October 13, 2010
This day in baseball history -- the most dramatc baseball game ever
On October 13, 1960, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the New York Yankees played what is probably the most dramatic game in baseball history. Like one of those retro-ballparks, this game combined, in a World Series Game 7, key elements of past and future classics - the key bad hop grounder (1924, Game 7), the walk-off series ending home run (1951, NL playoff; 1993, Game 6), and the wild lead changes (1993, Game 4).
Given the starting pitchers, a back-and-forth slugfest did not seem to be in the offing. The Pirates went with Vern Law, probably the best pitcher in the National League that year, who had already won Games 1 and 4. Law was suffering from an ankle injury, but Danny Murtaugh had a rested Elroy Fact to close out the game if necessary. He also had two quality left-handers available - Wilmer Mizell and Harvey Haddix.
Casey Stengel had at his disposal a rested Bob Turley, one of the best pitchers of the late 1950s and the winner of Game 7 in 1958. Using Turley seemed like a no-brainer, but Stengel didn't commit to him until the right-hander arrived at Forbes Field on game day and found a fresh new ball in his locker. Said Turley: "Sure, I had an idea I would be it, but you never can tell with Casey."
Behind Turley, Stengel had his entire pitching staff except for the man he could have used the most -- Whitey Ford, who had pitched nine innings the day before. Had Stengel not waited until Game 3 to start Ford, the great lefty presumably would have been available for Game 7, had such a Series gone that far.
As we will see, Stengel would use his bullpen freely. So would Murtaugh. Nine pitchers appeared on the day, in an era when managers did not change pitchers at the drop of a hat. Only once since 1947 had this many pitchers been used in a World Series game. The nine - Turley, Bill Stafford, Bobby Shantz, Jim Coates, Ralph Terry, Law, Face, Bob Friend, and Haddix -- combined for 1012 career wins. But not one of them would be truly effective in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series.
The wrong bogeyman
Here's a sidebar to the debate tonight between Chris Coons and Christine O'Donnell (see the post below for a discussion of that debate). One of the first things Coons said was that he has a proven record as a job creator by virtue, in part, of his ability as a County Executive to work with the Chamber of Commerce.
That's right. In order to establish his bona fides on the most important issue in the election -- jobs -- Coons wrapped himself in the mantle of the same organization that Obama and his spokesmen are attempting to demonize. Even the so-called bearded Marxist recognized that an association of job creators is the wrong bogeyman in this election.
If they had asked me, I would have advised the national Dems to stick with Karl Rove.
Power Line Bookshelf
Christine O'Donnell beats expectations. . .and her opponent
I watched most of tonight's Delaware Senate debate between Chris Coons and Christine O'Donnell. Coons was articulate and polished, but O'Donnell was also articulate, and she was much sharper on the issues. In my view, she won the debate handily.
The only bad moment I saw for O'Donnell was when she could not name or otherwise identify a recent Supreme Court decision she disagreed with. But this came late in the debate, long after she had demonstrated solid knowledge about a broad range of substantive issues.
It's no secret that I would be happier with Mike Castle as the Republican candidate because he would be an odds-on favorite to win a seat that O'Donnell is likely to lose. But tonight we saw one of the upsides to nominating O'Donnell - the forceful and articulate presentation to Delaware voters of the conservative case on foreign, domestic, and economic issues.
Even if she had only held her own against Coons, the debate likely would have helped O'Donnell. If I am correct that she outdebated her opponent, the event may help O'Donnell significantly.
It had better. Five recent polls show her trailing Coons by 16 to 21 points.
One is the loneliest number
Minnesota Eighth District Rep. and porkmeister Jim Oberstar is an 18-term incumbent running against Republican Chip Cravaack for reelection. As we have noted previously, Cravaack is an outstanding candidate running a strong race in a heavily Democratic district. Support Cravaack here.
In his 18 terms in office, Oberstar has had lots of time to build up grassroots support that is as broad as it is deep. With Oberstar's third quarter FEC report now on file, Politico reports that Oberstar in fact has precisely one individual resident donor in the district: "Jane Robbins of Pine City gave Oberstar $500 on Aug. 22." Oh, sweet Jane!
The NRCC's Tom Erickson notes that Oberstar is actually a Maryland resident and comments: "With Jim Oberstar making only infrequent visits to Minnesota, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that this career politician finds himself without much support back 'home.'"
No viable "peace partner" or peace broker for Israel
Earlier this week, Israel said it would agree to expand its moratorium on building in settlements if the PA would recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The offer was quickly hooted down as "racist" by the PA, raising this question: Why would Israel even bother to negotiate with an outfit that has a problem recognizing Israel as what it is at its core?
But now there is, perhaps, an equally pressing question: Why would Israel accept as an intermediary in its relations with the PA a U.S. administration that is reluctant to recognizie Israel as a Jewish state? The question arises from this exchange between administration spokesman P.J. Crowley and members of the press, as reported by Rick Richman:
QUESTION: P.J., do you recognize Israel as a Jewish state and will you try to convince the Palestinians to recognize it?
MR. CROWLEY: We will continue our discussions with the parties. I would expect, following up on the Arab League meetings of late last week that George Mitchell will go to the region at some point. I'm not announcing anything, but I -- it would be logical for us to follow up directly with the parties, see where they are. . . .
QUESTION: And do you recognize Israel as a Jewish state?
MR. CROWLEY: We recognize the aspiration of the people of Israel. It has -- it's a democracy. In that democracy, there's a guarantee of freedom and liberties to all of its citizens. But as the Secretary has said, we understand that -- the special character of the state of Israel.
QUESTION: Is that a yes or no?
QUESTION: P.J., it's -- do you want to answer his question or -
QUESTION: Did you say yes or no to that question from Michel?
MR. CROWLEY: Hmm?
QUESTION: Michel's question was a yes or no sort of question. I was wondering whether that was a yes or no.
MR. CROWLEY: We recognize that Israel is a - as it says itself, is a Jewish state, yes.
As to the other part of the original question -- whether the administration will attempt to persuade the PA to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the exchange continued as follows:
QUESTION: ... Does the U.S. want the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state?
MR. CROWLEY: Look, I will be happy to go back over and offer some -- I'm trying -- I'm not making any news here. We have recognized the special nature of the Israeli state. It is a state for the Jewish people. It is a state for other citizens of other faiths as well. But this is the aspiration of the -- what Prime Minister Netanyahu said yesterday is, in essence, the -- a core demand of the Israeli Government, which we support, is a recognition that Israel is a part of the region, acceptance by the region of the existence of the state of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and that is what they want to see through this negotiation. We understand this aspiration and the prime minister was talking yesterday about the fact that just as they aspire to a state for the Jewish people in the Middle East, they understand the aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own.
A 2004 letter from President Bush stated that the U.S. is "strongly committed to ... [Israel] as a Jewish state." Yet, as Richman points out, "this administration has to be prodded six times to answer whether it recognizes Israel as a Jewish state and -- after an affirmative response is extracted -- cannot give a one-word answer on whether it wants the Palestinians to recognize one as well."
The idea that the Obama administration has Israel's core interests at heart as it attempts to broker a deal between Israel and the PA is laughable and, I assume, viewed as such by the Israeli government, however much it may try to humor the current American president.
Desperate times call for desperate xenophobia
Michael Barone observes an irony in the White House's demagogic campaign against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: "Back in 2008, we were supposed to vote for the candidate foreigners loved. Now in 2010, we are supposed to vote against the party foreigners support."
A lawsuit for the Age of Obama
The Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill is legislation perfectly expressive of the Age of Obama. It directs the Federal Reserve to prescribe the interchange fees charged on debit card transactions at the incremental cost of the transaction incurred by the issuer of the debit card -- if the issuer is a bank with over $10 billion in assets. The amendment directs the Federal Reserve to issue implementing regulations in a matter of months.
The amendment is an ill advised piece of special interest legislation in the guise of consumer protection. If anyone, it will serve to benefit the retail industry that supported its passage.
TCF National Bank is a regional bank whose parent holding company is based in suburban Minneapolis and is led by straight talking chairman and chief executive officer Bill Cooper. (Full disclosure: TCF is my former employer and Bill is a friend whom I greatly admire.) Yesterday TCF filed a lawsuit in federal district court in South Dakota seeking to have the Durbin Amendment declared unconstitutional and enjoining the Federal Reserve from issuing the interchange regulation.
TCF has retained Professor Richard Epstein to advise it in the lawsuit. Professor Epstein has rendered the opinion that the Durbin Amendment is blatantly unconstitutional. TCF's press release on the lawsuit is here. The press release quotes Bill on the rationale of the lawsuit:
It is unprecedented for Congress, or any regulatory agency, to mandate a fee charged in the free market that not only denies a reasonable rate of return on investment, but actually requires the rate to be lower than the incremental cost of providing the service Furthermore, the Amendment affects only one percent of the nation's banks, giving thousands of unaffected banks an unfair competitive advantage.
We believe these provisions violate our Constitutional rights on three separate grounds: the regulations take our property without just compensation and without Due Process of Law; and they also deny us Equal Protection under the law. The statute makes no more sense than regulating the price of a Burger King hamburger solely to the costs of the meat and the bun. To stay in business, Burger King has to sell burgers at prices that cover more than those costs; it also has to cover costs such as paying an employee to make the hamburger and another employee to serve it, the cost of the building and maintenance, as well as the costs incurred to advertise and promote the product. Under the Durbin Amendment, TCF only gets to recover the cost of the bun!
After TCF filed the lawsuit yesterday, Bill held a conference call in which he took questions from securities analysts who follow TCF. Several questions asked whether TCF would be joined in the lawsuit by other banks subject to the new regulation. Bill said he hoped others might join, but referred to divisions in the industry and fear among bankers that discourages them from challenging the government. It is well worth listening to the call, which is accessible here.
With his usual candor, Senator Durbin denied that his amendment does what TCF says it does: "The law in no way addresses the fees TCF, or any other bank, can charge and it does not set interchange rates. Our language simply ensures that debit interchange fees charged to retailers by the card networks--not the banks--are 'reasonable and proportional' to the cost of processing transactions and provides competition in an area of the market where there's none." Interested observers may wish to compare Durbin's comments with the first few provisions of his amendment; the amendment expressly authorizes the Fed to limit the fees that covered debit card issuers can receive or charge and directs the Fed to issue a regulation doing so. Or they may wish to compare Durbin's comments with Bill's straight talk on CNBC yesterday here.
UPDATE: A knowledgeable observer makes a related point: "If you wanted to take Durbin to task a little more, you could point out that he states that the amendment regulates network fees. If you look at subdivision (a)(8), it expressly says the network fees are off limits other than to make sure they don't raise them and pass some on to the issuer."
Uncommon Knowledge with Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is the prominent classicist and military historian who is the author of numerous brilliant books including The Western Way of War: Infantry Battles in Classical Greece, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and the Spartans Fought the Peloponessian War, and, most recently, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. He is also the author of the forthcoming Broadside pamphlet How the Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security. And these are just my favorites. Interested readers should check out the body of his work here.
One of the most prominent public intellectuals in the United States, Dr. Hanson is a Fellow of the Hoover Institution. Peter Robinson recently conducted a wide-ranging interview with Dr. Hanson beginning with a discussion of Hanson's NRO essay "The New Old World Order" and moving on to Europe, Asia, Russia, Mexico, and the United States. Through our arrangement with the Hoover Institution, we are pleased to present the interview in its entirety.
October 12, 2010
Can Miller seal the deal in Alaska, and does he have to?
The latest poll I've seen from Alaska (by PPP on Oct. 9-10) shows essentially a dead heat between Joe Miller (35 percent) and Lisa Murkowski (33 percent). Democrat Scott McAdams polls 26 percent. Late last month, a CNN/Time poll also showed the race between Miller and Murkowski to be extremely tight -- Miller 38, Murkowski 36, McAdams 22.
The problem for Murkowski, of course, is that her name doesn't appear on the ballot. Not only must voters write her name in, they need to remember to fill in a bubble indicating that they are selecting a write-in candidate, if they want to vote for Murkowski. No one knows just how much of an obstacle these requirements will constitute, but they don't seem inconsiderable to me.
Still, the question remains, why is Murkowski polling so well following her defeat in the Republican primary? Recall that, in Florida, Marco Rubio pulled away from Charlie Crist after Crist initially was ahead in the polls. This hasn't happened in Alaska.
There are several possible explanations. One is that there hasn't been enough time. It took Rubio a while to pull away from Crist. Murkowski has only been in the race as a third option for a short time. Maybe as election day approaches, she will fade in the polls, notwithstanding her strong name recognition. We'll see.
A second possible explanation is that Miller is more conservative than Rubio. Sharron Angle, for one, seems to view Miller that way. But Alaska is a more conservative state than Florida, so it's unlikely that Miller's conservatism per se is what's preventing him from breaking away.
There is an ideological issue that may be hurting Miller, though. Alaska is a major beneficiary of federal money. This reality tends to make earmarks more attractive even to some conservatives than they are elsewhere. This sentiment, in turn, tends to favor Murkowski.
A third possibility is that Miller simply isn't as attractive a candidate as Rubio, and has failed to win the confidence of Alaskans outside of his core support group. In this regard, Miller has been the subject of a series of stories that, his detractors say, cast doubt on his character and his sincerity as a small government conservative.
For example, Miller apparently has said that his family of eight children received low-income medical benefits, even though he has criticized Murkowski for supporting such benefits. It has also been reported that Miller and his wife obtained state low-income hunting and fishing licenses after he took out a mortgage and started a $70,000 a year job.
Murkowski is hoping that the combination of Miller's opposition to government largesse, coupled with evidence that he has taken advantage of it, will sour voters on Miller. Presumably, she is also hoping that the apparent rift between Miller and Todd Palin will play into her hands.
For his part, Miller is criticizing the press. And he has said he will not answer any more questions about his personal background for the rest of the campaign.
It may be difficult for Miller to "seal the deal" with Alaska voters if, as something of an unknown quantity, he refuses to answers such questions. However, considering the difficulty Murkowski faces as a write-in candidate, Miller may not need to seal the deal.
Tea Party as Money Machine, Part 2
Earlier today we noted the remarkable contribution totals reported by Tea-Party favorites Sharron Angle and Kristi Noem. We can add one more to the list, Minnesota's own Michele Bachmann, who today reported that during the third quarter she received--"raked in," as the Minneapolis Star Tribune puts it--a mind-blowing $5.4 million. That brings her total for this election cycle to around $10 million, which, if I understand the Strib's arithmetic correctly, is twice as much as any Minnesota Congressional candidate has ever raised.
To those familiar with Bachmann's relentless energy, statistics of this sort will not be surprising. The broader point, however, is that it is obvious where most of the energy is coming from in 2010. Those who are loosely (very loosely, in most cases) affiliated with the Tea Party movement are putting their money where their opinions are, more than anyone else.
This day in baseball history
Down three games to two in the 1960 World Series, Casey Stengel finally figured out who the ace of his pitching staff was, bypassing Bob Turley and selecting Whitey Ford as his Game Six starter. In Stengel's telling, though he had help: "I asked my players if they wanted Ford to start and they all did except six or eight; they was the other pitchers which wanted to start themselves."
Did Stengel really poll his team about whom to start, or was he just talking? Beats me.
Danny Murtaugh faced no quandary. He would start the well-rested Bob Friend.
Pitching on three days rest, Ford reportedly was not at his best in Game Six. According to one account, "his fastball had little zip and his curve wasn't breaking much." Yet, the crafty veteran somehow managed to pitch a seven hit shut-out, in which he walked only one batter. Presumably, his pitches were, at least, sinking. 16 Pirates grounded out, three of them into double-plays.
The game was basically settled in the top of the third, when the Yankees scored five runs to take a 6-0 lead. Here's how they did it:
Kubek was hit by a pitch; Maris doubled to right [Kubek to third]; Mantle singled to right [Kubek scored, Maris scored]; Berra singled [Mantle to third]; CHENEY REPLACED FRIEND (PITCHING); Skowron out on a sacrifice fly to right [Mantle scored]; Blanchard singled to center [Berra to second]; Richardson tripled to left [Berra scored, Blanchard scored];Ford was called out on strikes; Boyer flied out to center.
From there, the Yankees cruised to a 12-0 victory. In the process they banged out 17 hits. Maris, Berra, and Blanchard led the way with three each. Richardson had two hits (both triples) and three RBIs. That ran his Series totals to nine hits and 12 RBIs. For the season he had batted only .252 with 25 RBIs in 150 games (in a previous post, I inadvertently overstated his 1960 RBI total).
Richardson failed to add to his RBI total in Game 7. But the 12 he amassed in the first six games still stands as the most ever batted in by a player in any World Series.
Like Bob Friend and "Vinegar Bend" Mizell, Richardson would run for office as a Republican after retiring from baseball. In 1976, he narrowly lost a race for Congress in South Carolina's Fifth District.
Chris Christie's strong shot
We have already featured Republican/Conservative Party challenger Randy Altschuler as one of our original strong shots in his race against Democratic incumbent against Democrat Tim Bishop in New York's First Congressional District. Today Chris Christie endorsed Altschuler. This endorsement should help; Governor Christie is popular in the eastern end of Long Island where the First Congressional District is located.
The race is competitive, with internal and public polls showing the race swinging back and forth within the margin of error. The race is so important to the Democrats that Joe Biden is holding a fund raiser for Bishop, in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, New York is an expensive media market and the Altschuler campaign needs help to maintain financial parity with Bishop.
Altschuler is a successful businessman who has never previously run for or sought political office before. He has withstood a blistering negative anti-business advertising blitz by Bishop. Please consider contributing to Altschuler here.
The Tea Party As Money Machine
Over the years, I have contributed to many political campaigns and have also given politicians the benefit of my advice and counsel. Pretty consistently, no matter how sound my advice may have been, the cash has been more appreciated.
This observation is prompted by today's revelation that Sharron Angle raised the astonishing sum of $14 million during the third quarter. Chris Cillizza describes Angle's $14 million as "a stunning number that far eclipses the cash-collection totals of other prominent candidates seeking Senate seats next month."
NInety-four percent came in donations of $100 or less. The Harry Reid campaign tried to put the best spin on Angle's smashing success:
"Sharron Angle's fundraising number is meaningless without disclosing how much they spent to raise it," said Reid spokesman Kelly Steele.
I suppose Harry Reid has to spend money to raise money, but people actually donate to campaigns like Sharron Angle's voluntarily, out of conviction. I'd guess that she spent very little to raise the $14 million.
We have reached, perhaps, the last stage in the establishment's view of the Tea Party movement. First ignored or snickered at, then demonized as the racist creature of shadowy billionaires, and most recently a movement which some Democratic candidates try to co-opt, the Tea Party has finally done the one thing that will cause it to be viewed with unalloyed respect by the powers of the status quo: it has raised an ungodly amount of money.
UPDATE: More news along the same lines: Kristi Noem, who, when she won an upset victory for the Republican nomination, was derided by Democrats as the Sarah Palin of South Dakota, reported more money raised during the quarter than any other Republican House challenger. That's twice as much as the Democratic incumbent raised during the same period. The race is even in the polls, and Kristi is a good candidate. As long as she isn't swamped by left-wing money, and it now appears she won't be, I think she will win. Don't take any chances, though--go here to contribute to her campaign.
A Republican surge in Minnesota? A footnote
Over the weekend John noted Mitch Berg's assertion regarding a possible Republican surge in a part of Minnesota's Third Congressional District (House District 32B). The poll in 32B that Mitch cited should actually raise a cautionary warning for the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer.
Comparing the poll numbers to the 2008 electoral results in the same state House district, Emmer is running 7 points behind Rep. Erik Paulsen, 9 points behind John McCain and 12 points behind Republican State Rep. and House Minority Leader Kurt Zellers.
Emmer, however, is in a serious three-way race. Perhaps the best comparison is to the 2006 gubernatorial election, in which Tim Pawlenty also faced a strong Democratic challenger (Mike Hatch) and an Independence Party candidate (Peter Hutchinson). Pawlenty drew 55 percent of the vote in 32B; Zellers drew 48.5 percent. Pawlenty did nearly 8 points better in 32B than he did statewide. (The 2006 gubernatorial results in 32B are accessible here.) This is an area in which a Republican gubernatorial candidate has to rack up the vote if he is going to win the election.
As we all know, 2006 and 2008 were not good years for Republicans in Minnesota. They were disasters. For Emmer now to be polling only at 41 percent in the district this year means that Emmer is in trouble.
It is time for a gut check in the Emmer campaign. The campaign is not going well, and the campaign leadership needs to wake up. The situation is not dissimilar to the situation in the 2008 Senate recount. The Coleman campaign buried its head in the sand about the need to play hardball. I am told Emmer's campaign thinks it is on track, but the numbers in 32B don't support their belief. The Emmer campaign needs to run as if it is 10 points behind Mark Dayton.
In search of enemies
Claremont Professor John Pitney observes that the White House is still searching for bogeymen with which to ward off a wave of Republican victories on election day. Professor Pitney finds the silver lining in the White House's now discarded attack on House Minority Leader John Boehner:
The search for demons is getting desperate. For a brief time, the president aimed at House GOP Leader John Boehner, even though the minority party in the House has practically no say over anything. The short-lived assault had little impact: Two-thirds of respondents in an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll either did not know the well-tanned Boehner or were neutral. The good news is that there doesn't seem to be any deep prejudice against orange people.
The White House has "moved on" in search of bogemen to furriners allegedly financing advertisements supporting Republican candidates. What is the good news? Rich Lowry holds:
It should be taken as an axiom of political life that if your argument is about the other side's advertisements, you're losing. If your argument is about who's funding the other side's advertisements, you're losing badly. And if your argument is about how foreigners might -- lack of evidence notwithstanding -- be secretly funneling cash into the other side's advertisements, you're losing in a historic landslide.
Rich notes the irony and raises a question: "Bizarrely, the party that's content to let millions of foreigners cross our southern border to live and work here without our permission has otherwise become a locus of foreigner-baiting political advocacy. Is it possible to be post-American and xenophobic at the same time?"
I can handle that one. The answer is no. They aren't really concerned about furriners; they just want to shut up the opposition.
NY Times Praises Power Line, Questions Obama Strategy
This is one of those headlines I never thought I'd see in the New York Times:
Well, OK, they weren't actually talking about us. The second part of the post title is true, however. The Times does question the effectiveness of President Obama's attempt to salvage November's election for the Democrats: "Obama Message in Flux as Election Day Nears."
As we and many others have done, the Times reviews the shifting targets of Obama's rage as the President has sought to gain traction--John Boehner, Karl Rove, the Chamber of Commerce, and so on. The paper quotes James Carville and Stanley Greenberg for the proposition, based on current polling data, that Obama's current message is, shall we say, not optimal:
Mr. Carville and Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg went further in their criticism in a polling memo over the weekend, writing that Mr. Obama is too focused on the wrong underlying argument. They say he could help win over undecided voters with a promise to change Washington on behalf of the middle class and to oppose Republicans who support tax breaks for big companies that export jobs.
Mr. Carville and Mr. Greenberg argued that those messages would work better than the president's current argument. In their survey, they asked voters about Mr. Obama's message that Republicans are going "back to Bush and the old policies for Wall Street that cost us 8 million jobs." They said that message was "painfully weaker" than the other ones they tested in surveys.
"Compared to the other messages, it falls very short," they concluded in the memo, saying it does little with "winnable voters" across the country. "That message framework cannot extend the Democratic vote."
Which is another way of saying that the voters don't want to hear any more about President Bush. The Democrats' real problem, it seems to me, is that it is late in the day for them to start listening to the American people. If they had cared what voters think, they wouldn't have passed the stimulus bill or the government medicine bill, wouldn't have run up trillions in debt, wouldn't have adjourned with tax increases looming for every tax-paying American. Nothing the Democrats can say or do now is likely to change the underlying dynamics of the election.
Still, that doesn't mean that Obama's flailing for a theme is entirely wasted effort. The best the Democrats can do is to try to change the subject, and to some degree they have succeeded in that. Every minute a voter spends thinking about Karl Rove or the Chamber of Commerce is a minute he isn't thinking about taxes, spending or the economy.
The Stanford Daily's Two Minute Hate
Victor Davis Hanson recently noted some of the ironies and absurdities of the regime of affirmative action enforced in American institutions of higher learning. The rationale of the affirmative action regime is of course "diversity." Regarding this rationale, Hanson wrote:
Diversity is Orwellian: the university is the most politically intolerant and monolithic institution in the country, even as it demands the continuance of tenure to protect supposedly unpopular expression. Even its emphases on racial diversity is entirely constructed and absurd: Latin Americans add an accent and a trill and they become victimized Chicanos; one-half African-Americans claim they are more people of color than much darker Punjabis; the children of Asian optometrists seek minority and victim status.
The Stanford Daily condemned Hanson in an editorial that conformed to the Orwellian theme Hanson had invoked. With Hanson filling the role of 1984's Emanuel Goldstein, the Daily went on the standard Orwellian Two Minute Hate with which we have become distressingly familiar:
At the risk of stating the obvious, we would like to point out this passage for what it is: absolute trash. If Hanson wants to engage in discussion about affirmative action or the role of race in higher education, we would applaud that and welcome his viewpoint. But this sort of homogenous denigration is no intellectual commentary. It is at best vitriolic ignorance. Combining the toxic assumption that all members of an ethnicity group act the same way with the mocking reference to "an accent and a trill" veers dangerously into bigotry.
The Stanford Daily editors called on Hanson's employer (the Hoover Institution) to denounce him:
Hanson's words, tragically, not only hinder this discussion, but deride stakeholders and concerned parties with callous and shrill remarks. If he was trying to draw attention to the topic, he has instead shifted the focus onto himself.
Worse yet, Hanson's words reflect badly on Stanford through his association with a research center supported by this university and housed on this campus. The editorial board understands the Hoover Institution cannot be held responsible for all the public statements of its scholars, but strongly urges the institution to repudiate or, at the very least, review Hanson's remarks. Surely, gross generalities couched in racially charged language cannot fit with Hoover's mission.
It is worth stressing that the Hoover Institution includes preeminent scholars in a variety of disciplines. From Nobel Laureates to former high-level public policy officials and advisers, many of the foremost minds at Stanford and other universities contribute to Hoover's work. These professors offer serious academic research that adds significant value to policy discussion and to the intellectual community on campus.
Hanson's despicable words provide the Hoover Institution the perfect opportunity to clarify its role in American politics. Purposeful academic research or derisive, unfounded cheap shots: which will it be? The editorial board expects and hopes that an institution producing distinguished research to inform policy debates will wholeheartedly reject the sort of remarks Hanson made.
Thus, we issue this editorial as an open challenge to the Hoover Institution. If you find fault with Hanson's grossly generalizing remarks and wish to be a leader in the discussion of modern American universities, then please: let us know.
If you do not, we hope you realize the damage you do to this university's standing and to the well-being of higher education in America.
In response, Hanson condemned the Daily editorial as "McCarthyite," though it could also be characterized as Orwellian. Hanson offered an open challenge of his own to the Daily: either apologize for the baseless slur of racism and the cheap language ("trash," "toxic,""despicable"), or at least show how he was in error, and that, in fact, there are logical and consistent criteria that qualify some groups and not others for racial preference in admissions and hiring in the university.
He further asked the editors to specify the grounds for membership in a preferred racial group. Did one warrant special consideration for one-half, one-fourth, or one-eighth membership in the preferred group? He wondered whether the university employed such percentages. If so, he noted, their use had a nightmarish tradition dating back to the antebellum South. Simply invoking the generic idea of "diversity" was not by itself a sufficient answer to the questions raised by the regime of affirmative action.
Glenn Reynolds noted the Daily's editorial and Hanson's response. He invited readers to review the Daily editorial and Hanson's response and then to write the Daily. The Stanford Review's Fiat Lux picks up the story this morning, linking to the "deluge of letters" supporting Hanson posted by the Daily yesterday.
It is not entirely clear whether any of the letter writers is affiliated with the university. No affiliation is noted in any of the letters. The university remains unsafe for Emanuel Goldstein; the letters and email messages supporting Hanson appear to emanate entirely from precincts beyond the university.
I would like to add this footnote. The first use of "diversity" as an argument of which I am aware was made by Senator Stephen Douglas in the Senate campaign of 1858 against Abraham Lincoln. In his Chicago homecoming speech of July 9, 1858, Douglas took issue with Lincoln's famous "House Divided" speech to the Illinois Republican convention that had named him its candidate for Douglas's seat. In that speech Lincoln had famously asserted that the nation could not exist "half slave and half free."
According to Douglas, Lincoln's assertion was inconsistent with the "diversity" in domestic institutions that was "the great safeguard of our liberties." Then as now, "diversity" was a shibboleth hiding an evil institution that could not be defended on its own terms.
Via Instapundit.
October 11, 2010
Teaching our children to be puddin'heads
In Mark Twain's classic The Tragedy of Puddin'head Wilson, the main character writes in his journal: "OCTOBER 12, THE DISCOVERY. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it."
My entry for October 12 would be different: "Columbus Day is a wonderful holiday, but it would be more wonderful to miss it."
The reason is that educators throughout the country use the holiday as a platform for indoctrinating students about the evils of the great explorer and, by extension, much of the American enterprise as we know it. Fifteen years ago or so, when my older daughter was in fifth grade, the class celebrated Columbus Day by putting Columbus on trial. The idea that fifth graders have standing to try historical figures (shouldn't students be taught that they need to understand before they judge) bothered me more than the identity of the historical figure in the dock. But it certainly wasn't lost on me that this particular figure was the man who, as it were, put American history into motion.
Columbus Day in American schools may have evolved during the past 15 years, but apparently not for the better. In 1995, Columbus at least received a defense, however sheepish. If Barry Rubin's report on his son's fifth grade class is any indication, today Columbus is condemned without any "process."
Rubin writes that "it would be possible to teach a balanced approach rather than either a European triumphalist view or an anti-white, anti-European, anti-Christian (or at least anti-Catholic) approach." But such instruction is asking too much from many of our schools these days. That's why it might be better just to call the holiday off. Why go out of the way to create opportunities for our children to receive self-hating indoctrination?
