George F. Will, critical race theorist par excellance
There was a time when I made a virtual albeit entirely unpaid cottage industry out of making fun of George F. Will, working up such labored funnies as Two-parent families iz da bomb, says Ramblin’ George Will, snickering at the twice married, frequently adulterous when married and frequently fornicatin’ when not Princetonian1 for his do as I say not as I do morality, and there were also times when I sparred with him more elegantly—George F. Will and “Truth”.
Well, that was then, because George is getting better—much better! His latest, and quite possibly greatest is his recent column This scrupulous biography of Robert E. Lee is exactly what the country needs. Okay, not a pulse-pounder. George is not a headline guy, but it gets better. Much better. Consider:
Lee was unambiguously a traitor, guilty of, in the Constitution’s language about treason, “levying war against” the United States. He also was a bore.
Mean, right? And it gets worse.
Contemporaries gushed about Lee’s gentility, dignity, probity, manners, presence, composure, etc. If mid-19th century America had been a debutante ball, Lee, who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at 22 without a single demerit, would have been a paragon. Life then was, however, a moral test. Lee flunked.
George gets all this from a recent, explicitly “deconstructive” biography of Marse Robert by Allen C. Guelzo called simply Robert E. Lee: A Life, which, among other things, suggests that Lee’s loyalty to his home state of Virginia owed something to his fear that his wife’s extensive property, including the famous Lee-Custis mansion that overlooks Georgetown from the Virginia side of the Potomac, might be confiscated if he remained loyal to the Union—particularly, of course, if he bothered to live up his duty—and his oath—as an officer in the U.S. Army to defend his country against all her enemies.
I also read a recent interview with Will in which he said that in all years as a student he never even heard of the 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma race riot, which destroyed 35 square blocks of black-owned middle-class homes—there were some things that America just didn’t want to know about itself. It’s good to see that Will, who is 80—even older than I am and far more wedded to the “official” version of American glory—is willing to acknowledge that American history needs to be rewritten, and even assisting a little in the process.
Bill Kristol, still not getting it
At least, he’s trying not to. Here’s Bill’s intro to his latest and greatest (probably) podcast series for the anti-Trumpy Bulwark, the “Shield of the Republic”, said shield being hoisted and hosted by
two experienced, thoughtful, and lively national security experts, Eric Edelman and Eliot A. Cohen.
They're both good friends of mine, so I'll admit I'm biased—but this is the truth: If there's foreign policy news or a suddenly important national security debate, Eric and Eliot are among the very first people I turn to for enlightenment. They've served at the highest levels of government, they know history, and they know the world.
But—and this is unusual for individuals of their stature—they're also willing to be contrarian and unconventional.
“Both good friends of mine.” No alarm bells there, amirite? Here’s a little from the willing to be contrarian and unconventional Mr. Edelman, writing for the Wall Street Journal in December 2001, in a column bearing the sprightly title Iraq can’t resist us. The first Gulf War was a cakewalk. The enemy is even weaker now:
After Afghanistan, what? Iraq is the big prize. Its regime has committed mass murder, trained and supported terrorists, plotted the assassination of an American president, and worked unremittingly to develop weapons of mass destruction. Overthrow Saddam Hussein, and the U.S. not only rids itself and the world of a menace and a monster. It may bring about a regime that will serve as a moderate influence on the region, and increase the world's oil supply.
No wonder they call him “Mr. Crystal Ball”! And, hey, here’s the contrarian and unconventional Mr. Cohen, calling of the U.S. to follow up its diastrous invasion of Iraq with an even more calamitous invasion of Iran, advice that was most fortunately ignored:
The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden."
Bill, I think you need new friends. And maybe they do too.
Republicans in an uproar! Mitch wants us to act like Grownups!
Yes, it’s true. Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell forced some of his 49 colleagues/whining crybabies to vote with the Democrats to raise the debt limit and they are pissed!. According to The Hill’s Alexander Bolton, the diaper-moistening wrecking crew ranged from fist-pumpin’ (of course) Josh Hawley to Moderate Mitt Romney, each and every one of them shocked, shocked to learn that they might, sometime, be expected to do something responsible. I mean, what the fuck is this shit? We’re Republicans!
I get a particular chuckle out of the fact that “even” Mitt Romney is a proud member of the coward chorus. Mitt, some people think you’re a real pussycat, but I think you’re just a real pussy.
I sure wish Merrick Garland were on the Supreme Court. Because then he wouldn’t be attorney general
J. D. Tuccille of Reason has the bad news:
Plenty of people point out that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to deploy federal law enforcement against families protesting public school policies is an abuse of power that threatens civil liberties. Worth adding to the objections, though, is the important point that treating parents who object to school board decisions about masking and curricula as terrorists can only further turn them against the powers-that-be. Garland and other officials are setting up a cycle of reaction and repression that can only destroy the institutions they claim to protect.
There can be few ideas uglier than the one that people who criticize local officials and actually attempt to change policies followed by their local governments are “terrorists”. Is Garland going to have the FBI infiltrate every anti-masker and every anti-CRT organization in the country, egging them on to commit absurd crimes and then busting them for “conspiracy”? Who are the Thought Police? I believe I can answer that question.
It was, sadly, the Obama administration that took the initiative to launch federal meddling what were clearly local issues, and not at all the concern of the federal government, all in the name of “social justice”. It was, of course, his administration that issued the notorious “Dear Colleague” letter2 to America’s colleges and universities encouraging them to ruin young men’s lives on the basis of “preponderance of evidence” obtained via administrative proceedings that aggressively reduced the rights of the accused. The Trump administration deserves credit (yes, you read that right) for reversing this “friendly advice”, and the Biden administration deserves blame for reinstating it.
The Obama administration followed this up with another bad letter, a joint missive from the Departments of Education and Justice requiring all schools to provide a “supportive” environment for transsexual students, prompting exactly the sort of backlash that Tuccille warns about in his piece for Reason. This time, of course, the meddling is even worse, because in the past recalcitrant school officials were, at least, not in danger of being thrown in jail for “terrorism”.
UPDATE
The original quote attributed to
Dr. Cohen has been removed, because it was not his. The current quotation most unfortunately is one of Dr. Cohen's more deplorable efforts
1. After 22 years of marriage, George divorced his first wife, leaving her to raise their three sons alone. George knew it was over when he came home one evening to find a pile of clothes in the front yard bearing the note “George, since you don’t sleep here anymore you shouldn’t keep your clothes here either.” Back in the day, George used to chuckle over the “glandular Mr. Clinton”. Takes one to know one, eh, George?
2. The “interesting” history of the origin of that letter is set forth in some detail by this Volokh Conspiracy post by KC Johnson and Stuart Taylor.
