Over the years, I have written a fair amount about golf, and a fair amount about golf and honor. I did so as recently as August, here. The subtitle of that piece: “Did Trump really have a round of 70? Did Kim Jong-il have a 34?”
You may have heard about Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 golfer in the world, and his act of sportsmanship during the Presidents Cup. For an article about this, go here, and for a video, here. I’ll be brief …
Scottie was paired against Nico Echavarría, from Colombia. An American fan yelled in the middle of Nico’s backswing, prompting an errant shot. When the two golfers reached the green, Scottie conceded to Nico a very long putt—32 feet—resulting in a tie on the hole. (Neither golfer gained or lost ground.)
Scottie was making up for the fact that the fan had done Nico dirty.
That’s golf. Scheffler is a genuine golfer, in addition to a great and historic one.
***
I was thinking about the Iran war, and thinking: you and I have a right to know what our war aims are. Can you say with confidence what those aims are? Has the president articulated them, or have others in his administration done so?
Early on, Trump & Co. talked about the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program and the liberation of the Iranian people. What about now? This is no light matter.
I, for one, don’t know what our war aims are. And I think I’ve done a pretty good job of paying attention.
***
You may have seen this news. I have linked to a report by Michael Crowley in the New York Times, and I will quote at some length:
For decades, the flags of the 190 or so countries with which the United States maintains diplomatic relations have hung above the State Department’s main atrium, greeting visitors with a menagerie of symbols, creatures and colors.
Today, however, they are gone. Each one has been replaced by an American flag, forming a red, white and blue row perhaps 100 feet long in what could be the highest density of stars and stripes anywhere outside a flag factory. …
The change has touched a nerve in diplomatic circles, where many State Department veterans call it an embarrassing symbol of the Trump administration’s showy brand of nationalism.
I remember seeing those flags—the flags of the world—when I was a student. I thought the array was impressive.
And what the Trump administration has done is far from patriotism. It does not even qualify as nationalism. It is childish, bespeaking an insecurity that ought to be foreign (pardon the word) to the American.
(Have you read the Evelyn Waugh novel Put Out More Flags? It’s a winner—which does not distinguish it from other Waugh novels.)
***
A friend of mine asked whether I knew about Manuel Quezon. I did not—had never heard of him. Quezon was the president of the Philippines from 1935 to 1944. I’m very glad to know about him now.
My friend sent me this article by Matt Neal, which begins,
In 1939, more than 1,200 Jews were saved from the horrors of Nazi concentration camps by a man with a list.
While many people know of Oskar Schindler—the hero made famous by Thomas Keneally’s novel and Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List—there was another man with another list.
Namely, Manuel Quezon. All honor.
***
Kevin D. Williamson and I are on the same beam, as usual (I’m glad to say). He writes,
I never have liked, accepted, or used the label “Never Trump.” That is not because I have any reservations about the principle that one should never support a man with the character and temperament of Donald Trump for any public office, much less that of president of these United States. … Rather, I prefer to describe myself and my views in my own words and resist the descent into semiliterate hashtag-based conversation.
Do you know? I have never used the phrase “Never Trump” about myself or anyone else. Ever. I think there is something petulant about it, bringing to mind a child stamping his foot and saying, “Never, never!”
I am anti-Trump. I have stated and explained this from the beginning—for example in this article, written in May 2016. Trump had just clinched the GOP presidential nomination, and I was leaving that party, for the reasons I gave.
Still, for some years, people asked me, “Why don’t you like Trump?” What they meant was: “We are on the right, he is the leader of our team, why don’t you get with the program? You’re not a commie, are you?”
Obviously, they never knew me or read me (not that I blame them). (Some of my nearest and dearest don’t read me, although they do know me.)
Listen to the president, speaking yesterday: “Kim Jong-un is a friend of mine. He likes Trump. Doesn’t like a lot of other people. I’m about the only person in the entire world that he likes. And I like him.”
I won’t get into a lot of autobiography—I published a piece called “A Political Testimony” on Election Day 2024—but let me say this: A major reason I became a conservative, many years ago, was anti-communism. Opposition to monstrous dictators, moral clarity on the subject.
That has vanished on the right. Gone with the wind.
***
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. I did not originate that sentence. Socrates did. Or Confucius did. Someone did, ages ago.
And it is true. President Trump is a big renamer of things. “Say ‘Gulf of America,’” not “Gulf of Mexico.” “Say ‘Department of War,’” not “Department of Defense.” “Say ‘Lake America,’” not “Lake Ontario.” And now: “Say ‘super intelligence,’” not “artificial intelligence.”
Trump’s people have hopped to on that one, as on everything else. Watch the ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz, here. Pathetic.
As for me, I quote Nancy Reagan: just say no. No. To take merely the latest change: I will not go from “AI” to “SI,” in part because “SI,” to me, means “Sports Illustrated.”
***
All right, let’s turn to something truly controversial: opera. You think there’s fanaticism in politics? In the last few days, I have reviewed two performances at the Met—of La bohème, here, and Così fan tutte, here.
Enter the fray …
***
When I was leaving the opera on one of those nights, the ballet was letting out too. Across the Lincoln Center campus, a father walked with his daughter. She must have been nine? She was in ballet “gear,” dancing along—dancing across the plaza. What could be better? Bliss.
Thank you for reading, my friends, and subscribing if you can/want. Hugely appreciated. Later on.
Google AI’s answer to a question about a commenter’s criticism of Jay’s thinking “[we] have a right to know what our war aims are.”
GOOGLE AI:
The critique is philosophically legitimate because it raises a valid conceptual problem in the philosophy of law and ethics: whether a "right" can exist if its object is impossible, non-existent, or undefined. However, its conclusion relies on a questionable analogy.
In philosophy, rights are typically understood to correlate with duties. For a right to exist, it must be possible for someone to fulfill the corresponding obligation. The critic argues that "war aims" are often non-existent, shifting, or structurally impossible to define in real-time geopolitics. Therefore, asserting a right to know them is as empty as asserting a right to a biological impossibility like a 200-year lifespan—it is a "spherical ethical claim in a vacuum" because the object of the right does not exist in reality.
However, a defender of the original statement would argue the analogy is flawed:
• The nature of the object: A 200-year lifespan is a biological impossibility. War aims, by contrast, are a political choice. If they do not exist, it is because a government has failed to define them, not because they are inherently against the laws of nature.
• Rights as demands: In political philosophy (especially democratic theory), asserting a "right to know" is often a demand for accountability. It means the government has a moral duty to create and communicate those aims before sending citizens to war.
"I was thinking about the Iran war, and thinking: you and I have a right to know what our war aims are."
Is it philosophically legitimate to assert a "right" to something that doesn't exist? I think the "right to know what our war aims are" is equivalent to a "right to a 200-year lifespan." The spherical ethical claim in a vacuum may be asserted, but there's neither this nor there to the object.