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The Spectacle Blog
Joe Sobran, the longtime conservative columnist and former National Review senior editor, has died at age 64 after a long physical decline. Sobran was an immensely gifted and deeply tragic figure, filled with great talents and tormented by ugly demons. Sobran will always be remembered for his break with NR and the mainstream conservative movement, “In Search of Anti-Semitism,” and the neocon versus paleocon split.
Sobran wrote some truly indefensible things and would come to traffic in some very nasty stuff. But before succumbing to those demons, he was one of the finest writers in conservative circles and did some important work. He had a great eye for what was absurd in American life and was a savvy conservative critic of popular culture — this Sobran essay on Madonna is a personal favorite of mine. At his best, he was a defender of the constitutional conservatism that once fell out of fashion but is today embodied by the Tea Party movement.
UPDATE: Dan Flynn posted some of his Sobran memories.
View all comments (44) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/09/30/joe-sobran-rip
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Occam's Tool| 9.30.10 @ 11:57PM
With regards to Joe Sobran: my momma always told me to say nothing about a dead person if I couldn't say anything nice. Therefore, goodbye Amalek. This column made my day.
Flee| 10.1.10 @ 1:05AM
I think you sell Joe Sobran a bit short in your portrayal of his writings. I read many a sharply written, well documented column during his days as a syndicated columnist in the 80's. He may not have been one to seek agreement or to fall in line with the conservative movement, but he definitely had a talent for turning a phrase ruffling more than a few feathers. I am sorry to hear he has passed away. It would have been nice if he could have finished writing "King Lincoln" to see what kind of reaction it would have received in this day in age.
SoCon| 10.1.10 @ 1:15AM
I used to read Joe Sobran in the Conservative Chronicle, and I always enjoyed his articles. As I recall, he was a stalwart defender of the unborn.
He seemed like a very good man.
Rest in Peace, Joe Sobran.
Cylar| 10.1.10 @ 4:52AM
I *used* to enjoy his writing - who could disagree with a spirited defense of limited government, lower taxes, and the rest? However, after September 11 when our government began taking more aggressive action against terrorism, Sobran changed. And I think this is where the "truly indefensible" part comes in - he wrote reprehensible things about Israel, the War on Terror (particularly the Iraq invasion, to which he was dead-set against), and pretty much anything else that didn't fit neatly into his 1930's isolationist worldview. Frankly it was unrealistic. I used to write to him almost every week to voice my disgust with whatever anti-Bush, antiwar claptrap he'd written. He responded several times, always self-righteously and nastily, as if I were simply one of his clueless left-wing critics. Finally, one day in 2003 he called me an "asshole" and told me that I was his "enemy." I concluded that the man had gone completely off the deep end. I never wrote to him again, nor read another word he'd written. Though it is not polite to say, I will not miss this man one iota.
aware| 10.1.10 @ 7:44AM
You neocons never miss a chance do you. Sobran eventually understood that the Warfare State proponents are just as big a threat to liberty as the Welfare State commies of the Left. In fact you are allies.
How the neocons hate those who won't follow orders and march in lockstep. Especially those who point out your hypocrisy of seeming to advocate "limited government" when you want nothing of the kind.
rrebell| 10.1.10 @ 11:34AM
Nobody dare to say it. It was not the "neocon" business the problem unless you consider it a Jewish problem. Let's just say that he was a vicious anti-Semite. This is not taking away his talent and his right views in other issues. I used to read him in the 70's and 80's loved him but in every of his articles eventually attacked Jews. I even look over this thing until he was attacking Jews for their liberal standing, but he went way beyond that. He was an anti-Semite. Otherwise he was a great writer.
Occam's Tool| 10.1.10 @ 12:07PM
I'm sorry. If it is "neocon" to support lower taxes, a less intrusive Federal Government, and a muscular approach to combatting terrorism, color me neo-con. But I was VEEP of my College's YAF chapter a quarter century ago, and voted for Reagan at age 18. I don't think I'm "neo" anything.
Incidentally, do you paleo-cons enjoy performing unspeakable acts on terrorists? You do it all day long, and twice on Sundays. I have never seen a more craven group of cowards, scum, and traitors.
Patriot| 10.1.10 @ 12:18PM
I hope we don't start tearing each other apart again--Obama's Marxists are the real threat.
Leon Haller| 10.5.10 @ 6:17AM
You're an idiot. Neocons are worse than worthless, and over the next decade we are going to purge you people from the conservative movement (and the issue we will be doing it on is immigration, and the defense of White America).
JoshH| 10.5.10 @ 4:18PM
How do you reconcile less intrusive government while spending almost a TRILLION dollars a year on "muscular approaches" to fighting terrorism which is the reason we HAVE a terrorism problem.
Besides, I'm sure you're willing to sacrifice YOUR son or daughter to the M.E. in support of your "muscular approach". You probably even have s "Support the Troups" yellow ribbon on your car too.
Mike| 10.3.10 @ 1:17PM
Yes, I had almost a similar experience when emailing him about Shakespeare. He never dropped the A-word, but he really didn't listen to anyone but himself, I am afraid.
Leon Haller| 10.5.10 @ 6:13AM
Not true! I conversed with Joe on at least three occasions over more than 15 years and found him unfailingly polite and charming. Besides, who are YOU? I'm not a professional writer, but I do comment a lot, and get a number of emails from strangers. I only sometimes respond - no time. Of course someone like Joe would lack the time to reply to endless correspondents. Grow up.
Ivan| 10.1.10 @ 8:46AM
Amen.
Peter Gemma| 10.1.10 @ 10:06AM
You mention "demons" twice in a very short obit - bad taste and bad writing. I suppose if Joe hadn't been a man of conviction and courage, writing about what he believed and why, he wouldn't have small dogs nipping at his legacy.
He'll be well remembered for such great lines as ...
• "An isolationist is an American who thinks America should behave like other countries; a rogue nation is a country that behaves like America."
• "The U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government."
Talking about taboo subjects with compelling arguments will also be part of Joe's reputation. As a writer and thinker, that's not a bad way to be remembered.
JIm| 10.1.10 @ 10:51AM
For some ugly reason, supposed Conservatives, keepers of the holy whatever it is, beat the hell out of people who are mostly right but see signs of hope and goodness in those who are generally nasty, wrong, dangerous and destructive. Try to see the whole world with the same measuring stick and say something nice if you can when Joe Sobran has passed away.
Derek Leaberry| 10.1.10 @ 2:08PM
Yes. Many confused conservatives think Christopher Hitchens is anything other than the degenerate, Marxist polecat that he is just because he supported the debacle in Iraq. Joseph Sobran is a saint in comparison to Hitchens.
Cuffs| 10.1.10 @ 11:30AM
Good night, sweet prince.
You spoke the truth no one
wanted to hear.
kingsmill| 10.1.10 @ 12:15PM
Joe Sobran's essays and reviews were the first thing I turned to in the late 70's and early 80's when National Review was a must read.
I'll remember Sobran for his great book reviews and the long, almost issue length essay he penned for NR back in the day. His collection of essays "Single Issues" resonates across the decades.
I never followed him into his anarcho-reactionary phase and regretted his painful separation from NR.
"His likes will not be there again."-Flann O'Brien
RIP.
Peter Murphy| 10.1.10 @ 1:05PM
Agree with Sobran assessment - a fascination evolution of a gifted columnist to a ugly fringe writer. In the early, good days, his essays for the 30th anniversary edition of National Review are a keeper.
Gerry T. Neal | 10.1.10 @ 1:05PM
Was the first sentence of your second paragraph really necessary Mr. Antle? Surely if you feel that way there is a better time and place to express it than in an RIP?
Having said that, you were right in saying that Mr. Sobran was "one of the finest writers in conservative circles". I would argue that that was true right to the very end. His bi-monthly column for Chronicles over the past few years has included articles that could be ranked among his very best.
Only ever having known him through his writings, I can only speak of Joe Sobran the writer. That writer, as I have read him, was a man of devout Christian faith, who stood up for what he thought was right, who loved his country enough to lament when he believed it had lost its way, and who hated and attacked any and all abuses of power that he saw. He did so with humour, intelligence, and scholarship.
May he rest in peace.
Derek Leaberry| 10.1.10 @ 1:23PM
Joseph Sobran was an articulate, witty critic of big government liberalism. It did not matter whether the big government supporter was a Democrat of the Tip O'Neill variety, a Republican of the Bob Dole or George W. Bush variety, or a neo-conservative. Mr. Sobran was a fierce warrior against the butchery of the unborn children, unlike most neo-conservatives who endorse the 50 million child holocaust, cretins like David Frum, David Brooks and Jonah Goldberg, or just couldn't care less.
Why is Joseph Sobran hated so dearly by neo-conservatives? He did not support every Israeli foreign policy decision. He was happy to attack false conservatives who leeched like parasites to the conservative body in order to mold it in a Kristolite, neo-conservative direction. He understood that, with the end of the Cold War, military interventionism was a boon to big government. He was correctly an opponent of war in Iraq, a waste of 4000 lives and nearly a trillion dollars, a debacle that led to the election blowouts of 2006 and 2008, including the election of Barack Hussein Obama as president. He was a firm Roman Catholic traditionalist, which made him suspect in the eyes of neo-conservatives.
SoCon| 10.1.10 @ 3:10PM
Yes, Sobran was a true warrior for babies in the womb; I will always love him for his steadfast defense on their behalf. He was courageous in that regard.
I hope he has found peace.
A.C. | 10.2.10 @ 3:32AM
It's really pathetic to see the kind of groupthink so indicative of leftists among supposed conservatives eulogizing one of their own who has just died. How about an actual quoted example, honestly presented in context, of the allegedly ferocious anti-semitism of Mr. Sobran, rather than just assuming it's a given, because the odious Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter and their ilk have said so? If the very fact that he deigned to speak before a controversial or even prejudiced and malevolent organization like the IHR is somehow supposed to magically convince of us all of his own anti-semitic hatred, regardless of what he actually said, then I'd say Sobran had a pretty convincing self-evident point with regards to the brainwashing effect of neoconservatism on the real project of actually conserving the Western Christian tradition.
Autum| 10.2.10 @ 5:03AM
There's not much groupthink here at all--many posters have expressed their deep admiration for Mr. Sobran. Your exaggeration doesn't help.
Leon Haller| 10.5.10 @ 6:21AM
Well stated, only understand that neoconservatism, which has destroyed the Right as an effective force against the revolutionary leftist transformation of the US over the past half century, is essentially a Jewish group movement. Joe understood that, among many other things.
Occam's Tool| 10.23.10 @ 6:26PM
Sorry. Let me be more blunt about Joe. His actions greatly increased my daughter's chances of going under the Totalitarian regime of Sharia law.
A.C.: read his discussions of "Holocaust Stipulation." Look up his articles in Sobran's---I did. They are, as we Jews would say, dayainoo.
By the way, I'm for a wall to protect us against illegal aliens---but not because I want to defend "White" America. I don't care about the color of a man's skin, but the content of his character.
Cylar| 10.3.10 @ 1:11AM
I enjoy watching the defenders of Sobran's isolationist foreign policy leanings and rabid anti-Semitism...come out of the woodwork to defend the man's memory.
Neo-cons (whatever that really is; I'm told it's really nothing but a slur against Jews) and paleo-cons like Sobran largely agreed on lower taxes and smaller government. That's precisely what separates both groups from the Left. What irritated me the most about Sobran is that he seemed to think that ALL terrorism was a direct result of US intervention in foreign countries, specifically the basing of American combat forces in various foreign countries - e.g. Saudi Arabia, said to have been the impetus for Osama Bin Laden. Here, Sobran came off sounding just like the kook-fringe Left: wanting to place all the blame for terrorism on decisions made by the US government, unwilling to consider that the terrorists hate us for who we are (not what we do), plugging along in the apparent belief that all terrorism against American interests would magically cease if we simply pulled back within our own borders. Sobran seemed to think that if China invaded Canada, the best course of action would be to fortify America's northern border and wait for the communists to attack. That kind of thinking should have been consigned to the dustbin, oh, along about Dec 7, 1941. Shame on those of you who are prattling along about this "gifted, articulate, talented" man. He was nuts, and so are those of you waxing poetic about him.
Patriot| 10.3.10 @ 7:08AM
I understand what you're saying but I don't think our Founding Fathers ever wanted our country to be an empire. Empires die, and we are well on our way toward our death. We're bankrupt, and we're going to have to make some real tough decisions if we want to survive.
Maybe that's all Mr. Sobran was trying to say.
Mike| 10.3.10 @ 1:20PM
This comment is close to being dead-on. Still, RIP, Joe Sobran.
Patriot| 10.3.10 @ 4:56PM
What part of it wasn't dead-on? I'm curious.
Joe Hamilton| 10.4.10 @ 1:58PM
Just because Sobran was correct on some issues when he wrote for National Review , it didn't give him a pass to utter the most vile anti-Jewish garbage. Sobran wrote a disgrace article on another vile, unlamented pseudo-intellectual Susan Sontag. Sontag who said " White people are the cancer of the world" and similar ,insane , stupid garbage, was supposedly attractive. Sobran who is being made to be a God of conservative by some fools , excused Sontag's vile anti-white male diatribe because he found her very physically attractive. Obviously, Sobran was someone with little substance. He was just another Nazi loving Jew hating Catholic fanatic like his evil twin Pat Buchanan.
JoshH| 10.5.10 @ 3:17PM
Please, what you say is sheer nonsense. Joe knew our beligerent policies in the M.E. were of no benefit to the United States and he was right, and he was no leftist.
If the word Neocon is a slander against Jews, why did Irving Kristol consider himself to be the godfather of Neoconservatism? Was he slandering Jews?
You see, Neocons think in hypotheticals (China invading Canada), Conservatives think in reality (They're coming here because we're over there).
Go ahead, say it again, they "hate us for our freedoms". Such rubbish.
Mike M| 10.3.10 @ 1:36PM
S.O.B.ran was an ugly racist who believed in the Founders' conception of limited government. I endorse the Founders' views but am not a racist. See the difference? His opinions on the Shakespeare authorship revealed him as an egomaniac, which is not to deny that the Oxfordian theory has something to be said for it, though not demonstrably as much as its proponents believe.
Leon Haller| 10.5.10 @ 6:24AM
The Founders were all racist, much more than Joe, who was actually quite racially liberal, you gutterfool.
Willey| 10.5.10 @ 3:09PM
The Founders were NOT racist, lying tool. Do your research before you shoot off your big mouth.
Leon Haller| 10.18.10 @ 7:33AM
Idiot! 3/5 clause??! First Congressional naturalization statute restricted to "free-born WHITE persons". I know US history, you do not. Aren't you embarrassed?
Mike| 10.3.10 @ 4:02PM
Joe Sobran wrote some indefensible things? The reflex of conformity and career protection is understandable, but it ought not totally eliminate a sense of honor and justice. Compare Sobran, who was a fierce opponent of abortion, unnecessary war, and injusctie to any one or any group to the truly indefensible creatures in charge at the Weekly Standard. Hundreds of thousand of people have been killed, disfigured for life, and destroyed economically as a result of policies favored by both the WS and American Spectator. You are disgusting.
Leon Haller| 10.5.10 @ 6:26AM
Disgusting obituary, Antle. No wonder I can't stand The American Conservative. Like it generally, your writing is shallow, unlearned, unliterary, uninteresting, and mendacious. In that, precisely the opposite of Sobran's.
RIP, Joe. You were an excellent human being in all ways.
Willey| 10.5.10 @ 3:12PM
You whine about Antle's column maligning Joe Sobran, yet you stupidly and FALSELY maligned our Founding Fathers. Dumbass hypocrite.
CB| 10.6.10 @ 12:28PM
I used to e-mail Joe. I diagreed with him on national defense, but he was always courteous. I have two boys who served in Iraq. Some of what Joe said about national defense was right, though we are not an empire as he described America. When he got really sick, and was out of money and in assisted living as he described to me, he became angry when I questioned his condemning the Novus Ordo Mass of Paul Vl. He called me a cretan. Actually, I felt sorry for him, and wished him all the best. He was a good man, and even though I never wrote to him again, I always thought of him as a gentleman , a Christian and an itellectual caught in a 1930's time warp. That's not all bad. Many people his age are stuck in the 1960's, reformed old hippies at best.
Ken Derendinger| 10.6.10 @ 11:48PM
In time you will look back at the above comments and think, "Hummm, events have proven Sobran right. It seems that the demons were my own, not his."
Occam's Tool| 10.23.10 @ 6:28PM
And in time, Mr. Derendinger, your daughter will have to wear a burkha or be flogged as we pass under sharia, because you have no clue about Islamic history.
Whitey Lawful | 10.9.10 @ 1:43PM
One cannot understand the significance of liberty without anti-semetism. The 'tea party' purges a necessary autonomy that only white-protestant-americans have upholded, thus fringe. So the crowd is made of licentiousness and the indifferent - quoting 'MLK' and futher counter-culture values of no bigotry.