The Week

National Review, Jan 27, 2003

--So, Al Sharpton looks like a go for '04. Isn't it nice when a party gets the candidates it deserves?

--The Democrats have found a theme for 2004: homeland security. "Washington is not doing enough to make America safe" (Sen. John Edwards). "The American people are only slightly safer today here at home than we were on September 11" (Sen. Joseph Lieberman). And so on, through the ranks of presidential candidates and congressional leaders. The Democrats thus profit from their gung-ho attitude, and stand to profit, if disaster strikes, from their prescience. Meanwhile, they have not proposed any noteworthy alternative policies. This is too bad, since there are a number of areas in which America stands weakened before its enemies: our overstretched military; the self-destructive political correctness of airport security checkers and State Department visa processors; the ongoing coddling of the Saudis. A tough and loyal opposition could well raise these issues.

-- Bill Frist, the new leader of Senate Republicans, has a conservative record, an appealing biography, a keen mind, a strong work ethic, and a friendly manner on television. Most conservatives are happy he is replacing Trent Lott. But he is not seasoned, and it showed in his first press statement as presumptive majority leader. He managed to be both shaky and preening. Frist is expected to be a close ally of the White House, as well he should. But to be an effective ally he will need to build rapport with the Senate Republicans he seeks to lead -- and that will sometimes require him to say no to the White House when it asks too much of conservative senators. He should also consider that House Republicans, who have often been left in the lurch by their Senate counterparts, could use an ally too.

-- The early word on the Raelians' unverified claims to have cloned a baby was that their kookiness would end up discrediting their cause. Maybe. But maybe some day they will be seen as pioneers, eccentric to be sure, but also courageous. For the fact is that cloning is moving ahead. The House has passed a comprehensive ban, but the Senate has not been able to agree on it. Stanford University has just announced that it is creating a $12 million center that will clone embryos for research purposes (although the university is manipulating language to avoid any association with cloning). There is no practical way to ban cloning to produce babies while allowing cloning to produce embryos for research purposes. So there could be a lot of Raelians in our future. The situation calls for political leadership: from President Bush, but also from the new Senate majority leader. If Dr. Frist chooses to lead the fight against cloning, a ban just might pass. Pro-lifers would be profoundly grateful to him, which could come in handy for the senator in 2008.

--Alaska Republican senator Frank Murkowski, having been elected governor in November, got to appoint his own replacement. He apparently decided that a U.S. Senate without a Murkowski was too much to bear, choosing his own daughter to serve out the last two years of his term. Papa Murkowski explained that he picked Lisa, who has been a state legislator for four years, because she shares his political philosophy, can win election on her own, and will be able to serve for a long time. Well, no she doesn't, she probably can't, and let's hope not. Unlike her pro-life father, the new senator supports abortion. Tax increases, too. Her appointment was met by angry and justified charges of nepotism from the right and left that will make it hard for her to win in 2004. In recent years, Republicans have learned painfully how important each Senate seat is. Now a seat that ought to be safely Republican has been put in play because of the governor's ego. You would think that the "ruthless" White House we keep hearing about could have leaned on the man.

-- Hitler built the autobahns, Mussolini made the trains run on time, Stalin helped us win WW2, and Mao Tse-tung ended warlordism in China. It is often possible to say something positive about even the vilest of "leaders" (though we come up blank on Pol Pot), and there is never any shortage of useful idiots willing to say them. Here comes the senior senator from Washington State, Patty Murray, with kind words for Osama bin Laden: "He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day-care facilities, building health-care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful." Attempting to douse the consequent firestorm, Sen. Murray said she was only suggesting that the Arabs might like us more if we engaged in the same kinds of good works. In fact, of course, American taxpayers annually have billions of dollars of their hard- earned money shipped off to the Third World in "foreign aid." A large proportion of it sluices straight through to the Swiss bank accounts of gangsters like Yasser Arafat. It is bad enough that we have to endure this parody of charitable giving. To be chastised for not doing enough, and to have the murderer of several thousand Americans presented to us as a model for doing more, adds gross insult to injury. If bin Laden does indeed have any good works to his name -- and Patty Murray offered no proof of her claims on his behalf -- let us hear about them when he is decisively dead, and his forces routed.