National Review articles from January 2008

National Review archives from January 2008

Trick or treat.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
January 28, 2008... Jay Nordlinger's article on the Presidential Medal of Freedom ("A Tasty Presidential Perk," December 17) was very informative but failed to mention President George W. Bush's lowest moment in awarding these medals: his obsequious presentation...

What if he wins?(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
January 28, 2008... Your endorsement of Governor Romney ("Romney for President," December 31) has left me a little cold. You disqualify Mayor Giuliani for alienating social conservatives, but Romney is sure to suffer a similar deficit in their ranks. Giuliani, at...

Apocalypse now.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
January 28, 2008... There are few things so demonstrative of the End Times as when NATIONAL REVIEW--the last bastion of intellectual conservative thought--publishes five separate endorsements of five separate Republican candidates ("Cases for the Candidates,"...

Father Mitt.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] You write in your endorsement of Romney that "we are not electing a pastor." But with the crown of his head obscuring some of the letters on the cover of your December 31 issue, you appear to be championing Romney as...

The news out of New Hampshire.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... The news out of New Hampshire: Hillary cried, Obama died.

The Republican presidential candidates' debates over immigration have been marked by an obsessive focus on third- and fourth-order questions: What tuition rate should state colleges charge illegal-immigrant students?(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... The Republican presidential candidates' debates over immigration have been marked by an obsessive focus on third- and fourth-order questions: What tuition rate should state colleges charge illegal-immigrant students? Is it fair to call McCain's...

Parties and partisanship get a bad rap from the wise and the good.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Parties and partisanship get a bad rap from the wise and the good. Healthy parties engage voters, channel emotions and ideas, and bring about change, some of it needed. (The era in which the parties were weakest--1830-55--reflected the nation's...

Appearing on Jay Leno's show, Huckabee got off what everybody said was a really good line, even a killer line.(The Week)(Mike Huckabee)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Appearing on Jay Leno's show, Huckabee got off what everybody said was a really good line, even a killer line. What he said was, "People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the...

George McGovern wrote an essay for the Washington Post calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... George McGovern wrote an essay for the Washington Post calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Most of it was a predictable anti-war aria: Saddam's Iraq was "a stable country with little or no capacity to...

In 2002, the CIA made a serious error in tape-recording early interrogations of two notorious terrorists.(The Week)(Central Intelligence Agency)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... In 2002, the CIA made a serious error in tape-recording early interrogations of two notorious terrorists. The men were subjected to tough tactics, probably including waterboarding. Fearing that the tapes might be leaked, in 2005 the head of the...

While commentators are debating the causes and cures of our economic slowdown, the slowdown hasn't gone to the trouble of actually arriving.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... While commentators are debating the causes and cures of our economic slowdown, the slowdown hasn't gone to the trouble of actually arriving. Slow consumption growth in September and October helped to scare the Fed into another rate cut on...

Who's afraid of $100 a barrel?(The Week)(petroleum)
January 28, 2008... ON July 26, 1956, Egypt decided to nationalize the Suez Canal. Within a few months, Britain, France, and Israel attacked, and thrust the world's most important oil-producing region into turmoil. With the superhighway for their oil tankers shut,...

Nations that have permitted large-scale immigration from the Muslim Middle East have all experienced "honor killings"--the murder, almost invariably of women by men, of those deemed to have departed too far from Muslim social norms.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Nations that have permitted large-scale immigration from the Muslim Middle East have all experienced "honor killings"-the murder, almost invariably of women by men, of those deemed to have departed too far from Muslim social norms. These are,...

Winston Churchill's description of disarmament negotiations--"a solemn and prolonged farce"--applies equally well to the U.N.'s endless climate-change talks.(The Week)(United Nations)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Winston Churchill's description of disarmament negotiations--"a solemn and prolonged farce"--applies equally well to the U.N.'s endless climate-change talks. Despite the prevailing view that doom awaits unless we take drastic action now, the...

On January 7, a judge in Missouri tossed out an attempt by Democratic officials to rewrite the ballot language of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, which will ban racial preferences in state government if voters give it their blessing.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... On January 7, a judge in Missouri tossed out an attempt by Democratic officials to rewrite the ballot language of the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, which will ban racial preferences in state government if voters give it their blessing. It's...

Rochester Cathedral in southern England is a thousand years old, and its bishop, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, is a remarkable man, a thoughtful intellectual worthy of the historic diocese he represents.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Rochester Cathedral in southern England is a thousand years old, and its bishop, Dr. Michael Nazir-Ali, is a remarkable man, a thoughtful intellectual worthy of the historic diocese he represents. Back in the bishop's native Pakistan--a country...

Umshini wam, mshini wam / Khawuleth'umshini wam ...(The Week)(Jacob Zuma; political song)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Umshini wam, mshini wam / Khawuleth'umshini wam... The lyrics of the song are in the Zulu language. They translate as: "My machine, my machine, please bring my machine," where the device referred to is understood to be a machine gun (though we...

Kenya, long seen as one of the more stable and promising African nations, now seems intent on traveling a dismal road.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Kenya, long seen as one of the more stable and promising African nations, now seems intent on traveling a dismal road. The December 27 elections, in which incumbent president Mwai Kibaki was elected to a second five-year term, are widely...

Do you remember the Franklin Prophecy?(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Do you remember the Franklin Prophecy? Has it ever been peddled to you? This is an old hoax, though not as old as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The Franklin Prophecy was invented in the 1930s, by anti-Semites in America. It holds that...

If you think American universities are uniquely bad, take heart: They're not so hot in Israel, either.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... If you think American universities are uniquely bad, take heart: They're not so hot in Israel, either. We were arrested by a recent headline: "Heb. U. Paper Finds: IDF Has Political Motives for Not Raping." Oh? A grad student at Hebrew...

Who knew that amateur soccer could have anything in common with Islamic terrorism?(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Who knew that amateur soccer could have anything in common with Islamic terrorism? An Italian club has named itself in honor of Hezbollah, hoping to capture "the strong fighting spirit" of the Party of God. According to Al-Manar TV, Hezbollah's...

Good news out of China: They are expelling people from the Communist party for violating the one-child policy.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Good news out of China: They are expelling people from the Communist party for violating the one-child policy. Why "good news"? Well, we always like to see the ranks of Communist parties reduced, but the main point is that these people are...

The New York Times's decision to make Bill Kristol a regular columnist on its op-ed page was met with the predictable chorus of left-wing boos and catcalls.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... The New York Times's decision to make Bill Kristol a regular columnist on its op-ed page was met with the predictable chorus of left-wing boos and catcalls. To the typical New York Times reader, inviting the editor of The Weekly Standard and a...

On January 3, to greet the New Year, the Times printed a letter to the editor.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... On January 3, to greet the New Year, the Times printed a letter to the editor. "As a lifelong Republican until the candidacy of George W. Bush, I am ashamed and disgusted by the loss of values and the general apathy this country has sunk...

In an annual tradition that remains mystifyingly important, Time magazine named Vladimir Putin its person of the year for 2007.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In an annual tradition that remains mystifyingly important, Time magazine named Vladimir Putin its person of the year for 2007. While the selection of Putin can perhaps be justified given the threat he presents to...

Probably most of our readers have by now encountered the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL), that annoying helical replacement for the traditional bulb.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Probably most of our readers have by now encountered the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL), that annoying helical replacement for the traditional bulb. CFLs are slow to come on, do not respond to dimmer switches, emit low buzzing sounds,...

Last month former senator George Mitchell issued a stern report on what he called "baseball's steroid era"--a period of pervasive illegal drug use.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Last month former senator George Mitchell issued a stern report on what he called "baseball's steroid era"--a period of pervasive illegal drug use. The report implicates more than 80 players, including MVPs. Some players deny the charges....

On a ranking of sound life-management principles, "Don't fool with large hungry tigers" would seem to us to be pretty near the top.(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... On a ranking of sound life-management principles, "Don't fool with large hungry tigers" would seem to us to be pretty near the top. Three young men in San Francisco apparently did not know this elementary rule. On Christmas Day all three were...

Those who are planted in the house of the Lord, promised the Psalmist, will be "fat and flourishing.".(The Week)(Brief article)
January 28, 2008... Those who are planted in the house of the Lord, promised the Psalmist, will be "fat and flourishing." Well, we are. Apart from a few Pacific islands, in fact, the U.S. is the fattest nation in the world. The Trust for America's Health, a...

Process of elimination.(2008)(Mitt Romney)
January 28, 2008... OUR endorsement of Mitt Romney in the last issue concluded with a note about "this most fluid and unpredictable Republican field." Since then, the race has gotten still more unpredictable (and not only on the Republican side). From June through...

Cage fight.(2008 II)(Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton)
January 28, 2008... HILLARY CLINTON came out of New Hampshire a winner--but only because she narrowly avoided being a loser: not the position the world expected her to be in even a month ago. Expect a long, WWF-like struggle ahead. All of Clinton's weaknesses...

After Bhutto.(PAKISTAN)(Benazir Bhutto)
January 28, 2008... WHEN told by aides that he was indispensable, Charles de Gaulle replied: "The graveyards are full of indispensable men." This melancholy truth has recently been tested by the shocking assassination of Benazir Bhutto, who had been recruited to...

McCain ascendant: as conservatism declines ...(2008)(John McCain)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] JOHN MCCAIN lost the fight for the Republican nomination in 2000 because he was too far left for his party. He's moved farther left since, yet this time he could very well win. It is a season of political instability...

'A magical communicator': he's no man for details--but Huck knows how to connect.(2008 II)(Mike Huckabee )
January 28, 2008... Windhan, N.H. 'IF I win New Hampshire, it's because I did this show," Mike Huckabee told David Letterman's audience during an appearance on the Late Show on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. "If I lose New Hampshire, it's because I did...

Right lines, wrong music: what Mitt Romney lacks is the ability to inspire.(2008 III)
January 28, 2008... Derry, N.H. HALFWAY through Mitt Romney's town-hall meeting at a school gym here, a polite, sincere young girl near the front gets the mike. She says she's been trying to ask her question at events for other candidates, but this is the...

The real Bhutto: against the myth-making.(PAKISTAN)(Benazir Bhutto)
January 28, 2008... IN the days since Benazir Bhutto's assassination, much has been revealed, though little about the murder itself. Its culprits and even its means remain a mystery shrouded in rumor. What did become all too clear in the aftermath of the murder...

An ugly Heritage: the poor man's national park; the citizen's burden.(THE NATION)(Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area and Journey Through Hallowed Ground)
January 28, 2008... A FEW years ago, Lee Ott was driving around his vegetable farm in Yuma, Ariz., when he spotted a crew of surveyors putting stakes in his land. "I stopped and asked them what was going on," he recalls. It turned out they were marking the...

No Flash in the pan: remembering George MacDonald Fraser.(APPRECIATION)
January 28, 2008... TEN years ago I saw Lady Thatcher "frit" (a Lincolnshire slang term meaning "frightened" that she once flung across parliament at the Labour party). She was seated next to me at a National Review Institute dinner on the topic of "The Hero...

A half century's slander: it isn't conservatives who must answer for fascism.(Cover story)
January 28, 2008... IF you search Lexis-Nexis for articles from just the last two years in which "Bush" and "fascist" are used in the same sentence, the results exceed 2,000. Search for the years encompassing his entire term, and smoke will start to come out of...

The Waxman cometh: but he doth not succeed.(POLITICS)(Henry Waxman )
January 28, 2008... CONSIDERING that Time magazine once described Henry Waxman as having "all the panache of your parents' dentist," it's hard to imagine how he became the most feared member of Congress. The Californian is serving his 17th consecutive term,...

Her other two opponents.(the bent pin)(Hillary Clinton)
January 28, 2008... POLLSTERS out to discover Hillary's psychological effect on the male sex should abandon the standard practice of asking questions, because probing men's fear and loathing of female dominance forces them into strong silent mode, even when, like...

Help!!!!(Cartoon)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "I don't want you playing with those awful Lear girls any more!" [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Yeah, I shot the guy, but only because I was misled by my advisers." [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

NSA intercept radio frequency surveillance.(the long view)(National Security Agency)(Broadcast transcript)
January 28, 2008... Static UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE #1: "Hello? Control? Is she there?" UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE #2: "She's approaching the stage right now. Bill is behind her. They're waving. People are cheering. You can't see this?" UMV#1: "We're...

The drawing board.(Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again)(Book review)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again, by David Frum (Doubleday, 213 pp., $24.95) CONSERVATIVES discontented with President Bush and his party are thick on the ground these days. David Frum is one of them,...

Rock-solid logic.(Embryo: A Defense of Human Life)(Book review)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Embryo: A Defense of Human Life, by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen (Doubleday, 256 pp., $23.95) THIS book is bigger than the sum of its parts. The pro-life apologist and Princeton professor Robert P....

Idee fixe.(Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy)(Book review)
January 28, 2008... Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, by Charlie Savage (Little, Brown, 416 pp., $25.99) THE winning side writes the history. For now, Charlie Savage is on the winning side, and...

The temple of the mind *.(Poem)
January 28, 2008... THE TEMPLE OF THE MIND * Illusion: imagined, a closed universe, a fiction, a shadow, a glittering mask: to feign a deception clearer than life, to create out of nothing pure artifice. Incessant elaborate projection of...

Cradle of the system.(The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli)(Book review)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli, by Richard Aldous (Norton, 368 pp., $27.95) 'EVERY boy and every gal / That's born into the world alive / Is either a little Liberal / Or else a little...

Well, well, well.(FILM)( There Will Be Blood )(Movie review)
January 28, 2008... YOU won't find a film more self-consciously ambitious than Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood in cinemas this winter. Hailed, near-universally, as the masterpiece that Anderson's admirers have long expected him to produce, the movie...

Mainlining.(CITY DESK)(new york)
January 28, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LAST year the Metropolitan Transit Authority announced that you will soon be able to use your cell phone in all 277 underground subway stations, even the ones that are a hundred feet deep in granite. Tunnels are...

Produced by Iowa.(on the right)
January 28, 2008... NEW YORK, JANUARY 4 IT'S wonderful what a mere American presidential caucus contest can do. Gov. Bill Richardson, interviewed after the Iowa caucuses, said that his ranking in the vote must be understood in the light of the parsimony of...

Pakistan's blood-stained democracy.(on the right)(Interview)
January 28, 2008... NEW YORK, DECEMBER 28 LALLY WEYMOUTH of Newsweek did a brilliant article published two weeks before the assassination. She was in close quarters with Benazir Bhutto and then with President Musharraf. Neither one of them said anything...

Regulation time?(on the right)(subprime-mortgage phenomenon)
January 28, 2008... NEW YORK, JANUARY 2 SOCIAL critics are despondent over the failure absolutely to fix blame on somebody for the terrible subprime-mortgage phenomenon. There's the temptation to blame a phenomenon judged to be malicious, or at best...