Robert Kaplan is doing a fascinating interview on his new book, Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts as I write this. Check Hugh Hewitt’s site later this evening or early tomorrow for a transcript. The book sounds terrific, of course, but I am even more interested in his description of his craft. He describes his kind of writing as more reminiscent of the old travel guide style of writing--that is, it is more descriptive than "investigative" in the style of Woodward and Bernstein. A whole generation of journalists have come up thinking that the point of their craft is to "uncover" or report on a "story;" showing the inconsistencies or discovering a problem. And, of course, there is an important place for such journalism. But it is not the only kind of journalism worth doing. There is also a need for the kind of descriptive reporting that Kaplan does. It provides the kind of context that leaves us ignorant in its absence. Journalists of the first description should be required to read more of Kaplan’s kind. Kaplan’s style is more leisurely even than that of an embed--he takes a month or more to really get into the minds and workings of his subjects. His description, for example, of the affinity between a seaman or an airman with his ship or aircraft is the kind of brilliant insight an ordinary reporter would need years to develop any kind of appreciation for without some kind of serendipity. And, as he shows, this affinity explains so much of what they do that it is hard to overstate it. It also explains a lot about the differences between those two branches of the military and the other branches. Kaplan describes what he sees, thinks about what he sees, and allows insights to develop organically rather than inserting them into the pages of a story written on a tight deadline. In short, I like him. I was interested in this book before I heard this interview. Now I’m going to buy it and his Imperial Grunts.

UPDATE: The transcript can be found here. But it is a pretty long read, so if you prefer to listen go here.

Bill Kristol writes a telling commentary on the moral confusion that sadly typifies today’s American university. Would that he were inventing this story . . . it could not be more insane.

I didn’t post about Sally Field’s embarrassing display at the Emmy awards before because I thought it was a bit unfair. I mean, she really showed herself to be in pretty much the same place she was intellectually as she was in the days of filming Gidget. Why pile on? I actually felt sorry for her.

But Michelle Malkin didn’t pull any punches in this latest--which rather proves (in itself) that Sally is a fool. I like Malkin’s take on the matter--even if it extrapolates a bit. There is something to her description of the two kinds of mothers: sheep and lions. She sees herself in the tribe of the lions and I’m sure that is true.

But I think I differ just a bit with Malkin’s neat juxtaposition in that I think some of the most vicious and nasty people I have ever met are precisely the sheepish mothers she describes. Their precious infants can do no wrong. Try to insinuate otherwise. Just try to suggest that perhaps they ought to--heaven forfend--spank their little darling for mouthing off to grown ups assisting their teachers. Believe me, you will see some fangs. If the mothers of the world actually ran the world (well, one might argue that we do run the world indirectly) . . . but if we ran it in the way Sally Field wishes we would, not only would there be just as many wars as there are now . . . they might be more vicious. Tribalism has its roots in the family. Who, in general, is a more staunch partisan of a particular family or tribe? Mothers or Fathers?

Recent posts by Joe about civic literacy, as well as Schramm’s mention of the lesson plans we’ve been developing for the NEH, leads me to share this anecdote.

The project is finally winding down, and we’ve been asked to have teachers test the lessons in their classrooms. The folks at the NEH helpfully provided a form for teachers to complete, most of which was reasonable. However, I reacted viscerally to one of the questions on the form: Did your students gain a broader understanding of how historians use a range of evidence to craft narratives explaining the past and its significance for the present and the future?

Well, I don’t think teachers would be able to say yes to that question for any of the lessons we’ve done. I don’t believe that history should be taught in high school for the purpose of showing what historians do; it’s only (at best) a secondary function of what I see as my role in teaching undergraduates.

Why? Because practically no high school students--and only a tiny percentage of college history majors--are going to become professional historians. Those that intend such a career will undoubtedly learn the finer points of the craft in graduate school. For me, the reason why students need to know history is to make them better citizens--there’s that "civic literacy" thing again. They will better understand their society, and their responsibility as educated citizens in it, by knowing the past--both of the United States and, more broadly, of Western Civilization. If the role of high school history is to hone their skills in "crafting narratives" based on multiple sources, then the subject matter is purely secondary. It doesn’t even have to be true--certainly one could use Tolkein’s various books to write a pretty interesting narrative about the history of Middle Earth.

If John Dewey and his acolytes are right, and education is about learning skills, rather than facts....well, let’s just say they’d be better off learning how to "frame a wall" (whatever that means) then learning to "craft narratives."

By now most of you probably have seen thispathetic (but still pretty funny) video of the young man from the University of Florida who rambled on and disrupted the illustrious Senator, John Kerry during a speaking engagement on Monday. Since then, the student and the video have been the butt of many a talk show host’s joke--and some say this may have been his intent all along.

Whatever may be the facts in this case--whether he planned to get on TV or whether he actually was disturbed by conspiracy theories regarding John Kerry’s membership in that "evil" organization for world domination, Skull and Bones, I don’t know. But his behavior and that of Code Pink at last week’s hearings with Petraus--aside from being great comic relief--tell us something important about the left. They point to a kind of childish petulance in them.

Forget all the arguments about "free speech"--who was denying this young gentleman the freedom to talk? He asked many questions--and in a most rude and irritating way. He was tolerated far too long. The audience is clapping in the video--not because they like him or his questions--but because someone is finally doing something to shut him up. His line of questioning was going no where and it was time for him to sit down and yield the floor to someone else. When someone has been invited to speak, as was John Kerry, the members of the audience do not have the freedom to shout him down and deprive the rest of those present the opportunity of hearing him speak. Only the left could imagine such a right. One may, of course, say whatever he likes about the speech on his own time. But the freedom of speech surely does not guarantee one the right to an audience.

But this is to be expected from a generation raised by children of the 60s. When we learned about the freedom of speech, it was always in the context of those protest marches of our parents. We were not taught anything about civil and enlightened discourse--rather it was always about marching around shouting with signs and looking menacing. That’s what I remember from every textbook I ever encountered on the "freedom of speech" question. It was either that or porn.

I remember well my freshman year in college and my first, last, and only experience with protesting. I joined the College Republicans (that’s probably shocking, I know) and a group of freshmen members were suckered, I mean recruited to go and protest outside of the local office of the district’s Democratic Congressman about proposed tax increases. Being young and inexperienced, I thought this was what politics was all about so I was eager to join the effort. The handful of us spent several hours diligently working on signs and slogans. We marched down to the office (since none of us had cars--this took awhile) and we stood outside of the office holding signs and encouraging passing cars to "honk" if they didn’t want their taxes raised. Of course, most people "honked"--but what else came of it? Eventually, a staff person for this Congressman approached our band of protesters and began peppering us with questions. He cited facts and figures, statistics, and quotes from leading politicians and so forth. We attempted to argue with him on the basis of principle, but we were too green. We were just kids and we really didn’t know anything. Our instincts were correct, but we needed ammunition. There had to be a better way of going about this thing. We knew we were beat.

When I went home that evening I had a pile of neglected homework facing me. I gulped down a hasty dinner and calculated that I had spent something like 10 hours that week on this fool’s errand when I could have been learning something instead. So I decided that at 18 years of age, I probably had to do a bit of thinking on things before I again attempted to swim among the sharks. I needed better gear and, more important, a different method. Shouting and marching were pretty ineffective when push came to shove. Our College Republicans never planned another protest (as least while I was there) and instead, we focused on inviting speakers, learning about the issues, and well--to put it bluntly--growing up. I realize that the right has its share of protester/activist types, but there is a reason why you don’t see too many "tazer boys" on our side. At some point, most of us learn that this kind of thing is a game for kids.

Anthony Kronman, a law prof at Yale, has some thoughts on how higher education understood as research is no longer able to shape souls, why higher education is spiritually impoverished. It no longer asks the big questions, it no longer addresses the students capacity to wonder at the world and themselves. It no longer seduces them to love thinking about the hardest and the most important things. While the article is imperfect in too many ways to mention (and will be obvious to any reader), yet it is worth reading. Perhaps his book will be too.  

I’m trying to put together a roundtable on ISI’s civic literacy report for the APSA’s annual conference on teaching and learning, to be held in San Jose, CA, February 22-24, 2008. If you’re interested, please let me know ASAP, as the deadline is coming up next week. I think I might be able to entice a couple of people from ISI to join us in a conversation about the report and its implications.

Today, Joe Klein runs a blog entry entitled "Why Drudge is a Disgrace." Here is what he says:

I know this is old news, but this guy is shameless. The headline, with a photo of a three-quarters crazed Hillary, is HEALTH INSURANCE PROOF REQUIRED FOR WORK but the linked story says this:

At this point, we don’t have anything punitive that we have proposed," the presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We’re providing incentives and tax credits which we think will be very attractive to the vast majority of Americans."

She said she could envision a day when "you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination," but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

How stupid does he think we are? Answer: Extremely dumbolic.

Now, it is clear that the article does not say that Hillary’s plan includes these proof of insurance checks yet, and therefore the headline is a bit misleading. But it is equally clear that Hillary actually favors these kind of proof of insurance checks, and that she would be willing to try to make this part of her plan if she could work it out with Congress. So it would have been better if Drudge’s head simply said: "Hillary Supports Requiring Proof of Health Insurance to Work." That would have been more accurate, and it would have shown how, to borrow Mr. Klein’s erudite word, dumbolic Hillary’s views really are on this issue.

I don’t know how I did it but somehow, I beat Hayward to the punch in pointing out that today is "Talk Like a Pirate" day. I take my guidance from Steve the Pirate in my favorite movie, Dodgeball

As a professor, I receive a free subscription to TimesSelect, which gives me access to the NYT’s subscription-only op-ed page. Today, I received this email:

Dear TimesSelect Subscriber,

We are ending TimesSelect, effective today.

The Times’s Op-Ed and news columns are now available to everyone free of charge, along with Times File and News Tracker. In addition, The New York Times online Archive is now free back to 1987 for all of our readers.

Why the change?

Since we launched TimesSelect, the Web has evolved into an increasingly open environment. Readers find more news in a greater number of places and interact with it in more meaningful ways. This decision enhances the free flow of New York Times reporting and analysis around the world. It will enable everyone, everywhere to read our news and opinion - as well as to share it, link to it and comment on it. . . .

Like anything written by the NYT, a little fact-checking is in order. The NYT did not launch TimesSelect back in the early-Al-Gore-invention-days of the Internet, but rather just 2 years ago. Accordingly, it is not credible to say that the Internet has evolved to become more open in any meaningful sense since the advent of TimesSelect. Rather, as the NYT’s VP tacitly concedes here, the real reason behind the change is that the NYT made a bad business decision with TimesSelect--that is, they could make considerably more money by relying on ad revenue rather than restricting access to their op-ed content.

I don’t expect them to disclose their profit motives in an email canceling the service. But their excuse seems particularly lame and transparent, particularly given the fact that they didn’t need to give a reason at all.

Dick Morris provides a lot of evidence that he is. Certainly Fred has looked strangely clueless so far when not relying on a prepared text. My own view is that he’s smarter than he’s sounded, and he might still get himself up to speed. He needs to work very hard and very fast, because he really, really wants to be president. According to Dick, the only plausible Republican candidates are McCain and Giuliani, because the only plausible Republican issue is being tough on terrorism. He also thinks Hillary will probably win. I agree with him on the the latter point, but not the former.

Here’s POPULAR MECHANICS’ list of 25 skills every man should know. I know about 4 of them. If Dr. Pat is right that our techno-prosperity is on the eve of destruction, I don’t have much of future.

...that what scientific studies claim to show is more likely to be false than true.

Not that anyone really cares that much, but relations between the Flemish and the Walloons have turned uglier than ever.

Here’s a story on this report, which you can download from the site. You can also take the quiz.

There is arguably a connection between civic literacy (whether or not this quiz assesses it) and civic engagement (what I might call self-government). Many institutions, including my own, are eager to promote civic engagement. Is there a similar eagerness to promote civic literacy? Do we assume that engagement encourages literacy, or vice versa?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Update: Jon Schaff: what he said. I too scored 58 of 60, though my mistakes were in the economics section.

Here’s a blog started by some Berry College government majors on the upcoming election. You will enjoy the rather extreme Republican partisanship, as well as the attempt to broaden the ethnic appeal of "O’Bama." Please contribute!

I had a conversation with David Tucker on his book United States Special Operations Forces, just published. A good conversation, about thirty minutes. Good book on a critical topic; thanks to Tucker and his co-author, Christopher Lamb.

Liberals are apparently permitted to criticize the private lives of homosexuals who take some conservative positions, and to call the toleration of this private behavior by other conservatives hypocrisy, at least if this screed is any indication.

According to one expert in winning, Karl Rove, it is. But only if the Republicans have a bold, market-based alternative to HillaryCare that addresses the legitimate criticisms of our present system. Opinion on this issue, in my view, is sliding in the Democratic direction, and mere "Be very afraid" criticism of Hillary will be ineffective.

Scientists have discovered a part of the brain that doesn’t like to be poked.

Our friend (we have lots of them) John von Heyking sends along this Augustinian response to Lilla’s argument and commends the conference at which it was presented. The response deserves to be read.    

Disinvited from the campus of Hamilton College, The Alexander Hamilton Institute has reappeared nearby, with impressive plans for the future and a rather distinguished group of people associated with it. What was it that Kanye West said?

Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago law school says that John Paul Stevens: a) was at the Supreme Court’s center in 1980, with four justices more conservative than he was and four more liberal; b) is the most liberal justice on the Court in 2007; and c) this change came about not because Stevens made “any significant change in his own approach, but because of a massive shift in the Court’s center of gravity.” Sunstein deplores this massive shift: Both “the Court and the nation benefit from a range of views and approaches, and something has gone badly wrong if the Court has a strong right wing without any real left.”

Sunstein’s position on the idea of the Court reacquiring a real left wing, however, is a little difficult to pin down. On the one hand, he calls William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, the two justices farthest to the left of John Paul Stevens in 1980, “visionaries, offering a large-scale sense of where constitutional law should move. . . . They wrote in clear, bold strokes . . . [and] their opinions pressed the Court toward moderation . . . ” On the other, Sunstein’s essay has an obligatory “to-be-sure” paragraph, which says “the Court does best if it proceeds cautiously and incrementally, with respect for the elected branches of government. Marshall and Brennan, no less than Scalia and Thomas, tried to use the Constitution to impose a contestable political vision on the nation.”

It would not be hard to compile a list of cases where Marshall and Brennan disdained both caution and elected officials in order to impose their contestable vision. Roe v. Wade would be at the top of the list. Sunstein numbers himself among the liberal constitutional scholars who believe Roe was wrongly decided, if I correctly understood remarks he made at the recent American Political Science Convention. He has also, if memory serves, written of his misgivings about Missouri v. Jenkins. In that 1990 decision the Court upheld the gold-plated school reform plan imposed by a district judge, designed to achieve racial balance in the Kansas City school district by making all the schools magnet schools, irresistible to white suburban families. The Supremes also ruled that the voters of the city had no right to vote thwart the judge’s sweeping plan by voting against the 100% increase in property taxes it required .

The decisions where Marshall and Brennan didn’t get their way are as scary as the ones where they did. Had the visionary duo found one more vote, the Court would have ruled, in Milliken v. Bradley, in favor of a school busing program that would have sent children careening around the entire Detroit metropolitan area like black and white ping pong balls. Similarly, they were one vote away from a majority to rule the Hyde Amendment unconstitutional in Harris v. McRae. Their position was an extension of the logic of Roe: just as the Constitution forbids state legislators from outlawing abortion, it prohibits Congress from defunding it, as long as there’s a Medicaid program that funds lots of other surgical procedures. (The centrist John Paul Stevens was one of the dissenters who agreed with Brennan and Marshall on this point.)

I don’t know Prof. Sunstein’s position on these cases. However he might have voted, I think there is a legitimate question whether his desire for a “range of views and approaches” on the Court has more to do with convenience than principle. I don’t recall, that is, any liberal scholar or journalist worrying 30 years ago that something had gone badly wrong in a Court with a strong left wing but no real right. The sudden discovery of the benefits of a balanced Court strikes me as no less asymmetrical than the liberal position on the importance of precedent, which boils down to the position that conservatives have a moral duty to uphold past decisions that liberals like, and liberals have a moral duty to overturn past decisions conservatives like.

I’m unaware of Prof. Sunstein’s career plans, though assume that every prominent constitutional scholar believes he would be flattered by black robes. In the event that he is nominated to the federal bench by Pres. Hillary, and in the event there are any Republicans left on the Senate Judiciary Committee to make things interesting, I hope someone will ask him to elaborate on the idea that William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall are liberal heroes with whom modern liberals fundamentally disagree.

The Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit, Edith Jones, gave our Constitution Day talk. It was very good. You should listen to it. With conversation it’s about an hour and ten minutes long.   

In addition to being Constitution Day, September 17 is the anniversary of the bloodiest day in American history. On September 17, 1862 near Sharpsburg, Maryland, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac suffered combined casualties of nearly 26,000, including nearly 5500 dead. Although tactically a draw, the fact that Robert E. Lee had been turned back after a string of victories beginning in the spring permitted Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which changed the character of the war. I wrote a piece on Antietam as part of my series on the Civil War for Ashbrook. It is here

Today we are launching a new web site on the ratification of the Constitution. This great site is the result of the work of Professor Gordon Lloyd of Pepperdine University and of Roger Beckett. The site is by far the best Internet resource on the ratification of the Constitution.

This new site tells the story of the out of doors debates over the Constitution in pamphlets and in newspapers by the Federalists and Antifederalists. It is the story of the indoors debates in the thirteen state ratifying conventions and the formal struggle over whether the proposed Constitution should be approved.

The site contains an extensive timeline of the events related to the ratification of the Constitution and a map showing the Federalist/Antifederalist vote across the thirteen states. There are introductions and day-by-day summaries of the state ratifying conventions in Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York. Also available is the full five-volumes of Jonathan Elliot's Debates in the Several State Conventions, on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution. There are biographies of the leading founders in each state involved in ratification, and in case you ever get lost, there is an overview table with links to every major part of the site.

This is not only the most comprehensive site on the ratification, it is also the clearest, with wonderful introductions and explanations provided by Gordon Lloyd.

Like everything we do, it is useful for teachers, students, and citizens alike. I encourage you to visit the site at: https://www.TeachingAmericanHistory.org/ratification.

On this Constitution Day, don’t forget to take a look at our web site on the Constitutional Convention. Also working with Gordon Lloyd, this web site has become known as the finest resource available on the Constitutional Convention. (It’s rather popular too. Type Constitutional Convention into Google and ours is the first site that appears.) In addition to the many other features on the site, you can see Gordon Lloyd’s summary of what happened on this day 220 years ago as well as Madison’s Notes of the Debates on September 17, 1787. And don’t miss one of the highlights of the site, the interactive painting showing the Scene at the Signing of the Constitution.

Today is Constitution Day. You can read some stories about this brand new holiday--celebrated only since 2004--here and here.

Here’s a rather depressing survey focusing on the state of high school students’ First Amendment knowlege, a companion to the survey about which I blogged here. (Here is a copy of the survey form; unfortunately I can’t at the moment get access to a full survey report.)

Last (and perhaps least), the kind folks at The American Spectator Online have generously posted a short piece I wrote formalizing some of the thoughts I posted here last week. This new survey confirms my thought that we have a long way to go in our efforts at civic education.

Peter has the first smart and penetrating review of Mark’s book so far. A book that doesn’t really come to terms with Strauss or do justice to America can’t be all good. As I said before, there’s a third, non-stillborn alternative to political theology and Hobbesian political philosophy that gives both religion and politics their due, and our Founders’ (certainly imperfect but real) illumination by that alternative elevates them and their Constitution above what Lilla admits is simplistic and humanly unsatisfying Hobbesian psychology. (Thanks to Ivan the K.)

This essay in the NYT (hat tip: Stanley Kurtz) suggests both that the multiculturalists won the "canon wars" and that it was a Pyrrhic victory (although one of the results is that apparently few students would have a clue about who Pyrrhus was). Focusing on the study of literature (and not really on either core curricula or other "humanistic" disciplines), the essayist suggests that the smaller proportion of students who major in English are exposed, above all, to the idiosyncratically specialized tastes of their professors, at the expense of a larger and deeper cultural awareness. Having been educated in a similar system themselves, the professors are apparently incapable of fleshing out the horizon in which students could situate their contemporary reading.

Time out, as one of my illustrious grad school professors used to say, for an anecdote. Speaking with a group of freshmen earlier this semester, I quoted the line, "Whatever doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger." "Oh yeah, someone responded, that’s so-and-so [I can’t remember the name of the evanescent contemporary cultural icon he cited]." "Actually no," I responded, "that’s Nietzsche."

One conclusion one might draw from the NYT’s line of argument is that an effort to inculcate students in something resembling the traditional canon (not worshipfully, but thoughtfully and critically) might actually "sell" better than the alternative, the result of which is to let increasing numbers of students slip away from the humanities to more lucrative and less apparently frivolous fields of study. There is, I think, a cultural and civilizational price to be paid for this flight. I wonder if we can recover some of what we’ve lost by trying to remember how to teach what we’ve forgotten. My experience at Oglethorpe, which has had a "Great Books"-oriented Core Curriculum for quite some time, is that many students come to be quite fond of it an quite proud of what they have come, through great difficulty, to know.

Jay Bookman, a liberal editorialist for the Atlanta paper (I almost don’t need the adjective), offers a relatively interesting piece on professional military reactions to the public distance (not exactly uninterest, but certainly not intimate involvement) from the Iraq War. He quotes from this article, which strikes me as worth reading. The passages Bookman cites about the importance of involving the populace more directly in any future commitments of military force are sertainly important (and Bookman doesn’t refer to the author’s argument that the inevitable future commitments will be even more complicatd than those in Iraq and Afghanistan).

But this one is also worth noting:

Perhaps the most decisive factor that will determine
who emerges victorious in current and future wars is which side can gain consistent advantage in the holistic information environment that plays out across the globe, near and far from the “front lines.” In short, the commander who prevails in the information war is almost certain to win the war itself. Perception has a nagging tendency of determining how our enemies, our allies, and our own societies view war, often regardless of what is actually happening on the ground. If we are unable to do a better job than our enemies of influencing the world’s perception, then even the most brilliantly conceived campaign plans will be unlikely to succeed.

Our friend Eduardo Velasquez, author of this book, will appear on this call-in radio program tomorrow (Monday, September 17th) at 3 p.m.

Here’s a not terribly deep or interesting Sunday NYT review of Mark Lilla’s new book by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.

I eagerly await something more penetrating.

I have to confess that I don’t find this argument convincing. I agree that a reputation for incompetence has hurt Republicans and the Bush Administration; and that may be enough substantially to harm Republican prospects in 2008. But almost everything hinges on how Iraq looks and the confidence voters have that a candidate can deal with it.

Of course, this assessment is subject to revision if there’s a substantial economic downturn associated with slowness in the real estate market.

The other shifts in public opinion that the authors identify--a modest movement back toward the welfare state and a modest uptick in secularism--don’t, I think, shift the political ground substantially, at least not on their own. I’m not convinced, for example, that young seculars will remain secular once they marry and have children. Of course, that won’t likely happen by 2008, but it’s also highly unlikely that Republicans will nominate someone as closely identified with religious conservatives as is GWB.

A concern with the fate of the least among us isn’t restricted to the political Left, and there continues to be room for debate on how best to proceed in these matters. There are certainly those in the Democratic Party who’d like to roll back (almost) everything Republicans have accomplished since the Reagan years, but I don’t think they command the kind of support necessary for such a radical change. And I think that any Democrat elected in 2008 will have her hands full with Iraq for quite some time. What’s more, I’m not convinced that Congressional Democrats will be able to muster the numbers and the political acumen to assemble a record compelling enough to confirm and solidify this modest shift in public opinion.

In sum, I think that the likeliest outcome in 2008 is a closely-fought victory for one or the other party (with the situation in Iraq determining the winner); I doubt that the Congressional split will be more than marginally different from what it is now (leaving Republicans with at least the power of obstruction). In other words, I’m no more than moderately pessimistic about 2008, and actually fairly confident that Democrats will not succeed in bringing about the kinds of long-term changes they desire.

Update: Here’s one basis for the authors’ argument.

The Democrats “articulate no basic philosophy to guide their decisions,” complains Linda Hirshman on the New Republic website, and their lack of “a clear and coherent message” means that even if Democrats run the table in November 2008 “they will never build a political movement.” Worst of all, this lack of coherence “is a totally self-inflicted wound. For more than 70 years, the Democrats have had a perfectly good philosophy: liberalism.”

It may surprise NLT readers to learn that Democrats have forsaken liberalism. Hirshman complains that Democrats avoid calling themselves “liberals,” a word FDR used proudly but which Democrats have locked in the attic since the Dukakis debacle of 1988. Her real complaint, however, goes beyond semantics. “For more than three centuries liberalism has meant the belief in increased sharing of social goods,” says Hirshman, and Democrats who don’t embrace this belief will squander their chance to realize “a liberalism of collective responsibility” like those in western Europe.

It’s always annoying when a tenured professor (or, in Hirshman’s case, a retired one) scorns the timidity of politicians who have to win contested elections. By the time Hirshman has completed her argument for liberalism, however, the Democrats who distance themselves from it seem more like statesmen than cautious vote-seekers. Her ideas about sharing are the heart of the problem. It’s a word that conveys a quality of volition not . . . well, entirely germane to dealings between citizens and governments that can imprison them. Hirshman’s is an old wish, that communitarian-sounding words will dispel any fears of authoritarian-sounding actions. Try skipping your Social Security “contributions” for a year, though, and see how much understanding you get from the IRS about declining to share your paycheck with the other kids in the lunchroom.

What circumstances justify the enforced generosity Hirshman calls “sharing?” The real challenge would be to imagine any that don’t. Pre-industrial liberalism was about sharing power, she says, so it worked to limit absolutist governments. The Industrial Revolution promoted a new liberalism based on a “new sharing,” one “grounded in a deep belief . . . in the significance of the human capacity for pleasure and pain and meaningful work.”

A government whose agenda is constrained by the breakthrough discovery that people prefer pleasure to pain, and meaningful work to drudgery, is a government constrained by nothing. Thus, Hirshman’s argument for national health insurance rests on the premise that a “large segment of [the] population, who can feel pain,” aren’t able to alleviate it on their own. Chances are, however, that an even larger segment of people feel they’re stuck in a crappy job. Hide your wallet before you ask Prof. Hirshman what we should do for them.

Those in or near Nashville on October 5-6 won’t want to miss these illuminating lectures.

From Ratzinger, "On the Theological Basis of Prayer and Liturgy":

...there is a objection...to a God of revelation. This was already formulated in the philosophy of the ancients, but it has acquired greater force in the modern scientific and technological world. It can be put like this: a rationally constructed world is determined by rationally perceived causality. To such a scheme the notion of personal intervention is both mythical and repugnant. But if this approach is adopted, it must be followed consistently, for what applies to God applies equally to man. If there is only one kind of causality, man, too, as a person is excluded and reduced to an element in mechanical causality, in the realm of necessity; freedom, too, in this case is a mythical idea. In this sense it can be said that the personalities of God and man cannot be separated. If personality is not a possibility, that is, not present, in the "ground" of reality, it is not possible at all. Either freedom is a possibility inherent in the ground of reality or it does exist.

This site is worth bookmarking and checking every morning.

The estimable Professor Friedman (to whom I wish a happy new year) calls our attention to this survey, described in this press release. Those affiliated with the First Amendment Center wring their hands over the percentage of respondents who regard the U.S. as a Christian nation and would permit, for example, teachers to lead prayers. I’d focus on the overwhelming support for the freedom to practice one’s own religion (97% say it’s "essential" or "important") or to practice no religion (89%), though (to be sure) only 56% believe that the freedom of religion applies to all groups and 28% believe that fringe groups shouldn’t enjoy that freedom. 60% of respondents agree that "people should be allowed to say things in public that might be offensive to religious groups," up from 46% in the 2000 survey. Whatever the respondents mean when they say "Christian nation," it’s a far cry from a theocracy. I also suspect that the "fringe groups" that the respondents had in mind are not Buddhists or Hindus.

I’m actually more troubled by other responses. For example, while 64% of the respondents could identify freedom of speech as part of the First Amendment, less than 20% could name any other specific right listed. Furthermore, despite the focus on freedom on speech in this particular snapshot of the public mind, 62% of respondents strongly or mildly agree that the government ought to be able to restrict the amount of money a candidate contributes to his or her own campaign; and 64% agree--strongly or mildly--that the government "should be able to place restrictions on the amount of money a private individual can contribute to someone else’s election campaign." Equality trumps liberty here.

And then there’s this: while 57% of the respondents don’t think that government content regulation of television should be extended to cable and sattelite systems, slightly over 60% strongly or mildly support some version of the fairness doctrine, even applied to newspapers. I can only hope that the explanation for this willingness to support the abrogation of the freedom of the press is connected with the perception, held by roughly 60% of the respondents, that the news media are biased in their reporting of stories and that “[t]he falsifying or making up of stories in the American news media is a widespread problem.” At least then it would be a (mistaken) response to a perceived problem, rather than mere support for a kind of paternalism.

I agree with the folks at the First Amendment Center that we have a long way to go in educating people about their fundamental freedoms. One solution is for ever more people to sign up for this or this, and for other colleges and universities to emulate them.

Mark Shea has interesting things to say to Christian and atheist critics of J. K. Rowling. Don’t read this if you haven’t yet read the book (but plan to).

Serendipitously today, I had contact with two former students who are both serving in the Army.

I received an email from a young man who graduated in 2000 and joined up after 9/11. He’s on his second tour in Iraq, serving this time as an advisor to the ISF. He’ll be in Atlanta next month, and I’ll share with you anything he’s willing to share with me (and the wider world).

A young woman--currently in the reserves while finishing up law school--visited with a class (after which we had lunch). She has the opportunity, while in law school, to do some work on the Hamdan case, working with this professor. I’m not fully in agreement with what I know of her views on the case, but I respect her immensely, both for her willingness to serve in the military (eventually as a reserve JAG officer) and to take serious and principled positions that might well not be popular with some of her military colleagues. She made a tough choice in school (Oglethorpe isn’t exactly overrun with ROTC students) and another one now.

Say what you want about American higher education, but that such folks come out the other end of the pipeline leaves me with some hope.

Is Fred Thompson somehow like Reagan, or parallel to Reagan? Andy Busch opines.  

In my current blogging funk, I’d neglected to mention that this is NRO’s education week. Pieces worth reading include Mike Deshaies on civic literacy (updating us on a topic we discussed at great length here), George Leef on why too many--not too few--people go to college, and John J. Miller on how well things are going at Hillsdale. There’s so much more that I don’t have time to read it all. You should dip in where something piques your interest.

Claremont’s John J. Pitney calls our attention to a very, very widely reported study that, in the words of its authors, concludes:

Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty. We tested the hypothesis that these profiles relate to differences in general neurocognitive functioning using event-related potentials, and found that greater liberalism was associated with stronger conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting greater neurocognitive sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern.

In other words, self-described "liberals" (among the 43 college students tested) are more responsive to changes in stimuli than are self-described conservatives.

This will surely, and has already, led to all sorts of liberal triumphalism about how liberals are "smarter," more open to ambiguity, and more willing to change as circumstances change than are conservatives. Of course, this presumes (as the authors would have us presume) that the change in stimulus is connected with a real-world event. It could also be a change in mere appearances or a change that isn’t itself central to the phenomenon on which we’re supposed to focus. And, even if the events are "real," Aristotle long ago noted that willingness to change may be a virtue in "science" without being a virtue in politics.

Another implication of this research is that "liberal" and "conservative" dispositions may, in a sense, be "hard-wired." We’re liberal or conservative--more precisely, more or less open to change--not because we’re persuaded by argument, but because of the way our brains work. I guess we can all stop arguing.

But seriously, this line of analysis would seem to make it easier to explain how one-time conservatives become liberal (they are exposed to evidence that their brain functions predisposed them to respond to) than how one-time liberals become conservative. It also would seem to have a hard time explaining how some "liberal" politicians stuck with old policy prescriptions that had apparently been discredited by the evidence. Or might it be the case that people with "liberal brains" are "conservatives" in the face of an entrenched "liberal" orthodoxy?

One last point: one of the principal authors has spent a lot of time studying the social psychology of conservatism, attracting the attention of The New Atlantis with this piece, and defending himself here. He also summarizes some of his work here. I wasn’t shocked to learn that he’d made a modest donation to HRC in 2005; he’s just wired that way.

Update: Our friend Jonah G. poses some incisive and entertaining questions about the research and relays a note from a neuroscientist who has actually looked at the research. If you thought the number of subjects was small (43), apparently the number of conservatives was ridiculously small (7). There are other potential problems with the research that I’ll leave you to read for yourselves. And I’ll pose one further question myself: is there a difference between thinking and reacting to perceptions?

Plus a bit of shameless self-promotion. Everyone anywhere near Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. won’t want to miss this timely conference.

The Israelis apparently conducted a major operation against Syria in recent days, but since there is no video, we aren’t hearing anything about it in the American press. Bears watching. Warm-up for a raid on Iranian nuke facilities?

Hat tip: Roger Simon.

Here’s the latest Pew poll (pdf form here; the questionnaire is here), focusing on the religion of the candidates and of the respondents.

Note that the presumptive frontrunners from New York are regarded as the least religious of the major candidates (the respondents are probably correct about RG, but not about HRC, who is a garden-variety liberal Methodist). Of course, those who are more suspicious of her religiosity are disinclined to like her on any ground; they just can’t believe that she’s got faith in anything other than herself. The report’s authors note that religiosity has a positive valence: those who regard a candidate as religious tend to like that candidate. But that may get the order of causality wrong; at least for a certain proportion of the people, the affection precedes the ascription of religiosity. In other words, for many people the candidate’s religiosity isn’t the first thing they look for, and they don’t look too closely in any event.

Allow me to draw a conclusion about this for HRC: emphasizing her religiosity isn’t going to help her with the faith-based anybody-but-Hillary crowd. With others, if she can overcome the challenge of likeability, she doesn’t need to stress religion; if they come to like her, they’ll by and large think of her as "religious enough."

It’s also noteworthy that in August 2007, more people perceive the Democrats as unfriendly to religion than in August 2004, when John Kerry was displaying his incredible ineptitude at appealing to religious voters. The concerted efforts to portray the party as "faith-friendly" don’t appear to be working very well.

But I’m not convinced that they matter all that much, since Iraq and the economy are the dominant issues. And while there are distinctive "religious" voices on all sides of those issues, I don’t think that they are the loudest and most influential. As a result, religion may well "mean less" in 2008 than it has in recent elections. Whether this will be the "new norm" or an aberration remains, of course, to be seen.

Thanks to Peter for linking to my piece on 9/11 and the meaning of victory against the "new " terrorism.

I thought I would share this post to NRO’s military blog, The Tank, regarding my impression of yesterday’s Petraeus/Crocker hearing.

As I watched Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker field questions during the House hearing yesterday, I was reminded of a personal experience. As a young Marine captain, I was assigned to the US Army Field Artillery School to teach artillery tactics. My mentor there was an Army captain who remains the best teacher I have ever known. Before I actually got to teach, I observed my mentor as he took a class of brand new lieutenants through the course. During one session, a student asked him a question. I’ll never forget Howard’s reply. "Lieutenant, we all know that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, but I want you to know that yours is the closest to one I have ever heard."

So it was with the ambassador and the general. I don’t believe I have ever heard so many inane and repetitive questions in my life. It’s one thing to push the Democratic story line, but couldn’t these guys come up with some decent questions? How Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker kept straight faces is beyond me. One thing is apparent. There has been a precipitous drop in congressional military experience. This applies to staff as well. God help the Republic.

Today is six years after the event that, even if we will otherwise, can’t leave behind us simply as a memory. I was in class when someone ran in and told us that something was going on. We ran to a TV and started watching right after the first plane hit. I didn’t understand. I remember the confusion and the tears of students when it became, somehow, clear to everyone that this was an attack. Someone pointed to spots on the screen that seemed to be falling from the still-standing buildings. It was breath-taking when we realized that they were people jumping from the burning buildings. Hearts stopped and grown men wept. That’s when I realized that I probably would not have made a good general.

I saw some of Petreus’(and Crocker’s) testimony yesterday, and there was more today which I haven’t seen. There is no need to re-work the political jockying and the short and self-serving speeches by politicians (or the screech of the MoveOn.org crowd). I merely want to say that I am impressed by the general’s seriousness, and am glad he is in charge of operations (and too bad he wasn’t fully in charge at the start of things). His careful articulation of the situation as it is now and the possibilities were good, and hopeful (and not utopian). Also prudent. Make some bow to getting some Marines out pretty quickly and then some soldiers, this gives everyone a little room for movement (and rhetoric) and allows him some six months to get back to work. Congress will not be able to prevent that; the withdrawal debate will be cut short. And that is all good. I do hope we don’t pretend to be Athenians and treat him as one of our generals who has displeased us. I think the American people are too sensible for that. And I am grateful.

Mac Owens on the war on terror. And the non-optimistic George Will has his say. Here are some videos from six years ago which should be shown on every TV station today, as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes it’s good to both weep and become angry. After all, we are not generals.

Michael Scherer of Salon writes, somewhat disapprovingly, "no one expects Thompson to run an issue-based campaign." To substantiate this claim, Scherer adds: The rest of his stump speech is conservative cliché. ’Security. Unity. Prosperity,’ reads the campaign motto on the side of the bus -- whatever that means. He talked about opposing abortion, securing the border, supporting the Second Amendment, seeking conservative judges, opposing gay marriage and favoring a strong national defense. Presumably, Scherer is irritated because Thompson would not spell out detailed policy plans for Social Security, a position on the fair tax, and Labor Department statistics on the question of an approaching recession. As a criticism, that’s fair enough--as far as it goes. But notice that the positions Thomspon articulates against abortion, securing judges for the courts, opposing gay marriage and supporting defense are described as clichés. Thompson may not be another Reagan, but the criticism of him from the other side is beginning to sound an awful lot like the criticism Reagan got. If I were Thompson I think I might consider this to be a good development.

Congratulations to this month’s winners of a No Left Turns mug! The winners are as follows:

Ben Robinson

Ivan Kenneally

Stacy Maxey

Ken Limmer

Emilia Rose Kette

Thanks to all who entered. An email has been sent to the winners. If you are listed as a winner and did not receive an email, contact Ben Kunkel. If you didn’t win this month, enter September’s drawing.

Quite a number of NLT discussants are incensed over my post blow, The NYT Speaks: Osama Listens. (See the comments thread.) Well, they better fire up their indignation engines for David Brooks’ comments on the New Hour the other night:

But you read this thing, and it’s like he’s been sitting around reading lefty blogs, and he’s one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom the page, you know, Noam Chomsky and all this stuff.

You can’t help read it and not laugh at it, occasionally, because it is just absurd. It’s flying this way, and that way, weird conspiracy theories, and mortgages, global warming. He throws it all in there.

The one thing that leapt out -- and Bruce Hoffman and the others mentioned this -- was how Western it is. And a friend of mine, Reuel Gerecht, points out that there’s this argument that Western ideas never permeated into the Arab world, but in fact it’s all -- I mean, a lot of the worst ideas from the West have permeated in, and he’s picked up Noam Chomsky, and he’s picked up some of the anti-globalization stuff. And that’s what infuses this.

Tila Tequila. What ever happened to music videos?

I’ve been neglecting my duties as NLT’s wine and food editor for months now, and the news gets worse, as I am on a diet and have given up all alcohol for a while. But I did stumble on a great new Paso Robles area winery over the summer that is worth ordering from (if your state allows shipments, as most now do): Denner Vineyards.

Robert Parker is an enthusiast. Nuf said. I especially like their Viognier, another white blend they are calling Theresa, and a red rhone-style blend called Ditch Digger.

Back during the Cold War, and especially in the 1980s, you could pick up the editorial page of the New York Times and the news/editorials of Pravda, and you couldn’t tell the difference. (Sometimes Pravda would save its own writers the bother and just quote the western press for denunciations of the United States.) And Soviets always seemed to take their talking points for summits with Reagan from the American left. Gorbachev, for instance, in his first meeting with Reagan tried out the feminist chestnut that "by law" women in the U.S. could only make 60 cents for each dollar a man earned. This should have been embarrassing to the left, but wasn’t of course.