National Review articles from July 2009

National Review archives from July 2009

Less knife, more invisible hand.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 6, 2009... I was struck by this quote from Gov. Mitch Daniels, as reported by Mark Hemingway in your June 8 issue ("Mitch the Knife"): "The plant will employ a process called 'coal gasification' to exploit the state's coal reserves more efficiently,...

Wise Latin man.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
July 6, 2009... Your laudable attempt to appease those who obsess over inclusive language is, alas, less than successful. In "The Week" (June 8), you offer, in a touching display of empathy, a Latin grace for meals in secular colleges: Benedictus benedicat....

Correction.(Letters)(Correction notice)
July 6, 2009... In "Hinge of History" (May 25), by Ronald Radosh, it was asserted that the Crooms, a couple in Lionel Trilling's novel The Middle of the Journey, were based on Alger and Priscilla Hiss. In fact, Trilling later denied this, asserting that he had...

Asked whether he was in touch with a prominent former member of his flock, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said no: "Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me.(The Week)(Rev. Jeremiah Wright's relationship with United States President Barack Obama)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Asked whether he was in touch with a prominent former member of his flock, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said no: "Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me." But them Jews needn't worry: Obama never hears him anyway, right?

James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist and anti-Semite, walked into the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with a .22 rifle and killed Stephen Johns, a security guard.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist and anti-Semite, walked into the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., with a .22 rifle and killed Stephen Johns, a security guard. Other guards shot and wounded von Brunn before he...

Two soldiers, Pvt. William Long and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, were shot outside a Little Rock recruiting center; Long died.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Two soldiers, Pvt. William Long and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, were shot outside a Little Rock recruiting center; Long died. The man who attacked them was Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (ne Carlos Bledsoe), a convert to Islam who was being watched by...

Judge Sonia Sotomayor's remark about the special qualities of a "wise Latina woman" was no outlier. Sifting her record shows the trope of "wise woman" or "wise Latina woman" running through her speeches for 15 years.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Judge Sonia Sotomayor's remark about the special qualities of a "wise Latina woman" was no outlier. Sifting her record shows the trope of "wise woman" or "wise Latina woman" running through her speeches for 15 years. She sees group-think in the...

It took only a few hours for the "Wise Latina" cover of our last issue to be roundly denounced as offensive by lefty bloggers (about a week later, Frank Rich caught up and denounced it too) for reasons they couldn't quite settle on.(The Week)(reactions to a magazine cover featuring Judge Sonia Sotomayor)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... It took only a few hours for the "Wise Latina" cover of our last issue to be roundly denounced as offensive by lefty bloggers (about a week later, Frank Rich caught up and denounced it too) for reasons they couldn't quite settle on. Was it that...

David Letterman welcomed Sarah Palin on a visit to New York City by musing on her daughter's man trouble: Alex Rodriguez had "knocked [her] up" during a Yankees game, and Eliot Spitzer was after her too.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... David Letterman welcomed Sarah Palin on a visit to New York City by musing on her daughter's man trouble: Alex Rodriguez had "knocked [her] up" during a Yankees game, and Eliot Spitzer was after her too. The daughter that Sarah Palin was...

Leon Panetta, the CIA director, had something to say about Dick Cheney's criticisms of Obama national-security policies.(The Week)(United States President Barack Obama)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Leon Panetta, the CIA director, had something to say about Dick Cheney's criticisms of Obama national-security policies. In fact, Panetta made a shocking charge: "It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost...

In 2007, Sen. Arlen Specter supported legislation to get rid of the secret ballot in elections to unionize companies--legislation at the top of the labor movement's agenda.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... In 2007, Sen. Arlen Specter supported legislation to get rid of the secret ballot in elections to unionize companies--legislation at the top of the labor movement's agenda. Facing a Republican primary challenge, he came out against it. Now he...

Eamon Javers reports in Politico that President Obama refers in public to Jesus Christ more often than Bush ever did. We don't object.(The Week)(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Eamon Javers reports in Politico that President Obama refers in public to Jesus Christ more often than Bush ever did. We don't object. Neither do most of the people who objected when Bush did it. Their excuse for the double standard is that...

In their primary for governor, Virginia Democrats rejected a left-wing crusader (Brian Moran) and a Clinton crony who parachuted into the state (Terry McAuliffe) in favor of the candidate endorsed by the Washington Post: Creigh Deeds.(The Week)
July 6, 2009... In their primary for governor, Virginia Democrats rejected a left-wing crusader (Brian Moran) and a Clinton crony who parachuted into the state (Terry McAuliffe) in favor of the candidate endorsed by the Washington Post: Creigh Deeds. The...

Say it!(The Week)(on partisan media)
July 6, 2009... A COUPLE of years ago, at the dawn of my young daughter's awareness of such concepts as guile and duplicity, she drew on the wall of her mother's home office. It was a bunch of swirls with a ballpoint pen, and might have gotten an NEA grant in...

In 2008 Democrats won control of the New York state senate, 32 seats to 30, for the first time since the Sixties.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... In 2008 Democrats won control of the New York state senate, 32 seats to 30, for the first time since the Sixties. It lasted only six months, however, until two Democrats, Pedro Espada Jr. (Bronx) and Hiram Monserrate (Queens), agreed to vote...

Rick Duncan campaigned for anti-war Democrats in Colorado last year: Hal Bidlack, who lost a race for the fifth congressional district; and Rep. Jared Polis (second district) and Sen. Mark Udall, who won.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Rick Duncan campaigned for anti-war Democrats in Colorado last year: Hal Bidlack, who lost a race for the fifth congressional district; and Rep. Jared Polis (second district) and Sen. Mark Udall, who won. He was a perfect advocate: a gay Marine...

As part of an effort to sell the American public on the stimulus package, Obama, then the president-elect, commissioned his economic advisers to do a study demonstrating how many jobs would be "created or saved" by his proposal.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... As part of an effort to sell the American public on the stimulus package, Obama, then the president-elect, commissioned his economic advisers to do a study demonstrating how many jobs would be "created or saved" by his proposal. The study...

A handful of large banks are repaying, with interest, the money they received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), prompting some to wonder whether the taxpayer might make money on the deal after all.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... A handful of large banks are repaying, with interest, the money they received under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), prompting some to wonder whether the taxpayer might make money on the deal after all. Don't bet on it. It is important...

The price that U.S. Treasury bonds command on the market plunged in recent weeks, meaning that lenders are demanding higher returns in order to loan Washington money with which to finance the sundry mischief Washington does.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... The price that U.S. Treasury bonds command on the market plunged in recent weeks, meaning that lenders are demanding higher returns in order to loan Washington money with which to finance the sundry mischief Washington does. The "yield...

Let's implement pay-as-you-go budgeting (PAYGO), Obama recently said, to keep the deficit from getting bigger.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Let's implement pay-as-you-go budgeting (PAYGO), Obama recently said, to keep the deficit from getting bigger. Forget that Obama's timing is awfully convenient, coming after he already shepherded his $800 billion stimulus bill through Congress....

Like an old-fashioned burlesque performer, Timothy Geithner reveals, bit by bit, the administration's plans for policing Wall Street.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Like an old-fashioned burlesque performer, Timothy Geithner reveals, bit by bit, the administration's plans for policing Wall Street. We have the familiar feeling that we like some of what we see but are not sure it's worth the ticket price. On...

The details remain unclear as we go to press, but President Obama's firing of Corporation for National and Community Service chairman Gerald Walpin does not smell good.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... The details remain unclear as we go to press, but President Obama's firing of Corporation for National and Community Service chairman Gerald Walpin does not smell good. This year, Walpin investigated claims that St. HOPE Academy, a non-profit...

Congress passed a measure to regulate cigarettes, and the legislation was filtered through the business interests of tobacco giant Philip Morris.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Congress passed a measure to regulate cigarettes, and the legislation was filtered through the business interests of tobacco giant Philip Morris. The new bill gives the world's largest cigarette manufacturer an...

The editors of the Washington Post are spluttering because a bill to give D.C. residents a voting representative in the House has stalled.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... The editors of the Washington Post are spluttering because a bill to give D.C. residents a voting representative in the House has stalled. Republicans sponsored an amendment to protect D.C. citizens' gun rights, and it passed with the support...

House Democrats, indebted to the Code Pink wing of their party, have pressed for the publication of photographs documenting the abuse of prisoners by military personnel.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... House Democrats, indebted to the Code Pink wing of their party, have pressed for the publication of photographs documenting the abuse of prisoners by military personnel. The release of the photos to the general public would do nothing to reform...

The Obama Justice Department is giving captured terrorists in Afghanistan Miranda warnings.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... The Obama Justice Department is giving captured terrorists in Afghanistan Miranda warnings. The resulting hue and cry is understandable, given that President Obama, like Candidate Obama, took umbrage at any suggestion that he regarded...

Pushback from Congress and a disgruntled public forced the Obama administration to reverse course on resettling 17 Gitmo detainees--Uighurs from Chinese Turkestan who received terrorist instruction in jihadist camps--in the United States.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Pushback from Congress and a disgruntled public forced the Obama administration to reverse course on resettling 17 Gitmo detainees--Uighurs from Chinese Turkestan who received terrorist instruction in jihadist camps--in the United States. The...

One little-noticed line in his much-dissected Cairo speech was President Obama's complaint that American "rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill ... zakat," the alms-giving obligation that is central to Islam, as to other religions.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... One little-noticed line in his much-dissected Cairo speech was President Obama's complaint that American "rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill... zakat," the alms-giving obligation that is central to Islam, as...

Most observers were expecting that Hezbollah would win the general election in Lebanon.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Most observers were expecting that Hezbollah would win the general election in Lebanon. Financed and armed by Iran, Hezbollah already does as it pleases, and seemed ready and willing finally to take over the state. Such an outcome would have...

The Obama administration has been pounding on the Israelis, demanding an end even to the "natural growth" of settlements in the West Bank.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... The Obama administration has been pounding on the Israelis, demanding an end even to the "natural growth" of settlements in the West Bank. In the strictest interpretation, that means the population of each settlement would have to stay...

The United Nations has expanded sanctions against North Korea, with Resolution 1874.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... The United Nations has expanded sanctions against North Korea, with Resolution 1874. Compared with previous resolutions, this one is aggressive. It cracks down on Pyongyang's funding sources and calls for heightened inspections of North Korean...

In the news now is another big Cuba spy case. A married couple, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers, spied for Castro for a full 30 years.(The Week)(former Cuban President Fidel Castro)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... In the news now is another big Cuba spy case. A married couple, Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers, spied for Castro for a full 30 years. They were members of our diplomatic elite; Kendall worked at the State Department. And they spied for love, we...

The Asian experience with sex-selective abortion--the destruction of fetal daughters to accommodate future sons--typifies the instrumentalization of human life.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... The Asian experience with sex-selective abortion--the destruction of fetal daughters to accommodate future sons--typifies the instrumentalization of human life. In the United States, communities of Indian, Chinese, and Korean origin, coveting...

In an English county-council election in the Cambridgeshire district of St. Ives, the Labour party finished fourth, behind the Tories, the Liberal Democrats, and, in third place, Lord Toby Jug, representing the Official Monster Raving Loony party.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... In an English county-council election in the Cambridgeshire district of St. Ives, the Labour party finished fourth, behind the Tories, the Liberal Democrats, and, in third place, Lord Toby Jug, representing the Official Monster Raving Loony...

Public lotteries are in effect a tax on the poor and innumerate, and so not to be approved of in the generality.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Public lotteries are in effect a tax on the poor and innumerate, and so not to be approved of in the generality. They do produce some cheering news stories, though. The latest concerns 23-year-old Neal Wanless of Todd County, S.D.--the nation's...

Nothing new under the sun? That does not apply in chemistry, where every few years there is an addition to the periodic table of elements.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Nothing new under the sun? That does not apply in chemistry, where every few years there is an addition to the periodic table of elements. Element number 111 was officially recognized by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry in...

Harvard senior Chanequa Campbell was barred from graduating after police linked her to a drug-related murder on campus.(The Week)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... Harvard senior Chanequa Campbell was barred from graduating after police linked her to a drug-related murder on campus. So naturally she went on a media tour. "Harvard is doing this to me because I'm black, I'm poor, and I'm from Brooklyn," she...

We record with sadness the passing of Omar Bongo, president of the West African republic of Gabon since December 1967.(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... We record with sadness the passing of Omar Bongo, president of the West African republic of Gabon since December 1967. Bongo was the longest-ruling of the world's national leaders by continuous title, hereditary monarchs excluded. (This...

Farce and tragedy.(IRAN)(Iranian political conditions)
July 6, 2009... MANY Iranians are now displaying the courage of despair, in the knowledge that they have been deceived and cheated. They were promised an election for president, and what they got was a farce. The election's practical importance was modest. Not...

Buttering parsnips.(AT WAR)(Barack Obama's Cairo, Egypt speech)
July 6, 2009... A U.S. president addressing the world is in a situation very different from that of a religious leader interpreting a doctrine or a philosopher clarifying an argument. He is principally concerned not with the truth of his propositions but with...

A fiasco in the making.(HEALTH CARE)(Brief article)
July 6, 2009... IN 1994, President Clinton's health-care proposal was done in by its complexity and rigidity. It is the insubstantiality of President Obama's plan that threatens to do it in. Its features are vague and up for grabs, and nobody knows how to make...

Green flags and brown shirts: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 'reelection' reveals a deep and restive Iranian opposition.
July 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE rigging of an election requires a subtle mix of expertise and effrontery, and Iran has just shown what it can do in that respect. The regime is truly a master of deception, and way ahead of everyone else when it...

Blame not the deregulator: it was market distortions that created the bubble.
July 6, 2009... LAST month, Paul Krugman launched a campaign to pin the financial crisis on "Reagan and his circle of advisers." It was "Reagan-era deregulation," Krugman wrote, that led us to the "mess we're in." The substance of Krugman's screed was so...

Europe's disintegrating left: analyzing the recent elections.
July 6, 2009... EXACTLY 20 years after the velvet revolutions of 1989, the shape of post--Cold War European politics finally began to assume clear form in the election results for the European Assembly (alias, the European Parliament). For this to happen, much...

Japanese crossroads: does our most important asian ally face another decade of decline?
July 6, 2009... OVER the past quarter century, global perceptions of Japan have fluctuated violently. In the 1980s, the country was touted as an emerging superpower that would rival the United States. Then a Lost Decade of recession and deflation eclipsed the...

Undies, comrade? The problem of products bearing communist symbols.
July 6, 2009... COUPLE of weeks ago, I got a letter from a reader in Santa Monica who wanted to complain about Leninade. This is a drink--a lemonade soda--whose bottle is dressed up Soviet-style: hammer and sickle, red star, etc. Why was this lady sounding off...

Fossil future: new supplies of oil and coal must be part of any rational energy policy.
July 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the Gulf of Mexico ONE of the first things you need to know when visiting an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is that a hard hat and safety goggles must be worn at all times. Another thing you might like to know...

Misremembering Reagan: the gipper still has lessons to teach--just not the ones we usually hear.(Ronald Reagan)
July 6, 2009... 'REPUBLICANS have attempted to lead with one eye on the rear-view mirror, gazing at the fading reflection of Ronald Reagan.... But Ronald Reagan cannot win the victory for Republicans in [the next election], and the party had best get busy...

The redhunters: a remarkable duo's pursuit of former spies and historical truth.(Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America)(Book review)
July 6, 2009... THE chase began on Google. Harvey Klehr typed "Russell McNutt" into the search box. Thousands of results flooded his computer. Klehr scoured them. "On about the 895th reference," he recalls, "we found the clue that led us to him." Months...

The bent pin: with liberty and pug noses for all.
July 6, 2009... YOU have to learn to crawl before you can walk over hot coals. Our present love affair with diversity, inclusion, and multiculturalism got its training wheels in the early '70s when the melting pot boiled over and Ethnic Awareness hit the fan....

From the Iranian airwaves ... official transcript: the McKhameini Group.(The Long View)
July 6, 2009... [SFX: Martial theme music] AHMAD MCKHAMEINI: Issue One! The Tehran-around! After last week's inconclusive and murky election for the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi have claimed...

The dark lord.(Biography)
July 6, 2009... BYRON has his memorial among the honored national poets in Westminster Abbey. How this would horrify him! He mocked fame and society, and accused everyone respectable or ordinary of cant and hypocrisy. A cynic through and through, he...

Heart of darkness.(The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia )(Book review)
July 6, 2009... The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia, by James Palmer (Basic, 288 pp., $26.95) TO find even a quick allusion to the White Russian civil-war commander...

What grandma read.(What America Read: Taste, Class, and the Novel, 1920-1960)(Book review)
July 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] What America Read: Taste, Class, and the Novel, 1920-1960, by Gordon Hutner (North Carolina, 432 pp., $39.95) THE parlors of small-town America are full of novels that made their way onto the bestseller...

Adult Western: a mental movie.(Poem)
July 6, 2009... ADULT WESTERN a mental movie When old King Colt still ruled the ribald West With iron hand: You buttoned up your vest. Put on your ten-buck hat, strapped on your gun And stepped out blinking in the point-blank sun. ...

Misanthropy on tour.(Film)(Away We Go)(Movie review)
July 6, 2009... THE aesthetic style associated with Dave Eggers, the memoirist, journalist, novelist, and literary entrepreneur, has always been a slippery thing--instantly recognizable yet somehow difficult to describe. It's informed not only Eggers's own...

Magnificent folly.(The Straggler)
July 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Is it really 40 years? Good heavens! I suppose everyone who cared about such things can recall the moment with precision. I was working as a bartender at a pub in Liverpool, northwest England. The proprietor of the...