In the battle to prevent John Ashcroft from
becoming Attorney General, leftist McCarthyites were in
full cry.
One thing they come up with was that Ashcroft
had given an interview to the Southern Partisan. In that
interview he had said some nice things about Confederate
soldiers.
So an all-out leftist McCarthyite attack
was launched on the Partisan. Newsweek magazine, the New
Republic, and other members of the usual PC Chorus read
through every issue of the Partisan over the last two
decades for Political Incorrectness.
Of course they quoted me. I am not Politically
Correct, I have never been PC, and I'm proud of it. But
they also quoted other Partisan writers who, I can testify,
were among the most desperately Politically Correct respectable
conservatives I have ever met.
This is important, because it shows that
if you go along with the leftist McCarthyites, no amount
of care will save you from them in the end.
The statement I made that shamed the Partisan
was that I was proud to be white and I hoped my descendants
would be. This statement was in a 1985 issue of the Partisan.
(That article was reproduced in its entirely on September
19, 1998 as "WHY I WILL NOT DENOUNCE SOUTHERN RACISM OR AMERICAN
IMPERIALISM").
Because I was so open about it, the Partisan's
defense for publishing me CONSISTED ENTIRELY OF FULL QUOTES
FROM MY 1985 ARTICLE.
This gives you another demonstration of
why the left demands that people like me, who attack them
frontally, must be silenced completely. Unlike respectables,
we make sense because we are consistent.
I knew how Politically Correct the other
Partisan writers were, so I had been watching the Partisan
like a hawk for the time when one of those desperately
Politically Correct respeactables would attack Southerners
for being Evil Racists. That finally happened in 1985.
In 1985, a Partisan article did indeed make
make a gratuitous attack on the South as racist. The Partisan
now handsomely admits they should never have published
that article.
I answered the author of that article. In
fact, came down on his statement -- not him personally
-- like a ton of bricks.
The Partisan didn't want to print my article.
So why did they print my article anyway?
They're Southerners. It was a matter of
honor. They owed me for years of free help when they were
starting up, including an article in every issue since
its beginning, when they needed it.
Both in 1985 and in their recent fight to
defend their respectability, the Partisan was very fair
to me.
I had been a Senior Editor at the Partisan
since the beginning, and they had been able to use my
name on the masthead when they really needed it. It is
traditional for a senior editor to be allowed to take
exception to an editorial opinion he strongly disagrees
with.
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