Useless Idiots, A Century Later

Captain's Quarters comments on the current crop of Communist Dictator Admirers, and finds them a lesser breed than their predecessors:

Anne Applebaum notices a decline in a particular American export, in quality if unfortunately not in quantity. She reminds us that the Bolsheviks seized power this week 90 years ago, and just as with almost every dictatorial movement abroad, an American managed to gussy it up to undermine democracy back here at home. In days past, those exports included luminaries like John Reed and Walter Duranty. Nowadays, the intellectual level has dropped down to the supermodel level:
...
Anti-Western dictators have reason to complain. For all his faults, Reed wrote powerfully and intelligently, painting the Soviets in a far better light than they ever had reason to expect. Walter Duranty continued that effort during the Depression, when America was at its most vulnerable, by telling lies designed to make Soviet-style Communism the savior of the working class. He succeeded in fooling the Pulitzer committee, giving testament to his skill as a propagandist in service of brutal oppression.

What do we offer the hip, trendy dictator these days? Transparent fools, not intellectuals. Applebaum mentions the Beautiful Idiot, who went to Venezuela to chatter glibly about the waterfalls and never noticed Hugo Chavez' suppression of dissent. She followed Sean Penn, the Talented Idiot*, who smoothly moved from his 2002 defense of Saddam Hussein to an endorsement of Chavez, hardly a track record of impassioned defense of individual liberty. Applebaum forgets the Charming Idiot, Cameron Diaz, who wore a purse emblazoned with a symbol of the Shining Path Marxist terrorist group when visiting Peru -- the same person who told an Oprah audience that voting for Bush was voting to make rape legal.

Reed and Duranty had the standing to influence America, although thankfully they failed in that mission. Campbell, Penn, and Diaz have the standing to influence Manhattan and Beverly Hills cocktail parties, and not much more. The world's dictators must long for the days when they could find really useful idiots for their propaganda.