I've written before on the excellent browser Firefox, which offers much greater security than Internet Explorer. Yesterday, the WSJ's computer and gadget guru, Walter Mossberg (free), devoted another column to the wonders of Firefox.

About the only thing I use IE for is accessing Movable Type, which we use for this blog. Some of the features aren't compatible with Firefox, so until MT makes its software Firefox-friendly, I'll be forced to rely on IE for blogging. For everything else, though, Firefox is the way to go.

New York Press has an eclectic list of persons who died in 2004. Their claim?

Unlike those other boring year-end corpse roundups, which tend to focus on the biggies—Yasser Arafat, Marlon Brando, Captain Kangaroo, Tony Randall, Ray Charles and Ronald Reagan—we prefer to spotlight the less-well-known figures who still, in their own quiet ways, changed all of our lives. Or at least changed ours.

Via Prestopundit, FrontPage Magazine has named John O'Neill Man of the Year.

Sounds about right.

By now, conservatives should be used to being held responsible for most of life's hardships. From poverty to homelessness to global warming, the left rarely misses an opportunity to find fault with others for society's failure to create a temporal utopia.

Environmentalism, however, has always been a special case. Even though liberals are as quick to take advantage of modern technology as the rest of us, they're eager to point the finger at "them," meaning conservatives, for environmental degradation, at least as they define it. Live in a new house (perhaps not your first), drive an SUV (perhaps more than one), jet across the planet (sometimes on your own plane), and eat food from around the globe? No problem, at least not if you profess to feel really, really bad about it. That allows you to blame evil capitalists, Republicans, practicing Christians, and other unenlightened types. More importantly, it provides lefties with what they believe is a solid foundation for their sanctimoniousness.

All of this rests on a faulty premise: we control our environment to such a degree that our actions literally determine the weather. If you accept this, you'll happily believe just about anything the environmentalist wacko fringe tosses out. So what if the weatherman doesn't know whether or not it will rain day after tomorrow, or that dire predictions of a coming ice age and mass starvation -- made only 30 years ago -- didn't pan out. We know more now, having become god-like via the boomer brain trust, and can see clearly now that the acid rain has come.

So when a horrific tsunami kills over a hundred thousand, it never occurs to those suffering from self-induced apotheosis that the steps we can take to alleviate the impact of natural disasters rest not on some mystical, unarticulated (because intellectually vacuous) philosophy of world-control. Rather, the means of reducing mass suffering depends on the growth of affluence in Third World countries. In other words, unless poor nations can Westernize so that they, too, can enjoy the benefits that civil society brings -- rule of law, private property rights, religious and civil freedoms -- natural disasters will continue to have a disproportionate impact on their societies. That's not because they can be stopped, of course, but because their effects can be mitigated.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page made this point earlier in the week, when it noted that Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace UK, and Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth, told the Independent newspaper that global warming was to blame for the tsunami. The Journal's response:

It is preposterous to blame the inexorable forces of nature on the development of industry and infrastructures of modern society. The more sensible response to natural disasters is to improve forecasting, put in place efficient communications and evacuation procedures and, should the worst arrive, conduct relief efforts and rebuild what nature has destroyed. Those cautionary measures, as is now clear, cost money. The national income necessary to afford them is made possible only by economic growth of the sort too many of environmentalists retard with their policy extremism.

Today's New York Sun runs an editorial worth your time, also:

When America tries to depose a dictator like Saddam Hussein who put tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites in mass graves and who was trying to acquire weapons that would allow him to kill tens of thousands of Israelis or Americans, the left complains that America is trying to be a global policeman and needs to learn humility. But when a naturally generated tsunami hits Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, killing hundreds of thousands, it is somehow assumed that the American government must take the lead in the disaster relief efforts.

As John Podhoretz argues, the urgent effort today should be about disaster relief, not quantities of foreign aid. Just behind this comes frank talk about improving the lives of countless millions who suffer the depredations of poverty and ignorance daily. Decades' worth of foreign aid didn't change that, as last week's giant waves demonstrated for all to see. Perhaps a little freedom would allow such countries to build a safer future.

G. K. Chesterton may have been going too far when he said that coincidences are "spiritual puns," but two events of the past week seem to me to add up to something significant in the intellectual life of the United States.

First, there is the death of Susan Sontag, who can be said to have symbolized the post-1960s iteration of that elusive commodity, "the New York intellectual." It would be pointless for me to add to the mountain of commentary on Ms. Sontag's career that has already appeared, except to say this: whatever one thinks of that career, and even a nonadmirer like myself has to concede it had some genuine bright spots, it was clearly over a long time ago, and its exhaustion represented the exhaustion of a whole style of thought and being, and of the set of burning questions thought to go along with it. Just to read the exchange in the pages of The Nation about Sontag's "famous" 1982 Town Hall speech in which she "controversially" proclaimed "the utter villainy of the Communist system," is to be reminded of the incredible insularity and self-delusive provincialism of an intellectual milieu in which such a proclamation, in 1982, would count as anything more than the merest truism. It was just such stupefying insularity, in contrast to the growing vitality of intellectual life in Washington, that led Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb to take the hitherto unthinkable step in 1987 of leaving New York for Washington. They have never regretted it.

So Sontag's death, in a sense, marks the terminal punctuation mark of an era in New York's intellectual history that has been fading away for a long time. But it may also mark the beginning of a new one, or one that is already underway. Pair Sontag's death with another development of the past week, the hiring of Joseph Bottum of The Weekly Standard to serve as Editor of the outstanding New York-based journal First Things, and one has the sense that something fresh may be in the wind. In reversing the direction of Kristol/Himmelfarb's journey nearly two decades ago, Bottum's move is one hopeful sign of the reemergence of New York intellectual life, rising from the ashes under new management.

As recent as three or four years ago, it seemed that all the most important journals of opinion in America were published in Washington. (And the rise of the blogosphere has suggested to some utopians that the very idea of the great city as an intellectual center is obsolete.) But that is no longer true, as a glance at the pages of a stellar newcomer like City Journal will indicate. (Not to mention such lively venues as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Sun, the New Criterion, National Review, and, yes, the Nation and the New Yorker, all of which have a decided New York flavor and voice to them.) The single best piece of writing to appear in the past year about the current world situation, Norman Podhoretz's long article in the New York-based Commentary entitled "World War IV," is a piece that one could not imagine being produced in Washington---not because of a lack of talent or brains or imagination in that city, but because there is a certain combination of perspective, clarity, and forcefulness that seem to be the unique property of New York.

Which is to say that, for all of Washington's many strengths as an intellectual community, one that, because of its status as a national political center, is forced to take account of a genuinely diverse range of perspectives, there are certain crucial areas in which it is lacking, and perhaps always will be. Similarly, there is a great deal to be said for the solid sense of red-state America, and since I have chosen to live in it, I can be counted upon to sing its praises with enthusiasm.

But what neither Washington nor red-state America has been able to do is generate the kind of culture-shaping intellectual and artistic life that this country needs, every bit as much as it needs tax cuts, healthy marriages and families, efficient public services, strong churches, affordable health care, and good schools. That culture-generating function has, throughout history, always fallen to urban elites, and for better or worse, New York and Los Angeles remain the culture-formation centers of the United States, the capitals of our imaginations. A renewal of this nation's culture simply cannot occur if it bypasses them. Given that fact, perhaps one can hope that the coincidences of the past week are more than coincidences. It's up to you, New York.

In light of UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affiars Jan Egeland's opportunistic criticism of America for being "stingy" with aid to the tsunami victims, the Diplomad -- who is stationed in one of the countries that was hit by the disaster -- reports that locally, there is no evidence that the UN is doing anything to alleviate the suffering:

I can tell you, dear readers, that I am temporarily working in one of the countries that got slammed hard by the tsunami and while the UN effort might be in high gear, it must have its parking brake on. No sign of that effort here! Lots of bureaucrats flying in and out, but that's about it.

Read the whole thing -- from Egeland's contention that (too) low taxes account for the (false assertions) of American stinginess to the Washington Post's own opportunistic posturing -- and feel your blood pressure rise. And remember: these people take for granted that they are superior to you intellectually, socially, and morally.

Update: The Prowler says that Chirac and Schroeder tried to contact Bill Clinton following his low-rent comments about America's response to the tsunami. Their post also highlights the similarities between the likes of Clinton and his UN pals:

As for Clinton, he has at his disposal -- or at least with a phone call to friends, such as Microsoft's Bill Gates -- access to more than $75 million in private funds intended for philanthropic use. But Clinton's charities have thus far not pledged a cent to aid those suffering due to the cataclysmic flooding, nor has he attempted to coordinate any private giving for the victims of the tsunami.

Update II: Wilfred McClay, blogging at Mere Comments, puts Egeland's comments in a seasonal (meaning Christmas) context.

Via Joe Knippenberg at No Left Turns, today's Washington Post has a story that demonstrates how quiet, behind-the-scenes work can pay off. More than that, however, I think it reveals (again) a side of Bush's character that's invisible to anyone who believes the personal is the political.

The campaign set a goal of taking Lancaster County, Pa., where about 20,000 Amish live, by 70,000 votes; they took it by 70,896. All of the Amish interviewed in the story praised Bush's Christian values and some think they'll remain more politically active in the future -- provided the right kind of candidate is running for office. As for whether or not the Amish were manipulated by savvy handlers, here's what the Post reports:

Sam, the carpenter-journalist, had read reports suggesting that the GOP manipulated the Amish. That did not sit well at all. "They didn't come here just recruiting the Amish," he said. "They were trying to get anybody to vote."

"We're trying to get tickets for the inauguration," he said. "Do you know how to go about getting those?"

Having eaten our way through Georgia over the past week and a half (the marching bit was done some time back), I'm home again and anxious to resume blogging. I'd hoped to blog a bit from the road, but poor computer connections, family visits, and merry-making interferred, if that's the right word.

Democracy Project's newest blogger, Chuck Chalberg, has been prolific and interesting, and I hope you've checked out his many postings. Ditto for the excellent work by Wilfred McClay, Brent Tantillo, and Laurie Morrow, all of whom continued to post as Christmas came and went.

Even Arthur Chrenkoff, one of the best bloggers around for my money, headed for the beach (something that's easier to do this time of year in Australia). As Arthur says, one of the things about going "on holiday" is that the rest of the world keeps moving, as it certainly has this past week -- literally in Southeast Asia. Peggy Noonan has some reasoned insights into how the tsunami casts the world in a different light. Appropriately, she turns to Ronald Reagan to better comprehend what has happened, and what it means. In the face of unimaginable disaster, we always turn to those who understand that clear vision is attained by knowing where to look, and what to ignore.

More soon.

It seems like that the folks over at PAX are about to make a big-time mistake by canceling their only original show with mass potential, Sue Thomas, FBI/Eye. Because of some fundamental marketing mistakes, the show has attracted audience more slowly than it might have; but a far worse mistake would be to torpedo a show which, with a little patience, could out-audience Murder, She Wrote.

So here's what went wrong, and what should happen--from the perspective of an observer with no ties whatsoever to PAX nor to this show.

(1) FIRST LAW OF NAMING A SHOW: AVOID GIMMICKY PUNCTUATION IN SHOW TITLES. All these do is make the title irritating to read, difficult to remember, and cumbersome to type. What reviewer wants to spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to properly reproduce the title's crossed-out word & handwritten addendum, in Microsoft Word? Adding a self-consciously artificial gimmick to the title of a high quality show--and this is--makes as much sense as welding a few extra parts onto the engine of a Porsche: it does nothing to make the show better, and is apt to gum things up.

(2) More importantly, the cutesy subtitle is just doesn't fit this intelligent, sophisticated mystery show. It suggests the mysteries will be childish & simplistic, when they're actually well wrought & complex.

(3) Don't throw away an original show with a small but loyal audience, merely because it's not (yet) a blockbuster hit. A good show will build audience loyalty over time, even with only minimal marketing. Big-network television executives lack patience and are unable to tolerate delayed gratification--hence this strategy; and hence patience and slow but steady growth, the building of a loyal audience over multiple seasons, is precisely the programming strategy to counter the usual thinking.

Consider the huge mistake the Science Fiction Network made, with Mystery Science Theatre 3000. This show was cheap to produce, and came with a fiercely loyal cult audience with good age/income demographics. The obvious thing to do would be to build audience through more savvy marketing of the show itself as well as the development of some MST3K goods. Only a Hollywood executive who exploits short-term relationships in life and in art would think it makes sense to toss out the Sure Thing in favor of something more flashy, more chancy, more expensive, and (no surprise here) ultimately less successful. And that's just what they did.

(4) Market what makes the show DIFFERENT from others in the genre. Sue Thomas should be marketed as "mysteries without gore", or "mysteries the whole family can watch" or "mysteries for people who aren’t coroners ." Americans across the religious and political spectrum are revolted by the gory Fantastic Voyage footage lazy writers substitute for plot or character development. There's an enormous audience for "cozies" like this. Many people are revolted by CSI, for example, which has quickly degenerated from an interesting set of small mysteries with some gore, into 6 parts gore-'n-maggots to every 1-part puzzle element. (CSI’s desperate agglomeration of soap opera elements, so much that they overshadow the mystery, suggests they know they're losing audience but can't figure out why. It's because it's supposed to be a MYSTERY show, people, not the Home Version of How to do an Autopsy, in 25 Easy Steps.)

The message should, then, be: If you'd rather solve a puzzle than watch a bullet in micro-close-up careen through the aorta of a 6-year-old, Sue Thomas is the show you're looking for.

(5) The Sue Thomas folks have marketing opportunities they've not begun to fully exploit (they've not yet had time to do so). Here's an obvious one: consider what could be done with an "education component" targeted at K-12 public schools? Sue Thomas Sign Language Coloring Books, children's books, lunchboxes with sign language around them, scholarships for deaf students interested in police/FBI work-- Partner with a (c) 3 focused on deaf issues; set up deaf theatre, deaf poetry. Have a conference on the show/the depiction of the deaf in television at Gallaudet.

(6) If the folks at PAX are dumb enough to get rid of Sue Thomas, I hope the folks at EWTN are smart enough to buy this gem, to market it in fresh, energetic ways, and to have the patience to watch its audience build incrementally over several seasons.

The Supreme Court’s resolution of the 2000 presidential election has had peculiar ramifications in disputed elections in emerging democracies like the Ukraine. The Washington Post reports that Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych is refusing “to accept defeat in the country's presidential election and vowed Monday to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the result, claiming that millions of his supporters were disenfranchised and that there was systematic fraud.”

Of course, after the first presidential election when Yanukovych won amid widespread and credible allegations of fraud, the Ukrainian Supreme Court intervened and ruled that a new election was necessary. This time, it’s not surprising Yanukovych went down in defeat, and it’s also not surprising that Ukraine’s supreme judicial body has been asked to intervene again. Amidst criticism by the United States and Europe regarding the outcome of the first election, a result that Russian President Vladimir Putin sought and enabled, Putin shot back saying, "Do you think that the electoral system in the United States is without flaws?" Putin said. "Need I remind you of how their elections were held in the United States?"

We all should be very thankful for John Kerry’s decision not to dispute the election results in Ohio, as such legal fights only serve to undermine democracy in the world’s eyes and enable critics of democracy like Putin. And who’s to blame for this rush around the world to contest election results? Al Gore and the Democratic Party share much of the blame, with their strategy of count and recount until we win, which was most effectively used recently in the race for governor of Washington State.

Sadly, Gore’s actions in contesting the election in 2000 have strengthened the judicial branch – the only branch managed by unelected officials – in all nations possessing similar systems. The difficulty is whether nations like the Ukraine will continue to have a strong system of checks and balances to ensure that democrats, respectful of popular representation, are appointed to judicial positions or will the shadowy hand of Vladimir Putin be lurking in the background, to control Ukraine’s judiciary in the future? I urge Americans and Ukrainians to be vigilant and skeptical of unelected judicial officials managing our democratic process.

For perspective on the natural catastrophe that Brent has described, consider this relatively small but extremely telling point, brought out by Jonah Goldberg

At one time, a substantial portion of my work in public policy focused on Indonesia. I was blessed to have met a number of persons from that giant country finding all of them kind, gentle and optimistic about the great strides their nation has made in economic development and transitioning to democracy. Unfortunately, Indonesia and Southeast Asia have suffered tremendous losses of life and wealth in the tidal surge caused by the world's greatest earthquake in at least a half century.

No nation or region is better than another, but there are certainly places in the world that could weather such a calamity better than the relatively poor regions that got hit by the tidal surge. As always, the United States has stepped up to help these nations recover with an initial $15 million aid package, according to Wired News. This is the least we can do during such a crisis and we must be prepared to do a lot more. Not necessarily in appropriating monies for relief, but in appropriating monies for reconstruction of the wrecked villages along the coasts and on the islands. Many of the nations hardest hit are Muslim-dominant countries, which, if allowed to languish in destitution for great periods of time, may become recruitment centers for Osama bin Laden and his terrorism network. At such a time and in this moment, our security and the security of the citizens in these drenched villages depend on President Bush leading with his open and generous heart.

Here is a cartoon that would be amusing....

If it were not so true.....

Merry Christmas . . . Happy Holidays . . . It's that time of year again. Or is it? Have a very merry Winter Festival. There, that's better. After all, it is that time in our history, isn't it? The signs are everywhere--most especially in the schools. So perhaps it's also time for a minor calendar alteration. Nothing major here. Just a slight readjustment to reflect modern sensibilities and preoccupations. And if it solves a few other problems along the way, so much the better.

Recently our college was in the throes of its annual debate over the academic calendar. The problem is the same one we face every year: how to squeeze a legitimate fall semester into, well, into the fall. As things stand now, it simply can't be done. Hence we do what any number of schools do. We start sometime just after the middle of August so that we can finish sometime just before (shhh) Christmas.

August?!?! Who in the name of Horace Mann wants to be sitting in a classroom when beaches, not to mention summer jobs, still beckon? Football players may have to report to campus in August, but students shouldn't be (and usually aren't) among them.

Thanks to the ongoing secularization of what was once undeniably the Christmas season, a solution is finally at hand. What with Christmas giving way to something called a Winter Festival, why not give history and the calendar a little push? Besides, what's so sacred about the timing of a Winter Festival anyway?

So let's just move the whole thing back a few weeks. The more you think about, the more problems this will solve. School calendars are just the beginning. But they are a beginning. Fall semester could then begin, amazingly enough, in the fall. And fall, after all, is the time when thoughts of classrooms and courses creep somewhere unto the radar screens of students, as well as those football-obsessed individuals who try to pass for students. The semester could then proceed essentially uninterrupted into the early part of January. And so could the football season.

THEN let the Winter Festival begin. And let it coincide with football playoffs, both college and professional. College presidents currently oppose a playoff system for football because of all the precious class time that players and student-fans would have to miss. This presidential claim is spurious at best, but let's grant them this point.

All the more reason to shut the colleges (maybe the entire country!) down for two or three weeks in the middle of January. With Christmas a forgotten memory and a Winter Festival in full swing, there will be no class time to be missed. Besides, what better reason could there be for a festival in the first place!? With the entire country essentially on hold (save for shopping), there'd be plenty of time for both college and professional playoffs to proceed daily--and simultaneously.

Admittedly, at this not-quite-yet-post-Christian point in our national evolution the entire population is not yet completely football-obsessed or Christ-oblivious. But we're getting there. So why not just hurry the process along? Besides, there's something in this proposal for nearly everyone.

In the first place, we northerners don't need a Winter Festival in December. At that early point in the seasonal shift, winter has just begun. Better that we get our festival when real winter is upon us and the winter doldrums have hit with full force. February would probably be ideal, but January will have to do. It's certainly an improvement over December. Besides, as calendar matters stand now, December 25 (or that date which is well on its way to anonymity) is much too close to Thanksgiving. Having just come together for all of three or four days, families need a longer stretch of time before they're ready for the next round of (even longer) togetherness. Once again, February might be the better option, but January will simply have to do.

When it comes to what matters most, January must be designated Winter Festival Month. And what might that matter be? Why football, of course. On this score, there's something in this proposal for doldrum-free, but football-obsessed southerners. If any section of the country has evolved further on the football/fanatic scale, it has to be the South. So why not speed up this evolutionary process generally? Why not hasten our advance (?) from Christianity to paganism as well? And what better vehicle could there be for this journey than football?

It's understood that this might well create a crisis of sorts in the South where at this historical moment commitments to Christianity and football run equally strong. If forced to choose, which will win out? To borrow from Jack Benny when a robber informed him it was his money or his life, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking . . . "

And while everyone is thinking, try singing the following to a more upbeat version of "Silent Night":

Raucous day, raucous night
All is wild, we're in the fight
Oblong object, we worship you
And our colors, whatever the hue
Cheer in earthly bliss,
Cheer in earthly bliss.

An encouraging article from today’s Washington Post on China’s growing demand for what may be America’s greatest export: McDonald’s. The article reports that Chinese eat more fast food than Americans:

“The survey, which polled more than 14,000 adults in 28 countries, found that 41 percent of respondents in mainland China eat in a fast-food restaurant at least once a week, compared with 35 percent in the United States.”

Democracy Project Advisory Board Member Ambassador Mark Palmer believes that exporting American culture – its music, food, and movies – is the best way to open up authoritarian societies like China.

Inherent in making the choice to choose a hamburger over dim-sum is the choice to dismiss traditional Chinese cuisine (no matter how good it is) for food that Liu Jiahong, 24, says “is convenient…and…tastes good." She said, "I don't care whether it's healthy or not." And it’s just that sort of thinking, rebellious and market-driven, that may propel China into democracy. When young people in China make the choice to throw off the shackles in their culture that inhibit growth and progress, the hope is and history usually proves this thesis correct, that they’ll begin to do the same in other areas of life, such as making the choice to push for changes in how their government operates. Here’s hoping McDonald’s can add another billion Big Mac’s to their signs in 2005.

DP readers won't want to miss this essay by the idea-rich (but empirically spotty) Michael Lind, to be found here. It almost is too easy to jab at the proponents of "metro" America and "the emerging Democratic majority," but Lind does with exceptional finality here:

According to the authors of The Great Divide: "If our analysis is correct, demographics will slowly bring the current Republican ascendancy to an end, even in retro America." This deserves to go down in history in a collection of famous last words. The truth is that the demographic prospects for blue-state Democrats are grim.

As indeed they are, for reasons Lind explains with clarity. Unfortunately, the article is not entirely on-target, as is pointed out here. But it's well worth reading.

Dick Morris with Eileen McGann. Rewriting History. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. $24.95 (hb), 304pp

What follows is a book review of a book review. Granted, the original review is on the longish side, but it is what it is. Having ventured where few have ever bothered to go, Dick Morris has accomplished the nearly impossible task of actually reading Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Living History from beginning to end. Bothered by his discoveries, Morris has been moved to write Rewriting History.
One questions remains. Who is doing the rewriting here? Is it Hillary or Dick—or both? Is Dick telling us that Hillary tried to rewrite her own history and that of the administration of which she was a part—or should that be “in which she served”—or . . . Well, what was it that she actually did do—or accomplish—during those eight long years? Or is Dick rewriting her history, including the history of the would-be governor, who became a sitting governor, who became an ex-governor, who became a re-sitting governor, who became a presidential candidate, who became the president for whom he . . . Well, what exactly was it that Dick Morris did do for Bill Clinton before and during the better part of those eight long years?

See Dick run—pretty much whenever Hillary’s husband beckoned. See Dick count—numbers, oh so many polling numbers on oh, so many topics (some of which actually had something to do with public policy matters). See Dick run again—especially when it was time to run away from Hillary’s husband, who didn’t always care for Dick’s rendering of those numbers.

See Dick take a pummeling from that same husband—at least on the one occasion when he apparently couldn’t run away fast enough. And, of course, see Dick triangulate all over the place, whether or not it was time to run toward or away from his sometimes volatile client. Now see Dick rewrite recent history, all in the name of providing what amounts to an instant revisionist history of an instant revisionist history.

Finally, see Dick warn us of an impending “perfect storm.” Predictor of political weather patterns that he claims to be, Dick thinks that such a storm might hit as soon as 2008. Or it might be delayed until no later than 2012. But it will hit. And it will hit with such force that the result of Hurricane Hillary will be the presidency of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

How could this be? Morris points to the “confluence” of the following: 1) the “public relations triumph” of her book; 2) her “safe perch” in the Senate; 3) the “dearth” of Democratic rivals (presuming a Kerry defeat in November); 4) no Bush heir (save “yet another Bush”); 5) the country’s “growing minority population.”

Hmmm . . . Morris would have us believe that 1) the country will forget the Clinton scandals and yet remember the Clinton’s by then five or nine year old book; 2) her senate seat is Giuliani-proof; 3) no credible national candidate will surface in either major party; 4) the minority vote, both Hispanic and black, will be a lock for Democrats now and forever more.

But let’s pretend for a minute. Let’s pretend that Dick is right, that his “perfect storm will hit and Hillary will run and win. Does the prospect of a second Clinton presidency trouble him? Not necessarily. It all depends upon the next Hillary incarnation, assuming that such a reincarnation is possible. Will she become the second coming of Richard Nixon or will she discover her better self and become another Robert Kennedy? In sum, “will she (ugh) grow?”

Like RN and RFK, HRC has her, shall we say, dark side. Like Nixon, she has “proven susceptible to temptation, paranoia, and scandal.” Like Nixon, she has “allowed her fierce political instincts to darken her perspective.” Like Nixon, she has “contrived a deceivingly positive public face behind which to hide.” And which public Nixon face was that? Such was his fate and physiognomy that he could never really hide the face that was uniquely his.

And then there is the equally dark Robert Kennedy who, in Dick Morris’ kind and cuddly estimation, managed to transform himself into a “very good person.” Which is to say Kennedy shed his Joe McCarthy past, spurned the war in Vietnam, made an enemy of a not to very good person by the name of Lyndon Johnson, and shifted leftward on any number of domestic issues. He also had a face, public or otherwise, that both RN and HRC would kill for.

Nixon or Kennedy? The choice is Hillary’s. She is already older than Nixon was in 1968. She is now fourteen years older than Kennedy was when he died. But Dick is still prepared to give her the benefit of nearly 265 pages of his doubts. There remains a “chance” for her to “become the person she can still become.” Huh??

But what if her behavior as president is as Nixonian as her Nixonian behavior as First Lady of Arkansas and of the country? Well then, her “supporters and critics” will have “much to fear,” won’t they? “Supporters and critics?” That’s just about everybody, isn’t it Dick? So why not say it, Dick? Why not just say that the country will have much to fear?

Perhaps the answer is that Dick Morris can’t quite shake his Clinton addiction. Pummeled and otherwise abused, Morris appears ready for more. After all, he concludes, “our current political landscape badly needs Hillary’s perspective, her passionate idealism.” She may be a “flawed instrument,” but her “willingness to fight for the underdog and her compass for issues are rare indeed in our male-dominated, profit-obsessed society.” And this after Morris has invested a chapter in exposing her own profit obsessions.

The bulk of this extended book review is a chapter-by-chapter unpackaging of the well-packaged to the point of being hidden Hillary. By Morris’ not-so-kind estimation, her memoir ought to have been titled “Hiding Hillary.” With that as his mantra, Morris unmasks the Hillary behind the brand name that is “HILLARY.” If the Hillary behind the HILLARY is determined to hide—and perhaps even deny—her real self, Dick has arrived, maybe even in the nick of time, to pull back the curtain to reveal the “brittle” politician, the driven ideologue, the profit-obsessed “material girl,” the ungrand “inquisitor” that she is. And while no single chapter is devoted to her ongoing difficulties with the truth, whether on matters small or not to small, Morris is clearly troubled by her near-compulsive aversion to the telling of it.

And yet Dick Morris can’t escape the pull of the Clinton orbit. Maybe it’s her concern for “women and children.” Ah, the women and children. Dick keeps coming back to both of them, because Hillary can’t seem to stop trying to do something, anything for them. If there is to be a second Clinton or first Rodham presidency, the campaign war room mantra will no doubt be “it’s the women and children, stupid.” Or “ask not what they can do for our country, but what our government can do for them.”

But never fear, there will never be a second Clinton or first Rodham administration. Oh, there may well be a “perfect” political “storm.” Hillary or HILLARY may well be the Democratic nominee in 2008 or 2012, but she will not win. And the reason for this confident prediction is to be found right in the middle of this book (review). Having observed Hillary at close range for many years, Dick detects a “brittle quality” to her. When adversity strikes, Bill shows up for work each morning “hoping things will improve.” Hillary, however, has “less flexibility, less give.”

Morris does not deny that HRC is a woman with sound political instincts and considerable political talent. But he offers this insight by way of continuing the contrast between the two Clintons: “Unlike Bill, Hillary is deeply committed to an ideological agenda,” an agenda, by the way, that is deeply connected to the, surprise, surprise, “needs of women and children.” And unlike HILLARY, Hillary is an “opportunist when she needs to be, and an ideologue whenever she can. An opportunist by necessity but an ideologue by choice.” Could something of a similar nature ever be said with accuracy about Richard Nixon or Robert Kennedy? That Nixon was never an ideologue made a Nixon presidency possible. That Kennedy was never an ideologue might have made a Kennedy presidency possible.

And yet it took an incredibly perfect storm for Richard Nixon to squeak to victory in 1968. There had to be a disastrous war, deep divisions within the Democratic party, a not so very good person as president, and the assassination of a Kennedy who was apparently well on his to becoming a very good person. Who could have predicted all of that in 1964? Not Dick Morris. Not nobody no how.

Hillary’s best chance to get anywhere near the White House again might be to find herself another Bill. Her real political skills are those of a combined campaign manager, political tactician, and chief of staff. In many respects, she was to Bill what RFK was to JFK.

Dick Morris spends nearly all of this longish review telling us, in effect, that he knows Bill Clinton and that Hillary Rodham Clinton is no Bill Clinton. And yet he can’t resist dreaming of another series of runs to and from the Clintons. Having witnessed and survived any number of perfectly stormy Clinton scenes, and having detailed any number of reasons that a second Clinton presidency would be as disastrous as the first, he writes and rewrites and waits for one more call.

On airplanes my druthers is to mind my own business. I prefer reading to chatting. And that’s precisely what I did for almost the entirety of a recent flight from Manchester, New Hampshire, to Detroit. Nothing out of the ordinary here. It’s my usual pattern. And it generally works, if one avoids eye contact and small talk right from the start. My motto is “Settle in, buckle up, and shut down.” If this routine is broken, if so much as a nod is made in the direction of the person next to you, it could be all over. Pretty soon you’re talking about the flight. Then it’s the weather, and once you’ve hit that subject the conversation could lead anywhere—and usually does. And then, before you know it, you’re landing.

On this particular flight all went according to plan until just prior to landing. At that point my young seat mate interrupted my reading to ask a small favor. Could I help her with her connecting flight to Indianapolis? Of course, I replied. (I’m not that unsociable.)

Well, as might be expected, this brief exchange led to a bit more conversation. I soon learned that she had never flown before. And then I learned a little bit more than I wanted to know.

Having noticed that she had been working on a school assignment, I asked her if she was heading home from college for Thanksgiving. She giggled slightly at what I soon learned was my partial error. Yes, she was going home to see her family, but, no, she was not a college student. “I’m still in high school,” she went on. And then without benefit of another question from she went on a little further to tell me that she had left her family in Indiana to live with her boy friend in New Hampshire!

At that point I had any number of questions that I wanted to ask. Not to mention any number of things I wanted to say. But instead I kept quiet.

Why was I suddenly silent? Not because I wanted to return to my reading. It was much too late in the flight—and in the conversation—for that. And not because I wanted to pretend that I had not heard what I had just heard.

In part, I was too stunned to reply. But I was also too cowardly. Cowardly? Yes, cowardly. To be sure, I quickly rifled through all of the usual excuses. It’s none of my business, I told myself. And it wasn’t. Besides, she’s a perfect stranger. Which she was. And of course, there was too little time. Which was—and wasn’t—true.

So there you have it. A sad commentary, twice over, on the state of affairs in early 21st century America. A teen-aged high school-going girl can think nothing of moving in with her boy friend half way across the country. And that same teen can think nothing of telling a perfect stranger of this arrangement.

Did her parents know, I wondered. Did they approve? If not, were they speaking to her? If so, were they helping her? And if so, why?

Answers to any or all of those questions might have led to more questions—and not a few comments—from me. But that was that. I was left with my questions unasked and unanswered. In sum, I was left to wonder what she was doing with her life. And she was left to wonder how she would find her way to her next flight.

Lest you think I had been stunned into complete silence, I did my duty as a fellow passenger (even if I didn’t do my duty as a fellow human being and surrogate in-flight parent). I escorted her to the right monitor, pointed her in the right direction, sent her on her way, and wished her well. (Yes, I am that sociable—and that cowardly).

As to helping her find her way in other right directions? On that score I proved totally useless. All I could do was trudge off to my own connecting flight, that brief human connection gone forever.

And all I can do now is wonder what will happen to that young girl with her high school math book and her live-in boy friend. And when I don’t find myself wondering about her, I wonder about the future of a country that produces lost souls that don’t even know that they are lost.

How could she be lost? After all, she was diligently doing her homework. She was traveling to see her family. And she has at least one someone whom she presumably has some reason to think cares deeply about her.

I have to assume that she found her way . . . to her immediate destination. But did she find her way home? And where might that home be? Any such thoughts were probably not on her mind as she prepared to land in Detroit.

In all likelihood, such questions have not been on the minds of most American teens today or any day. After all, there once was a time when virtually every young person knew where home was. That’s no doubt less the case today. Nonetheless, most teens do know where home is—even as go about the inevitable business of making that sometimes messy transition to adulthood and establishing a home of their own. But what about this less than inevitable business of making a mess of things while still a teen and pretending to be an adult? Here’s where she has failed. But then so have the real adults in her life—including those who happened to flit in and out of hers ever so briefly.

The papers here make no mention of the start of this important anniversary. There are no parades or flags or solemn ceremonies to commemorate this important Battle. I doubt a single public high school class studies it. Probably only a handful of public school teachers, many of whom were born in the 1970s or later, could even name the battle, even if you gave them hints--

World War II.

The battle Churchill called the greatest American battle of the War, fought for a brutal month and more, during the most frozen winter in living memory.

This, the largest land battle in which the United States participated during the War, was fought in the Ardennes, on the border between Belgium and Germany, from December 16th, 1944 through January 25th, 1945.

Probably, most of us who belong to the Most Ungrateful Generation, Baby Boomers like me, cannot identify the Battle of the Bulge. Or perhaps the phrase is familiar as a movie title, or a punch line about weight loss (for we are sybaritic as well as ungrateful). But only rarely do we remember it as we should, as an all-too-real battle that marked a turning point in the War. The Battle of the Bulge marked the point at which it became clear that freedom would win over tyranny, the beginning of the very end for the Nazis, who surrendered May 7th, 1945.

When it comes to ignorance of World War II, I'm as guilty as the rest of my generation, or nearly so, my knowledge of World War II confined to the experience of those close to me, especially my father. I know only about those battles in which my father took part, only about the countries he served in, about only a few of the people who met, whose lives he touched and whose lives touched him.

I know a little about the Battle of the Bulge largely because my father took part in it, and because I loved and admired him. A gentle man, an artist and scholar by nature and a blue-collar laborer by fate, my father was a patriot who always stood when he heard the National Anthem. I can still see him now, unaware I'd lingered at the door, silently remarking him standing straight and so tall, alone in our living room, standing at attention while the National Anthem played, until the last note died away in the still heat of our 4th-floor walkup.

My father always stood up and stood tall, never for an audience, always conscious of moral principle. He was one of those now rare men who always strive to do what is right and honorable irrespective on any audience, and often in spite of an audience. It's hard to convince today's media-cynicized youth that there were such men, that most families in America and in Britain wanted and expected their sons to know what was the right thing to do, and to do it--and, should they fail to do what is right, to feel guilty about and ashamed of that failure.

(Three cheers for shame and guilt, I say, those much-maligned guides on the road to morality. How can you feel proud of your good acts, if you're not capable of feeling heartily ashamed of the bad?)

My father was a member of what Boomers now call the Greatest Generation, an appellation he would have found embarrassing, and would have agreed is just plain wrong.

For him, and for me, the Greatest Generation isn't made up of the heroes of the Battle of the Bulge, nor even our friend who survived, barely, the Bataan Death March, nor even my beloved Uncle Ben Andruszkewicz, who lost a lung and lifelong dreams of a Navy career when he was blown down a hatch on the Arizona, along with the fellow sailors who'd nicknamed him Ben A to Z, nor hundreds of thousands of the other great, good men who saved civilization from the insatiable appetites of the tyrants and fanatics of Germany and Japan.

The men of the Greatest Generation were great men, indeed.

But the truly Greatest Generation, in Dad's estimation and mine, is the Generation most mocked or, at best, forgotten, these days, the Generation who reared the men who did these great things, the parents who instilled their values in and brought up the boys who became the soldiers of World War II.

The Greatest Generation was the Americans and the British of the late Victorian and the Edwardian Periods, those parents who instilled honor in their sons and courage in their daughters, and the belief in all their children that preserving Western Civilization from whatever enemy threatened it which, for the World War II Generation, was fascism and imperial Japan, was worth any sacrifice. And they believed that faith, Christian faith, was the cornerstone of individual liberty, of individual rights, and the foundation of a culture worth dying to preserve. Their Christianity was a faith worth living by; though "Onward Christian Soldiers" was a song of the Sally Ann and thus not of the upper crust---a strong, masculine Christianity that crossed classes and reinforced virtues like charity, honor, and self-sacrifice.

So those of us who are wont to pray, let us pray tonight to honor the men of World War II, men like my dad, Harry Powers.

And let us also give thanks for the parents who reared these heroes.

And let us pray that we and our children and our children's children have the courage to emulate those parents who gave the world such remarkable men.

Arnold Schwarzenegger told a German newspaper this past Saturday that, “I would like the Republican Party to cross this line, move a little further left and place more weight on the center.” But what exactly is that “line” the Governator wants the GOP to cross? According to USA Today, it means rights for gays, abortion on demand, ethically-questionable stem-cell research, and overly intrusive environmental regulation.

I guess the 2004 presidential election and the numerous amendments passed banning gay marriage taught Schwarzenegger nothing. For as much as I respect the Governor and continue to remain in awe of his incredible speech at the Republican convention in New York, I believe it a mistake for the Republican Party to come off its rails on the social issues. Remember that former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, won the presidency twice on a pro-life platform that brought Southern Dixiecrats to the polls for the GOP. And George W. Bush did the same in 2004, enlarging that coalition with socially conservative Hispanics and evangelicals. Here’s a message to Arnold: the GOP doesn’t need California to win the presidency and they don’t “need” you either to retain their majority status.

Why doesn’t the so-called “center” for which the Governor speaks include respect for life and marriage? No matter one’s opinion on such issues, the majority of Americans, by re-electing President Bush and providing Republicans large majorities in Congress, obviously agree with the party “line” on some, if not most, social issues. Therefore, I urge Governor Schwarzenegger, if he is serious about running for President and waging a campaign to allow foreign-born citizens to run for our nation’s highest office, to move a little further right and place more weight on the real “center.”

Dennis Prager reminds us of what religious pluralism means in America.

Only in America does a president light a menorah while a Jewish choral group sings Hebrew songs and the Marine band plays American songs. Only in America do Jews feel so honored as Jews and yet so completely part of the larger culture, fully Jewish and fully part of the greater nationality. Non-American Jews (including even Canadians) are often amazed at how completely American Jews in the U.S. feel. We take it for granted, but as a former college lecturer in Jewish history, I know that this is unique.

George W. Bush beat a couple of historical jinxes on November 2nd. He not only put to rest the Washington Redskin hex, but he also became the first of our four father-son presidents to run for reelection and win. Given the history of the Adamses and Bushes, this is somewhat amazing. After all, there are plenty of historical reasons to think that this president would have joined this star-crossed threesome.

Let’s begin with the first member of this exclusive club. In 1796 John Adams might have set a precedent, but didn’t. Our first vice-president became the first vice-president to move directly to the presidency by virtue of winning the office on his own. Since then, that particular progression has transpired only three times since, most recently in 1988 when the first Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan. Just in case anyone is curious, the other two were Martin Van Buren and Thomas Jefferson. Then there is Al Gore who is still convinced that he should have been the fourth.

Actually, Gore’s defeat can be partially explained by turning to another dimension of the Adams-Bush parallel. John Adams and George Bush each succeeded a presidential titan. Just as the first Adams won the third term that George Washington renounced, so the first Bush secured the third term that Ronald Reagan was constitutionally ineligible to contest. For that matter, Martin Van Buren followed another such titan, “King Andrew” Jackson. Poor Al Gore. This Tennessean is not just a poor excuse for a Tennessee titan, but he had the unenviable task of running as the lapdog of a poor excuse for a presidential titan.

While we’re not through with the role of these Tennesseans in the political lives of the Adamses and Bushes, let’s concentrate for now on the less-than-successful presidencies of the Adams and the Bush who did not defeat a Tennessean. Once in office, the first President Adams and the first President Bush proved to be equally and surprisingly inept. This should not necessarily have been so. Adams, after all, had been a considerable presence at the creation of 1776 before holding crucial diplomatic posts and achieving high elective office. The resume of Bush the elder is not exactly of Adamite proportions, but it is lengthy (if mostly appointive) nonetheless. Included on his list of credits was a stint as CIA Director, a post he accepted despite misgivings that it would cost him dearly if and when he ever made a bid for the presidency. Actually, “when” had long been the operative word for George Herbert Walker Bush.

Here the Adams I-Bush I parallel breaks down a bit, even as it curiously connects to a similar discontinuity in the Adams II-Bush II stories. The first Bush presumed that he would one day be a presidential candidate. In fact, it would be fair to say that at some point well before 1980 Bush I began to thirst after and prepare for the White House. By all accounts, the first Adams was not driven by similar thirsts. Nor did he make anything approaching similar plans.

And the second Adams? He may have been prepared for the office, but he did not exactly thirst for it. And Bush II? By his own admission, time spent slaking other thirsts crowded out any White House dreams and certainly cut into any presidential preparation efforts.

In no substantive sense was Bush II groomed for the office he now holds—unless running a barely minor league oil company and owning a barely major league baseball team amount to dress rehearsals for the White House. For that matter, John Quincy Adams was not precisely groomed to be president either. Certainly, he was not groomed as an Al Gore was groomed. Perhaps this was so because his father had actually been president and therefore sought to spare his son the inevitable headaches, heartaches, and failures.

To be sure, John Quincy Adams was groomed to be a patriot and a public servant in the best sense of each term. And perhaps that’s the best grooming that anyone could ever have for public office, high or otherwise. Certainly it’s far better than anything the senior Gore (and frustrated presidential aspirant) ever managed to pass along to his son.

But if both Adamses and the first Bush were well-prepared and well-groomed, politically speaking, each was less than effective once the office was his. A good part of the ineffectiveness of the Adamses is explained by their distaste for politics, which no doubt was a reflection of their aristocratic pretensions (which belied the family’s plebian origins). Distasteful isn’t quite the right word to describe the attitude of the patrician Bush to the great game of politics. Disinterested might be, but uninterested would be better. If both Adamses thought they were above the political game, Bush I could not disguise his boredom with it.

Of course, it could be argued that the games of politics and governance are not one and the same. Certainly Adlai Stevenson thought they were different, and look where it got him. Both Adamses also thought so, and while they advanced a notch higher on that ultimate greasy pole, look what it got them: four years of near-total failure and (the same) four years of near-complete frustration.

In the case of the two Adamses, failure and frustration were traceable in part to their less than sunny dispositions, which no doubt had something to do with their ineptness when it came to engaging in the great game of politics. The Bushes may share a New England ancestry with the Adamses, but they do not share the dour Adams temperament. If anything, each Bush may well be handicapped by an excess of sunshine in his psychological life. Whether this difference between the two families is part of the larger story of the decline and fall of the New England WASP or is a side effect of too much Texas success for transplanted New Englanders is interesting to speculate about, but ultimately beside the point
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What is to the point is that their very different psyches and completely different personalities left them equally adrift when it came to dealing with politicians whose will power and general stick-to-it-ive-ness proved to be a good deal stronger than their own. This version of the other great American game of hardball does not come naturally to those with a tendency to sulk and withdraw (the Adamses) or smile and backslap (the Bushes). Some of the above applies all too well to three of the four one-term presidents. But in the end little, if any, of it has applied to the fourth
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Still, the parallels ought to have been worrisome to this President Bush. And parallels there were. Adams I and Bush I both married women of considerable political talent and backbone. Abigail Adams was at least her husband’s equal in the talent department; and Barbara Bush remains more than her husband’s equal when it comes to measuring the density and stiffness of the family spine. Fortunately, Barbara Bush’s eldest son is also his mother’s son. George W. Bush revealed as much in his convention acceptance speech, and he has demonstrated as much both in office and in this fall’s campaign. In short, this man of ready grin has proven to be a man of grit and bluntness. Which is to say, his penchant for backslapping should not be taken for the absence of a backbone.

Nonetheless, the parallels refused to go away. Adams I and Bush I each faced similar tests of their talent and tenacity in that each faced a significant political challenge from a dissident wing of his own party. For Adams, it was the High Federalists, who foisted a “quasi-war” with France and the Alien and Sedition Acts on him. For Bush, it was the Buchananites, who brought most of the darkness into his mostly sunny days. If Adams stood accused by Hamiltonians of being insufficiently Federalist when it came to dealing with the French navy abroad and French sympathizers at home, Bush stood accused of being insufficiently conservative when it came to dealing with everything from taxes to the culture war.

The fact that the second Bush had no organized intra-party challenge separated him from both his father and other recent incumbents. Witness not just the elder Bush’s 1992 defeat, but the fate of Jimmy Carter (after the Ted Kennedy challenge) and that of the Democrats in 1968. In recent decades only Richard Nixon was able to withstand a primary opponent, and a relatively minor one at that (John Ashbrook), and secure reelection.

Nor did Bush the Younger face what the second Adams encountered when he bid for a second term, namely an angry Tennessean who thought he’d been cheated out of the prize four years earlier. First there was the “corrupt bargain” of 1824 (when John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay cut their infamous deal to deny the presidency to Andrew Jackson, who had won a plurality of both the popular and electoral vote). Then there were the hanging chads of 2000 and another Tennessean who thought he had reason to feel that he had been done in by not just one but two sons of a former president.

If John Quincy Adams were around today, he might be inclined to mutter to Al Gore, “I knew Andrew Jackson, and you’re no Andrew Jackson.” And, of course, he’d be right. Still, had Al Gore chosen to enter this race the parallels would have been even more apt. Then again, this facet of the parallel extends no further than that both were—or (at least in the case of Gore claimed to be)—Tennesseans.

In the end Bush won not because he did not have to face a re-match with a Tennessean, but because he was the Tennessean (that is to say, the Jacksonian) in this race. The term “Jacksonian Republican” may seem oxymoronic, but it shouldn’t be, especially when the matter at hand is foreign policy, and most especially in post-9/11 America. The original Jackson, after all, would have preferred to leave the rest of the world alone, but having fought the English and the Spanish, he knew that his country had enemies and he was always ready to rally his countrymen to defeat them. More than that, he believed in America’s manifest destiny and embodied American exceptionalism.

It goes without saying that George Bush’s America is not Andrew Jackson’s America and that today’s America is inevitably much more in the world. It also goes without saying that today’s America faces not just enemies, but enemies much more evil and much more dangerous than those of Andy Jackson’s era.

The Democrats of 2004 did not be obliging the Adams-Bush parallel by nominating a second Tennessean a second time. But in John Kerry they provided the GOP with a Gore-like opponent (is there any other?). This opponent and his party of course pretended to look evil in the eye, but together the Democrats made it quite clear that they were determined to leave evil alone as they looked forward to the day when America will little more than an appendage of western Europe and an agent of the UN. In sum, today’s Democrats neither believe in America’s manifest destiny nor assert American exceptionalism.

No, the Andy Jackson would not be welcome in today’s Democratic party. Jackson, remember, was a hater, but a hater who reserved his most intense animosity for enemies abroad, especially the English, the Spanish, and, yes, the native peoples—and not for his domestic political opponents, not even for John Quincy Adams. And today’s Democrats? Let’s just say that they have a very different set of priorities in mind when they go about composing their enemies list. Let’s also say that anyone who thinks and acts like the original Jackson would certainly be on it.

By the way, whatever has happened to those Democratic Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners of yesteryear?? No doubt they have gone the way not just of Andy Jackson Democrats, but of “Scoop” Jackson Democrats as well. All of which left an opening for the second Bush to be the real Jacksonian in this race.

Ironic as it may be, Bush II won reelection by breaking with the Adams-Bush parallel twice over. If the second Adams lost to a Jackson, the second Bush won by being Jacksonian—and by defeating a candidate from the Adamses state of Massachusetts in the process. Having won a second term doesn’t mean that this Bush should stop smiling, good guying, and backslapping, all of which come naturally to this brand of New Englander-turned-Texan. But it does mean that the president must make sure that his countrymen, as well as his country’s enemies, understand that he means business in precisely the same way that the Andy Jackson meant business.

That George W. Bush was reelected is solid evidence that his countrymen do understand him. This is probably true of many who did not vote for him. They may not agree with him; they dislike him and even hate him; but some of them grudgingly understand what he is about. Will the rest of the world follow? If so, this son of a former president will not just have that elusive second term, but he will have a second four years of great consequence. Before it’s all over George W. Bush may well be a presidential titan of the sort that both Adamses and the first Bush followed.

Athletes as politicians? It’s not exactly a new phenomenon. But wrestler and body builders as governors? That is new. First there was Jesse (The Body) Ventura who became Jesse (The Governor of Minnesota) Ventura in 1998. Now we have Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is this is simply be one small step from 2nd rate professional wrestler to 1st rank professional bodybuilder? If so, there’s no great cause for concern. But something else is afoot here.

Ventura and Schwarzenegger represent a specious form of libertarianism by way of offering voters a beguiling combination of social liberal and economic conservative (henceforth SLIBECONs). Underneath Jesse’s gleaming dome was this message: Democrats interfere in your private economic lives too much, so vote for me and I’ll get government off your over-taxed back; Republicans interfere in your personal lives too much, so vote for me and you’ll be free to do whatever you wish when you’re on your back.

Strip away the Terminator Persona and what do you have but Jesse’s message California-ized. But you have something else as well. You now also have the culture war alive and well within the GOP. It was one thing for a 3rd rate celebrity running as a 3rd party candidate in a 2nd tier state to win a single gubernatorial term by selling himself as a SLIBECON. It’s quite something else again when the SLIBECON in question is the highly popular Republican governor of California. Then add former New York Mayor—and future GOP presidential candidate (?)—Rudy Giuliani, not to mention Senator Arlen Specter, to the mix.

SLIBECONs claim to be models of consistency. Orthodox Republicans, they tell us, are rightly suspicious of government when it comes to marketplace issues, but wrongly sympathetic to government when it comes to “privacy” issues. Democrats, on the other hand, leave us to our own devices in the bedroom, but not in the boardroom.

SLIBECONs also claim to favor a two party system which, on domestic issues, breaks down neatly along pro-government and anti-government lines. Such a division already exists. In point of fact the Republican party is the consistent “let it be” party—at least they tend to be, which is pretty much all that can be expected of a major national party (as opposed to the Libertarian party).

Still, the SLIBECON temptation is a real one—and a seemingly attractive one as well. How often have I heard people identify themselves as social liberals and economic conservatives, as in “cut out the moralizing and cut my taxes and you’ve got my vote.”

And at what is all this moralizing directed? Let’s be honest. The bulk of SLIBECON anti-moralizing is devoted to issues revolving around homosexuality and abortion. Should the Republican party take the SLIBECON route and abandon its opposition to the gay rights agenda and finally embrace Roe v Wade? In a word, no.

If anything, the GOP of today should take a page from the infant Republican party of 1856. In its first platform what would soon become the party of Lincoln boldly condemned the “twin relics of barbarism, slavery and polygamy.” Today’s Republicans could adopt a similar stance. If it still wants to be thought of as the party of Lincoln, the GOP could—and should—condemn the “twin exemplars of modernism, abortion and gay marriage.”

That line lacks the ring of the 1856 version, but it would help halt any GOP slide into SLIBECONism and open the way for Republicans to make the honest case that it is the “let it be” party, whether the subject is the bedroom or the boardroom . . . or taxes period.

In truth, today’s Democratic party is the big government party, save the most legitimate arena for big government action, namely national defense. But Democrats of recent vintage have preferred to use the federal government for lesser objectives. Among those objectives are the preservation of abortion rights. Having long defended the judicially imposed nationalization of the right to an abortion, they are now prepared to use that branch of government to advance the gay rights agenda as well.

The overheated rhetoric of the gay rights lobby aside, Republicans have no interest in breaking down bedroom doors and peering inside. Nor are they out to stop consenting adults from behaving as, well, as consenting adults. Despite the charges of the Democrats, they do not even seek to “legislate morality.” If anything, it is the Democrats who are determined to legislate a new morality, whether by redefining the family or by criminalizing (as homophobic hate speech) any opposition to the gay rights agenda.

On the abortion question, Republicans ought to be the states’ rights party. Here irony intrudes. In the 1850s Democrat Stephen Douglas challenged Lincoln Republicans under the banner of “popular sovereignty”: Let the voters of each territory decide between slavery and freedom. Today the Republicans could be the popular sovereignty-ites of the abortion debate: “Let each state legislature write its own laws in reference to the unborn.”

Lincoln opposed popular sovereignty because he wanted to contain slavery and set it on the road to “ultimate extinction.” Today’s Republicans ought to favor popular sovereignty in the name of putting legal abortion on a similar road to oblivion.

Today’s Democrats hide behind the mantra of choice when they defend the nationalization of abortion. Does de-nationalizing the abortion question constitute a step toward an intrusive big government? Hardly. If anything, it is a step toward democratic choice.

Where does all this leave SLIBECONs? They’re welcome under the GOP tent, but once inside they should be persuaded that they are mistaken. They should be permitted to voice their views—and hold their views. But they should not be able to paint GOP social conservatives as intrusive, anti-homosexual Puritans (when all the social conservatives are saying is leave people alone). Nor should they see the GOP as the anti-choice party (when all social conservatives are saying is give choice a legislative chance). Finally, SLIBECONs are mistaken if they think that American greatness can be sustained by SLIBECONism. Need we look any further than a dying western Europe? A country which discourages homosexuality (but ultimately lets it be) has a chance to maintain its greatness. So does a country which encourages and protects life. But a country which encourages homosexuality and discourages life will not long maintain its greatness.

Nor will it remain prosperous. SLIBECONism may mean a comfortable life today and tomorrow. But the demographic bill will eventually come due. If SLIBECONs understand no other argument, they should grasp this one—unless they’re so bent on pursuing their own self-interest and immediate self-gratification that they’re blind to what’s in the nation’s best long term interests.

There is, after all, a very real connection between strong families and the strength of a nation. If SLIBECONs fail to grasp this, there is no basis for a shotgun marriage with the GOP—and little long term hope for America, no matter how many bicep-bulging governors we elect.

Bill Moyers, the thinking man's Jimmy Carter, is retiring from PBS, an outfit he learned to milk to the tune of millions of dollars over the past 30 or so years. And while Tom Shales can't resist one last paen to the man who gave us LBJ's "Daisy" commercial, an FBI investigation of MLK, Jr., and the anti-Semite Joseph Cambell, we shouldn't let that stop us from joining in the rejoicing.

Shales's friends might want to insist that he take a drug test after reading this:

Bill Moyers has always taken the high road, but it got a little lonely up there. In a country where political discourse grows ever more shrill, his voice was more and more easily drowned out. Last night, at the age of 70 and on the eve of his 50th wedding anniversary, Bill Moyers took the high road home.

Or: His is one of the few liberal voices left in broadcasting, it seems, and his insistence on being armed with facts to support his opinions left him at something of a disadvantage when dealing with people who think the way to win an argument is to scream the loudest. Moyers represented reason, deliberation, serious questioning of the status quo and, especially, standing as firmly as possible against government encroachment into Americans' private lives.

I guess Shales had this kind of speech in mind when he wrote that:

These ideologues at Heritage and elsewhere, by the way, earlier this year teamed up with deep-pocket bankers--many from Texas, with ties to the Bush White House--to stop America from cracking down on terrorist money havens. How about that for patriotism? Better that terrorists get their dirty money than tax cheaters be prevented from hiding theirs. And these people wrap themselves in the flag and sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" with gusto.

And: If I sound a little bitter about this, I am; the President rightly appeals every day for sacrifice. But to these mercenaries sacrifice is for suckers. So I am bitter, yes, and sad. Our business and political class owes us better than this. After all, it was they who declared class war twenty years ago, and it was they who won. They're on top. If ever they were going to put patriotism over profits, if ever they were going to practice the magnanimity of winners, this was the moment. To hide now behind the flag while ripping off a country in crisis fatally separates them from the common course of American life.

Lowell Pointe wrote a great essay on Moyers this past week, and it's so filled with examples of Moyers's perfidy that I won't try to mine it. And don't miss Scott Ott's piece entitled, "Bill Moyers Retires, Fails to Leave Void."

But let's close with some observations by Brian Phillips from a 1999 issue of The New Republic, "Shiny Happy People," a review of some of Moyers's poetry.

What is distinctive about the new book is the extent to which it is steeped in toxins to which poetry is often considered an antidote: the drone of television, the vacancies of incomplete thinking, the banality and the sentimentality of "folksiness." The book is cluttered with the kind of pseudo-intellectual populism that has marked Moyers for a long time, and that characterizes so much of what passes for intelligent TV programming these days. The Dodge Festival is described as "the Woodstock of poetry." Moyers warmly recalls eating cookies and milk while his high school English teacher read to him from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Moyers likes poetry because it sounds pretty, and he discerns in it the promise of a world without conflict: "At the poetry festival, the joy lasts, poets are cheered, and everyone wins."

Moyers's prose is at its worst in his introductory sketches, where he plumbs depths of cheap sentiment and corny stereotyping previously reserved for Olympic sports commentary. Moyers is the Bob Costas of the American poetry world: he is the ultimate fan. Describing Paul Muldoon, an Irish poet who lives and teaches in America, Moyers offers this condescending gem of a summation:

[T]he moment Paul Muldoon starts reading, you hear echoes of his country's history in his voice. The puckish wit and furrowed melancholy sail side by side like ships of the same fleet.... Later will come the sorrows and troubles of his roots in the tragic land that has so borne the brunt of history. For now, your imagination is fired by poetical mischief as delightful as the laughter of leprechauns dancing in the forest.

The book is riddled with such passages, which provide Saturday morning cartoons of national and ethnic identities in the apparent belief that readers will find them winning.

Robert A. George recently reviewed They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators, by Harold Evans with Gail Buckland and David Lefer.

Is America a nation? Or is it a people? Or is it an idea? These questions have been debated at least from the nation's founding.

Harold Evans' "They Made America" makes the more nuanced argument that America is actually a nation of people with ideas.

I agree with a point George picks up: The key word here is innovation — not "invention." It's an important distinction because one thing that comes through is that a key aspect of American ingenuity is not just having the smarts or technical know-how to produce something, but also the creativity to sell it.

Wilfred McClay offered a incisive look into this question a few years ago in The Public Interest. His article, "America: Idea or Nation?" is available here.

Hugo Chavez has cemented his hold on Venezuela and continues to build a socieity modeled after the disaster created by his hero, Fidel Castro. Today's L.A. Times (registration) runs an editorial that rightly comdemns his dictatorial rule. It errs, however, in overlooking the corrupt nature of last August's election, merely mentioning that after "winning," Chavez is "emboldened."

Still, we're waiting for the day a similar editorial will run in the New York Times.

Via Glenn Reynolds, Lileks has a post on the increasingly underground nature of Christmas you won't want to miss:

Maybe it's just me. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive. But when I wish a store clerk "Merry Christmas!" they often appear stunned and flummoxed for a moment, as if I've just blabbed the plans for the underground's sabotage of the train tracks in front of the secret police.

And: I spent yesterday at the Mall, and the word "Christmas" was nowhere in sight - except for the signs that detailed the holiday store hours.

They were closed on Christmas, for some peculiar reason.

I don't think we've ever had two postings on Lincoln on the same day, but I can't help but marvel at Dinitia Smith's fawning pseudo-review of The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, to be published next month. It was written by the late C. A. Tripp, who, we're told, was "a psychologist, influential gay writer and former sex researcher for Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey."

That's important to know, because Tripp had the uncanny ability to discern what small-fry scholars like Carl Sandberg were trying to say, but couldn't; or wanted to think, but didn't know how. Or something:

Mr. Tripp was the author of "The Homosexual Matrix," a 1975 book that disputed the Freudian notion of homosexuality as a personality disorder. In this new book, he says that early biographers of Lincoln, including Carl Sandburg, sensed Lincoln's homosexuality. In the preface to the original multi-volume edition of his acclaimed 1926 biography, Sandburg wrote: "Month by month in stacks and bundles of fact and legend, I found invisible companionships that surprised me. Perhaps a few of these presences lurk and murmur in this book."

Sandburg also wrote that Lincoln and Joshua Speed had "streaks of lavender, spots soft as May violets." Mr. Tripp said that references to Lincoln's possible homosexuality were cut in the 1954 abridged version of the biography. Mr. Tripp maintains that other writers, including Ida Tarbell and Margaret Leech, also found evidence of Lincoln's homosexuality but shied away from defining it as such or omitted crucial details.

Ah, that insight discovered only through the science of psychology!

But wait, as they say on TV! There's more!

Mr. Tripp cites Lincoln's extreme privacy and accounts by those who knew him well. "He was not very fond of girls, as he seemed to me," his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, told Lincoln's law partner William Herndon. In addition, Lincoln was terrified of marriage to Mary Todd and once broke off their relationship. They eventually had four children.

And more! Mr. Tripp charts Lincoln's relationships with other men, including Billy Greene, with whom Lincoln supposedly shared a bed in New Salem, Ill. Herndon said Greene told him that Lincoln's thighs "were as perfect as a human being Could be."

Then there is Lincoln's youthful humorous ballad from 1829, "First Chronicles of Reuben," in which he refers to a man named Biley marrying another man named Natty: "but biley has married a boy/ the girles he had tried on every Side/ but none could he get to agree/ all was in vain he went home again/and sens that he is married to natty."

As to why none of Lincoln's contemporaries said such things about him, Tripp had a ready explanation: The question of Lincoln's sexuality is complicated by the fact that the word homosexual did not find its way into print in English until 1892 and that "gayness" is very much a modern concept.

Well, then, why stop at old Abe? Why not toss in Thomas Jefferson, whose sex life is already the subject of much discussion and debate. After all, I've never read anything by his contemporaries suggesting he was gay, so he must have been. Ditto Washington, Lee, Grant (let's be ecumenical), Hamilton (have you ever considered the real reason Burr shot him?), FDR (those marriage problems, you know), JFK (ditto).

Then again, I can't claim to have researched anything in life the way Tripp said he researched Lincoln:

The author, who died in 2003, two weeks after finishing the book, subjected almost every word ever written by and about Lincoln to minute analysis.

My, that's quite a lot of work. If you Google "Abraham Lincoln," you'll get 3,310,000 returns. You'll get 2,514 results from Amazon. And of course, as Google knows very well, most scholarship isn't in electronic form yet.

David Herbert Donald, the dean of Lincoln studies, finds Tripp's charges untrue, and the writer Philip Nobile called it a "fraud."

But now that a deceased student of Alfred Kinsey, of all creatures, has come up with this, there remains another key question: will a professional Lincoln hater like Thomas DiLorenzo follow the example of his fellow far-right brethren and align himself with the latest addled theory from the far left?

[Note: Today it is my pleasure to introduce a new blogger at Democracy Project, John C. "Chuck" Chalberg. Chuck teaches American history at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN. He's the author of Emma Goldman: American Individualist, a volume in the Library of American Biography series, and of Rickey and Robinson: The Preacher, the Player, and America's Game, a dual biography of baseball greats Branch Rickey and Jackey Robinson. To boot, he performs one-man shows as Teddy Roosevelt, G.K. Chesterton, H.L. Mencken, and Branch Rickey. Welcome, Chuck! Winfield Myers]

John Kerry as Abe Lincoln? Well, why not. After all, since November 2nd much has been made of the connections between the blue states and the states that Lincoln carried in 1860 and 1864. The parallels are there, superficial though they may be. Both are height and hair-advantaged. Both are angular and craggy-faced. Both had brief and somewhat controversial war records. And both married up. Because Kerry managed that feat twice, it’s also the case that when each man ran for president he was saddled with a wife who could most charitably be described as a loose cannon. That about covers it.

Oh yes, there is this allegedly not too small matter of the northern tier states (minus Ohio) that Lincoln and Kerry won 140 years apart. On the face of it, this parallel cannot be denied. And had Kerry carried Ohio the parallel would have been complete come January 20, 2005 and the inauguration of another tall, well-thatched, and well-lined president.

Among the northern Lincoln-Kerry states is our own Minnesota. Ah, we Minnesotans can crow, at least we did the right thing—thrice! After all, Lincoln took the state twice and Kerry once. With confidence, not to mention condescension, we can take pride in knowing that, while the country erred on November 2nd, we voted for the Lincoln in this race. If only that were true . . .

The painful truth is that the parallel works better the other way. Let’s begin with a seeming superficiality: the baboon and the chimp. To the east coast elite of the 1850s—and 1860s—Abe Lincoln was just that, a “baboon.” He was a rough-hewn, ill-educated interloper from the west who was embarrassingly out of his element in polite society. What’s the title of one of those innumerable anti-Bush websites? Smirkingchimp.com. And who looks down on this ignorant cowboy but that same east coast elite (that now has a bookend on the other coast)?

To be sure, this country’s IS (intellectual snob) quotient was much smaller back then, but the ISers of the 1850s—and 1860s—were generally anti-Lincoln. And they were essentially Democratic. After all, how could really smart folks be comfortable in a party filled with religious yahoos who thought that such things as slavery and booze ought to be reigned in, if not eliminated. No one talked of the religious right or left in the middle of the 19th century, but no one doubted that evangelical religion was the engine that drove the Republican party.

Come 1864 those same really smart Democrats thought it would be a bright idea to run a military man against President Lincoln. John Kerry meet George McClellan. Actually, if Lt. John F. Kerry could be compared with any Lincoln-era political figure, it would be Gen. George C. McClellan. A similar comparison might be made between the Democratic party of 1864 and the Democrats of 2004.

In 1864 the Democrats ran a general whom Lincoln had fired on a platform that promised to restore the Union and preserve slavery. In doing so, they claimed to be spurning the cut-and-run wing of their party, namely the Peace Democrats who were prepared to let the South go. But why would the South have wanted to go, if it could retain its “peculiar institution.” In 2004 Kerry managed a similar trick. He silenced dovish Democrats, while claiming that he would fight the war in Iraq more diligently and, of course, more intelligently. Would he have done so? Or would he have abandoned what he called the “wrong war.” Who knows?

The best guess is that a President Kerry would have taken the latter route, and sooner rather than later, because that course was (and remains) the preference of most Democrats, most especially the elites on each coast. And pleasing elites was as important to John Kerry as it was to George McClellan (who, by the way, lost the soldier vote as badly as Kerry did).

Lincoln, on the other hand, persevered in the face of ceaseless scorn from the elites (some within his own party) of his day. And because he persevered the Union was saved and slavery was abolished. As a result, it would not be too much to say that the North (Minnesota included) saved this country in the middle of the 19th century.

At the moment, Bush is persevering as well. Whether the issue is Iraq or abortion or stem cell research, he is persevering in the face of ferocious scorn from elites everywhere. Like Lincoln, George Bush was never an altar boy. Like Lincoln, Bush came to be a man of faith later in his life. How could the president who used his Second Inaugural Address to tell his fellow countrymen that the Civil War was God’s punishment for the sin of slavery not have been a man of religion?

Lincoln’s commitment to ending slavery grew stronger as he grew older—and as he grew more religious. But his opposition to slavery was always there. “If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong,” said the Lincoln of the 1850s. Slavery must be put on the road to “ultimate extinction,” stated Lincoln in his debates with Stephen Douglas.

George Bush has been less than Lincolnian in his statements on abortion. But he has been much more Lincolnian than Kerry on this great moral issue of our day. And no one knows that better than his pro-choice enemies who fear that chipping away at the right to an abortion will set it on the road to ultimate extinction. Kerry, altar boy or no, sounds like one of those mealy-mouthed southerners (and northerners) whose position on slavery was “personally opposed, but . . .”

A democratic Iraq is a long way off. So is a peaceful and generally prosperous Middle East. The same can be said about any reversal of Roe v Wade. Victory over the Confederacy and an end to slavery were much, much closer in 1864 than any of the above is in 2004. And yet, if President Bush perseveres as Lincoln did, all of that and more might someday transpire. If so, it might someday be said that the South, and not the North, saved America during the course of the 21st century.

A study by two female graduate students in the UK purports to prove that a high correlation between facial hair and tenured professorships reveals discrimination against women, according to the Daily Telegraph.

While 10.5 per cent of lecturers were bewhiskered, the figure rose to 13.6 per cent for senior lecturers, 16.7 per cent for readers and 21.4 per cent for professors.

However, one well-known bearded professor, Sir Alec Jeffreys, said yesterday: "I grew my beard back in 1968, out of laziness and to cover a sulphuric acid burn on my jaw incurred during a home experiment that went awry."

Hmmm. I wore a beard for 15 years, but shaved it a couple of years after my last teaching job. Although it didn't seem to do me much good, I've toyed with the idea of letting it grow back. The bearded academic is indeed a stereotype, along with old tweed coats, pipes, and Hush Puppies. And while a visit to just about any campus will reveal some species so bedecked, I'm not convinced it has much to do with the presence or absence of women on faculties. After all, another stereotype, recently highlighted by studies and articles, is that university faculties are famously liberal and in favor of affirmative action for minorities and women. Any prof who spoke out against feminism would find himself (or herself) in very hot water, and quickly -- bearded or smooth.

The web page carrying the story also sports a couple of notable ads: one for a device capable of trimming hair "anywhere," and another eliminating hair permanently. Looks like the Telegraph's ad folks are playing to both sides.

Now we learn that a federal grand jury is investigating whether Marc Rich, pardoned by Bill Clinton on his last day in office, helped Saddam Hussein cheat American taxpayers -- and Iraqi children -- through the oil-for-food scandal. Rich was sixth on the Justice Department's outstanding fugitives list at the time of his pardon; he fled the U.S. for Switzerland in 1983.

Worse, since Saddam paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers for their efforts to kill Jews, Rich might have helped this blood money find its mark. Today's Washington Times reports:

"Can we legitimately speculate that some of the blood money Saddam paid to kill people in Israel may have originated or at least been touched by Marc Rich through the United Nations' dreadful oil-for-food program?" said a source close to the probe. "We know Saddam Hussein was getting a rake off from the U.N. program and Rich was in the middle of that."

Only a few news outlets have updated stories on Rich: the above-cited Washington Times, Men's News Daily, and ABC News. The New York Post has played a large role in breaking the news, and others have followed.

So now comes the question of Bill Clinton's knowledge of Rich's involvement in the Iraq scam. There has never been a satisfactory explanation for the presidential pardon, and Clinton's record of corruption hardly allays questions of whether or not he personally benefited from Rich's actions.

For answers, I'll be looking to the Post (the one in New York), the Times (the one in Washington), and other right-of-center outlets.

Our web provider migrated our files to a new server a couple of days ago, but my posts from the past two days were still on the old server when the new one kicked in around noon today. Therefore, two days' worth of postings temporarily disappeared as of around noon today, when the site read "December 14." The new files have now migrated, and we're back in business. Sorry for the absence of new posts over the past ten or so hours.

Peggy Noonan has some advice for Democrats puzzled over "symbol manipulation": Come out for Christmas.

Always in politics it comes down not to words but to actions. It's not poetry but policy that claims support and wins. Allow me to prove this, for I think I can. I know something the Democratic Party can do right now that will improve its standing and increase its popularity. It can be done this week. Its impact will be quick and measurable.

This would be taking a stand on an issue that roils a lot of people, and believe me those people don't think conservatives are scrubbing America of Christmas, they think it's liberals; and they don't think it's Republicans, they think it's Democrats. Confound them, Terry! Come forward with a stand. It is the stand that is the salvation, not mysterious words or codes or magic messages.

We've written periodically about the strange new group of formers -- former conservatives, former leftists -- who since 9/11 have adopted the vocabulary and, one must assume, world view of the anti-war, anti-American left. Their house organs are The American Conservative and Lewrockwell.com.

Traditionalist conservative Lawrence Auster, in the first of a projected two-part series on the politics of anger, explores the anti-war right today at FrontPage. Auster has never been called a neocon, and never will -- a fact that makes his case all the more compelling.

Update: Here's a fresh sample of what Lawrence Auster is writing about: Jude Wanniski heralding anti-American Iraqi blogger Riverbend. You'll recognize her from posts at this site and many others, as Juan Cole praised her as part of his shameful effort to discredit the Fadhil brothers of Iraq the Model.

This might cause a few bicycle wrecks in Beijing.

The Christian Science Monitor has a long article on changes in the political map of the Middle East. I wouldn't call the Monitor optimistic about any immediate change, but it's an informative piece.

You've probably heard about the controversy down in Cuba over the Christmas lights at the American interest section in Havana. Fidel Castro has threatened "serious consequences" if the lights aren't removed.

Then again, if you're relying on the New York Times for your news, perhaps you haven't heard. That's because the Times relegates the story to page A8 in the small "World Briefings" column, where you'll find a short AP story.

But the New York Sun, seizing the moment, puts the story at the top of their web site. I don't know where it appears in the print edition, but they wrote a great, Sun-style headline to boot: "Yank Envoy Defies Cuban Regime Over Display of Christmas Lights."

"In a dark and oppressive places it is subversive to a shine a light," Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, said.

The Chronicle of Higher Education ($) reports that the Federal Election Commission is looking into Michael Moore's campus visits:

Responding to a formal complaint from a vocal critic of Michael Moore, the Federal Election Commission is investigating whether colleges violated a ban on corporate donations to political campaigns by allowing the controversial and partisan filmmaker to appear on their campuses during this fall's presidential-election campaign and by paying him a speaker's fee.

"The problem here is with the content, not the person," Mr. Hardy said in an interview. "Colleges can pay to bring in a speaker anytime, no matter how partisan. As I read the law, they can't hire someone to promote the election of a specific candidate in a federal election, and that's what Michael Moore did."

And: This is not the first controversy surrounding Mr. Moore's 20-state Slacker Uprising Tour. Two public colleges, George Mason University and California State University at San Marcos, canceled planned speeches by the filmmaker this fall. Utah Valley State College allowed his speech to proceed, despite harsh local criticism, and the institution says it has since lost some $200,000 in expected donations. [emphasis added]

James Glassman is making his fifth appearance at the annual conference of UN-backed professional busybodies gathered to discuss global warming and the Kyoto Treaty. His report will warm the cuckolds of your heart if you're skeptical of the doomsday scenario painted by international Luddites:

[R]esponsible advocates are building a consensus around the right approach, which concentrates not on destroying the economies of developing countries through limits to growth, but on improving those economies through the use of more energy — the best leverage for boosting living standards. Wealth, after all, makes health. As a nation gets richer, it gets cleaner.

And: Michael Crichton, author of science-based best sellers like "Jurassic Park," has a new book, "St