FAIRFAX COUNTY – I have come to consider Northern Virginia the most dangerous area on Earth.
Others may choose Monrovia in Liberia (the ex-colony for freed slaves and its beleaguered capital city, named after the 5th U.S. President, which I learned this week is Thanksgiving), or Sevastapol in Crimea–as Ukranian brothers-in-arms prepare an offensive–or morbid Port-au-Prince Haiti, right off the American coast as that ex-colony slips into its latest round of Hell. As I was returning home for the holiday, I noticed the latest cyberpunk belfries lining Reston’s skyline as I headed to IAD. The airport was named after the first family in the modern American security system.
It was therefore no surprise that Michael Gerson, a chief impresario in the war on Iraq, had been my neighbor growing up. Surprised to learn that he had died.
This week I stared at Adolph Menzel’s “1844 : Plusquamperfectum” for longer than ever before. He appears to be a servant carrying out his duties. This is the third year of pandemic-adjacent deaths.
A man I only knew as “Seth”, aged 40, died last week. Last year, we shared a patio in Georgetown. He was a huge and kind man, which was evident to me. But it turned out that he was DC nightlife legend Seth McClelland.
TAC believes that the Iraq War was the greatest crime of all time, and that its masterminds were true criminals in an age of anarcho-tyranny. Michael Gerson was a top-notch neocon.
In January 2003, a micro-debate was held. Was it President Bush, Gerson or their friend, David Frum, who coined the term “axisof evil”? Frum had originally proposed the more empathetic and interesting, if not as pithy, “axis of hate”. However, the Evangelical Christian Gerson “tweaked” the term to theological “evil”.
Bukowski said, “if such an evil abounds.” Hatred certainly is. Maybe it’s because the neocons have been more or less regime-changed. Maybe it’s because I’m turning thirty-two or just having lived through the past thirty-two month, but hatred was something that I couldn’t muster at Gerson’s passing.
Read Rod’s entire treatment, he said.
Gerson was best known for his long-standing Washington Post column and as a co-host and fill-in on PBS Newshour D.C. institutions. With Brooks, he rounded out a supremely bespectacled duo, two center-right wizards in exile, adrift from their own constituents since at least the Noughties, yet implausibly neo-speaking-for-them at the commanding heights. Dreher pointed out that Gerson had openly admitted to his melancholia or clinical depression as his adopted-Illinoisan Abraham Lincoln suffered in an earlier life.
Gerson, 58, died from kidney cancer. He also lost Latte his dog and adopted Jack.
Gerson stated this year July 4 in Post, “Jack” is a puppy he got last week, eighteen months after the passing of my beloved Havanese. Gerson also said:
My Latte was my dog equivalent to St. Francis of Assisii. She was a tiny hairy mammal (Latte not Francis) that radiated universal goodness. I felt deeply for her. During my worst depression and cancer battles, she was a comforting, healing presence. Latte was, in a very real way, a better person than me. … My wife said that I was crying in my sleep a while back.
Further: “The 18th century evangelist John Wesley delivered a sermon on the survival and enjoyment of animals in the afterlife — an extremely English line of theological argument.” As Gordon Gekko pointed out, “Qua Gerson” is indeed true.
However, reading about a man’s depression and his dogs can give anyone sonder.
The real neoconservatives–the nationalist ultrahawks involved in Iraq such as Dick Cheney and John Bolton, being perhaps a breed apart, and interesting in their own right–were often, quite frankly, emotional wrecks. This reality gives color to William Kristol’s behavior. He was Weekly Standard founder and became a “resistance fanatic” in his fifties. Or Mark Perry said to Harper in 2010 that Wolfowitz was “completely different.” After the first Gulf War, America was still in control of his nightmares about the massacre of Shias. It kept him up at night.
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Gerson was not much-memorized by either the party or the voters that propelled him to power in the end. Instead, we should be elogizing him: Obama-Biden officials Samantha Power, Susan Rice, liberal Hawks of hawks and Bill and Melinda Gates. The Q set is a parody-level group of power-brokers who are responsible for the premature deaths of Americans at home and abroad. Even though they may be snobbs, it’s clear that there’s a reason club exists. Gerson’s contributions at PEPFAR (the American AIDS program) could have saved millions of African lives. It’s what Wheaton College, Gerson’s alma mater will undoubtedly brag about to future students in the years ahead, safe terrain of do gooderism far removed from America.
It’s sad to be fifty-eight years old. It’s also quite a lot. Orwell said that a man can have the face he wants at fifty. Thompson died at 67, leaving behind 17 years of more than Thompson needed. It’s still a terrible tragedy.
Gerson is a man of high standards, and he’s an admirable man. Gerson’s tribute to Jack will be enough for him. Gerson said of Jack that Jack “improves the mental health and well-being of all who come across him.” We adopt new dogs because they are joyful and healthy. Because their joy for life renews ours.”
