Elián Nation

ONCE in a while, some issue in our public life—not necessarily an issue of great intrinsic importance—acts like a flare sent up over a nighttime battlefield, throwing all the contours into sharp relief and shedding light on dark places. The Clarence Thomas hearings were such an issue; the impeachment was of course another.

The affair of Elián González has also been a flare, revealing much about our political landscape. It has, for example, shown that reflective thought and intellectual complexity are now almost exclusive to the Right, while the Left is more monolithic and thinking-impaired than ever. As a conservative journalist expressed it to a colleague: “I am torn on Elián, really torn. But what burns me is that the liberals are not torn.

About the Author

John Derbyshire

Mr. Derbyshire is a former contributing editor of National Review.

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ONCE in a while, some issue in our public life—not necessarily an issue of great intrinsic importance—acts like a flare sent up over a nighttime battlefield, throwing all the contours into sharp relief and shedding light on dark places. The Clarence Thomas hearings were such an issue; the impeachment was of course another.

The affair of Elián González has also been a flare, revealing much about our political landscape. It has, for example, shown that reflective thought and intellectual complexity are now almost exclusive to the Right, while the Left is more monolithic and thinking-impaired than ever. As a conservative journalist expressed it to a colleague: “I am torn on Elián, really torn. But what burns me is that the liberals are not torn.