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BY JAMES TARANTO
Friday, January 12, 2007 1:39 p.m.
Till Tuesday
In observance of Martin Luther King Day, this column will not appear Monday.
The Mommy Party
At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, Sen. Barbara Boxer quizzed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Iraq strategy. The New York Post is rightly appalled at what Boxer had to say:
"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young."
Then, to Rice: "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family." . . .
The junior senator from California apparently believes that an accomplished, seasoned diplomat, a renowned scholar and an adviser to two presidents like Condoleezza Rice is not fully qualified to make policy at the highest levels of the American government because she is a single, childless woman.
It's hard to imagine the firestorm that similar comments would have ignited, coming from a Republican to a Democrat, or from a man to a woman, in the United States Senate.
Part of the reason this is shocking, of course, is because it breaches feminist etiquette. If Boxer had said this to a male official who had no children, it wouldn't have carried quite the same sting--though it would still be creepy.
We've remarked frequently upon the tendency of war opponents to infantilize American servicemen--by demanding, for example, to know why President Bush hasn't "sent" his daughters to fight in Iraq, as if he had the power as their father to order them to enlist.
In truth, members of the military are adults who have made an adult commitment. They deserve to be respected for their maturity, not patronized as victims. It dishonors them to use their sacrifice as a political cudgel.
Are There Two Different Fort Bennings?
"Bush Cheered at Fort Benning: FORT BENNING, Ga.--President Bush, surrounded on Thursday by cheering soldiers in camouflage, defended his decision to send 21,500 more U.S. troops to Iraq and cautioned that the buildup will not produce quick results. 'It's going to take awhile,' he said."--headline and lead paragraph, Associated Press, Jan. 11
"Bush Speaks and Base Is Subdued: FORT BENNING, Ga., Jan. 11--President Bush came to this Georgia military base looking for a friendly audience to sell his new Iraq strategy. But his lunchtime talk received a restrained response from soldiers who clapped politely but showed little of the wild enthusiasm that they ordinarily shower on the commander in chief."--New York Times, Jan. 12
Suddenly It's Arcane
Despite having taken over Congress, Democrats may find it difficult to obstruct President Bush's plans for Iraq. One reason, as the New York Times notes:
While Democrats control both houses of Congress, their margin in the Senate is so slender that Republican supporters there can fight back, using their chamber's arcane rules to frustrate Democrats on other issues.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, hinted in morning television appearances that any legislation expressing disapproval of the president's plan might be blocked by a filibuster, the stalling move that requires 60 votes to overcome, well short of Democratic strength.
OK, how about a little flashback--to a May 24, 2005 Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg:
In the end, it was the language of the Constitution itself and two old bulls of the Senate--Robert C. Byrd and John W. Warner--that averted a grim showdown over federal judicial nominees that had threatened to wreak lasting damage on Capitol Hill. . . .
The sticking points were always the same, [Sen. Ben] Nelson said. Democrats wanted assurances that they would not lose the right to filibuster judges, particularly a Supreme Court nominee, and that Republicans would not invoke the nuclear option. Republicans wanted assurances that they were not giving up the right to the nuclear option, and that Democrats would use the filibuster only rarely. . . .
Mr. Warner said Mr. Byrd, who is the longest-serving senator, opened every meeting with a reminder: "Country, institution, and next, us."
Less than two years ago, preserving the filibuster was a high-minded matter of serving "country" and "institution." Now the filibuster is an "arcane" "stalling move." Disputes about process are seldom really about process.
How Many Iraqs Are There?
"If you think about everyday life, people are more likely to take responsibility when no one else is helping them or propping them up," John Edwards told Larry King the other night.
Wow, this is news. Is Edwards abandoning his class-warfare rhetoric about "two Americas" and embracing an ethos of personal responsibility?
Well, not quite, as evidenced by the next words out of his mouth: "It's time for the Iraqis to do this."
Whose Welfare?
The New York Times mounts its favorite hobbyhorse, "income inequality," for a predictable editorial denouncing the Bush tax cuts. But what caught our eye was the first sentence:
The tax system in the United States is supposed to mitigate inequality.
It is? Says who? Not the Constitution, which in Article I, Section 8 establishes Congress's taxing authority:
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
The 16th Amendment, which authorizes Congress to tax incomes, does not stipulate any other purposes for which taxes may be levied, so Congress remains limited to those stipulated in Article I, Section 8--"to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." As the Internal Revenue Service Web site notes, Congress enacted the first (unconstitutional) income tax to pay Civil War expenses--i.e., for the common defense.
Now, granted, "general welfare" is a capacious term, and there is enormous room for disagreement over what it means. But one thing it clearly doesn't mean is to "mitigate inequality"--that is, to take money from someone with the express purpose of benefiting someone else. So the Times has in fact endorsed an anticonstitutional view of the purpose of the tax system, and it has done so without any apparent thought.
The Admissions Officers Who Knew Too Much
In November Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, a measure banning discrimination by race and sex, even for purposes of "affirmative action," by the University of Michigan and other state institutions and agencies. The university now says it will comply with the law pending legal challenges. But the Michigan Daily reports there's a small problem: The application forms, prepared before Proposal 2's passage, ask would-be matriculants to specify their race and sex. No problem, say university officials:
Instead of blacking out the information, admissions officers have been instructed to disregard the race and gender of potential students when evaluating their applications, University spokeswoman Julie Peterson said.
"There's nothing in Proposal 2 that says race has to be a secret," Peterson said. "It's simply not going to be factor in our decision." . . .
Peterson said the University would rely on trust to ensure that race and gender aren't taken into consideration.
"Our counselors are ethical people with integrity, but we can't crawl inside the mind of an admissions counselor," Peterson said.
She said officers would just ignore the race and gender sections of the applications while considering other information about the applicant.
"If you think this is subjective, you need to understand the whole process is subjective," she said. "We're looking at things like leadership and motivation. All those things are personal and subjective. So we will do what we always have done: train our counselors."
But even if Peterson's faith in the admissions counselors' integrity is fully justified, this practice is problematic. The culture of university admissions has for decades been so obsessively concerned with race that it is too much to expect admissions officers will be able to put aside their prejudices as they make "personal and subjective" decisions. In their attempt to do so, there is even a danger of double reverse discrimination--i.e., rejecting a worthy black applicant out of the fear of showing racial favoritism.
Life poses many dilemmas like this, but not all of them have such an easy solution--namely, removing race and sex from the application forms.
This Just In
"Duke Accuser Contradicts Herself"--headline, New York Times, Jan. 12
Have They Checked the Dunkin' Donuts?
"Town Searching for Police Chief"--headline, Concord (N.H.) Monitor, Jan. 12
Yikes, Talk About Getting a 'Hotfoot'!
"Exploding Pumps Recalled"--headline, Health24.com, Jan. 12
That Way the Tooth Fairy Will Only Have to Make One Trip
"ASEAN Leaders Agree to Put Teeth Into Group"--headline, Reuters, Jan. 12
Whatever You Do, Don't Laugh!
"Semen Sales Are Serious Business"--headline, Denver Post, Jan. 11
What Exactly Is the Test?
"UK Government Is Failing Sex Workers"--headline, British Medical Journal press release, Jan. 11
News You Can Use
"Drive Carefully, Avoid Black-Ice Problems"--headline, Des Moines Register, Jan. 12
Bottom Stories of the Day
* "Boundary Plan May Not Cut Out Long Bus Rides"--headline, Dallas Morning News, Jan. 6
* "German Makes Amends for 1970 Shoplifting"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 12
* "Schuette Building Not Sold"--headline, Herald Times (Manitowoc, Wis.), Jan. 11
* "Anti-War Activists Rush to Hold Protests"--headline, Associated Press, Jan. 12
* "PM Topolanek's Wife Not to Request Divorce"--headline, Ceske Noviny (Czech Republic), Jan. 12
How Often Is a Stopped Clock Left?
"The clock is ticking for House Democrats, but it's hard to tell what time it is," the Associated Press reports from Washington:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was touting a plan to push six bills through a Democratic House in 100 hours or less as early as June of last year. She's reached the halfway point--in fewer than 20 hours, according to her count.
But just as the official clock for a basketball or football game stops for time-outs and commercial breaks, Democrats aren't counting the minutes spent on business unrelated to those six designated bills.
So while the House has been in session for almost 48 hours since the 110th Congress was sworn in Jan. 4, the clock on Pelosi's Web site says only 17 hours 48 minutes have elapsed.
Conservatives can take heart: You don't have to be a Republican to turn the clock back. |
