One-Way Street to RFK
Will Bush’s charm offensive ever pay off?

By John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
November 20, 2001 4:50 p.m.

resident Bush formally named the Department of Justice building after Robert F. Kennedy this afternoon because of family politics — specifically, RFK's connection to an American political dynasty, and in particular brother Ted, the powerful Democratic senator from Massachusetts. Now it would be nice if Kennedy were to quit playing family politics over the nomination of Eugene Scalia to become the top lawyer at the Department of Labor.

Scalia is the son of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the men vengeful Democrats continue to hold personally responsible for Al Gore losing last year's presidential election. Now that Bush has conferred such a tremendous honor upon the Kennedy family, however, it would be nice if Senator Kennedy returned the favor in a small way by simply allowing a floor vote on Scalia. Kennedy wouldn't even have to vote in favor of the guy, who was nominated six months ago and approved in committee one month ago. By lifting his opposition to holding a vote, though, he would essentially allow for Scalia's confirmation because de facto Democrat Jim Jeffords of Vermont cast the key committee vote on Scalia's behalf.

Much has been made of Bush's supposed friendship with Kennedy and the "charm offensive" of which it is a part. Yet it's far from clear that either of these things has advanced the interests of the Bush administration. Has Kennedy lifted a finger to push through even a single judge as a personal favor to the president? So far, the Bush-Kennedy relationship appears to be completely one-way — rather like the "friendship" a schoolyard bully shares with the kid from whom he steals lunch money every morning.

"The Liberal’s Calling"
John E. Coons makes the egalitarian liberal case for school choice in the Fall 2001 Education Next: "The social balkanization created by government schools. . . renders them both inefficient and thoroughly undemocratic. In this country the middle class simply buys the schooling it prefers, shopping for it in the clumsy but effective real-estate market that sells state-run education. But, while the middle class maneuvers, the rest of America is herded. Their schools are labeled "public," but this is a name hijacked from more democratic state enterprises to which all have access. Unlike the street, the library, park or museum, the school maintained by the state excludes the family that cannot afford to be its neighbor. The result: Beverly Hills and Grosse Pointe are private in all but name. The liberal's calling is not to reform the public school, but at long last to create it."