Month: January 2008

Let’s hope it isn’t windy.

It seems obvious to me that Romney is being unfairly attacked here. Here’s the money quote:

Well, there’s no question but that — the president and Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about. But those shouldn’t be for public pronouncement. You don’t want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you’re going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police, and the leadership of the Iraqi government.

This is not what anyone would call a timetable for withdrawal in the way McCain is implying. Then this excrescence:

In Sun City Center, Mr. McCain said he owed no apology to Mr. Romney. Instead, he said, it was Mr. Romney who should apologize "to the young men and women who are serving in uniform."

This is Clintonian. And I say that as someone who vastly prefers McCain to Romney.

Can’t hurt.

A classic from The Atlantic’s now free archives. Felix Frankfurter, a professor at Harvard Law School, was considered the most prominent critic of the trial. His 1927 article about Sacco and Vanzetti sounds faintly familiar of the current administration:

In 1921 the temper of the times made it the special duty of a prosecutor and a court engaged in trying two Italian radicals before a jury of native New Englanders to keep the instruments of justice free from the infection of passion or prejudice. In the case of Sacco and Vanzetti no such restraints were respected. By systematic exploitation of the defendants’ alien blood, their imperfect knowledge of English, their unpopular social views, and their opposition to the war, the District Attorney invoked against them a riot of political passion and patriotic sentiment; and the trial judge connived at—one had almost written, cooperated in—the process.

Illinois lawmakers defend Obama.

Just for Reihan – a ten-minute video history of the British Tory Party. Maybe it helps explain why I still think of myself as a conservative:

Le Rouret, France, 7.10 am.

An examination of why the polls misread yet another primary.

Last night’s Dish coverage of Obama’s resemblance to John F. Kennedy is here; of the margin of Obama’s numbers – greater than McCain and Huckabee’s SC totals combined – here; of his acceptance speech – the best I have ever heard from him – here; and of Bill Clinton’s final, ugly spin here. In case you were having a normal Saturday night.

A reader writes:

In Quote for the Day III you ask, “Does anyone think that Jefferson was too inexperienced when he wrote that phrase?”, referring to that most famous line in American letters: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

Well, I don’t know if Jefferson was too inexperienced, but he didn’t write that phrase–at least, not exactly. Franklin did. This quote from Walter Isaacson’s "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life":

“On June 21, after he had finished a draft and incorporated some changes from Adams, Jefferson had a copy delivered to Franklin, with a cover note far more polite than editors generally receive today. "Will Doctor Franklin be so good as to peruse it," he wrote, "and suggest such alterations as his more enlarged view of the subject will dictate?"

Franklin made only a few small changes, but one of them was resounding. Using heavy backslashes, he crossed out the last three words of Jefferson’s phrase, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" and changed it to read: "We hold these truths to be self-evident."

The concept of "self-evident" truths came less from Jefferson’s favored philosopher, Locke, than from the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of Franklin’s close friend David Hume. Hume had distinguished between "synthetic" truths that describe matters of fact (such as "London is bigger than Philadelphia" ) and "analytic" truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition. ("The angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees" or "All bachelors are unmarried." ) When he chose the word "sacred," Jefferson had suggested intentionally or unintentionally that the principle in question—the equality of men and their endowment by their creator with inalienable rights—was an assertion of religion. By changing it to "self-evident," Franklin made it an assertion of rationality.”

Maybe it did take someone with Franklin’s years—and scientific interests—and experience–to write that phrase. It was, simply, genius. Jujutsu. With one word—“self-evident”—Franklin forever clarified the divide between received and rational truth, and placed our political system firmly on the foundation of our common rationality rather than on sectarian faith (and all faiths, even the most popular, are by definition sectarian). It’s a phrase–a word–that we might profitably ponder again today. Franklin was not editing the Declaration–he was editing our minds.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident…" Has there ever been anything written more politically empowering than that? Truth is self-evident. Our freedom is founded on that proposition. Our democracy is too. And when truth that is not self-evident is forced on us by one faction or another, we must resist.

Oh yes, Obama. You were defending him against the charge of "inexperienced" in this post, weren’t you? Well, he’s no Franklin–yet. But then, at age 33, neither was Jefferson.