June 20, 2023 • $7.

99

Why Biden Is Silent 2024 Is Not College Grads Pat Sajak

on Trump 2016 Flee Big Cities Signs Off
WASHINGTON BRIEFING — P.37 VARAD MEHTA — P.20 YOUR LAND — P.7 ROB LONG — P.56

Your Turn, Son

From one generation of Soros damage to another
JONATHAN S. TOBIN — P.16

p. 8, 10, 44, 59, & 61

 Editorials
Biden’s land grab hurts minerals and energy needed to fuel the
economy and defend the nation? The
Biden administration has no answers.

working people Asked by Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT),

“Are you aware that China controls, by
proxy production, the supply chain of
critical minerals that are critical to both
the [electric vehicle] world and defense?”

T
Haaland could only lamely respond,
he most unequal county in your lands and you can’t access your “Thank you for that information.”
the United States isn’t in New resources?” When Zinke followed up, asking, “Are
York or California. It’s actually Haaland’s decision to deny Navajos you aware, by multiple studies, that in
in the heart of flyover country economic development in their commu- order to satisfy the present requirements
— Teton County in Wyoming, nity is the latest piece of the Biden ad- of [electric vehicles] and critical minerals
to be exact. Drawn by Grand Teton Na- ministration’s plan to put 30% of all land to defense, it would take an increase of
tional Park and the Jackson Hole ski area, in the U.S. off limits by 2030. Announced 2,000% of mining for 20 years?” Again,
wealthy people have flocked during his first week in of- Haaland could only offer, “Thank you for
there, buying land and build- fice, Biden’s “30x30” pol- the information.”
ing huge luxury houses. icy seeks to “address the Nature can be beautiful, and some of
But they have not been interconnected climate and it should be left untouched. Our nation’s
content simply to enjoy their own prop- biodiversity crises, and advance environ- national parks are invaluable. But there is
erty. The allure of Teton County is its mental justice.” Apparently, Biden’s idea also a cost to setting aside land for pres-
pristine natural environment, and the of “justice” means denying poor rural ervation. People need places to live. We
new residents have done everything in communities the ability to develop. need minerals to build electronics. Our
their power to limit residential devel- In addition to banning economic oil, economy can’t function without oil and
opment near them, driving up housing gas, and mineral extraction in New Mex- natural gas. These things require develop-
costs and forcing middle-class residents ico, Biden has shut down nickel and co- ing land. When you restrict land use, you
to move away. The only people left are balt mining in Minnesota and banned all make all of these things more expensive.
the wealthy in their big homes and a poor new oil and natural gas leases on federally Setting aside an arbitrary percentage such
class of renters, many of them servants owned lands. as “30%” is not justice for working-class
and foreign. Hence the highest levels of With 30% of all land locked up, where families who need inexpensive energy
income inequality in the nation. is the U.S. supposed to get the critical and places to live. 
What the ultrarich have done to Teton
County, President Joe Biden and the
Democrats want to do to the rest of the
country. Earlier this month, Interior Sec-
retary Deb Haaland placed a 20-year mor-
atorium on all oil, gas, and mining leasing
within a 10-mile radius of New Mexico’s
Chaco Culture National Historical Park,
rejecting calls from the Navajo Nation to
approve a smaller buffer of 5 miles.
“Recent congressional testimony by
Sec. Haaland displayed her lack of under-
standing of the massive cost to a disad-
vantaged Native American community,”
Western Energy Alliance President Kath-
leen Sgamma said in a statement.“She
was unable to answer questions about
the costs of foregone oil and natural gas
royalties to tribal members. Despite her
claims that the energy rights of Nava-
jos would be protected, she was unable
to guarantee access to those minerals.
What good are rights if Interior isolates

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 1

EDITORIALS
Biden family business needs
its own special counsel
P
erhaps the worst argument
against indicting former Presi-
dent Donald Trump is that the
Justice Department failed to
pursue strong cases against the
Clinton and Biden presidential families.
The right answer isn’t to let Trump skate
free but, without ignoring political reali-
ties, to hold serious presidential corrup-
tion to account. This certainly applies to
the obvious malfeasance of the Bidens.
New reporting by the Washington Ex-
aminer’s Jerry Dunleavy adds significant
credibility to claims of corruption involv-
ing President Joe Biden himself. Dunleavy
reported that Mykola Zlochevsky, the
Ukrainian owner of the Burisma energy
company that hired then-vice presidential
son Hunter Biden to a lucrative board po-
sition, reportedly called Joe Biden “the big
guy” during discussions of what reputable
sources call a $5 million bribery scheme.
This is at least the third instance of
different, shady business associates of
Hunter Biden referring to the now-pres-
ident as “the big guy.” In October 2020,
onetime Biden family business partner
Tony Bobulinski released an email from
2017 referring to “the big guy,” meaning
(Bobulinksi said) Joe Biden. One of the
other Biden business partners Bobu-
linski mentioned was James Gilliar, who
referred to Joe Biden as “the Big Guy” in
a panicked message the very day news
of Hunter Biden’s now-infamous laptop
computer broke. Now we discover that
Zlochevsky referred to “the big guy” in-
dependently, several years before Bobu-
linski said that was Joe Biden’s moniker.
When multiple people in multiple cir-
cumstances all use the same, semi-un-
usual appellation to refer, as if in code,
to an effectively silent partner in legally
questionable business dealings, the like-
lihood that they are referring to the same
person increases substantially.
2 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
These reports are significant because
they more directly link Joe Biden himself
to what can only be described as massive
influence-peddling — whether legal or
illegal is to be determined — by multiple
members of his family. Joe Biden has in-
sisted for years that he barely even knew
about, much less participated in, the for-
eign engagements for which Hunter and
Joe’s brother Jim each were paid millions
of dollars. The references to “the big
guy” add to copious circumstantial evi-
dence indicating those protestations were
untrue.
Andrew C. McCarthy, once a
high-ranking federal prosecutor on na-
tional security matters and a noted crit-
ic of Trump’s own behavior, is equally
tough on Joe Biden in a way the Justice
Department, inexcusably, is not. He con-
cisely summarizes, to devastating effect,
the massive trail of unsavory and proba-
bly illegal business dealings of the Biden
family.
“The telltale signs of illegitimate
business are reticulated payment ar-
rangements featuring shell companies,
complex banking channels, and money
transfers to people with no clear — and
sometimes no plausible — connection to
the provision of goods and services,” Mc-
Carthy wrote. “Such practices are strong-
ly suggestive of money-laundering. ... This
is what one sees with the Biden-family
transactions. So far, House Republicans
have shown the use of 20 limited-liability
companies for transferring funds — 15 of
them established by Hunter while his fa-
ther was vice president.”
Throughout all of this now-incontro-
vertible evidence, the obvious common
thread is that none of it makes any sense
for the foreign officials unless Joe Biden
himself was lending a hand on desired
policy outcomes.
The lack of indictments against Biden
family members is not a reason Trump
should escape justice, but justifiable con-
cern about Trump’s willful misbehavior
should set the standard that nobody is
above the law — including the Bidens.
The “big guy” himself and his top aides
repeatedly took meetings with shady for-
eigners who were funneling millions of
dollars to Joe Biden’s family when he was
overseeing policy toward those foreign
interests. Complicated policy questions
in Ukraine, Russia, Romania, China, and
elsewhere were pursued in ways seeming-
ly beneficial to the Biden family’s bene-
factors. Payments were funneled through
shell corporations not just to Hunter and
Jim Biden but to widows and paramours
and even Joe Biden’s grandchildren.
FBI officials have been exposed de-
liberately to have impeded investigations
into Hunter Biden.
With all of these indicators of corrup-
tion, and with three different people say-
ing the “big guy” is involved, the Justice
Department’s inaction looks incoherent
and inexcusable, especially as Trump is
being dragged into court. The credibility
of its prosecution of Trump is inextrica-
bly associated with the need for a parallel
investigation into Joe Biden’s apparent
links to influence-peddling. A special
counsel should be appointed to investi-
gate it. 
MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP
JUNE 20, 2023
Volume 29, Number 23
Editorials
1 Biden’s land grab hurts
working people
2 Biden family business needs
its own special counsel
Letter From the Editor
6 Biden’s weakness is a
feature not a bug
Your Land
7 America’s Biggest Liberal Cities
are Dying  Transgenderism is a
Bridge Too Far For Even Liberals
 Whose Streets  You Can’t Fix
Faith Without Fixing Marriage
 California’s Imaginary Solar-
Powered Bullet Train
11 The Week That Was
Features
12 Why Everyone Loves the ’90s
Extraordinary pace of technological
change makes people nostalgic
for the recent past
By Peter Tonguette
16 Dynasty of Destruction
What Soros’s succession plan
means for America
By Jonathan Tobin
20 Clowns Without the Car
The 2024 Republican
presidential primary
is not the same as the 2016
By Varad Mehta
COMING NEXT WEEK
 The New Cuban Crisis
4 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
Washington Briefing
25 Creaky House foundations
28 Did Trump’s retention of
classified documents actually
compromise national security?
30 Senators aim to boost AI knowledge
34 These ex-members of Congress
can’t stop, won’t stop, running
for public office
37 Biden gives Trump the silent
treatment on indictment,
but for how long?
38 A stampede of 2024 GOP cattle calls
41 Buttigieg bets big on ‘Vision Zero’
to stop traffic deaths — all of them
Business
42 Fed eases up interest rate hikes as
inflation slowly cools
44 Stephen Moore Republicans must
be the party of small business
Life & Arts
46 Books How to Carve a Boomer
Mount Rushmore
47 Books Patrick Deneen Is Not Up
to Changing the Regime
49 Books Sohrab Ahmari,
Man Attending the Arena
50 Sports Le Mans Was Rigged, and
Most People Want It That Way
51 Film Not Obsolete
53 On Culture Pride Bullies
54 TV The Crowded Room Is a Mess
56 Downtime Fake Recipes and
Fake Gin
56 Long Life A Eulogy for Pat Sajak’s
Career
The Columnists
58 Hugo Gurdon PGA rolls into a trap
at the US Open
59 Dominic Green Twilight of the
populists?
60 Byron York Donald Trump’s
arraignment
61 Daniel J. Hannan Why do Right-
wingers prefer Trump to DeSantis?
Because of the vibes
62 Nicole Russell Women love
Outlander because of its portrayal
of traditional masculinity
Obituary
63 Silvio Berlusconi, 1936-2023
64 Crossword
COVER: Illustration by Dean MacAdam
HUGO GURDON: LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Biden’s weakness Editors

Editor-In-Chief Hugo Gurdon
Managing Editor Chris Irvine
is a feature not a bug Deputy Managing Editor Liam Quinn
News Editor Marisa Schultz

T
Commentary Editor Conn Carroll
Executive Editor (Magazine) Seth Mandel
Managing Editor (Magazine) David Mark
he latest Suffolk University-USA Today poll found 86% of Politics Editor W. James Antle III
Democrats comfortable at the thought of Vice President Ka- Policy Editor Joseph Lawler
mala Harris taking over if President Joe Biden can’t make it to Congress & Campaigns Editor David Sivak
Digital Engagement Editor Maria Leaf
2028. This is no empty hypothetical question because Ameri- Trending News Editor Julia Johnson
can men who reach 70 die on average at 84. Biden would need Breaking News Editor Max Thornberry
Associate Breaking News Editor Hailey Bullis
to make it to 86 to complete a second term. Night News Editor Samuel Schaffer
That is a big reason why 73% of U.S. adults, including 47% of Dem- Overnight News Editor Conrad Hoyt
ocrats, would prefer Biden not to run again. He wants to renew his job Weekend News Editor Meghann Dyke
Homepage Editor Chloe West
contract even though, like his principal rival, he is manifestly unfit to do Life & Arts Editor (Magazine) Nicholas Clairmont
it. Production Editor Joana Suleiman
So, what is going on? The reason for the 86% is not that Harris is Chief Web Producer Stacey Dec
Deputy Commentary Editor Quin Hillyer
hugely popular. On the contrary, she is less admired than her flounder- Restoring America Editors Kaylee McGhee White, Tom Rogan
ing boss. Contributors Editor Madeline Fry Schultz
Design Director Philip Chalk
A likely explanation, it seems to me, is that although Democrats Deputy Editor (Magazine) J. Grant Addison
would prefer a vigorous leader like former President Barack Obama,
they’ve now seen for two-plus years how easy it is to advance their rad- Columnists & Writers
Senior Columnists: Michael Barone, Paul Bedard, Timothy P. Carney,
ical agenda with an empty suit in charge. A lot of radical things get done Byron York
if the president is no more than a figurehead grinning on the prow of a Senior Writers: Barnini Chakraborty, Jamie McIntyre, Mabinty Quarshie,
leftist warship. Salena Zito
Staff Reporters: Jeremy Beaman, Sarah Bedford, Jack Birle, Mike
But someone must be exercising power. People often wonder who Brest, Christian Datoc, Kaelan Deese, Breanne Deppisch, Jerry
is pulling the strings of the Oval Office puppet, for Biden isn’t acting as Dunleavy, Gabrielle Etzel, Joel Gehrke, Luke Gentile, Anna Giaritelli,
Jenny Goldsberry, Reese Gorman, Zachary Halaschak, Heather
the centrist he promised to be. He hasn’t resisted any leftist extreme — Hamilton, Christopher Hutton, Emily Jacobs, Gabe Kaminsky, Brady
spending trillions of borrowed dollars stoking inflation and crippling Knox, Naomi Lim, Cassidy Morrison, Cami Mondeaux, Asher Notheis,
savings, opening the border to illegal immigration, and proudly hanging Jeremiah Poff, Samantha-Jo Roth, Rachel Schilke, Misty Severi,
Breccan Thies, Eden Villalovas, Haisten Willis
the LGBT flag more prominently than Old Glory at the White House. Commentary Writers: Zachary Faria, Tiana Lowe, Christopher
You name it — he’s with the program. So the Left is rolling its tanks Tremoglie
largely unchecked across our economy and culture, and faster now than Contributors: T. Becket Adams, Eric Felten, Daniel Ross Goodman,
Dominic Green, Grant Gross, Daniel J. Hannan, Graham Hillard,
when they had a real leader. Content-free Biden suits Washington’s per- Rob Long, Emma Loop, Jeremy Lott, Stephen Moore, John O’Sullivan,
manent left-liberal bureaucracy down to the ground. Philip Terzian, Peter Tonguette, Tevi Troy, Robert Woodson
If another nonentity such as Harris took over, things would work Design, Video & Web
just the same. And it would create an incumbency advantage in 2028. Senior Designer: Amanda Boston-Trypanis
What’s not to like if you’re happy with the country’s trajectory and Production Designer: Tatiana Lozano
Designers: Barbara Kyttle, Julia Terbrock
rapid repudiation of the values it once stood for? Who thinks that way? Senior Web Producer: Tim Collins
Left-wing Democrats and (tautologically) federal bureaucrats. Web Producers: Robert Blankenship, Shaan Memon Zach LaChance,
Shifting power to an unelected oligarchy is especially obvious when Alexis Leonard, Chris Slater, Zachary Vasile
Director of Video: Amy DeLaura
a man who is hardly present is president. But it is not a new phenom- Videographers: Justin Craig, Arik Dashevsky, Christine Queally,
enon. For decades, unelected regulators have effectively created new Timothy Wolff
Photographer Graeme Jennings
laws by reinterpreting old ones along radical lines. There has been a de-
cadeslong power grab by the central command in Washington, militat- MediaDC
ing ceaselessly against the individual freedom of ordinary Americans. Chairman Ryan McKibben
Chief Executive Officer Christopher P. Reen
This has not always been resisted. Congress has ceded much of its President & Chief Operating Officer Mark Walters
connotational role willingly so pols can focus on elections — raising Audience Development Officer Jennifer Yingling
money and avoiding difficult votes — rather than governing. Pushback Chief Digital Officer Tony Shkurtaj
IT Director Mark Rendle
is still far too weak, but it can be seen, for example, in the House Re- Director of Strategic Communications and Publicity Carly Hagan Brogan
publican majority passing the REINS Act on June 14 requiring congres-
Advertising
sional approval of any regulation that costs more than $100 million. Vice President, Advertising Nick Swezey
It won’t pass the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. But it Digital Director Jason Roberts
should, for it would be a start to Congress reasserting its proper role. National Account Director Jake Berube
Advertising Operations Manager Andrew Kaumeier
Power abhors a vacuum. And power is being exercised in Washington, Advertising Sales Inquiries: 202-293-4900
even if not by the vacuum in the Oval Office.  Customer Service: 800-274-7293

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 Transgenderism is a Bridge Too Far For Even
Liberals P. 8  Whose Streets? P. 8  You Can’t Fix
Faith Without Fixing Marriage P. 9  California’s
Imaginary Solar-Powered Bullet Train P. 10

America’s Biggest
can make it anywhere.” For many college
graduates, the goal was to make it in one
of those four big brand cities.

Liberal Cities are Dying No longer. All four are plagued by a

crime crisis that has bled out from those
icky poor areas of the cities that college

T
he liberal cities with the most
recognizable brands were once
the dream destinations for col-
lege graduates and aspiring
professionals in various in-
GET T Y IMAGES
New York City, San Francisco, Los
Angeles, and Washington, D.C., are all
seeing a net exodus of college graduates
(as is San Jose). Those four cities were
typically the finish line for those seeking
graduates avoided and into the rest of
the city. New York City’s public trans-
portation isn’t safe. San Francisco is
plagued by homelessness. Los Angeles
actively refuses to keep violent crimi-
nals and gang members off the streets.

dustries. Now, they are all recognized as jobs in media, politics, entertainment, Washington can’t even guarantee the
overrated dumps that have been carried finance, or tech. As New Yorkers used safety of members of Congress in their
by their reputation for years. to boast, “If you can make it here, you own apartments.

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 7

YOUR LAND

Combine that with the stupidly expen-

sive cost of housing in those cities, and you
have the least desirable professional desti-
nations imaginable. You can hardly blame
the college graduates who are making their
way to Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Sioux Falls,
South Dakota, among the many cities
seeing an increase in working-age college
graduates. Arizona, Florida, and Texas are
also winners, with cities that still appeal
to that demographic that also happen to
be affordable and not nearly as dangerous.
As America’s Big Four cities continue
to decay, no one, from the average resi-
dents who were already moving out to the
college graduates who no longer want to
move in, is impressed with the old repu-
tations of those cities. If you can’t make
it here, don’t worry about it. No one else
really wants to anymore, anyway.
—By Zachary Faria

Transgenderism
is a Bridge Too Far People attend the annual
LA Pride Parade on June 11
For Even Liberals in the Hollywood section of
Los Angeles, California.

T
he Left has dominated American
culture for decades now and likely
will continue to for years to come.
But its comfortable grip on our institutions
has led its activists to push too hard, too
fast — to the point where they are quickly
losing support from their own allies.
A new Gallup survey this month
found that the number of people who
identify as “very liberal” or “liberal”
on social issues has fallen from 34% to
29% in the past two years. Meanwhile,
the number of people who say they are
social conservatives increased to 38%.
The shift toward social conservatism
was most pronounced among Republi-
cans and independents. Seventy-four
percent of Republicans now say they are
“very conservative” or “con-
servative” when it comes to
cultural debates — a 14-point
increase from 2021. And
among independents, 29% now say they
identify as social conservatives com-
pared to 24% two years ago.
The poll also identified one of the
causes of this shift: radical gender ideol-
ogy, especially insofar as it affects wom-
en’s sports and private spaces. Sixty-nine
percent of respondents, including 48%
of Democrats and 67% of independents,
said transgender athletes should be re-
quired to play on the sports team that
matches their biological sex — up from
62% in 2021. The number of people who
that the Left’s attempted rewrite of bi-
ological reality is a bridge too far. They
see transgenderism not as an extension
of equal rights but as an effort to upend
the civil rights fought for and
secured by women. And no
matter how tolerant people
might like to be, they simply
cannot deny what is plainly evident: Men
are men, women are women, and noth-
ing can change that fact.
Whether the issue of gender ideolo-
gy will be enough finally to dethrone the
Left is another question. But certainly
this is a losing issue, and the Left’s in-
sistence otherwise speaks to its insuffer-
able hubris.
—By Kaylee McGhee White
Whose Streets?
DAVID MCNEW/GET T Y IMAGES

disagreed and said transgender athletes

should be allowed to play on the sports

team that matches their “gender identi-
ty” dropped 7 points to 26%.
In other words, the vast majority of
people, including those who generally
support the LGBT agenda, recognize
‘C
amping bans” are trending on
the West Coast these days. Be-
fore the 2010s, this might have
caused some head-scratching. These
statutes might some day cause a future

8 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023


historian to cock an eye. But if you live
in a temperate U.S. city these days, you
know exactly what’s going on.
Portland and San Diego, two cities
advancing camping bans this summer,
are swamped with an epidemic of home-
lessness. COVID lockdowns turned
Main Streets into ghost towns, which
made them ripe for takeover by homeless
encampments.
Then, the riots after George Floyd
was killed by police turned parts of Port-
land into post-apocalyptic hellscapes.
Throw in the urban doom loops in many
cities where crime and abandonment
cause more abandonment, which causes
more crime, etc.
“There are currently hundreds of un-
sanctioned, sometimes dangerous, and
often squalid homeless camps across the
146 square miles of Portland,” Portland
Mayor Ted Wheeler said. “These home-
less camps represent nothing short of a
humanitarian catastrophe.”
Wheeler has advanced a daytime
camping ban in Portland. It would al-
low homeless people to set up a tent in
a park after 8 p.m., but by 8 a.m., they
would need to pack up camp. Opponents
deride this as forcing the unhoused to
carry all their belongings on their backs
for 12 hours.
San Diego’s camping ban, which
passed June 13, would be 24 hours and
would apply on sidewalks, parks, and
in canyons, where campfires pose a real
risk of sparking wildfires.
Gilroy, in the San Francisco Bay area,
voted on June 5 to ban outdoor camping
near schools and in its main park, among
other places.
These West Coast lawmakers have
to thread a needle on these laws, given
a 2019 decision by the 9th Circuit Court
of Appeals that governments can’t ban
homeless camping unless they provide a
housing alternative.
These are hotly contested matters.
The public meeting at which San Diego’s
City Council passed its camping ban in-
cluded about 7 hours of public comment,
some for, some against.
The debate is this: Is the harshness
of clearing out a homeless encampment
and forcing its residents into a homeless
shelter justified by the disorder caused
by the camps that are spreading through-
out the city?
Or, if you go back to the days of the
George Floyd protests, you could sum
up the debate in one question: Whose
streets?
—By Timothy P. Carney
You Can’t Fix Faith
Without Fixing
Marriage
I
s marriage in the United States declin-
ing because fewer people are going to
church? Or are fewer people going to
church because marriage is declining?
Many may assume that it is a loss of
faith that is driving the decline of mar-
riage, but a new report by the Chris-
tian nonprofit organization Communio
showed it is the decline of marriage that
is driving the decline in faith.
Births outside of marriage first be-
gan rising in the 1960s, the report noted,
climbing from 5% of all births in 1960 to
10% of all births in 1970 to 20% in 1980
to 30% by 1990.
The trend away from church atten-
dance, however, didn’t start until the
YOUR LAND
mid-1980s, almost a generation after
marriage began to collapse. In 1980,
those with no religion made up just 7%
of the population, but by 1990, that had
doubled to 14%, and by 2020, nones had
risen to 22%.
So timing-wise, it seems clear that
the decline in marriage happened be-
fore the decline in faith. But Communio
also commissioned a poll finding that
80% of all Sunday churchgoers today
also grew up in
a continuously
married home
with both bio-
logical parents. It is those former believ-
ers who either experienced divorce, or
whose parents never married, who are
most likely to have lost faith and left the
church. “Religious non affiliation is un-
likely to stabilize until 25-30 years after
married fatherhood stabilizes,” the re-
port surmised.
In other words, as long as marriage
keeps declining, we should expect reli-
gious faith to keep declining, too.
To combat these trends, the report
recommended churches create and nor-
malize marriage ministries. “Research
has shown that as little as 8 hours of
relationship skills education practiced
during a 12-month period leads to low-
er divorce rates and better relationship
satisfaction,” the report said.
Communio also recommended that
MADE BY JIMBOB.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 9
YOUR LAND

churches encourage young adults to em-

brace getting married in their 20s instead
of waiting until their 30s. “Churches must
become serious and effective in discour-
aging the many existing marriage com-
petitors (such as cohabitation) and sexual
alternative to marriage (premarital sex
and pornography),” the report concluded.
This is all excellent advice that
churches should follow, but there is more
lawmakers can do as well. Marriage did
not start falling apart in this country un-
til the federal government started forc-
ing working-class mothers to choose
between government benefits and mar-
riage. As the number of these programs
has grown, including Medicaid and even
private health insurance subsidies, the
penalty the federal government inflicts
on marriage has only grown.
If we are going to save faith in the
U.S., we need to tackle federal marriage
penalties first. In 2008, California voters passed a referendum to construct a high-speed rail
—By Conn Carroll connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco. It was supposed to be completed and
operational in 2020. It is now 2023, and there is nothing to show for the last 15 years.

California’s Imaginary
Solar-Powered mental benefits were overstated.
Bullet Train The skeptics, of course, have been
vindicated. But few thought it would be
as bad as it has since turned out to be.
a few reasons.
For starters, solar energy is incredi-
bly unreliable because solar panels do
not produce energy when it is dark or

W
hen California voters passed
a referendum in 2008 to con-
struct a high-speed rail connect-
ing Los Angeles to San Francisco, there
was no shortage of skeptics. Forty-sev-
en percent of the state voted against the
plan, and a group of think tanks issued a
nearly 200-page report that year arguing
costs would skyrocket, ridership would
not match projections, and the environ-
Fifteen years, and countless setbacks
later, not a single mile of track has been
laid, and estimated costs have risen to
$128 billion — or $200 million per mile.
There is no money left, and even the
secretary of the California State Trans-
portation Agency now admits, “We can’t
get this project done without federal sup-
port. It’s just not going to happen.“
Nevertheless, Forbes reported last
week that the California High-Speed
Rail Authority now plans for the entire
project to be powered by solar energy
once it is complete because…why not?
After all, it is not as if this bullet train is
ever going to exist anyway. As such, its
visionaries certainly have an interest in
periodically devising new, wholly unre-
there is bad weather. Not only that, but
there is no other bullet train in the world
that is “fully powered by renewables.”
Considering California’s high-speed rail
is already teed up to be uniquely ineffi-
cient relative to those in other parts of
the world, both in terms of speed and
cost, it seems unlikely to be exemplary
in this domain. And last, the initial plan
was passed in 2008 to be completed and
operational in 2020. But it is now 2023,
and there is nothing to show for the in-
tervening 15 years. Adding another, even
more complicated element on top of
what has already proven to be difficult
for California seems like a recipe for even
more failure.
This is exactly how scams work: huge
COURTESY OF CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL

alistic schemes that appeal to those who
voted for it as a way of distracting from
their incompetence.
Forbes noted the plan includes “552
acres of solar panels generating 44
megawatts of electricity” and that “work
could begin by 2026 to ensure it’s ready
to power trains by 2030.” But anybody
paying attention to the progress made
thus far knows this is a pipe dream for
promises, no results, and then more huge
promises to cover up the fact there were
no results in the first instance. Evidently,
there is no bigger scam than progressive
governance. The reason is unmistakable:
When on the ground reality inevitably
clashes with the progressive imagina-
tion, reality wins every time — and the
people pay the price.
—By Jack Elbaum

10 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023

 The Week That Was
STAT OF THE WEEK QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Lionel Messi, the all-time great soccer player who recently

decided to come play in the US league, has scored a goal in
every minute of a match except the opening minute of play,
according to sports stat group Gracenote.
Don’t make me
hold a f***ing
groundhog. I mean,
what the hell?
— Former NYC Mayor Bill
de Blasio recounting his reaction
to being asked to hold the Staten
Island groundhog for a ceremony
in 2014. De Blasio dropped the
groundhog and it died from
its injuries days later.

PHOTO OF THE WEEK // GRAEME JENNINGS/WASHINGTON EXAMINER

JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AP; KYLE GREEN/AP

‘Kodak the Bear’ and ‘Max the Moose’ are delivered to the office of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in the Hart Senate Office Building
on Tuesday. The stuffed animals are brought to the Capitol every year for the Experience New Hampshire event.

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 11

 Why Everyone
Loves
the Nineties
Extraordinary pace of technological change
makes people nostalgic for the recent past
A
rachnophobia is
the fear of spi-
ders. Claustro-
phobia, the fear
of closed spac-
es. There’s even
coulrophobia to
describe the fear
of clowns. Yet
the field of psychiatry has yet to develop
an adequate term for a far more perva-
sive and plausible contemporary condi-
tion: the fear of the present day.
To be sure, that fear is not often
expressed as a fear. Those who find
contemporary life and its trappings un-
satisfactory, lacking in imagination and
interest, or otherwise deficient do not
generally withdraw from their families,
schools, or places of work. They still go
to movies, watch television, use the in-
ternet, and participate, often with great
avidity, in our capitalist economy. Maybe
they even vote. But their attention, and
their affection, is directed to the past
— often eras that seem not so long ago,
such as the ’80s and ’90s — which they
judge to be superior, in ways profound
12 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
By Peter Tonguette
and superficial, to the present moment.
The recency of the past they long for,
in fact, is what separates this condition
from simple nostalgia.
Perhaps we should deem this condi-
tion “modernity aversion” or “millenni-
um-ophobia” since, for its sufferers, the
turn of the century represented a rough
line of demarcation: Whatever came be-
fore was acceptable, basic, and normal,
and so much of what has come since
— a more chaotic political landscape,
more intrusive and inescapable technol-
ogy, increasingly corporate-tested and
woke-approved mass media — is weird,
off-putting, and abnormal.
In practical terms, these are the
young men and women who have fueled
the comeback of vinyl records, which,
according to the Recording Industry
Association of America, sold in greater
numbers last year than CDs for the first
time in over three decades; the emerg-
ing secondhand market for VHS tapes,
which have untold listings on eBay; the
fetishizing of long-outdated video game
consoles, which led Nintendo to reissue
versions of the NES and SNES systems;
Digital collage by Gary Locke
and the increasingly mainstream, non-
niche interest in “dead malls,” 1980s-era
fashions, and period-appropriate logos
for movie studios.
Simple nostalgia is scarcely a new
phenomenon, but it’s usually associated
with older generations intolerant of prog-
ress. In the 1970s, Archie Bunker on All in
the Family sang a song in pining for the
presidency of Herbert Hoover, for Pete’s
sake. Nowadays, however, millennials are
the ones indulging in their own form of
wistful yearning, and because that yearn-
ing is for their own youths, and even for
the days just before their own youths,
the process has been accelerated:
30- and 40-years-olds are rem-
iniscing about a mere 20 or
30 years ago. Yet, far

Looking back on all the
relics, one does feel
that Americans were,
a few short decades
ago, happier, surer
of who they were,
more relaxed about
day-to-day life, and
more confident in the
contours of the world.
from being illegitimate, this acceleration
of the nostalgic impulse among millen-
nials is a testament to how quickly the
world has changed in their short lifetimes:
Even if you were born in 1989, you are just
old enough to remember, or squint and
imagine, the before times.
To understand the source of this
burrowing into the past, spend an after-
noon on YouTube — a distinctly modern
means through which to channel one’s
distaste for contemporary society. You
will find a 1988 Coca-Cola commercial
in which Robin Beck’s pop song “First
Time” is heard over images of a young
couple embracing ever so meaningful-
ly, an adolescent boy making eyes at a
girl in his class (and the girl returning
the glance), a trio of teenage girls mak-
ing a prank phone call, a young woman
swaying in a long flowing dress, and so
on. It’s pure corn, but the comments for
the video on YouTube show the intensity
with which people today connect to it: “I
want to live in this commercial,” “Greatest
advert of all time,” “Cheesy or what . . . . I
LOVE IT!!!” By the same token, pull up
one of the ’90s-era ads from the Beef In-
dustry Council and Beef Board showing
energetic, smiling families being served
various meals described in the authori-
tative voice of Robert Mitchum. Is it not
invigorating to see beef being robustly
touted on TV over vegetarianism, veg-
anism, and assorted prescription drugs?
And go watch old episodes of David Let-
terman’s Late Night broadcast in which
Dave, unapologetically and incessantly,
engages in a multiyear flirtation with
Teri Garr, the ultimate ’80s daffy lady
(she was the Mrs. Mom in Mr. Mom) — a
verbal dalliance that both sides enjoyed,
nurtured, perpetuated.
Looking at all of this random stuff,
we must conclude that people were, a
few short decades ago, happier, surer of
who they were, more relaxed about day-
to-day life, and more confident in the
contours of the world. Even if we admit
the inherent artifice of commercials, talk
shows, and the like, we also must admit
that mass media reflect what a country
thinks about itself, so if Coca-Cola and
the beef people were presenting a more
contended America, it’s because they
felt that that’s what people felt
about themselves.
Naturally, the huge conglom-
erates that now control so much of

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popular culture have co-opted this Day, Jack Paar, or Buddy Holly. Life
retro craze and have benefited from as I encountered it in the ’80s and
the willingness of its adherents to ’90s seemed just fine. I also had the
swipe their credit cards to expe- advantage of no easily accessible
rience a blast from the past. Piz- means (e.g., the internet) to im-
za Hut is one of countless brands merse myself in earlier eras.
that, sensing prevailing winds, res- Undoubtedly, the present state
urrected its original branding. You- of affairs, a whole cadre of peo-
Tube channels such as Binging with ple hankering for food courts and
Babish, which included a lesson on hand-drawn Saturday morning
how to make the giant pancakes cartoons, is a bug of the 21st cen-
from the John Candy movie Uncle tury. Why has it made nostalgists
Buck, draw clicks by mining nos- out of us? What has given us this
talgia. The Netflix series Stranger “modernity aversion,” or whatever
Things is merely the most compe- we want to call it? Place the blame
tent of an endless parade of content on social media, streaming, the
that trades on the public’s affection woke takeover of entertainment,
for old movies and shows. The Top the hardening of lines and posi-
Gun sequel, the new animated se- tions among our fellow citizens,
ries based on Joe Dante’s Gremlins, the barking by talking heads — all
the fifth Indiana Jones movie, and the things absent from that Co-
the recent 1980s-set horror-com- ca-Cola commercial.
edy Cocaine Bear all owe their As life has become at once
existence to a cross-section of con- more congested, convoluted, and
sumers hellbent on looking back. confused, it’s to be expected that
Earlier this year, the New York people will seek refuge in what
Times ran a story about the ex- they remember as, or perceive to
plosion of interest in auctions of be, better times. The fact that so
pop culture artifacts, including much about our technologically
unopened tapes of the first three advanced civilization has taken
Rocky movies, purchased by their on an ephemeral quality, in which
original owner for $60 apiece, that tweets can disappear or be flagged
were recently sold to a bidder for in an instant, old books can be si-
nearly $54,000. The takeaway? lently redrafted in accordance with
“The culture is bursting with new woke standards, and well-known
material ... but the old stuff offers public figures can be out-and-out
a sweeter emotional payoff for canceled, makes it easy to under-
many,” the New York Times report- stand why people will cling to a
ed. “It might be from their child- vinyl record or VHS tape. You can
hood or the childhood they never Good ol’ days: Coke and beef ads of yore.
cancel people, but you can’t erase a
had, or it might merely express a record or a tape by tweeting about
longing to be anywhere but 2023.” it. Admit it: It’s pleasing to incul-
Even so, the commodification cate oneself in a time in which
of nostalgia does not undermine how looking at a phone involved setting down
sincerely it is felt by its adherents. No the receiver, consuming the news was an
one can doubt the genuineness of those What has given activity reserved for the morning paper,
attached to vinyl, VHS, and Home Alone, us this ‘modernity and people seemed to behave with great-
or those who judge, at least on the basis aversion’? Social er joy and fewer grievances.
of commercials, movies, music, and oth- In truth, there’s nothing particular-
er mass-produced ephemera, life during media, streaming, ly special about the ’80s or ’90s except
the Reagan, Bush 41, and Clinton years to the woke takeover of insofar as they happen to have been the
be preferable than what’s on offer today. most recent not-insane decades that
Now, to be perennially dissatisfied
entertainment, the can be recalled or easily envisioned by
with your own epoch — and intensely fo- hardening of lines millennials. The fact that the winter of
cused on the objet d’art of another time, and positions among our discontent has led to the cultural el-
especially ones as disposable as Rocky evation of denim jackets, Corey Feldman
tapes — is admittedly a little strange. I
our fellow citizens, movies, and the Whitney Houston dis-
was born in 1983, and when I was grow- the barking by talking cography may be a historical fluke, but
ing up, I can recall no particular fascina- heads — all the things it’s an instructive one. +
tion in me or my peers with, say, the pop
culture of my parents’ Silent Generation. absent from an ’80s Peter Tonguette is a contributing writer to
I had no overwhelming interest in Doris Coca-Cola commercial. the Washington Examiner magazine.

14 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 15
 George Soros speaks at an annual
meeting of the IMF/World Bank in
Washington, D.C., Sept. 24, 2011.

Dynasty of
Destruction
What Soros’s succession plan means for America
By Jonathan S. Tobin

T
he recent announce- opera in which the more considered and Since its founding in 1984, OSF has
ment that 37-year-old cautious Jonathan, the longtime favorite operated on an epic scale. While initially
Alexander Soros, rath- to succeed George Soros, was bested by primarily focused on promoting democ-
er than his 52-year-old Alexander, who seems to be cut from the racy in Eastern Europe, by the dawn of
half-brother Jonathan, same cloth as his risk-taking father. the 21st century, it had completely re-
MANUEL BALCE CENETA / AP

would take control of The more important prize that the
his father’s $25 billion Soros boys were vying for was not their
business empire was Hungarian-born father’s hedge fund but
an important develop- his philanthropic foundation, the Open
ment in the financial world. But there’s Society Foundations that the business
more to this story than the financial soap supports.
invented itself as the Left’s all-purpose
sugar daddy, doling out tens of billions
of dollars to a vast network of left-wing
groups that seek to influence policy and
elect candidates to political office.
The fund’s willingness to invest enor-

16 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023

 mous sums in a sharply focused ambi- visitor to the Biden White House as he President Donald Trump’s blaming
tious agenda made it the single most boosts his commitment to increasing him for Manhattan District Attorney
influential force in leftist activism and OSF funding for left-wing causes, voter Alvin Bragg’s dubious pursuit of crimi-
politics. It also turned the now 92-year- turnout programs, and Democratic can- nal charges with the same alacrity. And
old elder Soros into a larger-than-life didates in the 2024 election to strato- they considered fellow billionaire and
figure of almost mythical stature for spheric levels. Given the stakes, the Twitter owner Elon Musk likening him
both the Left and the Right. George liberal corporate media see defending to Magneto, a comic book master villain
Soros lives and operates quietly, with a Jewish backstory, to be
eschewing the limelight. But his completely beyond the pale. The
every action, from his youth as a idea that all this is merely a dog
teenage survivor of the Holocaust whistle for antisemitism seems
to his career making billions reasonable to those to whom the
shorting foreign currencies and Soros name is merely a metaphor
creating economic misery in his for resentment of success and lib-
wake and on to his current status eral-minded philanthropic Jews.
as a pinata for right-wing criti- And when such pronounce-
cism that is widely characterized ments come from sources like
as antisemitic by his defenders, is Anti-Defamation League CEO
a focus of intense and often-criti- Jonathan Greenblatt and Am-
cal scrutiny and controversy. bassador Deborah Lipstadt, the
By contrast, the Ameri- State Department’s special en-
can-born Alexander, who likes voy to monitor and combat an-
NFL football, hobnobs with ce- tisemitism, they would seem to
lebrities and politicians, and dates be definitive. Both claim that the
models, is a more difficult target targeting of Soros, even when not
for OSF’s detractors. He’s also far motivated by antisemitism, helps
Pro-Trump protesters outside a New York courthouse
more comfortable with his Jewish before Donald Trump’s arraignment, April 4, 2023. embolden extremists who attack
identity than his father, who has Jews.
always been at pains to distance But the truth about the Soros
himself from both Judaism and Israel. the Soros clan and silencing or shaming family and OSF can’t be reduced to a
That will further facilitate the Left’s cam- its opponents as their critical task. matter of swatting down conspiracy the-
paign to treat the attention the Soros do- It has now become an article of faith ories. Far from a libelous invocation of
nations get as a contemporary version of on the Left and within the media that hate from the past, the political operation
classic memes of Jew-hatred. talking about Soros’s malign influence George Soros created and that his son Al-
Specifically, Jewish issues have never on American society, or that of his na- exander plans on expanding is not just
held any interest for George Soros, who tive Hungary or other countries, such the philanthropic wing of the Democratic
has seen himself as a citizen of the world as Israel, where OSF has thrown its Party. It has become a uniquely toxic force
rather than as someone with an obliga- weight around, is not merely unfair but in political life and society that is making
tion to help and care for his own people. proof of their opponents’ malevolent life worse for a growing number of people.
Indeed, the only aspects of Jewish life character. They consider mentioning OSF has stepped up its political giv-
that held any appeal to George Soros the name Soros in Republican campaign ing, lavishing funds on groups that ad-
were those that sought to undermine ads as a funder of left-wing causes to vocate traditional liberal causes — gun
Israel and Zionism, such as his support be Jew-baiting. They put down former control, open borders, against voter
for groups highly critical of the Jewish integrity laws. But chief among George
state like the left-wing lobby J Street Soros’s interests is his campaign for
and, more recently, groups that support what he calls “reform prosecutors.” And
the antisemitic boycott, divestment, and that, more than any other factor, is what
sanctions movement that seeks to wage makes his donations not merely wrong-
economic warfare on Israel and its citi- headed but flat-out dangerous.
zens and supporters. It has now become In terms of dollar figures, the $40
But the effort to depict any examina- an article of faith on million that the foundation and its affil-
tion of the work of OSF as evidence of iates have spent on efforts to elect law
antisemitism has gone beyond being a
the Left and within enforcement officials who share a belief
standard talking point for corporate media the media that talking
MICHAEL NIGRO / SIPA USA / NEWSCOM

that the criminal justice system in the

outlets who want to shut down opposition about Soros’s malign United States is racist is only a fraction
to someone who donates to their favorite of what OSF has spent on issue advocacy
causes. It’s now absolutely vital for de-
influence on American — a function of the relatively low cost of
fending OSF’s operations and, given the society is not merely winning the Democratic district attorney
scale of its donations, equally important to unfair but proof of primary races in several crucial cities.
the Democratic Party, especially to those But the impact of putting into office a
operating in deep-blue urban bastions. their opponents’ group of people who belong to a radical
The younger Soros is a frequent malevolent character. wing of the soft-on-crime movement is

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 17


Chicago police at the scene of a mass shooting on the city’s West Side, Oct. 31,
2022. Crime has skyrocketed since a Soros-backed district attorney took office.
perhaps the largest sociological experi-
ment conducted in America since Presi-
dent Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”
expansion of entitlements helped create
a permanent underclass dependent on
government largesse.
Soros prosecutor policies that demand
the end of prosecutions for seemingly ev-
ery crime short of murder, the elimination
of cash bail, reducing sentences, and, in
effect, forcing a top-down solution of
de-policing so as to reduce the number of
minority people who are in jail has pro-
duced a man-made natural disaster in the
form of an urban crime surge.
There’s nothing shadowy about this
effort.
George Soros boasted of it in an op-ed
U.S. where approximately a fifth of the
public lives.
Everywhere these people take office,
the quality of life has declined and crim-
inals have benefited from policies that
are rooted in the notion that law enforce-
ment is inherently racist.
Soros prosecutor
policies — the end
of prosecutions for
seemingly every crime
Even a brief and partial survey of the
impact of some of Soros’s most outra-
geous prosecutors illustrates just what
OSF money is buying for people.
In Los Angeles, $4.7 million from a
Soros-backed PAC helped elect George
Gascon as district attorney. His version
of “reform” was to end bail requirements
for a variety of crimes involving theft
and lower-level assaults and similarly
downgrade offense thresholds to make
it easier on criminals. The result was an
increase in crime, especially home inva-
sions and burglaries. So criminal-friend-
ly is the City of Angels that not only is
thievery from local businesses routine-
ly unpunished, but it is even attracting
“crime tourists” from South America
who can always go home with the profits
of their efforts once let out on bail. (One
such group from Colombia was arrested
in January.)
In Philadelphia, District Attorney
Larry Krasner received $1.5 million from
Soros-backed groups. On his watch, the
murder rate has soared, but in more than
60% of those cases, no suspects have
been arrested.
In Chicago’s Cook County, $2 mil-
lion from Soros groups helped elect Kim
Foxx. During her eight years in office, the
rates of murders, shootings, carjackings,
robberies, and sundry other crimes sky-
rocketed. But she insists that her refusal
to prosecute whole categories of crimes
has nothing to do with that.
In St. Louis, District Attorney Kim
Gardner received $116,000 from Soros
groups before resigning after accusa-
tions of negligence from the Republican
legislature. During her time in office,
the murder rate hit a 50-year high while
charging increasingly fewer of those ar-
rested for felonies.
In New York City, Bragg received over

E. JASON WAMBSGANS / CHICAGO TRIBUNE / TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE / GET T Y

published last summer in the Wall Street
Journal. But while he describes this “re-
form” initiative as an anodyne pursuit of
justice that was by no means antithetical
to the rule of law, a close look at the im-
pact his pet prosecutors have had wher-
ever he has helped them gain office paints
a very different picture. And it gives the lie
to the claims that his detractors are con-
spiracy-mongering far-right trolls.
As author Matt Palumbo has docu-
mented, George Soros has poured more
than $40 million into election campaigns
that have put 75 different candidates in
prosecutorial posts and collectively now
preside over the criminal justice system
in cities and counties throughout the
short of murder, the $1 million from a Soros-backed fund. He
elimination of cash bail, has reduced penalties for armed robbery
reducing sentences, and won’t prosecute those who resist
arrest, something that puts the already
and, in effect, forcing beleaguered New York Police Depart-
a top-down solution ment at even more risk than it was al-
ready. Soros “reform” in the Big Apple
of de-policing so as also means amnesty for shoplifting with
to reduce the number a vast increase in so-called smash-and-
of minority people grab crimes, making life miserable for
small businesses.
who are in jail — have In San Antonio, Texas, Bexar County
produced a man-made District Attorney Joe Gonzales received
natural disaster in the $1 million from Soros funds. Murders
have gone up more than 50% since.
form of an urban Taken as a whole, it’s clear that the
crime surge. Soros “reform” movement isn’t just a

18 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023

 blow to the rule of law. It’s a singular
force leading to a crime surge that has
virtually erased the progress parts of the
country have made since the 1990s.
As the evidence from virtually every
one of the cities and counties where Soros
prosecutors reign shows, the de-prosecu-
tion approach has made life miserable for
ordinary citizens who must now navigate
life in cities where everyone knows that
crime is increasingly a risk-free profes-
sion, causing economic privation and the
collapse of personal security.
And for all of the rhetoric from the
Left about concern for people of color,
the vast majority of the victims of Soros’s
efforts are not those who can be accused
of “white privilege” but those minorities
who live in poorer neighborhoods that
desperately need more policing and the
locking up of criminals who prey on
black and Hispanic people.
Nor is the “reform” prosecutor proj- Alexander Soros, right, with filmaker Edward Zwick and actress Emily Meade
ect the sole aspect of Soros’s philanthro- at a screening in New York’s Lincoln Center, May 13, 2019.
py that is immiserating life in America.
George Soros is a major funder of
groups that are promoting illegal immi-
gration and seeking to find ways to allow civil rights, which itself results in the authoritarian or undemocratic, has em-
those who have entered the country with- promotion of antisemitism. Toxic ideas ployed tropes that speak to that coun-
out permission to stay indefinitely. While, such as critical race theory and the woke try’s antisemitic past.
like OSF’s other issues advocacy, this is catechism of diversity, equity, and inclu- But the attempt to label virtually any
represented as social justice advocacy, the sion, now the official policy of the Biden mention of the way George Soros has
flood of economic migrants masquerad- administration, which has mandated used his money to promote left-wing
ing as asylum-seekers entering a country that every government department and causes and, especially due to his pros-
where the administration has downgrad- agency set up its own DEI indoctrination ecutor project, made American cities
ed and all but eliminated the enforcement program, grant a permission slip for an- safe places for criminals as antisemitic
of existing immigration laws has added to tisemitism in a manner that has helped doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
the misery of urban America. it migrate from the margins of society to The argument from pearl-clutching
Cities like New York, Washington, mainstream discourse. centrists and liberals that people should
and Chicago and the border communi- It’s true that not every criticism of pull their punches about George Soros
ties that are the first stops for illegal im- George Soros is fair or accurate. because some lunatics on the fringe will
migrants are overwhelmed by the task of In particular, the obsessive focus use their critiques to justify antisemitism
dealing with the social services required of many on Soros’s manner of survival doesn’t pass the smell test. But George So-
to house and treat immigrants. And the during the Holocaust is unseemly. His fa- ros and his apologists very much need to
chaos at the border remains a major bur- ther hid him from the Nazis’ extermina- silence legitimate criticism, even when it
den on residents of those areas as well as tion of Hungarian Jewry by placing him is, as in Musk’s case, expressed in satire, in
law enforcement. with non-Jews who were profiting from order to distract the public from the reality
The focus on smearing Soros critics the dispossession of Jews subsequently of George Soros’s agenda and how much
as antisemites also overlooks the way sent to Auschwitz. That’s not a particu- of an impact he’s having on American life.
the causes OSF supports actually work larly heroic story, but he was a child. And Putting the more attractive personali-
to promote antisemitism and the centu- no one now living has a right to question ty of Alexander Soros at the head of OSF
ry-old war on Zionism being waged by how anyone, let alone a child, managed doesn’t alter the facts about how one fam-
the Palestinians and their supporters. to evade the death sentence that the Ger- ily enterprise is changing America for the
LEV RADIN / PACIFIC PRESS / NEWSCOM

Soros foundation partners are a
mainstay of the left-wing NGO archi-
pelago in Israel that aids organizations
that support BDS and seek to undermine
the Jewish state’s efforts to defend itself
against terrorism. Just as important, the
Soros family supports groups that cham-
pion intersectional ideology that likens
anti-Israel activism to the struggle for
man occupiers and their collaborators
imposed on every Jewish man, woman,
and child in 1944.
It’s equally true that some of the criti-
cism aimed at him in his native Hungary
by supporters of the popular conserva-
tive government led by Prime Minister
Viktor Orban, which has itself been the
target of OSF’s unfair smearing of it as
worse. It isn’t going too far to assert that
the Soros foundations are now endan-
gering American and even Jewish lives as
much as virtually any other factor. +
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of
JNS.org and a senior contributor for the
Federalist. Follow him on Twitter: @
jonathans_tobin.

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 19

Clowns
Without
the Car
The 2024 Republican presidential primary
is not the same as in 2016
By Varad Mehta
S
top me if you’ve heard
this one before: Ryan
Binkley. No? Let’s
try another: Perry
Johnson. Was that
a glimmer of recog-
nition that flashed
across your face?
Steve Laffey. I hear
no bells ringing, not even a hand chime.
Corey Stapleton. A blanker look than an
unplugged TV. Francis Suarez. No sale.
Will Hurd. I guess you didn’t hear me.
Mike Rogers. Yeah, I’m not sure which
Mike Rogers, either. Larry Elder. Finally,
someone you’ve heard of. Maybe.
I won’t leave you in suspense any
longer. These men are all declared or
prospective candidates for the 2024 Re-
publican presidential nomination. That’s
eight names already, and I haven’t even
gotten to the rest of the best, those who
by dint of populating the bottom rungs of
the polls have had conferred upon them
the imprimatur of “major candidate,” the
20 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
likes of Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson,
Vivek Ramaswamy, and Doug Burgum,
let alone the actual major candidates:
Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Ha-
ley, Tim Scott, and Mike Pence.
That’s 17 people. The same number Contrary to 2016,
as in 2016. We know how that turned the 2024 race has
out. The conventional wisdom is that it
will turn out the same the second time already solidified into
around. The conventional wisdom is a two-man contest
wrong. The 2024 Republican primary between Trump and
will not be a repeat of 2016. There are a
host of reasons this is so, but the biggest DeSantis, with the
one is the field itself. The collection of understudies fighting
candidates for 2024 may be clowns, but
this time there’s no car.
each other for third
The media have been anticipating a place. Much of the
pileup almost since the 2024 race began. discussion about a
A crowded and divided field threatens to
prevent Republicans from “coalescing
large primary field
around a single rival” and hand the nom- has focused not on if
ination to Trump again, the Associated it challenges Trump
Press warned last July. Since then, that
consensus has been reinforced by a reg- but whether it can
ular procession of articles playing varia- hurt DeSantis.
Your 2024 GOP Primary Breakdown:
TRUMP DESANTIS OTHER
THER

tions on the theme, “Why a crowded 2024 and standing of the candidates, the fun- bio, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie,
GOP field could clear the path for Trump damental structure of the 2024 race is Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey
— again,” as the Hill put it recently. The different than that of 2016’s. Graham, Jeb Bush, and Ben Carson. Al-
burgeoning roster is the “latest obstacle For one thing, 2024’s pool of aspirants though it’s become a punchline, the GOP
to defeating Trump” for Republicans, who is already smaller. Seventeen people en- bench in 2016 really was deep, replete
fear that “every new entrant will dilute the tered the race in 2015, but only 12 made with governors and senators from big,
anti-Trump vote, making it easier for the it to Iowa. So far, in 2023, the number of important states. These were figures of
former president to triumph,” according serious contestants is nine: Trump, De- national stature in the party. The roster
to the Boston Globe. Santis, Haley, Scott, Pence, Ramaswamy, for 2024 in comparison is a team of ca-
It’s time to wave a red flag on the Christie, Burgum, and Hutchinson. And reer minor-leaguers. Back then, the 10th
“2016 redux” narrative.” This cycle may several of them can only be included by candidate was someone like Louisiana
bear a surface resemblance to 2016, but a applying a lenient definition of “serious.” Gov. Bobby Jindal, a onetime conserva-
surface resemblance is all it is. From the Besides Trump, 2016’s cast included tive superstar. This time, the 10th can-
size and shape of the field to the quality Scott Walker, John Kasich, Marco Ru- didate is talk radio host and California
TRUMP, ED JONES / AFP / GET T Y; R. DESANTIS, GAGE SKIDMORE!; C. DESANTIS, CHARLES KRUPA / AP; PENCE
& RAMASWAMY, GAGE SKIDMORE!; CHRISTIE, MARYL AND GOVPICS; HUTCHINSON, U.S. MARSHALS MUSEUM June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 21
recall loser Larry Elder. If history is re-
peating, this is the farce version.
Polls also show a stark contrast
between 2024 and 2016. Only two
candidates are in double digits in the Real-
ClearPolitics average as of June 14: Trump
at 52% and DeSantis at 22%. No one else
breaks 5%. On June 16, 2015, the day
Trump descended the escalator, Bush led
the Republican field at 10.8%, followed by
Walker with 10.6%, and Rubio with 10%.
Carson, Huckabee, Rand Paul, and Cruz
held the next four spots at 9.4%, 8.6%,
8.2%, and 7%, respectively. Trump pulled
ahead just over a month later, but he was
still under 20%, with Bush and Walker in
double digits a few points behind.
The race, in other words, was fluid
and wide open. Trump had a nominal
lead, other candidates were right on
his heels, and the rest of the field was
jumbled together well within striking
distance. Today, Trump is a decided
front-runner, DeSantis is the clear but
distant challenger, and the remainders
are so far behind they need a telescope
just to see DeSantis, never mind Trump.
The story is the same at the state level.
Three men received double-digit shares
in Iowa in 2016 (Cruz, Trump, and Ru-
bio), and five did so in New Hampshire
(Trump, Kasich, Cruz, Bush, and Rubio).
This time around, Trump and DeSantis
are the only ones who break double dig-
its in the Hawkeye State, while only na-
tive son Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) joins
them in the Granite State, or, rather, did.
All of which is to say that contrary to
2016, the 2024 race has already solidified
into a two-man contest between Trump
and DeSantis, with the understudies
fighting each other for third place. Much
of the discussion about a large prima-
ry field, therefore, has focused not on
whether one of the also-rans can chal-
lenge Trump but whether they can hurt
DeSantis. Just as much as a large field
helps Trump, so the conventional wis-
dom holds, it harms DeSantis.
“The rapidly ballooning field, com-
bined with Trump’s seemingly unbreak-
able core of support, represents a grave
threat to DeSantis, imperiling his ability
to consolidate the non-Trump vote, and
could mirror the dynamics that powered
Trump’s takeover of the party in 2016,”
proclaimed Maggie Haberman, Jonathan
Swan, and Shane Goldmacher of the New
York Times with oracular confidence. It’s
basic math: Trump’s voters aren’t going
anywhere, so each new entrant can only
take a bite out of DeSantis. No one has
embraced the formula that more is mer-
rier for Trump and mayhem for DeSantis
with greater gusto than the former presi-
dent, who welcomes additional competi-
tors with statements bragging about how
their advent further diminishes DeSan-
tis’s prospects.
That so many candidates were sud-
denly considering getting into the race
was a sign, boasted a Trump confidant
to Politico, that “there is blood in the
water for DeSantis.” Which sharks were
drawn by his blood? Christie, Pence,
and Burgum, who combined to barely
total 5% in the polls, and that’s mostly
Pence. They alone have announced since
DeSantis joined the race. And their im-
pact on the contest, to be blunt, will only
be slightly greater than a leaf’s on con-
crete. No doubt many journalists share
the conviction espoused by the New York
Times’s Jonathan Weisman that each
new arrival divides the non-Trump vote
“into ever more slender slivers — leaving
the former president’s inviolable piece of
the pie looking larger and larger with ev-
ery new candidate,” but there’s simply no
evidence that it’s true. The media con-
sensus is utterly at odds with the facts.
Despite chatter about a large field,
there still aren’t 10 major candidates in
the race. The journalist Jonathan Martin
was right when he observed in February
that, notwithstanding Republican panic,
“the 2024 GOP field is shaping up to be
smaller than expected.” One expectation
didn’t pan out because another one did:
If Trump and DeSantis both run, predict-
A top, the 2024 presidential campaign
At
w
website for Coloradoan and former
m
mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island,
S
Steve Laffy; below, the site for Dallas
b
businessman Ryan Binkley.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 23

The homepage of the 2024 White House bid
of former Montana Secretary of State Corey Stapleton.
ed Stu Rothenberg in March, they “could
well take up most of the oxygen in the
race, leaving only a few long shots hoping
for a miracle.” That’s just what happened.
There are three lanes in the GOP
primary race: Trump, DeSantis, and ev-
eryone else. “And the more crowded the
race is,” acknowledged the authors of
Politico Playbook, “the thinner that last
lane gets.” Or, to use a zoological met-
aphor, the also-rans are like hippopot-
amuses crowded into a shrinking pool
during the dry season on the African
savanna, while Trump and DeSantis are
elephants roaming freely about the land.
One putative contender who opted
against wallowing in the muck and mire
was Sununu. In taking a pass on 2024,
New Hampshire’s governor was follow-
ing his own advice: It doesn’t matter
when someone gets in the race, he’d long
said. What matters is knowing when to
quit. “Anyone polling in the low single
digits by this winter,” he admonished
in a Washington Post op-ed announcing
his decision, must withdraw. Polling no
better than third in his own state and in
the low single digits nationally himself,
he simply turned the calendar early.
Sununu’s stated reason for bailing is
to prevent Trump from winning again
with a plurality. “The stakes are too
high,” he wrote, “for a crowded field to
hand the nomination to a candidate who
earns just 35% of the vote.” If a large field
aids Trump, then Sununu is doing his
24 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
part to minimize that risk by personally
minimizing the field.
And perhaps more than minimizing
it. For if polling in December is the same
as it is now, the logic of Sununu’s exhor-
tation that candidates in single digits
in December get out of the race would
entail culling the entire field save Trump
and DeSantis. That’s not a clown car.
That’s a two-seater, a coupe or a simi-
larly sporty number.
The also-rans aren’t taking votes from
Trump or DeSantis. The only candidates
they’re capable of taking votes from are
one another. Some of them, being little
The also-rans are only
capable of taking votes
from one another.
Some of them, being
little more than what
the conservative
commentator Kurt
Schlichter dismissed
as ‘consultant fee-
generation concepts,’
won’t even get the
chance to do that.
more than what the conservative com-
mentator Kurt Schlichter dismissed as
“consultant fee-generation concepts,”
won’t even get the chance to do that as
they’ll be out before January.
Burgum, Christie, and Pence. That’s
whom DeSantis’s supposed “blood in the
water” enticed. Forget sharks — they’re
not even minnows. Suarez, the Miami
mayor who late last week became the
latest to dive in, doesn’t even qualify as a
guppy. Forget taking votes from DeSantis.
He’ll be competing with Johnson not to
dry out in the heat as the water evaporates.
The media’s preferred narrative that
the 2024 GOP race is less a sequel than
a remake of 2016 has not panned out,
largely because DeSantis’s dominance as
the main alternative to Trump dissuad-
ed credible challengers. If DeSantis and
Trump were genuinely weak, Sununu
wouldn’t have sidelined himself. Gov.
Brian Kemp (R-GA) would be running.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) wouldn’t
be musing about possibly getting in, but
only after the Virginia legislative elec-
tions in November. Not to mention Rubio,
Cruz, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Josh
Hawley (R-MO), and countless others
wouldn’t be biding their time until 2028.
Instead of such legitimate candidates,
a flock of nobodies and nonentities have
swooped in precisely because they have
no shot and don’t believe that, at the end
of the day, they’ll get in DeSantis’s way.
They can safely satisfy their egos, chase
their obituaries, push their pet causes,
or set themselves up for a Cabinet post,
book deal, or other gig. Gigs such as the
vice presidency, as with Haley and Scott.
If Trump wins, he wins. But they’re not
jeopardizing DeSantis’s chances by being
in the race. National Review columnist
Jim Geraghty’s assessment that perhaps
“Burgum felt freer to run because he
knows deep down that ... his candidacy
will be so inconsequential that it won’t af-
fect the final outcome” applies to them all.
The 2024 Republican primary is not
a replay of 2016 but its reverse: The field
isn’t big because these folks think they
can win. It’s big because they don’t. This
paradox, and not the myths of a clown
car and crowded field, is the defining
paradigm of the race. Which isn’t to say
2024 won’t end like 2016. But if it does,
it will take an entirely different route to
get there. +
Varad Mehta is a writer and historian. He
lives in the Philadelphia area. Find him
on Twitter @varadmehta.
 Congress P. 25
National Security P. 28
Technology P. 30
Campaigns P. 34
White House P. 37
Shadow Campaign P. 38
Transportation & Infrastructure P. 41

congress

Creaky House foundations

JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP PHOTO

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 25

WASHINGTON BRIEFING
GOP troubles compound with surprise Supreme Court
redistricting ruling and conservative spending rebellion
Max Thornberry
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), center, speaks during
a press conference with members of the
House Freedom Caucus at the Capitol.
H
ouse Speaker Kevin McCa-
rthy (R-CA) recently won
plaudits for negotiating a deal
with President Joe Biden to
raise the nation’s borrowing
capacity while also freezing
big chunks of federal spending, a key
GOP priority.
Now, McCarthy and his House Repub-
lican leadership team face a new series of
political and policy challenges, including
an internal GOP rebellion from the most
boisterous House conservatives angry
about the late-May deal that lifts the cur-
rent $31.4 trillion debt limit into 2025. The
law also caps nondefense discretionary
spending at $704 billion for fiscal 2024.
But House Freedom Caucus members
and assorted other conservatives want
a return to fiscal 2022 spending levels
($689 billion).
With House Republicans holding a
tight 222-213 majority over Democrats,
dissident Republicans have the leverage
to hold up the chamber’s business. And
they did for a time with procedural votes
26 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
involving the rule needed to bring pieces of
legislation up for a vote on the House floor.
Rule votes usually are exercises in partisan
loyalty, with a passage rate well over 99%.
Yet members of the McCarthy-skep-
tical GOP faction surprised Republican
leadership by helping to kill a rule that
would have allowed consideration on a bill
to restrict federal regulation of natural gas
stoves. The episode marked the first time
a rule vote has failed in two decades. After
shutting down the vote on June 6, the row-
dy crowd went on to cancel all floor busi-
ness for the rest of the week, highlighting
the seemingly tenuous hold McCarthy has
on his members.
“Today, we took down the rule be-
cause we’re frustrated at the way this
place is operating,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-
FL) told reporters. “We took a stand in
January to end the era of the imperial
speakership. We’re concerned that the
fundamental commitments that allowed
Kevin McCarthy to assume the speaker-
ship have been violated as a consequence
of the debt limit deal.”
The debt limit deal, which McCarthy
did his best to argue was a win for Repub-
licans that conceded almost nothing to
Democrats — most significantly by forc-
ing Biden to renege on his position that
he wouldn’t consider any kind of nego-
tiation — has haunted the speaker since
it became law. And despite it keeping the
country from careening over a fiscal cliff,
it could have knock-on effects that last
into 2024.
“I think it’s going to be a continuing
problem,” Democratic strategist Brad
Bannon told the Washington Examiner.
“Because what has happened in the last
week indicates that the House Freedom
Caucus types can, if they want, blow Mc-
Carthy up.”
Close on the heels of debt ceiling cha-
os, Hart Research Associates, a Democrat-
ic-aligned polling group, touted the ways
in which the Fiscal Responsibility Act was
a political coup for Democrats that will
energize candidates next year when every
seat in the House is up for grabs.
“Front-line Democrats running for
reelection next year will now be able to
say that they voted for the bipartisan
Fiscal Responsibility Act that will cut
$2.1 trillion in spending over the next six
years,” according to a memo released by
the group. “If Republicans were planning
on using the issue of federal spending as
a sword against Democrats next year,
they now have conspired to give Demo-
crats a shield with which to combat those
attacks.”
McCarthy came under fire for the bill
that earned overwhelming support in the
House, particularly from the Freedom
Caucus, whose members weren’t pleased
that the bill earned more Democratic
J. SCOT T APPLEWHITE/AP PHOTO
support (165 votes) than Republican (149
votes).
Over the course of negotiations, those
Freedom Caucus members voiced a
willingness to blow up the process, and
Democrats plan to remind voters about
their intransigence.
 “It seems to me, the events of last
week, the hold the Freedom Caucus types
put on House activity demonstrated they
can control the agenda,” Bannon said.
“And that agenda is the extremist agen-
da that basically prevented Republicans
from winning a big majority in 2022.”
REDISTRICTING HEADACHES
Compounding the problem for McCarthy
and Republicans, across the street from
the Capitol, the Supreme Court issued
a ruling on how House districts in Ala-
bama are drawn that could make it more
difficult to hold the majority in the 2024
elections.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Jus-
tice Brett Kavanaugh, both appointees
of Republican presidents, sided with
their three liberal colleagues as the court
deemed congressional maps for Ala-
bama’s seven House members violated
Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. As a
result, the state will have to redraw its
AP PHOTO/PATRICK SEMANSKY
maps ahead of the 2024 contest, creating
a new “minority-majority” district that is
likely to squeeze out one of its safe Re-
publican seats.
That would have the practical effect of
shifting the Alabama delegation from 6-1
in Republicans’ favor to 5-2. The ruling
also could possibly force redrawing of
districts in other GOP-heavy states such
as Louisiana and South Carolina. And in
a narrowly divided 435-member House,
every seat counts.
“Any state that has a meaningful mi-
nority population is at risk” of having its
House maps upended, Richard Raile, an
election law attorney, told the Washing-
ton Examiner.
Following the ruling, at least four
districts in deep-red Alabama and Lou-
isiana, which has its own congressional
maps case pending before the Supreme
Court, were reclassified from “lean Re-
publican” to “toss-up.” One “toss-up”
seat in North Carolina flipped to “lean
Democrat,” according to rankings by the
nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Most at risk in a looming Alabama
House map redraw are Reps. Jerry Carl
(R-AL), representing the greater Mobile
1st Congressional District, and Barry
Moore (R-AL), in the southeastern Al-
abama 2nd Congressional District. The
east-central Alabama 3rd Congressional
District seat, held by House Armed Ser-
vices Committee Chairman Mike Rogers
(R), could also be affected.
Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasser-
man projected that in Louisiana, Reps.
Julia Letlow (R) and Garret Graves (R),
a key member of McCarthy’s negotiating
team during the debt ceiling fight, could
see their districts diluted in Republi-
can voting strength if litigation over the
state’s map goes the same way as Ala-
bama’s. +
Max Thornberry is a breaking news editor
for the Washington Examiner.
Evan Milligan, center,
plaintiff in Merrill v.
Milligan, an Alabama
redistricting case, speaks
with members of the press
outside the Supreme Court.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 27
WASHINGTON BRIEFING
national security
Did Trump’s retention
of classified documents
actually compromise
national security?
‘You may hate his guts, but he is not a spy,’
said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) 
By Jamie McIntyre
A
mong the trove of documents
former President Donald
Trump stashed at his Palm
Beach, Florida, estate were
some of the nation’s most
closely guarded secrets.
Of the 102 documents seized by the
FBI from an office, a bedroom, a ball-
room, a bathroom, and a storage room at
Mar-a-Lago, 54 were marked secret, and
17 were top secret.
The classified documents included
secrets about U.S. nuclear capabilities,
America’s possible vulnerabilities to at-
tack, and contingency plans for U.S. re-
taliation, according to the government’s
49-page indictment. They included doc-
uments marked “NOFORN,” meaning
they could not be shared with foreign na-
tionals, and “FVEY,” short for Five Eyes,
indicating that they were shared only
with U.S. intelligence partners in Austra-
lia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United
Kingdom.
Other classification markings re-
vealed the source of the secret informa-
tion, including “FISA” for the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act and “TK”
for talent keyhole. That denoted intelli-
gence gathered from overhead imagery,
such as satellites or spy planes. Other
markings were redacted, including what
appear to be ultrasensitive “code word”
classifications.
“The unauthorized disclosure of these
classified documents could put at risk
the national security of the United States,
28 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
foreign relations, the safety of the Unit-
ed States military, and human sources
and the continued viability of sensitive
intelligence collection methods,” the in-
dictment stated. “I know what kinds of
documents we used to give to Donald
Trump to help him make decisions,” for-
mer Trump national security adviser John
Bolton, now a relentless Trump critic,
said. “If they are anything like some of
the things we presented to Trump in the
Oval Office and the Situation Room, and
the tank at the Pentagon, it could cause
enormous damage, incalculable damage,
to the United States.”
While the indictment cites two cases
in which Trump allegedly showed classi-
fied documents to others who were not
cleared to see them, including, in one
instance, sharing a secret plan outlining
options to attack Iran, none of the 31
counts filed against him accuse him of
leaking sensitive information. “There’s
no allegation in the charges that he has
sold or disseminated the national defense
information that he has sold or given it
to somebody else,” said Bradley Moss, an
attorney specializing in national security
matters.
That’s a line of defense that Trump’s
defenders are using to argue there was
no actual harm in Trump’s belief he had a
right to keep the documents after he left
office. “Espionage charges are absolutely
ridiculous. Whether you like Trump or
not, he did not commit espionage. He did
not disseminate, leak, or provide infor-
mation to a foreign power or to a news
organization to damage this country,”
said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on
ABC’s This Week. “You may hate his guts,
but he is not a spy.”
Trump himself invoked the “No harm,
no foul” argument in remarks immediate-
AP PHOTOS; ILLUSTRATION BY AMANDA BOSTON-TRYPANIS/WASHINGTON EXAMINER
ly after his arraignment. “The Espionage
Act has been used to go after traitors and
spies. It has nothing to do with a former
president legally keeping his own docu-
ments,” he said.
Not true, Moss said in an appearance
on CNN. Besides spying, he said, the
1917 law “also encompasses a number of
other potential felony provisions, one of
which … is the willful retention of nation-
al defense information.” The law applies
to any “national defense information,”
whether or not it’s classified.
“When you bring an indictment like
this, it’s not done in isolation. It’s not
done in a vacuum. You got to take a lot
of things into account,” said Sen. Marco
Rubio (R-FL), vice chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, on CBS. “You’re

bringing an indictment that basically al-
leges no real damage to national security,
not that it excuses it, versus what we’re
going to see now. We’re going to subject
this country to a divisive spectacle,” he
said.
Trump is also charged with making
false statements and obstruction of jus-
tice for hiding the documents and re-
fusing to turn them over to the National
Archives and Records Administration.
“I know some people are saying, ‘Well,
we don’t have any allegation the Russians
have seen these documents, the Chinese
have seen these documents,’” Bolton
said. “The purpose of the provisions of
the Espionage Act, and other protections
around national security information, is
to reduce the chances that our adversar-
ies can get the documents,” he said on
CNN. “And the behavior that is alleged in
the complaint, intentional, clearly inten-
tional … it just willfully puts the United
States in grave danger.”
The Biden White House has referred
all questions about whether Trump
compromised vital secrets to the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence,
which is conducting a national security
assessment.
One concern is there is no way to know
for sure who might have had access to the
boxes of documents stored in unsecured
areas, considering there have been at
least two interlopers who have made their
way onto Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate
over the years. In 2019 when Trump was
president, a Chinese woman was caught
trespassing carrying two passports and a
thumb drive with malware, and in 2021
and 2022, a Ukrainian immigrant linked
to organized crime conned her way into
Trump’s inner circle.
Given that the indictment documents
two instances in 2021 in which Trump
appeared to share highly classified ma-
terial with unauthorized persons at his
Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, some
legal experts have speculated that special
counsel Jack Smith may be holding off on
more charges as a sort of ace in the hole
should the Florida prosecution prove un-
successful. Or perhaps as an additional
indictment based on evidence still being
developed.
“These two episodes were arguably
the most egregious allegations of criminal
wrongdoing mentioned in the indictment;
they allege not just the improper reten-
tion of our nation’s most highly classified
information, but the intentional com-
munication of such information,” wrote
New York University law professors Ryan
Goodman and Andrew Weissmann in the
Atlantic. “The legal uncertainties that sur-
round bringing charges in Florida for dis-
semination of national-security secrets
in Bedminster leaves open the possibility
that charges might yet be brought in New
Jersey,” they add.
Meanwhile, Trump’s former personal
attorney-turned-nemesis, Michael Co-
hen, suggests there could be even more
damning revelations to come. “I think
the [Justice Department] should be, if
they’re not already, looking at the unho-
ly relationships that exist between Saudi
Arabia, [Crown Prince] Mohammed bin
Salman, and Jared Kushner,” Cohen said
in an appearance on MSNBC, referencing
Trump’s son-in-law.
“I mean, this whole $2 billion-plus to
an unqualified hedge funder makes no
sense to me. And in light of the informa-
tion that came out, that there was military
information on Iran … who knows what
was shown to them? Who knows what
was discussed? Who knows what was
sold? None of us,” he added.
“I think there’s a sense of entitlement
about Donald Trump. That is what he
wants. He’s entitled to — he can take it.
He can do what he wants with it. And he
doesn’t face consequences,” Bolton said.
“And his experience would tell him
that there would be no downside for him,”
he continued. “Now we are about to find
out whether there’s going to be a down-
side. I think he’s been put in a situation
he’s never experienced before.” +
Jamie McIntyre is the Washington Exam-
iner’s senior writer on defense and national
security. His morning newsletter, “Jamie
McIntyre’s Daily on Defense,” is free and
available by email subscription at dailyon-
defense.com.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 29
WASHINGTON BRIEFING
Senators aim to boost AI knowledge
Lawmakers’ study sessions take deep dive
into fast-growing technology
A
s a growing number of law-
makers in both parties de-
mand action on regulations
for artificial intelligence, Sen-
ate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer (D-NY) has sched-
uled three briefings on the subject for
his fellow senators, including a classified
session.
Dates for the briefings are yet to be
announced, but the first will be about AI
generally. The second concerns Amer-
ica’s leadership in developing AI tech-
nology. And the third classified meeting
will deal with AI-related issues around
national defense and intelligence.
The use of the technology has sky-
rocketed since the wide release of the
generative AI chatbot ChatGPT late last
year. A Pew Research Center study only
two weeks later found more than half
of the public interacts with AI at least
once a day. Data firm Statista reported
ChatGPT had 1 million users in five days,
making it the most quickly adopted con-
sumer application in history.
30 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
technology
By Jessica Melugin
Regulators have taken note. Con-
cerns include bias in results and recom-
mendations, misinformation, privacy,
fraud, and job loss, among others not
yet known.
Schumer’s briefings come on
the heels of months spent crafting a
high-level regulatory approach to the
technology. He’s calling for “guardrails”
that focus on transparency, government
reporting, and the somewhat subjective
aligning of these systems “with Ameri-
can values.” Those familiar with his plan
say it would also involve new AI tech-
nologies being reviewed and tested by
experts before being released.
In a parallel effort, Sen. Michael
Bennet (D-CO) introduced a bill to cre-
ate an AI task force as “a top-to-bottom
review of existing AI policies across the
federal government.” It “would gener-
ate specific regulatory and legislative
recommendations to ensure that the
federal government’s AI tools and pol-
icies respect civil rights, civil liberties,
privacy, and due process.”
President Joe Biden’s administration
has signaled its inclination to support
regulating the technology. Officials met
with leading AI companies, sought pub-
lic comment on accountability measures
for AI systems, and released a “Blueprint
for an AI Bill of Rights.” The administra-
tion has so far stopped short of defining
many of the terms used in the plan.
Within the Department of Com-
merce, the National Telecommunica-
tions Administration is looking into the
merits of AI audits and certification.
They have requested comments from the
ILLUSTRATION BY JULIA TERBROCK; MARIAM ZUHAIB/AP
public on how best the technology might
be regulated.
Federal Trade Commission Chair-
woman Lina Khan expressed concerns
about the detrimental effects AI might
have on competition and the prevalence
of fraud. But Khan pledged to use already
existing laws to counter these impacts.
AI regulatory laws were introduced
in at least 17 states in 2022. That num-
ber is sure to grow as the number of
uses and users of AI increases. What
could become a 50-state patchwork of
different regulatory regimes would sure-
ly increase the cost of deploying some
AI technologies and presumably slow
that progress.
Meanwhile, nations around the world
are considering their own approaches
to AI regulation. Laws governing social
media, data management, and privacy
differing among nations have created
confusion for consumers and record-set-
ting fines for America’s leading tech
companies. The same problems could
be next for AI.
“Given these risks and concerns, it is
crucial to develop standardized agree-
ments that ensure that AI is balanced
in its development,” Shane Tews, a non-
resident senior fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute, told the Washing-
ton Examiner. “This may take the form
of an industry-specific, responsible-use
agreement, or consensus best practices
to avoid unintended harm.”
Tews acknowledges that AI’s rapid
pace of advancement makes it diffi-
cult to predict its future capabilities
and applications and, therefore, equal-
ly difficult to regulate against its risks
without stifling beneficial innovation.
She suggested that “multi-stakeholder
approaches, standardization, certifica-
tion, or regulatory sandboxes” might be
the best path forward in developing AI
principles.
The code cops are
coming for AI, and
it’s a nightmare
scenario for American
competitiveness and
consumers.
–Adam Thierer, R Street Institute
Others are more broadly opposed to
regulating AI. Adam Thierer of the R Street
Institute told the Washington Examiner,
“Artificial intelligence policy now threatens
to become an all-out war on computation
as regulatory schemes take aim at every
layer of the production stack, including AI
apps, models, chips, and even data centers.”
Because AI stretches across so many
industries — online applications in
search, content creation, education,
healthcare uses, customer service, and
many, many more — the regulatory reach
may be similarly limitless. Any plan this
early in the life of the technology is bound
to be broad and vague.
“The code cops are coming for AI,
and it’s a nightmare scenario for Amer-
ican competitiveness and consumers,”
Thierer warned. +
Jessica Melugin is director of the Center
for Technology & Innovation at the
Competitive Enterprise Institute.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 31
6 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 7
WASHINGTON BRIEFING

campaign

These ex-members of Congress can’t stop,

won’t stop, running for public office
Former House lawmakers who left DC amid scandal
are seeking comebacks lower down the political food chain
By David Mark

L
OS ANGELES, California — Scan-
dal-tinged members of Congress
usually quietly disappear from
public life. Now, two House
members who drew waves of
unflattering headlines are trying
for comebacks, at lower political levels.
Former California Democratic Rep.
Laura Richardson and former Virginia
Republican Rep. Tom Garrett, after years
out of the political spotlight, are running
for seats in their respective state legisla-
tures. Richardson faces a tougher road
back, while Garrett is likely to waltz into
office in Virginia’s November 2023 legis-
lative elections.
Richardson was once a rising star in Former Rep. Laura
Southern California politics. A six-year Richardson (D-CA)
member of the Long Beach City Council,
Richardson was less than a year into her
first term in the state Assembly when she 60% to 40% in the state’s first use of its “top ia district after five years in the state Senate.
won a House special election for a district two” election system, in which members of But Garrett abruptly ended his 2018 re-
covering inland Los Angeles and inland the same party face each other in the gener- election campaign after disclosing he was
Long Beach, and the smaller cities of Car- al election because they have finished first focusing on his fight with alcoholism. And
son, Compton, and Signal Hill. and second in the primary. while many would commend Garrett’s de-
Richardson was secure politically until Richardson has largely kept a low pro- cision to put a hold on his political career
redistricting led to her 2012 faceoff with file since then. But she recently launched to deal with addiction, he faced a wave of
fellow Democratic incumbent Janice Hahn. a comeback campaign for the state Senate. unflattering news headlines on other fronts.
Richardson spent that campaign dealing The district Richardson seeks to represent The House Ethics Committee issued
with news reports alleging she had mis- includes much of the same, or nearby, ter- a lengthy report on Garrett’s final day in
treated her staff, to the point that one dis- ritory as her one-time congressional seat. office, determining that he had violated
abled veteran in Richardson’s office wrote She will compete in the March 5, 2024, House rules by directing his staff to run
in her resignation letter that she would top-two primary to succeed a state sena- personal errands for him. Employees of
“rather be at war in Afghanistan” than con- tor being forced from office by term limits. the then-congressman’s office also told
tinue to work for the congresswoman. Richardson faces a crowded Democratic the ethics panel that his wife “would be-
The House in August 2012 reprimand- primary field in a race whose first round rate staff, often using profanity and other
ed Richardson after the Ethics Committee of voting is still nearly nine months away. harsh language, for failing to prioritize her
found she had pressured her congressional Across the country, Tom Garrett has a needs over their regular official duties.” The
staff to do campaign work and demonstrat- clearer path back to political office, at a lower report additionally accused the Garretts of
ed a “pattern of omission and deception” level than the one he left. Garrett spent a sin- deliberately dragging their feet during the
regarding its investigation. She went on gle, chaotic two-year term in Congress from investigation so that they could run out the
to lose reelection to Hahn that November 2017-19 representing a southwestern Virgin- clock and avoid censure before the con-

34 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023

 gressman’s term expired.
After leaving Washington, Garrett, too,
kept a relatively low profile. Yet now he’s
likely to return to his old political stomp-
ing ground in Richmond. He recently won
a party nomination convention for a safely
Republican state House of Delegates seat
around Appomattox.
JOINING THE CLUB OF EX-HOUSE
MEMBERS IN OFFICE ELSEWHERE
Richardson and Garrett are hardly the first
former House members to seek office fur-
ther down the political food chain.
That’s the case in Iowa with Repub-
lican state Rep. David Young. A Capitol
Hill staple for years, the Van Meter, Iowa,
native worked his way up to chief of staff
for the late Kentucky Republican Sen. Jim
Bunning. In 2006, Young became chief of
staff for his home state Republican Sen.
Chuck Grassley.
Fulfilling the dreams of many political
staffers to hold office themselves, Young
in 2014 won an open western Iowa House
seat. But Young lost in the 2018 Democratic
wave and fell short in a 2020 comeback bid.
Then, in 2022, Young won a state House
seat representing the western suburbs of
Des Moines.
There was a much greater political
time lag in Texas for Democratic state Rep.
John Bryant before his return gig. In 1974,
Bryant, then a 27-year-old lawyer, won a
special election for a Houston-area state
House seat. In 1982, Bryant was elected to
Congress at a time when Democrats still
dominated Texas politics but the Lone Star
State was becoming more politically com-
petitive for Republicans.
Bryant in 1996 gave up his House seat
to run for the Senate, losing in the Demo-
cratic primary as Texas was moving firm-
ly into the GOP column. Bryant largely
stayed out of politics for the next nearly
quarter century.
Yet in 2021, Bryant filed to run for state
representative in Texas’s 114th District,
covering part of the city of Dallas. Bryant
cited former President Donald Trump as
a motivation.
“I am so alarmed at the continued ex-
tremes to which the Trump forces have
AP PHOTOS
gone in trying to take our country over
and now this has arrived in Texas. I want
Former Rep. David Young (D-IA)
Former Rep. Tom Garrett (R-VA)
Former Rep. Bob Schaffer (D-CO)
to get off the sidelines and get back into
the fight.” Bryant won the primary in May
2022, and the general election in Novem-
ber of that year.
OUT OF POLITICS — AND LOVING IT
Some defeated pols are happy to leave poli-
tics entirely. That’s what former Mississippi
Democratic Rep. Travis Childers seems to
have done, focusing instead on real estate.
Childers was elected to the House in a
2008 special election, then was defeated
in 2010 by Republican Alan Nunnelee. He
was the 2014 Democratic Senate nominee
in Mississippi but lost badly.
He’s since returned to his professional
roots. While a student at the University of
Mississippi, Childers became a real estate
salesperson. Based in the northeast Missis-
sippi city of Booneville, Childers went on to
be elected Prentiss County Chancery Clerk,
his position upon election to Congress.
Now gone from Washington for more
than a dozen years, he runs Travis W.
Childers Realty & Associates, Inc. His pro-
fessional website lacks any reference to his
time in Congress. It’s a stark contrast from
other relatively short-time House members
who have tried to parlay their public service
into lucrative lobbying and consulting gigs.
That was never the intention of former
Colorado Republican Rep. Bob Schaffer,
a House member representing the state’s
conservative eastern portion from 1997
to 2003.
Schaffer abided by self-imposed term
limits in leaving office and took a bit of a
circuitous route to his current role as head-
master at Liberty Common School in Fort
Collins, Colorado, north of Denver.
After Congress, two years into
then-President George W. Bush’s admin-
istration, Schaffer worked for a time at an
oil-and-gas company, he recalled in an in-
terview with the Washington Examiner. But
education was a passion, and Schaffer, as a
private citizen, went on to head two non-
profit organizations in the school reform
movement. He also orchestrated the pas-
sage of a school voucher system in Colora-
do, which was subsequently thrown out by
the state Supreme Court.
Schaffer was appointed to the state
Board of Education for a year and then
won a full, six-year term. Two years in,
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 35
WASHINGTON BRIEFING
Schaffer ran for the Senate, winning the
Republican nomination, but losing in No-
vember 2008.
Since his state Board of Education
term ended, Schaffer has been busy in
various administrative roles at Liberty
Common High School, a tuition-free,
charter-public school. It serves students
from K-12, spanning three campuses.
“We are dedicated to the Core Knowl-
edge curriculum, and college-preparato-
ry instruction,” according to the school’s
website. “Students at Liberty Common
School are exposed to classically-oriented
education, focusing on literacy and Great
Books. They are also taught foundation
stones of character education in the ele-
mentary, which scale up to ‘capstone vir-
tues’ of our junior-high and high-school.”
It’s a fulfilling professional role for
Schaffer.
“It’s unlikely there are many Americans
who have as many varied experiences in
education as I have,” he said. But his con-
36 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
gressional days — and nine years as a state
senator in Colorado before that — aren’t
much a part of his professional persona.
“Kids don’t call me ‘congressman.’ At
most, the teachers in their government
classes will occasionally say, ‘Mr. Schaffer
used to serve there.’”
Not that Schaffer doesn’t occasion-
ally muse about being far away from the
action.
“I miss being involved in some of the
education policy debates,” Schaffer said.
Back then, Schaffer was among a small
group of House Republicans who in 2002
opposed the No Child Left Behind Act,
one of the Bush administration’s signature
domestic achievements.
Schaffer and conservative colleagues
helped negotiate the initial version of the
school reform efforts but became dis-
mayed when more federal spending pro-
visions were added in.
“It was no longer an aggressive tool for
school choice. It was no longer an aggres-
sive strategy for sending block grants back
to the state for education,” he recalled.
“The U.S. Constitution spells out the au-
thority in Congress. Nowhere does public
education appear of being in the jurisdic-
tion of the federal government.”
Also, Russia’s continued aggression
against its southwest neighbor harkens
back to one of Schaffer’s focuses in the
House.
“I was co-chair of the Congressional
Ukrainian Caucus. I am in tune and about
as knowledgeable about the U.S. interest
in Eastern Europe as I ever was when in
Congress,” said Schaffer, whose mother’s
family is of Ukrainian descent.
Still, education makes for a contented
professional life, Schaffer said. So, unlike
former Reps. Richardson and Garrett,
don’t expect to see him clamoring to re-
turn to public office. +
David Mark is managing editor of the
Washington Examiner magazine.

white house
Biden gives Trump the silent treatment
on indictment, but for how long?
One Democratic operative called the strategy ‘risky’ and ‘puzzling’
By W. James Antle III
F
ormer President Donald Trump
has now been indicted twice, but
it’s President Joe Biden who is ex-
ercising his right to remain silent.
Biden and the White House
have attempted to stay out of the
headlines on Trump’s indictments, espe-
cially the 37 counts filed by the Justice
Department at the federal level over the
former president’s handling of classified
documents.
Not only is the federal indictment of
a former president unprecedented, but
Trump is the front-runner for the 2024
Republican presidential nomination and,
as such, is a potential Biden general elec-
tion opponent.
That’s why Biden’s aversion to com-
menting on the situation has raised eye-
brows among some Democrats. White
House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre
and most other Biden appointees are pro-
hibited from overt partisan political activ-
ity by the Hatch Act, though the president
himself and Vice President Kamala Harris
are not.
But Biden has reportedly gone a step
beyond this in muzzling the Democrat-
ic National Committee on the subject of
Trump’s criminal charges. The DNC’s
mission is overt partisan political activity,
and supporters fret that Biden is remov-
ing a powerful weapon — an argument
for Trump’s unfitness to serve, Democrats
say — from his arsenal ahead of what still
might be a competitive election.
One Democratic operative who re-
quested anonymity to speak candidly
about the situation called it “risky” and
“puzzling.”
Biden does have some valid reasons
to be cautious, however. He wants to be
seen as recognizing the Justice Depart-
ment’s independence and having nothing
to do with Trump facing federal charges.
Trump has argued that the DOJ is engaged
in election interference, trying to take out
or even jail one of the president’s top op-
ponents. Biden could lend credence to this
characterization by making the legal case
against Trump a part of his political mes-
saging, inviting the Democratic equivalent
to Trump’s “Lock Her Up!” chants.
Secondly, the president has his own
problems. Congressional Republicans are
investigating whether he has any connec-
tions with his son’s and brother’s foreign
business dealings. Hunter Biden faces a
DOJ investigation of his own and has long
been criticized for appearing to trade on
his father’s name and political influence.
There is an inquiry into Biden’s han-
dling of classified documents as well after
some were recovered from his home and
an office. Trump is making the political,
and perhaps legal, argument that he has
been singled out for unfair treatment com-
pared to Biden and 2016 Democratic rival
Hillary Clinton.
While experts argue these various cas-
es involve differences in volume and the
sensitivity of the documents as well as the
level of cooperation with authorities from
the targeted former official, these technical
distinctions may have little purchase with
voters who distrust the institutions and
voices making them. There is a political
case to be made that it is more helpful for
Biden to be talking about something else
rather than explaining whose mishan-
dling of classified information was better
or worse.
Finally, Biden may prefer Trump as
a 2024 general election opponent. He
has already won one election against the
top-polling Republican. Biden helped
Democrats minimize their midterm elec-
tion losses by campaigning against Trump
WASHINGTON BRIEFING
when his 2020 foe wasn’t even on the
ballot.
Trump, who turned 77 the day after his
Miami courtroom appearance to answer
the federal charges, takes some of the
sting out of the age issue for Biden. The
next-best-polling Republican presidential
candidate, Gov. Ron DeSantis, is 44, while
Biden is 80.
Variations of “MAGA” — ultra MAGA,
mega MAGA, and the unmodified version
— are at the center of Biden’s anti-Repub-
lican communications strategy. While
unmistakably intended to apply to Repub-
lican candidates beyond Trump, it is not
clear if it is equally transferable to the en-
tire 2024 GOP field.
The Democratic counterargument to
Biden staying quiet on Trump’s legal sit-
uation is this: Much of the case for the
current president’s reelection rests on the
unique dangers of returning the former
one to the White House.
If Trump faces charges related to the
2020 election in Georgia or inciting the
Jan. 6 Capitol riot, it may be difficult to
avoid mentioning them. Those cases are
central to Biden’s argument for why Trump
is unfit for office.
These arguments will be made anyway
by Biden surrogates, Democratic elected
officials, and liberal media voices. It re-
mains to be seen how long Biden and those
closest to him can stay quiet.
One such person has already broken the
silence. “Like I just saw, when I was on my
plane, it said 61% of Republicans are going
to vote, they would vote for Trump,” first
lady Jill Biden said at a fundraiser in New
York. “They don’t care about the indict-
ment. So, that’s a little shocking, I think.” +
W. James Antle III is the politics editor for
the Washington Examiner.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 37
WASHINGTON BRIEFING
THE SHADOW CAMPAIGN TRACKER
A stampede
of 2024 GOP
cattle calls
Former President
Donald Trump speaks
at events with scrum
of Republican rivals
By David Mark
I
owa is cattle country, and that ap-
plies to presidential candidates as
well.
With Democrats having pulled
the Hawkeye State from its early
voting rotation, Republican presi-
dential candidates are flooding in ahead
of the party’s early February 2024 cau-
cuses with the goal of emerging as the
GOP nominee and the right to challenge
President Joe Biden in November 2024.
In a crowded GOP field, multicandi-
date events are becoming the norm. One
of the more prominent political “cattle
calls” is the Republican Party of Iowa’s
2023 Lincoln Dinner fundraiser. It’s set
for Friday, July 28, at the Iowa Events
Center, 730 3rd St., in the state capital of
Des Moines. Doors open at 5 p.m CDT.
Former President Donald Trump
is speaking at the Lincoln Dinner. He’s
trying to become the first ex-president
to reclaim the White House since Grover
Cleveland in 1893.
But Trump hardly has the GOP
field to himself, nor the Lincoln Din-
ner. Trump’s vice president during his
2017-21 administration, Mike Pence,
also is set to speak. So are Gov. Ron
DeSantis (R-FL), entrepreneur Vivek
Ramaswamy, former U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations Nikki Haley (also
South Carolina governor from 2011-17),
ex-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson,
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), and radio talk
show host Larry Elder.
The event is a party fundraiser. Top
contributions can reach $5,000, down to
$150 for an individual ticket.
38 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
GOP 2024 campaigns
run through Nunn
I
owa’s congressional delegation is all
Republican for the first time since
the 1950s. This makes both GOP
senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst,
sought-after figures for GOP presidential
hopefuls seeking support. Same for
Iowa’s four House members.
Rep. Randy Feenstra has appeared
with several 2024 GOP candidates,
though he hasn’t endorsed anyone.
Now, freshman GOP Rep. Zach Nunn is
getting into the game. Nunn represents
the Des Moines and southwestern Iowa
3rd Congressional District. And on Sat-
urday, July 15, he’s hosting “Operation
Top Nunn — A Salute to the Troops”
from 1-3 p.m. CDT at the Ankeny Air-
port, 3700 SE Convenience Blvd., in
Ankeny in Polk County, north of Des
Moines.
DeSantis is Nunn’s “special guest” at
the fundraiser, along with Ernst. “Spon-
sorships” range from $250 to $6,600.
But tickets are only $24 a pop, making
the event largely accessible to the politi-
cally interested.
“I am thrilled to announce that fel-
Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA) speaks to supporters during a Republican Party of Iowa
election night rally on Nov. 8, 2022.
low veterans @RonDeSantis and @
joniernst will be special guests at the
first-ever Operation Top Nunn: Salute
to the Troops event,” Nunn tweeted re-
cently on his congressional campaign
account.
Ernst, elected to the Senate in 2014,
served in the Iowa Army National
Guard from 1993 to 2015, retiring as a
lieutenant colonel. During the Iraq War,
she served as the commanding officer of
the 1168th Transportation Company in
Kuwait and later commanded the 185th
Combat Sustainment Support Battal-
ion at Camp Dodge, the Iowa National
Guard’s largest battalion.
DeSantis, considered a leading rival
to Trump for the 2024 Republican pres-
idential nomination, joined the Navy in
2004 and was promoted to lieutenant
before serving as a legal adviser to SEAL
Team One. He was stationed at Joint
Task Force Guantanamo in 2006 and
was deployed to Iraq in 2007. DeSantis
was honorably discharged from active
military duty in 2010. He went on to win
a northern coastal Florida House seat in
2012 and then the Sunshine State’s gov-
ernorship in 2018.
Nunn, meanwhile, was a member of
the Air Force and later the Iowa Air Na-
tional Guard.
CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/AP
 Then-presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks during the ‘I Will Vote’ fundraising gala in Atlanta in this 2019 photo.
Biden ramps up
fundraising efforts
O
n the Democratic side, Biden,
about 16 months out from the
general election, is focusing
more on fundraising than boisterous
political events. Biden faces only token
Democratic primary challenges from
self-help guru Marianne Williamson
and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son and
namesake of the slain attorney general
and senator from New York and nephew
of the late President John F. Kennedy.
Biden on June 28 will head to Chica-
go for a fundraiser hosted by billionaire
Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) and his wife,
M.K. Though Illinois is safely Demo-
cratic for the general election, Biden’s
trip comes two days before June 30, the
end of the second fundraising quarter.
In May, the reelection campaign of
JOHN BAZEMORE/AP
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris
named Pritzker as one of 50 members
of its National Advisory Board who, the
campaign said, “will take a leadership role
in helping deliver President Biden and
Vice President [Kamala] Harris’ message
and engage voters across the country.”
Outsider candidate
plays insider game, too
V
ivek Ramaswamy has premised
his 2024 Republican presidential
campaign on his outsider status.
The 37-year-old multimillionaire
entrepreneur has never held public
office, which he says would bring fresh
thinking to the federal government.
But Ramaswamy, who became a cable
television fixture with his “anti-woke”
invective, isn’t forsaking the GOP
political establishment entirely.
On Thursday, June 22, at 2 p.m., Ra-
maswamy is holding a meet-and-greet
at the Capitol Hill Club. That’s deep
into “swamp” territory, as Trump would
say. The restaurant and lounge is in a
building connected to the Republican
National Committee and other GOP po-
litical offices. Republican House mem-
bers frequent the Capitol Hill Club to
make fundraising calls or hold in-person
events to scare up campaign cash.
To be sure, Ramaswamy’s campaign
schedule mostly consists of meeting
would-be GOP voters in key early states.
The alum of Harvard College and Yale Law
School is spending the week prior in Iowa,
meeting voters at local GOP events and
holding town halls, among other plans.
And Ramaswamy is taking pains to
avoid appearing as too much of a Belt-
way insider. On June 11, he tweeted a
photo with his two young children in
front of the Capitol, not for sightseeing
but to express disdain over the federal
government’s role in society.
“Just took my two sons to the U.S.
Capitol, the place where we *used to*
pass laws. Felt more like we were visiting
a museum. We skipped the drab build-
ings of the federal agencies that actually
enact laws today. The relative beauty of
the buildings creates an odd optical illu-
sion,” Ramaswamy wrote. +
David Mark is managing editor of the
Washington Examiner magazine.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 39
8 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023

transportation & infrastructure
Buttigieg bets big on
‘Vision Zero’ to stop traffic
deaths — all of them
Some transportation experts are skeptical
current policies won’t lead to fewer deaths
By Jeremy Lott
T
ransportation Secretary Pete
Buttigieg thinks it’s possible to
eliminate all vehicular fatali-
ties and even serious accidents
in America. He has embraced
a program and philosophical
approach to traffic that began in Sweden
called “Vision Zero.” His Cabinet depart-
ment is spreading funds around to state
and local departments of transportation
that embrace this concept.
At the same time, Buttigieg acknowl-
edges that traffic trend lines are headed in
the exact opposite direction.
“Traffic crashes cost tens of thousands
of American lives a year, a national crisis
on our roadways, and everyone has an im-
portant role to play in addressing it,” the
transportation secretary said in a February
statement. Buttigieg went on to issue a “na-
tional call to action ... asking all Americans
— including private industry, nonprofit and
advocacy organizations, and every level of
government — to join us in acting to save
lives on our roadways.”
This call to action, coupled with sig-
nificant funding, has local governments
scrambling to out-Vision Zero one another.
Montgomery County, Maryland,
bragged that it was “one of the first county
governments in the United States to initi-
ate a Vision Zero plan. The county has put
TANNER L AWS/ TULSA WORLD VIA AP
resources in place to eliminate serious and
fatal collisions on county roads for vehicle
occupants (drivers and passengers), pedes-
trians, and bicyclists by the end of 2030.”
The Seattle Department of Transpor-
tation noted, “We launched Vision Zero in
2015 and continue to evolve our approach
based on best practices and in service of
The scene of a fatal car crash in Tulsa,
Oklahoma in June 2021.
the City’s equally aggressive and import-
ant climate action and racial equity goals.”
Not to be outdone, the website for the
Big Apple says, “Since 2014, Vision Zero in
New York City has brought traffic deaths
to historic lows and changed the culture
on our streets through a comprehensive
program of engineering, education, and
enforcement.”
Some transportation experts are skep-
tical that all of these commitments will
amount to much in terms of fewer traffic
deaths.
“Vision Zero in the U.S. has so far been
more about slogans than safety solutions,”
Marc Scribner, transportation policy an-
alyst for the Reason Foundation, told the
Washington Examiner. “Campaigns gener-
ally haven’t targeted the most severe safety
problems, so it isn’t very surprising tw hat
the proliferation of Vision Zero commit-
ments from public officials has coincided
with the worst road safety trends in mod-
ern history.”
National traffic deaths saw a signifi-
cant spike during the pandemic. Fatalities
rose from 39,107 in 2019 to 42,329 in 2020,
WASHINGTON BRIEFING
when most roads were practically empty
for several months during the COVID-19
pandemic, to 46,980 in 2021, according to
National Safety Council data.
The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration believes things might
not have gotten worse in 2022. Still, the
headline for the agency news release
highlights the ongoing problem: “NHT-
SA Estimates for 2022 Show Roadway
Fatalities Remain Flat After Two Years of
Dramatic Increases.”
One outgrowth of the Vision Zero
movement is the Safe Streets and Roads
for All, or SS4A, program. This was part
of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and
makes $5 billion available over five years
to fund “regional, local, and Tribal initia-
tives through grants to prevent roadway
deaths and serious injuries,” according to
the Department of Transportation.
For now, Vision Zero means three
things in practice for American locales that
embrace the concept: more bike lanes, low-
er speed limits, and more speeding tickets.
The city of Norfolk, Virginia, is com-
peting for that $1 billion pie along with
so many other local governments. It ex-
plains the rationale for lower speed limits
on its website, which urges locals, “Let’s
put Norfolk on the map!”
“As people travel faster, the risk of death
or serious injury rises dramatically when
crashes occur,” Norfolk explains. “A pedes-
trian struck by a car driving at 40 mph is 8
times more likely to die than a pedestrian
struck by a car driving at 20 mph.”
Even worse, the city warns, “Speed also
impacts a driver’s peripheral vision.” For
instance, someone driving at 70 mph “has
a much narrower line of sight than a driver
traveling at 25 mph.”
In June, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Police Department in North Carolina put
up two speed traps, advertised them on
social media, and tagged the state Vision
Zero program in the post.
These southern speed traps sprang up
after the city of Charlotte “received a $4.4
million grant from the federal government
for Vision Zero” in January, reported the
local television station WBTV. +
Jeremy Lott is a contributor
for the Washington Examiner.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 41
 finance and banking
The Federal Reserve eases up
on interest rate hikes
as inflation slowly cools
The Fed’s pause is likely to come as some
relief for Americans with debt, as well as those
looking to take on new loans
By Emma Loop
A
fter 15 months, the Federal
Reserve is hitting the brakes
on its aggressive campaign to
tame inflation as prices con-
tinue to relent — at least for
now.
On June 14, the Fed decided to forgo
another interest rate increase at its Federal
Open Market Committee meeting in Wash-
ington, allowing more time for previous
hikes to take full effect.
“The Committee seeks to achieve max-
imum employment and inflation at the
rate of 2 percent over the longer run,” the
42 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
Fed said in a statement after the meeting.
“In support of these goals, the Committee
decided to maintain the target range for
the federal funds rate at 5 to 5-1/4 percent.
Holding the target range steady at this
meeting allows the Committee to assess
additional information and its implications
for monetary policy.”
“In addition, the Committee will con-
tinue reducing its holdings of Treasury
securities and agency debt and agency
mortgage-backed securities, as described
in its previously announced plans,” the
statement said.
The decision follows the federal govern-
ment’s latest release of data showing that
overall inflation continues to cool, despite
remaining relatively high. The consumer
price index for May rose 0.1%, the Depart-
ment of Labor announced Tuesday, a drop
from 0.4% in April, and increased 4% on a
yearly basis.
The Fed’s pause, widely expected by
financial observers, is likely to come as
some relief for Americans with debt who
have been faced with paying higher inter-
est rates, as well as those looking to take
on new loans, whether for a car or home. It
also underscores the delicate balance poli-
cymakers have sought to strike as they at-
tempt to tame inflation without unleashing
a recession.
But the Fed signaled that its work is far
from over. Core inflation, which involves
volatile food and energy prices, has re-
mained persistently high in recent months.
Core inflation rose 0.4% last month, as it
did in both March and April, and was up
5.3% for the 12 months through May. Pric-
es for “shelter, used cars and trucks, motor
vehicle insurance, apparel, and personal
GETTY IMAGES
care” all increased in May, the Labor De-
partment said.
“The Federal Reserve is getting close
to the end of interest rate hikes,” said Greg
McBride, chief financial analyst at Bank-
rate. “After the fastest pace of rate increases
in 40 years, rates are high enough to have a
slowing effect on the economy. There isn’t
the same urgency to keep raising them at
this point, but with core inflation stubborn-
ly high it is too early for the Fed to fold up
the tent and go home.”
As a result, Fed Chairman Jerome Pow-
ell warned Wednesday that the central bank
is likely to approve additional rate increases
this year. “Inflation has moderated some-
what since the middle of last year,” he said
at a press conference after the meeting.
“Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue
to run high and the process of getting infla-
tion back down to 2% has a long way to go.”
The Fed also released its most recent
economic projections on Wednesday,
showing that it expects the core personal
consumption expenditures index, another
measure of inflation that’s closely watched
by the central bank, to remain higher than
expected this year. In its March projections,
the Fed forecast core PCE to drop to 3.6%.
However, the central bank has now raised
that projection to 3.9%.
“Things are still moving in the right
direction and encouraging,” said Kathy
Bostjancic, senior vice president and chief
economist for Nationwide Mutual, per
NPR. “But when we look at what we call the
‘core’ consumer price index, there is where
you still see some stickiness.”
The projections also showed lower
unemployment than previously expected,
something the Fed and Powell himself have
taken heat for in the past, as rising interest
rates threatened to unleash hefty layoffs
and a recession. In March, the central bank
estimated unemployment would hit 4.5%
this year but has since revised that figure
down to 4.1%.
“There is a path to getting inflation
back down to 2% without having to see the
kind of sharp downturn and large losses of
employment that we’ve seen in so many
instances,” Powell said, according to Axios.
“It’s possible that a strong labor market that
gradually cools could aid that along.”
The Fed, facing swelling consumer
prices, especially for food and fuel, started
raising interest rates in March 2022 after
keeping them low for four years. Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine a month prior, as well
as subsequent Western sanctions on the
Russian energy sector, had helped spike
prices at the pump. Meanwhile, ongoing
global supply chain woes, at a time when
consumer spending and demand had shot
up, also contributed to soaring costs.
As prices for fuel hit record highs last
spring and overall inflation surged to 9%,
the Fed accelerated the pace of its rate
hikes, approving a historically high increase
of 0.75 basis points in June 2022, as well as
three subsequent ones. Overall, the central
bank raised interest rates 10 consecutive
times before this month’s pause.
Since the Fed’s campaign began, inter-
est rates for credit cards, personal loans,
and mortgages have soared. Mortgage
rates have at times hit 7%, skyrocketing the
cost of buying a home but also cooling off
an overheated real estate market where it
wasn’t uncommon for bidding wars to send
properties’ sale prices $100,000 above the
list price. Credit card debt, meanwhile, has
surged to nearly $1 trillion this year.
“With core inflation stubbornly high,
we’re unlikely to see material improvement
in mortgage rates even if the Fed doesn’t
raise interest rates further,” McBride said.
“The phrase ‘higher rates for longer’ most
certainly applies to mortgage rates.”
The Fed, and Powell specifically, have
faced criticism from both Republicans and
Democrats for how the central bank has
handled inflation. Progressives such as Sen.
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on the Senate
Banking Committee have lambasted Powell
for maintaining strict economic policy, de-
spite the risk of job losses and a recession.
“The Fed has raised interest rates eight
times over the last year in what has been the
most extreme rate-hike cycle in 40 years,”
Warren told Powell at a hearing earlier this
year before the Banking Committee. “The
Fed’s goal is to slow inflation, and your tool
— raising interest rates — is designed to
slow the economy and throw people out of
work.”
“So far, you haven’t tipped the economy
into a recession, but you haven’t brought in-
flation under control either,” she added. She
later said Powell should be removed from
his position.
Republicans such as Gov. Ron DeSantis
(R-FL), however, have taken aim at Pow-
ell for acting too slowly. “I think the Fed
has done a horrible job over these last few
years,” DeSantis, who has since announced
he is running for president in 2024, said
during his recent book tour. “And they real-
ly are creating potential significant turmoil
in the economy going forward.”
Powell has acknowledged the econom-
ic pain consumers have felt, but says the
Fed is “committed to bringing inflation
back down to [its] 2% goal” to ensure
long-term stability. “The Fed’s monetary
policy actions are guided by our mandate
to promote maximum employment and
stable prices for the American people,” he
said Wednesday. “My colleagues and I are
acutely aware that high inflation imposes
hardship as it erodes purchasing power,
especially for those least able to meet the
higher costs of essentials like food, housing,
and transportation.
“We are highly attentive to the risks that
high inflation poses to both sides of our
mandate, and we are strongly committed
to returning inflation to our 2% objective,”
he added.
“Reducing inflation is likely to require
a period of below-trend growth and some
softening of labor market conditions,” he
later said. “Restoring price stability is es-
sential to set the stage for achieving max-
imum employment and stable prices over
the longer run.”
What remains to be seen is whether the
Fed will keep its foot on the brakes in the
months ahead or approve further rate in-
creases — and if so, how many. Powell said
policymakers will “take into account the
cumulative tightening of monetary policy,
the lags with which monetary policy af-
fects economic activity and inflation, and
economic and financial developments” in
making those choices.
“We will continue to make our decisions
meeting by meeting, based on the totality of
incoming data and their implications for the
outlook for economic activity and inflation
as well as the balance of risks,” Powell said.
Bostjancic, the Nationwide Mutual
economist, said the “Fed is far from calling
victory on the inflation front.”
“If need be, they’ll raise rates again as
soon as July,” she added. +
Emma Loop is a Washington, D.C.-based
freelance reporter. She has written for mul-
tiple publications including The News Sta-
tion, BuzzFeed, and Foreign Policy.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 43
 BUSINESS
MOORE
Republicans must be the party
of small business
A
recent Wall Street Journal
lead story reported that “big
business and the Republican
Party have broken up.” The
amount of corporate dona-
tions to Republicans was cut
sharply in the last election cycle to a low-
er amount than in nearly a decade. The
U.S. Chamber of Commerce has backed
many Democrats running for Congress
in close and competitive races, which
puts the GOP slim majority in jeopardy.
The writing is on the wall: Corporate
America is increasingly aligning itself
with liberal Democrats, not Republicans.
Some of this shift in corporate al-
legiances is due to some bad decisions
by Republicans. The GOP has short-
sightedly pursued a “break up Big Tech”
campaign, and the party’s slide toward
tariffs and away from free trade, one of
the pillars of prosperity, is worrisome to
any free marketeer. We should have free
trade with countries, unless they are like
China, threats to American security.
The real question is whether the GOP
should want or even need support from
the corporate boardrooms, which are in-
GETTY IMAGES
44 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
creasingly going “woke.” Maybe it is time
for a divorce.
Big business is increasingly siding
with big government. Democrats are
passing out Biden Bucks, and corporate
America lusts for free federal money. Like
field mice, they gobble up the morsels the
Democrats spill out of their pockets.
Corporate welfare spending in Wash-
ington is at an all-time high,
with hundreds of billions of
taxpayer dollars pipelined
into the coffers of the Climate Change
Industrial Complex, semiconductor
companies, and other Beltway Bandit
industries.
Principled free market Republicans
should take a strong stand against run-
away government spending and debt,
against 19th-century antitrust laws en-
forced by super-regulators such as Feder-
al Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina
Khan, against corporate welfare pro-
grams that cultivate big business depen-
dency on the government, and against
the self-serving Wall Street doctrine of
“too big to fail.”  
If corporate America is against that
agenda, then don’t let the door hit your
fanny on the way out of the party.
An alliance between big business and
big government, after all, is simply a form
of what used to be called “fascism.”
What is the alternative for the GOP?
It’s obvious. Republicans must be the
party of the 80 million small-business
men and women who employ more than
60% of our workers. Alfredo Ortiz, the
head of the indispensable Job Creators
Network, notes that “most small busi-
nesses don’t have PACs and lobbyists and
fancy K Street Washington offices. They
just want to be left alone.”
He’s right. My father ran a successful
small business for 40 years outside of
Chicago. He worked long hours and was
gone often when I was growing up. I don’t
think he ever visited Wash-
ington, D.C. He had disdain
for politics and most politi-
cians. That’s a fairly universal attitude
of employers. And who can blame them
given the torrent of nosy regulations by
Washington lawyers, bureaucrats, and
politicians who know nothing about run-
ning a business or making a profit?
If big business wants to bolt and make
peace with the party that hates enter-
prise, entrepreneurship, and profit, that’s
a sad commentary on the state of affairs
in corporate America, not the GOP.  Pres-
ident Calvin Coolidge once said that “90
percent of people who come to Washing-
ton want something they shouldn’t have.”
Too often these days, our Fortune 500
companies want your and my money, and
that’s something they shouldn’t have.  +
Stephen Moore is the finance and
economics columnist of the Washington
Examiner and an economic consultant
with FreedomWorks.
 TV The Crowded Room spoils itself, P. 54
Downtime What taxes have to do with cuckolds and fake gin, P. 56
Film The wisdom of old cranks, P. 51

Also: Sam Shepard’s pen  Rightwing “postliberalism”  Leftwing “postliberalism”  The curdling of Pride  Pat Sajak
hangs up the wheel
JAMES MOY PHOTOGRAPHY/GET T Y IMAGES

“Gone are the days when endurance races were decided by margins of
minutes or even hours.”
Jack Baruth, P. 50

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 45

LIFE & ARTS

piously documented is not itself unusual.

But it does reframe, at least much more
consciously, the nature of the biography
in question toward something approach-
ing a creative project. Given Greenfield’s
previous works on Jerry Garcia and Tim-
othy Leary, it would appear at first that
True West is one part of his larger ambi-
BOOKS tion to carve, in words, a boomer Mount

How to Carve a
Rushmore. But something more intricate
and complementary to Shepard’s own

Boomer Mount thematic preoccupations does make it-

self known, starting with Greenfield’s

Rushmore  choice of title.

Greenfield makes good use of Shepa-
rd’s play titles throughout his chapters,
By Chris R. Morgan a wise choice as his titles (The Unseen
Hand, The Tooth of Crime, Curse of the

F or someone who was famously averse Starving Class, Operation Sidewinder,

to publicity and whose work is often and Forensic and the Navigators) are en-
eclipsed in popular consciousness by be- viable. True West is a special case. The
ing “that one guy in that one movie” — a 1980 play centers on two brothers, a
tall, dark, and stoic Wallace Shawn — ac- successful screenwriter housesitting for Sam Shepard in 2007.
tor and playwright Sam Shepard lives on their mother and a petty criminal who
in a mountain of copy. In True West: Sam drops in from the desert. Across two acts
Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times, Robert and nine scenes, the two brothers engage
Greenfield has scaled the mountain only in a battle of wits and wills that causes
to add another layer to it, them to switch personas he crosses paths with almost every icon
with little promise of be- and trash their mother’s of the mid-20th century: affairs with
ing able to distinguish it suburban home. An os- Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell, failed
from all the layers below. tensibly realist play all the collaborations with the Rolling Stones
It’s perhaps not very way up to its enigmatic and Bob Dylan, starring roles in Days of
encouraging when the ending where the broth- Heaven and The Right Stuff.
most revealing part of a bi- ers are “caught in a vast, This side of the Shepard duality runs
ography is its works cited desert-like landscape” in near-perfect sync with the madness
section. On the surface, amid a wailing coyote, of his times. His familial background as
the 10 pages of sources Greenfield sees it as a por- the son of a B-24 pilot whose multigen-
that Greenfield appends to trayal of Shepard’s “dual erational alcoholism and philandering
his survey of Sam Shepard nature.” “I know I’ve got would haunt Shepard’s work. So would
commend his diligence in two sides in me,” Shepard his own romantic life, tending to involve
research and his ability to wrote. “One’s totally un- an overlapping wife and lover, who
weave that research into True West: disciplined & just wants to would then become a wife herself. There
an overarching and coher- Sam Shepard’s Life, wander into some adven- are incidents of accidental trips with
ent document of existence, Work, and Times ture … and the other side LSD-laced orange sherbet, getting out of
something that was not al- By Robert Greenfield has this image of an orderly conscription by faking insanity, and then
Crown disciplined life.”
ways present in Shepard’s an almost seamless drift into acting work
448 pp., $30.00
plays. But consider it more A similar dual nature that earns him both a stable income and
deeply, examining the ex- manifests in Greenfield’s an Academy Award nomination. It is the
tensive press clippings (not just reviews True West. On the one hand, there is the American boomer arc encapsulated: sex,
but scores of feature profiles in major adventurer, a kind of postmodern Hora- drugs, draft dodging, and institutional
magazines), critical studies (Shepard has tio Alger hero, weaned on rock ‘n’ roll validation.
ALBERTO PIZ ZOLI/AFP VIA GET T Y IMAGES

earned a Cambridge Companion), three and Kerouac, escaping from a dysfunc- Tandem with that, however, is the
documentary films, and three previous tional family in the Southern California craftsman, since he was writing mean-
biographies between 1986 and 2017. Set desert to a White Castle in Times Square while. Through tireless, largely unsu-
that against a comparatively paltry list of where he needs to donate blood to pay pervised trial and error, he became a
interviewees (no Jessica Lange or Patti for a burger. From there, he situated master of American drama. Early anti-
Smith, for instance), and it leaves, at himself in the Lower East Side coun- narrative “happenings” with a strong
best, a more perplexing impression. terculture, dabbling in rock drumming Beckett influence are often written in a
That a famous life, even one that end- but falling instead into drama. Through day and without revision. Edward Albee
ed only six years before, should be so co- sheer talent and his Marlboro ad looks, rather awkwardly judges that the almost

46 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023


parodically Albee-esque Icarus’s Mother
“gives the impression of being a mess.”
But under the added influence of Eugene
O’Neill and Sophocles, Shepard rifles
more confidently through theater’s tool-
kit — alcoholism, economic plight, the il-
logic of love, fate, incest. And he starts to
forge some visual and linguistic tools of
his own. His plays are set in motel rooms
and depressed farms; some require cars
to be brought onstage. Chicken behead-
ings were simulated for his early two-act
play La Turista, starring a young Sam
Waterston. He channeled his deferred
rock star ambitions with semi-musicals
The Tooth of Crime and Back Bog Beast
Bait. His flair for improvised, colloquial
speech led Hilton Als to dub him, along-
side Amiri Baraka, “the nation’s first hip-
hop playwright,” though perhaps closer
to the more neglected flyover hip-hop of
Esham and the Geto Boys.
In Sam Shepard, Robert Greenfield
has a crystallized hero’s journey: The in-
dividual talent brought out of the desert
to wrestle with and overcome the chaos
of its time. Shepard’s work, Greenfield
concludes, can “inspire others to create
something of equal magnitude, thereby
continuing the unbroken chain of artistic
achievement that links us all to the past
in a timeless manner.” But in 2023, the
truce between theater and pop culture
initiated by Shepard has become a sub-
servience to pop culture. Popular plays
are indistinguishable from amusement
park rides when they’re not pipelines for
television gigs. The linguistic anarchy of
social media makes Shepard’s wordplay
seem quaint today; and his hypermas-
culine rock ‘n’ roll aesthetics are retro-
grade. Moreover, the American idiom
remains a hostage to the minimalist lac-
erations of David Mamet and Neil LaB-
ute, making Shepard’s successors Tracy
Letts and Will Arbery seem provincial by
comparison.
True West is not a critical biography.
Greenfield is adept at corralling the
mass of analysis and interpretation and
relaying them like points on a prospec-
tor’s map. He notes the debate over the
apparent narrowness and the potential
nuance Shepard applied to female char-
acters, though it’s not his place to judge.
Greenfield is more comfortable with fair
but hardly penetrating opinions. The
original script for Operation Sidewinder
did seem pretty racially tone-deaf as he
describes it. Robert Altman’s money-
saving stunt casting of Shepard as the
lead for his adaptation of Fool for Love
instead of the more suitable Ed Har-
ris probably did hurt the film. Shepard
had no good reason to shut down Ethan
Hawke’s female-led version of True West.
LIFE & ARTS
Nothing he says diverts from his over-
all framework of an artist who is hellbent
on articulating his singular vision, and is
deservedly successful in doing so. Shepa-
rd offered America its first truly mature
dramatic language, untethered as much
from Millerian didacticism as from Beck-
ettian angst. He wrote strange, poetic
plays for the era of highway travel and
brought an existential ambience to flyover
country. He forged the most effective de-
tente between high and low culture.
Chris R. Morgan writes from New Jersey.
His Twitter handle is @cr_morgan.
BOOKS
Patrick Deneen
Is Not Up to
Changing
the Regime 
By Mike Watson
T oward the end of his life, John Ad-
ams wrote his grandson that John
Locke and his disciples “have done more
to overturn tyranny civil, ecclesiastical
and political, and to bring into credit &
reputation principles of toleration, hu-
manity, civilization, private judgment
and free inquiry, than all the writers who
preceded them.” In doing so, Locke in-
furiated many people. Patrick Deneen is
one of them.
This Notre Dame professor became
a minor celebrity with the release of his
previous book, Why Liberalism Failed. In
it, he argued that the Founding Fathers’
liberalism was fundamentally flawed and
had combined with progressivism to de-
stroy Western civilization. The best plan
he could conjure up to own these libs
was a variety of twee “household eco-
nomics” hobbies, such as composting,
that by miraculous happenstance were
fashionable on campus at the time of
his writing. In Regime Change, he offers
his pitch to Trump voters: What “most
ordinary people” want is a “ruling class
responsive and responsible to protection
of the common good.” In short, you need
to be ruled by him.
He justifies his claim to rule by ana-
lyzing modern political thought through
the lens of “the many” and “the few.”
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 47
LIFE & ARTS

He charges that both economically ori- genderism is an “experiment in living,” Burke’s writings about America, he
ented classical liberals, which include and since woke activists claim that they would have avoided a glaring factual
most American conservatives, and so- are being “harmed” by critics, they are error. In the British context, Dissenters
cial-activist progressive liberals idolize “in keeping with the Millian ethos” when are not “those of a liberal philosophi-
progress and fear the common man as an they wield “the full force of and power of cal bent” or adherents of a “deracinated
impediment. Real conservatives, by con- the state and its semipublic, semiprivate socialism,” they are conservative Prot-
trast, value stability and tradition, and agents” against their opponents. estants much like today’s evangelicals.
they are the champions of “the many.” This attempt at argument is even less This is like confusing the Tea Party and
This is an unusual claim; historically, convincing than the hysterical shrieks the Bernie Bros.
when people have asked for more self- that Donald Trump was a Nazi because One of the most remarkable aspects
government, they have been greeted by he and Adolf Hitler both said mean of Deneen’s pretend conservatism is how
the champions of liberty with ballots and words about the news media. Mill as- non-American it is. He cites Adams as a
by traditionalists with bullets. serted that “over his own body and mind, “classical thinker,” but Adams loathed
Deneen twists some of Locke’s words, the individual is sovereign,” but the woke Locke’s critics. He favorably cites the
but he often fails to find words to twist. movement opposes freedom of thought anti-Federalists as the original American
Instead, he fills his diatribe against clas- and of speech. They are not fulfilling populists, but the Bill of Rights that the
sical liberalism with long passages full Mill’s vision, they oppose it. While there anti-Federalists demanded is thoroughly
of mysterious, unnamed people making is a socially libertine strain in left-of-cen- Lockean. There is only one American
decisions in undefined times and places: ter American politics, progressives have tradition that he depicts accurately and
“The members of the new ruling class always demanded compliance to their unabashedly adores: Puritanism. He
were to be elevated … property was to be various moral crusades. Once again, De- extols New England’s “beautiful defini-
dynamic … primary was a belief in self- neen must torture a passage to wring out tion of freedom,” which is “a liberty for
making,” and so on and so forth. Com- of it his desired meaning. that only which is just and good.” To get
petent writers deploy this passive voice Speaking of torturers, there is a fourth there, he wishes to replace “’religious lib-
sentence construction sparingly for em- political category in Deneen’s book: erty,’ ‘academic freedom,’ ‘free markets,’
phasis — for instance, “Deneen’s perva- Marxism. As Deneen admits, “while at ‘checks and balances,’ etc.,” since they
sive use of passive voice first glance conservatism are “no substitutes for piety, truth, equi-
should have been drilled would seem to have little table prosperity, and just government.”
out of him by his 10th grade in common with Marxism, He proposes Aristopopulism, a newly
English teacher” — but its in fact, we can see clearly empowered aristocracy who “are worthy
frequent usage is, like all that they share a deep hos- of emulation and, in turn, elevate the
muddled writing, a prod- tility to the arrangements lives, aspirations, and vision of ordinary
uct of muddled thought. of modern liberalism.” people.” He will fill his new aristocracy
Unfortunately, his di- He claims that Marxism with lawyers, fulfilling every American’s
agnosis of the progressive and his version of con- dream of having to deal with lawyers
Left is no more insightful servatism both champion even more.
than his passages about “the many” against “the Deneen is right that the American
classical liberals. To De- few.” More discerning founding has helped usher in a pro-
neen, “the intellectual minds will notice another foundly disruptive period in human his-
progenitor of progressive Regime Change:
similarity between how tory, and the country needs thoughtful
liberalism was John Stu- Toward a Postliberal Marxists and Deneenite social conservatives to identify these
art Mill.” Mill, who came Future conservatives treat mem- problems and help navigate the ship of
into the world three de- By Patrick J. Deneen bers of “the many” who state. This need will grow more acute as
cades after the Declara- Sentinel step out of line. new technologies allow us to alter biol-
284 pp., $30.00
tion of Independence, Deneen attempts to ogy and raise new questions about hu-
must have created a time create a new history for manness and identity that could make
machine in addition to his intellectual his kind of conservatism. For decades today’s culture wars look like a summer
tradition, since Deneen also refers to after the American founding, Catholic picnic. Fortunately, there are some rising
“the progressive liberalism of America’s reactionaries championed the “tyranny stars, such as Grove City College’s Carl
Founding Fathers.” This astonishingly civil, ecclesiastical and political” that Trueman, who are up to the task.
inventive fellow argued that custom was Adams denounced. To sidestep this Deneen also correctly notes that our
a “despot” that prevented people from doleful history, Deneen cites as inspira- elite class has largely failed to perform
conducting “experiments in living.” As tion Edmund Burke, the foremost British adequately in these turbulent times. And
he saw it, “the only purpose for which critic of the French Revolution (Adams if Regime Change demonstrates the cali-
power can be rightfully exercised over was his American counterpart), and 19th ber of thought available in our elite insti-
any member of a civilized community, century British prime minister Benjamin tutions, it is no wonder why.
against his will, is to prevent harm to Disraeli, along with various American
others.” populist movements such as the anti- Mike Watson is the associate director of
Deneen draws a direct line from Mill Federalists. (This is a stretch.) Hudson Institute’s Center for the Future
to today’s woke scolds. After all, trans- Incidentally, if Deneen had read of Liberal Society.

48 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023

 LIFE & ARTS

BOOKS have a name, almost a prophet without to all of us?

a people. Ahmari has been a successful jour-
Sohrab Ahmari, Tyranny, Inc. is not practical. It’s a nalist and, if this is not an insult, a pub-
volume that appeals all the time to the lic intellectual most of his adult life. He
Man Attending authority of academics that all practi- has accordingly made a very public jour-

the Arena  cal people despise or ignore. He might

as well start every other paragraph
with “studies show.” You can appease
By Titus Techera elites with this prose but not start a
revolution.
ney from atheism all the way to Catholi-
cism, the subject of his recent memoir,
From Fire, By Water, and a reflection on
church wisdom, The Unbroken Thread.
As best I can understand him, he is a

I n the 21st century, American society Ahmari’s revolutionary hope is for a

and politics have shifted in a shock- New New Deal, one that sticks. But the
ing way, leading almost to a reversal structure of his tract is conventional,
man looking for a morality that can
beautify life, that can overcome the
cynicism and opportunism he decries
of the positions and electorates of our built for the bestseller list. He starts in the case of corporate America. Ca-
two parties. Democrats, once the party by defining coercion in private life (in tholicism is certainly the most beautiful
of the working classes and the unions, addition to the more familiar govern- form of Christianity but also the most
have rapidly become the party of the ment coercion) and interpreting the democratic, which seems as important
corporate, college-educated tech-savvy activities of men in the marketplace as for Ahmari.
elite. Republicans, previously the party potentially despotic, unworthy of free He talks about journalism in theo-
of business, have become the party of citizens. Then, the first part, “The po- logical terms (chapter title: “Parched for
the poorer half of America that lacks litical economy of dystopia,” describes truth”) as keeping power accountable
college education and of journalists or much of the economy as private tyranny to something higher than itself, a jus-
intellectuals complaining about elite in the form of a tour, chapter by chap- tice that has transcendent support. He
tyranny, online and offline, public and ter, of various industries and the various wants truth-telling to protect the weak
private. Liberals are now the establish- outrages that people suffer, preferably from becoming victims. A very Christian
ment, conservatives the populists. people who have a claim on our pity or sentiment, to be sure, and inasmuch as
As with many big charity regardless of the it’s a matter of justice, a worthy pursuit.
shifts, it goes unnoticed. injustice they may suffer. But is it a good explanation for the de-
We have no celebrated Finally, the second part sire for fame and honor, for calling at-
authors talking about how of Tyranny, Inc. offers a tention to oneself and demanding an
this has happened or what solution to private coer- authority over others? After all, Ahmari
to do about it now. Nor cion, Galbraith’s “coun- has been a public figure all his adult life
are our parties, in Con- tervailing power,” which and seems intent on keeping it up. Yet
gress or elsewhere, any should allow workers, all the universality of Christianity tends to
good at explaining what’s of whom he’d like to see rob every individual man or woman of
going on in America or unionized, to stand up to great importance; we all matter, but no
even at representing their capital. one of us especially. Writing, which has
new electorate. Sohrab Ahmari has three ma- no authority and little influence in our
Ahmari’s new tract for jor practical complaints. lives, seems a Christian compromise
the times, Tyranny, Inc., is First, bending the law between the demand of justice, which
therefore a very welcome Tyranny, Inc.: to serve corporations is practical, oriented to action, and the
contribution to a discus- How Private Power when it comes to adjudi- demand of greatness, which is to imag-
sion of the new America Crushed American cation: Bankruptcy law, ine oneself a ruler.
we live in, but hardly pay Liberty — and arbitration courts, NDAs, Ahmari makes it clear throughout his
attention to, and itself What to Do About It and any number of other tract and especially in his last chapter,
By Sohrab Ahmari
evidence of how quickly changes to the working “In defense of politics,” that he wants
Forum Books
we have transformed as a contract that workers to be practical. But if he wants to talk to
288 pp., $28.00
society. feel compelled to accept. and about the poorer half of America,
Ahmari’s enemy, the Next, the use of financial the workers who suffer at the hands of
tyrannical system of his title, is neo- capital to destroy industries, especially the evil financial capitalists, he neces-
liberalism, which politically means journalism, but more broadly, corpo- sarily must become a Republican, which
Reagan and Thatcher. His hero (like rate raiding. Finally, the privatization he might experience as a horrible fate.
Reagan’s) is FDR. And his guiding of public goods like emergency medical Yet more evidence that the transforma-
economist is Galbraith. (He dismisses services or firefighters. Everywhere he tions in our lives have not yet affected
or reviles Hayek.) A generation back, looks in America, Ahmari sees the little our thoughts. And if he wants to use the
this would have made Ahmari a liberal guy get stiffed. Suffering is one half of power of the state to improve the op-
Democrat, old-fashioned, midcentury, the problem, perhaps the smaller half. portunities and proclaim the dignity of
wishing America were more like Eu- Humiliation is the other. How can there the working classes, he would have to
rope’s social democracy. Now it makes be citizenship without equality before look to Red America, to which millions
him something else, for which we don’t the law and the confidence that brings and millions of people are moving in the

June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 49

LIFE & ARTS
hope of achieving exactly those things.
Finally, Ahmari is a fervent Catholic
convert. Again, if he wants to have any
practical influence in America, or even
maintain his self-respect, he must be-
come as fervent a Republican, since
liberals, Progressive, Democrats, etc.
loudly and proudly despise, attack, and
want to get rid of Christianity.
Ahmari is aware of all these transfor-
mations. His concluding remarks: “This
book was conceived on election night
2020. The outcome was still murky,
but one thing was clear: Republicans
had widened their appeal among voters
without college degrees and those do-
ing tangible forms of labor. Democrats,
meanwhile, had emerged as the party of
Wall Street, Hollywood, Silicon Valley,
and the professional classes.”
Yet he goes down the path of history
and nostalgia, calling for a return to the
American political arrangement of the
New Deal and indeed a radicalization
of it. His vehicle for it is the most im-
plausible part of it all: “If there is hope
to be found, I have come to believe, it
lies mostly in ordinary workers, citizen-
activists, and the labor organizers and
lawyers who rally to their cause.” After
complaining for the entirety of the book
that workers are powerless, he turns to
them to solve their problems. Were they
able to, he would be wrong to complain
about their plight.
I was persuaded by Ahmari’s insis-
tence on the dignity and advantages of a
political treatment of our problems (yes,
let’s not leave our lives to our liberal
managerial elites) but unpersuaded by
his Galbraith economics and insulted by
his contempt for Lincoln. I think most
of the audience interested in change is
unlikely to like Tyranny, Inc., and I regret
it. We do need to talk about politics be-
cause we need to take political control
of public and private institutions that
seem hellbent on outlawing our beliefs,
and we need to revive the economy. We
don’t need “literary politics” and mor-
alism but leaders and practical men. If
Ahmari dedicated himself to serving as
a union agitator or organizer to fulfill
his dream rather than a magazine co-
founder and the author of moralistic
books, that would be more practical.
Titus Techera is the executive director of
the American Cinema Foundation and a
cultural critic.
50 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
SPORTS
Le Mans Was
Rigged, and Most
People Want It
That Way  rived at the top classes of Le Mans after
By Jack Baruth
J ust a few days before the 100th run-
ning of the 24 Hours of Le Mans,
with the world anxiously awaiting an
all-out battle between sleek and futuris-
tic “hypercar” prototypes from Ferrari,
Toyota, and others, the folks who run
the show decided to put a thumb on the
scales. More than a thumb, actually. The
Automobile Club de l’Ouest, or ACO,
announced that Toyota’s GR10 Hybrid,
widely considered the favorite to win at
that point, would be burdened, Harrison
Bergeron-style, with 81.5 pounds of ad-
ditional ballast during the race.
Toyota wasn’t the only manufacturer
to take a hit. Ferrari was given a 59-pound
penalty for their 499P hypercar. Porsche
was assigned an extra 24 pounds, while
Cadillac received a mild 6.6-pound bal-
last. Peugeot’s handsome but hapless
9X8, left in the dust by Toyota and ev-
eryone else in the first three races of the
World Endurance Championship season,
was permitted to continue as before.
The ACO had promised prior to Le
Mans, in writing, that no such “balance
of power,” or BoP, adjustment would take
place. But they had a legitimate reason
to break that promise. Toyota had been
positively imperious in 2023, winning the
most recent event by over a minute, and
looked almost certain to extend their five-
year streak of Le Mans victories. The ACO
wanted a different outcome, or at least a
more exciting one. Time to break out the
ballast, along with a few additional re-
strictions in power and aerodynamics.
Like virtually all motor sports events
throughout history, the 24h du Mans
has always used a rulebook to govern
what can and cannot participate in the
race. These rules range from obvious
(it wouldn’t be permissible to enter a
motorcycle, or a diesel tractor-trailer)
to somewhat recherche (all prototype
sports cars must be capable of carrying
a passenger seat, the size and weight of
which is strictly specified, even though it
has been more than seven decades since
the disappearance of ride-along mechan-
ics). BoP is different. It’s a system of ac-
tive handicapping meant to ensure that
most teams show up with a more or less
equal chance of winning any given race.
The purists despise BoP, which ar-
many years of successful experimenta-
tion in lesser sports cars, with one com-
mentator on the official ACO channels
snarling, “Congrats for a fixed, fake Le
Mans.” Casual fans, however, are capti-
vated by it. Gone are the days when en-
durance races were decided by margins
of minutes or even hours. Today, the ex-
pectation is that the competition won’t
be over until it’s over, or nearly so.
Just as importantly, the automakers
adore BoP, which may occasionally rob
them of a well-deserved win but far more
often spares them the indignity of lagging
the competition by embarrassing mar-
gins. It’s well understood in professional
racing circles that the governing bodies
will often give a new participant a minor
BoP boost to ensure a strong debut. This
helps reassure the C-suite and the bean
counters while energizing the fans.
Prior to the 100th running of Le
Mans, the ACO came up with the mother
of all BoP schemes for its top class, Le
Mans Hypercar. These spaceship-esque
race cars, developed and built from
scratch by Toyota, Ferrari, and Peugeot,
would be joined by “GTP” cars from
the American IMSA series. GTP is weak
sauce compared to the Le Mans hyper-
cars, being based on standardized chas-
sis components from the middle-tier
European LMP2 prototype series and
a series-provided hybrid powertrain,
but it’s also a lot cheaper to run. Put-
ting LMH and GTP together would open
the field to a total of 10 manufacturers
and 16 total cars, a veritable traffic jam
in a series which has sometimes seen
JEREMIAS GONZALEZ/AP
as few as six vehicles on the track. But
it would require some serious hypercar
handicapping.
Some of that handicapping was posi-
tively ingenious. GTP cars have hybrid

power on the rear wheels only, but the
Toyota hypercar can engage electric drive
on the front wheels, reducing tire wear
and increasing traction when exiting cor-
ners. So the ACO forced Toyota to disable
the system at speeds below about 120
mph. This compromise allowed Toyota
to retain its innovative hybrid tech, which
was important to its marketing efforts,
without utterly humiliating the simpler
GTP cars from Porsche and BMW.
In the end, however, cerebral tricks
such as this couldn’t quite close the gap,
so the ACO simply made the hypercars
heavier. Quite a bit heavier, in fact. As a
consequence, during Le Mans 2023, the
Toyota was a full 15 seconds a lap slower
than it had been in previous outings,
enough of a handicap to let the competi-
tion draw near during the race.
Happily for spectators, Le Mans
proved to be quite a spectacle, featuring
everything from first-lap crashes to wild
weather to the crowd-pleasing appear-
ance of a highly-modified NASCAR stock
car in the exhibition category, which re-
ceived no BoP adjustments and therefore
made light work of various Porsches,
Ferraris, and Aston Martin sports cars.
The eventual winner was a true hypercar,
the #51 Ferrari of AF Corse, breaking a
58-year drought for the Prancing Horse.
But the top 10 included Toyota, Cadillac,
Peugeot, and the privateer effort of Wall
Ferrari AF Corse drivers Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and James
Calado celebrate their victory at the 24-hour Le Mans endurance race on June 11.
Street inheritor Jim Glickenhaus.
Much like the titular hero of Kurt
Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron, however,
it appeared for much of the race that no
amount of handicapping weight would
stop the Toyota juggernaut. It took a
drastic mistake to remove the TS10 Hy-
brid from contention; perhaps thinking
of national glory, Toyota’s team put Japa-
nese driver Ryo Hirakawa in for a final
stint and told him to “take full risk” in
pursuit of the win, only to have him lose
control of the car and strike a barrier.
Hirakawa’s blunder allowed Ferrari
to take the victory with over a minute to
spare. In hindsight, more than a few pun-
dits are praising the ACO’s heavy-handed
efforts to balance the competition, purity
be dammed. But there is some satisfac-
tion for the old-timers in the fact that
the best car nearly won the whole thing
anyway, only to fade out of the winner’s
circle through old-fashioned human er-
ror. “In the end,” one wag wrote, “the
most critical ballast adjustment of the
entire week was ... the 68 kilograms con-
tributed to the Toyota by Ryo Hirakawa.”
Jack Baruth was born in Brooklyn, New
York, and lives in Ohio. He is a pro-am
race car driver and a former columnist
for Road and Track and Hagerty maga-
zines who writes the Avoidable Contact
Forever newsletter.
LIFE & ARTS
FILM
Not Obsolete 
By Peter Tonguette
Y outh, or its appearance, rules the
modern world. Women in their 60s
dress in the style of teeny-boppers. And
men in their 50s fill their time with video
games. Meanwhile, plastic surgery, Bo-
tox, and assorted pharmaceutical inter-
ventions promise that the aged can look
as youthful (or, at least, as stretched) as
their juvenile overlords. Social media, a
medium that feasts on the sort of cat-
tiness once associated exclusively with
junior high, is the dominant form of
communication.
The cult of youth has been with us
since the Romantic Era, but Madison
Avenue, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood
have assured that it has become a full-
blown religion. Nowadays, most movies
and TV shows seem to be engineered to
appeal to audiences somewhere between
the ages of 13 and 31. Comic books are
spoken of seriously and superheroes
solemnly. Grown people congregate
online to scrutinize the latest Star Wars
spinoff, Spider-Man reboot, or Indiana
Jones sequel.
The large exception to the rule is
Washington, the sole remaining power
center in America in which the old are
still in control — much to the worry of
everybody else in our youth-obsessed
land. One of the first signs of the de-
valuation of seniority and experience
in the nation’s capital came during the
now-quaint 2008 presidential campaign
of John McCain, whose age and mental
wellness were consistent fodder for his
opponents. These days, President Joe
Biden has become a national joke less for
the failure of his policies or the incom-
petence of his administration than for
falling down and snoozing like the octo-
genarian he is. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-
CA), a year removed from her 90th year,
has faced endless entreaties for her to
resign amid tabloidlike gossiping about
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 51
LIFE & ARTS
her intellectual capacity and equally sa-
lacious speculation about her physical
well-being. Sensing blood in the water,
Republican presidential contender Nik-
ki Haley proposed “mental competency
tests” for political aspirants north of 75.
To which I say: Be careful what you
wish for. Each of us one day will be
among the ranks of the infirm. Fur-
thermore, the rampant youth worship
throughout America today, and the at-
tendant ageism that informs the noxious
attitudes toward Biden and Feinstein’s
senescence, is countered by millennia of
great art made by old cranks.
Let’s ask Orson Welles, several of
whose best films, including The Magnifi-
cent Ambersons, Chimes at Midnight, and
The Other Side of the Wind, portrayed the
war of the young on the old. “You told
me last night about all these old directors
whom people in Hollywood say are ‘over
the hill,’ and it made me so sick I couldn’t
sleep,” Welles once said to his friend Peter
Bogdanovich. “I started thinking about
all those conductors — Klemperer, Bee-
cham, Toscanini; I could name almost a
hundred in the last century — who were
at the height of their powers after 75 and
were conducting at 80.”
The argument for artists working
until they keel over is admittedly more
52 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
straightforward than for public ser-
vants hanging on until they reach se-
nility. Unlike politicians, artists are not
responsible for the laws under which
we live or the wars by which we might
die. They merely must make good art,
and the great ones, such as the conduc-
tors revered by Welles or Welles himself,
almost invariably do so until the very
end. Any of us can point to major art-
ists whose gifts flowered for a final time
late in life: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,
Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Edward
Hopper’s painting Intermission, Frank
Sinatra’s Trilogy album, Saul Bellow’s
Ravelstein. Cussedness, infirmity, or de-
clining “mental competency” were not
impediments to the creation of any of
these works.
In fact, late works are often defined
by a “don’t-give-a-damn” openness. By
all accounts, Philip Roth ended his life
as a cantankerous grump, and his final
novels, including the masterly Indigna-
tion and The Humbling, are fittingly de-
spairing. Failing to produce a workable
novel out of his last major literary proj-
ect, Kurt Vonnegut offered up a shape-
less though lovely hodgepodge of fiction
and autobiography, Timequake. It is as
though the strain of the act of creating
compels aging artists to say what they
Clint Eastwood
directs on the set of
Cry Macho in 2021.
must and nothing more. Consider the
terse, taut last works of Ernest Heming-
way (The Old Man and the Sea), John
Cheever (Oh What a Paradise It Seems),
and Joseph Heller (Portrait of an Artist,
as an Old Man). In their last books, Joan
Didion and Susan Sontag produced ex-
acting sentences that seemed arrived at
only with strenuous effort.
Moviemakers approaching the au-
tumn of their lives also enjoy a last burst
of expressiveness. Kurosawa’s Mada-
dayo, Bunuel’s That Obscure Object of
Desire, and Altman’s A Prairie Home
Companion are often as weird, as open,
as broken-down as any of the old mem-
bers of our decaying ruling class. And
they are the more fascinating for it.
Alfred Hitchcock discarded his Eng-
lish gentility with a next-to-last film of
rare violence and brutality, Frenzy. How-
ard Hawks made himself (but few oth-
ers) happy with a trio of Westerns that
shamelessly used and reused the same
setup and star: John Wayne in Rio Bravo,
(CL AIRE FOLGER/WARNER BROS.
El Dorado, Rio Lobo. George Cukor, who
was gay, made a startling reference to his
sexuality in his last film, the masterpiece
Rich and Famous. In the closing scene,
longtime female friends played by Jac-
queline Bisset and Candice Bergen kiss
each other on New Year’s Eve. “I want

the press of human flesh, and you’re the
only flesh around,” Bisset says — her
words serving as a beautifully unguard-
ed, yet elegantly oblique, admission of
Cukor’s true self.
If we want art to teach us something
about life, beauty, civilization, or the cos-
mos, it follows that the old have more
to tell us than the young. I have always
gravitated toward works by older artists
for this reason. The most significant ar-
tistic event in my lifetime was the release
of the final film of Stanley Kubrick, Eyes
Wide Shut. Why did I spend half of my
teenage years so eagerly anticipating its
release? Because I regarded Kubrick, in
his late 60s when he made the movie, in
the same way that I regarded nearly all
old people: as an oracle, a seer, a wise
man. Nearly five decades of filmmaking
gave Kubrick infinitely more directorial
tools at his disposal than his younger
colleagues. Nearly seven decades of liv-
ing gave him a far more nuanced picture
of the world. We know deep down that
old age, even when marred by ill health,
confers authority and that youth, even
when boosted by outward vigor, suggests
superficiality.
Later this year, 93-year-old Clint
Eastwood will embark on what is sup-
posed to be his final directorial outing,
but let us hope it is not. “When old age
tempts or forces a man to give away
the very source of his ascendancy over
the young — his power — it’s they, the
young, who are the tyrants, and he, who
was all-powerful, becomes a pensioner,”
Welles once said in a proposal for his
never-made film of King Lear. Young
tyrants today see their inevitable rule
as benign, and so the sooner, the better.
But if Eastwood does not belong behind
a movie camera, where, exactly, does he
belong?
So who has something to learn from
whom? Should the arts teach the con-
sumer culture and the political culture a
thing or two about the old or the other
way around? Today, to show signs of ad-
vancing age — to speak softly, to walk
slowly, to be forgetful, weary, or grouchy
— is now to invite open ridicule as never
before. “Respect for one’s elders shows
MANUEL BALCE CENETA/AP
character,” says Harvey Keitel’s Winston
Wolf in Pulp Fiction, and we have pre-
cious little of it.
Peter Tonguette is a contributing writer to
the Washington Examiner magazine.
ON CULTURE
Pride Bullies  showed up as if we’d all been forced to
By Ben Appel
I t’s officially what the White House calls
“Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgen-
der, Queer, And Intersex Pride Month.”
Though I’m gay, I feel something besides
pride on the occasion. The socially com-
pulsory celebration now is something
to dread. It means that for the entire
month of June, you’ll get to hear about
the plight of transgender people, just like
you do the other 11 months of the year.
It also means your social media feeds
have become one long rainbow, littered
with tacky memes about how we must
“protect trans kids” and “respect poly-
amorous asexuals” or whatever. Or, if
you lean right (which today means any-
where to the left of Mao Zedong), you’ll
see a billion posts about how Bud Light
betrayed the Founding Fathers by hiring
Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesperson.
Every year now, we celebrate the
holiday marked by the flying of a flag,
only it’s a different flag each time, and
nobody seems to know who is respon-
sible for deciding how the flag changes or
when we can stop and decide it’s enough.
At first, the changes to the movement
seemed merely aesthetic. They began
with the Pride flag, which, in a nod to in-
tersectionality, added black and brown
stripes to represent black and brown
people (Because rainbows have always
been “whites only”?) and renamed it
People walk on the South Lawn of the White House during a Pride Month
celebration on June 10 in Washington.
LIFE & ARTS
the “Progress” flag. Then, the trans tri-
angle, in all its baby pink and blue glory,
attend some eternal gender-reveal party:
“Congratulations! You’re having a boy
who will grow up to dominate women’s
athletics!” Trans people already have
their own flag, but apparently, that’s
beside the point; they need to take over
the gay Pride flag, and gay people have
to like it.
This design update heralded a new
era for LGBT rights. Somewhere, some-
one is penning an entire thesis on the
symbolism of this hideous new design:
the way the triangle encroaches upon
the rainbow, just as radical trans activ-
ism consumes the gay and lesbian rights
movement and dismantles the progress
we’ve fought for decades to make; the
way radical trans activists advocate the
medicalizing of gender-nonconforming
children, who, if left alone, would likely
grow up to be gay and lesbian. (“Trans
the gay away” is the new “pray the gay
away,” only more lucrative for drug
companies.)
The interests of the new “LGBTQ-
IA+” regime — and the “Pride month”
that this soft authoritarian regime
demands we all celebrate, or else —
couldn’t be in greater conflict with the
interests of the gay and lesbian activists
who came before it. Historically, gays
and lesbians campaigned for protection
from discrimination in the workplace
and housing, the decriminalization of
homosexuality, the declassification of
homosexuality as a mental disorder by
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 53
LIFE & ARTS

the American Psychiatric Association,
and eventually, along with civil mar-
riage and military service, peaceful and
respectful coexistence with heterosexu-
als in a liberal society. Gays and lesbians
wanted to stop being pathologized, ex-
perimented on, locked up, and drugged.
Today, LGBT rights organizations,
such as the Human Rights Campaign,
GLAAD, and what’s left of the American
Civil Liberties Union, lobby for gender-
nonconforming children (who would
likely grow up to be gay or lesbian) to
be given puberty blockers and cross-
sex hormones, which, in the past, were
used by law enforcement to castrate
convicted gay men chemically. In effect,
organizations that were founded by gays
and lesbians are now lobbying for proto-
gay adolescents to be transformed into
straight adolescents, adolescents who
often grow up to be sterile and sexu-
ally dysfunctional. It is a process that
the transgender clinical psychiatrist Dr.
Erica Anderson has suggested is a new
iteration of gay conversion therapy.
The inversion of Pride extends past
the world of acronym-named gay orga-
nizations and to mainstream culture. I
can’t help but feel sad when I see the ac-
tor Elliot Page, formerly Ellen Page, on
the cover of People magazine to mark
the occasion. It’s sad that this is the mes-
sage being displayed for a holiday or a
history month that began as gay pride.
In 2014, Ellen Page gave an impassioned
speech to the Human Rights Campaign
about how she was gay. Her voice was
trembling. She was nervous, but she was
unburdened. Ten years later, she has re-
ceived a double mastectomy and com-
menced on cross-sex hormones. She
has begun the transition from lesbian
to “straight” man. Another one bites the
dust.
Shame, really, is why gays and les-
bians needed Pride. Because the op-
posite of shame is pride. We needed
to celebrate who we were because we
could no longer bear to mourn who we
were, regret who we were, or damn our-
selves. It was one big exercise in “fake it
’til you make it.” And we made it. Police
harassment ended. Homosexuality was
depathologized and decriminalized. Gay
and offer forgiveness and treat children
with care. In the process, it is decimat-
ing so much we gays fought for: It’s OK
for men to be feminine and women to be
butch; we can respect straight society;
and that we’re a minority, but we’re a
valid minority. I am not proud to be as-
sociated with a sect that wants to tear
everything down and destroy things
and break down boundaries and harm
people. I am ashamed of the new Pride.
Ben Appel is a writer living in New York
City. He is at work on his first book, which
is about his liberation from the church of
social justice. Find him on Twitter @bena-
ppel and at benappelwrites.com.
TV
The Crowded
Room Is a Mess 
By Graham Hillard
T he Crowded Room is dismayingly bad
television, a sure contender for the
worst drama of the year with a puncher’s
chance to carry the decade. A psycholog-
ical thriller that neither thrills nor under-
stands psychology, it pairs the freshness
of a Matlock rerun with the subtlety of a
straitjacket. That the series was acquired
by Apple TV+, until recently our most
reliable streaming service, merely com-
pounds the insult. Halfway through the
show’s trailer, I knew with absolute cer-
tainty what the plot-destroying “reveal”
would turn out to be. Ten minutes into
the pilot, I wondered how any sentient
human being could fail to guess it. then add such lines as “There are a num-
That Apple TV+ is in some denial ber of dispositive factors I’m not seeing.”
about its latest offering is poignantly For audiences who have thrilled to the
evident. Acquiring screener access to actress’s transformation from sex kitten
the show, I also received a bold-text to poor man’s Tilda Swinton, The Crowd-
missive prohibiting all manner of spoil- ed Room represents a heady culmination.
ers. Some of the enjoined items would be The series’s other star, Tom Holland
reasonable were not the series so intent (of Spider-Man fame), is equally terri-
on spoiling itself. Others are so intrinsic ble but can at least be discussed. Lean,
to the show’s nature that they can hardly haunted, and so obviously deranged
be dodged. I cannot divulge, for example, that one wonders how he buttons his
the occupation practiced by Amanda pants every morning, Holland plays
Seyfried’s pantsuited protagonist, never Danny Sullivan, a young man under ar-
mind that her work informs The Crowd- rest for attempted murder. In the pilot’s
COURTESY OF APPLE T V+

people could be soldiers. They could be
spouses.
But now, this movement has curdled
into something mean and bullyish,
something that cannot be magnanimous
ed Room’s structure and drives its story.
How, then, to convey the actress’s awful-
ness? Call to mind Seyfried’s mannered,
overpraised performance as fraudster
Elizabeth Holmes (The Dropout), and
opening scene, we see him pull a gun
in Rockefeller Center, accompanied by
a mysterious accomplice. Though this
enigmatic sidekick (played by American
Honey’s Sasha Lane) does the shooting

54 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023


that follows, Danny is left holding the
weapon. That Lane’s character seem-
ingly vanishes into thin air seconds later
is one of the gears turning The Crowded
Room’s wheels.
And so we proceed, Danny under lock
and key and Seyfried’s Rya Goodwin — I
daren’t say too much — questioning him
about his thoughts and feelings. Hilari-
ously, Rya’s actual job title is treated as a
revelation later in the series, as if the in-
teraction between the two leads has been
other than telescopically clear. Danny, a
conspicuously damaged young man, is
being interrogated at some length about
the workings of his mind. Rya is practi-
cally filling out a grant application as the
two converse. The reader may draw his
own conclusions.
Sasha Lane and Tom Holland
in The Crowded Room.
To be fair, The Crowded Room
wouldn’t have worked even if its creators
had prayed less fervently to the gods of
narrative concealment. The show’s writ-
ing, primarily by Batman & Robin scribe
Akiva Goldsman, is so lazily on the nose
that key exchanges feel like lightly dra-
matized talking points. (“Trauma is the
closest thing we have to time travel,” Rya
says in one groan-inducing moment.)
Nearly every role is miscast, from Broad-
way star Will Chase as Danny’s obnox-
ious stepfather to Emma Laird (Mayor
of Kingstown) as the young man’s shock-
ingly unobservant girlfriend.
Most damaging of all is the exception-
al unease with which the program moves
between its locked-room interview ses-
sions and its flashbacks to Danny’s prior
LIFE & ARTS
life. At an overlong 10 episodes, the show
has no choice but to string out the lat-
ter despite their uneven (to put it kindly)
dramatic significance. An early drug
deal gone wrong, for instance, is a small
masterpiece of jumbled storytelling, con-
tributing little besides a needless veneer
of racial condescension. Then, there’s
Danny’s retreat from his childhood
home to the flophouse next door, where
he befriends the previously mentioned
Lane character and an Israeli immigrant
played by Lior Raz. That’s fruitless in a
different way. Supporting players Ariana
and Yitzhak are among the most impor-
tant contributors to Danny’s story, yet
I didn’t believe them for a minute. To
explain why would give away the game
in its entirety. Suffice it to say that the
series’s biggest “surprise” lies at their
doorstep. Once one discovers the key,
the entire edifice collapses.
The Crowded Room was inspired by
Daniel Keyes’s 1981 book The Minds of
Billy Milligan. It says so right there in the
title sequence, which also features — get
this — a man being chased by his own
shadow. Watching the show’s trailer, one
hears Danny confessing to “blank spots”
in his memory and a detective complaining
that important characters can’t be found.
Scenes in which Danny and his friends
interact with outsiders are staged and
scripted with extreme care. In short, the
series has the paranoia of an undercover
spy but the gabbiness of a sixth-grade girl.
Its creators are so desperate to stop me
from spilling their secrets that they have
forgotten to keep them themselves.
Such a state of affairs does more, it
should be clear, than throw up road-
blocks in front of television critics.
Because the show’s revelations ren-
der much of its dramatic work moot, a
strange hollowness attends the proceed-
ings, as if we have knowingly been sold
counterfeit goods. Since most viewers
will see the twists coming, the program
is unconvincing from the start. We grasp
right away that we are being lied to.
The result of all this is a show that
can’t tell its story because it has no story
to tell. Watch an episode or two for the
unintentional comedy, sure. But three’s
a crowd.
Graham Hillard is a Washington Exam-
iner magazine contributing writer and the
managing editor of the James G. Martin
Center for Academic Renewal.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 55
LIFE & ARTS
DOWNTIME
Fake Recipes
and Fake Gin
By Eric Felten
G o back a few hundred years and
you will find Americans were
famous for the fanciful names they
gave their even more fanciful drinks.
There were such concoctions as the
“fillip,” the “spur in the head,” the
“phlegm-cutter,” and the “fog driver”
— drinks that could be used to “moist-
en the clay” or “quench a spark.” But
for a brief moment, the Brits back
home outdid their colonial cousins in
drink nomenclature.
It was a fad driven not by linguistic
fancy but by taxation. And though ef-
forts to trick the taxman were quickly
seen through by those tasked with col-
lecting revenue for the king, bar profes-
sionals in the New World weren’t quite
so perspicacious. Consider the beverage
known by the naughty nickname Cuck-
old’s Comfort. What could it possibly
be?
One could turn to the Bartender’s
Guide of 1862 by Jerry “the Professor”
Thomas, a sort of Rosetta Stone, un-
locking mysteries of the bibulous past,
a text carefully studied by those modern
mixers of drinks who have fought to re-
establish the cocktail as a touchstone of
American culture. If you have paid $20
for a brandy crusta in the last decade,
you have likely been in the presence
of one of the Professor’s acolytes. And
who’s to complain about the price of the
Jerry Thomas-inspired drink when an
original copy of the Professor’s book
costs in the thousands?
The original book was not compiled
for the home mixer. Indeed, in the Pro-
fessor’s day, there wasn’t much in the
way of making drinks at home. The Bar-
tender’s Guide is just that: a guide for a
professional bartender. As such, it in-
cludes a section of recipes, attributed to
56 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
a distiller named Christian Schultz, for
making industrial quantities of liqueurs
and cordials. Included was a method for
making Cuckold’s Comfort 10 gallons at
a time.
The recipe is remarkable for its pri-
mary ingredient. You start with 4 1/2
pounds of fresh poppies. Mash them
and let the crushed poppies soak in 4
gallons of grain alcohol for a week. Then
you strain out the poppy mush, add a
gallon of sugar syrup, a half-ounce of
vanilla “essence,” and 24 drops of oil of
roses dissolved in alcohol. Filter it, bot-
tle it, and Bob’s your uncle.
I wouldn’t touch the stuff, nor, it
seems, did much of anyone else be-
cause, elaborate recipe notwithstand-
ing, there never was anything called
Cuckold’s Comfort. It was a joke name,
one of many that gained currency in
18th-century Britain, where gin-bibbers
were doing their best to avoid the noto-
rious gin tax.
As Charles Tennant put it in The Peo-
ple’s Blue Book: Taxation As It Is, and As
It Ought To Be, “For six years, from 1736
to 1742, the metropolis was the scene of
an almost uninterrupted conflict be-
tween the Government and the People”
protesting the high excise tax imposed
by the Gin Act. The gin-soaked masses
of London found that the tavern keep-
ers of London had a strategy for avoid-
ing the tax. They would simply sell a
product other than gin. It may have
looked like gin; it may have smelled
like gin; it may have tasted like gin; it
might have been as intoxicating as gin.
But the product was renamed, and then
renamed again and again, all to dodge
the tax man.
If you wanted gin, you went to a tav-
ern and ordered Sangaree, Makeshift, or
the Last Shift. Other names for the spir-
it that could not be named were Cholic
Water, Gripe Water, the Balk, Bob, Tow-
Row, Slappy Bonita, Madam Geneva,
and King Theodore of Corsica. There
was Ladies Delight and, yes, Cuckold’s
Comfort.
I don’t know which I find more
entertaining, 1) that Brits referred to
plain old gin as Cuckold’s Comfort, or
2) that American bars, unaware of the
tax-dodging joke, pretended to know
the recipe for a liquor that didn’t exist.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-
winning author of How’s Your Drink?
LONG LIFE
A Eulogy for
Pat Sajak’s
Career
By Rob Long
W hen someone is listed as “Trend-
ing” on Twitter, it usually means
one of two things: Either the person has
done something outrageously mortify-
ing or the person has died. Trending on
Twitter, in other words, is rarely good
news. So, last week, when I should have
been working but was instead scrolling
through Twitter, I was shocked to see
that my old friend Pat Sajak, longtime
host of television’s most popular game
show, Wheel of Fortune, was “trending.”
“Uh oh,” I thought.
The first thing I did was confirm that
Pat Sajak is indeed alive and well, which,
thank God, he is. The second thing I did
was wonder what scandalous or humiliat-
ing thing he might have done to earn the
#patsajaktrending hashtag. Pat is charm-
ing and wry on television, witty and sharp
in person, but never less than a gentle-
man. The usual reasons for a celebrity
suddenly trending on Twitter — leaked
sex tape, nudes, airport meltdown, eth-
nically charged online rant — seemed
impossible, very off-brand for a man who
has graciously hosted thousands of epi-
sodes of Wheel and given away millions
of dollars. I have known Pat for a couple
of decades, and I don’t think I’ve ever
heard him curse. (Well, once. But it was
for a joke, and it was hilarious. Pat is a
very funny man.)
Pat Sajak, as most of us now know,
was trending for this reason: After 40
years hosting Wheel of Fortune, 40 years
of weekly half-hour shows, 40 years of
dependably appearing on our television
sets, 40 years of appealing to multiple
generations who would watch Wheel of
Fortune in the most old-fashioned way,
together, Pat Sajak announced his retire-
ment. This season of Wheel of Fortune will
be his last.
Pat is 76, so it’s not like he hasn’t
earned his retirement. On the other hand,
as Pat will remind anyone and everyone,
he plays Hangman on television for a liv-
ing. So, it’s not exactly like hanging up his
miner’s hat and resting his weary back.

The production schedule for a daily game
show is compressed into monthly spurts,
which gives the on-screen talent lots of
free time. Pat could easily have turned in
another decade of service at the Wheel. But
I’m happy for him that he’s retiring on top.
And yet, though I was grateful to know
that my friend is OK, and especially grate-
ful that I wasn’t about to click a link and
see his sex tape, I was sad for the rest of us.
Pat Sajak is one of the great broad-
casters of television. Born in Chicago in
tough circumstances, Pat joined the Army
and served as a disc jockey in Vietnam.
When he returned stateside, he restarted
his radio career, moved into television,
and eventually became one of the most
famous and beloved television hosts of
his generation.
Pat Sajak is a patriot. He has written
and spoken about his life, a distinctly
American success story, and guided po-
litical and cultural institutions he cares
about. Pat’s a conservative — I don’t think
he makes that a secret — but he’s a happy
one. A gracious one. A thoughtful one. Pat
and I have spent happy hours talking poli-
RICKY MIDDLESWORTH/ABC VIA GET T Y IMAGES
tics, movies, comedy, American culture,
and I can’t remember a moment when he
was less than witty and thoughtful and
generous to those who disagree with him.
Well, once. And boy, was it hilarious.
Here’s the best way to put it: Pat Sa-
jak is not a jerk. Not even close. Pat is a
man with deeply held convictions about
America and the direction it needs to
We’ll miss Pat Sajak, host
of Wheel of Fortune. But
Pat Sajak, American citizen,
isn’t going anywhere. Pat
Sajak is trending for all of
the right reasons. Let’s hope
that someday the gentleness,
humor, patriotism, grace,
and wit he embodies will be
trending too.
LIFE & ARTS
go in, but you wouldn’t know it if you
watched Wheel of Fortune for the past 40
years. When people put things on hats
and T-shirts that would have been un-
thinkable a few years ago, when people
scream angry slogans on television and
Twitter, I can’t help but think of Pat, smil-
ing in his perfectly tailored suit, spinning
the wheel and making affable small talk
with decades of contestants, doing his job
with humor and generosity even when the
idiot guessing the puzzle buys a vowel
when the answer is obvious.
So, we will miss Pat, which sounds
way too grim, when I read it back. We’ll
miss Pat Sajak, host of Wheel of Fortune.
But Pat Sajak, American citizen, isn’t go-
ing anywhere. Pat Sajak is trending for
all of the right reasons. Let’s hope that
someday, the gentleness, humor, patrio-
tism, grace, and wit he embodies will be
trending, too.
Rob Long is a television writer and produc-
er, including as screenwriter and executive
producer on Cheers, and he is the co-found-
er of Ricochet.com.
Wheel of Fortune
stars Vanna White
and Pat Sajak.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 57
the columnists
GURDON
PGA rolls into a trap at the US Open
I
n setting up first-round play,
the U.S. Open couldn’t have
highlighted more starkly the
PGA’s 12-month clash and
sudden shocking marriage to the
breakaway Saudi-owned LIV
Golf organization.
It has set Rory McIlroy, world #3
and outspoken critic of players who
absconded, against Brooks Koepka, who
just won his fifth major and is the LIV
rebel most willing to give the back of his
hand to the PGA.
Here’s a taste of their rhetoric. When
the PGA-LIV wedding was announced,
Koepka mockingly tweeted, “welfare
check on Chamblee,” skewering Brandel
Chamblee, golf’s preeminent analyst,
who has denounced LIV as the plaything
of “murderous dictator” Mohammed bin
Salman. McIlroy, for his part, told the
rebels last July, “You’ve basically left all
your peers behind to make more money
… don’t try to come back and play over
here again.”
Yet these two pals tee off together
in Thursday’s premier threesome with
Hideki Matsuyama shortly before 5
p.m. There are other groupings that mix
and match PGA loyalists with LIV rebs.
Rapprochements are often awkward, but
this one is a doozie.
The golf split, followed by a bitter
year and volte-face nuptials, has riled
lots of people, not least players who
passed up seven-, eight-, and nine-
figure LIV signing checks — Tiger
Woods reportedly turned down $800
million — and now find themselves
obliged to accept the prodigals back.
Among others who don’t like it
is Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT),
head of the Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations, who is launching a
probe and wrote to the PGA expressing
disquiet over the organization’s U-turn
and the fact that LIV’s parent, Saudi
Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, is
58 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
closely linked to MBS.
Democrats turned against the
Saudis after President Barack Obama
screwed up Middle East alliances by
wooing Iran. But MBS gave them a
plausible ex post facto reason with
the 2018 strangling and chainsaw
dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi,
who wrote for the Washington Post.
It is indeed distasteful that the PGA
should get mixed up with this for Gulf
gold — not to mention with the splashy
marketing of LIV boss Greg Norman
and the taint of association with a golf
course owned by former President
Donald Trump. There could hardly be
a sharper contrast than that between
LIV and the carefully understated good
taste and reverence for the game that
the PGA cultivates with a worshipful
sincerity, like Jim Nantz’s commentary
on the Masters.
But it is difficult to see what grounds
there are for interfering in the PGA-LIV
union. Golf is not a national security
issue. Billion-dollar investments
help the Saudis “sportswash” their
reputation, but that doesn’t make them
more useful or less difficult allies.
Anyway, petrodollars have poured
elsewhere into sports free of nefarious
diplomatic scheming.
Take the English Premier League,
where champions Manchester City
is owned and controlled by a Gulf
sheikdom that has spent its way, buying
top players, to creating the world’s best
team. Money speaks and always has.
It’s why for several decades NFL teams
moved from one city to another across
the U.S. It’s a bit late to start talking
about iconic institutions, loyalty, and
the like.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay
Monahan has laid it on thick about
LIV Golf being disreputable and
“embarrassing,” but he finally
acknowledged that his side “cannot
compete with a foreign government
with unlimited money.” The legal fight
against LIV was going to cost the PGA
$50 million, and it is having to shell out
another $100 million in prize money to
stanch the exodus of top players.
The marriage of the two golf tours
is a business decision. Pressure for
it massively intensified after Koepka
won the PGA Championship, making
a mockery of PGA world rankings,
which put him at 102nd because LIV
tournaments didn’t count. With the
game changing so fast and so radically,
such anomalies made golf look
ridiculous. So the merger was probably
inevitable.
What, then, is Congress’s legitimate
role?
It’s going to be tough to suggest
there is an anti-trust concern. If
Congress was undisturbed by the
PGA’s monopoly before LIV raided
it a year ago and cleaved the game in
two, any suggestion of worry about
a monopolistic merger now would
look indisputably like hypocritical
circumstantial handwringing.
Professional golf’s metamorphosis
from a sedate and gentlemanly pastime
to cutthroat big business has been
going on for a very long time. The
PGA-LIV split and merger are just the
latest and most dramatic lurches in that
direction. Their union won’t be stopped
or even slowed — nor should it.
We conservatives who wish to
conserve what is traditional and good
but also believe in free enterprise are
left with mixed emotions. The elegant
game is compromising and is being
compromised. But this has been so
increasingly for decades. Whatever
Capitol Hill thinks, it is all over bar the
shouting. +
Hugo Gurdon is editor-in-chief of the
Washington Examiner.
GREEN
Twilight of the populists?
P
imps, prostitutes, party
people, and plastic surgeons
are in mourning across
Italy following the death
of preening populist Silvio
Berlusconi. The four-time
prime minister was 86,
though his teeth, hair, and girlfriends
were much younger. We shall see his like
over and over again.
Berlusconi is credited, if that is
the word, with turning politics into a
burlesque, a titillating comedy. He was
a born entertainer: His first career was
as a singer on cruise ships. He made his
fortune in the media, but the seed money
for TeleMilano, Italy’s first private cable
TV company, came from construction,
which everyone knows is the most
honest business in Italy. His rise as
media monopolist was supported by
Bettino Craxi, secretary-general of the
Socialist Party. Berlusconi died the third-
wealthiest person in Italy. Now that’s
what I call socialism.
June is the cruelest month for
populists. Berlusconi has gone to
the great “bunga bunga” party in the
sky. Donald Trump is indicted. Boris
Johnson is out of British politics.
Benjamin Netanyahu clings on, but he is
a professional politician, not a mouthy
amateur. Is the age of the right-wing
populist over?
Not a bit. From here, it’s populists all
the way down, regardless of which wing
Berlusconi is credited,
if that is the word,
with turning politics
into a burlesque,
a titillating comedy.
they’re flapping. Populism is a mood,
not a program. The mood in the Western
democracies is grim. There is no reason
to assume it will improve soon. Since the
glory days of Thatcher and Reagan, the
Western model of political economy has
rested on a three-legged stool: liberal,
democratic, and capitalist. In 1990, the
three seemed synonymous. The media still
recite compound nouns such as “liberal
democracy.” The intellectuals still recite
the mantra of “democratic capitalism.”
Meanwhile, the three legs have decoupled
from the stool. Hence the hard landing.
Western capitalism existed before
the nation-state. It probably appeared
first in the medieval city-states of
Berlusconi’s homeland. None of them
were democracies. Capital was always
international, because capital seeks value.
That sets it in tension with democracy,
which requires borders. If you want to
have “democratic capitalism,” you need
a state that will set limits on capital.
Americans consider that undemocratic.
So did Berlusconi, who liberalized Italy’s
economy. He helped himself pretty
liberally, too. Like the old American
saying goes, “10% for the Big Guy.”
As for liberal democracy, Berlusconi
may have won more elections than
any other Italian prime minister, but
Mussolini held the office for longest. And
Il Duce won it as the people’s choice, just
like Hitler did in Germany. Anyone who
thinks “illiberal democracy” was invented
by Erdogan of Turkey, Orban of Hungary,
or, if you really want to go there, Trump
of Amerikkka, has not been paying
attention. Liberal democratic systems
frequently produce illiberal outcomes,
including ones that, as in Mussolini’s
Italy and Hitler’s Germany, annul the
democracy along with the liberalism.
No one talks about the other two
permutations, “liberal capitalism” and
“capitalist democracy.” But these might
actually be real. The United States is
a capitalist democracy where politics
is driven by private donations, but the
voters have become disenchanted with
liberal capitalism. The European Union is
a liberal capitalist protectorate, operating
behind a Potemkin democratic process.
Berlusconi was a capitalist democrat
and a liberal capitalist. We can say the
same of Netanyahu and Boris Johnson.
We can probably say the same for Trump,
too. His tariffs and subsidies were a
backstop for capitalist democracy. If they
were autarkic, they aspired to turn the
internal market of the United States into a
liberal capitalist autarky. Only in America!
Populism, the British political
philosopher John Gray has written, “is a
term used by centrist liberals to describe
political blowback from the disruption
of society produced by their politics.” If
Berlusconi, who rose to office overnight
in 1994, was the pioneer of populism,
it’s because Italy was the first Western
democracy to achieve the managerial
incompetence, ideological incoherence,
and barefaced corruption that everyone
else now enjoys. If populists are what
Marshall McLuhan would call “hot”
emotionalists, it is because they share their
publics’ disgust at the “cool” technocrats
as they coolly feather their nests.
The passing of the first-wave populists
will not mean an end to populist politics.
We are now witnessing a second, reactive
phase, an attempt to reset a game that has
run beyond control. This takes two forms,
suppression and impersonation. Trump,
Johnson, and Netanyahu are all entangled
in legal troubles of their own making,
just as Berlusconi, who claimed to be the
victim of “manifest judicial persecution,”
spent most of his time in office fending
off the courts.
Meanwhile, their opponents,
producing the political equivalent of
artificial antibodies, mimic the policies
that threaten them. This blatant falsity
confirms the core populist claim: The
powerful will do anything to retain
power. And that assures a third phase,
even more belligerent and populist than
the first. The anti-populists of the Swamp
and the Blob see this incoming. When
they degrade liberal process in order to
save “our democracy,” they hasten the
advent of illiberal democracy. +
Dominic Green is a Washington Examiner
columnist and a fellow of the Royal
Historical Society. Find him on Twitter
@drdominicgreen.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 59
the columnists
YORK
Donald Trump’s
arraignment
A
week has passed since
the Justice Department
informed former President
Donald Trump that he had
been indicted. Some of
the main issues involved,
both legal and political, are
becoming clearer than they were in the
first frenzied hours after the news broke.
First, the politics. The early indications
are that predictions that Trump
supporters would rally around him in the
event of an indictment are true. A poll by
CBS News and YouGov found that 76%
of likely Republican primary voters said
the indictment was politically motivated.
When asked if the indictment would
change their view of Trump, 61% said it
would not change their view at all, while
14% said it would change their view of
Trump for the better. Just 7% said it would
change their view of Trump for the worse,
and 18% said it depends, meaning they
weren’t really sure.
In a Reuters-Ipsos poll, 81% of
Republicans said that “politics was
driving the case.” Reuters reported: “The
indictment did not appear to dent Trump’s
standing in the Republican nominating
contest for the 2024 presidential election.”
So the answer, at least for now, to the
question of whether the indictment would
hurt Trump among Republicans is no.
There are two other groups who
factor into the political calculation — the
Republican presidential candidates and
GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Reporters
being the way they are, almost every
prominent Republican within a mile of a
microphone is being asked to declare a
position on the Trump indictment.
The Republican presidential
contenders are in a difficult spot. They
know that most Republican voters believe
Trump has been unfairly targeted for
years. And they know the numbers above,
in which large majorities of Republicans
said the latest charges against Trump are
60 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
politically motivated. So, on the one hand,
they have an interest in telling voters what
they want to hear, which is that Trump is
being politically targeted.
On the other hand, they are
running against Trump, not with him.
If the indictment weakens Trump
politically, his Republican opponents
will benefit. So now, we are seeing
some of those candidates try to walk
a fine line — decrying what some call
the weaponization of the government
against Trump but at the same time
acknowledging that the charges against
him are serious.
On Capitol Hill, some of Trump’s
strongest supporters remain steadfastly
on his side. That’s not a surprise, given
that some of them are from districts
in which Republicans are even more
supportive of the former president than
the polls suggest.
Next, the legal side. The first thing to
say is that a lot of respected legal voices
believe the indictment is a very serious
document. “I was shocked by the degree
of sensitivity of these documents and
how many there were,” former Attorney
General William Barr told Fox News. “If
even half of it is true, then he’s toast.”
That doesn’t mean Trump doesn’t
have defenses. For example, information
at the heart of the indictment appears
to have come from Trump’s attorneys,
whom special counsel Jack Smith forced
to testify in spite of attorney-client
privilege. Smith received court approval,
but as Lawfare noted, a trial will examine
that approval and “raise questions about
the limits of one of the most sacrosanct
principles in our legal system, attorney-
client privilege.”
Trump can also argue that, as
president, he was allowed to decide what
documents should be sent to the National
Archives and Records Administration
as “presidential records” and what
documents he would keep. What if he kept
records that were clearly presidential in
nature? He might argue that he still had
that authority, and his defense will surely
explore the limits, if any, of that authority.
Then there is the question of the
seriousness of the documents Trump is
charged with mishandling. The indictment
said they are among the government’s
most sensitive secrets. This is how the
indictment described them:
“The classified documents Trump
stored in his boxes included information
regarding defense and weapons
capabilities of both the United States and
foreign countries; United States nuclear
programs; potential vulnerabilities of the
United States and its allies to military
attack; and plans for possible retaliation in
response to a foreign attack.”
What could be more serious than
that? On the other hand, the description
is still vague. It could, in fact, describe
lots of information that is available in
the public domain. A Trump trial, if
there is one, could reveal how widely the
specific information cited by Smith was
distributed inside the U.S. government.
Was it extremely closely held? Or much
more widely available? That could make a
difference in the jury’s assessment.
Finally, Trump defenders — perhaps
not Trump’s lawyers in court, but Trump’s
defenders — will argue the big picture,
that the Biden administration has taken
a dangerous step in indicting a former
president. “The Biden administration
crossed a constitutional Rubicon
this week,” University of California,
Berkeley, law professor and former Bush
administration Justice Department official
John Yoo wrote. “For the first time in our
history, an executive branch held by the
incumbent political party indicted the
leading presidential candidate of the other
main political party.”
More from Yoo: “Biden administration
officials must explain why prosecuting
Trump for misuse of classified documents
justifies disregarding two centuries of
constitutional practice.”
That is perhaps the most important
question of the entire Trump prosecution:
Should it be done at all? Were there other,
less constitutionally consequential ways of
dealing with Trump’s behavior? The Biden
administration has given its answer. The
final resolution of that question will take a
long time.+
Byron York is chief political correspondent
for the Washington Examiner.
HANNAN
Why do right-wingers
prefer Trump to DeSantis?
Because of the vibes
G
ov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)
says he is more likely to
win than former President
Donald Trump, and he is
obviously right. Trump was
a drag on the ticket in both
2016 and 2020. He single-
handedly lost the Senate by making
the Georgia runoffs all about himself.
He repeated that trick in the 2022
midterm elections when candidates
he had endorsed crashed in Arizona,
Georgia, Pennsylvania, and pretty much
everywhere else.
DeSantis suggests that, unlike
Trump, he gets stuff done. Again, he is
right. He held out against overwhelming
pressure and kept Florida open while
Trump was musing aloud about whether
to inject people with bleach.
DeSantis presents himself as an
orthodox conservative, which he plainly
is when compared to the man who
sucked up to Vladimir Putin, attacked
free trade, and presided over a trillion-
dollar deficit.
DeSantis presents
himself as
an orthodox
conservative, which
he plainly is when
compared to the
man who sucked up
to Vladimir Putin,
attacked free trade,
and presided over a
trillion-dollar deficit.
Yet, bizarrely, it is DeSantis, not
Trump, who is portrayed as some kind
of corporatist, milk-and-water RINO.
Why? For an answer, glance across the
Atlantic, where a similar paradox is
unfolding.
Last week, Britain’s former prime
minister, Boris Johnson, declared war on
the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
Nothing very unusual there: Former
heads of government almost always make
life difficult for their successors. What is
interesting is the way in which the row
has divided the Conservative Party. By
and large, Johnson is backed by the Right,
who feel he has been forced out of public
life by an establishment plot in which
Sunak is somehow involved.
The fascinating thing is that, on
almost any metric, Sunak is to the
right of Johnson. Where Johnson is
unequivocally pro-immigration, Sunak
is more doubtful. Where Johnson waited
until the last minute before deciding
which way to jump on Brexit, Sunak is
a lifelong Euroskeptic who was writing
criticisms of the European Union
while in high school. Where Johnson
took pride in having more ambitious
green targets than other countries,
Sunak balked at their cost. Indeed,
Sunak eventually resigned as Johnson’s
chancellor of the exchequer because he
could not sign off on unfunded spending
commitments.
Why, then, is the Thatcherite
Sunak portrayed as some sort of wet?
The answer has to do with what the
Financial Times columnist Janan
Ganesh calls “vibes and tribes.”
Seeking to explain why Sunak had
lost the leadership election to Liz
Truss (whose 42 days in office were
sandwiched between the Johnson and
Sunak premierships), Ganesh observed
that their policies mattered less than
how they came across. Truss, who had
voted Remain, said blunt things in a
regional accent; Sunak, who had voted
Leave, dressed and spoke like the CEO
of a multinational. People picked their
candidate on the basis of signifiers, not
doctrine.
The same is true of Johnson
versus Sunak and of Trump versus
DeSantis. As Ganesh puts it: “Most
people’s ideological commitments
are extraordinarily soft. What they
think of as a belief is often a post-hoc
rationalization of a group loyalty.
Crucially, this is more true, not less,
of degree-holding, ‘high-information’
voters.”
DeSantis is barking up the wrong
tree when he tells Republican voters that
he is likelier to win and to deliver than
the president who never even built his
wretched wall, for he presupposes that
they want a winner.
But what if Republican voters don’t
care? What if voting for Trump is
performative rather than functional,
a way of getting something off their
chest? What if they have had enough
of condescending libs and want to hit
back at them? What if they believe that
elections don’t change anything, so it
doesn’t really matter whether Trump
can win? Indeed, their sense of group
identity might be stronger if he is kept
out of office claiming fraud.
If these are their preoccupations,
they will not be moved by the polls
showing that 60% of the public don’t
want Trump. They won’t care that the
former president paid off a porn star and
then lied about it. It won’t bother them
that he mocked American servicemen
while DeSantis was serving his country
in uniform. Indeed, they may take a
certain pride in sticking to their guy
despite the scandals and indictments, for
nothing strengthens tribal loyalty such
as a shared sense of persecution.
Almost any other Republican could
beat the now palpably frail and doddery
President Joe Biden. Almost any other
Republican would govern in a more
conservative way. Almost any other
Republican would hold himself to a
higher moral standard (I don’t think
that raises the bar unreasonably high).
But it is becoming horribly clear that,
for a chunk of the base, none of these
considerations make the slightest
difference. +
Daniel Hannan is a member of the House
of Lords, and a former Conservative MEP.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 61
guest columnist
RUSSELL
Women love Outlander because of its portrayal
of traditional masculinity
T
he first episode of
Outlander Season Seven
will air Thursday night
on the Starz channel,
with subsequent episodes
released every Thursday
until the season is complete.
This will be the second to last season
for the book series-turned-streaming
phenomenon. (This article contains
spoilers from previous seasons.)
The adventurous, at times dark,
tale of two people who love each other
through joy and pain in the 1700s, and
its enormous popularity with middle-
aged women now, could just as well
be a commentary on feminism and
masculinity today.
The Outlander series is based on
Diana Gabaldon’s books released in the
1990s and centers on Claire, a British
Army nurse in World War II. While on
her honeymoon in Scotland with her
husband Frank Randall, a historian,
she’s transported back to 1743. To stave
off threats from the British, who rule
Scotland, Claire marries Jamie Fraser
(while still married to Frank in another
timeline). Jamie is a clever, handsome
Scottish warrior with a reputation for
defying the tyrannical Brits. Claire
is caught between two worlds and
two men. The series explores this
dichotomy and touches on everything
from feminism and racism to the effects
of trauma and tyranny.
The main character of the books is
supposed to be Claire. She’s complex:
It’s as if this vow
stripped the
feminism out of
Claire’s body right
at that moment.
62 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023
fiery yet calm under pressure, educated
yet humble. During 20 years away from
Jamie in modern times, she becomes a
reputable surgeon, a rarity in the 1950s
and ’60s. Add her marriage to Frank
and a daughter (who is actually Jamie’s),
and she’s everything a modern woman
would want to be. Yet during the time
that she’s apart from Jamie, she cannot
forget him. Eventually, after Frank dies,
her love for Jamie is so compelling that
she gives up life in the modern world and
a promising career to try and find Jamie
again in the late 1700s.
It’s easy to see why: Jamie Fraser is
really why millennial and Generation X
women adore this show. Jamie embodies
traditional masculinity: He’s playful yet
purposeful about his life. He’s a provider,
protector, and defender of both Scotland
and, after their wedding, Claire.
“You have my name and my
family, my clan, and if necessary, the
protection of my body as well,” Jamie
famously told Claire on their wedding
night. It’s as if this vow stripped the
feminism out of Claire’s body right
at that moment. This, combined
with his tenderness for Claire, is, of
course, appealing. (It’s almost as if the
character of Jamie were written by a
woman.) Many women long for a man
comfortable with his masculinity, even
if they identify as feminists.
Jamie recognizes Claire is modern
and educated and does have a strong
mind of her own. After a brief lesson
in which Claire teaches him about the
problems with a patriarchal mindset
in marriage, he begins to respect her,
admire her, and let her apply her medical
skills to help people in the 18th century.
The plot of the last several seasons
shows Claire and Jamie as they
encounter every conceivable obstacle
and trial a couple can. Still, their love
perseveres. Although the moments of
white-hot passion may lessen a bit, their
love has grown, matured, and aged well.
At the same time, America is growing,
too. Season Seven promises to land in
the middle of the American Revolution,
with one of Scotland’s formidable
warriors choosing to fight on the side
of independence. We’ll soon find out if
liberty is worth dying for and just how
much Jamie and Claire can endure. +
Nicole Russell is a contributor to
the Washington Examiner’s Beltway
ROBERT WILSON/STARZ
Confidential blog. She is a journalist in
Washington, D.C., who previously worked
in Republican politics in Minnesota. She
is an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram.

Silvio Berlusconi, 1936-2023
He left Italy’s media, politics, and culture
profoundly different than he found them
By Daniel Ross Goodman
A
businessman-turned-
media star-turned-
politician, he was elected
to his nation’s highest
political office while
shattering numerous political and
electoral norms. Initially not taken
seriously by the elites, he won office
in part by the force of his superior
communication skills and media savvy,
which included a genius for capturing
the eyes and ears of average voters.
Once in office, this flamboyant populist
leader was beset by sex scandals and
a series of endless investigations that
led him to declare that “I am the most
legally persecuted man of all times,
in the whole history of mankind,
worldwide.”
Although this description will sound
familiar to American ears, the subject
here is Italy’s longest-serving prime
minister since Mussolini, a man who
personified the idea of the larger-than-
life political-cultural figure of his time.
Silvio Berlusconi died last week at age
86.
Berlusconi was in many ways a
perfect icon for Italy, an incarnation of
all the positive and negative aspects of
his country — generosity, creativity,
fantasy, and the love of beauty (though,
JEAN-FRANCOIS BADIASAP
in his case, of things, not art) on the one
hand; and vulgarity, ostentation, envy,
and Machiavellianism on the other.
Born to a family of modest means in a
suburb of Milan, Berlusconi grew up
with a passion for singing, a zesty sense
of humor, and a knack for salesmanship.
After studying law, he took out a loan
from the bank his father clerked at to
start a property development business.
Once the business became successful,
he pooled together his funds to set up
a cable television station. By the mid-
1980s, his little cable TV startup had
grown into three of Italy’s then-four
major national networks.
Not content with his achievements
in real estate and media, in 1986,
Berlusconi purchased A.C. Milan,
Italy’s most prestigious soccer team,
and restored it to its former glory.
The team won the Italian national
championship in 1988 and the
European championship in 1989 and
1990.
Berlusconi next set his sights on
politics. In 1993, the affable man
from Milan founded the center-right
Forza Italia party. Only a year later,
Berlusconi helped lead Forza Italia to
power with the help of advertisements
he aired on his own networks. Although
his government’s coalition collapsed
within a year, compelling Berlusconi
to step down as prime minister, he
remained a prominent member of
the opposition through the rest of
the decade. “I am the Jesus Christ
of politics,” Berlusconi said to his
supporters. “I am a patient victim. I put
up with everyone. I sacrifice myself for
everyone.”
Berlusconi forgot to mention that
he also came back from the dead —
OBITUARY
politically speaking, that is. In 2001,
Berlusconi returned Forza Italia to
power and restored himself to the
premiership, a post he held on a near-
continual basis for the next five years.
After his party’s defeat in 2006, the
ineptness of the government that took
over helped him return to power in
2008.
A 2013 trial that barred Berlusconi
from holding a post in Italian politics
for five years still did not end his
political career; in 2019, he won a seat
in the European Parliament and then
one in the Italian Senate just last year.
One of the most colorful world
leaders in recent history, Berlusconi
leaves a complicated legacy for Italy,
Europe, and the world. In Italy, where
he was the most polarizing political
personality of the past 40 years, some
consider him a hero and a saint;
others believe him to be the worst
criminal in Italian history. Beyond
the country’s politics, which he had
a magnetic pull on for the better
part of the past several decades, he
also had a significant impact on the
country’s culture. His importation
of the lowest-common-denominator
TV programming in the ’80s had the
effect, as an Italian friend told me, of
“helping to reduce Italians to a mass of
ignoramuses interested only in gossip
and physical appearance.” And for the
world, Berlusconi proved that mixing
media control with humor, charisma,
sports triumphs, and the sweet smell
of success can be a potent combination
in electoral politics, and a mixture
that opponents can only overcome if
the billionaire entrepreneur himself
becomes the cause of his own undoing,
or if the legal apparatus of the state is
marshaled relentlessly against him. 
Daniel Ross Goodman is a Washington
Examiner contributing writer and
an incoming postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard Divinity School. His next
book, Soloveitchik’s Children: Irving
Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan
Sacks, and the Future of Jewish
Theology in America, will be published in
July by the University of Alabama Press.
June 20, 2023 Washington Examiner 63
CROSSWORD

Bearing Arms 55 Dessert request 41 Bowed, in music

57 __ one’s time (wait) 42 Blushes, maybe
By Brendan Emmett Quigley 58 Lampblack 43 Recently acquired
59 Stingless bee firm members
            
60 Conniver 44 Pick among pops
   61 Stopping-off sites 45 Pungent bulb
62 Loves too fondly 46 Attach, in a way
  
63 OR order 49 Fluffed-up hairdo
   50 Catch sight of
51 Pitchfork poker
  
53 Think tank output
     54 Comic Kreischer
    
DOWN 56 Strange
1 Eat like a bird 57 School transport
   2 Bufferin target
   3 Millard Fillmore’s group
4 NSFW part
 
5 Usher in with fanfare
    6 Scent
7 Says further
      
8 Increase
   9 To date
10 Section of Manhattan
  
11 In pieces
   12 Kind of beer
13 Snowmen?
19 Some Islamic rulers
21 Get ready for
the wedding
ACROSS 31 Ohio rubber city 24 “Was __ loud?”
1 Certain board member 32 Nabisco goodies 25 Reacts to a bad call
5 Grayish white 33 “Bad Moon Rising” 26 Suffer from SOLUTION TO LAST
10 Nepo ___ pop grp. 27 Barely made, as a living WEEK’S CROSSWORD:
14 Canyon comeback 36 Nix 28 Articulate WILDFIRES
15 Rosario of the Braves 37 Improvises like Ella 29 Angered. 3 * $ 7 : , * 6 ( $ 5 / 6
16 Mayberry minor 38 Kind of flight 30 ___ ease $ 5 0 & $ , 5 2 6 / 2 2 3
1 ( : 6 % 5 , ( ) * 2 1 1 $
17 Voucher 39 Joseph of ice cream fame 33 Michael Barone 6 7 $ & < $ ) 7 2 ' ( 6
18 “Maggie May” singer 40 Mazda brand or Salena Zito, e.g. < $ < $ $ 1 7 , 5 ( ) 2 5 0
5 $ * 8 7 ( ;
20 It holds drafts 41 Distribute, as shares 34 Pipe problem * $ 5 ) , ( / ' 6 7 3 $ 8 /
21 Analyze in a way 42 Ransack 35 Senator William who $ 0 2 8 5 / 2 % ( $ 7 $ 7
6 7 2 3 % < - ( 1 1 , ) ( 5
22 Haitian “thank you” 44 Powerful pioneered a type $ 0 6 7 2 ' '
23 Hardly the life 47 Early Atlas rocket, e.g. of I.R.A. ) 5 ( , * + 7 & $ 5 2 6 / 2
of the party 48 Computer of 1946 37 Recipe directive / ( 1 ' $ $ + 2 ) 7 ( 1
$ % 2 , / 7 ( 6 7 , ) , ( 5
25 Results of labor 49 Elroy Jetson’s dog 38 Slovenly person 3 ( . 2 ( ( $ 7 2 1 3 5 <
26 Warm weather warning 52 Penpoint 40 Recipe direction 6 / , 0 ( 6 3 $ 1 . ( < (

64 Washington Examiner June 20, 2023