Why Are We at War? by Norman Mailer Read Free Book Online Page A

meet someone’s eyes, a good question can come to mind. But for two hours he sat there at the head of the table, perfectly calm and pleasant, and kept making jokes and talking. It was a lightweight conversation. The physical impression of him was that he had about as much human specific density as, let’s say, a sales manager for a medium-size corporation in the Midwest. That kind of modest, mild, well-knit heft was in his bearing. During those two hours, he chatted with all six Time reporters at the table, but his eyes never met mine, and I found myself unable to come up with that tough question. It became a matter of decorum. The mood was toogenial. It occurred to me that all through his political life, he probably, if he could help it, never spent time talking to anyone who was of no use to him. He was, be it said, an instinctive climber who scaled the face of success with great skill. That was his gift. Soon enough, he was surrounded by people who had many powerful (if self-serving) ideas and they knew how to illumine him to the point where they could wind him up. Then he could do his special stuff. At the time, he had an enormous impact on old-line conservatives, because they thought he was one of them. I suspect he had about as much to do with them as a screen star does with an agricultural laborer.

    I would guess George W. Bush can tell when one of his experts knows what he’s talking about and when he’s only pretending he knows. So I would assume he makes his decisions in opposite fashion to his predecessor. Bill Clinton made a point of surrounding himself with people who might be 90 percent as intelligentas himself but never his equal, never more intelligent. Clinton, therefore, was always the brightest guy in his circle. Whereas Bush is smart enough to know that he couldn’t possibly do the same or the country would be run by morons. In contrast, he looked to get bright people around him: Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Powell. And when they start arguing, Bush has an ear for who is most incisive at a given moment. He can pick up a hint of the inauthentic in even a seasoned expert’s voice. I’m speaking as a novelist now. Bush has a bullshit detector. Since different experts have days when they’re better than on other days, Bush, on a given morning, decides that Expert A’s voice sounds the best. Three days later, Expert D comes in better. The result is that he’s always tweaking his policies just a little. If that is his one intellectual strength, he still has the persona of a fraternity president, sententious, full of cant, pleased with his assertions and always indifferent to their lack of verisimilitude and/or specificity. Mottos and platitudes are steak tartare to him. He knows exactly what he’s doing. So, that one good half ofAmerica, composed of religious people who are not particularly political, is with him all the way. Give us more of your mottos and platitudes, they ask. Spice them, please, with your incomparably holy touch of mendacity.
    IMMIGRATION
AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE : Our side of the immigration debate generally feels that America is getting transformed into something less like the country we understand and are used to. It seems a kind of foreign place. It is not an argument we often use, but that is in the back of it. Have you thought much about the more multicultural America? What are its possibilities? What are its limitations?
NORMAN MAILER : Given the modern world of technology, I don’t know whether the race or culture question is paramount. The long-term tendency for the world is to have no races. Technology hasbecome the dominant culture in existence and may soon be the only real culture. The similarities between computer users all over the world may now be far greater than their differences in ethnicity.
AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE : Go back to the integrity of races. I know it is a politically incorrect thought, but it doesn’t have to be expressed with rancor. It might be