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Powerline awards Podhoretz for his ruinous intellectual leadership
Unfortunately, speaking of people’s essential political character, guess what the Powerline trio are up to this week. They’re holding a gala dinner in New York City in honor of Powerline’s Book of the Year, which happens to be … Norman Podhoretz’s World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Powerline holding a gala dinner in honor of Norman P. is like Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern holding a gala dinner in honor of King Claudius. Hey guys, you already work for King Norman. You’ve already voluntarily given your souls to him. You already make love to your employment as his promoters and sycophants. And now in addition to all that, you give him a book award, as though you were not his wholly owned intellectual subsidiary—as though such an award could mean anything? And Podhoretz’s book! I have shown how Podhoretz in a key passage dismisses with a non sequitur the single overwhelming fact—the popular elections of Hamas and Hezbollah—which discredits his thesis that “democracy” is the way to defeat Muslim extremism. A book that ignores, dismisses, and refuses to face obvious and widely known facts that disprove its core thesis is not a book deserving of respect. Also read this from Powerline, in particular the sentence I’ve italicized:
Our purpose, of course, is to promote Podhoretz’s far-sighted analysis of the long war against Islamic extremism. Podhoretz places the war and the Bush Doctrine squarely in the main channel of American history. World War IV is concise, lucid and relentless. It is a necessary reminder of the fundamental issues that are so often obscured by the transitory ups and downs of this (or any other) war. If you haven’t read it, you should. [Italics added.]Let’s leave aside the Orwellian lie that the United States is waging any kind of “long war” against Islamic extremism; if we were waging such a war, would we be admitting Muslim immigrants, many of whom sympathize with that extremism, into this country? What I want to emphasize here is that according to the Powerline guys the most noteworthy and valuable thing about World War IV is that it places the “war” “in the main channel of American history.” What they mean by this is that it places the “war” in the context of World War II and the Cold War. Which means that instead of understanding the unique nature of Islamic jihad and sharia doctrine, and forming a strategy to protect ourselves from it, Podhoretz sees Islam through the filter of our experience of Nazism and Communism. Basically it comes down to a lot of rah-rah. Anyone who loses the will for the “long fight,” anyone who doubts the rightness, let alone the reality, of the imaginary “war,” is not showing the requisite patriotism and guts, subjects about about which Norman P. is the final authority. If we keep showing enough will against the “Islamofascists” abroad and against the treasonous left at home (though, of course, not against the Islamic extremists who are here due to the immigration policy that Norman supports and never questions), we will win. And the way to win is through spreading democracy to Muslims abroad (though in reality spreading democracy to Muslims results in the empowerment of Muslim extremists). In brief, the thing that Powerline specifically admires about World War IV is the very thing that is most objectionable and dangerous about it, that it’s an escape from the 1,400 year old reality of Islam into the fantasy of “Islamofascism,” against which we imagine ourselves to be fighting a repetition of previous world wars—a war that, in reality, consists of promoting “democracy” which actually empowers the “Islamofascists,” even as, far from defending ourselves from the actual encroachments of the enemy into our civilization, we invite and welcome those encroachments and refuse to allow any public discussion about whether this is a good idea. Bringing all of this home to the miserable situation in which we find ourselves, we now have a presumptive GOP presidential nominee, backed by Podhoretz and his followers, who will be even more devoted than Bush has been to fighting the fantasy war against “Islamofascists” and allowing the actual encroachments of sharia-believing Muslims. As Patrick Buchanan joked last week, wasn’t this supposed to be the year of Change?
A final point. As I see them, the Powerline writers as a team present two distinct and contradictory aspects. When they discuss various discrete political issues they often show prudence, analytical clarity, and level-headedness. But when the subject switches to their core belief (neoconservatism) and their core loyalty (to the neocons), they turn into brainless, shameless groupies. So, if my comments about them seem contradictory, in that I sometimes quote them neutrally or approvingly, and sometimes strongly criticize them, the contradiction is not in me, it is in them.
Paul T. writes:
I agree that The Norman’s analysis of the long war against Islamic extremism is “far-sighted,” in the ophthalmological sense—he can’t see what’s in front of his nose. Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 11, 2008 01:32 AM | Send Email entry |