Jonah Goldberg has a nice long review of FF’s recent book here. A snippet:

Francis Fukuyama, the author of The End of History, is a man constitutionally determined to find the permanent theory of everything. It seems, however, that America at the Crossroads represents less a serious theoretical exegesis than a momentary crisis of confidence by one of the smartest observers around. It is a snapshot taken at a moment of maximum neo-conservative despair stemming from confusion over the Iraq war and the nature of the Islamist threat. In a Huntington age, he is unwilling to relinquish the vision of a Fukuyama world. As such, this book offers useful insights into the internal contradictions within and among conservative policymakers, but ultimately it creates more bloomin’ buzzin’ confusion than it dispels.

Read the whole thing.  

The Weekly Standard draws our attention to this study of parking tickets racked up by UN diplomats that go unpaid because of diplomatic immunity. The authors find a close correlation between the frequency of parking ticket violations and the level of corruption in the home countries (as measured by several international indexes of corruption). Egyptian diplomats, for example, racked up more than 16,000 unpaid parking tickets between 1997 and 2002.

Congratulations to this month’s winners of a No Left Turns mug! The winners are as follows:

Matt Mingus
Ian Hanchett
Lisa Cook
Lena Johnson
Karen Valli

I’m late in noticing it, I know, but Prof. Harvey Mansfield was the commencement speaker at Hillsdale College this year and you can read the text of his remarks in the June issue of Imprimis. Rather than focusing directly on the question of "manliness" Mansfield, instead, took up the question of femininity or womanliness--and did this, as he put it, by way of suggestion. This method was, for him, both wise and prudent--but it leaves open a host of questions (perhaps to be addressed by others as he seems to both hint at and hope for).

The most compelling "suggestion" Mansfield makes is in the title itself: A New Feminism. The title takes on the dual purpose of "suggesting" both that there is something wrong with the current feminism and--which is more--that there may be something good in feminism as such (or reconfigured, or reconstituted, or rightly understood). Many thinkers and writers have attempted to take on the task of redefining what feminism "really is" in the (vain and, perhaps, vainglorious) hope of saving feminism from itself. Indeed, most books that one reads these days from feminists are books that seek to set feminism on the "right track"--either by harkening back to its "founding" or by insisting that it re-birth itself drawing on principles either missed in its founding or incompletely understood at that time. But Mansfield does not make such an attempt here. Because he merely suggests things, he does not have to enter into the fray of that presumptuous discussion.

What he does do is begin with some different conclusions about the natures of both men and women than those adopted by feminism’s fore-mothers. To put it simply, he notes that men and women are both the same and different. Feminism began by emphasizing the "sameness" of men and women over (and sometimes against) their differences in order to achieve a more equitable situation for women vis a vis the workplace and politics. But the standard of judging its success should not be whether or not that project was successful (it was) but whether or not it has produced greater happiness. A mere glance at the covers of most women’s magazines (and, increasingly, one might add--the men’s magazines) in the grocery line suggests that it has not produced much happiness at all.

Mansfield seems to suggest that the problem with the current feminism’s origins (in Beauvoir and others) is that it was not nuanced enough. In denying the existence of or denigrating the existence of "femininity" we seem to have created a sexless society in which no one really seems to enjoy both our common and different natures. Mansfield seems to pine for a feminism that recognizes and encourages femininity--but emphatically states that putting the genie back into the bottle (especially regarding the workplace and politics) is both impossible and, probably, undesirable. So what then can best work to secure our happiness?

A most telling suggestion about how to get to a better place comes in the section where Mansfield reconsiders the old "Double Standard" regarding sex:

The traditional double standard of sexual morality had been higher for women than for men, but feminists posited that men could get away with anything. Rather than trying to elevate the standard for men’s sexual behavior up to that of women, as nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century feminists proposed, the Beauvoir feminists proposed to lower the standard for women down to that of men. The result of abolishing the double standard has been to do away with any standard. Moderate feminists such as Naomi Wolfe have begun to have second thoughts about this result.

Thank God the World Cup only happens every four years. I can’t stand the suspense of high-scoring 3-2 games! What kind of sport is it that wastes such amazing fitness and athletic talent on a game where you can’t use your hands on the ball, where 4 points is a super high scoring game ( was there a single game this year where any team scored 4 goals or more??), and where a tie is settled with penalty kicks instead of the American way, "Sudden Death" overtime?

Can’t use it. Give me the NBA or NFL any time over this typically silly European "sport."

The final injustice: France was--it pains me to say--the obviously superior team. Notwithstanding the joy at seeing France lose for political/cultural reasons, this would never happen in major American sports.

This Pew poll analysis provides some context for the interest in Barack Obama. Here’s the conclusion:

As scholars who doubt the existence of a culture war point out, there remains in the United States a (very) large corps of moderate citizens and voters, and these voters truly hold the balance of power in American elections. These voters, and even a large portion of seculars, have overwhelmingly positive views of religion and desire an important public and political role for religious symbols and values. The analyses reported here suggest that even among many of these centrist citizens and voters, the Democratic Party is not seen as friendly toward religion, and these analyses show that this is strongly related to the Party’s general reputation and electoral outcomes.

This second dimension of the Democrats’ problem also suggests an alternative route to overcoming their recent struggles with religion. That is, instead of having to peel away at the conservative Christian base of the GOP, the Democrats may benefit simply from convincing centrists of their general friendliness toward religion. Attempting to convince the public of their friendliness to religion, however, may carry risks of its own for the Democrats. Our analysis indicates that among seculars, who have become one of the core constituencies of the Democratic Party, those who view the Democrats as friendly toward religion were actually less likely to have voted for Kerry than were those who view the Party as unfriendly toward religion.

Of course, none of this is to suggest that perceptions of Democrats’ friendliness to religion are the new linchpin of American politics or the single key to understanding electoral outcomes. But in a nation where the electorate is as closely divided as the American electorate has been in recent years, any one of a number of factors could, conceivably, serve to tip the balance in one direction or another. Perceptions of the Democrats’ friendliness toward religion may be one such factor.

In other words, there may be some portion of the electorate for whom Obama’s generally religion-friendly position--despite its predictably liberal conclusions on almost every issue--is sufficient to move them in the Democratic direction.

The one thing that gives me pause, however, is the failure of the Pew analysts to take race into account. I suspect that African-Americans, generally speaking, regard Democrats as friendly toward religion. By not controlling for that factor in their analysis, the Pew folks may, first of all, have overstated the perception of Democratic friendliness toward religion and, second, have overstated the prospects for moving people in the Democratic direction by altering public perceptions.

Of course, as they note, in a closely divided electorate, it doesn’t necessarily take much movement to shift the outcome. This is less true in the House of Representatives, where there are very few genuinely competitive seats, but it could make a difference in Senate races and perhaps even in a presidential race.

Looking at the 2004 state-by-state results, there six states that GWB won narrowly: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Ohio. Ohio would have been in the Kerry column with a shift of roughly 69,000 votes (1.3% of the electorate), Florida with a shift of 191,000 votes (2.5%). Had 0.43% of the voters in Iowa shifted, along with 0.6% of the voters in New Mexico and 1.3% in Nevada, Kerry would have won the electoral vote (without, of course, necessarily winning the fictitious national popular vote).

Now, factor in a consideration of religious affiliation by state. Evangelicals are the largest or second-largest bloc of potential voters in each of the six states. In two states (Iowa and Ohio), mainline Protestants are the largest; in one (New Mexico, naturally), Latino Catholics are the largest. While there’s all sorts of talk about a leftward drift among evangelicals, I continue to believe that an issue like abortion will continue to loom relatively large for them, as it will for Catholics. The religious voters most likely to be susceptible to Democratic appeals are mainline Protestants, who have been migrating toward the left and diminishing in number (thanks both to the aging of the population in the pews and the well-documented silly trendiness of the denominational hierarchies and/or bureaucracies).

I’m late to this party, but Barack Obama’s speech on religion and politics has been getting lots of attention. Peter Wood is suspicious of a good bit of it. Kevin Drum is cautiously favorable. At Mirror of Justice, Thomas Berg kicked off an exchange that included a number of interesting interventions, more indeed than I can accommodate without adding these links.

I don’t think I’m quite as suspicious of the speech as Wood is, but I do think that it is an interestingly confused (or perhaps carefully strategic, though I doubt it) presentation by a man likely to be a major force in the Democratic Party. I’m going to give some more thought to it and write something formal for one of my publication venues.

In the meantime, here’s an example of what’s interestingly confused:

over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people’s lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it’s time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

And if we’re going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that’s deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they’re coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

Can you tell whether he means this as an anthropological observation, a theological observation, or both? Here’s his (sort of) answer:

It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well -- that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

And if it weren’t for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn - not just to work with the church, but to be in the church.

For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.

Here’s the NYT’s not altogether impartial account of the 4-2 decision finding a "rational basis" for a legislative preference on behalf of traditional marriage. I haven’t had time to read the opinions yet.

Distracted by an Independence Day that included a visit to this historic site, I was late in getting this week’s column to the good people at TAE Online, who wasted no time posting it. Here’s the opening paragraph:

One of the most striking features of last week’s Supreme Court Hamdan decision was the way in which Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the plurality, sought always to understand the current global war on terror in the light of rules developed in and designed for more conventional conflicts. This was especially clear in two instances: when he challenged the very use of a military commission to try Salim Ahmed Hamdan, and when he insisted upon the irregularity of the commission’s procedures.

And here’s the conclusion:

One good thing may result from the Court’s willingness to exceed the bounds of its competence and tread on the toes of the politically responsible branches. Everyone seems to agree that Congress now has to step up to the plate and legislate for the military commissions that are supposed to try alleged al-Qaeda members. Given the manner in which national security seems to be the Bush administration’s political and substantive strong suit, the resulting legislation may establish procedures that look a lot like those already in place. On the other hand, the Court’s repudiation of those procedures in Hamdan provides some ammunition to those who have a conventional or law-enforcement view of the global war on terror, which is (I’m sure) what they hoped when they succeeded in passing the buck in the first place.

If the Bush administration (as it ought) chooses vigorously to fight this battle, it can accomplish two things at least. First, its judgments about how to try detainees will in the end be vindicated, thus enabling us to “wage war successfully.” And second, the two politically responsible branches will have repudiated the judgments of Justice Stevens and his colleagues, which would have the salutary effect of reminding the Court of its mere equality with, and the deference it owes to, them.

Both results are worth the expenditure of a great deal of political capital. Both would be a substantial contribution to President Bush’s legacy of not only defending the nation but also defending the appropriate balance between the three branches of government. In connection with the latter legacy, the only thing that could improve upon it would be the appointment of yet another judicially modest nominee to replace Justice Stevens, who has here shown his imperious impatience with the limits of his office.

There’s more in between.

Update: Robert Alt details the liberal overreaction to Hamdan, which may lead one to doubt that cooler heads will prevail before November. A taste:

The hyperbolic reaction of the Left seems particularly ill-advised given that the Hamdan opinion will have little lasting practical effect: Congress has already made clear that it intends to grant the president the authority to utilize some kind of military commission. Despite several prominent Democrats supporting some form of legislation, there is caustic liberal sentiment against granting the president any such option. One of the first comments on the Daily Kos after Hamdan was issued summed up this position: "Democratics [sic] in Congress need to be told in no uncertain terms that they shall not vote to allow these tribunals. We need to put the electoral gun to their heads and make sure they march in the right direction on this." Of course, these orders would march the Democrats right out of Congress.

Read the whole thing.   

Update #2: Brett Marston disagrees with me. Here’s my quickie response:

I don’t think and didn’t say that adjudication is simply the application fo existing rules, though I do think that judges are, and ought to be, more closely bound by existing rules (in other words, less creative or innovative) than are the politically responsible branches. The rule of law, which is limited in certain extreme instances, requires that of them.

I also don’t argue that Congree should simply defer to the executive, though I do think that the executive’s responsibility for the conduct of the war deserves some repect and tends to give it the upper hand in any dispute with Congress.

Finally, I nowhere in the piece make the case for anything that could be called torture. My only concern is how, if at all, we’re going to try members of al Qaeda, given the fact that their respect for our version of the rule of law is at best tactical. (In other words, they’re all over the writ of habeas corpus, but not too fastidious about killing innocents.) I don’t regard battlefields as crime scenes, don’t regard soldiers and intelligence agents as detectives, and think that any rules for holding these folks legally accountable have to be fashioned with these and other such considerations in mind. I think the Bush Administration (leaving aside for a moment interrogation techniques, which I think are a separate issue with which Congress has already dealt in the DTA) has fashioned a plausible set of rules for trying these guys, if in fact they are to be tried. Members of Congress might disagree, and something will I hope be fashioned in the aftermath of Hamdan. If the only plausible option is trying them in accordance with the rules that typically apply to courts martial and/or trials in civilian courts, then I’m not sure how we can assemble to sort of evidence that those venues require. The Bush Administration and its successors would, it seems to me, to be left then with two options (consistent with our national security interests): locking these guys up for the indefinite duration of the GWOT (freeing them only at discretion, with no sort of regular process) or making sure there are no captives. I’d prefer some sort of commission route, so long as it takes into account the exigencies of the GWOT, over either of these two options.

I hadn’t noticed until today that Alan Jacobs compared NLT to the Daily Kos in his essay critical of blogs. Here’s the passage and its context:

I think first of the extraordinary anger that seems to be more present in the blogosphere than in everyday life. Debate after debate—on almost every site I visit, including the ones devoted to Christianity—either escalates from rational discourse into sneering and name-calling or just bypasses reason altogether and starts with the abuse.

Partly this derives from the anonymity of blog comments: people rarely identify themselves by their real names, and the email addresses that they sometimes provide rarely give clues about their identity: a person who is safe from substantive reprisals is probably more easily tempted to express rage. Also—and this is a problem especially on the political blogs—commenters can find themselves confronted with very different beliefs than the ones they encounter in everyday life, where they often are able to select their own society. A right-winger wandering into a comment thread on Dailykos.com is likely to get a serious douse of vitriol for his or her trouble; ditto a liberal who plunges into the icy waters of No Left Turns. And the anonymous habitués of a given site are unlikely to show much courtesy to the uninvited guest. (This is one reason why sites like the two just mentioned get more rhetorically, and substantively, extreme over time: everyone is pulling in one direction, and scarcely anyone shows up to exert counter-pressure.)

Wow! I wouldn’t have thought of comparing the level of vitriol at NLT to that I’ve seen at Daily Kos, and I’m not certain that NLT has gotten "more rhetorically, and substantively extreme," in the years that I’ve read and contributed to it. I know that there are a few anonymous commenters who are over the top at least some of the time, but even they, often as not, make substantive arguments. We are, for better (I think), not in the Daily Kos’s league when it comes to venom, vitriol, and extremism. And it’s not something to which I’d aspire.

So I ask NLT readers, liberal and conservative alike, what they think of Jacobs’s observations.

And for gosh’s sake, keep it civil.

Update: You should, of course, read the whole of Jacobs’s provocative essay, which makes a number of telling points, like this one:

Blogs remain great for news: political, technological, artistic, whatever. And they provide a very rich environment in which news (or rather "news") can be tested and evaluated and revised, as we have seen repeatedly, from cnn’s firing of Eason Jordan to the discrediting of Dan Rather’s story on President Bush’s National Guard service. But as vehicles for the development of ideas they are woefully deficient and will necessarily remain so unless they develop an architecture that is less bound by the demands of urgency—or unless more smart people refuse the dominant architecture. Even on a site with the brainpower of Crooked Timber, what happens more often than not—indeed, what happens so often that I’ve taken the site from my rss reader and only check it once or twice a month—is the conversion of really good scholars into really lousy journalists. With few exceptions, posts at the "academic" or "intellectual" blogs I used to frequent have become the brief and cursory announcement of opinions, not the free explorations of new and dynamic thinking.