National Review back issues from April 2007:
A vie of Obama.(Barack Obama )(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007; ... At first glance, Richard Lowry seems to have Barack Obama figured out ("The Great Audacious Hope," March 5). Mr. Lowry rightly notes the centrality of Obama's vague yet comfortable message of hopefulness. He also properly calls Obama to task for his lack of detail and concrete policy ...
A view of McCain.(John McCain)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007; ... Ramesh Ponnuru's "The Coming McCain Moment" (March 19) reads more like a lawyer's brief for his client than a dispassionate analysis. In any event, this juror remains highly unconvinced. Setting aside the conservativeness of his policy positions, McCain's personality and ...
Innocents abroad.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
Apr 02, 2007; ... The story involving senior citizens in Costa Rica (The Week, March 19) in which an armed mugger was killed by a 70-year-old American tourist was inspiring. It caused me to reflect, though, how fortunate these folks were to have been in Costa Rica at the time of ...
Erratum.(letters to the editor)(Letter to the editor)
Apr 02, 2007; ... The words on your March 5 cover said "Not Enough: Why the miltary needs more of everything." What you had not enough of was letters--note ...
Al Sharpton is refusing to endorse Barack Obama.
Apr 02, 2007 ... Al Sharpton is refusing to endorse Barack Obama. If the ...
Former senator Fred Thompson's recent media appearances confirm the judgment of Hollywood casting agents: He looks and sounds presidential.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Former senator Fred Thompson's recent media appearances confirm the judgment of Hollywood casting agents: He looks and sounds presidential. Some of Thompson's supporters want life to imitate art and are urging him to make a real-life run for the White House. He says he is "leaving the door ...
When Rudy Giuliani was inaugurated as New York's mayor in 1994, his son Andrew was a cheerful, chubby seven-year-old whose distracting antics on the stage upstaged his indulgent father on his big day.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... When Rudy Giuliani was inaugurated as New York's mayor in 1994, his son Andrew was a cheerful, chubby seven-year-old whose distracting antics on the stage upstaged his indulgent father on his big day. Now a 21-year-old college student, Andrew was again in the spotlight when he explained ...
"I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually. That's why I believe that conservatism should be compassionate, should reach out to the ...
The Nevada Democratic party canceled a presidential debate it was co-sponsoring with Fox News.(Fox News Network L.L.C.)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The Nevada Democratic party canceled a presidential debate it was co-sponsoring with Fox News. The reason offered--that Fox chairman Roger Ailes had made a low-blow joke about Barack Obama---was preposterous. (Ailes said, in a speech, "Barack Obama is on the move .... President Bush called ...
A jury of one's peers is normally guaranteed for the defendant in a case, not for witnesses in testimony.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... A jury of one's peers is normally guaranteed for the defendant in a case, not for witnesses in testimony. But Washington follows different rules, and in the Libby case the journalists who were called in droves had a colleague in the box, and sometimes even a friend. Juror Denis Collins had ...
Clarence Thomas made headlines recently when he accused the media of being "universally untrustworthy" in a rare interview he granted to Business Week.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Clarence Thomas made headlines recently when he accused the media of being "universally untrustworthy" in a rare interview he granted to Business Week. And count Justice Thomas correct, for the main thrust of the interview had been an attack on affirmative action, not a comment on the ...
The scandal over the poor treatment of some wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center claimed its third senior official when Army surgeon general Kevin C. Kiley joined Army secretary Fran Harvey and the hospital's commander in forced resignation.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The scandal over the poor treatment of some wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center claimed its third senior official when Army surgeon general Kevin C. Kiley joined Army secretary Fran Harvey and the hospital's commander in forced resignation. Multiple commissions, committees, ...
An audit revealed that the FBI has improperly used "national security letters"---a kind of subpoena it can issue without the approval of a judge or prosecutor.(United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... An audit revealed that the FBI has improperly used "national security letters"---a kind of subpoena it can issue without the approval of a judge or prosecutor. Nothing more sinister than incompetence was afoot. In some cases, for example, agents transposed digits in phone numbers and ended ...
Improving document security was one of the central recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. And for good reason: The hijackers had a total of 17 driver's licenses and 13 non-driver IDs, seven of them obtained by fraudulent means.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Improving document security was one of the central recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. And for good reason: The hijackers had a total of 17 driver's licenses and 13 non-driver IDs, seven of them obtained by fraudulent means. In 2005, President Bush signed the Real ID Act, which sets ...
Six residents of the District of Columbia challenged its gun law, which bans pistols in private houses and requires even licensed firearms, such as shotguns, to be kept locked or disassembled.(The Week ...)(Parker v. District of Columbia)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Six residents of the District of Columbia challenged its gun law, which bans pistols in private houses and requires even licensed firearms, such as ...
Still Selma's Favorite.(Poem)
Apr 02, 2007; ... <Pre> STILL SELMA'S FAVORITE Obama got there first, which gaveThe Missus such heartburn,She, poof!, was Alabamy-bound,Squawking like Arctic ...
The opinion, by Judge Laurence Silberman, held that the authors of the Second Amendment believed the "people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms.".(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The opinion, by Judge Laurence Silberman, held that the authors of the Second Amendment believed the "people possessed a natural right to keep and bear arms." The backstory of the amendment bears this out. William Blackstone, the 18th-century legal commentator, found the right to bear arms ...
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it had selected a design for a new generation of nuclear warheads.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it had selected a design for a new generation of nuclear warheads. That immediately threw a handful of congressional Democrats into a tizzy. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she was "100 percent opposed," and Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, ...
One, vast college campus.
Apr 02, 2007; ... I'VE long thought there's a reason that libertarianism is so popular on college campuses. For many of us, the freest time of our lives was college. We seemed masters of our fate (particularly if we were lucky enough not to pay for school ourselves), free to make what seemed like all of the ...
The deadliest fire in New York City since 9/11 ripped through a house in the Bronx, killing ten people in two immigrant families from Mali---five children from one family, the mother and all four of her children in another.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The deadliest fire in New York City since 9/11 ripped through a house in the Bronx, killing ten people in two immigrant families from Mali---five children from one family, the mother and all four of her children in another. Their community mourns, and New Yorkers have responded with their ...
The president, in Latin America, made the case against Hugo Chavez and his Castroite socialism.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The president, in Latin America, made the case against Hugo Chavez and his Castroite socialism. In the 1980s and '90s, the region turned to "neoliberalism," a kind of elite version of free-market economics, and then rejected it because it did not do enough for the ...
On his trip, Bush announced a deal to share alternative-fuel-development technology with Brazil, the world's leading producer of ethanol.(George W. Bush)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... On his trip, Bush announced a deal to share alternative-fuel-development technology with Brazil, the world's leading producer of ethanol. Brazil's ethanol, made from sugar cane, uses cropland far more efficiently than the corn-based ethanol produced in the U.S. But it's not clear that the ...
Journalists working on Russian issues have a scary way of being found dead.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Journalists working on Russian issues have a scary way of being found dead. Some are shot down, like Anna Politkovskaya or the American Paul Klebnikov, and some are poisoned like Alexander Litvinenko. In Moscow, Ivan Safronov is the latest journalist to die, falling to his death from the ...
If you're thrown in jail for calling the leader of your country a dictator, at least no one can say you're a liar.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... If you're thrown in jail for calling the leader of your country a dictator, at least no one can say you're a liar. Abdel Kareem Solimann, a 22-year-old Egyptian, has been sentenced to four years in prison for insulting the president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, and Islam as well. He wrote his ...
St. Petersburg, Fla., has been the rather unlikely setting for a summit of secular Muslims.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... St. Petersburg, Fla., has been the rather unlikely setting for a summit of secular Muslims. Nothing like it has ever taken place anywhere in the world. Fourteen men and women signed a final statement of their aims. And not an anonymous 14 either, but people in the public eye, with access ...
Twenty-seven German Catholic bishops made a bridge-building trip to Israel.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Twenty-seven German Catholic bishops made a bridge-building trip to Israel. All went well, until Bishops Hanke, of Eichstatt, and Mixa, of Augsburg, compared the Palestinian town of Ramallah to the ghetto, meaning the Warsaw Ghetto, whose inhabitants were murdered by Germans of the Nazi ...
The Eurovision Song Contest ascended through the sphere of self-parody decades ago, and floats now in an alternate universe of bad taste far beyond the reach of criticism.(Song by Israeli pop band Teapacks denied entry at contest)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The Eurovision Song Contest ascended through the sphere of self-parody decades ago, and floats now in an alternate universe of bad taste far beyond the reach of criticism. Like Death in Arcadia, however, politics cannot be escaped, even in these remote, aethereal regions of kitsch. The ...
March 6 saw the 50th anniversary of Ghanaian independence.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... March 6 saw the 50th anniversary of Ghanaian independence. Formerly a British colony known as the Gold Coast, Ghana was the first nation in sub-Saharan Africa to pass from colonial rule to self-government. It was also one of the most prosperous and orderly of Britain's African possessions ....
Our very vague impression of the traditional Arab diet centers on figs, dates, and sheep's eyeballs.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Our very vague impression of the traditional Arab diet centers on figs, dates, and sheep's eyeballs. Surprising to learn, therefore, that the United Arab Emirates suffers from one of the world's highest rates of diabetes, with more than 20 percent of those aged 20 to 79 diagnosed with the ...
The Association of Social Anthropologists, an academic society over in the U.K., has ruled that the terms primitive" and "Stone Age" may no longer be used to refer to peoples who are ... technologically challenged.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The Association of Social Anthropologists, an academic society over in the U.K., has ruled that the terms "primitive" and "Stone Age" may no longer be used to refer to peoples who are ... technologically challenged. "Governments and other social groups ... have long used these ideas as a ...
From a diplomat's point of view, the trouble with representing a pariah nation is, you don't get invited to many parties, and so have time to kill.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... From a diplomat's point of view, the trouble with representing a pariah nation is, you don't get invited to many parties, and so have time to kill. The devil being a well-known employer of idle hands, mischief follows. This seems the most charitable explanation for a string of misdemeanors ...
The municipality of Santa Monica in Los Angeles County is the setting for the latest chapter in the endless war between, on one hand, the need to control animal pests, and on the other, the pestiferous legions of animal-rights activists.(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... The municipality of Santa Monica in Los Angeles County is the setting for the latest chapter in the endless war between, on one hand, the need to control animal pests, and on the other, the pestiferous legions of animal-rights activists. The pests in this case--the animal pests, that ...
Mario Chanes de Armas was a revolutionary, sailing with Fidel and Che on the Granma.(The Week ...)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Mario Chanes de Armas was a revolutionary, sailing with Fidel and Che on the Granma. He was caught and jailed by Batista. Once the revolution succeeded, he happily resumed his life. But he soon landed back in jail---because he was a freedom-lover, never wanting Communism or any other form ...
Former senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri is remembered for one reason, and noteworthy for another.(The Week ...)(Obituary)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Former senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri is remembered for one reason, and noteworthy for another. George McGovern tapped him to be his running mate in 1972, then dropped him from the ticket 18 days later when Eagleton admitted that he had received electroshock therapy for depression (he ...
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. won every honor that was within a historian's grasp, and some beyond (he was a special assistant in John F. Kennedy's White House).(The Week ...)(Brief article)(Biography)
Apr 02, 2007 ... Arthur Schlesinger Jr. won every honor that was within a historian's grasp, and some beyond (he was a special assistant in John F. Kennedy's White House). Schlesinger was the last bard of the New Deal consensus---a historical school that traced all good things to Jefferson and Jackson, ...
The 'let's lose now' caucus.
Apr 02, 2007 ... SAY at least this for the Democrats: They are beginning to find the courage of their profoundly mistaken convictions. They have moved from pretending that a nonbinding resolution against sending additional troops into Baghdad and Anbar Province is a serious blow against the war in Iraq to ...
Pardon him.
Apr 02, 2007 ... THE Left has developed an elaborate fantasy about Scooter Libby. The Bush administration supposedly leaked the fact that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA to retaliate for the public criticisms of the administration that her husband, Joseph Wilson, had made. Libby then--the story ...
Just one term: what John McCain should pledge as he runs for president.
Apr 02, 2007; ... SEN. JOHN MCCAIN can increase his chances of winning the presidency in 2008 if he pledges not to run for it in 2012. He should pledge, that is, to serve only one term as president if elected. Why would any candidate do something so self-abnegating? Because it would help him both in the ...
Kill this word: poor, abused, unrecognizable, meaningless 'neocon'.
Apr 02, 2007; ... I WAS recently listening to a BBC radio program called World Have Your Say. A fascinating example of globalization at work, it's a worldwide call-in show where the global IQ regresses to the mean and keeps regressing. From every corner of the globe, Michael Moore--style liberals convene ...
Fiasco at justice: the case of the fired U.S. attorneys.(Cover story)
Apr 02, 2007; ... AS a firestorm raged over the Justice Department's sacking of eight U.S. attorneys, attorney general Alberto Gonzales acknowledged, "We could have rolled out the decisions more smoothly." No kidding. The department's inept handling of the "mass firing" of a handful of the country's 93 U.S ....
New lure's catch rate may be too high for some tournaments: out-fishes other bait 19 to 4 in one contest.
Apr 02, 2007; ... Uses aerospace technology to mimic a real fish. ORLANDO, FL -- A small company in Connecticut has developed a new lure that mimics the motion of a real fish so realistically eight professionals couldn't tell the difference between it and a live shad when it "swam" toward them on ...
Bet on Black? The trial of a mogul.(Conrad Black)
Apr 02, 2007; ... IT promises, even at this early date, to be the trial of the century. The international media magnate, Lord Black of Crossharbour, born Conrad Black in Canada, is on trial in Chicago for a variety of white-collar crimes from mail fraud to tax evasion relating to his management of the ...
Adieu, Chirac: the end of a lousy French president.(EUROPE)(Jacques Chirac)
Apr 02, 2007; ... JACQUES CHIRAC, president of France since 1995, has announced his decision not to run for yet another term. Though only some ten minutes long, his farewell speech was perfectly in character, its boasting indistinguishable from its mendacity. He was, he said, "proud to have ...
Scootergate: how the White House messed things up.
Apr 02, 2007; ... ON January 24, a man named Craig Schmall took the stand in the perjury-and-obstruction trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Schmall works for the CIA; in 2002 and 2003, he conducted the daily intelligence briefing for both Vice President Dick Cheney and Libby, then the VP's chief of staff ....
A question of competence: George W. Bush has failed in some basics.
Apr 02, 2007; ... POLITICAL commentators are scrambling to explain the extraordinary rise of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in the 2008 GOP nomination contest. The conventional explanation is that, buoyed by his 9/11 heroism and accomplishments as mayor, he is riding a wave among Republican voters ...
Freedom house, rocked: strange doings at a cherished institution.(Organization overview)
Apr 02, 2007; ... SHORTLY after 9/11, a pair of scholars at Freedom House expressed their dismay with two leading liberal human-rights groups. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch seemed keener to denounce U.S. policies than to condemn terrorism, claimed Adrian Karatnycky and Arch Puddington ....
Who's got a secret? The whole world has The Secret, sadly.
Apr 02, 2007; ... DE gustibus non est disputandum, yeah yeah, but there's also no disputing that the world is full of fools. How else to explain the phenomenal success of The Secret? The Secret isn't much of a secret, but here's an executive summary in case you've missed it. An Australian TV ...
For whom the bell (really) tolls.
Apr 02, 2007; ... THE air is thick with high-minded complaints that the Anna Nicole Smith story dominated the news and distracted us from what C-SPAN junkies reverently call "the issues." Media figures are even complaining about themselves for covering it so obsessively, and now they need to rationalize why ...
Down memory lane.(HELP!!!!)(Poem)(Brief article)
Apr 02, 2007; ... <Pre> DOWN MEMORY LANE 'Twas only 13 years agoThat Hillarycare, a no-showTo everyone but bug-eyed Hill,Faw down go boom like Jack and Jill;Now ...
Therapist's notes: court-ordered rehabilitation for hate speech: patient: Coulter, Ann.
Apr 02, 2007; ... First Session: The patient arrives on time, displays pleasant and agreeable affect. She is charming and complimentary about therapist's office, calling it cozy. She asks if the therapist decorated it himself, and when told that he didn't, remarks that she should have known as he ...
China Dreamin'.(Book review)
Apr 02, 2007; ... The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression, by James Mann (Viking, 127 pp., $19.95) THIS is a short book, but an invaluable one. Every word counts, and the topic is one of the most important of our time. James Mann headed the Beijing bureau of the Los ...
Virtue's Aristocrat.(Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life)(Book review)
Apr 02, 2007; ... Alexis de Tocqueville: A Life, by Hugh Brogan (Yale, 736 pp., $35) THIRTY years ago, in surveying the history of Tocqueville scholarship, the distinguished sociologist Robert Nisbet noted that in seven years as an undergraduate and graduate student in social sciences at Berkeley ...
The Stories We Tell.(The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts)(Book review)
Apr 02, 2007; ... The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts, by Milan Kundera (HarperCollins, 176 pp., $22.95) THE chief concern of this, Milan Kundera's third volume of essays, is the modern novel. His own novels of course might be called a giant essay on the political and cultural life of the modern ...
Last Night.(Poem)
Apr 02, 2007; ... <Pre> LAST NIGHT When the sun sets, and he isn't home, she walksNot to be waiting, but she leaves a note:Back soon, her only message, only wish. After all, she didn't think he'd stay;No plans, so no surprises when it ends.The dishes wait unwashed. Bitter ...
Breakdown Lane.(We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction)(Book review)
Apr 02, 2007; ... We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction, by Joan Didion (Knopf, 1,160 pp., $30) THE 1960s gave Joan Didion a nervous breakdown--or so it often seems, judging from her work on those years. "I went to San Francisco," she writes in the preface to her 1968 ...
Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys.(SHELF LIFE)(Brief article)(Book review)
Apr 02, 2007; ... TO understand today's America, it's essential to know why so many reasonable and intelligent people rejected the liberal orthodoxy of the Sixties and Seventies. In Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political ...
How to Raise an American: 1776 Fun and Easy Tools, Tips, and Activities to Help Your Child Love This Country.(SHELF LIFE)(Brief article)(Book review)
Apr 02, 2007; ... If we want the next generation to be able to articulate their gratitude for the American heritage, it's going to be up to their parents to teach them about it. (The schools? Fuhgeddaboudit.) There's a great ...
Against closure.(FILM)(Zodiac by David Fincher)
Apr 02, 2007; ... LONG, repetitive, and deliberately inconclusive, David Fincher's Zodiac is the best movie of 2007 so far, and a better piece of filmmaking than anything nominated for Best Picture in the year just past. Superficially more conventional than his brilliant 1990s provocations, Seven and Fight ...
Spring rhythm.
Apr 02, 2007; ... SPRING begins with flowers. That is what Swinburne wrote. "And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, / And in green underwood and cover / Blossom by blossom the spring begins." Pre-spring begins with sound. The essential, coldest, and most threatening mark of winter is ...
A new bill of rights?
Apr 02, 2007; ... NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 27 NEWSPAPERS are carrying lead stories on the inchoate schism between the Episcopalians and the rest of the Anglican Communion. The news tick is that the Anglicans (headed by the archbishop of Canterbury) have informed the Episcopal Church in the United ...
Arthur Schlesinger, R.I.P.(on the right)(Biography)
Apr 02, 2007; ... NEW YORK, MARCH 2 I ALWAYS regretted that we didn't become friends, because the thousands who succeeded in doing so found friendship with Arthur Schlesinger very rewarding. For one thing, to behold him--listen to him, observe him, read him--was to coexist with a miracle of ...
Chasing the buck.
Apr 02, 2007; ... NEW YORK, MARCH 6 HARRY TRUMAN is forever remembered for having said, "The buck stops here!" This came at a high moment in confusion and recriminations during the postwar federal scandals. It isn't by any means established that President Truman bungled his responsibilities as ...
Freedom House: an exchange.(Letter to the editor)
Apr 16, 2007;
A line for Capitol Hill.
Apr 16, 2007
Iran has thrown down the gauntlet by hijacking 15 British sailors and marines in the Persian Gulf.(Brief article)
Apr 16, 2007