Month: July 2001

The peerless Michael Barone makes a classic, conservative case for a Mexican illegal immigrant amnesty in the Journal today. No quibbles here. UPI’s Steve Sailer, however, cautions against this as a purely ethnic political move. Mexican-Americans only made up 3 percent of the voting population in 2000 – and most were concentrated in Texas and California, two states that are largely out of electoral play for the foreseeable future. But Sailer misses, I think, the broader political point. Such an amnesty wouldn’t just please Latino voters. It would be a bold statement of a compassionate conservatism that would resonate with centrists and suburbanites. Even Paul Berman in Slate describes the move as “immense” and rightly thinks that “on this one very important question, Bush has gone a lot further than Gore would ever have gone.” In short, it’s a master-stroke, playing to Bush’s strengths. I hope the administration doesn’t get spooked by its paleo wing and sticks with this one.

“It is not uncommon for American students to visit Europe with three clothing items jammed in a backpack, but then again, they mostly dine at McDonald’s. In a similar situation, invited to lunch with the queen, every woman I have ever met in my entire life would have cried: ”I don’t have anything to wear!” But perhaps denims are Barbara [Bush]’s native garb. It is perfectly appropriate for a Japanese woman to wear a kimono to the palace, or an Indian a sari. Perhaps Texans wear jeans as their traditional costume. Using the same loophole, she could have added a Dale Earnhardt T-shirt.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

Maybe the president was listening to the Pope. But the trial balloon of last week, offering amnesty to three million illegal Mexican immigrants, and the latest version of it (we’re down to two million now), is perhaps the boldest initiative of the Bush administration yet. It’s good policy – since many of these would-be Americans are now living under the penumbra of criminality. And it’s great politics – managing to put the Democrats on the defensive and woo an important voting bloc. Bush and Rove realize that if they win the same share of the minority vote in 2004 as they did in 2000, they’re finished. They need something big like this to make a real impression. I was glad my own magazine, The New Republic, saw this last week – and were non-partisan enough to welcome it. One other small suggestion. Immigration issues could also help woo the gay vote. Most other western countries now allow some means of immigration for foreign same-sex spouses and all of them allow unrestricted immigration for people with HIV. If the Bushies found a way to move immigration law on these matters as well, the impact on another winnable bloc could be enormous.

SO WHO NEEDS A HATE CRIME LAW?: The crazed gunman who killed one person and wounded six after opening fire in a Roanoke, Virginia, gay bar has just received four life-terms for his crime. He was prosecuted in a conservative state under existing laws, just as Matthew Shepard’s murderers were. More evidence of the complete pointlessness of hate crimes laws – except to further balkanize this country.

MURDEROUS LOGIC: Bob Herbert spluttered yesterday in what is, even for him, an unusually elevated spasm of self-righteousness. His target? The evil tobacco companies. They are guilty of “moral treachery” (who are they betraying exactly?). Their product has a “murderous aspect” to it. (Murderous? You mean Philip Morris is forcing people to smoke to death?) After the moralizing, Herbert’s real beef turns out to be a study that Philip Morris sponsored that shows that in the Czech Republic, smoking actually saves the government money, because people die at earlier ages and so do not need the expensive pensions and health-care that cost the state a fortune. Herbert doesn’t actually refute the study – in fact, he suggests it’s true. It may also be true in the United States – especially if we enact the vast drug entitlements that Herbert supports for the elderly. But this debate apparently cannot be held. In classic p.c. fashion, Herbert quotes an anti-smoking lefty to the effect that “Philip Morris’s cynical disregard for the lives of Czech citizens, using an economic argument rejected in the U.S., illustrates the need for global controls.” But who exactly has ‘rejected’ this economic argument? We don’t know. But we do know that one of the arguments used to penalize these companies for selling a legal product is that smoking costs everyone money in health-care costs. So long as this argument is wielded, it’s completely fair for it to be examined empirically. If smoking actually saves the government money, then this is something we should know. And if it’s true, then that’s one less specious argument for the trial lawyers, nanny-statists, and sanctimonious populists who now dominate this debate.

P-TOWN MOMENT: Just got back from ‘Showgirls.’ How to describe this Provincetown phenomenon? I guess at some level it’s best summed up as a pro-am drag variety show. Every Monday night, a sublime, twisted genius called Ryan Landry hosts a contest for the best drag act in town. It started modestly several years ago – I’ve now been a regular for five seasons – and has now become almost the equivalent of the town weekly mass. Everyone shows up – townies, tourists, muscle-boys, geeky young lesbians, aspiring drag queens, and local freaks. Like the Oscars, it goes on for ever, and the most compelling acts are often the worst. Tonight’s show featured Varla Jean Merman, the big-boned love child of Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine, singing an operatic version of “Disco Inferno,” and a post-modern Shirley Bassey singing “This is my life,” brandishing a box of Life cereal. Ryan cavorts in one ridiculous outfit after another (my favorites are a Mr. Ed horse’s head and a shapeless white thing supposed to be an egg), and sings song-parodies that take regular digs at local characters and merciless fun of gay culture – all out of love, of course. I try never to miss it. Along with impromptu garden readings and drag queens munching pizza at 1am, it’s what makes this place so captivating, and in all its freakiness, the closest I’ve ever come to feeling home.

“When a young United States would not accept anything it felt was a threat, the result was the extermination of Indians and the enslavement of Africans. The young presidency of George Bush, from forcing the carbon monoxide of American cigarettes into South Korea to forcing the rest of the planet to accept the carbon dioxide of our cars, has shown that not even the air inside and outside our lungs will stand in his way. Then again, we may not have to worry much about breathing, given how Bush also wants to break the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty …” – Derrick Z. Jackson, Boston Globe.

SPECIAL KAY AND SEX: Two new pieces posted today. I guess vacation’s over. Check them out opposite.

“At 50, he went with then-representative John Kasich to Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam concerts-at the latter of which he threw himself into the mosh pit. According to a long-time aide, Condit attended a 50,000-strong Hell’s Angels birthday bash for a convicted cop-killer. It now emerges that he was enjoying other things, as well, that belie his Nazarene façade: Thai and Chinese food, Ben & Jerry’s low-fat chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, body-oil massages, and ladies of all stripes-an intern, a barely legal preacher’s daughter, and a flight attendant among them. His favorite D.C. bar is a joint named Tryst; his favorite tie-rack is his headboard. Needless to say, the private Gary Condit has caught most people by surprise.” – Sam Dealey in the Weekly Standard. Hold on a minute. Didn’t even Alan Keyes jump into a mosh-pit? And what exactly is wrong with Thai and Chinese food? Or chocolate chip cookie-dough ice-cream? Or body oil massages? Or a Pearl Jam concert? Or a coffee-shop-diner (where in D.C. I eat daily) called Tryst?As to the facts, the preacher whose daughter was allegedly seduced has now said he made it up. As to Condit’s presumed guilt, it seems increasingly likely that Condit’s whereabouts are almost entirely accounted for the day Chandra Levy went missing, we are left to ask the reason for this unseemly harrumph. Dealey’s argument is summarized by this sentence: “The enlightened position Quinn propounds-that sex doesn’t matter-is only an evolved version of Clinton’s defense-that sex is private.” So sex isn’t private? And if sex isn’t, what is? After the debacle of the attack on Bill Clinton’s sex life – rather than his perjury – the puritanical right has obviously learned nothing. Until they do, the political wilderness is theirs’ to enjoy.

BUGLIOSI RIDICULOSI: The best and most thorough pricking of Vincent Bugliosi’s pomposity I’ve yet seen is Peter Berkowitz’s. Calm, thorough and accurate, this little essay is a primer not on the alleged outrage of the last election’s resolution – but on its eminent reasonableness.

REALITY BITES: American liberal orthodoxy states that race as such does not exist. It is a social construction, or a false social labeling, or another fantasy of troglodytes. That’s why it’s always interesting when science – in its neutral, non-political guise – crashes up against this shibboleth. A story in Saturday’s New York Times details the issues involved in making racial or ethnic distinctions in mapping the human genome. Part of the point of studying the genome is to find the origins of diseases – in order to find ways to cure them. But certain parts of the human population have slightly different susceptibilities to such things. So what to do? Surely Dr. Eric Lander’s view is the right one: “We must make sure the information is not used to stigmatize populations,” the Whitehead Institute scientist told the Times. “But we have an affirmative responsibility to ensure that what is learned will be useful for all populations. If we shy away and don’t record the data for certain populations, we can’t be sure to serve those populations medically.” Exactly. In this fraught area, we should stop insisting that there are no genetic differences between ethnic and racial groups, and start trying to discern the probably very subtle but also discernible differences. Scientists shouldn’t work from an a priori political stance that racial difference is a myth. They should ask naxefve questions and seek the best answers. And those answers, from everything we know, look as if they’ll be extremely complex – and possibly deeply challenging.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: A British reader takes issue with my account of the Tory leadership election. I’ve heard similar analyses from British friends, and they seem persuasive. Here it is:

“Whilst homophobia probably had a role in [Portillo’s] elimination from the contest, the reality is that few people really knew what he represented after so many of his U-turns. For instance, Portillo’s only substantive pronouncement on same-sex partnership rights was to say that he did not have an opinion either way; and his call for a public debate on drugs policy left many commentators asking in vain what his own views were.
“Even more importantly, however, was the cavalier and high-handed way in which Portillo dealt with many of his parliamentary colleagues. Following his Road to Damascus conversion to an ill-defined “caring Conservatism”, for example, this aspiring Party Leader gratuitously cut off many of his closest friends for being too right-wing, even though a number of them were the very MPs whose support he would eventually need to become Party Leader. Notably, hardly any member of the Thatcherite ‘No Turning Back’ group of MPs endorsed him. Indeed, during his candidacy, Portillo effectively said that he would expel figures like Lord Tebbit (former Party Chairman) if they publicly criticised such politically correct ideals as multiculturalism. So much for free speech in the Tories’ broad church.
“Worse still, Portillo surrounded himself with sycophantic twenty-somethings who ultimately formed the core of his campaign team and who went round telling Tory MPs, “No support, no job”. One such figure was Portillo’s principal press officer, Malcolm Gooderham, who shot to fame weeks before the General Election when he was exposed in the “Daily Mirror” newspaper for trying to plant anti-Hague stories in the tabloid press. Significantly, Gooderham was not sacked for such blatant disloyalty.
“With respect to your remarks about Ken Clarke, I believe that there is an American saying, “I’d rather be right than President”, which sums up the Conservative Party’s predicament after two consecutive 1983-style defeats. According to the opinion polls, Clarke was always the most popular of the original five candidates for Party Leader, both amongst Tory voters and the electorate at large. Both Clarke and Duncan Smith have said, moreover, that the only issue that seriously divides the Party (i.e., the euro) will be regarded as a free vote, especially whenever the referendum is held.
“Principles are wonderful things, but not much use if they condemn a political party to perpetual opposition – a lesson that Labour had to learn the hard way. Unfortunately, Michael Portillo was a flawed individual who would have been unable to return the Conservative Party to government for a variety of reasons. That is why, in the final analysis, he lost.”

My take on embryo stem-cell research – posted opposite.

So Jeffrey Archer gets four years in jail for perjury, while Bill Clinton gets to pardon even more crooks. At least one country is interested in defending its legal system.

MEDIA HELL WATCH: Interesting sub-head for NR’s Condit coverage: “A daily news digest of Washington’s latest sex-and-lies scandal.” Nothing there about a missing person, a possible crime, an unsolved mystery – just sex and “lies.” I put “lies” in quotation marks, since we have no evidence that Gary Condit has told any lies at all. We know it took three police interviews to get him to admit that he had an affair with Levy. Before then he said they were good friends. That is also true – if not the whole truth. We also have no idea what the actual conversation with the Keystone – I mean D.C. – cops was. For all we know, they may not have asked him explicitly about his sexual relationship with Levy until the third interview. Meanwhile in Levy news, the Modesto minister who claimed his daughter had an affair with Condit has subsequently recanted. So now we have an actual lie. And it exonerates Condit. The media, however, gleefully outed the minister’s daughter for her alleged sexual affair. I hope she sues the bejeezus out of them. And why doesn’t Rebecca Cooper sue the New York Post? They made the same accusation against her. When the media has gone this nuts, the only recourse is sometimes the law.

BEST CONDIT PIECE YET: Jonathan Rauch carves up the anti-privacy crusade with his usual razor-sharp mind. Not to be missed.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I’m an Irish politics junkie who finds your web-site and arguments highly stimulating. I disagree with you on why the Tories voted against Portillo.
One factor which has been massively under-reported in my opinion is Portillo’s falseness. He’s always spinning and projecting an image and it’s very difficult to understand where he really stands on anything. Consider his demeanor immediately after his defeat. There he was with a broad smile and saying “I can live with this result” when, in reality, this highly ambitious man must have been crushed by the cruel dashing of his long-held ambition. Portillo was at all times a consummate insider jostling for personal and political advantage. Contrast that with Clarke (who did his own career in the last parliament no good with his stance on Europe) and with Duncan-Smith (who led the revolt against the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty when Maggie was still in charge … again not the action of a man to whom personal advancement was everything).
Portillo reminded me of Al Gore – probably a decent man but an actor whose sincerity I couldn’t trust after so many policy flip-flops and insincere attempts to appear sincere.
Despite all that, I think the Tories have made a massive mistake in dumping Portillo – he was the only candidate who could have skated over their cracks on Europe. With Clarke or Duncan-Smith the cracks could become chasms.”

“Again, the only way a church can retain its religious character is if it can staff itself with those who share the same faith,” argued James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman close to the religious right. Fair enough. But does a Baptist charity need to exclude Jews from helping out in a homeless shelter, as Jerrold Nadler rightly asked? And does a Catholic charity have to exclude willing Methodists from mentoring youth? And how about gay Catholics or gay Baptists? The impulse behind the notion of the government removing obstacles from religious charities to get funding to help the needy is a good one. But, in a culture as diverse as this one, blurring politics and religion in this way is simply a recipe for further discord. We’ve already seen what difficulties even the Salvation Army will face finding a way to make all this work. More good institutions are going to go through the mire of controversy – a process that can only distract them from their real mission and tarnish the very reputations that help make them effective. These groups are not designed to be political lightning rods. But that’s exactly what president Bush’s ill-conceived, well-meant proposal will bring about. I hope the Senate puts some strong firewalls in the eventual bill to prevent my tax-dollars being used to fund groups that want to deny me my – and anyone else’s – civil rights. Or, better still, that this proposal meets the early death it richly deserves.

MAKES YOU APPRECIATE BABA WAWA: “She married Felix Frankfurter’s brilliant law clerk, Philip Graham, who took over running The Post, which her father purchased at a bankruptcy sale. Graham built the paper but became estranged from Kay. She had him committed to a mental hospital, and he was clearly intending divorce when she signed him out and took him for a weekend outing during which he was found shot. His death was ruled a suicide. Within 48 hours, she declared herself the publisher.” – editorial from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

DC POLICE HELL: A couple of emails from Washingtonians say more about this issue than I can:

“The investigatory skills [of the D.C. cops] aren’t the only things in need of serious improvement; their powers of simple observation could be better as well. On several occasions, I’ve watched the Metropolitan Police Department sit idly by as cars, within clear view of the MPD, have barreled through stoplights and well nigh killed people. And heaven help you if you’re the victim of a crime. Many of my friends have called the police after their cars have been broken into only to have the dispatcher refuse to send an officer out to the scene to investigate. But perhaps it is best that the MPD doesn’t visit the scene of a crime: on one occasion, a friend of mine had summoned the DC constabulary to his house after it had been burgled, and much of his wife’s jewelry stolen. Whatever jewelry was left by the burglars was stolen by two female police officers who responded to the call. So you’re pretty much damned if you call the MPD and damned if you don’t.”

“It was Sunday, March 18, 2001, approximately 5:45 p.m. I was walking up N Street in Dupont Circle towards 21st Street. I was on my usual visit to friends who live in a building on the corner. The car, a beat up Ford, backed into a driveway at the 2100 block of N blocking my path. The door opened, the passenger was holding a pistol which he pointed at me and said “Sir, if you run I will shoot you.” Well, long story short, I ran like hell and was able to get away. My friend watched the entire episode from his second floor apartment window and called 911. This all happened less than a block from The Newport where Chandra lived. The DC police arrived from the Second District. The officer told me that I had a 50/50 chance by running. However, no chance whatsoever if they forced me into the car and took me to an ATM. He said my body would more than likely never have been found.”

And what if, like Chandra, he’d left all his money at home?

“I think there is a non-arbitrary point where a fertilized ovum can be said to become a human being, and it’s about ten days after fertilization, not at the time of fertilization. At about ten days into term an interesting thing happens: A ball of cells, some of which go on to become placenta, some to be fetus, undergoes “primitive streaking.” At this point it is determined which cells go on to which role — you can distinguish fetus from placenta — and, maybe even more importantly, twinning is no longer possible. As long as twinning remains possible, there is no human individual. Whatever exists before ten days can undergo fission, human beings cannot. So, if all of this is right, then one cannot object that working on what’s in the dish five days after fertilization is working on a human being, and bringing about its demise is not homicide. There may be other objections to doing this, but homicide it ain’t.”