1) Today, I conclude my series on Dana Perino and her new book. She has given us much to chew on. I wanted to respond to, or comment on, virtually every page. I was fairly self-restrained, for me.
Let me relate one of my favorite stories in Dana’s book. Air Force One was touching down in Israel. Bush 43, putting on his jacket and straightening his tie, said to his personal aide and his advance man, “Look alive, boys! America has arrived.”
2) Because Leopoldo López is a leader of the Venezuelan opposition, and a political prisoner of the chavista regime, he is subject to attack by the international Left. I’ve watched this happen to Cuban political prisoners my entire life. People in free countries attack them, try to discredit them. These attackers loathe anyone who would challenge a “progressive” regime. They will do anything to prevent these prisoners from becoming symbols of democracy and dissent.
In this article, López’s lawyers defend him. Gratifying.
More than 30 years ago, I watched the Left do all it could to destroy Armando Valladares. Nothing has changed. (The Castros didn’t destroy Armando — and neither could our Left. They did serious damage, of course.)
3) In this article, Mauricio Claver-Carone tells us about a Chilean legislator, Felipe Kast, who traveled to Cuba. Because he has a conscience, Kast sought out dissidents. Indeed, he marched with the Ladies in White. And was beaten and arrested for his troubles.
As Mauricio says, our own legislators — American legislators — troop down to Havana to schmooze with the Castros and other officials of the regime. They are comfortable with the persecutors; with the persecuted, not so much.
Can you imagine a Jeff Flake or a Pat Leahy marching with the Ladies in White? Exactly.
4) Last week, I had occasion to mention one of my favorite pieces of the 1990s: Byron York’s investigation into Bill Clinton’s cheatin’ ways on the golf course. The occasion was a Washington Postinvestigation into Donald Trump.
A reader writes,
In his brilliant essay, York saves his best observation for last: Essentially, Clinton may have committed fraud in a land deal, may have dirtied his hands over Filegate, but cheating at golf — now, that’s serious business.
I’m reminded of my favorite line in one of my favorite sports movies, The Longest Yard (the Burt Reynolds original, I hasten to add, not the Adam Sandler remake). Reynolds plays a former pro football quarterback who was kicked out of the league for shaving points, then sent to prison after stealing his girlfriend’s car, evading the police, and finally dumping the car into either the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean (the movie takes place in Florida).
Reynolds goes to prison thinking his status as an ex-football star will make him popular with the inmates, but they all (with one exception) treat him like a pariah. He is flabbergasted, and finally asks the one friend he has made: Why do the guys hate me?
I thought of the friend’s response when reading York. It is this: “All I’m saying is that you could have robbed banks, sold dope, or stole your grandmother’s pension checks, and none of us would have minded. But shaving points off of a football game? Man, that’s un-American.”