It was always going to be interesting, having Bernard Kouchner as French foreign minister. He would at least say interesting things — and so he has.

Kouchner is one of the most prominent human-rights advocates of recent years. He co-founded Doctors Without Borders. He has been a kind of conscience on the world scene. Some years ago, he dropped by National Review’s offices, just to say hey. He was an unusual combination of intellectual, idealist, and Joe Cool.

Turns out that Syria’s dictator, Bashar Assad, is visiting Paris for Bastille Day. Syria’s is one of the worst regimes in all the world. A guy like Kouchner, serving in that position, has to hold his nose — and he will. But, of the upcoming visit, he said, “I am not especially amused.”

Nicely Kouchnerian. I like it.

‐A few weeks ago, I met a neighbor of mine outside my building. She said, “I saw you mentioned in The New Yorker!” I thought, “This can’t be good.” About a week ago, I received an e-mail from a friend, who said, “I saw you mentioned in Vanity Fair!” I thought, “This can’t be good.”

If you’re a conservative and mentioned in one of those publications — it really can’t be good. If you’ve been dumping on other conservatives, or saying that conservatism is kaput or something — you may be okay. Otherwise . . .

Anyway, it wasn’t good — not in The New Yorker, and not in Vanity Fair. The New Yorker was no big deal, just a niggling thing. Let’s deal with the latter — Vanity Fair. One of its columnists, James Wolcott, wrote,

In a December 2001 cover story that might embarrass neoconservatives today if shame were part of their emotional palette, National Review touted Rumsfeld as “The Stud, America’s New Pin-Up,” the artwork presenting Rummy in a Betty Grable pose, casting a greenish shadow in the shape of a penis. Such subtlety. The defining element of Rumsfeld’s sex appeal was its retro styling, its Oldsmobile assurance even when the road to victory got rough. “In a feminized society — whose idea of a male sex symbol has been the Brad Pitt–style pretty boy — he is a relief, or a rediscovery. He has walked out of Father Knows Best, or some WWII flick” was how National Review’s Jay Nordlinger carbon-dated Rumsfeld’s persnickety persona. In fairness, post-9/11 was a heady time. There was a lot of lunging around for heroes, problem solvers, and small-time saviors . . .

Okay. This piece has been shot at before — in 2006, by an author in The New Republic, who wrote a disgustingly dishonest piece. (I said so in this column.) Wolcott says that my story “might embarrass neoconservatives today if shame were part of their emotional palette.” Well, I am familiar with shame — I’m not exactly sure what an “emotional palette” is — and I am not embarrassed. If you would like to read this piece — and I wish you would; it’s a damn good piece — go here. I re-read it, after reading the Vanity Fair thing, and I think every word of it is true. (If you would like to read the complete Vanity Fair piece, go here.) Remember where we were in December 2001 — three months after 9/11, two months after the Afghan War began, more than a year before the Iraq War began. Obviously, journalism is dated. I’ve heard my colleague Rick Brookhiser point out that the word “day” — jour — is part of “journalism.” In any event, Rumsfeld was widely popular in December ’01 — a national phenomenon — and I said it. (So did everyone else.) I wrote, “Nearly everyone — Republican or Democrat — sees him as the right guy at the right time in the right job.” True. “One longtime Rumsfeld friend explains its nicely — and in decidedly Rummyesque fashion: ‘We’re not playing pitty-patty anymore. We have a foe that’s proven deadly. People look for a different kind of person to run Washington — as far away from the Clinton type as you can get.’” And near the end of the piece, I wrote, “Rumsfeld — as much as the president — is the face of American determination in this war.” Yes, indeed. The Iraq War, launched in March 2003, proved very hard. Rumsfeld lost his luster. But he is a superb man, who has been right about pretty much everything in his 50-year career. (That’s in marked contrast with Vanity Fair and its ilk.) (By the way, that phrase, “its ilk,” is an homage to Bob Novak.) Rumsfeld has made his mistakes, as we all have. But he is infinitely better than those who sneer at him. Normally, I don’t respond to stuff that’s written about me. First of all, there is hardly the time. I don’t compare myself to Solzhenitsyn — believe me — but I love something his son once told me: “He had a choice: He could write The Red Wheel or he could keep up with his critics — answer his critics. He couldn’t do both.” Even at my lowly level, I understand.

But I suppose that Vanity Fair is unignorable. And that Rumsfeld piece has been absurdly and pathetically attacked.

Just as an aside, would you like to know something? The music stuff — the anti-me stuff in music scribbling, across the Internet — is maybe worse than the political stuff! Every once in a while, I get a whiff of it — usually when someone forwards something to me — and the smell is awful. (But don’t let me whine: The love is greater than the hate, in addition to more fragrant.) ‐Let’s walk in happier climes. Would like to share with you a beautiful paragraph, by Paul Johnson. It’s from his Spectator column:

My perfect library would be a wing of a country house, with very high ceilings and a gallery; below it French windows opening on to a meadow with trees in the distance. Shelves would cover all the walls, with an oak staircase on wheels to get at the higher reaches, and a spiral staircase to the gallery, also full of books. A door would lead to an inner room, my study, with French windows leading on to an orchard. A spiral staircase within this room would ascend to a small bedroom above, with a tiny bathroom and rudimentary kitchen. So I could, at need, live a self-contained existence within my library-stronghold. In the main room would be a large mahogany table with racks containing portfolios of drawings and watercolours by its sides. No pictures on the walls — just books — and no nonsense of terrestrial and celestial globes.

Hey, I’d like a globe — at least a terrestrial one! But, still, what a beautiful paragraph, and a typical one (of this author). ‐Tiger Woods is underrated as a lot of things. (No, I mean it.) I am here to say, today, that he is underrated as a wit. Consider his remarks after the opening round of the U.S. Open. Recall that he had not played in two months, owing to his knee injury. On the first hole of his opening round, Tiger made a double bogey. (He would do so twice more in the tournament, but leave that aside.) On Thursday evening, Tiger said, “Getting into the flow of the round, it helps when you hit six shots on the first hole.” He then said, “I figured you’re going to make bogeys out here. I just happened to make two on the very first hole.” Hilarious. Worthy of Bill Buckley. Believe me, if Bill had been a professional golfer — a Tiger Woods — he would have said very similar things. ‐Since I’m in a sharing mood, let me share something that my friend Carl Cannon — the distinguished Washington journalist — wrote the other week. It is about his being a paperboy in California, at the time of the RFK assassination. He wrote it for the Reader’s Digest site, and you will find it here — a beautiful piece. ‐A little music? For a review of a special performance of Show Boat in Carnegie Hall, go here. For a review of Lorin Maazel, also in Carnegie Hall, leading his New York Philharmonic in a “symphonic synthesis” of Wagner’s Ring, go here. These pieces were published in the New York Sun. ‐A little language? Okay: When did “advocate for” become legit? Everywhere, I see, and hear, “advocate for”: “I advocate for this”; “I advocate for that.” “He’s on the trail advocating for immigration reform.” “Dick advocates for Jane.” Etc. This is new, I believe — or newish — and I’m against. In other words, I don’t advocate for it. ‐Wanted to alert you to a book review I have in the current NR. Actually, I want to alert you to the book: Lessons from the Poor. Arresting title, huh? The subtitle is “Triumph of the Entrepreneurial Spirit.” The book comes from the Independent Institute, and it is edited by Alvaro Vargas-Llosa (son of the writer, Mario). This is a valuable and emboldening book. It says, in a nutshell, that the remedy for Third World poverty is entrepreneurship — not socialism, not mindless foreign aid, and surely not Western guilt. But entrepreneurship. To me, the book’s arguments are irrefutable. And so is the experience of the last many decades. I’ll tell you something I say in this review. I hate to sound like a global-warming zealot — but, when it comes to how to help the Third World poor, I think the case is closed. I think debate is almost unnecessary. We know what makes prosperous; we know what defeats poverty: the rule of law, transparent government, low taxation, light regulation, a disinterested judiciary — freedom. Anyway . . . ‐There was some interest in the Impromptus of June 5 — particularly in the phrase “Bite me, Omar.” (This was in response to Omar Sharif, who made an anti-American jerk out of himself on Arab television.) It was even suggested, by a powerful business exec, that we have T-shirts made up reading, “Bite me, Omar.” I’m afraid that the Sharif story is a little obscure (not to mention my reaction to it). The phrase would not rise to the greatness of “Don’t tase me, bro’.” But, alas, even the great phrases fade . . .