A View From Here -- Deb Weiss
A VIEW FROM HERE
by deb weiss
The Politics of Speaking Ill of the Dead
July 19, 1999
Years ago, on a bitter March day, I came home from
work at mid-morning, ill with what turned out to be a
particularly hellacious bout of the flu. Feverish,
aching, I drifted in and out of sleep as the
television droned senselessly in the background.
At some point, though, an urgent voice caught my
attention. I came out of my fog to realize what it was
telling me: Ronald Reagan had been shot.
Mind you, I was still on the left in those days,
convinced, as most of us were, that Reagan's only
ambition (besides starting World War III and blowing
us all to smithereens), was restoring slavery and
forcing women to bear babies conceived in rape or
incest.
Still, I couldn't resist the president's charm -- I
simply couldn't. I'd been savaged at work for
remarking to one of my fellow-bureaucrats that even if
you didn't agree with Reagan politically, you had to
like the guy.
Katie went ballistic. Eyes blazing, nostrils dilated,
she didn't miss a rhetorical trick, piling it all in,
from slaves to rape to nuclear winter (remember
nuclear winter? it was the left's nightmare-scenario
of choice, until global warming came along: political
chills and political fever).
She actually hissed that if I liked Reagan, I must
adore Hitler, since he was (tones of withering scorn)
kind to his dogs.
After this, I kept my opinions to myself. I was
absurdly meek in those days.
When I heard Reagan had been shot, I was horrified.
Naively, I assumed that even my leftmost friends would
be horrified, too. He was president, after all, and a
sweet man, even if he did want to send dissidents to
forced-labor camps and prop up racist regimes and ban
free speech.
Later that day, however, a phone call from an old
acquaintance cured me of my illusions. After
expressing her regret that John Hinckley was such a
lousy shot, this dedicated Reagan-hater gigglingly
told me a story about someone we both knew.
Our mutual friend had a three-year-old daughter who'd
been carefully taught that guns were bad.
Little Jane had also been taught that Ronald Reagan
was bad.
Now, here was the moral dilemma for Jane's mom: how to
remind Jane that guns were still bad, without
condemning the attack on the perfidious Reagan? (Lest
anyone think I'm making this up -- nuh-uh. I'm not
that creative.) She struggled to explain it all to the
child.
Jane herself provided the answer, straight out of
Little Red Riding Hood -- an old-fashioned version
that must have been spirited into this progressive
nursery by a reactionary granny. The one with real
guns. The wicked wolf ends up getting shot dead,
providentially, by the kindly woodsman. Remembering
this, Jane lisped, "Reagan is the wolf!"
Her mother sprinted to the phone to share the joke
with friends: it swiftly made the rounds and came to
me. I was appalled, and said so -- a serious gaffe on
my part, an unmitigated act of breaking ranks. It was
counted against me. I was much too angry to care.
**********
Now,I'm thinking about John F. Kennedy Jr., and
Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and Lauren Bessette. You'll
forgive me if I break ranks here, too.
In coming days, we'll learn a great deal about the
fatal flight. What we learn will almost certainly
reflect poorly on JFK Jr.'s judgment. Already,
Kennedy-cultists and Kennedy-haters are hacking away
at each other like deranged swashbucklers, clanging
and clashing their swords and producing a lot of sound
and fury, but not much else.
The cultists don't depress me much: they're too
predictable. The haters do, though. They should know
better. It's as if they fear they'll lose their
conservative credentials unless they snarl gracelessly
in the face of pitiable death.
What I think is that it's always sad when young people
die. No use fussing at me and saying, "who cares?" and
"to hell with the Kennedys." No use ranting that it's
most likely his own silly fault.
I know all that. I know this handsome, elegant man was
careless with his own life and the lives of the two
women who drifted out into that last darkness with
him. I know that this ended as badly as such things
can possibly end, and that none of it, probably,
needed to have happened. Young men die of sheer hubris
every day, piling fast cars into concrete abutments,
taking stupid chances, showing off with a joyous
recklessness that will forever after haunt their
survivors. Still, it is always heartbreakingly sad
when they do.
Death is God's mystery, not a sideshow in the
political wars. We pray for the dead: we don't spit on
their graves.
A VIEW FROM HERE archive
The Nasty Legacy -- July 15, 1999
All in a Slow News Week... -- July 12, 1999
Traps For The Young -- July 8, 1999
Remembering Michael Dukakis -- July 5, 1999
R.I.P., O.I.C. -- July 1, 1999
Mr. Clinton's Post-War Vengeance -- June 28, 1999
Guns, Cuisinarts and the Bill of Rights -- June 24, 1999
Attack of the Concerned Advocates -- June 21, 1999
FTC Nation -- June 17, 1999
The Very, Very Coincidental World of Bill and Hillary Clinton -- June 14, 1999
Water-boiling in Our Time -- June 10, 1999
Crisis and Peace -- June 7, 1999
Reinventing God -- June 3, 1999
On This Memorial Day -- May 31, 1999
The Un-McCarthy Era -- May 27, 1999
Unspeakable Spin -- May 25, 1999