Kristol Clear #173: Hobby Horses

[open] View this email as a [webpage](. October 16, 2017 Your weekly newsletter direct from the keyboard of Bill Kristol, featuring timely observations and reflections. Baseball playoffs I thought I'd spend this newsletter on two of my hobby horses—baseball and the Acela. (If you can't ride hobby horses in your own newsletter, when can you?) (By the way, how did a term—hobby horse—meaning a [toy]( made from a [long]( [stick]( with a [shape]( like a horse's [head]( at one end, that a [child]( [pretends]( to ride, come to mean metaphorically a [subject]( or theory that an adult [talks]( about or even obsesses about? Let me know the results of your researches or theories.) Anyway, baseball. First, do join me in sending thoughts and well-wishes to my colleagues Jim Swift and Rachael Larimore, fervent Indians fans who are doing their best to recover from their team's loss to the Yankees in the first round. Rachael wrote a lovely piece for us as the playoffs began, "[A Prayer for the Cleveland Indians;]( but the baseball gods didn't heed her prayer. Jim Swift watched, by his count, no fewer than 90 Indians games this year on his computer, and was ready to cap the joyous week of the birth of twins with an Indians' victory—but the baseball gods' baby gift to him was not the thrill of a Cleveland victory, but the agony of defeat. Fortunately, The Weekly Standard is a warm and caring work environment, so you can be sure everyone said only considerate things to Rachael and Jim. No one would have done anything insensitive like retweeting a tweet from ESPN's Darren Rovell pointing out that the Indians have lost their last 7 winner-take-all playoff games, and have won only 3 of their last 20 potentially series-clinching games. Oh, I did that? I feel terrible... Not that I have grounds to crow. My picks to play in the World Series, the Diamondbacks and, yes, the Indians, went down in the first round. Actually, a lot of us are in a similar boat—a majority of the entrants in our competition have a team winning the Series (usually the Indians) that's already gone from the playoffs. I'll keep you informed of developments in the contest. Meanwhile, the playoffs have been exciting so far, and one trusts they'll keep us entertained through October. (By the way, if you'd like to read a terrific sports article—based on detailed and shrewd analysis of the game, but also written with verve and style—[take a look at this piece by Tom Boswell]( in Sunday's Post. I think you'll enjoy it even if you don't care about the Nats, and to some degree even if you're not a baseball fan—since the article is about the human psyche, not just sports.) * * * ADVERTISEMENT [TWS House Ad]( * * * As you may have gathered from previous newsletters, I spend a fair amount of time on the Acela train between D.C. and New York. So it was nice for those of us who frequent that mode of transport to get recognized by the New York Times a couple of weeks ago. Here are a few paragraphs from Alex Burns' witty account of the the sociology of this not-particularly-notable train, in an article entitled "[Zippy Amtrak Train Gets Entangled in 'the Swamp']( Sebastian Gorka’s voice rippled with contempt as he announced, on behalf of Donald J. Trump, that the old Washington establishment was obsolete. Declaring it was time for “new ideas,” Mr. Gorka, then a White House aide, packed disdain into a cryptic phrase that could have been borrowed from science fiction — a space-age update on the Bolsheviks’ “dustbin of history.” “We’re not going to stay in the Washington bubble,” Mr. Gorka [proclaimed on television]( “or the Acela corridor of wonkery.” With its Asimovian name, wielded these days as a vaguely derisive epithet, the Acela might sound to an untrained ear like something exotic, even menacing. The reality is far more pedestrian: The Acela is a train.... Sinister cabal or not, the Acela people are an orderly bunch: They march on board in single file, a loose column of pressed shirts and tightly packed totes, rolling luggage and newspapers folded under their arms. When they disembark, they are slightly rumpled, perhaps more than slightly late, agitated by splenetic tweeting and an excess of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee that sells for $3.50 in the cafe car.... What passes for railway intrigue now is less romantic: In 2013, a liberal activist caused a stir by live tweeting an indiscreet telephone conversation between Michael Hayden, the former C.I.A. director, and a reporter. In 2007 Arianna Huffington wrote of having eavesdropped on Bill Kristol, the conservative columnist, as he enthused about the White House’s messaging on the Iraq war. Mr. Kristol, [no friend of the current White House]( remains an Acela loyalist, and he has embraced the “Acela corridor” designation along with unfashionable labels like “establishment” and “globalist.” When a Trump supporter taunted him online earlier this summer, saying Mr. Kristol never made a crowd chant like the president, Mr. Kristol fired back on Twitter: “I’d normally be too modest to report this, but crowd WAS chanting ‘Kristol Kristol Kristol’ as I boarded Acela this a.m. at Union Station.” Mr. Kristol said his affection for the train was partly tongue-in-cheek, calling it “no great shakes.” He described the Acela’s atmosphere with a gentle irony some people reserve for friends and family. “If you haven’t ridden the Acela while trying to prevent your Dunkin’ Donuts coffee from spilling,” Mr. Kristol wrote in an email, “while also pretending to ignore nearby riders, who include three McKinsey consultants energetically discussing their spreadsheets, two Europeans vividly lamenting the state of America, and a lawyer sharply berating a junior associate for his failings, have you really lived life in the New York-D.C. corridor to the full?” Read the [whole thing.]( I should add that I scorn what so many others embrace on the Acela, the "quiet car." And so I was pleased to see Joe Queenan join in ridiculing the soft totalitarianism of the quiet car enforcers this weekend in the Wall Street Journal: "As time went by, the quiet car was repurposed as a full-scale social-engineering laboratory. Quiet cars became the arena in which the Forces of Good were arrayed against the Forces of Evil. Poised like cormorants, quiet-car denizens would lie in wait for their prey, hoping that some hapless salesman would stride into the Sanctum of the Soundless while speaking on a cellphone." How true. [Read Joe's whole polemic here](. So if you're in the neighborhood—see you on the Acela. But never on the quiet car! * * * Onward. Bill Kristol * * * From This Issue [On Capitalism and Its Discontents]( By Christine Rosen Oakland, Calif. "I want to start by acknowledging the indigenous people of this land and honor them. Nonindigenous people are guests on this land." It’s a balmy evening in late July, and I’m in the audience for... [Bye-bye Boy Scouts]( By The Editors On October 1, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) announced that it would accept girls into membership. Beginning next year, Cub Scout programs will admit girls, with the ultimate goal of allowing girls to progress to the rank of Eagle Scout. ... [The 'Nudge' Nobelist]( By ANDREW FERGUSON We call it the Nobel prize in economics, but the Nobel that Richard Thaler won last week is technically a prize in “economic sciences,” and that bit of self-puffery (Oh, we’re scientists now, are we?) is fitting. Thaler is a pioneer of... [Cover]( Oct 23, 2017 Not a Subscriber? Subscribe & Save - Conservative Intelligence - Satirical Wit - Foreign Policy Insight - Sophisticated Perspective - Much more... This email was sent by: The Weekly Standard A MediaDC Publication 1152 15th Street, NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20005 We respect your right to privacy - [View our Policy]( [Manage Subscriptions]( | [One-Click Unsubscribe](