Hugh Hewitt had a long interview with Norman Podhoretz yesterday regarding “World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism” (reviewed here), and has posted the entire transcript. Here is one of several key portions:
HH: When I put your book down last night having finished it, I thought to myself I know that you end on an optimistic note that we will figure out a way to do this, but there are times when it’s pretty hard to see how, especially in the poisoned politics of the day.
NP: Yeah.
HH: Yesterday, the MoveOn.org ad accusing General David Petraeus, an American hero, of betraying this country, today, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, just foolish comment after foolish comment in the testimony. How often do you let your optimism get away from you, and then have to retool it?
NP: Well, you know . . . I used to be known as a Cassandra or a Jeremiah. And being an optimist is an unusual role for me to be playing, especially in my later years. I’m now 77 years old. And so it’s easy for optimism to slip away from me. . . . The appearances of complacency and denial and the poison of our politics all are extremely discouraging to me whenever they seem salient.
And then I remind myself, Hugh, that both before the Second World War . . . many observers, including our enemies, thought that we would not fight, that we were too soft, too self-absorbed, too self-indulgent to stand up against disciplined fanatics like the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese. And Hitler himself, by the way, believed this, that we wouldn’t fight.
And there were good reasons to think so. You know, when the draft was passed about ten months before the attack on us at Pearl Harbor, it only passed by one vote, and the vote had to be cast in the House of Representatives, and the vote had to be cast by the Speaker of the House to break a tie. So there was good reason to think that we wouldn’t fight.
Nevertheless, we did fight, and we fought so well that . . . those who did fight have come to be known as the greatest generation. . . . [B]ased on, how shall I put it, our track record as a people, I think that when the wake-up call comes, and when push comes to shove, the American people, the sleeping giant wakes up and exerts its power, and does the necessary.
Podhoretz also spent a considerable amount of time discussing the parallel between Harry Truman and George W. Bush. The whole interview is worth reading.