Thursday roundup

Readers of The Atlantic offer this hour's proof that this is still post-America and that it is still late in the day:

Atlantic asked readers to submit their choices for “Worst Leader of All Time.” It was the liberal magazine’s “big question” for its January/February 2017 issue. And while tyrannical leaders like Hitler and Pol Pot appeared in some of the responses, so did George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, and those American presidents were deemed fit to print.

This was the submission by author Laurence Leamer (The Price of Justice):

I was thinking of Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, when the goofy, smiling face of President George W. Bush appeared out of nowhere. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions, was a major factor in the dismemberment of nation-states, and the tally goes on.

Then, this from TV Land co-host Bryan Safi (Throwing Shade):

Ronald Reagan. Tens of thousands of gay men were wiped off the map simply because he refused to speak, much less act. What’s worse than ignoring a national health crisis while you stuff your face full of jelly beans and your wife reads her horoscope in the next room?

National Review’s David French took issue with The Atlantic’s decision to actually publish the "nonsense" some of its readers believe as in agreement:

Here’s a quick way to know if you’re unhinged. If someone asks you, “Who is the worst leader of all time?” and your response is any American president – much less presidents Reagan or Bush — you might need medication…

Why is the The Atlantic catering to this nonsense? It’s a serious journal that publishes some of the best content anywhere on the web, but it’s also susceptible to the broader trend of mainstreaming radicalism. 

Indeed, that’s one of the primary sins of the mainstream media writ large. It still produces well-reported and well-reasoned content, but in part because of its connection to fever-swamp academia and fringe Hollywood, it grants respectful hearing to incandescently idiotic ideas.

In other words, French continues: “In the age of Trump, watch for most of the Left to treat media responsibility as entirely one-sided. It’s up to conservatives to police their own, while the Left is free to unleash ‘provocative’ ideas. Fox News needs to watch itself, while The Atlantic grants a platform to extremism.”

Always love smackdowns of lefty pronouncements whose authors think they have penned the Last Word on whatever the subject is. Thus it was a delight to see Megan McArdle's refutation of Kevin Drum's assertion in Mother Jones that the problem with the "A"CA is that the Freedom-Haters didn't go bold enough on funding it.

Speaking of gummint spending, this one is pretty funny. It echoes Margaret Thatcher's famous quote about other people's money. Former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $20 million of his own money to get an initiative about background checks for gun sales on the ballot in Nevada. And it passed! One little hang-up: the FBI, a federal entity as its name implies says, "we're not putting up the money to make it happen."

Putin and Erdogan spoke by phone to finalize details of a ceasefire in Syria. The respective countries over which they preside, Russia and Turkey, have decidedly different interests in Syria's civil war, with Turkey being preoccupied with keeping the Kurds from amassing more political power, and Russia seeking to strengthen its axis with Assad and Iran. Three noteworthy points: one, given the splintered nature of the forces opposed to Assad, who will represent the "opposition" in enforcing a ceasefire; two, what of those jihadist opposition groups that are not much interested in what anybody has to say, and three, once again, post-America is so sidelined as to not even be a party to what is going on.

Not sure how long it's taking you to get through this roundup, so we'll call this next item next hour's proof that this is still post-America and that it is still late in the day:

A university literally named after George Washington and located in the nation's capital just dropped its requirement for American history, for history majors. In order to graduate with a history degree from George Washington University (GW) in Washington, D.C., you do not have to study American history.

To make matters worse, the department said they made this stunning decision in order to kowtow to current trends and make history more popular. This change comes among other updates to the curriculum: history majors will no longer be required to take foreign language classes, can do an electronic capstone project instead of the traditional thesis, and will not have to study European, North American, or U.S. history.

"I think the main gain for students is that they have a great deal more flexibility than they had before, and they can adapt it to whatever their plans are for the future," Katrin Schultheiss, chair of the history department, told The GW Hatchet. "Whatever they want to do, there's a way to make the history department work for them."

In 2016, GW implemented a new funding formula, allocating money to the various departments based on the number of students enrolled in that major's classes. Each school receives $301 for every student in a class, incentivizing majors like history to offer classes that will be popular.

Indeed, enrollment in history has dropped since 2011, when there were 153 history majors. Only 72 undergraduate students majored in history in 2015, while 83 did so in 2016, the Hatchet reported.

Theodore Dalrymple at City Journal on the UK Guardian's truth-twisting headline "Far-Right Party Still Leading in Dutch Polls Despite Leader's Criminal Guilt." What Geert Wilders is "guilty" of is saying that the Netherlands should have "fewer Moroccans." In other words, his "conviction" was merely an attempt to stifle free speech.