Dr. Frank's What's-it

Thank God they didn't invite the ex-Mao's to the party

This interesting, amusing and fairly innocuous article by Jeet Heer about the Trostkyist past of many advocates of the war in Iraq sparked this histrionic tirade from Arnold Beichman. Granted, the headline of the original article was provocative ("Trotsky's Ghost Wandering the White House"). Yet Beichman's response constitutes a mystifyingly thorough (and willful, I'd wager) failure to get the point. He's obviously hot under the collar about something, but Heer's article, which only distantly resembles the caricature savaged by Beichman, seems to be a mere pretext.

Beichman can relax. Even if Jeet Heer and the National Post were indeed engaged, as he charges, in a sinister plot "to rob the Coalition, which destroyed a terrorist haven and an inhuman dictatorship, of the moral victory it represents" (which seems highly dubious) it's doubtful that they'll get away with it. The National Post is not by any measure the all-powerful shaper of consciousness and arbiter of moral meaning that Beichman apparently imagines it to be. And I doubt that one NP reader in thousands, if even that, would notice, recognize, or understand in Heer's piece the underlying intent "decoded" by Beichman: to discredit the architects and advocates of the Iraq policy by planting an association with Trotsky at Kronstadt. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's the only one. For better or worse, Kronstadt does not "live" in public consciousness. As for the ex-Trotskyists: what part of "ex" doesn't Beichman understand?

The redoubtable Steven Schwartz provides an elegant, well-argued rebuttal and has a theory about what it is that really has Beichman so steamed:

I consider Beichman's intent more sinister: to exclude Hitchens and myself from consideration as reliable allies in the struggle against Islamist extremism, because we have yet to apologize for something I, for one, will never consider worthy of apology. There is clearly a group of heresy-hunters among the original neoconservatives who resent having to give way to certain newer faces, with our own history and culture. These older neoconservatives cannot take yes for an answer, and they especially loathe Hitchens.

Also, there appears to be something of a compulsion amongst all of these fellows to re-enact, within the context of the neoconservative "movement" (such as it is), the sectarian backbiting and squabbles of their youth. On that point, Harry Hatchet comments:

isn't it odd and slightly amusing to read, in one of America's leading conservative journals, people brandishing accusations of Kronstadt guilt and Stalinism around like student union lefties?

Strange times, strange times.

Boy, I'll say.

Posted by Dr. Frank at June 15, 2003 05:57 PM | TrackBack