New: As election day approaches, I miss Alex
I still miss Alexander Cockburn—his deep intelligence and broad erudition, his passionate engagement and devilish wit, but, most of all, I miss his bubbly, irrepressible optimism. Whenever, after still another horrible something had happened and every other leftist had put a pistol to his or her head, finger on the trigger, Alex inevitably wrote a piece about why we should all be gladdened because, for reasons x, y, and z, the “something” presented unparalleled opportunities for human advancement.
What would he be writing during this surreally horrific presidential election year? I keep trying to figure this out, given what I know about his opinions. Of course he loathed the Clintons. Not surprising, who doesn’t? But one of his many idiosyncratic pet peeves was the relatively obscure and harmless Vermont politico Bernie Sanders, whom Alex detested as an absolute phony, a man who called himself socialist while always voting as a moderate—that is, right-wing—Democrat. In fact, I might never have heard of Bernie Sanders if Alex hadn’t devoted so many column inches over the years to attacking him.
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