During the televised Watergate hearings senators kept reminding witnesses that they were all part of a “great civics lesson,” that the revelations and expiations were necessary steps in a painful process of education that could prevent the country from making the same mistakes again. After six months of presenting their celebrated hearings, members of the […]
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Death on the Road: Going Beyond Nader and the Reader’s Digest
“Daddy had to go up to see Grandfather Follet,” their mother explained. “He says to kiss both of you for him and he’ll probably see you before you’re asleep tonight.”“When?” Rufus asked.“Way, early this morning, before it was light.”“Why?”“Grampa Follet is very sick. Uncle Ralph phoned up very late last night. . . . He […]
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The Great Stagflation Machine
In its treatment of economists is this nation’s true compassion revealed. Five centuries ago physicians were put to death when pestilence persisted. Today we coddle our economists, call them forth in swollen ranks to confront our economic plagues. Only strangers to the laws of supply and demand can be surprised to learn that the experts […]
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“Making It” Revisited: Nader, Podhoretz, and Morris
Last May The Washington Post sponsored a luncheon at which the authors of four recently published books discussed their works. One of the four was Willie Morris, whose first novel, The Last of the Southern Girls, had just come out. Even those who admire Morris, as I do, must acknowledge that the book is no […]
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Putting the Wisdom Back into Intelligence
In recent years the “police brutality” style of thinking has become an increasingly prominent feature of liberal opinion in America. Several years back, when urban crime became big news, liberal politicians and intellectuals often found that their only palatable response was to point out that the police were doing wrong, and denounce them for it. […]
Posted inPolitics
The Foreign Service as Mirror of America
When the bodies of the two American diplomats murdered in the Sudan were brought home last month, a State Department official commented to the press, “I hope this outrage lets everyone know we’re not a bunch of cookie-pushers in striped pants. We’re a corps of highly competent, professional people, in a highly difficult, demanding, dangerous […]
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Busting Our Mental Blocks on Foreign Aid
During the fall of 1971 my wife and I were living in West Africa, working with Ghanaians on construction projects in the bush. Shortly before we were to head back to a more familiar life, news came that the U. S. Senate had voted to cut off foreign aid programs, apparently as a slap at […]
Posted inJanuary 1973, Magazine, Political Animal, Politics
The Screwing of the Average Taxpayer
Late this month, as Congress reconvenes, Representative Wilbur Mills will announce that tax reform season is with us again. A year or two later, after debates, studies, vetoes, and compromises, a Tax Reform Act of 1973 or 1974 will emerge, advertised no doubt as a significant step toward tax justice, a boon to the average […]
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Picking Up the TAB
Watching the performance of politicians and the press, the average man might be tempted to conclude that welfare reform is the issue no one wants to touch. Hasn’t President Nixon abandoned his Family Assistance Plan, brushing off the crocodile tears as Congress refuses to pass it? Hasn’t George McGovern found his $1,000-per-person grant a bigger […]
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Why Presidents Like to Play with Planes Instead of Houses
A review by James Fallows