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The Corner

• A Media Morality Tale
  The putative Caroline Kennedy candidacy for senator has had the odd effect of reopening the media can of worms treatment of Gov. Palin. Compared to Sarah Palin's almost immediate immersion into crowds and public speaking, Kennedy seems like a deer in the headlights before the media that is either ignored or asked to submit written questions. Palin was a natural; Kennedy can't finish a single sentence without "You know" or "I mean." Palin's family saga and daily grind were populist to the core; Kennedy is a creature of a few blocks' radius in Manhattan and Martha's Vineyard. Outsider and lower-middle-class Palin toughed it out in Wasilla for years of politicking on a 16-year slog through Alaskan old-boy politics; Caroline Kennedy in regal fashion apparently skipped voting in about half of New York elections, and has never run for anything. Reporters swarmed over Palin's pregnancies, and her wardrobe, but apparently took on face value that Caroline's fluff books were really a sign of either erudition or scholarship. Conservative Palin endured liberal Charlie Gibson's glasses0on-the nose pretentiousness, and Katie Couric's attack-dog questions; insider Kennedy I doubt will meet with either, much less sit down with a hostile questioner like a Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly. Her friendly New York Times "interview" proved an embarrassment--rarely have so many words been spoken with so little content. But, no, the real embarrassment proves to be the media itself that apparently can't see this weird unfolding self-incriminating morality tale: It is not just that Palin is conservative, Kennedy politically-correct (e.g., pro-abortion, gun control, gay marriage, etc), or Palin a newcomer to public attention, Kennedy a celebrity since childhood. Rather it is the aristocratic value system of most NY-DC journalists themselves who apparently still assume that old money, status, and an Ivy-League pedigree are reliable barometers of talent and sobriety, suggesting that the upper-East Side Kennedy's public ineptness is an aberration, a bad day, a minor distraction, while Palin's charisma and ease are superficial and a natural reflection of her Idaho sports journalism degree. A few generations ago, Democrats would have opposed Palin but appreciated her blue-collar story, and applauded a working mom who out-politicked entrenched and richer male elites. But now the new aristocratic liberalism has adopted the values of the old silk-stocking Republicans of the 1950s--and so zombie-like worship rather than question entitlement.
• Jonah & Eugenics
  That excellent chapter Yuval wisely recommends is available here for free. Read it and then you'll know you must buy the book.
• Communist Math Not Adding Up
  Reuters: Raul Castro calls for harder work, fewer handouts HAVANA - Cuban President Raul Castro called on Saturday for austerity measures including fewer subsidies for workers and stricter management to pull the country out of an economic morass aggravated this year by three hurricanes and the global financial crisis. He told a year-end meeting of the National Assembly the government would cut official trips abroad by 50 percent and eliminate programs that reward good workers with free vacation trips but cost the government $60 million a year. "The accounts don't square up," he said. "You have to act with realism and adjust the dreams to the true possibilities," said Castro, who officially replaced his ailing older brother Fidel Castro as president in February. "Two plus two always equals four, never five," he said.
• Inventing Kennedy's Qualifications
  From an agressively bad op-ed in the Washington Post titled "She's a Kennedy, But She's a Lot Like Us": Amid all the recent buzz about Caroline Kennedy's bid for a U.S. Senate seat, there has been a great deal of talk about her connections, her power, her wealth. But the way I see it, if you strip away the glamour, the name and the money, then Caroline is . . . me. And many of my friends. Maybe even you. If, that is, you happen to be a midlife woman raising kids and returning -- or thinking of returning, or hoping one day to return -- to the full-time workforce. A great deal of the criticism around Kennedy's interest in Hillary Rodham Clinton's soon-to-be-vacated Senate seat sounds an alarm for women like me. We've been at home with the kids, sure, but we've also been busy with lots of other things. We've been working part-time, consulting, freelancing. Like Kennedy's, our resumes don't conform to the conventional, one-job-after-the-other sequence that recruiters expect. When I read a sniping post on Gawker.com that "Caroline has been a happy housewife since getting her law degree, published a few ghost-written books and sat on a few boards that used her celebrity to draw donations," I thought, hmm, wait a minute. Couldn't there be a more inventive way to look at her CV? ... ...that's when I caught myself, and my more out-of-the-box side spoke up: Kennedy had young children, and no matter how much child care her money could buy, she clearly wanted to be a very-much-there primary caregiver. Perhaps, like many women in her situation, she found stimulation and satisfaction in whatever tasks most easily fit her schedule and her life, and her kids' lives. You could say her work history was spasmodic; you could say it was scattershot. But you could also say that as her children have grown up, her focus on public life has intensified, culminating in her fundraising for the public schools and her participation in Barack Obama's presidential campaign. You could say that, consciously or unconsciously, she was preparing for this moment. Rather than a privileged aberration, I prefer to view Kennedy as a bellwether, a case study in how things could be if only the workplace were more accepting of an unconventional CV, one that may brim with great experience and skills and talent but is also peppered with gaps and one-off projects and volunteering. Raising children is a very noble pursuit, and calling for Americans to be "more accepting of an unconventional CV" for mothers reentering the workforce is understandable. But that is a far cry from thinking Caroline Kennedy should fall into one of the most powerful positions on earth because she was "unconsciously" preparing for the job of Senator. On that score, even if you have your doubts about Sarah Palin's experience, it's still fair to say that as a popularly elected governor that Palin was more qualified to be VP than Caroline Kennedy's history as a well-connected poetry anthology editor qualifies her to be Senator from New York. But just as a thought exercise, imagine the reaction if the Washington Post had published a piece on page B1 of the Sunday Outlook section urging people to be "inventive" when examining Palin's qualifications? After all, she has small children so cut her some slack... Yeah, thought so.
• Boot & TR:
  Max Boot's argument that conservatives should embrace TR despite his progressivism because his proposals to increase government "were pretty limited by comparison with what we have today" and "that all but the most extreme libertarians have come to terms with the New Deal" is nonsensical.  TR's economic vision was arguably the most socialistic of any American president, ever, and it is those parts of the New Deal that even moderate conservatives continue to condemn (or that failed) that had the most in common with TR's progressivism.  The remnants of the New Deal that most conservatives have come to accept (albeit reluctantly) comprise the social safety net and an alphabet soup of agencies. TR believed that government ownership of key resources, such as timberland, was necessary to ensure an economically viable natural resource base.  Private ownership, he believed, would leave the American economy without wood, whereas government planners would maintain the national timber supply.  No one makes such ridiculous claims today, nor does anyone seriously defend farm programs and the like on economic grounds.  Further, TR's favorite regulatory agency -- the Interstate Commerce Commission, was abolished in 1995. Looking at another aspect of TR's economic vision for which he is particularly well known -- "trustbusting" -- TR is even harder to defend as a "conservative."  TR's populist vision of antitrust has been completely repudiated, and not just by conservatives.  Antitrust law today is focused on maximizing consumer welfare, not exorcising the economy of evil "trusts."  Courts have completely rejected the TR approach, in favor of that first articulated by then-Judge William Howard Taft and elaborated by the likes of Richard Posner and Robert Bork. I understand (although do not sympathize with) Boot's desire to embrace TR for his foreign policy vision, but we should not pretend there was much of anything about TR's domestic policy views that could be considered "conservative."
• RE: Chesterton
  I would heartily second Jonah's reference to Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils as proof of his independent-minded resistance to the progressive era's worst excesses. It's an extraordinary