On Mitch Daniels, Midge Decter, Roe v. Wade, the shooting in Buffalo, Madison Cawthorn, Magnus Carlsen, and more
Long ago (in the 1960s), there was a popular television show called “Sing Along with Mitch.” The Mitch was Mitch Miller. Well, a few days ago, I was singing along with Mitch Daniels, in a way. He was delivering the commencement address at Purdue University and I was appreciating every word.
Daniels is the president of Purdue. He was also governor of Indiana. And Bush 43’s budget director. And a political aide to Reagan. And other things.
The theme of his address was individuality, and though you will enjoy reading the whole thing, I will quote just a bit:
. . . there will be people who want to take away your “you.” There always have been. The pharaohs, monarchs, and warlords of old, to whom other people were mere tools, to be used and discarded. In recent times, the proponents of all the “isms” that viewed people as helpless ciphers in some predetermined historical trend, or valueless instruments of an all-powerful state. In the worst cases, some people were grouped together and treated as sub-human, not deserving to exist at all.
Try some more:
These days, your individuality is challenged by some who seek to slap a label on you, to lump you into one category or another, and to assert that whatever you are, your choices have little to do with it. What matters is not what you think or do, they claim, but what group they have assigned you to. You’re a prisoner of your genes, or of circumstance, or of some societal forces against which you are defenseless.
And just a little more:
Such views may be cloaked in caring, sympathetic terms, but they are deeply disrespectful of those they affect to be supporting. They are a denial of your personal dignity, and ability, and will-power. Someone attempting to herd you into a group is someone with an agenda, and your personal well-being is not its main purpose.
Yes, I was singing along with Mitch, as I always have, really. He is an excellent university president, from what I can tell. And I think he would make an excellent president of the United States.
Anyway, glad he is “in the arena,” in whatever role.
• Midge Decter is another one with whom I have sung along, for years and years. I hear her voice in my head. Things she told me. I quote her regularly, especially to young people (especially to young journalists). Gosh, she was something. An individual. A force. She passed away last week, at 94, but she will never pass away, as far as many of us are concerned.
I’ll say just a couple of things, in this hopscotching column. One has to do with her way with words. She and Norman — her husband Norman Podhoretz — loved Bill Buckley, and he loved them back. Once, I moderated a discussion between Norman and Midge — a public discussion — on the subject of Bill. This was after Bill’s passing. Midge described him as “creamy.” “He was just so . . . creamy.”
Brilliant.
Norman once told me something about his wife. Fairly early in her career, she was speaking at some labor conference, delivering a real barn-burner. Talking about the need for the working-man to be enlisted in the fight for freedom and democracy around the world. George Meany, the AFL-CIO boss, was sitting on the dais, and he was impressed. Old and hard of hearing, he could not really whisper. As Midge was talking, he said loudly to the person sitting next to him, “Who is dis goil?”
That goil could be none other than our Midge.
• In the past, I’ve said, “If I could help one concept be understood — be more generally understood — it’s deterrence.” People just don’t get deterrence, and it’s critically important. Well, also way up there, on my list: the role of judges in the American system of government.
A person’s view of abortion should have nothing — nothing — to do with his view of the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade.
For heaven’s sake, give me a justice who will judge the constitutionality of a law regardless of what he thinks of the law. Judicial functions and legislative functions are different.
It’s shocking — shocking — how poorly understood this is in America, 200-plus years into our republic.
• About the Buffalo shooting — that massacre — a few simple words.
I believe that the Left has to come to grips with its criminal extremists. And that the Right has to come to grips with its criminal extremists. America would be a better place. Each side does a pretty good job of keeping an eye on the other. But what if each side also kept an eye on itself? That would be a lot better.
If the Right thinks it has no problem with white nationalism — murderous white nationalism — it’s whistlin’ “Dixie.” (Uh-huh.) If the Left thinks it has no problem with Antifa/BLM-style violence, it has its head in the sand. We could use less tribalism and more patriotism.
Adam Kinzinger, the Republican congressman from Illinois, said, “The tragic shooting in Buffalo is a reminder of why we don’t play around with white nationalism.” I agree completely.
Don’t play around. Don’t wink. Don’t look the other way.
When I was a kid, I thought of the Boston Massacre as a bloodbath. And it was. But at some point I learned that five people had been killed (which is five too many). Did the guy in Buffalo commit a massacre? He did.
And, as I see it, he not only assaulted flesh-and-blood individuals — black Americans, in particular — he assaulted the very American idea.
• Like you, I’m sure, I know all the arguments against the death penalty. I agree with them, basically. I also know all the arguments for it. And I respect them, mainly. In thinking about this killer in Buffalo, I have thought of Walter Berns, the great scholar of political theory (a student of Leo Strauss). He was the best, the most eloquent, the most convincing advocate of capital punishment I’ve ever heard. I will quote him:
“If human life is to be held in awe, as it should be, the law forbidding the taking of it must be held in awe, and the only way the law can be made awe-inspiring is to entitle it to inflict the penalty of death.”
• Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, is one of the most famous musicians in the world, and, by all appearances, a happy sort. Some years ago, I was covering one of his concerts, and I had a thought — kind of an obvious thought, frankly. He was using crutches then, not a wheelchair. And as he was leaving the stage, on his crutches, he was struggling mightily. His face was contorted in pain, or effort.
I thought, “It cannot have been easy, this life. Yes, money, fame, adulation. Glory. But it cannot have been easy, at all.”
Here is a piece on Madison Cawthorn, the young Republican congressman from North Carolina. He is in a wheelchair. What he has had to face — very few have to face. May he get stronger over the years, in every way, and thrive. Should he be in Congress? I don’t think so. Then again, I think a lot of people should not be in Congress. But what Cawthorn has had to face — hard to put into words.
• Stanislau Shushkevich, the Belarusian statesman, has died. To read about his funeral, go here. Shushkevich was a champion of democracy, and he is a hero to democracy-minded people around the world. He was one of the small group that presided over the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Shushkevich’s role was particularly laudable. He was the first president of a post-Soviet Belarus. He was also a brilliant scientist, like other leaders from his part of the world. (Boris Nemtsov, for example.)
When Belarus was taken over by dictatorship, Shushkevich remained staunch, advocating freedom and democracy at every turn. “When I am asked how my life is,” he said in 2010, “I always answer: normal, in the conditions of our abnormality.” He further said, “We are now living in an abnormal country, and we should do everything possible to start living well.”
Once, I was talking with Lech Walesa, the Polish labor leader and statesman, about the Nobel Peace Prize, which he won in 1983. (Without the Nobel prize, he told me, his Solidarity movement could never have succeeded.) I asked him, “Who should have won the Nobel Peace Prize who did not?” Immediately, he gave me one name, only: “Shushkevich.”
I’ll never forget it.
• When I was a teenager, I watched The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and had a crush on Judy Woodruff. Now I see that she is retiring as anchorwoman of the current version of the broadcast (at 75). May she go on to happy new chapters.
• I snapped a little statue at Nazareth College, in Pittsford, N.Y., which is Greater Rochester:
• I snapped another little statue at Purdue (in West Lafayette, Ind.):
• Bob Lanier, the great basketball center, has died. He was a big deal to us Detroiters and Michiganders.
• I loved John Leo, the writer, the political columnist. I once sought to be his research assistant. Did not pan out. To read Leo’s obit in the New York Times, go here. One evening, Bill Buckley had him as a guest at an editorial dinner. Pat Buckley charged Leo with a lack of clarity, on some point. Leo answered, “Well, I’m not very good with words.”
Funny.
• Speaking of words, I learned a new one: “silk”; “to silk a shot.” I love it. Luke Kerr-Dineen, of Golf Digest, circulated a video of Nelly Korda and said, “. . . here she is silking a 9 iron.” Perfect. (Both the word and Nelly.)
• I love this video of Rickie Fowler (another golfer). Here’s the scenario: He has made a hash of a hole. But he holes out a shot from the fairway, for bogey. Which is pretty good. But what I really love about the video is the counting — the counting that Rickie does, on his fingers, after the shot. Now, how many strokes is that?
• On Twitter, someone said, “Chess-related pick-up lines. Go!” Magnus Carlsen, the world chess champion, offered, “Hi. My name is Magnus Carlsen.”
Beat that, as Bill (Buckley) would say.
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