"So it was a shock on Monday afternoon to see myself attacked in National Review as, essentially, a traitor to the white race."

"'Max Boot Fans the Flames of Racial Hatred' was the headline of an article by John Hirschauer. This was a response to a Post column I had written last week taking aim at the 55 percent of whites who in a 2018 poll said that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minority groups.... In reply, Hirschauer labeled me one of 'the self-loathing whites' who has adopted 'the politics of self-hatred.' He accused me of 'speaking in … totalizing racial language' that 'is stoking the flames of race hatred.' So telling whites not to be racists is an incitement to race hatred? How Orwellian.... I have no idea what 'totalizing racial language' means; it’s the kind of cant that [National Review founder William F.] Buckley, a stickler for precise language, would have mocked. What I do know is that this article employed the language of 'race treason' against me. Yes, Hirschauer attacked white supremacists in passing but he also engaged in moral equivalency and implied that, by denouncing racism, I was driving whites into their arms. ('Boot sets up a Faustian choice for ‘white’ readers: Side with the white supremacists and their detestable program, or sell your political soul to Max Boot and become one of the self-loathing whites.') This is part of a rhetorical strategy also employed by Trump, who occasionally denounces white supremacists but more often promotes racism while insisting his critics are the real racists."

From "National Review’s ugly attack on me reflects the Trumpification of conservatism" by Max Boot (in WaPo).

Privilege watch: Check your "tourist privilege."

I've got a long-time anti-travel theme going on this blog, so my heart leaped at the prospect of a newly hyped up political version of my critique. I mean, I deplore the overdone political correctness of the left as much as... well, as much as I do... which is only up to a point, which is the point at which it seems overdone to me, which is a complex matter, interswirled with my taste and my sense of humor.

So here's Katherine Timpf at The National Review, looking askance at the students at Clare College in Cambridge who are critiquing an "Orient Express" themed party on the ground of tourist privilege.

One student — with the delightful name Ploy Kingchatchaval — said:

What's going to happen after Trump wins big in New Hampshire?

Consider the scenario, described in The National Review — which hates Trump — by David French — who uses the subjunctive because he thinks Trump might not win big:

[T]he race would move on to South Carolina with Ted Cruz wounded slightly by the New Hampshire results, Rubio wounded badly, and the trio of governors energized just enough to stay in and keep attacking Rubio in the quest to gain exclusive ownership of the so-called “establishment lane.” Under this scenario, the loyal Trump plurality gives him disproportionate power not just in South Carolina but in the massive “SEC primary” that follows one week later. The longer the muddle lasts, the more powerful his plurality becomes. He can keep coasting as his rivals tear each other apart in their quest to create a true three-man race. Who will be the first to drop out when their polls are no better or worse than those of multiple competitors?  The primary calendar is front-loaded with states friendly to Trump and Cruz, and unless there is sufficient clarity following New Hampshire and South Carolina, the GOP establishment may just claw itself into irrelevance.

Too many governors! You can't have 3, doing the same thing. If only one of them were stronger than the others. If only the strengths of each could be merged into one Super Governor. But the GOP establishment is stuck with 3 governors, all incapable of running to the front in the governor lane. So they take shots at Rubio, and their argument is, basically, he's not a governor. He's not responsible for any consequences in the real world, because that's what it means to be a Senator. How funny for Trump to be loping along easily in the I'm-not-even-a-politician lane! How grim for the Trump-haters! And just when the Democratic Party is collapsing in an even more ludicrous scenario.

How are you feeling about this? (Multiple answers OK.)

The whole thing is bizarre. A nightmare.

I love everything collapsing. We'll see who can put the pieces back together.

I for one welcome our new leader. It's Trump, right?

What delightful symmetry, both parties cracking simultaneously.

I long for order in the GOP, to take advantage of the Dems' predicament.

I laugh at the GOP, and I'm feeling the Bern.

I scoff at the GOP, wrecking itself so Hillary can achieve her destiny at long last.

Politics, bah! They're all a joke. Always were. Just more obvious at the moment.

 

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"Men should protect women. They should not shelter behind mothers and daughters."

"Indeed, we see this reality every time there is a mass shooting. Boyfriends throw themselves over girlfriends, and even strangers and acquaintances often give themselves up to save the woman closest to them. Who can forget the story of 45-year-old Shannon Johnson wrapping his arms around 27-year-old Denise Peraza and declaring 'I got you' before falling to the San Bernardino shooters’ bullets?"

From "Only a Barbaric Nation Drafts Its Mothers and Daughters into Combat," an editorial in The National Review.

This is a traditionalist view of the female role, but it is deeply connected to physical and emotional differences that hold true for many (though not all) males and females. It's one thing to open the military to woman who, knowing themselves, choose to volunteer. But the many women who feel drawn to the caring, nurturing role should be allowed to hold their place back home, preserving the reality of home — a place with children and old people — and the idea of home — which must live in the minds of those who go far away to fight.

"National Review is dedicating a special issue of its magazine, one week before the Iowa caucuses, to stopping Trump. 'Against Trump,' blares the magazine cover."

"Inside, a blistering editorial questions Trump's commitment to conservatism, warning voters that backing him is tantamount to allowing the conservative movement to have 'fallen in behind a huckster.'"

"Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones,” the editorial reads.

And that’s just the start.

The National Review issue features anti-Trump essays from more than 20 conservative thinkers, leaders and commentators spanning the GOP’s ideological spectrum from David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian-infused Cato Institute, to William Kristol, the hawkish editor of the Weekly Standard, to David McIntosh, president of the Club for Growth. All call for Republicans to nominate someone other than Trump.

“This is the time to mobilize,” said National Review editor Rich Lowry, who is also a weekly opinion columnist at POLITICO. “The establishment is AWOL, or even worse, so it’s up to people who really believe in these ideas and principles, for whom they’re not just talking points or positions of convenience, to set out the marker.”

Trump tweets:

The failing @NRO National Review Magazine has just been informed by the Republican National Committee that they cannot participate in debate

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2016

Well, obviously.

Meanwhile, at least according to the NYT, "the cadre of Republican lobbyists, operatives and elected officials based in Washington is much more unnerved by Mr. Cruz, a go-it-alone, hard-right crusader who campaigns against the political establishment and could curtail their influence and access, building his own Republican machine to essentially replace them."

[M]any members of the Republican influence apparatus, especially lobbyists and political strategists, say they could work with Mr. Trump as the party’s standard-bearer, believing that he would be open to listening to them and cutting deals, and would not try to take over the party...

Of course, this willingness to accommodate Mr. Trump is driven in part by the fact that few among the Republican professional class believe he would win a general election. In their minds, it would be better to effectively rent the party to Mr. Trump for four months this fall, through the general election, than risk turning it over to Mr. Cruz for at least four years, as either the president or the next-in-line leader for the 2020 nomination.

But what if Trump wins? Somebody is going to have to win. The idea that each one "can't win" makes no sense. The establishment, we're told, is thinking that Trump would be a pragmatist and he wouldn't break their hold on the GOP. To flip that: If you want more disruption, Cruz is the one. 

If you had to choose between Cruz and Trump...

Trump, because he'd leave the GOP intact and he'd be pragmatic.

Trump, because he'll bring dramatic, important change.

Trump, because Cruz is even more destructively drastic.

Cruz, because he's such a strong, smart, principled conservative.

Cruz, because he'll bring dramatic, important change.

Cruz, because Trump is even more destructively drastic.

 

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"The Journal Sentinel’s Daniel Bice has seized on the tape to assert that it 'contradicts' Archer’s claims..."

"... telling a 'different story' from the one she told National Review and the one she told in her lawsuit. In reality, however, the tape omits all of the most critical moments of the raid, and corroborates Archer’s account in many key respects. To the extent it exposes differences between what was recorded and Archer’s recollection, those differences actually offer slight encouragement to those who wish to see law-enforcement officials obey constitutional mandates...."

David French (in The National Review) has some perspective on that Daniel Bice piece we were talking about yesterday.

"I suddenly realized what's happening. This is a stand-in for a wedding ceremony."

"The fundamental idea is that sex is a component of marriage, not an activity to be undertaken lightly. What is revealed is a belief that consent is actually not enough, and this additional ritual, with a contract and photography, is a simulacrum of a wedding."

I write, over at Facebook, on a post about a National Review article titled "Students Told to Take Photos With a ‘Consent Contract’ Before They Have Sex."

"Always ask yourself . . . ‘Will this configuration create a gendered space?'"

Advice to school teachers on gender inclusiveness. I was going to defend this document — PDF — against the excessive scorn from National Review, but then I scrolled down to the third page and saw this...



... and I lost  .

AND: Ironically, the "Genderbread Person" looks too male.

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade said: "You lost , I lost ."

The National Review says that "Feminists" say that "Slow Motion Is 'Sexist.'"

Well, that headline got me to click and then to click again to see what was getting paraphrased like that. The underlying article is a Canadian news article that quotes some critics of an ad for a Vancouver soccer team. First of all, the critics don't call themselves "feminists," and second of all, even if they did purport to represent the amorphous category "feminists," they'd be Canadian feminists. The news article describes the critics like this:

Social media reaction ranged from "Uhhhhhhhhh yes," and "I really don't see a problem here," on Facebook, to Twitter user "The headline isn't just @WhitecapsFC objectifies specific female fans, but also alienates females generally."

So... some Twitter user exemplified the negative reaction that caused the team to take the video down.



After that, some professors commented on the incident, perhaps because the reporter called them up and asked them what they thought. Lisa Loutzenheiser, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy, found it surprising that the team would run an ad like this because it had gotten criticized a few years ago for an ad that showed a woman's body painted with team colors.

Rakhi Ruparelia, a law professor from the University of Ottawa, apparently confronted with the above-quoted tweet, said "I could see why this would alienate a lot of women." That's not much of a feminist critique, and in fact, you have to be or play dumb not to see that this kind of ad does alienate some females.

Finally, Janni Aragon of the University of Victoria's Political Science department, said: "It's almost like I'm watching the Baywatch opening." Blechh! I had to go watch a "Baywatch" opening on YouTube to process that quote. Actually, the ad is much more of a focus on female bodies than that "Baywatch" opening. The "Baywatch" opening had just as much male torso as female, and the torso clips were intercut with shots the ocean, the beach, and various emergency vehicles. The ad is only females, and the female torso on the left is especially riveting in the chestal area.

Now, back to The National Review with the headline "Feminists: Slow Motion Is 'Sexist.'" It linked to an article in which nobody said "feminist," nobody said "sexist," and nobody said "slow motion"!  (The word "sexism" does appear in a second Canadian news article linked by The National Review, "Woman in Whitecaps video baffled by sexism controversy.")

The subheading at the National Review is: "Fans say a promo video for a soccer team reminds them of patriarchal, misogynistic Baywatch." The reference to "Baywatch" comes not from a fan but from a professor, and she's not quoted as calling "Baywatch" "patriarchal, misogynistic." We're invited to imagine raging, exaggerated females hurling tiresome buzzwords, but those words don't appear in the article. Ironically, it's The National Review that sounds tiresome and hysterical.

And it's just silly denial to pretend that ad didn't invite viewers to ogle the female body. If you want to say that's fine, go ahead. But if you want to drag in all that feminism talk, quote specific feminists and let me see your work. Don't supply the jargon yourself.

Did anyone talk about the slow motion? Watching that video, I steeled myself for some major bouncing of the large breasts on the left. But they were well-restrained. They showed tremendous restraint.

"A little more than a month after he lost his job at BuzzFeed for widespread plagiarism..."

"... Benny Johnson has landed on his feet at National Review."

National Review editor Rich Lowry acknowledged that Johnson "made a terrible mistake," but said he deserved a second chance. "He's a talented journalist, with obviously a lot to contribute...."

"It’s Not a Trap."

Writes Jeffrey H. Anderson at the National Review, reacting to Erick Erickson's "It's a Trap" at RedState.

So the righties are in conflict over the proposed legislation fix for the IYLYPYCKYP problem.

ADDED: If Erickson were right, wouldn't Obama have refrained from offering a fix that does not require congressional action?

What Justice Scalia really means when he says he believes in the Devil.

About halfway her wonderful interview with Justice Scalia, after some discussion of homosexuality in legal and in Catholic doctrine, Jennifer Senior pushes the old judge to worry about how history will look back on his era of the Court. The first prompt — "Justice ­Kennedy is now the Thurgood Marshall of gay rights" — gets merely a nod. She tries again, with another non-question: "I don’t know how, by your lights, that’s going to be regarded in 50 years." He says doesn't know and he doesn't care:

Maybe the world is spinning toward a wider acceptance of homosexual rights, and here’s Scalia, standing athwart it. 

Some might hear "standing athwart" homosexual rights and get an amusingly unintentionally sexual picture of Scalia straddling gay men. But I assume it's an allusion to William F. Buckley's famous 1955 mission statement for The National Review: "It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it." The topic was history, you know. And who else says "standing athwart"?

"At Howard University, Rand Paul Falsely Claims He Never Opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act."

Writes Adam Serwer in Mother Jones, quoting a 2010 interview in which Rand Paul said:

PAUL: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains, and I'm all in favor of that.

INTERVIEWER: But?

PAUL: You had to ask me the "but." I don't like the idea of telling private business owners—I abhor racism. I think it’s a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant—but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding, and that's most of what I think the Civil Rights Act was about in my mind.

Back in 2006, some of you may remember, I got into a very uncomfortable situation with some libertarians over precisely this issue. Rand Paul wasn't around, but I got a close-up view of some libertarians displaying an attitude about private race discrimination that literally made me cry:

"Boy, I can't think of a better Christmas present than to read about these vile unpleasant asocial deluded individuals suffering..."

"... all locked together in a big metal box. Schadenfreude to the max."

Should Todd "legitimate rape" Akin step aside?

The editors of the Nation Review Online say he should:

While Akin is a stalwart conservative and an honorable man, we regret to say that he inspires no such confidence. That is one reason why Senator Claire McCaskill, the sitting Democratic senator, boosted him during the Republican primaries with ads calling him a “true conservative.” She knew that she is the weakest Senate incumbent on the ballot this year and that her only hope was to draw a weak opponent. Akin won a three-way primary with a plurality of the vote; there was no run-off. McCaskill’s strategy is now paying off.

Akin has backed off from his remarks, albeit with the politician’s excuse of “misspeaking.” People who make such remarks on television are typically capable of making more like them, or rather incapable of exercising the judgment to refrain. We suspect that this same lack of judgment will cause Akin to blow past tomorrow evening’s deadline for him to leave the race and allow the Republicans to select a better nominee. We hope the congressman, who surely wants to see a Senate with as much conservative strength as possible next year, will prove us wrong.

Akin should...
	Step aside right now.
	Stand his ground.
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ADDED: "National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Tex.) informed Rep. Todd Akin on Monday that the national GOP will not spend money to help elect him to the Senate...."

AND: Hannity, talking to Akin, essentially tells him to get out:

I think there is one political reality that I think has to be faced by you and your campaign and that is that you know, the reality here is that Democrats now have a ton of ammunition and they are now going to try to use these remarks to hurt everybody they can. And if I was put in that position, I would at least be thinking about what is in the best interest of the party. hat is in the best interest of, you know, Mitt Romney in this case. What is in the best interest of the people of Missouri, are they going to be able to hear a campaign about issues or is this going to be the distraction of the campaign. Are you -- you're not even considering that?"

Krauthammer says Akin must leave:

"He's got to leave... He's toxic. Nobody will touch him. Republicans aren't going to support him. He's not going to get any money. They've tossed away a seat that they could easily have won. It isn't only that it was offensive and toxic; it was unbelievably stupid. And there is enough stupidity in Congress that we don't need to add to it in this large amount. The guy's got to leave."

It was sharp of Republicans to drop Akin cold. No one thought he was worth defending.

"If being a louse were a crime, John Edwards would hang for it."

"But he is instead facing prison for alleged campaign-finance violations, and it is our obligation to come unenthusiastically to his defense. He may be guilty of bribery, and if he were a sitting senator he would likely be guilty of gross ethics violations, but the facts do not support prosecuting Edwards under campaign-finance laws."

Say the editors of The National Review.

"If you could do it again, would you publish 'The Talk: The Nonblack Version'?"

"I never ponder counterfactuals."

But he also says: "I may even just give up writing and work as a butler or something. I sometimes feel I've said everything I want to say."

Rich Lowry is keeping it short.

"Needless to say, no one at National Review shares Derb’s appalling view of what parents supposedly should tell their kids about blacks in this instantly notorious piece here."

That's the whole item. Should he have said more?

For links to more commentary on the abysmally bad John Derbyshire piece, go here.

IN THE COMMENTS: Patrick said:

He should have added another line, informing NRO readers that Derbyshire is no longer an NR contributor.

Remember when National Review fired Ann Coulter?

UPDATE: Rich Lowry announces that NR has fired Derbyshire. After some nice compliments — "he’s a deeply literate, funny, and incisive writer" — and some half-compliments — he's "maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative" — Lowry calls the new piece "nasty and indefensible." NR would never have published it, yet the name, National Review, is getting used to inflate its prominence. "Derb is effectively using our name to get more oxygen for views with which we’d never associate ourselves otherwise." Lowry calls the article "so outlandish it constitutes a kind of letter of resignation." Perhaps it is what Derbyshire wanted, and now he's got a powerful send-off.

"Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is in a bid to make history in Iowa."

"Can he become the first marginal, conspiracy-minded congressman with an embarrassing catalog of racist material published under his name to win the caucuses?"

The National Review's Rich Lowry goes hardcore.

Gingrich's "character flaws — his impulsiveness, his grandiosity, his weakness for half-baked (and not especially conservative) ideas..."

"... made him a poor Speaker of the House. Again and again he combined incendiary rhetoric with irresolute action, bringing Republicans all the political costs of a hardline position without actually taking one. Again and again he put his own interests above those of the causes he championed in public."

He says, and his defenders say, that time, reflection, and religious conversion have conquered his dark side. If he is the nominee, a campaign that should be about whether the country will continue on the path to social democracy would inevitably become to a large extent a referendum on Gingrich instead. And there is reason to doubt that he has changed. Each week we see the same traits that weakened Republicans from 1995 through 1998: I’d vote for Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform; Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform is radical right-wing social engineering; I apologize for saying that, and no one should quote what I said because I was wrong; actually, what I said was right all along but nobody understood me. I helped defeat Communism; anyone who made money in the ’80s and ’90s owes me; I’m like Reagan and Thatcher. Local community boards should decide what to do with illegal immigrants. Freddie Mac paid me all that money to tell them how stupid they were. Enough. Gingrich has always said he wants to transform the country. He appears unable to transform, or even govern, himself. He should be an adviser to the Republican party, but not again its head.

So say the editors of The National Review.