National Review: The Week - mayoral primary election in New York City

-- Mark Green edged out Fernando Ferrer in the New York mayoral primary-Democratic, of course-but Ferrer demanded a recount, owing to certain ballot irregularities. Okay, let's have a recount: and at the end, can Rudy Giuliani win?

-- The U.S. initially hesitated to bomb the Taliban's front lines north of Kabul, because the Bush administration hadn't fully thought through its campaign before launching it. The administration hoped to loose the military unencumbered by messy political considerations. But no war can be waged without a coherent political strategy, which in this case would have required a clear idea of what might constitute a post- Taliban government. So the administration stalled in destroying the Taliban, while it tried to cobble together some political vessel that would please Pakistan and all of Afghanistan's perpetually warring ethnicities (the majority Pashtuns dominate the Taliban, the minority Uzbeks and Tajiks the Northern Alliance). But there's another, more important consideration: Every day the Taliban remains in power, America's prestige and momentum-in other words, its power-diminishes in the region. The U.S. should topple the Taliban and throw Kabul to the Northern Alliance, for simple lack of an alternative. At least then, justice would be served the Taliban, and the political pieces could be picked up later. Bombs away.

-- "Bipartisanship is abnormal," House minority leader Dick Gephardt said recently. So it is. In the first flush of righteous anger, Congress (with the noxious exception of Rep. Barbara Lee) showed commendable unanimity. That unanimity predictably dissipated. Almost anything can be claimed as vital to our defense. A strong military needs a strong economy: How do we stimulate ours? OPEC oil revenues enrich the bin Ladens of the world: How do we diminish our dependence? But the answers to these questions are not military per se: They vary, according to one's pre-9/11 view of the world. That means they will be the subject of political dispute. Liberal commentators have gotten off to a good start, by accusing Republicans who back tax-rate cuts or the Bush energy plan of unseemly partisanship. (Is the liberals' implicit offer that they will support this war only if conservatives surrender on the domestic front?) Politics will, and should, go on. Conservatives, like liberals, should fight for what they think is right, as both sides keep their eyes on victory in war.

-- U.S. leaders, from President Bush on down, have commendably told Americans not to take their anger out on Arabs or Muslims living in this country. (The two categories are not coterminous-most Muslims in America are black, while most Arabs are Christian.) Would it be too much to ask Muslim Arab-Americans to show a little anger in America's behalf? The trickle of anecdotal evidence, now amounting to a river, suggests that among recent immigrants particularly there is neutrality, and sometimes even sympathy for bin Laden. The abandonment of dual loyalties is part of the assimilating process that all immigrants to America go through. It also matters what the secondary loyalty is to: Middle- and upper-class WASPs felt a tug towards Britain during the two world wars; Jews feel protective of Israel, a friendly democracy. Today, the attractive foreign power is a gang of civilization-hating mass murderers. America is now asking a lot of its citizens. It is not too much to ask its immigrants to assimilate.

-- How ironic that the British prime minister who has been determined to end the century-long special relationship between his country and ours should be giving it such a glorious last hurrah. Tony Blair has dedicated himself to subsuming Britain's sovereignty and identity into a united Europe. But while so many Euros have hemmed and hawed in the present crisis, Blair forthrightly condemned the attacks as unprovoked terror, drew the link between the murderers, bin Laden, and his Taliban hosts, and sent British forces to war alongside Americans. Whatever went before, whatever else happens, we will not forget this, sir.

-- Democrats (and John McCain) want the federal government to take over airport security. But Europe, Japan, and Israel have all found it more effective to put private contractors in charge of security-not least because contractors can be fired if they screw up. In an analysis for the Reason Public Policy Institute, Robert Poole and Viggo Butler point out that what American airports lack, and other countries increasingly have, is a single owner/operator responsible for security. The federal role should be to conduct frequent security tests and to penalize the airports that flunk them. It works in Europe, and it can work here as well-unless, of course, the goal is to increase the public payroll rather than the public safety.

-- The administration appears likely to get most of the law-enforcement powers it wanted from Congress, and a few it didn't. The bill it sought-called the "Patriot Act" in the House, and the "U.S.A. Act" in the Senate-was supposed to aid the fight against terrorism. Some of its provisions would have this hoped-for effect. The House bill, for example, allows the government to exclude members of a terrorist organization from the country (reversing a law Ted Kennedy wrote to help members of the IRA). But many other provisions, especially in the Senate bill, are mischievous. Proposed money-laundering rules would penalize countries whose only fault is to have financial-privacy laws and low taxes. Regulations on Internet gambling, meanwhile, have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Before the bill is rushed through Congress, these provisions should be taken out. They can be reconsidered at leisure.

-- After Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward nearly reported classified information passed on to him by a loose-lipped senator- administration officials persuaded Woodward's editors not to print it- President Bush responded by announcing new restrictions on briefings for members of Congress. His pique was understandable; it was only a few hours after the terrorist strikes when Orrin Hatch went on television to reveal details he had obtained from the CIA and FBI. Several senators nevertheless accused Bush of overreaching. If they are serious about their responsibilities, however, they should take up Joe Lieberman's suggestion and launch an investigation into which of their colleagues actually leaked the secrets. By holding the leaker accountable, they would demonstrate that Bush need not worry about sharing information because they are capable of policing themselves.

-- Vladimir Putin has more responsibility than anyone in Washington for the happiest piece of recent economic news: The price of oil is plunging, not least because Russia is flouting OPEC demands to cut production. America should do what it can to encourage the Russians, and other oil producers, to break up OPEC. The American economy is not "too dependent on oil," as popular wisdom has it-it's too dependent on oil sold at state-cartel prices. This price-gouging swells the coffers of Arab governments that already loom too large in the lives of their people. Indirectly, it funds terrorism. We should aim for a free market in oil as a matter of foreign as well as economic policy.

-- Doctors Without Borders is criticizing America's food drops into Afghanistan as "a military propaganda operation." Some reporters have bought the spin. On NBC, Matt Lauer challenged a general once engaged in this kind of activity to deny that "you're, in effect, sending U.S. propaganda into those areas." On the outside of each package are the words, "This is a food gift from the people of the United States of America." That may be propaganda, but it's also what the food drops are. Is it the critics' position that America should provide food only when it poses no risk of making people like us?

-- Anti-Iraq hawks took heart when President Bush called Saddam Hussein an "evil man" at his recent press conference. Bush was right, if incomplete. Saddam is part of an evil regime. Bush, by raising a demand for renewed weapons inspections, pointed the way toward a possible "second phase" effort to topple that regime: an ultimatum built around various U.N. resolutions, demanding new, wide-open inspections and the extradition of all terrorists now in Iraq. Foremost among these terrorists is Abdul Rahman Yasin, who made our 22-most-wanted list for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It would be an offer that Saddam would probably feel compelled to refuse, which is all the more reason to make it.

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-- In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sped through the nomination of John Negroponte to be U.N. ambassador. Democrats had been holding it up in retaliation for Negroponte's having been an ambassador in Central America during the Reagan years. At Turtle Bay, Negroponte has already been doing his usual quiet, effective job, telling the Iraqis in no uncertain terms to behave. So, that's one nomination down, one, very important, nomination to go. The other is that of Otto Reich, to be assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere. He, too, is being held up-mainly by Sen. Christopher Dodd and one old leftist Latin America warrioress who is a staffer of his-for having been a Reaganite in Central America. It would be good for the administration, and for Secretary Powell in particular, to tell the committee: No more games. The conduct of foreign policy is serious business-and we need our nominees in place.

-- A Saudi prince contributed $10 million to Mayor Giuliani's 9/11 fund, then gave the media the benefit of his thoughts about terror and Palestine. The mayor handed back the check with the observation that what the donor had said was part of the problem. Princes out there come by the thousand, but there are even more palaces than princes. Liberty, equality, and fraternity are concepts yet to reach Saudi Arabia. Aramco and Wall Street do all the work to keep the princes in a style to which the desert sands have not accustomed them. The American military stands between them and the neighbors, Saddam on one side and the ayatollahs on the other. In this home of double standards, these same princes also specialize in financing fanatical Muslims, the Taliban included; they hinder the detection of killers of American troops at Khobar, and although they declare Osama bin Laden a renegade Saudi they still deny the United States use of facilities against him. Thousands of princes, but it took Mayor Giuliani to teach them what a spine is.

-- Syria is one of seven states on the State Department's terror list. The murderous Palestinian Abu Nidal and a dozen other terror groups find shelter and sponsorship there. The Arabs lobbied, and Syria is the latest newcomer to the Security Council of the United Nations. And so the lunatics keep running the asylum.

-- Numbered among the world's Muslims are the Uighur people of Central Asia. Subjects-though always difficult and restive ones-of the Manchu empire, the Uighurs enjoyed a brief independence in the 1940s before their Eastern Turkestan Republic was crushed in a joint operation by Stalin and Mao Tse-tung. Their land now shows on maps as the "Xinjiang" region of China's far west. Like other Turkish and Turkic peoples, the Uighurs take their Islam in a mild form for the most part, and generate few extremists. Their independence movement has a strong constitutionalist component, with a vigorous and growing corps of educated emigres trying to arouse the world's conscience to the plight of their people under Chinese Communist rule. Nonetheless, China's foreign ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao has asked the U.S. to "give its support and understanding" to China in her own "fight against terrorism and separatists" (our italics). Translation: The constitutional patriots struggling for the independence of Eastern Turkestan are no better than Osama bin Laden in the eyes of China's Communists, and they expect the U.S. to assist in the isolation and destruction of these "separatists." This is the thin end of a very nasty wedge: Think Tibet and Taiwan. We understand that the president wants, and perhaps even needs, China's support in the struggle to come, but the price currently being asked for that support is too high.

-- Thirty-two years after Harvard banned the ROTC from its campus, a petition has been organized to bring it back. Nine hundred signatures have been gathered from the school's alumni, including those of Caspar Weinberger and Staples founder Leo Kahn. Interest in the ROTC has surged since September 11 at colleges around the country, and such high-school JROTC programs as still exist are also being barraged with inquiries from students. Here is an opportunity to undo one of the more unfortunate legacies of the Vietnam era. The prospect of the withdrawal of federal funding has been used by the political Left for all kinds of social-engineering schemes at America's schools. Why not use it for something that might help and strengthen our nation? No more federal funds to any educational institution that denies facilities to ROTC/JROTC.

-- Doctors writing in the October issue of the medical journal Pediatrics call on their colleagues to pay careful attention to "Islamic ethics" when treating Muslim patients. Islam, they explain, forbids premarital sex. Muslims believe life begins at conception, so they consider abortion to be murder. Sound familiar? These are exactly the beliefs that are denigrated and ignored when they are held by non- Muslims, with some states even considering laws that would force Catholic-run hospitals to perform abortions. Multiculturalism, obviously, has its limits.

-- Do the words "God Bless America" constitute "a hurtful, divisive message"? So says the ACLU, which is considering legal action against Breen Elementary School in Rocklin, Calif., for posting the phrase on a marquee. Later, the school board of Madison, Wis., voted to ban the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of the Star- Spangled Banner; instead, students would merely listen to an instrumental version of the anthem. Board president Calvin Williams said the intent was "to protect our students' and staff's individual right to participate or not in the activity." If so, however, the board's move was redundant: Wisconsin law had already specified that both the singing and the pledging had to be strictly voluntary. When outraged residents began agitating to recall the board members, most hurriedly recanted, reversing the decision a week later. We are tempted to cite the wisdom of Mark Twain-"God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board"-but presumably the ACLU would find that hurtful and divisive.

-- What to read? The question is always important, but perhaps particularly now, and NR has indeed been asked by readers to recommend a few, illuminating books. We herewith oblige. First, try anything by Bernard Lewis, dean of Middle East scholars, perhaps especially his Middle East, Islam and the West, and Semites and Anti-Semites. Then, two books by the brave and invaluable Kanan Makiya: Cruelty and Silence and Republic of Fear (the latter of which is about Saddam Hussein's Iraq). We also suggest Fouad Ajami's Dream Palace of the Arabs, Wilfred Cantwell Smith's Islam in Modern History, and Daniel Pipes's Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. Conor Cruise O'Brien's The Siege, about Israel, is a grand old book. And we must not fail to include our own David Pryce-Jones's brilliant study: The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs. Last, those with a historical bent might like to revisit T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom and Charles M. Doughty's Travels in Arabia Deserta. All of that should hold one.

-- Why is Rush Limbaugh a national treasure? Because of his opinions-a funny, feisty, contrarian shot to the mainline, around the good grey ladies and the pink ladies and the old ladies who dispense liberalism in the mainstream media. And because of his stylistic verve-a dash of the great sports broadcaster Harry Caray, a speck of rock 'n' roll DJs, and a barrel of his own outsized personality. Now the double star of a political movement and a medium has announced that he is "for all practical purposes deaf." His ailment has had a rapid onset, and may be irreversible. Will this mean dead air for Limbaugh? Jack Swanson, a San Francisco programmer, disagreed: "People said that a nationally syndicated radio show would never work, that an all-conservative radio show would never work, that having a talk show that rarely had guests would never work. So there are people who now say that because Rush is deaf, it'll never work. I'm not one of those people." Millions of us dittoheads wish him well-and hope he finds a way to keep up the magnificent work.

-- God and Man at Yale, by William F. Buckley Jr., was published 50 years ago, October 1951, in time for Yale's 250th anniversary. Yale's celebrations of its 300th anniversary (including recognition of Buckley, among other prominent alumni) did not mention his first book. Time has indeed moved on. Today, when small government or Christianity seldom wins even a fair hearing on a major campus, to argue that these creeds should be favored by the trustees, administration, and faculty seems positively quaint. The men who led the United States to victory in World War II had, of course, been educated under a different dispensation from ours. In the present world war, our elites must regard their college education as four-year vacations from the civilization they must now defend.

-- San Francisco outfielder Barry Bonds, heretofore famous for his surly attitude and dangly earrings, hit 73 home runs. Baseball wonks will argue about the deeper meaning of the number: Did Bonds have one of the greatest seasons since Babe Ruth, or were his home runs the product of the game's recent grade inflation? The rest of us can afford to sit out this debate and simply marvel, at an awesome feat of athletic prowess accomplished under great pressure.

-- Herblock, the Washington Post columnist who died at age 91, showed a flash of talent in the early Fifties when hatred of Sen. McCarthy set his juices flowing, but, by the endgame of his career (e.g., the last 25 years or so) he was among the worst editorial cartoonists in America. He had no visual imagination. A few simple symbols, plainly rendered, constituted his toolbox. He moved them about with the gravity of a child playing with dolls, though without the child's freshness. And despite the large swatches of text he stapled onto his impoverished compositions, he had no literary skills. An entire era of innovations in cartooning, from Jeff MacNelly on the op-ed pages to the stinking swamps of the underground press, simply passed him by. It is a lucky thing that he was well rewarded in his lifetime (three Pulitzers), since history will not remember him.