It seems to be next to impossible these days to bridge the gulf
between right and left and make friends with someone on the other
side, but it can happen. Thanks to a newspaper columnist, this
Reagan Republican met and became good friends with the
self-professed “Old Leftist,” Alexander Cockburn, 25 or so years
ago.
The late Herb Caen, who for years chronicled the daily doings in
and around San Francisco, dropped me a note saying, “Say hello to
your neighbor and my friend Cockburn.” I’d heard he had moved in
down the road in our quiet, rural valley on the northern California
coast. I thought of him as a fire-breathing, sharp-penciled
excoriator of all things conservative. Nevertheless, I stopped by
and introduced myself.
I found Alex to be friendly — actually cordial — and somewhat
self-effacing. We agreed to get together for a talk over drinks
soon, and did. Thus began a friendship that lasted until last
weekend when he died unexpectedly of cancer. Almost none of his
friends was aware that he was contending with the
ailment.
He and his daughter, Daisy, came to dinner in the late spring
and he looked as he always did, disheveled, but cheerful. No word
about his health. In the early summer he went to Paris to join
Daisy and some friends. In an e-mail he said he expected to return
to California in August. Instead, he checked into a treatment
center in Germany where he passed away at age 71.
Anglo-Irish by birth, Alexander Cockburn became an American
citizen. He was amused by the irony that one of his ancestors had
led British troops in burning Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812.
He enjoyed irony, for it often drew attention to human folly, of
which he thought there was an endless supply. His sparkling sense
of humor could turn a recitation about some humdrum event into a
hilarious send-up.
A prolific writer he was featured at various times in the
Village Voice, the Nation, the Los
Angeles Times, even the Wall Street Journal.
He authored or co-authored several books and lectured on many
college campuses.
He was motivated by a deep sense of fairness. Sometimes it
manifested itself in over-the-top comments, but it was always
heartfelt. He also had a strong libertarian streak. On quite a few
issues, our views coincided. For example, when it came to the 9/11
“Truthers,” who believed that George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald
Rumsfeld engineered the destruction of the World Trade Center
towers, he thought their view was preposterous. When an apolitical
civil engineer offered to write an article showing how planted
explosives (part of the “Truthers” belief) could not possibly have
brought down the buildings, Alex devoted an issue of his
newsletter, Counterpunch, to it.
He thought Al Gore was a fraud and that global warming was, if
not a hoax, at least the product of self-delusion.
He attacked the “recovered memory” phenomenon of about 20 years
ago, in which some feminist sociologists set out to “prove”
that most fathers had molested their daughters.
Similarly, he was highly critical of the rush-to-judgment
atmosphere surrounding several alleged play school scandals in
which young children supposedly claimed that the owners conducted
Satanic rituals in school. In several of these cases, the resulting
hysteria caused lives to be unjustly ruined by prison
sentences.
He had an interesting hobby — a fondness for automobiles made
by Chrysler. Over the years he had many — usually four or
five at a time. There were Plymouths and Dodges, but his long-time
favorite was a 1956 red Chrysler convertible which made its
anti-royalist owner look regal driving down the road.
As friends do, we shared many meals, stories, ideas, and did
occasional favors for one another. He was a good neighbor and a
good friend. All of us who knew him will miss his effervescence,
his warmth, and — even when we disagreed — his passion.
