Meanwhile, a former subordinate of Bolton's offered to provide information to the committee about the way she said that Bolton treated her in the early 1980s, when they both worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In a letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Lynne D. Finney said Bolton had bullied her and tried to have her fired when they clashed over U.S. policy on the distribution of infant formula in developing countries — an issue that was then highly visible and politically charged.

Finney said she was working as a USAID attorney and had developed relationships with foreign officials at the United Nations. She said that in late 1982 or early 1983, Bolton called her into his office and told her to use her influence to persuade the United Nations to ease a policy that restricted the marketing and promotion of infant formula in developing countries.

Finney objected, saying that she could not, in good conscience, push for such changes, because she believed that the improper use of formula in poor countries was jeopardizing the health of babies.

"He shouted that Nestle was an important company and that he was giving me a direct order from President Reagan," she wrote in the letter. "He yelled that if I didn't obey him he would fire me."

When she persisted, Finney said, "he yelled that I was fired."

Finney, who lives in Utah and is a writer, lecturer and psychotherapist specializing in childhood trauma, declined to be interviewed for this article. She stated in her letter to Boxer that she cared about world peace and wanted to help defeat Bolton's nomination.

Bolton has declined to respond to allegations, saying it would be inappropriate while the committee considered his candidacy.

But a State Department official, who asked to remain unidentified, said Finney's account was "full of erroneous information and inaccuracies." He said the Reagan administration had stopped trying to overturn the U.N.'s rules on baby formula after it lost a vote by a wide margin.

He said that the State Department had "talked to a number of people who were there [in the USAID] at the time, and they have no recollection of these events, as described."

A number of people have written in to ask why I have had nothing to say on the obesity warriors’ rather awkward numbers problem. Too busy laughing, that’s why, but here and here are some wise comments from the good people at TCS.

Last night’s dinner – crispy pork belly in a rather good Austrian restaurant downtown, tomorrow’s breakfast – apple-cured New Hampshire bacon. Now if I could only find a nice Scotch egg in this town happiness would be complete.

In appearance Cameron Diaz is someone lovely enough to make me believe – if only for a second – in ‘intelligent design’ - but even those most inclined to give her the benefit of every doubt have to contend with the sneaky, troubling, suspicion that she is as dumb as a particularly stupid rock. First there were those ‘rape’ comments during the election, and now there is this:

“The 32-year-old Diaz, who earns a reported $20-million a movie, boasted that the cow-dung slathered walls of a Nepalese village hut were "beautiful" and "inspiring," and she called the primitive practice of "pounding mud" with sticks to construct a building foundation "the coolest thing."

There is something rather disgusting about the richest of the rich world rejoicing in the primitive squalor from which mankind is – all too slowly – emerging. There is also something profoundly condescending and, at its root, maybe even racist, in the way that Diaz (and, read the terrific article on all this nonsense here, Drew Barrymore too) appear to imagine that the third worlders trapped in desperate poverty do not share in the material aspirations of the more fortunate portions of humanity.

And as, for those ‘spiritual’ values that Diaz purports to find in picturesque hellholes such as Bhutan, I suspect that, given the chance, most of those bowers, scrapers and chanters would be pleased to junk their shamans, temples and priests in favour of running water, electricity and decent education.

And they would be right to.

Via Radley

One of the defining characteristics of Britain’s disastrous Blair years has been the way in which in so, so, so many areas, it is impossible to decide whether the Labour government policies are staggeringly incompetent or deliberately malign.

There’s no better example of this than in the field of immigration. Under Blair, Britain has quite simply lost control of its borders. Quite rightly, the Conservatives are making this an issue in the upcoming election (the UK votes on May 5th). Handled correctly, this is an issue that may well resonate with the electorate, and that’s why the inaccurately-named Independent is trying to conjure up a Tory split over immigration.

Read the article, and see what you think, but it is striking that the dissident Conservatives chosen to comment are a clown (Michael Portillo, who is, good riddance, finally stepping down as an MP) and a loser (Steve Norris) on the left of the party. We also learn that the boss if the Confederation of British Industry is concerned by Howard’s stance, but as his only interest lies in supporting the immigration of helot labour, it should, like the corporate cronyism that underpins President Bush’s laughable immigration initiatives, be ignored.

Could a miracle be about to take place in France? Although many knowledgeable folk remain doubtful that the EU’s squalid ‘constitution’ will really be voted down in the land of crooked Jacques this May 29th, the latest polls are very encouraging:

Even the slavishly pro-Brussels Guardian is reporting this:

"A poll for the free newspaper Metro by MarketTools research group yesterday showed 62% of people who have decided how to vote will reject the treaty in France's May 29 referendum, four points up from the previous 58% high in a survey by the BVA agency released on Thursday."

Meanwhile, Luxembourg’s prime minister, the evocatively named Jean-Claude Juncker, has proved that, contrary to the rumours, that dour bunch of eurocrats, placemen and rentiers located down in the Ardennes really do have a sense of humour. He’s saying that the EU will “continue to develop” if the constitution is voted right (true enough, alas), but that the process will slow down and that as a result “we would lose two decades, during which certain parts of the world would move ahead by adopting Europe's model, while others would catch up with us."

Quite why anyone else should want to adopt “Europe’s model,” which is best seen as the Ford Pinto of economic management and the Rolls Royce of corruption, is beyond me.

Juncker didn’t explain either.

I just got back from a press conference with Jeb Bush and the rest of the Presidential delegation.

An Italian journalist asked about Dowd's column ("in your newspaper, the New York Times..." "I would just like to make it clear that it is not MY newspaper")

Jeb said that Dick Cheney should be proud to be compared to Pope Benedict, and Pope Benedict should be proud to be compared to Dick Cheney.

I meant to say this the other day but didn't get around to it: I think David Brooks is fundamentally correct in saying that our politics won't get less bitter until Roe is overturned. For one thing, I suspect its overturning would make it much easier for politicians who were pro-choice-with-real-restrictions or pro-life-with-real-exceptions to succeed, because activists on both sides would be fighting real policy battles.

(I think, however, that to lament, as Brooks does, the way that Roe has poisoned the judicial-confirmation process is to view things from the wrong angle. If the Court is going to exercise this kind of power, it's appropriate for people to do what they can to influence it and make it the object of a political struggle.)

Ann Althouse argues that Brooks is wrong: Overturning Roe would just re-allocate the bitterness in American politics, giving more of it to pro-choicers. "Ironically, if, after all these years, social conservatives finally gain a majority on the Supreme Court that is willing to overturn the precedent, it will activate political liberals and libertarians. And one thing they will want is their majority back on the Supreme Court."

Althouse is certainly correct that pro-choice unhappiness would increase after Roe's demise. But let me try to offer, at least, some qualifications to her conclusion.

1) The familiar point about the Supreme Court and the politics of abortion is that any move it makes in one direction activates the losers and makes the winners complacent. Thus Roe massively enlarged the pro-life movement and Webster revitalized the pro-choice movement. But if Roe ended, pro-choice activation would, I think, not likely be matched by pro-life quiescence. There would be too many state (and federal) legislative battles to fight, and nobody on the pro-life side would think their work done. I think there is reason to think that a lot of the energy on both sides would shift away from the Supreme Court by necessity.

2) Am I making Althouse's case for her in predicting a lot of legislative "battles to fight"? I don't think so. In a lot of places, you'd have state laws that restricted abortion a lot more than it is restricted today, but not as much as pro-lifers (like me) would like. So hard-core partisans on both sides would be unhappy. But hard-core pro-lifers--let's say, people who believe that abortion should be outlawed in all three trimesters except when rape, incest, or the continued survival of the mother are involved--would be less unhappy than before. And while people who want abortion to be legal in all three trimesters for any reason would be more unhappy than before, there aren't many of them. You can get majorities of the public to endorse something very close to the hard-core pro-life view, but you can only get in the low 30s with the hard-core pro-choice view (and even that's stretching it). Public policy on abortion would be closer to median-voter sentiment. And the sense of the law's illegitimacy would be much harder for the losing side of any battle to maintain (as Brooks points out).

3) Our assumption has so far been that Roe dies in one decision. What if it dies incrementally? Maybe the Court will give back legislative authority one trimester at a time, as its composition slowly changes. That scenario would of course involve continued attention to Supreme Court confirmation battles while the dying took place, but would also change the way the legislative and electoral politics played out--and I think the change would make the Brooks thesis look stronger.

Two weeks ago, I posted that there appeared to be at least 50 votes for ending filibusters against judges--the so-called "constitutional" or "nuclear" option.

The votes aren't there any more.

The vote count was based on private communications, not public commitments, and some of the senators have shifted. The fallout from the Schiavo intervention and from Tom DeLay's remarks about judges have contributed to the shift, and so has the disagreement among Republicans about what the "constitutional option" should entail.

Today's comments from the vice president on the subject of the Senate and judges in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association:

. . . To build a stronger, better America for the next generation, we must also uphold the values that sustain our society -– limited government, personal responsibility, free enterprise, reverence for life, and equal justice under the law. And in this second term, President Bush will also continue nominating federal judges who faithfully interpret the law, instead of legislating from the bench. (Applause.)

Staffing the federal courts is one of the most important responsibilities of any President, and is given to him directly by the Constitution. To fulfill that responsibility, President Bush has submitted the names of superbly qualified nominees for the federal district and circuit courts -– men and women of experience who meet the highest standards of legal training, temperament, and judgment.

The United States Senate has also the responsibility, under the Constitution, to advise and consent to judicial nominations. To win confirmation, a nominee needs only a simple majority of senators voting.

For more than 200 years, the Senate has exercised this responsibility by voting either to confirm or reject nominations sent up by the President. Recently, however, a minority of senators has turned away from two centuries of practice and begun filibustering judicial nominees. The filibuster, of course, is a procedural device used to kill legislation by insisting on unlimited debate. The only way to stop a filibuster is by a super-majority vote of 60 senators. Employed against a judicial nominee, the filibuster effectively prevents an up or down vote on the Senate floor, even if a majority of senators have indicated support for the nomination.

During the 108th Congress, 10 of President Bush’s judicial nominees were filibustered. I see one of them, retired Judge Charles Pickering, is here with us today. (Applause.) I want to thank Judge Pickering for his many years of service to the United States of America. His nomination, and the others that were filibustered, were not held up for a lack of support. On the contrary, each one of them had majority backing and would have been swiftly confirmed by the full Senate, if only given that chance.

These nominations were held up strictly for partisan political reasons, in an astounding departure from historical precedent. Until recently, not once in the history of the United States had a group of senators ever used the filibuster to block a judicial nominee having majority support in the Senate.

This year President Bush’s judicial nominees include seven who were filibustered in the last Congress. Two of them, Terrence Boyle of North Carolina and Patricia [sic: Priscilla] Owen, Texas, have been waiting almost four years for an up or down vote. And very soon the Senate will face an important decision. If a minority of members again chooses to filibuster judicial nominees, then the majority may choose to institute a rule change to ensure that the nominations go to the full Senate. Let me emphasize the decision about how to proceed will be made by the Republican leadership in the Senate.

But if the Senate majority decides to move forward, and if the issue is presented to me in my elected office as President of the Senate, and presiding officer, I will support bringing those nominations to the floor for an up or down vote. (Applause.)

On the merits, this should not be a difficult call to make. First, the Senate has full authority to set its own rules, and it is perfectly legitimate for the leadership, backed by a majority, to restore traditional practice. And let me emphasize that -- to restore traditional practice.

Second, the Majority Leader, Senator Frist, has made clear that any action would be limited in scope, in no way altering the customs of debate or the availability of the filibuster where legislation is concerned.

Third, I believe there is an important principle at stake. When senators filibuster a nominee who has clear majority support, they are, in effect, trying to establish a 60-vote requirement for confirmation. A simple majority is what has been required for confirmation throughout our history. A filibuster of judicial nominees is, as a practical matter, an attempt to limit a President’s ability to appoint judges who have majority support in the United States Senate.

In short, there is no justification for allowing the blocking of nominees who are well qualified and broadly supported. The tactics of the last few years, I believe, are inexcusable, particularly when you’re dealing with men and women of the caliber of those nominated by George W. Bush. By any standard of judicial merit, they are fully qualified to serve. And by any standard of fairness, they deserve a vote in the United States Senate. (Applause.) . . .

Via Julian Sanchez, I see that Matthew Yglesias is arguing that it's just to guarantee that Social Security benefits keep up with wages rather than prices: "As general living standards improve, so do one's reasonable expectations of what constitutes a dignified retirement." That seems to me to be true.

But today's level of taxes is not capable of generating benefit levels that keep up with wages. To the extent the program is redistributive, maybe that point doesn't matter: You could just raise taxes on the rich to fund those benefit levels. But it would not make sense to raise someone's taxes in order to keep his own benefit levels high. Most people would, I'd guess, prefer to keep their taxes low and invest the difference rather than to pay more taxes to see their benefits rise.

I agree with a lot of his column today--which is no surprise, since I think he's one of the best, maybe the best, of the big-time conservative columnists. But the column displays two flaws--one characteristic, one not. The uncharacteristic flaw is a kind of logical sloppiness: Judicial independence, judicial supremacy, and the separation of powers are all treated as the same thing, and the same, uncomplicated thing at that.

The second, characteristic flaw is the dismissal of opposing points of view as "deranged" (sometimes synonyms are used). Conservatives usually (and wrongly) overlook this habit of Krauthammer because his targets are usually on the Left. "The non-deranged way to correct the problem [of judicial excess] is to appoint a new generation of judges committed to judicial modesty." Well, it is a non-deranged way to try to correct the problem. But one could reasonably conclude from 35 years of attempting to apply this solution without much success that something more is needed. I think that there are certain favorable conditions at work now (e.g., a large supply of Federalist Society types) that have not been in place in the past, so a good-appointments strategy might work better than it has in the past. But I don't think it's deranged to think that structural solutions might also be worth considering, whether term limits or jurisdiction stripping or something else.

First of all, who's lighting the chimp's cigarettes?

Second, given the horrific strength of chimpanzees discussed around here not too long ago, does forcing him to go cold turkey really sound like the best idea?

Note how the first paragraph calls into question the judgement displayed in the second. From some guy named Walter C. Uhler:

But, rather than address my criticisms directly, two editors ridiculed Z Magazine and anyone who would write to or for it. Yet, America's most brilliant and formidable intellectual, Noam Chomsky, routinely contributes to Z.

Thus, the rightward drift and accompanying deterioration of the Inquirer proceeded apace. Now, its Commentary page regularly features Op-eds by Jonah Goldberg, a syndicated right-wing lightweight with little of importance to say.

Of course this guy will eat his words should he read my opus on the

Cookie Monster!

I'll be speaking there on April 26th. It is open to the public.

Details:

Time: 7:00 PM
Room 3-115 of the EE/CSCI building on Washington Ave.

Map here
Topic: Enviro stuff and porn (ok, no porn).
Host: CFact.

My apologies, I was speaking in shorthand when in reality Godwin's law means something quite a bit different. In my defense, I can't count how many times I've seen my original usage of Godwin's law used conversationally on the web. From a reader:

Jonah,

Godwin's Law does NOT say that the first person to mention Hitler or the Nazis "loses." It says (per Wikipedia -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law): "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

And another reader:

Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Dougie thus fulfilled this prediction in rather record time...

USENET newsgroup tradition has it that the first flamer to hurl the
"Nazi" label automatically loses the argument. So there.

Via Instapundit, who notes that this time, it seems, France is in favour of pre-emptive war.

Most readers have agreed that my "dumb emailer" was indeed dumb. But a few folks have accused me of violating "Godwin's Law" which says that the first person to make allusions to or accusations of Nazi-like or pro-Hitler tendencies automatically loses. A few others said I'm simply wrong when I write that the "notion of 'all morality' being 'relative to context' is thoroughly and entirely consistent with Nazi philosophy."

I plead not guilty on all counts.

First of all, Doug-the-dumb-emailer was the one who broke Godwin's law from the outset by calling me a "closet facist." [sic] I was merely pointing out the irony of his position.

Second, I'm not behind schedule on a book about fascism because I haven't been doing my homework. Of course the notion that morality is contingent on context is central to Nazi philosophy. Johann Gottfried Herder, the intellectual father of Volkish nationalism (but a decent guy), argued that morality is geopgraphically and ethnically specific. When Alfred Baeumler adpated Nietzsche to the Nazi cause much of his argument hinged on the notion that Christianity wasn't a "universal" faith but a "Mediterreanean religion of salvation" which was entirely "alien to and far removed from [Nietzsche's] Nordic attitude."

This is a point, by the way, I think Andrew Sullivan got wrong in his recent criticism of Michael Novak. And since it's been bugging me, I'll tell you why.

Sullivan argues that the appeal of Nazism and Marxism weren't relativistic. But relativism doesn't solely mean the individual defines his own truths. It also means that individuals and groups can disregard external notions of authority and universality -- moral or legal -- to further their own conceptions of good and evil. This is what Julien Benda was referring to in his Treason of The Clerks when he complained that for the first time in memory, philosophers had sided with Socrates' killers.

The Communists believed that killing inconvenient peoples for the good of the party was entirely justified. The Nazis believed killing inconvenient peoples in the name of the volk was entirely justified. Both movements argued that morality for Communists and Nazis ("workers," "the proletariat," Aryans whatever) was different than morality for outsiders and therefore lying, cheating and stealing were justified by their group defined morality. How Andrew can call it a "big stretch" for Novak to suggest Marxism and Nazism were a product of the moral relativism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is beyond me.

A couple times a day I get this sort of thing out of the blue:

You, an apparent closet facist, suggesting balance is like the conclave having voted--not for Pelosi--but for Christopher Hitchens.

Off course you would defend, by all accounts, to use
your vacuous phrase, an ignorant regressive as Pope.
Do you, as does Ratzinger, know that all homosexuals
are intrinsically evil?

Since it's not nature, then it must be nurture. Do you
believe the professional lesbian child of the Cheneys
as well as the ordinary lesbian of Alan Keyes must
have grown up in the bosom of intrinsically evil
families?

Speaking of genes, is your seemingly constant lying,
both by omission and comission, a genetic defect or
learned behavior? The American media, not liberal, but
actually conservative, is, contrary to your assertion,
in this case correct. The fact is that the majority of
American Catholics want priests be able to marry and
have children and want women to be able to serve in
the clergy. Do you just make up data as you go along
to fit your lame story line?

You also forgot to mention a mere continent--Europe,
where Catholism is quite weak. You and Ratzinger act
like metaphysical morons, if you don't realize that
all morality is relative to context.

Sorry, I don't have time to teach you anymore tonight.
I must polish my Volvo.

Doug

Me: The stupidity speaks for itself. But I will just say that the notion of "all morality" being "relative to context" is thoroughly and entirely consistent with Nazi philosophy.

nobody has asked this yet, but, whenever you walk down a hotel lobby, can you please tell me what you might find to pick up and throw at someone? Was it a room service tray? Soap off the maid's cart? A chocolate mint? Townsel has never detailed what was thrown at her. All these details from her, except what was thrown. Curious, to say the least.

From a reader:

I was an intern for Denny Hastert when the Republicans first took over in ‘95, and because Denny was the Chief Deputy Majority whip, he was in the Capitol pretty much all the time with the leadership and its staff while (we) his staff stayed in Rayburn HOB. Well, I can remember on more than one occasion people being on the phone with our seemingly teddy-bearish, behind-the-scenes, now-Speaker, and let me tell you: he could tear people a new one; I witnessed 30-year-old LAs weeping, and I mean shaking, snot-flowing, bawling, at the end of a phone call, or guys looking white after having been eviscerated from across Independence Ave. With all my friends doing similar internships at the time, this seemed standard fare. It's politics for cryin' out loud, and frankly I think this "he said not nice things to me and is a big-meany-stupidhead!" is embarrassing for Democrats and just further emasculates their image. You Rule, Thor! (I figure I just upped my chances of getting posted) Loyal reader, Bill

2. IBTCI Moscow office was in a huge room on the first floor of the Aerostar hotel with a large number desks for American and Russian staff members working on multiple projects. Aerostar, a very large hotel with well lit large corridors and hallways, was a hub of many activities involving other Americans and foreigners as well. So, I personally see no scenario of any lonely encounter between Mr. Bolton and Ms. Townsel.

3. Immediately after my Moscow oversight visit, IBTCI asked me to go to Bishkek in response to the concerns and complaints received regarding how Ms. Townsel was handling her role as the Chief of Party on BTCI's USAID project in Kyrgyzstan.

4. I had very limited background on the Bishkek project before I went there, but during my audit of the operations in Kyrgyzstan, I found many weaknesses in the way Ms. Townsel was handling financial, personnel and other project-related matters. In response, Ms. Townsel also made some complaints about with IBTCI. I realize back in 1994, running a huge project in the remote city of Bishkek was challenging for all contractors including IBTCI. But the important thing is that I was in Bishkek for quite a few days and spent much time with Ms. Townsel every single day and she discussed a number of small or big things but not once did Mr. Bolton's name come up.

5. Due to the gravity of some of my findings, Mr. Bolton was requested upon my return to help formalize IBTCI's report to USAID in his capacity as outside counsel to IBTCI. The report was no doubt a scathing rebuke to Ms. Townsel. As a professional manager, I was extremely disappointed at Ms. Townsel's her lack of good judgment and serious irresponsibility; but I have not held before nor hold now any ill feelings towards her. I also remember that as counsel to IBTCI, as horrified as Mr. Bolton was at my findings, he did not make it his personal issue. However, I had a distinct reading of how embittered Ms. Townsel had gotten.

Is at it again (nod to Instapundit):

During a state visit to China, French Premier Raffarin threw support behind a law allowing China to attack Taiwan and continued to push for a lift of the EU arms embargo.

At the outset of a three-day visit to China, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said he supported Beijing's "anti-secession" law on Taiwan, and vowed to keep pushing for an end to an EU arms embargo that could open the door for Paris to sell weapons to the Asian giant.

Raffarin also signed or finalized major business deals with Beijing valued at around $3.2 billion (2.4 billion euros).

Appearing to put his government at odds with the European Union, Raffarin said at the outset of the three day visit that Paris had no objections to the anti-secession law.

"The anti-secession law is completely compatible with the position of France," he said in a joint press conference with his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao

I've received another document which reveals that Henry Kissinger was far more of a hugger than we ever realized! I guess critics of detente should shut up now.

I've received a document from a reliable source which proves that Prince Metternich was a real bear to the staff. He would often grill his foreign ministry officials about intelligence reports, often standing there in his tunic with his hands on his hips and demanding to get better answers to his questions. On another occassion he followed a contractor across the lobby of the Cafe Sacher demanding better terms. He also once cancelled the office softball game for no good reason. Clearly this is a blow to the historic standing of his diplomacy from which it will never recover. We can never look at the Holy Alliance the same way again.

Holy warriors

Cardinal Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency by tipping the Catholic vote. Can American democracy survive their shared medieval vision?

By Sidney Blumenthal

During the lunch, I remember Ms. Townsel complaining about conditions on the Kyrgyz project as well as the support she was receiving from IBTCI though no mention was made of Mr. Bolton attacking her.

Mr. Bolton could have met Ms. Townsel in the IBTCI office though I have no recollection of any specific encounter between Mr. Bolton and Ms. Townsel. I do remember that when Mr. Bolton and I were not attending meetings, he spent the majority of his time in his room, writing the Healthy Russia document. If Mr. Bolton had done any of the things Ms. Townsel has accused him of, those of us in the IBTCI office would have known about it due to the close quarters in which we worked. I personally have no memory of any such incident occurring during my stay in Moscow nor would I have forgotten it if it had occurred.

From a reader:

Jonah,

I saw your posting about Couey. I know there was a
lot of wailing that its hard to track sex offenders
because they move after they register. No one
appeared to have a solution, though.

My solution is not pretty, but then again, neither are
the consequences of doing nothing. I propose
standardized facial tattoos for all convicted sex
offenders. This is a brutish, but I think elegant,
solution to identifying dangerous people who might
wish to harm your family. I got the idea from the
Scarlet Letter and William F. Buckley's "abandon all
hope ye who enter here" tattoo for diagnose HIV
patients.

The tattoo may be removed if the offender is
exonerated. And of course, a stiff fine for any
tattoo artist who illegally removes a sex offender
facial tattoo.

You can post my name if you wish- I am not ashamed.
Perhaps I should be, but I can't quite manage it.

Alan Scanio

I still don't get it. Are we to believe that successful diplomats always treat the staff nicely? Senators are known for their decorum towards each other. However, last time I checked, some of them can be real jerks to their staffers or to government functionaries. Does that mean they shouldn't be Senators? Does anyone think Bolton is going to scream at the foreign minister of China on the floor of the General Assembly simply because he's known for yelling at fellow bureaucrats when he needs to get results? What, precisely, is the connection? What, exactly, is the concern?

Again, I'm not defending being a jerk to your subordinates. If he is, shame on him. But it sounds like he's more of a skull-cracker to get results. And, whatever he is, it is a new and absurd standard to say that a government official has to play nicey-nice on the staff in order to be confirmable.

When: April 23rd at 2:30.
Where: The McLean Hilton (Tyson's Corner Hilton)
7920 Jones Branch Drive,
McLean, Virginia 22102
R.S.V.P: To reserve seats call 703 255 2632 and say you are a friend of ours.

I will not get baited into another Me Vesus the Libertarians moment (partly because I sincerely doubt this guy speaks for that many libertarians). Basically this guy's argument boils down to why I'm not a "rational libertarian" as he defines the phrase. And, on that score, he's obviously correct. Anyway, from a reader:

You say you could never be "convinced" that heinous
criminal x should not be executed.

To a rational libertarian, that's pretty much like
saying you can never be "convinced" that the round
pegs go in the round holes and the square ones go in
the square holes: it's a matter of categories and
what is, or is not, a proper role for the State.

Government is not in the retribution business. It
exists to grant and withhold liberties from
individuals. A killer -- whether he kills one 99-year
old rapist or 10,000,000 infants -- can be dealt with
simply by removing his liberties, i.e., locking him
up. Society has no claim over the killer's autonomy
and existence except to ensure its own safety.

Anything more is sheer emotionalism, mob rule,
booga-booga tribalism, etc. Which you seem very much
to favor. I don't. But then, I have no problem with
showing hard-core porn on Saturday morning TV, if
that's what the market wants.

WASHINGTON – Nearly four years after she was first nominated by President Bush to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to send the nomination of Justice Priscilla Owen to the full Senate. The committee voted 10-8 along party lines.

A producer from a National Public Radio show "On the Media" called me up recently to tell me that [a style manual] ... many journalists around the country call on when writing their stories is dictating that journalists stop using the word fetus and replace it with the term unborn child. This producer asked me if I thought this was political, and when I said, "Of course it's political," she debated me. We've heard this phrase unborn child so much that it's physically changing our brains. Also, the word fetus has been demonized, even though it is a technical, scientific term. The right is so successfully framing this issue that a term representing a political agenda is becoming the "neutral" or "objective" word that journalists are supposed to use in their stories.

The right has been on this for the last 40 years; they understand and pay attention to the way the mind works. They play the journalists right now. Many times, journalists don't even know that they are promoting the right's language. They see it as neutral and repeat it over and over -- "tax relief, " "partial-birth abortion." The right has come up with a whole list of values and language about those values, so that their spokespeople can use it over and over again and get the media to use their language over and over again, and to ask their questions. Until we hear it all so much, have it reinforced in so many ways, that it physically changes our brains. There is nothing neutral or objective about that. People talk about a "competitive marketplace of ideas." The notion that there are all these equally weighted, neutral ideas floating about out there, from which people will choose their views and opinions. It doesn't exist. The right figured out how to physically change our brains, and the left is only beginning to recognize this very basic fact of cognitive science.

I found this interesting:

As Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith (the Holy Office) since 1981, Ratzinger has been treated as a kind of grand inquisitor by the media. This is based on the “persecution” of a handful of theologians, most famously Hans Küng. In reality, this persecution amounted to a change of job title: Küng could no longer call himself a professor of Catholic theology, but continued to teach exactly the same things at the same university.

I once discussed Ratzinger with Küng, his Swiss contemporary and arch-rival. While admitting that the new Pope was a clever man, Küng insisted that he had done great damage to the Church. But Küng believes that all the great world religions essentially teach the same, which is manifestly incompatible with Catholic doctrine. I came away with the impression that of these two brilliant theologians, it was Küng who had succumbed to the temptation to think he knew better, while Ratzinger had submitted to the authority of the Church. Ratzinger is no inquisitor, but Küng is a heretic.

And so when he described himself on the balcony yesterday as “a simple and humble worker in the Lord’s vineyard”, there was no false modesty.

This reader's letter reminds me why the Vatican City PD have never been featured on "Cops."

Jonah, My eldest brother is a Jesuit priest and did an assignment in the Vatican a few years ago. He told us many interesting things about the experience, including that there is a law in Vatican City (and maybe also in Rome proper) against impersonating a priest or nun. "Fr Guido Sarducci" was arrested once for violating this law - the cops noticed him because he was wearing sneakers instead of black patent leather shoes.

The power of the Corner. From a reader:

When you click on the Guido Sarducci video clip on the page you linked to, you get a notice that it's unavailable due to sudden demand. The power of the Corner strikes again!

"If I could strike the words 'choice' and 'abortion' out of the lexicon of our party, I would," he said. "The debate and the difference between the parties is we believe a woman has a right to make up her own mind about her health care, and they (Republicans) believe that (House Majority Leader) Tom DeLay and the boys in Congress should be making up that woman's mind."

The new account that corroborated Ms. Townsel's complaints against Mr. Bolton was offered by Uno Ramat, who worked with her on an Agency for International Development project in Kyrgyzstan in 1994. Mr. Ramat said Mr. Bolton, who was then a lawyer representing Ms. Townsel's and Mr. Ramat's employer, International Business and Technical Consultants Inc., flew to Moscow to counter Ms. Townsel's complaints that the company was slow in providing cash to pay suppliers.

"He was very intimidating and nasty," Mr. Ramat said in a telephone interview from Toronto. "He terrorized the office, he really did."

Mr. Ramat also said he recalled a series of phone calls from Ms. Townsel, who was in Moscow, complaining of Mr. Bolton's behavior. He said she complained at the time, as she has in recent days, that Mr. Bolton followed her around the hotel, pounded on her door and threatened her.

As a judge I have to be very careful about going outside the "four corners" of the record before me in deciding a case. Clearly, some internet research is appropriate--Lexis-Nexis. But, if I tried to resolve a factual dispute in the record by doing my own research I believe I would overstepped the bounds of my ethics. That is the parties jobs and they have burdens of proof to meet. The judge is the finder of fact and is not supposed to be the developer of fact.

Especially appellant judges, who are to review the record before them as developed at the lower level. These judges are not supposed to be supplementing or developing the facts. A judges role is similar to that of a jury--to review the facts presented. It is improper for a juror to do research on factual issues and it might also be for a judge. Thus, a blanket condemnation of Mr. Delay's comments is not necessarily appropriate.

It's been years since I read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. But I could swear there's a passage early in the book where Adams describes how we all have a natural sense which tells us when we meet a stranger. Normally it's not much more than a tingle because we only normally meet humans from this planet. But it goes off like gangbusters when we meet people from other planets. Have I totally buttered this memory? And if not any help nailing this down would be appreciated.

Please watch this space for an announcement that I got my answer so I don't get HHGtG email for days on end. Thanks.

Update: Klang, Klang: This email rang the bell. I got it wrong. Nevermind:

"It was actually your impending death in a place far from your place of birth that gave you that freaky sensation. So, an earthling on his home planet wouldn't feel it much, even in the antipodes, but Ford Prefect, from Betelgeuse 600 light years away felt it pretty bad."

Another Update: Here's the passage, from another reader:

"[The barman] suddenly shivered: he experienced a momentary sensation that he didn't understand because no one on Earth had ever experienced it before. In moments of great stress, every life form that exists gives out a tiny subliminal signal. This signal simply communicates an exact and almost pathetic sense of how far that being is from the place of his birth. On Earth it is never possible to be farther than sixteen thousand miles from your birthplace, which really isn't very far, so such signals are too minute to be noticed. Ford Prefect was at this moment under great stress, and he was born six hundred light-years away in the near vicinity of Betelgeuse. The barman reeled for a moment, hit by a shocking, incomprehensible sense of distance. He didn't know what it meant, but he looked at Ford Prefect with a new sense of respect, almost awe."

To the best of my knowledge, Ms. Townsel had limited contact with Mr. Bolton, who at the time she claims was hostile to her, was working on another project for IBTCI in Moscow (Healthy Russia 2000). Ms. Townsel's recollection of what transpired, ten years later, is impossible to square with the fact Mr. Bolton was not engaged by our firm to have any contact with her on any issue related to her activities in Kyrgyzstan. In fact, later Mr. Bolton became our legal counsel to represent our interests before the U.S. Government in response to Ms. Townsel's efforts to try to grab our contract. Her claims against Mr. Bolton make no sense but are consistent with her belligerent attitudes towards others.

In fact, Ms. Townsel's professional performance is central to understanding her behavior and her extreme hostility to anyone associated with our company. As a Team Leader, she attempted unsuccessfully to charge the U.S. government for disallowable costs. She became enraged and abusive when our Business Manager, Auditor, and Executive Vice President each questioned these activities/costs, The situation was so serious that we had to post an expatriate from Head Office to our project office in Kyrgyzstan to ensure that proper accounts were maintained as we bad lost confidence in her business and billing practices.

Her poor performance, treatment of other employees and attempt to take over our contract became issues; and thus I was required to step in and remove her from her position. Mr. Bolton's role with IBTCI was unrelated. to her activities at the time. At no time did we ask, or seek Mr. Bolton's intervention with her. I certainly did .not hear, contemporaneously; from any other employee in Moscow that anything occurred between Mr. Bolton and Ms Townsel in Moscow, Consequently, it is difficult to understand how Ms. Townsel could make such accusations with any veracity.

"One Dutch Minister has shown himself to be even sillier than our own politicians by announcing that if there is a no vote in the Netherlands, the economy will collapse because “people would stop buying things like television sets”. Why on earth would they do that? ...Then, as some of our readers have already noted, the Dutch Minister of Justice announced that if the Constitution fails, the whole Continent will collapse into immediate and prolonged warfare. Look at Yugoslavia, he wailed."

Of course, there could be another explanation for this bizarre behavior. Maybe these pro-constitution activists are not poor, deranged souls in urgent need of psychiatric treatment. Maybe they are just hacks trying to scare the Dutch people into a yes vote.

Oh, it couldn't be that. Could it?

K-Lo,
I think conservative/orthodox/confessing Protestants are all bubbly today about Benedict XVI because our Catholics brothers are showing the mainline Protestant denominations what it means to be faithful. It is now the so-called "moderates" of these churches who have long been victorious in forcing the relaxation of doctrine and church teachings under the banner of modernization who look "behind the times." They now seem like an old pair of marbled bell-bottoms rather than the cutting edge of the future of Christianity they thought they were. For some denominations, it may be too late, but there are pockets of orthodoxy that are thriving even in these dying denominations. They are celebrating with conservative Catholics this week.

As a Confessional Lutheran in one of those pockets of orthodoxy, I must confess to being enchanted by this new GERMAN Pope. What would Martin Luther say?

Congratulations!

I've gotten a few emails like this:

You appear to be getting ready to get your knickers in a twist over some umbrage by delay toward the internet. --I'm not an attorney, but my understanding is that a justice is supposed to deal with three inputs: 1) the facts of the case at hand; 2) the law, statutes, etc. that relate; and 3) precedent that relates.

To the extent that these are available in legitimate legal databases that are delivered online, so be it--but these are not and should not be considered as coming from research on "the internet" per se as we understand "the internet" to be a broad and deep source of information and communication that is not compiled, organized, screened and quality controlled as are specific databases, distributed commercially that come more or less with a guarantee of accuracy and veracity.

If Kennedy is "doing research" on that broader internet, perhaps we (and Mr. Delay) have found the source of some of the free-ranging, "living/evolving Constitution," legislation from the bench that Kennedy and his cohorts of the bench have brought us. Thus, wandering around the net can, no doubt, bring one to access a broad world of International and European law, as well "evolving" cultural norms from around the world that seem to have come to take an important part in the Justice's rulings/opinions. --If so, I think most at NRO would agree that this is not "a good thing," but in fact a bad thing--and antithetical to the constructionist, "words on the page" approach that I think most at NRO--along with Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas--see as the appropriate and correct one.

Me: Poppycock! First, while we don't know exactly what Delay meant, if he was ignorant of the fact that most legal research is done via online databases and the like, then he's surprisingly ignorant.

Second, even if he was referring to non Lexis-Nexis type research, So what? Imagine if Delay said, "Justice Kennedy takes books from his private library himself! That's outrageous." That would be no less dumb than complaining that a justice "outrageously" uses the web for research himself. If Scalia Googles a Shakespeare quote rather than fishes it out of Bartlett's it makes no never mind to me.

Third, I've written very harshly about the Justice's invocation of foreign law and the like. But what that has to do with surfing the internet is beyond me. If Scalia surfed the internet to find out what Zimbabwe's common law says about the death penalty, he'd probably do it to discover why Kennedy's wrong. If Kennedy did it, he'd discover that the Zimbabweans are lightyears ahead of us in terms of jurisprudence. In other words, it's the philosophical approach that's bad -- not the media a justice uses to obtain information to substantiate it.

The problem with Delay's comment is that it sounds like luddism and crankery. I have no problem whatsoever with public officials criticizing judges who do bad things. That's democracy. But Delay doesn't help things by sounding like a caricature. Now, if Kennedy were getting his information from personal research of goat entrails, that'd be something different.

The funny thing around my office yesterday was that the Catholics were dejected by Josef Ratzinger's election, but we non-Catholic evangelicals were high-fiving each other (at least figuratively). What a bizarre state of affairs. Though we Lutherans reformed ourselves right out of the Catholic Church a few hundred years ago, I like seeing people stick to their religious guns. If you don't believe it, don't defend it, but if you believe it, defend it to the death.

An email: "Guys, I'm as happy with the new Pope as anyone, and I know I may be reading into some things you've said on the Corner, but-and especially coming from people who like the work of Robbie George-who is an ecumenical Thomist, willing to see that Immanuel Kant and other Protestant Natural Lawyers did a lot of good-to imply that we want a Pope to be big on MacIntyre's philosophy. . . . I mean, c'mon, I don't want conservatism to hold that everything that happened after the Reformation was bad (which would include,
btw, the formation of our Republic).

"Anyway, I don't see how MacIntyre doesn't hold that, and while I *know* that George and [John] Finnis are not enemies of modernity, I can't say the same for
MacIntyre. I know that my fellow-Catholics won't all become deontologists like me tomorrow, and that it will remain a mainly-teleologist/Thomist Curch, but I
do think I can ask people to come to Kant *constructively*, as opposed to nastily. Michael Novak and George always discuss Kant constructively,
even if they remain Thomists. Alastair MacIntyre has never, ever, done this."

My response: You are, as you suspected, reading more into my comment than I meant. I can't say anything intelligent about your characterization of MacIntyre--I haven't read him since college--but I imagine that it's possible to approach him, as well as Kant, constructively. I can recommend Maurice Cowling's essay on MacIntyre in the February 1994 New Criterion--which does not appear to be online--and Edward Oakes's "The Achievement of Alasdair MacIntyre."

Who says we don't tolerate dissent? From a reader:

I have to disagree with you on this one -- I'd be happy to see the door hit Jeffords.

I suspect that, as shocking as it may seem, there are millions of Catholics in America who have no position on whether priests should be allowed to marry and don't particularly feel obligated to have a position on it. I'm one of them. Sure, there are divisions among self-described Catholics in America on birth control and abortion. But the "factions"--liberals who resent conservatives and vice-versa--make up only a fraction of the church.

It's like the culture wars in American society generally. There are ideologues on both sides, and millions more people who have affinities for one side or the other--but those millions generally don't understand themselves as taking part in a culture war.

I'm also guessing that, contrary to David Von Drehle's assertion, there are plenty of American Catholics who had never heard of Cardinal Ratzinger until recently, let alone spent time "fighting over" him.

"Critics of radical feminism have been often accused of exaggerating the importance of a handful of male-haters in the movement. Yet Dworkin was never relegated to the lunatic fringe where she belonged: Her texts have been widely assigned in women's studies courses, and prominent feminists from activist Gloria Steinem to philosopher Martha Nussbaum have offered their praise, treating her hatemongering as extremism in defense of the oppressed. I prefer the view that hate is hate."

Read the whole thing.

Lots of email from conservative babyboomers angry with me for this passage in today's column:

Not everyone in the so-called New Left was physically violent, and by no means was every young person alive then a member of the New Left, but almost everyone in the so-called "generation of '68" was intellectually violent — to tradition, to old-fashioned notions of decency, to truth, etc. And a great many of them refused to draw principled distinctions between rhetorical violence and the real thing.

I could have been more clear, but my point was not to say that every single person in the demographic cohort of young people alive in 1968 were lefties. "Generation of '68" refers -- in my book -- to a specific sliver of young activists associated with SDS, the New Left, etc.

I've written a lot on the generational stereotyping nonsense and I didn't mean to sound like I bought into it. I'm well aware that many young people in the 1960s weren't leftwing radicals. Indeed, the Vietnam war's strongest supporters were young people without a college education. And young people overall were far more divided than the cultural propaganda we get today suggests.

It's odd. No one has ever disputed that Bill Clinton was prone to "purple rages" against staffers (let's just leave aside more controversial "overtures" toward women). No one has ever contradicted the famous stories of John Kerry dressing down underlings and working stiffs with his "Do you know who I am?" routine. In recent years, many liberals -- starting with Clinton himself -- have decried the "politics of personal destruction" starting with Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

The new charge against Bolton is the old one: he's a jerk. And no one disputes that if he is a jerk, he's an effective one. Well, this town is infested with bosses who are jerks. I'm all for outing jerks wherever we find them. But it's odd how conservatives are the only ones who ever meet the criteria.

But the Catholic Church, it is worth recalling, is not a one-man show. All the media focus on Rome when a new pope is elected distorts the nature of the church itself. The problems and opportunities facing Catholics around the world cannot be solved by papal fiat or pontifical programs. Bishops and priests can help. But what the church needs most are Catholics who want to be Catholics, who know what that means, and who seek the grace to become true disciples of Christ. That they must do themselves.

Just got back from a late night Benedict XVI drinking party at the local pub.

I had safely predicted the 1) "winner", 2) papal name, 3) and ballot to the owner yesterday, so free drinks for me.

Rome is like a Saturday night - a very busy Saturday night.

People who have not been in Church for years are in the streets celebrating, because a 78 year old German guy is their new bishop.

Many of my [hard-core] friends are making comments about that - but I love it. I love that the Catholic identity of this city permeates everone, even the neo-pagans. I've always said until you understand the guy who gives up adultery on Fridays during Lent*, you will never truly understand the Catholic Church.

People are singing, dancing, toasting. These are not religious conservatives, they are just people.

Habemus Papam!

It doesn't matter what your relationship is with the Church, it still means all is right in the world!

* Remember, Friday is pretty good adultery day...It's not like he's taking off Tuesday, or something.

From The New York Post:

He should have picked on someone his own size. The midget mother and daughter who were allegedly terrorized by their neighbor stood tall yesterday as they faced the grand jury to testify against him.

Neither 3-foot-8 Debra Shea nor her 3-foot-6 daughter, Concelean Pegues, would comment on their testimony as they left Brooklyn Supreme Court, saying prosecutors asked them not to talk while the case is still pending.

The two were testifying against their longtime neighbor, Joseph Izzo, who was busted last week for spray-painting a yellow line leading up to their house and telling them to "follow the yellow brick road."

Izzo, 40, who is facing hate-crime charges, is also accused of hurling racial slurs at Pegues and cruelly singing, "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go."

The white smoke yesterday signaled that the Vatican thinks what it needs to bring it into modernity is the oldest pope since the 18th century: Joseph Ratzinger, a 78-year-old hidebound archconservative who ran the office that used to be called the Inquisition and who once belonged to Hitler Youth. For American Catholics - especially women and Democratic pro-choice Catholic pols - the cafeteria is officially closed. After all, Cardinal Ratzinger, nicknamed "God's Rottweiler" and "the Enforcer," helped deny Communion rights to John Kerry and other Catholic politicians in the 2004 election.

The only other job this pope would be qualified for is "60 Minutes" anchor.

become small, and will to a great extent have to start over again. But after a time of testing, an internalized and simplified Church will radiate great power and influence; for the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely…and they will then discover the little community of believers as something quite new. As a hope that is there for them, as they answer they have secretly always been asking for.

“A few tidbits...

1. The Senate went into a special recess so Bolton could be voted out. Voinovich knew this. He was on board. If he had a problem, he could have told Leadership before we went into a special recess.

2. Voinovich's reason for not voting for Bolton today? "I haven't been to the hearings and haven't heard all these allegations until now." Embarrassing.

3. Lugar could have solved this problem easily -- he could have asked Voinovich to abstain if he didn't feel prepared to vote. He could have told him that he was embarrasing him (Lugar) and all Republicans for blindsiding him. He could have recessed for 5 minutes so Republicans could have talked to him.

4. Lugar postponed for *three weeks.* He could have called another meeting tomorrow morning and given people time to get to Voinovich.

5. Chafee -- does anybody think he'll stick, now that Voinovich is giving him cover?”

Very interesting piece in today's WSJ on how Islam is beating Catholicism. Some of it is familiar for those following Europe's deomgraphic troubles. But the stuff about how the Vatican can't figure out how to fix the problem is very interesting and more than a little troubling. Subscriber's only.

My lovely bride will be receiving the Marquette University Young Alumna Award this weekend.

And I'll be at the University of Minnesota on April 26 for a speech. Details to come.

Clarification: I won't be able to attend the Marquette festivities. But thanks for the kind invitations.

But do I think John Bolton would make a good ambassador to the United Nations? Absolutely not," Mr. Wilkerson said. "He is incapable of listening to people and taking into account their views. He would be an abysmal ambassador.

John Bolton has served the last four years in an important policymaking job within a competitive and sometimes contentious national security bureaucracy. In that position he will have had thousands of encounters with officials of all ranks and political persuasions. He also will have used intelligence resources virtually every day of his tenure. The charge that he improperly sought to influence intelligence conclusions is a serious one, and it is reasonable to assess his conduct in these encounters. But no one should be surprised to find that episodes of conflict have occurred in this environment over the course of a four-year tenure.

Was Cardinal Ratzinger a Nazi?

Good grief. No, Virginia, Cardinal Ratzinger was not a Nazi.

The Ratzinger Fan Club normally doesn't indulge in the muck and mire of such rumors, but you'd be suprised how many people write inquiring about this malicious rumor.

The story that Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth is true. It's a biographical fact that seems to have circulated on many a mailing list, and seems to surface at precisely opportune times when the Prefect finds himself in the media's spotlight. From the way it has been presented, one might assume this is one of those skeletons the Cardinal keeps tucked away in his closet (next to his executioner's axe and the token heads of Hans Kung, Matthew Fox, Leonardo Boff & Charles Curran).

The truth is that as Ratzinger mentions himself in Milestones: Memoirs: 1927 - 1977, he and his brother George were both enrolled in the Hitler Youth (at a time when membership was compulsory), and discusses family life under the Third Reich in chapters 2-4 of his autobiography.

Likewise, John Allen Jr., journalist for the National Catholic Reporter and author of 2002's biography of the Cardinal The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith, -- supplies the historical details sorely lacking in one of his many articles on the Cardinal:

As a seminarian, he was briefly enrolled in the Hitler Youth in the early 1940s, though he was never a member of the Nazi party. In 1943 he was conscripted into an antiaircraft unit guarding a BMW plant outside Munich. Later Ratzinger was sent to Austria's border with Hungary to erect tank traps. After being shipped back to Bavaria, he deserted. When the war ended, he was an American prisoner of war.

Under Hitler, Ratzinger says he watched the Nazis twist and distort the truth. Their lies about Jews, about genetics, were more than academic exercises. People died by the millions because of them. The church's service to society, Ratzinger concluded, is to stand for absolute truths that function as boundary markers: Move about within these limits, but outside them lies disaster.

Later reflection on the Nazi experience also left Ratzinger with a conviction that theology must either bind itself to the church, with its creed and teaching authority, or it becomes the plaything of outside forces -- the state in a totalitarian system or secular culture in Western liberal democracies. In a widely noted 1986 lecture in Toronto, Ratzinger put it this way: "A church without theology impoverishes and blinds, while a churchless theology melts away into caprice." *

"We need to kick the money changers out of the temple and restore moral values to America," Dean said, drawing roars from the crowd."

Jonah You shouldn't have bailed on the Pope discussion. The least you could do is say Mazel Tov.

K.Lo,

I don't even bother with the news anymore. I know that if it's important I will hear it on the radio or read in on NRO. I think it's ironic that your critic thinks you are reporting too much on the Pope. In my office three-fourths of us are watching CNN - and none of us are Catholic.

I can't get over the sports-event atmosphere. It's wonderful to see so many people this enthusiastic about something that's actually important.

By the way, congratulations on being the first to call the white smoke... you posted it on the corner before any news channels were calling it.

Per your reader who asked about the significance of Benedict XV being a voice for peace during the First World War, we could also speculate that the name is meant to echo some other Popes whose record matches the former Cardinal Ratzinger's reputation (whatever the reality may be):

Benedict XIII (1724-1730) who worked to end decadence among Priests.

Benedict XII (1334 to 1342), who likewise worked to curb the luxurious lifestyles of some of the monasteries. As a bishop he had also fought heresy and witchcraft.

Benedict II (684 to 685) is the Patron Saint of Europe, incidentally.

Benedict ex vee eye, You're our guy!

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is not just the Catholic Church's enforcer of theological orthodoxy; he is also one of Christianity's most valuable contemporary thinkers. In his new book, Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions (Ignatius, 284 pp., $15.95), he tackles the issue of the plurality of religions with intelligence and insight. "Today's man," he writes, is "inclined to recognize himself in the Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant": A king summoned all the blind men in his city to have them feel different parts of an elephant, and naturally the blind men disagreed about the nature of the creature they were touching -- and eventually came to blows, as each contended that his own generalization from the part he was touching was the fundamental truth about the elephant. Is this not, modern man asserts, an apt metaphor for mankind in its religious quest?

No, says Ratzinger: "Someone who is born blind knows that he was not born to be blind . . . Man's resignation to the verdict that, when it comes to what is essential, that on which his life ultimately depends, he was born blind is merely apparent. . . . Man cannot come to terms with being born blind, and remaining blind, where essential things are concerned. The farewell to truth can never be final." The thirst for truth is innate, whether that truth makes itself available through the natural reason, or through divine revelation, or through both. All people have dignity in the eyes of God, and should be treated with respect, but not all truth claims are equal. "For Christian faith," Ratzinger writes, "the history of religions is not a circle of what is endlessly the same, never touching the essential thing, which itself ever remains outside of history; rather, the Christian holds the history of religions to be a genuine history, to be a path whose direction we call progress and whose attitude we call hope." Ratzinger's book is both erudite and accessible, a very helpful engagement with the religious thought of East and West.

New Pope Selected Roman Catholic cardinals selected German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, 78, to succeed the late John Paul II. He chose the papal name Benedict XVI. Cardinal Ratzinger was widely considered a favorite for the post, in part because of his closeness to the widely popular John Paul, who died earlier this month. He is something of a controversial figure, however, because of his strict defense of conservative church doctrine, at a time when the church is divided on such matters. He was also briefly a member of the Hitler Youth movement and served in the German military in World War II. He has said he was an unenthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth and that he never fired a shot in combat. He claims to have opposed Hitler's Nazi regime in Germany, but said resistance would have been hopeless. He deserted from the military in 1944 and was sent to a prisoner of war camp.

Traunstein was also where Cardinal Ratzinger went through the harrowing years of Nazi rule and World War II. In his memoirs, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that he was enrolled in the Nazi youth movement against his will when he was 14 in 1941, when membership was compulsory. He said he was soon let out because of his studies for the priesthood.

Two years later he was drafted into a Nazi antiaircraft unit as a helper, a common task for teenage boys too young to be soldiers. A year later he was released, only to be sent to the Austrian-Hungarian border to construct tank barriers.

He deserted the Germany army in May 1945 and returned to Traunstein -- a risky move, since deserters were shot on the spot if caught, or publicly hanged as examples to others. When he arrived home, U.S. soldiers took him prisoner and held him in a prisoner-of-war camp for several weeks. Upon his release, he re-entered the seminary.

You might want to start a contest for the Cornerites: Who can come up w/ the best catchy rhyme to shout for Pope Benedict XVI? "John Paul II, we love you" was just too good to be true. I'm wracking my brain for something that rhymes with 'sixteenth.'

Now I'm getting lunch.

There are so very many reasons to be thrilled by this selection, but one I'll mention here: I do believe Ratzinger -- sorry, Pope Benedict -- understands deeply the crisis of sexual abuse in the Church. His office is the one that has been handling the flood of sewage coming from America. On Good Friday, he begged God's forgiveness for the "filth" in the Church -- this is what he was talking about. I think we will now see the kind of disciplinary action from Rome that so many of us have been hoping and praying for.

BBC calls Ratzinger "The Enforcer."

Maybe we'll hear about B XVI questioning priests roughly?

I think (hope) that, as John Paul II was their "Reagan", Cardinal Ratzinger will be their "W".

From a reader:

Jonah, Saw the mention about the name of the new pope. Isn't it logical that since the one was John Paul that the next would be Pope George Ringo I?

In all the talk about Dean V. Ratzinger, I'm surprised I'm the first to point this out. On Friday, Dean declared: "The issue is: Are we going to live in a theocracy where the highest powers tell us what to do? Or are we going to be allowed to consult our own high powers when we make very difficult decisions?"

And yesterday the former Cardinal Ratzinger decried a "dictatorship of relativism" which "does not recognize anything as absolute and leaves as the ultimate measure only the measure of each one and his desires."

It seems to me that Dean and Ratzinger aren't merely dissimilar, they're polar opposites.

Wasn't Pope Benedict XV the one who tried to broker peace in WWI? Any comments on what the name choice means?

"Another fundamental element of the Council that we are called to assimilate better affects the need to understand Christianity in a personal way, from the point of view of an encounter with Christ," the cardinal said.

"The central character of Christ was, I would say, the heart of the message of Vatican Council II," he contended. "Unfortunately, we concentrated on many external things so that this central character of Christian personalism remains to be discovered."

"The Council, in fact, wished to show that Christianity is not against reason, against modernity, but that on the contrary it is a help so that reason in its totality can work not only on technical questions, but also on human, moral and religious knowledge," he revealed.

Thus the moral theologians of the Western Hemisphere, in their efforts to still remain "credible" in our society, find themselves facing a difficult alternative: it seems to them that they must choose between opposing modern society and opposing the Magisterium. ...

Thus we stand before the difficult alternative: either the Church finds an understanding, a compromise with the values propounded by society which she wants to continue to serve, or she decides to remain faithful to her own values (and in the Church's view these are the values that protect man in his deepest needs) as the result of which she finds herself on the margin of society. ...

But one cannot struggle against nature without undergoing the most devastating consequences. The sacrosanct equality between man and woman does not exclude, indeed it requires, diversity.

... Christianity is not "our" work; it is a Revelation; it is a message that has been consigned to us, and we have no right to reconstruct it as we like or choose.

Today what people have in view is eliminating suffering from the world. For the individual, that means avoiding pain and suffering in whatever way. Yet we must also see that it is in this very way that the world becomes very hard and very cold. Pain is part of being human. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain.

McBrien added, "If Cardinal Ratzinger were really campaigning for pope, he would have given a far more conciliatory homily designed to appeal to the moderates as well as to the hard-liners among the cardinals."

"I think this homily shows he realizes he's not going to be elected. He's too much of a polarizing figure," McBrien said. "If he were elected, thousands upon thousands of Catholics in Europe and the United States would roll their eyes and retreat to the margins of the church."

I'm a conservative, a regular reader of NRO and The Corner, and have great respect for religious faith. I also appreciate your personal interest in Catholicism and the selection of the new pope. But I don't think that a prominent place on NRO's site should be devoted to a puff by puff monitoring of the papal selection process. NRO is not a Catholic magazine despite the prominent role of some Catholics in its creation, and most of its current readers aren't Catholic. They come to NRO for its coverage of politics.

One email from an opposing point of view which strikes me as fair:

A fair point re: Michael Moore. But a writer who is a Moore acolyte would never treat the Patriot Act with anything but contempt.And remember early on in the season when SecDef Heller remonstrates his Lefty son "Spare me your sixth grade Michael Moore logic"---doubtful that would've been written by a Mooreophile.

P.s.--this is my preemptive plea that Kathryn not ban 24 discussions on the Corner.Half the conservatives I know have nominated the show as their Conservative Show of the Year.

From a reader:

Jonah, Did you notice when the new Pres asked Mike Nolan why the satellites couldn't find the hijacked convoy with the warhead, Nolan responded that it was difficult "due to the mountain terrain". IN IOWA? CENTRAL ILLINOIS? Are you kidding me? Unless you count a 2-story farm house as "mountain terrain", it is obvious that the writer had never been to the midwest, nor had ever HEARD of the midwest. Otherwise, it's still the best drama out there.

[Name withheld]
Indianapolis, IN (elevation. 2ft.)

Okay this is the last time I'm going to post on this because I don't think it's nearly as interesting as the pro-Patriot act stuff. But I didn't say that the weak Veep-turned-President was Bush. I merely say that this aspect of his personality is meant to conjure the charge that Bush chickened out after 9/11. I don't think, as far as literary devices go, a character has to be a complete doppelganger of a real life person in order to score this kind of point.

Let me put it another way, when was the last time a presidential figure was portrayed as a coward for wanting to go to his bunker in this way? If it hadn't been for 9/11 and the Moore-meme on this point, I sincerely doubt the writers would have come up with the idea.

Find out here.

If you caught it last night, you had to marvel at how the terrorists used civil libertarian lawyers to undermine national security. The stuff about the President being a physical coward is an obvious cheap and silly shot against Bush. But it's more than compensated for by the pro-Patriot Act stuff.

From a reader:

There is another problem with the old, “Antisemitism is caused by Israeli policy line,” and a liberal of all people should see it with stark raving clarity.

Here is the problem (I’m sure you know exactly what it is and I’m just being redundant here):

IT IS MORALLY WRONG TO BLAME AN ENTIRE GROUP PEOPLE FOR THE (ALLEGED) MISDEEDS OF A SUBSET OF THAT GROUP.

Isn’t this, or should it not be, rather painfully obvious to anyone pretending to be a liberal?

If Arabs (or Muslims) were slaughtered by people who are upset with the actions of some Arabs (or Muslims), or with the policies of some – or all – Arab governments, would Cole be so quick to blame “Arab/Islamic policy?”

And what ever happened to trying to understand the historic context that is (supposedly) enormously important in shaping policies that some people find objectionable? Are Jews (Sorry, I mean, Zionists) living in some sort of historical context free zone?

Whenever I see that name (Ratzinger) I immediately think of John Ratzenberger, aka "Cliff Claven".

Melissa said she liked the way Amanda Marie, the family cat, died last year at 19. ''We held her and gave her a shot, and she went in peace," she said. ''This is what we have to do for humans. Let go with love."

From a reader:

Although it would, indeed, be cool to repeat the classic Heston quote, it would hardly be worth having your scrotum ripped off and all of your fingers bitten off.

Me: True, true. But if that's going to happen anyway, you might as well get a good one-liner off anyway.

From a reader:

Yes, yes, the election itself is fascinating, and the election of a good pope is quite important. However, I'd proffer that the more interesting question is what pope name the new guy will choose. As a Roman Catholic I think it'd be quite interesting if he chose an unpronounceable symbol as his name.Then he'd be (for example), "The Pope formerly known as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger". That'd be cool as hell!

A lot of email on this one. Several of them include references to my being "full of s***." People express their devotion to the Lord in so many ways. Here's the most thoughtful email:

"Though I think the Family Research Council could have expressed their
thoughts so as to guard against your objections, you need to understand
that 'the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left' is to them a system
of beliefs which includes those of the religious Left as well as the
militantly secular Left. While in a certain sense the FRC recognize
that there is a religious Left, they do not understand them to be either
people of Christian faith or of, if you will, moral moral conviction.
Rather they believe that the 'faith' of the religious Left is very much
that of the secular Left: faith in things of this world and therefore
not true Christian faith at all. Likewise they are convinced that the
convictions of the religious Left in respect of the general category of
morality are immoral. Thus when they say that the judicial nominees
'are being blocked because they are people of faith and moral
conviction,' what they mean to say is that they are being blocked
because they are people of genuine Christian faith and of genuine
Christian moral conviction.

"If, then, you do them the courtesy of inserting the 'genuine Christian'
before 'faith' and 'moral conviction' you should recognize that this is
not slander, but rather is descriptive of ideological and theological
differences. What the Left says of the Christian Right is often not
printable in respectable publications and is more often not true.
Broadly speaking, however, what the Family Research Council is saying of
the Left is true, at least as long as you allow them to define their terms.

"Consequently when you say: 'But opposition to Catholicism and
evangelical Protestantism is not the same thing as opposition to
religion in general, and opposition to pro-life views is not the same
thing as opposition to moral conviction, either' you are rather ignoring
their point. They care nothing for 'religion in general' and their
point is not in respect to that. Rather their point is that the
Democrats are opposed to any and all who hold to traditional/ biblical
Christian teaching as such and that both secular and religious
opposition to pro-life views is inherently immoral and anti-Christian.

"Consequently I think you are mistaken when you say that 'The FRC's line
that Democrats are filibustering "people of faith" is an overreach.'
Their line actually is that Democrats are filibustering people of
genuine Christian faith. This claim is true and consequently I think
you should reconsider your position."

My response: If what the FRCers mean is that Democrats are against "genuine Christian faith" as defined by them, then they should say so--or at least say "genuine Christian faith" rather than "faith and moral conviction." Or they could say "genuine faith and moral conviction" and add an asterisk explaining that they don't believe that liberal Jews, Unitarians, Episcopalians, etc., have any genuine faith or moral conviction. That would still be offensive. But at least it wouldn't be misleading.

The Mesa, Arizona SWAT team wants to hire a monkey to work with them. How cool would it be to be the first perp to snarl "Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"

Stanley: First, I think you're conflating two different points I made--let me try to explain myself more clearly. I think that there are times when a conservative Christian should make a public argument that does not incorporate all the things he might believe from an "internal" point of view. One might regard other people as not being "real Christians" without saying so in public. But that's not my criticism of the FRC. It doesn't just suggest that the filibusterers are against "real Christians" or "Christians." It suggests that they're against "people of faith and moral conviction." I don't think it's defensible for someone to regard, say, pro-choice Jews as not being religious and morally principled even from the "internal" point of view.

Second: I wouldn't have any problem with an ad campaign saying that the Democrats were trying to keep faithful Catholics or traditional Christians off the bench. I think such an ad campaign could be effective, and would certainly still generate controversy and buzz. But even if I were to concede that such a campaign would be less effective than one saying Democrats were hostile to people of faith--a doubtful proposition, given the "effectiveness" of FRC's p.r. campaign so far--so what? I don't think people should be making indefensible claims in order to increase their political effectiveness, and I'm sure you don't think that either.

I never know which of my posts is going to generate email. This time it seems to be my remarks in favor of add-on accounts. I've gotten several critical emails, which make variants of the same argument: We already have IRAs and 401(k)s. What's the point of creating another type of account which people would have to put up new money to use? The argument continues: Unlike accounts "carved out" of Social Security, add-ons would not give people more control of their tax dollars and would not cut the total costs of the Social Security program. Add-ons would be "a new government program."

Unlike some of my correspondents, I don't regard IRAs and 401(k)s as "government programs" just like food stamps are a government program. I regard them as tax cuts--partial correctives to the federal government's overtaxation of savings. So those of my correspondents who object to setting up add-on accounts because they don't like IRAs are, I think, mistaken.

Add-on accounts could be set up so that they require new money to be put up. The old Clinton-Gore idea was that the government would match people's savings with a tax credit. That would limit the reach of the new accounts. Iif they're a bad idea, then limiting their reach is a good thing. If the point, on the other hand, is that carve-outs are therefore better as a way of expanding the investor class, you'll get no argument from me--I made the point myself in the piece to which I linked earlier--but that's a reason for preferring carve-outs, not for opposing add-ons. Anyway, there's no reason in principle that accounts outside Social Security have to require new money from account-holders. They could be set up so that people are just investing tax credits. And there's no reason in principle that they can't be implemented as part of a reform package that also cuts future Social Security benefits and thus saves money--answering another objection.

Some people get concerned about refundable tax credits. That, they say, is a transfer payment, not a tax cut. I don't see the problem. Consider two scenarios. In one, a person is paying a 12.4 percent payroll tax and allowed to invest 4 of those percentage points. His future government-paid benefits are being reduced. It's a carve-out, so conservatives are ecstatic. In the other scenario, a person is still paying a 12.4 percent payroll tax. He can't invest any of the payroll taxes. But he is given a tax credit against his income taxes worth 4 percent of his wages. If he doesn't owe enough income tax to collect the credit, it's okay: The credit is refundable. His future government-paid benefits are reduced. This is an add-on. Terrible!

But what's the difference, other than the words we're using to describe the situation? In either case, our worker is paying 8.4 percent of his wages into the traditional government program, investing 4 percent of wages the government used to take in taxes, and getting lower government-paid benefits. It's just that in one case we explicitly say that he's investing his payroll taxes, and in the other we say that he's investing a refundable tax credit. This is worth fighting over as a matter of high principle?

I'll close by quoting the one positive email I've gotten about the post:

"Maybe the best illustration of the add-on vs carve-out confusion is Pat Moynihan’s original plan from the early 1990s. He first cut the payroll tax, since he thought the Trust Fund was bogus [and] wasn’t really saving the surplus. But then said that workers could keep both their share and the employers’ share if they put it in an account. Is that an add-on or a carve-out? Technically add-on, and Moynihan referred to it as such, but it would have pretty much the same effect as a carve-out.

"Whether an add-on or a carve-out works depends a lot on how the rest of the system is balanced. My beef with AARP isn’t so much that they favor add-ons but that they want to balance the rest of the system all with tax increases. If they balanced the system with benefit cuts in return for an add-on account, it wouldn’t bother me much." Exactly.

I wouldn't compare Ratzinger to Howard Dean (for any number of reasons, generally beginning with sanity). Your e-mailer had the right idea, but the wrong comparison. Think of the papal conclave as the world's greatest brokered political convention. Ratzinger is the Bob Dole -- the safe front-runner pick from the point of view of the Cardinals. He'll keep JPII's conservative beliefs and will generally be a less exciting extension of JPII's legacy. In a convo floor fight, the more votes that are taken, the less likely the front-runner will win. Eventually, people begin to look elsewhere in an effort to bust the logjam. It would be no different in the conclave. The Cardinals realize that voting for a week wouldn't be the greatest PR and if Ratz doesn't win in the first two ballots today, he is cooked. It took three days for the Cardinals to turn to the unknown Wojtyla.

My guess is that if Ratz doesn't win in the first two ballots today, the Cardinals will begin to look elsewhere.

Efraim Karsh takes a nice swipe at Cole in The New Republic . Though, frankly, I think he's too soft on him.

One point Karsh lays out nicely is the extent to which Cole dismisses Arab Anti-Semitism as a modern problem, purely the result of Israel's settlement policies and the like. Karsh writes:

Cole glibly claims, "[T]o any extent that contemporary Muslims have a problem with Jews, it is largely driven by what they see as injustices done by Zionists to the Palestinians." Such ahistorical analysis ignores a deep anti-Jewish bigotry that dates to Islam's earliest days and reflects the prophet Muhammad's outrage over the rejection of his religious message by the contemporary Jewish community. To his credit, Cole criticized the Egyptian government's 2002 decision to air a TV serial based on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a virulent anti-Semitic tract fabricated by the Russian secret police at the turn of the twentieth century that alleges an organized Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination. But the line of argument he uses repeats the same ahistorical belief that the Protocols are a recent alien import to Arab societies that "had no particular resonances in the Muslim world (outside a few radical Muslim cliques) until the past couple of decades."

Cole should know better than that. The Protocols have been a staple of Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism since the early twentieth century, published in numerous editions and in several different translations, including one by the brother of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. (Nasser himself would recommend the pamphlet as a useful guide to the "Jewish mind," as would his successor, Anwar Sadat, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, and Yasir Arafat, among many others.) Less than a year after their airing on Egyptian television, the Protocols were saliently displayed alongside a Torah scroll in an exhibition at the newly built Alexandria library.

This reminds me of a passage from a Derb column from a long time ago:

But, okay, let's suppose there is some valid moral objection to the existence of the settlements; and let's suppose my reader's plan were to be carried out, and all the settlements were removed, their populations transferred back to metropolitan Israel, their buildings razed, their fields ploughed with salt. Does anybody think it would make a damn bit of difference? There was no such thing as settlements, no such thing as "occupied territories," before the 1967 war. There were no such things in 1960, for example, when Adolf Eichmann was abducted from his hiding-hole in Buenos Aires by Israeli secret agents, an event recorded by Saudi Arabia's principal government-controlled newspaper as: "ARREST OF EICHMANN, WHO HAD THE HONOR OF KILLING 6 MILLION JEWS".

Will you PLEASE tell everyone at NRO to stop using the term "hotlanta"? It reminds me wayyyy to much of "Joe-mentum".

Just over an hour ago - 230 years ago, this very morning - several British infantry and grenadier companies ran over a handful of armed and very gutsy colonials who had formed ranks on the Green in Lexington, Massachusetts. By now the Brits - under Lt. Col. Francis Smith of the 10th Lincolnshires and Major John Pitcairn of the Royal Marines - would have been advancing on Concord. They would actually strike there around 9:00 AM. Before the day was over these rag-rag colonial militiamen would force the redcoats to retreat back toward Boston... thus, the famous "shot heard 'round the world" and the birth-cry of the first FREE American armed force.

That's the word the Washington Post uses to describe the Family Research Council's contention that some of Bush's appellate-court nominees are being blocked "because they are people of faith and moral conviction." The Post urges Senator Frist not to participate in FRC's event.

A number of smart people have criticized the Post's view, and similar views expressed by others: Ann Althouse, Paul at Powerline, and Hugh Hewitt have all, I think it fair to say, essentially defended FRC's rhetoric.

I'm with the Post on this one. I think it is true that many Democrats are enforcing a viewpoint test for judicial office that has the effect of screening out Catholics and many evangelical Protestants who are faithful to their churches' teaching about abortion. And I think Republicans have every right to hold Democrats to account for it. But opposition to Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism is not the same thing as opposition to religion in general, and opposition to pro-life views is not the same thing as opposition to moral conviction, either. The FRC's line that Democrats are filibustering "people of faith" is an overreach. The claim it is making is untrue, and it is untrue in a way that makes the Democrats look worse--which makes it a slander in my book.

The fact that the Post editorial bundles together all kinds of different things--FRC's rhetoric, Senator Cornyn's foolish remark about violence against judges, loose talk of impeachment, and bills to restrict the courts' jurisdiction--and huffily concludes that they are all irresponsible and "beyond the pale" does not make their opening points untrue. Indeed, one reason to avoid overheated and false rhetoric is that it makes it possible for your opponents to ignore your valid points.

The FRC ought to modify its comments, and Senator Frist ought to make clear his disagreement if it does not.

In the Social Security debate, most Republicans are arguing that "carve-out" personal accounts are great and "add-on" personal accounts are terrible; Democrats are saying the reverse. I find it hard to see why the difference is worth fighting over, as I've written elsewhere. The latest shot in the carve-vs.-add war comes from conservative House members Mike Pence (R., Ind.) and John Shadegg (R., Ariz.), who have written a letter to the White House saying that they oppose "add-on accounts" and that most conservatives in the House are with them (which is undoubtedly true). (They're reacting to a comment by Al Hubbard, head of the National Economic Council, suggesting openness to add-ons).

They argue that "add-on accounts do not solve the problems of solvency or
generational fairness facing Social Security," which is a narrow way of looking at the issue. Letting people invest some of their payroll taxes--a "carve out"--doesn't by itself solve the solvency problem, either, but it is possible to envision a package of reforms including that provision that does. So, too, it is possible to envision a reform package that includes add-ons that addresses the solvency and fairness issues. Or a package that includes some carving out and some adding on. And anyway, conservatives support all sorts of policies that don't "solve the problems of solvency or generational fairness facing Social Security." There are other worthy policy ends that add-ons could serve: enhancing retirement security, or giving people an ownership stake in the economy, for example. The letter strikes me as a mistake.

Understanding the attempted analogy from the emailer, the characterization is unfair. Dean brought his troubles on himself. Ratzinger never gave a high-pitched scream and vowed to visit all the major Catholic population centers in some political ambition tour ("We're going to Rome, and then to Krakow, and then Boston, and then Mexico City, Yeeeeaaaaawwwww!!!")

I agree that the media may have built Ratzinger up so they could tear him down, but to say he is the Church's Dean is a low blow!

Ratzinger is the Howard Dean of the conclave… He’s peaked too early. And, more than that, he’s the media darling – though for all the wrong reasons in Ratz’s case… The NYTimes types are frothing at the mouth at the prospect of a “rigid” conservative taking the reins, so they can talk about the Church turning back reformers, taking a hard line against women, birth control, gay rights, etc. They would love to have him be the guy, which I think is why there’s this undercurrent “frontrunner” status that they have been pushing. I’d be willing to bet it isn’t him…and the more black smoke we see, the less chance he has of being the guy. If we make it through tomorrow with all black smoke, we will have had the equivalent of the Dean/New Hampshire squeal, and Ratz’s star will fade completely.

From a reader in the military:

Dear Sir,

Think how pissed off the Chinese would be if the Japanese killed half as many people as Mao did. Doesn't unconditional surrender count for anything? Would they rather a conditional surrender where Japan apologized, but kept Manchu??? Textbooks my butt.

Sincerely
[Namewithheld]

From a reader:

Jonah,

Firstly, as a (non-drinking) Bible believer, I find it curious why anyone would think that I would be offended by your comments on the Bible. If I became offended every time a non-evangelical spoke then I would have to board myself up in a cellar.

Secondly, while I appreciate the excitement of classical scholars (I know one or two of them), we have been decoding Oxyrhynchus Papyri for a hundred years now and we have found plenty of Biblical writings – all of them confirming the text of the New Testament. P69, for example, is a copy of all of the writings of Apostle Paul. It dates from between 75 AD to 275 AD.

The “new gospels may be found” line is just purple prose. If the Oxyrhynchus Papyri collection were going to deliver surprising results, then some hint would have been noticed in the last hundred years.

We may indeed find some new Euripides play, after all, we already know that Euripides wrote plays that are now lost. But we are not going to find new gospels when complete, bound copies of the entire gospels have already been discovered (Codex’s A, B, X etc).

Reporters sometimes write purple prose for the love of the excitement it generates. In the case of this little reporter’s efforts, knowledgeable people will just shrug.

Okay, last one:

The debate about the "literal" truth of the Bible is hardly new. During the 11th century (or whenever it was), Aelfric was appointed to translate the Old Testament from Latin (the Vulgate) into Anglo-Saxon. He was reluctant--not only since certain Latin words or phrases did not have exact Anglo-Saxon counterparts, and interpretation was instrinsically part of translation--but also because he feared that people would read of patriarchs having 4 wives or marrying their sisters, and want to have, well, 4 wives, marry their sisters, etc. His concern was not just that people would follow some of the worse examples of Biblical conduct, or things that were acceptable in that day and culture but were now considered abominations, but that they would misread or not perceive at all the symbolic or allegorical meanings of Biblical events. In the Middle Ages, all events in the Bible were interpreted on 4 levels, only one of which was the literal sense.

Guess you never thought of yourself as having an Anglo-Saxon mindset, eh Jonah?

From another reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I’m one of those horrid inflexible inerrantists your emailer refers to, and it didn’t occur to me that I should be offended by your remark. You see, as one who believes the Bible is inerrant, I also believe God is big enough to take care of His Word, and if this new information has anything relevant to the Scriptures, I don’t expect to find my faith all shaken up by it . . .

And what’s wrong with believing that there are at least some absolutes in the Bible? I don’t make my case to secularists that homosexuality is wrong based on Bible verses – there are plenty more ways to make that argument – but I myself first believed it wrong because the Bible says so. So what? If we have no moral authority outside ourselves, we have no moral authority at all.

I look forward to meeting you in Atlanta. And I’ll probably join y’all for a glass of wine, because the Bible doesn’t say don’t drink; it says don’t be drunk.

Since I don’t need to feel significant today (my students are doing a great job making me feel that way now that the end of the semester is near and they are trying to salvage their grades), I would prefer to remain anonymous if you happen to be moved to post this.

[Name withheld]

I am so not a part of this debate. From another reader:

Jonah,

As a former Southern Baptist and son of a retired SB pastor, I must
take issue with your correspondent. Because I love good beer (Boulevard
Pale Ale - a Kansas City beer), I've tried to find in the Bible where it
says that consuming alcohol is wrong. While the Southern Baptist
Convention believes that ANY consumption of alcohol is wrong, I can't
find anything but verses warning against excess. The fact that these
verses are usually combined with warnings against gluttony is
interesting, given Southern Baptists' love for food. Anyway, for every
verse warning against excess, there are 2-3 verses that either encourage
imbibing or present alcohol in a neutral way. Jesus' first miracle,
after all, was providing more wine at a wedding reception. Jesus was
often accused of eating and drinking with the wrong crowds. The SB
teetotalers' typical (lame) retort is that Jesus was merely drinking
grapejuice. Uh huh.

Cheers,

name withheld

From a regular reader:

I would consider myself a evangelical, biblical literalist. Yet, I do not take offense at your comments. You are not a Christian, therefore why should I expect you to agree with me on a core doctrine?

I have no beef with Mr. Justin Jones' comments either, but he sounds rather like a burned out pastor rather than a representative sample of evangelical Christianity.

Many evangelicals would disagree with the Southern Baptist injunction against drinking beer, by the way.

It's a little old, but the pictures are new. And the kicker comes at the end from from correspondent's account of Thanksgiving Day.

I've gotten a bunch of emails like this:

Are you a glutton for punishment?...because I suspect that your opining that it would be "fascinating if there was a significant new passage or passages added to the Bible" is going to drive your innerantist conservative fans nutty. Trust me, as a former Southern Baptist youth pastor (I'm techinically still ordained) there is no greater controversy than that of the infallibility of scripture. Every major evangelical viewpoint hinges on the opinion that the Bible is not open for further debate and certainly not more books. Or to put it in a better way, gay marriage is wrong...because the Bible says so. The death penalty is right...because the Bible says so. Drinking an ice cold, refreshing, delicious, brewed-oh-so-perfectly lager, on a hot summer day, with the sweat glistening off your forehead, while your laying out on a raft in a perfect-temp. pool is wrong...because the Bible says so.

Though my evangelical brethren should be elated at such news across the sea, my guess is that deep down it strikes fear into their hearts knowing that more revelation might be available. Could you just imagine the uprooar in the Christian community. Add another book? I think not! We'll leave that to those apostate Catholics. Apocrypha? As if...

Anyway, I'd be anxious to see your inbox if Pat Robertson gets wind of this one.

(If you post, which I have no reason to see why you would, pretty-please put my name in bold, italicized letters so that I might feel significant.)

Justin Jones
Birmingham, AL

Me: Meanwhile, I've received no actual email complaining about my post just warnings that other people will take offense. I would hope that people at least understand I meant no disrespect to anyone. But I'm not going to hold out a view I don't believe. I do not believe in a literal bible and I don't see any reason -- given my own views on such matters -- I should claim otherwise. This isn't to say I don't believe the Bible contains divine truth, but that doesn't mean I think interpretation plays no role or that the people who put the book together might have missed a couple pages somewhere. I don't think the Koran is the exact word of God either, and while I may be more sympatico to American evangelicals on many political matters than I am to Muslims, I don't see why I should pretend something I don't believe for their sake and not for Muslims. Anyway, no offense intended to anybody.

From a reader:

Isn't this more like finding the rosetta stone than the holy grail?

You would think that someone writing about classics and ancient languages would know the difference.

more seriously, wouldn't it be fascinating if there was a significant new passage or passages added to the Bible?

The intern's thumb from the great server accident of '05!

The Washington Post has a front page story about how managing investment accounts is too hard to make partial privatization of Social Security and easy sell. Okay, fair enough. But they hinge the opener on Brenda Ellis, a mom with a lot of challenges on her plate. One of them is that she's studying to be an accountant. The Post's Jonathan Weisman writes:

Somewhere in this busy life stews roughly $13,000 in retirement savings from her 14 years at the U.S. Postal Service, in accounts that she doesn't really understand or monitor.

"I don't know what's going on with it," she said one night at a tax clinic in Southeast D.C. "I just know I have these three accounts, so I just say, 'Let's hope and pray. Let's hope and pray it's not going into Enron. Let's hope and pray it's not going into Tyco.' It's just hard to absorb all I'm supposed to absorb."

In his push to add individual investment accounts to Social Security, President Bush maintains that people like Ellis have the most to gain -- the working poor, living from paycheck to paycheck. With such accounts, they would have a nest egg they could invest in stocks and bonds and watch grow with the benefit of compounding interest. For the first time, they would have a sense of ownership and a stake in their nation's economy and financial markets.

Couldn't the Post have found a truck driver or a janitor with the same problem? This is a very unflattering profile of Ms. Ellis. No offense to her -- she seems like a perfectly decent lady -- but perhaps a career in accounting isn't the best course. If she can't keep abreast of what her own money is doing, why would someone trust her with theirs?

Lots of email, mostly on this theme:

Jonah,

As a student of East Asia (particularly Korea), I'd like to add a bit to your
comment on China/Japan. (By the way, South Korea has also been having massive
anti-Japanese protests in the past few weeks but they are not as destructive
as the Chinese ones).

Youre right, there are deeper issues in the China/Japan row. Not too long ago
(a month or so?) Japan joined the US in declaring that the Taiwan issue should
be resolved peacefully and that China should reduce military tension. This is
what really angered China - they see it as interference in their internal
affairs from a historical enemy.

Yet overall, the Chinese and Koreans are deeply upset over the lack of
Japanese contrition for their imperialism - and quite reasonably so. However
the Chinese and Korean leadership both exploit popular feelings for domestic
political reasons. In China it is virtually illegal to protest anything
except Japan (or America) and the Chinese people have A LOT to protest over,
so they use this rare opportunity to vent. In Korea, the government is deeply
unpopular for the bad economy, so their President declared a "diplomatic war"
and bashed the Japanese at a Holocaust commemoration in Germany last week
because these things distracts from his high unpopularity (only 20something%
approve of his performance).

Cheers from England,

I'm really begining to think this is one of the most important stories we'll see for a while. I do wish the press would stop making it primarily over Japan's text books. I'm sure that's a major part, but you don't get to have huge protests, demonstrations and riots in China without the government's approval. After all the Chinese government has refused to broadcast or all the reporting of the protests in its own media at all. It's all for foreign consumption. And so the real question isn't why are the Chinese people so mad at Japan, it's Why is the Chinese Communist Party allowing the people to express their anger (for a foreign audience)? And on that front the issue has got to be bigger than a fight over textbooks and the press knows this.

Palmer and Sullivan are right. Letting Cass Sunstein's self-description as a moderate go through is hilariously sneaky. I'm a fan of Jeff Rosen, but when he writes “Sunstein, who describes himself as a moderate.…” is really not being fair to a debate he's trying to fairly describe. I have in my hands a copy of Sunstein's The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More than Ever. Whatever the merits of the book, it would simply be wrong and deceptive to even remotely suggest that a "moderate" in the American political context could have written it. It's whole point is how the Constitution should guarantee sweeping economic rights (a good job, a good home, health care etc etc) and how it's such a shame the Supreme Court didn't simply impose this new Constitutional framework on the public without a democratic debate. Darn those Nixon Court appointees!

Cliff, Michael -- All fair points. Here was my take on Kinsley's standard approach in the pages of NR a while back:

For example, Michael Kinsley's career as a writer is dedicated almost entirely to a single intellectual trope: give conservatives their principles but denounce conservatives for not fully living up to them. Time and again, Kinsley has written some variation of "If they were really serious . . ." about abortion, tax cuts, the Bible, free speech, whatever, then "conservatives would" favor one outlandish position or another. He has argued, for example, that if conservatives were really serious, we would get rid of Social Security. Ridiculing President Bush's claims to "moral seriousness" on the issue of stem cells, Kinsley objected to Bush's statement, "We should not as a society grow life to destroy it. It's morally wrong in my opinion." To which Kinsley responded, "Taken literally, this would cover raising cattle or even growing wheat." Okay, and tee-hee; but what is Kinsley's "morally serious" policy on stem cells? He never says. He declares Republicans "self-righteous" idiots and hypocrites on the issue of parents' rights because they didn't support Elian Gonzalez's return to Cuba . . . but, he concedes, they may be right on the issue anyway.

In Kinsley's world, conservatives can never be pragmatists and idealists at the same time without being rank hypocrites; by this rationale, Abraham Lincoln was a fool and a hypocrite for not being a rabid abolitionist. Kinsley's schtick is a good one and he is good at it. But it's a fairly sad commentary that the man New Republic editor Peter Beinart calls the "dean of smart liberalism" has no higher aspiration than to quibble about the way the opposition sells its products, while at the same time largely conceding that ours is the superior product line.

But Kinsley's biggest crime -- and he has many accomplices -- is that he makes a dumb and dangerous point seem smart and reasonable. As Meg Greenfield lamented a long time ago, "If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide."

With the EU referenda in France (May 29th) and Holland (June 1st) drawing ever closer, the EU’s ‘parliament’ is not exactly doing its best to help endear the Union to voters:

“Members of the European Parliament rejected moves yesterday to clean up scandal-ridden arrangements for their travel allowances and expenses. Their decision prompted anger and disbelief from British MEPs, who voted for proposed reforms. In a series of votes carried by a margin of six to four at a full session of the parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs resisted proposals for audits of their accounts and turned down calls to impose sanctions on those found to have defrauded the taxpayer.”

Of course they did.

Jeffrey Rosen has an article on an alleged movement to use the federal courts to undo the modern regulatory state. I'm not sure the movement adds up to as much as Rosen thinks it does; and I think he's mixing up distinct issues. Justice Scalia is an unlikely hero of the article because he rejects the idea that the due process clause protects economic liberty--but the fact that Scalia is willing to impose restrictions on the scope of the commerce-clause powers of the federal government should suggest that these are different issues.

Rosen presents Michael Greve, the head of the "Federalism Project" at the American Enterprise Institute, as a major figure in the "movement." "One of Greve's goals at the American Enterprise Institute is to convince more mainstream conservatives that traditional federalism--which is skeptical of federal, but not state, power--is only half right. In his view, states can threaten economic liberty just as significantly as the federal government. He is still exercised by the lawsuit brought in the 90's by 46 states against the tobacco companies, which resulted in a $246 billion settlement."

Now I understand and sympathize with the pressure to simplify issues in the interests of brevity. But this strikes me as a bit of a caricature. Greve's argument is that "traditional federalism"--the traditional understanding of the courts and the political culture generally had about federal-state and state-state relations--prevented the federal government from intervening in areas properly left to the states but also kept states from legislating extra-territorially in ways that infringed on other states' rights or on inherently national matters. His argument is that the tobacco deal violated the compact clause of the Constitution--one of its state-government-limiting provisions. The point is not that state infringements of economic liberty are per se constitutionally suspect--it's that a particular class of state governmental actions may conflict with the Constitution's federalism.

Rosen's piece ends on a note of skepticism, but hardly bitter opposition, toward the libertarian legal thinkers about whom he is writing.

I've been pretty hard on Kinsley at times, but I think he makes a perfectly valid point about the elasticity of the neocon label. Then again, it's something I've been complaining about for a very long time. He wants to use it -- as his wont -- to charge (neo)conservatives with hypocrisy. But the more salient point is that neoconservatism isn't an "ism" in the way he describes it.

In truth, though, this soft-spoken Bavarian, who was consecrated priest at age 24, "is not so much doctrinaire as he is committed to the truth and sound doctrine," a leading Protestant theologian told United Press International Friday.
"He is arguably the Catholic Church's finest theologian, in addition to being a very humble and deeply religious man.
"If he is to be the next pontiff, we may expect extraordinary surprises of him," said this scholar who knows Ratzinger well but asked to remain anonymous.
One surprise may pertain to ecumenism and especially Eucharistic fellowship, Vatican observers said. While Ratzinger played an important role in the drafting of the papal encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia" (Church of the Eucharist), which generally rules out intercommunion between Catholics and Protestants, he is known to have made some remarkable exceptions to this rule himself.
At the funeral Mass for John Paul II, Ratzinger communed the Rev. Roger Schutz, a Swiss Protestant pastor and founder of the Taizé ecumenical community in France.
A German Lutheran theologian well known to the cardinal told UPI that he, too, received the sacrament from his hands.

With opinion polls still showing the yes camp still lagging behind the noes in the upcoming (May 29th) referendum on the EU constitution, Jacques Chirac has now decided to enter the fray. Unfortunately, the prospect of a real debate was too much of a challenge for the old crook, so he held a ‘town hall’ style meeting for some under-30s. It flopped.

Chirac’s next debate will, doubtless, now have to be held in a kindergarten.

It was once said that France’s Bourbon monarchs had remembered everything and learned nothing from their inglorious past. So it is, apparently, with ‘Jailhouse Jim’ Sensenbrenner (R-Wis), an individual who is, most dispiritingly, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and , it seems, a legislator who seems to have learned nothing from the cruel fiasco of the war on drugs’ addiction to mandatory minimum sentencing.

According to Families Against Mandatory Minimums (Reason reports), some new legislation that he is pushing would (1) make the sentencing guidelines mandatory again, forbidding downward departures in almost all cases; (2) virtually eliminate the "safety valve" provision for low-level, nonviolent drug offenders; (3) create a three-year mandatory minimum for parents who see or hear about drug dealing targeting or near their children and fail to report it; (4) create a 10-year mandatory minimum for parents who sell drugs when their children are nearby; and (5) increase the mandatory minimum for selling drugs in "drug-free zones," which in practice cover almost anywhere within many cities, to five years.

Needless to say, this piece of savagery is dressed up as being ‘for the children’.

Now, of course, children should not be taking illicit substances, but, as the history of the ‘war on drugs’ makes all too clear this pointless exercise in cruelty will achieve nothing other than the destruction of yet more lives, families and futures.

And all on our dime too. Charming.

Say it ain’t so, Jim.