Posted on 12/10/2001 11:46:34 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Three months ago, terrorists launched a devastating attack on America that claimed several thousand dead and thousands more wounded, and shocked and shook the entire nation. The president rallied the country and ordered the execution of the military's plan for reprisal. The plan's first stage is largely and successfully complete. There are enormous concerns, of course, and a long and dangerous struggle is still ahead. But more has been learned – relearned, actually – about this country and its people in the past three months than in the past 30 years.
So, as the 90-day anniversary of the attacks approaches, upon what are the elites of the left focused?
Run through the Sunday papers from Dec. 9: In the Washington Post, Michael Kinsley has filed an attack on Ari Fleisher for being boring and evasive. In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd is essaying on the translation of Harry Potter into Latin. The "featured writer" of the Los Angeles Times is John Balzar, and the paper has invested much in the effort to make him a "must read" on both coasts. There's a reason you haven't heard of him – he uses his column this Sunday past to extol his credentials as a "connoisseur of microbrew beer" as he defends alcohol and its users. Over at the Boston Globe, Ellen Goodman at least works the word "Afghanistan" into her big piece for the week. But the column is an attack on our military's dress code for women deployed in Saudi Arabia.
Two days after the 60th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and on the eve of a national look back at a fall of savagery, fear, regrouping and bravery unlike any other in our history, and a quartet of representatives from the political and cultural left all chose to write on small matters irrelevant to the drama before us and before the world. Not only did they make these choices, their editors gave them the space to do so. I wonder what Walter Lippmann chose to write on in early March of 1942?
Whether they have nothing to say or are still stunned by their sudden and nearly complete irrelevance, this simultaneous reach for absurd subjects underscores some obvious but hard truths about the pen-pushers on America's left.
All of these people are clever writers. Once again, cleverness is revealed as unrelated to wisdom. Wars always reveal this. And it is always forgotten in a long peace. The locust years of the last presidency elevated the clever people higher than they had ever got before, because there was no substance there at all, just words. Now they are stumbling around. These folks have tried to write about the serious things, but have hit the wrong note every time. Poor Ms. Dowd may have set a record for outrageous misses. No wonder she is regressing to her high school days and writing of the difficulty she had translating Caesar's "Commentaries."
We also have to relearn that pretensions to seriousness are not the same thing as seriousness. Kinsley may never be the same since being knocked around by O'Reilly, but truth be told he's never been significant in the way that George Will or Charles Krauthammer have been. Balzar won't get out of AA ball, and if Goodman has penned a memorable column in her life, I missed it.
These and many others have risen because they share attitudes (they don't deserve the higher tag of "ideas") with the hiring editors and the column buyers. Attitude was enough during the long stretch of years after the fall of the Soviet empire when folks demanded peace dividends and argued with straight faces that HMO reform should take precedence over national defense and foreign affairs. All of a sudden, we need serious analysis from serious people and it turns out the wittiest people from the college papers are running the show. What a surprise: They have nothing to say.
It is common now to note how little time was spent on terrorism in the three presidential and one vice presidential debates last fall. Don't blame President Bush or Vice President Gore – they weren't asking the questions. And you really can't blame just Jim Lehrer. He was the perfect distillation of center-left attitude in the country, and a gentleman to boot. Go back and watch the tapes of Russert during the campaign. After Vice President Cheney's selection was announced, he made the obligatory appearance on Meet the Cuomo Aide. The first seven questions dealt with his heart condition. Not much talk of that now.
Try finding a single elite media commentator who spoke or wrote seriously about the dangers in the world and the first priorities in presidential selection during the fall or 2000. There was at least one – I thought at the time that this writer made a crucial point on the Thursday before the presidential election. In fact, rereading the last four paragraphs of Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column of November 2, 2000, I am convinced that Noonan deserves the Nostradamus Award as well as a Pulitzer. Here is what she wrote 13 months ago:
Mr. Bush is at odds with the spirit of the past 8 years in another way. He appears to be wholly uninterested in lying, has no gift for it, thinks it's wrong.
This is important at any time, but is crucial now. The next president may well be forced to shepherd us through the first nuclear event since World War II, the first terrorist attack or missile attack. "Man has never had a weapon he didn't use," Ronald Reagan said in conversation, and we have been most fortunate man has not used these weapons to kill in the past 50 years. But half the foreign and defense policy establishment fears, legitimately, that the Big Terrible Thing is coming, whether in India-Pakistan, or in Asia or in lower Manhattan.
When it comes, if it comes, the credibility – the trustworthiness – of the American president will be the key to our national survival. We may not be able to sustain a president who is known for his tendency to tell untruths.
If we must go through a terrible time, a modest man of good faith is the one we'll need in charge. That is George Herbert Walker Bush, governor of Texas.
Yes, she really did write that more than a year ago, and it has far more relevance and power than any or all of the four offerings mentioned above which appeared on December 9, 2001. The point is, as the coach said to the sprinter who asked to be made fast in Chariots of Fire, "You can't put in what God left out."
God left seriousness, wisdom, and perspective out of most writers, as well as political judgment. A few, like Ms. Noonan, got all the gifts. We ought to read the latter, and ask the former to find a better outlet for their cleverness. We haven't the time to spare anymore.
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In 'The Embarrassed Believer', Hugh Hewitt is reviving Christian witness in an age of unbelief and is available in WND's online store.
"...Try finding a single elite media commentator who spoke or wrote seriously about the dangers in the world and the first priorities in presidential selection during the fall or 2000. There was at least one – I thought at the time that this writer made a crucial point on the Thursday before the presidential election..In fact, rereading the last four paragraphs of Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column of November 2, 2000, I am convinced that Noonan deserves the Nostradamus Award as well as a Pulitzer..."
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(If you want OFF - or ON - my "Hugh Hewitt PING list" - please let me know.)
"We don't have time for this nonsense anymore." Tony Snow 9/16/01
Apparently something you have more than a passing knowledge of.
Peggy Noonan's Wall Street Journal column of November 2, 2000See:
Peggy Noonan BUMP!!!
MR. FLEISCHER: Later this afternoon, in one of the ceremonial joys that comes with the job, the President will take part in a photo opportunity with the University of Minnesota 2001 NCAA Championship Men's Wrestling Team.
Q That's one of the great joys of this job? (Laughter.)
MR. FLEISCHER: Yes.
Q One of the others is meeting with the winners of the World Series, I understand. (Laughter.)
MR. FLEISCHER: Speaking of wrestling, questions come later, Helen.
....Not boring to me! By the way, Hugh, Ari's name is pronounced "Are-ee" ("R-E") not "Air-y." "Ari" means "lion."
Rush Limbaugh.
Whether they have nothing to say or are still stunned by their sudden and nearly complete irrelevance, this simultaneous reach for absurd subjects underscores some obvious but hard truths about the pen-pushers on America's left. All of these people are clever writers. Once again, cleverness is revealed as unrelated to wisdom. Wars always reveal this. And it is always forgotten in a long peace.
Yes Sir!
Popularity does not equal relevancy.
Love to read Hewitt and Noonan!
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