THE WANDERER, NOVEMBER 23, 2006
JOSEPH SOBRAN'S
WASHINGTON WATCH
Thumped
The 2006 elections went much as the polls predicted
they would, with the Republicans taking what even
President Bush called a "thumping." The Democrats
regained majorities in both houses of Congress; but it
was less a Democratic triumph than a Republican debacle.
By now a lot of Republicans in Washington are
looking for new jobs. To paraphrase Gen. MacArthur, old
Republicans never die -- they just become corporate
lobbyists and Viagra pitchmen.
We should resist the temptation to read too much
into election results, but when even Bush gets the hint,
we are entitled to speculate that perhaps the Iraq war
has not been quite the smashing success he has been
assuring us it is. Karl Rove's hope of a permanent
Republican majority has at least been delayed for the
moment.
Once again the GOP proved itself to be what the late
lamented Sam Francis called it, "the stupid party,"
resolutely ignoring every warning signal of the electoral
wrath to come. Well, it has come. They saw the lightning
and heard the thunder but kept confidently expecting
sunshine.
Not that this is going to slow their neoconservative
mentors down very much. If anything, it has increased the
urgency of the neocons' demands for war on Iran, with
another go at "regime change" (spelled out in the current
issue of COMMENTARY magazine). It's comical; as Bush pays
the political price of having taken their disastrous
advice for six years, they offer even more of the same
disastrous advice to get him through his final two years.
Maybe the neocons' Catholic auxiliary will once
again be dispatched to Rome to try to explain to this
Pope, as they did to his predecessor, that a war for
democracy is just what the Mideast needs. But they will
probably be even less persuasive now than they were last
time.
Only days after assuring us that Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld was doing such a "fantastic" job that he
would serve the remainder of Bush's second term, Bush
gave Rummy the heave-ho. The neocons have been divided
over Rumsfeld, some adoring him, others complaining of
his insufficient ruthlessness. They have been similarly
divided over Bush himself, but when it comes to a choice
between blaming Bush and blaming themselves for the Iraqi
quagmire, it's not hard to guess which option they will
take.
As Margaret Thatcher once said to Bush's father,
"This is no time to go wobbly, George." But Rumsfeld's
dismissal shows that Bush is already wobbling. The facts
are so obvious now that even he can't ignore them. And
most conservatives aren't even trying to. Bush's
maladroit presidency has achieved only one thing: the
revival of a moribund liberalism.
Remembering a Protestant Friend
Forty-six years ago, when John Kennedy and Richard
Nixon were vying for the presidency, I was in the eighth
grade. Knowing nothing about politics, I was passionate
for Kennedy. I got into a friendly argument with a Nixon
man, a classmate actually, in our school cafeteria.
Robert was far better informed than I was, which
commanded my respect, and I listened to what he had to
say. We were like a pair of kittens pretending to be
lions, but he was already far more mature than I was.
One good result of the 1960 campaign was that it
spurred my interest in Catholicism, and the following
year I was catechized and baptized. Young and callow as I
was, it was the wisest decision I ever made. Robert was
always wise, with the manner of a history professor with
an explosive sense of humor, a hearty laugh that made me
feel good all over. He remained one of my closest
friends. He still is. We have both gone from being
conservative Republicans (my Kennedy phase was brief) to
a sort of merry despair over the GOP. Though Robert was a
Protestant, he was full of the same deep sanity that had
drawn me to the Church; and over the years I was struck
by his growing sympathy for Catholicism.
This week we talked and joked about the elections.
We had to talk by phone, though. Robert is in the
hospital fighting cancer (the doctors aren't offering
much hope) and I'm not very mobile myself. I found myself
sobbing that I loved him -- not the way we usually talk!
-- and he gave me some consoling news: a priest was
coming to his room to receive him into the Church. So it
looks as if, after half a century of friendship, Robert
and I, now two old men, are going to wind up fellow
Catholics. Not something we foresaw back in the
cafeteria!
Paganism without Gods
Startling how fast THE DA VINCI CODE blew over,
isn't it? The book was such an enormous hit, but the
movie bombed with the critics and must have been a huge
disappointment to the millions of readers who felt that
Dan Brown had exposed the hidden truth about
Christianity, the Church, and the villainy of Opus Dei. I
sense a lot of quiet blushing out there, as if the
unbelievers are already embarrassed by the very mention
of the object of their recent enthusiasm.
Nevertheless, this has been a prosperous season for
atheists. Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have been
reaping publicity for their polemics against religion --
any and all religion, but especially (of course)
Christianity. Both are naive materialists who don't seem
to grasp that there are a few metaphysical questions at
stake before you even get around to Darwin and Genesis. A
small child can raise the problem of evil quite
poignantly when he asks, "Why did God let my puppy die?"
I have less sympathy for the Oxford don who sneers that a
just God wouldn't permit a Bush presidency.
Dawkins, Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, now
joined by Elton John, contend that religion does such
immense harm that the world would be better off without
it. I see their point. Think how much finer life in
Russia was under the enlightened Lenin and Stalin than
under the superstitious tsars.
I would humbly suggest that during the last century
the atheists had sufficient opportunities to prove that
they could rule more humanely than Christians, and I
would just as humbly inquire how many more chances they
think they deserve before we are entitled to draw our own
conclusions.
By the way, I just ran across this gem from
Chesterton, in THE WELL AND THE SHALLOWS, one of his last
and richest collections of essays. Contrasting ancient
paganism with modernity, he observes that even the most
obscene phallic cults of antiquity exalted nature and
fruitfulness: "It has been left to the very latest
modernists to proclaim an erotic religion which at once
exalts lust and forbids fertility."
Happy Thanksgiving!
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--- Joseph Sobran
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