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As a conservative opinion journalist, I get plenty of compliments of the “For a fat girl, you don’t sweat much” variety. Anyone in my field is used to it. But I must say I feel empathy for Max Rovner. I remember when I first discovered National Review and Buckleyism. I felt certain guilt pangs — but I also couldn’t help noticing that this crowd had far more compassion and concern for the millions of sufferers behind the Iron Curtain than my Left crowd. I started to read National Review furtively. A fellow conservative journalist of mine once told me, “When I first started buying National Review and The American Spectator out in L.A., I’d say to the clerk behind the counter, ‘Well, have to see what the opposition’s up to!’” William Safire once quipped that he had to walk down to the corner newsstand to buy a Hustler in order to have something respectable to hide his National Review in. As for me, I suppose I felt much as Max Rovner does: “I’m not going to become a conservative because of this, but . . .” You have to be kind of careful with that talk: You could, much to the dismay of your parents, teachers, friends, and perhaps even yourself, wind up a “conservative” (which these days can be merely a true liberal). I’ve always loved something that Midge Decter said, on becoming a trustee of the Heritage Foundation: “There comes a time to join the side you’re on.” That’s what happened to me. That’s what happens to a lot of people.
Moussaoui also says that America has him positioned for “the gas chamber.” I continue to be fascinated, in a sickened way, by Arab radicals’ use of language commonly related to the Jews: “holocaust,” “right of return,” “diaspora,” “Nazis” (the radicals tend to praise Nazism in one breath, and accuse Jews of it in the next), and so on. They also repeatedly accuse Israel, and the United States, of “terrorism,” precisely because they themselves practice it. What do the shrinks call this? Transference? Projection? Anyway, fascinating, yes, but also sickening.
We’ve heard a lot of talk in the last month about Israelis’ stopping Palestinian ambulances (because those ambulances have been found to harbor and convey terrorists — ambulances, churches, anything handy). But will there be any talk, from anyone, about these particular ambulances?
Gee, really? Where has Maxie C. Jackson III been living all these years — Iceland? The Times also quotes Smiley as saying (about himself), “This is Tavis Smiley’s NPR guarantee to white people. If you listen to my show, I can guarantee you three things. One, you are going to hear stuff you won’t hear anywhere else on NPR. [Doubtful.] Two, when you go to a dinner party tonight, you’ll be the only one who’ll be able to raise and be well-versed on the subjects we’ve covered. And three, you’ll become a lot more hip.” Dwell on “three” for a second, and come up with your own white equivalent: “My guarantee to black people is that, if you listen to my show, you’ll become a lot more . . .” Only in America. I know, I know: Lighten up, Homer. But still . . .
A reader mailed in a passage from the 1963 movie Hud, which is quite familiar — even in the Clinton context — but which I would like to repeat: Melvyn Douglas to Paul Newman: “I know you: You’re smart, you can talk a man into trusting you. But you don’t value nothin’, you don’t respect nothin’, you keep no check on your appetites.” Newman: “Not that I give a damn.” Douglas: “Just that, Hud, you don’t give a damn. That’s it, that’s the whole of it. You’ve got all the charm which makes young people like you. You just live for yourself.” Douglas’s grandson: “Why pick on Hud, Grandpa? He ain’t the only one like that around here.” Douglas: “That’s no cause for rejoicing, son. Little by little, the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.” People say to me about Clinton (it’s Nordlinger again, not a movie character, or star), “Aw, come on, it was just eight years, and what harm did he do?” It’s measured in a million anecdotes, or small facts, because “little by little, the look of the country changes because of the men we admire” — and elect, and reelect, to the presidency.
Oh, yes.
Well, readers reminded me in spades (pardon the expression): “Tio Tomases,” “vendidos” (for sell-outs), “coconuts” (brown on the outside, white on the inside), and so on. The lexicon of racial cruelty is inexhaustible.
Ready for something amazing? Writes a reader, “Earlier this month, I was at my church’s social-concerns meeting. The committee had selected three goals for next year. One of them was to get three Hispanics to become a part of the committee. As we discussed the issue, we realized that some were already involved with our committee, they just didn’t go to the monthly committee meeting. “Names were being tossed about when I mischievously asked, ‘What about Hector Perez?’ Hector Perez — not his real name — is a successful doctor in town who was among those children whose families fled when Castro came to power. My question caused quite a turmoil. One middle-class liberal Anglo said, ‘He’s not Hispanic.’ Others were more honest. ‘He’s not the kind of Hispanic we mean.’ I was impressed when one terribly liberal woman asked why Hector, a native Spanish speaker, did not qualify as Hispanic. “And they wonder why the poor Hispanics don’t have time for our meetings?” Perfect.
“As a former Ann Arborite and as part of a mixed couple (Asian and white), I would advocate humor for the couple with the Asian child. Insist on separate meetings for white parents of Chinese children and white parents of Korean children, and take great offense if there is any move to combine people. After all, are not Koreans distinct from Chinese? Trust me, Asians get very upset when people cannot tell the difference. When required to bring in favorite ethnic food to Thurston Elementary in Ann Arbor, my son (who looks quite Asian) brought in peanut-butter sandwiches and apple pie. Yes, the teacher was upset, but it sure is fun to tweak ’em, and make their lives difficult.” Yes, but why do “they” have to run the whole friggin’ world? |
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must say, I was touched by what 
Reading
an article about The Washington Monthly after the retirement of
its longtime editor, Charles Peters, I was reminded of a classic moment
on Firing Line. Peters said (something like), “I couldn’t
believe it, but Reagan actually had a tax reform that helped the poor.”
Whereupon Buckley said, in the most perfectly toned and timed way, “Yes,
because as everyone knows, Reagan hates the poor.” It is burned
into my memory.
