Commentary Magazine

Posts For: July 5, 2012

Fearsome Iran Sanctions Just a Ruse

| @tobincommentary 07.05.2012 - 4:50 PM

To read some accounts of the impact of the latest Western sanctions on Iran, you’d think the ayatollahs ought to be packing their bags for exile in Paris. Today’s front page feature in the New York Times about the Islamist regime using out-of-service tankers as storage facilities for all the oil they can no longer sell paints a dismal picture of the country’s economy. The story spoke of the squeeze being put on Iran and the prospect that more economic pain is in the offing as the effects of the sanctions start being felt. All of which ought to presage either the collapse of the government or a decision on the part of its leaders that discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to their nuclear ambitions.

But the colorful imagery of the tankers notwithstanding there was nothing in this piece or any other that would lead one to believe that the ayatollahs are really worried. And that’s a point that left-wing pundit Robert Dreyfuss makes all too clear in an article in The Diplomat. Though an Israel-hater like Dreyfuss being right about a Middle East issue is a case of the proverbial blind squirrel finding an acorn, he’s right when he notes that President Obama’s Iran sanctions policy has more of a feel of a ruse aimed at quieting the concerns of friends of Israel than an actual method of heading off the nuclear threat. Nobody in Washington really thinks the sanctions will work and that includes members of the administration which is touting their ability to make the Iranians give in.

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Ayotte Veep Speculation Mounts

| @alanagoodman 07.05.2012 - 4:06 PM

VP buzz around Sen. Kelly Ayotte was already growing before she joined the Romney clan on vacation in New Hampshire yesterday. But Ann Romney has thrown fuel on it by telling CBS the campaign has been considering a female VP pick:

Ann Romney says her husband is considering a woman for the ticket—and admitted she’s been playing a big role in the VP search, too, according to an interview with CBS News.

“We’ve been looking at that,” Ann Romney replied, when asked if her husband should pick a female as his No. 2. “I’d love that option as well. So, you know, there’s a lot of people that Mitt is considering right now.”

While she had previously suggested she wasn’t playing a major role in the VP search, Ann Romney admitted she’s been giving the process “a lot of thought, actually” and has been offering her husband advice on his choice.

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The Manichean Temptation

| @Peter_Wehner 07.05.2012 - 3:40 PM

In her 1965 New York Review of Books essay on the 19th century British businessman, essayist, and journalist Walter Bagehot (which can be found in this collection), the eminent historian Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote this:

The current intellectual fashions put a premium on simplicity and activism. The subtleties, complications, and ambiguities that until recently have been the mark of serious thought are now taken to signify a failure of nerve, a compromise with evil, an evasion of judgment and “commitment.” It is as if the “once-born” (to use the terms invented by Francis Newman and immortalized by William James) were reasserting themselves over the “twice-born”: the once-born, simple and “healthy-minded,” having faith in a beneficent God and a perfectible universe; the twice-born in awe of His mystery, impressed by the recalcitrance of men and the anomalies of social action.

Bagehot, who became editor of The Economist, possessed what Himmelfarb called a “compelling vision that inevitably brought with it a complexity, subtlety, and depth that he found lacking in much of the discourse of the time.” As it was then, so it remains today.

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China Fight Shows Obama’s Cynicism

| @tobincommentary 07.05.2012 - 3:07 PM

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is paid to deny the obvious on a daily basis, but even his ability to lie on behalf of his boss was strained to the max today when he told reporters on Air Force One the administration’s decision to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization about Chinese tariffs on American cars had nothing to do with the president’s re-election campaign. The WTO complaint just happened to coincide with President Obama’s bus tour of Rust Belt states where U.S. cars are manufactured and where he will beat his chest about the beastliness of China’s unfair trade practices. But though the move comes after three years of kowtowing to Beijing, Carney asserted that the complaint was in the works for years and the timing was pure coincidence.

“It can’t suddenly be a political action because it happens during the campaign,” Carney told the press. Oh, no?

This rhetorical flight of fancy doesn’t just display the boundless cynicism of the Obama campaign. It also illustrates the way the president is prepared to seemingly alter his foreign policy to suit the needs of his re-election hopes. Just as he expects friends of Israel to forget about what occurred during the first three years of his presidency prior to the current Jewish charm offensive he is pursuing, he thinks auto workers and their families have memories that are equally as poor.

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The “Vital Force” of Winston Churchill

| @SethAMandel 07.05.2012 - 2:30 PM

In 1935, British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin refused to appoint Winston Churchill to a cabinet post. Asked to explain himself, Baldwin responded: “If there is going to be a war–and who can say there is not–we must keep him fresh to be our war prime minister.” The historian Max Hastings notes that Baldwin said this with a hint of jocularity, but he seemed to understand it was also quite true. Five years later, Leo Amery wrote: “I am beginning to come round to the idea that Winston with all his failings is the one man with real war drive and love of battle.”

While Churchill was always conscious of his own image, this aspect of his personality was ingrained and authentic. That is one of the clearest conclusions to be drawn from the summer exhibit on display at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum, “Churchill: The Power of Words.” There, among a fine collection of Churchill’s writings, speeches, and correspondence plus a 20-minute audio-visual presentation of excerpts of Churchill at his most inspiring, is a true gem. The exhibit includes a school report card for young Winston. His grades were mostly fine, but among the notes written by his instructors was the following, next to “General Conduct”:

Very bad–is a constant trouble to everybody, and is always in some scrape or other. He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere. He has very good abilities.

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Palestinian Statehood Showdown at UN?

| @alanagoodman 07.05.2012 - 1:49 PM

The last thing President Obama needs is another September showdown over Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly. Last year’s fiasco was damaging enough, and that wasn’t with a presidential election looming. But that’s exactly what Palestinian envoy Maen Rashid Areikat is threatening, according to The Hill:

The lack of progress on a two-state solution led the Palestinians to unilaterally seek United Nations recognition as a sovereign state last year — a move the Obama administration vowed to block — and Areikat warned that the Palestinians might well try again.

“The Palestinian leadership said that they reserve the right to resort to any and every venue possible to further our objectives,” Areikat said, noting that Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat made that clear to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when he met with her on June 20, their first meeting in nine months.

“If the political vacuum continues, we will go to the United Nations General Assembly. We are going to explore other venues, and we have the right to do that.”

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Can Hillary Trump Romney’s Israel Visit?

| @tobincommentary 07.05.2012 - 1:09 PM

There will be those who will claim Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s just announced trip to Israel this month will trump Mitt Romney’s visit later this summer. We will be told this will be evidence of the power of incumbency and the sweet talk uttered by Clinton will balance if not overshadow anything Romney might do or say. But that will be nothing but Democrat spin. Clinton’s trip will not only do nothing to ease President Obama’s difficulties with pro-Israel voters. The decision to send the secretary rather than the president finally breaking down and making his first stop in the Jewish state — something obviously in his political interests as well as a smart foreign policy move — only emphasizes the coolness in relations between the two countries during the past three and a half years.

Stopping in the one foreign country where Romney is more popular than the president won’t turn the election, but it does draw attention to the generally frigid atmosphere between Obama and the Israeli government. But nothing Clinton does or says on her visit can alter the impression of hostility that was the keynote of the U.S. attitude toward Israel prior to the start of the president’s re-election campaign. The one thing lacking from the election year Jewish charm offensive is any evidence of genuine warmth or a sense from the president he understands or sympathizes with Israel’s dilemma despite occasional rhetorical thrusts in that direction. A visit to Israel could perhaps help with that, but Israel is apparently the one American ally Obama refuses to call on even if he is already in the neighborhood. A Clinton stopover there won’t make up for that.

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Romney and Playing it Safe

| @alanagoodman 07.05.2012 - 12:41 PM

The Wall Street Journal has a scorching editorial today that gets to the heart of conservative frustration with Mitt Romney:

The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it’s Mr. Obama’s fault. We’re on its email list and the main daily message from the campaign is that “Obama isn’t working.” Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the president’s policies aren’t working and how Mr. Romney’s policies will do better.

“Playing it safe” is an apt description of Romney’s strategy so far. At the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol sums it up: “Adopting a prevent defense when it’s only the second quarter and you’re not even ahead.” Conservatives had hoped this would be an election about ideas. Small government versus the nanny state; prosperity versus debt and deterioration; the choice of American decline. But unlike the soaring but empty vision that Obama offered Democrats in 2008, conservatives also want to hear specifics. Instead, they’ve gotten platitudes about how “Obama isn’t working.” True, but so what? Where is the alternative?

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Dig Up His Crimes Along With Arafat’s Body

| @tobincommentary 07.05.2012 - 12:01 PM

An Al Jazeera documentary and a statement from Yasir Arafat’s widow has led to a decision by the Palestinian Authority to exhume the former leader of the PA and to conduct an investigation into the cause of his death in 2004. While Palestinians have often spoken of Arafat’s demise being the result of an alleged Israeli plot, were such a probe to be honest, the Jewish state would probably have nothing to fear. More to the point, any discussion of Arafat’s death will necessarily involve highlighting what he did before he expired in Lausanne, Switzerland. And that is not something the Palestinians or their apologists ought to welcome.

Arafat’s death at the age of 75 was something of a mystery and predictably fueled conspiracy theories. Suspicion that foul play was involved will only be heightened if Al Jazeera’s allegation is accurate that his clothes contained trace amounts of polonium, a radioactive substance generally associated with assassinations carried out by agents of the former Soviet Union and the current Putin regime in Russia. That  helps to remind us that of all the players in the Middle East drama at the time of his demise, Israel was probably the only one that had an interest in keeping him alive rather than putting an end to his pathetic misrule of the territories. Hamas, his Fatah underlings as well as the host of enemies Arafat made during his career as the world’s number one terrorist, are all far more likely suspects than Israel. However, if Arafat is to be dug up, the focus on the mystery of his death ought to also revive some interest in his criminal career that provides an appropriate context to his ignominious death.

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Pro-Obama Super PACs Outspending GOP

| @alanagoodman 07.05.2012 - 11:22 AM

The common assumption is that conservatives will have an outside money advantage in the presidential election, thanks to massive spending by pro-Romney super PACs. This wisdom is on display in the New York Times today, which wonders whether Democrats will be able to “catch up in the super PAC game”:

“They’re spending ridiculous amounts of money on the other side,” [potential donor] Amber Mostyn said. “All the crazy commercials they’re going to put up — how do you combat that?”

Burton was ready for this question. “You don’t do it dollar for dollar,” he said. He whipped out his iPad and showed the Mostyns a few slides from his PowerPoint presentation. The slides included polling data indicating voters’ lack of familiarity with Romney’s business record at the private-equity firm Bain Capital, as well as financial figures from the 2010 midterm election showing how well-spent donations could help a Democrat prevail over a better-financed Republican opponent.

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Jack Richardson, 1934-2012

| @jpodhoretz 07.05.2012 - 10:48 AM

It is customary for novelists to serve as occasional or frequent literary critics, analyzing the work of others who write novels. The same cannot be said of playwrights, who rarely write prose about the theater and almost never about the plays of others. The singular exception to this was Jack Richardson, who began writing about the theater for COMMENTARY in the mid-1960s when he was still considered one of the up-and-coming playwrights in the United States. He died this week at the age of 78. He wrote for the magazine on and off for about a decade, as his own promising career in the theater dwindled and then died out—articles of exceptional interest, intelligence, and cultivation. In tribute to his passing, we are making available eight of his best, including two that weren’t about the theater—a memoir of life as a gambler and a brilliant review of Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift that angered Bellow because, I suspect, he knew Richardson saw through to that novel’s fatal weaknesses.

•On Reviewing Plays, September 1966

•Groping Toward Freedom: The Living Theatre, May 1969

•Musical Wastes, February 1971

•From Plato to Las Vegas, October 1974

•The English Invasion, February 1975

•Looking Back at “The Waste Land,”August 1975

•Humboldt’s Gift, by Saul Bellow, November 1975

•Alas, Poor Hamlet, April 1976

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The Liberal Mind and Parental Consent: New York State Edition

| @bethanyshondark 07.05.2012 - 9:00 AM

The State of New York wants to you be a better parent, and they’re legislating to make sure you know it. The state legislature is well-meaning, and also apparently has a bit too much time on its hands judging by several laws passed this early summer to make parenting teens a little bit easier.

The first law out of the legislature requires tattoo and body piercing parlors to obtain the written consent of parents before inking or piercing their children. The authors of the legislation explained:

Millions of teenagers get pierced each year and many experience adverse health effects from these piercings without their parents’ knowledge. The needles used can sometimes result in a severe viral infection and immense discomfort. It is important that parents understand these potential risks and that teens are proactive in retaining their parents’ or guardian’s consent to have such piercing done.

While many parlors already required written consent before working with a minor, this law, effective immediately, has now mandated it. Parental consent is not only suggested, but also now required before teenagers permanently mutilate themselves in New York State.

A second bill recently passed by the New York State legislature is also designed to protect your teenager from him or herself. It is now illegal for a youth 16 years of age or younger to enter a tanning booth, even with parental consent. The legislators who sponsored this bill wrote:

Advocates and professionals agree that excessive tanning, popularized by indoor tanning salons, has led to an increase in skin cancer and our youth are at the greatest risk. According to the American Cancer Society, the popularity of tanning salons has led to a 72 percent jump in incidences of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, from 1998 to 2008.

It appears that the New York State legislature believes that before a teen makes a life-altering and potentially dangerous decision regarding their bodies, they must first consult their parents or the state. Well, except in one area. New York teens are not required to request permission, or even inform, their parents of an abortion before or after obtaining it; at age 12 or 17, there is no distinction.

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Romney’s Personal Mandate Problem

| @tobincommentary 07.05.2012 - 8:25 AM

Say this about Mitt Romney. He’s not one to let a problem fester if he can do something about it. When senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom asserted on Monday that Romney did not believe that the ObamaCare individual mandate was a tax, it ensured the Republican candidate a day’s worth of negative attention. So Romney broke up his July 4th holiday by appearing on CBS News to contradict Fehrnstrom’s stance and position himself with the rest of his party that is eager to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s ruling that allowed the mandate to stand because it is a tax. However, in doing so, Romney was again forced to explain the difference between ObamaCare and his own Massachusetts health care plan that also had a personal mandate.

The problem for Romney isn’t so much the opportunity for the Obama campaign and newspapers such as the New York Times to call him a flip-flopper. It is that any discussion of the details of the president’s signature health care bill invariably involves a comparison to the GOP candidate’s own not entirely dissimilar bill and forces him to eschew the clear rhetoric about taxes and economic freedom which show him at his best and instead engage in the far less engaging hair-splitting about the differences between federal and state legislation. Despite the spin coming from the White House, the tax issue is a problem for the Democrats because they know the labeling of the mandate in this manner means that President Obama broke his word about raising taxes on the middle class and achieved ObamaCare’s passage by a deception. But the more Romney has to engage in what Politico calls “semantic and legalistic (you might say artificial) distinction(s)” about ObamaCare, the less able he is to rally to his side an American people who dislike the mandate and the bill.

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