No Henry Waxman bullying session for the corporate execs who are legally required to write down tax losses from ObamaCare. Must not be such a winning issue after all.
No victory in sight for Arlen Specter. “Republican hopeful Pat Toomey for the first time registers 50% support in his race against incumbent Democrat Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania’s contest for the U.S. Senate. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state shows Specter earning 40% of the vote.”
No respect for Eric Holder — even from Chuck Schumer. “Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) doesn’t believe Attorney General Eric Holder is being genuine when he says the Obama administration still is considering New York City as a site for the terror trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. ‘We know the administration is not going to hold the trial in New York. They should just say it already,’ Schumer said in a statement.” When it was Alberto Gonzales, Schumer said an attorney general who lawmakers couldn’t trust should step down. But that was totally different — Gonzales was an incompetent Republican; Holder’s a Democrat.
No way that the Democrats follow Harry Reid on this one: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) reelection interests are putting him at odds with the centrists he has vigorously protected over the past year and a half on the issue of immigration reform. Vulnerable senators like Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) want to stay away from immigration reform during an election year, but political experts in Nevada say mobilizing Hispanic voters could be the key to a reelection victory for Reid, whose favorability rating is below 40 percent.”
No bounce for Obama: “PPP’s first national poll since the passage of the health care bill finds Barack Obama’s approval rating basically unchanged, with 46% of voters giving him good marks to 48% who disapprove. A month ago it was a 47/48 spread. This is the 4th out of 5 national surveys in 2010 that has put Obama in negative territory. The same basic dynamics in Obama’s national polling continue to be at play — Democrats pretty universally still love him (84% approval), Republicans don’t (87% disapproval), and independents are split pretty evenly. This month they go slightly against Obama by a 45/41 margin and that leads to his overall net negative standing.” And 50 percent oppose ObamaCare, while only 45 percent support it.
No good news for congressional Democrats from Sean Trende: “I think those who suggest that the House is barely in play, or that we are a long way from a 1994-style scenario are missing the mark. A 1994-style scenario is probably the most likely outcome at this point. Moreover, it is well within the realm of possibility — not merely a far-fetched scenario — that Democratic losses could climb into the 80 or 90-seat range. The Democrats are sailing into a perfect storm of factors influencing a midterm election, and if the situation declines for them in the ensuing months, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Democratic losses eclipse 100 seats.”
No help from the Chinese on isolating Iran: “A state-owned Chinese refiner plans to ship 30,000 metric tons of gasoline to Iran after European traders halted shipments ahead of possible new UN sanctions, according to Singapore ship brokers.”
No support for Israel-bashing: “In an open letter to President Obama, the president of the World Jewish Congress expressed concern over the deterioration in relations between Israel and the United States. Ronald Lauder called on Obama to ‘end our public feud with Israel and to confront the real challenges that we face together,’ most importantly the Iranian nuclear threat. … ‘Why does the thrust of this Administration’s Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks? After all, it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate. … The Administration’s desire to improve relations with the Muslim world is well known. But is friction with Israel part of this new strategy? Is it assumed worsening relations with Israel can improve relations with Muslims? History is clear on the matter: appeasement does not work. It can achieve the opposite of what is intended.”
What a moving tribute. I am glad I saw this before signing off. I remember first reading Solzhenitsyn (Ivan Denisovitch) as a teenager in the 1970s, and spending a summer tearing through the Gulag trilogy. That his uncompromising clarity pierced the malodorous gray fog of Soviet mendacity was always amazing evidence of the validity of hope. Solzhenitsyn himself was not a democrat, but he spoke of the evils (and moral temptations) of modern collectivism with the same authority Natan Sharansky has when he speaks of the human longing for political freedom.
We shall not see his like again. Others will surely rise to heroism for their times, but Solzhenitsyn was not a type. Thanls to JPod for the wonderful words here.
I agree he did not become a Tolstoy or Dostoevsky, but he managed to create a couple of great works that will be remembered. Writing non fiction should not be looked down upon–it worked just fine for Thucydides. He was a great writer in the tradition set by those giants.
Richard Pipes took Alexander Solzhenitsyn to task on a number of key points regarding the origins of Russian Communism—and I am a convert to his point of view. Indeed, I am convinced that the Bolshevik revolution was built on the reactionary foundations of czarist authoritarianism. Lenin could not have carried out his program in any other country of Europe. Russian was easily victimized because it had virtually no middle class. The citizens had no reason to give a damn about the survival of the Romanov dynasty. I strongly recommend reading Pipes’ Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger. He goes into some detail about his conflicts with the now deceased Solzhenitsyn.
Let’s not wholly dismiss his fictional efforts.
The overall impact of his Red Wheel trilogy wasn’t all that he hoped it would be.
However, THERE ARE certain chapters therein, as he would term it, certain “knots,” that WERE quite moving and fascinating.
His chapters about Prime Minister Stolypin, a great figure, are gripping.
And as for his great work, about GULAG, what more needs to be said. It was one of the greatest literary efforts and accomplishments in human history.
He was divinely inspired during that project.
This was a graceful post about an extraordinary man.
I have to give JPod credit for saving the cavils for later.
Vechaya pamyat.
Great tribute, John. As the tributes pour in, I suspect few would remember The Oak and the Calf. This will stand.
The invariably fallible grumps: vechnaya pamyat’, dammit. If you can’t do it right, don’t try. As for the russophobe Pipes, just being intellectually cowardly doesn’t make continualism right.
Please do not sell short Solzhenitsyn’s fiction. “Cancer Ward” and “The First Circle” are masterpeices, as good, if not as grand, as anything Tolstoy ever wrote. Solzhenitsyn had a gift for irony, but it was never of the sarcastic variety. In one ironic vignette after the other, he discovers social history entire, as, for example, at the close of “The First Circle.” (I am paraphrasing here.) During the height of the purges, the GPU ran short of secure vehicles for transporting prisoners to and from the show trials. The security services responded by appropriating any vehicle that would serve, in particular refrigerated meat wagons. At the close of his novel, Solzhenitsyn gives us two fellow-traveling Western reporters. Noticing all the meat wagons dashing through the streets of Moscow, full of political prisoners on their way to a bullet in the back of the head, one of the reporters remarks: “One can only conclude that the capital is unusually well provisioned.” FINIS
The irony in the single word “only” is continental in its literary reach.
Death of an Oak By John Podhoretz-
A short Comment by L Gulotta
A thoughtful piece of writing by Messr. John Podhoretz: “He stood athwart the greatest evil the world has ever known, and, by the grace of God, he outlived that evil, by 16 years.”
I stopped giving the former USSR any benefit of the doubt after reading and hearing Alexander Solzhenitsyn, as a student and young adult during the early 1970s. He methodically pulled apart the Soviet’s false ideological defenses one-by-one in his works and talks. I was priveledged to hear Solzhenitsyn speak in Manhattan, at a long speach sponsored by the NY AFL-CIO trade unitionists. Sol “Chik” Chaiken chaired the meeting. Solzhenitsyn spoke for nearly two-hours, reading from index cards and extempoating. One stanza at a time, he demolished the philosophical underpinnings of Soviet Marxism.
Seated at my table was an Afro-American trade unionist, among others. A good hour into Solzhenitsyn’s talk, the black trade unionist looked up and remarked, ” You know,” he said to me, “there are serious problems in Mississippi, too.” I was startled by his remark. Could Mississippi, at its worst, equal the horrors of Stalinist Russia? I’ve never felt that there existed an “equilivance” between the two-systems, yet my tablepartner oviously felt that too much time was spent attacking Russia’s evil system and insufficient time denouncing the evils in Mississippi.
Solzhenitsyn spoke at great length. The AFL-CIO gave him his long sought after podium in the USA. Sol “Chik” Chaiken began rolling his eyes toward the ceiling after 90 minutes of stand-up bravery, intoned with a Russian Orthodox priestly cadence and accent. During that two-hour talk, Solhenitsyn was our patriarch or mentor. My tablepartner did stay for the whole talk, stirring somewhat unconfortable in his chair. Alexandre Solzhenitsyn filled the room with his voice and his truth. Solshenitsyn’s works allowed me to reach the truth concerning the barbaric nature of the former USSR. As a young political activist, I was fortunate to have received the invitation to hear this great figure in person talk about defying the odds in the gulag.
What a great tribute by John Podhoretz, and it should be read together with Bill Buckley’s 1975 column wherein Chairman Bill questions the thinking of the liberals of that time who write off A.S as some kind of right wing nut. It the talk given by A.S. to the New York AFL-CIO (a right wing venue supreme) he spoke about how capitalists of the USA had cooperated with communists of the USSR to increase repression of the working class of the USSR. As Bill Buckley wrote:
“Solzhenitsyn went on to discuss a recent exhibit of the Untied States anti-criminal technology which the Russians brought up with fascination. The difference being that we were selling our scientific paraphernalia not to the law abiding for use against criminals, but to criminals for use against the law abiding: rather like inventing a guillotine for the purpose of chopping meat, and then selling it to Robespierre for other uses ….
‘This is something which is almost incomprehensible to the human mind: that burning greed for profit that goes beyond all reason, all self control, all conscience, only to get money.’
“Far right talk, to the editors of Newsweek.”
Doesn’t that say it all about the liberal media of that time and this?
But worst of all look at how the once towering Labor “Movement” has moved away from this philosophy. Does anyone think that someone like A.S. would be allowed anywhere near a union hall today?