This issue: October 1, 2012 (Vol. 18, No. 03)

All the World Wonders

BY WILLIAM KRISTOL

What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent. And those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya, and that then spun out of control.

—U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice Sunday, September 16

There was no spontaneous “fray” in Benghazi that “spun out of control.” The only thing spinning out of control last week was the Obama administration, frantically portraying the terrible events in the Middle East as anything but what they were. By late in the week the Obama narrative had been exposed as just that, a narrative, and the White House grudgingly had to abandon it.

They were sorry to do so. They were fond of their spin. The mainstream media reported the Obama administration’s shift as if it had ...

A Rocky Start in the Rockies

Romney needs to win Colorado, but hasn’t closed the deal.

BY FRED BARNES

Denver
Colorado is Mitt Romney’s safety valve. If he falters in the East​—​losing, say, Ohio​—​Colorado is the key to offsetting that defeat and still winning Romney 270 electoral votes. In fact, as the presidential race now stands, Romney probably won’t be sitting in the White House next January unless he does win Colorado.

Romney ought to capture Colorado. There are 97,954 more registered Republicans than Democrats in the state. In 2010, Republicans won two House seats, gained control of the state house of representatives, and ousted two statewide Democratic officials for the first time since 1974. If Republicans hadn’t botched the elections for governor and senator, Colorado would be seen today as rich GOP soil.

Romney polls well here, relatively speaking. The Denver Post is outlandishly pro-Obama, but its poll in mid-September gave the president only a one-point lead, 47-46 percent. Republicans were thrilled, especially with the ...

Supremely Overdue

With Fisher v. University of Texas, the High Court can finally put an end to racial preferences in university admissions

BY CARL COHEN

Abigail Fisher, a white applicant to the University of Texas, contends that the university, in giving preference to minority applicants while rejecting her, discriminated against her unlawfully because of her color. The Supreme Court will hear the case this fall; it is likely that Fisher will prevail. The Texas 10 percent law and the special circumstances of that university present complications, of course, but the makeup of the Supreme Court today differs importantly from that of the Court that decided Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, which authorized universities to use race in admissions in some circumstances.

But how will Fisher prevail? Put another way, how much of Grutter will remain standing when this decision comes down? Might Grutter be flatly overturned? Many fervently hope for that, and I am among them. Grutter v. Bollinger is one of those decisions that were wrong on the day they were decided; it is the ...

Wisdom of the Age

Words to live by—at the moment.

BY JAMES BOWMAN

‘Modern proverbs” is surely a contradiction in terms—unless “modern” is being used in its unmodern sense of “commonplace,” as in Shakespeare’s “wise saws and modern instances.” The word “proverb” inevitably connotes the idea of age and seasoning—wisdom that has been tried by time. Indeed, a proverb is usually so old that its original author is unknown.

What has such a weathered artifact to do with the linguistic ephemera of popular culture collected by Charles C. Doyle and company from 20th-century authors under the title of The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs? The best you can say is that some of them (but by no means all) are aspirational proverbs—proverbs only if they stick around for a few hundred years, as very few of them seem likely to do. For although this florilegium is not quite devoid of wit, wisdom, or concision, the selection is short enough of these qualities that it has had to rely on a large number of decidedly second- and even third-rate examples to make up ...

Flight Risk

Christopher Caldwell, frustrated frequent flyer

BY CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL

The Sunday before last, my plane was half an hour away from Budapest and a stewardess was bustling clumsily down the aisle. I was reading John Lukacs’s Budapest 1900. Something in his description of the Austro-Hungarian Empire led me to be glad I was wearing a neat shirt and blazer. In some countries, people value spontaneity and casualness. In others, people appreciate an effort to look distinguished. I expected the Hungarians I was scheduled to meet at the airport would be of the latter type. By a strange coincidence, the stewardess chose just this moment to pour half a pitcher of black coffee down the front of my shirt.

She said she was sorry. Actually, being English, she said, “Sore-ray!” This was my cue to blurt out, “Not to worry!” or some such consolation. But her tone was so impenitent, so insincere, so indistinguishable from “Good morning!” or“Here’s your drink!” that I could only stare dumbfounded at the puddle of coffee in my lap.

Once my absolution had ...

Bernanke Bails Out Obama

When Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke rushed to the aid of President Obama with an act of raw partisanship called QE3, the media ignored the political implications of this latest plan to print massive amounts of new money to boost the stock market.

“Ben Bernanke has joined Chief Justice John Roberts as a Bush appointee working for the reelection of Barack Obama,” Donald Luskin, the chief investment officer of Trend Macrolytics, said. Luskin was one of the few who understood what Bernanke was up to. The presidential election was eight weeks away, and the Fed boss had jumped in to boost Obama. Roberts had done the same as the swing vote in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding Obamacare.

Roberts may have acted for institutional reasons, seeking to protect the Court’s reputation as nonpolitical. Bernanke doesn’t have that excuse. Apart from the risk inherent in such aggressive monetary expansion when interest rates are already at record lows, Bernanke has hurt ...