See my little fantasy on another scandal at UAE (University of East Anglia) - but this time at its famous Creative Writing M.A. Programme, which has - really - produced an extraordinary number of Man-Booker Prize-winning novelists since its founding in 1970 by Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson.

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Eli Lehrer at National Review Online wrote a nice piece about the new federal proposal to eliminate prison rape, to which Andrew Sullivan, to his credit, linked approvingly.  One of Lehrer’s points is that the subject of prison rape - in a nation which professes horror at all sorts of hazing practices that are called “torture” - remains funny rather than horrible:  “But, somehow, prison rape remains a perfectly acceptable topic for sitcoms, widely trafficked websites, and late-night comedians.”

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In the new Weekly Standard (June 22), see my new piece on the Cuba spy Myers.

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Jeffrey Goldberg, the estimable foreign affairs reporter now at The Atlantic, says that when I compare his hard-headedness regarding Iran and Hezbollah to his naivete regarding the financial-advice industry (as I did in a recent Wall Street Journal Taste Page piece, “The New Soft-Bitten Journalists”), I am equating Hezbollah’s evil and SmartMoney’s erroneous stock market advice.

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It’s in the new issue on sale now, April 13, and possibly available here:

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on view at the Weekly Standard:  http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/213scmae.asp>

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http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/081lzbjx.asp

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Having only ever voted as a citizen of the sovereign nation of Cook County, as a Nutmegger, as a citizen of the former Taxachusetts, and a subject of NY state, my votes for McGovern, Carter, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Bush I, Dole, Bush II and Bush II have all been wasted.

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may be amusing to you, and you can read it here:  http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/715lnilj.asp.

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I should not have been as surprised as I was.  Since then, I have realized that, perhaps as easy cover for their anti-Zionism, the mainline Protestant churches make a great noise about their occasional condemnation of “Jews for Jesus” and similar group.  But this fastidiousness has simply not trickled down to the parish level.

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Where are the GOP “re-branders” now? Palin brews “GOP Classic” In the spring and summer of 2008, it was popular to talk about the GOP “brand” as damaged goods. Boehner, Schwarzenegger, Tom Davis, even Andrew Sullivan all lamented (or celebrated) the shopworn nature of the Republican brand - and all suggested that the path to re-branding led away from Bush’s White House, to a new formulation - in essence, a kinder, gentler Republicanism of the Bush I or even Rockefeller era. They ignored, of course, Bush the younger’s attempt to provide a compassionate conservatism. Needless to say, none of them had any idea of what branding is all about. As marketers, the GOP rebranders would have had successful careers at the Coca Cola Company in the early 1980s, when New Coke was created. But New Coke was a failure, except by its contrast with Coca Cola Classic. What Sarah Palin delivered last night was GOP Classic - a slap in the face not only to the hapless Obama and Biden pairing, but to those who sought to walk away from the strengths and basic identity of GOPitude and create a New GOP brand. Coca Cola Classic saved Coke. We just saw a master marketer - Sarah Palin - hired by a master CEO - John McCain - do what great marketers have always done.

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1.  Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was broadcast to the world as soon - or sooner than - it was discovered.  John Edwards’s mistress Rielle Hunter’s pregnancy was covered up by major media sources even though it was well documented.

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Over at Commentary’s Contentions blog, James Kirchik wrote a noble post demanding a reassesment of Joe Lieberman, now that he has been passed over for McCain’s running mate. Kirchik argues that since Lieberman did not modify his positions on key issues to him, such as abortion and the selection of judges, he should be admired for consistency, not damned as a hack:

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Not because it is an indicator of the willingness to sacrifice for one’s country. Not because it provides a background of solemnity and comradeship in the event of a decision to put the lives of servicemen and severicewomen on the line. What McCain gained from his military service - upon which, according to Jimmy Carter, he shamelessly capitalizes - is not moral standing but the ability to think strategically.
McCain just exhibited great generalship in the last few days - not only in whom he picked as VP, but how tightly controlled the whole process was. It took daring, imagination, and the ability to think five or six moves ahead. These are qualities that the men on the Democratic ticket often impute to themselves and have seldom shown in action.
To be fair, given the limitations of their native abilities, had Obama or Biden ever been professional soldiers, they would not have learned these things on the job. But at least they would have learned that even mediocrities must be prepared to be confronted by brilliance. Watch the left this weekend and enjoy their gnashing of teeth.

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Tom Friedman’s column in today’s Times hails China’s progress at the expense of ours: “When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001, under the banner of the Olympics, and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001, under the banner of the war on terrorism, it’s clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America.”

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Earlier this week, John Edwards promised us that he only conducted his affair with Rielle Hunter during the period when his wife’s deadly cancer was in remission - and I see no reason why we should not take him at his word.  And most of us admire him for his gallantry in this regard.  But after a couple of sleepless nights, I’m no longer sure that his behavior is as admirable as I first thought.

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Washington, DC - May 15, 2010. Of course I made up that headline - it hasn’t happened yet.  But George Packer is very wrong in The New Yorker, when, speaking of the West’s obligation to invade Burma in order to save the Burmese, he claims modestly that he knows “all the arguments why we shouldn’t.”  There is one paramount argument he hasn’t thought of - and that is to contemplate, a year or two hence, the onrush of a million words from Andrew Sullivan apologizing for our “botched” effort, if it is imperfect, and condemning those who were once heartened and persuaded by his former eloquence, his now-discarded wisdom and realism.

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Many are outraged by the action of the King School’s health center of Portland, Maine.  There, educators are supplying prescription-only contraceptive medication - “the pill or the patch or any other reproductive health care,” according to the Portland Press Herald - to middle school children.  Parents do not give permission - indeed, they never find out.  Outrageous it is, because this is something the private sector should be doing, not the school board.   Consider these facts.

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The judge played the holocaust card. In his testimony yesterday, Bush’s nominee for AG compared the interrogation of terrorists in Iraq, with vital information about threats to U.S. servicemen and Iraqi civilians, to the death camps of Nazi’s Germany. On the one hand, our treatment of people who have chosen to forego the protections afforded by the Geneva Convention, as such criminals were treated by the British in Northern Ireland (with the approval of the European Court of Justice) - on the other, extermination of people for the crime of being circumcised.

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That’s a headline you won’t see. But if there ever was an instance of a “lobby” effect in the manner in which Professors Mearsheimer and Walt accuse what they call the Israel Lobby - to act against the interests of the United States because of a blood tie - it displays itself in the House resolution regarding the Muslim slaughter of the Ottoman Armenians in 1915. Those who promoted this resolution are correct about the Armenian genocide, but the resolution itself is, in my view, utterly pointless. There are many reasons why the resolution has no effect. Everyone knows that genocide was committed against the Christian citizens of the Muslim Ottoman state. There are virtually no Armenians left in modern-day Turkey, and yet Christians and Jews live in and visit Turkey today in more safety and to a warmer welcome than they do in any other Muslim-majority state. The resolution has no bearing on Turkey - the murder of Armenians during 1914-1918 was conducted by an entity with which modern Turkey has no continuity, in territory or law.

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Many have written wisely on the way that Columbia University’s president Lee Bollinger was unwise or, in Arnold Ahlert’s technical term, idiotic to have invited Iran’s dictator Ahmadinejad to a debate. Bret Stephens in today’s Wall Street Journal, the historian Arthur Herman in today’s NY Post, and Anne Applebaum in a subtle piece in today’s Slate have all pointed out the unwisdom of Bollinger’s decision to invite this murderer of students, homosexuals and Americans. However Bollinger’s plucky and eloquent performance has blunted some of the criticism - all pay some tribute to his words, and one of his strongest critics, the New York Sun’s editorial page, seems to have changed its mind about Bollinger’s actions entirely.

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Even though Yom Kippur has passed for us members of the Israel Lobby, I awoke this morning with tremendous feelings of guilt. Here I was, comfortable in my own bed, and thinking how MoveOn.org had done more, while intending quite the opposite, to bring peace and freedom to Iraq than has any of us who are actually anti-Fascist. And my feelings were confirmed by reading that MoveOn has voluntarily ponied up the amount of the New York Times subsidy to its recent anti-Iraqi advertisement.

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Arthur Sulzberger has done it before. By using the New York Times Company’s bottom line in order to fund almost two-thirds of the MoveOn.org advertisement, in which they call General Petraeus a liar and a traitor, Mr. Sulzberger reminds me of an incident from more than a decade ago.

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Of course, I am a kike, so what I say should be discounted accordingly. But when my daughter (who is not a kike) graduated from the University of Chicago in 2004, John Mearsheimer gave the graduation address. This was before his working paper on the “Israel Lobby” was published, and he was known only as a professor of political science at Chicago. Mr. Mearsheimer’s address, delivered in a droning, soporific tone, that comported all-too-comfortably with the sunny, slightly hot day in June, was a lengthy tour d’horizon of America’s relationship with the rest of the world, and what Mearsheimer thought it should be, in the 21st century. The only thing notable about it was that it was too long and too dull, and the audience of proud parents squirmed in the heat and the dullness.

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Hilary Clinton inadvertantly revealed the reasoning - explicit in her case, but unconscious among her colleagues - behind the curious willingness of Democrats to support the President’s war powers in recent weeks. Mrs. Clinton told supporters in New Hampshire that, while terror is terrible in itself, it could be even worse: “… if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world.”

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The more that we help the forces that are pushing the Democratic party away from the mainstream, toward the left, and (as I think) towards the cliff, the better off we will be. So I urge my fellow PoliticalMavens mavens to close your heartstoward these people, but open your pocketbook. Who cares if Senator Edwards is, as a wonderful piece in yesterday’s The State argued, a big phony: as long as he is in the primary race, he keeps the center of gravity so far to the left that it hurts every candidate.

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One cheer for Richard Dawkins, the world’s foremost proselytizer for atheism. I’ve criticized him and his new-atheist colleagues Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens in The Wall Street Journal and in Commentary for invoking “science” as backing for their disbelief in the existence of G’d. In fact, it is not science that Dawkins and company use to “disprove” the existence of the divinity, but a certain kind of reasoning - and they do not disprove His existence so much as to show that it is improbable - as it is, but no less improbable than the existence of anything at all. Nevertheless, Dawkins invokes the word “Science” as a talisman that acts, he hopes. as the Christian cross does to Dracula in Bram Stoker’s novel. Merely uttering it will make religious feeling magically wither and die.

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For those in the media world - and for the few who love them - reading Romensko, formerly mediagossip.com, at the Poynter.org Web site, is a daily ritual. Jim Romensko gathers together all the media stories from around the Internet, links to news, opinion, and gossip, and sets the agenda for the commentariat.

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If Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar and their colleagues have their way, the Senate and presidency will soon be in a position to begin again the process of appointing activist judges to the Federal judiciary.  Judges will once again gaily be legislating from the bench, based on their own ideas of how to run the country.   I have a modest idea for some preventive medicine.
What if we were to pass, as Amendments 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37, the Bill of Rights all over again - without a single word out of place?  We would studiously resist the temptation to make nips and tucks in the wording.  We would not have a preamble or state our intention in making the 28th amendment the first amendment - again.  It would simply stand.  The Bill of Rights would be passed exactly as it was written.  Only this time - I hope - it would mean what it says.
Re-ratifying the Bill of Rights would make it harder for future Justices to say that the rights given to us by our constitution, such as freedom of speech or the freedom to exercise religion, must be now be understood in a different, more “nuanced” way.  There will be no need for tomorrow’s judges to puzzle over original intent, or argue about how the framers would have understood today’s problems.  To  ingenious legal reasoners like David Souter or Stephen Breyer, we can say, to adopt Pogo’s formulation, “Mr. Justice, meet the Framers - they’re us!”

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Genocide for various communities in Iraq is now the official policy of The New York Times editorial board, as Jules Crittenden brilliantly shows ( http://www.julescrittenden.com/2007/07/08/genocide-prefered ) and as the editor of Editor & Publisher endorses. The reasoning behind this policy is too boring to recapitulate here - but my question is this. Why does the anti-Bush, pro-Ba’ath, anti-American alliance invest so much in protesting genocide in Darfur (as I - pro-Bush, antifascist and pro-American - do also protest) when they don’t mind it at all - in fact, they recommend it - in Iraq?

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Many people have begged me to weigh in on the question of the immigration problem, and the immigration bill. I have not because I represent the silent majority - I don’t know what to do about it, and I don’t like any of the solutions I’ve seen. So I’ve remained silent.

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As we watch the Hamas/PA debacle unfold in Gaza, many are reverting to the notion that the Hamas takeover is a bitter consequence of a misguided policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East - because Hamas initially took power by means of an election.

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Bien-pensants like Boston College’s Alan Wolfe are rushing to the defense of Tony Judt, who has been uninvited to several panels dealing with Israel.

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In today’s Wall Street Journal, a liberal has usefully repeated the cliche that President Bush’s big mistake “following 9/11 was his failure to ask Americans to sacrifice anything in fighting terrorism. Our troops and their families bear nearly the entire burden of this fight. Despite constantly reminding us of the looming threat of terrorism, Mr. Bush has failed to ask us to do anything to fight it, and we have complacently obliged.”

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The real victims of the Valerie Plame non-issue, it turns out, were those who believed in the honorablity of two men: Richard Armitage and Colin Powell.

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