April 2003
Remember From Whence Thou Art Fallen
“Forget about Europe!” shriek the neo-isolationists. “Only Britain and Israel matter. We saved the French twice in one century, and they still think they have a right to follow their own foreign policy.” Americans used to have somewhat longer memories. When General Pershing arrived in Paris in 1917, his aide and orator declared, “Lafayette, we are here!” not only in remembrance of the Marquis de Lafayette’s services during the Revolutionary War but in acknowledgment of the fact (not often recalled) that the French navy and army rescued the American cause at Yorktown. There were, in fact, more French than American troops on the ground when Cornwallis surrendered.
The Grinch Who Stole Kwanza
The political plum on last year’s Christmas pudding, so to speak, was l’affaire Lott, which, erupting at the birthday party for retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond in early December and continuing until Trent Lott’s less-than-voluntary resignation as Senate majority leader three weeks later, threatened to ruin Kwanza for just about everybody. The Lott crisis was an unhappy one for President Bush and the Republican Party because it forced them to think about their real political base of middle-class whites—not a few of whom are Southerners—rather than twaddle on about the entirely fictitious coalition of blacks and Hispanics mobilized by the GOP’s ethnic sensitivity.
By Their Clichés, You Shall Know Them
At least since September 11, the buzz-phrase for every investigation has been “connect the dots.” Republicans were highly imaginative in connecting the dots between Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, while Democrats preferred connecting the dots between Enron executives and the Bush administration. Donald Rumsfeld, who has raised this kind of political gibberish to high art, told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation:
I was musing over the fact that there are so many books that have been written—“Why England Slept,” Pearl Harbor, what happened, why didn’t we know? Right now on Capitol Hill, the members of the House and the Senate are trying to—are looking, having investigations on September 11th of last year, and trying to connect the dots, as they say, trying to piece together what might have been known, and why didn’t we know it, and why weren’t we able to connect the dots?
Night Thoughts for the Middle-Aged
A review of About Schmidt (produced and distributed by New Line Cinema; directed by Alexander Payne; screenplay by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor from Louis Begley’s novel) and The Quiet American (produced by William Harberg and Stefen Ahrenberg; directed by Philip Noyce and Robert Schenkkan; Screenplay by Christopher Hampton from Graham Greene’s novel; distributed by Miramax Films).
Bulletin: Hollywood scapegrace, Jack Nicholson, reads Chronicles.
Or so several of our readers reported after seeing Alexander Payne’s adaptation of Louis Begley’s novel, About Schmidt. Needless to say, these sightings propelled yours truly into action.
En route to perform my reconnaissance at the local multiplex, I calculated the probabilities. On reflection, what had seemed at first improbable began to seem quite plausible. Nicholson, after all, has a reputation for refusing to toe anyone’s line, even that of his conventionally leftist Hollywood paymasters. I recalled the flap he raised a few years ago when he declared he was against abortion, having been spared by his unmarried mother, who chose the inconvenience of bringing him into the world, to our everlasting benefit. So, why wouldn’t Hollywood’s premiere maverick subscribe to a journal as politically out of step as he is?
Same Old Song and Dance
President George W. Bush painted a pleasingly simple black-and-white picture of the world in his State of the Union Address on January 28. It was a choreographed political speech with several statements of strong intent rather than a factual assessment of the nation’s current “state.” That America is strong and resolute, while Saddam Hussein is the embodiment of evil, was, not surprisingly, Mr. Bush’s main theme. Unlike last year, there was no Axis of Evil and no mention of Osama bin Laden. The blanket assurance in the opening paragraph that “every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people” will be resolutely dealt with was intended to indicate that Mr. Bush is mindful of other flashpoints in the world—though they later paled to relative insignificance, as Iraq became the dominant foreign theme.
Apocalypse Now
“If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”
American evangelicals, according to former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “are the Israelis’ best friend in the whole world.” In return, they dubbed him “the Ronald Reagan of Israel.” That so many are still surprised by those statements indicates that, by and large, those happy to be called evangelicals or even fundamentalists have been largely ignored by most of the dominant American mass culture, though a few outside the fold who have stopped ignoring this “sleeping giant” have reaped tremendous rewards: election victories, foreign-policy directives, and undying political loyalty.
Small Is Beautiful
The City of Rockford is broke. That does not mean, of course, that it is insolvent or bankrupt; after all, it is rather hard for any government with the power to tax to end up in that position (though some occasionally do). Like so many other cities of its size today, however, Rockford has projected expenses for the coming fiscal year that far outstrip expected revenues from taxes and other sources—in other words, what any father, looking at his household budget, would define as broke.
The power to tax, however, provides the city with a different set of options from those available to the father. In this current economic slump, the head of a household does not have many ways of increasing its revenue; he may be lucky simply to keep his job. By necessity, he either has to cut expenses (the prudent, though possibly painful, course) or to borrow to make ends meet, pushing those expenses further into the future to a time when, he hopes, he will have a little more cash in his pocket. The city, however, can generate more revenue through a simple majority vote and, thus, avoid the issue entirely. And that, unfortunately, is what Rockford’s aldermen have chosen to do.
The Consent of the Governed Revisited
A review of A Constitutional History of Secession, by John Remington Graham (Gretna, LA: Pelican Press; 460 pp., $24.95)
Americans have lost the habit of constitutional government. Judges hand down commands derived from their own personal revelation, in the teeth of law and majority rule, and are tamely obeyed by millions. A President, recently sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States, announces his intention to commit the blood and treasure of the citizens in war against a distant state that has provoked his personal ire or the suspicions of his unelected entourage.
Divided Loyalties—April 2003
PERSPECTIVE
Remember From When Thou Art Fallen
by Thomas Fleming
Lessons from Old Europe.
VIEWS
“You Have To Commit!”
by Roger D. McGrath
The problem of dual citizenship.
A Nation of (Proletarian) Immigrants
by Chilton Williamson, Jr.
Mexicans, here and there.
Apocalypse Now
by Aaron D. Wolf
American evangelicals, left behind.
Nationalist Über Alles
by Alain de Benoist
A study in definition.
