So every two weeks, a copy of the mag falls with a soft, pulpy, grayish thump through my mail slot. I seldom open it, unless Alex Cockburn is mentioned on the cover. But in an idle hour tonight, I flipped through the latest issue, and what should I find but Eric Alterman eulogizing Arthur Schlesinger.
Now there, if you please, is a perfect pairing of writer and subject. The late (and not a minute too soon) Schlesinger was the subject of a characteristically mean-spirited kakology from brother Paine here, as soon as the last breath of hot air had left Schlesinger's body, but with all respect to my comrade, I think Alterman's piece unintentionally damns the Kennedys' Procopius a lot deeper than Owen could do. A few vomitous excerpts:
Schlesinger issued warning after warning to the American left about the dangers posed by the US Communist Party. Three years before publishing The Vital Center (1949), writing in Life magazine, he compared Communists to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, who carry "their infection of intrigue and deceit wherever they go." With their systematic mendacity and duplicity, "Communists are engaged in a massive attack on the moral fabric of the American left.... The Communist party is no menace to the right in the U.S. It is a great help to the right because of its success in dividing and neutralizing the left. It is to the American left that Communism presents the most serious danger."This almost makes me feel a certain sympathy for Schlesinger. After all the dirt that man handled, to sit and listen to a punk like Alterman moralizing about Joe McCarthy -- Barkeep! Line 'em up and keep 'em coming....The last time I had lunch with Arthur... I asked him if he felt anti-Communist liberals had allowed their hatred of Stalin and Soviet totalitarianism to overshadow their commitment to civil liberties at home. But like Edith Piaf, Arthur regretted rien. "We had a Two Joe policy of opposition back then," he insisted. "We were against Stalin and against McCarthy." True, I tried to argue, but.... After all, while Stalin was one of history's worst mass murderers, he turns out to have presented no genuine military threat to the United States or even, as it turns out, Western Europe. Joe McCarthy untrammeled, on the other hand, did more damage than anyone to America's democratic institutions until George W. Bush. Arthur shrugged and ordered another martini.
Schlesinger's more recent intraleft controversy arose when he made another prescient argument about a danger on the left: this was his short 1991 book on Afrocentrism and multiculturalism, The Disuniting of America....
I hope Alterman at least picked up the check.
Comments (11)
a danger on the left: this was his short 1991 book on Afrocentrism and multiculturalism, The Disuniting of America....
Buchanan Lite
Posted by Stanley W. Rogouski | March 15, 2007 12:44 AM
Posted on March 15, 2007 00:44
You know, I don't buy the argument that Joseph McCarthy was more dangerous or more evil than Joseph Stalin. Come on. Or, am I just misreading your point? I'm no fan of Slessie, but...
Posted by Brian | March 15, 2007 1:28 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 13:28
lets pass on the joe v joe shit
the man of steel died in early 53
the liberal kold war had a good ten year run after that
the mea culpas were never heard
but the fierce and shameless
liberal nambo piling on lyndon johnson
after the whistle
was all part of the displaced penance among many
like galbraith the elder
but my guess it wasn't enough for slezze here
his conscience was to blackened
so like stan he defied to the end
hence his hell bound trajectory
i ought to make myself clear
the sleezers have my affection
as they sizzle their cans on the brimstones
whilst
the galbraiths
dallying about
in their wodehousian garden grounds
have nothing but my utter contempt
Posted by op | March 15, 2007 1:43 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 13:43
now for stalin
so far as i can read
uncle joe invented joe Mc
so the grand geralissimo
deserves all the blame
dare i say sherman....the total blame
Posted by op | March 15, 2007 1:46 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 13:46
Brian -- Your beef is with Alterman, not me! Only an American liberal would yoke the two Joes in the first place. An then the solemn arithmetic of who was worse for who when -- it's a conversation that belongs on the island of Laputa.
Posted by MJS | March 15, 2007 1:50 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 13:50
"characteristically mean spirited.."
ah but never mean spirited enough alas
what would i give
to command
milton's mighty line
Posted by owen p | March 15, 2007 1:52 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 13:52
Brian -- Your beef is with Alterman, not me! Only an American liberal would yoke the two Joes in the first place. An then the solemn arithmetic of who was worse for who when -- it's a conversation that belongs on the island of Laputa.
On the other hand, comparing J. Edgar Hoover and Felix Dzerzhinsky could be an interesting experiment.
I don't think J. Edgar's gotten his props as one of history's great enemies of intellectual and political liberty.
Posted by Stanley W. Rogouski | March 15, 2007 9:09 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 21:09
Stanley -- One thing is for sure: McCarthy was an inconsequential clown. Hoover is a more serious figure -- I wonder if we will ever have a full picture of his evildoings. But respect where it's due: Dzerzhinsky is a world-historical figure, and McCarthy and Hoover, after a generation or two, will be dead as Dies.
Posted by MJS | March 15, 2007 9:37 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 21:37
Hoover is a more serious figure -- I wonder if we will ever have a full picture of his evildoings.
We probably won't, and liberal gatekeepers like Arthur Schlesinger and Eric Alterman are part of the problem.
As a ex-courtier in the Kennedy entourage, Schlesinger almost certainly took information about Hoover to his grave. I guess it would have been a bit too much to ask from Alterman that he try to get the old man to come clean about the Kennedy family's involvement in Cointelpro. It probably would have been futile. Asking Schlesinger to spread dirt on the Kennedy name would have been a bit like asking a Daily Kos loyalist to criticize Hillary about her stance on the war. But he could have tried.
Posted by Stanley W. Rogouski | March 15, 2007 11:08 PM
Posted on March 15, 2007 23:08
the camelot crowd
is an on going
series of co ordinated self inventions
co ordinated not like a line dance
but like dance styles
as they change over time
the crowd keeps
to basically the same
set of new motions
sleeze had of course his twist and frug phase
and his hustle phase
but somewhere in the carter years it all started to petrify
like my mothers hair style
and what we have now
is a hideous miss haversham affair
they all can not die too soon
living memory can be an aweful
figmentary thing
Posted by owen p | March 16, 2007 9:04 AM
Posted on March 16, 2007 09:04
j edgar hoover yum yum yum
...don't get me started on that
feller
there's nixon "of course"
but before nixon ...before Dies even
there's j'edgar
maybe not up there with the suave pole
after all
who in the last century is
an equal of the Dzerz ???
in the top cop game ???
preposterous
but j e h
hit at least double his weight
and
if you've seen pictures of him
in an evening dress
you know
he weren't small
Posted by owen p | March 16, 2007 7:51 PM
Posted on March 16, 2007 19:51