National Review back issues from December 2004:
Arguing gay marriage.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 13, 2004; ... For better or worse, social conservatives have provided a coherent rationale for limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman. This limitation, we are told, is designed to maintain traditional family arrangements and create an ideal environment for child-rearing. ...
Breakdown.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the Editor)
Dec 13, 2004; ... During the 1960s, as a classroom teacher in the Los Angeles unified school district, I saw firsthand how the student-rights movement eroded the authority of public-school faculty and set the stage for the chaos taking place on too many campuses today ("Sparing Rods, Spoiling Children," by ...
Rasmussen poll: President Bush earns job-approval rating of 54 percent.(for the record)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Rasmussen poll: President Bush earns job-approval rating of 54 percent. ... Bush on Iraqi elections: "As those elections draw near, the desperation of the killers will grow, and the violence could escalate. The success of democracy in Iraq would be a crushing blow to the forces of ...
Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) on running again: "It is so premature to be thinking about something so far down the road.(for the record)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) on running again: "It is so premature to be thinking about something so far down the road. What I've said is I'm not opening any doors, I'm not shutting any doors .... If there's a next time, we'll do a better job." ... Former Kerry pollster Mark Mellman, in ...
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R., Calif.), on CNN: "I am very conservative when it comes to fiscal policies.(for the record)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R., Calif.), on CNN: "I am very conservative when it comes to fiscal policies .... The exception is if you have an idea, infrastructure or, for instance, transportation or our ports or something like that, or certain infrastructure of the hospitals, and so you ...
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.) on running for president, on Fox News: "I'm not thinking about that.(for the record)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.) on running for president, on Fox News: "I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about running for reelection" in 2006 .... Hillary on whether she'll serve full six-year term as senator, on CNN: "I haven't gotten that far." ... Hillary on Electoral ...
Zogby poll: 65 percent rank Ronald Reagan "great" or "near great" president, compared with 41 percent for George W. Bush, 44 percent for Bill Clinton, 33 percent for George H. W. Bush, and 32 percent for Jimmy Carter.(for the record)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Zogby poll: 65 percent rank Ronald Reagan "great" or "near great" president, compared with 41 percent for George W. Bush, 44 percent for Bill Clinton, 33 percent for George H. W. Bush, and 32 percent for Jimmy Carter .... Clinton's presidential library opens in Little Rock, Ark., and ...
Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein stole more than $21 billion from U.N.'s Oil for Food program, according to Senate report.(for the record)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein stole more than $21 billion from U.N.'s Oil for Food program, according to Senate report .... French ...
David Letterman: "you know who may run for the Democrats in 2008? Hillary Clinton.(for the record)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * David Letterman: "You know who may run for the Democrats in 2008? Hillary ...
Some left-wingers vowed to go to Canada following Bush's reelection.(The Week)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Some left-wingers vowed to go to Canada ...
Condoleezza Rice is a solid foreign-policy thinker who ought to make a fine secretary of state.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Condoleezza Rice is a solid foreign-policy thinker who ought to make a fine secretary of state. She is an admirable combination of what might be called realism and idealism (though the terms are too crude): The Reagan experience, as she said in a 1999 interview with NR, modified the ...
Bill Clinton opened his presidential library, which features scandalously self-regarding exhibits, including one whitewashing the Monica affair.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Bill Clinton opened his presidential library, which features scandalously self-regarding exhibits, including one whitewashing the Monica affair. Should we be surprised? Democrats are feeling nostalgic for Bubba's political magic, as well they might. His willingness to forthrightly ...
The custom of seniority put Arlen Specter in line to be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * The custom of seniority put Arlen Specter in line to be chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But after Specter suggested that Bush would be well advised not to nominate judges opposed to Roe v. Wade, conservatives objected--and Specter was able to win his post only by assuring his ...
Republicans changed the rules in the House, permitting indicted lawmakers to serve as their leaders.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Republicans changed the rules in the House, permitting indicted lawmakers to serve as their leaders. The move was designed to protect majority leader Tom DeLay, who is being pursued by Democratic prosecutor Ronnie Earle. The Democrat has a history of flimsy political prosecutions: In ...
The plight of immigrants from Mexico.
Dec 13, 2004; ... A Immigrants from Mexico do far worse when they migrate to the United States than do immigrants from other countries. Those difficulties are more a reflection of U.S. immigration policy than they are of underlying cultural differences. The following facts from the 2000 U.S. Census reveal ...
The House ethics committee, meanwhile, has given us an opportunity to revisit a previous round of attacks on DeLay.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * The House ethics committee, meanwhile, has given us an opportunity to revisit a previous round of attacks on DeLay. Democratic congressman Chris Bell of Texas scored a publicity coup a month before the election, when a complaint he filed led the committee to admonish DeLay. While ...
The House is losing one of its principal champions of limited government and free markets in Pat Toomey.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * The House is losing one of its principal champions of limited government and free markets in Pat Toomey. But supporters of those causes should not lose him. As President Bush assembles his tax-reform commission, he could hardly find ...
If Karl Rove was the architect of the president's victory, Ken Mehlman was the general contractor who put all the nuts and bolts in place to deliver a historic number of Republicans to the polls.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * If Karl Rove was the architect of the president's victory, Ken Mehlman was the general contractor who put all the nuts and bolts in place to deliver a historic number of Republicans to the polls. Mehlman will now replace Ed Gillespie, the other indispensable member of the triumphant ...
To their credit, House Republicans balked at approving the consolidation of intelligence agencies even after the 9/11 commission recommended it and the White House and Senate backed it.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * To their credit, House Republicans balked at approving the consolidation of intelligence agencies even after the 9/11 commission recommended it and the White House and Senate backed it. The House Armed Services Committee shares the concerns of military commanders, who fear that the ...
Who, besides Kofi Annan, can doubt that Fallujah was a terrorist safe haven?(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Who, besides Kofi Annan, can doubt that Fallujah was a terrorist safe haven? In the last month, U.S. forces have found some 600 Improvised Explosive Devices--i.e., road-side bombs--there, compared with roughly 225 around the rest of the country. They have found 91 major weapons caches ...
As the world knows by now, a Marine in Fallujah was captured on tape apparently shooting a wounded insurgent.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * As the world knows by now, a Marine in Fallujah was captured on tape apparently shooting a wounded insurgent. Naturally, the tape has unleashed a furor and the incident is being investigated. Was this an unfortunate act of war, or a war crime? In our opinion, and pending the outcome of ...
The French Connection.(Poem)
Dec 13, 2004; ... <Pre> THE FRENCH CONNECTION One doesn't need Miss Marple toFinger Chirac, who drops a clueLike circus elephants; so whenHe shelters Yasser like a hen,...
Iran has agreed to stop uranium enrichment temporarily while negotiating with Britain, France, and Germany over what it will get for a long-term deal.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Iran has agreed to stop uranium enrichment temporarily while negotiating with Britain, France, and Germany over what it will get for a long-term deal. The agreement allowed the mullahs to dodge a U.N. Security Council referral, which the United States has been pushing as a precursor to ...
A newer deal.
Dec 13, 2004; ... THE black standup comic Chris Rock has a standard routine about the injustice of Social Security. This, he rages, is just another white man's scheme to hold back the black man by taxing him his whole life and then withholding the benefits until after he's dead. "You don't get the money ...
Not all the troubling news out of Iran concerns Tehran's nuclear ambitions.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Not all the troubling news out of Iran concerns Tehran's nuclear ambitions. On November 16, an Iranian news service reported that a 14-year-old boy died after receiving 85 lashes, a sentence imposed on him by the judge of a local court. His crime? Breaking the Ramadan fast. A few months ...
Four thousand French troops are caught up in a civil war in the Ivory Coast, once part of France's colonial empire.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Four thousand French troops are caught up in a civil war in the Ivory Coast, once part of France's colonial empire. Whatever else they might be doing, they have stirred up a hornet's nest. The mobs are out, and French and other expatriates have had to be evacuated. French women may have ...
NR's recent post-election cruise was a smash success, and a happy omen that our 2005 British Isles voyage--July 10-21, starring WFB, Bob Bork, Larry Kudlow, Peggy Noonan, Paul Johnson, Rich Lowry, Kate O'Beirne, David Pryce-Jones, Jay Nordlinger, et al., joyfully celebrating NR's 50th anniversary--will be the same.(The Week)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * NR's recent post-election cruise was a smash success, and a happy omen that our 2005 British Isles voyage--July 10-21, starring WFB, Bob Bork, Larry Kudlow, Peggy Noonan, Paul Johnson, Rich Lowry, Kate ...
The relentless, vindictive war being waged by the ACLU against the Boy Scouts of America took a turn recently when the Defense Department agreed to a settlement in a lawsuit they have been defending for five years.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * The relentless, vindictive war being waged by the ACLU against the Boy Scouts of America took a turn recently when the Defense Department agreed to a settlement in a lawsuit they have been defending for five years. Under the terms of the settlement, the Pentagon will warn military bases ...
Scott Peterson was convicted for murdering his wife Laci--and for second-degree murder in the case of their unborn son, Conner.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Scott Peterson was convicted for murdering his wife Laci--and for second-degree murder in the case of their unborn son, Conner. The fact that Peterson was convicted of a lesser charge in Conner's case appears to reflect the jury's uncertainty about the degree of premeditation ...
What happens if a homeless person abandons or misplaces his accumulated j--... sorry, we mean his personal property, those articles typically pushed around in a stolen supermarket cart?(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * What happens if a homeless person abandons or misplaces his accumulated j-- ... sorry, we mean his personal property, those articles typically pushed around in a stolen supermarket cart? (Those carts, by the way, cost supermarkets around $100 each.) Well, in the city of Berkeley, Calif., ...
In a stirring example of the American genius for hustling up business where no business formerly existed, a South Florida psychologist named Douglas Schooler has been treating John Kerry voters distraught over their candidate's loss on November 2.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * In a stirring example of the American genius for hustling up business where no business formerly existed, a South Florida psychologist named Douglas Schooler has been treating John Kerry voters distraught over their candidate's loss on November 2. At the time of writing, more than 20 ...
Shoppers at Target will no longer hear bells ringing for donations; the Salvation Army Santas have been silenced.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Shoppers at Target will no longer hear bells ringing for donations; the Salvation Army Santas have been silenced. Target, along with other big-box stores such as Best Buy, has decided that it can avoid preferential treatment for particular charities by keeping any of them from darkening ...
It may come as a surprise to readers of National Review to learn that we once shared a floor of our office building with Vibe, a magazine dedicated to the doings of such avant-garde popular musicians as Jadakiss, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Twista, OutKast, Jay-Z, and Ja Rule.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * It may come as a surprise to readers of NATIONAL REVIEW to learn that we once shared a floor of our office building with Vibe, a magazine dedicated to the doings of such avant-garde popular musicians as Jadakiss, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Twista, OutKast, Jay-Z, and Ja ...
After more than 30 years, William Safire is relinquishing his spot on the New York Times op-ed page.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * After more than 30 years, William Safire is relinquishing his spot on the New York Times op-ed page. His commentaries brought a much-needed rationality to the deceptively gray pages of the Times, where off-the-wall radicalism typically poses as level-headed consensus. Safire has been ...
President Bush has conferred the National Humanities Medal on some excitingly deserving recipients, including Hilton Kramer.(The Week)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * President Bush has conferred the National Humanities Medal on some excitingly deserving recipients, including Hilton Kramer. Mr. Kramer may be the finest art critic in the United States, and he is one of its best journalists. A child of immigrants from Russia, he worked on the New York ...
The same goes for his other selections, among them Gertrude Himmelfarb, Harvey C. Mansfield, and Shelby Steele.(The Week)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * The same goes for his other selections, among them Gertrude Himmelfarb, Harvey C. Mansfield, and Shelby Steele. The first is one of our more insightful historians, and one of our keener social critics. The second, for years, has been one of the brightest, and ...
The man Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee called a "miserable, carping, retromingent vigilante" died on November 16, aged 82.(The Week)(Reed Irvine)(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * The man Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee called a "miserable, carping, retromingent vigilante" died on November 16, aged 82. Reed Irvine, founder of Accuracy in Media, thought this graceless comment such a compliment to his work exposing the Post's liberal prejudices that he kept the ...
Two important American poets died recently, a major loss to our poetry.(The Week)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Two important American poets died recently, a major loss to our poetry. They were alike in important ways, radically dissimilar in others. Viewed historically, they learned from but also quietly rebelled against the aesthetic extremes of the great modernists, Eliot, Yeats, and Pound, and ...
Ichthyophages beware!(The Week)
Dec 13, 2004 ... * Ichthyophages beware! PETA--that is, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals--has launched a Fish Empathy Project in the hope of discouraging us from mistreating our finned friends by such practices as catching and eating them. Sometime soon you may expect to see a school--sorry, a ...
Den of thieves.(The U.N.)
Dec 13, 2004 ... U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan should either resign, if he is honorable, or be removed, if he is not. The mild-mannered Annan may not himself be corrupt. But he has presided over no less than the largest corruption scandal in the history of the world, Oil for Food. Never has the U.N ....
A horrible life.(The Middle East)
Dec 13, 2004 ... YASSER ARAFAT was responsible for years of murder and bloodshed, for civil war, for the hijacking of aircraft and other acts of terror, for gun-running, for embezzlement and blackmail and bribery. His racist fantasies have polluted far and wide. Lying was his one great skill. He ...
Notes & asides.(Column)
Dec 13, 2004; ... * Dear Mr. Buckley: A question has bothered me for years. Recently, to find an answer, I consulted Britannica(1945) under the headings "time" and "calendar" and came up short. The question: In the designations B.C. and A.D., why is the first in English and the second in Latin? ...
Kofi's hour is up: incompetence upon insult upon outrage.(Kofi Annan)(Cover Story)
Dec 13, 2004; ... THIS has been a wretched year for Kofi Annan. The U.N. secretary general has looked a forlorn figure on the world stage: Hugely overshadowed as a global leader by George W. Bush and Tony Blair, he has appeared weak and clueless in confronting major problems, including terrorism, WMD ...
A conservative departs: about Colin Powell.(The Administration)
Dec 13, 2004; ... COLIN POWELL left office with the jeers of his liberal friends and admirers ringing in his ears. In an unusually vicious New York Times editorial titled "Good Soldier Powell," the retiring secretary of state was told that he would be remembered solely for having given false information to ...
Absolutely: both Iraqis and Palestinians have a chance to escape the curse of absolutism.(The Middle East)
Dec 13, 2004; ... IN January 2005, elections are to be held in Iraq and the Palestinian Authority. There are hopes that both elections will mark a break with an unbearable tyrannical past, and throw up new leaders who will have enough legitimacy to modernize and democratize the two societies. ...
A dent that counts: how do Republicans win black and Hispanic votes? Well, first you have to ask ...(Campaign 2004)
Dec 13, 2004; ... WHILE Ken Mehlman and Karl Rove raided suburbs and exurbs for unregistered Republicans, a small group of non-party irregulars laid siege to the Democratic citadel: the minority precincts Al Gore carried by huge majorities in 2000. This year, conservative 527s spent roughly $3 ...
You deserve a factual look at ... "one land for two peoples": is it a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict or a recipe for disaster?
Dec 13, 2004 ... For decades, the declared thrust of the Palestinians has been their desire of having their own state - in Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") and in the Gaza Strip. Now, a new idea has taken hold and is propagated in national media: a binational state, encompassing those territories and ...
The good news about pain treatment: the Drug Enforcement Administration recently posted new guidelines on the DEA website to stop the unjustified harassment and prosecution of pain doctors.(Brief Article)
Dec 13, 2004 ... THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT PAIN TREATMENT: The Drug Enforcement Administration recently posted new guidelines on the DEA website to stop the unjustified harassment and prosecution of pain doctors. THE BAD NEWS ABOUT PAIN TREATMENT: Two months later the DEA ...
Remember Algeria: a lesson from midcentury.(The Middle East II)
Dec 13, 2004; ... ON the night of All Saints, 1954, a young honeymooning couple of French schoolteachers, dedicated to their work among underprivileged children, were dragged off a bus in the Aures Mountains of Algeria and shot dead. Their murder by the newly created FLN (National Liberation Front) marked ...
The perils of tax reform: frankly, tiny and timid is better than big and bold.(Public Policy)
Dec 13, 2004; ... WHEN President Bush said that he would appoint a commission to report on tax reform in the spring, conservative hopes for a fundamental overhaul rose. Could this finally be the moment for a flat tax or a national sales tax? The answer appears to be no. Early reports suggest that the ...
Three years and counting: the U.S. has not suffered a major attack since September 2001. Why?(At War)
Dec 13, 2004; ... THE September 11 attacks still reverberate profoundly. Of that, there is no better indication than George W. Bush's decisive reelection. For all the trendy talk about "values voters," the campaign was run principally on national-security issues, and the president won a surprisingly large ...
Our crisis of foundations: what Tom Wolfe's novel, among other things, brings to mind.(Essay)(Critical Essay)
Dec 13, 2004; ... MY colleague Jonah Goldberg, speaking at a recent panel discussion in which we were both participating, remarked that modern democracy is sorely in need of a metaphysic. That put me in mind of one of Aldous Huxley's aphorisms. In his 1937 essay "Beliefs," Huxley said, "It is impossible to ...
So, you want to win the culture wars? It would help to engage in a little culture.(Essay II)
Dec 13, 2004; ... I'VE never attended a major film festival, but it's a safe bet that none of them--not Venice or Cannes, not Sundance or Toronto--begins its Saturday-night screening with the Pledge of Allegiance. Or opens nearly every film with a "support-our-troops" montage of military photos, set to a ...
The long view.(Column)
Dec 13, 2004; ... From the Guestbook of the Clinton Presidential Library ... Marnie Williams, Ft. Smith, Ark.: Wonderful, wonderful exhibits! Thank you so much for all of the hard work that everyone obviously put into this magnificent library! The Hall of Self-Justification interactive ...
Help!!!!(Comic)(Cartoon)
Dec 13, 2004 ... "He's a strange kid--he has a William F. Buckley Pez dispenser." There's obviously been a mistake. I've ...
Hillary: it begins.(Poem)
Dec 13, 2004; ... <Pre> HILLARY: IT BEGINS Her library launch was inspired:Hill's hubby, triumphant but tired,Bussed Hillary as Hollywood--I swear, almost half of it--stood...
The dynamic IMP.(The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America)(Book Review)
Dec 13, 2004; ... The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America, by Stephen Cox (Transaction, 418 pp., $39.95) IF you were around in 1943 (which is doubtful: even I, age 17, was only just barely around) you may have noticed that three books important to libertarian history ...
The hearth defended.(Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Wonder Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes)(Book Review)
Dec 13, 2004; ... Home-Alone America: The Hidden Toll of Day Care, Wonder Drugs, and Other Parent Substitutes, by Mary Eberstadt (Sentinel, 288 pp., $25.95) IT's one of history's oldest questions: "What's a mother to do?" And, in this provocative new book, Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Institution ...
Absolutism redux.(The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever)(Book Review)
Dec 13, 2004; ... The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever, by Cass Sunstein (Basic, 282 pp., $25) YOU owe your life--and everything else--to the sovereign. The rights of subjects are not natural rights, but merely grants from the sovereign. There ...
The gruntler.(Wodehouse: A Life)(Book Review)
Dec 13, 2004; ... Wodehouse: A Life, by Robert McCrum (Norton, 384 pp., $27.95) TOO Good to Be True Dept.: The two reigning masters of the outrageous simile went to the same English public school. In fact, P. G. Wodehouse ("She looked at me like someone who has just solved the crossword puzzle ...
Road Kill.(Poem)
Dec 13, 2004; ... <Pre> ROAD KILL You may have thought things would come right again If only you could sit quite still and wait. --Larkin Driving to the hospital late last night,I turned down a road that ran between dark fields.Up ahead, in the middle of the road,a small brown ...
A bin of CDs.(Music)
Dec 13, 2004; ... LET's touch briefly on some recent recordings, taking in composers--contemporary composers--violinists, pianists, and singers. We'll conclude with an oddball CD (not that there won't be some oddness in the meantime). First come the composers, the most important musicians of all ....
Fall festival.(The Straggler)
Dec 13, 2004; ... OFF to the Fall Festival on an October weekend, each of us with a different motive: Dad--To escape from the election campaign for an afternoon. Mom--To buy pickles. Nellie (11)--In the hope of meeting friends, so they can shriek "Omigod!" at one another ...
Wargaming Iran.(on the right)(Column)
Dec 13, 2004; ... NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 9 IF you can do it, forget Fallujah for just a minute. Think Iran. A productive way to do this is to read James Fallows in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly. The title of the article is, "Will Iran Be Next?" The subtitle gives away the conclusions, and ...
Your rights, their rights.(on the right)(Column)
Dec 13, 2004; ... NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 12 WE hear the clamor in the matter of the Patriot Act and other measures associated with retiring attorney general John Ashcroft. Just rubbing a hand lightly over U.S. history reminds us that these questions arose in the past, notoriously with the Alien and ...