American Exceptionalism

Originally published as a letter-to-the-editor in the Sioux City Journal, I wrote that for all of our faults as a country, we are still the greatest country in the world. Nowhere does that mean that there isn’t much work to do nor that we shouldn’t critically think of ways to improve and progress in the world. Here is my original letter. I am including Professor Guelcher’s response. He is a history professor at Morningside College and vice-chair of the Woodbury County Democrats. While I think Prof. Guelcher’s response is well-written, it’s fundamental flaw is that it doesn’t take into account that even Barack Obama acknowledged:

Four years ago, I stood before you and told you my story, of the brief union between a young man from Kenya and a young woman from Kansas who weren’t well-off or well-known, but shared a belief that in America their son could achieve whatever he put his mind to. It is that promise that’s always set this country apart… [my emphasis]

America is Exceptional (Jeremy Taylor)

SIOUX CITY–American conservatism is often derided by the left for exceptionalism, or the belief that as a country we’re different and exceptional, which sometimes leads to unilateralism. Two dangerous ditches exist: one is patriotic hubris blinding one to America’s faults while the other is self-deprecation which blinds one to America’s virtues. The ditch which the left all too often falls into is knee-jerk apologizing for America.

Now with the proper humility and balance, let me quickly dispense with the customary invocation which must precede, “I’m proud of America,” and that’s, “Of course, America isn’t perfect. We have our faults.”

But let’s take a look back. Collectively in the primaries, we saw a Kansas farmer, a Mormon business executive, a guitar-playing former Baptist minister, an Italian-American twice remarried prosecuting attorney, a decorated Vietnam veteran, a female lawyer, an African-American community organizer, a Hispanic gun owner. Now, the descriptors obviously are simplistic tags, but they aren’t meant to be reductionist or divisive.

The labels are meant to show that we have more social mobility in a diverse nation which cannot find compare even in Europe. Where else in the world can such diversity of candidates for executive office be found?

This year’s crop of candidates show that for all the supposed glass ceilings in American life, maybe the reason that the ceilings look clear is that they no longer exist the way they do in many parts of the world today.

American Exceptionalism: Superficial (Greg Guelcher)

SIOUX CITY — Exceptionalism, as any social studies teacher knows, portrays American history as a seamless story of inevitable progress and improvement.

American exceptionalism, however, makes for boring, superficial history. “Things have always been much better in America,” we’re told. Bad events such as slavery or racial segregation are explained away as mere anomalies destined to be overcome by the Great March of American Progress.

More worrisome, American exceptionalism is uncritical history. It skews the truth by privileging the positive and downplaying or ignoring the negative. A recent Letter writer’s example of exceptionalism is telling. Yes, it’s wonderful that such a diverse group ran for president in 2008, which suggests that America is generally more open and tolerant than many societies. However, an exceptionalist view too easily glosses over areas of needed improvement. Underlying distrust of Mormonism, for instance, arguably cost Mitt Romney votes among evangelicals who form much of the Republican Party’s base. Sexism helps explain our unproductive obsession with the clothing choices and physical appearances of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Finally, who could discount that ugly racial and religious bigotry incited mock lynchings and fueled many baseless yet tenacious charges against Barack Obama, such as that he was secretly a Muslim, or an angry black nationalist, or even a non-citizen?

Unquestioning patriotism is the poorest form of patriotism. American citizenship demands informed self-reflection; it requires that we critically assess our successes and our shortcomings and learn from both. Otherwise, we invite the sort of hubris that excuses abuse and encourages arrogance.

The Strange, Sad, Bizarre Story of Kevin Hart

Our culture seems fascinated with celebrity, and who hasn’t wanted to be the one all eyes were on? Especially in the midst of the Heisman, playoffs, and the flocking of hordes to have one touch, autograph, smile, be photographed, I have even wondered if my days were over to grab the spotlight in college football. The fantasy begins…Maybe I could be a kicker. I let the fantasy run until I remember that I stopped starting in high school football after my sophomore year, and not too many colleges recruit hard for kickers who max out at 30 yard field goals. But the fantasy didn’t stop for Kevin Hart, who faked his own recruitment to the U. of Cal and Oregon.

Read about Kevin here. He is 6′5″ and 300 lbs and could take a year off and get lean, tough, and mean. Then, two years into the junior college career, he gets a look by a D-1 school. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Kevin found a junior college who is desperate enough to take a chance on him?

For now, Kevin has a lot of letter-writing, apologizing, and owning up to do. Watch the video of Kevin’s recruiting announcement here.

Ishmael and Huck–Waters I Have Known

Recently, I was asked to name the top five American novels. Let me boil down the list to two: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In some ways, two books could not be different for I believe that in them, we have represented the two broad strokes in which the original American colonists found themselves, what Peter Brooks might call the Holy and the Rough.

Melville’s work takes place aboard the Pequod, which tries to catalogue a multitude of races and religions. In fact, Melville’s first novel Typee is the named pronunciation of the Taipis, a supposedly cannibalistic tribe in the South Pacific where Melville found himself after abandoning ship. So Melville takes up strange “heathen” customs, slavery in Benito Cereno and the South Pacific; however, he makes the Pequod a universal microcosm of the world at large. Yet for all its multifarious races, Moby Dick remains a New Englander’s novel told in Ishmael’s first person narrative.  The roots are Puritan, chewing over whether Ahab is “predestinated” for his tragic, vengeful end or whether his own character (instead of God) has “destined” him. The novel segways shortly after “Call me Ishmael” into a weighty sermon. In Melville, we have a respecter of forms, a patient cataloguer, John Adams, a Bacon Essayist, the fiery Oliver Cromwell, a bearded novelist, with a suit, a tie, maybe a frock, we have Plymouth, and names like Providence, Rhode Island.

Twain’s work takes place on an unnamed raft, an escape from the cruel world of austere orthodoxy (Miss Watson, Widow Douglas),quixotic friends who sacrifice slaves for games (Tom Sawyer) cheats and scoundrels (the King and the Duke), horribly abusive, wild-eyed fathers (Pap), and towns in Arkansas where chew-spitting and lighting dogs on fire is a good pasttime, families whose feuds end in death (Grangerfords), and the lynch mobs that dole out Southern justice in merciless fashion. The only saving grace and goodness seems to be in Jim, Miss Watson’s slave, for whom Huck will be sent to Hell merely by contravening society and–Huck believes–the Bible’s dictates. The roots are Cavalier, chewing over a thoroughly pessimistic view of society in which the “least of these” –an uneducated boy and a slave–develop a deep friendship by sharing a lust for freedom. The novel starts off with an address to readers, “You don’t know about me except you read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer…” In Twain, we have a respecter of the unconventional, the starry-eyed wink, Andrew Jackson, a Walter Raleigh adventurer dark from the New World, a mustached poet in a white suit dressing up as a woman at Christmastime, workman’s clothes, smoking a tobacco pipe, recalling the Great River, full of the kind of muscle developed in backwoods of Tennessee or piloting the Mississipi, the name of Hannibal.

Moby Dick and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn do share much of the same: navigating through waters, deeply concerned with sin and conscience, vividly bringing to life the weighty, glory of the deep and the devastating effects of unrepentant vengeance (Ahab’s bringing down the whole ship for personal gain) and vividly bringing to life the raffish, freeing beauty of the rivers and the devastating effects of enslavement (Huck and Jim are the respective slaves to the desires of all others until each finds freedom in the end.)

For their destinations, strangeness, wonderful characters, and deep thematic ponderances of sin and salvation, slavery and freedom, weakness and power, I find no deeper satisfaction than in navigating the waters through the eyes of Ishmael and Huck.

In Daniel Pawley’s “Never the Twain,” there is more discussion of the intersection of these two writers as seen in their observation of the world abroad. And Pawley goes deeper with insights into the two men.

Much more important, however, was the impact of the Middle East on the two acknowledged giants of American letters, Herman Melville and Mark Twain – giants because each contributed one novel which has a lasting place among the greatest novels ever written: Melville’s Moby Dick and Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .

As an admirer of geographically vivid literature, I have frequently consulted – for pleasure and instruction – the Middle East accounts left by Melville and Twain: the daily journals of their travels and the published books based on their observations. Read on…

I Have Felt God in the Storms

Rembrandt's Christ in the Storm...

I have just spent one of those long nights wrestling with the human soul. Martin Lloyd-Jones speaks of voices talking to us, e.g. thoughts, whispers from the enemy, past regrets, guilt, a sense of purposelessness. And on last night’s New Year’s, they seem to come in droves. Adding to that has been a subsequent dry spell of not being in the Word and a potent mixture of Dante, Bronte, ESPN, Internet, and lethargy over a 16-day vacation period.

What are we to do with such thoughts? Martin Lloyd-Jones say we ought not to listen to them. Easier said than done but not if we understand the powerful Welsh preacher’s  instructions for the prescription (he started off one of England’s most promising doctors). We will certainly hear the thoughts, e.g. “You took the wrong direction in life…”, “Wouldn’t life be nice if only…”, “How can you go to Heaven? If people really knew who you were, the secret sins and thoughts, the game would be up.” “What’s the point of reading the Word if you’re not going to go whole-hog and really be consistent about it?” Etc. Etc. Etc! But Lloyd-Jones says essentially that we must talk back to these thoughts and stop being such good listeners. Instead, we must start becoming great debaters and arguers using our one offensive weapon–the Word of God.

Here’s how Jones sees the Psalmist doing so, “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God (42:5a). Most of us never even ask the question of why we’re downcast. We cede the argument. I don’t know where the voice or thought originates–regret, the Enemy, a commercial–it doesn’t matter. We take the “you should have done this or that” and breathe a bit more heavily, and like Don Quixote imagining windmills to be giants, we fantasize something that’s not, seeing absolutely no downside to the supposed bad decision God let us make. To the suggestion that everything would have been better, we nod assent and pine for the sweet fantasy dream of “what might have been” and taste the bitter reality of only what is. Lloyd-Jones says we ought to use common sense (crying over spilled milk really never did clean it up), logic (fantasizing a perfect perfection of the road not taken doesn’t help my situation now), and over and above all–Scripture.

And so last night it was the most effective argument of, “Do you know who you are?” And the floodgates of past sins came to mind, e.g. “If people really knew…” Mostly, I cry “uncle” before the match has even begun, hand the medal to the opponent, and walk off the mat. It’s not much of a fight. Last night, by God’s grace only, I opened to Zephaniah, closed it, and opened to Hebrews where I read in 2:14:

Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He himself likewises shared in the same, through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

I boiled down all of my reading of Hebrews 1-4 to commands to trust, rejoice, and believe and whispered through haunting thoughts, “Rejoice. Relax. Rest. I’m commanding you, seriously. Will you do that? I’m a wonderful God who wants to release you from fear and bondage by what I accomplish. Therefore, take some joy in that. Believing me will help you relax. Did you read about who I am, and what I did? Trusting me will be evidenced by your rest.” And by God’s grace, I did. I woke up full of hope so much so that last night seems almost a distant memory.

Do you want to know the thoughts that have just come in? They’re whispering, “What about tomorrow? How long can this last?” And here is my answer to the whisper: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lam 3:23).

One last thought. Last night, I sensed God powerfully. There is a security in the most dangerous of times. I’m absolutely serious about saying that I’ve never felt more safe than in the times of my life when I found myself in great storms, both literally and figuratively. In Sioux City seven years ago, there was a terrible downburst that rent through huge oaks, sending one crashing onto our garage, and I thought the walls might come down from the howling 100 mph winds. My sister screamed and we ran toward each other on the second floor praying frantically as we realized both that my dad had been out on his motorcycle as we saw the walls tremble. Being thrust entirely on God, I felt a peace in the helplessness.

And so Psalm 107:27-30 shows the reaction of sailors to physical storms. Consider what a loving and sovereign God, who has control over your soul as much as every wave, can do if we take him seriously and speak these kinds of words to the sea storms of the human heart:

Those who go down to the sea in ships, who do business on great waters, they see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep for He commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up the waves of the sea. They mount up to the heavens, they go down again to the depths; Their soul melts because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunk man, and are at their wits’ end. Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble, and He brings them out of their distresses. He calms the storm, so that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet; So he guides them to their desired haven.

The Psalmist then can do nothing other than what is perfectly appropriate–praise such a God. And so I thank you, Lord.

Valkyrie–The Meaning of Resistance

Stauffenberg- Tom Cruise

“Attention must be paid to such a man.” While Valkyrie highlights the resistance made by Claus Von Stauffenberg, it doesn’t pay enough attention to the man himself. Valkyrie is a well-made, tightly woven story of a plot to assassinate the Fuhrer and save not only Germany via a truce with the Allies, but in doing so to save all of Europe. While the film contains much to be admired and ought to be seen simply for the compelling story, there is an element which is missing and that’s motivation which might be scripted more for the intensity that actors like Tom Cruise and Kenneth Branagh could bring to their parts.

Stauffenberg has sensed that Germany will be ruined under Adolf Hitler even before he loses his hand and eye in North Africa. While placing the missing element which would take the film from a very good, nodding assent to a sublime, cathartic, stopped-me-short-of-breath finale, we need to be taken deeper with Stauffenberg. Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Hotel Rwanda all make use of historical figures willing to risk lives for fellow countrymen. But in Schindler’s List, we are allowed to enter Oskar Schindler’s revelation at the end from a self-serving, hands-off businessman to the frantic look that selling his ring might have saved one more life. Adding to the films is the emotional impact felt of seeing Schindler survivors’ descendants, Private Ryan as an indebted older man, and the Rwandan orphans meeting with a hotel owner who, like Schindler, risked his job and then life for others.

Except for a brief diary entry and conversation, we know that Stauffenberg feels Hitler must be replaced or Germany fall to ruins, a conclusion that tells without showing. We’re wondering the American political intrigue question of “What did Stauffenberg know and when did he know it?” It is no small task to ask a director to seamlessly interweave flashback of family, an ascent in the ranks, the initial attraction of Hitler to Weimar Germany, and an a imaginary vision of what the country might look like with Stauffenberg’s vision. But absent this, Valkyrie works more as a historical docudrama with some high-intensity action scenes. Some layers are added by showing Hitler’s motivations in discussing Wagner and in his eerie address to the German people conveying that his survival of the assassination attempt was the hand of God.

Director Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) accomplishes a technique which gives Valkyrie as much emotional impact as it can absent a deeper look into Stauffenberg’s soul. He plays upon the camaraderie felt between Stauffenberg and his right-hand man whose eyes meet Stauffenberg’s before their fated end. And Stauffenberg’s eyes wander to a secretary whose repeated calls represent the only feminine reprieve from the male-dominated intrigue around him and whose continual attempts to reach his family fail.

Singer’s storytelling works well here, much like The Usual Suspects did, by withholding key information from the viewer. While inside Berlin, Stauffenberg and the others appear to have changed the course of history. Hitler is dead. “Operation Valkyrie” has initiated the arrest of all the SS Elite, and Stauffenberg’s men have replaced Hitler and Himmler with their own chosen leader. By confining the action to the compound, Singer is able to withhold the information that Hitler suffered but a minor burn and cuts, that the orders by Stauffenberg to arrest SS Elite were discovered to be rogue orders instead of actual ones, and that their seeming history of changing the 20th century landscape of Europe had become a hiccup in one section of Berlin for a brief time. Thus, the words of Hitler dismissing the assassination attempt show that for all their work, they affected Hitler to have a mere, raised-eyebrows, shrugging of the shoulders. The effect for Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators, however,  is certain death.

And so they die. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young German pastor, had a purpose for his death, which was to lay down his life not only for the good of humanity but because he revealed long before in his writings that grace was costly. Grace cost something (the Cross) and demanded a cost, that one pick up his own cross and follow. Bonhoeffer died in Flossenberg after walking naked to the gallows and being hanged with a piano string. 

See Valkyrie which is well-crafted because even without getting to really know Stauffenberg as a man, it is well worth knowing Stauffenberg’s noble deeds and those of his comrades.

America is Exceptional

American conservatism is often derided by the Left for exceptionalism, or the belief that as a country, we’re different and exceptional (which sometimes leads to unilateralism on the order of Mark Steyn’s America Alone.) And there are always the two dangerous ditches– one of vanity and hubris which blinds one to the faults of his country and the other, self-deprecation which blinds one to the virtues of it. The ditch which the Left all too often falls into is knee-jerk apologizing for America.

Now with the proper sophrosyne and balance, let me quickly dispense with the customary precursor and invocation which must precede, “I’m proud of America,” and that’s, “Of course, America isn’t perfect. We have our faults.”

I supported Mike Huckabee in the Republican primary. He ended up in second place. I supported John McCain for the presidency. He ended up in second place, which doesn’t bode well except if you want to have bragging rights over Bob Barr. Heck, I lost my own House race by 55 votes (again 2nd place), and I might be jinxing the Cornhuskers just by rooting for them against Clemson.

While I’m obviously disappointed with the outcomes and hope that Obama is constrained by promised moderation, let’s take a look back. Collectively in the primaries, we saw a guitar-playing former Baptist minister, a Mormon business executive, a Kansas farmer, an Italian-American twice remarried district attorney, a decorated Vietnam Vet, a female lawyer, a black community organizer, a Hispanic gun owner. Now, the descriptors obviously are simplistic tags, but they aren’t meant to be reductionist or divisive.

The labels are meant to show that we have diversity and social mobility and one cannot compare Europe (much less Asia or daresay Africa) to America. Where is there such a diversity of candidates for executive office? 

To extend the analogy, remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when Charlie and his Uncle Joe go and try some Fizzy Lifting drinks? Think instead of a dangerous fan that Charlie and Uncle Joe instead see the proverbial glass ceiling. From below, they  would actually only look up and see the sky for how could either one know how high he would reach until the ceiling stopped them from going higher? This year’s crop of candidates show that for all the supposed glass ceilings in American life, maybe the reason that the ceilings look clear is that they no longer exist the way they do in many parts of the world today.

A Long Hiatus

It’s been since April of 2008 since my last blogpost. For excuses, I will say that I ran a vigorous campaign for the Iowa House and door-knocking, speaking, and fundraising took every spare minute resulting in a loss by 55 votes of over 12,000 cast. In the future, I’ll be back with musings on politics, the world, and “deep thoughts.”

The Holocaust Declaration by Charles Krauthammer

Iran must know that an attack on our ally Israel will mean retaliation from the U.S.

On Tuesday, Iran announced it was installing 6,000 more centrifuges — they produce enriched uranium, the key ingredient of a nuclear weapon — in addition to the 3,000 already operating. The world yawned.

It is time to admit the truth: The Bush administration’s attempt to halt Iran’s nuclear program has failed. Utterly. The latest round of U.N. Security Council sanctions, which took a year to achieve, is comically weak. It represents the end of the sanctions road.

The president is going to hand over to his successor an Iran on the verge of going nuclear. This will deeply destabilize the Middle East, threaten moderate Arabs with Iranian hegemony, and leave Israel on hair-trigger alert.

This failure can, however, be mitigated. Since there will apparently be no disarming of Iran by pre-emption or by sanctions, we shall have to rely on deterrence to prevent the mullahs, some of whom are apocalyptic and messianic, from using nuclear weapons.

During the Cold War, we prevented an attack not only on the U.S. but also on America’s allies by extending the American nuclear umbrella — i.e., declaring that any attack on our allies would be considered an attack on the United States.

Such a threat is never 100 percent credible. Nonetheless, it made the Soviets think twice about attacking our European allies. It kept the peace.

We should do the same to keep nuclear peace in the Middle East. Read on…

Finally–Stephen Curry, the NCAA Dream Role Model

Unless you are completely oblivious during March (and without cable or having seen an entire March Madness game we nearly qualify), you have heard the name Stephen Curry, the diminutive superstar who is smashing records, has elevated virtually unheard of Davidson to the Elite Eight, and stands poised in the next hour to once again play David to Goliath Kansas. However, the used allusions of Cinderella, David, and the very word “upset” are starting to seem inappropriate given the talent which features at the forefront, Curry, son of former NBA star, Dell Curry. But the most attractive thing about Curry the Younger isn’t that he has averaged over 30 points a game in March, that his moves seem unreal as if the nation’s best defenders are moving in slow motion to his quick time, or that he looks as if he is 13 years old while LeBron James shakes his head at a reverse layup against Wisconsin I’m still trying to figure out. Plus, there have been a couple of times this season that Curry, who is averaging 34.3 ppg in the tourney, has outscored another team in a half of play. And yet the coolest thing about Curry is his character.

Take note. Every season we hear of the superstar who is facing assault charges at a bar, who took the Toyotas in exchange for signing, who smoked something or other, you get the idea. The thousands of student-athletes who work hard, study well, and display good character often fade from making headlines. But in Curry, consider the following:

1. Who he points to. When he makes a shot, there is an infectious excitement and joy on his face, but I have yet to see him point to himself, to rip his shirt off after a game and hold it above his head. In fact, Curry does what I’m sure is going to become very en vogue soon–points to Mom and Dad? That’s right. Thank you, Stephen, for showing a television audience that behind you there were countless shoes to be bought, encouragements after middle school losses and being told that 5′7″ and 120 lbs. weren’t big enough for college ball, and prayers.
2. What his shoes say. I read in a newspaper lead that on Curry’s shoes were written, “I can do all things,” and besides being brazened confidence, having seen the highlight films, I haven’t doubted it. But then I read on later in the article that Curry said, “Oh, that,” Curry said. “It’s Philippians 4:13. ‘I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.’ It’s always been one of my favorite Bible verses. … I realize that what I do on the floor isn’t a measure of my own strength. Having that there keeps me focused on the game, a constant reminder of who I’m playing for.” How often do you hear an athlete say that the game, his teammates, or his talent is not about himself?
3. How he compares himself to his teammates. “It’s nothing special that I do,” remarked a shrugging Curry on Saturday, a practice day before the Wildcats’ Elite Eight matchup with Kansas. “I just get screens from Andrew [Lovedale] and Thomas [Sander] and other big guys down low. … When I’m open, I get the ball, and I have a lot of confidence to shoot it. Nothing special that I’m doing.”
4. The advice that he would give to kids. “Don’t play for anybody other than your family, or God, or whatever you believe in,” Curry said when asked if he had any advice to offer. “It’s easy to get caught up in playing for the crowd, trying to play a game you’re not capable of. I found myself doing that a little bit in high school and early in my college career. I try harder not to do things that are over my head, not do anything too special. I’m more of a blue-collar guy.”
5. How he faces adversity. In high school, Curry was scouted by Davidson’s coach who witnessed him turn the ball over ten times but not try to make up for it. In the game against Georgetown, Curry went 1-12 before shooting the lights out. So many of us, not just athletes, seem intent on self-pity, explaining with excuses, or venting in anger at others. Curry shoots on.

Thank you, Stephen.

No One Left to Lie To: Where did the magic go? By Mark Steyn

About this business of Hillary coming under intense sniping, I have some sympathy. The Clintons got away with this sort of thing for so long that you can’t blame them for wondering how they missed the memo advising that henceforth the old rules no longer apply. Bill, being warier, was usually canny enough to set his fantasies just far enough back in time that live cable footage was unlikely to be available — his vivid memories of entirely mythical black church burnings in his childhood, etc. But Hillary liked to live a little more dangerously. The defining fiction arose back in the mid-Nineties when she visited New Zealand and met Sir Edmund Hillary, the conqueror of Everest, and for some reason decided to tell him he was the guy her parents had named her after.

Hmm. Edmund Hillary reached the top of Everest in 1953. Hillary Rodham was born in 1947, when Sir Edmund was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper and a somewhat unlikely inspiration for two young parents in the Chicago suburbs. If any of the bigshot U.S. newspaper correspondents on the trip noticed this inconsistency, they kept it to themselves. I mentioned it in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph at the time, but like so many other improbabilities in the Clinton record it sailed on indestructibly for years. By 2004 it was preserved for the ages in Bill Clinton’s autobiography, on page (gulp) 870: “Sir Edmund Hillary, who had explored the South Pole in the 1950s, was the first man to reach the top of Mount Everest and, most important, was the man Chelsea’s mother had been named for.”

Eventually, when it was noticed that Hillary was born six years before the ascent of Everest, Clinton aides tried assuring skeptics that her parents had seen a press interview with Sir Edmund in his beekeeping days, Mr. and Mrs. Rodham apparently being the only Illinois subscribers to The New Zealand Apiarist. Read on…