More on Mister Peanut: While

More on Mister Peanut: While on campus this past weekend I learned a new term that I think will frequently come in handy. The term recognizes students who are more than mere brownnosers. Students who suck up to their professors with notable intensity over a long period of time are dubbed “ass clowns.” Peter Schweizer is a scholar of the Reagan presidency who has been digging in the archives related to Reagan’s predecessor. He has written a new book (“Reagan’s War,” out tomorrow) on Reagan’s strategy for the defeat of Soviet Communism. In a column based on the book, Schweizer demonstrates with considerable restraint that as president Mister Peanut was an ass clown for Communist tyrants. The column is entitled “Troubling Trophy.”
In addition to “Troubling Trophy,” National Review Online carries two other columns that should not be missed. In “Remembrance of Things Past” Victor Davis Hanson reviews the recent criticism of President Bush made by German politicians in the election that was just concluded. Hanson’s piece is powerful and provocative. Also not to be missed is the column “Like an owl exploding” by John Derbyshire. In the column Derbyshire gives a careful reading to the the sickening 9/11 “poem” by New Jersey’s poet laureate (sic), Amiri Baraka, the former Leroi Jones. I have read a lot about the poem, which has become something of a cause celebre, but Derbyshire’s column is really in a class by itself. The column concludes with a parody of Baraka’s poem that I will take the liberty of quoting in its entirety:
Somebody Stuck It To New Jersey Taxpayers
by John Derbyshire
Who took help from Jews when getting his scam started
Then turned and spat on them when a cozy sinecure came along
Who praises despots, wreckers of nations
Murderers, despoilers of innocence

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