On Charlie Cooke, Noah Rothman, Jim Geraghty, and Rich Lowry’s lack of transportation imagination.
I have a lot of respect for my friends and colleagues at National Review, but I have to admit to being perplexed, befuddled, and disappointed in a few of them after Submissions Editor Jack Butler drew my attention to a recent conversation on The Editors podcast.
On Tuesday, after a discussion of why President Trump should not accept the gift of a luxury “palace in the sky” Air Force One replacement from Qatar, Rich Lowry asked Noah Rothman, Charlie Cooke, and Jim Geraghty: “If you could choose any country to gift you a means of conveyance, what is that gift and where’s it coming from?”
At the sound of such a hypothetical, my metaphorical ears perked up. Surely these very interesting gentlemen would have very interesting answers.
Alas — disappointment, thou art my friend.
Noah Rothman desires a “Nautilus-style submarine,” complete with “living quarters and opulent luxury throughout” so that he could explore the deeps of the Pacific Ocean — built by Australia.
That’s great and all, except that Australia hasn’t built a modern submarine since the Australian Submarine Corporation delivered the last Collins-class sub, HMAS Rankin, back in 2003 — 22 years ago. It’s true that Oz is working with the U.S. and U.K. to acquire, and later build, nuclear-powered attack subs under the AUKUS pact, but the first Australian-built boat won’t be delivered until sometime in the late 2030s, more than a decade from now. What’s more, the domestically manufactured Collins-class diesel-electric boats have been plagued with problems and cost overruns. Quite notably, no other country has expressed interest in having our Aussie friends build them a sub from down under.
I’m not saying I’m Nostradamus or anything, but I don’t think Noah is getting an Australian “Nautilus-style submarine,” luxurious or otherwise, anytime soon.
Charlie Cooke says he wants a roller coaster built by the Swiss firm Bolliger & Mabillard and “designed to [his] exact specifications.” Well, I suppose a roller coaster is indeed a “means of conveyance,” so I won’t quibble with that aspect of this very perplexing choice. But it’s hard to see what would be so useful about a Swiss roller coaster, or any roller coaster, of one’s own.
The whole point of a roller coaster is that its thrill is a function of its novelty. The crux is that it’s exciting to ride one every once in a long while. I don’t know about you, or Charlie, but if I had access to my very own roller coaster, designed to my exact specifications, I think I’d grow tired of it. I certainly wouldn’t want to ride it every day. What would be the point? That would be like a Formula One driver trying to get a huge thrill out of his daily commute to drop the kids off at school: It’d be totally routine.
Jim Geraghty longs for an Iron Man suit so that he could zip around wherever he wanted to go. Now, I understand the appeal of this choice — but, well, isn’t Tony Stark an American? I’m not any sort of expert on the Marvel Multiverse — or whatever the nerdzors are calling it these days — but I’m pretty certain that Stark/Iron Man is a New Yorker. If we are to take Rich’s question seriously, I think that an Iron Man suit would in no way qualify as a “gift from a foreign country.” Indeed, our ferrous friend and his suit is All American.
Finally, Rich says he’d want an Israeli Merkava tank. He didn’t specify, but I have to assume that Rich means the modern Merkava Mk IV variant, which started to come online around 2004. Now I accept that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but can we all admit that the Merkavas are simply ugly tanks? They look like someone dolloped a bit of gelatin on the side of the road: lumpy and flat all at the same time. And when it comes to the armor, the power, and the main gun, I struggle to think why anyone would want a Merkava when there are other, better alternatives, especially when compared to the American M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks — which sport the spectacular Honeywell AGT1500 gas turbine engine, enabling our 72-ton tanks to roar down a road at about 45 miles per hour. Okay, you might say, but maybe Rich is a fan of underpowered diesel engines and ugly armored vehicles? Yes, in that case, the Merkava might be the tank for him.
For my purposes and needs, there’s only one correct answer to this question: I want a Japanese bullet train, specifically something like the E6 Series Shinkansen, to whiz me from a station right near my house in Tulsa over to Norman, Okla., so that I can take in an Oklahoma Sooners football game and tailgate enthusiastically without having to worry about the two-hour drive there and, much worse, back.
I drive up and down the 90 miles of the Turner Turnpike between Tulsa and the Oklahoma City metro roughly 20 times per year. It’s a brutal, hot, congested, and utterly boring drive. I hate it. If I could, instead, purchase a first-class, round-trip ticket between my house and a station within walking or bike distance of the campus of the University of Oklahoma, I would be all in. I’d read a book. I’d have a drink. I’d take a 20-minute snooze, and boom — we’d be there. Boomer Sooner.
And to be clear, I trust that getting a “Japanese bullet train” includes getting some Japanese efficiency . . . as opposed to whatever they’re doing (or, more accurately, not doing) in California.
“Choose any country to gift you a means of conveyance?”
A Japanese bullet train, please and thank you.
(I am aware that an autopilot-equipped self-driving car would solve my problems here, but as of right now, China seems to be in the lead when it comes to the regulatory impediments in front of getting to my dream of autopilot-enabled cars, while the U.S.A. seems to be in the lead when it comes to the tech. But, sorry, no thanks. I don’t want to take a nap while a Commie-designed autopilot zips me down the highway.)