Gaetz Goes Down

◼ Just eight days after his nomination was announced, Matt Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration as Donald Trump’s second-term attorney general. In Gaetz’s own words, he had become a “distraction.” That Gaetz was ever advanced is a testament to the willfulness of President-elect Trump. That Gaetz’s advancement was halted so quickly is a testament to the enduring importance of the Senate. It is proper for the chief executive to be accorded a good deal of latitude when selecting those who will carry out his agenda. But that latitude ought not to be infinite. In Federalist 76, Alexander Hamilton contended that, in such cases as there are “special and strong reasons for the refusal”—especially in such cases as the country was witnessing the “appointment of unfit characters from State prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity”—the Senate had the responsibility to exercise its advise and consent powers and block the choice at the pass. Matt Gaetz is an unfit character in almost every way that it is possible for a nominee to be. That he will get nowhere near the office for which he had been named is a blessing—and a reminder, too, that our system of separated powers was designed for good cause. Next up: Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, who will face ethics questions of her own but, we trust, none as lurid as Gaetz has.

◼ Enough is enough: It is time for the U.S. government to take decisive action against the International Criminal Court. The ICC has just issued arrest warrants for Israel’s sitting prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for the “war crime” of defending their nation against Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that carried out the October 7 atrocities—which are best understood as part of the multi-front war of aggression waged against the Jewish state by the jihadist Iranian regime, Hamas’s sponsor. The ICC is a radical and power-hungry tribunal that purports to exercise jurisdiction even over such nations as the United States and Israel, which are not parties to the enabling 1998 Rome Treaty. Here, it purports to act on behalf of “Palestine,” which not even the U.N. recognizes as a nation. The charges of “genocide” are preposterous. The population of the Palestinian territories has grown more than tenfold since the “genocide” supposedly began in 1948. Since October 7, Israel has waged a heroically humanitarian defensive war, making efforts to shield and nourish Palestinian noncombatants (their widespread support for Hamas notwithstanding) even at the cost of increasing the casualties and risks sustained by the IDF. The United States must impose severe sanctions against ICC officials (as President Trump did in 2020, when the ICC purported to exercise jurisdiction over U.S. military operations in Afghanistan). Beyond that, sanctions should also be imposed against any of the 120 Rome Treaty member states that fail to renounce the arrest warrants against Israeli officials. Where are Senate Democrats and the Biden-Harris administration?

◼ Bob Casey and the Democrats tried and failed to steal an election. As of this writing, according to the state website, Republican Dave McCormick has 3,398,462 votes and incumbent Democratic senator Casey has 3,382,113. That is a margin of 16,349 votes. Back on November 1, the Pennsylvania supreme court reaffirmed that a state law requiring mail ballots to have handwritten dates on the return envelopes is constitutional. But four counties in Pennsylvania—Bucks, Philadelphia, Centre, and Montgomery—declared they would count those ballots anyway, in open defiance of the law. And they were not shy about it; Neil Makhija, the Democratic chairman of the Montgomery County election board, told the New York Times that the date requirement “is immaterial and serves no purpose.” That’s not his call. In a tantrum, Bucks County commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia absurdly contended, “I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country, and people violate laws any time they want.” She also serves on the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, and in her limited defense “on” does not mean “against.” The state supreme court felt compelled to weigh in again, with pointed terseness. Casey belatedly withdrew late on Thursday, past the point at which he could have salvaged any dignity.

◼ Trump has announced the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, which, notwithstanding its name, will not be a government entity but rather an outside advisory group to study the bureaucracy. We welcome the elevation of government waste and poor service to a more prominent place in the national discourse. It harks back to the Grace Commission under President Reagan, when a lengthy report detailing government failures was compiled and published, an idea Reagan first implemented as governor of California. Most of the Grace Commission’s recommendations were, however, ignored. It does not appear that the DOGE’s recommendations will be any more binding. DOGE leaders Musk (the name is a reference to dogecoin, his favorite cryptocurrency) and Vivek Ramaswamy are tweeting up a storm, but it will take more than tweets to disentangle the government-employee unions, territorial politicians, and regulatory superstructure that have made the bureaucracy the sprawling mess that it is.

◼ In a speech to the Knesset, Benjamin Netanyahu revealed that a “specific component” of Iran’s nuclear program was hit as part of Israel’s October 26 air strikes, which were launched in retaliation for Tehran’s October 1 ballistic-missile attack on Israel. It had been widely reported throughout October that the Biden administration was pressuring Netanyahu to avoid Iran’s nuclear sites or its oil infrastructure. When the counter-strike finally came, it at first appeared that Jerusalem had indeed limited its operation to Iranian air defenses and missile-production facilities. But U.S. officials later revealed that a top-secret nuclear-research facility at Parchin had been targeted and destroyed. The site, known as “Taleghan 2,” was not part of Iran’s declared “civilian use” nuclear program. The mullahs and their henchmen have been so far reluctant to acknowledge the strikes and their significance, because it would reveal that they had been violating Tehran’s commitments, such as they are, to refrain from developing nuclear weapons. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi insisted in a statement that “Iran is not after nuclear weapons, period,” and the Israelis seem determined to help it keep this resolution.

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—BISHOP ROBERT BARRON, founder of Word on Fire

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◼ To describe as a car crash the first teaser ad for Jaguar’s new electric vehicle would be a fair metaphor, even though the video features no cars. Instead, a number of brightly clad, often androgynous models emerge from an elevator, and supposed edginess ensues. There is a hammer, there is a vaguely Martian landscape, there are slogans, including the surely superfluous instruction to “copy nothing.” Jaguar has been struggling for some time, and this was part of an effort to break the company’s links to its storied past and introduce a “completely transformed” brand. It may well succeed. Then again, hara-kiri results in a complete transformation, too. By Thursday morning, over 90,000 people had left comments, and rubberneckers had watched the clip over a hundred million times. There was, fittingly enough, dark talk of Bud Light, an earlier example of a marketing campaign designed to appeal more to an audience of progressive employees than to those whom the brewer had traditionally considered its market. That no one stopped Jaguar’s self-harmers shows how deeply progressive groupthink has penetrated the business world. But, as the company’s shareholders will discover, two plus two is still not five.

◼ An average student and self-taught computer geek, Carlo Acutis built the website for his Catholic parish in Milan, Italy. He built another to promote volunteer work. And then another, his magnum opus, to catalogue eucharistic miracles. Religious from an early age, he invoked the example of Jesus the suffering servant when his nanny urged him to defend himself against bullies in day care. His parents followed him, not vice versa, into the traditional practices and routines of the devout life. Daily Mass and Scripture reading, the rosary, and eucharistic adoration became his lifeblood and oxygen. As someone exposed to the sun gets a tan, so do those “who place themselves before the eucharist become saints,” he said, never shy to explain his drive to attain holiness. What teenage boy talks like that? A saint. Acutis, who often said he would die young, fell to leukemia in 2006, at age 15. At his request he was buried in Assisi, the capital of Franciscan spirituality. At Mass in St. Peter’s Square on April 27, Pope Francis will formally canonize him the first Millennial saint, a model of exuberant self-immersion in the ever ancient, ever new.

◼ Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born in 1933 on the South Side of Chicago. His home life was chaotic, to put it mildly. He had a lot to rise above. He found music, and knew that this was to be his career. Eventually, he studied with Nadia Boulanger, the great French teacher of composition. He was a trumpeter, a composer, an arranger, a producer. He produced Thriller, the Michael Jackson album, the best-selling album of all time. He collaborated with nearly everyone you have ever heard of in the jazz and pop worlds: Lionel Hampton, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra. . . . He wrote film scores (In Cold Blood, for example, and The Color Purple). He wrote the theme music for Sanford and Son, the classic sitcom: “The Streetbeater,” that piece is called. Awards are not necessarily a measure of ability, but he won 28 Grammys and was nominated for 80. The amazing Quincy Jones has died at 91. R.I.P.

◼ Ted Olson had a monumental career in the conservative legal movement, serving as solicitor general, head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Federalist Society organizer, and appellate advocate in private practice, arguing dozens of Supreme Court cases. He was at the center of a great many storms, winning respect for his legal acumen, his devotion to the separation of powers, his courage, and his gentlemanliness. Held in contempt for resisting a Reagan-era independent counsel, he challenged the statute in Morrison v. Olson, even when only Justice Antonin Scalia saw things his way; Congress later saw the wisdom of his case and let the authorizing law lapse. He led George W. Bush’s legal team in Bush v. Gore. He agonized over the phone with his wife Barbara as her doomed plane headed to the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Out of government, he argued and won Citizens United, limiting a statute he had felt compelled to defend as solicitor general. He fought for school choice and against racial preferences, and was formidable even when on the wrong side, as in his battles for same-sex marriage as a constitutional entitlement and for upholding the executive amnesty for illegal immigrants who came here as minors. Dead at 84. R.I.P.

◼ Formally speaking, Dick Allen was always known as “Richard V. Allen.” What did the “V” stand for? “Vincent.” For a half-century, he was a fixture of conservative foreign-policy circles. He was born on New Year’s Day 1936 in New Jersey. He went to Notre Dame. He worked in the Nixon White House. He became an adviser to ex-governor Ronald Reagan, and in 1977 they had an exchange, soon to be famous. It went something like this: “Governor, what is your aim in the Cold War?” “Well, Dick, my idea is: We win, they lose.” After the 1980 election, Allen served as Reagan’s first national security adviser. In his career, he was affiliated with several organizations, including CSIS, Hoover, and ISI. He was a knowledgeable and jovial guest on National Review cruises. He had particular expertise on Korea—the two of them, North and South. Richard V. Allen has died at 88. R.I.P.