Federal Judiciary

Saying it all, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

I?ve never much liked it when a writer quotes something, or links to something, and says, ?This says it all? -- you know what I mean? Almost nothing ?says it all,? about any topic.

But I must tell you, I thought of ?This says it all? when I spotted this headline: ?Hamas backtracks on apology over harming civilians.? The article begins,

The Hamas government in Gaza on Saturday backtracked on its apology earlier this week in which it expressed regret for harming Israeli civilians in rocket attacks.

 

The apology had signaled a rare deviation from Hamas? violent ideology, and the subsequent zigzag reflects the Islamic militants? conflicting objectives.

Uh-huh. Oh, yeah.

Have you heard about the Stolen Valor Act? As the Associated Press explains, ?At issue is a three-year-old federal law . . . that makes it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail to falsely claim to have received a medal from the U.S. military. It is a crime even if the liar makes no effort to profit from his stolen glory.?

More from the article, which is here, by the way: ?Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School . . ., said the Stolen Valor Act raises serious constitutional questions because it in effect bans bragging or exaggerating about yourself.? The prof is quoted as saying, ?Half the pickup lines in bars across the country could be criminalized under that concept.?

Sounds right to me.

Under current law, you can ask a girl to come up and see your etchings. But if you ask her to come up and see your Purple Hearts -- you?d better have them. (Do I have that right?)

I thought this was one of the most striking and disturbing openings of a news article I had ever read: ?BEIJING (AP) -- Robert Park strode illegally into North Korea on Christmas Day, shouting ?I brought God?s love? and carrying a Bible. When the communist regime released him Saturday, he left silent and pale.? (Article here.)

Here?s an item for you: ?Nearly 100 Falun Gong Practitioners Killed in 2009? (go here). Is that all? Seems to me the CCP -- the Chinese Communist Party -- is getting lazy. What would Mao say? They should be able to do in 100 Falun Gong practitioners before lunch, on an ordinary Wednesday.

As I think I mentioned a few columns ago, I have long been interested in lopsided votes -- I mean, lopsided votes in Congress, such as 426 to 3, with two abstentions and four absences -- that sort of thing. This used to pique my curiosity when I was a very young person, and reading the paper for the first time.

Well, I noticed a vote on Iran sanctions, 412 to 12. And I was, of course, interested in the 12. (Sounds Biblical, I realize.) And the minority turns out to be what it so often is: a combo of Republican libertarians and Democratic left-wingers. So you have Ron Paul and Jeff Flake; and Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers -- that sort of thing.

If you?re interested in this vote -- and, heavens to Betsy, I don?t expect all of you to be junkies -- go here.

I?m just a little cross at Rudy Giuliani. May I explain? I mean, he won?t ever run for anything. He has to be president or nothing. I realize that no one is required to run for office; the guy can make his own life choices, without hectoring from the sidelines. But still . . .

For years now, he has shown a little ankle when the New York governorship has come open; and he has shown a little ankle when a Senate seat comes open. But he?s just teasing. He won?t run.

He was happy to run for president, and he ran maybe the worst campaign in campaign history -- I mean, dating right from Olduvai Gorge. (Did they run for office there?)

Scott Brown of Massachusetts has proved that, this year, all things are possible, or many things are possible. And Republicans have -- or should have -- a legitimate shot at the governorship in New York and the U.S. Senate seat. Giuliani could win either of those races. And, in office, he would do much good.

But he won?t run. Which is his choice. But still, I am a little -- just a little -- cross. (It may have something to do with the fact that I find myself a resident of New York.)

Remember I mentioned that Mike DeWine, the former U.S. senator, is running for attorney general in Ohio? This is not ego, where DeWine is concerned, I think -- this is not addiction to the spotlight, or to power. He simply has a lot to give. And I admire him for running for this slot, a modest one, compared with what he has had.

Let?s do a little language -- I think I have mentioned this in Impromptus before: I first heard the phrase ?heavy lift? from President Bush (43), in the Oval Office. Sorry for the name dropping, and the place dropping, but it?s true. He said ?heavy lift? as in, ?The world doesn?t like a heavy lift -- and the Iraq War, like the general War on Terror, is a heavy lift.? (I have paraphrased him.)

I was interested to see that Nancy Pelosi used the expression the other day. Asked whether her Democrats would repeal ?Don?t Ask, Don?t Tell,? she said, ?We?ve done a heavy lift, and I don?t know.? I guess she was referring to health care. (Purists would want me to say ?alluding? to health care.) ?I?ll have to examine it,? she continued. ?We?ll take a look. We?ll sit down together and see.?

GWB and Nancy P., on the same (linguistic) page. And Pelosi is a Baltimorean! (Memo to itchy-fingers: Yes, I know she represents San Francisco. Please acquaint yourself with her bio.)

A little more language? As much of the world now knows, President Obama mispronounced the word ?corpsman,? saying ?corpse-man? instead. The military is not Obama?s milieu. And he makes more mistakes, about a lot of things, than people realize. Remember the ?Austrian? language? And ?Cinco de Cuatro?? Anyway, the ?corpse-man? business provoked a memory in me.

I worked for The Weekly Standard when we were owned by News Corporation, or News Corp. And it used to drive me semi-nuts when people said ?News Corps,? instead of ?News Corp.? They said ?Corps,? as in Marine Corps or corps de ballet. And the word, in actuality, was ?Corp.,? with the ?p? pronounced.

This was understandable, though -- because ?cor? is the first syllable of ?corporation.? Anyway . . .

Speaking of The Weekly Standard: Steve Stricker won the PGA tournament at the Riviera Country Club in L.A. over the weekend. Big tournament, big win. It was Stricker?s eighth. I was there for the first one: at the Kemper Open, outside Washington, D.C. This was in the spring of ?96. And I wrote about the tournament for the Standard (as I recall) -- about my playing reporter at it.

As a rule, Stricker sheds tears after winning a tournament -- so says this write-up about his Riviera victory. Well, I remember shaking hands with Stricker, after the Kemper: and he did indeed have tears in his eyes. Quite moving. He was a big, big deal in my neck of the woods -- I mean, my home region, the Midwest. He is from Wisconsin and played at the University of Illinois. Nobody could touch him. He was one of the great collegians, a god of the links.

After he won the Kemper, there was a little press conference, as there always is, post-tournament. I asked him, ?How old were you when you figured you would go on to win a PGA tournament? Were you in junior high, high school? College?? Stricker answered, ?I never realized I would win until this very day.? He said this with obvious sincerity. He is a remarkably modest person.

But I?ll tell you this, sports fans: Stricker?s chances of winning on the PGA Tour were basically my chances of consuming a hot-fudge sundae.

Anyway, nice going, Steve -- excellent.

Say a little more about Washington? I?ve already said this on the Corner, but I think I?ll say it again here, if that?s all right. Had to do with the snow -- the monumental snow that fell on Washington over the weekend.

I happen to be from something relatively rare: an old Washington family. Washington is a transient town, or at least it used to be: People came to serve in government; then they left. My impression is that now they stay. In any case, the Nordlingers have been in Washington since 1865. All four of my father?s grandparents were born within D.C. limits. I could go on with lore, arcana . . . (Are you getting sleepy?)

I read, over the weekend, that there were roof collapses in the Washington area. In 1922, there was a terrible, terrible snowstorm -- a blizzard from hell. And the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre caved in. About 100 people were killed. According to my grandmother, people claimed ever after to have been at the Knickerbocker the night before.

One more thing -- a plug, I blush and grimace to say: There was a big Washington snowstorm in 1996, and I wrote a little essay about it -- for the Standard -- which appears in the collection advertised at the bottom of this column. Does the piece ?hold up,? as they say? Oh, like an industrial-strength bra!

Let me tell you something about enthusiasms, passions -- nerves. Tony Daniels has a piece in the current New Criterion on Ayn Rand. (Magazine here, piece here.) Not an admiring piece. Big, big reaction to it, from Randians ripping Tony new ones. Roger Kimball, the co-editor of The New Criterion, wrote about the reaction here. I sent an e-mail to the two of them -- Tony and Roger -- saying, ?Great fun! The Randians are the touchiest people in Christendom, with the possible exception of opera devotees.? Tony wrote back, ?All good clean fun. But they are well-mannered by comparison with the Virginia Woolf fans when I wrote in a less than laudatory way about her.?

Interesting. I regularly write about a variety of subjects: politics, international affairs, music -- orchestral music, instrumental music, chamber music, opera. Needless to say, there is positive mail and negative mail, from readers particularly interested in the various subjects. The very worst mail? From the opera people -- worse than from Code Pinkers and so on. Swear.

In a column last week, I said I had received a note from Eagle, Idaho -- and ?is that a true-blue, red-state, blood-stirring place-name or what!? Then, on the Corner, I published a note from Humble, Texas -- and I said, ?Don?t those two things cancel each other out -- Humble and Texas?? That started a discussion of incongruous place-names -- there is also, for example, an Uncertain, Texas.

Anyway, a reader of ours provided a list -- a shortlist -- of his favorite ?true-blue, red-state? place-names. Check them out:

Liberty, Arizona
Freedom, Wyoming
Oil City, Oklahoma
Jackpot, Nevada
Constitution, Georgia
Justiceburg, Texas

Cool. Very cool.

Thanks to everyone who has written in about, and with, place-names. I?ve enjoyed West, Texas, which is not in West Texas. And North, South Carolina. And Joe, Montana. I?ve heard about Hopeulikit, Georgia, and Monkeys Eyebrow, Kentucky. A wonderful, rich, funky country, with place-names to match!

And I?ll see you.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on February 09, 2010 (boomark / email).