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Articles in Feb 23, 2009 issue of National Review

• The ascent of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate seat sought, then not sought, by Caroline Kennedy, puts the baroque calculations of Albany on the national stage
• The second coming of Keynes
  by Kevin A. Hassett
• An article from the Associated Press focused on a little-covered aspect of Obama's greatness: "Rick Bayless," a Chicago chef, "says Obama's comfortable demeanor at the table—slumped contentedly in his chair, clearly there to enjoy hims
• Obama has changed one more thing: business casual is acceptable in the White House on weekends, and he takes his jacket off in the Oval Office when he cranks up the thermostat
• The stimulus package is a magic hat out of which Democrats pull rabbits to feed to their pet causes
• Democrats in Congress put provisions into the stimulus bill that would prohibit the procurement of foreign-made steel and iron for use in most of the bill's infrastructure projects
• President Obama has boldly followed through on his commitment to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay—sort of
• If President Obama is sincere in his stated intention to reform entitlements, he needs Republican support
• Richard Nadler has a bracing piece in this issue arguing that the restrictionist position on immigration is political disaster for Republicans
• Last year Dutch conservative parliamentarian Geert Wilders made a short film titled Fitna, that being the Arabic word for "discord."
• On January 31, the Communist party in the Czech Republic—yes, it still exists—delivered a letter to Obama at the U.S. embassy in Prague
• Just two decades after the Cold War's end, we shouldn't need Armando Valladares to point out the horrors of Communism
• Back in China's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 40 years ago, anyone who wanted to avoid a beating by Red Guards made sure to carry a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, more familiarly known as the Little Red Book
• Over in England, a cricket club named the Middlesex Crusaders has felt obliged to change its name to the Middlesex Panthers
• The anti-Keynes: Friedrich Hayek sheds light on our economic troubles
  by Lanny Ebenstein
• A great and stirring hour: Israel's president Shimon Peres shines at Davos
  by Jay Nordlinger
• Not our stars but ourselves: Skinny actresses and models do not make girls anorexic
  by Fred Schwarz
• Our Lincoln: Obama, he was not
  by Allen C. Guelzo
• At what cost? Conservatives should rethink their opposition to 'comprehensive' immigration reform
  by Richard Nadler
• Factory man: Nostalgia is wonderful. It won't solve our problems
  by Jim Manzi
• From the POTUS inbox …
  by Rob Long
• The classless society
  by Florence King
• The best conservative movies
• Rabbit's great run
  by Richard Brookhiser
• February
  by Ted Gilley
• A small tent
  by Ronald Radosh
• Boring from within
  by Ross Douthat
• Cellphobjects
  by Richard Brookhiser
• Iraqis voted in peaceful and orderly provincial elections, another sign that the improved security environment forged by the surge is sustainable
• Israel has derived several advantages from its recent campaign in Gaza
• The survivor: rep. Peter King points the way for Republicans in the Northeast
  by Mark Hemingway
• Pennsylvania-Kentucky longrifles
  by Alexander Rose
• We liked limousine liberals better when they paid
• Former senator Tom Daschle, who withdrew his nomination to serve as secretary of health and human services, faced three problems
• Geithner, whose offenses were worse, should be dismissed
• While campaigning for president, Barack Obama repeatedly pledged that lobbyists "won't find a job in my White House."
• President Obama took a swipe at Rush Limbaugh, telling Republicans whom he'd brought into the White House to discuss the stimulus bill that "you can't just listen" to him "and get things done."
• Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, won the race to be chairman of the Republican National Committee
• It's a story out of Shakespeare, with dialogue by Mamet
• While we'd like to believe that the Obama administration has caught a sudden case of acute federalism, we do not believe that explains the president's desire to allow California to enforce its own strict auto-emissions rules, which exceed federal standard
• It's time the West started looking to China for human-rights inspiration
• Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre nicely illustrated the dead end of "traditionalist" opposition to Vatican II
• According to news reports, an unmarried California mother of octuplets—she already had six children—had all 14 through in vitro fertilization
• Olympic medalist Michael Phelps got his picture, smoking a bong, in the Brit tabloid News of the World
• H. Walker Royall is a Dallas real-estate developer who ought to be ashamed of himself twice over—once for trying to abuse eminent domain to seize property from its rightful owners for his purposes, and again for trying to silence those who have criti
• Nurse Caroline Petrie, a Christian, making her departure after a home visit to 79-year-old May Phippen in an English town, offered to pray for the patient
• A lead sentence in a Washington Post article deserves to enter the annals of political-reporting history: "Just days after taking office vowing to end the political era of 'petty grievances,' President Obama ran into mounting GOP opposition yesterday
• Al-Arabiya, the Arab satellite channel based in Dubai, obtained the first televised interview of the Obama administration
• Obama also issued an executive order overturning the pro-life "Mexico City" policy that Republican presidents have followed over the last three decades
• Ever since Obama's election, the State Department has been busy drafting a letter to Iran, or so the London Guardian confidently reports and everyone seems to believe
• Linguistic conservatives should arm for battle: The humble apostrophe is under threat in various parts of the Anglosphere
• A cat may look at a king, goes the old proverb
• Understandably, the Left doesn't like it much when you say that too often politics is their religion, or environmentalism is their religion, or something other than religion is their religion
• We bid farewell to John Updike, R.I.P., elsewhere
• The right stimulus
• The hot seat: can pro-life democrats continue to make a difference?
  by Ramesh Ponnuru