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Ruth King

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Cutting to the Chase: Why Trump Was Driven from Office By David Solway

By on August 21st, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2021/08/20/cutting-to-the-chase-why-trump-was-driven-from-office-n1471233

“In plain language, resident complexities and interpretative assessments aside, Trump was a true president: forthright, unbeholden, and effective. From the point of view of America’s “ruling class”—entrenched political parasites, so-called “opinion leaders,” media collaborators, and wealthy oligarchs—such attributes are high crimes and misdemeanors for which the chosen culprit must be made to pay. There can be no absolution. He upset the apple cart. He fractured and exposed the inner circle. He offended the elites. And now he may even be planning his return. As if in a parody of the Book of Amos (2:4), whether for three transgressions or for four, Trump remains anathema for rejecting the law of the lords that be. ”

There has been no end of commentary dealing with Donald Trump’s turbulent presidency and the scandal of his electoral loss. There’s no doubt that from the day of the “grand escalator ride” (and even before) to the day of his departure from the White House, a social, media, and political upheaval was in progress, and would not cease even when he once again became a private citizen. Reasons pro and con for the debacle have proliferated since Hurricane Trump made landfall in America, but the issues are basically very simple and can be stated economically.

There were essentially three called strikes against him, all that was needed to count him out.

He was not “presidential.” He was considered crude in speech, rough-hewn in manner, and given over to bluster and hyperbole unbefitting the highest office in the land. For these transgressions, he could not be forgiven.
He was an outsider, the first president in American history with no military or political experience. He was not a politician, a general, a lawyer, or a holder of public office. He was never a member of the Beltway club, whether Republicrats or Democrats. He was not followed by a train of professional lobbyists, owed no political debts, did not accept a salary, and did not enrich himself when in power. For these transgressions, he could not be forgiven.
He was competent and proudly patriotic. He put America first, cutting taxes, renegotiating bad trade deals to the nation’s advantage, reducing a red-tape regulatory nightmare, making the country energy-independent and a net exporter of energy, rebuilding the military, defending the southern border, re-establishing global prominence, and connecting with the commons. For such transgressions, he could not be forgiven.

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Joe Biden ‘Leading the World’—Off a Cliff By Claudia Rosett

By on August 21st, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/2021/08/20/joe-biden-leading-the-world-off-a-cliff-n1471414

President Biden just delivered a speech on Afghanistan so rife with misdirection and mendacity that it’s hard to know where to start. But from the welter of Orwellian Newspeak, let’s pluck a line in which we find Biden praising himself for his handling of Afghanistan. Biden told us : “This is about America leading the world, and all our allies have agreed with that.”

If so, this is about America, under his stewardship, leading the world off a cliff.

Whatever the arguments for leaving Afghanistan or maintaining a minimal force, Biden and his advisors and planners (assuming there were any?) have delivered the worst of all worlds. Whatever the difficulties inherent in any retreat, this is a rout. The great American superpower has been chased out of its embassy, out of Kabul, out of Afghanistan, by the Taliban — who now surround the airport where Americans are fleeing for their lives, and Afghans who worked with them are begging for passage — if they can get to the airport at all.

This is a humiliating defeat, echoing way beyond Afghanistan. It is guaranteed to embolden America’s enemies and signal our allies that it is folly to trust America. China is gloating online, with propaganda organs putting out headlines such as this, from the Global Times: “U.S. will abandon Taiwan in a crisis.” Nor should we write that off as mere propaganda; there is a deeply alarming likelihood that this is exactly what Beijing, with its ringside seat (including an open embassy flying the Chinese flag in Kabul) is now calculating. Russia’s Vladimir Putin must be relishing the moment, fresh from telling Biden at a June summit that neither Russia nor China was interested in a U.S. military presence in Central Asia, once Biden completed his plans to pull out of Afghanistan. These predatory powers want America gone from their neighborhoods, and for their purposes, the more ignominious the departure, the better.

Nor is it going to reassure America’s friends and allies that Biden and his handlers are so busy trying to spin the story that they seem to have fetched up in some alternate universe. Biden began his remarks by stressing that the U.S. evacuation effort in Kabul is “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history.” He underscored that of all the countries in the world, only America is “capable of projecting this much power on the far side of the world with this degree of precision… .” Yes indeed, America is a mighty nation, and we can be proud of the astounding abilities and courage of our armed forces.

But as Biden, or his speechwriters, formulated this praise of the military, it serves chiefly to deflect attention from the atrocious planning and strategic idiocy emanating from the office of the commander-in-chief (including the decision to pull out weeks ago from Afghanistan’s commodious Bagram military base, near Kabul, leaving the commercial airport as the only escape route). This is not the Berlin airlift — in which America led a defiant support of freedom. In Kabul, the American troops ordered back in by Biden to carry out the evacuation have been handed a mission that boils down to America’s self-demeaning rush for the exit. If Biden is going to tout U.S. military power, he owes us all an honest explanation of why, under his command, this nightmare scene — with its iconic image of Afghans falling to their deaths from an American Air Force jet on takeoff — turned out to be the best America could manage.

There’s plenty more, including Biden’s bizarre claim that al-Qaeda is gone from Afghanistan: “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point with al Qaeda gone?” According to a report just this June by a United Nations panel of experts on these matters: “Large numbers of Al-Qaida fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan.” (These are topics on which even the UN tends to produce more reliable information than the Biden White House, which is doubly intriguing because, though we can’t tell for sure, it is quite likely U.S. intelligence has helped inform the UN report.)

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Iran Mullahs Closer Than Ever to Obtaining Nuclear Weapons by Majid Rafizadeh

By on August 21st, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17653/iran-obtaining-nuclear-weapons

The Biden administration… has made no efforts to pressure the Iranian regime into answering the International Atomic Energy Agency’s questions about three undeclared clandestine nuclear sites found in Iran.

“For objectivity’s sake, I should say that the Iranian government has reiterated its will to engage and to cooperate and to provide answers, but they haven’t done that so far. So I hope this may change, but as we speak, we haven’t had any concrete progress.” — General Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency, Seattle Times, June 7, 2021.

It seems — worryingly, especially after failures of both intelligence and planning in the Afghanistan debacle — that the Biden administration is again standing idly by while the mullahs of Iran comfortably keep enriching uranium to acquire a nuclear weapons arsenal.

We have seen what they do to their own people and the region when they do not have one. Just look at what has been called “the world’s greatest sponsor of state terrorism” has done when they have no nuclear weapons — both domestically to their own people, and internationally to Lebanon, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian territories and even Venezuela and larger South America… What then can the Free World expect that Iran will do after they have nuclear weapons?

The Iranian regime appears just a few months away from obtaining nuclear weapons, all while the Biden administration is completely silent and has not articulated any clear policy for preventing this dangerous and predatory regime from becoming a nuclear state like North Korea.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz told ambassadors from countries on the United Nations Security Council during a briefing at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on August 4, 2021:

“Iran has violated all of the guidelines set in the JCPOA and is only around 10 weeks away from acquiring weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon… Now is the time for deeds – words are not enough. It is time for diplomatic, economic and even military deeds, otherwise the attacks will continue.”

The Biden administration has been insisting on reviving the disastrous Obama nuclear deal and the theocratic establishment of Iran has evidently seen this as a perfect opportunity to buy time and inch closer to acquiring nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration first showed its desperation by making it clear to the Iranian leaders that the US wanted to return to the nuclear deal and was willing to lift all sanctions re-imposed by the Trump administration.

As nuclear talks began, the Iranian regime began advancing its nuclear program at a faster pace as the negotiations went on. The Biden administration not only remained silent in the face of Iran’s violations, it also started offering even more concessions to the mullahs. The Biden administration, for instance, announced not only that it was willing to lift nuclear-related sanctions, but also that it was considering lifting non-nuclear related sanctions.

Iran first began increasing uranium enrichment to 20% in January 2021. On January 9, the Iranian parliament passed a law requiring the government to expel the International Atomic Energy Agency’s nuclear inspectors. In April, the regime raised its uranium enrichment level to 60%, edging closer to weapons-grade levels. While his government was holding indirect nuclear talks with the Biden administration, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament, bragged:

“The young and God-believing Iranian scientists managed to achieve a 60% enriched uranium product. I congratulate the brave nation of Islamic Iran on this success. The Iranian nation’s willpower is miraculous and can defuse any conspiracy.”

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Confusion, Blame-Shifting, and Inaccuracy: Academia Reacts to the Fall of Afghanistan By A. J. Caschetta

By on August 21st, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/confusion-blame-shifting-and-inaccuracy-academia-reacts-to-the-fall-of-afghanistan/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=sixth

You may or may not be surprised by how the ‘experts’ are reacting to Afghanistan’s fall.

he nation’s foreign-policy and Middle East “experts” have blown it again, and academics are part of the problem. In the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, many are simply silent while others are expressing surprise. Still others can’t transcend their default position of blaming America.

Let’s start with silence. What is the Middle East Studies Association up to? Its Committee on Academic Freedom is very active when it comes to writing letters to governments that restrict access to education. Where is the letter to the Taliban demanding that women be allowed to learn how to read and write and universities should remain open?

What about the academics who have been teaching Afghans? What will happen to the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF)? Founded in 2006 with a grant from USAID, it bears the name “American” on its façade and claims to be devoted to “implementing an American higher education model.” Academics certainly thought highly of it — even more highly than they thought of American involvement there in the first place. According to Victoria Fontan, a professor of peace and conflict studies at AUAF, “the university is really one of the only positive U.S. legacies in Afghanistan that has no dark corners.” If Fontan is willing to speak about the U.S. effort in Afghanistan so caustically to CBS, one can only imagine what maligning might occur in her peace-studies seminars.

Many academics are simply reluctant to say or write anything at all critical of Islam or Islamism for fear of being branded an “Islamophobe.” Amazingly, this even applies now to the Taliban. According to ABC 6 Rhode Island News, Faiz Ahmed, an associate professor of modern and Middle Eastern history at Brown University, said that “it will take more than just one side to begin recovery efforts, including the U.S. and neighboring countries as well as the Taliban to honor universal and Islamic values.” Newsflash to Ahmed: The Taliban are quite confident they are restoring Islamic values to Afghanistan after 20 years of Western influence.

Of course, the default academic position for well over two decades has been to blame America for everything. Irfan Noorudin, director of the South Asia Center and professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, says that collapse of Ashraf Ghani’s government and takeover by the Taliban is “an indictment of U.S. policy under four American presidents dating back to 2001” and that our allies “increasingly must grapple with an America whose bark is stronger than its bite . . . and that lacks the ability to mobilize consensus around extended international engagement.” Ah yes, “international engagement,” the key to securing, er . . . American interests.

Some academics still can’t get beyond blaming Donald Trump for Afghanistan. Admittedly, negotiating with the Taliban has always been something of a fool’s errand, but every president since Bill Clinton has done so. We don’t know how Trump would have handled the withdrawal, but we know how Biden has mishandled it. That didn’t stop Ronald Stockton, professor of political science at University of Michigan–Dearborn, from saying that the fall of the Afghan government “was inevitable as soon as the Trump administration signed the Doha document agreeing to withdraw all U.S. forces if the Taliban would promise to behave themselves. . . . At that point, our allies within the country knew that it was only a matter of time.” The difference here (to use Stockton’s term) is that Biden didn’t make the Taliban promise anything. Stockton further admonished that “hyperventilating members of Congress are allowed to hyperventilate against Biden if they also hyperventilated against Trump. Otherwise, it is just shameless partisan treachery.” Stockton misses several points here: first, that nearly everyone wanted out of Afghanistan after 20 years of propping up a corrupt and inept government; and second, that for 20 years no major attacks on U.S. soil were plotted, directed, and launched from Afghanistan. He also overlooks Biden’s epic bungling of the withdrawal, which is precisely what everyone is “hyperventilating” about. Even a rank amateur knows to evacuate civilians before military personnel and to remove war materiel from the war zone instead of leaving it to the enemy.

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John McWhorter How ‘Woke’ Became an Insult

By on August 21st, 2021

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/opinion/woke-politically-correct.html

If you’re subscribing to my newsletter, you likely already know that I am a linguist who writes books and articles about the joys and mysteries of language. Others likely know that I write about race in America. Some of you know that I switch hit between both and sometimes combine the two. In my newsletter I’ll also be pitching in about music and other things that occupy me from week to week.

But for this first edition, I have chosen a subject that brings together the two things I get to write about most: language and race. Namely, just what has happened to “woke” lately?

It seems it was 10 minutes ago that it was the hot new badge of enlightenment, shared warmly as a kind of lexical bonding ritual, usually in the expression “stay woke.” To be woke was to be in on a leftist take on how American society operates, especially in reference to the condition of Black America and the role of systemic racism within it.

In 2012, people were using “stay woke” on Twitter with unalloyed pride. As late as 2016, you could find rosy-cheeked teens and 20-somethings all but chirping “woke,” such as in this earnest little guide to the latest slang.

No more. These days, “woke” is said with a sneer. It’s a prisoner in scare quotes as often as not (“Why ‘wokeness’ is the biggest threat to Democrats in the 2022 election”) and typically uttered with a note of condescension somewhere between the way comedians used to talk about hippies and the way anybody talks about, well, rather than a word beginning with “a” you’ll find discussed, among other places, here, I will sub in “jerks.”

The first thing that happened to “woke” was that it was borrowed from Black slang. It first appeared in neither a BuzzFeed article nor a rap but a jolly piece on Black vernacular expressions in 1962 in this newspaper called “If You’re Woke, You Dig It.” Many will be surprised that “salty,” as in “irritable,” another Black expression that white people have taken on of late, also occurs in this piece.

By the time something hits the page, we can be sure it had been around long before, and it’s a good guess that Black people had been using “woke” for at least a couple of decades before this. Lead Belly gives us a look at its likely origins when he urges people to “stay woke” in an afterpiece remark on a 1938 recording. He is referring to Black people being alert to actual physical danger; it would have been a natural evolution to start using “stay woke” to refer to more, as we say, systemic matters.

It was after 2010 that “woke” jumped the fence into mainstream parlance. Erykah Badu’s “Master Teacher” seems to have at least planted a seed, and then those “stay woke” salutes on Twitter in 2012 were in the wake of the Trayvon Martin killing, upon which the expression was truly set in stone.

There are those who will see the story of “woke,” therefore, as one of cultural appropriation. But that’s a narrow take. To refer to its uptake by whites as a kind of theft is one way to see it. But another way is to marvel at how bizarre it would have been as recently as the 1980s for white progressives to warmly embrace a term from the Black street as a sign of empathy with Black America’s problems — and as for the theft, Black English is mighty enough that legions of its slang words and expressions stay quite unappropriated, thank you very much. Clearly we can spare one or two now and then? In the meantime, while racism’s persistence is clear, people who like and at least halfway understand one another will talk like one another.

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Can the Biden presidency last much longer? By Thomas Lifson

By on August 21st, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/can_the_biden_presidency_last_much_longer.html

Democrats now understand that Biden has poisoned the Democrat brand, as proven by a shocking special election flip of a seat in a wealthy suburban district that Biden won by 25 points.

Though removal from office once was unthinkable, Joe Biden has lost the support of most of the key actors whose support helped him win the presidency, and whose cooperation is essential to maintaining the illusion that he is capable of fulfilling the duties of president of the United States.

Because impeachment or the 25th Amendment removal from office would hinge on their support — Democrat officeholders now understand that they are at risk of losing their next election thanks to his sullying of the brand of the party that foisted an already senile placeholder on the public.  In a special election Tuesday, voters in Connecticut’s 26th Senate District, who supported Biden by a 25-point margin, flipped a seat to the Republican candidate (hat tip: Christina Laila).

This is one of the wealthiest suburban constituencies in the country, encompassing Greenwich, Stamford, and New Canaan — people who read the New York Times and who care about foreign policy.

The earlier switch of affluent suburbanites away from Republicans over the past decade or more has been essential to Democrat victories in many blue states.  They believed media propaganda that Trump was an ignorant buffoon whose incompetence made America a laughingstock in the European countries they like to vacation in.  When they see headlines like this, even more such voters will be alarmed:

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Biden’s Press Conference Was a Feast of Disinformation Americans are forming the indelible impression that this president is incompetent Charles Lipson

By on August 21st, 2021

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/biden-press-conference-feast-disinformation/

Biden emerged from his cave, saw his shadow, and told us there will be three more years of winter.

That winter, descending upon America’s position in the world, was on public display at Biden’s Friday press conference about Afghanistan. It was a feast of disinformation.

No al-Qaeda in Afghanistan? Come on, man.

Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are enemies? Gimme a break.

Almost no one thought the Afghan army would fall apart this quickly? You might want to check your notes.

Our Nato allies agreed his decision to withdraw was wise? Ain’t so. Our most important allies are taking the very rare step of publicly blaming an American president.

We’ll know if terrorist groups form in Afghanistan because we have “over the horizon” capabilities? Over the rainbow is more accurate. We need resources on the ground to understand what’s happening.

And on and on and on with drivel and falsehoods.

How bad is this mess? So bad and so obvious that even the mainstream media, lap dogs for the last two years, began asking Biden tough questions. It’s unclear if they will follow up and inform the public about the deceptions, as well as the incompetence and bad judgment.

Yesterday, Juan Williams said the American people will soon forget this failure in Afghanistan. Not very likely. A friend of mine, reflecting on those pictures from the Kabul airport, rendered a much more profound judgment, “People cannot unsee those images.”

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Afghanistan’s Tragic Collapse And The Death Of U.S. Influence

By on August 21st, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/08/19/afghanistan-the-ugly-aftermath-and-the-death-of-u-s-influence/

It’s one thing to lose a war intentionally, quite another to botch it so badly that it damages our relations around the world. But thanks to the epic ineptitude of the Biden administration, our military leaders and dysfunctional intelligence agencies, that’s exactly what has happened.

The news couldn’t be more depressing. Our president’s response was, no joke, a strongly worded letter to the Taliban from our United Nations ambassador. At the same time, our own State Department informed U.S. citizens now stuck in the capital of Kabul that they should make their way to Karzai Airport if they can, but that the U.S. can’t guarantee their safety.

Even as the horrible images of the Taliban’s takeover come tumbling in over social media and news sites, the harm to the U.S. and its global reputation has been significant.

The Taliban has already started killing people, including a woman for not wearing a burka, while making up more comprehensive death lists of those who will be summarily murdered once it takes total control.

Here’s how the London Times describes the mayhem:

Despite pledges to be magnanimous, the Taliban have been accused of beheading prisoners, gouging out eyes and executing hundreds. Fleeing civilians have brought tales of girls forced into marriage or kidnapped as sex slaves. Video on social media shows Islamists pumping machine gun rounds into the bodies of captured Afghan policemen.

This is what the Biden administration’s ineptitude hath wrought. Now add to that the hundreds of Americans and other Westerners now stranded and cut off from leaving after Kabul’s main airport came under Taliban control “unexpectedly.”

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America the Indispensable Joel Kotkin Joel Kotkin

By on August 21st, 2021

https://quillette.com/2021/08/18/america-the-indispensable/

Post-millennium America does not look good at a glance. The country has struggled with the pandemic and with deepening divisions over race, class, inequality, and culture. It is in the humiliating process of losing another war, this time in Afghanistan. Since 2016, the world’s largest economy has been presided over first by the buffoonish and occasionally deranged Donald Trump, and then by an aging Joe Biden who bears scant resemblance to Franklin Roosevelt.

Yet, despite its manifest failings—the assault on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters was not a good image builder—the US remains the indispensable country, the last major counterforce to the rising authoritarian challenge of China, and its growing list of allies, including perhaps the new Islamist regime in Kabul. It remains, without question, the only nation with the natural resources, population, military, and technical skill to rally the West and salvage its threatened legacy.

The US routinely rises to the challenge late, a pattern evident in both World Wars, the initial period of the Cold War, the response to China’s late 20th century industrial juggernaut, and the terrorist threat. But in the end, it remains a huge and blessed land with enormous sokojikara, or “reserve power,” as Japanese political scientist Fuji Kamiya described it decades ago, that allows it to overcome competitors.

The case for America

Pessimism about America’s direction has resurged, following a brief improvement when Biden became president. According to an ABC/Ipsos poll, Americans’ optimism about the country’s direction has dropped 20 points since May. Concern is growing that the country is in a  precipitous decline, something that won’t improve with the bleak images from the Afghani debacle. Most Europeans believe that China will soon replace America as the world’s economic powerhouse. The Chinese, unsurprisingly, seem to feel the same. In a since-deleted tweet, Ministry official Zhao Lijian described Western efforts to slow China’s dominion as being “as stupid as Don Quixote versus the windmills … China’s win is unstoppable.”

So will our children—now living in unhappy and increasingly divided societies—grow up kowtowing to the Mandarins? Without America, that’s the future for the West and everyone else. Europe, politically divided, demographically stagnant, and anti-American, lacks the capacity and willingness to resist. Germany appears unwilling to stand up to either its largest trading partner, China, or to its now-favored supplier of energy, Russia. Weaker European states, such as Italy, the Czech Republic, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, and even rightwing favorite Hungary have signed up to be cogs in China’s “Belt and Road initiative.” Asia’s democracies can’t hack it without America. Japan is a rich but aging country that lacks much forward momentum, something that can also be said of South Korea. India is still too poor and chaotic to match China’s regimented power.

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‘Hero of Two Worlds’ Review: Lafayette’s Crossing The freedom-loving Marquis de Lafayette tried to import the ideals of the American revolution to his native France. By Mark G. Spencer

By on August 21st, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hero-of-two-worlds-review-lafayette-american-revolution-11629475529?mod=article_inline

Most readers of The Wall Street Journal will recognize Lafayette by name. One of the few non-Americans counted among the heroes of the Revolution, dozens of American towns, counties and streets are named for him. But what of the niceties of the Marquis’s eventful life, spanning 1757 to 1834? Those who take up Mike Duncan’s comprehensive, birth-to-death biography will find this French-born nobleman, soldier and statesman to be a fascinating and paradoxical character. Fusing revolutionary energy with a tendency to seek moderation, even compromise, he was as extraordinary as the times in which he lived.

Mr. Duncan—famous for his podcasts “The History of Rome” and “Revolutions”—is the bestselling author of “The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic.” Now, in the three-part doorstopper “Hero of Two Worlds” he shows how a youthful, “restlessly defiant” Lafayette evolved into an even-tempered, moderate reformer, while always keeping true to his ideals. Lafayette early embraced the American Revolution (1776-83), later helped instigate the French Revolution (1789-99) and, later yet, encouraged France’s July Revolution (1830). Given his half-century of wide-ranging, trans-Atlantic activities, it is not surprising that Lafayette’s contemporaries and modern historians alike offer widely differing assessments of a career that thwarts easy summation.

Part I (1757-86) introduces Lafayette’s French context and unpacks his formidable role in the American Revolution. Born at the Château de Chavaniac, in Auvergne, the infant aristocrat was baptized Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier. Lafayette jested: “I was baptized like a Spaniard. But it was not my fault. And without pretending to deny myself the protection of Marie, Paul, Joseph, Roch and Yves, I more often called upon Saint Gilbert.” Independence would be Lafayette’s calling card, perhaps inevitably. When he was a toddler, his father died fighting in the Seven Years’ War. Lafayette’s only sibling, a younger sister, died too. With the death of his mother, in 1770, young Gilbert was orphaned, “left emotionally and psychologically alone in the world.” Still, resilient, he was commissioned an officer when 13. Great wealth helped too. Relocating to Versailles, he married into the powerful Noailles family and pursued a military career.

Mr. Duncan admits “it is hard to pin down the precise moment Lafayette latched on to the great ideas that animated the rest of his life: liberty, equality, and the rights of man.” By age 19, Lafayette had shed any “clumsy adolescence.” Having changed his coat-of-arms motto to “Cur Non” (“Why Not?”), in 1777 he sailed across the Atlantic seeking action in America’s War for Independence. Befriended by George Washington—the two maintained a lifelong friendship—he also “hit it off” with Alexander Hamilton, and others, like John Laurens and Thomas Jefferson.

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