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But I don’t want to talk about that (you’ll be relieved). I want to talk about pretzels. The Purdum piece began, “After a recent meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was kidding around with the secretaries in the national security adviser’s White House office, complaining that their pretzel jar was empty. Then he said: ‘Okay, that’s enough. I’ve got to get back to work now — and by the way, I’m not resigning.’” Well, I happened to be in the national security adviser’s office the other day — how’s that for a casual line? — and there is, indeed, a pretzel jar. I was told, “Please have some — and, believe it or not, it was full yesterday” (and it was half full on that day). (I said “half full” instead of “half empty,” because, hey, this is an optimistic administration, and I try to be in the spirit.) My point? Only that it’s somewhat nervy — or evidence of serenity — that pretzels can feature so prominently in the national security adviser’s office, given the president’s recent mishap with that snack. The pretzel may be, in fact, the Bush administration’s official food.
My purpose, at the moment, is not to go into the nitty-gritty of this debate — but rather to say, there may come a time when we simply do away with standardized tests. When we — we right types — should say, “Enough is enough — let’s be done with it.” If no test is permitted on which blacks and Hispanics do less well than others; if no test is permitted on which Asians, as a group, outpace others — then let’s just junk the whole concept. Let’s not temporize or dissemble, but say, straightforwardly, “Race is the main thing, and if tests interfere with our racial jiggering, then the tests will just have to go.” We used to have a Civil Service Exam in this country. No more — such a meritocratic check proved intolerable. We are now seeing the evanescence of the SAT and perhaps the ACT. So, in my view, better to drop the pretense that these tests discriminate — in an unfair way — and retire them, to serve different ideals (such as they are). That would be the more honest way. Otherwise, these tests will be dumbed down, neutered, subjected to a thousand cuts, to the extent of being meaningless, and useless. I’ll tell you what I would prefer (and what I suspect you would, too): On looking at disparity in test scores, we would say, “Black students need to do better. Something’s wrong. Let’s not ease up on the tests so that they can score better — that serves no one, simply masking inadequacy. Let’s, instead, reform our school system, work on those aspects of the culture that hinder educational achievement,” and so on. Instead of saying (implicitly), “Those damn Asians are too far ahead,” we should say, “What do these Asians and other high achievers have that would benefit the rest of us? Why not emulate them, instead of resenting them, and trying to level them?” If success is to be crabbed at and moaned over, rather than striven for, we, as a society, might as well just snap our No. 2 pencil and throw it away.
(Yes, I know: This item should have been headed, “Whatchou talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”)
In his review, Berman writes, “The Trotskyism of Christopher Hitchens (perhaps like the Stalinism of Kingsley Amis, in his day) strikes me as more of an eccentricity than anything else. It is a crank doctrine, even a tic, useful for maintaining a stance of naughty aristocratic disdain — the kind of doctrine that comports easily with any number of opposite and even contradictory doctrines, so long as mischief can be made and superiority can be expressed.” Now, that may be so: but has anyone’s Nazism ever been dismissed, or laughed off, or excused, or minimized as “more of an eccentricity than anything else”? Could be, but not lately, I promise you. Us types are constantly bemoaning the unequal treatment doled out to the Communists and the Nazis — and Paul Hollander, in my view, had the last word on this subject, in an essay for National Review, reprinted in his collection Discontents Postmodern and Postcommunist. But that doesn’t mean that the moaning isn’t right.
Morgan says, “Our core audience are still predominantly left-wing and more humane, and have a social conscience. [More humane than . . .? Than the readers of a rival tab, the Sun.] Quite a lot of Sun readers are racist. It’s taken me quite a while to get up the courage to do this [meaning, I suppose, to accuse the Sun’s readers of racism].” He doesn’t hold back on the Sun’s editor, David Yelland: “I hate Yelland [!], and I don’t respect him as an editor, as he is a toady of No. 10. He doesn’t reflect public opinion. [Is that, however, the job of an editor? Or is it the practice of a “toady” of public opinion?] Our readers are dissatisfied with this government. [Well then, give ’em what they want, in time-honored tradition — but don’t call it courage.]” Later, Morgan says, “Yes, I voted for Thatcher and then ran the News of the World [a Murdoch paper]. But I do have more of a conscience now. If you grow up as a middle-class Sussex boy, it takes time to get one. It’s not a pose. You do change.” I see. The man, however, being an English editor — simply being English — is not without charm. He says of Tony Blair’s wife, Cherie, “Every time she sits next to one of my bosses, she tries to get me fired. Blair is more sensible and understanding that we can’t arse-lick. She takes it as a personal betrayal. . . . I said to Blair recently, I would appreciate it if you stopped the missus trying to get me sacked.” And damned if, in the course of that interview, Mrs. Blair didn’t place a call to Piers Morgan! The interviewer, Wyatt, writes, “We both collapse with laughter. Morgan, barely able to speak, stutters to his secretary that he will call her back.” High times there, in London.
This reminded me of the whole drama, the whole struggle — and of the dedication of Vernon Walters’s memoirs, which so jolted me (as I’ve written) when I was a high-school senior: “To the men and women who have died on the invisible battlefield, that the rest of us might live free.”
“I once went looking for the grave of Calvin Coolidge in a tiny cemetery in his tiny hometown of Plymouth Notch, Vermont. There’s a grand and impressive grave marker near the center hill. It’s not his. I was puzzled. In fact, it took a good 10-15 minutes even to locate the Coolidge plot. Three very modest headstones, one each for Coolidge, his wife, and son. [Another son recently died, I believe.] The 30th president’s headstone bears only his name, dates, and a small — on that headstone, it would have to be small — presidential seal. “I liked that.” Yeah, me too.
Don’t tell Strobe Talbott — he’d lose his lunch. |
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his column has commented
a thousand times on “Colin Powell-love” in the media. There’s
little left to say on the subject (though, sad for you, I’ll probably
continue to say it). The recent, much-remarked-on piece by Todd S. Purdum
in the New York Times was a prime example of such “love.”
Almost
every day, we read about a new assault on the standardized test —
any standardized test. A headline on Sunday read, “Spurned Student
Challenges Naval Academy on Test Scores.” (Sample sentence: “Critics
. . . contend that because women score lower on the exams than men, and
African-Americans and Latinos lower than whites and Asian-Americans, using
a cutoff score to screen applicants typically results in a less diverse
student body.”) Below that article was one headed, “ACT Ends
Flags on Test Scores of the Disabled.” (Previously, college admissions
offices were warned when a student had been allowed extra time on the
test.)
