No smoking may be coming to Bondi Beach, apparently. The usual bogus reasons (and some unusual ones too: the threat to whales?) are given, including, yes…

“the dangers to children of passive smoking.”

Ah yes, ‘the children’, of course…

Here’s a stupid idea slouching its ugly way towards the legislature. Big government Republican Congressman Duncan Hunter is sponsoring a bill (laughably entitled the Parent’s Empowerment Act) that would “allow the parent or guardian of a minor to sue in federal court anyone who knowingly disseminates any media containing “material that is harmful to minors” if the material is distributed in a way that “a reasonable person can expect a substantial number of minors to be exposed to the material and the minor, as a result to exposure to the material, is likely to suffer personal or emotional injury or injury to mental or moral welfare.”

That’s so widely drawn as to ensure that almost any media could be drawn within its net, or at least tied up in nuisance litigation that would, inevitably, have a chilling effect on what is produced. That’s probably the idea, but if Rep. Hunter wants tighter censorship, he should just say so. This bill is as dishonest as it is bone-headed.

Whether it’s Eliot Spitzer smugly commenting that New York’s state prisons have a ‘certain edge,’ or whether it’s comedians joking about the perils of penitentiary showers, one of the most striking aspects of the cruelty and degradation of the American prison system is the way that such abuse is, apparently, tolerated. Now we have yet another example of how this brutalization has been internalized by those charged with managing the system, this time from the California prison guards’ union. What triggered it? Well, to his credit, Governor Schwarzenegger is trying to restrain some of his state’s prison spending. The response from a union official?

"In the prison system, if you give in to a bully, you're a punk. [The guards union] has never been a punk. I can't say it any more clearly than that."

What the official is also implicitly saying, in fact (as Matt Welch rightly points out over at Reason), is that the ‘punk’ (or, to use another word, rape victim), someone, incidentally, who his union members are meant to protect, is a creature beneath contempt.

Disgusting.

Prisoners, understandably, are often not individuals for whom the rest of America feels much sympathy, but, in a civilized society, humanity must not stop at the prison gate. And if a simple sense of decency is not enough to convince people of this, self-interest ought to do the trick. Brutalizing those who will one day be released back to live among the rest of us makes absolutely no sense at all.

From a reader:

Jonah : My Cosmo sweatshirt has finally arrived (The "IT" Dog of the Americam Right). I love it. I promptly put it on and stepped outside. Immediately squirrels and chipmunks started chattering and scurried up trees; little bunnies ran and hid in the bushes. Even the deer started snorting and pawing at the ground. The only problem is that my two goldens are ignoring me now; I think that they are jealous.

Rod: You're missing the point and changing the subject. 1) Regarding the meaning of Hastert's words, the first thing to note is that we cannot assume from the exchange that Hastert knew anything more about McCain's speech than was contained in the reporter's question. Hastert's words are certainly compatible with the uncharitable interpretation: that he was taking a stupid cheap shot at McCain for not knowing the meaning of sacrifice. But it is also compatible with his saying that the answer to the question, where is the sacrifice in this war, is found in military hospital beds. The Dallas Morning News could have provided the actual words from the exchange, instead of the totally misleading context it did provide. (You'd think from the editorial that Hastert had attended, watched, or read McCain's speech and made a response to it, rather than answering a reporter's question off-the-cuff.)

2) Has the DMN even been following the fiscal debate it's editorializing about? Hastert never claimed that McCain was at fault for not supporting higher spending. The fiscal issue on which McCain and the House Republicans have split in recent weeks is the question of budget rules. The House Republicans, like the White House, want a rule that constrains spending. McCain and the Democrats want a rule that constrains spending and tax cuts. That's not a ridiculous position, and you have every right to adopt it as your own (your own argument tends in that direction). But it can hardly be out of bounds for Hastert to say that McCain is voting with the Democrats when, in fact, he is. Nor is it out of bounds for him to point out that McCain does a fair amount of that. And if you do want to "object" to it, you don't have to call Hastert's comment "idiotic" and "offensive," tell him to "stifle it," and make a cheap shot of your own at his lack of Vietnam service. And by the way, the editorial comment was that McCain's argument was "entirely legitimate." In now saying that maybe McCain is a bit of a hypocrite, you're shifting ground.

From a reader:

Mr. Goldberg:

As a professional philosopher (and a conservative), I tend to disagree with you when you say that contemporary liberals do not have a well-articulated political theory. As a matter of fact, John Rawls (Theory of Justice, Political Liberalism, Law of Peoples, etc.) was very much a “liberal” in the current American manifestation (i.e. big government, redistribution of money and resources, prodigious welfare system, affirmative action, soft/weak capitalism etc.). Now, perhaps I’m going a bit too far by referring to Rawls as a “well-articulated” scholar (my God, man, it took him 12 years to write Theory of Justice and it reads as though it took him 12 days!), but a bastion of liberalism he is. Granted, his most prominent work never hit the NY Times best-seller list, but its influence cannot be over-stated in the academic community. That being said, his book did not come out until (I think) the late 60s or early 70s, so his influence is still being felt somewhat.

Ronald Dworkin, as well, might be identified as a close associate to the contemporary American liberal (legal and political theory), and like Rawls, few can claim to have systematized “theory” so prominently (Matter of Principle, Taking Rights Seriously, Law’s Empire). Still, though some of Dworkin’s insights might be utilized by conservatives, his defenses of affirmative action policy are well-known and wide-spread.

It’s up to we few conservatives to ensure that the combination of Rawls/Dworkin is met head-on with strong doses of Friedrich Hayek and Robert Nozick (and, of course, John Kekes)!

Take care, and have a pleasant trip!

Me This is the point I've been meaning all day to clarify. Of course there are many liberals well versed in a coherent "liberal" (Trans: progressive) philosophy. I'm sure that Josh Marshall knows a lot of history and philosophy (he's a PhD, right?) and I know that a few guys at the New Republic do. At the same time, I'd offer a few points:

A) I've said that I was speaking in generalizations more than once.
B) My point isn't that there aren't smart and educated liberals, of course there are. My point is that the weight of their own intellectual history does not seem particularly present in their arguments, their movement or their journalism and it's especially absent compared to libertarians, leftists or conservatives. I can't think of the last time I've heard a liberal politician or activist invoke Rawls.
C) This is a point that I think a great many liberals not interested in scoring points or worried that they might be seen agreeing with me in public would readily concede (I have had this conversation with liberals outside of the blogosphere, you know). Also, last month I read Rorty's Achieving Our Country and Rorty basically made exactly my point. He bemoans how so many college students and professors can tell you how Karl Marx was and what he believed, but couldn't talk seriously about what John Dewey or Hebert Croly had to say.
D) Lastly, let me just say that not only am I not saying "all liberals are ignorant" or anything of the sort I'm also not trying to pretend I have this super-impressive grasp of intellectual history. The whole reason this conversation began in the first place was that in the course of researching my book, I discovered so much I never heard or read about the "progressive" intellectual tradition and what I did know about it I generally learned from conservatives not from liberals.

I've been reading NR since the 1960's and have been a faithful reader of NRO since its inception. You and your colleagues have helped me immeasurably through the trials of recent years. I work just a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, and saw unbelievable carnage that day. Both before and since, I've started most days and ended most evenings reading the contributions on the website as I try to sort out where we are and what we should do.

Please accept my modest donation with my personal thanks for your great work. I really do feel like you are part of an extended family, and as such you are in my thoughts (and prayers) every day.

Sincerely,

Rob Donovan

Rod, Kathryn: I cannot agree with that Dallas Morning News editorial, which I found rather more disgraceful than Hastert's comments. First let's recap. Reporter to Hastert: "[McCain's] observation was never before when we've been at war have we been worrying about cutting taxes and his question was, 'Where's the sacrifice?'" Hastert responds: ""If you want to see the sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda. There's the sacrifice in this country. We're trying to make sure they have the ability to fight this war, that they have the wherewithal to be able to do it. And, at the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong."

Okay, it was a dumb statement--it opened up Hastert to the kind of criticism he's been getting. But I'm sorry, Hastert just didn't belittle McCain's own sacrifice in his statement.

As for McCain's being right on the underlying budget issues: There is room for doubt. McCain wants a budget rule that makes it harder to cut taxes or increase spending. But he has voted to waive the rules to allow more spending. House Republicans have noticed that, and they don't like it. Whoever's right, it certainly complicates the picture of McCain as apostle of fiscal rectitude.

Finally, the Dallas Morning News is either badly informed or disingenuous when it suggests that there is no reason at all to question McCain's Republican credentials. Everybody knows that there are plenty of issues on which McCain has moved left over the last five years.

To compare Hastert's remark to Kennedy's "under new management" line about Abu Ghraib is, to say the least, overheated. Whoever wrote the editorial needs to calm down.

The New York Times seems to be saying US troops are deliberately targeting the media, or at least have tried, or want to, or something. I'd love to know what Mr. Wong is talking about:

Iraq has become one of the most dangerous places in the world from which to report, with enormous potential for journalists to be deliberately targeted by either side or caught in the crossfire.

From a policy gnome at Cato:

"but I would stack any random intern from Reason or the Cato Institute against almost anyone at the Center for American Progress when it comes to arguing philosophy."

Awwwwww... I'm getting all misty-eyed--I'm a random intern from Cato and I'm S-M-R-T!

But it's true, we do learn our stuff here. The intern program here at Cato is designed so that we don't leave without reading and discussing a whole helluva lot of Locke, Hayek, Friedman, etc., etc. I mean, what would interns at CAP or Brookings read--Sontag, Naomi Klein, the NYTimes op-ed page? I'll take the real stuff, thanks.
ps. this goes without saying, but please don't use my name if this goes on the Corner--thanks.

Matt Yglesias' increasingly knee-jerk dyspepsia toward conservatives continues. He writes of my position of Chalabi: "Jonah Goldberg, wisely, pronounces the whole issue too hard to understand, thus ensuring that whichever faction comes out on top in the end, he'll be okay."

Um, isn't it possible I'm not biding my time in some Machiavellian scheme to "come out on top" (Oh, the glory that will rain upon the conservative who is on the winning side of the Great Chalabi Debate!), but I'm actually being intellectually honest? For the record, I don't think I've ever written a whole paragraph about Achmed Chalabi, though I did interview him by satellite once for a BBC show I was on. I've never been able to figure out what the story is on him. My guess is that this is one of those times when both sides are more right than wrong. He is a con man and a political hustler. But lots of good history has been made by people who fit that description (if liberals want nothing to do with such people, I await the purge of Jesse Jackson from liberal ranks, by the way). I guess my problem has always been that I couldn't ever figure out whether he was the right hustler for the job. I'd share more, but my snitches tell me the pro-Chalabi faction is ascendent and I don't want to blow my chances at a coupon for a free stuffed-crust pizza at the Baghdad Pizza Hut.

Steve - Very interesting points. I'll stop saying how I'm trying to keep my powder dry on the book, but I entirely agree that American conservatives, by and large, are inspired by the classical Liberals of the 19th century and in that sense this is all an argument within liberalism. Sam Huntington wrote an amazing essay in 1957, I think, on Conservatism as an Ideology which pointed out in detail that American conservatives were trying to conserve liberal institutions. This is why Hayek excludes American conservatives in his essay "Why I Am Not a Conservative." He was complaining about the European conservatives, De Maistre et al, who wanted to remain frozen in time until they get go backwards in time. But don't get me started on that.

Instead, let me offer a few nice words for the Libertarians by way of responding to liberals who claim they don't need to understand intellectual history because they're so gloriously dynamic and change-loving -- which is so much self-serving propaganda for a movement dedicated to preserving the clunky apparatus of the New Deal and Great Society.

Libertarians of almost all flavors, including the folks I have the biggest disagreements with, are much more dynamic and change oriented than any other political group except, perhaps, for anarchists and the mentally deranged. I mean Virginia Postrel wrote a wonderful book called The Future and Its Enemies for pete's sake, but I would be terrified to debate her on intellectual history (okay not terrified, but scared enough to do a lot of homework). Indeed, all the professional libertarians and most of the amateur ones I've ever met know their philosophy and history very, very well -- quite often better than their conservative peers. As conservatives we may not always agree with them, but I would stack any random intern from Reason or the Cato Institute against almost anyone at the Center for American Progress when it comes to arguing philosophy. Yeah, I'm overstating things, but not by that much.

In other words, claiming you love change and therefore don't need to know your intellectual roots isn't an argument, it's a cop-out. This was a point, I read somewhere, Herbert Marcuse tried to hammer into 1960s radicals who thought they could put a torch to the past without caring about what got burnt.

Now I think there are reasons for all of this and I don't think they all reflect poorly on liberals. American Liberalism -- "progressivism" really is the better word -- has always been more devoted to action than ideas. Action may leave more buildings and bodies in its wake, but it doesn't leave that many books. Conservatives and libertarians -- sibling movements at first and now certainly no more distant than cousins -- have always felt like they were on the outside looking in. Minority cultures always feel the need to work harder at justifying and analyzing their minority status and understanding the majority's arguments. That's true on college campuses where conservatives share much in common with black activists and feminists in their enthusiasm for celebrating/wallowing in their outsider status and its true at the national level. Meanwhile progressives constructed the welfare state and defended it against attackers -- often by viciously demonizing them -- for so long and so successfully, they've forgotten why they're inside the castle walls in the first place and they are now instinctually and culturally hostile to ideas which question the philosophical status quo, even though many of them can't explain or adequately defend the ideas which support the status quo.

And yeah, there are other reasons for all of this too, I think. But I'll stop there for now.

From the Joint Economic Committee:

From the Joint Economic Committee (JEC), Chairman Robert F. Bennett…

Today, the Department of Labor released its latest report on state-by-state employment data for April 2004. The complete release can be found here: ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/laus.txt.

Highlights:

* Over the past year, the unemployment rate has fallen in 47 states.
* Non-farm payroll employment increased in 45 states in April.
* Over the past year, employment has increased in 44 states.

The latest state-by-state data are consistent with recent job growth nationwide. In the past 8 months, over 1.1 million new payroll jobs have been created. Over 800,000 new jobs have been created in 2004 alone. If the current pace of job growth for 2004 continues, over 2.6 million jobs will be created this year. In addition, the current unemployment rate is 5.6 percent, well below its recent peak of 6.3 percent and below the average unemployment rates of the 1970’s, 1980’s, and 1990’s.

Non-farm payroll employment by state: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t05.htm

Unemployment rates by state: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.t03.htm

National employment data for May 2004 will be released by BLS on Friday, June 4. When it is made available, you will be able to find that data here: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm.

I was talking with an expert on the Middle East this morning and he said that he'd heard from a bunch of Pentagon and State types that the allegation Chalabi forwarded info to the Iranians is real and really serious.

Personally, I find this to be one of those issues -- like the Balkans -- that the more you study it, the less you understand it.

The raid on Chalabi's house, personally approved by CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer, encapsulates what has gone wrong with the American administration in Iraq. Bremer came to Baghdad and planned to rule by dictate. He scuttled Jay Garner's desire for early sovereignty. In late July, Bremer vetoed a Governing Council proposal to create a prime minister, saying that this might undercut his power. Fearing any challenge to his authority, Bremer gave a series of condescending radio addresses mocked by Iraqis. Rather than promote the new generation of Iraqi politicians, Bremer put himself at the center of press attention. For example, Bremer decided that he, rather than an Iraqi official, would announce the new Iraqi currency. Iraqification became second stage to Bremer's desire to replace Secretary of State Colin Powell should Bush win reelection. There was no room for assertive Iraqis who refused to grovel.

The response from various liberal readers to my post yesterday on generalized liberal amnesia to their own intellectual roots has been frustrating and depressing.

Frustrating because lots of them repeat points made when we had this go-round last April, which is nicely ironic since part of my point is that liberals condemn themselves to repeating their mistakes by not knowing their history -- even, it turns out, when it's a month old.

It's depressing because it has revealed a root to the problem liberals have -- or at least the problem conservatives have with liberals: The arrogant belief that they don't need to have a philosophy or "right way of thinking" because they are so dynamic, decent and good while conservatives are so hidebound with dogma, mean and bad. Here's how one guy put it (this is an excerpt since the whole email is too long):

I'm sitting here chuckling because I can imagine you smacking yourself in the forehead once you "get" this one. With all due respect, the nature of your criticism is an almost too-perfect encapsulation of the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. Think about what you wrote: "...liberals -- again as a gross generalization -- are much less interested in, and knowledgeable of, their own intellectual history." First of all, what might clear up some of your apparent confusion is a better understanding of liberalism. Conservatives tend to think of liberalism as "what Hillary Clinton says"; at least, most of the criticisms directed at liberals by conservatives center around the policies of the leftward side of the Democratic party. In some ways, I can't really fault you as a conservative for thinking this way, because that world view quite literally defines conservatism. For better or worse, conservatives believe that everything has its place, and for the most part that place can be determined by what has come before. Liberals, on the other hand, view the world as a far more dynamic, constantly evolving system to which humans must adapt in order to progress (hence the term "progressive"). Now, this is a very clinical definition of liberalism, but what it really means is that liberals do not subscribe to the notion that maintaining the status quo (or returning to a status quo ante) is always preferable, nor that it is impossible to overcome certain limitations imposed by the "human condition" (such as poverty, war, etc). So, to come back to your point, the "intellectual history" of liberalism is inherently less of a factor for liberals because a core ideal of liberalism is for each person to develop his or her own ideas without being indoctrinated into a specific way of thinking. Any dogmatic approaches to politics you see from the left most likely come from the simple, pragmatic fact that our adversaries on the right have so many more weapons of mass persuasion at their disposal than liberals do. Make no mistake about it: there is no "liberal" mainstream media, just (and I'll use a "gross generalization" here) a relatively tolerant (in ethnic terms), flag-waving collection of stooges who usually pander to whichever faction of the Republicrat party happens to be in power until a shift in the political winds is detected. Fox "News" is probably the only exception to this rule, but fortunately I don't believe any station can maintain credibility even among its redneck audience for very long. With more and more people getting their news from the Internet, it just doesn't seem like it will be possible for very much longer to so blatantly distort events in that uniquely Foxian way.

Me: I left in all the blather about Fox and Republicans because I think it illustrates my point. Without knowledge of its own past, liberalism cannot have a serious political philosophy, it can only have feelings. I was amazed last summer at a political conference for college kids at the way the professional Democrats and liberals on a panel -- with the exception of Peter Beinart -- all began their presentations with "I believe" this or "I feel passionately" that. The conservatives and libertarians (save one lame "conservative feminist") all started either from first philosophy or history (and the lame conservative feminist was lame because she tried to do that and failed).

It is a sign of the arrogance of liberals that they brag -- as so many have done in their emails -- that they don't "need to know what to believe" or to know history or to have a philosophy or to, in effect, know their homework. They simply know what's right. Even Kevin Drum subscribed somewhat to this point. It is also a sign of the triumph of two strains in liberal intellectual history converging: pragmatism and intellectual radicalism (by which I mean critical legal studies and the like). Both schools of thought reject the notion that "dogma" and "tradition" are useful sources of knowledge or morality, respectively. The critical legal types know a lot of history, but only to condemn American institutions as sexist, racist etc. The pragmatists reject history on principle. It is amazing how brilliant so many liberals are at dissecting beliefs and arguments and so un-brilliant at presenting their own set of beliefs. Quick: What does Michael Kinsley, the "Dean of Smart Liberalism" believe?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this for my book, and I've concluded that the problem with liberalism isn't lack of money or organization or media access (please God, stop their whining about Fox News and the American Enterprise Institute for pete's sake, they look ridiculous). Their biggest problem is they don't have a philosophy. This causes a lack of organization. This causes a lack of popular ideas. This is why the Democratic Party defines itself in such reactionary terms -- blocking Republicans, creating lockboxes, yelling "stop" and "no" a la Al Gore and so on. Today the only issue that unifies liberals or the Democrats is their hatred of George W. Bush and to a lesser extent "his" war. That's not a program, that's not a philosophy, that's not even liberalism. That's a gripe.

We felt a little like we'd fallen down a rabbit hole this week on hearing that an artillery shell that tested positive for sarin had been discovered in a roadside bomb in Baghdad. It wasn't the nasty stuff itself that was curious — as Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld intimated, some stray chemical munitions could signify any number of things, or not much at all. The extraordinary part was the tizzy the media and various noteworthies were in to discount it. It hadn't been but a few hours since the news broke when former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix grabbed a microphone somewhere to huff that the discovery meant nothing. Others briskly offered that the shell was more likely the bounty of a scavenger hunt by yahoos who didn't even know what they had. Fair enough to be sure: At this point, none of us knows. But even forgetting the potency of one drop of liquid sarin, when did the prospect of the accidental use of loose WMDs become reassuring?

k-lo,

Have you considered asking for donations of fine jewelry? It's easy to liquidate, and when all is done, would probably exceed your fundaising goals.

Lots of us have extra stuff laying around. You could expect to get 10-15% of it's retail value.

Kathryn:

I am a certified Corner addict (accounting for roughly half of your page hits each day), so I figured it was my duty to support the cause. Since I canceled my subscription to NRODT a few years ago for budgetary reasons, I decided to do my bit by subscribing to NR/Digital.

I was SHOCKED at how cheap it was!

Now I feel compelled to give an additional donation, just so I don't end up looking like a cheapskate. How clever of you...

Keep up the great work!

Doug Weatherston
Terre Haute, IN

From a reader:

I am an attorney in California, and I represent management in employment disputes. The reason that you should not like Governor Schwartzenegger's 75% tax on punitive damages is two-fold: 1. In those states that have such a tax, courts have been less likely to reduce exorbitant punitive damage awards from run-a-mok juries. Could it be that judges see such a tax as a wonderful way of filling the state coffers, which in turn will hopefully increase budgets for state courts and salaries for court officials (like judges)? Ummmmm, could be . . . . 2. Also, note that such taxes usually come with a "lawyers eat first" provision. Thus, the lawyers take their cut and then the rest is awarded to the state. This is why businesses oppose this tax but the trial lawyers see no problem with it. Sort of contradicts your concern that punitive damages are paid to attorneys, eh? No names please . . . .

Mark Schmitt at the American Prospect responds to my observation that contemporary liberals don't know very much about their own intellectual history. Alas, he seems needlessly scornful of my "mostly incorrect" assertion, considering the fact that it launched a new column at The American Prospect and was sufficiently true to keep him thinking about it for more than a month. This seems especially so since I wrote at the time of my assertion: "Obviously this is a sweeping -- and therefore unfair -- generalization."

Anyway, he has some thoughts about all of it. He's right, by the way, that liberals in the mid 1990s did talk a lot more about Herbert Croly. But, again, I guarantee you that if I were to ask an audience of college Democrats "Who can tell me who Herbert Croly (never mind -- gasp -- Rexford Tugwell) was and what did he believe?" I wouldn't get more than a few raised hands and not many good answers. If I were to ask an audeince of College Republicans the same question about, say, Friedrich Hayek I'd get a lot of good answers. If I asked, by the way, Who was Margaret Sanger -- a few feminists might know the answer but I doubt they'd know what a racist she was.

This partly has to do with the nature of liberal-leftism on college campuses (which are more spread out into different and often competing identity politics groups concerned with complaining more than arguing) as opposed to the right (fairly unified into one or two organizations).

But I don't need Schmitt to confirm for me what I've observed first hand for several years now; liberals -- again as a gross generalization -- are much less interested in, and knowledgeable of, their own intellectual history. In fact, many of the intellectual liberal journalist types I've met seem to know the intellectual history of conservatives better than they know their own side's. I could be wrong about that but I don't think I'm very wrong.

All this talk about money, NRO get-togethers, fundraising, tree houses, mortgages etc has phrenologically engaged. Maybe one of these days NRO should host some kind of barn-raising, house-building type thing. I may detest Jimmy Carter but Habitats for Humanity doesn't offend me. Maybe there's something like that we could all do? Beers, picnic grub and some sort of construction type thing for a good cause? Conservatives talk about civil society being better than government, maybe we could do something like that, help out NRO and have the oft-discussed but never materialized "meet-up" of NROniks.

Or am I particularly high?

Now readers want to know what I make. Well, good luck finding out. I will tell you that I am essentially on half-pay from NRO (imagine the sound of a saltine cracker being snapped in two) until the G-File is back and I start writing for the mag again (remember I'm on quasi leave to write the Neverending Story, er, my book). Also, I've always been a glorified consultant to NRO. I carry my own freight on health care and I make extra money taking care of Derb's rain gutters on weekend (generous Wall Street tycoon that he is).

I'm not really complaining (much). The suits at NR have actually been quite kind to me over the years, despite my ribbing. But, again, if you think people work at NR for the money, it's time to get off the pipe. And, even if we were the best-compensated journalists in America, making Vanity Fair wages or some such, I would still say Kathryn is grossly underpaid.

From a reader:

Hey Jonah

You got me with that article as well! I am an NRO-addict, and it was about
time that I shelled out on a NRDigital subscription and stopped freeloading
- I hope the cash is useful and the chaps at NRO are now able to splash out
on a new mug, or piece of fly paper.

The work that you all do is extremely important, and whilst this particular
Englishman finds some of the subjects that really seem to tug the chain of
you Yanks somewhat esoteric, the paper is well written, well thought out and
always entertaining. Thank you all.

You said you were in London next week - planning a beer-age session at all?
I am sure there are heaps of us in London who'd love to buy you a drink, or
Cosmo a sausage!

Best regards,

Simon

Ramesh - I know we've discussed the lapse in Congress' obligation to uphold the Constitution on its own before. But isn't that second argument -- "2) Congressmen are obligated to vote for abortion by the Supreme Court" even more pernicious? Or am I missing something? Is it a widespread point of view that the Supreme Court's rulings bar Congressman from voting in favor of things the Supreme Court might have ruled unconstitutional? Am I misunderstanding something or isn't that troubling regardless of the abortion issue?

I won't over do this for fear of elicting a Corner ban. But here are a few emails from readers: