These days Chirac may like to compare economic liberalism with the horrors of communism, but here’s what he was saying in 1984:

"Liberalism seems to be working... Faced with a state machine that has become crazy, faced with a state bureaucracy that is growing monstruously, faced with an already difficult situation that will become even bleaker in the coming years, what will the next political leader be able to do, after the next election? He won't have any other choice than liberalism. More to the point: liberalism won't be a choice, but a necessity."

Back then, of course, he was looking to win an election against the Socialist president Mitterand.

Times, quite clearly, have changed.

The reader in France who sent me that quote adds this:

“Let us not forget that Chirac in his youth was a communist, distributing l'Humanite, the French communist newspaper, on street corners. [He] is more of a "girouette" (wind vane) than Clinton ever was...”

You may have read--in the New York Times but also here--that Tom DeLay had suggested that God gave us the Schiavo case to bring our attention to what truly matters, and not to the scandal charges against him.

I've gotten a copy of the DeLay speech in question. (A partial version, which includes the excerpts below, is online.) It may be relevant that the person who introduced DeLay had said that liberals were engaged in a co-ordinated attack on him. At the start of this passage, which comes toward the end of the speech, he is talking about the Schiavo case.

"This is critically important. I know you know that. It is more than Terri
Schiavo. This is a critical issue for people in this position. And it is
also a critical issue to fight the fight for life, whether it be euthanasia
or abortion. And I tell you, ladies and gentleman, one thing that God has
brought to us is Terri Schiavo, to elevate the visibility of what's going on
in America. That Americans would be so barbaric as to pull a feeding tube
out of a person that is lucid and starve them to death for two weeks. I
mean, in America that's going to happen if we don't win this fight. And so
it's bigger than any one of us, and we have to do everything that is in our
power to save Terri Schiavo and anyone else that is in this kind of
position.

"And let me just finish with this. This is exactly the issue that is going on
in America, of attacks against the conservative movement. Against me and
against many others. The point is the other side has figured out how to win
and defeat the conservative movement. And that is to go after people
personally, charge them with frivolous charges, link that up with all these
do-gooder organizations funded by George Soros and then get the national
media on their side.

"That whole syndicate that they have going on right now is for one purpose
and one purpose only and that's to destroy the conservative movement. It's
to destroy conservative leaders, not just in elected office but leading, I
mean Ed Feulner today, at the Heritage Foundation, was under attack in the
National Journal. I mean this is a huge nationwide concerted effort to
destroy everything we believe in, and you need to look at this and what's
going on and participate in fighting back.

"You know one way they stopped churches from getting into politics was Lyndon
Johnson who passed a law that said you couldn't get into politics or your
gonna loose your tax exempt status because they were all opposed to him when
he was running for president. That law we're trying to repeal, it's very
difficult to do that, but the point is that when they can knock out a
leader, then no other leader will step forward for a while, because they
don't want to go through the same thing.

"If they go after and get a pastor, then other pastors shrink from what they
should be doing. It forces Christians back into the church and that's
what's going on in America. The world is too bad, I'm gonna go get inside
this building and I'm not gonna play in the world. That's not what Christ
asked us to do. And so -- they understand that. It is a political maneuver
and they are going to try to destroy the conservative movement and we have
to fight back.

"So, please, this afternoon, each and every one of you, if you know a
senator, give them a call [to get them to vote for the Schiavo bill] . . ."

Whatever else can be said of DeLay's comments, it seems clear to me that they cannot bear the construction put upon them by his critics.

Remember that conversation about techonology and Schiavo around here? I decided to write another column about it.

Update Grrr. Because of some weird editing oversight -- i.e. I failed to catch the edit before it went out -- my column doesn't mention that Beaconsfield was in fact Benjamin Disraeli. I was not intending to be so cryptic.

I listened to Michael Schiavo's lawyer on the radio complaining at the outrageous rhetoric from opponents of having her feeding tube removed. Starvation and dehydration, he explained, are part of the natural process of death. Thousands of patients dying from cancer and the like stop eating when the end comes he explained. It is natural to refuse sustenance when dying, he assured reporters more than a bit indignantly.

The only problem is that she hasn't refused food and water, she's been denied food and water. She isn't dying of something that causes her to taking food and fluids, she's dying because she's being denied such things.

If she must be put to death can we at least speak clearly that this is what's being done?

WHAT PRESIDENT BUSH DID IN TEXAS [K. J. Lopez]
I got into this a little last night, but here’s a little more background on something I suspect you might have heard yesterday and will continue to hear today. During the debate over Terri Schiavo’s life in Congress on Sunday, Democrats in the House of Representatives argued that President Bush is inconsistent in his support for Terri Schiavo because when he was governor of Texas he signed a bill that was recently used in a terrible case in Texas to deny lifesaving treatment to a baby against the child’s family’s wishes.
But according to a source familiar with what went down in Texas, the then-governor signed into law the best bill he could get at the time, improving an already bad situation. Here’s some background explained:
In August 1996 the Journal of the American Medical Association published an article describing procedures then in effect in Houston hospitals. Under these procedures, if a doctor wished to deny a patient lifesaving medical treatment and the patient or the patient's surrogate instead steadfastly expressed a desire for life, the doctor would submit the case to the hospital ethics committee. The patient or surrogate would be given 72 hours notice of the committee meeting would be allowed to plead for the patient's life at it. During that short 72 hour period, the patient or surrogate, while preparing to argue for life, could also try to find another health care provider willing to give the lifesaving treatment, food or fluids.
If the ethics committee decided for death, under these procedures there was no appeal. There was no provision that the food, fluids, or lifesaving treatment be provided after the decision while the patient or family tried to find another hospital willing to keep the patient alive.
So under these procedures, the hospitals in Houston were denying life-saving treatment, food and fluids against the wishes of patients and their families, when the hospital ethics committees said their quality of life was too poor. Patients and families were being given only 72 hours after being notified of the proposed denial to find another health care provider.
In 1997 there was an advance directives bill going through the Texas legislature that would have given specific legal sanction to such involuntary denial of life-saving treatment. An effort in the Texas legislature to amend the bill to require treatment pending transfer to a health care provider willing to provide the life-saving treatment had been defeated. When that bill reached Governor George Bush’s desk, he vetoed it, and said he was vetoing it precisely because it authorized hospitals to deny lifesaving medical treatment, food, and fluids against the will of the patients.
But even without that bill, these procedures were still going on. So there was an effort in the next sitting of the legislature, in 1999, to pass protective legislation. Unfortunately, the votes just weren’t there to require lifesaving treatment, food, or fluids be provided by unwilling hospitals. So there were negotiations that resulted in a bill that gave partial protection. That 1999 bill:
first, formalized more protections for in-hospital review
second, gave patients 10 days of treatment while seeking transfer, and third, authorized court proceedings to extend the 10 days for reasonable additional periods to accomplish transfer.
Now this was not what patient advocates wanted and it wasn’t what Governor Bush wanted. However, it was an important advance over the existing situation of no legal requirement of treatment pending transfer, for any period of time. The votes were not there in the Texas legislature to accomplish a more protective bill. So Governor Bush signed it because it was an improvement over the existing law.

ST. PETERSBURG - More than 20 years ago, a jury took only about an hour to convict James Floyd of murdering an 86-year-old woman in her home. They took another hour to send him to death row.

The evidence seemed compelling. Police caught Floyd cashing the victim's stolen checks. A bloodied sock, a jailhouse snitch, tire tracks and some hairs also were presented at trial.

But on Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court tossed out Floyd's conviction and death sentence because prosecutors didn't share other important evidence with defense attorneys. The ruling called the new evidence "unsettling."

The death toll from communism is, roughly speaking, one hundred million people, the number of other victims is, quite literally, countless. Jacques Chirac, however, thinks that free market principles are “the new communism of our age”.

The London Times is not impressed. Chirac’s comments, it said, “will be a surprise to those who had the misfortune to spend time in the labour camps. In reality, what this sad saga and his ludicrous statement illustrate is that Chiracism is the new infantilism of our era. His crass protectionism is naked populism pure and simple. In a similar vein, as part of yet another political tack, he opted yesterday to embrace the cause of poverty in the Third World (as if those souls had not suffered enough) and this despite his unrelenting refusal to contemplate the wholesale overhaul of a Common Agricultural Policy that condemns millions of people there to abject misery.”

Indeed.

Quite why any of the EU’s Eastern European leaders should now want to be in the same room as Chirac now escapes me. He has insulted their history, and belittled the memory of their dead. What a disgrace.

I don't particularly want to continue yesterday's thread, but let me just respond to this fairly representative email from a conservative at the London School of Economics:

Dear Mr Goldberg,

Your write: "British conservatism, which does have a lot going for it, is much more rooted in temperment and tradition, and is eager to defend such institutions as the monarchy which, needless to say, is not an institution America's founders had much use for. "

I understand American objections to the monarchy, which are based on the despotism the institution symbolised prior to, and at the time of, the American revolution. But in the UK, and for British conservatives, the monarchy is as much an institution of liberty as one of tradition. In fact the latter necessarily informs the former as I think Burke might have argued.

I don't want to write a long defence of the monarchy, suffice it to say that two very smart conservatives--David Frum and Mark Steyn--are extremely supportive of the monarchy. And neither of them are curmudgeonly traditionalists but firm believers in liberty.

A final point: the monarchy is, to me at least, a proxy for the British constitution. British lefties are eager to amend England's unwritten constitution to fit the latest European fashions. Aside from the inherent benefits of a constitutional monarchy, of which there are plenty, by defending the monarchy British conservatives are protecting one of the bedrocks of the constitution, and therefore the principle that constitutions should not be easily amended.
God Save the Queen! And, incidentally, the House of Lords.

Me: Just to be clear, I take a back seat to nobody in my entirely irrational, almost hysterical in the grand American tradition, Anglophilia. I support the monarchy to the extent I think the Brits would be enormous idiots to get rid of it. I like British conservatism and find much to admire in it. My only point in this regard was that conservatives in different places want to conserve different things.

Rick Weiss reports in WaPo that the House leadership has promised Rep. Mike Castle (R., Del.) a vote on his bill to expand taxpayer funding of embryo-destructive research. Based on the story, it looks as though the leaders didn't even consult with pro-lifers first.

Bush has pledged to veto any funding expansion, but for the House to go on record for it would be demoralizing for pro-lifers and potentially politically costly for the president. (It would be likely to be his first veto.) Pro-lifers' strategy should be to keep the House from passing it, certainly as a stand-alone proposal. It is very likely that there is majority support for Castle's bill in the House, so that's going to be difficult--but not impossible. The thing to do now, it seems to me, is to attach popular pro-life amendments to the bill. A majority of the House--not including Castle and his co-sponsor Diana DeGette (D., Colo.)--has gone on record against all forms of human cloning. Put that on the bill, and see if Castle and company are still eager to pass it. Another amendment would be to set an age limit on the human embryos that can be used in research, public or private.

And pounding the House leadership a little wouldn't hurt, either.

As someone who got a lot of grief for arguing we should consider invading Africa in order to save it (see here and here ), I suppose I'll chime in too. Although I think Ramesh makes the most salient point. The right -- loosely defined here as the people the left dislike -- has been very interested in coming up with new ideas about how to save Africa. The left, it seems to me, has been mostly interested in the same old remedies -- debt relief, direct aid, increasing budgets for NGOs etc. I do think there are a lot of very sincere liberals and lefty types who work very hard and do great work in Africa. But if the issue is "new ideas" I don't think Zakaria's swipe holds much water. Poke around Tech Central Station if you want to find an endless series of innovative ideas about Third World development, particularly in Africa to see what I mean. Zakaria is more than smart enough to know better than to engage in this sort of strawmanism.

I respectfully believe the attorneys for Terri’s parents should go back to the federal district court and seek the reinsertion of her feeding tube--whether by a temporary restraining order (TRO) or the court’s power under the All Writs Act--on the narrow but epically important ground that due process in the United States requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt before a court may issue an order that results in the taking of life, a right that Terri has been denied.

What dog breed are you? Note: to play click on the link to the right of the screen.

Also note: I would prefer if I didn't actually hear from too many people telling me what breed they are.

From a friend of NRO:

The third paragraph of your l:38 posting should be hung up in offices everywhere. Did anyone ever hear of the FDR coalition? The one with KKK members and the civil rights movement; with Midwest farmers and Greenwich Village bohemians; with crypto-communists and southern grandees?

BROWN: Let me try and ask the question a little bit differently. No state in the country allows a non-terminally ill person to commit suicide. Every state in the country would intervene in that matter.

Ms. Schiavo clearly to me is not terminally ill in the way we think about terminal illness. So, regardless of her wishes -- and let's just accept for this moment that those in fact are her wishes -- regardless of those wishes, should -- is it appropriate for a non- terminal person to end their life or to have assistance in ending their life?

JOHNSON: Well, I think the key distinction is that we have an incapacitated person and someone else making the decision.

I would say that there are a few decisions that each of us can only make for ourselves. And one of those is to give up our lives. And here we have a substitute decision-maker claiming to have the right to end another person's life, again, based on disability, which is a stigmatized minority group. But one person says, I can end my wife's life because of her disability.

And I think, for that decision to be valid, there ought to be real solemn documents, like a properly executed health care proxy, that says, absolutely, after advice, this is what I want, because the truth is that many, many people say casually throughout their lives, I'd rather be dead than disabled. I've had people come up to me and say, I would rather be dead if I had to live like you.

But the reality is that most people adapt. Most people go on to lead good lives that they could never have imagined. And this case is a particularly tough one. But the law applies to all people. And I think it's just a dangerous idea to say that we're going to let a substitute decision-maker authorize the killing of another person based on fairly casual statements they made without any particular knowledge of what they were talking about.

I have noticed, by the way, both anecdotally in speaking to people and even in the Corner, that the more that people learn about the case, the more they begin to have sympathy for Michael Schiavo.

From a reader who has many sensible things, so when I am Czar I shall merely claim his left baby toe as payment for his impertinent questioning of the cashew.

Jonah:

Your usually unassailable logic has failed you on this one. While I do not dispute that cashews are the best nut to eat with scotch and whiskey in grown up civilized settings, it does not follow that cashews are the best nuts. You suppose that, on average, it is preferable to be grown up, and in a civilized setting. This is manifestly not true.

Clearly, someone who is playing beer pong is not being grown up. Further, while playing beer pong, it would be absurd to be downing cashews, rather than, say, honey roasted peanuts. And Yankee Stadium is also clearly not a civilized setting. While at Yankee Stadium, one eats peanuts from their shell. Finally, I would guess that, on average, most people would agree that it is far, far better to be playing beer pong or going to Yankee Stadium than to be doing anything grown up in a civilized setting, whatever you may think of the Yankees, or peanuts. Frankly, peanuts do not even get my vote for best nut – that goes to the amazingly versatile almond.

All this proves is that it is very hard to get people to agree on anything. However, it has been many years since I have seen folks in the Corner disagree so much on something so monumental as the Terry Schiavo case. I have noticed, by the way, both anecdotally in speaking to people and even in the Corner, that the more that people learn about the case, the more they begin to have sympathy for Michael Schiavo. Maybe this proves that Conservatives can also be swayed by sentiment. Anyway, I agree with WFB, in that we ought to say “Enough”. Time to let the topic go.

There was that recently beatified secular saint. What was her name again...? Oh Right: Di something.

Also, I do seem to recall that large numbers of young British men tend to get into a bit of a tizzy at soccer games.

The other day I got into a little spat with Sam Rosenfeld over his celebration of "outcome" based "instrumentalism" -- i.e. whatever works -- as the core of liberal governing philosophy. Well, Andrew Sullivan offers a good example of what I'm talking about. He's very upset with non SMTPs (i.e. National Review) for their stance on Schiavo (though it sounds like he and Derb see things eye-to-eye on this one. Heh). But when Gavin Newsom defied the courts and the legally expressed will-of-the-people and performed gay marriages, Andrew celebrated it. Indeed, it's almost impossible to think of a time when Andrew objected to a procedural shortcut to gay marriage. This is what I mean by instrumentalism and why I dislike it so. Demanding that others play by the rules when you refuse to abide by them yourself is a very frustrating form of argumentation. It's particularly frustrating in this case when you ask, "Would he react the same way if this was a case of Congress intervening to legalize gay marriage?"

I think the Florida court ruled incorrectly -- it's hard to know for sure -- but I still think the intervention was probably a mistake. But Andrew's complaint that the right is run by a "crew of zealots and charlatans" who will do anything because "God is on their side" is classic rhetorical excess. If these hucksters and crusaders recognize no limits on their power why did they choose the fairly modest option of having a federal judge review the case? Why are they abiding by the federal judiciary's decision? All they did was offer Schiavo a modicum of the federal protections routinely offered to serial killers. Andrew understands pro-life theology and arguments far better than I do, which is why I am at such a loss to understand why he can't muster even the tiniest benefit of the doubt that some of the folks trying to save Schiavo's life are neither zealots nor charlatans.

Woops: I called Sam Rosenfeld "Josh" in the original post. It's been fixed. I think it's because I used to know a Josh Rosenfeld. My apologies.

I think this reader's got it pretty much exactly right. Conservatives argue all of the time about first principles. As a few serious liberals have recently noted , liberals spend most of their time arguing about strategy and "framing" while conservatives often have knock-down drag-outs about first principles and philosophy. The liberals (and some conservatives) look at these arguments as a sign of internal tensions when they're really signs of internal health. Anyway, from a reader:

Jonah,

Your remarks on the conservative crack-up were right on (Andrew Sullivan's banging the drum now, too, I see). The thing that kills me about such perennial reports is that they're usually sparked by a phenomenon that the left doesn't quite seem to recognize -- honest disagreements between people arguing in good faith.

While internal debate and disagreement can, of course, be a bad thing, it's more usually a sign of good health. It's when such debate/disagreement stops when you should worry (e.g. today's liberals). I am an atheist, libertarian philosophy professor who disagrees with many of the conclusions of cultural conservatives -- but I appreciate the fact that conservatives still feel the need to support their conclusions with reasons and the fact that a good opposing argument generally receives a respectful hearing (Exhibit A: The Corner posts on Terry Schiavo over the past week or so).

The same just cannot be said for the left today (Exhibit B: Larry Summers). Disagree with them and you're a heretic.

Keep up the good work and don't print my name (I'm trying to get a job
in academia).

4. There is a genuine dispute as to Ms. Schiavo's awareness and consciousness. But if we assume that those who would authorize her death are correct, Ms. Schiavo is completely unaware of her situation and therefore incapable of suffering physically or emotionally. Her death thus can't be justified for relieving her suffering.

5. There is a genuine dispute as to what Ms. Schiavo believed and expressed about life with severe disability before she herself became incapacitated; certainly, she never stated her preferences in an advance directive like a living will. If we assume that Ms. Schiavo is aware and conscious, it is possible that, like most people who live with severe disability for as long as she has, she has abandoned her preconceived fears of the life she is now living. We have no idea whether she wishes to be bound by things she might have said when she was living a very different life. If we assume she is unaware and unconscious, we can't justify her death as her preference. She has no preference.

From a reader:

Jonah, I think we need to bear in mind that what is deemed "hysteria" by the cool natured British would more likely be referred to as "a little riled up" in our American parlance. We are a fighting nation. Our forebearers struggled tremendously to overcome great odds and create this magnificent nation, and that fighting spirit is still alive and well in a goodly portion of our society. It's isn't hyteria to be passionate about something you believe in. I consider it a point of honor. I also believe it is the reason we have the greatest military in the world (my husband included!). The British are far too quick to resign themselves to whatever fate appears to be their lot. I find this sort of fatalism irksome in the extreme.

From a reader:

Remember Britain’s Daily Mirror headline following the Bush victory: “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?”

http://www.plasticbag.org/images/extra/dailymirror.jpg

Or consider any of the anti-War screeds originating in Britain. As bad as the American MSM press is at times, its major organs never reach anywhere near the level of hysteria that is common in Britain.

What Derbyshire and other current and former Brits want to believe sounds suspiciously like the tired old “nuance” cant we hear routinely from the left. Only to Derbyshire & Co. it’s not conservatives in general but Americans who see only “Manichean certainties” and are incapable of recognizing any shades of gray.

Must be pleasant to know you’re among the Select Few with True Vision.

CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) -- A state judge has ruled Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida's social services agency don't have legal ground to take custody of Terri Schiavo.

Another view, from a reader:

How about this: British conservative no longer have the slightest idea of what they are trying to conserve, mainly because they have so little to choose from and still can't decide. Privatizing a coal mine in a milieu of entrenched Fabian socialism and a widespread conversion to what is essentially cultural Marxism doesn't quite do the trick.

And they've been baffled by Tony Blair. What more needs to be known?

And like the rest of Europe they'd love to drag the U.S. down into death with them.

In a decent, civilized, society this man would be disemboweled on national television for such thought crimes:

You rube. You hick. You maroon! Let me let you in on a little secret. You stating unequivocally that cashews are the best nut to accompany adult beverages is a little like the college freshman pontificating to his Budweiser drinking high school friends that Corona is what knowledgeable people drink (not realizing that Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout is the finest beer available in the States).

Sure, cashews are better than peanuts and almonds, but did you ever hear of Filbert nuts? Or maybe you know them by the alias Hazel nuts. As President of the Foundation for Increased Filbert Awareness ("FIFA"), I can assure you that Filberts are far, far superior to cashews. FIFA has conducted numerous scientific alcohol/food consumption tests which have proved conclusively that Filberts are the greatest accompaniment to adult beverages out there.

Live. Eat. Drink. Learn.

Just for the record, I've found British lefties to be just as capable as American lefties of performing pirouettes of hysterical jackassery. British animal rights activists, for example, are far more batty on the whole than American ones.

I do think, however, that Derb is on to something about British conservatives. But I think this has something to do with what British conservatives want to conserve versus what Americans wish to conserve. As Hayek and Sam Huntington have both argued, American conservatives are among the only conservatives in the world who wish to conserve fundamentally liberal, even radical, notions and institutions. When Hayek wrote his essay "Why I am not a Conservative" he was referring mostly to continental conservatives, but also to some British conservatives. In America, however, conservatives were still defenders of liberty because we seek to conserve and defend our constitution, the principles in the Declaration, property rights, liberty, etc.

British conservatism, which does have a lot going for it, is much more rooted in temperment and tradition, and is eager to defend such institutions as the monarchy which, needless to say, is not an institution America's founders had much use for.

Glenn Reynolds tackles this perennial lament and links to others as well. The smart bet must be, "no" if for no other reason than people have been lamenting or celebrating the "conservative crack-up" for decades and so far reports of conservatism's demise have been accompanied with a boom in conservatism's prospects.

This is an old and rich topic, but I think one part of the problem with "conservatism's over" school is that people confuse intellectual conservatism for popular conservatism generally. They are overlapping and mutually dependent movements, to be sure, but less so than most of the disgruntled intellectual types think. If the popular political movement does something at odds with the intellectual precepts of the eggheads, someone invariably yells "aha! the movement cannot sustain such internal contradictions!"

The problem is that all serious and large political and ideological movements contain internal contradictions. Internal contradictions come with growth. Perfect internal consistency comes with contraction and insularity. Small cults are internally consistent on every point. Large movements must deal with coalitions of competing interests.

This doesn't mean such contradictions don't create problems and challenges, but if you're looking for a major coalition to fall apart, you should look less for intellectual contradictions and more for conflicts of interests between major segments of the coalition. The intellectual conflicts are interesting to intellectuals -- that's why we call them "intellectuals" -- but they don't always reflect concrete antagonisms within the movement. Frank Meyer's fusionism -- the marriage between traditional or social conservatism and anti-state or libertarian conservatism -- never really worked on paper very well. But despite this internal contradiction -- capitalism versus stability -- the conservative movement prospered because it believed such a marriage would be useful ideal even if it couldn't be attained in practice.

Those who want to find in the Schiavo case proof of a movement-splitting schism need to demonstrate that a major constituent of the conservative movement -- free marketers, for example -- can no longer abide by fighting side-by-side with pro-lifers or social-conservatives. I just don't see that there's much evidence of this, which is one of the reasons I think the political consequences of the Schiavo case will be minimal.

THE CHIPS ARE DOWN. We have had a surfeit of due process. It is now well past time to consider the facts which process has willfully ignored. There is no reason, medical, moral, or legal, to refrain from an attempt to provide Terri Schiavo with orally administered liquids....

Let me get this straight: Iain Murray thinks that Leon Kass should be canned over some trivial offense, and it's the people who say he shouldn't be canned who are the hysterics?

It may very well be that Murray's general point is correct: that there is an element to the American national character that is absent from the British, and that this element is what an opponent of it would describe as a "weird hysterical strain." It may be that this difference in national character has something to do with the popular vitality of conservatism in America, and its pathetic weakness in Britain.

From a reader:

Jonah--

The legume-o-philes will have to give this one up. Despite their superficial resemblance to the vile peanut, cashews are not legumes. They belong in the family Anacardiaceae, along with pistachios, mangos, sumac, and poison ivy. By any reasonable view, of course, you're right: "nut," like "bug," is a term of function, not biology. But those who want to insist on foolish pedantry can at least be accurate about it.

From Armand in Paris:

One reason to have no doubt Soros is guilty indeed : when it comes to insider trading, we in France REALLY know what we're talking about.

But I don't want to indulge your favorite vice

DeLay, Sensenbrenner Statement on Supreme Court Ruling

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) issued the following statement regarding the Supreme Court's decision today:

"Like millions of other Americans, we received word of the Supreme Court's decision not to grant relief to Terri Schiavo with profound sadness and disappointment. The House and Senate met in extraordinary circumstances to ensure that Terri Schiavo received a federal court hearing to determine whether her federal or constitutional rights had been violated.

"Sadly, Mrs. Schiavo will not receive a new and full review of her case as the legislation required. I strongly believe that the court erred in reaching its conclusion and that once again they have chosen to ignore the clear intent of Congress. While federal remedies have been exhausted, I urge Governor Bush and the Florida legislature to continue examining all options to save Terri's life."

Dear Kathryn,

I didn't at all mind that you kept up the commentary when there was hope (and I appreciate that you made the Corner pretty much the best place to go to follow the situation with Terri) but things being what they are now, I wish most of you would just shut up for a while. Really. Said with all due respect and etc. etc.

Cashews are the best nut to eat with scotch, whiskey and other grown-up cocktails in civilized settings, hence they are the best of all nuts. On this there can be no debate.

Update I knew the legume-o-philes would pile on to note that cashews are not strictly nuts . I suppose I could have anticipated the email and said they are the best legumes/nuts, but I chose not to for the same reason I call spiders bugs even though they aren't.

"Terri Schiavo has had no food or water since Friday, which has led her parents and their supporters to complain that she could be experiencing a painful death. But neurologists on Wednesday said that based on court findings of her condition, her body gradually will shut down in a painless process that will lead to death."

Oh, on that I agree with Kathryn and Derb entirely. I think the longterm challenges and problems represented by the Schiavo case are enormous and hardly unique to her.

Longtime readers know this is an issue I'm really interested in, if not particularly expert on. I think the big changes in politics are often -- but not always -- driven far more by technology than by ideas. As Chesterton said, "progress is the mother of problems" -- or something like that. This is a point I've tried to address many times. I think first here and most recently here.

There's a significant cohort of folks out here in flyover country for whom this is a watershed moment. Just as the Elian Gonzalez case harmed Gore among Cuban- Americans in Florida 2000, the Terri Schiavo case has energized those people enraged by courts and politicians perceived as taking either a passive or adverse position on preserving Terri's life.

Yes, most people will return to their daily lives, but highly motivated subsets of the electorate often make the difference in elections l--and in this case the passion is overwhelmingly on the side that views the courts as the problem, not the solution.

Kathryn - Just to be clear I wasn't necessarily saying it's good news that this will change little of the political landscape but that I simply think it is so.

Though I should add I think the pro-life movement is now much more committed, publicly, to "life" issues across the board and not just abortion. Obviously this was largely the case before, but not so much in the public's eye. How that affects the internal dynamics of the right and how the right is perceived politically in the long run I don't know. But as for the electoral issues, I think this is largely a flash in the pan -- at the national level.