Word: podhoretzes
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...thing, he is beginning to show the signs of an affliction peculiar to liberal-left wits--Podhoretz fixation. Norman Podhoretz and the magazine he has carried to the political right since the 60s, Commentary, make a number of appearances in the book...
...prevailing political winds. Trillin writes, "When Reagan named a neo-conservative to chair the NEH, Big Grant submitted a history proposal with a thesis that amounted to this: slavery was bad, of course, but could the slaves be said to have suffered compared to the Yeshiva student on Norman Podhoretz's block in Brooklyn who lived in constant peril of being ridiculed by black teen-agers for throwing like a girl...
...occupation with Podhoretz, one wonders? Intellectual rivalry? Is Trillin a fifth-column neocon? Passages like the following certainly raise speculation: "Looking for ways to ease my mind about signs that the danger of nuclear war is increasing. I stumbled across one comforting thought: maybe the Russian missiles won't work. I realize that the possibility of a simple malfunction is a thin reed upon which to hang the survival of the species. Still, it's what I have for now, and I'm going with...
More likely, Podhoretz fixation is simply a complication arising from Navasky wags-slave syndrome, a disease Trillin has exhibited for years. Trillin has constantly jibed Victor S. Navasky, the editor of The Nation, for underpaying his staffers. One wonders how the Commentary pay scale compares Whatever the case, Navasky syndrome is more prevalent than ever in With All Disrespect...
...isolate us from the real world, but some people, like Mr. Abramowitz, are much more isolated than that. After four years, they are unable to see Harvard life in other than the tired stereotypes the Crimson does its part to foster. I liot House is not full of little Podhoretz's, nor, probably, has it ever been. Eliot does indeed have more than its share of students with conservative views, but for those of us who consider ourselves "liberals," (and that's with a small 'I'--the self-conscious "Liberal" Abramowitz misses is better off dead) Eliot has one advantage...