ABOUT THIS MONTH: The Summer of Our Discontents
Pleszczynski, Wladyslaw
ABOUT THIS MONTH The Summer of Our Discontents BY WLADYSLAW PLESZCZYNSKI THERE'S ANYTHING THAT now characterizes the coverge of American politics, it's the permanent antiepublican kvetch....
...The GOP is destined to lose control of the House this fall...
...Bush has served its purposes, the right can easily distance itself from a man who hasn't delivered on fundamental Reaganite issues...
...The great historian Martin Gilbert sets the record straight on the long-maligned Pius XII (page 68), and Tom Bethell chronicles 50 years of Sisyphean effort by the finest minds hoping to re-create the human mind...
...If that doesn't leave a permanent smile on our faces as we head toward November 7, then maybe we really are all doomed...
...Democrats can't have much of a future if they're perceived to be dependent on the illegitimate votes of illegal residents...
...Quin Hillyer investigates a leading liberal lobby that gives higher priority to its rules than to the U.S...
...If you can't get to Marlboro or Spoleto this year, James Rosen will fill you in on how to overload your iPod with everyone this side of Bach (page 60...
...the countryside hums and the clock slows, meaning more time to sit around, visit, banter, imbibe, and tell audacious stories...
...But he also created one of the most delightful films of all times...
...Happily, our smartest former president has won himself another major humanitarian prize (page 78...
...Didn't happen...
...Yet none of the liberal reporting I read could bring itself to mention, let alone to account for, the Democratic candidate's rhetorical embrace of illegal immigrants, a Freudian gaffe that doomed her chances...
...All those dark winter days, with not a ray of sunlight, followed by those long summer days that never darken...
...Even a relatively moderate Republican defeated a hotlypromoted Democrat...
...Those who understand their strengths build on them...
...And for goodness sake, find something better to read on the airplane than Dan Brown (page 20...
...I saw it decades ago, but its title is enough to summon warm memories-Smiles ofa Summer Night...
...Mark Yost reports on Iraq war heroes whom our media culture would rather not celebrate (page 46...
...4 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY/AUGUST 2006...
...Now that Mr...
...As always in such a climate, obsessiveness invites delusion...
...In other words, we shouldn't be like proverbial Scandinavians who supposedly live in permanent depression...
...Once you've had your fill of escapes, this double issue will quickly bring you back to our real world as well...
...Constitution (page 48...
...It doesn't seem to dawn on the left that those numbers also reflect conservative strength...
...Of course, the right-not necessarily gregarious or affable by nature, Ronald Reagan notwithstanding-has a weakness of its own for kvetching...
...There's opportunity to travel to legendary spots (check in with Cliff May, page 36) or pay homage to the Good Earth l~y shopping at your local farmer's market (though Florence King suggests you do so unself-consciously, page 73...
...As never before, the right senses its strength and remains assertive...
...It will be sad if conservatives squander their advantage this year and, as many of them have threatened to do, sit out the fall elections instead of remaining engaged in the political fray...
...Ingmar Bergman made a career directing movie variations on this theme...
...They, better than anyone else, should know that our politics is never an all or nothing proposition...
...Then there's the matter of the President's deflated approval ratings (updated hourly...
...Step one would have been Democratic victory in the special June election to replace the felonious Duke Cunningham...
...It's perhaps a universal truth that life is good and bountiful in summer...
...It begins with the usual Bush ashing and ends with the trashing of the Republican ongress, day after day after day, over and over and over again...
...Suddenly the "artificial" in Artificial Intelligence takes on new meaning (page 26...
...The deluded left assumes they signal a country rapidly moving in its direction...
...It's a healthy polity when elected officials feel pressure from both directions...
...Don't dare miss Reid Buckley, page 42...
Vol. 39 • July 2006 • No. 6
