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The Spectacle Blog
I write to endorse Jim Antle’s thoughtful post on the passing of columnist Joe Sobran. It has been many years since I read a single piece by Sobran, because I got so disgusted with what certainly appeared to be his trafficking in anti-Semitism. I just could not bear to read that crud. But I must say that before he lost his bearings, Sobran was one of the most elegant and eloquent columnists I have ever read.
For years in my room at home in New Orleans in my teens and early 20s (the latter, still there merely because it had become sort of like part of the furniture) I had a section of a wall devoted to politics, with its most prominent feature being a post of Ronald Reagan. Thumb-tacked to that poster was a column clipped out of the newspaper by, yes, Joe Sobran. It remains one of my favorite columns of all time, by anybody. I don’t know what headline it ran under in other papers, but the Times-Picayune accurately headlined it “Reagan’s Simple Virtues.” Its point was to fire back at the eggheads and would-be intellectuals-who-really-weren’t-so-bright who had made a cottage industry in the late 1970s of portraying Reagan as “simplistic” or, worse, a simpleton. Sobran turned the criticism around, incredibly deftly. He showed that what the East Coast establishment considered to be “simplistic” was actually better described as an admirable clarity. His closing line was, in context, just superb. It was much, much, much more eloquent than what I am about to write from memory, but the gist of it was: “For years I all I have wanted is a president who was as simple as Ronald Reagan. It is a mystery to me why simple virtues like Ronald Reagan’s are thought to be anything but a great qualification.”
Somewhere in my files, I still have that column. I hope I can dig it up and read its every thoughtful word again. It is the Joe Sobran who wrote that column, not the one later so rightly criticized by William F. Buckley, who I choose to remember. R.I.P.
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More Blog Posts by Quin Hillyer
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/01/re-joe-sobran-rip
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Occam's Tool| 10.1.10 @ 12:02PM
Quin, a gentlemanly comment. As a Jewish Conservative, however, the thought of Sobran passing fills me with gaiety, as in the old joke about Adolf Hitler:
"Mein Fuhrer, I, your fortuneteller, have determined that you will die on a Jewish holiday."
"Really? Which one?"
"Mein Fuhrer, any day you die will be a Jewish Holiday!" (Rim shot! I'm here all week folks, be sure to tip your waitress!)
Sobran's deficiencies greatly outweighed his virtues, and destroyed a promising career. I would much rather read brilliant Young Conservatives like Quin Hillyer, who have all of Joe's virtues and none of his vices.
Charles Curran| 10.1.10 @ 2:09PM
Couldn't you at least finish with RIP? Bitterness is not a virtue, but it may be a you have.
Quin| 10.1.10 @ 4:34PM
Occam, I thank you for your kind words and appreciate your feelings. Sobran really did go off the deep end. As somebody who spent three years almost obsessed with exposing the continuing (and far worse) anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism of David Duke (and breaking several big stories mailing Duke for it), I have a hard time excusing anything along those lines. I cannot excuse it from Sobran, either; I just felt it important to remind people of Sobran's virtues as well.
Alan Brooks| 10.1.10 @ 8:33PM
Now Sobran can be with his beloved Adolf.
Tish | 10.1.10 @ 12:26PM
If you run across that Sobran piece on Reagan, please post it for us.
Peter Murphy| 10.1.10 @ 12:59PM
I, too, was once a fan of Joe Sobran, and then soured on him for his becoming an acrimonious fringe columnist. Earlier, however, his multiple essays for the 30th anniversary of National Review in 1985 are a keeper.
Shrewsbury| 10.1.10 @ 1:31PM
Sobran was a great writer in the 1970s and '80s. His later derangement was as troubling as it was baffling. His obsession with the supposedly unparalleled iniquity of Israel, as well as his support for open borders here in America, bespeaks a kind of nihilism, a desire to destroy whole nations. I am sorry he went loco, and sorry he is dead.
RES| 10.1.10 @ 1:57PM
In his autobiography, Harpo Speaks, Harpo Marx tells of going out on the town with John Barrymore toward the end of that luminary's life. After describing the way the evening degenrated as Barrymore became increasingly soused, Harpo observed that "it is sad when a great man passes; sadder still when the greatness passes and the man lingers."
As a conservative and a Jew, I mourn Sobran's passing uncleansed of the toxins that afflicted his later life. I cherish his earlier brilliance and regret his later degeneration; his anti-Semitism did him far more harm than it did me, conservatism or the Jewish people.
Christian Conservative| 10.1.10 @ 3:07PM
This reminds me of the same thing that happened to Barry Goldwater. He too lost his mind later in life.
Patriot| 10.1.10 @ 4:48PM
I've always attributed Goldwater's senior insanity to the relentless triple digit temperatures of the Arizona desert. Heat will do crazy things to the mind, you know.
Brian Vree| 10.2.10 @ 1:19AM
Factual correction, Mr. Sobran was not a racist (anti-Semite), he was opposed to Zionism (a political movement).
Layne| 10.2.10 @ 2:21AM
Funny...you all seem so little compared to him. A brilliant and fearless man with a bracing clarity of mind and an unforgiving hatred of facile falsehooods, Joe, dear Joe, it will be long before we see your like again. In Paradisum...
Autumn| 10.2.10 @ 4:54AM
You hardly measure up to the man, yourself, Layne--but I'm sure you're already acutely aware of that.
Layne| 10.2.10 @ 1:17PM
More than you know.
Ragno| 10.2.10 @ 3:07AM
Amen to Layne's comments. Unlike the vast majority of his critics, so carefuil to hisde their glee at this news with their "how tragic"s and "if only"s, Joe Sobran was the most civilized and compassionate of men. Anyone praising his NR work while decrying the 'madness' of his later work is merely reciting boilerplate (now SOP for 'conservatives' when faced with thorny topics). He was always the same writer. In fact, his post-Buckley travails made him a better writer.
Layne| 10.2.10 @ 1:41PM
Ragno, I could not have said it any better. And it truly warms my heart to see that Joe (I should really call him Mr. Sobran, but I feel that after reading him all these years he was a close friend) inspired the same devotion and admiration in others. He will be sorely missed.
Ragno| 10.2.10 @ 3:08AM
Apologies for the typos in previous post.
A.C.| 10.2.10 @ 3:53AM
One thing i'm sure Joe Sobran never did: he never described the "death of so and so fills me with gaiety". He would have considered such venality appropriately beneath contempt.
Autumn| 10.2.10 @ 4:56AM
Forgive Occam's Tool--he's been very ill.
aware| 10.2.10 @ 6:45AM
"Sobran was one of the most elegant and eloquent columnists I have ever read."
Except when he questions your cherished prejudices(or those of your bosses) then its OK to brand him an "anti Semite" apparently. Too bad the Buckleyites don't know the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. But they never did any good at stopping the march to the totalitarian State either.
The good thing about his getting "purged" by the establishment Right(useful idiots) was he fell in with the true liberty loving anti Staters and the scales fell from his eyes. See his most brilliant article of all, The Reluctant Anarchist.
Rest in peace, Joe and remember that Mencken, Nock, and Rothbard also got the same treatment by the same pretenders. Actions prove that the Buckley Right never did have a problem with massive government, just who runs it.
Siegfried X| 10.2.10 @ 9:25AM
Democratic blogs are loaded with these so-called "anti-Semitic" comments. In fact some of them had to forbid discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories. There is just a double standard which allows Democrats to get away with it.
Layne| 10.2.10 @ 2:06PM
At the risk of bringing down the level of solemnity here and of maybe incurring Joe's righteous wrath, I must say that Joe was about the closest I have ever come to a man-crush. Each week, I would eagerly look forward to his next column as if it were an exquisitely prepared meal. Because it was. For the mind. But not only because of his unrivaled intellect and peerless wit, but because one perceived that above all else, he was so courageously and foolishly dedicated to pursuing the truth. At all costs. No matter where it led him. To unpopularity, to estrangement from former friends, to professional ostracism, to harsh critiques from his lessers, to firings and ultimately financial hardships and an early death. He was a fool because unlike us, he would not tailor his opinions to gain the respectability of others, but seemed only to want to impress One Person. And that he has done. Godspeed Joe.
Rob| 10.4.10 @ 10:58AM
what a dorky column.
Sobran was a good man and a great writer.
Who's this nerd writing this unworthy drivel?
Matthew| 10.4.10 @ 2:19PM
Joe Sobran brought me back to the Catholic Church after I read his book Single Issues, it completely changed my perspective on abortion and a host of other issues that I believed in while a early 20 something. I am now in my late 40's and I remember writing an email to him letting him know he influenced my life, he responded and said it was the nicest note he had ever received.
requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine
Andy| 10.4.10 @ 4:00PM
What kind of Christian was Joe Sobran? I'm not God's accountant but for certain I would be not choose Mr Sobran's portion in the eternal world. I've read a few articles and comments today and his sense of reality seems to have been severely distorted on many issues that involved Jews. It seems to me he was one who clearly thought that the Nazis had the correct idea re the role of Jews in history and what should be their just fate. That's Jew hatred not anti Zionism.Whatever the many failings of the Jews in not as yet fulfilling their unique mission as God's chosen people much of what civilized humanity values are gifts which can be be traced back to the Jews. Thomas Cahill seems to have it right in his book when he wrote" The Gifts of the Jews reveals the critical change that made western civilization possible. Within the matrix of ancient religions and philosophies, life was seen as part of an endless cycle of birth and death; time was like a wheel, spinning ceaselessly. Yet somehow, the ancient Jews began to see time differently. For them, time had a beginning and an end; it was a narrative, whose triumphant conclusion would come in the future. From this insight came a new conception of men and women as individuals with unique destinies--a conception that would inform the Declaration of Independence--and our hopeful belief in progress and the sense that tomorrow can be better than today." Those who seek a return to paganism where might makes right serving gods of their own making know their greatest enemy is the Jew. That does not sound Christian to me?
MWT| 10.8.10 @ 3:40PM
Andy said:
It seems to me he was one who clearly thought that the Nazis had the correct idea re the role of Jews in history and what should be their just fate. That's Jew hatred not anti Zionism
You're right, anyone who thinks that is exhibiting Jew-hatred. But, I saw no evidence of Sobran thinking that way. Yours is a straw man argument.
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