Columnist.
Dear Close Reader, It was wholly a pleasure to learn that something I wrote got you to thinking about a great teacher you once had. What I'd written was: "We can still remember the piercing, unblinking blue eyes of a professor of biology who could look right through you, and see every vacuum of knowledge you were so desperately trying to cover up in class."
The times were uncertain, as they always are. Wars raged, the after-effects of a financial panic still reverberated, and another political season was under way in the United States with all its biennial acrimony and rising pettiness as an election day approached. Politicians postured, people worried about the economy, tensions great and small mounted, and even reason made an appearance now and then. Only an occasional sportsmanlike gesture illuminated the daily dross called the news. Some people rose above the din, others added to it. It was, in short, the best and worst of times, like all others.
Pity the blue dogs -- those Democrats in Congress labeled moderates or even conservatives because they depart from the party line on occasion. As on Obamacare or the next big spending program (always call it Economic Stimulus!) or the Bailout of the Day. A show of independence from time to time can be smart politics: The blue dogs' deference to public opinion back home -- even while they support the administration on key votes -- was supposed to assure their re-election.
Once again it's the time of madness, also known as the midterm elections. This year's recurrence of that seasonal mania was punctuated by an obituary in the New York Times for "Joseph Sobran, 64, Writer Whom Buckley Mentored." Oh, what would we do without the obituaries in the Times, its last saving grace and utility? Give up on what used to be our national paper of record entirely? For its obituaries remain a justification for the whole, ephemeral enterprise that is a daily newspaper.
Whenever some politician portrays himself as the source of all blessings (thanks to your tax money, sucker), a scene from the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" comes to mind. It's the one in which Anthony Quinn, in the role of as some minor sheikh, is extolling his own generosity from atop a desolate sand dune: "I am a river to my people!"
DALLAS, Tex. -- I was going to call this dispatch from the editorial writers' national conference The State of the Art, except that opinionating is more obsession than art. H.L. Mencken, who certainly should have known what moves certain depraved souls to press their opinions on others in the most public fashion, once explained the compulsion this way:
It finally happened. A board of trustees at a state university has acted as if it had a moral trust to guard, not just fundraising to do. That's the remarkable news out of the University of Illinois, where the board is chaired by Christopher Kennedy, son of the late Robert F. Kennedy. His father, the charismatic U.S. senator, brother of John F. Kennedy, and the Democratic Party's rising hope, was cut down in his hour of triumph -- June 5, 1968 -- after just having won a key presidential primary in California.
The words are those of the late John A. Pidgeon, the legendary headmaster of the Kiski School in Saltsburg, Pa. At the time, he was reflecting on his 45 years at the school, but what he said could apply to so many other things...
Dear Critic, It was wholly a pleasure to get your pointed question about a phrase I used the other day about those who "tend to confuse ideology with principle."
Once again the kind of fearful politicians who try to keep both ears to the ground, lest they miss the slightest tremor in ever-fickle public opinion, have shied away from doing the right thing. In favor of, well, not doing much of anything about a continuing source of confusion and contention.
Dear Movie Fan, Thank you so much for your e-mail "pointing out" that the oft-cited quote I attributed to Cool Hand Luke in the movie by that name ("What we've got here is a failure to communicate") is actually spoken by the camp captain played by Strother Martin.
The office is a kind of second family for those of us who work in one, with just as wide a range of characters.
It had to happen. At a time when we've seen the birth of Government Motors and even Government Hedge Fund, aka AIG, it was only a matter of time before it was seriously proposed that we have a Government Press, too. This time the idea came from the distinguished president of an Ivy League university, another well-cushioned part of the American establishment.
Rarely does a single remark in the news, whether from politician or pundit, sum up the attitude of a whole class, in this case our betters. Call them the elite, the anointed, the ruling class -- if we would only recognize their superior insight and follow their lead. For they know us better than we know ourselves, at least to hear them tell it. And they do keep trying to tell us. At length. They seem intent on explaining our mysterious refusal to follow their enlightened leadership. But how sum up their whole worldview in a single quote?
It's got to be the funniest or the saddest spy story of this post-Cold War period, or maybe both. The two, humor and pathos, blend inextricably in Russia. Like good and evil mixing.
Why was this September 11th different from all other September 11ths? Because on this September 11th, there were are signs of reconstruction, even rededication, at Ground Zero. Tangible, concrete, noisy, dusty, comforting, encouraging signs. The whole place, above and below ground, was coming alive again. At last.
We've been here before. Again and again. Mideast peace negotiations are opened with pomp and ceremony. Diplomats talk. And talk. The leaders of Israel and of one Palestinian faction or another are wheeled out to speak of peace. Deadlines are announced for the successful conclusion of the talks. Hands are shaken, sometimes even on the White House lawn. The fabled peace process labors mightily -- till it brings forth another war. And then the whole charade begins again.
Not for the first time, a president and commander-in-chief has proclaimed the end of America's combat role in Iraq: "Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country." --George W. Bush, May 1, 2003.
Dear Diary -- Went to hear Arne Duncan the other evening at Little Rock's convention center. It's always good to have a member of the Cabinet come to town, one who's making a difference instead of just an appearance.
On this Labor Day, like most Americans, I come to praise labor, not indulge in it. Has there ever been a people that speechified more about the joys and satisfactions of work and the work ethic, yet was so enamored of labor-saving devices? American efficiency, American organization, and therefore American prosperity has been something of an example around the world -- at least since Henry Ford, that half-genius, half-crank and all-American revolutionary, put the world on wheels. And sagely raised his workers' pay to unheard-of levels ($5 a day!) so they could buy the Model Ts they were making.
