Today I must prepare for a flight early tomorrow morning, and the Panicdemic has left me badly out of practice at traveling. Hence, this Wednesday is dedicated to brevity and miscellany.
Senator J. D. Vance kicks off his 2028 Presidential campaign with an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that, with different details but identical principles, could have been written a century ago by Senator Gerald Nye. [Note to pedants: Yes, I know that Gerald Nye wasn’t yet a Senator in 1923. Please leave room for artistic license.] One sentence particularly caught my eye: “Mr. Bush allowed a just war in Afghanistan to turn into a nation-building quagmire and then started an unjust war in Iraq [emphasis added].” Senator Vance was a high school student in 2003, so he may not know that Saddam Hussein was a murderous tyrant, violated the terms of the cease fire that allowed him to remain in power after his failed invasion of Kuwait, repeatedly attacked U.S. aircraft enforcing the cease fire terms, and furnished money, training and weapons to terrorists. One can argue, with perfect hindsight (which includes the knowledge that President Obama would abandon Iraq, leaving a vacuum for Iran to fill), that overthrowing Saddam’s lethal dystopia accomplished less in the long run than had been hoped. To conclude that it was “unjust”, one must be either ignorant or morally obtuse.
The senator summarizes his creed as, “the U.S. national interest must be pursued ruthlessly but also carefully, with strong words but great restraint”, the opposite of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Speak softly and carry a big stick”. And pursuing our interests “ruthlessly . . . with strong words but great restraint” sounds just like Anthony Blinken. Now that I think about it, which party’s primary will Vance compete in come 2028?
Rep. George Santos has announced his resignation from the Congressional committees to which had had been assigned. He is, needless to say, busy with other ventures: a contract to produce the next three Marvel movies (scripts to be written by ChatGPT), the lead role in Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera, privately funded weapons shipments to the Ukrainian army, and staffing his 2028 Presidential bid. There’s a limit to how much even a polypoetes of his stature can do.
As for the 2024 Presidential shambles, “Here Comes the 2023 Presidential-Candidate Stampede”. Nikki Haley’s chapeau will be tossed into the ring later this month. Judging by who persistently pushes messages into my e-inbox, she will be followed soon by Mike Pompeo, Kristi Noem, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, perhaps Ben Carson and Tim Scott, maybe even Lindsey Graham. There are undoubtedly others who don’t have my email address in their electronic rolodexes (or is it rolodices?). Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis, who everyone agrees is a first-tier candidate, waits for the optimal moment to jump in. The crowd on the third and fourth tiers hope that he will be the next Fred Thompson or Scott Walker, the front runner until he becomes a runner (as Tacitus said, omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset).
In The Spectator, Cockburn, the periodical’s oddly anonymized D.C. gossip columnist (no relation, I presume, to the commie Cockburns), unveils another potential candidate: Boris Johnson. BoJo was born an American citizen during his parents’ residence in New York City. It’s true, as Cockburn notes, that he renounced his citizenship several years ago after losing a tussle with the IRS, but maybe he can resume it and regain “natural born citizen” status. While I doubt that, I don’t doubt that no other candidate would add so much je ne sais quoi to the contest.
Like everybody else whose life involves a lot of reading and writing, I’ve toyed with the idea of giving ChatGPT a spin but haven’t gotten a round tuit. John Hinderaker at PowerLine has now saved me the trouble. After quoting what the app said in response to “Who is John Hinderaker”, “What were some of President Trump’s accomplishments?”, “Which is cheaper, electricity generated with natural gas, or with solar panels?”, “Write an essay in the style of John Hinderaker” and “Write an essay in the style of Steven Hayward”, he summarizes his impressions:
All of this is highly preliminary, and artificial intelligence is a serious subject. But my experiments with ChatGPT confirm my assumptions about its limited utility. It turns out responses that are not as clever as, for example, the Tom Friedman Random Column Generator. But they don’t seem to be overwhelmingly biased, either. If you are a college student and seriously think that generic essays like these will get you a good grade, I can only hope you are going to a lousy school. As, to be fair, most college students are.
Incidentally, with all the brouhaha about ChatGPT, let me recommend Isaac Asimov’s classic story “Galley Slave”.