The Week

National Review, Oct 13, 2003

-- Hurricane Isabel was destructive, but say this for her: She shut down the federal government for two days.

-- Gen. Wesley Clark, four-star CNN pundit, and now would-be presidential candidate, rushed to the head of the Democratic pack, according to instant polls. This is a tribute to Clark's manner, shiny bright and razor sharp, and to the weaknesses, temporary or inexpungible, of his rivals. It cannot be a tribute to the power of Clark's debut, for in his first major interview Clark couldn't state a coherent position on the Iraq war. "I probably would have voted for" a congressional authorization to invade Iraq, he said, but added "that's too simple a question." A moment later he observed, "When you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position." Which was worse, Clark not knowing that leadership requires answering questions and taking positions; or having no positions on the major issue of the day, on which he has commented ubiquitously on TV? Soon though, Clark found his voice. "Why are we engaged in Iraq, Mr. President -- tell the truth," Clark asked a Florida crowd, which shouted back "Oil!" and "Halliburton!" P.S.: Clark is widely thought to be a stalking horse for Hillary Clinton. Confused, pandering, and manipulable -- just what we need in a wartime leader.

-- In the debates over President Bush's judicial nominees, some liberals have argued that obstruction is fitting payback for the Republicans' past efforts to block President Clinton's nominees. Some Republicans have conceded this point, saying that both parties have acted badly but that it is time to move forward. But consider the recent decision by three federal judges in California, all appointed by Democrats, to delay the state's recall election. It was an outrageous decision, even by contemporary standards, which is why a larger panel of judges, itself dominated by Democrats, unanimously rejected it. The renegade judges said that the recall had to be moved back six months in order to replace the state's punch-card ballots. The high error rate on those ballots, and their concentration in minority areas, might otherwise have had the effect of disfranchising black and Hispanic voters. This edict allegedly rested on the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore. But whatever you think of that decision -- and we're no fans of the majority holding in that case -- the Supreme Court explicitly said that it was legitimate for localities to have different voting procedures. What the Court condemned was "standardless manual recounts," in which the rules for counting ballots could be changed after the fact to secure the favored outcome. That wasn't at issue in California. Nor did the Supreme Court react to the problem it identified by canceling the election and calling a new one. One of the three judges, Richard Paez, was among the Clinton nominees whom the Republicans tried hardest to block. His confirmation was delayed, but not prevented. The lesson of his attempt to stack the deck for Gray Davis is that if Republicans have anything for which to apologize, it is not trying harder to obstruct Paez and like-minded judges.

-- While appealing to California voters, hoping to get them not to recall him, Gov. Gray Davis said, "We have the sons and daughters of people from every planet, of every country on earth." People from every planet, huh? We realize that California is pronouncedly New Age -- not to say extraterrestrial -- but even so . . . Look, this was a normal mistake, made by a politician who has to utter thousands of public words a day. But Dan Quayle made a few normal mistakes, too. And -- lest we forget -- the elite culture, including the news media, treated him like dirt.

-- There is plenty of blame to go around for the collapse of the global trade talks in Cancun. Europe, seconded by the United States, was unwilling to cut the agricultural subsidies that keep Third World farmers out of our markets. Europe came up with exorbitant demands on the Third World to avoid dealing with the farm issues. The U.S. refused to live up to previous promises to liberalize trade in textiles. The poor countries, for their part, stormed out of the meeting rather than seek even a limited deal. The immediate prospects for trade liberalization do not look good. Bush has indulged in the kind of protectionist gestures to favored constituencies that American presidents tend to hand out during recessions. The Democratic presidential candidates, with the exceptions of Joe Lieberman and possibly Wesley Clark, are turning in a more ideologically protectionist direction. If a free-trade revival is possible, it will have to begin with clear thinking. Some free-traders, especially free- trading liberal journalists, are saying that America ought to offer trade deals that are more "generous" to poor countries. Better to say we should be generous to ourselves. Our farm subsidies, our steel tariffs, our textile quotas make Americans worse off. We should give them up from self-interest, not charity.