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Mark Steyn comments on Pete Seeger’s mea culpa.
… James Lileks, the bard of Minnesota, once offered this trenchant analysis of Pete Seeger: “‘If I Had A Hammer’? Well, what’s stopping you? Go to the hardware store; they’re about a buck-ninety, tops.â€
Very true. For the cost of a restricted-view seat at a Peter, Paul, and Mary revival, you could buy half a dozen top-of-the-line hammers and have a lot more fun, even if you used them on yourself. Yet in a sense Lileks is missing the point: Yes, they’re dopey nursery-school jingles, but that’s why they’re so insidious. The numbing simplicity allows them to be passed off as uncontentious unexceptionable all-purpose anthems of goodwill. Which is why you hear “This Land Is Your Land†in American grade schools, but not “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.â€
The invention of the faux-childlike faux–folk song was one of the greatest forces in the infantilization of American culture. Seeger’s hymn to the “senselessness†of all war, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?†combined passivity with condescension — “When will they ever learn?†— and established the default mode of contemporary artistic “dissent.†Mr. Seeger’s ongoing veneration is indestructible. But at least we now know the answer to the question “When will he ever learn?†At least half a century too late.
Ed Morrissey in Heading Right clarifies one of the mis-reported Greenspan remarks.
George Shultz deals with the “Israel lobby” canard.
… those who blame Israel and its Jewish supporters for U.S. policies they do not support are wrong. They are wrong because, to begin with, support for Israel is in our best interests. They are also wrong because Israel and its supporters have the right to try to influence U.S. policy. And they are wrong because the U.S. government is responsible for the policies it adopts, not any other state or any of the myriad lobbies and groups that battle daily—sometimes with lies—to win America’s support.
Contentions’ Noah Pollack on Brzezinski’s bs.
… The true lesson of the Egypt-Israel rapprochement is actually the opposite of what people like Brzezinski would like it to be: It is a lesson in the sometimes irrelevance of American diplomacy in forging peace between nations, and more importantly it is an example of the reality that peace between implacable foes is usually only possible when one has so thoroughly beaten the other on the battlefield that the defeated party is left with only one option, to sue for peace. People like Brzezinski would like us to believe that heroic diplomacy in 1978 midwifed a peace treaty. Candidate Obama will be ill-served listening to this nonsense.
Pajamas Media speculates on what Israel was doing visiting Syria.
It is clearly difficult to be an Israeli journalist with good military sources this week. You can palpably feel the frustration on the page as you read news articles and sense that the writers know so much more than they are telling.
Whether or not reporters know the precise details of what happened in Syria on September 7, when Israeli planes attacked a mysterious target near the Syrian-Turkish border – the extremely tight censorship rules forbid them to report any of it – and Israeli officials are publicly, and uncharacteristically – silent.
So the Israeli press clenches their teeth and carefully does what they are permitted to do – repeat the reports that are emerging from overseas media and add their commentary as best they can. Meanwhile the public has had no way of knowing for certain whether the raid was “merely†an attempt to stem the flow of weapons from Syria to Hezbollah – or something of historic significance, a meaningful blow against an Axis of Evil. …
A London Times story was referred to above. Here it is.
Michael Barone says Iraq is the over-lawyered war.
… In the wake of Vietnam and Watergate, Congress passed laws that criminalized military and civilian officers who broke the rules on electronic surveillance and detainee treatment: “the criminalization of warfare.” Its ban on political assassination deterred the Clinton administration from gunning down Osama bin Laden. The CIA has become so wary of possible criminal charges that it urges agents to buy insurance. Developments in international law, especially the doctrine of universal decision, also threaten U.S. government officials with possible prosecution abroad. All of this creates a risk-averseness that leaves us more vulnerable to terrorists.
The CIA today employs more than 100 lawyers, the Pentagon 10,000. “Every weapon used by the U.S. military, and most of the targets they are used against, are vetted and cleared by lawyers in advance,” Goldsmith notes. In this respect, the national security community resembles the larger society. As Philip Howard of Common Good points out, we are stripping jungle gyms from playgrounds and paying for unneeded medical tests for fear of lawsuits. …
KC Johnson posts in Volokh on Nifong before the lacrosse team showed up. Johnson who is Stuart Taylor’s co-author will be guest posting for the week. This is his first.
… What kind of man would try to send three innocent young men to prison for 30 years to win an election? How could a career prosecutor not previously known as a nut or a rogue go so bad, so fast? How could he have thought he would get away with it?
Stuart Taylor and I (who jointly wrote this post, and one later today) have found widespread curiosity about these questions, especially among lawyers, while working on our new book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case. So this first post in a week of guest-blogging focuses on Nifong’s background, character, and the months of escalating misconduct that have brought him down. Subsequent posts will examine the misconduct (as we see it) of dozens of Duke professors, many journalists, the Duke administration, and the Durham law enforcement establishment. …
Bill Kristol has interesting commentary on the presidential campaign.
What a way to begin the fall! Perennial college-football power University of Michigan was ranked No. 5 in the preseason polls. It paid little Appalachian State University of Boone, N.C., about $400,000 to have its football team visit Ann Arbor to serve as a season-opening tune-up for the Wolverines. In a stunning upset, Appalachian State won 34-32– kicking a field goal with 26 sec. left, then blocking a Michigan field-goal attempt on the game’s last play.
Lesson: the improbable sometimes happens. And what’s true in sports is true in politics. There hasn’t been a major upset in a presidential-nomination race since Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976. We’re due. And the 2008 presidential campaign is an especially good candidate to provide a surprise. …
John Fund recaps the problems in the FAA. Says it should be privatized.
If you think there are more airport delays and cancellations than ever, you’re right. The percentage of late flights has doubled since 2002. And as bad as things are now, they’re about to get worse. The Federal Aviation Administration predicts there will be 36% more people flying by 2015. If the U.S. doesn’t dramatically expand the capacity of its overburdened air traffic control system, the airlines won’t be able to keep up with demand and ticket prices will skyrocket.
It ought to be an issue in the presidential campaign that the FAA isn’t equipped to clean up this mess. “The FAA as currently structured is impossible to run efficiently,” says Langhorne Bond, who ran the agency from 1977 to 1981. BusinessWeek reports the air traffic control network runs on software that is so outdated that there are only six programmers left in the U.S. who are able to update the code. The FAA’s efforts to move to a satellite-based system have been plagued by cost overruns and performance shortfalls. …
Power Line notices good environmental news.
Dilbert has OJ remarks.
… Unfortunately for O.J., his old attorney Johnny Cochrane has passed away. He’s the one who coined the phrase “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.†In my opinion, that rhyme freed O.J. I recall reading a study that says people perceive things that rhyme to be more persuasive than things that don’t. Who will create the new rhyme that sets O.J. free? I have a few suggestions. …