Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Thursday

Alex Massie

Romney’s Unsurprisingly Terrible Speech

From our UK edition

Mitt Romney's "Mormon" speech must have been awful; Chris Matthews loved it. Clearly, I'm not the target audience for this sort of thing so it's perhaps unsurprising that I found it entirely unpersuasive and, in places, quite appalling. Some immediate thoughts... It was nice of Governor Romney to concede that jihadist terrorists are "worse" than Europeans who don't share the American brand of religion, but really it's insulting for him to even make the comparison. I didn't know we were also the enemy. Even if the terrorists are "infinitely worse" it's significant that the two be bracketed together as examples of the twin perils facing America.

Alex Massie

The liberty to believe anything – so long as you believe

From our UK edition

No religious test? No of course not. Who would dream that there could  - let alone should - be such a thing? Oh, hang on. Here's Mark Levin at The Corner: Now that Mitt Romney is giving a speech about faith, I'd like to hear speeches from all the candidates on faith. There seems to be general agreement here that a candidate's faith is relevant to how they may govern, so we should encourage the other candidates to do the same. I'd love to hear how Rudy's faith influences his decision-making (if indeed it does) — same with John McCain, Fred Thompson (although he has provided some indication), and so forth. And I'd like to know more about Mike Huckabee's religious beliefs as well. And as for the Democrats, it seems to me they want to have it both ways.

Alex Massie

What an embarrassment!

From our UK edition

Mitt's Mightiest Fan, K-Lo, on the speech: I think a non-talking-head American watching the speech might be embarrassed at the thought that any American might be asked to prove he's qualified to be president despite his religion. Really? What if the candidate were a Scientologist? Or a Jehovah's Witness? Or, shudder, a Muslim? I think most Americans would demand to know more about that candidate's religious views in those circumstances. I think Kathryn would too. Equally, it seems entirely proper that Huckabee's belief in Creationism be weighed when assessing his candidacy. If you believe religious faith is a necessary condition for the Presidency - and clearly many people, including K-Lo and Romney, do - then that faith must be a matter for discussion.

Alex Massie

Better than a chaffinch, I suppose

From our UK edition

Mike Huckabee might not be ready for prime time. Here he is on national security: During the Cold War, we had hawks and doves, but this new war requires us to be a phoenix, rising reborn to meet each new challenge and seize each new opportunity. Really, governor? Yes, really: When the sun rose on September 11, we were the only superpower in the world; when the sun set that day, we were still the only superpower, but how different the world looked. During the Cold War, you were a hawk or a dove, but this new world requires us to be a phoenix, to rise from the ashes of the twin towers with a whole new game plan for this very different enemy.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Happy Repeal Day

From our UK edition

December 5th, 1933, American becomes a better country as the 18th Amendment to the Constitution is repealed and the Prohibition era ends. Now, about that War on Drugs...?

Alex Massie

Romney’s Faith-Based Problem

From our UK edition

What should Mitt Romney say in his impossible-to-live-up-to-the-hype speech in Texas tomorrow? Noah Millman puts some fine words into the governor's mouth here: “This is the place.” That’s what Brigham Young said when he came to the valley of the Great Salt Lake for the first time. I don’t know if he heard him say it, but my grandfather’s grandfather was there, so he might have. The man who had led his people through the wilderness had come to the spot where he, and they, would build their permanent homes. It’s a great American story. A group of hardy pioneers, setting off westward to find a place where they could live according to their consciences and reap the fruit of their own labor.

Alex Massie

Comment is free, facts are extremely expensive

From our UK edition

I agree with Garance that there's lots of interest in Bill Keller's Hugo Young lecture. And like her I was struck by this passage: The New York Times has six correspondents assigned to Iraq, plus a rotating cast of photographers, plus Pentagon correspondents who regularly travel with the troops. We employ, in addition, about 80 brave Iraqis - many of them handpicked stringers based in towns that are no longer safe for westerners. Sustaining the Baghdad bureau costs several million dollars a year. We take extraordinary precautions to keep our people safe, but two of our Iraqi colleagues have been murdered in cold blood, almost certainly because they worked for an American organisation.

Alex Massie

Henry Hyde’s transatlantic problem

From our UK edition

I meant to comment on the death of Congressman Henry Hyde before now but never got around to it. National Review says: During the height of the impeachment controversy, Rep. Maxine Waters, a left-wing Democrat, tried to scold Hyde: “History will not be kind to you.” She was wrong. History will remember Henry Hyde for precisely what he was: One of the great congressmen of his generation — or any generation. Well it's all about your perspective isn't it? From a British point of view Henry Hyde was one of the very worst Congressmen of his generation (not as ghastly, admittedly, as the loathsome Peter King but arguably more influential). His retirement from Congress was celebrated by British diplomats in Washington and civil servants at the Ministry of Defence.

Monday

Alex Massie

It’s a funny old world…

From our UK edition

"News" you expected from Russia: Russian President Vladimir Putin's party has won a landslide election victory, official results show. With more than 80% of ballots counted, his United Russia had 63% of the vote. The opposition Communists and two other parties were also poised to win seats. Opposition allegations of fraud were dismissed by the electoral commission. News you may not have expected from Venezuela: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has narrowly lost a referendum on controversial constitutional changes. Voters rejected the sweeping reforms by a margin of 51% to 49%, the chief of the National Electoral Council said. Mr Chavez described the defeat as a "photo finish", and urged followers not to turn it into a point of conflict.

Alex Massie

Mitt’s Mormon Moment

From our UK edition

Daniel Larison explains why Mitt Romney's speech on "religious liberty" on Thursday is going to be a tricky balancing act: His speech will have to go something like this: “My faith, which is very important to me and has made me who I am, should not be important to you, but it is important that we have a person of faith leading this country, and that person happens to be me.” It is Romney's misfortune that many Americans wonder if he actually belongs to a cult. Doubtless he feels this is unfair, but he could comfort himself by reflecting that he could be labouring under a much more grievous burden: he could be an atheist*. Besides, Romney has no-one to blame but himself.

Alex Massie

Because the current war just isn’t big enough…

From our UK edition

National Review Online's Andy McCarthy believes that the premise that: "we are all quite aware that the Muslims we take seriously are the formers and reformers'" — is mistaken.  We, as in you and I and many of us Corner types, may be aware of that.  But the American people generally are not.  They have been told, repeatedly, by high public officials (and those who would be high public officials) that there is one Islam, that it is a religion of peace (the religion of love and peace, sayeth our Secretary of State), and that the people we need to be concerned about constitute a tiny fringe who have distorted the "true Islam.

Alex Massie

Death by Moron

From our UK edition

While I'm at it, here's more deranged idiocy from The Corner. A fellow named Peter Wehner, who until March 2007 apparently served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Strategic Initiatives, has this to say about The New Republic and the gruesome Scott Beauchamp affair: What The New Republic didn’t understand, and still seems unable to grasp, is that they and others saw this for what it was: an effort to use Beauchamp’s story to paint an ugly portrait of those serving in Iraq. The magazine had turned against the war, and this piece would help turn people against those serving in the war. What has happened instead is that the situation in Iraq is turning around — and the TNR piece has utterly collapsed.

Alex Massie

How the Elector of Saxony Created Osama bin Laden. Or Something.

From our UK edition

So it's all-Corner all the time here today. Next up is the never-knowingly-undersold Mark Steyn: The Islamic "reformation" is, in a sense, the opposite of Christianity's. The Saudis have used their vast oil enrichment to promote themselves as a kind of Holy See for Muslims, and the Wahhabization of previously low-key syncretic localized Islams in almost every corner of the planet is testament to their success. I look at the gazillions of dollars tossed into the great sucking maw of US "intelligence" agencies and I wonder why somewhere in the budget we couldn't put something aside to promote a bit of covert ideological rollback in Chechnya or Bosnia or Pakistan. But we're not that savvy, and God knows what unintended consequences would blow up in our faces.

Alex Massie

Yanks: Iran Nixes Nukes

From our UK edition

If true, this is the best news to come out of Washington in a long, long time. Turns out the Iranians may not be nuts after all. Who knew? The NYT reports: A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb. The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be a major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program.

Saturday

Alex Massie

The Highway of Holiness Runs Through San Antonio (Who Knew?)

From our UK edition

Verily, it's useful to be reminded that the United States of America is a very different kind of country. A foreigner - or a New Yorker - could spend a lifetime here and never understand this sort of thing. It is so extreme, so un-modern (for better or for worse), so convinced of the imminent apocalypse and yet, also, almost painstakingly optimistic. Reverent too, not just in terms of its religiosity but also in its boundless belief in man's capacity for revelatory improvement. In this last measure, then, these evangelicals cling to a vital part of the American idea: There is always a Second Act. (There's always appalling hucksterism too, of course, and no shortage of snake-oil peddlers preying upon the credulous and the needy. But that's a different matter.) And yet, and yet...

Alex Massie

Fail, Fail and Fail Again. So Why Bother Changing?

From our UK edition

If you only read one article this weekend, might I suggest you make it Ben Wallace-Wells long and brilliant Rolling Stone piece on the multiple - if well-intentioned - idiocies and failures of the War on Drugs. Since it's been running since the Nixon administration you might think that it's time for a fresh approach. Wallace-Wells concludes on a hopeful note: there are grass roots signs of a shift in attitudes amongst police departments across America and there are some signs that Democrats and some Republicans are learning from the War's manifest $50bn a year failure. On the other hand, Washington is sufficiently thrilled with the success of Plan Colombia that it's creating a Plan Mexico and trying to replicate its Latin American triumphs (sic) in, of all places, Afghanistan.

Alex Massie

Kicking a Man When He’s Brown

From our UK edition

I used to think that the feebleness of the scandals that occasionally brought down a minister or two in Edinburgh was matched only by the embarrassment one felt watching the Scottish press corps work itself into a frenzy in anticipation of feeding upon cheap cuts that properly corrupt countries would never consider feeding their dogs with. There's something similar in the air about the fund-raising scandal that is destroying Gordon Brown's government. Except, of course, that after a decade of mendacity, he deserves it. Still, the scandal itself - laundered campaign contributions and a ridiculous scramble in which everyone does their best to implicate everyone else - is scarcely of epic proportions.

Friday

Alex Massie

A Cook’s Bookshelf

From our UK edition

Megan offers her annual Christmas cooking recommendations. Kit here; manuals here. As usual, there's lots of good stuff. But permit me to offer some supplementary ideas on the matter of cookbooks. If, as Megan suggests you should, you own several of Julia Child's books you may not think you need another set of classic volumes on French, Italian and Mediterranean food. You'd be wrong. No serious Anglophone cook should be without at least two (if not all three) of Elizabeth David's masterpieces: Mediterranean Food, Italian Food and French Provincial Cooking. These three books alone provide enough inspiration to last a lifetime.