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Margo Howard and Martin Peretz

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from: Martin Peretz

Ike, Dubya, and the Martin Luther King Special

Posted Monday, Jan. 15, 2001, at 2:57 PM ET

Dear Margo (and onlookers),

We've known each other since the mid- to late '50s, which probably makes us at least twice as old as the average Slate reader. It's not a happy thought. But it means we have much history between us, personal history and the histories of the country and the world. As for the culture, it is now so different from what we experienced when we were young there seems literally to be no continuation between then and now.

When we met, Eisenhower was president of the United States, a great World War II general turned mildly conservative Republican. But there was a big struggle for his political soul, with many liberals wanting him to declare himself a Democrat. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., our greatest narrative historian and at the time head of something called Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), virtually begged him to become a Democrat. But he didn't. So he ran as a Republican, defeating the incarnation of conservative Republicanism for the nomination, Robert Taft. There was the sense that Eisenhower was not exactly qualified or prepared for the big job, and many people laughed at him the way they (we) now laugh at W. Ike, as he was called, had come back from Europe and became president of Columbia University. This was a job he did not quite grasp, so many professors hoped he would actually win the White House, which he did in 1952 and then again in 1956. I remember hearing Lionel Trilling, the great literary critic and Columbia professor, pondering whether he should be primarily loyal to Columbia and vote for Ike as president of the country or be loyal to the country and let Ike stay on as president of Columbia. I don't how he voted. But the country chose Eisenhower, and he was not a bad president--maybe a bit boring, but not actually bad. He defeated Adlai Stevenson--a Chicagoan like you--who was governor of Illinois twice.

The analogies actually stop here. Ike was a worldly figure and had a settled disposition about the world--thoughtful, serious, even grave. He wasn't brave about Joe McCarthy, but when the Wisconsin senator went after the Army, finding communists in every division, Ike let him have it. And it was Kaddish for Joe.

I'm afraid that Dubya hasn't his mettle, his reflectiveness, his directness. Adlai was eloquent. But, for him, words did not make for real meaning. They were instruments to give would-be intellectuals and other high-minded people a spiritual lift. There was sadness among the reading and chattering classes when he lost. But I shudder to think how he would have fared against the Soviets--or against Joe McCarthy.

I can't get Al Gore out of my mind, and not just because he is an old friend. He is not at all like oh-so-literate Adlai. Not that he isn't very literate. He is. But he is literate for a purpose, and that is to explain the new world into which we are entering and to craft policies for it that deal with the fresh and unaccustomed circumstances in which we now live. When the Florida numbers finally come out, we will all know that he really won the election and that we elected someone who, though running as a moderate Republican, is not that at all. In this sense, Dubya is not an heir to his father, not an heir to Ike or Taft either, but one of those political expressions of a very rough sensibility. Already, you hear among his own supporters the shock of recognition that he isn't what he pretended to be. I hope there is a good fight against John Ashcroft. But I wouldn't mind if he got confirmed. Then we will have an authentic and undiluted version of a Bush presidency and not one that will pretend to civility and tolerance.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. On the back page of the first section of the New York Times, there was an ad for a Verizon cell phone for $29.95. This was called a Martin Luther King special. I suppose this is a version of the American dream. But it's not quite the dream MLK had in mind. Of course, his iconic image is now claimed by so many that no one really knows the content of his dream any longer. Is it integration? Or is it multiculturalism, that disguised synonym for separatism? My guess is that the dream is now so receded in the people's collective memory that even the words hardly register at all. It is business as usual, business as usual in many senses. Do you know that whenever you hear or see a fragment of Dr. King's "I have a dream ..." speech, his estate gets a royalty for it? This is more than tacky. But it is something of the American dream. I don't know whether Abe Lincoln has living descendants. But do they get royalties for "Fourscore and seven years ago"? An old friend who works out of New York told me that, although his offices are closed today, it is a great day to get people on the phone in businesses elsewhere around the country. Nonetheless, Dr. King is the only American to have a legally established national holiday named in his honor. It is something.

I've got a lot more to say. I'll be back to you at the end of the day.

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Martin Peretz

Ike, Dubya, and the Martin Luther King Special

Posted Monday, Jan. 15, 2001, at 2:57 PM ET
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Margo Howard writes Slate's "Dear Prudence" column. Martin Peretz is a lecturer in social studies at Harvard and editor in chief and chairman of the New Republic.
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