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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 9, 2006 Commentary Old books, new dangers Rob Asghar Winston Churchill once quipped that anytime a new book comes out, you should go read an old one. In that spirit, as conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt prepares to release a book promoting Republican causes in the 2006 midterm elections, let’s revisit his previous political book — 2004’s “If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It.” Farther removed from the tumultuous presidential campaign in which it was released, “If It’s Not Close They Can’t Cheat” reveals more than it intended about the ebbing quality of political debate. Hewitt’s positions in the book could be summarized thusly: • The stakes in American elections are now incalculable, given that “we are in a war — a real, genuine, fight-to-the-death war with an enemy that numbers in the millions, though its armies are in the tens of thousands, and whose weapons, though concealed, may include devices of extraordinary power.” • Although Hewitt insists that some of his best friends are Democrats, he rues that Democrats can neither grasp the stakes nor respond effectively if they were to grasp them. • Hewitt’s Democratic friends cannot help but cheat in close elections, so Republicans must ensure that it’s not close. • Although Hewitt mainly feels that national security is sufficient reason that his feckless Democratic friends cannot be trusted with the machinery of governance, he adds for good measure that they are also kooks obsessed with slavery reparations and sexual license. With friends like Hewitt, no wonder Democrats can barely keep their heads above water. You wonder why Hewitt would even choose such drinking buddies, given that he characterizes them in the book as more dangerous to the national interest than roving street gangs. The book features Machiavellian prescriptions such as the need to reject bipartisanship and the need to set aside cherished causes in favor of supporting the Republican Party at all costs. He even trumpets British Prime Minister Disraeli’s troubling exhortation, “Damn your principles, stick to your party.” (He has faithfully modeled this since, dismissing as coddlers of the enemy anyone who suggests that this administration has unwittingly made more enemies than existed before.) Hewitt instructs GOP faithful in the book that, while Ann Coulter’s rants are refreshing “romps,” they should be mindful that she offends potential converts. Given this candid locker-room talk, you wonder why he implored fans to buy extra copies to send to potential converts. More alarming is how Hewitt sees his approach to national defense as an extension of Biblical theology. On a theological blog that he moderates, he writes: “Theology matters. A lot.” But as a pundit, he negates much of the New Testament theology and worldview. Amidst a humiliating Roman occupation, Jesus stifled political revolutionaries, teaching that true freedom and true security were to be found solely in his lessons and his presence; Hewitt’s gospel teaches that freedom and security are found mainly in inflammatory displays of American might that Republicans can best orchestrate. Paul and Augustine taught that citizenship in the greatest empire of their day was not an idol for Christians to worship; Hewitt’s crowd sees glory in tying their faith to nationalism. Jesus mocked traditional, worldly concepts of influence and authority; Hewitt once contended that, in a democracy, “power, authority and influence go only to those who seek them” and that conservatives such as he are morally compelled to hoard such tools. (Hewitt declined a chance to respond by e-mail to such concerns, suggesting he could only be interviewed live on his radio show. Given how he turned the tables and performed on-air torture of the interviewer in a spat with the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik, I passed up the opportunity.) In a recent book, counter-terrorism experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon make a point about the war on terror that echoes New Testament teachings that overdependence upon worldly power leads only to unending cycles of conflict. “We are becoming increasingly averse,” they wrote, “to acting in a way that distinguishes between the terrorists themselves and those who are at risk of embracing the jihadist ideology.” The result is the unwitting expansion of the hate swamp from which destructive nihilists rise. The theologically minded Hewitt should know better. The odds of Hewitt’s pleasant Orange County, Calif., neighborhood being affected by terrorism are negligible. Yet men such as Hewitt have already made the world more dangerous for their children — with more books soon to come. 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