 Dear Weekend Jolter, The irony of Vladimir Putin's invasion is that his bid for immortality has potentially shortened his lifespan in power. “Potentially” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. With that caveat, and setting aside speculation over the Russian leader's health and mental state — an issue that I touched on last weekend and that Senator Marco Rubio repeatedly has hinted is a factor — it is difficult to see how a Russia with Putin on top can ever resume something like normal relations with the world around it. Allies in Central Europe have turned on Moscow. As Michael Brendan Dougherty notes with astonishment, and some concern, historically neutral nations such as Switzerland are off the fence. Germany is strengthening its defenses, at last. The U.N. General Assembly condemned the invasion, and its Human Rights Council — notoriously tolerant of abuses by any and all nations that don't close stores on Friday evenings — saw a mass walkout during the contemptible Sergei Lavrov's remarks. The International Criminal Court is launching a war-crimes investigation. This, on top of sanctions that are crippling the Russian economy. Russia's president might not care. Also unclear is what version of the truth is being piped to his desk by way of sycophantic advisers. But the state of play does raise the question of how long Russia's elites can abide a man whose kleptocracy no longer pays. "So far, Russia's elite have never had to choose between the life they wanted and Putin," a piece in Foreign Affairs points out. NR's editorial attempts the long view: At least so far, the reaction to Putin's invasion has been one that has unified a free West against a brutal authoritarian regime. . . . But the ultimate solution to our Vladimir Putin problem is a Russian one. There are early and tentative signs that Putin's aggression could be the spark that destabilizes his hold on power.
Charles C. W. Cooke provides an important note of caution here, especially as the realities of this war get filtered through the social-media prism. If Putin is endangered, it only makes him more dangerous — and as much as we want to see this all end in decisive humiliation for Vladimir, the immediate future, barring a sudden Russian reversal, is likely to pile horror upon horror for the Ukrainian people : There will be fighting in and around major population centers. Volunteers will be wiped out. Children will be maimed. War crimes will be committed. The result of this — even if the ploy ultimately fails — will probably not be the good guys rushing in to save the day, but thousands upon thousands of painful deaths. And then what?
A skillfully executed anti-Putin putsch to end the war is likely the stuff of fantasy right now. As Jim Geraghty notes, his advisers "can barely get close enough to throw something at him, much less assassinate him." Further, whenever he does exit, there is little guarantee his successor will be a kinder, gentler soul. But hairline cracks in the oligarchy are beginning to appear. One former State Department official told the Washington Post that these statements amount to the most significant voicing of dissent by the nation's elites "since the Soviet period." Beyond the elites, the Russian people are protesting — or attempting to protest — in cities across the country. Michael McFaul, the Obama administration's ambassador to Russia, has advanced the idea that mass demonstrations can play a role here. Anecdotally, there is discontent and disgust in the rank-and-file of the Russian military. Jim observes that Putin's goal of controlling Ukraine is ultimately unsustainable, given the unified resistance there to Moscow rule — meaning the long-term path to end this war runs through, or over, the head of the Russian Federation. NAME. RANK. LINK. EDITORIALS This is not going as planned for Vladimir: Putin Gets More Than He Bargained For The U.S. is on the cusp of striking an even weaker nuclear deal with Tehran: Biden's Dangerous Iran Deal The State of the Union contained no course correction from a presidency in need of one: Biden Fails to Reboot His Presidency ARTICLES Rich Lowry: Nationalism's Finest Hour Tim Kelleher: The Scandalous Silence of Moscow's Patriarch Hollie McKay: Ukrainian Church Leaders Join Fight against Putin's Invasion: 'He Is the Antichrist' Dan McLaughlin: Ukraine's Historic Propaganda War Andrew McCarthy: Missing the Point on SWIFT Sanctions John McCormack: Marjorie Taylor Greene's Justification for Appearing at a White-Nationalist Conference Is Preposterous Daniel R. DePetris: A No-Fly Zone over Ukraine Is a Bad Idea Jimmy Quinn: Sasse Warns 'Overly Lawyered Process' Preventing Ukrainians from Obtaining Real-Time Intel Charles C. W. Cooke: All the President's Incoherence Ryan Mills: Afghan CIA Interpreter, Anti-Drug Leader Pleads with U.S. to Save Family from Taliban: ‘So Helpless’ Daniel Buck: Why We Must Teach Our Students to Believe in America Jay Nordlinger: Wrestling with Hell Nate Hochman: Full Video Shows Law Students Heckling, Shouting Down Ilya Shapiro for 45 Minutes Caroline Downey: Activists Riot during Campus Speech, Assault Father Who Was Denied Custody of Son after Contesting Transgender Diagnosis Erica Smith Ewing & Daryl James: Zoning Police Target the Babysitter Next Door CAPITAL MATTERS Kevin Hassett advises we open the Trump playbook for Iran in developing a tougher approach to Russia: How to Bring Russia (and Belarus) to Its Knees with Sanctions Joel Zinberg looks back at the Covid-testing debacle: Testing Our Patience LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW. The latest Batman movie is more horror-thriller than action-adventure. From Kyle Smith: The Darkest Knight Yet Armond White lauds Ruth Negga's performance in Passing, if not the movie itself: Ruth Negga Redeems Black History Month Brian Allen delivers the third installment on the Morozov Collection exhibition in Paris: Plumbing Van Gogh's Prison Courtyard FROM THE NEW, MARCH 21, 2022, ISSUE OF NR Elliott Abrams: The New Cold War Dan McLaughlin: Judging Judge Jackson Richard Brookhiser: The Masks Come Off Fred O'Brien: Catching the Windbag SOMEBODY LEFT THE BARN DOOR OPEN, AND LOOK WHAT GOT OUT A new, very Russia-focused issue of National Review is out. In it, Elliott Abrams puts this confrontation in historical context and shows what is at stake: We are not ready — militarily, politically, or psychologically — for the prolonged crisis ahead of us. Vast American productivity, wealth, and power overwhelmed Germany in both the First and the Second World War, and Japan in the latter. We were certain of victory, and our allies knew that once we entered the war, the outcome was not in doubt. In the Cold War, Russia rivaled us in military power but — though many analysts vastly overstated the size of the Soviet economy — its communist system meant that it could never keep up. The gap in wealth and technological progress grew by the decade. Still, Russia and Soviet communism posed a great challenge, and the "Cold" War saw tens of thousands of American deaths in Korea and Vietnam. Russia seemed to be steadily gaining ground geopolitically by the end of the 1970s, but Ronald Reagan led a resurgence of American military and economic power and determination, and a decade later the Soviet Union fell. For 30 years now, Americans have been able to fight the dangerous but not existential threat from terrorism without much worry about the shape of the world our children will live in. Putin's invasion of Ukraine is not an attack on the United States, and in that sense is perhaps more like the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 than like Pearl Harbor: a sharp announcement that all bets are off. Like 9/11, it tells us that the world is far more dangerous than we have wanted to believe. Even many Americans who saw China as the great challenge of the 21st century often thought we could simply draw back from Europe and the Middle East and turn to the Pacific again. A look at U.S. defense spending confirms our relaxed view of the threats we faced: Spending was 9 percent of GDP in 1960 and then fell to under 5 percent in the late 1970s. The Reagan buildup raised it to 6.6 percent by 1986, but then it fell again: under 6 percent, then under 5, then down to 4, then under 4 percent from 2014 to 2020. Today we face challenges to U.S. interests that are growing each year and may actually be greater than those of the 20th century. Neither Germany nor Japan nor the combination of the two constituted a peer rival to the United States. But what if Nazi Germany and Japan had maintained an alliance with the USSR? That is the risk presented when a fully rearmed, aggressive Russia and a rich, aggressive, and technologically advanced China tell us that the international order that has lasted since 1945 must end, and American predominance with it. . . . In fact, the invasion of Ukraine is step four for Putin, after Georgia, Crimea, and Donbas, invasions done under U.S. administrations of both parties over a decade and a half. Had we reacted more strongly in those cases, had we imposed severe costs, the Ukraine invasion would likely not have occurred. Putin learned a lesson; so should we.
Daniel Buck provides some perspective, amid the Ukraine crisis, on why it's important to offer students a vision of America worth defending: This conflict may not lead to our military involvement, but it reminds us that the international order is fragile. We might become entangled in a war again and currently do face countless non-military challenges; do we trust our public schools to produce citizens who are ready for that? Our populace must have something worth defending if it is to defend itself. It is in our institutions of public education that our nation learns of its history and civics. It is here that our students will or will not develop the necessary national resolve. What story will we teach our children about ourselves? . . . Again, this mythos-building doesn't necessitate that we lie to our students. We can teach our students of America's many failings while showcasing that our reformation has come about because of, not in spite of, our founding vision — that, for example, Confederate leaders rebuffed our founding documents while Frederick Douglass embraced them. While the current crisis is unlikely to escalate into war involving our forces, at some point, America will again face a threat to its existence. Will we meet the challenge? I worry we won't. No one will storm a beach to defend whatever our DEI consultants think America is.
After the SOTU, Charles C. W. Cooke examines Biden's rhetorical methods, and finds none: The singer David Bowie liked to write lyrics by cutting scribbled notes into pieces, throwing them wildly up into the air, and then reassembling them at random. Joe Biden's speech last night had the same tone. Indeed, with the exception of his nod to Ukraine, Biden's address wasn't an address, so much as it was a series of "and one more thing . . ." exclamations of the sort one might suffer through from a lazy drunk at a bar. Biden empathized mawkishly with the victims of inflation, but then lauded the binge that helped it spiral. He used "Built in America" as a slogan, but then outlined an agenda that would ensure it never happens. He lied about the things he always lies about — the protections that are supposedly enjoyed by firearms companies, the distribution of the 2017 tax cuts, that as president he has "created" millions of jobs; he shouted about the things that excite him; and he ignored the things that do not. The Afghanistan withdrawal, which he still maintains was an "extraordinary success," was not mentioned at all. And then there was his delivery. As a rule, I am a dove when it comes to politicians' rhetorical mistakes. Presidents are busy and tired and constantly in motion, and from time to time they are bound to forget which city they are in or to mispronounce a foreign word. But with Biden, it is relentless. Because they must, the president's apologists like pretend that his shortcomings are the product of a persistent childhood "stutter." But this, of course, is nonsense, as anyone who remembers him ten years ago can attest. Simply put, Joe Biden can no longer speak properly. He slurs and mangles his words; he struggles mightily to distinguish between concepts — and contexts; his memory cannot keep up with his folksy off-script digressions, which now end with a trail-off or a pivot or an involuntary Kerouacian riff. Unable to read or process the contents of the Teleprompter, Biden talked last night about "a pound of Ukrainian people," confused "Ukrainian" with "Iranian" (provoking a mouthed correction from Kamala Harris), referenced "other freedee loving nations," and praised the Ukrainian "mall of strength." And those were just the highlights.
From the Institute for Justice, Erica Smith Ewing and Daryl James relay yet another story of how needless government meddling has worsened Covid-related hardships: Single mother Bianca King rebounded quickly when she lost her job as a program manager in the aerospace industry as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Turning the situation into an opportunity, she opened a state-approved babysitting service at her home near Austin, Texas. Enterprising individuals — especially women — have operated similar businesses for centuries; home-based child care is an ordinary activity that fills an important societal need. Unfortunately, not everyone celebrated King's new venture. Her home in Lakeway, Texas, is adjacent to the eighth hole of the Live Oak Golf Course, and three golfers complained to the city about the hardship of teeing off within earshot of children. One of the golfers, a former Lakeway mayor, described seeing playthings behind a fence in King's enclosed backyard. "There were huge blowup toys and things that were outside in the backyard that were fully visible to the golf course," he told the city's Zoning and Planning Commission during a public hearing. The only inflatable toy that King owns is a five-foot-tall rainbow sprinkler — nothing out of the ordinary in a family-friendly community. The golfers' only other complaint was about parents' picking up and dropping off their kids. But again, the outrage was exaggerated. King watches only two to four children at a time — in addition to her own son and daughter — and all of her clients live nearby. They drive in their own neighborhood during daylight hours, and some of them walk with strollers. The business generates no outside traffic. Despite the lack of any legitimate gripe, Lakeway sided with the golfers. Relying on onerous zoning rules that make home-based businesses nearly impossible to start, local officials rejected King's application for a city permit in November and denied her appeal in February. The one-two punch has put King's sole source of income in jeopardy, while creating uncertainty for her clients.
Shout-Outs Mary Anastasia O'Grady, at the Wall Street Journal: Putin's Victims in Guatemala Andrew Michta, at City Journal: Europe's Wakeup Call Samuel Bendett, at Defense One: Where Are Russia's Drones? Vladislav Davidzon, at UnHerd: A Putin puppet government will fail CODA Jay Nordlinger highlighted this piece last weekend, but it deserves an encore. "The Great Gate of Kiev" (or Kyiv, as Jay allows) is the final triumphant installment of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and timely. Have time for one more? On the lighter side, even? Wonderful. Given the Canada-focused news cycle that churned right up until Putin opted for war, a Rush song is also — heck, always — apt. Any excuse, really, for Rush. So, from the titans of Toronto, here is a particularly vivacious live version, recorded in 1997 at a Chicago-area show and featured on Different Stages, of "Closer to the Heart." Listen for Geddy at the midpoint. | 
Megyn Kelly -> Pete Hegseth responds to 2017 rape accusation. 🔥 vol. 3, issue 13 | December 6, 2024 Quick Hits All the news you need in...
No comments: