Frank’s Case Book

This month marks the 80th birthday for Conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr. Of Buckley, it can probably be persuasively argued, that if there were no Buckley, there would have been a much attenuated Conservative movement and probably no Ronald Reagan presidency.  With no Reagan presidency, perhaps the collapse of the “Evil Empire” would have taken longer.

Before there was a Fox News, before there was a Weekly Standard, when Commentary Magazine tilted to the Left, there was William Buckley. Buckley’s public career exploded into prominence when as a newly minted Yale graduate he wrote God and Man and Yale. . Yale’s public goal was to produce individuals educated in a Christian environment, but nonetheless managed instead to graduate, under the tutelage of Leftist professors, agnostic collectivists.  In 1955, he founded the National Review where he served as editor-in-chief. The animating conviction of the National Review is that it is the “job of conservatives was to stand athwart history, yelling, stop.”

If by history you mean the rise of the Conservative movement, then surely Buckley would have been happy to let history barrel along unimpeded. However, at the time National Review was founded the direction of history was down a Socialist and collectivist path and the keyword here is “down.”  The elite in academe and the government believed that the economy could be better run under the heavy supervision of the federal government. Confiscatory inheritance taxes, socialized medicine, nationalization of key industries, and high marginal income tax rates were all common convictions of Liberal leadership. During the entire decade of the 1950s, top marginal tax rates were over 90%. It would be presumptuous but pleasant to pretend that the drop in the top rate to its current 35% is directly attributable to Buckley’s influence.  It should be noted here, that despite these lower rates, the top 1% of the country’s income earners, earn 17% of the income and pay 34% of the federal income taxes. Similarly, the bottom 50% of income earner, pay 3% of the federal income taxes.

On the occasion of Buckley’s milestone there will be many who write of him from first hand knowledge and can provide far more depth as to how the rivers of his influence have inundated the Conservative movement. But in one very important way, Buckley’s influence has been very personal.

It was the summer of my junior year in high school when I struggled with two books: Up From Liberalism by Buckley and The Affluent Society by one of Buckley’s Liberal adversaries, economist John Kenneth Galbraith. My young, but less informed mind did not fully grasp the arguments of either titan, but the general pictures they painted were clear even to the inexperienced eye.   Buckley believed in the nobility of the individual and the deference the state should pay to the individual’s capacity and inherent freedom to decide for himself. Galbraith saw individuals as vulnerable unless properly supervised by a government populated with intelligent and educated people who shared Galbraith’s values. I did not know which vision was empirically correct, but Buckley’s vision called me to independence where Galbraith tried to persuade me of the advantage of collective dependence. I wanted to believe in Buckley’s world because it empowered me. Buckley won.

Ironically, Buckley’s argument had less to do with economic efficiency and more to do with the moral necessity to respect individual freedom. Galbraith talked less of individual freedom but of efficiency and avoiding the waste of competition. The only freedom Galbraith was concerned about is freedom from economic uncertainty. If the last half of the last century taught the open-minded anything, it was that central command economies are less efficient.  Free economies not only respect the individual, but generate more wealth.

What made Buckley’s influence so important is that there are thousands of stories like this.  These are stories of people who learned to take Conservatism seriously, to embrace the individual, because Buckley articulated a compelling Conservative position with wit, humor, and passion. As Buckley mark’s his 80th birthday, I can celebrate 34 years as a Conservative born of Buckley. Thank you Mr. Buckley.

In 1997, the attractive former Republican Congresswoman Susan Molinari was paid considerably more than her Congressional salary to host CBS News Saturday Morning. The chattering classes were twisted into a pretzel of confusion, consternation, and indignation. Here was a clearly partisan person, a Republican no less, who would be co-hosting a news-entertainment show. How could she be credible? How could she be fair? Would we be getting the GOP news? Would she have to recuse herself from every serious discussion?

Of course, the faux fury evidenced a double standard. A number of Democratic operatives had already jumped across the fairly narrow divide between political advocacy and journalism with nary a peep of protest. One of the better known and most respected people who has successfully made the transition is Tim Russert. Russert served on the Senate staff of Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and has been host of NBC’s Meet the Press since 1991. Russert has earned a reputation as a tough, but fair interviewer.

Molinari never attracted enough viewers to last long on CBS, but that has not stopped others from transitioning from politics to journalism. The notion that a partisan cannot be a good journalist rests on the false assumption that conventional journalists are apolitical.

No serious person can cover politics as a journalist and not develop opinions and perspectives. These views cannot help but inform journalistic coverage. The best one can hope for is that journalists are sufficiently introspective to try to be balanced in their reporting. The one advantage of having a known partisan as a journalist is that at least the perspective from which that person reports is apparent. News consumers are thus free to weigh this potential bias with the information presented.

Another partisan that seemed to have made a successful transition from partisanship to journalism is George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos was the White House Communications Director for President Clinton and is now the host of ABC’s This Week.

Recently, Stephanopoulos interviewed his old boss, one-on-one. One might have thought that ABC would blush, at least a little, in embarrassment to have a former president being interviewed by his former chief Communications Director, the person hired to handle the press, in a straight news interview. The lineup has the outward credibility of a political infomercial.

Stephanopoulos has generally been earnest and sincerely attempts to be balanced. This is what makes his performance when interviewing former President Bill Clinton so disappointing. We have come to expect that Clinton would violate the polite and respectful convention of not commenting on a successor President’s policies. It is no surprise that Clinton dissembles and deliberately misleads in conspicuous ways. However, one would have hoped that Stephanopoulos would have called Clinton on a few of his more outrageous remarks.

In the September 18, 2005 interview with Stephanopoulos, Clinton criticized President Bush’s Iraq policy while at the same time rewriting history by claiming, that prior to the liberation of Iraq, there was “no evidence that there were any weapons of mass destruction.” The variance of this statement now with statements he and his Administration made in the past are almost too numerous to list.

In 1998, Clinton said, “The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow.”

William Cohen, Clinton’s Secretary of Defense, was “absolutely convinced that there are weapons…” He went on to say, “I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out.”

Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeline Albright told the country that “Saddam’s goal … is to achieve the lifting of UN sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs.”

Hussein never complied with weapon’s inspectors and never accounted for stockpiles of anthrax his government originally conceded having. The present assertion by Clinton that there was “no evidence” then of weapons of mass destruction is disingenuous at best. Clinton’s fidelity to the truth is a measure of his character and he rarely fails to disappoint. From Stephanopoulos we had expected more. Perhaps Stephanopoulos was too awed to challenge his former boss to reconcile his present statement with previous ones. Perhaps Stephanopoulos was too respectful to confront the former president’s contradictory statements. In any case, the journalist in Stephanopoulos failed and tarnished whatever respect he has been able to earn.

Almost faster than the response of Coast Guard helicopters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Left mounted its attack on the Bush Administration. Nothing is too hurtful that it cannot be cynically exploited by the Left’s perpetual anger with President George W. Bush.

The very first critical barrage was that because of Iraq, there would not be enough National Guard troops to help out in the aftermath Hurricane Katrina. It turned out there are more than enough troops and that their experience in Iraq suited them to dealing with Hobbesian State that some areas of New Orleans had descended to under decades of Democratic Party leadership.

Then there was the instantly responsive Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who raced to press blaming Hurricane Katrina on the Bush Administration’s failure to accept the Kyoto Protocol. Bush gets too much credit for this. After all, the Senate, which requires a two-thirds majority to pass a treaty, rejected Kyoto 93-0. There were a lot of Democrats included in those 93 votes.

Even given legitimate and thoughtful concerns about the effects of global warming, the association of any particular storm with a long-term climate trend is essentially unknowable and irresponsible. Moreover, if people like Kennedy had not vigorously opposed the extension of civilian nuclear power and if the US had developed nuclear power to the same extent as it is used in France for electricity generation, we would have exceeded the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions mandated by Kyoto. If we emit more common dioxide than we need to, the environmental Left is one reason.

Initial impressions of the response to the devastation pointed to lethargy on the part of federal authorities. Though this critique is apt, the more we learn about what happened after Katrina, the clearer it is that state and local officials may have been the key impediments to a more timely humanitarian response. Calls for evacuation came late despite accurate storm predictions. Once a mandatory evacuation order was given, state and local officials did not follow their own plans by evacuating hospitals and using buses to transport those without transportation to shelters on higher ground.

Immediately after the storm winds subsided and before portions of levies broke inundating streets and making them impassible, the Red Cross was trying to deliver truck loads of water and meals to the Super Dome and Convention Center in New Orleans. T hey were prevented from delivery by the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security. Apparently, the Super Dome and the Convention Center were “shelters of last resors” and Louisiana did not want to encourage people to stay there by sending supplies. In retrospect that was a grievous error. Indeed, it was the images of people suffering at those two venues that painted a picture of a city out of control.

There will undoubtedly be many investigations detailing mistakes made at all levels of government and by citizens themselves. Some mistakes will have been caused by inadequate systems in place, others caused by incompetence or stupidity. There will be political recriminations, as there should be. Politics, as cacophonous and chaotic as it is, is our collective way of sorting out issues.

However, when political recriminations unnecessarily and indiscriminately undermine public comity and exacerbate race relations they become destructive. Over time, the nation is healing from a long history that included slavery and racial discrimination. Scraping the scabs off such healing for political gain is despicable.

One might dismiss sharks trolling far off the mainstream like rapper Kanye West who asserted that the problems of getting aid to people in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was because, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” What about supposedly responsible spokesman?

Never one to be rhetorically outdone, Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee argues that, “Race was a factor in the death toll from Hurricane Katrina…” Those who are economically better off will generally fair better in most situations and there remains too great a correlation between economic well-being and race. However, to focus on race at this point does not appeal to the better angels of our nature. It divides rather than unites and nurtures despair rather than hope.

Great challenges can reveal the nobility in people. New Orleans may arise from this catastrophe an invigorated city, united as a community, and better fortified against natural calamity. Ugly words will not help.

There is a broad consensus about Army Specialist Casey Sheehan. He enlisted in the Army in 2000 as a twenty-year old. When he completed his initial enlistment and during the run up to the Iraq War, he felt a duty to re-enlist in August 2003. He anticipated that he might be sent to Iraq and his expectations were realized when he was deployed in 2004. The young Humvee mechanic was attached to the First US Cavalry.

Casey Sheehan died a hero when his convoy was attacked in Sadr City. Sheehan did not have to be part of the convoy. His sergeant told him that because he was a mechanic, Casey did not have to go into combat. Casey chose to share the fate of his comrades.

Of course, Casey Sheehan’s family, like the families of all fallen soldiers was devastated. President George W. Bush has met with the families of hundreds of fallen soldiers. The Sheehan family was among a group of families that met with Bush months ago. At the time, Casey’s mother Cindy Sheehan apparently appreciated the consolation the president provided.

According to The Reporter, a Vacaville California paper in June 2004, the meeting of the families of parents of fallen service people with the president allowed the families to celebrate the lives of their loved ones and remember the good times they shared. According to Cindy Sheehan, “[t]hat was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together.” The WorldNet Daily has even uncovered photographs of President Bush giving Cindy Sheehan a friendly kiss during their meeting.

Over several months, Cindy has been transformed from a grieving mother, consoled by a president to a bitter person hating not only the president but her country as well. She has begun identifying with the vilest of the Left. Sheehen now favorably compares Lynne Stewart, a radical Left-wing lawyer convicted of providing material support to terrorists groups, with Atticus Finch, the fictional lawyer in To Kill a Mockingbird that defended an innocent black man accused of rape. The same radical Islamofacism that Stewart was convicted of helping, killed Sheehan’s son. Frontpage Magazine quotes Sheehan as claiming “The biggest terrorist is George W. Bush,” and that our government is a “morally repugnant system.” Cindy Sheehan is now staging an angry protest in front of George Bush’s ranch.

One wishes not to be too hard on Cindy Sheehan since she has suffered a great loss. Unfortunately, her anger is not redemptive, but self-consuming. Has she been exploited by the Left, or is does she really believe the anti-American rhetoric she is using? It is not possible to tell from a distance.

Clearly, the entire situation has divided her family. Cindy’s husband of 28 years, Patrick, has filed for divorce. Casey Sheehan’s paternal grandparents are upset with Cindy writing that “We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the expense of her son’s good name and reputation… The Sheehan family lost our beloved Casey in the Iraq War and we have been silently, respectfully grieving. The rest of the Sheehan family supports the troops, our country and our president, silently, with prayer and respect.”

According to a recent Rasmussen poll, a plurality of people with family members in Iraq, people who might empathize with Cindy Sheehan, view her unfavorably. The family of Marine Corporal Matthew Matula was so angry that Cindy Sheehan used the fallen Marine’s name on a protest cross that they traveled to Texas to insist that his name be removed. The more Sheehen speaks, the faster popular sympathy dissipates.

Whatever Cindy Sheehan’s real thinking, it is clear that her personal tragedy is being politically exploited by the Left. This is the same “politics is everything” approach to emotional exploitation on the Left that turned the solemn memorial service for Liberal Senator Paul Wellstone, who tragically died in an airplane crash, into a boisterous political rally.

The real political danger of Cindy Sheehan is not to President Bush, but to the Left and Democrats. The exploitation of Sheehan will be viewed by many as unseemly. It will hurt Democrats politically much in the same way that the callous reaction to the Paul Wellstone funeral helped defeat Democrat Walter Mondale who filled Wellstone’s vacant candidacy for senator from Minnesota.

Moreover, if the Left and Democrats embrace the heated and angry anti-American rhetoric of Sheehan that Bush is a terrorist and that we are as a country, “morally repugnant,” they will suffer politically. Americans can be appealed to by the loyal opposition — people who love America and its institutions, but who want it to move in a different direction. Cindy Sheehan’s voice does not sound like the loyal opposition. For their own political survival and to reduce the viciousness of political rhetoric, Democrats should not allow her voice to become their voice.

It is hard to find the time to actually venture to a movie theater to share movies with a large audience and experience films the way they ought to be experienced. A poor substitute is to wait until movies manage to make it to DVD so they can be enjoyed in a moment of free time. This week I found the time to watch two films from 2004 that could not have been more different: Sideways and National Treasure. The first is a “blue state” movie, while the latter is a “red state” movie. The terms “blue state” and “red state” refer to those states that voted for John Kerry or George Bush for president in 2004, respectively. Here, we use those terms as a metaphor for the cultural elites who primarily dominate the northeast and the west coast, as opposed to middle-Americans with traditional values who dominate the south and the west.

Sideways is a small film about two dysfunctional middle-aged men, Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church), embarked on a wine-tasting trip through California wine country. The golf and sexual adventures punctuate the periods between wine consumption. Miles is a moping divorcee, failed novelist, and an unhappy middle school English teacher who doesn’t see the nobility of his profession. His only real passion is wine tasting, but even this often serves only to illustrate how skill and knowledge can quickly degenerate into sullenness. A typical wine-focused evening will begin with an erudite assessment of wine from the type of soil it was grown in, through fermentation, and aging. Ultimately, Miles descends into a drunken stupor that reveals his deep and amply justified self-loathing. It is hard to imagine a less interesting character. If possible, Jack is even shallower. He is an aging B-movie actor making up for lost celebrity and fading looks by bedding as many women as possible before his scheduled wedding at the end of the trip. These very different personalities are only linked by a shared history that began as roommates in college.

Of course, Sideways resonates with the New York Liberal angst and received five Oscar nominations. The New York Times review identified with Miles and averred that, “And therein lies the great cosmic joke of this heart-piercing film: without struggle and pain, Miles wouldn’t be half the good and decent man he is, though he certainly might complain a little less, venture a little more.” How is a middle-aged man who steals money from his mother to finance a wine adventure “good and decent” by anyone’s moral calculus?

There is little that is admirable in this movie. The only truly sympathetic character is Maya (Virginia Madsen), who is an earnest and fetching thirty-something divorcee working as a waitress while she earns a master’s degree. In the closing scene of the movie, when Miles tries to reconnect with Maya, we seem him knocking on Maya’s door. We are left to guess what happens next. If she is wise, Maya is hiding under the bed from this unappealing loser.

It is not surprising the seven professional critics at the Yahoo movie site rate the movie “A”, while the 14826 Yahoo users rate it “B.” This latter rating is probably as high as it is because the movie’s Oscar nominations influence opinion. Sideways could only be a “blue state” movie.

National Treasure is radically different. Rather than boring us in mediocrity, National Treasure is an action-adventure based on the premise that clues to a historically and monetarily valuable treasure were hidden by a small cadre of our Founding Fathers, members of the Masons. One key clue can be found on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

The film is historic in the same way that Star Trek is scientific. There are just enough legitimate historical or scientific references to allow a willing suspension of disbelief about the rest. Star Trek uses special effects to make us buy into the authenticity of its vision of the future, while National Treasure shoots many of its scenes on location: in the National Archive, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the Library of Congress, or on the streets of the nation’s capital.

The hero Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) is a descendent of Thomas Gates, a stable boy of Charles Carroll, the last-living signer of the Declaration of Independence. Desperate at the moment of his death, Carroll entrusts young Tom with the clue that the “Secret lies with Charlotte.” The clue, the story, and a passion to seek the treasure pass down through generations of the Gates family

It turns out Charlotte is the name of a ship which Ben Gates manages to find only to be provided other clues which ultimately lead to the Declaration of Independence and the treasure. Tension is provided by the fact that an alternate, less altruistic group, is seeking the same treasure and both are being pursued by the FBI launched into activity after Declaration is stolen.

Sure the plot is contrived, but the story is also heroic and admirable. Ben Gates is a man of genius and perseverance. The feminine interest is Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), a curator at the National Archives. While in Sideways, the men exploit vulnerable women. In National Treasure, Dr. Chase is as smart and passionate as Gates. The happy circumstance of a brilliant and gorgeous woman is not common, except in “red state” fantasies. In “blue state” daydreams, women are attracted to dysfunctional men.

The New York Times complains that movies are too often populated by, “infallible heroes and comic-book morality.” What they really mean is that when we see mediocrity in film, it relieves us of the burden of expecting too much from ourselves. Gee, we are better than that guy. He has the same problems I have. The certainty that noble aspirations are unrealistic shoves hope into a corner.

In the world of the New York Times, morality is never clear but always cloudy and contingent. What the Times calls “comic book morality” is simply the realization that sometimes moral choices are clear. No matter how important a wine-tasting trip is, one should not steal money from one’s mother. No matter how attractive a woman is or how lonely we are, it is not right to exploit her sexually the very week before we marry another. What is so difficult for the Times to understand?

There is a place everywhere for ennobling films with conspicuous heroism. There is an even more important place everywhere for films that deal with moral conundrums with which good and honest people struggle. However, it is primarily in “blue states” where one finds a place of honor for self-indulgent films where flippancy, feigned urbanity, and verbal acuity trump decency and honor.