The Wall Street Journal - 06.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Friday, March 6, 2020 |A

Ready to Rumble

And Reinvent

No Way but to Fight

By Andrew R.M. Smith

(Texas, 365 pages, $29.95)

BOOKSHELF| By Gordon Marino

I

t was a half-century ago, but the names still resonate:

MuhammadAli, Joe Frazier and George Foreman were

the heavyweight-boxing kings of the 1970s. While Ali has

been the subject of multiple biographies, and Mark Kram Jr.

produced “Smokin’ Joe: The Life of Joe Frazier” last year,

George Foreman has been without his Boswell—until now.

In “No Way but to Fight,” Andrew R.M. Smith, a professor at

Nichols College in Massachusetts, has written an insightful

life study. It illuminates the many ways in which Mr. Foreman

has differed from his storied competitors and found a kind

of postcareer success that eluded them.

To the broader public, Mr. Foreman (now 71) may be

best known as a latter-day pitchman, once a frequent face

in TV spots and print ads. But in his prime he was a truly

remarkable athlete, with, it turns out, a remarkable back

story. A child of Houston’s hardscrabble Fifth Ward, he grew

up in abject poverty.

Mr. Smith tells us that

he seldom had enough

to eat, and “his clothes,

which came from

donation bags, instantly

marked him as poor.

Worse than poor.”

At 19, by then a former

participant in Lyndon

Johnson’s Job Corps, Mr.

Foreman won the gold

medal at the 1968 Mexico

City Olympics. A virtual

novice, he entered the

Games with a humble 18-

record. In the finals, he

defeated the Soviet Union’s

Jonas Čepulis, an opponent 10 years his

senior and a veteran of more than 220 bouts.

Mr. Foreman made his professional debut in 1969. Four

years and 37 victories later, in Kingston, Jamaica, he won

the heavyweight title by a technical knockout over Ali’s

conqueror, Joe Frazier. In October 1974 came “The Rumble

in the Jungle”—the now-fabled bout held in Kinshasa,

Zaire, before a vast stadium audience and millions of

world-wide television viewers. There a thoroughly gassed

Mr. Foreman, undefeated up to that point, was counted

out in the eighth round after being pasted by Ali. Mr.

Smith details Mr. Foreman’s frustrating efforts to secure a

rematch. Unable to coax Ali back into the ring, and

suffering a 1977 defeat at the unheralded hands of Jimmy

Young, Mr. Foreman began a decadelong hibernation.

Then, at age 38, having burned through most of his

earnings, Mr. Foreman began a comeback that few people took

seriously. Nearly eight years later, in 1994—having returned

to fighting form over the course of roughly 30 bouts—he

shocked the boxing world with a come-from-behind, one-

punch knockout of Michael Moorer, the heavyweight champ.

Though carved out of his doctoral dissertation, Mr.

Smith’s narrative is accessible to a general readership and is,

at times, almost as much about the bruising business of

boxing as it is about Mr. Foreman. As Mr. Smith documents,

there were—in the milieu in which Mr. Foreman fought—

fixed fights, bribes to referees, cash deliveries to

sanctioning bodies to inflate the rankings of unworthy

pugs, and as many broken promises as broken snouts.

Boxing, Mr. Foreman once said, is “truly a gangster’s game.”

For most of his career, Mr. Foreman was managed by Dick

Sadler, who had once assisted the legendary Doc Kearns.

Even by boxing standards, Mr. Sadler was a profoundly

cynical man. The team he headed up on Mr. Foreman’s

behalf had no intention of leaving the boxer’s future to the

judgment of blind or crooked ringside judges. As a result,

whenever the bell clanged, Mr. Foreman would march into the

center of the ring and attack his foes with a resolve to put

them down as quickly as possible (a strategy that backfired in

Zaire). Mr. Foreman has said in conversation that when he

was coming up—Mr. Smith reminds us that he was a sparring

partner for Sonny Liston, the prince of menace—he harbored

the desire to literally kill an opponent in the ring.

There was more joy in Mr. Foreman’s second go-around,

Mr. Smith shows, than in his climb to the heights. In the

1970s, he was so drunk on adrenaline that, no matter how

much he trained, he was sure to fizzle out by the middle

rounds. But with the aid of boxing sage Angelo Dundee, he

became, during his comeback, more relaxed and better able

to exchange leather for a full 12 rounds. He also learned to

take something off his concussive jab to avoid inadvertently

knocking his rival out of range of his mighty right. (One

particular swipe loosened six of Frazier’s teeth.)

The author emphasizes that Mr. Foreman has been a

master of reinvention, in the ring and outside it. In the

mid-1990s, he sold naming rights to the George Foreman Grill

for $137.5 million dollars, becoming, at the time, “the third

highest-paid pitchman, behind only Michael Jordan and

Tiger Woods.” The public adored this jovial and self-effacing

middle-aged man, who soon became an evangelical preacher.

His 1995 autobiography, “By George,” was a bestseller.

“I’m a salesperson,” Mr. Foreman has said. “That’s

what I do.” Boxer, ad man, preacher, even television

commentator and occasional actor, Mr. Foreman has done

it all, and yet Mr. Smith’s captivating narrative suggests

that Mr. Foreman is much more than the outsize roles he

has played. Since his salesmanship heyday, he has

continued to preach and mentor youngsters at his youth

center in Houston. Perhaps he views the amazing arc of

his life as more a cautionary tale than a story of triumph.

Either way, Mr. Smith makes it plain that the man who

was once one of the rarest of power punchers is also one

of those rare celebrities who seem to have learned from

their vast experience.

Mr. Marino, a professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College,

is the author of “The Existentialist’s Survival Guide: How to

Live Authentically in an Inauthentic Age.”

The lovable pitchman and preacher once wielded

a concussive jab and attacked his foes with a

resolve to put them down as quickly as possible.

Latinos Know Bernie Sanders’s Type

W

hy is Bernie Sanders
performing so well
among Latinos? Con-
sider a popular nickname for
his supporters: Sandernistas.
Latinos across the U.S. with
roots like mine—my parents
immigrated to America from
Nicaragua—are accustomed to
promises from left-wing popu-
lists. But some are forgetting
what follows: dictatorship, de-
struction of institutions, and
human suffering.
Many Americans won’t re-
member Daniel Ortega and his
Sandinista Party’s socialist
revolution in Nicaragua in the
1980s. In 1985 Mr. Sanders,
then mayor of Burlington, Vt.,
said Mr. Ortega was “an im-
pressive guy” and “Vermont
could set an example to the
rest of the nation similar to
the type of example Nicaragua
is setting for the rest of Latin
America.” After a bloody war
destroyed families and cre-
ated a diaspora, Mr. Ortega

crushed freedoms and tar-

geted opponents. He lost

power in 1989 but returned in

2006 after the voting age had

been lowered to 16. Born after

Mr. Ortega’s first run as dicta-

tor, young voters would bring

on his second.

Then came Nicaragua’s

2018 protests about social se-

curity. The system was insol-

vent after years of corruption

and overspending. Still in

power, Mr. Ortega’s solution

was to raise taxes on busi-

nesses and individuals while

reducing benefits. The busi-

ness community said it

couldn’t comply and remain

solvent. People took to the

streets. Mr. Ortega unleashed

the military, even though the

protests were led by a core

Sandinista constituency: col-

lege students.

Many were killed. A jour-

nalist in the city of Bluefields

was shot in the head. The

broadcast signal of 100% Noti-

cias, a news channel, was

abruptly terminated. The San-

dinistas eventually withdrew

their financing plan, but what

little free speech existed was

no more.

This should be a caution-

ary tale for Americans as

Sandernistas promise a so-

cialist revolution. Everyone

wants the same things: health

care, education, a better life.

How to deliver them is up for

debate.

Much like the young Nicara-

guan students who supported

the Sandinistas, young Latino

voters showed up for Mr.

Sanders on Super Tuesday.

Some 66% of Latinos age 18 to

29 went for Mr. Sanders in

Texas and 71% in California,

according to exit polls. It is

striking to see the young show

enthusiasm for the kinds of so-

cialism their parents fled.

The strongman-politician

is familiar to Latinos. So is

the establishment coalescing

around a known quantity like

Joe Biden. In 2006 the Nica-

raguan establishment backed

Eduardo Montealege, a famil-

iar and trustworthy face. But

Mr. Ortega and the Sandinis-

tas won on promises of free

college and with help from

young voters. Young Latinos

in the U.S. see a rigged sys-

tem in which the establish-

ment works against Mr. Sand-

ers. Perhaps Mr. Biden’s

Super Tuesday coup will drive

more Latinos, students and

disaffected voters to the

Sandernista revolution.

That would be regrettable.

The failed proposals of the

second-poorest country in the

Western Hemisphere won’t

make for a healthy politics or

good policy in America.

Mr. Meierling is executive

vice president for external re-

lations at the American Legis-

lative Exchange Council.

By Wilhelm Urbina
Meierling

Young ‘Sandernistas’

embrace a socialist

strongman like those

their parents fled.

OPINION

Coming in BOOKS this weekend

The unsung heroes of Division 1 basketball • A history of

surgery • Dave Brubeck’s signature cool • One writer’s

struggle with perfectionism • The stories of Lorrie Moore

• Louise Erdrich’s ‘The Night Watchman’ • & much more

The Supreme
Court has
passed up an
opportunity
to strike an
overdue blow
for religious liberty. On Feb. 24
it rejected the Justice Depart-
ment’s recommendation to
hear a dispute between Wal-
greens and Darrell Patterson, a
Seventh-day Adventist who
was fired because he missed
work on Saturdays.
The case had enormous sig-
nificance for religiously obser-
vant employees of private busi-
nesses. It was also significant
for me. On March 30, 1977, I
presented oral argument to the
Supreme Court in a case
brought by Trans World Air-
lines. The company had refused
to permit Larry Hardison,
whose church maintains a Sat-
urday sabbath, to beg off shifts
during periods of observance.
Mr. Hardison didn’t have
enough seniority under TWA’s
labor contract to compel an-
other employee to fill in for
him, and the company claimed
that it would have to pay “pre-
mium wages” to any substitute
taking his Saturday shift.
I received unusual permis-
sion to argue on Mr. Hardi-
son’s behalf as a friend of the
court representing Orthodox
Jewish organizations. After
the oral argument I feared Mr.
Hardison might lose because
TWA had made some effort,
even if inadequate, to accom-
modate him. Sen. Jennings
Randolph, a Seventh Day Bap-
tist, had offered an amend-
ment in 1972 to the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. The Sen-

The Justices Punt on Religious Liberty

ate unanimously approved

and Congress enacted it. (I

had a hand in drafting and

lobbying for that amend-

ment.) It required accommo-

dation for an employee’s sab-

bath observance, but it

exempted employers who

could prove that accommoda-

tion would create “undue

hardship.” The administrative

hardship of finding and pay-

ing a substitute might have

satisfied the exemption.

The parties supporting Mr.

Hardison’s legal claim were

floored when the Court issued

its decision on June 16, 1977.

Justice Byron White’s majority

opinion discussed the TWA la-

bor contract’s seniority sys-

tem and concluded, not unex-

pectedly, that Title VII of the

Civil Rights Act didn’t require

TWA “to carve out a special

exception to its seniority sys-

tem in order to help Mr.

Hardison to meet his religious

obligations.”

White then rejected the no-

tion that TWA should have to

pay “premium wages” to a

substitute, wrecking employ-

ment opportunities for many

religiously observant employ-

ees. “To require TWA to bear

more than a de minimis cost in

order to give Mr. Hardison

Saturdays off is an undue

hardship,” he wrote. He justi-

fied this repudiation of respect

for conscience by declaring

that if TWA bore any cost

whatever, it “would involve

unequal treatment of employ-

ees on the basis of their reli-

gion.” Never mind that any ac-

commodation by definition

results in unequal treatment.

Accommodating religious

observance usually requires

more than “de minimis” cost

and inconvenience. By defin-

ing religious accommodation

as voluntary cost-free eti-

quette, Justice White empow-

ered bosses to treat an em-

ployees’ religion as a mere

inconvenience.

Justice Thurgood Marshall

declared in dissent: “Today’s

decision deals a fatal blow to

all efforts under Title VII to

accommodate work require-

ments to religious practices.”

He concluded that “one of this

Nation’s pillars of strength—

our hospitality to religious di-

versity—has been seriously

eroded.”

InPatterson v. Walgreen,

the drugstore chain claimed

that it had accommodated Mr.

Patterson’s religious obser-

vance by offering him a lower-

paying position in which he

could observe the sabbath and

by allowing him to swap shifts

with other employees who

wouldn’t have to be paid ex-

tra. Justices Samuel Alito,

Clarence Thomas and Neil

Gorsuch said they were pre-

pared to overrule White’s nox-

iousHardisondeclaration. But

they believed there were too

many technical hurdles inPat-

terson v. Walgreento make it

“a good vehicle for revisiting

Hardison.”

I am an Orthodox Jew, and

I’ve been blessed with accom-

modative employers for nearly

all of my professional life.

When I clerked for Justice

John Harlan, he sent me home

on Friday afternoons well be-

fore sunset so that I could pre-

pare for the sabbath. Attorney

General Ramsey Clark in-

structed me to head home on a

Friday afternoon, the day after

Martin Luther King was assas-

sinated. At the time I was dep-

uty assistant attorney general

in the Justice Department’s

civil rights division and was

fully engaged in the aftermath

of the murder.

Federal District Judge Rich-

ard Williams recessed a crimi-

nal jury trial with multiple de-

fendants for two days so that

I, representing a lead defen-

dant, could observe the arcane

Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The

Supreme Court even adjusted

the schedule of its oral argu-

ments in March 1994 so that I,

scheduled for two oral argu-

ments in that court session,

could observe Passover. Count-

less employees in private in-

dustry have no such luck.

I have represented sabbath-

observers and frequently en-

countered the defense that the

law doesn’t require companies

to go to any expense or incon-

venience to respect an em-

ployee’s religion. Until the Su-

preme Court erases Justice

White’sHardisonedict, reli-

gious liberty is in peril.

Mr. Lewin is a Washington

lawyer.

They should overturn

a 1977 ruling against

private employees who

need accommodation.

HOUSES OF
WORSHIP
By Nathan
Lewin

Senate Mi-
nority Leader
Chuck
Schumer’s
verbal threats
against two
Supreme
Court justices
aren’t sur-
prising, in
light of three
yearsof“re-
sistance” hostility to Trump
judicial picks. What is re-
markable is that Democratic
leaders continue to take such
a losing approach to an issue
that will be central to the
2020 election.
Mr. Schumer did hit a new
low Wednesday, when he
stood outside the Supreme
Court and rallied a mob of
abortion-rights activists by
vowing that Justices Brett
Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch
would “pay the price” for re-
leasing “the whirlwind.” “You
won’t know what hit you if
you go forward with these
awful decisions,” he thun-
dered. When even liberal le-
gal scholar Larry Tribe called
the remarks “inexcusable,”
Mr. Schumer made a half-
hearted attempt to walk them
back, saying he “shouldn’t
have used the words.”
Yet the Schumer threats
are of a piece with today’s
standard Democratic ap-
proach to the court: Attack
and intimidate. Of everything
Democrats lost to Donald
Trump in 2016, the forfeiture
of the judicial branch still
grates the most. They remain
furious that Obama nominee
Merrick Garland never got

Schumer and the War on Judges

his Supreme Court robe. They

are livid that the Kavanaugh

confirmation provided the

high court its first solid con-

servative majority in decades.

They are outraged that Sen-

ate Majority Leader Mitch

McConnell has confirmed

nearly 200 Trump judges, in-

cluding 51 on the appellate

courts.

Unable to stop the ap-

pointments, Democrats have

shifted to threatening the ap-

pointees. These have included

attacks on individual judges.

The hit job in 2018 on Judge

Kavanaugh was about defeat-

ing his nomination, or at

least cowing him into more

liberal rulings. Since his con-

firmation, Democrats have

continued to hold the threat

of impeachment over his

head, again in the hope of in-

timidating him into taking

their side on key cases.

Or take Massachusetts Sen.

Elizabeth Warren’s sucker

punch of Chief Justice John

Roberts during the Trump

impeachment trial, in which

she forced him to read aloud

her question challenging his

“legitimacy.” Even Justice So-

nia Sotomayor got in on the

action, with a recent opinion

that outrageously suggested

her fellow conservative jus-

tices were biased in favor of

Mr. Trump.

Then there are the cease-

less threats to the institution.

Rhode Island’s Sheldon

Whitehouse and four other

senators last year filed a

friend-of-the-court brief

warning of political conse-

quences if the justices didn’t

side with them against gun

rights. “The Supreme Court

is not well,” the brief as-

serted. “Perhaps the court

can heal itself before the

public demands it be ‘re-

structured in order to reduce

the influence of politics.’ ”

Liberal proposals to re-

make the judicial branch are

a dime a hundred. Some pro-

pose packing the Supreme

Court by increasing its size

and creating new vacancies

for a Democratic president

and Senate to fill. Others de-

mand term limits, though

that would require a consti-

tutional amendment. Yet oth-

ers propose stripping or cur-

tailing the judicial branch’s

authority to review entire

swaths of legislation.

Mr. McConnell, in a Thurs-

day floor speech rebuking

Mr. Schumer, likened the

left’s message to a gangster’s

intimidation: “That’s some

nice judicial independence

you got over there. It’d be a

shame if something happened

to it.”

The attacks and threats

thrill the progressive base,

but they are about as politi-

cally wise as impeachment.

The most important step Mr.

Trump took on his path to the

presidency was releasing his

list of proposed replacements

for the late Justice Antonin

Scalia. That inventory of im-

pressive jurists not only reas-

sured conservatives but moti-

vated them to vote.

Mr. Trump will make sure

his court successes are at the

center of his re-election cam-

paign. He will again highlight

the stakes, especially for the

Supreme Court. And here are

Democrats making his case

more powerful by promising

not only to put an end to

Trump picks, but toundohis

court victories to date. Talk

about a Republican turnout

motivator.

Democratic court radical-

ism also has the potential to

turn off centrist voters. This

week saw Super Tuesday vot-

ers offer a stark rebuke to

Bernie Sanders’s burn-it-

down politics. (Mr. Sanders’s

proposal is to transfer the

high court’s conservatives to

a different court and replace

them with his own picks.) A

2019 Rasmussen poll found

only 27% of Americans open

to court packing. Even as

American faith plummets in

most government institu-

tions, the public retains

broad support for the Su-

preme Court. They don’t ap-

preciate the attacks.

Instead of trashing the

court, maybe Democrats

could make their own lists of

Supreme Court picks. They’ll

need to do something, be-

cause the court issue is com-

ing at them like a freight

train. And all they’ve got is

venom.

Write to [email protected].

From court-packing

plans to intimidation,

the Democrats pursue

a losing strategy.

POTOMAC
WATCH
By Kimberley
A. Strassel