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I was saddened to hear today about the passing of left-wing journalist/provocateur Alexander Cockburn, who died of cancer at the age of 71. Cockburn was a difficult, frequently exasperating figure. First, some of the awful things: as this right-wing website gleefully notes, the man ended his days as a climate change denialist. Throughout his career, he took great delight in viciously attacking Democratic politicians, which is something that I’m not against in principle, but it never made any kind of sense to me that the very people he went after most ferociously were often stalwarts of the most leftward precincts of the Democratic party, such as his perennial punching bag, Bernie Sanders, who is after all probably the closest thing we have to a genuine fire-breathing social democrat in the U.S. Congress.
And then there were the any number of endless notorious pronouncements he made over the years, often concerning Israel or the USSR. Such as his unforgivable remarks about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: “[I]f ever a country deserved rape it’s Afghanistan. Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too …”
And yeah, as you may have guessed from that last quote, when it came to gender issues, he totally sucked.
And yet, and yet … there are also important things about Cockburn’s life and work that are worthy of admiration. His writing had wit, style, and exuberance, and so, apparently, did the man. He makes a memorable appearance in James Wolcott’s extremely enjoyable memoir about 1970s New York, Lucking Out, where he is described as “the Voice’s brightest journalistic star … along with his stylistic brilliance he was English and sexy, whooshing in and out of the building on a jet stream of daredevilish charisma.”
And let’s also not forget, the man was basically right about a lot of things. He was, for example, spot-on in his judgment about the essential awfulness of the Afghan mujahideen, at a time when much of the rest of the pundit class were fall over themselves writing them fanboy mash notes. He was relentless in his searing critiques of homocidal Reagan-era policies in Central America, this at a time when former leftists like Paul Berman were writing worshipful paeans to the contras, and even liberalish Democrats like Bill Bradley cast some votes in favor of support to the Nicaraguan contras. Cockburn’s attacks on Democrats were definitely over the top, but at the same time, they had a point; he felt that too much activist energy was being diverted into hopeless electoral politicking that would bear more promising fruit if it were devoted to grassroots efforts.
To his credit, much of Cockburn’s later journalism, most notably in Counterpunch, the muckracking magazine he started, focused on local grassroots movements among environmentalists, peace and social justice activists, and the like. Cockburn clung stubbornly even to his most extreme left-wing beliefs, and this, increasingly, marginalized him as time went on. Inevitably, comparisons have been and will continue to be made between Cockburn and Christopher Hitchens, a journalist with whom he had much in common (Corey Robin, in fact, wrote a nice piece contrasting the two here).
There were certainly many similarities — both were witty, charismatic Brits who wrote about politics with a literary flair. Both started out on the left, but while Cockburn stayed there, Hitchens swung way over to the right. Hitchens’ fame now greatly overshadows Cockburn’s, but it’s easy to forget it wasn’t always that way. Back in the 80s the two shared very similar politics and and probably roughly equivalent name recognition in political journalism circles. In fact, Cockburn, who back then had a regular political column in the Wall Street Journal (!), probably had a higher profile than Hitchens.
But over the years Hitchens did much to ingratiate himself in right-wing pundit circles; Cockburn did not, and he paid a price, career-wise. It’s my belief, though, that the best of Cockburn’s writings will hold up better than Hitchens’. Whatever Christopher Hitchens wrote about, in the end everything always ended up being about Hitchens. With Cockburn, as Corey Robin wrote, “at his best, he got out of the way of his own story and allowed his readers to see things they never would have seen without him.”
The Cockburn stuff I enjoyed reading the most were his old Press Clips in the Village Voice. You kids who grew up in the world before the internet have no idea what it was like back then, when so much of your average political junkie’s media diet was nauseating establishment swill, and alternative takes could be painfully difficult to come by. Oh, the humanity! But Cockburn’s old Press Clips column was a delightfully rude stomp through the hushed, hallowed tombs of Conventional Wisdom and Received Opinion. Like the punk rock scene that exploding at that time, his prose just blew that sucker wide open. Cockburn should rightly be viewed as the original blogfather, because he has been a powerful influence on every left-winger blogger who does media criticism, whether they are conscious of that fact or not. In the Press Clips column, I remember especially how funny, and nasty, Cockburn was about the Abe Rosenthal’s New York Times and about neocon nightmares like Martin Peretz and Norman Podhoretz (for an especially hilarious takedown of the ghastly Norman P., click here).
Much of his best writings were collected in his 1988 book, Corruptions of Empire, and fortunately for you, dear readers, much of that excellent collection is available online. Here are some favorites (with a caveat, some of these pieces are excerpts rather than the full text):
— “Adolph Hitler by A.W.” - a brilliant parody of a fawning celebrity profile of Adolph Hitler, in the manner of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine;
— “The Tedium Twins” - Cockburn’s evisceration of the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour. The satirical set-piece with the MacNeil/Lehrerites debating slavery is alone worth the price of admission; rarely has the bankruptcy of the media’s inane “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” approach to reporting been so satisfyingly mocked;
— “How to be a Foreign Correspondent” - a witty savaging of C.L. Sulzberger that becomes a blistering indictment of an entire school of journalism, and the corrupt American foreign policy elites it shamelessly sucks up to;
— and finally, “P.G. Wodehouse: The Road to Long Island” - an excellent appreciation of a great comic writer that does not let Wodehouse the man off the hook for his profoundly foolish actions during World War II. As this piece amply demonstrates, Cockburn was not without chops as a literary critic.
As I’ve noted, I in no way endorse all, or necessarily even most, of Alexander Cockburn’s political opinions. He was an extremist and his writings were often infuriating — almost certainly deliberately so, I might add. But he did some important work, and for every piece that annoyed the hell out of me, there was another one that felt like a breath of fresh air. As a friend of mine who shares some but by no means all of Cockburn’s politics put it, “In a world where most people don’t go far enough, at least you knew there was one person who always went too far.”
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Hedda Peraz on July 21, 2012 2:57 PM:
I drop by Counterpunch once or twice a week- or whenever I feel my blood pressure falling dangerous low.
"Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too …”
Oh; I thought he was writing about West Virginia!
Daryl McCullough on July 21, 2012 2:59 PM:
I wouldn't say that Christopher Hitchens became rightwing in his final years. He was definitely on the side of the right wing when it came to Middle Eastern politics and war, but on other topics, I would not call him conservative.
hells littlest angel on July 21, 2012 3:18 PM:
[I]f ever a country deserved rape it’s Afghanistan."
Great. Andrew Breitbart will have someone to keep him company in hell.
NS on July 21, 2012 3:39 PM:
What kind of a human being was Alexander Cockburn? The kind who would write the following:
One awful piece of opportunism on Hitchens’ part was his decision to attack Edward Said just before his death, and then for good measure again in his obituary. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/farewell-to-c-h/)
...in his own obituary hatchet job on Christopher Hitchens.
“the Voice’s brightest journalistic star … along with his stylistic brilliance he was English and sexy, whooshing in and out of the building on a jet stream of daredevilish charisma.”
Ironic, given Cockburn's disgusting savaging of Hitchens for being a celebrity. I
jrosen on July 21, 2012 3:43 PM:
I encountered Cockburn a few times in a Village saloon called the Lion's Head (a hangout for such as Joe Flaherty, Larry Merchant, and Pete Hammill, as well as the Clancy brothers, who owned part of the joint). He was not a pleasant person, and seemed to rather enjoy being a prick. I was more impressed with his relative (father, uncle?) who wrote the script for "Beat the Devil".
How are we to reproduce a Captcha character that looks like a Hebrew or Arabic letter?
Doug on July 21, 2012 3:47 PM:
Mr. Cockburn MAY have been slightly biased about Afghanistan; what with the various British, um, "incidents" involving that country.
It would seem the basic difference between Cockburn and Hitchens is exactly what Kathleen Geier said: Cockburn wrote about something or someone, Hitchens wrote about how something or someone affected HIM. As I, and many others seemingly, shared little in common with Mr. Hitchens, or had much of a desire to do so, his reputation will likely be dependent upon those right-wingers capable of reading sentences containing polysyllabic words. Mr. Cockburn, on the other hand, can be read with profit and enjoyment by anyone, whether or not one agrees with all he wrote.
Not a bad legacy...
c u n d gulag on July 21, 2012 4:45 PM:
I suppose like most, I had a love/hate relationship when reading him.
At his best, he outshone Hitchens by a mile - and I had a lesser-love/greater hate with him.
When Cockburn was on, HE WAS ON! And he could be scathingly funny and brilliant.
But sometimes, when you read him, you wanted to Zippo-lighter fluid whatever you were reading him in, and flambe the entire publication.
He could be MADDENING! Piss you off 'til your eyes crossed, your fingers were clenched in a death-grip on the paper, and you wanted to kill something - ANYTHING!
"Oh look - A BUG!!! KILL IT!!!!!"
Poor bugger would have lived if I hadn't read that piece at that time.
But, one of the greatest things you can say about a writer, particularly one writing about current events, culture, and politics is - MR. Cockburn was never, NEVER, boring.
I've been reading him my whole adult life.
RIP, Mr. Cockburn.
Heaven, Hell, or wherever you wind up, will never be boring, will and never be the same.
Rich on July 21, 2012 5:17 PM:
He was a gasbag who whined when The Nation blessedly cut the length of his and other opinion columns. A broken clock is right twice a day and so are self-involved doctrinaire columnists like him and Hitchens. they were high among the reasons I let my subscription to The Nation lapse. I've liked Counterpunch when directed there by other sites but not enough to become a regular. The blogosphere seems to have left him and a lot of his generation, a cross the ideological spectrum, in the dust, which doesn't say much for what they had to offer. If only, waxworks like the Wao op-ed page could have met the same end.
Andrew J. Lazarus on July 21, 2012 6:21 PM:
No mention of his championing the Soviet Union over the 1989/90 revolutions in Eastern Europe? I think I'd trade Hitch's opinion of Saddam Hussein for Cockburn's opinion of Vaclav Havel.
Aaron Baker on July 21, 2012 6:21 PM:
I read his columns in the Village Voice back in the 80s, and was frequently enraged (I was quite right-wing in those days). But he wrote really well--so he was a pleasure even as he infuriated you.
Now, when I'm much further to the left, I'm finding him completely delightful on the odious Norman Podhoretz and the boringly evil banality of the McNeil-Lehrer Hour. If I believed in God, I'd say "God rest him all road ever he offended." Since I don't, I'll just say: I will miss him.
John Litweiler on July 21, 2012 6:21 PM:
I wish I had a tape of the time Cockburn gave a reading at 57th St. Books here in Chicago, and Joffre Stewart took off on him. Anarchist Stewart and socialist Cockburn are/were two of a valuable kind.
Father Claud Cockburn used to write a fortnightly, sometimes interesting column in Private Eye in the 1960s. An Irish Communist IIRC.
N.Wells on July 21, 2012 6:35 PM:
"Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too …"
That's completely untrue. They also have plenty of deserts. :(
Cruel and medieval, but also very impressive in their independence and durability. (And pretty good food, and very hospitable, under the right circumstances.)
Comrade Carter on July 21, 2012 7:38 PM:
It's interesting everyone seems to find Mr. Cockburn English when he was, in fact, born in Scotland, raised in Ireland and had become an American.
My late Mother was also from Scotland who later became an American... I'd take her side in any disagreement I had with Mr. Cockburn.
By the way, by his own words he was Irish.
TCinLA on July 21, 2012 8:20 PM:
No mention of his devastatingly-accurate writings about how Israel has become that which it was founded to oppose? A racist, apartheid state run by people who were politically willing to collaborate with the Nazis (the Jabotinskyites, whose most recent product is Nitwityahoo) to take power. He commentary on Israel's refusal to have any straight dealings with the Palestinians was dead-on.
Daddy Love on July 21, 2012 9:15 PM:
There are loads of sexy, charismatic figures who suck at being good people.
Sean Scallon on July 21, 2012 9:57 PM:
"Cockburn was a difficult, frequently exasperating figure."
People who don't follow the party line usually are to those who do.
bluestatedon on July 21, 2012 10:41 PM:
"People who don't follow the party line usually are to those who do."
So you're saying that anybody who found Cockburn exasperating are mindless party-line followers?
buddy66 on July 21, 2012 10:42 PM:
He was a goddamn Stalinist, is what he was ... but I'll miss him.
Bruce Webb on July 21, 2012 10:55 PM:
Cockburn was a brilliant writer. But with a strong lean towards dogmatic Marxism of the Stalinist sort.
You know what Stalinists hate (or hated, because there are only so many left) more than Fascists? Answer Liberals, Unions and Environmentalists. Who all were generally dismissed at best at squish bougies obstructing the historical progress towards a ruling industrial proletariat.
A fitting epitath for Cockburn: "You can take the boy out of Stalinism, but you can't take Stalinism out of the boy". And I say that as a Social Democrat who 90% of Americans couldn't distinguish from a Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist on a bet. Even though historically socialists like me were the first folk the Stalinists and Maoists sent to the camps.
Because "politically incorrect" originally had ZERO to do with diversity and everything to do with not slavishly adopting the 'Party Line' and so being 'purged'.
Apologizing for Soviet policy in Afghanistan is a symptom and not a pathology.
David Koch on July 21, 2012 11:24 PM:
I don't know. I always found his "Beat the Devil" column in The Nation boring.
But I'll peruse the links you posted.
David Koch on July 21, 2012 11:46 PM:
I always thought it was funny how he had a torrid affair with Katherine Graham's daughter, Lally Weymouth, who turned into a disgusting neo-con.
Bob M on July 22, 2012 9:01 AM:
Both he and Hitchens read much better in an American context. Some kind of contrast between what is American and what is Brit -- it benefits both sides. Good alliance.
Speed on July 22, 2012 10:00 AM:
He was a damned Warren Commission supporter who thought JFK was no different than any other Cold War president, so for that I consider him one of the gate-keepers defining acceptable "Left" thought.
Alison Wren on October 16, 2012 4:51 PM:
Alex was a dear friend, mentor, companion, and neighbor throughout my childhood. He took the time to explain his views on politics, foreign policy, and climate change to a nine year-old girl, then a teenager, then a young woman. I baked banana bread, he gave me books to read and although our opinions differ on nearly every issue, he never quit engaging me and never made me feel ignorant.