FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2008

•   The New York Times, in its considered wisdom, has endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, and John McCain for the Republican.  At first, when I heard this, I felt for John McCain.  The embarrassment, the humiliation.  How does he explain this to his children?  To mom?  To the Naval Academy?  While McCain was having the stuffings beaten out of him in a North Vietnamese jail, The Times's Harvard-ordained scribes were rushing around South Vietnam, claiming they'd found The Truth (oh, yes, oh Lawd, I am witness).  In light of recent histories of the war, and the admissions of North Vietnamese leaders, the Truth they found was, uh, vague.  

But not to worry.  The Times's endorsement of McCain is lukewarm indeed.  The editors can barely squeeze out the words.  I doubt if McCain will be damaged in the eyes of the righteous.  In the course of the endorsement, by the way, time out is taken for a vicious assault on Rudy Giuliani.  Essentially, the Times asks, where did the old Rudy go?  Now, as a New Yorker, I never did see an old Rudy and new Rudy.  There was Rudy - effective, brilliant, creative, and, yes, small and vindictive.  Guiliani's career reminds me of something said about Harry Truman, that he could do the biggest things in the biggest ways, and the littlest things in the littlest ways.  But The Times's assault was over the top.

Ah, to Hillary.  The Times's endorsement is reasonably thoughtful and restrained.  She is respected, not worshipped. As to Obama, The Times is correct in doubting that he has the experience for the office, and properly asks him for more detailed thought.

Hillary will probably celebrate the endorsement by going to a balcony and singing, "Don't Cry for Me Wellesley College."  

Look, The Times will endorse the Democrat in the general election, so these love letters are rituals leading to the big endorsement down the line.

•   The Boston Globe, a chic liberal paper I quote only with pain, nonetheless has a fascinating story pointing out that something called "anti-war" voters in the Republic Party are favoring John McCain, who's been a stalwart defender of our going into Iraq.  As the story points out, though, it's logical.  McCain supported the initial action, but, almost alone among pro-military Republicans, offered harsh critiques of the execution.  Of course, many "anti-war" voters are incorrectly described.  They are often people frustrated with the failure to win.  Good story.  

•   The march of law, or lawyers, goes on.  The New York Sun, a great little paper with the correct point of view, reports that Lynne Stewart, the radical lawyer busted for acting as a middleman between her terrorist client and his guys in the old country, will be back in court.  So will the U.S. Government.

Stewart will argue, I am shocked, that her prosecution was an attack on lawyers who take on unpopular clients.  The Government will argue that her 28-month sentence was far too lenient.

The Sun points out that Stewart's case, which would normally be expected to bring out the passions of the leftist bar, never aroused that much anger once the facts become clear.  The key quote:

"There was really no consensus in the bar that the government was overplaying its hand," an expert in human rights and international law, Scott Horton, who teaches at Columbia Law School, said. "I would say, in my own view, it came out right." 

Nice to know there are some people teaching in the Ivy League who see the world clearly.

Nonetheless, Stewart's supporters will rally in a church the night before her court date.  They will no doubt produce new evidence that Alger Hiss was framed by the neocons.

•   Speaking of neocons, in the unlikely event there are liberals reading this, I urge you to take a Zoloft.  In fact, take two.  Why?  Paul is back.  As in Wolfowitz.  As in "architect of the Iraq war."  As in "Arab girlfriend who got special privileges at the World Bank."

Wolfowitz has been appointed chairman of the secretary of state's International Security Advisory Board.  I have no idea why he'd want another government position, or what he'll actually do.  The Board, which is advisory, only meets every quarter.

Wolfowitz is an outstanding public servant who was smeared relentlessly when he was deputy secretary of defense, under Donald Rumsfeld, and later, when he was head of the World Bank.  He was even slimed in Michael Moore's epic-for-the-ages, "Fahrenheit 9/11."  (Does anyone remember?)  Wolfowitz's great sin, it seems to me, is that he's not a politician, and doesn't know how to defend himself.  Anyone has a perfect right to disagree with him, of course, but the viciousness of the criticism was uncalled-for. 

•   The Harvard Crimson published this headline:

  Student Robbed at Knifepoint on Divinity Avenue, Police Say

On the left, that's seen as proof that God favors the oppressed criminal.

•   Larry Kudlow properly demolishes Bill Gates's trashing of captalism, delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos.  Kudlow also updates us on the goings-on of George Soros, another zillionaire turned leftist philosopher and check writer.

Look, we all know that capitalism isn't perfect.  It has its injustices, its failures, and it certainly has its share of cheats.  Like any system, it can be improved.  However, to paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst system in the world, except for all the others.

So why do these super-rich rascals trash it?  I think the answer lies in two words:  prestige and parties.  There's no great prestige in being rich and endorsing the system that got you there.  There used to be a saying in the college fund-raising business - and it's some business - that there are super-rich scoundrels who'd pay any amount just to walk down the aisle at a college ceremony beside a $40,000-a-year professor.  Prestige.  Knock the system that made you rich, and the intellectual elites love you, while privately studying the way you got the cash.

The party part is easy.  Respectable causes get you invited to great parties, especially in Hollywood and Manhattan.  Money, of course, gets you into a boring socialite "affair" or "gala," or some other word they used in the thirties.  But saving the hamsters - at great personal risk - gets you into a party hosted by a symphony conductor's mistress in one of those four-million-dollar lofts that used to be a warehouse for heroine.  Which is more interesting?   Which would impress your kids' friends?  Come on, you know.

I've always believed that the press vastly underestimates personal motives among the anointed.  Show me a good party, and I'll show you a large check written to a trendy cause to get in.

•   Charles Krauthammer finally says, with full blast, what many have been thinking - that John Edwards is a disgrace.  He has essentially renounced his entire voting record in the Senate to grovel before the Democratic base. 

Here is a classic case of journalistic failure.  Edwards was a trial lawyer who used junk science to get very rich.  Yet, I've not seen a single major story examining his record, the possible damage his court cases did, and the distortion of medical knowledge and practice. 

•   The Detroit Free Press reports that the mayor of the city lied under oath at a trial.  I collapse in surprise.            

I will be treated, and will be back later with more.

Posted on January 25, 2008.