Traumatized by rejection, our former columnist assumes a new \u2013 and weird — persona<\/b><\/P>
Many writers have trouble taking rejection well. They\u2019re sensitive souls, after all, and don\u2019t like being told that their work, in a word, sucks. Anthony Gancarski, author of Unfortunate Incidents<\/I><\/A>, and a former columnist for Antiwar.com, is a case in point. I rejected what was to have been the latest installment of his column \u2013 and he went over to the Dark Side<\/A>.<\/P> Gancarski\u2019s piece for Frontpage<\/I>, detailing his conversion to the pro-war position, is distinctly \u2026 weird. There is, first of all, his description of his former beliefs:<\/P> "If someone had told me a few months ago that I\u2019d be writing a piece for Front Page on this theme, I would\u2019ve dismissed him as a lunatic. After all, then I was supporting the positions expected from those on the so-called antiwar right. I was harshly critical of Israeli defense initiatives, more willing to talk up for Noam Chomsky than the sitting President." <\/i><\/P> What has Noam Chomsky to do with the antiwar right? Precisely nothing<\/A>. But to the readers of Frontpage<\/I>, and apparently to Gancarski, there is little need to explain this seeming anomaly. And that is Gancarski\u2019s great problem as a writer: he never<\/I> explains, or argues, but merely asserts, without evidence, and without links. (This is the Internet, but you\u2019d never know it from his polemics: in his current screed, we get not a single link out of him. This is the mark of a writer who expects us to take his word for everything.) <\/P> At any rate, according to Gancarski, his sojourn on the antiwar right meant that, "more or less without meaning to, I went hard-left." He turned to the right, and found he\u2019d turned to the left. Say what<\/I>? The man is dizzy with his own confusion. <\/P> He explains that he "moved over to Antiwar.com to write a weekly column for them at $25 a pop," and confides that "this was a raise from my Counterpunch<\/I> pay." So, he didn\u2019t like the pay: I trust the 30 pieces of silver from Frontpage<\/I> affords him the satisfaction of knowing that he\u2019s finally getting what he\u2019s worth.<\/P> Gancarski claims that he began to have doubts when he started getting mail from "anti-Semites." why is this a reflection on Antiwar.com, and not on the content of his writing, he doesn\u2019t say. He was also, he claimed, getting linked to by people he "wouldn\u2019t let in his living room." Interview requests "were scarce," he complains, except for "a Muslim radio station in South Africa." Although we don\u2019t make the email addresses of our writer public, poor Anthony complains that his mailbox was filling up with missives from MoveOn.org. Horrors! No money, few interview requests, and anti-Semites drawn to his work like moths to a flame — it was then that he began to have misgivings:<\/P> "I started to wonder — is my opposition to the US action in the Middle East, however noble and well-intentioned it seemed to me, actually playing into the hands of America\u2019s enemies, strategic adversaries, and economic competitors?"<\/i><\/P> What "economic competitors" is Gancarski talking about? Is he saying he was duped \u2013 by the French? Or perhaps it was the Taiwanese. If only he\u2019d stayed with Antiwar.com a little longer, we would\u2019ve had him playing soccer! <\/P> Gancarski\u2019s ranting directed at me makes little sense, until one realizes the real object of his frustration: we weren\u2019t properly respectful of George W. Bush. He claims to have been shocked \u2013 shocked<\/I>! \u2013 by my November 26 column, in which I take the President to task for counterposing the prospect of another 9\/11 to four more years of Bushian rule. Gancarski writes:<\/P> "This set off a number of alarms. Who was Justin Raimondo? Why was he so lacking in respect for a sitting President? Did Raimondo even think how such a column might strike his own readers? I am still at a loss to understand it. When the column appeared, it was hard for me to read much it without revulsion."<\/i><\/P> Who was Justin Raimondo, indeed. Didn\u2019t he read my columns? A random sampling of my writings over the past few years would\u2019ve yielded plenty of statements to the effect that George W. Bush is the worst President we\u2019ve ever had, bar none. His presidency is a disaster for the country, and the world: I\u2019ve said it again and again, in so many different ways that it\u2019s hard to believe that Gancarski was unaware of my views. <\/P> Poor Gancarski, the sleepwalker awakened: Yet I heard nothing from Gancarski about this column: not a note, not a peep of dissent. Our correspondence had been limited to notes from me to him, asking him to stop dashing off columns entirely bereft of facts, and please <\/I>start putting a bit of effort into his pieces. These apparently stuck in his craw, germinating, at last, into a full-throated screech of rage.<\/P> Gancarski had approached us, asking him to give him a chance as a columnist: I agreed, based on his work for TAC. But I was beginning to have qualms. The man is a sloppy writer, all opinion and no facts, at least when he was writing for us: his pieces for The American Conservative<\/I> were much tighter, and far more interesting. Why, I wanted to know, couldn\u2019t he do the same for us?<\/P> Did he listen? No, as evidenced by his submission of a sorry excuse for a column which I reprint below, unedited and in full:<\/P> "Roger, Over and Out: What Moore can be said about Michael?<\/i><\/P> "Late one night recently, a pair of soused young ladies knocked on my door. The hallway was pitch-black, so I didn\u2019t unlock the deadbolt before asking them what they wanted. \u2018I want some sugar,\u2019 one of them cried, \u2018I am your neighbor! I just want to make you come-a\u2026\u2019 The <\/i>reference<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> to one of Howard Dean\u2019s favorite songs scored points with me, so conversation continued through the quasi-confessional barrier of the closed door.<\/i><\/P> "What do you need sugar for? I asked, for lack of anything else to say. \u2018To make Kool-Aid,\u2019 they cried. <\/i><\/P> "I gave up no sugar and kept the door closed, and the girls galloped down the stairs and out of my building. I went out on the balcony and called to them: \u2018I\u2019d have given you sugar for cookies, but not Kool-Aid! Too many people need <\/i>deprogramming<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> already!\u2019<\/i><\/P> "Their response — snapping each other\u2019s thongs — indicated that my allusion was lost on these Paris and Nicole wannabes. Despite the bimbos\u2018 ignorance, the Kool-Aid discussion nonetheless reinforces my current read on political discourse; these days, it seems everyone has drank some toxic brew, causing them to lose their minds and babble on about <\/i>Islamofascists<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> or the <\/I>International Jewish Conspiracy<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> as the <\/I>Present Danger<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> that must be obliterated yesterday. All of which is nothing but the old familiar codewords for the converted and misinformation for marks."<\/i><\/P> Is it me, or does this long and patently unnecessary introduction make absolutely no sense? What is the point \u2013 I asked myself, as I read it \u2013 except to pad and exceedingly short and content-free column? Undeterred, and desperately hoping he\u2019d somehow tie it all together, I pressed on:<\/P> "Which brings me to <\/i>Michael Moore<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A>. [Ed. Note: At last!] I was in high school when <\/I>Roger and Me<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> came out, and watched it dutifully, thinking that the movie was interesting despite its viscerally repellent narrator. Later on, I caught episodes of Moore\u2019s short-lived Fox series <\/I>TV Nation<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A>, but my mind didn\u2019t change about Moore. Even if I found myself agreeing with something he said, I found myself rejecting him as the messenger. He seemed too contrived. Yet I was unable to crystallize that criticism into anything more concrete even as Bowling for Columbine, his flick about gun violence, drove me straight into the arms of the NRA."<\/i><\/P> But why <\/I>is Michael Moore "repellent"? I guess, since Gancarski describes him as "viscerally" so, the author feels no need to explain himself. But, then again, Gancarski never<\/I> feels any need to explain himself: we are supposed to accept his subjective evaluations at face value, on faith. But this just won\u2019t do: I\u2019m prepared to accept that someone may be "viscerally repellent," but, dammit, I want to know why the author feels that way. Alas, introspection is not one of Gancarski\u2019s strong points. But I digress:<\/P> "Moore\u2019s friends are not in power right now, of course, and the filmmaker from Flint conveniently and reflexively opposes most anything the Bush team does. Fair enough — I have opposed aggression against Iraq since before Desert Storm, so I sympathize to a point. Despite agreeing with him on the issue of the War, my praise for him is necessarily tempered by my realization that the methods he uses to make the case against \u2018full-spectrum dominance\u2019 are sentimental, ill-considered, reductionist, and counterproductive; as long as Moore and others reduce the case against the war in Iraq to \u2018human-interest\u2019 prose, they will never succeed in stopping Washington\u2019s wars on foreign soil. In the interest of \u2018truth-telling,\u2019 these mountebanks habitually sabotage their own positions."<\/i><\/P> But how<\/I> and where<\/I> does Moore utilize his alleged "method" in terms of "human interest prose" \u2013 and what, by the way, is "human interest prose"? The reader is not even given a clue, never mind an actual citation. It turns out that Gancarski\u2019s anger is motivated by pure partisanship:<\/P> "A case in point is a recent essay by Michael Moore making the rounds. \u2018Dean Supporters, Don\u2019t Give Up.\u2019 His point? That even though protests against the war in Iraq have accomplished precious little beyond getting Ramsey Clark some face time, Moore [a supporter of Wesley Clark on the basis of his "manner" and his \u2018electability\u2019] urges Deaniacs not to give up despite their candidate\u2018s Muskiesque collapse in Iowa and New Hampshire. \u2018You have done an incredible thing. You inspired an entire nation to stand up to George W. Bush. Your impact on this election will be felt for years to come. Every bit of energy you put into Dr. Dean’s candidacy was — and is — worth it. He took on Bush when others wouldn’t. He put corporate America on notice that he is coming after them. And he called the Democrats out for what they truly are: a bunch of spineless, wishy-washy appeasers… Everyone in every campaign owes you and your candidate a huge debt of thanks,\u2019 wrote Moore."<\/i><\/P> Is this<\/I> the "human interest prose" \u2013 the "sentimental" reductionism \u2013 Gancarski is inveighing against? I don\u2019t see it. Moore is merely praising the insurgent spirit that motivated the Deaniacs \u2013 and nowhere does Gancarski even attempt a critique. Instead, he turns to smearing:<\/P> "I\u2019m sure <\/i>Lyndon LaRouche<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> will be giving Dean a call to thank him for the nudge. I bring up LaRouche purposely; he likely could sue Dean for<\/FONT>copyright infringement. The reductionist, slashing character assassinations of political opponents comes straight from the perennial candidate\u2019s playbook, as does the Messianic self-indulgence. And I\u2019m hard pressed to think of significant differences, leading me to wonder if <\/I>Howard Dean<\/font><\/u><\/I><\/A> is just warmed-over LaRouche with a bankroll. Time will tell, I reckon, whether Moore is a hackish flack or the real thing after all. My take? If it quacks like a flack, stay the hell back — if Moore goes down, he\u2019ll take his \u2018friends\u2019 with him."<\/i><\/P> <\/P> Again, we are asked to take Gancarski\u2019s seemingly arbitrary assertions as canonical. But what, exactly, is the connection that the author discerns between Dean and LaRouche? Where is the evidence that Dean\u2019s views resemble LaRouche\u2019s? Gancarski doesn\u2019t deign to regale the reader with the reasoning behind his effusion \u2013 and one gets the feeling that perhaps he feels they don\u2019t deserve any reasons. He rails against "reductionism," "character assassination," and "self-indulgence" \u2013 but these are the very sins that he, as a writer, is guilty of!<\/P> I had no compunctions about rejecting this farrago of false analogies and smarmy smears. LaRouche, as is well-known, is a raving anti-Semite. Did Gancarski mean to imply that Dean \u2013 and Moore \u2013 were of the same ilk? In an email to me, he denied it \u2013 and I believe him. The big problem with Gancarski\u2019s writing has always been his jarring malapropisms.<\/P> Gancarski\u2019s reaction to the rejection of his piece was to fly into a rage. It is the mark of a truly unbalanced personality, however, that his anger seems to have pushed him into the abyss. Like the disturbed "Eve White" in The Three Faces of Eve<\/I><\/A>, this trauma induced the creation of a new persona in the author, sprung , it seemed, from nowhere. Suddenly, the neoconservatives Gancarski had spent each and every column abusing were seen to have redeeming virtues: <\/P> "At least they understand the game America had to play for the foreseeable future. Attempting to create democracy in the Middle East can\u2019t be airily dismissed as an imperialist policy objective — not when the security of the United States in an age of terror depends as much as it does on what goes on internally in Islamic countries, or on maintaining stable, reliable allies in the Persian Gulf, central Asia, and other volatile regions. Realizing that led me to an inconvenient conclusion: I had \u2018outgrown\u2019 the position that had gotten me started writing about politics seriously in the first place."<\/i><\/P> Today the neocons and their plans for "democracy" in the Middle East can\u2019t be "airily dismissed," but it was only yesterday that Tony "Hot Air" Gancarski turned his blowtorch in their direction:<\/P> "The active duty military understands what the War on Terror is; a shell game for old men and their younger, flabby, soft-palmed, unctuous, duplicitous, and effete neoconservative adherents. All Hell will break loose domestically when these newly-embittered veterans find common cause with the elderly and the anarchists, and it looks like that day is coming soon enough."<\/i><\/P> And he accuses me<\/I> of having a style that is "pure rhodomantade" [sic]! (He means rhodomontade<\/I><\/A>, but spelling was never the great writer Gancarski\u2019s strong point).<\/P> Gancarski absurdly berates me for my "physical remoteness from any of the real work being done in the War on Terror" \u2013 as if I\u2019m supposed to plonk myself down in the middle of Baghdad in order to be able to write about \u2013 or have an opinion about \u2013 what is happening in Iraq. Really? We all await the news of Gancarski\u2019s coming departure to the front lines of the "War on Terror" \u2013 will he be traveling in the company of his new sponsor, David Horowtiz? <\/P> In closing, Gancarski again refers to his paltry payment, and disdainfully notes that he\u2019ll just have to do without the 25 bucks, but there is one big compensation: "I feel I\u2019ve gotten my credibility and my country back."<\/P> Whether he had any credibility to begin with is an open question. In writing for us he could be witty, and pretty nasty in a way that was often amusing: but credible? <\/I>I don\u2019t think so.<\/P> One example: In writing yet another attack on Howard Dean, Gancarski\u2019s big objection seemed to be that Dean had hired a former leader of the AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobbying group, to work on fundraising. He seemed to imply that this somehow tainted Dean, in spite of the beating the candidate had taken about the desirability of taking an "evenhanded" approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While I am no fan of Dean\u2019s<\/A>, this remark seemed intemperate enough for me to take him to task<\/A>, albeit gently, in my column. He said nothing about it at the time, but when he wrote a long abusive letter on the occasion of his rejected column, he accused me of smearing him as an anti-Semite. I leave it to my readers to decide for themselves whether that\u2019s what I was saying: in my view, I said no such thing. I offered, however, to clear the matter up in a future column. I never heard from him again, however \u2013 until he went public with his ridiculous article.<\/P> As for getting his country back, the volatile Gancarski needs to get his emotional equilibrium back, assuming he ever had any. If and when he does, he\u2019ll find out he\u2019s defected, not to the Real America, but to the fantasy land of David Horowtiz, where critics of a futile and unnecessary war are a "Fifth Column," ex-Trotskyites wander the halls hailing George W. Bush\u2019s "global democratic revolution, and writers are free to vent their grudges without regard for truth, facts, logic, or common sense. No doubt he\u2019ll be more comfortable there: and, at any rate, I\u2019m sure the pay is a lot<\/I> better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Traumatized by rejection, our former columnist assumes a new \u2013 and weird — personaMany writers have trouble taking rejection well. They\u2019re sensitive souls, after all, and don\u2019t like being told that their work, in a word, sucks. Anthony Gancarski, author of Unfortunate Incidents, and a former columnist for Antiwar.com, is a case in point. 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