Well, whiskey coming thing, my pain the moneys all right, oh whiskey,
don't you let me? From Powerline blog dot com and produced by Ricochet
dot Com, this is the three Whiskey Happy Hour with your bartenders Steve Hayward,
John You and power Lines International Woman of Mystery Lucretia. Thank gotta giving
let that whiskey bloon when you're feel in low down and low. Hello everybody,
and welcome to the three Whiskey Happy Hour. We're so excited to be
here with you tonight. You have no idea. In fact, we're gonna
we're so excited. We're gonna start by telling John that as good as he
thought McDonald's could be, it's going to get better. They are going to
make their burgers juicier, ruined. Yes, they're going They're not going to
sacrifice let's see. Safety. That's an important one, I guess, but
also speed because five Guys has its own entirely new method for cooking their burgers
and making them juicy and exciting and quality and still doing it quickly. So
McDonald's is going to follow suit, and they are going to instead of cooking
eight patties at one time on their auto cooker thinger, they're going to cook
six and somehow this is going to make burgers more juicy. You know,
we have Culver's here, John, Sometimes someday you have to come visit me.
Culvers. It's a Midwest company. It's a Midwest company. There they
have. They're famous for three things. One is there they're butter burgers.
So they cook one hundred percent real beef on a grill in butter. Okay,
it's not cheating, it's delicious. It's anything of butter, and it's
going to be yes, exactly, why doesn't everybody instead of cooking it in
some sort of nasty fake uh polly whatever oil No butter burgers. Then the
second thing is they make it's soft or ice cream, but it's not.
It's custard. It's a real custard, real custard, frozen custard. It's
just the problem is the reason I can't go there is I don't want to
go there unless I'm gonna get custard, and you know that's not really good
for the waistline. And then the third thing is fried cheese curds. Well,
you know, Lucretia, having seen you eat your way through Milan.
I'm surprised to hear that you worry about the fat. Not only that,
but that I don't weigh four hundred pounds. Yeah, no, no,
she's a freak of nature. John, I don't get it. I think
that the effort to improve McDonald's is what's great about America. We're never satisfied
when I'm just disappointed in their their options. They're gonna rehydrate their onions sooner.
They're going to put their pickles in there. Let us into smaller containers
so they're fresher when they're put on the burgers. They're gonna go ahead.
I actually I went to McDonald's for lunch today and missed my train because I
thought that the McDonald's and Union station to get a McRib because they haven't seen
one in California. So I saw to Washington got in line to get one.
Of course, it takes so long to make the perfection as the McRib
that I actually missed my train. I had to take this the next one
later. Later, I will send you a photo of twenty minutes. They
had another game. It was worth it. What I want to know is
how is it that five guys has become the standard of excellence in the Hamburger
world. And why aren't they being accused like Chick fil A? I mean,
there aren't they sexist? It's five guys. It's not five people.
It's not five guys in gals, it's five guys. How is there no
campaign against the obvious sexism of five guys going on? All the truth?
John, people understand guys are better at this than girls are. Girls are
better at a lot of baking and cooking, but not when it comes to
cooking burgers. Guys know what they're doing. I can be sexist if I
want to about it. Yeah, absolutely, No listeners are tuned in hoping,
hoping for whiskey reviews, and serious news are getting you know burgers.
I do have to say, it is a strange news today, you know.
I thought when they picked up the Wall Street Journal this morning, I
thought that the feel good headline of the day was the first one Israel plans
to kill hamas leaders around the world after war. But Dan, you scroll
down on the page and there was no more dry burgers. McDonald's overhauls its
biggest item. I thought, Man, it's a two per day for good
news indlines. We'll see how that all works out. You have to let
us know. I think I told you John that I don't actually go to
McDonald's very often. Nothing against it. I'm just not a fast food eater,
Okay. But I stopped on the way to from my house to Phoenix.
Couple three hour drivers so one time, and I hadn't eaten all day,
and I stopped and I got a double quarter pounder with cheese, and
it was the best hamburger I've ever had in my life. And it's never
been duplicated, but it was wonderful that time. Yeah, no, I've
actually started. I just skipped the fries. But do we get the double
quarter pound of cheese a lot these days? Well you should know. Let's
see a little update and gossip for you. But you, Lucretia, get
credit for me having a conversation this week with Christopher Scalia, the late Chief
Justices Son. There's about the tweet you forwarded to me. I should mention
to you and the listeners that you know hear me our Friday night. I'm
back in California, Johnson, Philadelphia. You're at your undisclosed location in Arizona.
Last night, John and I were dining together in Georgetown, you know,
one of those different hata. Will you guys go places without me?
We were fulfilling our best right wing conspiracy obligations, right plotting and scheming for
organizations which will be unnamed and never known, never know. I hope you
did good work, though, promise you did. Oh we did. But
uh, it was fun because I don't I don't know if you saw this,
John, and I think you don't look on Twitter, but there's this
wonderful Twitter exchange. In other day there's left wing alone named Eric Segal,
and he had this tweet and said, to believe originalism is a good thing,
you must think these people are wrong. Irwin Chemerinsky, Adrian vermu Lead,
Richard Fallon, Dick Posner, Eric Posner, Pam Carter, and he
goes on and mentioned an under a bunch of names. So Christopher Scalia tweeted
back, your terms are acceptable, and the seagull guy who's so utterly humorous,
just went off on a rant and he just disgraced himself. And so
uh, I brought it up with Christmas. We were chatting at AEI and
had a good long conversation with him about it. That was great fun did
you was a big man that who that was that? I know his brother?
I say, well, I didn't want to one of the brothers because
there's like nine of them. Yeah, there's a bunch of them, one
of them stationed here. That's how Chris. Chris is a wonderful guy.
I just for people who don't know him. He is not a lawyer.
He is an English who was an English professor and then came over to run
academic programs at AI and now is a full time scholar. But he is
an expert a Shakespeare and is from that perspective a big believer in originalism.
Yeah, oh of course. Occasional listener of this show, so be careful
about your school. A remark on the creation, I say, nice thing
that I'm actually what I want to ask really quickly. This is so off
what we said we were going to talk about. But I had the occasion,
as deaned, to have to look up and find Shakespeare's scholars to be
on a tenure review committee across the country. But the particular professor who was
up for tenure was a Shakespeare scholar with in the modern technological world, in
other words, technology and Shakespeare. I don't even know what the hell that
means. It's so stupid. But anyway, that but the point is that
I would say that ninety nine percent of the Shakespeare scholars that I found were
pathetic and awful, and I feel sorry for him to have to be in
that field because originalism has nothing to do with the way most modern English researchers
scare quotes approach Shakespeare. It's all, of course critical race theory, and
you know Shakespeare's I can't even say it. This is a family show.
I'll I'll just leave it at that. But tell him if you see him
that I'm very proud of him for his originalist approach to Shakespeare. Yeah.
Oh, I don't know if some actually applies originalism to Shakespeare. But he
as a literary you know, a person who writes about literature and meaning of
words. He thinks originalism is the proper way to interpret the Constitution. Oh
I see, Yeah, yeah, I would imagine. And there's crossover,
John, I would imagine, there really is. There's so much to be
learned from an originalist approach to Shakespeare. Believe it or not. I have
some no expertise, but at least some times spent studying that with some really
smart people. And yes, you can learn a lot from studying Shakespeare from
an originalist point of view, the meaning of words and how they're were together
and so on. Well, I wasn't going to do this, but it's
worth an under thirty seconds at least. Yeah, I have soh my goodness,
I provoked. I crossed a big fight once ten years ago at the
University of Colorado by talking about how things dropping shakeheay, showing up, by
showing up right, but also by pointing out all the English departments that were
dropping Shakespeare as requirement, and I think weren't doing that. They were reading
it in these tandentiest modernist ways, you know, Shakespeare and feminist theory and
this queer theory in Shakespeare and all that kind of backward. And I've read
a few of these articles and I posted a couple of excerpts. I'm just
awful, turgid, you know, jargon laden pro and then I dropped in
and here's where Lucretia has the experience in this too. So you know,
it's an interesting thing if you go to political science departments around the country where
there's some conservatives, I don't mean Hellsdale I mean Boston College, Virginia,
Notre Dame, University of Dallas. I ticked off several Claremont. You will
find in the political science department usually a class on Shakespeare and politics, and
the classes are always hugely popular. And what does it say that political scientists
of a certain bent find Shakespeare relevant for understanding political life at any time in
all time? And all you people in English can do is try and overlay
the latest fad on him and write incoherently about him. And boy, people
don't like to hear that, you know. Actually I love the Shakespeare's politics
classes, right, I think Shakespeare in the Law is a popular class.
And actually lawyers in a lot of cities what they like to do in these
different societies is reenact to the trials from Sakespeare. Wow, there did that.
But I did actually have a community M and R. I guess,
I don't know what you call it, some sort of community thing with a
judge on Shakespeare's law, and we looked up measure for measure and the Merchant
of Venice. It was fun. We go, yeah, yeah, A
lot to be said about that that we won't say tonight because we have so
much to cover. We made a promise that we're probably not keeping to our
loyal listeners, that we would re enact the cage match from last week between
John and me. We might get to one aspect of the cage match.
I'm hoping, maybe the whole question about Ukraine and realism versus Neo Khans and
et cetera. We'll see, we'll see how it goes, and next week
we'll take up January sixth. I got a lot of comments, and so
did you, John. Quite frankly, people took sides, which is always
fun between you and me, and so we owe them that. But whether
we'll get to it with all the news we have this week to I'm hoping
to cure you didn't. I'm sorry, I rapt. I'm hoping you didn't
see the commenter on Ricochet who said why is Lucretia repeating Russian propaganda? And
I thought, oh, dude, I didn't see that because I hadn't gotten
back to it. Yeah, but on Powerline I got called a pro putin
and she accused me of oh yeah, because I called the Ukrainians Nazis,
I was pro putin. And so anyway, okay, let's hold it off
till later we got that be Okay, you brought it up, not me.
I know, I know I'm bad. I don't know exactly the order
the best order for this, Maybe John, we start with sandradale'connor, because
Steve says he has a lot to say about Sandradal O'Connor. I'm just going
to say this and then I'm going to be quiet about it. I told
Steve I don't really care about Sandradale O'Connor. She was kind of a mediocre
at best jurist. There were lots and lots and lots and lots of mediocre
jurists responsible for a lot of stupid opinions on the Supreme Court over the last
two hundred x number of years. Why is she famous because she was the
first woman on the Supreme Court? How sexist and stupid can you be?
Who cares that she was a woman. I just went, yeah, well,
I want to bait Lucretia and just say that our great teacher that we
revered, Leondard Levy, really liked Sandrade O'Connor liked her. Yeah. It
was a liberal. I love him, but he was a literal I know,
I know, but I couldn't resist saying that, I mean, yeah,
of course you probably love her too moderate that you are. Steve actually
said he should moderate the cage match because he was the only person in the
middle who on earth would brag about being in the middle on important political questions
except Steve, I had to get there. I guess that means I'm embarrassing.
What's the old statement about who's in the only middle? Things in the
middle of the road or did did armadillos dead rabbits? I guess I'm an
Armadillo, not a Ryan, better than being a Riyals. Well, look,
I mean, first, we're talking about for a bit, because I
think there are some important lessons here. But also John, I think you
know you met her Simon, you know, dealt with her a little bit
during year. I mean Arizona, she used to come here, right Well
anyway, well, all right, what to say? I think, first
of all, she's an object lesson in the old fashion problem of people who
go NATed when they go to Washington. You know, they grow in office,
grow in office. Is that media euphemism for moved to the left?
Because I think that, you know, Reagan said in his diary during the
controversy over appointment. I should back up. By the way, Reagan promised
to appoint him women. Okay, maybe a foolish promise, but he was.
You know's a campaign a week with women, and yeah, how much
as much fun of him as they did Biden. By the way, Yeah
well, okay, some people did criticize it, and George will did for
example, saying, why aren't we just getting it over with an appointing?
Bork and do stop. One of the problems in nineteen eighty one is that
there were very few women with significant judicial experience who were Republicans. I mean
you could probably find count them on the fingers of one hand and have a
couple left over. And I was pretty young. Yeah, well, I
don't know. I didn't see that coming. I should have. And you
know, Goldwater liked her, and of course, you know, Goldwater was
starting his drift and the left on social issues around that time. But Reagan,
you know, got a lot of flak and he wrote in his diary
and called a lot of evangelical leaders and he said, look, I've talked
to her. She assures me that abortion is an area entirely legitimate for legislative
control intervention, and by the way. The first case upon abortion on the
Court when she was on it was nineteen eighty four. It was Akron versus
City of Columbus or something like that, the six or three votes striking down
an attempt to regulate late term abortions, you know, case she voted with
Rehnquist and Byron White, who were the two no votes in ROW against striking
it down. In other words, her first ruling was on the pro life
side. So you know, you go fast forward. Sorry, sorry,
I have to interrupt on that. You know what, if the best you
can do is stand on the principle of late term abortions, that does not
make you pro life, Steve, I'm sorry, No, wait a minute,
this look there's strategy. Wait a minute, well, yes, because
Eric Savage pross practice. However, in the effort to bring a line of
cases to finally unravel ROW, the pro life movements legal strate. Just our
friend Hadley arcis, let's start with late term abortions. That's the hardest thing
to defend, and the court botched it in nineteen eighty four. But O'Connor
is on the right side of that at the very least, and it's later
she becomes completely fully pro choice. She was also the two cases that have
always baffled me and John, you may or may not want to sort us
out on this is her two major positions on property rights cases, the Midkiff
versus Wahi Housing Authority in nineteen eighty four and then her descent in Keiloh and
what two thousand and five right, Well, she I bet they they're not
exactly the same cases, but there's some parallels between them. In Hawaii,
the housing authority Hawaii is this weird land tenure system unlike any other state.
Most of the private land was owned by a tiny handful of landowners that went
back to colonial days, I guess, and people who owned homes actually had
them on ninety nine year leases. And the initial argument was we need to
exercise them a domain to take their property and then sell it to the homeowners
at a reasonable price, so they essentially a feat simple ownership like the rest
of us do in America. And she wrote the opinion upholding that there were
other mischief involved that wanted to do affordable housing. There's a lot of social
engineering involved. But the point is she wrote the opinion in that case upholding
the exercise of domain to transfer property from one private owner to a set of
another private owners, which I think is completely illegitimate in the Fifth Amendments taking
claws. I think our pale Richard Epstein agrees with that. That was certainly
said. Seventeen ninety eight case that called the versus Bull lays that out.
And then Keilow, which involved the similar principle at work transferring private property from
one private owner to in this case of big corporation, violated the same principle.
And that case, again, that was an Anthony Kennedy special, as
I recall, he voted with the majority of liberals, so five four.
But O'Connor wrote a fabulous descent. I think this was all wrong. And
on the surface, John, it looks to me like contradictory opinions. I
can make out a consistency of why she got there, why she ended up
the way she did on those two cases that look contradictory, except it's actually
a bad lesson out of it, which is she's for the little guy,
oh the big guy, And in Midkiff, you're taking property from the big
guy and giving the little guy, And in Keiloh, you were taking property
from the little guy and giving the big guy, and I think that explains
her difference in those two cases. And I think that's a terrible jurisprudential principle.
And then that's we haven't even got to grut her yet. But I'll
just say that, Oh, look before John, because I want to let
hear John's you know, intelligent commentary about that woos to what I'm about to
say, which is, oh okay, about you were attacking me. I
never thought I thought I would be sort of the robin Hood kind of take
from the rich, give to the poor until today. And so you know,
the whole idea that actually taking the side of the poor and the little
guy against the big guy may actually be a principle that needs to be embraced
this way. So all I'm gonna say, I'm going to defer to John
now. So I think these two statements are consistent, are both true.
We might think they're inconsistent. One is I think when she was on the
court, playing this role of the fifth vote and doing things like that Stein's
been criticizing her for, like ultimately upholding the right to abortion in Casey or
upholding affirmative action in Right Gruder, she was I don't know what Lynda's going
to say about this. I think she was the most powerful woman in American
politics. Her vote set the nation policy on the most controversial She also issued
a lot of important decisions on religion, right, establishment clause and religion that
I think that was true. Who else in that time period, right from
the late eighties through to the early two thousands was as important a woman important
a woman, right, unless you're saying something about Kennedy. I know that's
what I'm saying. But she was I think, Okay. And then at
the same I don't disagree with that. I told you I didn't, John,
But and remember what the second thing you said was as a jurist,
she was, Yes, this is the thing. The second thing is that
her power sprung from the fact that she had no judicial philosophy or ideology.
She was always the fifth vote because she always wanted to be in the middle.
She was a politician who never wanted to finally decide things. And so
I think she was really moved to in her voting based on the way the
facts came to her. As Steve says in Kilo, the house that's condemned
by the City of New London to give to urban redevelopment is a little old
grandma who's been living in that house for a long time and doesn't want to
move. Whereas in Hawaii it's right as you said, rich landowners, and
the taking is for to engage in social redistribution, which she sympathized with in
Hawaii. But so I think that her she had no philosophy, said she
would try to decide everything on the facts and circumstances. She was a classic
like common law lawyer. She would have been a much better state judge state
state judge. She was a state judging authorized to make policy under their constitutions.
But because she had no philosophy, like a Scullia or a Thomas,
for example, you knew how they were going to vote basically in most cases
because of their flow. She was always in play. That indeterminacy is what
was the root of her power. She was always the vote that could be
won by either side if they appealed to her in the right way. So
that is why I was curious what Lucucia was going to say. I thought
you might agree there, because her power came from a lack of principle.
This is very strange combination, and I think Kennedy was like that too.
Kennedy kind of took that and it was like that. But power came from
a lack of principle. And because what I said was she had opportunities to
write opinions in some of those cases that I think were handed to her because
she was a woman. Why give her that god awful casey, the you
know, the abortion case casey, she sees it. She didn't get it,
she didn't receive it. She sees that with Kennedy and suitor and she
the opinion. No. No, she because a politician, and her wanted
to have control in a way I think some judges do, some judges don't.
But the politician in her liked being in the middle and start definitively controlling
certain issues. Well, you know what a terrible legacy from that point of
view, right, I mean, well, you know that's fine. She
was a politician, you know she actually she was appointed to the Arizona Senate
way back when supposedly she couldn't get a job as with any law firm when
she graduated from law school. She got one offer as a legal secretary.
Right, by the way, my first job out in college was as a
legal secretary just so you know, well, wait a minute, find me.
But anyway, she went to Stanford Law School in the same class with
William Rehnquist and my late father in law. Totally, but here's the point.
So, so, okay, trailblazer whatever. I hate that stuff.
But but here's so so she gets opportunities. But back to your politician's comment,
John, I think it's right on. It's absolutely right on. Because
she was appointed to the Arizona Senate and within sixty years rose to be the
majority leader in the Senate. She had to have some pretty significant political skills
to do that, I would think, you know, and yeah, normally
I think what you said is absolutely right. That's great when you want a
politician. That's not what you want on the Supreme Court. And between her
and Kennedy, there's just so much bad jurisprudence during that period that had so
much that damaged the country. You're right about it being powerful. I don't
dispute that, but so much damage was done. Think if she hadn't decided
grutterer with that ridiculously stupid, unprincipled Yeah, you know, well it's okay
for now, But I hope it's come on in twenty five years. You
know, you're saying that the most powerful woman in America, and you were
saying, oh my god, yeah right. But I was just going to
offer the comment that the Grutter case, I think you know this John was
brought by our friend Michael Grieve when he ran in the Center for Individual Rights.
And after they lost that case, I remember him saying, in his
usual very splendidly snarky way, he says, God help us when the constitution
of the country depends upon the opinion of some befuddled grandmother was really cranky about
it, So I'm sorry. Another thing is this is not a partisan thing
or a jurisprudential thing, because she also issued decisions which are very good concern
for conservatives. I think she was pretty much responsible for the revival of federalism
at the Supreme Court. I mean, she really was the one who pushed
and pushed and pushed to give states more of a role in the constitutional system.
She did not. This is the other weird thing about Grudery. She
voted the wrong way in Cruder, but she also wrote this case Crocin that
knocked out affirmative a ration base affirm of action in most other government programs contracting,
government hiring. Even though this ignored by the garment, it's an unconstitutional
because of a con So this is I agree with all the criticisms. I
just want to make sure the listeners know it's not because we happen to agree
with her end result some all the time or not. It's a way she
got there, had no principle to it. It always makes me happy that
the first woman appointed was actually appointed by Ronald Reagan. That that's true.
I mean, I guess, I guess sure women were discriminated against. Okay,
but even back then, you couldn't afford to if a woman was smart,
if she was capable, people couldn't afford to ignore them. That's always
been the case. You know, look at your mom. Look at your
mom, John, I know we don't want you can tell her what a
fan of him. I mean, she's like me. She doesn't glorify being
the first woman doctor this or first woman that this other interesting thing. Look
at the difference between the way she's treated and the way Ruth Bader Ginsburg is,
Sir glory. Yeah, going to be my next point, Yeah,
because I think some of it. You're right in this sense. Also,
though, is that the sort of feminists did not really embrace O'Connor. They
didn't give her a lot of credit for being the first woman. And look
at all for the test, Yeah, look at all the you know,
the love they show Ruth Bader Ginsburg because she's really, you know, in
their mind, the kind of trailblazer. I think it's one of the one
other thing to say about her. A plus a bit of trivia. You
John, you man know the answer this at Lucretia, You don't do you
know who was the Justice Department lawyer who sort of dreaded, dredged her up,
that's too, sort of found her and vented her and promoted her for
the appointment. It was a guy named Ken Starr a lot. Yeah.
Well, my understanding is that the idea came from red Quest actually, because
as you said, yes, school's right and re Quist. We forget before
school how big a deal Redquist was in the Conservative and he came out and
I tell one charming story about that shows Justice O'Connor's great political skills that come
from my personal interaction with her. Sure, so I don't think it's ever
been reported this story. I mean I've told it. I don't think I've
told it in public. But so I clerked for Justice Thomas in the early
nineties. And one thing about Justice Thomas is that he gets a lot of
visitors, and I'm sure other justices don't get So the year I was clerking
was around Christmas time, Charles Barkley came to see Justice Thomas. Now I'm
from Philadelphia, so when I saw that on sketchs like, Justice, just
please let me greet him and take him on a tour of the court.
You've got to. I mean, this is the most important thing other than
like a Philadelphia Eagles or somebody coming or you know, a Philadelphia come on,
come on. So Justice is like, okay, you can. So
at this time, Barkley had left the seventies Xers and was playing for the
Phoenix Suns of Arizona. Right eventually got them to the finals, I think,
but they lost. And so even though it was my job to greet
Charles Barkley, he doesn't. He's not where he supposed to be at the
nine am where I'm supposed to meet him at the court and take him up
to see Justice Thomas. Looking all over. I'm looking all over for him.
Somehow, it's not hard to miss, right, that's true the story.
Somehow Justice O'Connor had heard he was coming, I don't know how she
felt, and intercepted him and dragged him to her chambers to take a picture,
which in the very next day showed up on the front page of the
Arizona Republic of Phoenix's number one basketball politician with Pultic with no matter just on
his you know, six foot nine frame or whatever, six foot seven.
I think he is putting the star on top of her Christmas tree in her
ey. I think when I saw it, like, damn that woman,
it was a great he is a great politician. Well, I think I
got just to finish the story. I got to take Charles Barkley on a
tour of the Supreme Court. And there's a basketball court above the courtroom,
which is called the highest court in the land. And so, being you
know, twenty five years old or whatever I was, and Charles Barkley being
a notoriously bad shooter, I challenged him to a game of horse. Oh
my god, I did, of course I did. And uh, well,
let's just say he didn't get a single letter, because what I didn't
realize is, yes, he's a bad shooter in the NBA, but when
there's no one defending you, an NBA player can hit from everywhere without even
looking. He made the most unbelievash like the ones where you bounce it and
it goes in the net and over the court and no looking. I mean,
did you make any I don't think I ever got one. I don't.
I think he just won the whole like immediately, like that, in
five minutes. It was amazing. He was hitting shots from half quarter.
Yeah, and then here's one more story about Charles Barkley. Then I'll stop
before I get sued for defamation. So he asked me, could you explain
the death penalty to me? So I said, okay. So there's a
stupid complicated system for that. First you have to find they committed a capital
murder, which is only certain kinds of murder. And then there's a second
trial about whether to give a death penalty or lifeline lifelong uh, you know,
life without parole. And he goes, no, no, some not,
That's not what I'm interested. I don't understand why we don't use a
death penalty much more often. I said, I said, I said,
sir, Charles, you should run for governor of Alabama, which is what
he was thinking about at the time. I believe, Well, I think
that's my brush with O'Connor and Charles Barkley. Yeah. Yeah, I think
two things say about her, one political and one also cultural. You know,
she did she was a loyal Republican. And here's why that's important.
You know, David Souter, appointed by George H. W. Bush in
one of his biggest blunders, he resigned a stepped down from the court went
under Obama, so that Obama got tough appoint his replacement, and it was
either Kagan or so to my or O'Connor waited for the Republican movements did the
same thing. Stephen did the same thing, right, and whereas O'Connor waited.
And I've heard a couple of stories about this. I'd heard she wanted
to get off the court in the late nineties because he was getting older,
husband was was ill, but didn't want Clinton to replace her. And then
you know when the two thousand elections turned out to be such a mess,
And the story is that Robert Strauss still then well respected the new the Bush
family very well. Went to George W. Bush and said, look,
you know, because of this mess, you don't want any Supreme Court appointments
in your first term. If you're elected, fine, but you know,
and the story I've heard secondhand a couple of times is that, you know,
after the election of Justice O'Connor was saying to people, Dang, I
guess I got to stick around another four years till I can get off the
court, and which in two thousand and five, right, and you know
that that's uh, that's that's not unimportant. He'll put it that way.
Well about it, you know. Oh, can I say one thing about
that precious point about how history might have been different is the kind of core
we have now could be completely different too because of that. Remember when O'Connor
retired, Bush appointed John Roberts, and I think John Roberts would have been
a much better Associate Justice. It's been his chief Justice. But because O'Connor
waited so long to retire, Renquist died the same year and then Roberts was
just elevated to chief nomine function replaced. So this is what happened. So
after Roberts was okay, yeah, and then then Alito was put into the
O'Connor. I think how different things could have been if John Roberts had just
taken O'Connor's position and could just vote the way he thinks it should really come
out based on the merits, and someone else has made chief justice. Well,
that's an interesting in point. I think that's probably right. And then
there is I don't know if you know this story, Johnny. It might
have been a little before your time, but I think it was after the
eighty four or eighty five Super Bowl with the Redskins won. Yes, John,
believe or not, the Redskins used to win super Bowls, and O'Connor
was seated next to the running back John Riggans at the White House Correspondence dinner
and it became a big story because somehow he said he burns out to her,
Oh, loosen up, Sandy Baby, which yeah, that's a famous
story. And you know, and later on she in some one of the
grid Iron Dinners something a few years later, she got back at him saying,
loosen up, Johnny guy or something like that. So she could roll
that, right, She didn't. She didn't make a big femini's defense about
it or anything like that. It was mostly the media freaking out, but
he must have been freaking whatever. Anyway, funny story. We're don Lucretia
a great story. It's okay, you guys. I'm sure somebody's going to
find all that interesting. I'm kidding, I actually did. I hope said
the others find it interesting. Before we move on to the subject that might
take us into our halfcage match, I want to talk a little bit about
what happened. We're recording this on Friday night at the debate between Ron DeSantis,
Governor of Florida, and Gavin Newsom, governor of California. And I
told Steve, I asked you. We kind of texted back and forth in
real time as it was going on. I said, I don't have Fox
News anymore. Should I go in my car and listen to it? And
he said, no, What did you say it was a train wreck something
like that. I mean, it was actually pretty good. I sort of
the process said, I thought it was pretty good. The problem was the
the best presidential debate we've had all year, and maybe last year too.
So I want to I want to frame it. I want to frame this
discussion not just as a wild go anywhere you want, Gavin Newsom said,
and you know he intended to be an insult to Ronda Santis. He said,
we talk about all the great insults. Ronda Santis got off, but
let me start here, he said to Ronda Santis. Gavin Newsen did that
neither one of us on stage will be the twenty twenty four nominees. Now
I find Gavin Newson appalling, despicable. Every bad adjective you could come up
with. You need to learn some good, long ones like alligitius that one.
But he's still universes ahead of just in sort of the superficial stuff,
Joe Biden. Yeah, Ronda Santis, I know he's been the subject of
so much. You know, I think you said it last week, Steve
Trump, when it looked like he might have a chance of beating Trump,
they really took after him. He's been the subject of almost as much anti
liberal, anti whatever a Trump has and so that's really pushed him down.
You know, now they're championing that woman from wherever it is she's from,
who is the UN ambassador and didn't call for defunding it. That's my big
problem. Whether anyway, back to DeSantis, So we got too pretty articulate.
I mean, I know, it's hard for me to say anything good
about Newsom. I'm trying two pretty articulate, fairly young, somewhat accomplished.
I mean, Desanta, excuse me. Newsom is only just a pretty boy,
a rich pretty boy who you know, everything he has was handed to
him really on a silver platter. But still governor of a big state,
governor of a big state. Younger guys. Some accomplishments in both cases.
Whether you consider what Newsom did as an accomplishment, he's proud of it.
Supposedly you have right and left. You have the two visions for the future
of this country embodied in these two men in a debate, and yet what
are we going to face in twenty twenty four? So let's go thinking about
that as context. Let's go back to the debate. Tell me what you
thought you want to go first, Sean or me? There you go ahead,
Well, yeah, that I think. By the way, the preface
Lucretia was he said there's one thing, the governor we can't agree on.
That was otherwise we just were in everything that neither one of us will be
the nominated depart That was a dig at DeSantis for trailing Trump so badly.
When I said that, it was initially as a train wreck because early on
they were sort of talking over each other and they wouldn't shut up, and
Sean Handy didn't put his foot down hard enough to stop that. I mean.
The contrast is is you can find this now on YouTube. The fan
was debated and it was done by TV, but it was between Ronald Reagan
and Robert F. Kennedy Senior, you know, back in nineteen sixty seven,
and there that let each other finish. They didn't interrupt, they didn't
you know, throw down the way. But that's very typical of our debates
these days, because we've kind of wrecked presidential debate when they weren't talking over
each other, well, when they weren't talking over each other and yelling at
each other, the substance of it, I thought, for the most part,
Desanta's Clabert Newsom, I mean, I mean, my favorite one was
is Newsom kept trying to Sanna's had all kinds of facts and figures and a
couple of zingers, like you know, there's this one guy moved to California,
to California to Florida and saying, I just love Florida. It's a
free state. It's better governed. And then the Santa Sads. Oh,
by the way, that person is covernor of Newsom's father in law. I
thought that was a real But he also had facts and figures are very good,
and Newsom never had any facts and figures in rebuttal. It was all
generalities. He says, we're the free state of California. You get an
abortion here, oh joy, And we don't ban books, and of course
the Sancy that's not true, that's a lie. But he had receipts.
I mean, at one point he held up a little piece of one of
these books that he says, I can't even show this right now on Fox
News. I've had the blackout parts of it because it's so pornographic, because
we just don't want these in the schools. They're not anyway. I thought
that was very effective, holding up the you know, an actual piece paper,
right, yeah, the held up the San Francisco that had to be
a you know, and so I mean, we're not to walk those were
available, they all, yeah, are they're supposed to be so you can
report, you know, locations of put it that way report deposits to the
terrible We're going down the brain already and it's not even half hour of the
show. Okay, Anyway, my verdict is I thought the Santa's outpointed Newsome
uh Hannity promised to be non biased, but clearly tilted towards the Santas and
had very tough questions produce him. That's fine with me. Oh one way,
I think you know the Santas one is Newsom's complaining about it today.
He was saying, well, did you hear you know it's lightning story about
the wife, about Newsom's wife, did you guys hear about that? The
story going out? And you know the Newsom is denying it. But both
DeSantis and Newsom agreed to go over time because you know, we were still
doing it, and DeSantis's wife, who was backstage and there was no media
there, said absolutely not marched out on stage and stopped the debate from going
any further because DeSantis was getting creamed, I mean, not to sant excuse
me, Newsom was getting creams. Newsom was getting yeah, yeah, no,
I mean there was some square by saw today where Newsom said to somebody,
well, yeah, I'd be like trying to some write when you're trying
to debate Jane Fonda at Berkeley on MSNBC. But I think it's important.
We got to go to these forums where they are and you know, try
and come back to it. I thought that was a concession that, uh,
he had been overmatched. Yeah, I like that the best line,
John, did you catch the best line of the whole night? Which one
I thought. Actually, Desanta's got a lot of good ones on them.
I liked that about the father in law. Yeah, I like them about
the father in law. Just in case anybody to tell him, Oh,
Steve just mentioned it clearly, Okay, but I think but I think that
well, yeah, so Desanta said, oh, I met this guy who
just came from California, so I love the low taxes, low crime.
And it turned out to be Newsome's father in law. Did it right?
No, But that's what pissed off the White supposedly. I mean, I
think, actually it's a really interesting study in contrast, because DeSantis is clearly
a master of substance. Right if if you if you want to, you
want someone to run the government, you would put it in his hands.
He knows how to get things done. But he's getting clobbered in the primaries
because he doesn't have what Newsom I think has an abundance, which is style.
I think Newsom is a perfect made for TV, made for TikTok candidate.
Right. He just speaks, and you know, if you say he
denies facts, he doesn't think. He refuses to answer question. He loves
Yeah. He just has this kind of pre programmed latitudes. Right, Oh,
where the state of freedom? You know, where we don't do this?
We don't. But so that was one thing. The other thing I
think was interesting about the debate was I think it really was the most substantive
debate we're going to see. I would Biden and Trump debate if they both
want. I bet it's not going to get it to this level of detail
of facts and real policy differences. It'll be a lot of name calling and
claims of corruption and tax on democracy. I thought it was really interesting when
they had a debate about what to do about immigration. They're right about abortion.
It's really interesting Newsom refused to answer questions on abortion at all because I
think I mean DeSantis in hanned he did gang up on them, but they
did say where would you say what point in the pregnancy are you not allowed
to have an abortion? And Newsom would not actually answer, and so I
think was it DeSantis basically said, althose you know they're talking at Richard.
He said, oh, so you're allowing abortion all the way up to the
point of delivery, and knew some could have easily denied that, and he
didn't. And he didn't because how his substance that the current the current position
of the left that you just I mean, he was willing to say things
about the Biden administration that were so false, so so obviously untrue. He
was willing to say all that, and yet he was unwilling to buck the
pro abortion till they're thirteen years old left and say, yeah, that there
should be some limits. I mean that that was I think you're right,
John. It was a really telling moment about in the crime. I mean,
you know, he knew some had no answers. Yeah, he basically
just said, oh no, the you know, the census is wrong or
crime statistics are wrong. He had no answer on crime, He had no
answer on economic growth, no answer of population movement. But he I bet
if you did a all of the people who watched I think knew. Some
people say knew something did better than they thought he was going to do because
he never lost his cool. He was very smooth. He seemed in command,
even though he's a you know, as you said, he's an empty
suit. Yeah. Well, I've been saying for a while that people shouldn't
underestimate Newsome, but they shouldn't overestimate I think there are limits to I'm not
sure how well that would hold up. I mean, you know, Obama
did have that sort of charisma about him, and you know the novelty of
what Obama was, and you knew someone I don't look and get away with
that for very long. Yeah, yeah, especially because he's a white male
that really really does look like the penguin? Is it the one of those
one of those characters from Batman that you keep seeing the images on Twitter?
I mean, it's perfect. He He may be, you know, in
sort of formal terms, good looking, but he's just got that slimy look
about out him. And and when he smiles, it's an evil smile.
There's no if you outlaw fossil fuels, how is he going to get his
hair cream? I mean, doesn't he know that that's one person I saw
on Twitter said that that's actually what that map is for for him to collect.
Sorry, I'm going to change the subject because we're not obviously going to
get to the cage match today. We're actually very close to Steve's limit of
an hour. And I know, so you know, but I do want
to ask you guys about about just a few comments about Henry Kissinger, and
only I believe it or not, what I saw most today just sort of
perusing the commentary at is, everybody wanted to give their own personal reflections and
the when they had dinner with Kissinger and Buckley and when they went you know,
da da da da da da da. Oh, who cares whatever,
I'm so impressed about you. But he did have a tremendous impact on the
United States, on the Nixon and Ford administrations that people still return to him
for advice even up till his you know, ninety nine and a half birthday.
And so i'd like, I'm gonna start with John, because John,
you spent a long time in the foreign policy world, and even though I
think you're wrong about almost everything, I'll bet your opinions about Kissinger are interested
well you, Kissinger would have been a good touchstone for our cage match because
he I think shared some of your view and some of my view, because
if I remember, he thought that the EU and NATO should not expand too
far east, that it was going to provoke Russia. And I remember he
particularly mentioned Ukraine and some op eds as going too far, as really starting
to interfere with what Russia thought of its historical sphere of interest, and we
would provoke some kind of reaction. That said, after Russia invaded Ukraine,
Kissinger was pretty strong on giving all aid that we could, and he wanted
Ukraine to win. Now, maybe he thought Ukraine might end up like a
Finland or somehow like Austria was during the Cold War, more neutral than an
ally, but he really thought that our stake, and it was our national
interest, was to help Ukraine win. So I think that's very interesting actually
to have both of those views at the same time. The other thing about
Kissinger is I think people are overstating that he was the greatest Secretary of State
of the twentieth century or even after World War Two. I think that's clearly
George Marshall and the Marshall Plan. I mean, that's like I don't even
think that's really close. But I think what and I think Kissinger might have
gotten something's wrong. I mean, Steve's expert on Reagan, but we recall
Reagan and the Conservatives who eventually won after Kennedy. I'm sorry Carter campaigned against
the detent of Kissinger and Nixon that uh, you know what, and what
Kissinger did is something a student of diplocmatic history would try to do. He
went try to achieve victory as Reagan right. Reagan said, we're going to
you know, we win, they lose. Kissinger wanted stability. That's what
he wanted more than everything, and to have stability meant to he wanted to
reach a modus vivendi with the Soviet Union, so you have assault agreements and
you have these ABM trees. He tried to stabilize the relationship so we weren't
competing against each other. I think that was a mistake, but I do
think the brilliant insight he had, and I think Nixon deserves equal credit,
was the opening to China. Now, Conservatives today, I've been hearing them
criticize the Kissinger for the opening for China in forty years, but then open
the opening to China. Did how help us beat the Soviet Union? And
that was that was the more and I think the Soviet Union even then was
a greater threat to us in China is now. We had to win that
one first, until we ever got to the point of worrying about what to
do about China. Sylvie Union had you know, just as many, if
not more nuclear weapons that we did, and they were pursuing an aggressive foreign
policy all around the world. So I don't blame Kissinger and Nixon for trying
to solve the Soviet Union challenge first and deferring until many, many years later
what to do if China ever turned that way too. And then lastly,
let me say, the unfortunate thing about this effort to have stability and so
on is that, as many people point out, it can lead people to
think that he was callous about human life. You had the you know,
the withdrawal from Saigon and Vietnam. There's a terrible humiliation for the United States
accused of overthrowing you know, Les Alunde Allende in Chile and so on,
you know, to you know, get allies against the Soviets and communism,
rather than fostering democracy and human rights. But I actually think he was right
and Kirkpatrick were right to say, you know, we had to alle with
some unpleasant regimes to beat the Soviets, and that was the major issue of
their day. And I don't blame I actually don't blame them for it.
I don't. You know. This is another odd thing I've read people say,
which I think is actually backwards, As people have said, oh,
he was almost more influential, more important for what he did after he was
Secretary of State and this advising role of CRECIA mentioned and writing all these books
about China. He just had a book about Ai. But I actually think
I'm not sure his advice was always so good after he was Secretary of State.
I think he did okay as Secretary of State and his post post government
career trying to influence presidents. You know, people kept saying, oh,
we advised so many presidents, a quarter of all presidents who've ever been in
office. I'm not sure that was so so one mistake I think he made,
and I think Margaret Thatcher made it. They didn't want necessary to have
quick unification of Germany. They didn't want Eastern Europe to fall into our lap,
so quickly. They were so overly worried about Russia and the Sovietian and
the need for stability, they wouldn't they wouldn't run. They let the table
run when it was to our advantage, right, didn't liked it when the
revolution was on our side. That was a big mistake. And I'm glad,
like Reagan and George H. W. Bush took a full advantage actually
of the change to make sure that Europe became democratic and capitalists and on our
side. Yeah, so, oh gosh, we're to start here. I'll
start with the longevity question that you and Lucasia mentioned. Has there ever been
another Secretary of State who so compelled the attention of leaders around the world for
fifty years after he was out of office. No, not one. I
can't. I mean you mentioned Marshall to be talking about it in another forty
years. No, he's gonna go back to being one of the reindeer.
Wasn't blinking one of the Okay, I mean that part of that is Kissinger's
genius for self promotion, which he had before he was Secretary of State,
before Nixon. You know, Rockefeller and Nixon, Sorry, it was Rockefeller
and Bill Buckley. You both said to Nixon. First, Nixon familiar with
him, you should hire this guy. But so there's that part of that.
Part of it too is another superficial thing. Uh. He was so
hated by the left for some of the reasons you mentioned. It seemed to
go beyond criticisms of his handling of the war and the role in the overstated
role in the Pinochet coup against the end in seventy three. You know he
should be tried as a human I don't know. Rich Christopher Hitchins wrote a
whole book about how it should be tried by international tribunal. Ridiculous stuff that
almost wants you to make you defend him, right for the same reason you
kind of rally behind Nixon because the enemies he had were deranged. It's a
certain way, but it is important gild your point, John. In nineteen
seventy six, both Reagan and Jimmy Carter ran against Kissinger, you kissing at
the cost of detent and especially abandoning an emphasis on human rights. And then
of course the famous Helsinkia or you'll talk about that if we want. Perhaps
it gave Carter an opening to attack Kissinger from the right, and that was
part of what made Jimmy Carter appealing to even some conservatives. By the way,
if you go back to a lot of conservatives saying, hey, this
Carter guy might be pretty good, and you know they were disabused later.
But and in nineteen eighty when Reagan wins, it was you know, I
don't know how much does ever in the press, but I know for my
own researches, and you know, people, I know a lot of people
wanted Kissinger, and Kissinger wanted to be brought back to Secretary of State.
And you know the word came down from a lot of important conservatives. No
way know how he's never getting near the State Department ever again. And my
mentor Stan Evans, he said, I've got a long account this in my
book that I only met Henry Kissinger three times and he lied to me every
time and did a transcript. Yeah, well, I found a transcript of
when when the conservatives were after Nixon seventy one and Kissinger you know this academic.
But I'll meet with all these conservatives, some a few of whom are
still alive, like I think Neil Freeman was there at the meeting, and
most of them were passed away. But Stan was the ringleader at this meeting.
And I found a transcript of you know, sort of an aid memoir
of from Kissinger's office that are in the archives, and it's like fifteen pages
long. It's very verbatim, and I'm thinking, damn that sob tape that
meeting, because it's just too good to have been from a note taker.
Right. So and so there's you know, Kissinger, and there's Stan Evans
just laying into him. It was that's great stuff. Oh sorry, yeah,
well I will say finally, last point. Here's the real difficulty about
Kissinger that you say he wants stability, John true, why do you want
stability? And let's try to await conflict. That's because people think, deep
down he was a pessimistic Splierian person who thought the West was going to lose
the Soviet Union in our job. His job was to try and stave it
off and preserve our viability as long as possible. There's a lot of evidence
to this going back to the fifties. I have that in my first Reagan
book about some people who heard him when he was a young academic at Harvard,
very impressed with a guy and you know, being very pessimistic about the
progress of democracy. So the point is Dayton was a strategy of losing slowly.
Whereas Angelo Codevilla put it, Dayton wasn't was the attempt to bribe the
Soviet Union not to use their weapons against us. And oh and then finally
I guild that point is Kissinger is great to read, and I did read
all three of his volumes of his White House Years. The interesting thing is
the first they're great book. The first two came out in what the seventies
and the eighties, and the third one came out around two thousand and two
thousand and one, at which point the Cold War was over. And the
first two it was like, by the way, I think Kissinger's the guy
who says, nobody ever comes out second best in their account of you know,
some episode. And so a lot of it is how brilliant he was.
Okay, you discount all that. That's still great reading. And I'm
sure he's right about a lot of things. But that third volume his theme,
his subtle theme, but it's unmistakable was you know, Reagan was great,
we won the Cold War, and boy things were tough for us under
Nixon. Proof But and so we saw our job really is holding the line
until someone like Reagan could come along and build on our work to win the
Cold War. I'm thinking, oh, come on, Henry, that was
just okay, five Hans, Joe, okay, go ahead. That was
told about Kissinger. I'm not even going to wear Kissinger, it seems,
obtained a length of top quality tweed cloth that he wished to have made into
a suit. Taylor's in Washington and New York, after measuring him, said
there was insufficient material for trousers and a jacket that would fit. In London,
France, and Germany, where he went on diplomatic mission, the same
morning was repeated by the best tailors in these countries. Then he came to
Jerusalem and was told by a Jewish tailor to leave the material and return in
ten days. When Kissinger came back after meetings in Egypt, Arabia, Syria,
and Iran, he was astonished to find not only a suit that fit
him perfectly, but a vest an, additional jacket, and two extra pairs
of trousers, all made from that same length of material. How is it
possible, asked Henry Kissinger that in New York, Washington, London, Paris,
in Germany, I was told there was not enough material for even a
suit. And here in Israel you were able to make so much because here
in Israel, said the Jewish tailor, you are not such a big man.
There's my contribution to the Kissinger stuff today that we kind of hoped that
it might lead us into taking up the discussion that John and I just barely
had a time to start last week when John was confused about whether he should
call me. I don't know about Steve. Steve who knows the moderate that
he is, Steve me a neo khon or a realist, and we were
going to take that up along with a larger discussion of Ukraine. I do
want to point out that, you know that big meeting at the and Seemi
Valley today hosted by the Reagan Library people, where you know Lloyd Austin is
there, and this, and that they came out with this. Does does
the Reagan Library the Foundation have some sort of polling meccan polling company polling your
unis anyway, So every year they take a poll and this, among other
things. Their poll indicated that something on the order of seventy one percent of
Americans favored additional money for the Ukrainian effort, additional for Congress to pass more
and slow and behold, this poll came out right out before all of these
you know, Lloyd Austin, all these important people came to decide how,
you know, how we're going to go forward on the question of Ukraine and
China and this and that. What crap. But anyway, because every other
polse is just the opposite, right that we don't know we have to solve.
Sorry, John, but it's actually everywhere solve our border crisis before you
solve Ukraine's border crisis, right anyway, And that's you know, that's a
fight in Congress right now, right, fair enough, right, I mean,
I'm not even making that up, John, it's the fight in Congress.
But I'm kind of think, well, don't the polls also show that
a majority of Americans want to continue supporting Ukraine. Actually, the majority of
polls don't show that, but this one did. Well. I've seen different
results, and you know I won't repeat them. Now. You know my
views on issue polling and how bad that is and how valueless it really is.
I do think though, here's my sense of it is there's a bit
of a paradox right now, which is, I do think that all the
polls show pretty much the same thing. I think this is true. There's
overwhelming American public support for Israel, except among college campus crazy kids and the
faculty, and that has kind of put the Ukrainian war on the back burner,
right. It's you know, it's not the first thing we're talking about
now. The thing we're talking about now is the Israeli Gaza war. And
at the same time, I'll bet there's an undertow from that. I'll bet
there are a lot of people. And of course the other thing in Lucretia
is that a lot of opinions are weekly held, and so you know,
you don't want to take these to the banks when maybe accurate. But the
point, well, that's right, But the point is, well, you
well know, I won't go through my progression of how to think about these
things. But the point is is that there may be an undertow where people
say, yeah, and actually, I guess I'm for Ukraine too. I
wouldn't be all surprised to see rising support for Ukrainian aid as as sort of
a you know, an undertow or I don't know what you put it a
collateral sentiment with the Israeli war. I think if you ask the Mary,
my hunch is if you did a really serious serve of Americans, they'd say
Israel's more important. Ukraine. Yeah, I don't like Russia, but Israel's
really important. That should be prior to one. This is what I don't
get about this question. So one thing is I don't think it's a binary
or tri trinitarian choice. I don't want to get back into this council argument
with you guys. No, but it's you could secure the border and give
a to Ukraine and give a to Israel. I think they're all well worth
The amount of money roots the return to the country of one hundred billion to
each of those is well worth it. In fact, I don't think a
to Israel or securing the border require that much. So I don't think it's
like a either or choice. Why can't we do No, that's a that's
a very clever way, John of driving Lucretia into Paul Ryan's arms to be
a death of the talk. Oh my gosh, I didn't even know I
was doing that. But I'll try to do more in the future. Well,
no, I mean it's a serious point now that our spending is so
out of control that even one hundred billion dollars A yeah, I mean that's
that's the problem that the conversation goes in that direction though, I don't mean
inew but understand how awful things are for you to say when we're how many
trillion dollars in debt, what's another one hundred billion? Right, that's what
everybody says, what's another I think of it as budget dust, right,
I think of it as the return on the expenditure. Are we getting good
value for them? And look, the budget is not going to be cured
or not based on stopping ad in Ukraine or Israel or the border. It's
going to be fixing titlements. Right. You could just change the inflation the
CPI adjustment for social cure payments and you can easily pay for all this.
Right, this is this is not a lot of money, because this is
not the real threat being caught. Look, and I think Lucasian and I
would agree we should measure each one in terms of national interest, right.
I'm not saying we should fight European wars for Europeans or Middle Eastern World wars
for Israelis, we got to fight them when they're in our interest. So
let me ask you this, why is Israel more important than Ukraine? So
here in Ukraine, let meus lay that the strategy has been. We had
to go to war twice over there, lost lots of American lives, destroyed
billions of trillions of dollars in American wealth to restore order in Europe, we
got dragged into two world wars. I think one of the great achievements of
the Cold War is that we made Europe free market based and all the way
up to Ukraine members of NATO and the EU. It's an incredible achievement.
Europe has been the center of fighting in the modern history system for five hundred
years. They've been killing each other and dragging us into it. I think
you just answered young question. But to me, it seems to me that
Ukraine and Europe maintaining a piece there is far more important to our national and
trusts actually than israel Is. Unless and this is why accused the Crucia of
being a neocona at heart, is unless you care about the regime you're saving,
right, you like Israel? I like Israel because it's a democ it's
a Western democracy, it's a lot like America, and so we're going to
go to greater lengths to save them than Ukraine. Eve, though, I
think from a strategic perspective, the Middle East is just not as important as
Europe to our security. There's not time to pick that one up today,
Steve. I hate to say it. I think I got a bar next
time. It's just fair question, John, It's an absolutely fair question.
But I don't I have a whole week to get your remarks ready. No,
I've got plenty of remarks. I can I just try a very brief
plant, a very brief flag in the way of response, which is this
is not a question that should be answered primarily materially, which I think is
what you just did, John. And it's not that it's invalid, but
I will repair to Winston Churchill's single sentence in the last volumes of World War
Two Memoirs, which how's that go? The crease? It was like all
that is best in Western civilization comes to us from Jerusalem and Athens. Athens,
if you want to say that as a traditional reason, is under assault
at home in our universities, et cetera. But Jerusalem, however, you
can sive it, and certainly Jerusalem today still stands for that proposition, and
so as an idea and as a vindication of the essence of Western civilization.
That's why Israel is more important than Ukraine. That's all. We have to
protect Jerusalem and Athens because they gave birth to doesn't matter what saying, but
it's very Yeah, the ideas, the idea, those places. Okay,
so I'm going to the auto control both of those places. I'm going to
give you this simple answer. If I'm sorry, my dogs, If I'm
a human being, especially quite frankly, okay, I'll be. I'll be
a feminist here for a moment. I'll be a feel I have a female.
I may not be a feminist, but I am a female. If
I have a choice of living in Ukraine versus Russia, no difference to me.
Corrupt the backward societies to some extent, Okay, maybe neither one of
them are so terrible. I don't see a clash of civilizations there. I
see a clash of just mirror petty. From a grand point of view,
interest the clash of civilizations between the Muslim world a lie a raid against Israel.
I don't want to live in a Muslim country. It will never even
go to a Muslim country unless I can be guaranteed that I can live exactly
the way I want that I live here. I would go to Israel.
I would go to Israel to live. It would be a place that I
believe is consistent with the way human beings ought to live in civilizes. I
understand, I did. I understand your points, and I didn't get it
until this Athens drew some stuff. Now I understand what you mean. But
then you really are like a neocon because Neokons really did care about the nature
of the regime they were helping. They did not want to be bigger help
John. No. But but that's the point is you want to help Israel
because it is like a free Western market democracy. You don't want to help
Ukraine because, as you said, the regime is just like Russia. You
don't care about the strategy right like which one is like war in our national
They do care about the ideology of national interest terms, national security interest terms.
There are all sorts of second and third order effects that follow from that.
From my silly, oversimplified way of expressing it in national security terms.
There are in fact many many second and third order effects that have a very
significant impact on how this country is able to govern, live in the world,
and so on, and we don't have time to get into it today.
Yeah, well it was really interesting conversation. Well, I want to
put a pin on this point and come back to it, John, because
I do think that we need to add in what I think Lucretian I do
agree about, which is well from our perspective. What is the defects of
the neo cons and the way the way you characterize them. I'll just stop
there. I'm not going to say efective. I'm just saying you, guys,
actually we think it is defective. See well, except that we certain
very much more fundamental ways I think we don't and that we need to try
and explain to you and the listeners and maybe vain in your case, but
listeners. But okay, we got to move out of here to Lucretia really
quickly, Babylon B. I sent Steve a whole bunch of stuff this week,
and unfortunately we're not going to get to and we didn't even just discuss
elon Musk and his You know people all over the world actually actually diverted one
hundred thousand dollars of advertising to Twitter. That's a story for next time.
But that that's been so great, we don't but child grooming content on x
reduced by eighty three percent after Disney pulls ads. Okay, there's that one.
Chinese state media proclaims Gavin Newsome winner of debate. Or how about this
one? There's two more on that. One nation in shock after Gavin Newsom
murdered on live TV and Newsome sorry, Newsome Desanti's debate to be sponsored by
you Haul. I have many more, but go ahead. It's your guys's
turn. By the way, I don't know if you don't have a camalism,
John, because you and I have both been traveling. There was one
of a debate last night. I was gonna say, I don't have a
camalism, but I have a mention of her in the debate De Santa's Newsom,
which is that De Santislake many of us is not really sure how to
pronounce our current vice president's first name until they hear Lucretia's pronunciation, and then
they are schooled. So I think, actually I thought the Santis pronounced it
much low way Lucretia did to which you might called new sum snapback, that's
madam, vice President to you. I didn't even send that to you,
John. I just thought to myself, that's what John should talk about to
great minds and all that. All right, John, I'm going that's mad
that's my I'm gonna have my Lafreud neat here while you start sending us out.
Yeah. Actually I was. By the way, listeners, Costco has
some very good low prices on the Freud right now, I mean shockingly low.
Yeah. I bought that because it's shockingly awful. Sorry. You know
what. They also have really good low price on GluN liver right now.
Yeah, yeah, for like twenty nine yeah, when all the other scotches
are wildly overpriced. Anyway, as we've just been discussing, always drink your
whiskey, neat. Let's go Brandon and Steve God save the Queen man.
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