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In other words, your name is Bob Black, and you live in Topeka, Kan. A publication says that your name is Mike White and that you live in Mobile, Ala. How can you trust anything else you may read — as you normally would? The New York Observer — a weekly newspaper here in town — had a ridiculous article on "neocons" in New York. National Review was scorned, as it often is in such articles. Here is the relevant snippet: "William F. Buckley Jr.'s paleo-conservative magazine, seen as a kind of relic by the new neocons, but which achieved neocon street cred with editor Jay Nordlinger, who arrived last year from The Weekly Standard . . ." Well, let's count the ways. Part of the problem is that these articles are written by liberal or sort of apolitical, or stupidly political, reporters who know nothing about conservatism. No one with an ounce of sense regards National Review as paleoconservative, at least as paleoconservatism is commonly understood. In fact, it seems that most of those who are paleoconservative devote their lives to reviling National Review. We are the publication of Rich Lowry, David Frum, David Pryce-Jones, Rick Brookhiser (a columnist for the Observer, by the way — they should talk to him once in a while), Ramesh Ponnuru, Rob Long, etc., etc., etc. As for being seen as a "relic," only one word: They wish. (Okay, two words, but the point still holds.) Now to lil' ol' me (well, not as little as I'd like, that's for sure). A) I'm not the editor, I'm the managing editor. B) I came to National Review in 1998, not last year. C) This "neoconservative" business is a little silly. What is a "neoconservative"? I believe that this word has little meaning today, except in the minds of the politically confused or mischievous. It was a word applied to former leftists who, in the 1970s and '80s, crossed over to the conservative camp, chiefly based on anti-Communism. This expanded to a tough-mindedness about social problems, including crime and education. Its flagship magazine was Norman Podhoretz's Commentary, of course. Many years ago — I was there, listening to the speech at the American Enterprise Institute — I heard Podhoretz pronounce a "requiem" on neoconservatism. ("Deliver one for"?) The designation had outlived its usefulness. Am I a neoconservative? That's a longish essay — and, come to think of it, I've written a few — but the answer is no. Not really. Oh, yes, I grew up in a leftist environment — as my regular readers know — and was educated by leftists (who wasn't?). But any ill effects were pretty much purged by the time I left college. Norman Podhoretz, through Commentary, and William F. Buckley Jr., through National Review — and Firing Line and a hundred other things — had won me. If I have to call myself something, I call myself a Reaganite. That is the truest — as well as quickest — label. It simply takes too long to discourse on the gradations of conservatism, or the implications of genuine liberalism. You can just cut to the chase by saying: "Reaganite." Neoconservatism, as I understand it, included a certain skepticism about capitalism. In fact, Irving Kristol penned a famous work entitled "Two Cheers for Capitalism." At this point in my life, I'm giving the full three. (Perhaps he is too, I don't know.) I am a Kudlovian — a Hayekian, a Friedmanite, whatever you like. I long ago shed any embarrassment over the principles or record of "capitalism" (but why can't I get rid of those quotes? Still seems like sort of a sneer word to me). I acknowledge capitalism as the greatest poverty-destroying and class-leveling machine in world history. A final word: One of my favorite comments — ever, in any category — came from Phil Gramm, about "compassionate conservatism." He disliked the term. He said, "Freedom is compassionate, dammit."
Let me pass over this, to comment on something smaller — but deeply irritating. Impromptus-ites know that this is a longstanding peeve of mine. Back in the early '80s, liberals learned the word "Hezbollah." They then started referring to Republican conservatives as "Hezbollah." Sam Donaldson, on the Brinkley show, rejoiced in speaking of the "Hezbollah wing of the Republican party." Then, in 2001, liberals learned the world "Taliban." They immediately started referring to the "Republican Talibans," or the "Taliban Republicans," or the "Talibanic wing of the Republican party." (Funny, but it was the "Taliban Republicans" — George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld — who destroyed the real Taliban. But put that aside.) Now liberals have learned the word "fedayeen." And here's Maureen Dowd in her column: "the fedayeen of the Defense Policy Board." She's not content with using it only once; she goes back to it: "Mr. Bush has never reined in Rummy's rabid fedayeen." What a rotten thing to say. And who, again, took care of the real fedayeen? Dowd and her like always call us by the names of those we have the courage to stand up to and defeat. That's a subject for the psychologists, not me. Ah, one more thing, re this columnist: She quotes, approvingly, a quip uttered by Richard Armitage, about Newt Gingrich (who had just attacked the State Department, in an important speech): The ex-speaker must have been "off his meds and out of therapy." Cute. But would Dowd accept this comment directed at someone she liked? Or would she say, "How Soviet of them: to accuse anyone they disagree with of mental illness"?
Another Iraqi man — Ali Kadhem Ghanem, formerly imprisoned, tortured, and mutilated — was supposed to report each week to the local intelligence bureau. "'I don't know where they are now,' he said, and laughed for the first time in two hours [the duration of the interview, presumably]. 'They have all vanished.'" Yes, they all vanished. And the man was able to laugh.
Just one more excerpt:
Imagine that scene: the dread that it inspires. You would hardly dare to make a movie like that.
And then she, with the neighbors, was forced to watch as the fedayeen cut her son's tongue out. Ladies and gentlemen, this was an evil regime. And I'm glad it's gone. Aren't you?
Lawyers and human rights advocates. Excuse me, but wouldn't human-rights advocates be those who would want terroristic people kept under lock and key? The article goes on: "In mid-March, 22 prisoners were released from Guantanamo, sent back to Afghanistan with blue jeans, new copies of the Koran and, on average, an additional 13 pounds from a diet that is similar to that of the soldiers who guard them." In January, while in Davos, I had to listen to people condemn the United States as a human-rights abuser for its treatment of the detainees at Guantanamo. &*%@~!
That she was. But it occurred to me: They never call conservatives "fighters," do they? No anti-abortion activist would be called a "fighter for the unborn." "Fighter" is a good word, in this context: and it's not reserved for the likes of us, fellow cons. Also, I was amazed at this item in the obit of Abram Bergson, an economist: He was born Abram Burk, in 1914. And while in graduate school, "Professor Bergson and his brother, a physicist, decided to change their last names. The name Burk, they agreed, did not sufficiently convey their Jewish heritage." Well, there's a switch!
I then went on to say: "Aside from the delicious hauteur of that comment: How much you wanna bet the lady's French stinks? I've heard it before: rich (American) lady's French. It's not pretty." Well, the joke's on me: Several readers wrote to point out that Mrs. Kerry is not, in fact, a native American — and I'm not talking Geronimo here — but a Mozambican (which would make her first language Portuguese, presumably). Her bio reads: "Born and raised in Mozambique, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Romance languages and literature from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and graduated from the Interpreters School of the University of Geneva." "So chances are," said a reader, "she speaks better than 'rich lady' French." Probably so. But she's still a rich lady, lucky gal!
"Dear Jay: I was just going through this week's Economist, which I consider a good publication, as long as the subject doesn't involve Israel. I was confirmed in my opinion. In an article about a new Hezbollah computer game — can you guess the target? — the following description of Hezbollah appeared: 'a Shia militia which the Americans deem a terrorist organization.' "Can you believe this?" Oh, yes.
"Here's my beef with this pointless exercise: Those who wring their hands over 'root causes' never seem to grasp the obvious — that the rage of the radical Islamist (and those who follow him) is an irrational hatred fed by perpetual ignorance. It is like racism; and no intelligent person wastes time trying to understand racists, or to absorb the 'root causes' of bigotry. We rightly dismiss racists as small-minded fools, and we should do the same with the current zealots."
"Queering the
Pitch : The New Gay and Lesbian Musicology" Mamas, don't let your sons grow up to study musicology.
"When he came to Pittsburgh he knew four English words: yes, no, and Ronald Reagan. He said, through an interpreter, that he'd had a Ronald Reagan poster on his bedroom wall back in Kladno. I'm guessing that — considering his recent problems with the IRS — he would be in favor of another Reagan tax cut." I should say! Hang tough, y'all. |
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you ever had the following experience? You see something about yourself
in print. You find that it's all wrong. And you wonder how you can believe
anything else you read.
I should ignore it, but Maureen Dowd wrote a hate 
