The execution-style schoolyard murders of three college students in New Jersey should have once and for all convinced all clear-thinking Americans that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” sanctuary policies we tolerate in our cities should end now. There should be no bail ever for an illegal immigrant and every judge and district attorney should be required by law to determine the immigration status of apprehended criminal suspects, who should be deported immediately with no chance of returning in any capacity. Michelle Malkin has asked the right question: “Are we a sovereign nation or a sanctuary nation?” Government at every level is failing miserably at the most important duty of government—to protect its people. And I would add to that one that is a very close second—protect the sovereignty of the nation.

OK, so we didn’t get “comprehensive” immigration reform. Now it’s on to the next step, which is to strictly enforce the laws already on the books by securing the border, cracking down on outlaw employers, reminding state and local authorities that they have the constitutional authority to make arrests for violations of federal immigration laws, and penalizing sanctuary cities as well as visitors who overstay their visas. I cannot agree with the Texas Association of Business, an organization I once served as Chairman, or my favorite editorial page at the Wall Street Journal, that state and local authorities have no responsibility for immigration enforcement or that these measures will result in long term devastation to our economy or our relations with legal immigrants, whom we should certainly continue to welcome. The lengthy national debate on the proposed legislation had the beneficial effect of alerting Americans to the current woeful state of practice and neglect in our immigration policy, and they didn’t like what they saw. Now maybe we can proceed to answer Michelle’s question with authority.

As a former refugee of the commercial banking meltdown of the mid-1980s, I can’t help but hear some echoes of that period in the current fallout from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market bubble. Hopefully, we won’t repeat the mistakes that were made then in adopting the selective bailout procedures, the “too big to fail” strategies, the moral hazard practices, and the “we know it all” attitudes assumed by the regulators of that era that converted a $10 billion problem into an $800 billion debacle, much of it centered in Texas. I am pretty far removed from all of the surrounding issues now, but it seems to me that, so far, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke has played his cards just about right, supplying liquidity through open market operations, signaling support as a lender of last resort through the discount window, and refraining from lowering federal fund rate targets. And the last thing we need to do is increase the size cap for mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, institutions which are a large part of our problem in the first place.

As some have noted, this may be the first real test of the “new marketplace” of securitized debt obligations and segmented risk tranches that, however efficient in terms of allocation of risk, are very complicated to analyze from and underwriting standpoint and even more difficult to track in terms of ownership. In effect, in large measure we have separated the underlying business transaction from its ultimate financing source, thereby increasing the risk of metastasizing the problem. In the end, there will no doubt be more pain and some major corporate failures, but such is the price of the market discipline necessary to prevent a much larger meltdown.

John Edwards said it, and let the record reflect that for the first and probably last time, I agree with him when, in response to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez’s resignation, he responded, “better late than never”. I’ll try and be clear: He should never have been appointed in the first place and the job was way over his head, but for the President the entire issue of the firing of the U. S. Attorneys should have been a one-day event, as in “These people are political appointees, they serve at my pleasure, and I exercised my prerogative to replace them. Next item.” Instead we are treated to a six month soap opera and death by a thousand gaffes. The tendency of the Bush White House to self immolation seems to be pathological.

Now on to his replacement, who will have a number of very important issues on his or her plate, which can be summed up by one overriding consideration—restoring the executive authority of the President to protect Americans, beginning with the authority for the surveillance of our suspected enemies who want to kill us. On this point, Newt Gingrich had the following comment in a speech in New Hampshire in July: “{this war} will inevitably lead us to want to know what is said in every suspect place in this country,……to learn how to close down every web site that is dangerous…….we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to use free speech……..This is a serious problem that will lead to a serious debate about the first amendment.” In fairness, Gonzalez was pretty good on the issues of Presidential authority in matters of national security. Now the President should move quickly to send to the Senate a strong, conservative advocate willing to push the envelope on these points. No “moderates”, no “appeasement”; these are issues about which the American people feel very strongly. There are some good names floating about; for what it’s worth, my first choice would be former Solicitor General Ted Olson.

Stephen Hayes wrote a great piece on Dick Cheney recently in the Wall Street Journal, and I couldn’t help but be struck by the comparison with the shallowness of what passes as serious political discussion in, for example, the “debates” among the presidential candidates, particularly Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton. Further to my “questions for the frontrunner” in the last issue, I wonder when they will be required to answer the serious national security questions and the questions about how they plan to pursue this war after January 2009. Back to Cheney, who says to Hayes, “This is not Desert Storm. It’s not Korea. It’s not World War II. This is a struggle that will go on in that part of the world for decades… We just have to have people to understand that and understand that the alternative is not peace… it is not to go back to the world before 9/11.”   Serious indeed. 

Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson.

This book has been on the NY Times best seller list for many weeks now, to no surprise. It is a very well written chronology of the life of a man whose exploits have become larger than life and the stuff of near-mythology for many among the generations who shared the past century. But more than that, it is a fascinating study of the life of a mind in pursuit of the elusive independent and objective reality in which he passionately believed exists and is destined for man’s discovery. One quote from his writings that illustrates the humility and reverence he brought to the task: “A spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe—a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”
The Regensburg Lecture, by James V. Schall.

In September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI ignited a firestorm among fundamentalist Muslims with a passage from a lecture he delivered at the University of Regensburg in Germany. This is an excellent study of the lecture and its context by a Catholic theologian and professor of government at Georgetown University. Dr. Schall writes in his introduction that he believes this lecture to be the first of its kind that speaks to “the fuller dimensions of what our time is intellectually about”. After reading the lecture in its entirety and the accompanying analysis, I have no doubt that this might very well be the case. It is a compelling critique of the current predicament of the West and what must be done to repair the disorders of our public life.

What Went Wrong?, by Bernard Lewis.

Dr. Lewis is generally acknowledged as the dean of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies, and his reputation certainly precedes him. I have read a number of his essays and articles, but just now caught up with this bestseller, which was released just prior to the attacks of 9/11/01. The subtitle is “The Clash between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East”, and it is a widely acclaimed treatment. I must say, however, that I was somewhat disappointed. There is certainly much to be learned from his overview of the history of the Islamic cultures and their clash with modernity, but I expected more depth in his answer to the question he poses in the title. Pope Benedict has delved deeper and is more revealing on the philosophical wedges between Islam and the West and the cultural differences they have produced that are much more instructive on the question.

Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, by Heinrich Meier.

If you get the idea that this is not a “beach read”, you’re correct. I hesitated to include it, but Leo Strauss is one of my favorites, and the subject of this book by one of the leading interpreters of his work, the juxtaposition of religion and philosophy, revelation and reason, is one of the oldest and most important debates in Western civilization. Strauss was a master of these issues and this is a great treatment of his thought on them.