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Chris Patten is "a perfect exemplar of what the British call 'the Great and the Good'," according to a review of his latest book by Josef Joffe."A baron and a Balliol graduate," he has written "a brilliantly catty and nicely constructed text — so felicitous in its language and subtle in its jabs that one wishes for a bit more Oxbridge in America's top schools."
Joffe's own jabs, on the other hand, are maybe not so subtle.
Let's see now: The list of those to whom Patten is opposed includes Bushist America, Thatcherite Britain, Tony Blair, and "the world's favorite bugaboo, Ariel Sharon (whose popularity soared miraculously after his coma)". In case we don't get the message, the next paragraph starts with the observation that Patten is "no fan of Israel". Joffe also says that Patten is far too sympathetic to the Arabs, what with the book going on about "the betrayal and denial of Palestinian rights." (Joffe carefully makes sure that phrase is in quotes, to distance himself from it even further.) Mr Joffe, might you be implying something here? Let's see:
The prime target of Patten's rapier is American neoconservatives who "considered George H. W. Bush's policies, particularly his failure to topple Saddam Hussein, anemic and deficient in chutzpah." Why the Yiddish "chutzpah"? Why not "guts" or "resolve"? So that we would know who "they" are, those clever manipulators who had subverted the American national interest? Patten could not have meant Bush and Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld, who probably don't even know what chutzpah is.
Huh. Never mind the rapier, why not whip out the bludgeon? It would seem that Patten, that brilliant and subtle Englishman, is an anti-Semite, who uses codewords like "chutzpah" to rhetorically bolster his case, which is based on the belief that Jews are clever manipulators intent on subverting the American national interest.
Which are we more likely to believe, however: That Chris Patten is an anti-Semite, or that Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld don't know what chutzpah is? To attack a book critical of Israel on the grounds that it's anti-Semitic is hackneyed, ad hominem, and unconvincing. If that's the best Joffe can do, I'm inclined to give this round to Patten.
Patten was ennobled after his political career had finished, so it is quite wrong to see him as an aristocrat; attendance at Balliol even in his day did not imply automatic recruitment into "the great and the good".
Patten is a catholic, I don't know of what vintage, nor is it true that many British catholics are anti-Semitic by definition. During the course of his career, Patten may well have come to share many Foreign Office prejudices, of which anti-Semitism is famously one.
He served under Thatcher - "under" being the operative word - who was not a bit anti-Semitic, in fact, completely the opposite, very keen on brilliant and effective Jews. He always came across as a jolly and agreeable sort, intelligent and civilised.
Most unlikely that he should use the word "chutzpah" as a dog-whistle to anti-Semites. Most unlikely that he would soil his reputation with such prejudice. There may be a "business interests" angle, of course, making Patten keen to brownnose the Arabs.
But although I am a pro-Bush, pro Iraq war kinda guy, I would never tar all opponents of same with the anti-Semitic brush.
Posted by: Claude on February 13, 2006 08:42 AMPatten an anti-semite? He’s many things but that’s not one of them. He used to be my MP, was a Minister under Maggie (although a very wet one), Governor of Hong Kong (That’s how he became a Baron, traditional to get one of those on retirement from that job. Although he would have got one anyway, he’d been a Cabinet Minister), European Union Commissioner ...definitely one of the great and the good as you say. He’s vapid, economically near illiterate (from my point of view, naturally) and a great deal further left than Tony Blair. But no, not an anti-semite.
Posted by: Tim Worstall on February 17, 2006 02:27 PM