You may well have read the astonishing piece in the New York Times today about the divergent paths of John Walker and John Spann. The thing that stood out most starkly is the blue-red split. In fact, both are almost absurd stereotypes of each part of America. Here’s Spann’s background: “Mr. Spann grew up foursquare in a four-stoplight Alabama town. Life in Winfield revolved around family, church, duty and high school football, and Mike Spann embraced them all. He took apples to his teacher, played soldier at recess and prayed on Sunday with his family at the Church of Christ.” You couldn’t make that up. Then here’s Walker: “Encouraged by his divorcing parents to seek his own spiritual path, he found himself by rejecting teenage culture in the name of Islam. He sold off his hip- hop records, immersed himself in the Koran and started wearing a long white robe.” One is from Alabama; the other is from Marin County, California. One is a national hero, the first American casualty at the hands of the enemy. The other is the enemy. Does it get any starker than that?
ENCLAVES OF THE LEFT: The question, I suppose, is whether their respective backgrounds tell us anything. The Times’ story wisely assumes social and cultural background is at least relevant to understanding them, and, however queasy that will make some liberals, I agree with the Times. We can debate, of course, whether places like Marin County are hotbeds of anti-Americanism. For the vast majority, they’re probably not. But for some parts of the decadent left, they are, and Walker starkly illustrates that fact. Memo to Weisberg/Noah/Lewis et al, who pummeled me for predicting that such a fifth column might eventually come about in exactly these “enclaves of the decadent left on the coasts”: you owe me an apology. These people exist. They’re not numerous, but then I never said they were. They have support – just read the San Francisco press to see the strained excuses still being made for Walker. If the San Francisco left claims him as an emblem of their openness and diversity, why shouldn’t we?
INSTA-TRAITOR?: Actually, Walker isn’t even a fifth columnist. He is an honest-to-God traitor. Yes, the expanse of coastal decadent leftism is diverse – ranging from apathetic hostility to American power all the way to actual treason – but the connection between a certain leftist relativist subculture (e.g. the New Age parenting of Walker) and actual treason is now no longer an abstraction. It’s real. It’s called John Walker. And what’s the Left’s response? Here’s Salon, already in denial. Walker is an “insta-traitor,” a figment of the McCarthyite right’s fevered imagination. Do I detect a Hiss for our generation? I’m not going to push the point, since many on the far left are not guilty of treachery or even lack of patriotism (in their own often strained formulation). In fact, none apart from Walker can claim the ignominy of realized treason – so far. But the real question is: does it surprise anyone that this traitor came from the political and cultural background he did? Of course, it surprises no one. Whatever else he is, Walker is a catastrophic embarrassment to the cultural left. If David Horowitz had wanted to concoct an imaginary leftist figure from his most paranoid fantasies, he could hardly have come up with a more perfect incarnation than Walker. And liberal apologists can spare us the sermons about how unfair it is to associate one man’s actions with an entire sub-culture. Timothy McVeigh anyone? Well, this time the shoe is on the other foot. It may not be entirely fair, but it’s damning.
The Dish 