The Viral Videos the Anti-Police Left Won’t Publicize

By David French
Friday, October 30, 2015

Narratives of oppression are simple; life is complicated. After the Internet lit up over video of a South Carolina police officer dragging a high-school student from her desk, tossing her to the ground, and handcuffing her, the Left instinctively began making its “larger points” about the “school-to-prison pipeline,” police brutality, and institutional racism.

It was the launching pad for another “national conversation” on the Left’s terms, about one of the Left’s favorite topics: the big, bad, racist police.

Yet videos from other schools show more complex realities. Campus teachers, administrators, and police officers often do face the real threat of violence — and waiting to intervene until after a fight breaks out can be terribly dangerous.

Consider the incident, this week in Sacramento, where a student slammed a school principal to the ground in a lunchroom brawl:



Or consider the incident, during an after-school fight in Allentown, Pa., yesterday, in which a female officer was dragged to the ground and beaten by at least one person, and four other officers were injured:



And if you think it’s safe to try taking away a student’s cell phone, think again. Blogger Matt Walsh highlighted the video — apparently from earlier this year — of a student slamming his 62-year-old teacher to the ground in a classroom altercation:



In a piece earlier this week, I noted that police officers in schools aren’t symbols of an oppressive state but rather symptoms of a “cultural disease — a crisis of morality and responsibility.” In other words, cops are in schools because we need them in schools, and videos like the three above show us why.

There are very good reasons why prosecutors and juries have generally shown deference to the snap judgments of police officers. Officers have the experience to understand the consequences of failing to keep the peace, they have mere seconds to make crucial decisions, and it is plainly difficult — if not impossible — to use force in any way that looks gentle or respectful. That doesn’t mean cops are always right — no group of human beings is infallible — nor does it mean that we shouldn’t film police encounters. But it does mean that Monday-morning quarterbacking should be done with a great deal of care and humility.

When FBI director James Comey warned that viral videos were causing a “chill wind” to blow through American law enforcement, he wasn’t asking that police evade accountability for lawless behavior. He was saying that he understood the political and cultural opposition today’s cops face, judged by hostile observers who are ignorant of the realities of policing and all too eager to collect their scalps. Comey’s warnings are ominous:

 I spoke to officers privately in one big-city precinct who described being surrounded by young people with mobile-phone cameras held high, taunting them the moment they get out of their cars. They told me, “We feel like we’re under siege and we don’t feel much like getting out of our cars.”

I’ve been told about a senior police leader who urged his force to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance for a viral video. 

The increasing resistance officers face on the ground is accompanied by decreasing support from their political masters — “leaders” who are happy to toss law enforcement under the bus if it appeases the grievance industry.

This will not end well. If police are neutered in America’s worst neighborhoods and schools, it will be America’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens who suffer, not our cultural aristocrats. Already, angry young kids are learning the worst possible lesson — that they can defy lawful authority and still emerge as heroes. Yet physical resistance is a recipe for more pain, more violence, and more viral videos.

But perhaps that’s the point. Each confrontation drives the narrative, and the narrative both drives the national conversation and builds lucrative careers for grievance-mongers. It guarantees that any possible solutions are lost in an endless search for conflict. And when one spoils for a fight, a fight is never hard to find.

Jeb’s Sad Performance at the Debate Confirms He’s Not the Right Choice for 2016

By Jonah Goldberg

Saturday, October 31, 2015

True story. When I took the SAT (which once was an acronym for “Scholastic Aptitude Test,” then “Scholastic Assessment Test,” but is now simply called the SAT because the gormless quislings of the higher-education establishment are too scared even to defend the idea their test actually measures anything. But that’s a topic for another day) . . .

. . . Where was I? Oh right. True story: When I took the SAT (at Martin Luther King Jr. high school on West 65th street), right before the administrator guy said, “Open your books,” a kid raced into the room and took the chair right in front of me. He was a species of Manhattanite I knew very well: The urban hippie, a close relative of the more dignified bohemian, but a distinct breed. This guy was a cross between Jeff Spiccoli, Shaggy, and maybe a young Lincoln Chafee.

Anyway, the instructor told us all to open our booklets and get started. Almost immediately, the kid started shifting in his seat like maybe he was sitting awkwardly on his roach clip. By the middle of the test’s first section, the urban hippie started muttering in an exasperated whisper: “Oh man.”

With every turn of the page, he’d suck in a lungful of air through clenched teeth and run his fingers through his greasy pre-white-guy-dreadlocks hair, while kicking out his feet in shock. “Aw man, aw man, aw man.” His anguish was matched only by his surprise at how much worse each new page could be the than the one that preceded it.

I thought the whole thing was hilarious, and ended up giggling through most of the test, which probably seemed prickish to kids who thought I was gloating.

I bring this up partly because I had no idea how to begin this “news”letter this morning and partly because I imagined something similar was going on at Bush campaign HQ during the CNBC debate.

The Jeb Test

Full disclosure: I don’t hate Jeb Bush, nor do I scorn him. I respect the guy. I don’t like the way people trash him and act as if no serious conservative could possibly support him. But, as I’ve been saying for a longtime now, I don’t think he’s the right candidate for 2016. While not my first choice by any measure, I think he could be a fine president, and it would be a no-brainer to vote for him over Hillary Clinton. That said, I’ve always thought he’d be a deeply, deeply, flawed nominee. As I’ve written before, in a contest of familiar brands, the more popular one does better — and the Clinton brand is more popular than the Bush brand. In a change election, when the other side has an old and tired brand, the last thing in the world you should do is respond with an older and even more tired brand.

Bush v. Rubio

Of course, politics is about more than branding. It’s also about selling, and Jeb just isn’t a great salesman. It’s almost as if he doesn’t have confidence in the product, which is dismaying given that he is the product.

Let’s revisit the moment when Bush came at Rubio like a census taker going after Hannibal Lecter, over the issue of Rubio’s missed votes.

It was such a sad scene. Jeb was like a gladiator sent into the arena with a Nerf bat and a slingshot full of ping-pong balls.

The thing about being armed with a Nerf bat in a gladiator fight is that it really doesn’t matter if you land the blow. It’s like delivering the cleverest bon mot in the prison yard; it only invites an even more painful response. “That’s exactly what I’d expect from you Bonecrusher, after all you still wear white after Labor Day. [Snicker]. . . Bonecrusher, what are you doing? Put down that cinderblock.”

What made it all so much worse is that it was essentially choreographed. Jeb knows this is a dumb issue and that Rubio would be prepared like a Shaolin monk to respond to it. And if he didn’t know that, he learned it on the debate stage, because Carl Quintanilla had just grabbed the nerf bat and used it himself against Rubio.

Rubio swatted away Quintanilla like Pai Mei would Gary Coleman.

And that’s when Jeb remembered, “Aha! I still have my ping-pong ball slingshot!” Enter Jeb:

    BUSH: Could I — could I bring something up here, because I’m a constituent of the senator and I helped him and I expected that he would do constituent service, which means that he shows up to work. . .

Marco swats away the assault:

    RUBIO: Well, it’s interesting. Over the last few weeks, I’ve listened to Jeb as he walked around the country and said that you’re modeling your campaign after John McCain, that you’re going to launch a furious comeback the way he did, by fighting hard in New Hampshire and places like that, carrying your own bag at the airport. You know how many votes John McCain missed when he was carrying out that furious comeback that you’re now modeling after?

And here’s Bush’s devastating comeback:

    BUSH: He wasn’t my senator.

Really?

First of all, does anyone believe that Jeb has a problem getting “constituent service” help from politicians when he needs it? Is he calling Rubio’s office demanding assistance with a visa to Botswana and just can’t get anyone on the phone? Is he still having trouble getting his noise complaints about the local Hooters attended to? More relevant, Bush conceded that he doesn’t care that McCain missed votes. His complaint is grounded in his parochial interest as a Floridian. So even on its own terms, Bush’s complaint shouldn’t bother anybody but Floridians. Maybe that will help — a little — in the Florida primary, but even Bush implicitly concedes New Hampshire and Iowa voters shouldn’t care.

Final Fantasy

That moment was the most devastating politically, and I put the blame almost entirely on his handlers. They gave him those “weapons” and convinced him to use them.

But the more disappointing moment came later.

Here’s the scene as I imagine it at Bush HQ during Wednesday night’s debate, my comments are in the brackets:

    QUINTANILLA: Governor Bush, daily fantasy sports has become a phenomenon in this country, will award billions of dollars in prize money this year. But to play you have to assess your odds, put money at risk, wait for an outcome that’s out of your control. Isn’t that the definition of gambling, and should the Federal Government treat it as such?

    BUSH: Well, first of all, I’m 7 and 0 in my fantasy league.

    [Cheers erupt at Bush HQ. Fists pump the air, putting visual exclamation points on shouts of “Nailed it!” and “Yes!” The laughter sounds a bit forced, but it’s really a sign of relief, like when an airline passenger survives a really rough landing and then guffaws when the tray table suddenly comes down.]

    QUINTANILLA: I had a feeling you were going to brag about that.

    BUSH: Gronkowski is still going strong. I have Ryan Tannehill, Marco, as my quarterback, he was 18 for 19 last week. So I’m doing great. But we’re not gambling . . .

    [Only a smattering of cheers this time, but lots of knowing, prideful nods cascade across the room among Bush loyalists. “This is good. This is good,” says one strategist. “He’s proving he didn’t make up that 7-and-0 thing, sounding like a normal guy.” A rookie consultant adds, “And he’s reassuring Evangelicals that he’s not a gambler.”]

    BUSH continues: And I think this has become something that needs to be looked at in terms of regulation.

    [“Crap on a stick!” shouts one staffer in the back of the room, as he drains a glass full of bourbon and Pepto-bismal].

    BUSH continues: Effectively it is day-trading without any regulation at all. And when you have insider information, which apparently has been the case, where people use that information and use big data to try to take advantage of it, there has to be some regulation.

    If they can’t regulate themselves, then the NFL needs to look at just, you know, moving away from them a little bit. And there should be some regulation. I have no clue whether the federal government is the proper place, my instinct is to say, hell no, just about everything about the federal government . . .

    [Then, suddenly, like a rabid polar bear charging in from off screen in My Dinner with André, Chris Christie appears]

    CHRISTIE: Carl, are we really talking about getting government involved in fantasy football?

    (LAUGHTER)

    We have — wait a second, we have $19 trillion in debt. We have people out of work. We have ISIS and al-Qaeda attacking us. And we’re talking about fantasy football? Can we stop?

    [It’s at this moment that one of the staffers screams, “Damn it! These f***ing windows don’t open!” and looks to see if he can put his head in the microwave oven. Another quietly walks into the next room and calls the Rubio campaign to see if they’re hiring.]

Maybe I’m being a little unfair to Jeb, and he did say his instinct is to say “Hell no” to federal involvement. But the overall takeaway from his response was closer to the reverse. It seemed like his instinct was to say “Hell no” while actually doing the opposite.

The rap on Bush, as Rich Lowry and others have been saying for a very long time, is that he is a pre-Obama, pre-tea-party Republican. I’ve been to quite a few tea-party events. I’ve never heard anyone say, “Restoring the Constitution to its proper role in our Republic is fine, but what are we going to do about regulating fantasy football!?”

Burke v. Bush

Jeb may be right about fantasy football having problems. Frankly, I have no idea. But I am pretty certain that the next president of the United States will have more important issues to deal with.

Edmund Burke once said, “I must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes.” What he meant by this is the prudent statesmen must allow society to work out its own problems, using the force of government to intervene only when those problems require it.

(He was specifically talking about priests who were sometimes too gung-ho in their priestly duties:

I can allow in clergymen, through all their divisions, some tenaciousness of their own opinion, some overflowings of zeal for its propagation, some predilection to their own state and office, some attachment to the interests of their own corps, some preference to those who listen with docility to their doctrines, beyond those who scorn and deride them. I allow all this, because I am a man who have to deal with men, and who would not, through a violence of toleration, run into the greatest of all intolerance. I must bear with infirmities until they fester into crimes.)

I hate it when people analogize citizens to children and government to parents, but there’s a similar point here. When you’re raising kids, sometimes you’ve got to let them work it out for a while before sticking your nose in. (In fact, the evidence is pouring in that we’re raising a whole generation of kids who don’t know how to work out their problems on their own. But that’s a subject for another “news”letter.)

I’ve knocked Jeb countless times for his inability to follow through on his promise to run “joyfully.” For a year I’ve been saying, in effect: Stop telling me what motivates your character, and start showing it to me. But at this point it’s probably too late. Because even if he somehow managed to seem joyful, Bush has already convinced people he’s not. Indeed, the fact that he says he wants to run joyfully only underscores the depth of his problem: he knows what to do, but can’t bring himself to do it. As Jim Geraghty puts it in that quotation-mark-less newsletter, “He is a man fundamentally at odds with the mood and thinking of his party at this moment.”

That doesn’t mean he’s a bad man or a RINO or a worse alternative to Donald Trump. But it does mean that this is not his time.

The Spooky New Face Of Anti-Semitism

By Melissa Langsam Braunstein

Friday, October 30, 2015

On Wednesday, Pope Francis waded into the ongoing discussion about anti-Semitism. He told a Jewish audience, “To attack Jews is anti-Semitism, but an outright attack on the State of Israel is also anti-Semitism.”

What exactly is anti-Semitism? The term has been bandied about so often and in so many different contexts lately, we must consider whether we’re using it correctly. In an effort to understand that, I reached out to Kenneth L. Marcus, founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (where my husband is an unpaid member of the Legal Advisory Board), which combats anti-Semitism on college campuses.

Marcus is also the author of a new book entitled, “The Definition of Anti-Semitism.” We recently spoke by phone about the term and its real-world applications.

Why do we need a book that defines anti-Semitism now?

I spend so much time in the trenches; there’s no end to work to be done on campuses around the country. There’s so much ignorance and confusion about the line between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. There needs to be some clarity. I wrote this to educate people in academia, policy makers, and the general public about what’s happening and where the line is between what’s anti-Semitism and what’s not.

What differentiates “the new anti-Semitism” from traditional anti-Semitism? Is it more dangerous?

Anti-Semitism is continually evolving. At one time, it was primarily religious prejudice. By the nineteenth century, it evolved to more of a racial hatred. Now we also have forms of anti-Semitism that relate more closely to the state of Israel. The new anti-Semitism provides a new guise for the older hatred. They’re equally dangerous; they’re both forms of racism or bigotry.

When was there a transition from one form to the other, and what prompted the change?

The new anti-Semitism can be traced back to the establishment to the state of Israel, but it became more prominent after the Six Day War in 1967. It became far more widespread after the onset of the Second Intifada. That significantly increased hostility toward Jews around the world. At the Durban I United Nations conference, this new anti-Semitism became much more deeply entrenched and pervasive. That was the moment the world took notice of the new anti-Semitism.

Walmart and Amazon are at the center of a social media storm for selling an Israeli soldier costume for kids this Halloween. What’s your take on that?

People could choose an [Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)] costume for all sorts of reasons. For example, some people see IDF soldiers as heroic figures who are courageously defending their people. They might view an IDF uniform in the same way that they would view a Superman or Batman costume—that is to say, it is a hero’s attire. On the other hand, it is clear that some people are viewing the IDF costumes in a very different light, i.e., as being more monstrous, like a vampire. This approach can descend quite quickly into blatant, explicit anti-Semitism.

Walmart is also being attacked for selling a “Fagin nose” to go with a sheik’s costume. What do you make of that?

There is nothing about the “Fagin nose” that isn’t anti-Semitic. The Fagin character was wholly based on anti-Semitic stereotypes. Calling it a “Fagin nose” just reinforces the stereotype. Applying it to a sheik’s costume, as opposed to an IDF soldier’s costume, doesn’t change this. What were they thinking?

Did President Obama trade in anti-Semitic canards while working to pass the Iran deal?

Obama and his administration didn’t help things with the language they used about the opposition to the Iran deal. I don’t see any intentional anti-Semitism in his remarks, but he fed into canards people tell about the “Israel lobby.” Given President Obama’s background in constitutional law, he should be more sensitive to coded forms of bias and the ways in which hostile environments are created by loose uses of coded language.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson recently landed in hot water by suggesting that the scope of the Holocaust would have been “greatly diminished” if European Jewry had been armed. Was Carson’s comment “dangerous,” as The Forward suggested? Was it anti-Semitic?

Carson’s comment has been interpreted in wildly different ways. I tend to give Dr. Carson the benefit of the doubt and think there was nothing anti-Semitic or dangerous in his intent. Those people who call him “dangerous” are more focused on their own views about gun control and the right to bear arms.

Has it become more socially acceptable to express anti-Semitic views in Europe and the United States? If so, how do you explain the change?

There’s no question that in polite circles, especially among political progressives in Europe and North America, people are finding it more acceptable to say certain things about Jews and the state of Israel than a generation ago. Anti-Israel ideology has often filled the void among progressives who can no longer command support for the old Marxist canards. It increasingly binds left-wing groups behind a common cause.

There are people who say they’re not anti-Semitic, just anti-Israel. Is that a legitimate distinction?

It’s a legitimate distinction, but it certainly isn’t always the case. People may say that, but then their words and actions belie that. There is far more anti-Semitism among the anti-Israel movement than they’d admit. Some is unconscious, and some is simply lying. When people join anti-Israel extremism, they are making common cause with the worst kind of bigots.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters is active in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and most recently made news with his open letter urging Bon Jovi not to perform in Israel. Is Waters’ letter-writing campaign anti-Semitic?

Waters participates in a movement that’s anti-Semitic. Whether he himself is an anti-Semite is immaterial. Regardless of his mental state, he’s joining in a hate campaign that’s based on anti-Semitism. In some circles, the BDS movement has become one of the more fashionable ways to express that you’re a leftist. People feel pressure to join BDS, whether they believe in it or not.

Will the next generation have people like Roseanne Barr and Howard Stern who aren’t religious, but feel a deep and powerful connection to Israel and the Jewish people?

If present trends continue, the current rifts within the Jewish community will widen considerably. There will remain a significant group of Jewish Americans who feel very close to Israel, but they will predominantly be members of the growing Orthodox communities. On the other hand, liberal Jewry is declining both in its size and in its connection to the Jewish state. One can envision a future in which Jewish-American connections to Israel are mostly based on Orthodox religious belief. At that point, the Roseanne Barrs and Howard Sterns of the world would appear to be relics of a vanished age.

Is there anyone who deserves recognition for effectively fighting anti-Semitism, in the United States or elsewhere?

[Former Canadian] Prime Minister Harper’s government has shown strong leadership on fighting anti-Semitism worldwide and deserves kudos for that.

Are there certain individuals or organizations you think are most effective at calling attention to anti-Semitism on social media? And if so, what makes them effective?

Andre Oboler’s Online Hate Prevention Institute, based in Melbourne, is doing a great job, and I am pleased to serve on its International Advisory Board. In the United States, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League, among others, have done good work.

How important is social media to fighting anti-Semitism in the larger world? How about on college campuses?

Social media is critical for reaching people nowadays, especially young people. We use Facebook, Twitter, and other such platforms as key components of our communications strategy. At the same time, there is no substitute for face-to-face interaction, which is why I spend so much time traveling from campus to campus.

What do you think of the Simon Asher character on “Quantico,” who was initially introduced as a gay, Jewish conservative? We just learned that Simon spent time in Gaza while working undercover for the IDF.

It’s an interesting show. I am not quite up to date on my DVR, so I have not yet seen this latest disclosure. One thing I like about the show is the notion that things aren’t always as they appear. I don’t know how this will play out with the Simon Asher character. My hope is that the writers won’t lazily lapse into stereotypes or canards about the Middle East.

Now for the lightning round. I’ll name some recent news items. You tell me whether the incident is anti-Semitic, tasteless, funny, forgettable, or something else altogether. Lena Dunham’s dog or Jewish boyfriend quiz for The New Yorker.

Forgettable. When will Lena Dunham’s 15 minutes be over?

Marco Rubio’s pre-Yom Kippur fundraiser at the home of a Dallas real estate investor who owns a signed copy of “Mein Kampf.”

Much ado about nothing.

On “The Mindy Project,” a pregnant Mindy remarked, “‘I kind of want to raise him [her baby] Jewish,” she says, “so he can get ahead in life.’”

Not funny, but not offensive either.

New “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah’s tweets about Jews.

Tasteless.

Ann Coulter’s tweet about “f*%king Jews” during the Republican debate?

Juvenile, but not as hateful when read in context.

Where can interested readers find your book?

On Amazon.

Parting thoughts?

While anti-Semitism is far worse in the Middle East and Europe, it’s unfortunate that we have a resurgent problem on U.S. campuses. It’s unacceptable, and people should speak out against it. If things are happening on any campus you’re affiliated with, speak out and let your voice be heard. Also let government officials know that firmer actions should be taken against anti-Semitism on American campuses.

Rubio and Cruz atop the GOP

By Kevin D. Williamson

Friday, October 30, 2015

‘Ted Cruz is only going to be popular,” a lefty correspondent sniffs, “in those places where the Osmonds are still popular.” If that is true, then the news for Senator Cruz could not possibly be better, inasmuch as this puts Nevada into play: Donny and Marie signed up for a six-week stint in Las Vegas back in 2008, and extended, and extended, and will be performing in the showroom now named for them until the end of 2016, at least. Good tickets for the reliably sold-out show are $260 each — no laughing matter when one considers that the Osmond demographic includes some pretty large families. It can be hard to see it from Williamsburg or Petworth, but the culture isn’t (only) what the hipsters think it is. If Senator Cruz proves as popular as Shania Twain and NASCAR, he won’t just be president — he’ll be president-for-life.

And that is of some interest, given that Wednesday’s debate very much left the impression that this is a Ted Cruz–Marco Rubio race.

About those other guys . . .

Jeb Bush’s performance confirms an earlier judgment of him, that he was a pretty good governor a long time ago with no special oomph today, a decent man whose misadventures on the critical policy questions of immigration and education, along with his too-familiar surname, are like heavy boots on a drowning man. His strategy to push Senator Rubio to the side in order to be positioned in such a way that the bulk of the reasonable-to-just-short-of-howling vote should fall upon his head as fading reality-television grotesque Donald Trump enters the Norma Desmond stage of his campaign, leaving Senator Cruz to wage a pyrrhic campaign for the moonbats, was too calculated. It was so calculated, in fact, that Senator Rubio was able to deftly parry it simply by pointing out the calculation. Bush père screwed up by reading his stage directions aloud — “Message: I care” — whereas the (younger) younger Bush stood mutely by as Senator Rubio read aloud from his playbook. It was like watching the smartest kid in the fourth grade mangle his own name at a spelling bee.

Ben Carson, whose occupation (neurosurgeon) and melanin level (high) assuage certain Republican insecurities, continues to be excellent and modest and in no way prepared to be president. As others have pointed out, he might have made an excellent mayor of Baltimore or governor of Maryland, if it weren’t for the fact that for certain men the presidency seems to be the only job in politics worth having.

Speaking of which . . .

Trump’s performance was — what’s that phrase? — low-energy, remarkably so. It is always difficult to calculate which moment was Trump’s lowest — that’s one of the challenges of chronicling low men — but his scoffing at Ohio’s energy industry stands out as characteristic of the Trumpkin approach: Governor John Kasich, Trump argued, deserves no credit for Ohio’s economic performance because Ohio “got lucky” with fracking, because it “struck oil.” That’s true. Trump’s native New York might have done the same, except for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s ban on modern techniques of oil-and-gas extraction. If only New York had had the services of some prominent, extraordinarily famous, and media-savvy businessman to spearhead a campaign in favor of energy exploration when Governor Cuomo was playing Hamlet-on-the-Hudson on the question! As with immigration, Trump has had a lifetime in the public eye to take the lead — or even to take a halfway honorable stand — on New York’s energy industry, but he cannot be stirred to act in the service of anything other than his own celebrity. Like Carson, Trump might have made a good mayor or governor, but neither is grand enough for him. New York’s Southern Tier is dying an ugly slow death, and New York’s most famous businessman — who says he wants to be president of these United States — hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of his own state. That there is almost nothing behind Trump’s showmanship is becoming apparent to some of his admirers, albeit slowly.

The also-rans also ran. Senator Rand Paul’s testy libertarianism remains a hard sell in demographics more diverse than the dinner table when Matt Welch dines alone; Mike Huckabee is still a better candidate for Bill O’Reilly’s chair than Abraham Lincoln’s; Kasich leaves one wondering how he even got to be governor of Ohio, which, according to my almanac, is an actual state; Chris Christie’s “Hey, remember, I’m from New Jersey!” special-pleading shtick is sometimes charming but not the sort of thing that makes one want to hand him control of a nuclear arsenal; some of us true believers are still rooting for Bobby Jindal down in the junior-variety division, but there’s not much sign of hope.

I envision Carly Fiorina joining Mitt Romney in the role I sometimes describe as the crypto-presidency: If there is a Republican president come January 2017, these two should be the Cleaning Crew, given powers that are very narrowly defined but Gaullist in their vigor and tasked with cleaning out problem agencies, with the president declaring the Veterans’ Administration, the Secret Service, etc., something like federal disaster areas and then sending this duo in with a stack of pink slips and orders to bayonet the wounded. The fact that Fiorina would be extraordinarily good at this — and that she’s probably do it with a smile — is the best reason to vote for her for president, and also the reason that most people won’t.

​So, Cruz-Rubio/Rubio-Cruz.

Lifestyle liberals of the fair-trade-soy-latte variety recoil instinctively from Senator Cruz, and even many of his would-be friends and admirers lament what some unkind critics (including me) sometimes call his “Elmer Gantry” mode of persuasion, the televangelist mannerisms and the undertone of quiet desperation that makes it easy to imagine him saying to voters: “Tell me exactly what you want to hear, and I’ll say exactly that.” In an interview with Sean Hannity immediately after the debate, the senator was utterly abject, twice declaring his desire to see a debate moderated by Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh. Which is to say, he practically begged Hannity et al. to lean his way once their infatuation with Trump and Trump-ism finally becomes too embarrassing to sustain.

It may be that Senator Cruz thinks that the Republican primary electorate is full of boobs and that he therefore must appeal to the yahooligan sense of style. It may be that Senator Cruz suffers from the affliction all too common among Texas politicians — notably Governor Rick Perry and former president George W. Bush — that causes them to do some sort of limp John Wayne impersonation when they are feeling beset by East Coast media types. In almost every corner of these United States — even Ohio — there is some sort of local pride; the two great exceptions to that are New York City, whose residents have instead of municipal pride a form of Stockholm Syndrome, and Texas, which has instead of a statewide identity a statewide case of psychotic grandiosity. (I’m from Lubbock; I’m allowed.) Senator Cruz, like Rick Perry and (in my very limited experience) George W. Bush seems like an entirely different man off-camera. Maybe that’s cynical calculation; maybe it’s just that he is, after all, still sort of new at this.

Senator Cruz is not unaware of his shortcomings as a politician. His confession that he is more of a designated driver than a guy you want to have a beer with — odious cliché — was well-considered. The republic could use a period of reflective political sobriety lasting, oh, 60 years or so, and Senator Cruz would be an excellent man to initiate that.

Nobody ever accuses Senator Rubio of Elmer Gantry-ism. Why? Because if he is a cynical, calculating performer, he’s a brilliant one. I like to think that I am immune to political oratory, but one does have to admire the way that Senator Rubio can turn on that American-dream stuff like flipping a switch. Shortly after the Gang of Eight immigration fiasco, I saw Senator Rubio face a very, very skeptical audience — with Senator Cruz also on the stage — of conservatives who were practically ready to bear him out of the venue on their shoulders when he was done. He is, as Jeb Bush put it icily, “a gifted politician.”

He is also an apostate on immigration, the issue that has revealed the purported “libertarian moment” of 2017 to be anything but that. Conservatives would be foolish to simply declare anathema upon Rubio for his ill-considered immigration-reform misadventure — he did, after all, walk away from the mess he helped make once it became clear what a dog’s breakfast it was — but they are right in being suspicious of the fact that his first instinct was to make a deal and to be willing to make one that even in the best-case scenario wasn’t very good.

Senator Rubio here has the opportunity to combine good politics with good policy and declare that, should he become president, in his first term action on immigration would be limited to border security and enforcement. If, at the end of four years, he can make a credible case that the border is secure, that we have developed a credible procedure for dealing with visa overstays, and — most critical — that we have a robust system of workplace enforcement of our immigration laws, then in 2021 we might have a reasonable conversation about what to do about the millions of illegals who are here already. If we’re actually doing real workplace enforcement, then there should be a lot fewer of them come 2021. He should also make it clear that even if we do settle upon some process for normalizing the status of at least some of the illegals already here — and you can go ahead and call that “amnesty,” because that is what it is — citizenship should be off the table. Indeed, it is a mystery why citizenship for illegals, as opposed to simple legal residency, has even entered the discussion.

If the final days of the GOP primary fight should in fact end up being a Rubio–Cruz contest, that would be an excellent thing: Republicans would be considering an all-Latino presidential field as a result of ideas, talent, and gumption rather than phony diversity rhetoric and affirmative action. Either man would provide a dramatic contrast to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who regards the presidency as a personal entitlement and who carries in her train more baggage than Louis Vuitton. Cruz-Rubio/Rubio-Cruz: One’s a little bit country, the other a little bit EDM — and the GOP could do a hell of a lot worse than either.