Return to the Latest on No Left Turns
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Bush on Affirmative Action
I see that the Chronicle of Higher Education has published an article entitled "Bush Administration’s Position in Michigan Cases Sets High Bar for Use of
Race in Admissions." I immediately thought, "Well, yes; and that bar is the U.S. Constitution." Of course, Bush did not go as far we would like, especially given his support for racial diversity as an "important goal" last Thursday and in the legal briefs on Grutter and Gratz. Nevertheless, one hopes it is a step in the right direction.
Posted by Lucas Morel | Link to this Entry | Comments [4] | 1/20/2003 4:53 PM
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U.S. Units Hunting Saddam
USA Today reports that there are over 100 good guys (SOF and CIA) tracking Saddam inside Iraq and are ready to kill him, if and when necessary. There is some interesting stuff in this short story; I don’t really doubt that most of it is true, yet, I wonder what the point is in publicizing it. And the BBC has this cautionary note to those who think there is any real chance that Saddam may step aside and spend the rest of his life on the beach somewhere: Just before the Gulf War in 1991 there was a similar flurry of activity/hope that he would go into exile. It didn’t happen. Yet I still think it is possible that he might do it, especially if some of his own people want to save their skins and either persuade him (unlikely), force him (more probable), or, of course, they could simply kill him (most probable). In the meantime one quarter of the British Army is being sent to the Gulf, according to the BBC.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 1/20/2003 4:38 PM
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Last Yankee War Widow Dies
This is a touching story from the BBC. The last widow of a Union soldier died in Tennessee. Gertrude Janeway was 93 years old. She married her veteran husband, John, in 1927 when she was 18 and he was 81. There is a widow of a Confederate soldier still alive, in Alabama.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments | 1/20/2003 4:18 PM
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Hillary Clinton on the Move
In case there is any doubt in your mind that Hillary is serious about running in 2008 (or possibly being on the ticket for VP in 2004), please note the various interesting references to her Senate career in these two articles, one from the White Plains Journal News and the other from Newsday. Also note that she is now on the Armed Services Committee.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [3] | 1/20/2003 4:10 PM
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Sullivan on Anti-Americanism
This is from yesterday’s London Times and is typical Andrew Sullivan; almost perfect. Things to keep in mind when thinking of these-so-called-anti-war demonstrations. A good paragraph: "Of course, most anti-Americanism today doesn’t deal with this complex reality. It deals with the fact of American
hyper-power, and its impact on the broader world. In this sense, it’s a new form of anti-Americanism. It’s
anti-Americanism without the counter-balance of fearing the Soviet Union. And it’s anti-Americanism without the
positive element of twentieth-century faith in socialism or Marxism. This makes it in some ways a purer
anti-Americanism, one that simply hates American power, rather than one that posits any credible alternative. And
it’s made far worse by the relative growth of exactly that power. The post-Cold War 1990s, after all, saw
economic stagnation and rapid disarmament in much of Europe, combined with a massive boom and military
investment in the U.S. What was once dominance has become de facto hegemony. So anti-Americanism now
looms in the world’s psyche without any of its erstwhile anchors. It isn’t tempered by fear of a rival super-power;
it isn’t fortified by a vital economic or political alternative. And when American power is actually deployed, this
free-floating animosity mutates into a kind of hatred."
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 1/20/2003 3:43 PM
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Balint Vazsonyi Died
I just noticed that Balint Vazsonyi passed away last week. He was not only a concert pianist, but a lover of America. I met him only once. It was in Washington about four years ago, and Lee Edwards introduced me to him. I hadn’t heard of him until then. Lee explained that Mr. Vazsonyi was a great lover of the country and had established an organization to promote the principles of the American Founding. Mr. Vazsonyi, of course, did not know I was also born in Hungary or what what my work was. In his irrepressibly Hungarian way he started lecturing me about the nobility of the Founding and implied that he was the only person in the world who understood these things, and how it was his duty to teach the natives. Well, this was an opportunity I couldn’t resist! So, as Lee Edwards the gentleman looked on in utter panic, I proceeded to tell Mr. Vazsonyi that I was sick and tired of all manner of foreigners coming to my country and telling us how to think about ourselves. I stayed with this theme for more than a few minutes, but, of course Vazsonyi, being-Hungarian-and-all, just kept rhapsodizing about the Founding with pretty good arguments and scholarship as if all he had to do was keep talking to persuade another ill-educated native about his own country. Well, Lee was standing there ill at ease through all this, so finally I let the cat out of the bag and told the great pianist (in Hungarian) that we were both Americans born in the wrong place and I understood what he understood and he could stop browbeating me now. And he did. And Lee was able to take a breath; the joke worked. May this American Rest in Peace.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments | 1/20/2003 1:47 PM
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Protest Numbers
OxBlog (see Saturday) reports the world-wide anti-war protest numbers and decides that they amounted to much less than the 100,000 protesting in Caracas (plus 50,000 supporting them in Miami) against Chavez and his tyranny. OxBlog asks: Which protests made the NYTimes and WaPo headlines? To no one’s surprise it was not the protests in Venezuela. But, hey, I’m not complaining. I think it was kind of fun seeing Ramsay Clark, folks from the World Wokers Party, and various actors whose names I can never remember. Just like the good old days (or not). I hope they feel better about themselves. The rest of us can still feel pretty good about the country.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 1/20/2003 1:35 PM
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National Dialogue on Race
Has anyone noticed how naturally President Bush jump-started the "national dialogue on race," a project Clinton could only manage to contrive with a stacked blue-ribbon commission and "townhall" gabfests? To be sure, the media is trying to keep the Lott debacle alive by tacking on a reference to him in any discussion of the GOP and race; nevertheless, when an elected official treats a matter seriously, especially a controversial one like affirmative action, it is cheering to see that the country is astir with arguments on both sides of the issue. You would think the briefs submitted by the current executive branch were actually dispositive on this question, given the great heat and occasional light now emitted over the subject. Here’s my tag line for any Supreme Court justice interested in a nice closer for their court opinion: "Under our Constitution, race should not be the measure of any individual’s rights."
Posted by Lucas Morel | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 1/20/2003 1:24 PM
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Surprise, Surprise
Well, it’s in the Washington Post this morning: Colin Powell disagrees with President Bush’s position on the Michigan quota cases. Not that we couldn’t have guessed.
Posted by Steven Hayward | Link to this Entry | Comments | 1/20/2003 11:58 AM
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Is Diversity Good?
Harry V.Jaffa is right in principle in beating up on Bush for saying that he is for diversity (which, Jaffa reminds us, really means quotas to the bad guys) in a regime that stands for e pluribus unum. Now to translate that into political practice under these corrupt circumstances; we turn to someone with phronesis. Very good, tarry over the one coffee.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 1/17/2003 4:38 PM
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Terrorists and Chemical Weapons
There are some interesting facts (or surmises) being pieced together resulting (in part) from the recent arrests of terrorists in London who had the poison ricin. It is now thought that the Pankisi Gorge area of Georgia was (and still might be) the heart of the problem. The Georgians said they killed all these guys last year; well, it’s now clear that they didn’t kill all of them (or any) but let them leave. Many have headed to Europe and are well trained and organized; affiliated with al-Qaeda or Ansar al-Islam.
This will get more interesting, and possibly more clear.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments | 1/17/2003 3:02 PM
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If Iraq War, When
This is a clear explanation by Michael O’Hanlon (Brookings) of when the war is likely to start against Iraq, if there is to be one. The short of it is that Bush will have to make the decision to go to war within about the next two weeks if he wants to avoid fighting in the heat of the Iraqi summer. O’Hanlon says that forty days will be needed after the decision is made for the final pieces to be in place in order for the war to start. Good detail. One coffee.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [2] | 1/17/2003 12:08 PM
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Briefs Against Univ of Michigan
A quick perusal of the federal govt’s amicus briefs against the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies show that Bush, Ted Olson et al. are playing to win. Notwithstanding my beef that Bush conceded the "compelling state interest" argument by accepting racial diversity as an "important goal" (a point made in his Thursday remarks and reiterated in the _Grutter_ brief), IHMO Bush will win this case 5-4 by directing the Court’s attention solely to the narrowly tailored prong of the strict scrutiny test.
In the _Grutter_ (law school) brief, Olson does this by splitting the tailoring prong into two components. As for the _Gratz_ (undergrad) brief, Lord have mercy on the University of Michigan when it becomes national news--if the Court follows the feds’ brief--that Michigan explicitly violated the _Bakke_ prohibition against quotas (i.e., seats set aside for racial minorities). As late as 1997 or 1998, twenty years after _Bakke_, the university used separate grids and tables (or cells or what have you) for minorities applicants! We all suspected many schools were doing this, but without getting hauled into court, U Michigan and many other colleges have been violating _Bakke_ with impunity.
These years (1995-1998) aside, Olson still goes after Michigan for policies in subsequent years that act as de facto quotas and that unnecessarily use race to achieve diversity when non-racial alternatives exist. I’m not sure how this last argument will hold up, esp. given how recent the high school percentage plans used in California, Texas, and Florida have been in place.
Still, I think Bush wins this one. I’m impressed. I’m not satisfied that the Supremes still think they (and the rest of govt) can decide for themselves when race is bad and when race is good in govt actions. The question is, will a victory in this case help or hinder progress in reading the Constitution as color-blind?
Posted by Lucas Morel | Link to this Entry | Comments [3] | 1/17/2003 10:06 AM
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Moseley-Braun Will Run
Not for Senator from Illinois (she lost her seat in 1998) but for president in the Democratic primary. Notice Brazile’s delicate comments on all this. I think everyone is being too delicate, to the Demos disadvantage. But this really shouldn’t be surprising, given that no ill word has been spoken about Al Sharpton who has no right to run, whereas Moseley-Braun just shouldn’t.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [2] | 1/17/2003 10:05 AM
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Korea Follies?
Krauthammer hits the Bush Administration hard on its policy (or seeming lack of) toward North Korea. I am not yet willing to go this far because I am willing to A) see the amazing complications of this issue, and B) have enough trust in our guys to give them the benefit of the doubt, for now. But I’m paying attention.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [2] | 1/17/2003 9:49 AM
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Chemical Warheads Found
Let’s be perfectly clear about this discovery. This is a violation of the UN resolution. Saddam lied. Und das ist alles! It’s over. The rest are technicalities, when to overthrow him and how to overthrow him. I am guessing that the low-keyed responses from the Admininstration are acts of diplomacy at this point, no one is getting too excited because they know they have won. Furthermore, there will be more revelations, almost certainly. I will also be interested in seeing what will come of those searches of the scientists’ private residences and the conversations with them. So, things are lining up more or less as planned. This still doesn’t mean that there will be a war (as that is ordinarily understood, anyway); there may be a coup or he may leave. It’s just a matter of counting days and weeks.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments | 1/17/2003 9:28 AM
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Oriana Fallaci on the West
This is a speech Fallaci gave last October at the American Enterprise Institute. It is a summary of her book, The Rage and the Pride. Short, one coffee.
Posted by Peter Schramm | Link to this Entry | Comments [1] | 1/17/2003 9:24 AM
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