Michael Ignatieff has some slippery habits. And they seem to make many people uncomfortable, even angry.
Michael Ignatieff has some habits that unsettle and upset people.
______________
Okay, those opening lines were sort of self-referential. [1] It was a self-amusing play on the opening bit for an article about Michael Ignatieff that I wrote six and a half years ago.
Who is Michael Ignatieff? Iggy is an international academic-cum-Canuck politician.
Back when I wrote my first piece about Iggy, the more complimentary word “surprising” stood in the stead of “slippery.”
So, what happened to Ignatieff in the meantime? I mean, what was it that spurred me to rewrite such a deathless and finely-executed lead?
Well, a few things, I suppose. Not least of them: the Iraq War debate.
Michael Ignatieff, you see, took a rather pro-war position on Iraq back in 2003, when the US-led war was launched. He’s been something of an interventionist hawk. Ignatieff has stuck to his virtual guns since then.
Up until now.
Today, in The New York Times Magazine, Michael Ignatieff retracted. Iggy performed a mea culpa for all of America to read. Ignatieff writes that the Iraq War “condemned the political judgment of a president,” but also condemned the judgement of Iggy and other sideliners who cheered for war in Mesopotamia.
Not a pretty sight. Nor was Iggy’s mea culpa.
Yet, this much should be said: Ignatieff’s pro-war arguments were not quite the unequivocal and fervent ones that you’d hear from the likes of other pro-war pundits, like, say, Christopher Hitchens. Ignatieff seemed to hedge and qualify on some fine points.
But Iggy has expressed himself in true Ignatieffian fashion elsewhere. So there’s no point in me reiterating here, because Ignatieff is much better at imitating his own style than I’d ever be.
I will say this also: there remains much to recommend Michael Ignatieff. The cat can write. The cat thinks big. And the cat’s written some fine and interesting tomes. [2] Despite my pre-move library purge, I kept a few Iggy books, and still crack them open on occasion, to refresh an idea or look up a factoid.
Ignatieff scribbles his mea culpa in comparably fine style.
I mean — WOW! Ignatieff pulls no punches.
Iggy mentions (more than once) that he’s a former “denizen of Harvard.” So only a brave man or fool would dare question his judgement! He’s a bloody professor for gods’ sake!
Iggy uses phrases like “distant hoofbeats of the horse of history” and “in charmed lives warning bells do not sound.” Which tells me that Iggy is one smart and fancy fellow who could clobber most of us in any staged debate. He also uses the word “ruefully.” Which tells me Iggy spent some time around Cambridge or Oxford — and those guys can debate the pants off any North American chap! (And if they couldn’t debate our pants off, I’m sure they’d like to try!)
In his NYT piece, Iggy also invokes Machiavelli, Burke and Beckett. So I know we’re dealing with a guy who’s read a bunch of smart books. And Iggy invokes his intellectual godfather, Isaiah Berlin (more than once). [3] In fact, Iggy goes so far as to call his philosopher idol Isaiah a “prophet” — which slapped me as really over-the-top and desperate. [4]
POP QUIZ: What is the difference between a philosopher and a prophet?
______________
So, once again: what happened to Michael Ignatieff, the man who was once an intrepid journalist and human rights scholar at Harvard??
My modest and tangential guess:
The impulse for reelection as Liberal MP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (a Toronto, Ontario electoral riding) has trumped the academic impulse for intellectual integrity.
Read: the Iraq War has become increasingly unpopular round the world, and it was never too popular here in Canada. When he entered politics a couple years ago, Ignatieff took some heat for his hawkish arguments about Iraq. Now, between Canadian electoral cycles and during the silly summer season, was probably a safe time to repent and sneak to moral high ground. [5]
The trouble with such late mea culpas is this: Michael Ignatieff is making virtue out of his apparent (political) necessity. He’s staking a moral high ground that was already staked long ago, by academic/journalistic/political colleagues, many of whom can claim inconvenient foresight dating back to the early part of this decade, before the Iraq War was started. [6]
When I read that New York Times piece by Ignatieff, one word came to mind: Slippery.
Actually, another ‘S’ word came first: Sleazy.
But I didn’t want to be too hard on Iggy, because I do admire him for some earlier works.
All of this somehow calls to mind Jack Black’s timeless lines from the flick High Fidelity:
BARRY[…] Subquestion - is it in fact unfair to criticizea formerly great artist for his latter-day sins?“Is it better to burn out than to fade away?”
So, is Michael Ignatieff burning out or fading away?
Probably neither. My guess: he’s posturing for his next big move.
After all, Ignatieff is a leading member of parliament (deputy House leader) representing the Liberal Party, Canada’s so-called ‘natural governing party.’ He’s still a comparatively young, and seemingly vigorous, man. He was a contender for the Liberal party leadership last year, and there’s still a fair chance he will one day be a prime minister or foreign minister (or both) in the not-too-distant future.
Iggy thinks academics are too theoretical.
______________
And Ignatieff must be planning to stay in politics for a while longer, because he does a good job of pissing on academia. In his NYT piece, Iggy writes:
I’ve learned that good judgment in politics looks different from good judgment in intellectual life. Among intellectuals, judgment is about generalizing and interpreting particular facts as instances of some big idea.
In politics, everything is what it is and not another thing. Specifics matter more than generalities. Theory gets in the way [...]
[…] Having taught political science myself, I have to say the discipline promises more than it can deliver. In practical politics, there is no science of decision-making.
Let me get this straight:
Ignatieff needed to hold a seat in Canada’s House of Commons to learn this basic lesson????!!!!
WTF?
Ignatieff’s a far brighter fella than me, and even I deduced there to be oceans separating the lecture hall from the policymaker’s roundtable from the warzone.
Okay, that said, I will assume this much:
After such a transparent flip-flop, Iggy must have a foul taste in his mouth. And he won’t get rid of that taste with mere mouthwash or breath mints. That is, if Ignatieff is indeed the honest intellectual I thought him to be… and not just another calculating incumbent pol.
Yes, okay: fine and perhaps even good of him to do an about-face.
But, forgive me for being unimpressed, and even nauseated, by Ignatieff’s turnaround for American readers.
After all, I personally believe that some of the uncomfortable seats in hell — presuming the thought experiment that hell actually exists — ought to be reserved for armchair warriors.
Armchair warriors: those talking-heads and egg-heads who, with safe distance and paradigm-induced abstraction, cheered for a war they’d never be fighting themselves. Other humans would be doing the dying for intellectual and political arguments that the armchair warriors so fervently endorsed.
Armchair warriors are also called chickenhawks. Never count on them in a bar fight.
______________
Reprehensible.
So, what should Michael Ignatieff do now?
As one Canadian journo, Paul Wells (no liberal, no Liberal), pointed up in his blog: Ignatieff has held some positions that put him out of step with his own party, and more in-step with the governing Conservatives. (The Liberals opposed the war from the get-go, with the exception of some backbench MPs.)
That could portend more tough politicking for Ignatieff in the media, and in parliament, when things resume in the autumn.
So, what should Ignatieff do?
I humbly propose he strike a deal with TV journalist Keith Morrison.
Why?
Simply because Michael Ignatieff and Keith Morrison look vaguely alike.
(I noticed this long ago, but I always thought it’d be rude to say so in civilized company.)
POP QUIZ: Have you ever seen Iggy and Keith Morrison in Tel Aviv at the same time?
______________
Morrison is Canadian, like Ignatieff. The two men share a vague facial resemblance. Both are lean, fit. Some of their mannerisms during deep conservation are similar. They squint and do thoughtful gestures with their hands and fingers. Their voices are similarly resonant. Both men are bright. Even their hair looks similar, if only different in colour. (And that’s why the gods created L’Oréal products).
Heck, come to think of it, these two guys were separated at birth!
But…
And this is an important But…
Morrison has the distinct advantage and pleasure of not being a Canadian politician who took a pro-Iraq War position.
So…
Michael Ignatieff should request a meeting with Keith Morrison. Ignatieff should propose a ‘Trading Places’ scenario, if only for the fall session of parliament.
Morrison knows politics, and he could fake it. Ignatieff knows film and culture, and he’s worked in television before. All it would take is two dye-jobs and a few sealed lips.
Thus, Michael Ignatieff could have a much-needed vacation from prying questions and intellectual scrutiny.
Of course, the matter of wife-swapping would prove sticky, and potentially disagreeable to some. (I think it would be in poor taste, Iggy.)
Would the better halves of Iggy and Keith go for it?
But, hold up — would the wives even need to know???
I mean, August is a silly and quiet month in politics and journalism. Iggy and Keith could contrive to take a couple of vacations together, mano-a-mano. They could study one another, close up.
Iggy could become Keith; Keith could become Iggy!
It’s the perfect plan. And the plan was concocted here, among Kahar’s Tangents. (Mister Ignatieff: my consultancy fees are reasonable, and possibly within your MP’s budget.)
Y’know, I’m astonished that Michael Ignatieff’s handlers didn’t think of this before now.
Oh, but hold on…
Maybe Ignatieff’s people did think of this already.
Maybe Ignatieff’s people have already executed the plan.
Maybe Iggy and Keith have already changed places!
Ah, that would explain Ignatieff’s flip-flop on Iraq.
In Ignatieff’s NYT Magazine piece, he even declares, without apparent fear of cliché, that “politics is theater.”
Oh, gods, how did I miss that hint?!
Iggy’s already made the switch, and he’s been playing us all for suckers for who-knows-how-long.
That NYT Magazine piece was probably penned by “Michael Ignatieff” — not Michael Ignatieff. (Read: Keith Morrison has already perfected Ignatieff’s writing style.)
Damn, this Michael Ignatieff fella is playing postmodern politics at a high — and slippery — level.
At this rate, Iggy will be President of Canada one day soon.
I hereby concede:
Well played, Iggy, well played.
[1] This is the blogosphere, so why can’t I be self-referential, too? If those who came of age in the 1970s were dubbed the “Me Generation,” then the 2000s — the Triple Bagels — should be dubbed “Me Generation².”
[2] Tangent: My long-time comrade Claudius — a feline from Latvia — has been peering over my shoulder, with characteristic curiosity. Claudius insists that I stop calling Ignatieff a ‘cat.’ Claudius: “Ignatieff is not Cat. Ignatieff never be Cat. Do not call Ignatieff Cat ever.”
[3] Ignatieff’s biography of philosopher Isaiah Berlin is among the books on my shelves. It was given to me by my parents a few years ago. It’s a damned fine biography, if a bit hagiographic.
[4] Isaiah Berlin was born in Riga, Latvia. Riga is a great city. I’ve lived, worked, loved and suffered in Riga. Mark my words: Riga produces many kinds of different things, but “prophets” are not among those products. Profits, maybe.
[5] In my Dad’s day, and perhaps more recently, “safe” was slang for condom. I wonder if Michael Ignatieff ever referred to condoms as “safes.”
[6] Even historian Niall Ferguson, who was also pro-Iraq intervention, can point to early doomsaying statements that might be summarized as follows: ‘The Brits couldn’t handle Iraq in the early 20th century, and they had stick-to-it-ness. Can the Americans really pull this off?’
______________
