Enron Verdict: Guilty

The Bradley Prize Winners Are...

I saw a small ad in the Washington Post today, but it didn't say how much. At $250,000 each, it seems worth mentioning. I read Hernando deSoto's books on the mystery of capital, and they were very interesting. And I also took a class from Fouad Ajami, and he certainly deserves every penny...But for some strange reason the Bradley foundation seems more excited about singer Della Reese (in the headline and the lede) than their own winners (merely mentioned in the second graf). Anyway, here's the press release for what seems to be the conservative foundation world's answer to the McArthur "genius" awards.:

Milwaukee, WI—The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation today announced world renowned singer and actress Della Reese will perform at the third annual Bradley Prizes ceremony being held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, May 25, 2006.

The 2006 Bradley Prizes honor Dr. Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies; Clint Bolick of the Alliance for School Choice; Hernando de Soto of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy and Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institution. Each recipient will receive a stipend of $250,000.

“We are pleased and proud that Della Reese will perform at the 2006 Bradley Prizes ceremony,” said Michael W. Grebe, President and CEO of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. “Della Reese will add her voice and remarkable presence to what will be an exciting event.”

Bush Names New Domestic Policy Chief

Karl Zinsmeister, editor of The American Enterprise magazine, published by AEI. An excerpt from the NY Sun report:

Mr. Zinsmeister, who declined to be interviewed yesterday, is an unusual choice for a top White House job. While he has ties through the magazine to many leading intellectuals, his only government employment was a stint more than two decades ago as a legislative assistant to Senator Moynihan.

Mr. Zinsmeister edited the American Enterprise Institute's magazine from upstate Cazenovia [in NY state] and was rarely seen at the conservative think tank's offices in Washington.

In an e-mail to friends and colleagues yesterday, Mr. Zinsmeister signaled he will try to maintain an outsider's perspective on Washington, even as he takes up his West Wing post. He said he and his family plan to live in Baltimore, some 40 miles away.

Mr. Zinsmeister said he and Mr. Bush formed a quick bond, leading to the job offer. "After hitting it off with him and his new staff, I have accepted," the editor wrote...

...Some of the recent staffing changes have been seen as aimed at assuaging complaints about the White House from lawmakers, journalists, and other Washington insiders. However, if Mr. Bush was seeking to smooth ruffled feathers in the capital, Mr. Zinsmeister would not appear to be the right choice.

In a 2004 interview with the Syracuse New Times, the future White House aide declared, "People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings. The mom who charters a bus for her kids to go to a rave is as bad as the lady with the crackpipe. We have sickness at the top and bottom of our society and we have a big middle, sensible with common sense and decency and morality."

Just as with Mr. Snow, some of Mr. Zinsmeister's writings could cause embarrassment to the White House. He has engaged in some mild criticism of Mr. Bush's budget policies. In a recent issue of the American Enterprise, Mr. Zinsmeister wrote, "Though he talks a good line about battling government bloat, our current president has shown an eerie lackawanna when it comes to actually keeping a lid on the federal Pandora's box."

Mr. Zinsmeister has also written candidly on race, arguing that black communities have developed crippling problems that overlap in a way unseen in other parts of America. "The point of the conservative concern over black underclass life is that the pathologies run so much deeper there," he wrote in 1996, citing his mentor Moynihan. "We desperately need to find out what it is in contemporary black culture that makes for these exceptional breakdowns."

Stamp Honors Hiram Bingham, WWII Rescuer

A story in today's Washington Post about this new stamp caught our eye. Hiram Bingham IV worked with Varian Fry's Emergency Rescue Committee to save prominent intellectuals from Hitler. I interviewed Albert O. Hirschmann, who worked on the effort (in part sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt), for my film "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?" and I met some of Bingham's descendants at a "Visas for Life" reception at the State Department in 2003.

Bingham resigned from the State Department in protest in 1946. He was awarded a "constructive dissent" award by Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2002. For more information, here's a link to Kim Bingham's tribute website. Here's a quote from the website:

HARRY'S OWN WORDS in taped interview by his 13 year old grandaughter Tiffany Bingham (circa 1980): "We were transferred in 1937 to Marseille in France where there were a great many refugees from Nazi Germany trying to get visas to get to the United States and part of my work was giving visas to these refugees....They (the Germans – ed) had a lot of what was called the Fifth Column, which were sort of spies and people living in southern France. And we got rumors that the Germans were going to come down to southern France and would be there any time... Although we were not in the war, most of our government was on the side of the allies, the British and the French. But my boss who was the Consul General at that time, said, “The Germans are going to win the war. Why should we do anything to offend them?” And he didn't want to give any visas to these Jewish people. So...I had to do as much as I could.... The Germans had signed an agreement with the French that they could stay in that zone, but they must surrender any Germans that were there -- any refugees -- on demand, and they would then be sent back to concentration camps in Germany. TIFFANY: What was the most important thing that you did for the Jews? HIRAM: Well, in a way, it was getting as many visas as I could to as many people….And we did help them." Grandaughter Tiffany taped interview with Harry for Salem School class project, circa 1980.

And here's a photo from the website of the line in front of the US Consulate in Marseilles in 1940.

Richard Pipes Criticizes Bush Administration's Russia Policy

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty interviews America's leading expert on Russia, who criticizes Bush administration handling of the upcoming G8 summit (ht Johnson's Russia List):

RFE/RL: And what about American-Russian relations? Are you satisfied with the present position of the U.S. administration?

Pipes: I am somewhat critical of the way the administration handles Russia now. I think it's not up to the American government -- I mean, particularly somebody as influential as Vice President [Richard Cheney] -- to criticize the restrictions on democracy in Russia. I think that is kind of meddling in the internal affairs of another country. But I think it would be appropriate for someone lower down and perhaps for institutions such as the Council on Foreign Relations and so on to do it -- and they are doing it, criticizing it. But the president and the vice president and the secretary of state and so on, I think, should conduct a more even-handed policy and not criticize the political developments in Russia. It bothers me when that's done. Russians are extremely sensitive to any kind of criticism, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't criticize them, but one should be very careful about what one says about what's going on in Russia.

The Russian people, I think, would want Putin to continue, which gives him a strong stimulus to run again.... The Duma, I think, is prepared to vote him powers, or to make an amendment to the constitution to enable him to rule again -- but we will just have to wait and see.

RFE/RL: What about the upcoming G-8 conference in Russia? Don't you think that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's recent remarks were somehow connected with the preparation of this event?

Pipes: Well, they may have been. I don't know what was on their minds. I mean, the attitude in America now is very critical. We have, the Council on Foreign Relations, just published a report on Russia which is very, very negative. But it seems to me, you know, once you have accepted Russia into the G-8, once you go there, then good manners require that you tone down, mute your criticism. It's just a question of manners more than anything else. And Russians, I'd say, are very sensitive -- often unjustly so -- to criticism. They think it's a sign of hostility. Very often, it's a sign of friendship when you tell people, "You know, you are doing this wrong. It's not that I'm your enemy, I'm your friend, I would like you to do the right thing." But they find this very difficult to conceive. So, I would say, I hope that when the meeting takes place, that the criticism will be muted.

Roger L. Simon on Madonna's Confessions Tour

From RogerLSimon.com:

Mega-snooze, "Kabbalist" Madonna is evidently doing the Bush-Blair-Hitler routine in her new review. This is obviously "good for business" for the Material Girl, as is, I guess, her mock crucifixion (yawn). But how can you push the envelope when the paper's already sopping wet? How could anyone be interested in her trivial, clichéd nonsense when we've already seen the "Piss Christ" (That was banal enough), not to mention a half-dozen fifty year old Bunuel movies? Now if she had any real guts, Madonna would dance around on stage as Mohammed in drag. Don't hold your breath, however. Was this supposed freethinker around for the Danish Cartoons protest? Of course not. Why should she clutter her head with things that have nothing to do with money?

UPDATE: The Material Girl has gotten what she wanted - the Church of England has branded her Cross "offensive." Ka-ching! Ka-ching! C'mon, Madonna. How about little Mohammed action? Prove us wrong. We don't think you have the cojones.

Congressional Immunity

Congressmen are angry that the FBI descended on Capitol Hill to search the office of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), a suspect in an ongoing bribery investigation. The principle in question is Congressional Immunity, contained in the Constitution, based on the separation of powers to protect speech and debate from Executive branch interference. More on this legal angle from Findlaw.com

Privilege From Arrest

This clause is practically obsolete. It applies only to arrests in civil suits, which were still common in this country at the time the Constitution was adopted. 376 It does not apply to service of process in either civil 377 or criminal cases. 378 Nor does it apply to arrest in any criminal case. The phrase ''treason, felony or breach of the peace'' is interpreted to withdraw all criminal offenses from the operation of the privilege. 379

Privilege of Speech or Debate

Members .--This clause represents ''the culmination of a long struggle for parliamentary supremacy. Behind these simple phrases lies a history of conflict between the Commons and the Tudor and Stuart monarchs during which successive monarchs utilized the criminal and civil law to suppress and intimidate critical legislators. Since the Glorious Revolution in Britain, and throughout United States history, the privilege has been recognized as an important protection of the independence and integrity of the legislature.'' 380 So Justice Harlan explained the significance of the speech-and-debate clause, the ancestry of which traces back to a clause in the English Bill of Rights of 1689 381 and the history of which traces back almost to the beginning of the development of Parliament as an independent force. 382 ''In the American governmental structure the clause serves the additional function of reinforcing the separation of powers so deliberately established by the Founders.'' 383 ''The immunities of the Speech or Debate Clause were not written into the Constitution simply for the personal or private benefit of Members of Congress, but to protect the integrity of the legislative process by insuring the independence of individual legislators.'' 384


The protection of this clause is not limited to words spoken in debate. ''Committee reports, resolutions, and the act of voting are equally covered, as are 'things generally done in a session of the House by one of its members in relation to the business before it.''' 385 Thus, so long as legislators are ''acting in the sphere of legitimate legislative activity,'' they are ''protected not only from the consequence of litigation's results but also from the burden of defending themselves.'' 386 But the scope of the meaning of ''legislative activity'' has its limits. ''The heart of the clause is speech or debate in either House, and insofar as the clause is construed to reach other matters, they must be an integral part of the deliberative and communicative processes by which Members participate in committee and House proceedings with respect to the consideration and passage or rejection of proposed legislation or with respect to other matters which the Constitution places within the jurisdiction of either House.'' 387 Immunity from civil suit, both in law and equity, and from criminal action based on the performance of legislative duties flows from a determination that a challenged act is within the definition of legislative activity, but the Court in the more recent cases appears to have narrowed the concept somewhat...

Haaretz: Elie Wiesel Helped Israeli PM

From Haaretz:

Author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel helped write the speech that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will give to a joint session of Congress Wednesday (complete text here).

Wiesel received a draft of the speech last week in order to add to it and make comments.

Wiesel joined former prime minister Ariel Sharon on the March of the Living at Auschwitz last year, and the two held a long conversation during the trip.

Olmert's speech will include events from his own life as they were intertwined with the history of the State of Israel. He will also speak about the relationship between Israel and the United States. Olmert will not speak from a prepared text. His speech also will refer to the Iranian threat against Israel and Israeli-Palestinian relations, as well as the West Bank convergence plan.

Olmert spent hours working on his speech, poring over drafts written by two Foreign Ministry officials, including attorney Daniel Taub of the Law Division. Olmert's chief of staff, Yoram Turbowicz, and his foreign policy adviser, Shalom Turjeman, were in charge of the final version.

I believe the report. Elie Wiesel once helped me, too, when I made my film "Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?". I had read his essay, "The Jews of Silence." So I invited him to take a look at a rough cut of my film. He came to my editing room, sat through the picture in silence. I was more than a little bit worried. Had I made some major error that would require a lot of work? At the end, however, Wiesel just said: "Every word is true." And then he left. It gave me confidence to finish the picture and stand behind it when I was attacked by Commentary magazine and some other people. Much later, I learned Wiesel had worked with Samuel Merlin--an Irgun leader who was one of the stars of the film--on a newspaper in Paris after the war. Small world....

Belinda Stronach on Bill Clinton

The Canadian MP talked to the CBC about news reports of her relationship with the former US President:

CAROLE MACNEIL: Did you see the Globe? Not the Globe and Mail but the Globe Magazine in the grocery stores this week? It has a picture of you and Bill Clinton.

BELINDA STRONACH: I think that was last week

CAROLE MACNEIL: Or last week, yeah. What's your reaction?

BELINDA STRONACH: Look there's, there's media out there, it's ... it's a tabloid. So Canadians can judge if it's entertainment, or if it's newsworthy or if it's factual and then, I'm saying it's a tabloid.

CAROLE MACNEIL: You're saying it's not factual? I ... the only reason I say that, and I know it sounds weird that I say that, but, because somebody said "is she having a relationship with Bill Clinton?" I mean, it's a question that's out there and everybody knows it's out there. What is your relationship with Bill Clinton?

BELINDA STRONACH: Bill Clinton is somebody I know, is someone I've had the opportunity to meet through a number of circumstances, is someone that I would welcome the advice on if I had the opportunity to take it, but that's it. That's it.

CAROLE MACNEIL: Does he give you any advice, or has he given you any advice?

BELINDA STRONACH: That's it. Like, given the opportunity to, I've met many world leaders, Bill Clinton, and many others, and uh, I consider it a great honour to be able to meet people that have achieved great things, and given the opportunity to discuss complex issues, I would take that opportunity. But no, we don't consult each other on a regular basis. (smiles)

Wikipedia entry here

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Speaks to Channel Four (UK)

(ht LGF).

Happy Birthday, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle...

Today's Google icon reminded us of Sherlock Holmes's author's birthday. Here's his official website.

Goodnight and Good Luck, Mike Wallace

Really enjoyed the 60 Minutes piece on Mike Wallace. He had a personality, and that 1950s Leonard Bernstein-Edward R. Murrow-style cigarette-smoking tough-guy sophistication that made the Tiffany Network the jewel in the crown of American television. Where did it all go? I can't say that I disagree with Andy Rooney. 60 Minutes won't be the same without Mike Wallace. Indeed, I tremble at the thought of Katie Couric on Sunday nights.

Interestingly, Mike Wallace made possible Ben Hecht's short-lived 1950s television show.

A Good Week

I Liked It . . .

Saw it yesterday at our local movie house. Yes, it's got a really ludicrous plot (I laughed out loud, just like the Cannes audience). Yes, it is anti-Catholic (they could have changed the name of Opus Dei to something fictional, like "Carpe Diem"). But it is a roller-coaster of a movie, lots of entertainment--car chases, castles, airplanes, priests, tombs, museums, professors, French, English, Italians...I liked The Da Vinci Code.

It has nostalgia value, too, like those 60s thrillers with Cary Grant and Audsrey Hepburn running around Europe accused of a crime he didn't commit, running from people without knowing why. American innocence confronting European horror.

BTW Ron Howard did a good directing job. And Tom Hanks is just fine, as is Mlle. Tatou and the supporting cast. Ian McKellen steals the show with his good-guy/bad-guy/who knows what? English lord star turn.

Favorite line: "I've got to get to a library!"

Not to be taken seriously. But a lot of fun. Plus, I love the cinematic references to "A Beautiful Mind" in the puzzle-solving scenes when Tom Hanks sees glowing letters and swirling orbs. The protagonist of that earlier Ron Howard/Akiva Goldsman film--as all you Harvard symbology professors reading this surely know--was a paranoid schizophrenic.

A Visit to the Lisner-Louise-Dickson-Hurt Home

Yesterday, at the invitation of a friend, we spent the afternoon at the annual garden party for The Lisner-Louise-Dickson-Hurt Home. It was the most pleasant afternoon we have passed in a long time. There were several bands, and the residents of this venerable (the Louise home for women was founded in 1869) institution had more energy than we did. They were still dancing when we left. It has to be the nicest and best-maintained home for the aged I'd ever seen. People seemed happy to be there. There are only 100 places, we were told, and a long waiting list. And the food, catered by the kitchen, was delicious.

The Desperate Hours

Took another look at William Wyler's production of The Desperate Hours, starring Humphrey Bogart and Frederic March, based on the Joseph Hayes Broadway play with Paul Newman and Karl Malden. (Interesting IMDB trivia: Spencer Tracy had been slated for March's role, but pulled out in a billing dispute.) In the Encylopedia of Film Noir, Alain Silver bashed the picture as pro-famiy and so omitted it from his list of noir. IMDB corrects this omission, lists the genre as noir. It is indeed noir. The film takes place mostly at night, has a nightmarish quality, stars Humphrey Bogart as a criminal. It's noir.

It really holds up well. What may have been intended as a Cold War parable--peaceful suburbanites=USA/ruthless gangsters=USSR--can be read in the context of the Global War on Terror just as readily. Bogart could be a Bin Laden-type. The complacent surburbanites are just as apt today. Message: you can't rely on the authorities alone to defeat terror, suburbanites must think for themselves. Frederic March actually stands up not only to Bogart, but also to the police, in order to defeat the desperatdoes.

In the 50s it meant standing up to Joe McCarthy and Stalin both. Today, it means standing up to George W. Bush as well as Osama Bin Laden.

It's not called "Hollywood's Golden Age" for nothing...

More on Turkey's Anti-Islamist Revolt

From Yahoo! News (ht LGF):

Turkey's Islamist-rooted government faced a wave of anger and calls for resignation after a deadly fundamentalist attack on the country's highest administrative court stunned a nation fiercely proud of its secular system.

The anti-government backlash Friday coincided with ceremonies marking the 87th anniversary of the start of the War of Independence, which ushered in a secular republic on the ruins of the theocratic Ottoman Empire.

On Thursday, tens of thousands of Ankara residents took to the streets in protest against the attack on the Council of State by an Islamist lawyer whose shooting spree killed one judge and wounded four others.

Alparslan Arslan, 29, shouting "I am a soldier of Allah", sprayed the judges' meeting with handgun fire, saying later that he wanted to "punish" the court for upholding a ban on the Islamic headscarf.

Contemporary Conflicts

I came across this website containing essays from the Social Science Research Council while doing some online research today. It has background on places like Darfur that I found interesting and thought-provoking. Your tax dollars at work, if you happen to be a US Citizen. Here's their blurb:

Not long after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, the Council launched a website of commissioned essays dealing with the causes, consequences and interpretations of the tragic events (archive for "After September 11"). Response to the site was favorable, reminding us that there is strong demand, even in these information-rich days, for careful, reliable and scholarly analysis of contemporary issues. With the launching of the SSRC website Contemporary Conflicts, we have extended coverage to other conflicts in the world besides those directly related to the events of September 11—reaffirming that these, too, merit serious scholarly attention. But coverage has continued on events related—or putatively related—to September 11, as many conflicts in the world have become enmeshed in what until recently was called "the war against terror."

Bush's Falling Stock

How low can public approval for President George W. Bush go? It's pretty low now, that's for sure. For example, last night I went to the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center with someone I know. It was a crummy production of Rossini's "Italian Girl in Algiers." Everything was vulgar, crude, in poor taste, and not working. We had seen a lovely and charming production a few years ago in Charlottesville, so this was a disappointment. In any case, during a break my companion turned to me and said, out of the blue:

"I really hate George W. Bush."

What makes you say that? I asked.

"I blame him for this production."

Note to non-Washington readers: The Kennedy Center budget is subsidized by US government appropriations.

Turks Demonstrate for Secularism

The London Times reports:

Some 40,000 protesters took to the streets of Turkey today to noisily support their country's secular traditions, a day after a suspected Islamist militant shot dead a judge.

Members of Turkey's pro-Islamist government were booed as they attended memorial services, and the Turkish President issued a warning that "no one will be able to overthrow the (secular) regime".

The entire leadership of the Turkish military, which has led three coups in the past and regards itself as the guardians of secularism, lined up beside the flag-draped coffin of Judge Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin, at his funeral today.

If it comes down to a conflict between Islamic fundamentalist democracy and military secularism in Turkey, I'd side with the latter--and I would hope (and pray) that the Bush administration will finally drop its "faith-based" "democracy-building" foreign policy--aka spreading worldwide Islamic revolution.