Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

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.

David Brooks and Gail Collins on Iran.

Michael Graham on the downfall of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

UPDATE: From Patrick Ruffini, Todd Feinburg, Michael Goldfarb, Scot Lehigh and David Frum.

Abigail Thernstrom on the Voting Rights Act.

UPDATE: More from Ramesh Ponnuru and George Will.

Thomas Sowell is right and wrong at the same time.

The legendary economist is correct about the consequences of the current infighting between various factions of the Republican Party. “A Gallup poll last week showed that far more Americans describe themselves as conservatives than as liberals,” Sowell notes in his June 23 syndicated column. “Yet Republicans have been clobbered by the Democrats in both the 2006 elections and the 2008 elections. In a country with more conservatives than liberals, it is puzzling — in fact, amazing — that we have the furthest left president of the United States in history, as well as the furthest left speaker of the House of Representatives.

“Republicans, especially, need to think about what this means. If you lose when the other guy has all the high cards, there is not much you can do about it. But when you have the high cards and still keep taking a beating, then you need to rethink how you are playing the game.”

There’s no question that the GOP needs to get its act together — largely because the party embarrassed itself with its repeated betrayal of conservative principles in the early— and mid— 2000s. It is in fact not a surprise that we now have very liberal figures calling the shots in Washington, after supposedly “conservative” figures demonstrated administrative incompetence and failed to live up to their oft-stated beliefs.

Sowell further notes that “The current intramural fighting among Republicans does not necessarily mean any fundamental rethinking of their policies or tactics. These tussles among different segments of the Republican Party may be nothing more than a longstanding jockeying for position between the liberal and conservative wings of the party…the only political party with any chance of displacing the current leadership in Washington is the Republican Party. That is why their internal squabbles are important for the rest of us who are not Republicans.”

He continues: “The ‘smart money’ says that the way for the Republicans to win elections is to appeal to a wider range of voters — including minorities — by abandoning the kinds of positions Ronald Reagan held and supporting more of the kinds of positions that Democrats use to get elected. This sounds good on the surface, which is as far as many people go when it comes to politics. A corollary to this is that Republicans have to come up with alternatives to the Democrats’ many ‘solutions,’ rather than simply be naysayers. However plausible all this may seem, it goes directly counter to what has actually happened in politics in this generation. For example, Democrats studiously avoided presenting alternatives to what the Republican-controlled Congress and the Bush administration were doing, and just lambasted them at every turn. That is how the Democrats replaced Republicans at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Here’s where Sowell is simultaneously accurate and inaccurate. Democrats weren’t under any obligation to propose new ideas: they simply declared that the GOP’s ideas were awful, and left it to influential third-party entities (academia, MSNBC, the New York Times and Washington Post, etc.) to repeat their claims ad infinitum. Republicans don’t have that luxury. If Republicans simply start running around yelling “Obama’s ideas are lousy!”, who will hear such claims besides fans of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, the Fox News Channel and the op-ed pages of the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal ? Sowell presupposes that there is now parity of penetration between conservative-leaning media outlets and progressive-leaning mainstream media outlets. That’s just not reality.

Republicans must develop rational alternatives to the Democrats’ alleged solutions to the problems of health-care availability and higher-education affordability. The GOP doesn’t have the propagandistic power to get away with being the “Party of No.”

Thankfully, Sowell concludes on a note of logical flawlessness. “Ronald Reagan won two elections in a landslide by being Ronald Reagan — and, most important of all — by explaining to a broad electorate how what he advocated would be best for them and for the country. Newt Gingrich likewise led a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives by explaining how the Republican agenda would benefit a wide range of people. Neither of them won by pretending to be Democrats. It was precisely the Republican ‘moderates,’ Bob Dole and John McCain, who lost disastrously to Democrats who had been scarcely known at first but who knew how to talk.” In order to win again, the GOP must find candidates with better ideas than the Democrats — and the ability to communicate those ideas clearly.

President Obama has no clue how to handle the crisis in Iran. I’d love to mock him for that–but I’m not sure how it should be handled either.

Normally, this would be an easy call: I’d join the conservative pundits and Republican politicians who say Obama should strongly support the Iranians who are protesting the stolen June 12 election. Why not stand with the forces of democracy, the forces allied against “re-elected” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

However, nothing about this situation is easy.

Nine times out of ten, I line up with the foreign-policy vision of the so-called “neoconservatives.” If “neoconservatism” is defined as the belief that the spread of democracy worldwide will lead to the lessening of international tensions, then consider me a devout follower. If I were President, I’d nominate William Kristol for Secretary of Defense, and Irving Kristol for Secretary of State.

Yet “neoconservatism” does have its limitations, and we may be seeing those limitations on display in the right’s general reaction to the Iran situation.

You don’t have to be a hardcore left-winger to realize that there may be unforeseen consequences if Obama gives an official thumbs-up to the protesters. We’re not terribly popular in Iran; we haven’t been liked since Operation Ajax. They didn’t hold fifty-two Americans hostage for fourteen months because they thought we were such nice guys.

As George Will pointed out in a June 21 appearance on ABC’s This Week, “…The people on the streets [in Iran] know full well what the American attitude toward the regime is. And they don’t need that reinforced.” Two days prior, Peggy Noonan touched upon a similar theme in the Wall Street Journal:

“To insist the American president, in the first days of the rebellion, insert the American government into the drama was shortsighted and mischievous. The ayatollahs were only too eager to demonize the demonstrators as mindless lackeys of the Great Satan Cowboy Uncle Sam, or whatever they call us this week…Should there at this point, more than a week into the story, be a formal declaration of support from the U.S. government? Certainly it’s time for an indignant statement on the abuses, including killings and beatings, perpetrated by the government and against the opposition. It’s never wrong to be on the side of civilization. Beyond that, what would be efficacious? It must be asked if a formal statement of support for the rebels would help them. And they’d have a better sense of it than we.”

Of course, the main problem with the idea of Obama endorsing the protesters is that the anti-Ahmadinejad activists backed a candidate who isn’t that much of an improvement over the incumbent, from a Western standpoint. We are supposed to believe that Mir-Hossein Mousavi is an Iranian moderate, that he will not burn with contempt towards Israel, that he is not the demented, demonic figure Ahmadinejad has revealed himself to be. In order words, we are supposed to forget that the former Prime Minister was allegedly involved in the October 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. It is hard to believe that certain conservatives who encouraged Americans not to forget about William Ayers’ history of radicalism in 2008 now apparently want Americans to forget about Mousavi’s history of radicalism in 2009.

Yes, there is an irresistible urge among American conservatives to support foreigners who appear to be freedom fighters, as well as an irresistible urge to expose Obama as a wimp. However, irresistible urges are the most dangerous urges of all, no?

My heart wants to criticize Obama for his caution, but my head does not. The “neoconservative” instinct—a basic instinct, if you will—compels me to denounce Obama as a coward, to declare that Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush would not have hesitated to use the Presidential bully pulpit to embrace the cause of Iranian democracy. Yet there are realities that temper this instinct—the realities of a complex situation in a complex world.

Is Obama wrong? Are the “neoconservatives” wrong? Are Will and Noonan wrong? Are the protesters actually wrong? Or is there no real “wrong” or “right” answer?

Has Obama shown real leadership with regard to Iran? Considering what’s at stake, is it even possible for him to do so?

The President is trying to be neither belligerent nor bland. It would be nice to see him be bold—but in this case, how does one define boldness?

Shamara Riley on the recent racial controversies involving the GOP.