Magazine July 4, 2011, Issue

Weiner’s Law

By James Lileks

June 16, 2011 4:00 AM

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) speaks to the press in New York City, June 6, 2011. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)

Language changes quickly, given the proper nudge. Three years ago the phrase “Weiner tweeted his schnitzel” would have made you think he’d invented a wind instrument out of a sausage; now we all know what it means. (Given the Brooklyn rep’s flailing perorations, “wind instrument” might describe the man himself.) We’re not here to add to the parade of puns and euphemisms for the congressperson’s idea of a stimulus package, but to note something all embattled politicians say: They want to get the matter behind them — an anatomical impossibility in this case, you hope — and get back to …

In This Issue

Articles

Politics & Policy

Growing Pains

By Ramesh Ponnuru

Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, is determined to be the presidential candidate for those conservatives who believe that Republicans have lately been concentrating too much on cutting the ...

Politics & Policy

Worthwhile Canadian Initiatives

By Kevin D. Williamson

Canada is a weird cold semi-socialist backwater pockmarked with Francophonic hostility and saddled with a ridiculous monarchy, a national wheat monopoly, and the pinko health-care system that Barack Obama really, ...

Politics & Policy

Friends in Need

By Jay Nordlinger

José María Aznar and his friends, when they talk about Israel, often use the word “normal.” Israel is a “normal country,” they say, and ought to be accepted as normal, ...

Politics & Policy

Virtual Manhood

By Rob Long

Rodney Dangerfield, the late comedian famous for his “No Respect” routine, used to do a bit in his act about how to deal with the awkwardness of the morning after ...

Features

Politics & Policy

Growth Formulas

By NR Staff

Cut Taxes ALAN REYNOLDS Federal spending is scheduled to remain above 24 percent of GDP, five percentage points higher than the 19.2 percent average of 1997–2007. Pushing the highest tax rates higher ...

Politics & Policy

Entitlement Bandits

By Michael F. Cannon

The budget blueprint crafted by Paul Ryan, passed by the House of Representatives, and voted down by the Senate would essentially give Medicare enrollees a voucher to purchase private coverage, ...

Books, Arts & Manners

Politics & Policy

A Hard Man’s Witness

By Daniel Foster

It has been observed that there is no zealotry like the zealotry of the convert. But in the peculiar sub-universe of the political conversion story, there is an observable asymmetry ...

Politics & Policy

Grand Tours

By Brian Bolduc

In February 1825, a young graduate of Harvard College named Ralph Waldo Emerson paid a visit to the 89-year-old former president John Adams at his home in Quincy, Mass. Sitting ...

Politics & Policy

Rights Revisited

By Joseph Tartakovsky

In the 1890s, in Utica, N.Y., there lived a small-time baker named Joseph Lochner. In surviving pictures, he looks like a Bavarian Yosemite Sam, and he had a personality to ...

Politics & Policy

An Eye for the Real

By Roger Kimball

The English geneticist J. B. S. Haldane, though an incorrigible commie pinko, was a tart and brilliant observer of life’s panoply. “My own suspicion,” he wrote, “is that the universe ...

Politics & Policy

The Way of Grace

By Ross Douthat

When Terrence Malick returned to filmmaking in 1998 after a 20-year hiatus, no critic wanted to point out that the genius director’s re-entry had landed with a thud. So The ...

City Desk

Other People’s Music

By Richard Brookhiser

I don’t like earphones, I want to hear what the world is sending my way. As a result, I hear a lot of other people’s music. My main venue for passive ...

Sections

Politics & Policy

Letters

By NR Staff

Womyn and Males Jay Nordlinger’s “War of Words” (June 20) prompted me to think of the loss of “ladies and gentlemen,” so common in my generation. Here is The New York ...

Politics & Policy

The Week

By NR Staff

‐ Newt Gingrich’s aides seem to be leaving him for a younger, more attractive candidate. ‐ American forces have routed the Taliban in its traditional strongholds in Kandahar and Helmand provinces ...

The Bent Pin

It’s Complicated

By Florence King

A postcard from Upgraded America, our new and improved country where everything that used to be simple has become as overcomplicated as possible . . . It began with reading glasses. ...

The Long View

The Republican Presidential Debate

By Rob Long

Candidates’ thought-balloon transcript Extract: (page 23) MITT ROMNEY: Hair? Check. Teeth? Smiling. Upbeat, lofty attitude? Done. Don’t look at Pawlenty. Mitt’s a fighter. Mitt’s a fighter. Mitt’s a fighter. You’re about to mention ...

Athwart

Weiner’s Law

By James Lileks

Language changes quickly, given the proper nudge. Three years ago the phrase “Weiner tweeted his schnitzel” would have made you think he’d invented a wind instrument out of a sausage; ...

Politics & Policy

Ducktown

By Lawrence Dugan

It had its origins in the sandy past Of Atlantic City, the old boardwalk And the short blocks, the brief alleys And small businesses with names Decalled over long empty windows. Pepper Alley they called ...

Happy Warrior

Coffee Crash

By Mark Steyn

This fall marks the centenary of William Mitchell. You may not have heard of him, but in his day he was a big cheese. Indeed, he was a big processed ...