|
CounterPunch
November
23, 2002
Dr. Alterman,
I Presume
by MARK HAND
There he goes again. Chomsky, Cockburn and Vidal.
They're the axis of evil of the Left, so says The Nation columnist
and Stanford University PhD candidate in history Eric Alterman.
Writing in the current issue of The Nation
(Dec. 9, 2002), Alterman says, "If Alexander Cockburn, Noam
Chomsky or Gore Vidal has ever had anything balanced or nuanced
to say about America's role in the world, I've missed it. ...
Perhaps their reflexive anti-Western views represent majority
opinion among the 2.7 percent of voters who pulled the lever
for Ralph Nader. I don't know. But they enjoy no discernible
resonance in policy debates or electoral contests."
How does Alterman define balanced? Is
it the oh-so courageous columnist who gives the U.S. government
a free pass on running roughshod around the world but shows his
liberal bona fides by going out on the proverbial political limb
and pooh-poohing the Republicans' plot to stack the Supreme Court
with anti-choice justices?
Despite the absurdity of his prose, I
do get some pleasure from reading Alterman's Nation columns.
It's the same kind of pleasure I get from watching that moment
in one of those teenybopper coming-of-age flicks when the female
antagonist stomps in bratty disgust when her friends go turncoat
by allying with the underdog ugly duckling who the assembled
16-year-olds finally recognize for the beauty of her mind and
wit. I hear Alterman's feet stomping in almost all of his columns
and it's typically in a rage against someone of the Left who's
left the reservation.
Alterman's copy often reads like someone
with an inferiority complex. He just can't stomach his lack of
star standing on the Left after all his years of ascending the
liberal establishment's ladder. That's why he's pursuing a PhD
in history at Stanford. When he finally is handed that diploma,
no one will be allowed to disrespect the newly minted doctor
because he will be capable of waving his quackish wand to banish
them "so deep into the anonymous masses" for crossing
the line of acceptable Leftist discourse.
Despite his comment to the contrary,
I wouldn't be surprised to see Alterman jump on the reformed
liberal Gore's bandwagon for the 2004 presidential race. Indeed,
just try to feel Alterman's unrequited love for Vidal's cousin
when you read this passage from his Oct. 21, 2002 column in The
Nation:
"Personally, I never really liked
Gore, and he's not my choice for 2004. But he sure galvanized
Tom Daschle and other Democrats to face up to a frightening juggernaut
for war they would have preferred to duck for the sake of re-election.
Naderites take note. It was not "smart" in the Washington
sense. It was not strategic. But damn it, it was brave. The victim
of a stolen presidency demonstrated why democracy matters. The
more media chicken hawks sink their tiny beaks into his ass,
the more--just this once--I admire his courage."
Mark Hand
is editor of PressAction.com.
He can be reached at mark@pressaction.com.
Yesterday's
Features
Jason Leopold
Secrets
and Lies:
Bush, Cheney and the Great Rip-Off of California Ratepayers
Ali Moayedian
Letter
from Ayatollah Ashcroft to His CounterPart Ayatollah Shahroudi
of Iran
William MacDougal
Heroes and Villains:
The Sun, Saddam and the Fire Strike
Carol Norris
Secret
Burial for the Bill of Rights
4th Amendment R.I.P
Mark Hand
From Wal-Mart to Proudhon
Michael Neumann
Reflections
on Kant and Moral Equivalence
Philip Farruggio
The Dagger of Futility
Michael Rossman
The Betrayal
of Lenny Glaser
Michael Rossman
The Free Speech Movement & the Rossman Report:
A Memoir of Making History
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
November 14,
2002
Edward Said
Europe vs.
America
Todd May
The Ironies of History
Paul de Rooij
US Aid to Israel
Feeding the Cuckoo
Ben Sonnenberg
Vertov's
Man With a Movie Camera
Gadi Algazi and Azmi Bdeir
Transfer's Real Nightmare
Martin van
Creveld
Sharon's Last Option
Walter Brasch
Scoring the US/Iraq War
Michael S.
Ladah
The Burning Sails of Baghdad
Don Moniak
An Open Letter on the Augusta Golf
Course Campaign
George Fletcher
Is the UN Security Council Vote on Iraq Illegal?
Ralph Nader
A Tribute to Wellstone
Adam Engel
Mannahatta!
(A Tale of Two Cities)
Bernard, Engel, Dailey, St.
Clair
Poets' Basement
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|