Howard's End

...As you might expect, a brief summary of Mr...

...It’s Senator Metzenbaum,’ she replied...

...How else to explain China’s removal from the department’s annual list of worst human rights offenders...

...So, on the morning of January 21, 1974, when Metzenbaum arrived on the floor to be sworn in, Senator Carl Curtis (RNebraska) rose to introduce some nowforgotten objection and demand a vote on his admission to the club...

...So what about China...

...Happy Anniversary, SDI THE SCRAPBOOK sends birthday wishes to Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, which turned 25 years old on March 23...

...A sizable throng of Metzenbaum’s friends and family had assembled in the visitors’ box for the occasion, but their joy turned swiftly to horror as Curtis—hitherto famous largely for his bald head, short stature, and habit of wearing a four-in-hand tie without a knot—threw sand in the machinery and appeared determined to delay Metzenbaum’s debut until his grievances had been satisfied...

...Today, three times as many have such missiles...

...Barefoot in the Park According to the Daily Telegraph, “Dutch council officials will permit gay sex in public areas” of Amsterdam’s Vondelpark, though Alderman Paul van Grieken stressed that “condoms must always be cleared away” and the sex can only occur at night and away from playgrounds...

...There is, I hasten to add, a heartening postcript to the story...

...But I shall always cherish those few seconds in the Watergate Winter of 1974 when the Senate of the United States, after due deliberation, rejected the presence of Howard Metzenbaum...

...The reporter was just as confused as we are and asked, “Is it because China is no longer considered the—as authoritarian as it was last year or is that the reason...

...North Korea is on the list, as are Cuba, Iran, and Sudan...

...It was on that day in 1983 when Reagan delivered the televised address in which he rejected the nightmarish logic of mutually assured destruction and instead proposed a ballistic missile shield that would protect America from attack...

...Scrapbook Howard’s End THE SCRAPBOOK has historically subscribed to the old Latin epigram De mortuis nil nisi bonum—“Let nothing be said of the dead but what is good”— but the passing last week of 90-year-old former senator Howard Metzenbaum, Democrat of Ohio, did prompt our colleague, Philip Terzian, to reach back into his copious book of memories...

...So I think if you look at the report, you’ll see it’s a comprehensive one and gives a very frank appraisal on the status of human rights...

...Mamet’s cri de couer does not really do it justice...

...There was the proverbial pregnant pause, and then an audible gasp from the Metzenbaum claque as they realized they had traveled all the way from Ohio for nothing...

...And yet, once the agonizing truth had sunk in, Vice President Ford—with his signature, Homer Simpson-style ‘Oh!’—announced, after hurried consultation with the clerks, that he had accidentally reversed the numbers, and Metzenbaum was in...

...It describes how controls were tightened in some areas in China, particularly regarding religious freedom in Tibetan areas and in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region...

...And we feel some pride, perhaps even excitement, at the prospect of another recruit to the ranks of conservative writers...

...Mamet, we know what it’s like to feel the rising hairs on one’s neck at the sound of Garrison Keillor...

...Trading Kevin Phillips and David Brock and David Gergen for David Mamet gives our side a prohibitive lead...

...Many of those countries are enemies of the United States...

...In the end, a vote was taken, and the tally was handed to the presiding officer, the newly minted Vice President Gerald Ford, who announced from the chair that X votes had been cast to seat Metzenbaum and Y votes (a substantial majority) not to seat him...

...Jonathan Farrar, the acting assistant secretary of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor was asked this very question and told a reporter: I think if you look at the introduction to the report . . . that [China’s] human rights record remains poor...

...and in fairness, while he manifestly is “no longer a braindead liberal,” it might be premature to describe him as conservative...

...Still, when the author of Speed-the-Plow and Glengarry Glen Ross explains his change of heart about free markets, the role of government, National Public Radio, and the status of the military in American society—he even calls Thomas Sowell “our greatest contemporary philosopher”— we can heartily commend his piece to readers...

...Here’s to another 25 years...

...I have two poignant recollections of Howard Metzenbaum,” he tells us...

...Unleashed dogs, however, remain strictly forbidden...

...So China is still an oppressive regime, but things are getting better...

...As van Grieken explains, “Research shows that many people find this disturbing...

...It will be recalled that Metzenbaum was appointed to the Senate when President Nixon recruited Senator William Saxbe of Ohio to succeed Elliot Richardson as attorney general after the famous ‘Saturday Night Massacre.’ “Saxbe, of course, was a Republican, and the Democratic governor of Ohio was an amiable hack named John Gilligan...

...Reagan’s speech not only shocked liberals, it also shook the Soviet Union— already shuddering under the burden of huge defense expenditures amid a collapsing economy—to its core...

...From my perspective, in the press gallery, it was an amusing spectacle...

...When America signed the (now defunct) Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972, nine countries possessed ballistic missile technology...

...It also describes controls on freedom of speech in the media, including on the Internet and the difficulty that petitioners in Beijing face...

...Now the sound from the visitors’ gallery was relief and applause, and Howard Metzenbaum stepped forward to become a senator—for less than a year, as it turned out, subsequently losing his bid for a full term and not gaining election in his own right until 1976...

...Farrar replied: “I think actually if you look at the introduction, it may—I think it’s described in exactly those terms...

...Years later, when I was seated in the business section of a transatlantic flight—having been bumped, for no good reason, up from steerage—I was approached, before takeoff, by a pleasant flight attendant who asked if I might be willing to exchange places with a U.S...

...The fact that this reduced the GOP minority in the Senate by yet another seat, and elevated Metzenbaum— whose obnoxious manner and sharp business practices in Cleveland had not gone unnoticed—left some injured feelings on the Republican side...

...Which is to say: Missile defense is as relevant today as it was in 1983...

...senator stuck in tourist class...

...The first involves his debut as a member of the world’s greatest deliberative body...

...We’re guessing the Tibetan monks and pro-independence demonstrators currently battling Chinese security forces in Lhasa would see things a little differently...

...At which point, raising my flute of complimentary champagne in memory of Carl Curtis, I replied, with a smile, ‘No, thanks.’ ” China Gets De-Listed Maybe the State Department has good seats for the upcoming Olympics in Beijing and doesn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize them...

...And with a tip of the fedora, we welcome him to provisional status in the club...

...And it is just as necessary...

...David Mamet Talks of Many Things Since the press has an eerie fascination with apostate Republicans (Kevin Phillips, David Gergen, David Brock), we consider it our duty to draw attention to a compelling essay, in the current Village Voice, by playwright David Mamet, in which he declares that he is “no longer a brain-dead liberal...

...Who?’ I inquired...

...And the rest is history, as they say...

...As Vice President Dick Cheney noted in a speech last week to the Heritage Foundation marking the anniversary, the world remains a dangerous place...