Federal Judiciary

Mass.-teria, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

I had to smile at this headline: ?Coakley hopes for historic win in Kennedy seat bid.? (Article here.) Historic win? If a Democrat in Massachusetts is elected to the U.S. Senate, succeeding Ted Kennedy, that is historic? Uh, no. That is normal. That is routine. If the Republican wins -- that is something else.

Allow me a flashback. It is 1994 -- November. The Republicans have that big -- historic, actually -- victory in the elections. From sea to shining sea, they have slaughtered the Democrats, capturing the House for the first time since the 1950s. Just about the only good news for the Democrats is from Massachusetts: Senator Kennedy has staved off a challenge.

It?s the next day -- Wednesday after the elections -- and I?m at work with a liberal Democrat. He is kind of morose and snippy. He says, ?Well, Ted Kennedy won.? And I think -- maybe even say, can?t remember -- ?Yeah, great. Ted Kennedy -- brother of Jack and Bobby -- retained his seat in Massachusetts. Nice night you guys had.?

By the way, Kennedy that year beat Mitt Romney. Wonder what became of him.

Oh, goodness, would it be big if Scott Brown pulled it off. It would be so big, so unlikely, so incredible -- that it would have to be downplayed, somehow. You know what I mean? Quickly a Brown victory would become normal -- normal-seeming. The unlikelihood of it would be forgotten.

Listen, the victory of Chris Christie in New Jersey last November was pretty big, too -- very. Conservative Republican, not exactly a glamour boy, beating Governor Corzine and his millions in that very, very Democratic state? Geez.

If the Democrats win in Massachusetts, they will party hearty. They ought to. They will have the exhilaration, or at least contentment, of someone who has dodged a bullet. They may even feel like come-from-behind upsetters.

?Even if Brown loses, the Democratic party will be shaken, and the Republican party will be heartened. In a sense, Brown and the Republicans have already won.? You hear that. And it?s true, at least partially. But I can?t buy it 100 percent. I?m more of the school of: A win?s a win, and a loss is a loss. It is good to win (!); it is bad to lose.

If Brown loses, Republicans across the country will be quite disappointed -- because they are ?invested,? as we say. Hopes have been raised; and if those hopes are dashed -- well, there will not be joy in Mudville.

I give you Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the Sage of Providence, R.I.: ?If you think there?s magic out there and things can be turned around overnight, then you would vote for someone who could promise you that, like Scott Brown. If you don?t, if you know that it takes eight years for George Bush and his cronies to put our country into this hole . . . then you know we have a lot of digging to do . . .?

?George Bush and his cronies.? Do you find that an oily political phrase, as I do? ?George Bush and his cronies.? Sounds like something an undergraduate Marxist might say, rather than a mature U.S. congressman. I?m not nuts about the Obama administration -- but I don?t think I?d refer to ?Barack Obama and his cronies.? No, they?re just a group of likeminded people who are making decisions that I regard as poor.

Have some more Patrick Kennedy: ?One thing the Democrats have done wrong? We haven?t kept the focus on this disaster [and] on the Republicans who brought it upon us. We?ve tried too hard to do the right thing, and that?s to fix it, as opposed to spend more of our time and energy pointing the finger at who got us [here] in the first place.?

They don?t teach you that sort of thing in rehab, do they?

This was kind of surprising news, because Italy has been out of the colonial business for a long time. Indeed, the government has had a hard enough time looking after an increasingly childless Italy -- isn?t that a strange phrase to write, ?childless Italy?? (Not to worry too much, though, because the Muslim parents will come through.) Anyway:

?Italy will fund the operations of key ministries of the fragile Somali government battling a long-running Islamic insurgency, the Italian foreign minister said on Thursday. Italy, a former colonial ruler of Somalia, also will train an anti-terrorism police unit and a coast guard, and pay the salaries of police officers . . .?

Nice to see, I suppose, that not everything is on American shoulders. And if any country needs outside help, it?s Somalia.

Unless it is, of course, Haiti . . .

Was talking to a friend who works for a foreign-aid society. He has been to many of the hell spots of the world -- the most wretched areas in Africa, Asia, elsewhere. The worst place, he says, is Haiti. Hands down. Before earthquakes, after earthquakes, always. Yes, he says, the earthquake has imposed great hardship, not to mention many, many deaths. But daily, normal life in Haiti, he told me, is hell: and has to be seen to be believed.

I believe it, without seeing.

You remember the attack on U.N. headquarters in Iraq, which killed Sérgio de Mello, the mission chief, and about 20 others? Terrible event, in a war filled with terrible events (as wars tend to be). Anyway, according to this, the Iraqi government has apparently captured the head of the gang responsible for the attack.

Which is something to hail. Has the Obama administration done so? Should it? Does the Obama administration do Iraq -- or is that simply too George W. Bush?

In a column last week, I had a little something to say about technology and police states -- in the context of Google and China. May I do a little repeating?

There has long been a debate about police states and technology. I have participated, a little, in this debating -- I think in particular of an afternoon in a Davos forum. Technology is doubled-edged, as we know. It helps dissidents and freedom fighters, who can find and communicate with one another through technology; who can learn about the outside world through technology; who can communicate to that world through the same. And it helps a dictatorship: to identify, catch, and thwart the ?troublemakers.?

On balance, however, it seems clear that technology is a friend to dissidents, and a threat to police states.

Anyway, with this question on my mind, I was more than usually interested in a report out of Tehran, which began, ?Iran has warned the opposition not to use cell phones or Internet to organize rallies against the government.? Later, the report said, ?. . . tech-savvy and mostly younger opposition activists have turned to cell phone SMS and e-mails as a weapon against the establishment.?

Marvelous.

Thought you might appreciate an e-mail from a reader. The Subject line read, ?Ministry of Offense?? And our reader said, ?Jay, was re-reading your Impromptus regarding Iran?s missile testing and was struck by the phrase ?defense minister.? I am pretty sure Iran has possession of the ball in this game.?

A mordant, sad, and alarming observation.

This report on the Google-and-China affair contains many interesting things, and I recommend reading the whole report -- the whole news article. Let me just give a few excerpts, which I find, not only interesting, but moving:

?The main Communist Party newspaper warned companies to obey government controls as Web users visited Google?s Beijing offices for a second day to leave flowers and notes expressing support for the company.?

?Outside the Google offices, some visitors poured small glasses of liquor, a Chinese funeral ritual.

?One man left a copy of People?s Daily, which he said represented the tightly controlled state media that China?s public would be left with if Google pulls out and censorship continues.

??Google is the true hero in this silent city,? said a note left outside the building in the capital?s Haidian technology district. Referring to the government Web filter, popularly known as the ?Great Firewall,? another note said, ?The tallest walls cannot divide people?s sentiments. Google: Bye, let?s meet on the other side of the wall.??

I don?t know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but I agree with those who want Google to quit China, period. And I agree with those who want it to stay, regardless. I can see both sides.

Hey, that isn?t very exciting opinion journalism, is it? I promise that Impromptus will not become on-one-hand, on-the-other-hand mush. Blech!

I don?t know what this will mean for the team?s win-loss record, but . . . ?The coach of Egypt?s national soccer team says he only wants players who observe Islam and the selection of his squad is based equally on religious piety and skill.? For the rest of the article -- the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say -- go here.

Feel like reading a little music? For an article in the current City Arts, go here. It touches on three pianists: David Fray, Marc-André Hamelin, and Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Feel like reading yet more music? You may want to fiddle around in my New Criterion archive, here.

Okay, I?m walking down Broadway, past the David Letterman theater, and I overhear a conversation -- a conversation about late-night television. The sight of this theater has obviously triggered this conversation, among a gaggle of girls. One of them is saying, ?Conan O?Brien is being a jerk. I mean, he got screwed, but he?s still being a jerk. You don?t have to be a jerk, just because you?re screwed.?

I will tell you what I told her: Very well said.

Feel like a little language? A reader writes,

Hi Jay,

 

I saw that Curt Schilling said this about Martha Coakley: ?. . . anyone with half a modicum of sense knows that you do not go into Boston and mess with Fenway Park.? Is a modicum divisible? Can one have half a modicum, or a sixteenth? For that matter, can one have two modicums?

I think that Schilling was doing what Bill Buckley might call ?intensifying.? (By the way, if the pitcher were a company spokesman -- would people have fun with the word ?shilling?? Maybe it?s already happened, dunno.)

Let?s have a little more language: Referring to President Obama, and whether he should visit Massachusetts to campaign, Scott Brown said, ?He should stay away and let Martha and I discuss the issues one on one.? The Republican candidate has the same grammatical predilection as the Democratic president -- who talks about how Reverend Wright ?married Michelle and I.?

Mo?:

Hi Mr. Nordlinger --

 

When I heard this, my first thought was, ?Jay Nordlinger will love this.? [Aw.] I work as a risk manager for a property-management company in the apartment industry. Recently, one of our residents slipped and fell and injured his back. I sent the claim to our insurance company for handling, but kept in contact with our resident via telephone. In our last conversation, I asked him how he was doing, and he said, ?I?m hanging in there, sorta like a hair in a biscuit.? I had never heard that phrase before, but I knew immediately what he meant.

Some names? I received a note from someone named Skip Paris. And I thought, ?Sounds like, ?Don?t bother visiting the French capital?? (which would be a mistake).

Reader writes, ?Jay, a TV station in Houston has recently added a reporter with the interesting name of Nefertiti Jaquez, and I couldn?t help but think of you.? Nefertiti Jaquez -- that is interesting.

A reader knows a professor at the University of Delaware: Yasser Arafat Payne.

A different reader knows a colorectal surgeon in Houston (home of Nefertiti Jaquez): Donald Butts.

A different reader writes, ?My 1974 supervising ward psychiatrist at Rockland State was Hyman Pleasure. How?s that for a Freudian name? ?Dr. Hyman Pleasure.??

Different reader: ?When my brother was in graduate school at Columbia doing astrophysics, they had a Barnard student sign up for an astronomy class with the name Galaxy Craze. I hear she is now an actress.?

?Jay, my all-time favourite name is that of the former head of the Conservative party in Ontario, John Tory.?

?Mr. Nordlinger, our local community cemetery -- Northfield-Macedonia Cemetery in Northfield Center, Ohio -- had for many years a superintendent and his assistant: Mr. Russ Mortus and Mr. Les Spade.?

?Mr. Nordlinger, I know a person in Olathe, Kan. His occupation is chiropractor. His name? Dr. Robert Bonebrake. His office is Bonebrake & Bonebrake, as his wife is also a chiropractor.?

Bonebrake & Bonebrake -- hard to top. Happy Massachusetts Day, dear readers, and I?ll catch you soon.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on January 19, 2010 (boomark / email).