Quick: what do former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General
Richard Myers and former heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali have in
common? Hint: it's not patriotism. But both men will be given the
nation's highest civilian honor, the presidential medal of freedom,
at a White House ceremony
next week.
That the same ceremony will
honor not only Myers but a giant like Robert Conquest, a man who
labored a lifetime to illuminate the darkness inhabited by fools
like Ali, is breathtaking, but not terribly surprising.
The uber-narcissist of a narcissistic generation, Ali has been
transformed by his infirmities into a benevolent missionary of
peace and wisdom. If Ali had remained healthy, who knows what
searching reevaluations he might have become subjected to over the
last 20 years. Instead, we get Ali as suffering prophet and wise
man, a pugilisitic Gandhi who labored to make us all better people.
But of course Ali did not make us better, kinder, or wiser. He only
made us louder, fed our already swelling addiction to talking
without listening.
Outside of the lonely voice of Mark Kram, whose 2001 book
Ghosts of Manila shed harsh light on the real Ali, the culture
has given Ali a free pass on his racial fanaticism; ruinous effect
on sportsmanship; and scorning of his country when it called on him
for service. Is it merely because Ali has become ill that so few
critics are willing to go back and examine the outrages he
perpetrated on men like Joe Frazier and Floyd Patterson ("C'mon
Christian!" he hissed while fighting the latter) - or is it
something deeper, something having to do with one generation's
ruinous thirst for an outlaw hero? A hero who, against all odds,
would age along with them and finally become benign and
grandfatherly, and prove that he had suffered at last, just like
the generations he dishonored when he was young?
topics:
Sports, Books, Law
