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A new Lenin biography says he died of syphilis. David Warren comments.
… A fairly convincing retrospective diagnosis of terminal syphilis in Lenin appeared in the European Journal of Neurology five years ago. Three Israeli physicians sifted the evidence to this conclusion. This week’s “news alert” came from the recently published book, Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, by the respected British historian Helen Rappaport. I have not read that book, but I gather that she has coordinated all of the evidence in an unanswerable way.
Diagnoses of syphilis have previously been made for several other of the great monsters of history, including Lenin’s predecessor Ivan the Terrible, Henry VIII of England, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler. And I further recall glancing in a book that purported to show the dark influence of syphilis upon most of the “symbolist” poets of 19th-century France.
As a man who lived in Bangkok, for more years than he can comfortably admit, I have often suspected that sexually-transmitted disease plays a larger part in human events than the prim could ever imagine. Indeed, that sex, generally, plays an important role, at more levels than they could enumerate. And the beauty of it — if one may apply the term “beauty” to the genius with which evidence is concealed — is that we cannot know and will never know the half of it. A few discovered highlights must illuminate the unplumbed depths. …
Mark Steyn writes on the tough guy in the White House.
… The trouble is it isn’t tough, not where toughness counts. Who are the real “Untouchables” here? In Moscow, it’s Putin and his gang, contemptuously mocking U.S. officials even when (as with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) they’re still on Russian soil. In Tehran, it’s Ahmadinejad and the mullahs openly nuclearizing as ever feebler warnings and woozier deadlines from the Great Powers come and go. Even Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is an exquisite act of condescension from the Norwegians, a dog biscuit and a pat on the head to the American hyperpower for agreeing to spay itself into a hyperpoodle. We were told that Obama would use “soft power” and “smart diplomacy” to get his way. Russia and Iran are big players with global ambitions, but Obama’s soft power is so soft it doesn’t even work its magic on a client regime in Kabul whose leaders’ very lives are dependent on Western troops. If Obama’s “smart diplomacy” is so smart that even Hamid Karzai ignores it with impunity, why should anyone else pay attention?
The strange disparity between the heavy-handed community organization at home and the ever cockier untouchables abroad risks making the commander in chief look like a weenie – like “President Pantywaist,” as Britain’s Daily Telegraph has taken to calling him.
The Chicago way? Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight? In Iran, this administration won’t bring a knife to a nuke fight. In Eastern Europe, it won’t bring missile defense to a nuke fight. In Sudan, it won’t bring a knife to a machete fight.
But, if you’re doing the overnight show on WZZZ-AM, Mister Tough Guy’s got your number.
Charles Krauthammer too.
Rahm Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a live pollster. Now he’s put a horse’s head in Roger Ailes’s bed.
Not very subtle. And not very smart. Ailes doesn’t scare easily.
The White House has declared war on Fox News. White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Fox is “opinion journalism masquerading as news.” Patting rival networks on the head for their authenticity (read: docility), senior adviser David Axelrod declared Fox “not really a news station.” And Chief of Staff Emanuel told (warned?) the other networks not to “be led [by] and following Fox.”
Meaning? If Fox runs a story critical of the administration — from exposing “green jobs” czar Van Jones as a loony 9/11 “truther” to exhaustively examining the mathematical chicanery and hidden loopholes in proposed health-care legislation — the other news organizations should think twice before following the lead.
The signal to corporations is equally clear: You might have dealings with a federal behemoth that not only disburses more than $3 trillion every year but is extending its reach ever deeper into private industry — finance, autos, soon health care and energy. Think twice before you run an ad on Fox.
At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House “pool” news organizations — except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.
This was an important defeat because there’s a principle at stake here. …
Jay Nordlinger, in The Corner, has a couple of comments on the childish side of the kid president.
Barack Obama is pretty interesting when he gets in front of his money-givers — his biggest fans, I guess. In New York, he said, “Democrats are an opinionated bunch. You know, the other side, they just kinda sometimes do what they’re told. Democrats, y’all thinkin’ for yourselves.” Last year, in San Francisco, he said of Middle Americans, “It’s not surprising . . . they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them . . .” …
… I have 30 more things to say, of course, but here’s one more: Do you recall President Bush insulting Democrats, as Obama has insulted us, explicitly? Sometimes our post-partisan president can be a rather nasty piece of work.
Michael Barone comments on bad Chicago habits the prez brought to DC.
“His father was a great friend of my father.” The reference to William Ayers’ father was how Mayor Richard J. Daley began his defense of Barack Obama for his association with the unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist. Daley’s father of course was Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976. Ayers’ father was head of Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago-based utility, from 1964 to 1980.
You bet they were great friends. That’s governance, Chicago style. The head of government is friends with the heads of every big business, lobby and union, and together they make decisions on how everyone else will live. Those on the inside get what they want. Those on the outside — well, they get what the big guys want them to have. That’s life in the big city.
It’s not the worst way to run a city. I know; I’m from Detroit, which might be better off if it had mayors named Daley for 41 of the last 54 years. But it’s not the optimal way to run a national administration, at least if you’ve promised to bring in a new era of bipartisanship and mutual respect. Even so, it appears to be the way that Obama, who once aspired to be mayor of Chicago, has decided to run his administration. …
Kim Strassel in the WSJ has similar comments.
They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way.
–Jim Malone,
“The Untouchables”
When Barack Obama promised to deliver “a new kind of politics” to Washington, most folk didn’t picture Rahm Emanuel with a baseball bat. These days, the capital would make David Mamet, who wrote Malone’s memorable movie dialogue, proud.
A White House set on kneecapping its opponents isn’t, of course, entirely new. (See: Nixon) What is a little novel is the public and bare-knuckle way in which the Obama team is waging these campaigns against the other side.
In recent weeks the Windy City gang added a new name to their list of societal offenders: the Chamber of Commerce. For the cheek of disagreeing with Democrats on climate and financial regulation, it was reported the Oval Office will neuter the business lobby. Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett slammed the outfit as “old school,” and warned CEOs they’d be wise to seek better protection.
We’ll close this section with Jennifer Rubin.
… First, the administration is digging in and doubling down even though its conduct has invited scorn from pundits of every political persuasion and become the object of ridicule. The belligerence is remarkable and suggests that the White House behaves in illogical and self-destructive ways. (Attention pundits: stop looking for rational explanations for the Obamis’ irrational behavior.)
Second, the administration is doing the impossible — offending the mainstream press and forcing some of Fox’s toughest critics to ride to its defense. Nice work, fellas.
Third, it’s disturbing that at a time when we still lack a strategy decision on Afghanistan, unemployment is sky high, and health-care reform is in disarray, this is what consumes the White House. For an administration that was supposed to transcend petty partisanship, it has become, yes, the spitting image of the Nixon White House — defensive, vengeful, and self-destructive. …
David Harsanyi points out some of the problems of having a pay czar.
… writes Alex Tabarrok, an economist at George Mason University and blogger at the popular MarginalRevolution.com, “most of these executives will quit and get higher paying jobs elsewhere. Executives not directly affected by the pay cuts will also quit when they see their prospects for future salary gains have been cut. Chaos will be created at these firms as top people leave in droves. Will the administration then order people back to work?”
Hey, why not?
Despite this undercurrent, the administration continues to expand needless intervention and “investments” into the economy that offer only the illusion of safety and a reality of stagnation.
And that’s exactly what empty words, unlimited taxpayer funding and uninhibited regulatory power can buy you.
The Economist says it’s timely for two new Ayn Rand biographies.
FOR all its faults socialism is manifestly superior to capitalism in one area: the making of myths. Capitalists can never equal the emotional appeal of socialism’s martyred heroes. Ayn Rand, however, is a conspicuous exception to this rule. She has been given short shrift by the intellectual establishment. Literary critics bemoan her cardboard characters and tabloid style. Political theorists dismiss her as a shallow thinker whose appeal is restricted to adolescents. But such disdain has done nothing to damage her popular appeal.
Rand’s books have enjoyed impressive sales since her death in 1982. But America’s shift to the left—the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and Barack Obama’s election two years later—has put her back at the heart of the political debate. Conservative protesters carry posters asking “Who is John Galt?”, referring to one of Rand’s heroes. Conservative polemicists suggest that Mr Obama, by stepping in to rescue the banks and industrial behemoths such as General Motors, is ushering in the collectivist dystopia that Rand gave warning against. Sales of “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” have surged. Rumours swirl that a film based on “Atlas Shrugged” is in the works. …
Dilbert has figured out Obama. Perhaps he’ll have him do a cameo in the comic strip.