SOBRAN'S --
The Real News of the Month
January 2004
Volume 11, Number 1
Editor: Joe Sobran
Publisher: Fran Griffin (Griffin Communications)
Managing Editor: Ronald N. Neff
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CONTENTS
Features
-> Washington's New Confederacy
-> Topical Notes (plus Exclusives to this edition)
-> A Flawed Life of Oxford
-> The Grandfather
Nuggets (plus Exclusives to this edition)
List of Columns Reprinted in This Issue
FEATURES
Washington's New Confederacy
(page 1)
{{ Material dropped or changed solely for reasons of
space appears in double curly brackets. Emphasis is
indicated by the presence of asterisks around the
emphasized words.}}
In the American pantheon of "great presidents," the
first is still George Washington, even though he has been
somewhat tarnished by the now-mortal sin of having owned
slaves. I live near Mount Vernon, and I like to visit it
now and then to remind myself of what America was once
like. On my latest outing there, with a foreign visitor,
I was struck again by the scale of the old slave economy.
It was truly a different country, more foreign to us than
England is today.
The other day I also happened to read a few
quotations from Washington's letters. They were written
in an English that is also becoming foreign to us. One of
the difficulties of reading old documents is that we are
apt to be misled by familiar words when we don't realize
they were being used in old senses no longer current. We
too easily read our ancestors as if they shared our own
assumptions, when that may be far from the truth.
Washington wrote the letters in question shortly
after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, over
which he had presided in the summer of 1787, and while
the debate over ratification was raging. He explained to
Lafayette the following April that under the proposed
Constitution, the people "retain everything they do not,
by express terms, give up." This is of course the
principle that would be enshrined in the Tenth Amendment;
nobody disputed it, though it is now pretty much
forgotten. It's still easy to understand, but apparently
impossible to enforce.
Washington habitually referred to the U.S.
Government as a "confederated government" or
"confederacy." To modern ears this is a bit startling,
since these terms are now used almost exclusively to mean
the Southern states that tried to leave the Union in
Lincoln's time; Lincoln himself sometimes called the
Union a "confederacy." But he abandoned the term,
probably because it was still understood to mean a
*voluntary* union, which he insisted his Union was most
definitely not.
Washington clearly didn't share Lincoln's view. In
June 1788, fearing that the Constitution wouldn't be
ratified, he wrote to General Henry Knox, "I can not but
hope that the States which may be disposed to make a
secession will think often and seriously on the
consequences." But he didn't suggest that the states had
no right to "make a secession."
A few days later Washington wrote to General Charles
Pinckney that New Hampshire had "acceded to the new
Confederacy," adding in reference to North Carolina, "I
should be astonished if that State should withdraw from
the Union." Again, there is no hint that either state was
obliged to join the Union, "the new Confederacy." "To
accede" is the counterpart of "to secede." Washington
used words precisely. A state with the option to accede
could also secede.
{{ The language is quaint, but the Father of Our
Country unmistakably agreed with Jefferson, not Lincoln,
that these were "Free and Independent States," united by
mere confederation. He also called the Constitution
itself "a compact or treaty," once more taking the
Jeffersonian rather than the Lincolnian position. }}
Washington's choice of words is significant; he had
little formal education and was not an original or even
especially trenchant thinker. His language merely
reflects the consensus of America's revolutionary
generation, and for that reason is a reliable guide to a
misunderstood period in American history. It also shows
how completely out of touch Abraham Lincoln was with "the
fathers" he claimed to speak for.
TOPICAL NOTES
(page 2)
Federal spending has grown more under *three* years
of George W. Bush than under *eight* years of Bill
Clinton. Bush has yet to veto any act of Congress, which,
at his urging, has enormously expanded Medicare, the
signature boondoggle of the Great Society. Such is our
"compassionate conservative" and "strict constructionist"
in the White House. He has effectively repudiated every
conservative principle of limited government. But can
conservatives bear to return the favor by repudiating
him? Or does the war in Iraq compensate for everything
else? Put otherwise, we are about to find out if the
conservative movement is now under total control of the
neoconservatives, who have no principles (and only one
interest).
* * *
During Bush's ballyhooed Thanksgiving visit to Iraq,
he carefully avoided contact with one group: Iraqis.
Maybe he was afraid they wouldn't be thankful for their
liberation. If so, he was probably right. During his
recent trips to England and Asia, he was roundly heckled
by people he hasn't even bombed yet.
* * *
But why get indignant at Bush? He is, after all, a
politician -- that is, a man who submits willingly to the
time and its pressures. You might as well get mad at a
barometer. What's really grotesque is the way his
admirers praise him for having the courage to *defy*
those pressures -- as if liberals were still ruling
American politics! Bush defies liberals only when he sees
that they are weak.
* * *
Today's alleged conservatism seems to be a form of
despair wearing a mask of optimism. Intelligent
conservatives will tell you, in a somewhat apologetic
tone, that Bush is "about the best we can expect." But
this is what allows Republicans to pose as the polar
opposite of, and only alternative to, the liberal
Democrats whose premises they share. And entry-level
conservatives (such as Limbaugh fans) never learn of the
large and growing gap between "the best we can expect"
and the Real Thing.
* * *
The great Paul Scofield, now in his eighties, has
just recorded a brilliant performance as King Lear on the
Naxos label (available on CDs and audiotape). He also
recorded the part in the wonderful Caedmon series of
Shakespeare recordings forty years ago. Not to mention --
and I'd really rather not mention it -- his starring role
in Peter Brook's misconceived 1970 film (back when
existentialism was still hot stuff). Scofield's
incomparable voice only gets richer and subtler with age.
* * *
David Brooks, the latest "conservative" columnist of
the NEW YORK TIMES, says conservatives should not only
favor gay marriage, they should *insist* on it. You know,
encourage stable relationships, and all that. It's such a
bright idea you have to wonder why it has never occurred
to, say, a Pope. We await an encyclical proclaiming that
buggery is strictly illicit outside the context of
Christian matrimony.
* * *
Following the ordination of an openly homosexual
Episcopal bishop in the United States, the Vatican has
suspended talks with the Anglican Church for the time
being. Several Eastern Orthodox churches have already
done so; but given Rome's post-Vatican II enthusiasm for
"dialogue," this is an extraordinary step. Anglicanism
used to consider itself the Via Media between Catholicism
and Protestantism. Today it's perhaps the Via Media
between Unitarianism and -- what? -- Fire Island?.
Exclusive to the electronic version:
The Justice Department has ordered the deportation
of another octogenarian, dwelling in New York, for having
served as a German concentration-camp guard during World
War II. Fair is fair, so shouldn't we also be hunting
down the men who guarded the concentration camps for
Japanese-Americans during that same war? Or were they, to
borrow a phrase, just following orders?
A Flawed Life of Oxford
(pages 3-5)
{{ Material dropped or changed solely for reasons of
space appears in double curly brackets. Emphasis is
indicated by the presence of asterisks around the
emphasized words.}}
Since 1920, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, has
emerged as the favorite candidate of most
anti-Stratfordians for authorship of the Shakespeare
works. He has by now eclipsed the chief previous
challenger, Francis Bacon. Yet professional scholars have
paid little attention to Oxford, except to ridicule
claims of his authorship of the greatest plays in English
literature.
MONSTROUS ADVERSARY: THE LIFE OF EDWARD DE VERE,
17TH EARL OF OXFORD (Liverpool, 527 pp.), by Alan H.
Nelson, is only the second biography of its subject, the
first being Bernard M. Ward's 1928 SEVENTEENTH EARL OF
OXFORD, 1550-1604. Both books are important contributions
to the Shakespeare authorship debate. Ward was driven by
the conviction that Oxford was "Shakespeare"; Nelson aims
to refute, by implication, the Oxfordian thesis.
Nelson, who teaches English at Berkeley, goes far
deeper into the documentary records than the amateur
scholar Ward did. Even Oxford's partisans must be
grateful for his diligence. One thing is certain: the
authorship debate will never be the same.
Oddly enough, Nelson refuses to admit that he is
joining battle in the debate. He refers to it in derisive
quotation marks as the "authorship controversy," as if it
weren't really a controversy at all, even though he has
been a vigorous participant in it for many years. I
myself have debated him twice, in San Francisco and
Washington, and he reviewed my pro-Oxford book, ALIAS
SHAKESPEARE, in THE SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY. And it is
obvious that the only reason Oxford merits a biography at
all is that he has become the most plausible challenger
for the claim to the Shakespeare works.
"My main purpose," Nelson assures us in his
introduction, "is to introduce documents from Oxford's
life, many of them written in Oxford's own hand. Since
documents alone do not make a biography, however, I have
felt duty-bound to point out their significance for an
accurate estimation of Oxford's character. If I judge
Oxford harshly from the outset, it is because I neither
can nor wish to suppress what I have learned along the
way. True believers will of course spin Oxford's
reprehensible acts into benevolent gestures, or will
transfer blame from Oxford to Burghley, Leicester, Queen
Elizabeth, or even to Oxford's much-abused wife Anne. I
beg the open-minded reader to join me in holding the
mature Oxford responsible for his own life, letting the
documentary evidence speak for itself."
But already we sense a problem. If the documents
speak for themselves, why is it necessary to "point out
their significance"? Is it only "true believers" who
"spin" the evidence?
Despite his preemptive charges against these "true
believers" (who he assumes will not be "open-minded"
about the facts), Nelson is generous to Oxfordians for
their efforts to shed light on Oxford's life and he names
several to whom he is indebted. Oxfordians, for their
part, now stand in Nelson's debt for breaking much new
ground in his research, even if it is unflattering to
(and strongly biased against) their candidate.
Nelson calls Oxfordian scholars "partisan," which is
fair enough, but he is hardly impartial himself. His
clear purpose is to discredit Oxford in almost every
respect. He portrays him as an "egotist," "thug,"
"sodomite," "atheist," "vulture," traitor, murderer,
rapist, pederast, adulterer, libeler, fop, playboy,
truant, tax evader, drunkard, snob, spendthrift,
deadbeat, cheat, blackmailer, malcontent, hypocrite,
conspirator, and ingrate. Some of this finds support in
the records, as even Oxford's admirers usually
acknowledge, but it hardly proves what Nelson wants it to
prove: that Oxford couldn't have written the Shakespeare
works. After all, many great writers have been men of
dubious character.
It is true enough that Oxford made plenty of
enemies; but he also made plenty of loyal friends.
Impartial, "open-minded" scholarship would hardly accept
the charges of his enemies with total credulity, while
ignoring or dismissing the word of his friends. Yet this
is Nelson's method.
Nelson seldom misses a chance to disparage Oxford.
Apparently his years of research have failed to turn up a
single fact to Oxford's credit. The reader's respect for
his impressive scholarship soon gives way to weariness at
his obsessive denigration, which shows him no less biased
than those who adulate Oxford. He is always ready to
believe Oxford's most scurrilous foes -- he takes the
phrase "monstrous adversary" from one of them, who in the
same sentence says luridly that Oxford "would drink my
blood" -- but he largely omits the many contemporary
tributes to Oxford's genius (unless he can ascribe them
to base motives). About the only thing Nelson is willing
to credit Oxford with is elegant penmanship.
Though Nelson belittles Oxford as a poet, a scholar,
and even a letter-writer, he has oddly little to say
about his high literary reputation in his own day. Only
about twenty short lyrics have survived under Oxford's
name, but they hardly suffice for an evaluation; he must
have written much more than that to draw such generous
and copious praise (little of which Nelson cites). And
though none of Oxford's highly lauded plays have survived
under his name, Nelson is willing to assume that they
were of no particular merit. He bases his attacks
entirely on slight evidence, when he would have been wise
to heed Richard Whately's dictum: "He who is unaware of
his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge." It
is certain that Oxford produced a substantial body of
work, whether or not this included the Shakespeare plays
and poems, and that it commanded great respect. Nelson
makes his judgment of what is missing on a very
fragmentary record -- and on his own antipathy to Oxford.
He even argues, from a few minor grammatical errors
in casual letters, that Oxford's Latin was poor, in spite
of the testimony of a hostile witness (whom he does
quote) that Oxford "spoke Latin and Italian well." He
also neglects to mention that Oxford wrote an elegant
Latin preface to a translation of Castiglione's BOOK OF
THE COURTIER and that Oxford, during a two-week visit to
the noted scholar Johann Sturmius, evidently conversed
with Sturmius entirely in Latin. Since Nelson eagerly
presents (and amplifies) every detail he can find that
seems damaging to Oxford, it is suspicious that he
suppresses so much that is favorable to him.
In short, Nelson argues that Oxford was a scoundrel,
ergo he couldn't have been "Shakespeare." This non
sequitur informs the whole book. The same argument was
advanced by the late A.L. Rowse, who offered as
conclusive proof the fact that Oxford was accused of
being, as Rowse put it, a "homo." Of course this fact may
tell the other way: the Shakespeare Sonnets, or at least
the first 126, are now widely recognized as being
homosexual love poems (as I contended in my own book).
Beyond that, a major theme of the Sonnets is the poet's
recurrent lament that he is "in disgrace" -- something
Oxford had reason to complain of, though William of
Stratford apparently didn't.
Because Nelson ostensibly excludes the "authorship
controversy" from consideration, he doesn't feel he must
confront the seeming links between Oxford and
"Shakespeare." Thus, for example, he says hardly anything
of the young Earl of Southampton, whom Lord Burghley,
Oxford's father-in-law, tried to marry off to Oxford's
daughter in the early 1590s, the same time, it appears,
that "Shakespeare" was urging Southampton (or someone
remarkably like him) to marry and beget a son.
In fact, the earls of Southampton, Pembroke, and
Montgomery -- the three dedicatees of the Shakespeare
works -- were all, at various times, candidates for the
hands of Oxford's three daughters. An interesting
coincidence, at least, but Nelson's biographical strategy
allows him to avoid mentioning it. The same strategy
allows him to deal only glancingly, if at all, with other
interesting coincidences. Two of the chief literary
influences on "Shakespeare," Henry Howard (Earl of
Surrey) and Arthur Golding (translator of Ovid), were
Oxford's uncles. Many details of Oxford's 1575-76 Italian
journey pop up in the Shakespeare works. Phrases from
Oxford's letters frequently appear in those works too.
{{ Burghley himself, as many orthodox Stratfordian
scholars have discerned, is clearly the model for the
snooping Polonius. }} Oxford, like Hamlet, was captured
by pirates in the English Channel.
All this is missing from Nelson's biography. He does
mention that those "true believers" think Oxford was
Shakespeare, but he leaves the impression that he has no
idea *why* they think so, just as he has no idea *why*
Edmund Spenser, George Puttenham, Francis Meres, and many
other Elizabethan writers called Oxford a poet and
playwright of great distinction -- except that they
somehow thought it worth their while to curry favor with
the most impecunious patron in England. For Oxford
received his most lavish praise after he had wasted his
huge family fortune and was reduced to wheedling for
money himself. From a cynic's point of view, he was no
longer worth flattering. He was truly "in disgrace with
fortune and men's eyes." Yet some men loved and admired
him.
Agreeing with Oxford's enemies, Nelson, in spite of
his own intent, makes this "monstrous adversary" a man of
dimension, an abundant personality, too energetic and
colorful to be dismissed by moralistic censure. The book
reads like a Puritan American parson's biography of
Falstaff. All the author can see in his subject is pure
vice. That is all he is equipped to perceive. But the
subject escapes the biographer's categories. Sinful as he
no doubt is, he is *alive.* Everything you can say
against him may be true, in a narrow and literal sense.
"Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape
whipping?" But beware of being "right" about such a man.
Rarely has an author so nakedly loathed his subject.
I have read more dispassionate biographies of Hitler and
Stalin. Nelson's disapproval of Oxford recalls Tolstoy's
detestation of Shakespeare.
Having relieved himself of the duty of facing
evidence in favor of Oxford's authorship, Nelson simply
pretends it doesn't exist. Yet in his review of my own
book, he had no choice but to confront it, since I spent
thirty pages on the Sonnets alone. Far from treating the
argument as absurd, Nelson could only offer the weak
rejoinder that the poet's self-portrait might, if only we
had more data, match William Shakspere as closely as it
matches Oxford. "The Sonnets," he wrote, "may bear a
distinct relationship to what we do not know [about
Shakspere] (which must be vastly more than what we know);
nor are they by any means impossible to reconcile with
the little that is known [about Shakspere]."
But Nelson failed to explain how any new information
could possibly make Shakspere appear as an aging man of
high social rank who had fallen into disrepute by the
1590s. The best he could offer was the risible suggestion
that Shakspere might have "felt" older than he actually
was because he was "prematurely balding" -- a desperate
guess based solely on the Folio portrait, since we have
no reason to assume that Shakspere's or the poet's
hairline had receded "prematurely," {{ and the poet
refers to his "lines and wrinkles," but not his hair
loss. }} And early baldness, however unwelcome, would
hardly give its victim a sense of impending death.
The poet also twice speaks of himself as "lame" --
the very word Oxford used of himself in several letters
he wrote in the 1590s. (We have no indication that
Shakspere was lame.) He mysteriously hopes his "name"
will be "buried" and "forgotten" after his death, which
he would hardly do if he were putting his real name on
his published works (which he expects to outlive him). He
uses about two hundred legal terms, some fifty of which
also appear in Oxford's private letters; the Sonnets also
use dozens of the same words, images, metaphors, and
arguments we find in Oxford's 1573 published letter to
Thomas Bedingfield. In his review, as in his book, Nelson
has nothing to say about all these coincidences. He
merely adopts an air of assumed authority to evidence
which many readers have found overwhelming.
The Sonnets offer perhaps the strongest evidence in
favor of Oxford's authorship. {{ They have always made
Stratfordian scholars uneasy, because what they tell us
is so hard to square with even "the little that is known"
about Stratford's William. }} The very fact that they are
often described as "fictional" tells us how feeble any
biographical nexus with William is. If he had written
them, surely they would be the strongest and most
irrefutable proof of his authorship, and there would be
no need to place them in the category of mere inventions
or pure "literary exercises," as so many orthodox
scholars do.
We may state the point even more forcefully. If
William had written the Sonnets, their contents would
naturally be the starting point for all Shakespeare
biography. After all, they would have the status of the
poet's unquestionable self-revelations, and all other
biographical data would have to be organized around them.
In that case, the Sonnets alone would have ruled out any
doubt of their author's identity, and no "authorship
controversy" would have been possible.
Instead, the biographers have had to organize their
data around the dubious Folio testimony of William's
authorship, consigning the Sonnets to a marginal place in
the sketchy story of William's life. Only because we do
know so little about his life is it barely possible to
imagine the Sonnets as his own account of himself, and
even at that they present baffling difficulties. But if
we accept Oxford as their author, the puzzles evaporate
and they make excellent sense. This is why Nelson could
claim no more than that if we knew enough about William,
they might make as much sense as they do if read as
Oxford's self-disclosures. In effect, he conceded that
our present knowledge favors, and does nothing to
disprove, Oxford's authorship of the Sonnets.
The Shakespeare works also display their author's
familiarity with contemporary Italy, as Ernesto Grillo
showed in his book SHAKESPEARE AND ITALY. In the same
review, Nelson {{ could only suggest }} that it was "not
impossible" that Shakspere had visited Italy too,
"perhaps" in a company of traveling actors (though again
there is no evidence whatever for this improbable
surmise). In his book he altogether fails to mention
striking links between Oxford's letters from Italy and
Shakespeare's Italian plays.
The only reason Nelson wrote this book -- and the
only reason anyone will read it -- is the "authorship
controversy" Nelson both deprecates and dodges. Though
MONSTROUS ADVERSARY is beyond question an important
addition to that debate, readers can draw their own
conclusions from the fact that Oxford's detractors
continue to find it necessary to deal with the evidence
so disingenuously.
The Grandfather
(page 6)
{{ Material dropped or changed solely for reasons of
space appears in double curly brackets. Emphasis is
indicated by the presence of asterisks around the
emphasized words.}}
Like countless others, including Saddam Hussein, I'm
a GODFATHER junkie; I've been one ever since the day the
first film was released in April 1972, progressing from
the paperback to the new four-disc DVD set. The latter
features lengthy commentaries on all three films by the
director, Francis Ford Coppola.
I might add that I'm also fond of Coppola's other
gangster film, THE COTTON CLUB (1984); I agree with most
of the critics about its flaws, but for my money it has
enough magic to redeem them. It's nowhere nearly equal to
THE GODFATHER, but it has a similar variety, energy, and
plenitude. I love the music, the period spectacle, and
several of the acting performances, particularly Bob
Hoskins as Ownie Madden and James Remar as Dutch Schultz.
It's now customary to credit the director for a
movie's success, but most really great films overflow
with talents that seem almost beyond the director's
control. THE THIRD MAN, for example, is superbly directed
by Carol Reed, but what would it be without the acting
(Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Alida
Valli), the script (Graham Greene), the music (Anton
Karas), and the cinematography (Robert Krasker)?
Olivier's HENRY V features Olivier's imaginative
direction and thrilling star turn, but we also marvel at
the lovely cinematography (Krasker again), the music
(William Walton), and of course the script (the Earl of
Oxford).
{{ Hitchcock never made a really resonant film,
because we always feel the master pulling the strings;
though he used the best actors, including Olivier, Cary
Grant, James Stewart, Grace Kelly, and Sean Connery, his
characters rarely seem to have a life of their own. Even
Welles's CITIZEN KANE, often ranked the greatest movie
ever made, seems, for all its brilliance, a little too
much a one-man show. }}
Coppola deserves all the praise he won for THE
GODFATHER, but we never feel the director's hand
dominating the film too much. And, in fact, the
production was never quite under his control. He was
hired to direct it, he says, in large part because he was
young and the studio, Paramount, thought he could be
"pushed around." He still sounds bitter about it, and he
remembers making the film as an unhappy and often
humiliating experience. He got only a limited budget and
was nearly fired several times before he finished the
film.
Despite his employers' bullying, Coppola had the
courage to insist on making the film his way. He went far
over his budget by adhering to the novel and setting the
story in the late 1940s; Paramount had wanted to save
money by making it contemporary, complete with hippies,
thereby eliminating the need for period costumes and old
cars. He also fought to include in the cast Marlon Brando
(whom Paramount considered washed up) and such
near-unknowns as Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall,
and Diane Keaton, all of whom the movie turned into major
stars. Don Vito Corleone, of course, proved to be by far
Brando's most famous role, eclipsing Stanley Kowalski and
Terry Malloy (of ON THE WATERFRONT).
Mario Puzo's novel may be the WAR AND PEACE of pulp
fiction. But Coppola, working with Puzo on the script,
gave the story a depth and gravitas the novel lacks. The
sleazier episodes of the book were cut out; the plot was
tightened with great skill. The movie's opening sequence
is a masterpiece of atmosphere and exposition: all the
hugger-mugger during the wedding reception, the dark
chamber of secrecy alternating with the brilliant sunlit
festivity, prepares us for everything that is to follow
without a single wasted moment.
When I first saw the Godfather's home I thought I
was back in my immigrant grandfather's house in Detroit:
I could hear the children shrieking happily and smell the
cooking. And after all, the Godfather *is* a grandfather.
If this was "organized crime," it seemed awfully
familiar. Coppola, who was also born in Detroit, says he
drew heavily on his Italian family memories. The sense of
personal associations to which the film owes so much is
largely due to the vivid yet subtle camera work of Gordon
Willis.
Coppola brought the same team, minus Brando, back
for THE GODFATHER PART II. Coppola didn't want to make
it, but the studio made him an offer he couldn't refuse:
because of the enormous success of the original, he
enjoyed a huge salary and a free hand.
Many critics consider the sequel even greater than
the original. I don't. Excellent as it is, it lacks the
original's warmth, humor, generosity, and spaghetti
sauce. In the earlier film we see Michael wrestling with
his fate; in the joyless sequel he's already a lost soul
at the beginning, and he merely compounds his damnation.
The essence of the drama is gone. When he finally orders
the murder of his gentle brother Fredo, he seems less
like a prince of crime than a rat.
{{ The third film in the sequence, released in 1990,
shows Coppola and Puzo exhausted; it might have been the
work of two hacks doing a lousy imitation of their
masterpiece. The saga sags sadly. Everything about it is
implausible, starting with Michael's transformation into
a "nice" Don who wants to go straight. I think Saddam
Hussein would agree with me. }}
NUGGETS
FLOGGING THE FROGS: Day in, day out, Zionist pundits
continue to bash the French, who seem to have replaced
even the Germans as targets of unbridled invective. One
of the most energetic of these scolds might perhaps
consider changing his name to Charles Froghammer.
(page 6)
BIG MISTAKE: Maybe Saddam Hussein's fatal mistake was
disguising himself to resemble Osama bin Laden. Actually,
he looked like a pathetic derelict. He had no power, no
followers, certainly no WMDs, and only as much money as
he could carry with him. Some threat. (page 7)
DEMOCRATIC OPTIONS: The two-party system offers us a
choice between one faction that wants to kill people
before they're born and another that prefers killing them
afterward. The former now adds killing them *while*
they're being born. (page 8)
THE ENEMY WITHIN: An Internet assault on anti-war
conservatives, by Jack Wheeler, goes way over the top,
accusing them of "hating America." It doesn't occur to
Wheeler that what such people hate may be not the
country, but its lawless regime. America's worst enemies
are ruling it. (page 12)
Exclusive to the electronic version:
SHORT ONE HEAD: The Boston Red Sox have acquired the
formidable Curt Schilling, giving them one of the
strongest pitching staffs in baseball. About all they
should need now to make them a match for the hated New
York Yankees is to recover the severed head of Ted
Williams. Surely Ted's son John Henry will make it
available, if the price is right.
JOE, TAKE HEED! Speaking of great pitching, Warren Spahn
has died at 82. Spahnie won a modern record 363 games,
mostly for the Boston-Milwaukee Braves, and he made them
all look easy. When his fast ball retired, he just
learned new tricks, in keeping with his great epigram,
"Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing." And he
won more than 70 of those victories after he turned 40.
Maybe his most impressive record is his lifetime
earned-run average of 3.09, considering that he pitched
382 complete games (usually on three days' rest).
PIONEER: The self-contradictory concept of same-sex
marriage has caught on in the decadent West with amazing
rapidity. About the only precedent I can find for it is
inauspicious: hostile chroniclers report that the Roman
emperor Nero "married" a boy (who, however, had been
surgically, er, altered for the purpose) and in later
marriage took the role of bride himself (though without
alteration). Usually dismissed as demented, it appears
that Nero was merely ahead of his time.
REPRINTED COLUMNS
(pages 7-12)
* The Spirit of Sacrifice (November 4, 2003)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/2003/031104.shtml
* National Service (November 11, 2003)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/2003/031111.shtml
* The Neanderthal Creed (November 18, 2003)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/2003/031118.shtml
* The Era of Bad Feelings (November 20, 2003)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/2003/031120.shtml
* Master of the Quiet Style (November 25, 2003)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/2003/031125.shtml
* The Comic Critic (Decenber 2, 2003)
http://www.sobran.com/columns/2003/031202.shtml
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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