Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds

ROGER KIMBALL: Lonnie Bunch’s long march through the Smithsonian.

Lonnie G. Bunch III, the first black head of the Smithsonian Institution, is stepping down after a tenure of some seven years. NPR had the news: “In 2019, Bunch was named secretary of the Smithsonian, becoming the first historian and the first African American to hold the position.” The Wall Street Journal also got the memo: “The first Black historian to lead the world’s largest museum and research complex says he’s retiring and will leave by year’s end.” NBC looked behind the headline. “Bunch, the first Black person and first historian to lead the institution, has said he would have retired a year ago but felt he had to stay to defend the institution from the White House attacks, the person said.”

I had something to say about those “attacks” – I prefer the word “criticisms” – in the Speccie as this little thrust and parry was unfolding. A key document is a letter to Bunch whose subject line reads: “Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials.” Signed by Lindsey Halligan, Special Assistant to the President; Vince Haley, Director of the Domestic Policy Council; and Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the letter announces a “comprehensive internal review” of the Smithsonian, its exhibitions and curatorial procedures.” “This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

Bunch has denied that he decided to retire because of pressure from the Trump administration. But he did allow that the administration’s spotlight on the Smithsonian’s ideological coloration was “stressful.” After all, he told the New York Times: “When you’re Black in America, you’ve got to figure out how to get through, right?” Would that be different from being white or some other color “in America?”

In any event, few people would deny that Bunch figured out how to “get through” while being black “in America.” For the last several year, he has been pulling down nearly a million dollars per annum, pretty good innings for someone – no matter his quota of melanin – at a tax-exempt, largely publicly funded enterprise.

Hey, it’s tough out there for a black man in America, but at least he wasn’t locked in a room with 11 liberal white shrews.

UPDATE:

OMG, THIS STORY JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER:

I’VE POSTED A LOT OF STUFF ON SEPTEMBER 11TH OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS. But this year, it’s just this: Brad Todd’s 109 Minutes essay. “Just 109 minutes after a new form of terrorism — the most deadly yet invented — came into use, it was rendered, if not obsolete, at least decidedly less effective. Deconstructed, unengineered, thwarted, and put into the dust bin of history. By Americans. In 109 minutes.”

Ordinary Americans have tremendous skill and ability. That’s why people who want to rule over them hate and fear them.

CDR SALAMANDER: No European NATO Navies are Ready to Fight Today’s War at Sea.

We are coming up on three years from the final wakeup call after October 7th, 2023, that conventionally armed ballistic missiles are the premier threat to critical capabilities ashore and at sea.

In the U.S. at least, though production was minimal and inventories allowed to be too small, we at least had the technology to meet the threat from Medium, Intermediate, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

At sea, which will be our focus today, we just made it across the finish line in time with the RIM-161 SM-3, which built off the success of the iterative development of the SM-2 for decades.

This work has paid off via the exceptional performance of our Arleigh Burke Class destroyers off Israel, and in defending our fleet from the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea against Iran and her proxies.

With each engagement, our software gets better…the next update to our missiles gets better, and, more importantly, it has yanked the Lotus off the dinner plate of our defense establishment to expand production and inventories.

Bravo Zulu to those people who fought, mostly nameless and unseen, for decades to ensure we did not take our eye off the need to be able to meet the threat from ballistic missiles.

Here’s the issue. We’re alone here, and our European allies just don’t seem to get it.

That’s the issue with our European allies pretty much across the board.

ANALYSIS: TRUE.

OFT EVIL WILL SHALL EVIL MAR: Here in Knoxville at UT there was a lot of snarkiness about Charlie Kirk on social media, which drew attention from politicians and some University officials, but the actual “Kirkiversary” gathering on the HSS Lawn at UT was 400 people chanting “Kirk! Kirk! Kirk!” and singing “We Are Charlie Kirk.”

As usual, the nasty left is a minority pretending to be a majority. They aren’t. They’re a nasty, mean, violent fringe, but they’re outnumbered and it’s good to remind them of that.

OPEN THREAD: Have fun.

THEY KILLED HIM BECAUSE HE WAS EFFECTIVE:

DEMOCRATS LOVE REGULATING SPEECH UNTIL THEY DON’T.