EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays.
Dear Readers (particularly those in Irma’s path. Please stay safe),
In Ancient Rome, a haruspex — a type of priest — would carefully study the entrails of sacrificial animals in order to divine the intent of the gods, the course of events, or even who might win the big game this weekend between the Gladiators and the Lions.
The haruspices were very smart people. They used their intelligence to explain how the enlarged liver of a pigeon meant that the wheat harvest would be good or how the length of a chicken’s colon proved that Caesar’s gout would clear up. Haruspices are not to be confused with augurs, who made similar determinations based upon the flight formation of birds and the sounds they made. Those guys were idiots! That’s not science!
Actually, I kid — the augurs were very smart too. By taking the auspices of birds, they could explain whether Rome should go to war with the Peoples’ Front of Judea or the Judean Peoples’ Front. The Roman historian Livy noted, “Who does not know that this city was founded only after taking the auspices, that everything in war and in peace, at home and abroad, was done only after taking the auspices?”
But here’s the thing. These men — and they were all men, damn the patriarchy — were extremely smart, but their intelligence was reflected entirely in their explanations. The entrails had no magical properties. A rooster spleen will not tell you whether you should destroy Carthage, never mind whether you will survive the attempt. The V-formation of geese has no bearing whatsoever on whether you should or will stab Caesar. The genius of it all lay in the sales job. No doubt some — many! — haruspices and augurs believed what they were saying (even if they were willing to be compensated for taking a second look at a dove’s bowels in the event some rich senator was looking for a different ruling). I’m sure many palm readers believe what they say, too.
Connecting Random Dots
Why do I bring all of this up? Because I am coming around to the position that the vast bulk of punditry in defense of Donald Trump is little different from hepatoscopy, chiromancy, tasseography, and other “sciences” that imbue essentially random phenomena with deep and prophetic significance (this is not to say that orbistry, the practice of explaining everything weird in this crazy world, is not 100 percent correct). Let’s just look at the past week.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to “immediately terminate” the DACA program if elected. In June, he flipped and said it would stay in place. Going into this week, the White House signaled that it would get rid of the program. On Tuesday, Trump’s attorney general came out and declared that the program was unconstitutional. And, in a move I praised, Trump said that he would give the task of dealing with the issue to Congress. But, after watching negative TV coverage and bristling at Barack Obama’s criticism, Trump flopped. In a tweet, Trump suggested he wants Congress to legalize the program, not get rid of it. And if Congress failed, he might have to “revisit” the issue, implying that Trump might use the same unconstitutional measures Obama used:
Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2017
I had a great time at Davidson College last night. I’ve been to scores of colleges over the years, and Davidson remains one of the most impressive standouts (I hope my daughter will at least put it on her list one day). There were some stupid flyers calling for some kind of resistance to my talk, which included a bunch of supposedly outrageous quotes by me. But the huge audience (the fake media will never report how huge) was extremely polite and civil. And while some of the questions from the kids were decidedly hostile, they were nonetheless all fair game and civilly asked. I’m still working through how to talk about my upcoming book, and it was very helpful for me to hear from people who didn’t necessarily like what I had to say. Thanks to everyone — friend and foe alike — for the great turnout. I apologize for not hanging around afterward to sign books or get assaulted, but the administration was keen on getting me out of there, not least because it had been a very long day (and the bars were closing soon).
Oh, and I should have been doing this for a while, but the Fourth Annual William F. Buckley Jr. Prize Dinner is coming up: October 25, 2017, at Gotham Hall in NYC. No less than James Rosen — currently on parole — will be the emcee. We will be honoring Tom Wolfe, who will get the WFB Prize for Leadership in Political Thought. And Bruce and Suzie Kovner will be receiving the WFB Prize for Leadership in Supporting Liberty. The Kovners are not well known to the general public, but in the word of liberty-promoting philanthropy, they are superstars.
We’ll also be saying something or other about Rich Lowry’s 25 years at NR.
It should be a blast, a veritable Cannonball Run of conservative luminaries with music provided by the Juilliard School. Proceeds will also go towards helping me buy pants. Details here.
In other news . . .
I’ll be on Special Report Friday night. (By the way, the feedback on the beard has been mostly positive so I think I’ll keep it for a while longer).
My Q&A for Davidson College, in advance of my speech there yesterday
My latest appearance on Special Report
Antifa is bad, but it shouldn’t be designated as a terrorist organization.
The Game of Thrones Ricochet GLoP, with Sonny Bunch and Ross Douthat replacing Rob Long. (Nobody wanted to bite at my suggestion that Game of Thrones is neoconservative, alas).
Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing.
And now, the weird stuff.
The Voynich Manuscript, solved
Robbers hold up party . . . of police officers
Is marijuana bad for sperm health?
Freddie Mercury, stamp collector
Convenience-store worker mans his post
But could he have stopped this seagull?
A dialect coach assesses actors’ impersonations of real people