Being English appears to be a tremendous asset in DC and NYC when it comes to being viewed as an authority on American politics. I find this interesting -- I can't really imagine that there are a plethora of American commentators appearing on British television or in the press or blogosphere to explain England to Englishmen. (Deborah's parents clearly did her a career disservice by settling in Florida rather than in our nation's opinion centers.)
This post was inspired a couple of weeks ago when I was gazing at Morning Joe on the TV screen at the gym and noticed that Tony Blair was being fawned over, and then was followed by Richard Branson -- Sir Richard Branson to you. A couple of days later it was Cherie Blair on with Scarborough followed in short order by professional Brit and ubiquitous courtier to the right, Niall Ferguson. I then hopped in the car to drive the two blocks to my office and heard Tina Brown on npr. The next evening I turned the corner while out walking Stanley and came upon Richard Wolfe walking down the block. And then the next night on my early evening stroll, it was Christopher Hitchens speaking to a throng at my local bookstore about his new autobiography. (I was tempted to scream "the British are coming, the British are coming!")
I suspect that if England bordered the U.S. you would be able to pull up to Home Depot in your truck and three Brits would jump in the back and begin explaining the days news to you. Our lawns would remain uncut, but we'd sparkle at cocktail parties.
The Briptpundits excel at a certain kind of urbane glibness that really seems to work with American audiences. There is a style that suggests being deeply learned and possessed of a certain kind of wisdom that we on the newer side of the pond lack. The two current stars of this are Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan, stars one might add who feel some need to travel in opposite orbits, with Hitchens, once a rare celebrated man of the (hard) left in America, having emerged as a darling of the neo-con right, while Sullivan, who a few short years ago was accusing liberals of treason, is now very much at home in at least a big swath of liberal circles.
What strikes me in contemplating both of them is that there is a certain similarity of style and mode of thinking even if neither travels in the same ideological sphere. In both cases, I think, more credit is given than due with respect to the collective intellectual rigor that each brings to his endeavors. Both are undeniably clever, quick, articulate, well-read, and fluid writers; each possesses a certain personal charm, especially Sullivan when he is in a self-deprecating mood. But I would submit that for all of their obvious intellectual firepower, both Sullivan and Hitchens are characterized by a kind of visceral style and mode of thinking that leads often to errors -- and often gross errors at that. Moreover, both men have shown a certain level of ugliness and irresponsibility in their writing and utterances that leaves me deeply skeptical of them.
Sullivan's sins are relatively well known in liberal circles -- in addition to the infamous "fifth column" comment -- which pissed me off at a pretty cosmic level -- there was the shameless flogging of the reprehensible "Bell Curve" and the anti-health care reform fantasy "No Exit" in the pages of The New Republic while he was the magazine's editor. These come about as close to a trio of unforgivable sins that I can think of -- and lest you think that Sullivan has completely reformed, check out recent posts on the British Labour Party (" As a Whiggish Tory, there is nothing I'd rather see than the demise of the Labour party, the architect of the socialist state and the culture of class-hatred that I grew up in and that Thatcher alone helped partially dismantle.") and his gratuitous and graceless slaps at deceased Senator Robert Byrd (" Speak no ill of the dead? Well, let me simply say that the racist, populist, larcenous bigot of a Senator - a man who robbed the American tax-payer to pave his state with baubles and bribes - is not going to be much mourned in these parts."). I find it ironic, to say the least, that Sullivan, the Bell Curve apologist, cannot forgive Byrd for acts of racism that occurred over forty years ago, but expects his own foibles and grotesque failures of judgment to be overlooked because he is evolved enough to oppose torture. Well Byrd courageously opposed the whole fucking immoral war to which Sullivan had given his full-throated approval -- the war that, of course, led to the torture that now so appalls him. And let's not forget, when Byrd did this he was sticking his neck way the fuck out there -- not when the dubious enterprise had gone awry.
Hitchens may be even more politically incoherent than Sullivan -- pickling your brain can do that to you. (Author's note: entire post hand-written at a bar while consuming a pint of Allagash White, a pint of Old Chubb Scottish Ale, and two pints of Lagunitas India Pale Ale, so I know of what I speak.) He was a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War and did not hesitate to characterize Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger as war criminals. Of course, the Vietnamese communists had the virtue of not being Muslim -- they were no more humane than Saddam, indeed probably less so, but they had the good sense to subscribe to a bastardized western atheistic ideology -- granting them virtue in Hitchens' bloodshot eyes.
Islam, on the other hand, clearly infuriates Hitchens -- so much so that he is willing to embrace a war of aggression against an Islamic nation, even if the result will likely be to strengthen the forces of religious rule in that country. As I say, polemics, not long-term thinking, are his strong suit.
Maybe, in the end, Hitchens is just a later generation iteration of the neo-conservative phenomenon -- another Trotskyist who is so comfortable with the notion of achieving political change via violence that he finds himself comfortable with the worst kind of the 19th-Century-style imperialistic adventurism.
Anyway, as an American (although a bit of an anglophile) with I suspect a deeper knowledge of our history than either Messrs. Sullivan or Hitchens, I feel like someone should hang a lantern or two in a prominent position to warn our countrymen against becoming overly enamored of either of them.*
*(And don't get me started on the Canadians.)
