Saif al-Islam, the State Department, Macron, a baker, a chemist, and more
Moammar Qaddafi had eight children, seven of them boys. By and large, they were a gruesome crew — goons, brats, thugs. Monsterlets. But there was one of them who tried to go straight, so to speak. Who tried to be a Western-style liberal, or at least an Arab reformer. That was Saif al-Islam.
He is one of the most interesting, and most tragic, characters in Children of Monsters, my book about sons and daughters of dictators. When his father’s regime was under attack, Saif went home, to be at his father’s side, and to commit war crimes.
A friend of his in the West texted him, “You’re better than this.” Was he?
In view of his crimes, Saif was wanted by The Hague — but post-Qaddafi authorities in Libya refused to hand him over. They imprisoned him, or kept him under house arrest. (This is unclear.)
I am bringing up Saif now because they have just released him. To read a news report, go here.
Oh, what a crew, the Qaddafis. For a long time, it was thought that Saif al-Islam was the best of them, or the least bad. Now I’m thinking it may be Muhammad, the first born (to Qaddafi’s Wife No. 1). (With No. 2, he had the seven other children.)
‐Lately, a lot of us have been thinking about character. And I thought of a story from the golf world — bear with me, please.
In 1974, the U.S. Open was held at Winged Foot, the famous course in Westchester County, N.Y. The course was set up very, very hard. Nicklaus rolled one off the green. Someone asked Sandy Tatum — the illustrious official of the U.S. Golf Association — “Are you trying to humiliate the best golfers in the world?” “No,” Tatum answered. “Identify them.”
There is an adage, I think: that tough or challenging times don’t shape character; rather, they reveal it. People are as they have always been.
Anyway, something to think about …
‐It was one of the most amazing things I have seen in public life. A State Department official was asked a question — a simple question, but one he was loath to answer. He paused for nearly 20 seconds, thinking — before delivering a non-answer.
Twenty seconds is an eternity of a pause.
The official was Stuart E. Jones, the acting assistant secretary for the Middle East. The question was essentially this: How can you criticize Iran for a lack of democracy when you’re standing right next to Saudi officials while doing so? Does the United States hold that democracy is a barrier against extremism?
Now, Jones is a smart and experienced man. But he couldn’t — or felt he couldn’t — tell the truth. I find the 20-second pause remarkably honest, in its way.
Go here.
‐You’ve heard of the 18-and-a-half–minute gap? Well, this was a 20-second gap (or nearly so).
‐Last year, the speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, was challenged in a primary by a man who called him “the head of the globalist snake.” More recently, Newt Gingrich referred to Robert Mueller as “the tip of the Deep State spear.” It’s amazing how the Right can sound like Communists. I think of “enemy of the people Ivanov.” Or “running-dog capitalist Li.”
‐The Associated Press published a story about President Trump and his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Many administration officials believe the U.S. needs to maintain its distance from Russia at [this] sensitive time — and interact only with great caution.
But Trump and some others within his administration have been pressing for a full bilateral meeting. He’s calling for media access and all the typical protocol associated with such sessions …
At Versailles, the new French president, Emmanuel Macron, held a joint press conference with Putin. A Russian media representative asked Macron about press access during the recent French campaign: Why had it been so difficult for certain people to gain access to his headquarters? Macron answered, “I have always had an exemplary relationship with foreign journalists, but they have to be journalists.” Then he cited two propaganda outlets owned by the Kremlin: “Russia Today and Sputnik were organs of influence and propaganda that spread counterfeit truths about me.”
This is obvious — but it can be refreshing when a leader states the obvious.
‐Did you read this story out of Kiev? Remarkable. The headline is, “Masquerading as Reporter, Assassin Hunted Putin Foes in Ukraine.” Here is the second paragraph:
The man was tall and dapper. He wore a dark suit and spoke with a French accent. When he met politicians in Kiev, he introduced himself as Alex Werner, a reporter with the French newspaper Le Monde.
Yet he was a Russian assassin. This is dramatic stuff. And here is the first paragraph of that story:
Ukrainians have long struggled with fake news from Russia, but last week, they discovered something even more insidious: a fake journalist.
This is the stuff that Bill Buckley built his novels on, and that many others have as well.
‐The above story was published in the New York Times. I would now like to quote another AP report: “Baker Jack Phillips is challenging a Colorado law that says he was wrong to have turned away a same-sex couple who wanted a cake to celebrate their 2012 wedding.”
Is the word “wrong” right? Phillips made a decision, which some will boo and some will cheer. But the question is whether he has the right to make a decision, yes?
From a Times article, I learned something interesting about this baker. He declines to make products containing alcohol. He won’t make a cake celebrating Halloween. And so on.
This sounds very individualistic, and very American.
‐Three years ago, I wrote a piece datelined Diller, Neb. It had a curious title: “Pipelines, Wind Farms, and Gods: A snapshot of our energy debate from rural Nebraska.” To read it, go here. Among other things, I saw immense turbines, dotting the landscape, and transforming it. For the better? Well, that’s in the eye of the beholder. I’m not crazy about them. (Neither are most residents.)
Anyway, a Nebraskan has sent me a newspaper article — reporting that one of those turbines has fallen over. Huh. The picture is both dramatic and pathetic.
‐Last month, I met some Marines, who had dropped by National Review. We joked a little about inter-service rivalry. And I thought of a discussion I had recently had.
There are people who fight about the Founders. Some are Hamiltonians, some are Jeffersonians. Some think that Jefferson was a skunk. I tend to think of the Founders as one group — sort of a family, and a family that I admire. I like all the strains in that family, making up the American stew. Think of the friendship, later in life, between John Adams and Jefferson. I don’t think factionally about the Founders. I think of them as my gang.
Something like this is true of composers. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and the rest: You need them all.
If I were in the military, I would feel this inter-service rivalry, no doubt. But from where I sit — they’re all the military, and thank heaven for them all.
‐Care for something about music, and about ballet? Here is a post of mine published at The New Criterion: “Eugene Onegin, Danced.” Several issues arise.
‐Got a musical tidbit for you: The new concertmaster at the Metropolitan Opera — co-concertmaster — is Bowman. Benjamin Bowman. A violinist. Bowman. Get it?
‐In New York, I saw a policewoman with purple hair. Is that kosher? I mean, within regs?
‐I saw Donna Shalala, walking along, rolling a suitcase. William Safire once wrote, “I know how to spell ‘Sununu.’ I just don’t know when to stop.” Something like that can be said of “Shalala.”
Ms. Shalala has been a left-wing Democrat all her life, I think. But I once heard her say that her father was head of Lebanese for Taft.
‐I saw two Mormons, two young men, in their white shirts and ties, wearing their name tags, on their mission. On the Upper West Side (of Manhattan). Tough, tough gig. I admire these people, enormously. They must have a strong conscience and a sturdy spine, to swim against the tide.
‐Throughout New York, I see beggars holding signs that say “Homeless, Hungry.” One day, I saw a sign with a third H. It said, “Homeless, Hungry, Humiliated.” That last word stabbed me.
‐Fred A. Kummerow, a chemist, died at 102. Here is his obit in the New York Times. I’d like to quote a paragraph:
Fred August Kummerow was born on Oct. 4, 1914, in Berlin into a poor family. His father, a laborer, moved the family to the United States in 1923 to join relatives in Milwaukee, where he found a job at a cement block factory. Professor Kummerow said he would likely have been destined for similar work had he not received a chemistry set from his uncle on his 12th birthday. “It opened the world of science to me,” he said.
The gift of a chemistry set — you just never know.
‐I was struck by a sentence — a phrase in particular. It is found in this story. A fisherman, John Aldridge, was flung off his boat in the Atlantic and stranded, in the ocean, for twelve hours. Twelve “terrifying hours,” the story says. Aldridge himself commented, “Being in the ocean in the middle of the night, 2 o’clock in the morning, 45 miles from land, you gotta really summon up some heavy mental game to get through.”
You gotta really summon up some heavy mental game, for sure. I’ll remember that. God bless John Aldridge, and you all.
A word from the National Review Store: To get Digging In: Further Collected Writings of Jay Nordlinger, go here.