Former Harry’s Place contributor Johann Hari– a braver man than I– subjected himself to a one-week cruise sponsored by the US conservative magazine The National Review and wrote an entertaining piece about it (free registration required) for The New Republic.
The cruise allowed readers willing to spend up to $6,000 to rub shoulders with such leading lights of the Right as William F. Buckley Jr., Robert Bork, Norman Podhoretz and Mark Steyn, while sailing from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta and back.
Of interest is the open disagreement Hari describes between Buckley and Podhoretz on US foreign policy. Between the former, with his weary and cynical reluctance to challenge the status quo, and the latter, with his bizarre assurances that things are going swimmingly and according to plan in Iraq, there’s not much to choose– though Hari seems to sympathize more with Buckley.
Apparently the dominant zeitgeist aboard ship was fear of the Islamic hordes.
With one or two exceptions, the passengers discuss “the Muslims” as a homogenous, sharia-seeking block–already with near-total control of Europe. Over the week, I am asked nine times–I counted–when I am fleeing Europe’s encroaching Muslim population for the safety of the United States.
Of course I suppose the cruise sponsored by the leftwing Nation magazine will feature equally predictable– if more-or-less opposite– ideas and conversations.
Speaking of which, how are arrangements coming along for the First Annual Harry’s Place Cruise, which I proposed (with a couple of conditions) last year?
