National Review articles from May 2002

National Review archives from May 2002

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
May 6, 2002... --"Baffled rage, awe, and gratitude"- -- Rob Long ("Uncle Sam WaWants Them," March 25) sums up a whole family's range of reactions in those words. I am a mother of six -- two of whom are 20-year-old twins who serve in the United States Marine...

The Week.(politics)(Column)
May 6, 2002... -- The Council on American-Islamic Relations is organizing a prpro- Palestinian rally in Washington. They already have the State Department, don't they? -- Sweating through his shirt and at times shouting, Al Gore pounded ththe Bush...

On the Right Special: An Interview with William F. Buckley Jr.(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 6, 2002... April 1 was the 40th anniversary of WFB's column, On the Right. Our librarian advises that he has written 5,610 columns, which, measured in gross, adds up to 4.5 million words, the equivalent of 45 medium-sized books. We put a couple of...

Notes & Asides.(language)(Brief Article)
May 6, 2002... -- Dear Mr. Buckley: In the March 11 issue, Mr. Gould B. Hagler Jr. poposed a grammar question about Matthew 6:19 in the King James Version: ". . . where moth and rust doth corrupt . . ." In defense of the many translators who created the...

Israel on the Edge: Fighting despair, Arabs, and the enmity of the world.
May 6, 2002... In the current Arab-Israeli crisis, the Israelis appear to have forfeited the sympathy of much of the civilized world. Why is this? And what can Israel, and its allies, do about it? Part of the explanation lies in the failure of Israel's...

Fantasy Time: What America thinks of Arabs, what Arabs think of it.
May 6, 2002... President Bush's recent pronouncements on the Middle East and Secretary Powell's visit there no doubt reflected a well-intentioned attempt at peace-making. Lack of moral clarity, however, has brought to the surface fantasies rife in the Arab...

Enron's Bastard Children: Oh, what legislation you have spawned!
May 6, 2002... As a political scandal, Enron has fizzled out. Democrats know that the story is not going to dominate the midterm elections and are searching for other clubs with which to hit the Bush administration. So the scandal won't hurt Republicans. It...

Fort Liberalism: Can Justice's civil rights division be Bushified?
May 6, 2002... Transit cops in Philadelphia can't afford to take long snack breaks at the doughnut shop. They have to stay fit and trim, able to run eight or ten city blocks, sometimes going up and down flights of stairs carrying heavy gear. When they arrive...

Altared States: Bush tries to promote marriage through welfare reform.
May 6, 2002... The experience of decades makes clear that welfare and non-marriage go together like a horse and carriage. Forty percent of children with single mothers are poor -- five times the rate of children with married parents -- so President Bush...

Roger & Rosario: Clinton, that is. And Gambino, that is.
May 6, 2002... On January 16, 1996, Carol Getty, a top official at the U.S. Parole Commission, answered the telephone in her office at regional headquarters in Kansas City, Mo. Getty wasn't quite prepared for what happened next. The caller was President...

The Return of Phil: 'The pretend thinking man's pretend thinking man'.(talk show host Phil Donahue)
May 6, 2002... 'Have your second cup of coffee with Phil Donahue." That was the advertising slogan of the old Donahue show, back when he was a humble Chicago morning-talk-show host, back when the whole idea of a "talk show" on morning television was novel...

Thanks for the MEMRI (.org): An institute, and its website, bring the Arab world to light.
May 6, 2002... After the 9/11 attacks, the West realized that it knew little about the Arab world -- in fact, dangerously little. Why do they hate us so, and did this come out of the blue? It seemed imperative to learn more about the Arabs -- to learn, for...

War Will Be War: No matter the era, no matter the weapons, the same old hell.
May 6, 2002... War is eternal. It is part of the human condition; it is, as Heraclitus wrote, "the father of us all." This is the first thing we must remember whenever discussion turns to "revolutions in military affairs." Some things will change, but the...

The Long View.(make-believe diary entries of prominent Democrats)(Brief Article)
May 6, 2002... The Candidates' Diaries, April 2002 From John Kerry's diary: . . . practiced looking concerned in the mirror a few times, until I got it down. I guess losing this war is too much to hope for, but . . . From Dick Gephardt's diary:...

Black and Tan Fantasy.("Collision Course: The Strange Convergence of Affirmative Action and Immigration Policy in America")
May 6, 2002... Collision Course: The Strange Convergence of Affirmative Action and Immigration Policy in America, by Hugh Davis Graham (Oxford, 256 pp., $30) In June 1965, President Johnson gave a speech at Howard University that laid the theoretical...

A Confederacy Of . . . ?("Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America")
May 6, 2002... Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America, by William C. Davis (Free Press, 496 pp., $35) In 1862, as England and France weighed the great question of whether to recognize the fledgling Confederacy, William Gladstone --...

Unrequited Love.(The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton)
May 6, 2002... The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton, by Joe Klein (Doubleday, 230 pp., $22.95) Joe Klein's latest book is wrong from the very beginning. Usually a title page does not trigger an argument, but who can agree even with...

Margin of Error.(Mobocracy: How the Media's Obsession with Polling Twists the News, Alters Elections, and Undermines Democracy)
May 6, 2002... Mobocracy: How the Media's Obsession with Polling Twists the News, Alters Elections, and Undermines Democracy, by Matthew Robinson (Prima, 377 pp., $24.95) Polls can provide useful information, but only if readers understand their...

Gulf de Luxe.(luxury hotel in Dubai)
May 6, 2002... There is only one seven-star hotel in the world: the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. It rises over 1,000 feet in the sky from a man-made island in the Persian Gulf, and though it is supposed to resemble the white sail of a...

Shelf Life.(two books about religion)
May 6, 2002... Justus George Lawler gives every impression of being a lefty on Catholic Church matters: He refers to Pope John Paul II's belief about contraception -- namely, that it is connected to a contemporary "culture of death" -- as "ludicrous" and "a...

On The Right.(problems in the Catholic Church, answering machines and e-mail, and Israel's military policy)(Column)
May 6, 2002... Can the Church Survive? NEW YORK, MARCH 29 Time magazine's cover line is "Can the Catholic Church Save Itself?" Author Frank McCourt is quoted: "The church is going to lose children and families, and it's doing this to itself. If this...

The Misanthrope's Corner.(changing ideas of Freudian ego)(Brief Article)(Column)
May 6, 2002... Nobody talks about "Yankee ingenuity" anymore but it used to be a proud catchphrase. Americans were the people who could invent anything, from machines to ourselves. We used the same technique for both. First, we discerned what was needed...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
May 20, 2002... --It has been evident from the beginning that you do not like George W. Bush. Now, Mark Helprin's "Phony War" (April 22) is the straw that finally broke the camel's back. Why is it that every other journalist has suddenly become an...

The Week.(review of newsworthy political issues)(Column)
May 20, 2002... -- Prof. Bernard Lewis, dean of Middle East scholars, to Charlie Rose on PBS: "Asking Arafat to give up terrorism would be like asking Tiger Woods to give up golf." -- Appearing in the court where he is to be tried as the "20th hijacker,"...

MIDDLE EAST: Rogue Policies.(misguided foreign policy)(Brief Article)
May 20, 2002... The last month or so of Bush-administration Mideast policy may, as some supporters allege, just be part of the plan to transform that region. But the Bush drift has been much easier to discern lately than the Bush mastery. Statecraft can be a...

Le PEN: Not So Mighty.(French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen)(Brief Article)
May 20, 2002... Jean-Marie Le Pen, the 73-year-old ex-paratrooper who leads the National Front, will almost certainly not be elected president of France. Yet his ability to edge into the two-man run-off against Gaullist incumbent Jacques Chirac, and ahead of...

THE SUPREME COURT: Virtual Porn, Real Corruption.(decision allowing virtual child pornography)(Brief Article)
May 20, 2002... The Supreme Court threw out a federal law banning "virtual" child pornography, including both computer-generated images of minors in sexual situations and depictions of minors in sexual situations by adult actors. If the Court had struck down...

Notes & Asides.(transcripts of cell phone calls by Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett)(Brief Article)
May 20, 2002... -- Dear Mr. Buckley: On behalf of my entire family, I want to thank you for your tribute to my son Tom [Burnett] in your February 8 letter to subscribers. As a longtime reader and supporter of National Review, I was touched by your account of...

The Saudi Choice: As before, the House of Saud will have to decide.
May 20, 2002... The Palestinian suicide bomber didn't spring out of nowhere in 1993, when he (and eventually she) began showing up at Israeli supermarkets, pizzerias, and discos. The bomber had a pedigree -- in the jihadist philosophy of Khomeini's Iran (which...

'A Tower of Falsehoods': When a 'massacre' is not a massacre.(evaluation of claims that Israelis committed atrocities in Jenin)
May 20, 2002... Jenin is an attractive, rather sleepy town set amid the beautiful hills of the West Bank. For some time now, Palestinian extremists have found the refugee camp there a good cover from which to prepare and launch suicide bombers against Israel....

Winning, Truly, in Afghanistan: There is more to do over there.
May 20, 2002... In late March, President Bush placed a call to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy that led to the delay of the departure from Rome of the former king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah. The king had wanted to return to his war-torn country in...

A Trade President?: George W. Bush has stumbled early; but he has time to recover.
May 20, 2002... President Bush has gotten a lot of grief for imposing taxes on imported steel and for committing other sins against free trade. Conservatives and liberal editorial writers have found a rare accord in trashing Bush for putting politics over...

Without Their Daughters: The outrage of child abduction and U.S. complacency.
May 20, 2002... Over the past six and a half years, Tom Sylvester has come to regret that he rejected his older brother's advice. On October 30, 1995, Sylvester's wife abducted their baby daughter Carina to Austria. "My brother Paul told me to 'go get her,'"...

The Ugly Frenchman: Looking at Le Pen and deciding what you see.
May 20, 2002... Jean-Marie Le Pen's emergence as the sole challenger to President Jacques Chirac in the second round of France's presidential election has proved to be a Rorschach test for political journalists. The famous Rorschach ink blot was just a random...

Living in Sin: Fantasy and reality in today's Las Vegas.
May 20, 2002... Las Vegas 'Are you going to write me a check?" the buxom headliner at the Luxor hotel's "Midnight Fantasy" asks me. "No," I mumble as I put away my pen, a bit distracted because she's wearing cowboy chaps that offer a view of her largely...

There He Goes Again: Jimmy Carter, our 'model ex-president'.
May 20, 2002... If there's one thing everyone "knows" about Jimmy Carter, it's that he's been an excellent ex-president -- a "model ex-president," everyone says. But some of us have to wonder, sometimes. Carter has resurfaced in recent weeks, sounding off...

The Unknown Slavery: In the Muslim world, that is -- and it's not over.
May 20, 2002... When Henry Morton Stanley explored the Congo River's Boyoma Falls, the cascades weren't the only thing he noticed: "Every three or four miles we came in view of the black traces of the destroyers. The scarred stakes, poles of once populous...

The Long View.(humorous reflections on 2002 French Presidential election)(Brief Article)
May 20, 2002... The Candidates' Diaries Version francaise From the diary of Lionel Jospin: I am a sad clown. Today I discovered the depth of my humiliation. Jean- Marie Le Pen, leader of the proto-fascist movement, has bested me in the national...

Oh What a . . . Small War.("The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power")
May 20, 2002... The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, by Max Boot (Basic, 428 pp., $30) When George W. Bush became president, academics and policymakers alike fretted that his election signaled a "return to isolationism."...

Exiles on Main Street.("The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town")
May 20, 2002... The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town, by Mary Pipher (Harcourt, 416 pp., $25) I approached this book with the maximum possible amount of ill will. Mary Pipher, Ph.D. -- that's how she is billed on the book's back...

Steeple Chase.("The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity")
May 20, 2002... The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Philip Jenkins (Oxford, 304 pp., $28) The quasi-apocalyptic warnings are all too familiar by now. Christianity is on the way out, and the West's stranglehold on religion is going...

The Great Debate.("The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life")
May 20, 2002... The Question of God: C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life, by Armand M. Nicholi Jr. (Free Press, 304 pp., $25) This book began as a series of lectures for undergraduates, taught for 25 years at...

The Case for Parnassus.("Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin")
May 20, 2002... Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin, by Tracy Lee Simmons (ISI, 268 pp., $24.95) Why the classics? This question has dominated the education debate for decades now. The late Mortimer Adler made an impressive case for the...

The Insurgency.("Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party 1962-2002")
May 20, 2002... Fighting the Good Fight: A History of the New York Conservative Party 1962-2002, by George J. Marlin (St. Augustine's Press, 400 pp., $28) Third parties have often served a useful purpose in American politics, but they are expected to fold...

Shelf Life.(reviews of three political books)(Brief Article)
May 20, 2002... The Thernstroms have done it again. In Beyond the Color Line: New Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America (Hoover Press/Manhattan Institute, 438 pp., $19.95), scholars Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom have edited an important collection of...

On the Right.(conservative views on current events)(Column)
May 20, 2002... Exit Gun Control NEW YORK, APRIL 9 News stories from around the nation identifying gun control as a trip- wire issue dividing conservatives and liberals don't surprise. The events of September 11 have heightened the resolution of the...

The Misanthrope's Corner.(Column)(Brief Article)
May 20, 2002... Last year I examined the trend toward nationwide stupidity in two columns about the people I called "Ignos" and "Duhs." Now I ask you to turn your attention to yet another group of American folk heroes: the "Ughs." We live in...