National Review articles from June 2009

National Review archives from June 2009

Specifically intended.(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2009... Although I often agree with Andrew C. McCarthy on the issue of terrorist detainees, I believe he is mistaken in his accusation of hypocrisy against the Obama administration on the issue of torture and "specific intent" ("Torture Is a State of...

Correction.(Correction notice)
June 22, 2009... We apologize for an editing error in Tom Shippey's essay "Of Beauty and Loss" (June 8). Apassage in the printed version asserts that Tolkien "was mesmerized by Norse, which was well-preserved in Finland: The complete lack of literary tradition...

But it worked.(The Week)
June 22, 2009... But it worked so well for Yugo.

Dr. George Tiller, a Wichita abortionist, was shot and killed at his church on a Sunday, in the presence of his wife.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Dr. George Tiller, a Wichita abortionist, was shot and killed at his church on a Sunday, in the presence of his wife. The prolife movement almost unanimously condemned the deed. The abatement of anti-abortion lawlessness--murders, bombings, mob...

Government Motors?(The Week)(General Motors Corp.)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Government Motors? The name has the proper initials, but the connotation is imprecise. It implies that GM became a government-run company only when the feds acquired a 60 percent stake in it as a result of its...

Ted Olson, President Bush's solicitor general and a Federalist Society mainstay, has found a new legal cause: same-sex marriage, which he believes the Constitution requires all states to recognize.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Ted Olson, President Bush's solicitor general and a Federalist Society mainstay, has found a new legal cause: same-sex marriage, which he believes the Constitution requires all states to recognize. He has filed a lawsuit to that effect in...

The Obama administration's fiscal incontinence has awakened the "bond vigilantes," investors around the world who are driving up the yields on ten-year Treasuries.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... The Obama administration's fiscal incontinence has awakened the "bond vigilantes," investors around the world who are driving up the yields on ten-year Treasuries. They are doing this because they calculate, not without reason, that the current...

In his speech at the National Archives, President Obama indulged his penchant for rebuking his predecessor even while adopting his counterterrorism policies.(The Week)(Barack Obama and George W. Bush)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... In his speech at the National Archives, President Obama indulged his penchant for rebuking his predecessor even while adopting his counterterrorism policies. The president decried Bush's policies as an "ad hoc legal approach for fighting...

The timing was regrettable (or fortunate, depending on your perspective).(The Week)(Muslim men charged of terrorist conspiracy )(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... The timing was regrettable (or fortunate, depending on your perspective), but just as President Obama, in his National Archives speech, broached the possibility of transferring terrorist detainees to U.S. prisons in order to achieve his goal of...

Recession blues.(economic conditions affect presidential elections )
June 22, 2009... YALE economist Ray Fair has studied the impact of the economy on presidential elections and found that bad economies tend to hurt incumbent parties. Republicans, still smarting from the wounds of last November, know exactly how that process...

Jon Corzine's governorship of New Jersey has veered from one crash to another (sometimes literally, as when his state-trooper-driven SUV hit a guardrail going 90 miles an hour).(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Jon Corzine's governorship of New Jersey has veered from one crash to another (sometimes literally, as when his state-trooper-driven SUV hit a guardrail going 90 miles an hour). As he runs for reelection, he seems...

California has historically been a good place to start a tax revolt.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... California has historically been a good place to start a tax revolt. The 1978 passage of Proposition 13, which capped property taxes and contained language requiring a two-thirds majority for any tax increase, prompted similar measures in other...

Sen. Roland Burris (D., Ill.) wants you to know that he did not pay for his seat, and he didn't, but is that enough?(political corruption investigated)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Sen. Roland Burris (D., Ill.) wants you to know that he did not pay for his seat, and he didn't, but is that enough? Burris was taped by feds investigating former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (who has since been indicted) on corruption...

Maryland has discovered that you can try to soak the rich, but the rich know how to swim across the Potomac.(Maryland's tax policy)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Maryland has discovered that you can try to soak the rich, but the rich know how to swim across the Potomac. Faced with a budget shortfall, Maryland's state legislators enacted a higher tax bracket for millionaires--6.25 percent on top of...

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reports that America's out-of-wedlock birthrate hit a record high in 2007, when nearly 40 percent of all births were to unmarried women.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reports that America's out-of-wedlock birthrate hit a record high in 2007, when nearly 40 percent of all births were to unmarried women. In 2002, the rate was about 33 percent. The recent...

The Obama Justice Department filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to let stand a ruling that denies 17 Uighurs--Muslims from Chinese Turkestan--a right to be released into the United States.(President Barack Obama's social policy )(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... The Obama Justice Department filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to let stand a ruling that denies 17 Uighurs--Muslims from Chinese Turkestan--a right to be released into the United States. Human-rights activists howled that Obama was...

Career prosecutors at the Justice Department went after some Obama supporters in the New Black Panther Party following shocking allegations that those supporters had intimidated voters with threats, racial epithets, and a nightstick.(The Week)
June 22, 2009... Career prosecutors at the Justice Department went after some Obama supporters in the New Black Panther Party following shocking allegations that those supporters had intimidated voters with threats, racial epithets, and a nightstick. The...

"We expected broken promises," writes Ted Rall, left-wing cartoonist.(President Barack Obama evaluated)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... "We expected broken promises," writes Ted Rall, left-wing cartoonist. "But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical...

"From behind a burning bus barricade Saturday night comes the gunfire of soldiers advancing toward Tiananmen Square.".(1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre)
June 22, 2009... "From behind a burning bus barricade Saturday night comes the gunfire of soldiers advancing toward Tiananmen Square." So 20 years ago Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal began her account of what is now remembered in China as "June 4."...

North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon and test-fired long-range missiles, shattering more than two years of U.S.-led diplomacy.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon and test-fired long-range missiles, shattering more than two years of U.S.-led diplomacy. This was Pyongyang's second nuclear test; the first occurred in October 2006. The Bush administration responded to...

The Parliament expenses scandal in Britain has claimed victims in all the major parties.(The Week)
June 22, 2009... The Parliament expenses scandal in Britain has claimed victims in all the major parties, yet David Cameron and the Tories seem to have been the least affected--in part because Cameron cracked down hard on malefactors in his own ranks, in part...

President Obama has led many to think that he would favor the Palestinians at the expense of Israel, and sure enough, here comes evidence for it.(President Barack Obama's foreign policy)
June 22, 2009... President Obama has led many to think that he would favor the Palestinians at the expense of Israel, and sure enough, here comes evidence for it. According to Hillary Clinton, Obama is asking for a total stop to every kind of Israeli settlement...

The Pakistani army has driven the Taliban out of the Swat Valley and recaptured Mingora, the one sizable town there.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... The Pakistani army has driven the Taliban out of the Swat Valley and recaptured Mingora, the one sizable town there. Some Taliban leaders have been killed, and others have fled to the mountains of Waziristan, where they may still be pursued....

Years ago, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was a high-profile advocate of human rights in China.(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Years ago, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was a high-profile advocate of human rights in China. She is from San Francisco; there are Chinese Americans there. Now she is Speaker Nancy Pelosi--exalted. And she has bigger fish to fry. At the beginning of the...

As the Associated Press informed us, "Fidel Castro criticized former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for defending American interrogation methods against terror suspects, saying ... that torture should never be used to extract information.".(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... As the Associated Press informed us, "Fidel Castro criticized former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney for defending American interrogation methods against terror suspects, saying... that torture should never be used to extract information."...

One by one, the lights have gone out in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela; there is almost none left.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... One by one, the lights have gone out in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela; there is almost none left. Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian writer and politician, has tried to provide some light. He traveled to Venezuela to participate in a pro-democracy...

Ayman Nour is a brave man, and as a democrat and opposition leader in Egypt he needs to be.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Ayman Nour is a brave man, and as a democrat and opposition leader in Egypt he needs to be. A lawyer, and the founder and head of the al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party, he ran in the 2005 election against Hosni Mubarak, who has been running Egypt by...

Benno Ohnesorg was a model young German in the legendary Sixties: a hippie, pacifist, and poetry lover, naturally antifa (the lingo of that day for "anti-fascist").(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Benno Ohnesorg was a model young German in the legendary Sixties: a hippie, pacifist, and poetry lover, naturally antifa (the lingo of that day for "anti-fascist"). The poor fellow went to a demonstration in Berlin in 1967 against the visiting...

Tens of thousands died in Buchenwald, one of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps, and it is right for President Obama, or indeed anyone, to go there in commemoration.(The Week)(Barack Obama)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Tens of thousands died in Buchenwald, one of the most infamous Nazi concentration camps, and it is right for President Obama, or indeed anyone, to go there in commemoration. But it is not all right for anyone in an official or representative...

Queen Elizabeth was not invited to the ceremony marking D-Day this year--it is the 65th anniversary.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Queen Elizabeth was not invited to the ceremony marking D-Day this year--it is the 65th anniversary. The snub, as you doubtless have guessed, was thanks to France. According to reports, the lady was quite miffed at her exclusion. May she find...

There are few sounds more pleasing to the conservative ear than the clang of colliding liberal pieties.(The Week)(on Michaelle Jean's case)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... There are few sounds more pleasing to the conservative ear than the clang of colliding liberal pieties. Consider the recent case of Michaelle Jean, governor-general of Canada, which is to say, viceroy under Queen Elizabeth of England, Canada's...

Pastor David Jones and his wife, Mary, hold a regular dinner and Bible study in their Bonita, Calif., home.(The Week)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Pastor David Jones and his wife, Mary, hold a regular dinner and Bible study in their Bonita, Calif., home. One day, Mrs. Jones found the fuzz on her doorstep. "Do you say 'Amen'?" asked a San Diego County code-enforcement officer. "Do you...

Elizabeth Dean was nine weeks old when the Titanic, which was taking her and her family to America, sank off Newfoundland.(The Week)(Obituary)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Elizabeth Dean was nine weeks old when the Titanic, which was taking her and her family to America, sank off Newfoundland. The infant, her two-year-old brother, Bertram Jr., and her mother, Georgetta, were saved. Her father, Bertram, died. Miss...

We always welcome encouraging signs on the pop-culture front, and the new ABC series from Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, is one such sign.(The Week)(The Goode Family)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] We always welcome encouraging signs on the pop-culture front, and the new ABC series from Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, is one such sign. Called The Goode Family, the show lampoons...

Do blondes have more fun?(The Week)(fictitious characters, Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... Do blondes have more fun? Not when brunettes have more money. That's the lesson to be learned from the news that Archie Andrews, of Archie comics fame, now in his twenties and a college graduate, has plighted his middle-class troth with wealthy...

The self-taught intellectual used to be an American type.(The Week)(Richard Nadler)(Obituary)(Brief article)
June 22, 2009... The self-taught intellectual used to be an American type. Now the country has one fewer. Richard Nadler, 60, was a high-school dropout and musician. In the 1980s he became a conservative activist, working to promote school choice, phonics, and...

Consent denied.(THE LAW)(on confirming Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor)
June 22, 2009... THE case for confirming Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is nearly as damning as the case against her. Listen to her defenders. They say that she would be the first Latina justice, and that Republicans should therefore tremble before...

Judging from experience: Sonia Sotomayor's rhetoric and rulings give cause for alarm.
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SONIA SOTOMAYOR was delivering the keynote address at a 2001 academic conference when she said, "Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see." The speech has become infamous in the days since...

States of mind: some notes on Sotomayor, race, and nagging questions of identity.(Judge Sonia Sotomayor)
June 22, 2009... I DON'T know if you've heard, but Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, is Hispanic. She'd be the first to tell you. Though she might say "Latina," as in "wise Latina"--her apparent self-description. NATIONAL...

Regulated to death: Obama's CAFE standards will prove bad for business and lethal for consumers.(President Barack Obama on Corporate Average Fuel Economy)
June 22, 2009... MAY 19 was a perfect day for a White House photo op. The sun was out, the Rose Garden was full, and everyone was smiling, even the CEOs of several automakers--which was ironic, because they were there to sign a suicide pact. President...

Cuban hopes: the people find their voice--but will the world help the Castros silence it?
June 22, 2009... IN the 1980s, most American foreign-policy experts and intelligence analysts failed to see the internal changes taking place in the Soviet bloc as serious challenges to the regimes. Could history be repeating itself closer to home, this time in...

Undue deference: the wisdom of opposing Sotomayor.(Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor)(Cover story)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER said it better than they would have said it. But a lot of Republicans were surely nodding in agreement as they read the columnist's argument that they should vote to confirm Sonia Sotomayor...

Integration now: the Supreme Court should scrap an antiquated and unconstitutional rule.
June 22, 2009... IN the summer of 2006, with hardly a dissenting vote, Congress extended and strengthened the most radical provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for a quarter century. That provision--Section 5--was originally supposed to expire in 1970. In...

Obama's playbook, in paperback: liberal fascism and its critics.(Barack Obama and "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning")
June 22, 2009... 'IN the greatest hoax of modern history, Russia's ruling 'socialist workers party,' the Communists, established them selves as the polar opposites of their two socialist clones, the National Socialist German Workers Party (quicknamed 'the...

Mexico's cartel wars: in some ways, the nation's rampant violence is a sign of progress.(Report)
June 22, 2009... Mexico City A RCHBISHOP HECTOR GONZALEZ caused a mini-scandal in Mexico when he declared recently that the country's most notorious drug baron, Joaquin "El Chapo" ("The Kid") Guzman, was living right outside a small town in the...

A conversation from heaven: in an interview with Newsweek, Obama responds to the critics of his critics.(THE TAKE: The Long View)(Barack and Michelle Obama)(Interview)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Michelle Obama: "It's been a challenge. But one of the things we do best, along with the other things that we do best, is meet challenges." President Obama: "Has the level of love surprised me? Not really....

How it was.(Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement)(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Right Time, Right Place: Coming of Age with William F. Buckley Jr. and the Conservative Movement, by Richard Brookhiser (Basic, 262 pp., $27.50) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] RICHARD BROOKHISER in the late 1960s was a clever young student in...

Can we outlast the contradictions?(Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect)(Book review)
June 22, 2009... Soft Despotism, Democracy's Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect, by Paul A. Rahe (Y ale, 400 pp., $38) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CONSERVATIVES are accustomed to books, from The Road to Serfdom in 1944 to...

Obsession.(Poem)
June 22, 2009... OBSESSION I study the hours on an heirloom watch, Precious hours marked with diamonds That scatter the sunlight over the room. Since you left, I am obsessed with time, Unsure if it is my enemy or my friend, ...

... and Away!(Film)(Up)(Movie review)
June 22, 2009... THE highest-grossing May movies included a prequel to the X-Men trilogy, a reinvention of the sprawling Star Trek franchise, the sequel to 2006's Night at the Museum, the fourth Terminator movie, and a sequel to The Da Vinci Code. The...

Attention getting.(City Desk)
June 22, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHEN I moved to New York, Ben Sonnenberg was a merry old troll who lived, not in a den under a bridge, but at 19 Gramercy Park, in the former Stuyvesant Fish house. The place had a staircase by Stanford White, and...