Greeks taught that good citizenship, all the more so in war, requires that the natural spiritedness (thymos) of the young be shaped by right opinion (doxa).

This young man seems well on his way.

(Apologies to those for whom this is not new.)

Reform in the Age of Un-Reason

2004-08-18T19:35:00.000-04:00

The widely linked-to and largely excellent essay by Norman Podhoretz says this about freeing Islam from Islamism:

As with democratization, so with the reform and modernization of Islam. In considering this even more difficult question, we found ourselves asking whether Islam could really go on for all eternity resisting the kind of reformation and modernization that had begun within Christianity and Judaism in the early modern period. Not that we were so naive as to imagine that Islam could be reformed overnight, or from the outside. In its heyday, Islam was able to impose itself on large parts of the world by the sword; there was no chance today of an inverse instant transformation of Islam by the force of American arms.

There was, however, a very good chance that a clearing of the ground, and a sowing of the seeds out of which new political, economic, and social conditions could grow, would gradually give rise to correlative religious pressures from within. Such pressures would take the form of an ultimately irresistible demand on theologians and clerics to find warrants in the Quran and the sharia under which it would be possible to remain a good Muslim while enjoying the blessings of decent government, and even of political and economic liberty. In this way a course might finally be set toward the reform and modernization of the Islamic religion itself.

This may be even more dificult than Mr. Podhoretz suggests.

The depredations of the post-modern Left, which Wretchard eloquently exposes, are not limited only to the question of whether the West can still fight with the faith of our Fathers. They go also to the question of whether the hoped-for outcome of the war--a democratic Middle East of reformed Islam--is even possible in the post-modern world.

The pre-condition of the American Founding--and of all later constitutional government--was the separation of church and state. This depended upon honoring the legitimate claims of both reason and revelation. It depended on acknowleding that the great teachers of philosophy-- Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, to name a signficant few--still held sway, as also the Bible. Founding a regime that recognized the authority of both reason and revelation, as well as their compatibility in morality or political justice, was still possible.

Islam has in its history teachers no less enlightening than Aquinas was for Christianity or Maimonides for Judaism: Avicenna, Averroes, and Al Farabi. But does, or can, their sway still hold? What would Islam find were it to seek reform through philosophy as it exists and is understood in the present age? What would the most eminent authorities--what would most authorities--of our time have to say? What lights, then, will illuminate the path by which the Quran and constitutionalism can meet?

The achievement of the American Founders is, in its essential principles, a model ready to hand. But can it any longer still be recognized, let alone replicated? Can it still be grasped during this dark night of unreason, when man proclaims, in the new garden state of ignorance without innocence, "My truth is I am a gay American."