Caveat lector

ONE, TWO, MANY SADDAMS! David Frum goes after Robert Novak—and brings Saddam right to our shores:

MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2003

A RACE OF SADDAMS: Tomorrow evening, our entire staff will have the honor of addressing the Maryland Press Club. We had planned to spend the next two days preparing incomparable comments. But Robert Novak’s column in this morning’s Post really does cry out for comment. We offer a link to the Novak piece as it appears in the Chicago Sun-Times. (No link to the Post is available.)

As readers know, the conservative Novak has opposed the Bush Admin policy regarding Iraq. And given the times in which we live, that of course makes him a traitor. In the National Review, former Bush speechwriter David Frum has gone after antiwar cons:

NOVAK: We are accused of advocating “a fearful policy of ignoring threats and appeasing enemies.” Concluding, [Frum] writes of us: “[T]hey are thinking about defeat, and wishing for it, and they will take pleasure if it should happen. They began by hating the neo-conservatives. They came to hate their party and this president. They have finished by hating their country.”

Of course, Frum’s attack on Novak is just the latest in a long wave of such attacks. As soon as September 11 occurred, crackpot members of the talk-show right began looking for traitors to demonize. For our money, the stupidest among them was the loudmouth Michelle Malkin; stymied by the near-total lack of “anti-American” comments in the wake of September 11, she stooped to attacking a high school student who had been quoted in a small local newspaper (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/25/01). It’s hard to get much dumber than that, but the ranting Ann Coulter soon gave it a try. Showcasing the nasty hysteria sweeping her cohort, Coulter suggested that we should force all Middle Eastern Muslims to convert to Christianity; said that John Walker Lindh should be executed, as a warning to other “liberals;” and lamented the fact that Timothy McVeigh didn’t blow up the New York Times Building. This is the kind of crackpot performance which leads us to Frum’s hapless piece.

How stupid can people get at times of war? People can get very stupid. For example, they claim that those who oppose a war are somehow “against the troops!” You’re right—it’s hard to get dumber than that. But who knows? Perhaps they believe that, in the American system, the troops decide when wars should be fought. That, of course, would be very stupid. But stress makes these folks deeply stupid.

What do we learn from the Frums and the Coulters? That American values—indeed, that all post-Enlightenment, western-world values—are a very recent overlay, superimposed on much older impulses. These impulses undermine the western values we commonly claim to hold dear. These impulses were selected for millions of years ago, in the distant, pre-human past. They promote ancestral, pre-western thinking. The Frums and the Coulters give them voice.

What do these impulses tell us to think? They tell us that our own specific tribe must be right—and that all other tribes must be evil and wrong. These impulses say that those who disagree with our views must disagree out of evil. They tell us to stamp out those who disagree—to brand them Enemies of the State. And remember: These impulses are lodged in the human soul. Right up to this very day, these ancient impulses will persuade all those who don’t choose to resist them.

What values do these impulses promote? Of course! They promote Saddamism! It is precisely the values of Saddam’s Iraq that Frum is now espousing. Frum’s tribe—his tribe, and none other—is presumed to be morally right and sincere. All other tribes are presumed to be evil—denounced as duplicitous traitors. This nonsense began when the ludicrous Malkin went after a high school kid’s random remark. And now, Malkin’s colleagues are so overwrought that they are trying to devour their old colleagues.

Saddamism! The impulse is found all over the world. But here’s the question we pose today: Why do we go to Canada (Frum) and to England (Andrew Sullivan) to bring Saddam here to this country?

MUST BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED: To see the idiot Sullivan in full Saddamite glory, go to last Friday’s andrewsullivan.com. Try to believe that this strange, crippled man wrote the three selections titled JUST READ CONASON, CAN DASCHLE GET ANYTHING RIGHT?, and SADDAM’S DOUBLE REVEALED. Can human beings get any dumber—and can they get any more pre-Enlightenment? (Almost too perfectly, in his second item—CAN DASCHLE GET ANYTHING RIGHT?—Sullivan rushed a “hoax” to the world.) Did we really have to go to England to come up with a person like this? Readers! Can’t we find enough crippled minds right here among our own native people?

The Daily update

EVEN NOVAK: Even Novak—attacked as a demon—tries to make demons of others. We reprint his remarks as they appear in the Post. In the Sun-Times, his piece has been edited:

NOVAK: Dealing with statements about me even so calumnious as Frum’s might seem petty in time of war. But broader issues are at stake. Frum represents a body of conservative opinion that wants to delegitimize criticism from the right of policy that has led to war against Iraq.

Anti-war activity over the years has come mostly from the left. Its hate-America sentiment during Vietnam War contributed to the Communist victory.

In the Sun-Times, Novak’s column has been edited; the last sentence we have quoted above doesn’t appear in his piece. In this bit of editing, the Sun-Times kept a stupid statement out of its pages—and kept readers from seeing the prehistoric soul of the newspaper’s most famous patriot.