THE LEFT IN DENIAL 
 

                  October 3, 2001 -- THE voice on my answering machine
                  belonged to a respected reporter for one of the nation's
                  glossiest monthlies. She was working on an article on the
                  difficulties some people are having in expressing "dissent"
                  against the overwhelming national consensus on the need
                  for a war on Osama bin Laden and terrorism. 

                  I called her back. She said she wanted to talk to me
                  because I had written a column about two such responses
                  to the Sept. 11 attacks - one by Susan Sontag in The New
                  Yorker and one by Joel Rogers in the Nation. 

                  My words against them were "vituperative," the reporter
                  said. And views like mine were having an impact she
                  evidently considered worrisome. Didn't I know that
                  reporters at two newspapers - one in Texas and one in
                  Oregon - had been fired for expressing anti-war and
                  anti-Bush views? 

                  And what about the death threats received by Peter
                  Jennings, the ABC anchorman, following an inaccurate
                  account of something he had said? Seems like it's getting
                  dangerous to express a contrary opinion - didn't I think? 

                  Now that's what I call balanced questioning. 

                  Any time somebody tells you there's no liberal bias in the
                  media, make sure they speak to a conservative who's been
                  interviewed by a journalist for a mainstream publication.
                  The scorn and hostility in the questions themselves are
                  patent, and all the more striking because the questioners
                  are usually entirely unaware of the bias they are expressing
                  with every breath. 

                  My main objection to Sontag's screed was her comparison
                  between the unity of America's politicians in the wake of
                  the worst foreign attack on American soil since the War of
                  1812 and the unity expressed by Soviet officials in the
                  darkest days of that totalitarian empire. 

                  Sontag's view was "hateful," I told the reporter. She
                  recoiled at the word. Wasn't an opinion like mine going to
                  produce a "chilling effect" that stifled opposing views? 

                  I said I sure hoped so. I am concerned that Sontag's view
                  of the United States will prevail, which would be very
                  harmful to the United States. This is an argument I want to
                  win, and I want her to lose. If, by subjecting her freely
                  expressed views to an equally free expression of outrage, I
                  might play a role in making the further expression of
                  Sontag-style beliefs less acceptable in elite circles, I will
                  have done my job. 

                  The right to express views, which is a glory of the United
                  States, does not shield anyone from the consequences of
                  doing so. Those consequences include being attacked by
                  other writers - and even being fired by a boss who is
                  embarrassed by what you've said or worried that what
                  you've said might cost him advertisers and readers. 

                  That's part of the free market in ideas. 

                  Now, death threats are not part of that currency, certainly.
                  They are illegal - they represent the limit of free speech. 

                  The comparison of an angry article taking issue with Susan
                  Sontag's spurious and defamatory views of the United
                  States to illegal death threats on Peter Jennings is itself an
                  effort to introduce a "chilling effect" on public debate. It
                  suggests there's no difference between taking someone to
                  task for what he says and threatening his life. 

                  Note, please, that the reporter and her magazine aren't
                  doing an article on the outrageous and anti-patriotic things
                  that are being said by the "dissenters." They might have
                  conceived a piece on how lefty anti-Americanism is now
                  passé. 

                  But they didn't. 

                  The subject they did choose indicates the hunger on the
                  part of Manhattan glitterati to find a way out of the
                  "superpatriotism" of the moment (the word was the
                  reporter's). The cognitive dissonance is too great, what
                  with all the flags and the "God Bless Americas" and
                  everything else they would tend to consider Babbity and
                  provincial. 

                  Like everybody else, the Conde Nasties want the world
                  back the way it was on Sept. 11 - when they were sure
                  George W. Bush was a blithering idiot and Susan Sontag
                  was a giant. 

                  Everything's upside down, in their view. And rather than
                  experience their new consciousness as a rare moment of
                  clarity, they yearn for the muddled tunnel vision of the
                  recent past. 

                  Sad. But predictable. After all, vanity is never fair. 

                  E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com