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June 17, 2002, Issue

The Man Who Won’t Veto
By Byron York

In 1788, Alexander Hamilton argued that the president should be able to reject newly passed laws — and that the mere threat of using such a weapon would help keep Congress in line. "When men, engaged in unjustifiable pursuits, are aware that obstructions may come from a quarter which they cannot control, they will often be restrained by the bare apprehension of opposition," he wrote in Federalist No. 73. Was there such fear recently on Capitol Hill, when Congress passed the $190 billion farm bill — a bill that President Bush had indicated he would sign no matter what was in it? Were members of Congress fearful when they passed an education bill he was similarly determined to sign? Were they afraid when they passed campaign-finance reform, which many serious scholars believe is unconstitutional? In each case, Bush not only did not veto the legislation, he did not threaten to veto, either — forfeiting the power that Hamilton saw as critical to the president's relationship with Congress.

Encountering Turbulence
By Kate O’Beirne

When Congress hastily decided last November that the federal government would take responsibility for airline security, it was expected that 30,000 new federal workers would be needed to protect the flying public. Six months later that estimate has shot, well, sky-high. By February, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was outlining its need for 42,000 new federal screeners and supervisors. The figure then jumped to 68,000 — but not for long. "A month ago, the number of employees had grown to 73,000, and we said, 'Whoa,'" says Republican congressman Hal Rogers of Kentucky, chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on transportation. The TSA plans to create a new law-enforcement agency — responsible for security in every kind of transportation — that is larger than the Departments of Energy, Labor, State, HUD, and Education combined.

The Over-Skeptics
By John O’Sullivan

It may be comforting to argue that "the Europeans" will never develop into a major military threat because of their pacific nature. But until 1870 the Germans were mainly Ruritanians, until 1919 Prussians, until 1933 decadents, until 1945 Nazis, until 1970 Americans, until 1989 neutralists, and since then good Europeans on the Robert Kagan model. We cannot be sure that they and other Europeans will not someday undergo a personality change into a conventional superpower with its own interests and instruments to enforce them. Indeed, a "realist" analysis predicts that a united European state would have little choice but to become a military power. And as the four years of U.S. history after Pearl Harbor demonstrate, a wealthy and technically advanced power can become a military superpower in half a decade.

Their Men in Riyadh
By Rod Dreher

The number of ex-U.S. ambassadors to Riyadh who now push a pro-Saudi line is startling. Walter L. Cutler runs the Meridian International Center, which has been heavily supported by the Saudis. Richard Murphy wields influence as a pro-Saudi voice at the Council on Foreign Relations. Chas W. Freeman Jr. now runs the robustly pro-Arab Middle East Policy Council. No other posting pays such rich dividends once one has left it — provided one is willing to become a public and private advocate of Saudi interests. "I think it's a disgrace," says Richard Perle, the former Reagan administration official. "They're the people who appear on television, they write op-ed pieces. The Saudis are a major source of the problem we face with terrorism. That would be far more obvious to people if it weren't for this community of former diplomats effectively working for this foreign government."

Into Africa…
By Richard Lowry

The Persian Gulf itself was a developmental backwater as recently as the 1960s, when few could imagine the importance it would attain over the next 30 years. The Gulf of Guinea is in a similar state today, a Third World afterthought primed to become a major market player. With the end of the Cold War, it has a greater openness to the market, making access easier for American companies. Meanwhile, technology unheard of 20 years ago has led to the rapid discovery and exploitation of new sources of oil there. These trends combine to make West African oil a natural for the U.S.: Much of it is offshore, providing something of a buffer from political instability; it is easily delivered, via a quick jaunt across the Atlantic without straits or canals; and it is low in sulfur, providing the high gasoline yield preferred by U.S. refineries.

Ozzy Without Harriet
By Jonah Goldberg

Ozzy's debauchery makes him pathetic, though endearingly so. "I don't think his fans have any illusions," Doc Coyle, lead guitarist of the metal band God Forbid, explained to the New York Times. "Everybody knows his brain is fried." In a sense, MTV is paying some small penance for the damage it has done to the culture. For years the network glorified the rocker lifestyle without paying much heed to its consequences. Madonna's sluttiness, for example, was celebrated as if there were no downside to it. While the lady has the financial resources to compensate for her lifestyle (she brags that she's never changed her children's diapers), no amount of money can unscramble your brain. Ozzy may be a sympathetic figure, but even a would-be rock star would hesitate to be in his shoes.

A New Wrinkle
By Rob Long

It's a strange experience to be in a conversation with a person who has Botoxed herself. She may talk about how "thrilled" she was to be promoted to executive vice president, or how "adorable" she thought the recent school play was, in which her daughter starred as Tinkerbell, or even how "moved" she was by the New York Times series on the victims of September 11, but you'd never know it by her face, which remains a placid, undisturbed sea. She can't actually express those feelings on her face. We just have to take her word for it. The old proto-feminist movie The Stepford Wives, in which troublesome, independent housewives in a Connecticut suburb were replaced by compliant, cheerful robots, clearly needs a remake. These days, sisters are doin' it for themselves.

The Impossible Position of Tom Ridge
By John J. Miller

As ex-CIA director James Woolsey says, "They've given him lots of responsibility and damn little authority." That would change if Ridge were put in charge of a federal department, but to the extent that bureaucratic failure contributed to September 11 — why didn't the FBI's Phoenix memo about flight schools receive more attention? — the answer surely isn't more bureaucracy. No homeland-security department can truly be in charge of homeland security; the job is simply too diffuse to house in a single place. What's more, much of the responsibility for it falls on state and local governments, plus the private sector. (Ridge himself recognizes this: His July report will propose a national strategy rather than a federal one.) Rather than shift around responsibilities and duplicate efforts, the Bush administration should focus on reforming the agencies that are currently in charge of homeland security.

The Muslim Next Door
By Roger Scruton

Islamic law is an extra-territorial, indeed, an extra-terrestrial law, which marshals human society with a loud voice from the heavens. There will be no conflict in the new society not because conflict is resolved but because the general submission to God's will means that conflicts cannot even begin. Such a conception, when elevated to a political doctrine, is inimical to the spirit of negotiation. It accepts compromise only as a tactic, and regards the opponent as having no real right to his opinions, still less to his way of life. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that people who have internalized the Islamic conception of law find it difficult to integrate into Western societies. For integration is possible only by becoming a citizen, and citizens must see themselves as such. In other words, they must confine their religious and ethnic loyalties to the private sphere, and be fellow citizens with people from other families, other tribes, and other faiths.

Rethinking Foreign Students
By George J. Borjas

In 1971, the State Department issued only 65,000 student visas. By 2000, it was issuing 315,000 such visas, and there may now be as many as 1 million foreign students in the U.S. The program is now so large, so riddled with corruption, and so ineptly run that the INS simply does not know how many foreign students are in the country or where they are enrolled. It has grown explosively without anyone asking the most basic questions: Is such a large-scale foreign-student program in our interests? What does it cost us? And what does it buy us?

Interviewing a Nuremberg Killer
By William F. Buckley Jr.

Concentration Camp Commander Kurt Waldemar Amadeus is examined by the U.S. prosecutor.
He was seated in a two-armed wooden chair, the seat and back lined with leather turned shiny over the years. The defendant wore his metallic-gray SS jacket, shorn from Day One at Nuremberg of any identifying features indicating rank or military order. The pants matched his jacket and he wore boots that rose to a few inches from his knee. An MP guard stood at either side, in the parade-rest position. When the door opened, he rose and the guards snapped to attention.


Books, Arts & Manners

Genocide on Trial — Michael Knox Beran
Nuremberg: The Reckoning, by William F. Buckley Jr.

The Lady’s Testament — George Jonas
Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, by Margaret Thatcher

The Fusionist — Ramesh Ponnuru
Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement, by Kevin J. Smant

A Distant Mirror — Stephen Schwartz
The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain, by María Rosa Menocal

Theater of Blood — David Pryce-Jones
The Road to Verdun: World War I's Most Momentous Battle and the Folly of Nationalism, by Ian Ousby