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amid our grief and anger, Americans have been able to take heart
from our response to Tuesday's mass murders. The lines at blood
banks, the surplus volunteers, the unpettiness of our politicians,
our willingness to do whatever it takes to win this war-all of it
has reminded us that for all our failings we are still a good and
resilient people. As many gas masks as there are in New York today,
there are still more flags flying. This has been true even in my
own trade, that of opinion journalism. Most of the coverage —
whether in National Review, the New Republic, or the
Washington Post — has been sober, responsible, patriotic,
and morally and strategically intelligent.
There are, however, exceptions. The worst have been some anti-American
outbursts. Noam
Chomsky's reaction to the atrocities was to explain that Americans
have been guilty of far worse and to fret that the fallout might
be "a crushing blow" for Palestinians and good for "the
hard jingoist right." What should suffer a crushing blow is
Chomsky's (always wholly unmerited) reputation as a deep political
thinker.
As should Michael Moore's as an amusing provocateur. Here's an
excerpt of "Michael's
Latest Message" (forgive the length, but this has to be
read to be believed):
We abhor terrorism — unless we're the ones doing the terrorizing.
We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua
in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work.
You and me. . . .
We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of
innocent people, and we never let the human suffering THAT causes
to interrupt our day one single bit.
We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the
world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam,
in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised
when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head
from the horror we have helped cause. . . .
In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us
again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of
the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms
race — you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all. . . .
Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right.
They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at
Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID
NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination
of California — these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!
Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity…
Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine
our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.
Those of us on the Right should not imagine that anti-American
reactions have been confined to the Left. Consider the exchange
between Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on The 700 Club,
which was brought to my attention by Andrew
Sullivan's website. Falwell said, "I really believe that
the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays
and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative
lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them
who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in
their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'" Robertson replied,
"Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted
their agenda at the highest levels of our government."
There were almost certainly gays and feminists (and Muslims, for
that matter) among the innocent victims of the massacres. However
misguided we may consider American social liberals, they are Americans.
And they did nothing to encourage Islamist fanatics to hijack our
planes and fly them into our buildings. To use the attacks as a
pretext to continue our culture wars is disgraceful. Even worse
would be to suggest that America had it coming because it's sunk
in sin. Conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, should
be glad that Robertson and Falwell are long past their prime as
leaders.
This being a free country, nothing should be done to keep Moore,
Falwell, et al from going off on whatever rants they choose. But
civilized people should not let them into their houses.
Other commentators, while not falling into the sort of noxiousness
quoted above, have nonetheless been unable to restrain their partisanship.
In Wednesday's edition of the New York Times, its editors
wrote that the mass murders showed the folly of missile defense.
Whatever one thinks of this argument — and I happen to consider
it wrong and, indeed, stupid — it was unseemly to rush it into
print in their first post-massacre edition. (At least they avoided
an I-told-you-so tone.)
Some commentators, finally, seem to me at risk — I hope this
doesn't sound pompous — of spiritual danger. I refer to those
who, though doubtless unaware of it at a conscious level, have seemed
just the faintest bit pleased by the bombings. They say how good
it is that America has at last woken up from its torpor, that we
are turning serious again after a season of frivolity. This is a
mistake not least because our "frivolity" has been a byproduct
of our freedom, and it is freedom we are fighting to defend.
I think of this attitude to the war as "the Crouchback response,"
in honor of Guy Crouchback, the main character of Evelyn Waugh's
Sword of Honour trilogy. At its end, a refugee muses to Crouchback
that "'even good men thought their private honour would be
satisfied by war. They could assert their manhood by killing and
being killed. They would accept hardships in recompense for having
been selfish and lazy. Danger justified privilege.'"
"'God forgive me,' said Guy, 'I was one of them.'"
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