America’s ‘Token Muslim?’
By Callimachus | Related entries in MediaWell, not really, if you ask me. He’s quite secular. But Village Voice gets all gushy over Fareed Zakaria, “Neoconservative policy wonk becomes darling of the ultra-liberal Daily Show.”
He calls himself a centrist.
Zakaria is good at straddling worlds. Asked how a neocon who edited the journal Foreign Affairs ended up as a favorite of the Daily Show crowd, he protests that he is no longer a diehard Reaganite but a firm centrist. “And anyway, in America the entire spectrum has shifted to the right. I still like the same kinds of people I always didâ€â€?conservative Democrats, moderate Republicans, call them what you will. But we’re an increasingly embattled phenomenon in a country with a president talking about intelligent design.” Jon Stewart’s viewers probably don’t have an inkling of Zakaria’s political background, since they rarely chat about economic or domestic affairs. Mostly Zakaria is applauded for his willingness to call out our government’s missteps in Iraq. (He initially supported the invasion but within a few weeks began lambasting the Bush administration in Newsweek pieces with titles like “The Arrogant Empire.”) “I feel that’s part of my job,” he says, slightly defensively, “which is not to pick sides but to explain what I think is happening on the ground. I can’t say, ‘This is my team and I’m going to root for them no matter what they do.’ ”
Yes, the nation as a whole has drifted right. So his old center-right is now more like center-center. Maybe we’re working on a continental drift metaphor here. As the country drifts right, the “anchored” left stays put, and cracks off from the center left. A gap opens and the disconnected fringe becomes an island adrift, a Madagascar, where natural traits exaggerate and exotic species evolve.
Just a thought.
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August 19th, 2005 at 11:04 pm
I think both sides have their “island” dwellers. ;-)
August 19th, 2005 at 11:44 pm
LOL, I think you might be right, Justin :D
I think this is a very apt metaphor, Call. I’m a relative newbie to the whole political scene, but I was astonished to discover that my liberal ideals weren’t “liberal enough”. I find it amusing that I can engage in a reasoned discussion with a conservative much more easily than I can with a “liberal”.
August 20th, 2005 at 2:11 am
See, “liberal enough” doesn’t cut it. Not anymore. There is much more to factor in. If you don’t believe in most of the party line, there seems to be a price to pay. All I want are some reasonsible people to express their opinions. Raising the discouse is the most important part.
August 20th, 2005 at 10:39 am
Why do people respect Jon Stewart, an arrogant pseudo-comedian who has profited from the WOT just like Haliburton (only in the inverse direction)? He has just as much a political agenda as the far right and like Michael Moore, wants the excuse of “comedy” when things don’t pan out the way he’s planned.
August 20th, 2005 at 10:43 am
Stewart plays an easy game- being snide and sarcastic. We all perfected that art in junior high- it’s easy and fun to mock others. As adults, most discover that it’s not a very productive way of managing life. Jon just plays to immaturity- and there’s a lot of that out there. Like you, Rachel, I’m just puzzled why it’s considered brilliant.
August 20th, 2005 at 10:45 am
“reasonsible” – awesome word! Kinda like “misunderstimated”.
I don’t think the nation has *drifted* much to the right at all.
There have been two major changes during the last several years. First, like career politicians before them, the media outlets which have sought to control public perception and opinion have lost their stranglehold, along with a lot of their credibility. An alternative viewpoint has begun to just peek around the curtain they’ve been desperately trying for decades to keep drawn back. Second, there’s been a vocal, growing backlash reaction to the disconnect between objective Reality and the politically correct, “mainstream” notions that our media, politicians and acedemia have presented as reality. Two years ago, I had no idea there were so many people who agreed with folks like Bill Whittle, for instance (http://tinyurl.com/6ztpe). Now I know there are tens of thousands of them. The nation didn’t shift. But perception of where I thought the country stood – as a nation – most certainly did.
I’d submit, therefore, that the U.S. was never, ever as “left” as we were all led to believe. I think the only shift has been our slowly growing awareness of that fact.
And if true, that makes the fringes out in Madagascar all the more interesting, doesn’t it?