In Politico, John F. Harris and Jim Vandehei write that President Obama plays the media like a fiddle. They argue that Obama's comeback since November says "something about his survival skills, but ... even more about the mainstream media: Obama is playing the press like a fiddle." That's like saying the media aren't willful conspirators, who have helped project his false image all along and aided him in covering up his mysterious past and his dubious associations.

Where the writers really reveal their mindset is in their assessment that the MSM are suckers for politicians who are "perceived as ideologically centrist and willing to profess devotion to Washington's oft-honored, rarely practiced civic religion of bipartisanship."

What? Obama is perceived as ideologically centrist? By what blind people? Obama himself told O'Reilly he was the same guy he always was and proceeded to tick off his credentials as a liberal. But some members of the MSM truly are ignorant of their own leftist bent. They regard liberalism as objective truth (though they otherwise mostly don't believe in objective truth) and conservatism as some perversion of it. Therefore, to them, liberals are not liberals, but noble advocates of an energetic and humane central government. For them to casually conclude that Obama is perceived as ideologically centrist demonstrates staggeringly clouded judgment.

But even more delusional is their assertion that the MSM favors politicians who profess devotion to bipartisanship. No one did this more than George W. Bush. No one was more reviled by the MSM.

Obama might want the public to view him more as a centrist, but his SOTU message, along with his failure to adjust after any of his various shellackings, shows he has no intention of moving to the center. Other than throwing a few bones (e.g., corp. income tax reduction) to conservatives, he made clear that he is sticking to his agenda, no matter how unpopular.

Indeed, just a few days ago he said again that he would work with Republicans, but that he didn't intend to open for debate those issues that had already been acted on, as in Obamacare. Sure, he'll go through the motions of negotiations to adjust it around the edges, but in no way will he voluntarily abandon the overall structure no matter what majority percentage of Americans demand it or how many lower courts invalidate it.

What the MSM is really a sucker for is a liberal who will call his liberalism "centrism" and call his rank partisanship "bipartisanship." That just makes them feel wonderful -- wonderful enough to keep conspiring with him to TRY to continue to play Americans like a fiddle.

There are loads of versions of the famous "Monopoly" board game.  The original was set in Atlantic City, but since then, you can buy one set in places as odd and out of the way as Canada, the campus of Notre Dame, even one set in the Night Sky.  Whatever that is.

In Poland, though, they've come up with a unique spin.  From Spiegel Online:

A Polish research institute has developed a board game to teach young people about life under Communism. In the game, which is inspired by Monopoly, players must wait in endless lines at stores for scarce goods. For added realism, they have to put up with people cutting in line and products running out -- unless they have a "colleague in the government" card.

The goal of the game, which will officially be launched on Feb. 5, is to show how hard and frustrating it was for an average person to simply do their shopping under the Communist regime in Poland. The game has been developed by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), a Warsaw-based research institute that commemorates the suffering of the Polish people during the Nazi and Communist eras.

It's a great idea, I think: recreating the struggles of the past in game format.  For a country that's been getting better, steadily, since the late 1980's, it's probably a good thing to remind everyone -- in a fun way -- of just how awful life under communism was.

But what about us?  In a way, we have the opposite problem.  I can imagine a future version of the "Operation" game that nostalgically reminds us of the days before socialized medicine, when you could get an operation without waiting 18 months.  Or, maybe, "Chutes and Ladders" recalling an era when such things still existed, before the federal safety bans.  Or even just plain old Monopoly, casting the mind back to a time when you could actually make some money, and taxes were only $75.

As usual, we have a lot to learn about the free market from those who lived under communism.

Maybe I'm just missing my dad, a veteran of crusty, blue-collar New York newsrooms, but this article really struck home.

I wonder, are there small-town newsrooms any more? Or is every reporter now also a blogger and twitterer and Facebooker? Would anyone bother to chase down a cat hanging?

Long before journalists became "the media," we were "the press." It seemed more approachable, a bit blue-collar, more trade than profession. The media sounds corporate, unapproachable, of the boardroom, not the pool room. "The press" is a forgiving title that conjures up the expectation of flaws more charming than scandalous.

The media are hypocrites, the press are scamps. The media are arrogant, the press are big talkers. The media serves white wine and flavorless cheese at receptions. The press? When our favorite bartender dies we write an obituary employing the sanctified prose "the media" would waste on a dead prime minister.

Richard Epstein's otherwise superb reflection on Ronald Reagan, which you'll find below, includes the following observation:

The determined simplicity of his vision made him the butt of many a joke by liberal pundits who had him beat cold on IQ points.

Richard, Richard, Richard.  What makes you so sure they had him beat?

I'm not aware that the Gipper ever took an IQ test, but I can tell you this much from personal observation of the man during the six years I worked for him:  He proved a quick study, capable of absorbing large amounts of information from briefing books overnight; he could grasp politically complicated situations, seeing them whole, almost at a glance; he proved a fine writer and a superb editor--the best line-by-line editor, for that matter, that I've ever encountered; and he possessed a really remarkable capacity for summarizing complicated arguments in a line or a story.  And here's what we all know:  He proved immensely successful as a radio sports announcer; as an actor; as president of the Screen Actors Guild; as a writer (until becoming president, he wrote a great deal of his own material himself, including most of his speeches, most of his weekly radio talks, and many of his newspaper columns); as governor of California; and, of course, as president.

For the demonstrated ability to work with words and ideas and to grasp and master complex tasks--that is, for sheer native intelligence--the Gipper would have compared well with the faculty of any major university.  He understood that courage and judgment matter more than intelligence--but that, too, come to think of it, only proved the man had brains.

As I was enjoying the Super Bowl last night I was struck by Chevy's "We Can Do Better" ad campaign.  Honestly, does this sort of thing make anyone want to buy a car?  Shouldn't an automaker invest in making the best possible product and let individuals decide whether or not they want to plant trees or invest in renewable energy?  

Speaking of intelligent punditry, I know my readers on Ricochet are eager to hear my meditations on the Silva-Belfort match. What can I say, Silva's everything they say he is. 

I found his reaction afterwards extremely touching. That's just how I'd feel if I knocked out Vitor Belfort: Really proud and excited for a few seconds, then totally guilty and worried. 

Fortunately, that's a situation I'm not apt to face. 

Mario Loyola, I could weep with gratitude to you:

The Baker criteria are useful, but still focus too much on the behavior of the leadership. They provide few clues for judging the inherent legitimacy of a state’s constitutional order. That is where the U.S. and its partners must develop refined criteria, including at the very least full representation in the legislature, impartial execution of the laws, and an independent judiciary — as well as individual freedoms not marred by sanctioned justifications for arbitrary abuses, whether religious or otherwise. Under international law, such principles could be established in declarations of the U.S. government and endorsed by groups such as the G-8.

Where does this leave us in the case of Egypt? The U.S. should be able to fall back on objective criteria when taking a position on the legitimacy of Mubarak’s rule. We should insist that Mubarak’s legitimacy is a constitutional question — and that the solution is a new constitution.

I really thought I'd just have to stop reading the news. This is an article full of interesting ideas, well-worth discussing. Take it away, Ricochet.

"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem." These famous words, from Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address, were played on Sunday's episode of Meet the Press, where David Gregory hosted a segment devoted to Reagan's 100th birthday. 

After the clip was played, Gregory unloaded the mother of all leading questions--actually, it was more of a statement masquerading as a question--on NBC's Andrea Mitchell. The absurdity of Gregory's remark is only dwarfed by the madness of Mitchell's response.

Here's Gregory: "And as much as modern day conservatives, Andrea Mitchell, may take that sentence from his inaugural as gospel and run on that in their own debates with President Obama and Washington today--indeed, Reagan was much more of a pragmatist than an ideologue when it came to the major issues." 

Watch Mitchell's response: 

If you can't watch it, here is part of what she said: "People are trying--Republicans in particular--are trying to appropriate Ronald Reagan for their own political purposes now."

All I have to say is this: thank God for Peggy Noonan, who jumps in and spanks Mitchell (I mean that figuratively): "Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Republicans are not, I think, trying to appropriate Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was a Republican. Conservatives are not trying to appropriate him. He was a conservative." 

That just leaves one question: Is Andrea Mitchell crazy? 

But really, the media's recent rewrite of Ronald Reagan's presidency has been, if nothing else, amusing to watch. Talk about political acrobatics. 

So Newsweek just pumped out a piece about the Muslim Brotherhood with the most bizarrely buried lede I think I've ever seen in my career as a journalist.

Page two, paragraph four, no further elaboration:

NEWSWEEK has obtained an extensive dossier, compiled last year by Arab analysts with close ties to Saudi intelligence, that argues that a well-financed global Muslim Brotherhood network uses “moderate-seeming politicians to further its extremist agenda” as far away as Malaysia.

You think they plan to share the details of this? Or just to mention coyly that they have it? 

Mind you, my confidence in their reporting is not rock-solid, given that they seem to be taking seriously the claim that there are only 100,000 Brothers in Egypt. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Brotherhood's candidates (who ran as independents) won 20 percent of the seats. The population of Egypt is about 83 million, so let's just say--charitably--that someone's math skills here might be faulty. 

Anyway, Newsweek, enquiring minds really want to know: What exactly does that intelligence report say? Don't worry, we'll be responsible if you tell us. We won't go all Ikhwanophobic on you or something. Except maybe in Malaysia, or wherever else these moderate-seeming politicians are advancing its agenda--they might get a bit touchy. 

By the way, just hazarding a guess: Newsweek, you wouldn't happen to be talking about Anwar Ibrahim, would you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that would fit the bill. 

It's not escaped notice that even after the First Lady made healthy eating an issue and the feds issued new dietary guidelines, the Super Bowl menu for the President was, shall we say, more south side Chicago than Upper East Side NYC.

The menu included bratwurst, kielbasa, cheeseburgers, deep-dish pizza, German potato salad, twice-baked potatoes, and assorted snacks and ice cream. 

Lots of people will cry "Hypocrisy!" Maybe. But I'd rather this than think of the Leader of the Free World having to sit there with a bowl of celery.

Super Bowl ads, as we all know, can take on lives of their own. But as I watched the game last night, I thought that most of them fell flat--didn't you? There was one ad, however, that captured me. It was dramatic, well-written, and ended with a funny gotcha moment. Check it out: 

Imported from Detroit. That is hilarious. 

Which ad--or moment--from the Super Bowl wowed you? 

In response to my post explaining that Erdoğan has now begun pressing charges against bloggers who meet with his displeasure, Dave Carter asked an obvious question: "What sort of effect does this little edict have on you personally? Will you have to be mindful of the things you write going forward?"

Well, Dave, I have a funny story for you. You see, Turkey and I have sort of an understanding. Mostly they don't notice what I write because I write in English, and mostly I don't notice them suing me because they sue me in Turkish.

A few years ago, a sleazy construction company knocked down the wall abutting my apartment building, destroying the building and damned well nearly killing everyone in it, including me. I wrote an article about this for a British news site called First Post:

At noon last Monday, I was in my apartment in Istanbul when I heard an explosion. The building shook. Furniture in my apartment fell over, and books flew off my shelf. Everyone in the neighborhood began screaming.

My first thought was "earthquake." Shortly afterwards, my neighbours shouted from the street to my window, warning me to evacuate. They told me that construction workers at the site next door to us had destroyed the foundation of our building and that it might collapse.

The police arrived and quickly declared our building unsafe for habitation. I did not have time to get my computer, my files, my notes, toiletries, or a change of clothes. I was given no information about when I could return. Stunned, I walked to the back of the building. The damage was extensive. The lower floor of my building was bashed in. It looked as if a bomb had gone off.

Since mid-May, 2009, the Ankara-based construction firm Sargin Ins. Mak San Tic. AS, owned by Huseyin Sait Sargin, has been attempting to build a new, modern apartment building on the lot near my building.

It is vacant but for a lovely Byzantine bathhouse, one wall of which abuts mine. That wall was destroyed. What remains of that priceless ancient wall will soon be carted away in a dump truck. It had been there since the age of the Emperor Justinian. Now no one will ever see it again.

It is obvious that the construction company has committed one of two crimes. Either this was an accident, in which case the company is guilty of negligence and reckless endangerment, or it was deliberate. There is good reason, a priori, to wonder if it was deliberate.

Now, I should allow that the preponderance of evidence suggests that the bathhouse was not Byzantine, but early Ottoman. I did get that wrong, I think, although experts disagreed. No doubt it was historically significant and legally protected; I managed to get the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to issue an injunction against any further construction there on that basis--although it was too late to save that wall, and shortly thereafter the construction resumed anyway. Too bad for Turkey's priceless heritage. The rest of the story--100 percent accurate. 

Since then I've been involved in legal proceedings against Sargin Construction that resemble nothing so much as the tribulations of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. I'll spare you all the details, but suffice to say it's been nearly two years; we're nearing court date x to the power of k, and there's no resolution in sight. That's okay. I vowed I would sue them till kingdom come, and if that phrase turns out to be literal, so be it.

By the way, this is when I began to appreciate the wisdom of a legal system that punishes negligence with punitive, massive, corporation-destroying damages. Even if I win, the amount in question will be trivial--it will just cover the costs I incurred as a result of having to move, which were considerable to me, but nothing to a company like that. It won't remotely discourage them from doing it again. To them, it's a hassle on the order of a speeding ticket. Companies like that need to fear that they will be destroyed if they don't take reasonable precautions to protect property and human life. In the absence of that motivation, nothing stops them. And in Istanbul, the consequences of these kinds of construction practices may literally be apocalyptic: This city is on a massive, active fault line. Seismologists estimate that a major earthquake here will kill as many as 300,000 people. Almost every death will be entirely preventable, but they will not be prevented. The construction companies here face too few immediate, serious disincentives to building deathtraps, and there are too many hugely tempting economic incentives to build them.

Meanwhile, you'll notice the article's not on the First Post website anymore. That's because Sargin threatened to sue them. They're based in Britain, which is libel tourism central--and let me take this opportunity to commend to your attention to the Libel Reform Campaign, the urgent importance of which is illustrated nicely by this story. The editors sent me an apologetic e-mail: They had full confidence in my reporting and knew they would win in court, but simply didn't have the money to pay the attorneys. Few small-budget news organizations would, in an era of declining news revenues. So they took the story down. You can imagine how I felt about that.  

Now, about a month ago, I received a registered letter in the post. What you have to grasp is that Turkish legal language is almost a language in itself--so arcane and unconnected to ordinary Turkish that even my native-speaker friends can't understand it. I knew that it had something to do with the court, with Sargin, and with a judgment, but even after an hour with the Turkish-English dictionary, I couldn't figure out what it meant. I called Okan and read it out loud to him. He was just as baffled. So I sent it to my attorney.

Well, said my attorney, this is passing strange! It makes no sense, but Sargin sued you for libel! But the good news is, you won! The courts ruled in your favor! 

What, I said? Why didn't anyone tell me they were suing me in the first place? 

My attorney couldn't figure it out either. In principle, of course I should have been notified. But apparently the notification was never sent, or it got lost in the mail. And a good thing, too, because I would have driven myself berserk with rage. Best just to find out like that, don't you think? (Mind you, Sargin is apparently appealing. But I've decided I just won't worry about it. It is written, as they say here in the fatalistic East. Some battles you can fight to win, some you have to just leave to the fickle finger of fate. If you're dealing with a legal system in which you can be sued for libel and be exonerated completely unawares, you just have to accept that your power to control things is limited.)

So, here's my take on self-censorship. I reckon it's all so random that there's no point even trying to game it out. Some journalists seem to get away with outright libel, even by the extremely strict standards of the American legal system. Many more are hounded outrageously for alleged offenses that shouldn't even raise an eyebrow in a free society. I've written a lot about that. 

Me, I try to write the truth, as best I understand it. If I'm sued, I figure it could very well take years for me even to hear about it, and when I do hear about it, I won't understand it.

In the big scale of things, I worry a lot more about Turkey's negligent construction companies, because when that earthquake happens--as every seismologist agrees it will, and soon--I surely don't want to be in one of the buildings they built.

How certain am I that the world will not notice this development? Oh, 100 percent. It's one of those little items, again. No one's reporting it in English. Compared to Iran's hanging binge, it's such a modest outrage against civil liberties that who's going to bother to get exercised about it?

But an outrage against civil liberties it is. Erdoğan has begun pressing charges against bloggers whose writings meet with his displeasure. A 22-year-old college student, Barış Ünver, could face two years in prison for intimating that Erdoğan was "the soul mate" of PKK terrorist Ocalan. 

Writing this week about Egypt, the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky draws a distinction between free societies and fear societies: 

The reason people are going to the streets and making revolution is their desire not to live in a fear society," Mr. Sharansky says. In his taxonomy, the world is divided between "fear societies" and "free societies," with the difference between them determinable by what he calls a "town square test": Are the people in a given society free to stand in their town square and express their opinions without fear of arrest or physical harm? The answer in Tunisia and Egypt, of course, has long been "no"—as it was in the Soviet bloc countries that faced popular revolutions in 1989.

Turkey fails the test, obviously. 

The Good Book tells us that Joshua used trumpets to bring down the walls of Jericho. History tells us that Ronald Reagan, with the help of our Peter Robinson, used the power of the spoken word. Winston Churchill said, “Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.” So perhaps the pen really is mightier than the sword. For just as a pebble thrown into water can have ripple effects far beyond the vision of the person who throws it, so too can a courageous statement start a wave of freedom that spreads far beyond the vision of the author. The words are now a well known part of history: "Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But words, spoken with conviction and clarity, can move historical mountains.

In 1996, my Dad traveled to Europe with the Sons of Jubal. Comprised of ministers of music from across the state of Georgia, the Sons of Jubal included a brass section known as the Jubal Brass in addition to an all men's choir. This group of approximately 100 professional musicians toured Germany that year, performing both classical and sacred music in German. While Dad laughed that playing the trumpet in German was no easy accomplishment, this collection of accomplished musicians witnessed history in sharp focus. They performed sacred music in the great cathedral in Cologne. They played Handel's Water Music from the top deck of a tour boat as it floated down the Rhine. Each evening, members of the group, along with their wives, stayed as guests in the homes of members of the churches that hosted the performances. With the Berlin Wall gone, the group toured and performed in what was formerly known as Eastern Germany.

Yesterday, as we drove across Arizona in an 18 wheeler, Dad told of the remarkable things he saw from the Brandenburg Gate eastward. Many of the buildings were still riddled with bullet holes from the Second World War. But most importantly, he spoke of the people in Eastern Germany, thousands of whom flocked to a church one evening to hear the Sons of Jubal. The balcony of the church, which formed a sort of horseshoe around the sanctuary, was already full when the group arrived to set up for the performance. The two thousand seat church filled in short order. Demand for the event, which would have been illegal until the wall came down, resulted in a lottery system to determine who would be allowed to sit in the sanctuary. Outside, still more people gathered to hear the music through church windows left open for that very purpose. All told, approximately five thousand people gathered at the church to listen and worship.

As the crowd assembled, the Jubal Brass began with a series of classical selections from German composers. The crowd was silent, soaking in every note, every chord, every morsel of music that had previously been outlawed. The final note of the final selection of this instrumental portion of the program ended on a somber, minor chord.  Then, seemingly with the very next beat, the men's choir rose and began singing sacred music, A Capella, in the triumphant, major chord of 'G.' And triumphant it was indeed, for the effect was instantaneous as tears welled in the eyes of those in attendance upon hearing once forbidden music in their language. You see, many of these people had been captive in the prison camps. Many had been forced to toil in inhuman conditions in these camps, and still many more had lost their family members in the prisons. These were people who had spent decades enslaved by the Soviet Empire, who permitted the adoration only of the state. And yet here they were, on this day, in a church that had been closed, listening to the music of master composers while worshiping The Composer of freedoms so long denied, but never forgotten nor abandoned. At the conclusion, there was scarcely a dry eye in the house, as members of the Sons of Jubal were embraced by people who said simply, through their tears, "Danke."

One evening was spent in an old castle, as the guest of an East German family whose ancestry traced back to German nobility. While being shown about the property, still under renovation, Dad wondered aloud how one might know if a souvenir that purported to be a piece of the Berlin Wall were the real article, since he planned to go the site of the wall the next day and didn't want to be taken advantage of by any unscrupulous merchants who were known to sell any piece of concrete they could find as an authentic relic. The gentleman excused himself and walked away, returning with a chunk of concrete for Dad's inspection and saying it was a piece of the real wall. When asked how he knew, the gentleman next produced photos showing him and his son on top of the wall that fateful night, pickaxes at work, tearing that monstrous affront to human liberty down. Then, the gentleman invited Dad to read the inscription on the bottom of the concrete. Turning it over, Dad read on the piece of paper, "This is an authentic piece of the Berlin Wall." With that, the gentleman insisted that Dad accept it as a gift from his new German friend. The next day, this man took Dad on a tour of the area where the wall once divided the free world from the captive. Standing at the spot where he helped tear it down, the gentleman sobbed as he spoke of how he had been moved by the unmistakeable challenge in President Reagan's speech that day long ago. The challenge, spoken so clearly, over the protests of the diplomatic corps, resonated in the hearts of the people behind that wall. Reagan found his mark.

At its essence, history is biography. It's the story of people in all their strength and weakness, triumph and failure, heroics and shortcomings. The story of Ronald Reagan is the story of one man's unyielding faith in the propositions contained in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and his ability to turn that faith into action. Another man of action, Winston Churchill said, “If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time--a tremendous whack.” President Reagan did precisely that, taking a blunt truth and using it as a pickaxe to make that first strike at the wall, and in the process striking a deathblow to the idea that any man is somehow organically suited to lord over the affairs of another. To Peter Robinson, who crafted those courageous words, thank you. And to a President to who gave life and conviction to those words, from one who was privileged to serve under his leadership, thank you, Sir. Happy Birthday.

In his radio address yesterday, the President declared:

Businesses have a responsibility, too.  If we make America the best place to do business, businesses should make their mark in America. They should set up shop here, and hire our workers, and pay decent wages, and invest in the future of this nation. That’s their obligation.

Wow - so that's how it works?  Businesses should start hiring people out of a feeling of obligation to President Obama?  A big "thank you" for health care, Dodd-Frank, stimulus, and the out of control EPA. 

And as for the nonsense about "investing in the future of this nation," it sounds like standard-issue hot air, but it smacks of a broader theory of "Corporate Social Responsibility," i.e., the idea that corporations should have legally-enforceable duties to their communities.  As Professor Stephen Bainbridge points out over here, "[t]he social obligation of business is to sustainably maximize long-term profits for shareholders. Nothing more. Nothing less."  Why, oh why, can the President not see things so clearly.

As we at Ricochet have been reflecting on Ronald Reagan's legacy on the occasion of his 100th birthday, I have gathered my own humble thoughts in this column for the Chicago Tribune. I argue that the secret to Reagan's success was that he cared about the big stuff without troubling himself with the little stuff: 

The determined simplicity of his vision made him the butt of many a joke by liberal pundits who had him beat cold on IQ points. But in so ridiculing him, his critics misunderstood the key virtues for a political leader...

Leadership cannot thrive on nuance or uncertainty. It depends on unshakable commitments to sound principles.

That is where Ronald Reagan excelled as a president. On the domestic front, Reagan insisted that the essence of a free society rested on these key building blocks: individual freedom, personal security, limited government and states' rights...

Forthright pronouncements also defined Reagan's triumphs in foreign affairs. He knew in his bones that the want of inner conviction disarms any president engaged in international diplomacy. Moral relativism in international affairs is not a sign of intellectual discernment. It is a sign of moral weakness. Lots of hard political issues come in all shades of gray. But by the same token, the words for which Ronald Reagan is most remembered drew sharp contrasts. In March 1983, he called the Soviet Union "an evil empire." Speaking at the Brandenburg Gate in June 1987, Reagan stated his major premise: "We believe that freedom and security go together." This was followed by his direct challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev, his Russian counterpart: "Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Which Gorbachev did by November 1989.

These simple declarative sentences define the man and his massive achievements. They are what all Americans should remember about Ronald Reagan on Sunday's centennial of his birth. He knew that in politics, as in life, Dooley Wilson had it right. The fundamental things do apply. Ronald Reagan was a great president because he stood for what is great and enduring in the human condition.

What do you think the secret to Ronald Reagan's success was?  

By all means, post your predictions here.

Anyone care to comment on the experience of actually attending a Super Bowl? What was it like? 

(I covered Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa for the New York Post. My assignment was to hunt down and interview celebrities in the crowd, so I didn't get to see a single snap of the football.)

I've always thought that watching the Super Bowl in your living room was pretty great, especially when surrounded by interested family members and friends. But maybe I'm missing something? Are the $1,000 nosebleed seats worthwhile? Is it better to actually be there? 

I'd also be interested to read your Super Bowl memories. I can't watch without remembering Buffalo kicker Scott Norwood's famous miss in 1991's Super Bowl XXV. As a Big Apple native, I should have been thrilled for the Giants. But I remember feeling terrible for Norwood, whose failed field-goal attempt (No good! Wide right!) gave the Giants a 20-19 victory. Yet another example of why I was never a particularly competitive athlete myself. I had some decent skills in a handful of sports, but absolutely no killer instinct. I feel bad for people. I cry a lot. Doesn't make one a champion, that's for sure.

LowcountryJoe left a comment beneath my post about Salim Mansur that snapped me out of my funk:

While I agree that there are plenty of things to be worried about I just think this defeatist [expletive] does not help -- I know it [expletive] me off.  Influential people have platforms.  Some of you all that are listed as contributors here are influential people with real persuasive power. 

Dammit, use that power to sell some optimism regarding liberty and liberalization.  Use your intellect to counter these treands that you/we do not like.  Fight the left-leaning authoritarians by mocking their ideas where they need a good mocking...through parodies and pointing out their absurdities if you must.  Spend the energies there! 

He's right. Believing you'll win doesn't guarantee you'll win a fight, but it sure helps. The belief that you'll lose is a disastrous disadvantage. To an extent, whining about the stupidity and decadence of Western culture is propagandizing for the enemy. That's exactly what they say, so it must cheer them greatly to read that we're all in agreement about the West's terminal decline. 

In fact, when I step back from my morose precipice and think about it (a good night's sleep helps), there is no good reason to think all is lost. However great the potential for events in Egypt to become a cataclysmic disaster, they haven't yet. Nor need they. Nothing is written. It's breathtaking and incredibly moving to see how many Egyptians have stood up to authoritarian rule; that there is a risk they will be betrayed by the Muslim Brotherhood--or by another iron-fisted authoritarian, for that matter--does not mean it is a certainty. It doesn't mean we should fail to celebrate the sight of so many human beings demonstrating that mankind does, just as Salim wrote, thirst to be free.  

I keep my enthusiasm for this movie on the double QT here in Turkey, where for some reason they don't have any sense of humor about it. And yes, I know, these events in reality did not work out well for any party concerned. But many other queasy-making moments in history actually did work out okay in the end, even when everyone said they wouldn't. You can all provide examples in the comments.

By the way, Lowcountry Joe, I don't agree with the rest of your remarks--to the effect that we can't do anything about the rest of the world until our own house is in order. We don't have the luxury of waiting for that. We have to get our own house in order and construct a coherent, principled foreign policy and we have to do it at the same time and fast. Americans don't just live in America, they live on Planet Earth. When we've solved the problem of teleporting ourselves safely to another galaxy, we can have a long serious conversation about isolationism. Until then, we're stuck here.

Iran's mullahs are falling all over themselves to take credit for the wave of democratic fervor sweeping Egypt. Poverty, unemployment, oppression by a corrupt government -- bah! According to the Ayatollah Khameini's Friday sermon, it was the 1979 Iranian revolution that inspired the protesters in Tahrir Square. Isn't it obvious? (This contrasts quite strikingly, I can't help but note, with the movement afoot -- including among our membership here at Ricochet -- to assign credit to George W. Bush and his Freedom Agenda for the Egyptians' newly awakened desire for democracy. Both claims are fishy, though one much more than the other.) 

The suggestion that the Iranian theocracy is the guiding light for the Egyptian protesters is no doubt particularly offensive to the throngs of pro-democracy Iranians who tried in vain to wrest their country out of the hands of those same mullahs in 2009. They, not the Ayatollah Khameini and his ilk, are the true antecedents to the demonstrators in Cairo. The Iranian leadership understands this very well, and is now closely monitoring the citizenry to prevent any reignition of the Green Movement as a result of the upheaval in Egypt. 

Khameini's rather ham-fisted attempt to hijack the Egyptian democratic movement for an Islamist cause had a clear purpose: to remind Islamist fellow travelers in Egypt that the situation represents a great opportunity. (He helpfully switched from Farsi to Arabic during his sermon to ensure comprehension among Egyptian listeners.) Khameini urged the Egyptian protesters not to back down “until the implementation of a popular regime based on religion” -- an admirably clear instruction that should serve to remind liberal democrats abroad, eager to welcome Islamists into any future Egyptian government in the name of tolerance and inclusion, just what is at stake here. 

The American government might be a little fuzzy on this premise, but the Egyptian government is not. Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told MENA (the Egyptian state news agency) that Iran has “crossed all red lines”  by purporting to “jump on Egypt’s aspirations or those of its youth.” “The political and public movements towards reform in Egypt alone will design the future of the country and not the wishes of the mullahs of Iran,” he said. “Instead of seeking to distract the Iranian people with Egypt’s political movements, the Supreme Leader should look to Iran and its people who have been aspiring to freedom from an oppressive system.”

The mullahs' specious claim to credit provides a useful corrective. It reminds us that the Egyptian pro-democracy movement is not -- yet -- an Islamist movement in sheep’s clothing, but is vulnerable to such co-option and must be protected. It illuminates the divide between the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt’s homegrown fundamentalists) and the protesters themselves, whose expressed goals are primarily economic, social and political rather than jihadist.

The Brotherhood, in keeping with its shiny new image as an organization of political moderates, has decried the Iranian call to arms as a misrepresentation of the Egyptian democracy movement. That's the kind of talk that opens doors, not death-to-Israel ranting. The Brotherhood's canniness is already paying substantial dividends: it will almost certainly cease to be outlawed and will probably be on the ballot in the next election.

That might not seem like much -- everybody's entitled, right? -- but if you want to know where it can lead, ask Sa'ad Hariri. Hezbollah muscled its way into the Lebanese government and now they own it. It didn't take very long, either.

The Brotherhood's success in Egypt will depend in large part on American credulousness. It is concealing its Islamist agenda behind a smokescreen of Western-friendly language, but as Claire and others have long been trying to convey, that agenda hasn't changed one jot. Their true goals are easily found by anyone with the inclination to look. The White House and State Department appear unconvinced by the ideological link that connects Iran's mullahs to Egypt's Islamists. Maybe the Ayatollah Khameini can get their attention. 

Salim Mansur sent me the link to his latest column about Egypt. It is excellent, but what struck me even more was the note he sent me with it. I asked his permission to publish it, which he kindly granted me. 

Dear Claire:

Below is my column from today on Egypt. Since I do not have an opportunity to write in public more than one column per week, I am limited to what I can say. Extremely distressed by the crew in Washington, and in most European capitals. Media is so corrupted by left-leaning thinking that there is not much of an analysis to be expected in the media that is now competing with facebook, twitters, etc. The dumbing down of thinking is itself a huge problem the West is facing now as it tries pathetically to undertstand/explain politics and history of other cultures when it no longer has faith in its own civilizational values. I despair, and so I follow Samuel Pepys who confined himself to his diaries while London burned and I am trying to devote my time to reading and writing of my own (that of course I might not be able to publish, and even if published few will read).

I am more convinced now, as I wasn't when Paul Kennedy wrote about the rise and fall of great powers, that the West has gone over the tipping point in its terminal decline. That intelligent people, or people who claim to be intelligent, (I have in mind the talking heads in the U.S. media such as Chris Matthews or Fareed Zakaria) cannot make the difference between the sham of the Muslim Brotherhood talking about freedom and democracy and the generic thirst in man to be free. These are the people who have like the Bourbons learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They are glibly about to put the Lenins of our time into trains heading for Moscows of our time, they find nothing odd that they are pushing for the Muslim Brotherhood to be taken into governing when everything needs to be done to keep the Muslim Brotherhood out even as one carefully negotiate the long historic transition of Arab societies from tribal autorcracy and military dictatorships to representative rule and constitutionally limited government. I read you when I can, and I wish that you and others like you were closer to the main media control in the West, or in government.

Take care, and God bless.

Salim

For what it's worth, my response:

Dear Salim:

We've entered into advanced insanity now. It's casually noted by the endlessly babbling talking heads that yes, the Muslim Brotherhood's leadership has said it would tear up the peace treaty with Israel, but really, worrying about that just shows that all one cares about is Israel. Does it occur to no one that in an Israeli-Egyptian war (my God, just typing that is so horrible), it is not just Jews who would die? And that indeed, the very logic of the anti-Israeli propaganda so often advanced -- that casualties in such violence fall disproportionately upon Israel's adversaries -- suggest what this would mean for the very Egyptian people these nitwits claim to care about so deeply?

I do Muay Thai as a hobby, and my gym is full of young Turkish boys of about draft age. Lovable kids, full of themselves and bravado and youth and life and good health. Muslims all, of course. Cheerfully accommodating the middle-aged Jewish American woman in their midst who unaccountably seems eager to do such an unlikely sport. It's Egyptian boys of about the same age, all young and just as full of sweet puppyish life, who would be sent to fight a war that the Ikhwan is now loudly telling the world it craves. They would die in the tens of thousands before ever having a chance to go to school, fall in love, raise a family. Like young boys have always died in wars these wicked old fools somehow always survive. To point this out is now Ikwhanophobic, in the newly-coined term, and I did not imagine that a word could annoy me even more than "Islamophobic," but I suppose life always has the capacity to surprise us. 

Warmly,

Claire

I've identified an aggravating trope for which we do not have a word.

What should we call it when as a rhetorical strategy one pretends there is a consensus—one invents one, really—solely for the purpose of posturing oneself as an heroic, original, and lonely transgressor or innovator against it?

It shows up in many ways. Every week a new report is released that shows that wine and chocolate will make you young again, boost your sex drive, give you 20 years of good fortune, and so on. In each one the reporter writes it up as something that will astonish us who have continued to labor under the conventional wisdom that chocolate and wine are Bad (the writer presumes that we are benighted puritans persuaded that what is delicious is ipso facto evil) .

Almost every popular economics article written in the last twenty years has begun with the words “Contrary the longstanding and unquestioned assumption that people are perfectly economically rational, researchers at University of X have discovered…” (Note: it was never the case that neoclassical economists assumed people to be rational according to the conventional meaning of that word.)

It’s almost as if ‘conventional wisdom’ isn’t so much what is actually widely believed, as it is a common reference point that we can call the ‘conventional wisdom’ in order to talk about other things that relate to it. Having such a common reference point might be necessary, but it's misleading and self-congratulatory to call something the conventional wisdom when it actually isn't.

I have the sense this is actually a very common thing. Can you think of other examples? And can we find a name for this?

The leaders of the state have never thought of making an preparation by anticipation for [democracy]. The progress has been against their will or without their knowledge. The most powerful, intelligent, and moral classes of the nation have never sought to gain control of it in order to direct it. Hence democracy has been left to its wild instincts [...]. As a result the democratic revolution has taken place in the body of a society without those changes in laws, ideas, customs, and mores which were needed to make that revolution profitable.

As you might have guessed, he was actually speaking of France. But one wonders. Tocqueville warns throughout Democracy in America that political foundings -- no matter how most sweeping, how brilliant, or how well-intentioned -- will, without social mores and religious beliefs capable of bearing the weight of their claims, fail.

Speaking at a conference in Munich today, British PM David Cameron identified domestic terrorism as Britain's biggest national security threat.  "We need to be absolutely clear on where the origins of these terrorist attacks lie," Cameron said, "and that is the existence of an ideology, 'Islamist extremism'."

Perhaps anticipating criticism that his speech would fuel the fires of 'Islamophobia,' Cameron drew a clear distinction between Islam, the religion, and Islamism, the extreme and violent political ideology:

Islam is a religion, observed peacefully and devoutly by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a political ideology, supported by a minority.

At the furthest end are those who back terrorism to promote their ultimate goal: an entire Islamist realm, governed by an interpretation of sharia.

Move along the spectrum, and you find people who may reject violence, but who accept various parts of the extremist world-view including real hostility towards western democracy and liberal values.

It's vital we make this distinction between the religion and the political ideology.

Time and again, people equate the two. They think whether someone is an extremist is dependent on how much they observe their religion.

So they talk about 'moderate' Muslims as if all devout Muslims must be extremist. This is wrong.  Someone can be a devout Muslim and not be an extremist.

We need to be clear: Islamist extremism and Islam are not the same thing....

The point is this: the ideology of extremism is the problem. Islam, emphatically, is not.

Cameron explained that the existence of Islamist extremism, especially among young British Muslims who are drawn into the violent ideology, can be traced to the search for identity.  He condemned the policy of multiculturalism for obfuscating the concept of a common national identity, and for leaving so many young Muslim transplants with a sense of detachment from their country and a longing for greater community.

In the UK, some young men find it hard to identify with the traditional Islam practised at home by their parents whose customs can seem staid when transplanted to modern Western countries.

But they also find it hard to identify with Britain too, because we have allowed the weakening of our collective identity.

Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and the mainstream.

We have failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong.

We have even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values.

So when a white person holds objectionable views - racism, for example - we rightly condemn them.

But when equally unacceptable views or practices have come from someone who isn't white, we've been too cautious, frankly even fearful, to stand up to them.

The failure of some to confront the horrors of forced marriage the practice where some young girls are bullied and sometimes taken abroad to marry someone they don't want to is a case in point.

This hands-off tolerance has only served to reinforce the sense that not enough is shared.

All this leaves some young Muslims feeling rootless.

And the search for something to belong to and believe in can lead them to this extremist ideology.

Peter was on Fox News last night and gave some fascinating details on how a certain line was created and stayed in one of the most famous presidential speeches in history.