I’d like to tell a story, but the problem is, I’m sort of the hero of the story — but I think I’ll tell it anyway. Forgive me. I was reminded of the story by this news item:
President Barack Obama has his domestic ambition at the top of his travel agenda as he travels to Mexico on Thursday. To sell his immigration overhaul back home, he needs a growing economy in Mexico and a Mexican president willing to help him secure the border.
Some years ago, at Davos, I said a few words about the immigration problem in America. Part of the problem, I said, was Mexico: Millions of people were fleeing it. It’s not natural to flee home, in favor of a foreign country. What is driving people to it? Hopelessness, despair. What Mexico needs, I said, is revival: the rule of law, economic growth, and so on.
Well, the temperature seemed to drop about 30 degrees in the room. I could see ice forming on the walls. When this particular session was over, I left the room as quickly as I could. I was virtually running along one wall — when I sensed someone virtually running behind me. “Uh-oh,” I thought. “Someone wants to give me what-for.”
It was the only Mexican in the room — a journalist from one of the big magazines in the capital. He wanted to thank me for what I’d said about Mexico. He agreed with me entirely.
One of the highest tributes I’ve ever been paid, professionally. I told you I shouldn’t have told this story. But it’s kind of interesting, isn’t it?
‐I was reading an article by the estimable Charles Lane, of the Washington Post: “Government’s bad bet on Fisker.” Fisker is one of those “green” companies. I was reminded of something Mitt Romney said during the 2012 campaign: It’s bad enough that the president picks “winners and losers.” But to add insult to injury, he seems to pick only losers.
‐Did you see this article?
Millions of Americans suffered a loss of wealth during the recession and the sluggish recovery that followed. But the last half-decade has proved far worse for black and Hispanic families than for white families, starkly widening the already large gulf in wealth between non-Hispanic white Americans and most minority groups . . .
I couldn’t help thinking: “Wonder how they voted.”
‐On the second day of this year, I published a piece about Romney and his defamers — “the revisionists and the revilers,” I called them. I swore (to myself) I would not do this again: The revisionism and reviling would continue, and one has much other work to do. But Maggie Gallagher had a blogpost on this site two days ago, and it brings me out of retirement — just for now.
Maggie said that Romney declined to run against Obamacare, in adherence to a “silent ‘truce’ strategy.” I wonder how anyone watching the 2012 presidential campaign could think that. As truth is the first casualty of war, it is the first casualty of losing campaigns. A campaign quickly enters lore; reality is shoved aside.
Nevertheless, the record of the 2012 campaign is available to all who wish to examine it. It’s perfectly possible to oppose Mitt Romney without falsifying the record. What will we hear next? That he was a socialist drunk?
Having said this, let me say that I’m a big, big fan of Maggie’s, and always have been. I regard her work against abortion — and against divorce and against other charming things of life — as heroic.
I will now go back into retirement, and will do my best not to be provoked. (I’ve broken promises before, rather like politicians.)
‐Got a PR notice in my inbox: “AL JAZEERA TO HAVE SIGNIFICANT PRESENCE IN CHICAGO.” Oh, sure. You remember that Mayor Rahm Emanuel wanted to keep Chick-fil-A out of Chicago because Chick-fil-A’s president is against gay marriage. Emanuel said, “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values.”
Al-Jazeera — more his cup of tea, I’m sure. More Al Gore’s, too. (The former vice president sold his network, Current TV, to al-Jazeera. An improvement? Not sure.)
‐Walking in New York the other day, I encountered one of those clipboard people — I think Soros pays for them. Some days, you encounter them every hundred yards or so. They want to stop you and get you to sign something or something. This one was working for Planned Parenthood. And I had a thought . . .
You know how Barack Obama and other pro-choice folk are always saying that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms, even though it isn’t true? If I were Planned Parenthood, I would be tempted to start providing mammograms — just to make honest men out of Obama & Co.
You know?
‐“A study says” that 1 in 20 kids “now have food allergies, a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s.” I read that here. Are human beings so different now, biologically, from a few years ago? Are they so different from what they were a hundred years ago, 500 years ago, a thousand years ago?
I find all this sort of mysterious . . .
‐Reading this story, I had a flashback. The story says, “French Socialist Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault wrote a letter to members of the government Thursday asking them to avoid using English words, even when dealing with technological innovations.” My flashback was to Jack Lang, who was the French minister of culture when I was in high school and college. He waged a war against English words: a war against franglais. For instance, you weren’t supposed to say le week-end, but la fin de semaine.
I always thought it was amusing that his name was “Jack.”
‐In my Monday Impromptus — as distinguished from my Wednesday Impromptus — I mentioned I had been in Dallas the week before. I was there to attend and cover the opening of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. You will find my write-up in the new issue of National Review.
The GWB Center is on the campus of Southern Methodist University — a beautiful campus, full of trees, and thus full of shade. A very affluent-looking campus, I must say. Beautifully conceived and kept up.
Throughout campus, there are banners that say, “World-Changers Shaped Here.” That’s very nice. I must say, though, I’m a bit wary of world-changers. Robespierre, Lenin, Pol Pot — they were world-changers, weren’t they? These days, I’m a little more interested in world-preservers.
But change for the better, and changers for the better — all for it, promise. Me good progressive!
‐In Dallas, I noticed a sign on a building: “123 Divorce Company.” Is that an emblem of our time or what?
‐A car pulled up to a swanky hotel. The car was a thing of beauty, a sports car, but a sports car with some menace in it. Mean. Beautiful-mean. The doors were winged — DeLorean style. Awesome.
The driver and a couple of hotel workers went around to the front and opened up the hood. What was this? Trouble with the battery? Something about the oil? They then pulled a couple of suitcases out. What in the world? Under the hood was the “trunk,” as far as I was concerned.
I had no idea what this car was. Had never seen one like it before. A friend of mine said, “McLaren.” Had never heard of it. When the valet guy drove the car off — I bet he wanted to go for miles! — the rumble was formidable.
‐Care for some language? I heard someone ask a fellow, “Do you live here in Dallas?” He said, “Actually, I stay in Garland.” I liked that a lot: “to stay in.”
‐Care for some music? The music is not from Dallas, however — it’s from the new issue of The New Criterion, and it’s my “New York Chronicle,” here.
‐Let’s have some more music, in a way: A few years ago, the New York State Theater, on the Lincoln Center campus, was renamed the David H. Koch Theater. The reason: Koch gave $100 million. Now, virtually everyone who works in the theater despises the Koch brothers, and everything they stand for. I just love it — love it that they have to work in a building called Koch.
A reader wrote me to say that he was visiting New York and took a tour of the Koch. He said to the guide, “Who is or was David H. Koch?” The guide said, “Wichita, Kansas — Big Oil. One of those terribly conservative Koch brothers.”
Our reader said, “Terribly conservative? And he gave a hundred million dollars? Sounds to me like he’s wonderful.”
‐Why don’t we end with a little golf? One of my favorite players is Angel Cabrera, the Argentinean. He finished second in the Masters this year. Lost in a playoff to Adam Scott (who owns one of the most covetable swings in the business). On Cabrera’s bag — that is, caddying for him — was his son, Angel Jr.
Questioned about the experience, the dad said, “He was responsible for all the bogeys I made. I made the birdies.”
Thanks for joining me, y’all, and have a great weekend.
To order Jay Nordlinger’s book Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World, go here. To order his collection Here, There & Everywhere, go here.