Notes From D. R.

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. [For example], when you have a black and a white…”

–Richard Nixon, in an audiotaped White House discussion concerning the Supreme Court’s legalization of abortion, January 23, 1973

Nixon’s bitter words regarding the alleged efficacy of abortion for birth-control purposes are another painful reminder (as if we needed another one) of the damage the thirty-seventh President did to the GOP’s image in the eyes of black voters. Nixon was certainly a complicated figure, and despite this incendiary, foul comment, one hesitates to label him an active bigot. However, the Nixon years only exacerbated the divide between blacks and the party of Lincoln.

Sixteen years before Nixon mused about miscegenation and abortion, he sang a different, far more pleasant tune. “”Most of us will live to see the day when American boys and girls shall sit, side by side, at any school - public or private - with no respect paid to the color of skin,” Nixon said in a speech urging the passage of the 1957 Civil Rights Act, which was intended to protect black voting rights. “Segregation, discrimination, and prejudice have no place in America.”

There’s no question that Nixon stood up for black people during those grim days. Black voters didn’t forget Nixon’s efforts; although a majority of blacks supported John F. Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential election, Nixon yielded an amazing (by modern standards) thirty-two percent of the black vote (and also received an endorsement from baseball hero Jackie Robinson).

Nixon lost that election by a razor-thin margin, and retreated from politics after losing the 1962 California gubernatorial election, only to come back six years later and win another close race against Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Alabama Governor George Wallace. However, in the 1968 contest, he only received twelve percent of the black vote.

Four years before, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was trounced by incumbent Lyndon Johnson. Goldwater only yielded six percent of the black vote in 1964, though he won the Deep South. In essence, Goldwater conceded the black vote to Democrats by refusing to support the 1964 Civil Rights Act (even though, as conservatives often point out, a larger percentage of Republicans in Congress voted for the Act than did their Democratic counterparts). While Goldwater claimed that elements of the ’64 Civil Rights Act were unconstitutional, it seemed that he could not endorse the trailblazing law because it would prevent him from being able to (as he put it) “go hunting where the ducks are,” i.e., obtain support from large numbers of whites, some of whom opposed the civil rights movement.

Nixon could have attempted to heal the divide that Goldwater created between blacks and the GOP, but instead he chose a different direction. The left has long argued that Nixon’s 1968 “Southern Strategy” was a deliberate attempt by Nixon to cultivate support from pro-segregation whites, but that’s not exactly the case. The point of the “Southern Strategy” was to once again concede the black vote to the Democrats while establishing the GOP as the home of the white middle class and white working class. This strategy was the result of demographics, not discrimination: since middle- and working-class whites represented a numerical majority at the time, Nixon and his advisers figured that tailoring the party to the interests, needs and desires of middle- and working-class whites would be a fail-safe plan for electoral success. This explains the repeated references to “law and order” and the suggestion that Nixon would restore peace and tranquility to the major cities.

Considering the political and cultural climate of the age, Nixon and his advisers had to have known that tailoring the GOP to the interests of working- and middle-class whites would, by definition, mean that some whites with retrograde views on race would vote for the Republicans. Nixon didn’t care about that, however. He just wanted to win.

It’s often been argued that Nixon was progressive and regressive at the same time on race: while he certainly used ugly rhetoric in those audiotapes, he also expanded the definition and reach of affirmative action during his Presidency. As Linda Chavez noted in an October 7, 1997 Wall Street Journal article, “In the 1969 Philadelphia Plan, the Nixon administration ordered hiring ‘goals’ for construction unions. That program became the centerpiece of the Office for Federal Contract Compliance at the Department of Labor, serving as a model for the ‘goals and timetables’ approach that forces federal contractors to hire a specific percentage of minorities and women. What’s more, the Nixon administration turned the ineffectual Equal Employment Opportunity Commission into an aggressive prosecuting agency. It was President Nixon who proposed amendments that gave the EEOC the authority to bring class-action suits against private employers in order to win hiring and promotion quotas for minorities and women.” Of course, it can be argued that Nixon expanded questionable forms of affirmative action in order to exacerbate tensions between the races—tensions that he could exploit for political gain. As Chavez pointed out in the WSJ piece, “Historian Hugh Davis Graham notes that one of the true ironies of the 1972 campaign was that Nixon ran against the very racial quotas his administration had championed.”

Historian Dean Kotlowski once asserted that Nixon was “…the greatest school desegregator in American history,” an opinion shared by conservative writer Bruce Bartlett. However, considering his machinations regarding affirmative action, one has to wonder if Nixon’s desegregation efforts were undertaken with noble intent, or undertaken with an eye towards exploiting white anti-busing animus.

It’s impossible to know what’s in a person’s heart, though it’s certainly easy to tell what’s on a person’s tongue. Perhaps Nixon’s horrid 1973 statement was a reference to national attitudes regarding miscegenation, as opposed to his own. Perhaps Nixon was privately conflicted about his decision to maintain Goldwater’s unofficial policy of writing off the black vote. Perhaps Nixon was the most misunderstood President in US history, his Watergate crimes notwithstanding. Perhaps this is all true; perhaps none of it is.

Clearly, Nixon had a conscience regarding race at one time; there were many white politicians (including scores of Democrats) who would have been scared to stand up for black rights with the boldness Nixon exhibited in the late-1950s. What went wrong in Nixon’s mind? Why did he join Goldwater in the foolish, sad decision to write off the black vote?

Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” was not destructive in its intent, but it was pernicious in its effect. Today, de facto racial segregation pervades our political system, with few Republicans of color holding prominent elected positions. Yes, I’d like to believe that liberal Democratic propaganda is wholly responsible for this disparity, but I know that’s not entirely true. The GOP’s concession of the black vote to Democrats—a policy conceived by Goldwater and ratified by Nixon—gave rise to this racial split. It has wounded us all, politically and psychologically.

I know Nixon was a human being. Despite his crimes, despite his words, despite his political gamesmanship, I know that he had a heart, a heart that once recognized injustice. Why did that heart grow cold? Why did he, in effect, endorse political segregation in 1968? Why couldn’t he foresee the damage his actions would do to this country? Why couldn’t he understand that the “Southern Strategy” would ultimately scar the GOP?

Maybe he did answer that question—on a tape that hasn’t been released yet.

The New York Times profiles Ben Vargas, a Hispanic plaintiff in the recent US Supreme Court decision striking down a rather bizarre form of affirmative action.

UPDATE: From Linda Chavez and Charles Krauthammer.

How do you solve a problem like Sarah Palin?

Let’s face it, the Alaska Governor and 2008 Vice Presidential candidate is the Michelle Obama of the right—a woman loved by those who share her ideology and detested by those on the other side of the political spectrum. The very sight of Palin irritates progressives to no end. Why is that?

The latest assault on Palin comes from the house organ of cultural progressivism, Vanity Fair. In a 9,000-word article entitled “It Came from Wasilla,” national editor Todd S. Purdum shamelessly demonizes Palin, characterizing her as a de facto dictator and doofus who had no business becoming a governor, much less a potential Vice President. “Palin is at once the sexiest and the riskiest brand in the Republican Party,” Purdum sneers. “Her appeal to people in the party (and in the country) who share her convictions and resentments is profound… Whatever her political future, the emergence of Sarah Palin raises questions that will not soon go away. What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? Why did so many skilled veterans of the Republican Party—long regarded as the more adroit team in presidential politics—keep loyally working for her election even after they privately realized she was casual about the truth and totally unfit for the vice-presidency? Perhaps most painful, how could John McCain, one of the cagiest survivors in contemporary politics—with a fine appreciation of life’s injustices and absurdities, a love for the sweep of history, and an overdeveloped sense of his own integrity and honor—ever have picked a person whose utter shortage of qualification for her proposed job all but disqualified him for his?”

The article says more about Purdum—and the target audience for this piece—than it does about Palin. With what can only be described as a spirit of hate, Purdum smears Palin as the most foolish figure ever to enter Republican politics, a mystery woman who seems to fear the mainstream media. “Palin is a cipher by choice,” Purdum spits. “When she chooses to reveal herself, what she reveals is not always the same thing as the truth. Her singular refusal to have in-depth conversations with the national media—even Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney, among the most saturnine political figures in modern American history, each submitted to countless detailed interviews over the years—has compounded the challenge of understanding who she really is.” Of course, Purdum seems to understand who she really is: a woman with a “deep ignorance about most aspects of foreign and domestic policy” who “has captivated people who would never have given someone with Palin’s record a second glance if Palin had looked like Susan Boyle.”

It’s hard to determine why Purdum and his ideological ilk find Palin so antagonizing. Fred Barnes, a Palin supporter and executive editor of the Weekly Standard, asserted on the July 1 edition of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” that “…liberal elites, and the media, which is a big part of the whole liberal elite class, and even some Republican elites hate Sarah Palin. They loathe her. And it’s not really political. Liberals don’t think she is a serious challenger for the presidency, but they hate her anyway. It’s cultural. She’s everything they don’t like — [a] middle class, working class woman who is pro-life and is a serious Christian. Culturally they hate her, and they take every chance to pound her.” I’m not necessarily sure this is the case: it may be that the left sees Palin as someone who is being promoted by the same “right-wingers” who gave us George W. Bush. Considering how Bush performed as President, their concerns about Palin are somewhat understandable. However, their hatred is not.

As Barnes suggested in passing, the Vanity Fair piece has exposed some deep fault lines within the Republican Party regarding Palin. It’s virtually impossible to be neutral about Palin if you’re a conservative or a Republican: either you secretly share the left’s contempt for her, or you’re a Palin cheerleader.

Is it possible to be neither? I consider myself a Palin skeptic. I respect her accomplishments and understand why she has captured the imagination of the GOP’s conservative base, but I do wish she had Jeane Kirkpatrick’s vast knowledge to go along with Ronald Reagan’s charisma. Palin’s understanding of world affairs is not at the “beginner” level, as Purdum suggests, but it’s clearly at the “intermediate” stage—and “intermediate” isn’t good enough in this day and age.

I do believe there are times when Palin-mania gets out of control: on such prominent conservative websites as Hot Air, it’s practically forbidden to say anything even mildly critical about her. I also resent the belief in some conservative quarters that one is not a “real” conservative pundit if one does not rhetorically gratify Palin in columns and media appearances: I felt like giving Charles Krauthammer a mental high-five for his fair criticism of Palin on the July 1 “Special Report” broadcast, because Krauthammer is one of the few right-leaning pundits who can raise questions about Palin without running the risk of being stripped of his conservative street cred.

Palin deserves neither extreme hate nor extreme love. She is neither devil nor deity, just a flesh-and-blood woman who’s accomplished a lot for her age and background. She will likely never become President, but many great men and women will never become President. However, unless she is scarred by scandal, she will be a player in Republican and conservative circles for the next two decades.

The mainstream media should leave Palin alone. If she is really a deviant demagogue, she will collapse and fail like the demagogues of days past. Beating up on her is irresponsible and irrational—and after all, it’s not nice to hit someone with glasses on.

Justice came to a group of white and Latino firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut earlier this week, when the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 (in Ricci v. DeStefano) that the city of New Haven had illegally discriminated against them by throwing out the results of a promotional exam they had performed well on merely because “not enough” blacks earned high scores. The result was a victory for those who oppose the more exotic (and unconstitutional) forms of affirmative action. It was also a victory that, under different circumstances, could have come to folks in Boston nearly two decades ago.

In September 1989, 35 white men filed a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging that they were the victims of diversity-based discrimination. According to a September 15, 1989 Boston Globe story (“Whites File Suit for Fire Department Jobs”), “all of those seeking the remedial action scored 100 on a December 1987 civil service exam. They allege in the suit that their civil rights were violated by preferential treatment in hiring given to people of ‘black and Spanish-surnamed origin,’ even though those candidates scored lower on the exam.”

The plaintiffs desired the termination of a federal consent decree controlling hiring in the Boston Fire Department. The decree, enacted in 1974 by the late US District Court Judge Frank H. Freedman, was intended to resolve a 1972 lawsuit (Boston Chapter, NAACP, Inc. v. Beecher) alleging systemic discrimination against blacks and Latinos who wished to become firefighters in Boston; it ordered the Fire Department to hire one black or Latino candidate for every white candidate hired until the percentage of blacks and Latino firefighters employed by the city of Boston matched the percentage of blacks and Latinos who were residents of the city.

Unfortunately, the plaintiffs could not obtain relief from the federal courts. In June 1991, the late US District Court Judge Walter J. Skinner issued a summary-judgment ruling in favor of the city. The plaintiffs appealed to the US District Court of Appeals for the First Circuit: in July 1992, the appeals court upheld Judge Skinner’s earlier ruling, declaring that the hiring policy was narrowly tailored to fulfill the government’s compelling interest in remedying past discrimination against blacks and Latinos. It was a bitter defeat, not only for the plaintiffs, but also for those who believe that changing the targets of discrimination is not the best way to stop discrimination. After the US Supreme Court refused to “grant cert” (i.e., hear an appeal of the First Circuit’s ruling), the plaintiffs abandoned their dream of becoming Boston firefighters.

Thankfully, the legal terrain shifted between the early-1990s and the early-2000s, allowing another group of plaintiffs to successfully challenge the city’s fire department hiring policy. In 2001, five plaintiffs– Joseph Quinn, Sean O’Brien, Robert Dillon, Joseph Sullivan and Roger Kendrick, Jr.–sued the City of Boston, alleging that they had been discriminated against by the one-for-one policy, which they contended was no longer valid because the percentage of black and Latino firefighters on the Boston force now matched the percentage of blacks and Latinos in the city. In May 2002, US District Court Judge Richard Stearns ruled in favor of the city; however, when the firefighters appealed, the First Circuit overturned Stearns’ decision, ruling in March 2003 that the consent decree had fulfilled its original goal and was thus no longer valid. Sadly, after losing the case, the City of Boston had to be dragged kicking and screaming into actually hiring four of the five plaintiffs.

It’s shameful that it took so long for justice to take effect in Boston. Yes, something had to be done to bust up the old-boy network that existed prior to the early-1970s litigation; obviously, qualified black and Latino applicants should not have been denied the chance to become firefighters based on something as insignificant as race. However, the same goes for qualified white applicants.

The Boston Fire Department cases prove that if there’s one thing conservatives and liberals have in common, it’s a desire to rail against federal judges when they make rulings that go against certain ideological precepts. I remember the columns the late Boston City Councilor James M. Kelly wrote in the South Boston Tribune in the late-1990s and early-2000s criticizing Judge Freedman’s 1974 consent decree (he repeatedly claimed that the Boston Fire Department never intentionally discriminated against blacks and Latinos in the decades prior to the 1972 lawsuit, and that the establishment of the consent decree was an early example of political correctness run amok). Karen Miller, an official with the Boston Society of Vulcans (an organization that advocates for more racial diversity in the Boston Fire Department), was just as vehement after the First Circuit’s 2003 ruling; according to a March 28, 2003 Globe story (“Court Halts Racial Decree For Fire Dept.”), Miller claimed that the pro-colorblindness ruling was a “gross injustice [that] has been done to future applicants of color,” presumably applicants who didn’t score high enough on the test.

I was always uncomfortable with Kelly’s criticisms of Judge Freedman; after all, it can be argued that his hands were tied by the 1971 US Supreme Court decision in Griggs v. Duke Power. I was certainly uncomfortable with Miller’s criticisms of the First Circuit; the court made the only logical call in finding for the plaintiffs.

Hopefully, the rulings in Quinn v. City of Boston and Ricci v. DeStefano will lead to a better situation—one that values merit and diversity while avoiding discrimination.

T. K. Farrow asks: How can Republicans attract a critical mass of black voters? Hey, I have an idea: Find a time machine and set it to go back to 1964. Then, find Barry Goldwater, slap him upside the head, and tell him to join Everett Dirksen and other Republicans in voting for the ‘64 Civil Rights Act. Then, set the time machine to return to 2009. Voila! Problem solved!

This month marks the fifth anniversary of one of the greatest disasters in Massachusetts history: the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

The four-day shindig at the TD Banknorth Garden (then known as the FleetCenter) benefited one person—and unfortunately for Presidential aspirant John Kerry, it wasn’t him. Overall, the event was a dull, uninspiring affair, one that may have temporarily raised the spirits of loyal Democrats but in the long term did little to help the party’s prospects of wresting power from then-President George W. Bush.

The convention wreaked havoc on the average Bostonian’s work schedule, damaged small businesses and ultimately didn’t do much for the city’s economy. In short, it was a near-complete wash.

The Democrats were especially motivated in 2004. The economy was still on somewhat shaky ground in the wake of the early-2000s recession, and the controversy surrounding the Iraq War was increasing along with the body count. Anti-Bush sentiment was seemingly off the charts, with Fahrenheit 9/11 in movie theaters and Air America on the airwaves.

Note that it was anti-Bush sentiment, not pro-John Kerry sentiment. The progressive Massachusetts Senator lacked Bill Clinton’s charisma and Howard Dean’s appeal to the party’s hardcore base; he only became the Democratic nominee due to the perception that he was “electable.”

In early-July, Kerry selected North Carolina Senator John Edwards as his running mate, prompting the Boston Herald to declare that the ticket was to the left of Ted Kennedy politically. Edwards certainly had far more personality than Kerry, but it was hard to envision Edwards being one heartbeat away; if anything, Edwards was the Sarah Palin of 2004 in terms of perception. Nevertheless, Kerry prepared for Boston and for Bush.

As it turns out, it was poor preparation. With one notable—and historic—exception, the ’04 DNC was a never-ending series of sleep-inducing speeches from past Democratic luminaries—Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton(!). The lame catchphrase “Stronger at home, respected in the world” was repeated over and over and over and over and over. John Edwards’ “Two Americas” speech came across as dated and hackneyed. Teresa Heinz Kerry’s speech seemed to be a parody of feminism, instead of an expression thereof. Kerry “reported for duty” on the last night of the convention, only to deliver a horrible acceptance speech that should have qualified him for a dishonorable discharge.

Of course, there was one moment of greatness in the otherwise mediocre convention: Then-Senate candidate Barack Obama’s keynote speech on July 27. Even if you regard Obama as The Ultimate Socialist, you cannot deny that his speech was strong, insightful, intellectually stimulating, patriotic. With stirring, clear rhetoric, Obama declared that the American Dream was still alive, and that his life story was a testament to its vibrancy. As he put, “the true genius of America” is “a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.”

Obama wisely attempted to change the perception of the Democrats as the party of chronic government dependency:

“Now, don’t get me wrong. The people I meet — in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks — they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead, and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted, by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon. Go in — Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach our kids to learn; they know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things.

“People don’t expect — People don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all.

“They know we can do better. And they want that choice.”

In the best portion of the speech, Obama condemned the politics of division:

“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of ‘anything goes.’ Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

“The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end — In the end — In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?”

By the time he walked off the stage, every intellectually honest Democrat wished Obama had been the nominee instead of Kerry—and every intellectually honest Republican wished Obama had Clarence Thomas’ politics along with Ronald Reagan’s gift of oratory.

Obama became an icon that night; he was the only winner in a convention of losers. Kerry left the convention convinced that he would replace Bush as President; little did he know that the circus surrounding the convention (Michael Moore and Carter palling around, the aforementioned Sharpton speech, etc.), would only energize Bush supporters.

Five years later, the memory of that convention is both hilarious and depressing. The Democrats certainly didn’t cover themselves in glory with that event, Obama’s stellar speech notwithstanding. However, the outcome of the election was the destroyer disguised as savior for the Republicans, as Bush stumbled through his second term and unwittingly set the stage for Obama’s Electoral College landslide four years later. Boston certainly witnessed a disaster, but the disaster only lasted four days. For the Republicans, the disaster ended up lasting four years…and it hasn’t ended yet.

David Brooks and Thomas Sowell on health-care reform.

George Will, Walter Olson, Clint Bolick, Jonathan Tobin and Hugh Hewitt on the Ricci case.

UPDATE: More from Abigail Thernstrom, Thomas Sowell, Jeremy Rabkin, Human Events, Linda Chavez, David Frum, Walter Olson and Wall Street Journal.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has taken so many unfair shots over the past two decades that it seems strange when one hears legitimate criticism of the man. However, Thomas deserves the heat he has received for his bizarre dissent in a June 25 ruling concerning the rights of public school students.

Thomas was the only Justice who rejected the court’s logic in Safford Unified School District v. April Redding. The case concerned Redding’s daughter Savana, who was a 13-year-old honor student at Arizona’s Safford Middle School in the fall of 2003. Another student had accused Savana of distributing prescription-strength ibuprofen (Advil) in violation of school policy; the school’s assistant principal summoned Savana to his office and questioned her about the other student’s allegation. Savana denied the claim, and allowed the assistant principal and his female administrative assistant to search her backpack. After they failed to find any weapons of mass pain relief, the administrative assistant, acting on the assistant principal’s orders, took Savana to the (female) school nurse’s office; both women searched Savana’s outer clothing, but failed to find any Advil. “Finally,” Justice David Souter wrote in his majority opinion, “Savana was told to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree. No pills were found.”

Humiliated by the strip search, Savana informed her mother; she sued the school district and the administrators involved in the search, arguing that Savana’s Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. Federal judge Nancy Fiora ruled against the Reddings, as did a three-judge panel of the US District Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; however, the full Ninth Circuit panel later ruled that the strip search was in fact a violation of Savana’s rights. The school district appealed to the US Supreme Court, which ruled 8-1 that the district crossed the line. (Souter and five colleagues also ruled that school administrators technically could not have known that the search was unconstitutional, though Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented on this point.)

Souter correctly noted that “…the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion. [The assistant principal] knew beforehand that the pills were…common pain relievers…He must have been aware of the nature and limited threat of the specific drugs he was searching for, and while just about anything can be taken in quantities that will do real harm, Wilson had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around, or that individual students were receiving great numbers of pills…Nor could Wilson have suspected that Savana was hiding common painkillers in her underwear. [School administrators] suggest, as a truth universally acknowledged, that ‘students … hid[e] contraband in or under their clothing’…[but] when the categorically extreme intrusiveness of a search down to the body of an adolescent requires some justification in suspected facts, general background possibilities fall short; a reasonable search that extensive calls for suspicion that it will pay off. But nondangerous school contraband does not raise the specter of stashes in intimate places, and there is no evidence in the record of any general practice among Safford Middle School students of hiding that sort of thing in underwear…In sum, what was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable.”

Not so in Thomas’ mind. In his stinging (and unfortunately wrongheaded) dissent, Thomas argued that “The majority imposes a vague and amorphous standard on school administrators. It also grants judges sweeping authority to second-guess the measures that these officials take to maintain discipline in their schools and ensure the health and safety of the students in their charge. This deep intrusion into the administration of public schools exemplifies why the Court should return to the common-law doctrine of in loco parentis…”

While Thomas may have a point about the general need to limit the role of the courts when it comes to the establishment of public school policies and the enforcement thereof, he’s mistaken with regard to this case. If school administrators are implementing disciplinary policies that effectively violate students’ Constitutional rights, why shouldn’t judges second-guess those policies?

Thomas incredibly claimed that school administrators “…had reasonable grounds to suspect that Redding was in possession of prescription and nonprescription drugs in violation of the school’s prohibition of the ‘non-medical use, possession, or sale of a drug’ on school property or at school events.” What reasonable grounds? The word of one student, a student who was apparently disgruntled with Savana? Why would that student have automatic, undisputed credibility? (Thomas noted that another student had accused Savana of serving alcohol at a party, a claim the girl disputed. Again, is this enough to justify a strip search?)

Thomas wrote that “…The reasonable suspicion that Redding possessed the pills for distribution purposes did not dissipate simply because the search of her backpack turned up nothing. It was eminently reasonable to conclude that the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look…Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments…Nor will she be the last after today’s decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school.” Thomas evidently chose to ignore Souter’s point that it was not in fact reasonable to continue the search because “nondangerous school contraband does not raise the specter of stashes in intimate places.” Also, does Thomas really believe that, as a result of this ruling, public school children from California to Connecticut will start bringing all the drugs they can fit under their clothes to class? Seriously.

Thomas asserted that “Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment” before delving into a series of 1980s-era War on Drugs arguments of dubious relevance to this particular case. He also absurdly proclaimed, “By deciding that it is better equipped to decide what behavior should be permitted in schools, the Court has undercut student safety and undermined the authority of school administrators and local officials. Even more troubling, it has done so in a case in which the underlying response by school administrators was reasonable and justified.”

Thomas must have had a bad day. His dissent defends the concept of in loco parentis, but this concept is questionable when it comes to public schools. Do we really want public school administrators—some of whom may be motivated by prurience or prejudice—to have a unchallenged right to order strip searches for students based on unsubstantiated allegations of drug distribution?

Thomas remains an underrated Justice and a role model for conservatives of color, but his wisdom went missing in this case. Savana Redding was essentially raped without force, treated like a third-class citizen by overzealous, clueless school administrators. I never thought I’d say this about a conservative judge, but Thomas should have shown some empathy.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen tops the charts.

Austin Bramwell on William F. Buckley’s legacy.

Let’s not forget that there are millions of Americans who have no real memory of the late Michael Jackson.

Can it not be argued that Jay-Z is the pop-culture icon for those who came of age in the 1990s and 2000s, just as Jackson was the pop-culture icon for those who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s? Would anyone be surprised if, years from now, people talk about what it was like to hear “Hard Knock Life” or “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” for the first time?

Take nothing away from Jackson’s accomplishments, but those who are expressing their fondness for Jackson’s work are showing their age a little bit, just as those who still talk about Elvis Presley’s excellence reveal how many gray hairs they have. Yes, Jackson was one of the greatest entertainers of all-time—but for younger Americans, that title should be conferred upon Shawn Carter.

Jay-Z’s music is the official soundtrack for this generation. His beats and lyrics are embedded in the minds of those who will own houses, raise children and pay taxes in the 2010s and 2020s. They’ll talk about what it was like to buy The Black Album and Kingdom Come.

Every generation has a figure to worship, a person who can seemingly do no wrong. Jay-Z has already assumed that Elvis/Michael role for this generation. Presley made rock mainstream, Jackson increased the popularity of pop, and Carter made hip-hop the national anthem.

It was Carter who once and for all destroyed the notion that hip-hop was just a fad, a temporary musical trend that would fade away like grunge and disco. It was Carter who became the Billy Graham of hip-hop, the person who made the musical form a permanent fixture in the world’s consciousness.

Like Elvis and Michael before him, Jay-Z has been branded a negative role model by older Americans. Crusaders for civility in the 1950s lambasted Elvis for swiveling his hips, and morality monitors in the 1980s gave Jackson a thumbs-down for his crotch-grabbing antics. Carter has also been on the wrong side of the culture-war battlefield, although his image is not a completely negative one.
One can dislike some of the language in Jay-Z’s music while also giving him due respect for his tremendous business skills. When it comes to investing wisely, effectively promoting one’s own brand and knowing what the people want, he is in fact a positive role model. (Perhaps if Jackson possessed financial wisdom equaling Carter’s, he would have been able to avoid some of the problems that beset his final years.)

Say what you will about some of the themes in his music, but there’s a
certain class to Jay-Z; you get the sense that he’s mentally balanced, disciplined, shrewd enough to avoid the dangers that ultimately ensnared Elvis and Michael. He’s an American success story—a man who overcame disadvantage and an absent father to become the King of Hip-Hop and one of the sharpest business minds of the 21st century. In fact, it’s fair to argue that because of his status as a “normal superstar,” Jay-Z is a better role model for today’s children than Michael and Elvis were for yesterday’s.

Is Carter flawless? No, but who is? In a world running short on role models, should we throw him away because of past controversies? Or should we realize that those who look up to Carter could do far worse in terms of selecting a hero?

There are millions of Americans who are growing up in circumstances quite similar to those of Jay-Z’s youth. In him, they see a way out, a way beyond the projects or the barrio or even the economically struggling small town. Long before anyone ever heard of Barack Obama, Jay-Z represented hope to these Americans. He was, and is, their icon.

That’s a good thing. Sure, I have my issues with Carter: his rather irritating presence on some of Beyonce’s singles (couldn’t they have cut him out of “Crazy in Love?”), that line in “Things That U Do” where he described himself as a “product of Reaganomics” (huh?). Yet his talents as a musician and businessman are impossible to deny.

When Carter passes away, his fans will experience the same sadness that Jackson’s fans are currently feeling, the same sadness that Presley’s admirers felt in August 1977. Yet their sadness will be offset by the memories of his music and the largeness of his legacy. Until that day comes, Carter will remain America’s Icon—beyond any reasonable doubt.

Jonah Goldberg objects to the glorification of Michael Jackson’s passing. (Goldberg makes a number of legitimate points, but they’ll be dismissed by Jackson’s fans, who will naturally conclude that Goldberg would never say this stuff if Jackson were a conservative Republican who believed in the concept of liberal fascism.)

UPDATE: More from Dan Kennedy.

Andy McCarthy on conservative judicial activism.

The New York Times on why Hollywood studios keep hiring Eddie Murphy despite his flops.