… that Derbyshire is going to catch sixteen kinds of hell for this National Review article: The Irish of the World. I mean, the title alone is going to piss a lot of people off, simply because there’s a little voice in the back of the head of every Irish-American who’s made his or her peace with the Sassanach. The voice goes, “Lovely people, nice country, all friends now, can we just not talk about it? You don’t sing Croppy Lie Down, I don’t start off on the Men of ’98. Do we understand each other?”
This is probably indicative of some sort of insight, but aside from the obvious one (that John Derbyshire’s an ass with no ear for racial/ethnic/cultural issues: that particular article is offensive to both Irish and Arab, and chalk full of Derbyshire’s patented paternalism to boot) I’m at a bit of a loss, frankly. I’ll probably have to drink some whiskey and hit somebody to figure it out, no doubt; that’s all that can be expected from the likes of me, after all…
Ugh, I wish I’d read the New Yorker article rather than Derbyshire’s…
You should warn people 😉
Good stuff
Henry’s on a roll. Caruso discusses the dishonest Conason. Andrew points out potential hypocrisy and has some notes on the latest proposal. Rodger is Rodger. ’nuff said. Moe doesn’t care for Derbyshire (does anyone?). Bubba is too funny. Did you get my…
Derbshire is an a$$ of that there is no question.
But his comment the “De Valera dispensation”, well the Irish would have been better off, if the US had allowed the British to hang De Valera.
Oh boy, do I dislike Derbyshire.
Did you happen to catch Jonah and Ranesh on the Corner today talking about how Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie just aren’t very pretty? That struck me as Derbyshire-level tastelesness.
I’m not sure which is worse, the Bush-as-John-Wayne intro paragraph, the forced attempts at analogizing between two completely dissimilar groups, or the crude and ill-informed stereotyping. All I can say is at least this time at least he wasn’t going through his usual contortions trying to come up with clever new rationalizations for why it’s okay for him to really really not like homosexuals.
“All I can say is at least this time at least he wasn’t going through his usual contortions trying to come up with clever new rationalizations for why it’s okay for him to really really not like homosexuals.”
Probably was rushed to make deadline.
Moe
PS Didn’t get much of a chance to read the Corner today, Seth.
I eagerly await Derb’s forthcoming memoirs: “How the Derbyshires Saved Civilization.”
See, this is why I wish NRO had some kind of filter where you could select the authors whose content appeared on your screen. “Let’s see The Corner without Derbyshire and K.Lopez.”
That said, Seth, the stuff on Richie and Hilton was nothing like a Derb rant, and for the most part, it’s true — they look like a pair of slutty trust-fund girls.
Well, it’s a pretty worthless piece, but there are interesting nuggets here and there.
I don’t think the overall comparison is particularly true or useful, but the point about “one percent, and one percent of one percent” is not completely stupid.
De Valera was… very bad. Ireland today, prosperous and peaceful, shows what the Irish were always capable of. Having DV in charge delayed that by at least a generation, maybe more. But I don’t think DV was inevitable. There were broad strains of little-l liberalism and political and social pluralism in Ireland before the First World War; it wasn’t /necessary/ for it to spend fifty years as a rather dreary and retrograde confessional state.
But, overall, yeah, pretty junky. I don’t read Derbyshire unless someone points me to him, and this hasn’t done anything to change my mind.
Doug M.
I’m gonna hijack some traffic from Rick.