Going Off the Deep End

"You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light." - Vicomte de Chateaubriand.

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." - Hermann Hesse.

Jonathan Chait is now a senior editor for the New Republic, a left-of-center political magazine, but it's not that far left. The magazine is on the 40-yard line of the left side of the political gridiron. Though Chait comes from background likely to breed political Liberals (He graduated from the University of Michigan and was an editor at the American Prospect magazine.), he is not known as being particularly rabid. It is, therefore, surprising that he writes in a New Republic article entitled "Mad About You:"

"I hate President George Bush...I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. I hate the way he walks - shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo... I hate the way he talks - blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudo-populist twang... [W]hile most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more."

I may be easy to please, but I sort of like Jonathan Chait. I like his direct and colorful writing and his use of imagery. I like his lucidity of thought and his usual equanimity. Despite the fact that I disagree with much of what he says and that he writes columns inordinately preoccupied with personal rather than political critiques of President George Bush, if I got to know him personally, I would probably like him even more. It is possible to separate political from personal disagreements.

Now, no one suspects that Chait really hates Bush in the sense that he hopes some personal calamity befalls Bush, though he may wish for Bush's political prospects to dim. However, Bush's political fortunes are linked to the nation's fortunes. If the economy does well and if by election time there is a consensus that the situation in Iraq is radically improving, Bush's fortunes are enhanced. It must contribute to Chait's frustration that for Bush to fail, other Americans must suffer. Chait's political desires are tied to expectations (and we pray not hopes) of economic disaster and increased danger for American troops abroad.

Go To Page: 1 2 3