Posted on 05/15/2004 8:05:42 AM PDT by Lando Lincoln
The best punditry is informed by a sense of history and by in-the-field reporting. Two new books from the top writers in the conservative movement wonderfully illustrate that point.
P.J. O'Rourke has made a long career of going to the world's trouble sites and explaining, from a conservative/libertarian point of view, why people are behaving so badly. Although self-billed as an "investigative humorist," O'Rourke's dispatches convey far more understanding and insight than more serious-toned pontificating.
In "Peace Kills," O'Rourke reports from such exotic spots as Kosovo, Israel, Egypt, a demonstration by leftists in Washington, D.C., Kuwait, Iraq and, for sobering contrast, Iwo Jima, all to better answer the question posed in the book's first piece: "Why Americans Hate Foreign Policy."
The premise: Since we're all foreigners here ourselves (even if we came over 10,000 years ago on the land bridge from Siberia), "we Americans know what foreigners are up to with their foreign policy -- their venomous convents, lying alliances, greedy agreements and trick-or-treaties. America is not a wily, sneaky nation. We don't think that way. We pretty much don't think much at all, thank God. Start thinking and pretty soon you get ideas, and then you get idealism, and the next thing you know you've got ideology, with millions dead in concentration camps and gulags. A fundamental American question is, 'What's the big idea?' "
Most of the pieces in the book were written for The Atlantic, where O'Rourke moved after writing for Rolling Stone for years. "Peace Kills" is dedicated to Atlantic editor Michael Kelly, who died in Iraq. Writes O'Rourke, "He could have advocated the war in Iraq without going to cover it. He could have covered it without putting himself in harm's way. But liberty is an expensive feast. And Mike was a man who always picked up the check."
O'Rourke's opening piece starts at the fall of the Berlin Wall where, even as people presumed they were witnessing "the end of history," "nastiness was already reaccumulating." Why the fall of the Berlin Wall was such a momentous event -- if anything underappreciated 15 years later -- is the subject of William F. Buckley Jr.'s new book, part of the Wiley series of "Turning Point" minihistories (another in the series was Bob Edwards' biography of Edward R. Murrow).
To explain why the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it's necessary to explain why it went up in 1961. Why did the East Germans build the wall? To stem the flood of people trying to escape communism (20,000 in one month alone). Why did the West put up so little fuss about it? Because it had feared something much worse, such as a military action against a city that, because it was well within East Germany, couldn't be defended. Writes Buckley, "It was clear that Washington was not going to choose this time and place to pay any price, bear any burden."
Yet the wall did serve a purpose as the most visible emblem and a recurrent reminder of the thuggery of communism. It also provided the inspiration for two of the great rhetorical flourishes of the Cold War, Kennedy's "let them come to Berlin" speech and Reagan's "tear down this wall."
The jacket blurb on "The Fall of the Berlin Wall" calls Buckley "a father of modern conservative thought," and if there's anything wrong with that pronouncement it might be understatement. Although Buckley is less well known these days than the current crop of writers and talkers, "The Fall of the Berlin Wall" demonstrates the powers of writing and observation that made him the pre-eminent conservative writer for years.
In elegant and fast-moving prose, Buckley does a masterful job of weaving together the events, the people (from world leaders to those whose families literally were divided by the wall and who tried to go through, over or under it), and the trends that eventually reduced the wall to rubble.
It's not just a useful review of the grand sweep of history that makes this book worthwhile. It's also the sketches of the people involved, such as this description of East German leader Walter Ulbricht:
"To see him standing at a lectern -- shoulders squared, eyes narrowed behind steel-rimmed glasses, lips pursed above the goatee -- you might take him for a solemn symphony conductor, prepared to bring down his baton on the music stand to reprimand an erring violinist. You would not immediately guess that his favored means of registering displeasure were indeterminate jail sentences and, for star transgressors, the firing squad."
The only drawback to the book is a lack of photos and the presence of just one map, which appears to have been hurriedly sketched on a legal pad.
Too many "current affairs" books on the best-seller lists clamor for attention but yield no more than one-liners and insults. These two books won't generate nearly the same uproar, but in their understated, insightful and well-written approach they deliver far more toward understanding, in the global sense, of how we got here and where we're going.
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P-I reporter Bill Virgin can be reached at 206-448-8319 or billvirgin@seattlepi.com.
later
WoW!! The "Seattle P-U" printed this!? I am amazed. (But this is one the things that has seemed to distinguish it from the Seattle Slimes, which I doubt would even touch anything like this...)
bttt
good observation
Thanks for posting this. I'm glad to know these two books are out.
Compared to O'Rourke, Hannity writes in crayon.
I caught PJ's documentary on Iwo on the History Channel the other night. He did a good job hosting/narrating it. I knew the battle was bloody, but I had no idea. The doc was very insightful, especially with regard to the sacrifice our troops made.
If you've never seen Buckley speak in person, you're missing out on the experience of a lifetime. He's by far the most eloquent individual and best exponent of conservative principles in the nation, if not the entire world. I'm just sad that PBS no longer has 'Firing Line' as part of it's programming lineup. Alas, WFB Jr. has moved on to bigger and a better things.
Politician-nearly 10% of the vote in a NYC mayoral election-gifted writer, monologist, classic forensic debater, seafarer, father, brother and all-around great human being; William F. Buckley Jr. is one for the ages.
LOL! Wish I could have seen THAT. I just can't picture Bill Buckley punching anybody. But that was 1968.
Gore Vidal was a fag? Really?
Yeah I saw it live and it was so out of character for Buckley since is so laid back etc I couldn't stop laughing
Don't mistake the prissy, Cambridge Forensic Society affectation; this guy is a ballsy dude. He was a spook, after all!
They put it up, and it is their's to take down, while they constantly blame all else for its being there.
Broken pieces of crayons, capital letters and some of them backwards.()))_Crayola_)))#>
()))_Crayola_)))#>
He lives in a villa with his decrepit European "boyfriend." Oh that's right, that guy's deceased. How will civilization ever recoup the loss of that wonderful treasure?
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