In “America’s Open House,” I said about Tamar Jacoby (among other things) that she “squints at flesh-and-blood Americans; to her, America is a mere proposition, nothing but an idea.” I then demolished her assertion that [cop killer] Quintero’s illegality was irrelevant to his crime. You can read the one-liner that did her in.

Paul Gottfried, a brilliant scholar, once an active participant in American political discourse, wrote to warn me that, “After this insensitive invective against… TJ you’ll no longer be invited to neocon cocktail parties.”

Of course he was pocking fun at my popularity among the official thinking class. However, I missed the subtlety. Despair over politics and culture in this country occasionally (not often) takes a toll on my sense of humor.

The occasion was as good as any to ask him if the burlesque that is American politics doesn’t cause him to despair. Here we are, years after the fact, and the “elites” are only now discussing Iraq as a not-so-swell idea vis-a -vis terrorism, and the Bush administration as the less-than heavenly outfit Fox News said it was. Meantime, the prevalence in national discourse (conducted on cable) of “good looking” illiterates grows (and the book deals these incompetents get), while the demand for truly bright, principled, interesting people diminishes. Does this not cause him to despair?

I received this wise reply: “At my age I have ceased to despair but simply try to keep going. The liberal-neocon media won’t ask our opinions because we’ve been branded extremists, at least by the standards of permissible, sensitive views. All of this belongs to an historical process that neither you nor I can influence any more. Whatever the elites do or do not do is perfectly OK with the PEOPLE, as long as they get social programs, consumer goods, and instruction about what they should believe.”

In “America’s Open House,” I said about Tamar Jacoby (among other things) that she “squints at flesh-and-blood Americans; to her, America is a mere proposition, nothing but an idea.” I then demolished her assertion that [cop killer] Quintero’s illegality was irrelevant to his crime. You can read the one-liner that did her in.

Paul Gottfried, a brilliant scholar, once an active participant in American political discourse, wrote to warn me that, “After this insensitive invective against… TJ you’ll no longer be invited to neocon cocktail parties.”

Of course he was pocking fun at my popularity among the official thinking class. However, I missed the subtlety. Despair over politics and culture in this country occasionally (not often) takes a toll on my sense of humor.

The occasion was as good as any to ask him if the burlesque that is American politics doesn’t cause him to despair. Here we are, years after the fact, and the “elites” are only now discussing Iraq as a not-so-swell idea vis-a -vis terrorism, and the Bush administration as the less-than heavenly outfit Fox News said it was. Meantime, the prevalence in national discourse (conducted on cable) of “good looking” illiterates grows (and the book deals these incompetents get), while the demand for truly bright, principled, interesting people diminishes. Does this not cause him to despair?

I received this wise reply: “At my age I have ceased to despair but simply try to keep going. The liberal-neocon media won’t ask our opinions because we’ve been branded extremists, at least by the standards of permissible, sensitive views. All of this belongs to an historical process that neither you nor I can influence any more. Whatever the elites do or do not do is perfectly OK with the PEOPLE, as long as they get social programs, consumer goods, and instruction about what they should believe.”