Andrew Sullivan’s prose equivalent of a single-finger send-off for Karl Rove resonated with me:
Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war – and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency.
I scruple a bit to put it quite this way, but it is astonishing sometimes to think what an extraordinary opportunity the 9/11 attacks presented—an opportunity to rally not just the country but the whole of a sympathetic liberal West (and anyone else who was game) in affirmation of the shared values that distinguish us from fanatical theocrats: pluralism, freedom of speech, secular government, democracy, reason, the rule of law. I cannot say that watching the towers fall produced quite the frisson Christopher Hitchens reports feeling, but I do understand the sentiment:
In order to get my own emotions out of the way, I should say briefly that on that day I shared the general register of feeling, from disgust to rage, but was also aware of something that would not quite disclose itself. It only became fully evident quite late that evening. And to my surprise (and pleasure), it was exhilaration. I am not particularly a war lover, and on the occasions when I have seen warfare as a traveling writer, I have tended to shudder. But here was a direct, unmistakable confrontation between everything I loved and everything I hated. On one side, the ethics of the multicultural, the secular, the skeptical, and the cosmopolitan. (Those are the ones I love, by the way.) On the other, the arid monochrome of dull and vicious theocratic fascism. I am prepared for this war to go on for a very long time. I will never become tired of waging it, because it is a fight over essentials. And because it is so interesting.
The legacy of Hitchens’ enthusiasm should prompt us to recall just how “interesting” figures in a certain Chinese curse, but it is hard not to get caught up in that feeling. I recall Camus writing something similar about the feeling among members of the French Resistance, who in conditions that surely licensed despair felt a kind of supernatural energy at the chance to throw themselves into a cause so clearly vital and right, who saw that never again would their lives be so invested with meaning. With “values” degenerating into a euphemism for prices or prudery, depending on one’s tribe, here was a collective call to defend the genuine, human article.
And then, before we could catch more than a glimpse through the window, it snapped shut. The administration took the spirit of terrified solidarity that emerged in Congress as a sign of weakness to be exploited. The great uniting tragedy was unceremoniously reduced from an icon to a blunt cudgel, with which opponents were to be bludgeoned as frequently and mindlessly as possible. To the nations turning a sympathetic ear, we screeched our contempt. It was the inversion of Karl Rove’s infamous sobriquet: Tiny flowers struggling up from a sea of shit, abruptly smothered in it again. And at least some small measure of the invoice for all this grotesque waste must come due at the door of the man so rapt in his “big picture” dreams—his grand vision of a great political alignment, a permanent Republican majority—that he could not see, in the historical moment he occupied, how profoundly petty an aspiration that was.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Barry // Aug 14, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Note that Hitchens’ feelings are those of excitement over conflict – not of a desire to struggle for goals such as freedom, liberalism, pluralism, etc. War[1] gave him some excitement, gave meaning to a meaningless life.
-Barry
[1] Where ‘war’, of course, wouldn’t personally inconvenience him, let alone rip irreplaceable body parts from him.
2 AemJeff // Aug 14, 2007 at 3:31 pm
A writer with intellect and style, and an acid wit, has been reduced, at least in regard to this war, to an excruciatingly dull, angry polemicist. That’s a real loss, and it says, in exaggerated microcosm, everything anybody needs to know, I think, about the tiresome, poisonous idea framed the phrase “I was a liberal until 9/11, when everything changed…”
I understand the sentiment he describes, I think he let it kill part of what him, or at least his writing, vital and interesting.
Hitchens, at least has his romantic nature to blame. The administration, as exemplified by Rove and Cheney, seem to have seen an opportunity and played what they saw as their best hand.
3 AemJeff // Aug 14, 2007 at 3:33 pm
“Part of what him?” Oops.
I think he let it kill part of what made him, or at least his writing, vital and interesting.
4 Bill // Aug 14, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I do have to think that the hatred of Rove on the blogosphere is a bit naive and fails to take account of Rove’s function and job within the White House. He was not a political leader or a policy maker. He was just the marketing guy and shouldn’t be universally despised because he helped George W. Bush get elected, which was his job.
http://draggedfromthebottom.blogspot.com/2007/08/rove-cont.html
5 Julian Sanchez // Aug 14, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Bill-
Wait, that’s not right. He held the title of deputy chief of staff for policy, and it’s widely understood that he had significant policy input even before that.
6 Julian Sanchez // Aug 14, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Also, quite independently, there is more than a whiff of “just following orders” in that defense.
7 Gene // Aug 14, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I think Hitchens’ sentiments quoted above amount to Stu Bykovsky in prissier prose. Actually, I might prefer Bykovsky, because he’s less self-referential, self-congratulatory, and self-absorbed.
8 Wilson // Aug 14, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Heh. I still think Hitchens has an acid wit, an intellect and style.
The fact that he’s gone fucking crazy hasn’t changed any of that for me.
9 Sam McManus // Aug 15, 2007 at 4:14 am
I’m with you, Wilson. Hitchens’s curmudgeounry never fails to make me crack a smile.
10 Barry // Aug 15, 2007 at 1:45 pm
As I get older, I’m less and less ipressed by curmodgeonness. Most of the time, it’s merely somebody being an *sshole. It has little value in and of itself, and should only be consumed (or dished out) in small amounts.
11 Klein's Tiny Left Nut // Aug 17, 2007 at 5:42 pm
The difference between the comments of Camus and those of Hitchens is that Camus and his comrades put their asses on the line against the most vicious tyranny the world has known rather than say, sit around and drink another scotch.
The notion that Rove was not a policy maker seems to be completely untrue. Indeed, one of the many reprehensible aspects of this administration is that a Mayberry Machiavvellian like Rove had so much input into policy decisions.
12 Sergio Méndez // Aug 17, 2007 at 9:27 pm
“I scruple a bit to put it quite this way, but it is astonishing sometimes to think what an extraordinary opportunity the 9/11 attacks presented—an opportunity to rally not just the country but the whole of a sympathetic liberal West (and anyone else who was game) in affirmation of the shared values that distinguish us from fanatical theocrats: pluralism, freedom of speech, secular government, democracy, reason, the rule of law”
Well, with all due respect, but is hard to me to think of George Bush and his neoconservative ideologues chearing things like pluralism, freedom os speech, secular goverment and reason…you know, they are the same people who attack pluralism as some post modernist evil, think freedom of speech should have limits (when it touches sensitive issues like patriotism -flag burning- or religion), secular goverment (at least one thinks Bush religious right friends and neoconservative supporters do care for the idea when they rail against “secularism” and separation of church and state in endless tirades) and the same people who want evolution thrown out of schools and deny the scientific consensus on global warming for their own misguised economic interests and religious beliefs….