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June 16, 2003, Issue

So Much Process, So Little Peace
By John O'Sullivan

No agreement should be made with opponents who are ambiguous on the key point of whether they can and will halt terrorism. Arafat claims that he cannot control terrorist groups; Sinn Fein promised only to try to persuade the IRA to halt violence. These were legalistic fictions. Any future peace process must establish with absolute clarity that the insurgent side will both halt its own terrorism and assist the lawful repression of terrorism mounted by others. Or the deal is off. Moreover, governments that embark on a peace process must have — and tell people they have — a Plan B in case the process fails. The constant recital by British ministers of the line "there is no Plan B" merely let Sinn Fein-IRA know that they could ratchet up their demands indefinitely with no fear that the Blair government might walk away from the table. How could it do so? It had no Plan B. Israel's doves were similarly handicapped.

Hide and Seek… and Seek
By Jim Lacey

As the hunt goes on, there are some simple truths that many seem to be forgetting: 1) At one time, Saddam had enough chemical weapons and toxins to annihilate the eastern United States; 2) in the past, he used those weapons against his enemies, internal and external; and 3) he was an aggressive dictator who massacred his own people and bullied and periodically invaded neighboring countries. For the past ten years, Saddam may have found it too costly or too difficult to maintain his WMD program. If that is true, we have U.N. sanctions to thank — and the United States, which maintained pressure on the Iraqi regime and those who appeased it. Which leads to the greatest truth of all: In time, sanctions would have been relaxed and U.S. attention would have shifted elsewhere. And when that happened, Saddam would have had the ability, wherewithal, and proven inclination to quickly reconstitute a WMD program. The world is better off without that risk.

Arrest This
By Lee A. Casey & David B. Rivkin Jr.

Once the war against Saddam Hussein reached a successful conclusion, the war against that war entered a new phase. Activists, asserting that the United States committed "war crimes" in Iraq, are even now in the process of initiating criminal prosecutions against American officials, including President George W. Bush and Gen. Tommy Franks, as well as British prime minister Tony Blair. These actions have been brought in Belgium and Switzerland; the Belgian government already has "referred" the Franks case to the U.S. Justice Department — giving the U.S. an opportunity to punish its general lest the Belgian government do it for us. This Belgian missive should be rejected and returned forthwith, along with a note politely explaining that the writ of Albert II, king of the Belgians, does not run on these shores. To give this referral any other consideration would work to validate the profoundly flawed legal theory on which Belgium's actions are based.

Rich Man, Poor Man
By Kevin A. Hassett

As the 2004 campaign begins in earnest, it appears the Democrats' preferred strategy will be to tie a weak economy to President Bush's economic policies. But what will they talk about if the economy gets strong? Several pieces in the New York Times suggest the answer: income inequality. The best example is a Times Magazine piece by Paul Krugman contending that we are entering a new Gilded Age as "extravagant as the original." He recounts anecdotes of truly awe-inspiring wealth, of executives being treated like "royalty," and reports that in 1998 the 13,000 richest families had about the same combined income as the 20 million poorest households. The data are pretty striking, and reveal that income is far more concentrated at the top than it used to be. What should one do about it?

How Firm a Foundation
By Neal B. Freeman

At mid-century, the Ford family was confronted by three influences: its own awakening sense of charitable obligation; the mounting concern among its lawyers that the estate tax could dislodge the family from control of the Ford Motor Company; and the urgency felt by Ford PR executives to associate the family name with good works. Thus was born the first American mega-foundation. The later history of the Ford Foundation has been one of trust betrayed — and audacity rewarded. Consider the problem of the American Left at mid-century. They had grand designs, as ever — vast plans for what other people should do with their time and their money — but precious few resources. The truly left-wing capitalists — the Cyrus Eatons and so forth — were famous in a man-bites-dog way, but they were always few in number. To reshape the American economy in its own image, the Left resolved to use the assets of America's proto-capitalist, the first great entrepreneur of the American century: Henry Ford.

St. Mugg at 100
By Paul Johnson

Mugg was never a tub-thumper. He made the fullest use of TV, as well as the presses, but he was always subtle, cogent, hugely literate, often witty, always humorous, never angry or fumiferous. His appeal was always a halfway house between the powerful reasoning of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans and the mysticism of St. John of the Cross. His model was Mother Teresa, whose work he helped to popularize. Mugg had a contorted self-taught version of the pre-war English upper-class accent which was sui generis and gave to his TV sayings and sermons an unforgettable allure. His white hair and bronzed monkey-face, creased in laughter and often illuminated by joy, turned him into one of the most arresting sights on the box. He loved TV and hated it; admitted it was the most intoxicating vice of all, subsuming all the rest, but found it indispensable to his work of evangelism, as well as an irresistible temptation to vanity.

Getting to the Bottom of This 'Neo' Nonsense
By Ramesh Ponnuru

The principal theoretical debate between neoconservatives and other kinds of conservatives in the 1990s did not concern whether the internal character of states affects their external behavior and should therefore affect U.S. policy. It concerned, rather, the wisdom of military intervention for purely (or almost purely) humanitarian purposes. Neocons supported military action against Slobodan Milosevic for moral reasons. Most conservatives either opposed it, or supported it grudgingly and only because previous American action in the Balkans had created derivative national interests there. The war on terrorism has settled this question for the moment, and not in the neocons' favor. We are involved in a war to protect a core national interest: the physical security of our countrymen. Merely humanitarian intervention is a luxury that we are doing without. If Milosevic were starting an ethnic-cleansing rampage in the Balkans today, we probably would not be taking military action against him.

Presidential Pants on Fire?
By Byron York

What seems particularly galling to liberal writers is the notion that Bush is getting away with his lies even as his predecessor was flayed for lesser offenses. "If a Democrat, say, Bill Clinton, engaged in Bush-scale dishonesty, the press would be all over him," Drake Bennett and Heidi Pauken wrote in a recent issue of The American Prospect. "Unless the voters and the press start paying attention, all the president's lies will have little political consequence — except to certify that we have become something less than a democracy." What's going on here? Certainly George W. Bush, like every other politician, has said things, sometimes in off-the-cuff remarks, that were wrong. But was he lying? Like Bill Clinton? As appealing as the idea may be to the president's opponents, a look at the record shows that the charges just don't stand up to scrutiny.

A Conservative View of the Court
By Michael S. Greve

Not so long ago, liberals could be counted on to agitate for a "living Constitution," and conservatives for "strict construction." But those fronts have been crumbling. In the fights over President Bush's judicial nominees, Democrats are now inveighing against "conservative judicial activism" — as evidenced by the Rehnquist Court's perceived contempt for precedent and the democratic process. To counter these charges, Republicans must begin by recognizing that judicial "activism" is a question of constitutional substance, not judicial style. A decision that elevates judicial power over republican government without a constitutional warrant is plainly activist. A decision to reverse that precedent is the opposite. Such a reversal might be termed "activist" in the trivial sense that it involves a change in the status quo. But the Supreme Court must, on appropriate occasions, overrule its own precedents. A consistent failure to do so would signal that the Supreme Court considered its own edicts, rather than the Constitution itself, to be the supreme law of the land.

Books, Arts & Manners

The Rake's Progress — Michael Knox Beran . . . Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris — The Rake Who Wrote the Constitution, by Richard Brookhiser

Blinded by Science — Wesley J. Smith . . . Nature via Nurture: Genes, Experience, & What Makes Us Human, by Matt Ridley

Our Captain, Kirk — James E. Person Jr. on a conservative founding father.

The Straggler: Short Back and Sides — John Derbyshire on a male ritual.

Music: Give 'Em Szell — Jay Nordlinger on some blasts from the past, present on CD.