Dear editor,
After finishing Mailer's article ("We went to war just to boost the
white male ego", April 29, 2003), I honestly cannot be sure whether Mailer
is a master satirist, or just a complete fool. Assuming the latter, his
lapses in logic are impressive.
Mailer writes:
"With their dominance in sport, at work and at home eroded, Bush
thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something."
Since Mailer presumes to know what Bush "thought", I suggest that he
next write an article on mind reading. This is a skill which I'm sure
many people would be interested in sharing.
Mailer writes:
"...if such weapons [of mass destruction] are there [in Iraq], it is
also likely that even more have been moved to new hiding places beyond
Iraq. If that is so, horrific events could ensue."
Is the implication that the same weapons could not be moved had the
U.S. not invaded Iraq? If Mailer believes that moving the WMD is somehow
the precondition for their use (obviously, a flawed premise), what was
stopping Iraq from moving them before the U.S. invaded?
Mailer writes:
"The US economy was sinking, the market was gloomy and down, and some
classic bastions of the erstwhile American faith (corporate integrity,
the FBI, and the Catholic Church, to cite but three) had each suffered a
separate and grievous loss of face. Since our Administration was
probably not ready to solve any one of the serious problems before it, it was
natural to feel the impulse to move into larger ventures, thrusts into
the empyrean-war!"
It's interesting to note that Mailer fails to identify "the threat of
terrorism" as one of the "serious" American problems. Given Mailer's
distorted value hierarchy, of course he would be against a war that helped
fight terrorism.
Mailer writes:
"They [the U.S. Armed Forces] could prove quintessential as
morale-builders to one group in US life, perhaps the key group: the white American
male."
Does Mailer enjoy inventing conspiracy theories out of thin air, then
attempting to see if they fit? Mailer cites zero evidence why this
theory occurred to him, quoting neither the principal administration members
involved, nor any documentation on the war plans. The actual evidence,
of course, would lead Mailer to a different, non-invented theory, and
that wouldn't be any fun, would it?
Mailer writes:
"Then they [the Bush administration] declared that he ran a nest of
terrorists. None of that held up on close examination but it did not have
to."
I wonder if by "close examination" Mailer would include The Telegraph's
recent reports of documents which link al Qaeda to the Hussein regime?
Mailer's use of the passive tense succeeds in evading who was doing the
"close examination" (i.e. Mailer himself). Perhaps the problem is in
Mailer's inability to do a "close examination" of the Iraqi terrorist
connection, not in the Bush administration's ability to make that
connection.
Mailer writes:
"For better or worse, the women's movement had had its breakthrough
successes and the old, easy white male ego had withered in the glare. Even
the mighty consolations of rooting for your team on TV had been skewed.
There was now less reward in watching sports than there used to be, a
clear and declarable loss. The great white stars of yesteryear were for
the most part gone, gone in football, in basketball, in boxing, and
half-gone in baseball."
Ah, so we finally get to see Mailer's real premise: that white men are
all racists. I'll try to remind myself of that the next time I watch
pay-per-view boxing on television. I sure as hell have been wasting a lot
money routing for all those black and Hispanic fighters.
Maybe Mailer should address the actual purported goals of the Iraq war,
along with the corresponding successes and failures, rather than
dwelling on his own handmade rationalizations. Otherwise, if he has such a
strong penchant for fiction, I suggest that someone remind him that he
used to be a novelist.
Regards,
Jason Roth
