Jonah, the usual
Jonah Goldberg takes notice of my NPR commentary. He starts by noting the intro text NPR put up on its site to promote my commentary:
I didn't write that, and it doesn't reflect what's actually in the commentary. If it were an accurate reflection of what I actually said, it would read that "some" of my prior beliefs have come into question. The essay was about losing faith in the rightness of my own side on matters of national security, a rightness I took for granted in large part as a reaction to the weakness of Jimmy Carter and the era's Democrats (as I explain in the piece). I initially had a line in the essay saying that the actual weakness of the Democrats in the face of Soviet communism made it easy to lionize Republicans, who were right on that enormously important issue. NPR edited it and other material out, because the piece had to come in at under three minutes. (They also edited out an explanation of how I spent a few years in high school and early college as a liberal; any of my friends from those days hearing that I've been a conservative since 13 no doubt rolled their eyes.)
Anyway, I make it clear in the piece that I'm still a conservative, but that the experience of conservative government with regard to the Iraq war has done away with any illusions I had about the importance of having a Republican president when faced with a national security crisis.
Jonah:
You want a detailed and complex analysis in a three-minute commentary? Please. In my essay, I talked about how the conduct of the war was what alienated me. That includes the falsehoods and half-truths told to get us into this mess -- for example, the things we were told back in 2002 by this administration and took on good faith, which we ought to have been far more skeptical of. The Carter comparison is in my piece precisely because so much of my embrace of the GOP -- and I would say the embrace of a lot of people of my generation made of the GOP and of Ronald Reagan -- was in reaction to the failure of Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. Carter brought the nation to a bad place; Reagan dug us out. My error was to think that all Republicans were like Reagan, or to be more precise, that "Reaganism" -- standing tall, carrying a big stick -- was always and everywhere the right response. I failed to be as critical of GWB as I ought to have been before it was obvious to everyone with eyes to see what a disaster his administration has been re: Iraq. What's Jonah's excuse?
I hope you'll listen to my commentary, if you haven't already, because Jonah has a habit of mischaracterizing my work. I brought up the hippies in my commentary because that's exactly how I'd always written off anyone who was against the Vietnam War -- as pretty much a hippy who bla med America first. It was an emotional response that made it easy to dismiss the valuable warnings about government power and government deception that many of the anti-war protesters of the Sixties pointed out. I didn't want to listen, nor did I want to listen when some of these same people -- and some on the Right (who NR called "unpatriotic," and I agreed at the time) -- tried to make similar points about Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. If calling conservatives who were against the war "unpatriotic" as a way to dismiss their criticism isn't about rash emotion, what is? I considered the "hippies" to be unpatriotic, and didn't want to take anything they had to say about government power in wartime seriously. But look, I am not the only one in the room on the Right susceptible to making emotional judgments. And those of us who called Pat Buchanan et alia "unpatriotic" owe them an apology. Because you know what? America would be in a far better place today if we had listened to them on the war.
My anti-Bush epiphany was about more than the war. It was also about Katrina and Harriet Miers. Yet my commentary was explicitly not about my thoughts about economics, or social policy, or anything other than trusting conservatives in power to do the right thing on war and foreign policy. Once again Jonah, as is his habit, distorts. Hard as it is to believe, one can be a conservative and have little or no faith in the Bush administration. In fact, that's getting to be pretty much a requirement nowadays.
Jonah:
One last point: nobody from NPR approached me about anything. I've done commentaries for them in the past -- one on my book, and one on the experience of driving around Dallas in the summer without air conditioning -- so I have a relationship with a producer there. When I went home from the office on Wednesday night after watching the speech at office, I was so agitated over it that I wrote that commentary, and e-mailed it to the producer. She invited me to record it the next day. So I approached them. For the record.
Commentator Rod Dreher has been a conservative since he was 13. Now on the cusp of turning 40, he's still a conservative, but is so dismayed at the way President Bush is handling the Iraq war that all of his prior beliefs have come into question.
I didn't write that, and it doesn't reflect what's actually in the commentary. If it were an accurate reflection of what I actually said, it would read that "some" of my prior beliefs have come into question. The essay was about losing faith in the rightness of my own side on matters of national security, a rightness I took for granted in large part as a reaction to the weakness of Jimmy Carter and the era's Democrats (as I explain in the piece). I initially had a line in the essay saying that the actual weakness of the Democrats in the face of Soviet communism made it easy to lionize Republicans, who were right on that enormously important issue. NPR edited it and other material out, because the piece had to come in at under three minutes. (They also edited out an explanation of how I spent a few years in high school and early college as a liberal; any of my friends from those days hearing that I've been a conservative since 13 no doubt rolled their eyes.)
Anyway, I make it clear in the piece that I'm still a conservative, but that the experience of conservative government with regard to the Iraq war has done away with any illusions I had about the importance of having a Republican president when faced with a national security crisis.
Jonah:
You'll actually have to go there to hear him 'cause I'm not going to type up his comments. I can't fault Rod for his frustration with the war, though I think he comes across as pretty anti-intellectual and unfair in his tirade — as if there was no good faith or no good arguments for the positions he once held and which lots of folks he respects still hold. I should also say that the comparison to Jimmy Carter is really quite weak. Simply because Carter's feckless foreign policy and Bush's over confident foreign policy elicited similar feelings in Rod doesn't mean that they can be glibly equated.
You want a detailed and complex analysis in a three-minute commentary? Please. In my essay, I talked about how the conduct of the war was what alienated me. That includes the falsehoods and half-truths told to get us into this mess -- for example, the things we were told back in 2002 by this administration and took on good faith, which we ought to have been far more skeptical of. The Carter comparison is in my piece precisely because so much of my embrace of the GOP -- and I would say the embrace of a lot of people of my generation made of the GOP and of Ronald Reagan -- was in reaction to the failure of Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. Carter brought the nation to a bad place; Reagan dug us out. My error was to think that all Republicans were like Reagan, or to be more precise, that "Reaganism" -- standing tall, carrying a big stick -- was always and everywhere the right response. I failed to be as critical of GWB as I ought to have been before it was obvious to everyone with eyes to see what a disaster his administration has been re: Iraq. What's Jonah's excuse?
Likewise, simply because Rod has the same feelings as hippies that doesn't mean the hippies were right then (or that Rod is right now). In short, there's a lot of talk about feelings.
I hope you'll listen to my commentary, if you haven't already, because Jonah has a habit of mischaracterizing my work. I brought up the hippies in my commentary because that's exactly how I'd always written off anyone who was against the Vietnam War -- as pretty much a hippy who bla med America first. It was an emotional response that made it easy to dismiss the valuable warnings about government power and government deception that many of the anti-war protesters of the Sixties pointed out. I didn't want to listen, nor did I want to listen when some of these same people -- and some on the Right (who NR called "unpatriotic," and I agreed at the time) -- tried to make similar points about Bush in the run-up to the Iraq war. If calling conservatives who were against the war "unpatriotic" as a way to dismiss their criticism isn't about rash emotion, what is? I considered the "hippies" to be unpatriotic, and didn't want to take anything they had to say about government power in wartime seriously. But look, I am not the only one in the room on the Right susceptible to making emotional judgments. And those of us who called Pat Buchanan et alia "unpatriotic" owe them an apology. Because you know what? America would be in a far better place today if we had listened to them on the war.
Also, the commentary leaves the impression that Rod's anti-Bush epiphany and conservative crisis of confidence are solely the product of the war. I know how these NPR things are put together so I understand the limits they impose. But for clarity's sake it's worth reminding people who didn't read Crunchy Cons, that Rod's straying from "mainstream conservatism" has more authors than the Iraq war alone.
My anti-Bush epiphany was about more than the war. It was also about Katrina and Harriet Miers. Yet my commentary was explicitly not about my thoughts about economics, or social policy, or anything other than trusting conservatives in power to do the right thing on war and foreign policy. Once again Jonah, as is his habit, distorts. Hard as it is to believe, one can be a conservative and have little or no faith in the Bush administration. In fact, that's getting to be pretty much a requirement nowadays.
Jonah:
One last point. NPR has a habit of doing this sort of thing (so does the New York Times, of course). I was last invited to come on to beat up Trent Lott. Rod's on there to beat up Bush. Maybe NPR could stretch a little bit and find some conservatives to make a positive case for their beliefs that doesn't involve confirming liberal or Democratic arguments? Or is that too much to ask?
One last point: nobody from NPR approached me about anything. I've done commentaries for them in the past -- one on my book, and one on the experience of driving around Dallas in the summer without air conditioning -- so I have a relationship with a producer there. When I went home from the office on Wednesday night after watching the speech at office, I was so agitated over it that I wrote that commentary, and e-mailed it to the producer. She invited me to record it the next day. So I approached them. For the record.
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