Author: Andrew Sullivan

The esteemed Bill Buckley worries that Osama is achieving a mythic status of invulnerability. Something tells me Buckley couldn’t be more wrong. Chill, Bill. We’re gonna get him. And soon. And then the myth implodes in exact proportion to its inflated grandeur. In fact, the myth helps us. The crushing psychological blow to the murderers and fanatics and mischief-makers who lionized bin Laden will only make our military victory more emphatic. Then on to Somalia …

“We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” – C.S. Lewis, “The Abolition of Man.”

THE FORGE OF WAR: Some interesting results from the latest poll from the New York Times. One number that piqued my interest was that most Americans still don’t really have a clue who John Ashcroft is. But of those who did know, his favorability rating was 31 percent and his unfavorability rating was a mere 8 percent. And to think of all the money, time and ink that some people have spent trying to peg him as the source of all evil. I guess no one really internalizes Frank Rich. Then there’s the astonishing fact that 61 percent of Americans approve of president Bush’s handling of the economy, even during a recession. Bottom line: there doesn’t seem to be a massive disconnect in people’s minds between domestic and foreign affairs. This makes intuitive sense to me. One of the reasons that Bush’s poll numbers are so high is partly patriotism in a time of crisis, but also surely that people admire the crisp, effective and mild-mannered presidency the war has revealed. The idea that this will have no impact on his clout in domestic matters seems to me to be unlikely. The analogy of his father doesn’t hold. Before the Gulf War, 41’s image with the public was already pretty set – out-of-touch, inarticulate, pushed around by his own party, not as impressive as Reagan. The war didn’t change this identity; it merely helped give the old guy more respect. But this war has come at a very different time for 43. In Dubyah’s case, the best analogy, I think, is Thatcher. She dealt with a surprise attack early in her first term – the Falklands. She performed brilliantly under pressure and saw her approval ratings grow domestically – even though her economic policies were never very popular, and she precipitated a brutal recession in her early days. The war transformed her image when it was still formative in the eyes of the country. It never changed. I think there’s a good chance the same thing is happening with Bush, which is why Democratic faith that they can compartmentalize the war and insulate it from domestic politics is, in my opinion, misplaced. This poll suggests I may be right. Well, we’ll see, won’t we?

THE CULT OF PESSIMISM: Useful piece by Jake Weisberg on how war pessimists endure, against all the odds and against all the evidence. Speaking of which, this latest piece from the Guardian probably deserves a prize for finding the dark lining in every silver cloud. Don’t kid yourselves: these people never ever learn.

Okay, you officially win this debate. Not because I’ve been proven completely wrong in my first take on Walker/Spann but because you’ve definitely persuaded me it’s much more complex and more interesting than my original impression. I don’t mean to be wishy-washy, but I’m still thinking about this. Memo to Weisberg/Noah/Lewis: I still think you were wrong but not so wrong as to owe me an apology. There’s a lot of room for doubt and debate here, but the easy equation of Walker’s background and his eventual politics is just that: too easy. The letters page now contains a new swath of points from all sides. I’m constantly amazed by the knowledge and intelligence of my readers, but this time, you surpassed yourselves.

One email has really got me thinking. The best point of those who disagree with my earlier post on Walker/Spann is that Walker wasn’t/isn’t really a lefty. He’s actually a right-wing religious zealot. Here’s the case:

“Maybe I missed something, but I am not sure how a religious fundamentalist and zealot like John Walker is an embodiment of the American Hating Left. He is a right wing religious nut just like the guy arrested here in Cincinnati last week for sending fake anthrax to abortion clinics. While you may be correct that his permissive parents and his multicultural context may have produced him (sounds like something some right wing nut case would say about homosexuality, right Andrew?), what it produced was a right wing Islamic religious nut who hates the West and America for its decadence (which he enjoyed and benefited from) and sin, just like his brothers on the right wing Christian extreme (like maybe Tim McVeigh, who was a Catholic to boot?). Let’s at least be honest that Walker represents some of the worst of American permissiveness and multiculturalism, while being the embodiment of right wing religious fanaticism. I think we all get caught on this one.”

This strikes me as pretty smart. What it misses, though, is that Walker actually rebelled against Catholicism for being too strict when he was younger. I think he was attracted to Islam as much by its exoticism as by its strictures. I think we have a classic case of being brought up with really permissive parents in a really permissive culture. You want to rebel, but your authority figures approve of ‘rebellion’ so you have to find some sort of anti-liberal rebellion. Islam fits the bill perfectly. Hip-hop was a mite too predictable and you can imagine his parents almost approving. The extremism with which he pursued his rebellion is probably inexplicable out of psychoanalysis. But the link between his chosen lifestyle and the culture in which he was born is still valid, I think.

You weigh in against me (mainly) on the Walker-Spann divide.

It strikes me that the old Clinton-enabler has a very good point in his latest column. Why are we admitting any students from countries that sponsor terrorism? Subjecting all of them to lengthy interrogations about their possible terror connections seems to me hugely time-consuming, expensive and prone to failure. And the possible sympathy some might acquire for the United States by studying here is far outweighed by the costs of even one terrorist finding his way here as a result. Look, I’m a big fan of immigration, natch. Student visas for foreign students are a great idea and a critical part of this country’s educational excellence. But this is clearly one area where new circumstances merit changes. Why not increase the number of student visas from friendly countries to make up financially for those from countries that still harbor terrorists? That seems like a preferable compromise to me.

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.

“I have seen … good democratic liberals, lovers of peace and gentleness, struck dumb with admiration for individuals threatening or using the most terrible violence for the slightest and tawdriest reasons. They have a sneaking suspicion that they are face to face with men of real commitment, which they themselves lack.” – Allan Bloom, “The Closing Of The American Mind.”

Funny piece in Roll Call on Tom Daschle’s favorite feeling. The man lives in a constant state of disappointment. “In the past year,” Roll Call notes, “Daschle has been ‘disappointed’ by the appropriations schedule, the lack of progress on a patients’ bill of rights (‘and, frankly, saddened’ as well as ‘dismayed, really’), the media’s coverage of the stem-cell research debate, criticism of Democrats’ stance on Mexican truck safety, the White House position on the Kyoto treaty, the report of the Social Security Commission, the scope of the tax rebate, and the ‘millionaires’ amendment to campaign finance reform.” Of course, he was never actually disappointed. In reality, he was probably pissed off. But being mad doesn’t convey the composure of the man above-it-all whose passion rises only to the level of condescending sadness. I guess he should be congratulated for “changing the tone,” and heaven knows, his rhetoric is preferable to, say, Terry McAuliffe. If only the two alternatives for some politicians weren’t vulgarity or sanctimony.

ANOTHER EPIPHANY: Close students of Israeli culture and society (I’m an editor at The New Republic so I count) will have been gob-smacked (yes, it’s a Briticism) to find out that historian Benny Morris has now publicly stated his belief that “the Palestinians, not Israel, are to blame for the ongoing conflict and for the current state of affairs.” Morris became famous or infamous for his view that Israel’s official history was riddled with distortions, biases and untruths. A terrific and highly critical review of his work can be read here. When he gave a recent speech at Berkeley, his leftist audience was expecting an anti-Zionist tirade. What they got was an epiphany. Here’s a great summary of what happened. The world turns.

The most cogent argument I’ve yet heard for using an underground nuclear weapon to destroy Tora Bora and minimize our casualties.

WHY I LOVE RUMMY: “It’s true, it’s hard to get information from me. It is true that I clean the damn room out. With the president’s full blessing, I reduce down the size of the room. And of course, when people are asked out of the room, that is not something that pleases them. So it’s not surprising for me that some person who’s not in the loop, and ought not to be in the loop, is expressing that thought, and it bothers me not one whit.” – Donald Rumsfeld justifying his habit of telling lower-downs to scram when he wants to talk about sensitive matters with the president.