National Review articles from April 2007

National Review archives from April 2007

A vie of Obama.(Barack Obama )(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... At first glance, Richard Lowry seems to have Barack Obama figured out ("The Great Audacious Hope," March 5). Mr. Lowry rightly notes the centrality of Obama's vague yet comfortable message of hopefulness. He also properly calls Obama to task...

A view of McCain.(John McCain)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Ramesh Ponnuru's "The Coming McCain Moment" (March 19) reads more like a lawyer's brief for his client than a dispassionate analysis. In any event, this juror remains highly unconvinced. Setting aside the conservativeness of his policy...

Innocents abroad.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 2, 2007... The story involving senior citizens in Costa Rica (The Week, March 19) in which an armed mugger was killed by a 70-year-old American tourist was inspiring. It caused me to reflect, though, how fortunate these folks were to have been in Costa...

Erratum.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
April 2, 2007... The words on your March 5 cover said "Not Enough: Why the miltary needs more of everything." What you had not enough of was letters--note the spelling of "military." Barry Jackson Gilbert, Ariz. THE EDITORS RESPOND: We are...

Al Sharpton is refusing to endorse Barack Obama.
April 2, 2007... Al Sharpton is refusing to endorse Barack Obama. If the senator gets really lucky, Jesse Jackson will refuse too.

Former senator Fred Thompson's recent media appearances confirm the judgment of Hollywood casting agents: He looks and sounds presidential.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Former senator Fred Thompson's recent media appearances confirm the judgment of Hollywood casting agents: He looks and sounds presidential. Some of Thompson's supporters want life to imitate art and are urging him to make a real-life run for...

When Rudy Giuliani was inaugurated as New York's mayor in 1994, his son Andrew was a cheerful, chubby seven-year-old whose distracting antics on the stage upstaged his indulgent father on his big day.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... When Rudy Giuliani was inaugurated as New York's mayor in 1994, his son Andrew was a cheerful, chubby seven-year-old whose distracting antics on the stage upstaged his indulgent father on his big day. Now a 21-year-old college student, Andrew...

"I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually. That's why I believe that conservatism should...

The Nevada Democratic party canceled a presidential debate it was co-sponsoring with Fox News.(Fox News Network L.L.C.)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The Nevada Democratic party canceled a presidential debate it was co-sponsoring with Fox News. The reason offered--that Fox chairman Roger Ailes had made a low-blow joke about Barack Obama---was preposterous. (Ailes said, in a speech, "Barack...

A jury of one's peers is normally guaranteed for the defendant in a case, not for witnesses in testimony.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... A jury of one's peers is normally guaranteed for the defendant in a case, not for witnesses in testimony. But Washington follows different rules, and in the Libby case the journalists who were called in droves had a colleague in the box, and...

Clarence Thomas made headlines recently when he accused the media of being "universally untrustworthy" in a rare interview he granted to Business Week.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Clarence Thomas made headlines recently when he accused the media of being "universally untrustworthy" in a rare interview he granted to Business Week. And count Justice Thomas correct, for the main thrust of the interview had been an attack on...

The scandal over the poor treatment of some wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center claimed its third senior official when Army surgeon general Kevin C. Kiley joined Army secretary Fran Harvey and the hospital's commander in forced resignation.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The scandal over the poor treatment of some wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center claimed its third senior official when Army surgeon general Kevin C. Kiley joined Army secretary Fran Harvey and the hospital's commander in forced...

An audit revealed that the FBI has improperly used "national security letters"---a kind of subpoena it can issue without the approval of a judge or prosecutor.(United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... An audit revealed that the FBI has improperly used "national security letters"---a kind of subpoena it can issue without the approval of a judge or prosecutor. Nothing more sinister than incompetence was afoot. In some cases, for example,...

Improving document security was one of the central recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. And for good reason: The hijackers had a total of 17 driver's licenses and 13 non-driver IDs, seven of them obtained by fraudulent means.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Improving document security was one of the central recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. And for good reason: The hijackers had a total of 17 driver's licenses and 13 non-driver IDs, seven of them obtained by fraudulent means. In 2005,...

Six residents of the District of Columbia challenged its gun law, which bans pistols in private houses and requires even licensed firearms, such as shotguns, to be kept locked or disassembled.(The Week ...)(Parker v. District of Columbia)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Six residents of the District of Columbia challenged its gun law, which bans pistols in private houses and requires even licensed firearms, such as shotguns, to be kept locked or disassembled. In Parker v. District of Columbia, the D.C. Circuit...

Still Selma's Favorite.(Poem)
April 2, 2007... STILL SELMA'S FAVORITE Obama got there first, which gave The Missus such heartburn, She, poof!, was Alabamy-bound, Squawking like Arctic tern. She blew the customary kiss; He mouthed a wan Hello-- Still...

The opinion, by Judge Laurence Silberman, held that the authors of the Second Amendment believed the "people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms.".(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The opinion, by Judge Laurence Silberman, held that the authors of the Second Amendment believed the "people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms." The backstory of the amendment bears this out. William Blackstone, the 18th-century...

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it had selected a design for a new generation of nuclear warheads.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it had selected a design for a new generation of nuclear warheads. That immediately threw a handful of congressional Democrats into a tizzy. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she was "100...

One, vast college campus.
April 2, 2007... I'VE long thought there's a reason that libertarianism is so popular on college campuses. For many of us, the freest time of our lives was college. We seemed masters of our fate (particularly if we were lucky enough not to pay for school...

The deadliest fire in New York City since 9/11 ripped through a house in the Bronx, killing ten people in two immigrant families from Mali---five children from one family, the mother and all four of her children in another.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The deadliest fire in New York City since 9/11 ripped through a house in the Bronx, killing ten people in two immigrant families from Mali---five children from one family, the mother and all four of her children in another. Their community...

The president, in Latin America, made the case against Hugo Chavez and his Castroite socialism.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The president, in Latin America, made the case against Hugo Chavez and his Castroite socialism. In the 1980s and '90s, the region turned to "neoliberalism," a kind of elite version of free-market economics, and then rejected it because it did...

On his trip, Bush announced a deal to share alternative-fuel-development technology with Brazil, the world's leading producer of ethanol.(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... On his trip, Bush announced a deal to share alternative-fuel-development technology with Brazil, the world's leading producer of ethanol. Brazil's ethanol, made from sugar cane, uses cropland far more efficiently than the corn-based ethanol...

Journalists working on Russian issues have a scary way of being found dead.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Journalists working on Russian issues have a scary way of being found dead. Some are shot down, like Anna Politkovskaya or the American Paul Klebnikov, and some are poisoned like Alexander Litvinenko. In Moscow, Ivan Safronov is the latest...

If you're thrown in jail for calling the leader of your country a dictator, at least no one can say you're a liar.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... If you're thrown in jail for calling the leader of your country a dictator, at least no one can say you're a liar. Abdel Kareem Solimann, a 22-year-old Egyptian, has been sentenced to four years in prison for insulting the president of Egypt,...

St. Petersburg, Fla., has been the rather unlikely setting for a summit of secular Muslims.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... St. Petersburg, Fla., has been the rather unlikely setting for a summit of secular Muslims. Nothing like it has ever taken place anywhere in the world. Fourteen men and women signed a final statement of their aims. And not an anonymous 14...

Twenty-seven German Catholic bishops made a bridge-building trip to Israel.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Twenty-seven German Catholic bishops made a bridge-building trip to Israel. All went well, until Bishops Hanke, of Eichstatt, and Mixa, of Augsburg, compared the Palestinian town of Ramallah to the ghetto, meaning the Warsaw Ghetto, whose...

The Eurovision Song Contest ascended through the sphere of self-parody decades ago, and floats now in an alternate universe of bad taste far beyond the reach of criticism.(Song by Israeli pop band Teapacks denied entry at contest)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The Eurovision Song Contest ascended through the sphere of self-parody decades ago, and floats now in an alternate universe of bad taste far beyond the reach of criticism. Like Death in Arcadia, however, politics cannot be escaped, even in...

March 6 saw the 50th anniversary of Ghanaian independence.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... March 6 saw the 50th anniversary of Ghanaian independence. Formerly a British colony known as the Gold Coast, Ghana was the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to pass from colonial rule to self-government. It was also one of the most prosperous...

Our very vague impression of the traditional Arab diet centers on figs, dates, and sheep's eyeballs.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Our very vague impression of the traditional Arab diet centers on figs, dates, and sheep's eyeballs. Surprising to learn, therefore, that the United Arab Emirates suffers from one of the world's highest rates of diabetes, with more than 20...

The Association of Social Anthropologists, an academic society over in the U.K., has ruled that the terms primitive" and "Stone Age" may no longer be used to refer to peoples who are ... technologically challenged.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The Association of Social Anthropologists, an academic society over in the U.K., has ruled that the terms "primitive" and "Stone Age" may no longer be used to refer to peoples who are... technologically challenged. "Governments and other...

From a diplomat's point of view, the trouble with representing a pariah nation is, you don't get invited to many parties, and so have time to kill.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... From a diplomat's point of view, the trouble with representing a pariah nation is, you don't get invited to many parties, and so have time to kill. The devil being a well-known employer of idle hands, mischief follows. This seems the most...

The municipality of Santa Monica in Los Angeles County is the setting for the latest chapter in the endless war between, on one hand, the need to control animal pests, and on the other, the pestiferous legions of animal-rights activists.(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... The municipality of Santa Monica in Los Angeles County is the setting for the latest chapter in the endless war between, on one hand, the need to control animal pests, and on the other, the pestiferous legions of animal-rights activists. The...

Mario Chanes de Armas was a revolutionary, sailing with Fidel and Che on the Granma.(The Week ...)(Obituary)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Mario Chanes de Armas was a revolutionary, sailing with Fidel and Che on the Granma. He was caught and jailed by Batista. Once the revolution succeeded, he happily resumed his life. But he soon landed back in jail---because he was a...

Former senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri is remembered for one reason, and noteworthy for another.(The Week ...)(Obituary)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... Former senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri is remembered for one reason, and noteworthy for another. George McGovern tapped him to be his running mate in 1972, then dropped him from the ticket 18 days later when Eagleton admitted that he had...

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. won every honor that was within a historian's grasp, and some beyond (he was a special assistant in John F. Kennedy's White House).(The Week ...)(Brief article)(Biography)
April 2, 2007... Arthur Schlesinger Jr. won every honor that was within a historian's grasp, and some beyond (he was a special assistant in John F. Kennedy's White House). Schlesinger was the last bard of the New Deal consensus---a historical school that traced...

The 'let's lose now' caucus.
April 2, 2007... SAY at least this for the Democrats: They are beginning to find the courage of their profoundly mistaken convictions. They have moved from pretending that a nonbinding resolution against sending additional troops into Baghdad and Anbar Province...

Pardon him.
April 2, 2007... THE Left has developed an elaborate fantasy about Scooter Libby. The Bush administration supposedly leaked the fact that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA to retaliate for the public criticisms of the administration that her husband, Joseph...

Just one term: what John McCain should pledge as he runs for president.
April 2, 2007... SEN. JOHN MCCAIN can increase his chances of winning the presidency in 2008 if he pledges not to run for it in 2012. He should pledge, that is, to serve only one term as president if elected. Why would any candidate do something so...

Kill this word: poor, abused, unrecognizable, meaningless 'neocon'.
April 2, 2007... I WAS recently listening to a BBC radio program called World Have Your Say. A fascinating example of globalization at work, it's a worldwide call-in show where the global IQ regresses to the mean and keeps regressing. From every corner of the...

Fiasco at justice: the case of the fired U.S. attorneys.(Cover story)
April 2, 2007... AS a firestorm raged over the Justice Department's sacking of eight U.S. attorneys, attorney general Alberto Gonzales acknowledged, "We could have rolled out the decisions more smoothly." No kidding. The department's inept handling of the "mass...

New lure's catch rate may be too high for some tournaments: out-fishes other bait 19 to 4 in one contest.
April 2, 2007... Uses aerospace technology to mimic a real fish. ORLANDO, FL -- A small company in Connecticut has developed a new lure that mimics the motion of a real fish so realistically eight professionals couldn't tell the difference between it and a...

Bet on Black? The trial of a mogul.(Conrad Black)
April 2, 2007... IT promises, even at this early date, to be the trial of the century. The international media magnate, Lord Black of Crossharbour, born Conrad Black in Canada, is on trial in Chicago for a variety of white-collar crimes from mail fraud to tax...

Adieu, Chirac: the end of a lousy French president.(EUROPE)(Jacques Chirac)
April 2, 2007... JACQUES CHIRAC, president of France since 1995, has announced his decision not to run for yet another term. Though only some ten minutes long, his farewell speech was perfectly in character, its boasting indistinguishable from its mendacity....

Scootergate: how the White House messed things up.
April 2, 2007... ON January 24, a man named Craig Schmall took the stand in the perjury-and-obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Schmall works for the CIA; in 2002 and 2003, he conducted the daily intelligence briefing for both Vice President Dick...

A question of competence: George W. Bush has failed in some basics.
April 2, 2007... POLITICAL commentators are scrambling to explain the extraordinary rise of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 GOP nomination contest. The conventional explanation is that, buoyed by his 9/11 heroism and accomplishments as...

Freedom house, rocked: strange doings at a cherished institution.(Organization overview)
April 2, 2007... SHORTLY after 9/11, a pair of scholars at Freedom House expressed their dismay with two leading liberal human-rights groups. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch seemed keener to denounce U.S. policies than to condemn terrorism, claimed...

Who's got a secret? The whole world has The Secret, sadly.
April 2, 2007... DE gustibus non est disputandum, yeah yeah, but there's also no disputing that the world is full of fools. How else to explain the phenomenal success of The Secret? The Secret isn't much of a secret, but here's an executive summary in case...

For whom the bell (really) tolls.
April 2, 2007... THE air is thick with high-minded complaints that the Anna Nicole Smith story dominated the news and distracted us from what C-SPAN junkies reverently call "the issues." Media figures are even complaining about themselves for covering it so...

Down memory lane.(HELP!!!!)(Poem)(Brief article)
April 2, 2007... DOWN MEMORY LANE 'Twas only 13 years ago That Hillarycare, a no-show To everyone but bug-eyed Hill, Faw down go boom like Jack and Jill; Now once again she scares the hell Out of the farmer in the dell, ...

Therapist's notes: court-ordered rehabilitation for hate speech: patient: Coulter, Ann.
April 2, 2007... First Session: The patient arrives on time, displays pleasant and agreeable affect. She is charming and complimentary about therapist's office, calling it cozy. She asks if the therapist decorated it himself, and when told that he didn't,...

China Dreamin'.(Book review)
April 2, 2007... The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression, by James Mann (Viking, 127 pp., $19.95) THIS is a short book, but an invaluable one. Every word counts, and the topic is one of the most important of our time. James Mann...

Virtue's Aristocrat.(Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life)(Book review)
April 2, 2007... Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life, by Hugh Brogan (Yale, 736 pp., $35) THIRTY years ago, in surveying the history of Tocqueville scholarship, the distinguished sociologist Robert Nisbet noted that in seven years as an undergraduate and graduate...

The Stories We Tell.(The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts)(Book review)
April 2, 2007... The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts, by Milan Kundera (HarperCollins, 176 pp., $22.95) THE chief concern of this, Milan Kundera's third volume of essays, is the modern novel. His own novels of course might be called a giant essay on the...

Last Night.(Poem)
April 2, 2007... LAST NIGHT When the sun sets, and he isn't home, she walks Not to be waiting, but she leaves a note: Back soon, her only message, only wish. After all, she didn't think he'd stay; No plans, so no surprises when it...

Breakdown Lane.(We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction)(Book review)
April 2, 2007... We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction, by Joan Didion (Knopf, 1,160 pp., $30) THE 1960s gave Joan Didion a nervous breakdown--or so it often seems, judging from her work on those years. "I went to San Francisco,"...

Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys.(SHELF LIFE)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 2, 2007... TO understand today's America, it's essential to know why so many reasonable and intelligent people rejected the liberal orthodoxy of the Sixties and Seventies. In Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political...

How to Raise an American: 1776 Fun and Easy Tools, Tips, and Activities to Help Your Child Love This Country.(SHELF LIFE)(Brief article)(Book review)
April 2, 2007... If we want the next generation to be able to articulate their gratitude for the American heritage, it's going to be up to their parents to teach them about it. (The schools? Fuhgeddaboudit.) There's a great deal of useful advice on this in How...

Against closure.(FILM)(Zodiac by David Fincher)
April 2, 2007... LONG, repetitive, and deliberately inconclusive, David Fincher's Zodiac is the best movie of 2007 so far, and a better piece of filmmaking than anything nominated for Best Picture in the year just past. Superficially more conventional than his...

Spring rhythm.
April 2, 2007... SPRING begins with flowers. That is what Swinburne wrote. "And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, / And in green underwood and cover / Blossom by blossom the spring begins." Pre-spring begins with sound. The essential, coldest, and...

A new bill of rights?
April 2, 2007... NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27 NEWSPAPERS are carrying lead stories on the inchoate schism between the Episcopalians and the rest of the Anglican Communion. The news tick is that the Anglicans (headed by the archbishop of Canterbury) have informed...

Arthur Schlesinger, R.I.P.(on the right)(Biography)
April 2, 2007... NEW YORK, MARCH 2 I ALWAYS regretted that we didn't become friends, because the thousands who succeeded in doing so found friendship with Arthur Schlesinger very rewarding. For one thing, to behold him--listen to him, observe him, read...

Chasing the buck.
April 2, 2007... NEW YORK, MARCH 6 HARRY TRUMAN is forever remembered for having said, "The buck stops here!" This came at a high moment in confusion and recriminations during the postwar federal scandals. It isn't by any means established that President...

Freedom House: an exchange.(Letter to the editor)
April 16, 2007

A line for Capitol Hill.
April 16, 2007

Iran has thrown down the gauntlet by hijacking 15 British sailors and marines in the Persian Gulf.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

John and Elizabeth Edwards announced that her cancer had returned, and that his campaign for president would continue.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... John and Elizabeth Edwards announced that her cancer had returned, and that his campaign for president would continue. On the first point, we send our best wishes; on the second, if not our best wishes, our appreciation. Politics is the life...

Within days of the Edwards announcement, Tony Snow learned he had also had a recurrence of his cancer.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

When Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed during a recent hearing at Guantanamo Bay to masterminding the 9/11 attacks and a string of other terror plots, he gave us a chilling glimpse of how much worse things might have been.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

The House was set to pass a bill giving D.C. voters the right to elect a full-fledged congressman.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Six years ago, about 300,000 fugitive aliens, who had been ordered to leave the U.S., roamed the land.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Debacles like that one make us less optimistic about the possibility of finding a compromise on immigration policy ...(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

President Bush has said that he sees more support for his "comprehensive" immigration reform on Capitol Hill since last fall's elections.(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Katherine Babineaux Blanco announced that she would not run for reelection as governor of Louisiana.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Well, that didn't take long: Just a few months into their majority, Senate Democrats are already itching to raise taxes.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Al Gore warned a Senate panel that global warming constitutes a "planetary emergency.".(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Once upon a time, conservatives pledged to abolish the Department of Education.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talking to the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, said he believed "homosexual acts ... are immoral," and "we"--the armed forces--"should not condone immoral acts.".(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

Portents.(Poem)
April 16, 2007

Three centuries after the English Civil War, T. S. Eliot wrote of John Milton and Charles I, Roundhead poet and beheaded king, that they "Accept the constitution of silence / And are folded in a single party.".(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

For several years, the federal budget has included provisions ensuring that taxpayer funds will not be spent supporting abortion and related infringements of the sanctity of human life.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... For several years, the federal budget has included provisions ensuring that taxpayer funds will not be spent supporting abortion and related infringements of the sanctity of human life. We fund family planning overseas, for example, but will...

The faculty senate of the University of Florida voted to deny Jeb Bush--who served as governor of Florida until January--an honorary degree.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007

The postcard solution.(Government aid to education)
April 16, 2007

Iran isn't making the work of its appeasers very easy.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007... Iran isn't making the work of its appeasers very easy. If only it suspended uranium enrichment, the world's various acronymed bodies would probably toast the mullahs as "strategic partners" and suspend sanctions on their regime. Iran's rulers...

The European Union is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and a dubious celebration it is.(Brief article)
April 16, 2007