Hofstadter’s argument, labeled as inherently flawed by most conservatives, went on to define and explain political paranoia in America by using “right-wing extremism” as his case in point. He called out the John Birch Society, the Ku Klux Klan, and the perpetrator of the Red Scare, Sen. Joseph McCarthy. All of those, according to the mainstream narrative, are examples of radical conservative ideas, or when the Republican Party goes too far.

But for all his slightly misguided assumptions, Hofstadter makes one very astute observation. “It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry.”

What Hofstadter meant by the “projection of the self,” was that when people go to extremes in fighting against some political enemy, they unwittingly take on the characteristics of the very enemy they are fighting. To make his case, Hofstadter points to the John Birch Society- saying that the style of its ideological crusade is similar to the way Communists seek to expand their message and influence.

Fast forward to the political climate of 2010 and not much has changed. Only now however, Hofstadter is being joined by people like Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman in warning against “right-wing extremism.” Whether it’s racism or fascism, the Left has been denouncing the radical right since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president.

They questioned whether America would be able to handle a black president. They wondered whether Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst of “You Lie!” was a symptom of repressed racism and bigotry. They characterized opponents of healthcare reform as obstructionists to President Obama’s agenda. And they marginalized an entire pro limited-government movement, the overwhelming majority of which is peaceful, law-abiding Americans.

Indeed, in his most recent and now widely-circulated New York Times column, Frank Rich wrote, “How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.”

What is interesting is that while Rich accuses Tea Partiers of exemplifying Hofstadter’s “projection of the self,” he also compares last weekend’s protest of the healthcare bill to a Nazi anti-Jewish program organized by Hitler that destroyed 200 Jewish synagogues, thousands of other Jewish properties, and left 91 Jews dead. And the worst anyone has been able to connect to the Tea Party movement is a few racial slurs and some inappropriate signs. The recent wave of threats and vandalism against Democratic lawmakers have not been encouraged or carried out in the name of the movement itself.

But the connect-the-dots game that is being played by the left, and the attempt to marginalize a legitimate movement reflects a lot more about the left’s anxieties than it does any potential threat posed by the Tea Party. In other words, Hofstadter’s self-projecting idea applies just as much to people like Rich as it does any alleged paranoid political faction.

In his piece, “The Paranoid Center,” Reason Magazine managing editor Jesse Walker explains it best.  “When pundits weave a small number of unrelated incidents into a “pattern” of crime, then link it to the rhetoric of Obama’s opponents, it becomes easier to marginalize nonviolent, noncriminal critics on the right…”

Today, the politics of paranoia rest just as much with Liberal commentators like Rich as it does with anti-government activists who resort to threats and menacing phone calls. But if Hofstadter’s reverse psychology of “self-projection” can be applied today, then what does it mean when Rich, et al, tries so hard to lump together peaceful anti-government conservatives with “right-wing extremism?”

When Hofstadter wrote “The Paranoid Style of American Politics,” he failed to turn the finger around and apply his own theory to himself and his audience. If he had, his analysis would be a lot more insightful. Today’s liberal pundits would be wise not to follow Hofstadter’s example and instead, stop trying to connect conservatives with violent fanatics. Because doing so is only participating in the extremism they claim to be against.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

But this isn’t Freaky Friday, and according to Bravo, these are real women. Orange County dweller and recently evicted Lynne opines during the opening credits: “It’s not enough to have money. You have to look good spending it.” That’s a nice motto for Kimora Lee Simmons and her mogul/model/mom millions, but it fits nearly-broke Lynne as poorly as her polyester sheath dress. The rest of the Orange County Housewives’ strictly blonde cast (Lynne being the sole peroxide-free exception) have their share of troubles, both real and imagined. Vicki, the only member who appears to really work, struggles with a possible diagnosis of cancer for her daughter. Tamra, always the center of the party in big bling and a radiation-bright tan, has a tumultuous private life and a verbally abusive husband. Then there’s Gretchen, a blonde bombshell with a laugh like a jackhammer, perpetually on the husband hunt, and Alexis, a scalpel-happy Stepford Wife who keeps the home fires burning and her husband’s slippers at the ready. But mostly, they spend their days in self-indulgence, gossiping, fighting, and fighting about gossiping. As the official website says:  “The ladies show no signs of slowing down, and shopping, dining, drinking, dancing, plastic surgery and working out continue to remain at the top of their list of priorities.” Well, thank goodness.

As distractions from our own meaningful lives, The Real Housewives of Orange County should be a perfect diversion. Incompetence is amusing. But instead of holding up the Housewives’ bad-behavior as the enthralling, shocking aberration that it is, Bravo seriously expects women to want this lifestyle – and they appear to be right. The original Real Housewives of Orange County show has spawned a franchise that extends from coast to coast. There are Housewives shows in Atlanta, New York, New Jersey, and soon, possibly DC, all with equally outrageous “real” housewives. An avid fan-base for these shows has earned the OC Housewives a twenty-five percent increase in viewers in just the past season.

Now, Bravo offers the chance to emulate the Housewives’ lifestyle by winning shopping sprees, purchasing themed merchandise (such as leopard-print baby rompers), viewing bonus footage online, and following Housewives’ blogs. There’s even a spin-off Watch What Happens show, a post-Housewives analysis program that should really be called Re-Watch What Just Happened. Drink like Housewives, dress like Housewives, shop like Housewives. Be all you can be.

Ironically, the modern American woman appears to be longing for a dream world that resembles the 1950s culture their mothers clambered to escape. Many women would like to live in a TV-generated fantasy filled with jewelry and drama, where intrusions by actual reality are medicated with champagne and shopping (Sex and the City, anyone?). These Real Housewives of Orange County are the unwitting anti-feminists, mostly “kept” women who neither toil nor spin. Rather than the bold, carefree adventurers they imagine themselves to be, the Housewives of OC are hold-overs from another era, when women were expected to be child-like, clingy, and helpless – not powerful, mature adults who command their own destinies, or at least behaved themselves for upwards of 15-minutes at a cocktail party. With most childcare and household management left to the hired help, the Housewives spend their courtesan-like days indulging in beauty treatments and surgeries, whining and primping, drinking and dancing. And yet, in work-ethic America, even lay-abouts have a conscience. In one episode, Alexis is insulted when Vicki points out that she doesn’t work. The ensuing fall-out fuels fights for the rest of the season, because ultimately, Alexis knows work is good. She just doesn’t know what it is.

After awhile, those once-exclusive community gates of the opening credits seem to be keeping the Housewives in, rather than the commoners out. It is downright painful watching Lynne, a fanatical shopper about to be evicted from her pricy rental home, blame her husband for their financial misfortunes. Carefully dabbing at tears, her sharply manicured nails dangerously close to inflated lips, Lynne demands to know why her husband doesn’t love her enough to get her what she wants, finances be damned. Later in the episode, herself and her two daughters practically homeless, she splurges on a pleasure trip with girlfriends. There are twenty-first century lessons here for the men too. Instead of wooing doe-eyed, child-like creatures, they have more to gain from dating responsible adults who don’t think a “budget” is a type of parakeet.

Ultimately, women who emulate the Real Housewives are missing the point. As absurd as the OC Housewives are, they are caricatures, not fantasies. Even Housewives daughter Alexa vents in the season finale, “everyone wants to pretend everything is so glamorous and perfect when in reality it’s not.” Their tans may be fake, but their pain and cluelessness are real.

In public, OC Housewives like Tamra (motto: “Housewives come younger, but they don’t come hotter”) appear to have it all, but the cameras also reveal the blemishes under that caked-on foundation. She can’t help remarking of her husband, a real catch who threatens to hit her in the show’s final episode, “I’m scared he’s going to get mad at me. I’m scared all the time.” With the Real Housewives of Orange County show, the fascination is not in watching real people surmount real challenges, but in watching adults recede into adolescence. These are not the women of our future; they are the women of our past. Let’s leave them there.

*****

Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

When released in December of 2009, Avatar was met with high praise and wide acclaim. Movie critic Roger Ebert described the movie as “extraordinary,” saying “When I saw Avatar, I felt sort of the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977.”

Time Magazine ran a review that told movie-goers to “Embrace the movie—surely the most vivid and convincing creation of a fantasy world ever seen in the history of moving pictures.” Ross Douthat of The New York Times even wrote that Avatar is “Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism … Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now.”

Well, Avatar may be “Hollywood’s religion of choice,” but there are three main reasons why free-thinkers and conservatives in general should be reluctant to waste about 2 ½ hours of their time.

For starters, Avatar, which some people characterize as a modern-day Pocahontas, has a strong anti-capitalist message. Comparable to any film out of say, Michael Moore’s private-enterprise-hating brain (yes, it’s that bad), Avatar is a story about evil Americans trying to take advantage of a distant ecosystem; and all for corporate greed.

Said ecosystem exists on the planet of Pandora, which is inhabited by natives called the Na’Vi. However, in the movie, Pandora becomes overrun with military mercenaries and greedy profiteers who will stop at nothing to gain a few trillion dollars. Now enter Jake Sully; an ex-Marine who takes over his dead brother’s Avatar.

An avatar is a genetically engineered replica of the Na’Vi that the humans can interface with by sleeping that will allow them to interact with the natives. And in a plot that is just about as predictable as Harry Reid’s loss in November, Sully falls in love with the Na’Vi princess, Neytiri, decides to permanently become part of the Pandora world, and fights against the evil humans.

Although in real life, no one would, or could defend the tactics that the military display in this movie, the very fact that entrepreneurship is shown as being evil, immoral, and synonymous with murder is very telling. Not to mention the fact that in the end, the collective, or socialistic society of the Na’Vi succeeds.

Then there’s the fact that the movie is basically a glorified, 162-minute, PSA for man-made global warming. It’s the perfect equation: untouched, green, ecosystem, plus humans who want to tear down the trees, equals the ultimate struggle of good versus evil. Or so Cameron would like people to think.

What’s most telling is a part of Sully’s narrative at the end in which he watches the “aliens” (i.e. humans) leave Pandora, saying they are going back to continue to destroy their dying world. But Avatar is more than just one big argument for taking care of the environment; it’s the vision of an impossibility that completely disregards the way the world works.

It’s this complete disregard for reality that is the worst feature of Avatar. For instance, the movie’s plot would not even be possible if Jake Sully wasn’t completely disconnecting his brain from his body. In other words, his adventures are entirely dependent upon his separation from reality. It would be the same as if another movie was made entirely about someone’s trip off LSD: completely unrealistic.

Moreover, Avatar has almost no metaphysical meaning; it does not represent any metaphysical concept. Or think about it this way: art (which most people would agree does include movies) is created as a projection that is reflective of the creator’s beliefs and values. This tells us a lot about those who create art.

With Avatar, there is no semblance of reality- no interaction between what is and what could be. It is simply what James Cameron wishes reality was. Thus, Avatar is a film that is a projection sans any values that can be found in the real world. Not only that, but the “happy ending” completely inverses the traditional sense of morality. In real life, permanently choosing to disconnect yourself from reality would be wrong. In Avatar however, it is Sully’s ending, and the audience is supposed to rejoice with him.

Many people argue that while watching Avatar, one must ignore the misguided messages and just appreciate the stunning visuals and effects, or the movie’s beauty. But to do that requires that one redefine the word “beauty” to include things that are anti-rational and value-less.

Just three things to think about as society prepares to give Avatar awards that were created through a capitalist system and built from our earth’s natural resources.

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Amanda Carey is the Editor of The Tiger Town Observer at Clemson University.  She has previously worked for Robert Novak and has been published in Reason Magazine and The American Spectator.

The Housing Boom and Bust, Thomas Sowell

$24.95, 184 pages

If, thanks to the recession, the items on your Christmas list this year are more numerous than the dollars in your bank account, Thomas Sowell would like a word with you. The author of such primers as Basic Economics, Sowell is the economist for non-economists, the expert for the inexperienced. His commonsense approach to financial quagmire has won him a large following of readers delighted to be neither condescended to nor ignored. In the land of economists, he is a populist among princes. Of course, Sowell is no less respected (or credentialed) amongst the ivory tower intelligentsia, though his conservative views have made more than a few institutions wish to pull up the drawbridge. In The Housing Boom he analyzes the current crisis (bad ideas + big government = disaster) and argues that the recession is not the result of a monetary Watergate or an economic Pearl Harbor. It is the consequence of a domino-like series of bad decisions and inept reactions: “in short, the policies and practices of many institutions, local and national, public and private, set the stage for the roots of the housing boom and bust.” Sowell offers no quick fixes, save one:  the principles in The Housing Boom will make a useful voter guide in 2010.

Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy’s Guide, Joseph Epstein (published 2005; re-issued 2009)

$13.99, 224 pages

The former editor of the delightful American Scholar and author of numerous essays, stories, and articles, Joseph Epstein is a quick study of character. A prolific writer on human foibles, he has devoted an entire book to arrogance (Snobbery: The American Version) and another to social climbing (Ambition: The Secret Passion). But in Democracy’s Guide Epstein paints a portrait of failings relatively restrained and unglamorous. Meet Alexis de Tocqueville, a politician of meager rhetorical gifts, sallow-skinned, sickly, and with a maddening propensity to forget the names of influentials helpful to his career. He lacked both ambition and arrogance and possessed a personality, by historic accounts, humble and ill-assured; “less easily well met; he lacked the gift of making himself quickly liked.”

Yet to read de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, still relevant more than 170 years after its writing, is to envision a Nostradamus of the public stage, where prophecy and foresight are rendered with mathematic precision. Epstein’s gift to readers is to draw back the curtain on the private life of a public man, tempering the oracle-like aura of Democracy with the faults of human character. As happens in many successful life stories, de Tocqueville’s weaknesses abetted his strengths.

Today, de Tocqueville’s work while serving in the Chamber of Deputies would scarcely warrant a mention on CNN’s political ticker. His weaknesses at the podium (the lack of social finesse, the halting voice) drove him instead to cultivate a relationship with voters and an intimate knowledge of community and society at the local level, talents he would later so effectively utilize on that famous journey across the United States. This grassroots education would ultimately shape his understanding – and his remarkable insights in Democracy in America – far more than a sparkling career as a rhetorician would have done. Democracy found a fitting guide in this philosopher king.

Operation Paperback

Cost varies

“What are you doing?” I asked [the soldier] without fear,

“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!

Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,

You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”

…

Then he sighed and he said “It’s really all right,

I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”

It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,

That separates you from the darkest of times.

- Anonymous

When Operation Paperback opened its doors as a nonprofit in 1999, boredom rather than bombs threatened most troops. A decade and two war theaters later, their motto speaks to the transforming and comforting value of books for those far from home and family:  “Giving Our Troops the Opportunity to Escape Into a Good Book Since 1999.” Through either monetary donations or book “care packages” you can help ensure that this season American troops receive the gift of reading. The process is as simple as visiting the website and inputting the main genres you have around your home (sci-fi, biography, etc.) or are inclined to purchase. Operation Paperback generates a list of names and addresses and you package up the books and mail them off. The Operation has shipped reading materials to more than 30 countries and locations, including Afghanistan and Iraq, and four fleets worldwide.

If you’re inclined to give financial support, other Operation Paperback projects include providing educational resources to service members, language phrasebooks, children’s books for soldiers to read over webcam to their kids, and counseling books for returning troops. You may donate here.

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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

Going Rogue:  An American Life, Sarah Palin
$28.00, 432 pages

Sarah Palin is a figure about whom much is said and little is known. Depending on the weather and which newspaper you read, she is a folk hero, an Orwellian enigma, or a female Dan Quayle. This identity jumble is not really Palin’s fault, unless you can blame her for having good genes; a pretty woman with political power is more than our judicious, socially progressive media can handle. Thus, the lack of good reporting, or any reporting, on many aspects of her career makes Going Rogue an essential addition to the news cycle; it is the only comprehensive examination of her life, and one of the few organized defenses of her decisions. And like everything else about Palin, it is impossible to ignore.

Going Rogue has, much like Palin’s politics, also defied sound criticism. It is neither an annoying whine (“complainer in chief” per the New York Times, apparently confused over which maverick candidate was author), nor is it an “American treasure” as hailed by the Free Republic. Call it, rather, found history. Of its 432 pages, roughly one-half concern the 2008 campaign, leaving a solid 200 pages of the book to stories of Palin’s childhood, marriage, family, and early political career (including such singular vignettes as Palin campaigning door-to-door while pulling her young children behind her on a sled). The folksy writing style is also uniquely Sarah, a fact about which the media has, unfairly, made great sport. Only imagine the outcry if Going Rogue had been written with the false gravitas of Bill Clinton’s My Life. Her love of country, family, the Last Frontier State – and good eating – stands out on every page.

Palin is also an unrelenting cheerleader for conservative ideals. From her perspective, every personal and political challenge, from media criticism to Anwar drilling must be addressed through the triumvirate of hard work, determination, and trusting people to make their own decisions. But of these three, it is determination that carries her the farthest. Early in her story, Palin describes a high school basketball game where she played through a painful injury to win the championship:  “that victory changed my life. More than anything else to that point, it proved… that hard work and passion matter most of all.” Her summary is an almost gleeful account of her suffering – “my right ankle is [still] a knobby and misshapen thing, a daily reminder of pushing through pain” – and perhaps best summarizes her indomitable campaign trail spirit. She survived in part because she was strong, but also because for her pain and victory are two sides of the same coin. Peggy Noonan once wrote that “all defeat is a collaboration.” It seems safe to say that Sarah Palin won’t be cooperating anytime soon.

The Encounter Broadsides Series, various authors.
$5.99, 48 pages each

The Broadsides series, conceived by Encounter Books as a modern Federalist Papers or Common Sense, is essentially a conservative tutorial, a prep card for political debate. With the motto “The Best Defense is a Good Broadside” the goal is to educate conservatives and send them into arguments well armed. I recommend this series with some hesitation, not for its content, but for its violent potential when opened under a multi-political Christmas tree. Resist the urge to slip a copy into the sweater box of your Obama-voting second cousin (whose frothing mouth and blazing eyes will no doubt extinguish some of the fun at Christmas dinner), and instead bequeath it to the fence sitters and conservative stalwarts of the family. Or arm yourself. Choose your issue, study the broadside, and sail through the choppy waters of liberal rhetoric and skewed statistics, leaving opponents in your well-informed wake.

Issues include How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy, How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine our Elections, and Obama’s Betrayal of Israel. Available at Encounter Books (www.encounterbooks.com/broadsides/).

The New Criterion
$48.00, one year subscription.  $38.00, online only.

“Quite simply the best cultural review in the world.”

- John O’Sullivan

What do the artist Jean-Antoine Watteau, statesman Henry Kissinger, and poet Karl Kirchwey have in common?  All are featured in a single issue of The New Criterion.  Founded through the peculiar partnership of an art critic and a pianist, this conservative polemic on everything from foreign policy to poetry embodies the best of criticism, free both from the deconstructionism of liberal thought and the more trivial clichés of popular culture.

Cultural dominance has proved elusive and short-lived for conservatives in recent decades; many right-of-center supporters have been guilty of exempting themselves from the world of art and high culture altogether. The New Criterion is therefore a necessary – and rather lonely – counterpoint to the muddled, muddy criticism seeping down into the weed-choked moat of the Ivory Tower. It is also a central repository of gifted modern writers, from Joseph Epstein to William F. Buckley to Christopher Ricks. As the editors describe it, creating their excellent publication means “engaging with those forces dedicated to traducing genuine cultural and intellectual achievement, whether through obfuscation, politicization, or a commitment to nihilistic absurdity.” In other words, The New Criterion is making its stand against intellectual vacuity and bureaucratic lingo; the opportunities to do so, it would seem, are endless.

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Skyla Freeman (skylafreeman.com) is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

by Michael Kimmage

Harvard University Press, 2009

Michael Kimmage, Assistant Professor of History at the Catholic University of America, has produced a detailed intellectual history that also serves to invoke some of today’s most pressing issues. The Conservative Turn explores the rightward political evolutions of Lionel Trilling and Whittaker Chambers, and their influence upon the post-war political ideologies on both the Left and Right.  Kimmage’s central argument is that the rightward turn which characterized the passionate, religious anti-communist conservatism of Chambers, as well as the moderate, introspective anti-communist liberalism of Trilling respectively sowed the seeds for post-War liberalism and conservatism.  Through exploring the trajectories of Trilling and Chambers—their bourgeois upbringings, Ivy League radicalism, post-college communist activity, and subsequent “conservative turns” characterized by rejecting communism—Kimmage shows how those ideologies germinated and developed. 

The book proceeds through Kimmage’s seamless and confident interweaving of the two narratives.   Trilling, born to Eastern-European Jewish parents, was an urbane, irreligious intellectual attracted to the honesty and depth of Communist culture.  However, once he recognized the homogeneity and group-think sowed by Communist ideology, he discerned an inherent incompatibility between Marxist beliefs and liberalism, and became an anti-Communist.  Through his book reviews in Partisan Review, lectures as a Columbia professor, and primary literary accomplishment, The Middle of the Journey, Trilling came to espouse a brand of liberalism that championed critical questioning and analysis, and viewed Communism as antithetical to those values. 

Simultaneously, Chambers was born into a dysfunctional Episcopalian family.  In college, his youthful conservatism gave way to radical communism, leading to prolific writing of socialist literature and culminating in his position as a “paid functionary”—or spy—for the Soviet Union; his espionage eventually put him in contact with a top-secret Washington communist ring that he claimed infiltrated the highest levels of government and included Alger Hiss, a rising star in the State Department.  Yet after watching another American spy for the Soviet Union disappear in Russia for making anti-communist statements, Chambers did an abrupt about-face and abandoned the “evil” Soviet cause, returning to his Christian roots and morphing into a passionate anti-communist religious conservative.  The extent of Chambers’s activities as a spy remains ambiguous, but his involvement was sufficient to instill within him long-lasting paranoia and fear for his life.  Eventually becoming a Quaker, Chambers viewed a simple, Christian agrarian society as the highest manifestation of American ideals.  His distinction as possibly the staunchest anti-Communist in the American intellectual elite was solidified with his turn as a witness against Alger Hiss in his 1948 trial, which served as the catalyst for Chambers’s landmark conservative treatise, Witness.

In presenting their intellectual paths, Kimmage rarely forces discordant parallels between these men.  In closely tracing their ideological journeys, however, Kimmage sacrifices useful biographical details. While the book is an intellectual history and not a joint biography, it would have been well served to focus on additional facets of Trilling’s and Chambers’s lives.  Diana Trilling, herself an intellectual powerhouse, appears sparsely, and there is no description of her response to, or influence on, Lionel’s ideological transformation.  Esther Chambers, Whittaker’s Jewish wife, represents a missed opportunity for exploration of how non-Christian Americans and “others” fit into Chambers’s Christian-agrarian ideal. Other interesting biographical events are mentioned briefly and never revisited, such as Chambers’s brother’s suicide which “completed Chambers’s journey” towards communism, or Chambers’s secret homosexual activities.  Even more conspicuous is the lack of detail about Chambers’s life as a member of the communist underground.  The fervent and extreme nature which propelled his treasonous activities undoubtedly informed his political philosophy as well, and thereby warrants increased chronicling. 

The Conservative Turn’s merit as a scholarly analysis on the common yet divergent ancestry of post-war liberalism and conservatism notwithstanding, the book’s lingering power stems from the resonance that it holds today.  The United States is currently faced with a foreign enemy as belligerent and insidious as that posed by communist regimes: Iran. While there has been no endorsement of the Iranian nuclear ambition among the intellectual elite as there had been with communism, the range of responses to the Iranian threat have fallen along fault lines dug into the political landscape decades ago by Trilling and Chambers. Trilling’s liberal opposition to communism was born out of his distaste for censorship and uniformity of thought, and was fundamentally a battle over ideas fought on the most esoteric level through book reviews, essays and articles; the political leader he considered as sharing his values was President Kennedy, who invited him to the White House to discuss art and literature.  Liberals today have taken up his banner of moderation, with the current administration championing dialogue and diplomacy as the best means of curbing the Iranian threat. Yet this course has proven futile and even damaging, especially amidst new reports that while stringing Washington along, Iran has been constructing a second enrichment facility used to make bomb-grade uranium.  Given the ineffectiveness of the Trilling-inspired diplomatic course, the U.S. should take a lesson from Chambers, “the archetypical American neoconservative,” who approached the looming communist threat as a literal enemy; he claimed of his testimony against Hiss, “I regarded my action in going to the Government as a simple act of war, like the shooting of an armed enemy in combat.”

He considered his editorial pulpit at Time as a bullhorn to rally the masses to fight communism, and his ideology was embodied by the assertive, forceful foreign policies of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan; it is incarnated today by those conservatives that advocate aggressively combating the Iranian regime through all necessary means, rather than continuing to be drawn into a lengthy and pointless diplomatic dance by an adversary that needs only to buy time for success. In the grave and dangerous world we now face, it is instead the passionate, fierce, and uncompromising message of Chambers which seems most apt to meeting the primary threat of our time.

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Dana Stern Gibber works for a foreign policy think tank in New York.

In 2002, as controversy about the impending Iraq war escalated and liberal criticism built up faster than Trade Center rubble, a discrediting picture of President Bush began making the rounds of the blogosphere.  It showed Bush in a classroom in Texas reading a book with a little girl.  Standard political fodder, the image included the requisite bulletin board, cute kid, and smiling President – with one distinct difference.  The book he was reading was upside down.  It soon emerged that the original photo, an AP image, showed the book correctly right side up.  The picture had been photo shopped by forgers seeking to affirm their views about presidential intelligence.  But the hoax’s exposure did not put it out of circulation.  The picture continued to proliferate on various news blogs for the next seven years.  Even the famous liberal blog Huffington Post recycled it without confirmation in 2008, calling the photograph “the most iconic picture of George W. Bush reading” (even more than My Pet Goat, apparently).  In March of 2009 influential blog Think Progress posted a story about Bush’s book deal for a biography, along with the photo shopped picture, and no indication that it was a fake.  A torrent of comments from readers mocked the President and accused him, inexplicably, of illiteracy.  Even conspiracy theorists jumped on the bandwagon.  In the Internet muddle, some bloggers confused the 2002 photo with the 2001 reading of My Pet Goat, claiming that the President had read the book upside down on 9/11 to send a secret signal, as goats in some religions had apocryphal significance. 

Fake photographs have plagued Presidents almost as long as photography has existed.  Abraham Lincoln endured the indignity of having an image of his head pasted onto one of John C. Calhoun’s body in a famous fake, and fauxtography followed him into the afterlife as well.  In 1871 a phony photo by William Mumler depicted Lincoln’s spirit, bent over a sorrowful Mary Todd in widow’s weeds, his ghostly hands cradling her shoulders.  As technology has expanded, so have the opportunities for mischief, and faking photos has become easier and more convincing than ever.  Still, it is possible that technology is self-correcting:  for every photograph digitally altered, there is an equally clever program to detect it.  But detection is only part of the problem.  As the Bush book photograph proves, the wide-scale dissemination of images on the web foils any attempts at control or correction.  Even when disproven, the photographs have a life of their own, replicating across blogs and websites like a malicious virus.  They – and their false messages – can live on long after their human subjects.

One motivation for tampering with history is the chance to become a part of it.  Some altered photographs begin as serious attempts to discredit a leader, while others are just jokes.  But, whatever the intent, once online forged images join the portfolio of professional work that defines a presidency.  One Internet web-hosting company admitted in 2007 that a photograph it faked of Karl Rove had boosted the company, commenting that “this [fake photo] has driven tens of thousands of visitors to our Web site. …we consider our web marketing experiment a success.”  Released during the controversy over White House email, the image was a digitally altered picture of Karl Rove carrying some files.  The name of a folder was changed to that of the company’s, on the hunch that when viewers Googled the folder title they would assume Rove was using non-Federal servers.  Numerous bloggers took the bait, and heavily traveled sites like DailyKos and Wonkette posted the photo or called for an investigation.  The allegations were withdrawn when the company admitted the hoax, but by then thousands had viewed the images and the myth about the company’s servers persisted. 

Political fauxtography does not discriminate based on party, either.  A 2008 photograph circulated on the web depicted President Obama talking on the phone with the receiver upside down.  It was a doctored image, and hardly original (a similar hoax materialized in 2005 of Bush, appearing to listen from a mouthpiece), but it gave his detractors ample opportunity to criticize his intelligence.  Sometimes, photo fakers attempt to improve on reality.  In 2004 a widely circulated photo of John Kerry and Jane Fonda together on stage at an anti-war rally provoked outrage from both right and left.  Conservatives were incensed that Kerry supported Fonda’s pro-communist tactics in Vietnam, while liberals denounced the image as inauthentic.  The picture later proved to be a fake, and an unnecessary one, since a legitimate picture of Kerry and Fonda at a different rally existed.  But the real image was far less suggestive, as Kerry and Fonda were seated several rows apart, and it is highly likely that the faker was inspired to create a “better” picture for their own political ends.   

Sometimes fauxtography is not the result of doctoring an image, but altering its context.  The National Press Photographers Association’s ethics guidelines state:  “editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images’ content and context.”  Unfortunately, even credible publications are not immune to photo tampering.  Just this month, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer David Hume Kennerly cried fowl when his picture of former Vice President Dick Cheney was dramatically altered through cropping and captioning by Newsweek editors.  The picture, a homey scene of Cheney helping prepare dinner with his wife, daughters, and granddaughter in a kitchen, had been cut down by two thirds, removing the women and creating a close-up of Cheney wielding a knife over a bloody cutting board.  Beside the altered photograph, Newsweek posted a caption about Cheney and the C.I.A. interrogations.  The implication of Cheney as a butcher was obvious; the blood on his blade only heightened the message.  Kennerly was justifiably outraged and called the incident “photo fakery,” professing his embarrassment and apologizing to the Cheneys, and taking Newsweek to task for the deception.  Newsweek admitted the act but not error in their public statement:  “Did we use the image to make an editorial point – in this case, about the former vice president’s red-blooded, steak-eating, full throated defense of his vets and values?  Yes, we did.”  The indictment of all steak-eaters as torturers aside, Newsweek’s duplicity was a dangerous departure from media responses to allegations of fraud.  Major news outlets such as the New York Times and the Associated Press have generally offered immediate and contrite apologies for altered photos that evade their screening process.  As they should.  Newsweek’s response was worthy of a tabloid, but in this case the danger was not an offended actress but altered perception of a former world leader. 

Photographs are a vital means of communicating events, experiences, and historical moments, but editorial liberties increase public skepticism and heighten the possibility that the photograph will lose credibility.  Ironically, the attitude of media outlets such as Newsweek undermines the very coverage they seek to provide.  Kennerly summarized the problem in his response to the fake Cheney picture:  ”this incident is another example of why many people don’t believe what they see or read.”  Amateur hoaxers do just as much damage.  Fake images like those of Rove or the upside-down phone are individually foolish or amusing, but they collectively breed public distrust.  A culture of photo doctoring may alter history, not just by deceiving the eye, but also by convincing people that all photographs cannot be trusted.  Individuals who manipulate photos and pass them as real are not pranksters, but frauds who construct alternate realities and injure the reputations of gifted professionals who show us the real world, unedited.  Media outlets must be vigilant against editorializing history, and mainstream bloggers must accept that their popularity obligates them to the same ethical standards as traditional media.  Otherwise, fauxtography may become the new photography, and our society will be poorer for it.

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Skyla Freeman is a former writer for President George W. Bush. She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).

 Welcome to American Maggie’s list of book recommendations! From philosophy to the arts, this list encompasses centuries of thought, study, and debate. Brush up on your political theory with “The Conservative Tutorial.” Learn more about issues facing women in “Women and Society.”  Or, find a book about current events under “Relevant Now.” Whether you’re a well-read politico or merely curious, there are plenty of options to choose from. This list is also a work in progress; we’ll continue to update it with new releases and your suggestions. Happy reading!

 *****

THE CONSERVATIVE TUTORIAL

From Aristotle to Russell Kirk, here are the top ten books every conservative should know. 

 The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom – “In this acclaimed number one national best-seller, one of our country’s most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis of 20th century America is really an intellectual crisis.  Allan Bloom’s sweeping analysis is essential to understanding America today.  It has fired the imagination of a public ripe for change.” (Book cover)

Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville – “In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French aristocrat and ambitious civil servant, made a nine-month journey throughout America. The result was Democracy in America, a monumental study of the life and institutions of the evolving nation. Tocqueville looked to the flourishing democratic system in America as a possible model for post-revolutionary France, believing that the egalitarian ideals it enshrined reflected the spirit of the age and even divine will. His insightful work has become one of the most influential political texts ever written on America and an indispensable authority on democracy.” (Amazon.com)

The March of Freedom:  Modern Classics in Conservative Thought, Edwin J. Feulner – “Like all great movements, modern conservatism arose out of the experience and thought of certain great individuals. In The March of Freedom, Edwin J. Feulner, Jr. introduces twelve of the statesmen, economists, moralists, and sages whose deeds and writings gave conservatism its contemporary form. Each chapter comprises an essay by Dr. Feulner on one of theses figures followed by an illustrative selection from his or her work. These portraits fall into two groups:  “Conservative Minds,” the formulators of conservative principles, and “Witnesses,” intellectual and political leaders whose conversions to the cause bore witness to those principles.” (Book cover)

The Politics, Aristotle – “Twenty-three centuries after its compilation, The Politics still has much to contribute to this central question of political science. Aristotle’s thorough and carefully argued analysis is based on a study of over 150 constitutions, covering a  huge range of political issues in order to establish which types of constitution are best – both ideally and in particular circumstances – and how they may be maintained.” (Book cover)

The Founder’s Almanac:  A Practical Guide to the Notable Events, Greatest Leaders, and Most Eloquent Words of the American Founders, Matthew Spalding – “The Founders’ Almanac is an easy-to-use guide to the origins of American democracy — focusing on information that is especially valuable for our day. The calendar describes important events of the era. Biographical essays introduce the leading Founders — including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams — and discuss the major themes of their statesmanship. An extensive compilation of quotations reflects the wit and wisdom of the Founding generation, and an annotated bibliography suggests additional readings. Historical documents — the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and Washington’s Farewell Address — and interpretative essays reacquaint the reader with immortal words and their contemporary meaning.” (Amazon.com)

 Modern Times, Paul Johnson – “Originally published in 1983 and named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, this bestselling history is now revised and updated and includes a new final chapter. A far-reaching and masterful work, it explores the events, ideas, and personalities of the seven decades since the First World War.” (Barnesandnoble.com)

 God and Man at Yale, William F. Buckley, Jr. – “In 1951, a twenty-five-year old Yale graduate published his first book, which exposed the extraordinarily irresponsible educational attitude that prevailed at his alma mater. This book rocked the academic world and catapulted its young author, William F. Buckley Jr., into the public spotlight.” (Barnesandnoble.com)

 The Conservative Mind, Russell Kirk – “The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk is arguably one of the greatest contributions to twentieth-century American Conservatism. Brilliant in every respect, from its conception to its choice of significant figures representing the history of intellectual conservatism, The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk launched the modern American Conservative Movement. A must-read.” (Barnesandnoble.com)

 The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek – “A classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in England in the spring of 1944 when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would inevitably lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of nazi Germany and fascist Italy.” (Amazon.com)

 The Republic, Plato – “The central work of one of the West’s greatest philosophers, The Republic of Plato is a masterpiece of insight and feeling, the finest of the Socratic dialogues, and one of the great books of Western culture. This [book] captures the dramatic realism, poetic beauty, intellectual vitality, and emotional power of Plato at the height of his powers. Deftly weaving three main strands of argument into an artistic whole–the ethical and political, the aesthetic and mystical, and the metaphysical–Plato explores in The Republic the elements of the ideal community, where morality can be achieved in a balance of wisdom, courage, and restraint.”  (Amazon.com)

*****

OTHER CONSERVATIVE CLASSICS

• The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry M. Goldwater
• The Patriot’s Handbook, George Grant
• The Federalist Papers, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay
• Ideas Have Consequences, Richard Weaver
• The Quest for Community, Robert Nisbet
• Free to Choose, Milton and Rose Friedman
• Up From Liberalism, Buckley, Goldwater, Dos Passos
• The Conservative Intellectual Movement in American Since 1945, George Nash
• A Conflict of Visions:  Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, Thomas Sowell
• Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes
• The Law, Frederic Bastiat

*****

 RELEVANT NOW

• The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan
• Anti-Americanism, Jean-Francois Revel
• Basic Economics:  A Commonsense Guide to the Economy, Thomas Sowell
• The Vision of the Anointed:  Self Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, Thomas Sowell
• Now They Call Me Infidel:  Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror, Nonie Darwish
• The Intellectuals and Socialism, Friedrich Hayek
• The Case for Democracy:  The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror, Natan Sharansky 

*****

 WOMEN AND SOCIETY

• The Good Girl Revolution:  Young Rebels with Self-Esteem and High Standards, Wendy Shalit
• A Return to Modesty:  Discovering the Lost Virtue, Wendy Shalit
• Who Stole Feminism?  How Women Have Betrayed Women, Christina Hoff-Sommers
• A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Wollstonecraft
• Feminist Fantasies, Phyllis Schlafly
• What Women Really Want:  How American Women are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live, Kellyanne Conway
• Great American Conservative Women, Anthology
• What Our Mother’s Didn’t Tell Us, Danielle Crittenden
• Spin Sisters:  How the Women of the Media Sell Unhappiness and Liberalism to the Women of America, Myrna Blyth
• Feminism vs. Women, Ashley Herzog

*****

 POLICY AND PHILOSOPHY

• Statecraft, Margaret Thatcher
• Escape from Reason:  A Penetrating Analysis of Trends in Modern Thought, Francis A. Schaeffer

*****

 FICTION

• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
• 1984, George Orwell

*****

 BIOGRAPHY

• Clare Boothe Luce:  A Biography, Stephen Shadegg 
• Margaret Thatcher’s 2-part autobiography:  The Path to Power, The Downing Street Years
• Witness, Whittaker Chambers 
• Radical Son:  A Generational Odyssey, David Horowitz
• What I Saw at the Revolution:  A Political Life in the Reagan Era, Peggy Noonan

*****

 THE ARTS AND CULTURE

• From Bauhaus to Your House, Tom Wolfe
• How Should We Then Live?:  The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, Francis A. Schaeffer
• The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams
• Addicted to Mediocrity:  Contemporary Christians and the Arts, Franky Schaeffer

Have you read a book that you think should be on this list?  Written a book review you’d like to share with American Maggie?  Contact us via “comments” below or at books@americanmaggie.com.

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Skyla Freeman is a former writer for President George W. Bush.  She blogs about style and culture at Sanity Fair online (sfair.blogspot.com).