The Week - various - current events commentary

National Review, Oct 25, 1999

* BERLIN, 1983--National Socialist Germany threw itself a 50th birthday pa party in Berlin last week, which climaxed with a mammoth rally, at which pictures of founding fuhrer Adolf Hitler (1889-1969) were prominently displayed. National Socialism has a mixed legacy. Its prosperity, military might, and advanced technology were on display in Berlin (Germany's moon landing was much celebrated). But human-rights questions continue to dog the regime: Unregistered churches are persecuted, conditions in factories often approach slave labor, and dissidents in the French and Russian provinces continue to be arrested. "Germany is a dynamic but proud society," said former president Hamilton Fish, "and we can best encourage change by offering our example, and treating it with respect."

* Pity the House Republicans. Their decision to extend payments from the he earned income credit over twelve months instead of making them in one lump sum may have been politically clumsy (hence the "backs of the poor" rebuke from George W. Bush--see p. 18). But Republicans resorted to this one-time gimmick, which was not an actual cut in the program, because they figured it was the only way to avoid dipping into the Social Security surplus they had declared off limits. Now, with their meager five-vote majority, Republicans will engage in a nearly hopeless fight to scale back every spending bill over the objections of Democrats, wayward Republican appropriators, and every interest group in town. Bush should lend his support. Or does he hope to win his campaign on the backs of congressional Republicans?

* Bush also endorsed Democratic demands that the minimum wage be raised from $5.15 to $6.15, so long as states are allowed to opt out of the increase. According to a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the last increase, in 1996, eliminated between 150,000 and 457,000 jobs in its first two years. Almost half the benefits of the hike went to families making more than three times the poverty level. The governor needs to decide whether his "compassionate conservatism" seeks to help poor people or merely to use them for posturing.

* Hidden in Bush's latest speech on education is a wonderful stick of dy dynamite. He would allow parents or grandparents to put up to $5,000 per year in "education savings accounts," from which they could withdraw money, tax-free, to pay for "tuition payments, or books, or tutoring, or transportation--whatever students need most." If enacted, this proposal would be a momentous advance for school choice. And since it applies to public-school expenses, it has wider appeal than most school-choice proposals. In the rest of his speech, Bush made it clear that his administration would regard decentralization and high standards as complementary goals. States would be required to test students regularly, for example, but the choice of test would be up to them. The results for each school would be publicized, giving information to participants in a blooming marketplace. Having criticized Bush's last education speech, we will give credit where it is due: Bush has lately been more daring and imaginative than anyone in Congress.

* Dan Quayle quit the presidential race, realizing that even if he did w well in New Hampshire, he would not have the funds to capitalize on it. His campaign was from beginning to end gracious, principled, and animated by ideas beyond the ken of the comics who jeered at him or the reporters who dismissed him. We hope we have not heard the last of him.

* Jesse Ventura, who wants to be reincarnated as a 38 DD bra, recently h held forth in, appropriately enough, Playboy. He thinks organized religion is a "sham" for the "weak-minded." (Later, a spokesman explained Ventura meant only to belittle religious conservatives.) He believes President Kennedy was killed by the "military-industrial complex" because JFK wanted to pull out of Vietnam. Ventura's appeal, like that of his Reform party colleague Ross Perot, has always been that he tells it like it is. The downside of candid candidates with no political expertise is that their candor is usually a symptom of a general flakiness--amusing in a bartender or businessman, less so in a governor. In this sense, Ventura is a perfect fit for his party. No word yet on who he thinks planned to disrupt the wedding of Perot's daughter.

* Warren Beatty's speech to the Southern California branch of Americans for Democratic Action, testing the waters for a presidential run, drew 150 reporters. "His is the only populist voice I know that can attract media attention," said producer Norman Lear. That's one thing about millionaire movie-star populists--they do attract media attention.

* A first: The Clinton administration lost a floor vote over a judicial nomination. In a 54-45 vote, Missouri supreme-court justice Ronnie White was rejected as a federal district-court judge. The vote was a victory for Missouri senator John Ashcroft, as well as for law-enforcement groups troubled by White's record of trying to block executions. Their opposition eventually swayed Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter, who had voted for White in the Judiciary Committee but went against him on the floor. After the vote, Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy played the race card, saying that he hoped there was no "color test" for nominations (White is black, which many of the senators did not know). New York Democrat Chuck Schumer was reduced to complaining that White had been rejected "so hastily." Normally Democrats complain about the "unconscionable delays" caused by conservative obstruction, and, indeed, they had retailed that complaint about the White nomination, made 27 months ago. If Republicans are worried about demagoguery such as Leahy's, there is a simple solution: As we have argued before, they should oppose all of Clinton's nominees--regardless of race or anything else.