National Review articles from July 2001

National Review archives from July 2001

The New Faces of Battle - After Communism, three political strains.(social democracy, national soverignty, and pro-regulation parties represent three main views in world politcs)
July 9, 2001... One of the lighter and more instructive moments in the Gothenburg summit came over the dinner at which George W. Bush reportedly charmed his European counterparts into submission. It concerned, however, not Bush but a much more controversial...

French Kisses, and Kiss-offs - Do they like us, really like us? Yeah, in a way.(France and other European countries becoming more like America)
July 9, 2001... 'Tell me," a successful French chef asked me yesterday, "is it true that Americans eat at least one meal a day in their cars?" Like almost everything the Europeans believe about Americans, this is both true and untrue. We like our...

W. & Hollywood?: You've got to be kidding. No, not necessarily.(Bush administration tries to form relationship with movie industry)
July 9, 2001... It's not exactly on a par with the president's efforts to win European support for his views on missile defense and global warming. Nor does it compare to CIA director George Tenet's peace negotiations in the Middle East. But these days the...

Steel Trap: How Bush could harm free trade.(protection of US steel industry)(Industry Overview)
July 9, 2001... Since taking office, President Bush has repeatedly voiced strong support for free trade-often in stirring terms. In a May 7 speech before the Council of the Americas, for example, he declared: "Open trade is not just an economic opportunity, it...

Uncharitable Choice: The president's way is the wrong way.(Bush should focus on tax credits to help charities rather than proposed faith-based initiatives)
July 9, 2001... President Bush's point man on faith-based initiatives, John J. DiIulio, has been extremely vocal about the need for conservatives to support the administration's charitable-choice proposal-but some conservatives are wary, and rightly so. The...

Stars Above!: Astrology is ascending, which is bad news.(some seek to include astrology in school curriculum)
July 9, 2001... Those of us who were around in the 1970s often felt we might not make it through that strange decade with our sanity intact if just one more person came up to us at a party and said: "What sign are you?" That particular form of silliness has...

Sins of the Father: How '43' can avoid the mistakes of '41'.(George W. Bush in danger of repeating certain missteps by father's administration)
July 9, 2001... President Bush has gone to great lengths to make it clear that his is not his father's administration. For two years before he launched his presidential campaign, his aides were spreading the word among conservatives that he was to the right of...

The 'Nastiest' Democrat: Sen. Patrick Leahy, Republican nightmare.(overview of controversial senator's political career)
July 9, 2001... The other Vermont senator's no day at the beach. He is Patrick Leahy, and when James Jeffords pulled his big switch, Leahy landed a big job: chairman of the Judiciary Committee. It's a job Leahy has always wanted; and a Republican nightmare has...

This Is a Bust: The futility of drug interdiction.(drug industry economics will always foil war on drugs)
July 9, 2001... The drug war works, at least in Bolivia. Between 1995 and 2000, the amount of land in Bolivia with coca cultivated on it declined from almost 50,000 hectares to fewer than 20,000. In Peru, during the same period, land under cultivation for coca...

'The Heart of My Mystery': Fear not, and hope not: The new eugenics will leave us unchanged.(genetic engineering will never answer basic questions about human behavior and disease)
July 9, 2001... When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sent by Claudius to discover what ails Hamlet, the prince guesses at once what they are up to: You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you...

The Long View.(imagined conversation between George W. Bush and European leaders)(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... The European Charm Offensive scene one: spain POTUS: Hey, amigo. AZNAR: Buenos dias, Senor Presidente. POTUS: C'mon now, bud. You can call me George. AZNAR: Gracias, George. POTUS: De nada, amigo. Great spot you...

Enemies of Certitude.(Review)
July 9, 2001... The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, by Louis Menand (Farrar, Straus, 546 pp., $27) The Sixties generation of student radicals, deeply traumatized by the experience of a morally questionable-and, it seemed, unwinnable-war,...

Bound for Graceland.(Review)
July 9, 2001... Elvis in the Morning, by William F. Buckley Jr. (Harcourt, 328 pages, $25) An infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters might peck for a year or two before they stumbled upon the charming idea of matching up William...

What a Girl Wants.(Review)
July 9, 2001... Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution, by Paula Kamen (New York University, 280 pp., $25.95) Paula Kamen is no academic. She is a "Chicago-based journalist, lecturer, playwright, and the author of what is widely regarded as the...

Rhyme and Reason.(Review)
July 9, 2001... Words Alone: The Poet T. S. Eliot, by Denis Donoghue (Yale, 326 pp., $26.95) Is T. S. Eliot a great poet, and if so, what is the nature of his greatness? Intelligent people have been debating this question since 1915, when "The Love Song...

Castles in Spain.(Review)
July 9, 2001... All of the characters in the British film noir Sexy Beast have extensive past or present criminal records, and in the course of the story a major heist and two murders are committed; yet nowhere is there the slightest evidence of a past or...

Urban Sundial.(Manhattan's grid system streets)(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... The biggest timepiece in Manhattan is seven miles long and a mile or two wide. For counting the smaller units of time-seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, seasons-it is worthless, but it marks with tolerable precision the summer...

On the Right - Jenna and Barbara, Honorary J.D.'s.(behavior of George W. Bush's daughters draws criticism of drinking age laws)(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... NEW YORK, JUNE 5 We took one of those oaths not to write about the Bush ladies, but one aspect of their drinking affair is underplayed, which is the sheer idiocy of the law. We all know that up until the counter-Woodstock anti-alcohol...

On the Right - Trial Lawyers vs. Sanity.(patients' bill of rights brings focus to need for tort reform)(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... NEW YORK, JUNE 8 A week or so back, Blockbuster, Inc., signed a consent decree. The aggrieved were folks who were "overcharged" for overdue rented movies. Retribution for movie renters will be in scrip, with a limit per Blockbusterite of...

On the Right - Any Questions for The President?(what George W. Bush might say to European critics)(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... NEW YORK, JUNE 15 Q: mr. president, welcome to Europe, to Spain. There are a few differences in outlook on policy between us-older societies-and you, of the new world- A: Yes. Go ahead. Q: -for instance on the subject of capital...

Misanthrope's Corner.(examining why US media gave little coverage to massacre of Nepal's royal family)(Brief Article)(Column)
July 9, 2001... Hearing that Nepal's Crown Prince Dipendra had murdered his father the king, his mother the queen, his brother the prince, his aunts the princesses, and assorted other royalty at the dinner table, the spirit of Lizzie Borden was heard to say...

For the Record.(various goings on in politics)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... In Zogby poll, 60 percent view President Bush favorably. . . . Among Bush's top 300 appointees, reports National Journal, 34 percent are Catholic, 34 percent are lawyers, 26 percent are Ivy League graduates, 15 percent served in Clinton...

The Week.(goings on in politics and society)
July 23, 2001... --The latest Clinton pardon scandal has provoked furious denials of any association with a notorious crime family: Thomas Gambino says he would never have anything to do with the Clintons. --Recent polls showing an average approval rating...

The Constitution: In Need of Amendment.(call for consitutional amendment defining marriage)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... For all the progress that homosexuals have made in public opinion, "gay marriage" remains deeply unpopular. In 1996, the federal Defense of Marriage Act-defining marriage as a union of a man and a woman for purposes of federal law, and allowing...

Reputations: A Tangled Web.(author David Brock's credibility now beyond repair with confession that he lied)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... David Brock is a liar. On this point, everyone agrees, including Brock himself. Brock used to be a conservative journalist, and in that capacity wrote a book defending Clarence Thomas called The Real Anita Hill. In recent years, Brock has taken...

OUR PAGES: Why Poetry?('National Review' to publish poem in every issue)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... In its now distant earliest days National Review regularly included a worthy poem in its Books, Arts & Manners section, the poetry editor then being the master critic Hugh Kenner. Now, after many years, NR is undertaking to do so again. ...

Notes and Asides.
July 23, 2001... --Memo to: WFB From: Rich I think our readers will want to have the big news about Jay Nordlinger. He won the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism. The award is made by the News Corporation, and was presented...

Cells, Fetuses, and Logic: Who is being sentimental, who rational, in this debate?(pro-life movement appears more consistent and logical)
July 23, 2001... Americans' attitudes toward abortion are notoriously muddled. But it is safe to say that they tend to dislike pro-lifers more than pro- choicers, even when they themselves favor curbs on abortion. Pro-lifers have a suspect, a frightening,...

Cheney's Secret List: Like Hillary, like Dick?(Vice President probed for possible violations of Federal Advisory Committee Act)
July 23, 2001... Bill Clinger had a question for Dick Cheney. It was mid May, and Clinger-a Pennsylvania Republican who retired a few years ago from the House of Representatives, where he had served as chairman of the Government Reform Committee-had come to the...

A Soldier's Civic Duty?: Playing mayor and other things in the Balkans.(US military presence in Kosovo and surrounding areas)
July 23, 2001... Witness the marvel of the American military, the best trained and equipped fighting force in the world. When on duty in Kosovo, First Sergeant William Burns led a weekly meeting in the town of Pones, a village where violence against ethnic...

Unreserved: The misuse of America's reserve forces.
July 23, 2001... Once upon a time, the reserve forces of the U.S. military were exactly that: reserve forces. Our country held them back like fire extinguishers in the basement, hoping we wouldn't have to use them but knowing where to find them in case of an...

The Dream of A.I.: There is no substitute for man.(artificial intelligence will never reach level of real humans)
July 23, 2001... Steven Spielberg's new movie, A.I., is the latest in a long line of fictions about artificial human beings, reaching back to the golem legends of medieval European Jewry and the "homunculus" that the 16th- century alchemist Paracelsus claimed...

The 28th Amendment: It is time to protect marriage, and democracy, in America.(Defense of Marriage Act may be in jeopardy)
July 23, 2001... Marriage is so central to the well-being of children-and society as a whole-that it was, until recently, difficult to imagine that it might be necessary to mount a national political campaign to protect the institution from radical...

Bush's Latin Beat: A vision, but a faulty one.(George W. Bush seeks united Americas to compete with Europe and Far East)
July 23, 2001... Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, American presidents did not really need "the vision thing." The Cold War itself gave them a wonderful pair of spectacles that enabled the most short-sighted observer to see the world as it was. These...

Executing the Retarded: How to think about a new wedge issue.
July 23, 2001... Of the 38 states that allow the death penalty, some 15 exempt the mentally retarded from its reach, as does the federal government. Recently a group of retired American diplomats urged the Supreme Court to ban such executions generally, arguing...

The Incredible Shrinking Past: Why it puts the future at risk.(importance of history in society)
July 23, 2001... Sometimes a statesman's minor actions are more disturbing than his grandest gestures. British prime minister Tony Blair's recent emasculation of the House of Lords did little to advance his New Labour cause; and yet the ease with which Blair...

The Long View.(imagined proposal for book honoring the Y-generation)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Book Proposals from the Future July 12, 2033 TO: Random House RE: The "Greatest Generation" As you may recall, the "Greatest Generation" series of media products was extremely popular 30 years ago. These products celebrated...

Experiment in Terror.(Review)
July 23, 2001... Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War, edited by Ronald Radosh, Mary R. Habeck, and Grigory Sevostianov (Yale, 537 pp., $35) To contemporaries, the Spanish Civil War seemed an epic, even biblical, struggle between...

First Steps.(Review)
July 23, 2001... The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust, translated by Joachim Neugroschel (Cooper Square Press, 224 pp., $25.95) Was there ever a great writer who began less auspiciously than Marcel Proust? His first book, Les Plaisirs et les jours,...

Mere Excellence.(unfairly-maligned conductor Kurt Masur to leave New York Philharmonic)
July 23, 2001... Last month, Kurt Masur finished his second-to-the-last season with the New York Philharmonic; by this time next year, he will be gone-and that's a shame. Since he became music director in 1991, Masur has made this orchestra one of the mightiest...

Pinocchio Was Here.(Review)
July 23, 2001... Asked whom he considered the most important French poet, Andre Gide famously replied, "Victor Hugo, alas." Asked who the most important American film director is today, I answer, "Steven Spielberg, alas." He is a great technician, has a...

Books in Brief.(Review)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... A Different Drummer: My Thirty Years with Ronald Reagan, by Michael K. Deaver (HarperCollins, 228 pp., $25) Mike Deaver worked for Ronald Reagan for most of the period from the first gubernatorial campaign to the beginning of the second...

Book Shelf.(Liberty Fund Books)(Brief Article)(Company Profile)
July 23, 2001... The specialization of academic life, along with the preponderance of the Left in colleges and universities, has had a baneful effect that has become so universal as to be almost unnoticeable: It has institutionalized a bias toward the...

On the Right - The Laughter of Archie Bunker.(appreciation of legendary character and actor who portrayed him)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... NEW YORK, JUNE 26 The series starring Archie Bunker was the most devastating ideological scam in the cultural history of television. Archie Bunker was the conservative. He was ignorant, semi-illiterate, racist, mean, cowardly, and a...

On the Right - Show Your I.D. Before Reading . . .(Abercrombie and Fitch catalog nearly pornographic)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... NEW YORK, JUNE 19 I tend to lose my cell phone and so noticed a display ad for khaki pants with a compartment just below the right knee that is perfect for keeping electronic equipment, and that led me to Abercrombie & Fitch. I waited at...

On the Right - California Targeted.(Republicans seek to gain footing in California)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... NEW YORK, JUNE 22 Somebody, it is widely thought in California, should replace Gray Davis as governor. He is a Democrat, he is a little boring, and he is seen as the master of ceremonies of the energy crisis in that state. To be short of...

Misanthrope's Corner.(culturally and historically illiterate college graduates)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Back in February I wrote a column about the "Duhs," those human postholes in the barren landscape of Customer Service who mangle mail orders and can't spell King. Now I bring you even worse tidings. This column is about the Ignos. An Igno...