Sordid Assortments

by VA

It's not like there aren't more important things to talk about, but I read Christopher Hitchens's review of Harry Potter over the weekend. I’ll refrain from actually going off on Harry Potter here; suffice it to say I’m not exactly sympathetic to Christopher Hitchens’s weird lament that the series secularizes the battle between good and evil (dude, didn’t you just write a book defending atheism?), nor do I care whether he thinks Harry Potter is something slightly different from something Orwell warned us about in 1940. I stopped trying to make sense of Hitchens some time ago. All I’ll say about Deathly Hallows is, man! I can’t believe Rowling laid out in such exquisite detail how Scabbers the rat came by his name! I thought this was childrens’ lit!

I will say that the character I find most interesting is the Sorting Hat, who, while purporting to see deep into young wizards’ characters, marks their destiny by turning them into Gryffindors or Slytherins or whatever. A friend of mine likes to debate the finer points of why certain acquaintances belong in this or that house. This game can get rather heated: one time a three-way fistfight broke out over the question of whether The Smoking Man of X-Files fame belongs in Gryffindor or Slytherin. Ultimately, reclining behind two slabs of raw steak, the dissenting party conceded that the Sorting Hat takes one’s wishes into account and thus The Smoking Man probably belongs to Gryffindor.

Now, in my freest of moments and at the height of procrastination, I sometimes like to imagine the National Review—and occasionally, all of wingnuttia—as a gurgling, twisted Hogwarts. This mainly happens when I spend extended periods reading around over there and realize just what a magically disconnected place wingnuttia is. So I think it’s time we*** got around to placing those outside the reality-based community (I’m a proud Muggle) into their proper houses. I know what you’re thinking: they’re all fucking Slytherins! That may be true, but it would ruin my premise. Allow me then to first dispatch the obvious.

Jonah Goldberg: the Doughy Pantload, chickenhawk par excellence, needed extra time to produce 200 pages of abject stupidity about Hegel and Wholefoods, which will debut on the NYT’s worst-seller list (which will itself debut for Goldberg’s book). Hufflepuff.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: I feel one could argue in any number of directions here. K-Lo’s distinguishing characteristic is her crushes on all the BMOC, which to my mind lines her up with Ravenclaw’s Cho Chang. It helps that Ravenclaw is essentially a repository for the non-white denizens of the magical realm; however, K-Lo’s resemblance to Grimace, along with her intellectual wispiness, suggests Hufflepuff. In the end though, I think Ravenclaw has her.

John Derbyshire: As far as I can recall, the Sorting Hat has nothing to say about criminal insanity. But I feel like Hogwarts in Derb’s era was probably a vastly different place, maybe even home to a slew of imperialists whose personal credo was “rubble don’t make trouble.” Even Albus Dumbledore flirted briefly with colonizing Muggles! Call me crazy, but I think Derb sports red & gold.

Mark Steyn: Slytherin. Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin.

Ramesh Ponnuru: the Sorting Hat knew immediately that Ramesh belongs in Ravenclaw, and even foresaw that he would spend his entire Hogwarts career advocating for Slytherin, and even that the Slytherins would find him distasteful.

Ann Althouse: Psych! Althouse is a Squib.

***By "we" I mean "I." I would never presume this is entertaining to anyone besides myself; I relize it's the height of geekiness and indeed, I think feel my virginity returning.

Comments

[Gabe]

Actually, I think Derbyshire is a Dementor. There's a resemblance, no?

And K-Lo very well might be a Ravenclaw but clearly she's Hagrid's half sister.

[Max Renn]

Goldberg's the largest, loneliest house-elf in his momma Black's house.

[SamFromUtah]

The non-white students that come to mind for me other than Cho are Lee Jordan and the Patil twins, all of whom are in Gryffindor. Is Ravenclaw really the dusky dumping ground?

(...and the Smoking Man in Gryffindor, where bravery is valued? I have a hard time seeing that one.)

[SamFromUtah]

My mistake, Ravenclaw does have one of the Patils.

I guess I'm not as Potter-savvy as I need to be for this discussion.

[¡El Gato Negro!]

¿Derbyshire being British, wouldn't that be "Rubble, rubble, don't make trouble"?

¿eh?

[Gus]

Not having read Harry Potter, all I can say is WTF.

[va]

Those sure are some strong letters there Gus!

[low-tech cyclist]

We've got to go beyond the narrow confines of The Corner, and open it up to wingnuttia in general, including the neocons, the op-ed writers, and so forth.

Novakula and Richard Perle are Dementors.

Bush and Cheney are both Slytherins. I think one of the essential characteristics of being a Slytherin is really not liking other people very much. Bush and Cheney both have that attribute.

Wolfie: Gryffindor.

Rumsfeld: thinks he should be Ravenclaw, but he's not nearly as smart as he thinks. Hufflepuff.

The Kagan clan: all Slytherins.

Gonzales: Hufflepuff.

Ashcroft, Comey: Gryffindor.

Condi: Gryffindor.

Krauthammer: Ravenclaw.

Karl Rove: Slytherin.

Monica Goodling, Sara Taylor: Hufflepuff.