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Articles in June 8, 2009 issue of National Review

• For the birds
  by Kristin K. Freeman
• Putting Specter in his place
  by Brad Bettin
• The King and I
  by George J. Heideman
• This vice-president
• The auto bailout keeps getting weirder: General Motors announced plans to sell itself to the government
• California, its budget a sinkhole, has proposed the most modest of trims—$74 million from a program that subsidizes the wages of health-care workers who tend the sick in their homes
• Gil Kerlikowske, the new drug czar, suggests abandoning the phrase "war on drugs."
• The Obama administration has announced that it intends to step up antitrust prosecutions, and the likely targets of opportunity are situated in Silicon Valley
• One of Obama's few genuine non-defense budget cuts is a sharp reduction in funding for the agency that polices "embezzlement from labor organizations, extortionate picketing, deprivation of union members' rights by force or violence, and fraud in uni
• It is a good general rule that any congressional bill named after some victim of a crime or misfortune is a bad bill
• President Obama and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu came out of their White House meeting smiling and paying the usual compliments to each other—there was even lip service about a supposed "historic opportunity."
• Obama met with the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose security problems are conjoined
• In the bloodstained history of terrorism, the Tamil Tigers will always have a place, alongside the IRA, the Taliban, the Chechens, and the PLO
• Day after day, week after week, the lights go out in Venezuela
• One of the most aggravating features of Communist life is the loudspeakers: the broadcasting of propaganda over loudspeakers in the streets
• Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is going through an ugly divorce from his wife of 29 years
• Among the 31 colleges of Cambridge University in England are three that admit only women
• Busy days in the world of poetry
• The faculty of Brown University voted to change the name of Columbus Day to something safe: "Fall Weekend."
• In the late Seventies, Farrah Fawcett had the face that launched a thousand fantasies, as a crime-fighting babe in Charlie's Angels and poster girl
• New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd got caught lifting a sentence—with only one tiny change—from Josh Marshall's left-wing blog, Talking Points Memo
• It's all in your head
• Beyond 'no': as the GOP argues for spending restraint, it should also address the concerns of the middle class
  by Ramesh Ponnuru; Richard Lowry
• The Committee to Reinflate the Bubble: the real-estate lobby wants another boom—but what about the bust?
  by Kevin D. Williamson
• Dunce cap-and-trade: the Waxman-Markey global-warming bill cannot survive cost-benefit analysis
  by Jim Manzi
• Performance art and panache: remembering editorial conferences with William F. Buckley Jr
  by Richard Brookhiser
• Ask Nancy Pelosi: the Speaker of the House responds to your questions
  by Rob Long
• Of beauty and loss
  by Tom Shippey
• Postcard from Hubbard Hall
  by Joseph Mueller
• The hot seat
  by Robert F. Nagel
• Finding Mum and Pup
  by Neal B. Freeman
• Shelf life
  by Michael Potemra
• Waste watching
  by Ross Douthat
• Office romance
  by John Derbyshire
• Dick Cheney is the madwoman in the attic, the crazy voice that Republicans ought to stifle
• The word "liar" is thrown around too much in our politics, but it is difficult to conclude that the term does not fit Nancy Pelosi
• President Obama gave the commencement speech, and accepted an honorary degree, at Notre Dame
• Over the last 15 years, pollsters have found that the number of Americans who consider themselves "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice" has been slowly increasing
• Since Barack Obama did not have much time to learn before becoming president, he must of necessity learn on the job
• It is becoming a Friday ritual—the weekly announcement of the embarrassing news that yet another Bush national-security policy labeled a war crime or a rule-of-law violation by the Obama campaign has been adopted by the Obama administration
• President Obama cashiered his commanding general in Afghanistan, a stunning move and welcome break from the excessive deference President Bush showed his generals until near the end of his presidency
• Wanda Sykes, yukking it up at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, said that Rush Limbaugh's kidneys should fail, and that he needed "a little waterboarding."
• Next year's Senate elections won't be easy for Republicans
• Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has opposed a resolution, scheduled for a vote by RNC members as we went to press, that calls on the Democrats to rename themselves the Democrat Socialist Party
• Utah governor Jon Huntsman, a Republican, will be Obama's ambassador to China
• The magic wand the White House plans on using to control health-care costs is showing signs of malfunction
• Democratic representative Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, unveiled a bill that would create a cap-and-trade program for carbon emissions and require utility companies to generate 20 percent of their energy from renewable
• The littlest totalitarian
  by Jonah Goldberg
• For four months, Roxana Saberi, an Iranian American with dual citizenship, was held in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison
• Masaharu Nakagawa, the financial-affairs spokesman for Japan's opposition Democratic party, elevated eyebrows by suggesting that Japan cease buying U.S. Treasury obligations unless they are "samurai bonds"—meaning those denominated in yen i
• Manmohan Singh and his ruling Congress party expanded their margin in India's latest parliamentary elections, which means that the reform-minded economist should be able to liberate himself from the worst of the far-left coalition partners with which poli
• Nicholas Winton is a name that ought to be better known
• Trust the Afghan army: a 'new approach' that will work
  by Bing West
• 'All the gaps are bridgeable': what a PLO man and an Israeli think of peace between their sides
  by Jay Nordlinger
• The parent problem: on the persistent link between family structure and black poverty
  by Duncan Currie
• Mitch the knife: at OMB they called him 'The Blade'—and now he's taking a scalpel to Indiana's budget
  by Mark Hemingway
• The 'enduring majority'—again: no, the Democrats will not be in power forever …
  by Jay Cost