Displaying posts published in

January 2016

Donald Trump & ‘New York Values’ By Roger Kimball

As of this morning, anyway, it was OK to talk about Paris, also the Chicago Way, meaning the sewer of political corruption that has come to define salient aspects of that great city at least since the Democratic machine arrived in force with the first Mayor Daley.

But as every denizen of New York knows by now, it is not OK to talk critically of the “New York Way,” i.e., “New York Values.”

Why?

It’s important to understand that it is not because Ted Cruz criticized Donald Trump for being tainted by “New York Values” last week. Everyone knew what he meant and most conservatives, if they had thought about it at all, would have agreed.

No, the reason that “New York Values” — the scare quotes are necessary — are an issue is because Donald Trump made them an issue at the January 14 debate. In a typical demonstration of rhetorical ju-jitsu, he pretended to be outraged by Cruz’s phrase. He wrapped the mantle of 9/11 around himself and paraded around the stage, and then the talk shows, claiming to be shocked, shocked! that a U.S. senator — who, by the way, was born in Canada — should have sunk so low as to besmirch the bravery and heroism of the New York fire fighters who risked, and often lost, life and limb on 9/11.

Rudy Giuliani chimed in demanding that Cruz should “apologize to New York,” and other pundits — even ones who repudiated Trump categorically a few months ago — rallied round to claim that because of his remark “Mr. Cruz is disqualified for being president. Disqualified. Disqualified. Hang it up,” etc., etc. It was even suggested that “New York Values” might be a reference to ethnics, you know, code for “Jews.” No-one, I think, actually believed that, but it was a good illustration of the principle that once people start throwing garbage, they’ll throw anything they have at hand.

The firestorm of calumny and loathing that Ted Cruz’s utterance of that dread phrase unleashed underscores the potency of Donald Trump’s rhetorical black magic. His remark that Jeb Bush was “low energy” stuck like a burr and will probably lead to Jeb’s early retirement. His response to Hillary Clinton’s charge that he was “sexist” effectively spayed Bill Clinton, transforming him overnight from an important asset into a blubbering appendage.

Still Polarizing After All These Years By Victor Davis Hanson

I have no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

—Barack Obama, State of the Union address, 2016.

Polls confirm that Obama is the most polarizing president in recent memory. There is little middle ground: supporters worship him; detractors in greater number seem to vehemently dislike him. Why then does the president, desperate for some sort of legacy, continue to embrace polarization?

A few hours before delivering that State of the Union, President Obama met with rapper Kendrick Lamar. Obama announced that Lamar’s hit “How Much a Dollar Cost” was his favorite song of 2015. The song comes from the album To Pimp a Butterfly; the album cover shows a crowd of young African-American men massed in front of the White House. In celebratory fashion, all are gripping champagne bottles and hundred-dollar bills; in front of them lies the corpse of a white judge, with two Xs drawn over his closed eyes. So why wouldn’t the president’s advisors at least have advised him that such a gratuitous White House sanction might be incongruous with a visual message of racial hatred? Was Obama seeking cultural authenticity, of the sort he seeks by wearing a T-shirt, with his baseball cap on backwards and thumb up?

To play the old “what if” game that is necessary in the bewildering age of Obama: what if President George W. Bush had invited to the White House a controversial country Western singer, known for using the f- and n- words liberally in his music and celebrating attacks on Bureau of Land Management officers? What if Bush had also declared that the singer’s hit song—perhaps a celebration of the Cliven Bundy protest—was the president’s favorite in 2008, from an album whose grotesque cover had a crowd of NASCAR-looking, white redneck youth bunched up with an African-American official dead at their feet? And what if the next day, Bush told the nation that he regretted not being able to bring the country together? Would there have been media calls for Bush’s impeachment?

Canada, the U.S., and the Donald By David Solway

Canada’s most attention-grabbing personality is the new Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau, whom a swooning electorate has just elevated to the highest office in the land. Possessing no relevant business or political experience and no demonstrable leadership qualities apart from name recognition and good looks, he is a dandiprat version of the fatuous nonentity American elected to lead them into a condition of weakness and insolvency. Many in the U.S. are now suffering Obama remorse and reassessing their folly. Eventually Canada, too, may come to its senses, though I wouldn’t bet on it. An Eloi people roistering in a Morlock world does not augur well for their future.

Our misfortune in Canada is that we have — or can have — no one like the Donald striding across the political tarmac. In effect, Trump would have zero chance in a tepid, characterless country like Canada, at any rate, not since the days of our pirouetting, hippie-wannabe PM Pierre Trudeau, Justin’s father — but that was during the psychedelic Sixties. Anyone who requires convincing need only browse our national broadcaster, the CBC, with its panels of hacks, retreads, undistinguished pundits, and its slew of unctuous anchors. Broadly speaking, as Margaret Atwood wrote in Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, Canadians exhibit a “will to lose,” a mournful conviction of the moral superiority of losing, of achieving what she calls a “satisfactory failure.” Hence, Justin Trudeau.

When one considers the competing qualities of burly machismo and pretty-boy simpering, the preference should be a foregone conclusion. Of course, if it comes down to a match between big hair and thinning hair, the outcome will favor the former. (The hairpiece seems to be a journalistic canard.) Such is the only department where the youthful charisma of Trudeau has it over the mature brio of Trump. The issue, however, is not what is on top of one’s head but what is in it — that is, how one sees the world. In this respect, Trump is head and shoulders above Trudeau. How can we compare a man born into wealth and privilege, a trust-fund baby merely inheriting his father’s glamour, whose signal accomplishments involved a stint as a substitute drama teacher and snowboard instructor and two uncompleted university degrees, with a man who turned his father’s business into one of the world’s great financial empires, generating opportunities for untold others? No contest.

Weekly round up from the religion of horrors By Carol Brown

Israelis live under constant threat of attacks that can occur anywhere, anytime, any way – from suicide bombings to stabbings to being run over with cars. (And this doesn’t even address the threat of large-scale attacks that loom on the horizon.)

The West has had the relative luxury of looking at Israel from afar and feeling a sense of how different life is here, compared to there. But times are changing as evil gains ground. Westerners can no longer cast their eyes to Israel and sense a great divide between us and them anymore. The Israeli reality has become the West’s reality as we face increasing terror attacks that crop up anywhere, anytime, any way.

These events are no longer occasional (though that would be bad enough). They’re not even every month or two (though that would be bad enough). Jihad has become a daily reality. Here is a sampling from just last week of some of the horror that the religion of horrors served up.

Bavaria: A group of Nigerian “refugee” women attacked a refugee center worker, attempting to strangle him while they held their babies in front as human shields so the man would not fight back. (here)

Brussels: Muslim adolescent boys sexually assaulted a teenage girl on a train. (here)

Denmark: A 15-year-old convert to Islam was arrested for possessing explosives. (here)

Canada: Two Muslims attempted to shoot up a nightclub full of people. A Muslim serial rapist was arrested after having raped at least ten teenage girls. (here, here, and here)

Germany: Three Muslim teenagers stoned two “transgender” people. (There really is no such thing as a “transgender” person, but for the sake of this report, the term is being used.) The attackers were apprehended and told the police: “such persons must be stoned.” Teenage girls were sexually assaulted and raped by “Syrian migrants” at a swimming pool. A Muslim man kicked a woman in her face and broke her cheekbone while attempting to rape her. Christians continued to be targeted by Muslims at asylum centers. (here, here, here, and here)

France: A Muslim teenager attacked a Jewish teacher with a machete and a knife, stating that he was acting in allegiance with the Islamic State. (Life for Jews in France has become so perilous that Jewish men are being urged not to wear yarmulkes in public.) Women continued to come forward to report sexual assaults from New Year’s eve. (here, here, and here)

Is North Korea Testing Iran’s Nuclear Device? By Amil Imani and James Hyde

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is yet another toothless U.N. body that is in for a whirlwind of frustration when it inspects Iran’s nuclear program sites. The provisions of the agreement negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry and his team of sycophants make Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” negotiations with Hitler look like a stroke of genius.

Iran’s Islamic regime is an incredibly dangerous foe. Like ISIS (or Daesh, a moniker that group loathes), Iran has an apocalyptic view of current and near-future events. But this time around, a group of believers in Shia Iran, with tremendous resources, are intent upon forcing the issue, making the conditions so dire that they leave the reluctant Saheb-ul-Zaman, the Lord of the Age, the Mahdi, their messianic myth, no choice but to appear and assume his universal reign.

Devotees drive both, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic State, to quicken the End Times apocalypse. Iranian leaders hold to a Shia brand. ISIS leaders hold to a Sunni brand. But both are obsessed by a belief that their messiah is coming. The Iran Shiites believe they must lay the groundwork for the messiah (Mahdi) to come and build their Kingdom or Imamate. ISIS isn’t really waiting. They have propelled a jihadist storm to build the Caliphate now, so that the Mahdi will come soon.

Ten Reasons to Vote for Rubio By James Arlandson ****

It’s about time to vote. It’s now time to get serious about who can win in the general.

It is true that we have a slate of better than average candidates, but Rubio comes across as better than the others for ten reasons.

Since this is turning into a three-way race, I have to contrast Rubio mainly with Cruz and Trump (but some others, too). Here’s why you should vote for Sen. Marco Rubio and not throw away your vote on the other candidates.

1. Rubio has the best chance to deliver Florida.

This reason comes first because we need that state to win electorally. In 2010, he won 48.49% in a three-way race; former Republican turned independent Crist got 29.71, and Democrat Meeks got 20.20%. We already have states like Texas, so we don’t need Cruz. We need Ohio, but I doubt Kasich would run as the V.P. Maybe he would campaign for Rubio. If Rubio’s opponents claim he can’t deliver Florida, then how could Cruz (see the other points below)? And certainly Trump can’t. It’s doubtful he could get even 30% of the N.Y. voters.

2. He speaks Spanish fluently.

At my large, mostly white church in the greater L.A. area, we sometimes sing in Spanish. The lyrics are put up on the screen. This is happening in historically white churches across the Southwest. We like Hispanics in our congregations.

TBN, the world’s largest family of Christian networks, has opened a new network called “Salsa.” Here are the cities into which they broadcast across the nation.

“True” conservatives have a knack for misreading their own country. Will they get caught flat-footed by this inexorable trend line and continue to be shrill and hysterical about Hispanics and their immigrant relatives?

Like it or not, we need someone at this time in our nation’s history to persuade them in Spanish to come over to our side. We don’t need one hundred percent of them – just enough to tip the scales our way.

Rubio can go into the Southwest and Colorado and other markets and give speeches and TV interviews in Spanish, explaining why conservative politics is what the nation needs now. He won’t scare them off.

From my own experience, I know they are persuadable.

In contrast, Cruz barely speaks “Spanglish” and can’t debate or interview on Spanish TV.

Rubio can reassure concerned Hispanic voters in Spanish that Trump’s harsh rhetoric and Cruz’s politically convenient “never” even to legalization don’t represent the best kind of conservatism.

3. His faith seems genuine.

Whichever church he has eventually chosen, his journey seems sincere. He gave a talk before a conference of Iowa ministers, and he spoke as an insider, not an outsider whose religion is politically motivated and convenient (Trump).

Also, he doesn’t get into needless controversies, like tracing the current Middle East conflict all the way back to Jacob and Esau in Genesis (Carson). Surely there are more proximate causes than that. But even if, hypothetically, those two characters were the main cause, this knowledge about them doesn’t lead to solutions today.

4. He outpolls Hillary in a head-to-head matchup.

I don’t trust campaign polls nowadays because the news media gleefully obsesses over Trump, so he gets the most attention, but that linked one at least offers a little perspective.

13 Hours and Counting to the end of Hillary’s Candidacy By Daniel John Sobieski

Patricia Smith and Charles Woods, parents of two of the Benghazi dead, Sean Smith and Tyrone Woods, would disagree with the notion that history is a lie agreed upon. They do not agree with and do not consent to Hillary Clinton’s attempted rewriting of history and the attempted hiding of what is arguably her criminal negligence in what she calls the “fog of war.”

Family members of the Benghazi dead talked to Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly Wednesday night after viewing the world premier of 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. Charles Woods and Jeremiah Woods, father and brother of Ty Woods, and Patricia Smith. mother of Sean, repeated their consistent statements that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, President Obama, and U.N. ambassador Susan Rice all told them in front of their son’s caskets that Benghazi was the fault of a video and they would get, not the terrorist’s that killed their sons, but the filmmaker. As Matthew K. Burke notes on the Politistick blog:

The most powerful moment of the interviews — setting aside Charles Woods, whose son Ty Woods was killed in the Islamic attacks, who showed notes he took at the funerals of the victims which collaborate [sic] that Hillary Clinton told the families the known lie that the YouTube video was responsible, was a crying Pat Smith, who sadly declared the one thing she would like to say.

The poor lady couldn’t even make it through the whole movie, having to leave immediately upon seeing the actor portraying her son.

Almost like Bill Clinton’s multiple victims of his sexual assault victims who were labeled as liars, Hillary Clinton claimed to not have told the families that the YouTube video was responsible — in essence calling the families liars.

Why the Media Don’t Want You to See the Must-See ’13 Hours’ By Jack Cashill

The more naïve members of the Hillary Clinton campaign have long dreaded the release of Michael Bay’s factual account of the Benghazi attack, 13 Hours. The more sophisticated members of that campaign were less worried. They were confident their friends in the media would scare off all but the most deluded “tea-baggers.”

Yes, the media will try. They are trying. I am not sure, however, that they will succeed. In the age of social media, word of mouth is much more significant a force than it ever was before. And the word of mouth on 13 Hours will be justifiably powerful. The movie is riveting from beginning to end.

I saw the movie without benefit of having read a review. I was further burdened by the fact that I know the story well; I have written extensively about Benghazi. When the movie begins with the words on screen, “This is a true story,” and not the usual “This is based on a true story,” I was prepared to hold the filmmakers to account. They were as good as their word.

In reading the reviews afterward, I sensed some relief among the critics that the movie was not overtly political. The names of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, for instance, go unmentioned. In a feint at sophistication, some critics held this against director Bay.

Trump Dotes on Despots and Fiscal Fiasco At best, he disregards prudence, decency and facts. He’s altering conservatism itself. By William Galston

I swore that I wouldn’t write another column on Donald Trump this month, but the mouthy New York billionaire has forced my hand.

Over the weekend a New York Post headline smacked me in the face: “Trump praises Kim Jong-un’s murderous ascent to power.” I double-checked to make sure it wasn’t the Onion instead. It wasn’t. So I read on.

Here’s part of what Mr. Trump had to say about the North Korean dictator in Iowa on Saturday: “You’ve got to give him credit. He goes in, he takes over, he’s the boss. It’s incredible. He wiped out the uncle, he wiped out this one, that one.”

Machiavelli, who admired Hannibal for his “inhuman cruelty,” would have said it more elegantly, but the sentiment is the same.

This is not the first time Mr. Trump has praised an autocrat, and it probably won’t be the last. In December Vladimir Putin called him a “very bright and talented man.” Informed of this news, Mr. Trump said it was “a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.”

When a stunned Joe Scarborough, the co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” pressed him about Mr. Putin’s thuggish rule, Mr. Trump shot back, saying: “He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader, you know, unlike what we have in this country.” Mr. Scarborough pressed on: What about the murder of Russian journalists? Mr. Trump: “Well, I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe.”

Taiwan’s Shy Tsai Thrust Into Spotlight as First Female President The 59-year-old former law professor is known to shun confrontation but is a tough negotiator By Jeremy Page and Jenny W. Hsu

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s first female president, Tsai Ing-wen, takes a novel approach to politics on an island renowned for its legislative brawls and fiery standoffs with Beijing.

The 59-year-old former law professor, who won a landslide election victory on Saturday, shuns confrontation, listens rather than lectures, and is happiest poring over policy details, say people who know her.

Even so, in over two decades in politics and government, they say she has proven to be a tough negotiator, having shepherded Taiwan’s entry to the World Trade Organization, and she’s a passionate believer in Taiwan’s democracy as its defining feature — rather than its divisive relations with China, which sees the island as its territory.

Her quiet pragmatism struck a chord with voters, winning the presidency and helping secure a legislative majority for her Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, which espouses independence from the mainland.

The presidential nominee for Taiwan’s pro-independence opposition defeated rival Eric Chu, of the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, in Saturday’s election. The KMT also lost control of the legislature for the first time.