Hendrik Hertzberg made a name for himself as a liberal Democrat who wrote speeches for presidents and essays for The New Republic. The best way to read Hertzberg is as a summation of recent history in American liberal thinking, simplified by the publication of Politics: Observations and Arguments, 1966-2004 (though you can also catch his most recent thoughts at his New Yorker blog).
While I disagree with Hertzberg on a number of things, I also assent to his wisdom on others. And Hertzberg's paen to George Macdonald in the author's note only suggests how different-looking plants often bloom from the same seed. Hertzberg certainly has my attention when he writes, correctly:
I admire Macdonald for the fierceness of his opposition not only to communism but to all forms of tyranny.
In a similar vein, Hertzberg contrasts Jimmy Carter's "moral ideology" with the mind-numbing political ideology espoused by Ronald Reagan:
A political ideology is a very handy thing to have. It's a real time-saver, because it tells you what to think about things you know nothing about. Reagan never had to agonize over the merits of this tax versus that tax- if it was a tax, he was against it. He never lost sleep over the proper design of some environmental regulation- if it was an environmental regulation, he was against it. He never worried about whether to build up the navy at the expense of the army or the army at the expense of the navy. His view was, if it was military, build it all- and damn the expense.
Another way to put this same point is that Reagan did all of his thinking and made most of his decisions long before he became president.
It sounds as if Reagan's policy crew probably spent most of their time playing semantic games with the star-struck Reagan- games like "hide the tax by another name in a rider" or "spot the hidden cost for corporations" or "when will the little green men finally colonize planet earth". This helps me to understand why so many otherwise-brilliant minds maintain a soft spot for Ronnie's rule. When Ronnie "ruled", all you had to do was show him how your plan fit inside his perfect ideology and then the budget was yours for the breaking.
Ultimately, Hertzberg believes that "Jimmy Carter did not have the advantage of a dogma". Would that we were also so lucky. Or so balls-to-the-wall wise.
Read Hendrik Hertzberg's exit interview in the Carter Presidential Library Papers.
Kelly Burdick explains how Hertzberg came to The New Yorker.
Hertzberg answers questions about "the war on workers".
Watch Carter's "crisis of confidence" speech on PBS.
Nick Gillespie scowls at Hertzberg's take on the Tea Party.
Andrew Hartman takes a look back at the radical sixties in US intellectual history.