This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock’s parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is “a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops.” Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam’s supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife’s outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh’s theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in “Psycho.”

This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit – the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes – is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That’s why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair. “

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/17/opinion/17rich.html?ei=5090&en=8ffee7d4436bef7e&ex=1279252800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

One can agree Mr and Mrs Wilson are really Mr and Mrs MacGuffin from either side of the divide. The political struggle over Valerie Plame is, in both Rich and Hitchen’s views, is little more than a proxy war in the larger, ongoing political ‘cold war’ over Iraq.

I took most of what I know about Levin from the Guardian obituary.

What strikes me as interesting about Levin is (though as you indicate most people haven’t heard of him nowadays) is that he used to be huge in Britain at least, far bigger than Bitchens has ever been. I wonder: will people actually understand the references we all casually make to Hitchens in 100 years time? Will anyone understand why ‘we’ ever thought he was so important? Will anyone ever have actually heard of him? (this goes for Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch X 100).

But yes Levin used to be a Communist, then a liberal, then a centrist then…..

The really interesting point about Levin and Hitchens is that people wonder how someone of Levin’s gifts could fall for Nixon: how anyone could. (as Clive James wrote, Levin continued to loudly proclaim Nixon’s innocence when even Rabbi Korff seemed to be having doubts, and was quick to claim that anyone who thought a crime had been committed at Watergate must be in league with the Kremlin or Chairman Mao).

The answer is simple: the war. Levin, like many other intellectuals at the time (though they keep quiet about it now), had convinced himselves there was a global ‘Communo-fascist’ movement, threatening the US in China, in France, in Russia, in South Africa, in Vietnam, and so on and so on. It was obvious (he felt) that if you opposed Nixon in this WW3 situation you were ‘objectively’ on the side of the terrorists. And terrorism is not a metaphor. Nixon himself claimed in his autobiography that he was ‘pushed into’ the state of affairs that led to Watergate by the Weathermen.

Likewise, very obviously, Hitchens now feels that he has been backed into a corner and that anyone who fails to defend Bush (no matter what) is ‘objectively’ on the side of the ‘Islamo-fascists’.

If anyone cares there is a classic (and very funny) demolition of the ‘later’ Levin in Clive James “From the Land of Shadows”. James put his finger on the fundamental problem with the ‘later’ Levin: although his subjects ostensibly varied, his real subject was always ‘Why I, Bernard Levin, am so incredibly wonderful and clever and witty and moral.’

To change the subject entirely, while checking up that last reference I came across a piece by Oliver Kamm praising Levin to the sky.

There is obviously no logical connection between the two paragraphs immediately above this one.

You’re a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay… Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink”

George Galloway to Christopher Hitchens

Watching Hitch is like watching Milovan Djilas—in reverse.

Can I claim my $100 bet yet with the guy who predicted the Niger yellowcake story had no more to be said about it?

I assume you’re joking.

Some of this is a matter of temperment. For example I might use terms like “right” or “conservative” or even “Bush supporter” and use them unfairly, but I do know that there are varieties, I try to include qualifiers, I try to use terms like “neo conservative” correctly knowing that Cheney and Rumsfeld don’t belong in that block, also noting many conservatives oppose the war, that Christian conservatives are less attached to “ownership society” and low taxes and believe in sacrifice for others and are struggling to raise concern for Africa…

Some people are aware of the diversity.

But many people when they start to get “informed” about politics do it exactlt as we would any other element of popular culture. They see a few “teams,” they accept their teams definition of the other teams and they start to get with the agenda.

Fortunatly most people aren’t that concerned or informed, they have other priorities and so are capable of some original perspective. Hitchens is not one of these. Tems like leftist or anti terrorist are rigidly defined roles. Based on history he will increasingly place himself among the more rabid, this is what typically happens when people convert to one side or the other.

It is this sort on both sides who usually succeed in domnating and defining the popular debate. The political and policy debate taking place among those with actual responsibility is usually more complex and does to some extent accept normal standards of reality. But the faith based systems do distort it, often considerably. When you have Rush Limbaugh commanding the first assault of Falluja against the desire of Marine commanders who wanted to continue with their original counterinsurgency plan, the one based on their efforts in central Vietnam before Westmoreland pulled them into his scheme, when you have Limpbowel deciding strategy, you have a problem,butt we have seen too much of this thing and Hitchens probably hopes he can become such a “public intelliectual” and direct policy.

What he probably does not understand that the choice he seems to be making is to become increasingly a robot for an ideology, he hopes that by being the “token leftist” and taking a few eccentric stands he will be the leader. He probably will not be much, all he will get is flattery. And there are indications of an increasing rigidity as foreign policy and economic utopias start to be more dystopian, so the poor guy is going to face some really tough choices if he wants to be with what he thinks is the “in crowd.”

Sort of like [XXX]

Sort of like Chris Bertram’s recent critique of Norm Geras which didn’t even link to Geras’ reply.