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PARTISAN REVIEW
demiurges." No doubt. But what lies behind the rhetoric of Miss Utley
and Mr. Kristol? A quite similar metaphysic, I should say-one which
apportions the universe to "pro-Communists" and "anti-Communists."
The liberal Manichee, because he sometimes finds Communists speak–
ing his language, because he knows that McCarthy would treat
him
as
brutally as he would treat any Communist, accords Communists a
sympathy they do not deserve. Miss Utley and Mr. Kristol, because they
sometimes find McCarthy talking their language, because some of
McCarthy's victims are their enemies, cover up for McCarthy just as
Mr. Barth and Professor Commager sometimes cover up for Com–
munists. It is true that Mr. Kristol says that McCarthy is not "solicitous
of freedom," but then Mr. Barth and Professor Commager have some
harsh words for the Communists, too, and these do not save them from
Mr. Kristol's indignation. I am not quite certain that Mr. Kristol's
Manichean analogy is the soundest one he could have chosen, but the
certain, and perhaps inevitable, truth is that the Holy Willies are on
the march everywhere today. That even Mr. Kristol shares in the anti–
nomian fallacy is evident, I believe, from remarks such as this: "For
there is one thing that the American people know about Senator
McCarthy: he, like them, is unequivocally anti-Communist." This is
rubbish, whether the American people know it or not. McCarthy's
anti-Communism is as counterfeit as the Communists' anti-fascism.
It is merely an aspect of his demagogy, a piece of bait for political
suckers, like the Communists' espousal of Negro rights or a Moscow
"peace offensive." To suppose it is anything else is as soft-headed as to
suppose that a Communist is just a man with a case of galloping
liberalism.
Both Mr. Barth and Mr. Kristol are concerned to find a way in
which anti-Communists can defend civil liberties, including those of
Communists, without at the same time losing any advantage in the
cold war. It is here that Mr. Barth, the muddled liberal, seems a good
deal shrewder than Mr. Kristol, the unmuddled one. Mr. Kristol
concludes that it really isn't possible to evoke any general principle
on the question. "Inevitably," he says, "liberals will disagree among
themselves about the appropriateness of specific actions with regard to
Communism...." The most we can hope to do, he advises, is defend
"expediency in special circumstances." He adds that anyone who wishes
to uphold the right to any kind of political dissent must "enter the
court of public opinion with clean hands and a clear mind."
It is very nice to have clean hands and a clear mind (though Mr.
Kristol's insistence on this requirement for being on his side smacks
