Cruz in Command
Last week, the TWS straw poll, in which thousands of you chose to participate, had Ted Cruz, for the first time, in the lead–albeit narrowly, over Marco Rubio. Sure enough, the Des Moines Register poll this weekend had Cruz surging into the lead in Iowa, and a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll had Cruz gaining ground nationally. Leading indicator, anyone?
Tomorrow night’s debate should be interesting: Does Donald Trump go after Cruz? Which of the candidates go after Trump, and how successfully? Does Cruz continue to try very hard not to be at odds with Trump? Does Rubio focus on making his own case, or does he get in a national security debate with Cruz? Does Chris Christie succeed in making an impact? Does Jeb Bush? (And if Jeb doesn’t find a way to stand out, will he consider getting out of the race over Christmas?) We’ll have plenty of analysis (including a podcast) late Tuesday night after the debate, and Wednesday morning, at weeklystandard.com.
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A Chance Encounter
Meanwhile, I was in New York Sunday for This Week, where we had a pretty good discussion of the state of the presidential race. I also raised the shocking New York Times front page story reporting that the Department of Homeland Security neglected to take a look at the female San Bernardino killer’s jihadist Facebook posts when she applied for a visa–and that there was an internal debate at DHS whether it was even appropriate to do so! People ask why Trump is doing well. It’s because he’s right that political correctness isn’t just making our environment dumber, it’s making our lives more dangerous.
An amusing Sunday morning footnote; I woke up at 6:00 a.m. and walked 50 feet to the Starbucks nearest my hotel to get a coffee before catching up on the news online…and ran into an old friend and frequent TWS contributor, Jeff Gedmin, also getting his morning pick-me-up. Now that is a small world: Running into someone at a New York City Starbucks at six o’clock Sunday morning. We agreed that the latest issue of TWS was uncommonly strong and diverse, with pieces on gender in schools and the military, football and politic
By the way, the cover story, Andy Ferguson’s terrifically acerbic and amusing reflection on Christmas music, is adapted from his chapter in Jonathan Last’s book The Christmas Virtues, which, let me remind you, can be–and should be!–ordered here.
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Orwell’s Legacy
By the way, in a fine piece on totalitarianism on campus by Ralph Benko in Forbes, which you should read after reading and re-reading Jonathan Last’s definitive cover story from the last issue, I came across a terrific quotation from George Orwell, from a letter he wrote in May 1944:
“The intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. … Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history etc. so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side.”
It was timely to come across this Orwell quotation, because earlier in the week I’d happened to meet a young man from Iran who had become a dissident there, and was now in the United States. I asked him whether any particular books had made a difference in his education, and he said coming across Orwell online was decisive. I’d thought then I should go back and re-read some Orwell–and then came across this quotation. I wonder if Orwell isn’t one of those relatively few writers who might be more impressive, not less, upon re-reading.
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And Mozart’s Too
Speaking of impressive: I saw at the movie theater on Saturday a rebroadcast of the Met’s 2006 performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute— a terrific version conducted by James Levine and produced by Julie Taymor. What an opera! (Though may I say, in the spirit of Jonathan Last’s dissenting “The Case for the Empire” with respect to Star Wars, that I’m not so certain about the justice and merits of Sarastro’s cause in The Magic Flute, and that I wonder whether one shouldn’t have some sympathy for the Queen of the Night?) In any case, I hadn’t remembered that we were seeing the rebroadcast of The Magic Flute when I’d written my Mozart-themed editorial earlier in the week, “Our Opera Buffa“, comparing Donald Trump to the Count in Figaro. But all of this talk of Mozart leads me to suggest that, if you get a little tired of the Christmas music playing all around you at this holiday season, and if you think it’s time to take break from poring over the latest Iowa polls–you might listen to some of Figaro or The Magic Flute. You can’t go wrong with Mozart.
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Until next week–onward.
Bill Kristol
P.S. — Please do send along your thoughts and tips to [email protected].
