Friday, July 22, 2005
Marshall on Brownson
Josh Marshall wrote
The links for both Watson and Brownson are to the same brief brief bio of Watson. I emailed Mr. Marshall asking if he could correct the link to Brownson.
Is it peculiarly tragic or perhaps not-so-peculiarly tragic that Christopher Hitchens ends up an apologist for, among others, Karl Rove, latter-day practitioner of the peculiarly Southern version of smash-and-trash politics honed by his mentor Lee Atwater and other such worthies? I'm not sure if Tom Watson or Orestes Brownson is the best precursor for the arc.
The links for both Watson and Brownson are to the same brief brief bio of Watson. I emailed Mr. Marshall asking if he could correct the link to Brownson.
Orestes Brownson was from New England, was once associated with Emerson and the Transcendentalists, and became a Catholic in middle age. It seemed a stretch to associate him closely with Southern politics in general and a specific style of it in particular, see Commager's review of Schlesinger's biography. So I had to wonder if Mr. Marshall's link provided further basis for his assertion.
