Essays about Joan Didion on California, John Gregory Dunne on Patriotism, China and the WHO, MBS and COVID-19, and Trump's HCQ Guru

They were the most important literary couple of their generation. Joan lives on, an icon. John should be remembered as well.

Joan Didion's California, John Gregory Dunne's 'Spectator Patriotism' Still locked down. Doing a lot of reading from my bookshelves and my computer archives. And it struck me that before reading about Joan Didion in my latest piece for the Beast, maybe one should read something about her husband, John Gregory Dunne, whom she adored, and who inspired some of her greatest work.   Spectator Patriotism (First published October 11, 2005)             On or about Dec. 30, 2002, which was a day after we'd had dinner in New York and a year to the day before he died of a heart attack, John Gregory Dunne put a floppy disk in an envelope and dropped it off at the Manhattan apartment where I was staying. As happens, I misplaced it in my travels after that, and only last weekend did I find it and read the digital newspaper clippings he'd pulled together, which he'd talked about with so much excitement at our dinner.             John was interested in patriotism. He was fascinated by the real substance of it, which he saw as diametrically opposed to what he called "the spectator patriotism" exploited by the Bush administration as it went looking for wars. There was something (it took a while for John to put his finger on it) in the fact that several people he knew had children on active duty: historian Doris Kearns had a son, John himself had a nephew, I had a son. We had people we loved in uniform doing what they saw, and we understood, imperfectly perhaps, as their duty to defend the values and the dreams that are the United States of America. But why were there so few from this circle of acquaintances if the cause was so great?             John would rage. He was articulate and funny then and always, but such was his passion that I remember him as almost inchoate when he talked about the bastards who wouldn't end their Global War on Terror, which was conceived in rhetoric and dedicated to their reelection, yet would send America's sons and daughters on futile errands of suffering and slaughter. John said he was going to write a book about patriotism, but he had a novel to finish first, and then he died.             John's wife of almost 40 years, Joan Didion, has written a breathtaking book about John's death, and the illnesses of their only child, who died in August, and the experience of grief. Joan's book, called "The Year of Magical Thinking,"  has been reviewed widely and well, as it should be. (Robert Pinsky in the New York Times pointed out, rightly, that it is "not a downer" and parts of it are actually quite funny.) Joan sent me the galleys last summer -- Joan and John have been our friends since we met in El Salvador in 1982 -- and I read Joan's book then in a single sitting, lost in a salt sea of emotion and memory. It is a great, great book.             But it was John's 1989 memoir, "Harp," that I picked up to read again yesterday, trying to understand a little better the meaning of the newspaper stories on that long-lost floppy disk, and I wound up searching out on the Web the essays John wrote for The New York Review of Books about wars and soldiers and, yes, patriotism, in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001.... (MORE) This is from today in The Daily Beast:   California Dreaming With Joan Didion ARMCHAIR TRAVELER Trapped in my apartment I pulled Joan's books off the shelf. I wanted to learn again from her meticulous observation of detail, character and setting, and her great sense of irony. CHRISTOPHER DICKEY And these articles are about, well, other topics. Published Apr. 19, 2020  How One Early Tweet From Wuhan May Have Doomed the WHO OPINION TRUMPED UP Bill Gates is right when he says the world needs the organization now more than ever. But its reliance early in the pandemic on China's information—and lies—is shocking. CHRISTOPHER DICKEY Published Apr. 16, 2020  As Saudi Royals Sicken, MBS Takes on COVID-19—and His Rivals LOCKED DOWN AND LOCKED UP MBS has shown that he can adapt to the changing circumstances imposed by a global pandemic—while exploiting them for his own ends. CHRISTOPHER DICKEY Published Apr. 12, 2020  Meet the B.S. Artist Behind Trump's Miracle Drug  OPINION FALSE HOPE? Didier Raoult's a climate denier and was a coronavirus truther. That hasn't stopped the White House from embracing his sketchy studies into an anti-malaria drug to treat COVID-19. CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, ADAM RAWNSLEY

"Trump likes to say he thinks with his gut—and I believe it." - Christopher Dickey on MSNBC

"Trump likes to say he thinks with his gut—and I believe it."

In my latest appearance on MSNBC on Saturday with Phillip Mena we talked about several recent articles in the World section of The Daily Beast, including those by Ankit Panda on Korean launch preparations; Erin Banco about the Kushner meetings in Saudi Arabia excluding embassy staff (btw, meetings in the UAE did as well); and my updated article on Trump plans to turn traditional, powerful U.S. alliances into protection rackets.




These discussions in the new early-morning weekend show on MSNBC get pretty animated. Usual time, 6:30 am on Saturday. Sometimes Sunday. You might want to set your Tivo, or whatever. And if you agree with these points, do feel free to share widely. There is also an extended thread about this broadcast with links to the relevant stories on Twitter @csdickey


Some relevant quotes:

On possible reaction to North Korea preparations for a rocket launch: "This is a president who never has a credible Plan B. He likes to say he thinks with his gut—and I believe it."

Note: "Fire and fury" was never a credible Plan A or B.

The administration's denial of an Erin Banco report that Jared Kushner excluded embassy staff in Riyadh from his meeting with Mohammed bin Salman: "Our reporter is right and the administration is lying, as usual. ... 

"We don't have a Middle East policy, we have an MBS and Bibi Netanyahu policy."

Might Kushner have been talking about sharing nuclear technology?

Of course that's possible, I noted, and questioned whether it is wise to share weapons and technology with a regime that chops up and incinerates journalists: 

"These are not ethical people, the Kushners, the Trumps. These are not people who stand by the U.S. ... This is all just about venal efforts to collect money from Mohammed bin Salman and his efforts to buy American loyalty, which he has done very effectively."

Regarding Trump's reported desire to turn powerful alliances into sordid protection rackets:

"It's a complete insult to every member to France, Germany, Great Britain and every member of NATO to say that the reason we are in Europe is because we want them to pay us as mercenaries. If that's not a racket, I don't know what is."