 |  | | Nov. 12, 2014 |  | No. 146 | | By Jonathan V. Last | |  |  |  | | | | COLD OPEN |  | | | | Well, well, well. Before we go on to the depressing question (What if this is as good as it gets?), let's revel for just a moment. Who's got two thumbs and wrote last Tuesday that, “If I had to rank outcomes by probability, from most probable to least, it would go like this: (1) 54 (R), 46 (D) …” This guy! My call on the over (we had the line set at 53 and a half seats) came home, as did my money-line call on the exact number of seats. I mention this for no reason other than as an excuse to highlight how wrong_and how aggressively, unpleasantly, so_some poll modelers were. (Especially Princeton’s Sam Wang, who has become a gruesome object lesson in how not to dabble in political prognostication.) All of our schadenfreude picks came home, too: Sean Eldridge lost by 30 points. Wendy Davis by 20 points, and Mary Burke, who Democrats had thought was close in Wisconsin, went down by 5 points. Nothing sweeter than that. In fact, if you had told me that I could have had either 54 Senate seats, or Eldridge, Davis, and Burke losing_only one or the other, I honestly don’t know which I would have chosen. But it’s probably time to look forward. I’m not sure what to make of how the midterm results impact Hillary Clinton. Matt Continetti argues that Clinton was the biggest loser last week. George Will seconds the motion, writing: In 2016, she will have won just two elections in her 69 years, the last one ten years previously. Ronald Reagan went ten years from his second election to his presidential victory at age 69, but do Democrats want to wager their most precious possession, the presidential nomination, on the proposition that Clinton has political talents akin to Reagan’s? I’m of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, I agree with Continetti and Will that Clinton was probably damaged in a number of ways last week. For instance, with the eradication of Blue Dog Democrats, the center of gravity in the party has been pushed further to the left. Since Hillary 2.0 was essentially a Jacksonian Democrat, this means that she either has to (a) build a longer bridge to the party’s base, or (b) reinvent herself again. Either one adds a degree of difficulty to her candidacy. And if you still believe (as I do) that there’s a small, but non-trivial, chance that she might not run, the 54-seat margin certainly won’t make her more likely to do so_because it (a) suggests that Republicans are stronger than expected, making general-election defeat more likely; and (b) makes it possible that even if she wins, she might face a GOP-controlled Congress, which isn’t a fun way to spend your golden years. Yet on the other hand, I remain convinced that Hillary Clinton is a formidable political proposition. She might even be the Democrats’ best hope for holding the White House. Hillary is neither inevitable nor invincible. And the right challenger (e.g. Elizabeth Warren) could make it a very interesting race. But Clinton’s approval numbers_even during her disastrous book rollout_have proved to be reasonably durable. And she is the only Democrat who can project a political identity largely independent of Barack Obama. That’s not nothing. | | | | LOOKING BACK | | | | | | “Saddam grew up as a cadre in the highly ideological and dogmatic Baath party structure. His speeches, from the time he entered government in 1968 until today, have had a consistent ideological, pseudo-intellectual character, even if in the past decade a layer of Islamist rhetoric has been added. From his first declarations to his last, he has always presented the Arabs as the master race, whose history and accomplishments are glorious. He has always had a mystical belief in self-purification through violence, the notion that the soul is elevated through warfare and killing. And most important, he has always been committed to the life of relentless struggle, of ever-widening wars and confrontations, of perpetual revolution, which undermines all objective truth, all stability, all possibility of rest and peace. He has believed all this in the name of some final and transcendent conquest for himself and the Arab nation.” _David Brooks, “Saddam’s Brain” from our November 11, 2002, issue. Remember you get full access to THE WEEKLY STANDARD archive when you subscribe. | | | | | | | | THE READING LIST | | | | | Christopher Nolan talks film, moviemaking, and everything else.
* * *
How John Lasseter saved Disney animation.
* * *
“Aid in dying” and the appropriation of language for a political cause. | | | | INSTANT CLASSIC | | | | | | “When marriage is reduced to a contract for mutual economic advantage among any configuration of consenting adults, something essential in what Christians understand to be ‘marriage’ is lost: something ‘deep-down-diving,’ to borrow from the playwright Ibsen. And that, I suspect, is why state marriage licenses that no longer specify ‘Bride’ and ‘Groom’ but rather ‘Spouse 1’ and ‘Spouse 2’ seem somehow bizarre. And sad. “And dangerous.” _George Weigel on the covenant of marriage, November 3, 2014 | | | | THE LAST WORD | | | | | | The icing on the cake last week was that The Seven Deadly Virtues seems to be bobbing along pretty well. My introduction to the book ran in last week’s issue (you can read it here) and in case you missed it, here’s a little tease: Mary Eberstadt notes that we live at a bizarre moment when it is nearly impossible to speak with any moral judgment about sexual practices_but a great deal of moral and philosophical energy is spent on the subject of food. You wouldn’t dare say that someone ought not put this part there with that person. And you wouldn’t say it because (a) your peers would think you a troglodyte and (b) you don’t really think it’s wrong. It’s just a lifestyle choice. Maybe it’s not for you, but who are you to judge? Food, on the other hand, is different. It’s morally elevated to eat organic grains and eggs that come from cage-free hens. You’re a better person if you only eat locally grown produce. A better person still if you don’t eat meat. And the best people eat with one eye always_ always!_on “sustainability.” Whatever that is. On the subject of food, some lifestyle choices are better than others. And we’re not afraid to say so. Actually, there is one_and pretty much only one_judgment that you can make about sex, and it is this: Imagine that you’re in college and one Saturday morning your roommate comes home and proclaims that she just slept with some guy she’d never met and whom she never intends to see again. Could you suggest to her that this might be a suboptimal life choice? Why no, no you could not. Imagine, however, that your roommate came home and confessed that she slept with some guy she’d never met and that they had not used “protection.” Well, that’s a different story. You could lecture her. You could shame her. You could gather your friends and stage an intervention, explaining that this is a terrible, awful thing to do. Downright irresponsible. Something that just isn’t done, because you could get a disease. Sexual morality is now a function of health outcomes. And not just sexual morality. Consider smoking. Over the last 30 years, an overwhelming moral consensus has emerged concerning smoking. Where people once smoked on airplanes and in movie theaters and in bars and at home during dinner, today smokers are treated as if they have a terrible and highly contagious disease. They can’t smoke in public buildings or often even in public spaces. Smokers are the new lepers, except that no one would look down on a leper as being morally repugnant. Why the reversal? Because it is now universally agreed that smoking is disastrously unhealthy. And healthy living is a cardinal virtue, something to be pursued at all costs, not merely because it is prudent, but because it is good and right. Yet, at the same time that smoking tobacco has become verboten, smoking marijuana has been gaining wider acceptance. How could this be? It’s not like getting stoned is good for you. No, the emerging moral acceptance of marijuana comes because health is trumped by another of the modern virtues_freedom. Because today we tend to believe that people ought to be able to live however they like, and that societal norms should have little claim on them. You can see the tensions inherent here. These tensions are interesting, but The Seven Deadly Virtues isn’t primarily concerned with beating up on the modern virtues, but rather making a case for the traditional ones. If you love P. J. O’Rourke, Jonah Goldberg, Christopher Buckley, Andrew Ferguson, James Lileks, Christopher Caldwell, Matt Labash, Larry Miller, and Rob Long_and surely you do_then you’ll love the book. I promise. You’ll have even more fun reading it_seriously_than you did watching the election returns. The Seven Deadly Virtues_get your copy today! Best, JVL P.S. To unsubscribe, click here. I won't take it personally. | | | | | | | | | MORE FROM THE WEEKLY STANDARD | | | | | | | | |  | | | Online Store | | | | Squeeze the head to the left to relieve stress. Yes you can! Only at our store. | | |  | | |  | | | | |  | | | Subscribe Today | | | | Get the magazine that The Economist has called "a wry observer of the American scene." | | |  | | | | | | | | | | | | Read probing editorials and unconventional analysis from political writers with a
dose of political humor at weeklystandard.com. | | | | | |
|
| | | | |
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment