Federal Judiciary

Obama's bad round, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger

As regular readers know, I?m not a critic of President Obama?s golf habit -- of his liking for the game, and indulgence in it. Quite the opposite. In January, after he had taken some heat for his golf-playing ways, I wrote an essay for National Review called ?Hail to the Golfer-in-Chief.? Find it here.

President Bush (43) stopped playing golf in 2003, because he didn?t like the way it looked, with war going on in Iraq. I criticized him for this choice. The way I put it in that recent piece was,

The president?s motivation was perfectly honorable and understandable, obviously. But it was a shame that the weird stigma about golf had to be bowed to. Bush did not deny himself recreation altogether: He rode his mountain bike a lot, in those bright, huggy shorts. But golf, somehow, was too unseemly to be engaged in. Biking?s okay, basketball?s okay [that is another Obama pastime] -- golf is risky. Why? For no good reason, only because of the strange psychology with which some people are saddled.

What am I building up to? Why am I rehashing all this? It was noted in the press that, when Obama couldn?t attend the state funeral in Poland, owing to the Icelandic volcano, he spent the day playing golf. This looked a little crass. I?m a big defender of Obama?s golf, but that particular round was quite unwise.

I know that Bush is supposed to be a big clod -- terribly insensitive to foreigners, for one thing -- and that Obama is supposed to be refinement itself, but Bush wouldn?t have played golf on the day of that funeral. He would have known that it would send wrong signals.

I?m sorry, Obama fans, and Bush-haters, but it?s just true. And partisanship -- what we think of health-care policy, for example -- has nothing to do with it.

At the end of that January essay -- you can see the context, if you read the piece -- I wrote, ?I imagine that President Obama and Rush Limbaugh would enjoy a round of golf together. I?d like to make a third! And maybe the president could suggest a left-leaning fourth, so that our group is philosophically even? (Incidentally, Obama is a lefty on the golf course, same as he is off -- he plays left-handed, I mean.)?

I hope you?ll be surprised and saddened to know that no invitation from the White House has been forthcoming . . .

Whenever you?re apt to be cross about Obama?s golf, think of this: The more time he spends on the golf course, the less time he spends governing.

I?ve written before that Obama really doesn?t ?do? Iraq. It?s so George W. Bush, you know. Likewise democracy. Likewise the helping of dissidents and reformers.

Here is GWB in his second inaugural address, a speech hated by many conservatives, and hated by most everybody on the left, of course -- because it was delivered by Bush:

The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world. . . .

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies. . . .

We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. . . .

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.

By the way, I loved hearing Tony Blair at Davos, days after that inaugural address. He said that Bush?s speech was taken as ?evidence of the ?neoconservative? grip on Washington.? But ?I thought progressives were all in favor of freedom over tyranny.?

Couple of days ago, I noticed an Associated Press report that began, ?President Barack Obama has dramatically cut funds to promote democracy in Egypt, a shift that could affect everything from anti-corruption programs to the monitoring of elections.? The head of an election-monitoring group was quoted as saying, ?Obama wants change that won?t make the Egyptian government angry. And in the Egyptian context, that means there will be no change.?

The article also quoted a Freedom House report, which said that the democracy cuts in Egypt are ?of particular concern as the environment there becomes increasingly restricted -- as evidenced by recent crackdowns against political activists, bloggers, and journalists.?

Here in Impromptus, we have monitored some of that cracking down over the past few months.

Finally, the AP quoted the director of the Egyptian Center for Human Rights, who said, ?Obama wants to democratize the region the way the leaders of the Arab countries want, not the way the Arab people want.?

That is so disheartening, and, to me, disgusting. But hey: It?s also un-Bush, you know? And that?s the important thing.

I was struck by a sentence in a Washington Post article about Florida politics: Governor Crist, now running for Senate, was ?targeted for extinction by ?tea party? activists and the right wing of his party . . .? When other people enter politics, they are participating in democracy, competing for office, the way Americans are supposed to do. When conservatives enter politics, they ?target? others ?for extinction.?

Liberals and moderates and establishmentarians have a divine, or perhaps a constitutional, right to hold office. Conservative participation in politics is just illegitimate. And we should have gotten used to that by now . . .

You may have read that Bill Clinton tried to get both Mario Cuomo and George Mitchell to serve on the Supreme Court, but that they turned him down. Clinton himself provided this information. I?m very interested to know that -- I am a student of American politics, and I like it. But I wonder what Breyer and Ginsburg -- Clinton?s eventual nominees -- think about Clinton?s reminiscences. A little crass, on his part, don?t you think? A smidge?

In a Boston Globe article, I read about a ?onetime clerk for conservative Robert Bork, the failed Supreme Court nominee.? Yes, you could put it like that. But, to me, it?s clearer that the American people failed Bork -- through their elected senators, who behaved abominably. Just despicably. Including the one who was buried with such pomp at Arlington Cemetery. Including the one who is now vice president.

As far as I?m concerned, there was no failure on Bork?s part, at all.

A friend of mine sent me a picture of President Obama talking to a clutch of his top advisers; he?s in the Oval Office, with his feet on the desk; the advisers are standing in front of the desk. Some people think that Obama is rude when he does this -- disrespectful of the Oval Office, disrespectful of his aides, etc.

I don?t know, but seeing the picture put me in mind of one of les grands scandales of the Bush years -- the Bush 41 years. The chief of staff, former governor John Sununu, put his feet up on a conference table during a budget meeting -- a budget ?summit,? they called it. Sen. Robert Byrd was there, and he was quite offended. He told that whippersnapper Sununu to get his feet off the table -- which he did.

Anyway . . .

I loved this story, absolutely loved it -- maybe you will too: ?Humberto Rios Labrada?s campaign to let Cuban farmers choose the crops and seed varieties best for their lands helped him win one of the 2010 Goldman Environmental Prizes -- known as the ?green Nobels? -- on Monday.?

Rios said, ?I want the seed to adapt to the people, not the people to adapt to the seed.? Is that not the essence of capitalism? Does that not perfectly distinguish a free economy from a planned one?

The article continued, ?Rios wants to make Cuban farms more sustainable by giving farmers more autonomy -- a radical notion in what has long been a strictly top-down planned economy where officials tell producers just what to grow, even if it isn?t quite right for the soil.?

Fabulous stuff. The simple, elementary lessons often turn out to be the most valuable, don?t they?

As I keep mentioning in this column, Mexican journalists keep dying -- violently. At the hands of others. From a story April 11: ?The body of a kidnapped Mexican journalist has been found with his throat slit, federal prosecutors said Sunday.? Another sentence: ?The family of Enrique Villicana Palomares, a columnist for the daily newspaper The Voice of Michoacan in central Mexico, reported him missing last week after he didn?t make it to a university where he taught writing.?

One more extract: ?Palomares was at least the fifth reporter killed in Mexico this year, and 12 were murdered last year. Many of those were victims of Mexico?s powerful drug traffickers.?

The extreme peril of practicing journalism in Mexico should be a worldwide concern.

A couple of items above, we had the term ?planned economy.? Well, I read something interesting the other day, about Dag Hammarskjöld -- the U.N. secretary-general who was killed in a plane crash in 1961. Before going to the U.N., Hammarskjöld was an important economic official in his native Sweden. (By the way, his father, Hjalmar, was prime minister of Sweden from 1914 to 1917.) In a biographical sketch of Hammarskjöld, I read that he ?has been credited with having coined the term ?planned economy.??

And hey, you want a WFB tidbit? You know you like ?em. Bill and Pat?s ?maisonette? in New York was once occupied by Hammarskjöld. The Buckleys were not the immediate owners after his death, but they took occupancy in the same decade, the ?60s.

This may amuse you. Yesterday, I was writing about the Sharpeville Massacre -- no, that?s not amusing -- and I mistakenly typed ?Masscare.? The transposition of two letters makes a big difference. And I thought about the trouble Romney might have in ?12, over health-care policy.

Care for a letter from Oklahoma City? And this has nothing to do with the terror-bombing, I?m happy to say:

Jay,

Greetings from the Plains. I was telling this story to someone the other day and thought I should send it to you, because it concerns two of our favorite things: ice cream and music. (In fact, if it had a golf angle it might be The Perfect Story.) [Well observed.]

To set up this story, I must first tell you that there is a chain of restaurants in Oklahoma and surrounding states called Braum?s Ice Cream and Dairy Stores -- or ?Braum?s? for short. They make great ice cream, shakes, and sundaes, and, if you want, you can get a burger and fries as a side. [I love the notion of a burger and fries as ?a side.?]

Well, earlier this season our Oklahoma City Philharmonic was playing a Brahms symphony and the conductor, Joel Levine, told a story about one of the first concerts he gave after he moved to Oklahoma. It was a children?s concert, on which he conducted a Brahms piece, and, before he began, he asked the kids if any of them had ever heard of Brahms. When all of them raised their hands he was really impressed with the knowledge of this young audience.

When Levine mentioned this after the concert, an orchestra member had to inform him that most of the children were raising their hands because they had heard ?Braum?s,? not ?Brahms.?

Beautiful. Three cheers for both -- Brahms and Braum?s. And I?ll see you soon.

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on April 21, 2010 (boomark / email).