Prime Suspect

The great detective, Colombo, has just finished interviewing R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. on his new book, “The Death of Liberalism.” Colombo hasn’t changed a bit since he was played by Peter Falk. The same diffident manner, the same understated approach. The detective stands up with the same stoop and puts on the same shabby raincoat. Mr. Tyrrell has already made it clear that he has pressing business and is eager to be done with the pesky policeman. So the great editor escorts the detective to the door. As Colombo puts his hand on the door knob and gives it a turn, Mr. Tyrrell coos: “If there’s anything else, officer, don’t hesitate to give me a call.”Colombo is half way through the door when he turns back.“Ah, Mr. Tyrrell, come to think of it, there is just one more question. You’ve convinced me that Sam Tanenhaus was wrong when he wrote his book ‘The Death of Conservatism.’ I get it. Barely a year later the Republicans took over the House in a vast, right-wing resurgence. Lazarus must have been laughing. And you’ve convinced me that the mix up of the corpses means that it’s Liberalism that’s dead. But that raises one more question . . . .”“Come now, officer, what is it? I’m in a hurry. I have another column to write . . .”“Yesssh, well, I understand that, and I’m terribly sorry, but the question occurs to me — I should have asked it sooner — . . .”“Come, come, officer, get to the point.”“Well, Mr. Tyrrell, it suddenly struck me — where were you on the night in question?”* * *Forgive our reverie, but our own reaction to Mr. Tyrrell’s “The Death of Liberalism” — it’s a gem of a book — is that he is suspiciously too modest. He’s convincing enough that the old, American-style Liberalism that some of us used to love is dead and gone, replaced by an angrier, less joyous, less uplifting, more socialist, more redistributionist world view. But he still hasn’t entirely cleared up the question of whether Liberalism died of old age, committed suicide, or was — not to put too fine a point on it — murdered.And where was Mr. Tyrrell himself when all this occurred? This question has hung in the air for years, and let us just state our own view. In the strange death of American Liberalism, Mr. Tyrrell is a prime suspect. For it is he, and the American Spectator, of which he is the founding editor-in-chief, that brought in his generation’s great scoop about liberalism. It is that the distinguished old ideology that brought so many reforms to America, including the struggle for civil rights for African Americans, had, with the extremes that overtook it in the 1970s, become laughable.A lot of people tried to glide past this devastating disclosure. But with hindsight, it’s ever more clear that Mr. Tyrrell’s satire was the mortal blow. Yet in the volume at hand, he is all too modest. He spends a good bit of time trying to prove that the ideology he did so much to dispatch is, in fact, dead. It accounts, he asserts, for no more than 20% of the electorate. In one chapter, he offers an autopsy. It’s like asking Willie-the-Actor Sutton to help figure out whether the bank has been robbed.The question is not whether liberalism is dead. The question is whodunit? Mr. Tyrrell offers a chapter called “Liberalism’s Second Civil War, 1968-1972 and Beyond.” It’s all about how “the New Politics brand of Liberalism” has come to dominate the Democratic Party. Many will find this an illuminating chapter. For our part, let us just say it is precisely the kind of diverting policy palaver one might offer if one were being interviewed by the London police and one were Jack the Ripper.No doubt there are those who are going to point out that Mr. Tyrrell isn’t the only suspect in the Case of Liberalism’s Last Gasp. A lot of people suspected William F. Buckley had something to do with it. It’s a lovely theory, but how does one account for the fact that Mr. Buckley himself has long since left this orb and yet liberalism is deader than it ever was.There are some who will suggest that it was Robert L. Bartley who slew liberalism? We would dispute that in our capacity as an alibi. We were with the erstwhile editor of the Wall Street Journal for much of the time, and didn’t see a thing. The truth is that he was not so much interested in slaying liberalism as he was in constructing a practical, high-minded, principled conservatism. Neither was he the least unhappy that there was a genius of satire like Mr. Tyrrell lurking among the monthlies and prepared to do the dirty work.No, let us not waste our time running down false leads. Mr. Tyrrell wants one to think it’s the New Left or the Netroots or Barack Obama. And no doubt they had a motive. Who, after all, has benefited? But did they have the character, the wit, the fortitude, and the sense of humor to do the deed? Not by our lights. If one looks for that modus operandi, Mr. Tyrrell emerges in a more sinister light. We sent his book “The Death of Liberalism” over to a forensic psychologist. He concluded that the book is not a report on the death of Liberalism but rather a confession. So that’s our verdict.

Prime Suspect

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