Anti-American
Sir: How unkind of you, to subject Emmett Tyrrell to the ordeal of doing an article for the Spectator (`The Liberal Crack-Up', 19 January). Now and then I've noticed a dash of anti-Americanism in your journal, but weren't you being a bit too cruel this time? I mean, giving the man a 'call', raising hopes of taking over his pal Taki's
column didn't you feel even a twinge of misgiving? Imagine the poor fellow, scur- rying to his dictionaries, pulling out gems like a poor relation who receives an invita- tion to a swell party. Weren't you then surprised or a little embarrassed by the self-conscious behaviour of your guest, with his blighted, lumbering sense of humour and occasional pretence of magna- nimity?
It's quite obvious the American Specta- tor aspires to Spectator status but equally obvious that it falls far short. Where your paper is graceful, eccentric, and witty, theirs is shrilly prescriptive. Where you give space to varied points of view, thoughtfully presented, they toe the far Right line, never quite respectable in the States and traditionally touched with reli- gious fanaticism. Hence the defensiveness and laboured attempts at wit.
I suppose there's a sort of superficial fairness in asking Tyrrell to defend his own book against Hitchens's criticism, but it does look like a set-up. Hitchens is the best of the correspondents you've had covering America in the five years I've been sub- scribing. Putting Tyrrell up against him is sending a boy to to a man's job; why not someone like George Will? We do have some sane, graceful conservative writers here in the colonies.
Mary L. Dugan
354 Marlborough Road, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania 19348, USA
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