DIANA WEST BETRAYED PART 2
American Betrayed, Part 2: Planet X
http://gatesofvienna.net/2013/11/american-betrayed-part-2-planet-x/
The 19th-century French astronomer Alexis Bouvard deduced the existence of an as yet undiscovered eighth planet of the solar system by measuring the discrepancies between the predicted path of the planet Uranus and its telescopically observed positions at different points along its orbit. Later astronomers discovered “Planet X” — which was eventually named Neptune — in the precise orbital position laid out by Bouvard’s calculations.
We are in much the same predicament regarding the controversy over Diana West’s book American Betrayal. Based on perturbations in the scholarly orbits of numerous illustrious writers and editors, we may deduce the existence of a massive undiscovered black body. It’s out there somewhere, exerting its gravitational influence on its planetary neighbors in the ranks of conservative American literati. We can’t see Planet X, but we can observe its effects. We know it’s there.
No firm conclusions can be drawn about this mysterious astronomical object. Without access to sources on the editorial boards of FrontPage Magazine, Pajamas Media, National Review, etc., there is no way to determine the motivation behind the repeated, virulent, personal attacks against Diana West.
However, after pulling together information from a variety of sources, it’s possible to make some educated guesses. Although its exact position is not yet determined, Planet X is beginning to take shape out there in the night sky, blotting out segments of the starry host as it wanders past.
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This essay is the conclusion of a post begun six weeks ago, just before I went to Warsaw (Part 1 is here). In the weeks since then, the attacks on Diana West have continued sporadically, penned in large part by the same detractors who had written previously, and published in the same venues. With the exception of Vladimir Bukovsky and Pavel Stroilov — whose validation of American Betrayal was the most significant work to date in support of Ms. West — no major writer has weighed on her behalf since I wrote Part 1 back in September.
As Stacy McCain said this morning:
Diana West has many influential friends, and her adversaries also have many friends, but most people — especially those she calls “the capital-p pundits” — seem determined to stay as far away as possible from this ugly fight. And who can blame them? Nobody wants to get themselves muddied up in a mess like this.
Yet a large number of ordinary people, small-fry-bloggers, and medium-size (“small-p”?) pundits — including Mr. McCain himself — have issued ringing declarations of support for Diana West and decried the ad-hominem attacks against her. Something out there is pulling the Capital-Ps away from any orbit that might intersect with public commentary on American Betrayal.
On October 31 Diana West was the guest of honor at the annual gathering of the Pumpkin Papers Irregulars, a group that honors the memory of Whittaker Chambers and his struggle against American Communism, and in particular his victory over Alger Hiss. Ms. West addressed the assembly about her book (see the link above for the full video of her speech).
M. Stanton Evans, one of the most respected experts on Soviet infiltration in the United States, has repeatedly and enthusiastically endorsed American Betrayal. So Diana West has earned the respect of many of the core writers who specialize in anti-communism. The notable exception is Ronald Radosh, who fired the first salvo in the war against American Betrayal with his attack at FPM in early August. Various acolytes followed suit over the next few weeks, the most prominent among them David Horowitz and Conrad Black.
Before Mr. Radosh brought his siege engines to bear against the book, it had been reviewed positively by a number of prominent conservatives, including Amity Shlaes, Monica Crowley, Brad Thor, and Laura Ingraham. After war was declared, however, silence descended among the best-known conservative writers and talking heads in America. It was left to the small-p pundits, Europeans, and the doughty irregulars of the blogosphere to defend Ms. West from all that personal vitriol. Notable stalwarts were Stacy McCain, John L. Work, David Solway, Edward Cline, Ruth King, Debra Burlingame, Andy Bostom, Hans Jansen, and Lars Hedegaard, among others.
The silence of the conservative lambs seems to have been prompted by the persistent lobbying of Ronald Radosh. During the early days of the controversy he sent out an email to a large list exhorting the recipients to condemn Diana West. With the exception of Conrad Black, no one seems to have taken him up on his call to arms and joined the fray. However, with the signal exceptions of Frank Gaffney and Vladimir Bukovsky, no conservative figure of national stature stood up to defend their colleague against the scurrilous personal bile being flung at her. They evidently assessed the odds, and determined that they didn’t have a dog in this fight — not if it meant going up against the likes of David Horowitz, Conrad Black, and Ronald Radosh.
This type of intimidation is nothing new. Back in the 1990s a young reporter at National Review wrote a piece about communists in Congress. After it appeared in print, Ronald Radosh called him up out of the blue and warned him that his career would go nowhere if he continued to write such articles.
So how does Mr. Radosh manage to wield such power over some of the most respected conservative writers and journalists? A former communist himself, he is fairly well-known for his works on communism, but hardly a major player on the literary scene. How is it that he exerts such a strong gravitational effect on the behavior of prominent writers?
One deduces the existence of a much larger body than Planet Radosh, based on the perturbations in numerous literary orbits.
However, it’s worth remembering that all but one of the targeted luminaries failed to join the Two-Minute Hate against Diana West. This tells us that the case against her was unable to withstand close scrutiny. A careful examination of the screeds against her reveals nothing except straw men, misrepresentations of what she said, and contemptuous name-calling, mostly written by people who had never read the book. No substantive criticism ever emerged. One may conclude that conservative writers of integrity and judgment examined the case and found it lacking on the merits.
The exception was Conrad Black, a friend of the late William F. Buckley Jr. and longtime associate of National Review. Since the war was declared in early August, he has contributed no fewer than four severely critical articles about Diana West and American Betrayal at Pajamas Media, NRO, and other online venues.
His latest broadside appeared yesterday at NRO. In his overview of the controversy, he notes:
Much of [the dispute] has been ad hominem slathering of considerable heat and at times effectiveness, and much has taken the form of group disparagements replete with arcane references to academic trends and past skirmishes.
Without losing his sarcastic edge or giving an inch of ironic ground, Mr. Black does his best to elevate the tone and substance of the discussion with this summation:
The principal conclusions of Ms. West’s book are rubbish from A to Z, and I have difficulty imagining that I will inflict further comment on it on anyone.
One might attribute Conrad Black’s vehemence to his admiration for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, towards whose secular canonization he has contributed more than his share, and who does not fare well under Diana West’s careful scrutiny.
But what about the movements of other major planets? To what might their vagrant courses be attributed?
Back at the beginning of the controversy, David Mills, the editor of First Things, published a rehash of Mr. Radosh’s material entitled “American Betrayal, Truculently Reckless”. Since that time he has neglected to link to Ms. West’s rebuttal, or to the review by Vladimir Bukovsky, or any of the other material that might provide a different take on the book. Other venues have refused to publish her responses, or delayed them inordinately, or buried them in the most obscure corners of their websites.
Roger Kimball, the publisher of Encounter Books, is a capital-p cultural pundit par excellence, and might be expected to weigh in on behalf of his colleague. However, a quick glance at the new books list at Encounter reveals tomes by both Conrad Black and David Horowitz. So it’s no mystery why Mr. Kimball has abstained from participation in all the unseemly brawling.
In sum, there were almost no well-known writers who defended Diana West. Not that we would expect most of them to champion the book on its merits — it’s a long, complex historical study, and not easily digestible on short notice. However, one might have hoped that they would decry the nasty ad-hominem style of attack directed at their colleague. What baleful force did Planet X wield to ensure their silence?
Among the most prominent voices that one might have expected to weigh in on Ms. West’s behalf were those of Lt. Col. Allen West (retired), the former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, former UN Ambassador John Bolton, the writer Mark Steyn, and the well-known columnist Ann Coulter.
Mr. Steyn’s absence from the fray is understandable, since Conrad Black is his good friend. Mr. Gingrich and Ms. Coulter went so far as to tweet in support of American Betrayal. But as far as I know, Col. West and Amb. Bolton have had nothing to say about the controversy, at least not in public.
The same could be said of Andrew McCarthy until very recently. In a piece published on Friday at Pajamas Media, Mr. McCarthy responded to Ronald Radosh, who had written a blog post on PJM last Monday criticizing Mr. McCarthy on matters unrelated to Diana West or her book. As an aside, the author included this note about American Betrayal:
I have not commented on this but, since he brings up the subject of civility, I am still taken aback by the tone of his review of Diana West’s American Betrayal … and I cringed upon learning that, in the midst of the nasty cross-fire that it ignited, he sent Diana a giddy email taunt when another commentator, Conrad Black, published a similarly intemperate review. To be clear, I am not talking about substantive merit here — I happen to disagree with Ron and Conrad about Diana’s book, but that is neither here nor there (I’ll have more to say about it soon). I am talking about peer-to-peer civility. Even in the context of Ron’s post about my column, the “serious and respectful” twaddle is just a set-up for branding my argument as “a child’s temper tantrum.” “Serious and respectful” starts to seem a lot like “agrees with Ron.”
He also referred to the controversy yesterday in another aside, this time in an article at NRO:
Ronald Radosh, the former Marxist and accomplished neoconservative historian, has lately been the spear’s point in defending the FDR legacy on both the foreign-affairs and domestic-policy sides. His blistering review of Diana West’s American Betrayal vigorously champions Roosevelt’s conduct of World War II. I believe Ron gives Diana’s book a bad rap, and I will explain why in another column, coming soon.
Mr. McCarthy is to be commended for his willingness to venture where other literary angels feared to tread. However, from the point of view of the “little people” who have been struggling to defend Diana West since the beginning of August, it is too little, too late.
Why wait more than three months to speak up, however faintly, on behalf of his good friend and fellow Team B member?
Why not write a longer article dedicated solely to the topic of the “politics of personal destruction” directed at Diana West?
Why this persistent reticence?
The people who wanted to bury American Betrayal and its author did their no-holds-barred work vigorously throughout August, September, and October. Had it not been for the timely intervention by Vladimir Bukovsky, they might well have succeeded, and anything said now on her behalf by capital-p pundits would have done little to change the verdict. She would have been decisively consigned to the Outer Darkness, keeping company with the McCarthyites, the conspiracy theorists, and the kooks.
An unjust outcome, to be sure, but the august eminences among the punditerati could at least comfort themselves that the hems of their crinolines had never been spattered with the sludge of unseemly controversy.
The gold standard for integrity throughout this whole sordid affair remains the behavior of Andy Bostom, who staunchly defended Diana West from Day One, and took flak from all quarters for doing so. He spoke up vigorously and repeatedly on her behalf, just as one would expect of a loyal friend.
Why was it that back in August no illustrious personage behaved the way Andy Bostom did? No capital p-pundit, not even those who publicly called Diana West their friend, was willing to take the risk. What on earth was wrong?
That’s some planet, that Planet X.
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