This issue: March 4, 2013 (Vol. 18, No. 24)

A Darkling Plain

BY WILLIAM KRISTOL

Leo Strauss wrote of the “all men are created equal” sentence in the Declaration of Independence, “The passage has frequently been quoted, but, by its weight and its elevation, it is made immune to the degrading effects of the excessive familiarity which breeds contempt and of misuse which breeds disgust.” Doesn’t this also hold for the closing lines of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach?

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The passage is familiar. But as one surveys the American landscape on Washington’s birthday in 2013, it seems particularly apt.

The plain is darkling. The world grows more dangerous. Yet we heedlessly slash ...

What a Defense Secretary Does

Pace Hagel, it’s a policy-making job.

BY DAN SENOR

In September 1993, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin received a request from the U.S. commander in Somalia for extra tanks, armored vehicles, and AC-130 Spectre gunships to support U.S. operations in Mogadishu. Aspin refused the request. The White House was not involved in the decision. Days later, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in Mogadishu, some 84 were wounded, two U.S. choppers were shot down, and one pilot was captured. Aspin, who later conceded he had erred in denying the commander’s request, appeared weak when responding to detailed questions during a congressional hearing. His resignation followed less than a year into his hapless tour running the Pentagon.

Myriad concerns have been raised about Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for defense secretary, including his voting record, impolitic statements, two unremarkable Senate terms, scant management experience, and embarrassing performance at his confirmation hearing last ...

The American Way with Guns

Our national story is firearms all the way down

BY GEOFFREY NORMAN

Among the guns I own, my favorite is a Pennsylvania long rifle made for me by an old friend. It is a flintlock, shoots a .50 caliber ball, and uses black powder. The wood is rich, sinuous, curly maple. The trigger guard and butt plate are brass. It is a beautiful piece, and only the most ardent anti-gun zealot could resist its palpable appeal. First you admire it, then you want to hold it, and next you feel the urge to put it up to your shoulder and fire it.

And it shoots. Oh, Lord, does it shoot. I’m competent with it but the man who made it can really shoot, and he is good out to 300 yards with that rifle. I’m comfortable out to 100.

As seductive as that gun is to shoot, its legend is even more appealing. “That’s a purely American gun,” the man told me when he gave it to me. “We beat the British with guns like that. Shot their ...

Servant of the Law

The experience, and good sense, of Robert Bork.

BY J. HARVIE WILKINSON III

The death of Robert Bork this past December brought forth tributes to a man bearing no resemblance to the grotesque caricatures that emerged during the long debate over his 1987 nomination to the Supreme Court. Widely noted were his unswerving loyalty to friends and principles, his seminal intellect, his acerbic but not unkind humor and wit, and his lifelong sense of service and duty to his country.

Yet his life will never be free from the controversy that trails those who actually have something to say. The dust jacket of this book, a memoir of his service in the Nixon administration, shows a young Bork with cigarette in hand and his trademark red beard. Had he stopped smoking and started shaving, some things might have turned out better for him; but then again, that wouldn’t have been Bob. His willingness to buck convention was his strength. He lived life on his terms.

The enigma that was Richard Nixon will always tantalize historians. Bork’s view of him is ...

Weepers Keepers

Joseph Epstein on sob stories

BY JOSEPH EPSTEIN

An old journalistic axiom holds, “If it bleeds, it leads.” This means that stories of violence—of murder and arson, tornadoes and hurricanes, floods and carnage—always get primary attention in newspapers and on radio and television news. They still do, but coming up fast on the outside, especially on television news, are stories of deep personal sadness. So regular a feature of nightly television news has the spectacle of heartbroken people become that a new axiom is needed: “If it weeps, it keeps.”

I have in mind those stories that cause people, in response to the questioning of journalists, to break down in tears. I saw one the other night about a couple who were in the advanced stages of adopting a Russian child when Vladimir Putin decided to outlaw American adoption of Russian orphans. Pictures were shown of the couple playing with the child during visits to Russia. The story ended with the journalist ...

Problems.