I never really understood why Buchanan was so intent on saying the war was to “make the world safe for Israel.” Syria and the Palestinian state are far more immediate threats to Israeli security than Saddam’s Iraq - at least after the Gulf War 12 years ago. Mr. Auster’s comment about the leftist elites never stopping is quite true. They really are like the liquid-metal assassin in “Terminator II” (to borrow another Auster ananolgy). No matter how badly they are discredited, they keep on coming back. That’s why I think leftists like Jennings and Hanoi Jane are the true religious fanatics, a trait they share in common with their allies the Islamists.

“Nietzsche said that the emotion of ressentiment came from the slave classes of society.” And of course we also have those slaves who are not resentful of, but “love Big Brother”. Or who embrace with glee their slavishness to vice.

More and more it seems that religion is a useful model for making sense of the left’s behavior. Assume there is a Left-cult. This Left-cult believes in anti-conservatism as Catholics believe Jesus was born of a Virgin. No matter how many logical and scriptural arguments one can throw at a Catholic, a Catholic will still believe in (or at least not contest) the Virgin birth. No matter how well George Bush has done or will ever do, the Left-cultists will always believe Bush is evil and dangerous. Left-cultists believe conservatives are evil and dangerous, and Bush calls himself a conservative. Left-cultists don’t wake up in the morning thinking about how much evil they will do. Left-cultists truly believe their cause is just and so their evil deeds are not evil. Perhaps one difference between most religious people and Left-cultists is Left-cultists will never admit their beliefs are based on faith or tradition.

George Bush may not be evil, but that doesn’t make him not dangerous, and the Virgin Birth is very logical and is without doubt scriptural. It was also of course supernatural, which does not in the least deny logic.

Scripture alone without tradition and the Church is on the other hand quite illogical.

PM wrote: “This Left-cult believes in anti-conservatism as Catholics believe Jesus was born of a Virgin. No matter how many logical and scriptural arguments one can throw at a Catholic, a Catholic will still believe in (or at least not contest) the Virgin birth.”

??? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about? Catholics are not the only ones who believe in the virgin birth of Christ. Protestants do as well. How else would Christians be able to call Him the Son of God, unless He had God Himself for a parent? Moreover, contrary to your assertions, there is ample Biblical evidence for the doctrine. Here is just a taste:

“Now the origin of Christ was in this wise. When Mary his mother had been been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 1-18

In addition, you say that Catholics are immune to “logical arguments” concerning the Virgin Birth. Clearly, you have no clue as to what the science of logic is. Logic is simply methodological and has no power in itself to prove that Jesus was or was not born of a virgin or, indeed, that two plus two equals four. A perfectly “logical argument” can reach a perfectly false conclusion if it begins from false premises. The question about the Virgin Birth turns on the truth or falsity of the premises; not on whether some logical fallacy has taken place in the argument. That is to say, your objection is not that Catholics are reasoning from true premises but making some error along the way; what you dispute is the premises themselves.

Methinks what you meant to contest is the Immaculate Conception of Mary, which is a different matter entirely from the Virgin Birth of Christ, and admittedly more obscure (though not unbiblical). However, your carelessness in confusing the two is just another indication that you don’t possess anywhere near the necessary learning to pass the kind of judgment you do about it.

Are our multimillionaire television stars not paid to keep the “slave classes” entertained by pandering to their prejudices? More generally I would guess that Nietzsche would have seen strong “slave” characteristics among our “elites.” (Not that I think that Peter Jennings is a particularly outstanding example of this. He’s a breath of fresh air by comparison with a lot of what we get on the CBC and BBC up here. E.g., at the moment of U.S. victory, the BBC world service turned itself into a kind of “hostile Arab news media digest”.)

The last couple of weeks has for me been an intensive course in appreciation of the mendacity of liberal journalism. I would never have thought before that U.S. government briefings would have been a more reliable source of information than the bulk of the free news media. One thing that occurs to me is that journalism is inherently a critical enterprise and that an excess of journalism implies an excess of the critical attitude, regardless of the ideology or quality of the journalists; and bad journalism won’t even necessarily direct its criticism at the real abuses, but will take aim at whatever target is most obvious. But our journalism is also uncritical about everything that is identified (truly or falsely) with popular opinion. While eager to state its worthless knee-jerk suspicions of everything that issues from duly constituted political authority, it apparently does not see pointing out the errors of public opinion as part of its job; the casual opinions of the man-in-the-street, whether Arab or Western, are treated as Delphic pronouncements. It would be useful to have a phone-in show where ordinary people’s silly views were subjected to reasoned refutation by people who knew what they were talking about.

More tangentially…has anyone else here noticed that since the beginning of the war there seems to have been not a squeak in the media about the attitude of *British* Muslims to it? (Is this in order to protect them from hostility from the rest of British society?)

“It would be useful to have a phone-in show where ordinary people’s silly views were subjected to reasoned refutation by people who knew what they were talking about.”

An excellent idea. But what we have instead is that even when the call-in person utters the rankest, most ignorant nonsense, the expert or journalist on air does not correct him. He may make a different point of his own, but he does not correct the nonsense of the caller. This is our non-judgmental multi-culture in operation. Each individual, each “culture,” lives in his/its own bubble, not subject to any common standards, with the result that everyone, from ignorant call-in people to the editors of the NY Times is free to go on believing nonsense, because no one in a position of authority ever corrects them.

As an example of what we’re talking about, Robert Kaiser of the Washington Post has an occasional online discussion where he answers readers’ questions about the war. Here is an e-mail I sent him on March 21st about one of these exchanges.

Dear Mr. Kaiser:

The first questioner in your online chat today about the war made an absurd and vicious insinuation, and while you didn’t exactly endorse it, you didn’t dismiss it either:
____

CHICAGO, ILL.: More of a comment than a question, I guess. I heard Rumsfeld say once again that the Iraqi military should not destroy oil wells. He’s said this before and Bush has said it, too. Given all the questions and shifting rationales about why we are invading Iraq and the oil backgrounds of Bush, Cheney, their friends, etc., I think they could cool it on the “don’t destroy oil wells” angle. That sounds mercenary even for these particular crusaders.

Thanks.

ROBERT G. KAISER: Thanks for the comment. I do think there is a legitimate concern about the environmental damage caused by oil well fires, which was egregious in Kuwait in 1991. But I understand your point as well.
______

Incredibly, you failed to correct the reader’s ridiculous insinuation that Bush’s warning to Iraq not to destroy oil wells could be reasonably taken as intended to advance Bush and Cheney’s alleged purpose of waging this vast war just to benefit their cronies in the oil industry. Indeed, you said “I understood your point,” implying that his point was valid. To give you an idea of how this exchange struck me, it would be as it went like this:

CHICAGO, ILL: Isn’t it the truth that Bush hates all Muslims and this is the first step of a war to conquer Islam and either convert all Muslims to Christianity or kill them?

KAISER: Thanks for the comment. I do think there is a legitimate concern about Hussein developing weapons of mass destruction that might be used against our country. But I understand your point as well.

Mr. Auster and Mr. Hare are right that expecting people to justify their accusations is essential to discussion. Otherwise discussion is of little value beyond catharsis.

Two roots of the discussion problem in the media are ignorance and ratings concerns. The hosts often are mostly ignorant about the topic and so they respond with a platitude. Issuing platitudes becomes a habit and a ready means for the host to avoid alienating too many listeners, that is, to avoid softening ratings. But adoring listeners are gypped when their performer attempts to question and even to debate people about things the performer has little knowledge of. Fox’s Oreilly is an example of this weakness in TV news-performers or, perhaps more precisely, in format. (See footnote, if interested, for qualification.) Oreilly is too often overmatched even though his conclusions are often valid.

The performer and the public would benefit from the skills of a polite but firm interrogator—a knowledgeable, prepared, assertive expert in the topic under discussion. The interrogator would not go on and on in response to a guest going on and on, with the host-performer relegated to the role of a referee in a verbal brawl. (CNN’s Crossfire is an example of a stupid brawl.) The interrogator would not spin or make speeches; he would interrogate. He would stop the guest that just uttered some nonsense, state the relevant facts, and insist on a justification. When it became apparent the guest (often a circuit performer) was about spinning a web of deceit, the host would yank, as it were, the fellow performer graciously. With an interrogator, overbooking guests would not be a problem because so many would be yanked.

FN: Oreilly is talented and a valuable ally to traditionalists because he bravely questions some liberal icons on nationwide, prime-time television. He is the example merely because he is very familiar to the commentator and to the public. FOX has other rational hosts such as John Gibson and Neil Cavuto. And doggone it, our newspeople should be patriotic and up front about their viewpoints. How else can we trust them to look out for us?