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June 17, 2003, 8:30 a.m. Give Me Money, or Give Me…. An special message for NRO Drive Days..

ear Friend of NRO,

You may have noticed it's pledge week here at National Review Online. I have tried very hard to come up with a way to ask you for help. I am immensely proud of National Review Online; immensely proud of what it has done and what it means to some of the most impressive readers on the web and the planet. I'm grateful for the support you guys have provided in the past. I'm also grateful to the bosses at NR for allowing me to be part of all this. Unfortunately, I'm terrible at asking for money — just look at my history of asking for raises!

I don't know if you realize it or not, but National Review magazine, like all great magazines about ideas (and some less than great ones) has lost money pretty much for its entire existence. Such is the nature of the beast. But William F. Buckley and his merry band understood that defending, among other things, the free-market system required ignoring the profit motive. I know, it's a bitter irony for all of us.

It is a testament to the forward thinking and commitment to principle of NR's leaders that they understood the necessity of extending that money-losing principle to Internet. As Richard Weaver noted in his book, Ideas Have Consequences, ideas have consequences. NR understood that taking our ideas to the web was imperative, even if it required deficit spending. It was the right decision and nobody regrets it. But NRO has been up and running now for some four years and we still lose money. When you add that to the awful setbacks the magazine (and many others) faced with the downturn in the economy over the last couple of years, you can begin to see not only how important NRO is to the magazine's mission but also the kinds of sacrifices the magazine has made to keep NRO up and running. Our expenses aren't a rounding error in Rupert Murdoch's empire, for example. Things aren't dire, but they are definitely difficult — and direness is certainly a possibility in these next few years. That's why I need to ask you for money. Unfortunately, I don't how. Below are some of the outtakes from my failed attempts at working up a successful plea.

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE APPEAL. TAKE ONE:
Goldberg: Hi, I'm Jonah Goldberg. You may know me from such Internet specials as "Does This Look Like Cheese?" and "Click Here and Your Name Will be Added to a Federal Watch List."
Couch: And I'm his couch. You don't really know me because I'm the anthropomorphized literary conceit of a deeply disturbed "e-journalist." The "e" stands for jackass.
Goldberg: How can the letter "e" stand for jackass? That doesn't even make sense.
Couch: And a talking couch does?
Goldberg: Fair point.
Couch: [under his breath] Jackass.
Goldberg: Let's get back to the script. We're here today to talk to you about something very special —
Couch: Yeah, his butt. Oh wait, I thought you said we're here to talk about "something very large."
Goldberg: Cut! I can't work with this guy.

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE APPEAL: TAKE TWO
Goldberg: Hi, I'm Jonah Goldberg. I was the founding editor of National Review Online. Now, I'm an Editor-at-Large. And I'm here to ask for your help.

Whenever we beg for money, I get more than a few e-mails from angry readers comparing us to National Public Radio. "How can you complain about their pledge drives when you do the same thing?"

This is what We Who Pretend To Understand Philosophy call a "category error." We are not National Public Radio. Yes, we share the word "National" and several vowels and consonants. But beyond that, the similarities start to breakdown. They are a radio station. We are a web magazine. Most people listen to NPR while driving on their way to or home from work. Most people read NRO at work. If you try to read NRO while driving, you will smash into something with your car. Meanwhile, if you try to listen to NPR at work, under the new Patriot Act your name will be submitted to the Justice Department for review. NPR suckles at the teat of the Leviathan State. National Review suckles at, well, your teat….

Okay, that's disgusting. Scratch this approach.

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE PLEDGE APPEAL: TAKE THREE.
Hi. I'm Jonah Goldberg. The suits have my dog. Please send money. If you don't, they will send him to Kim Jong-Il on an "exchange program."

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE PLEDGE APEAL: TAKE FOUR.
Goldberg: Hi. We'll return to John Derbyshire's column, "It's the End of the World as We Know it and I Feel Fine," in a moment. It is because of support like yours that we are able to bring you the exceptional work of writers and thinkers like John Derbyshire, David Frum, Ramesh Ponnuru, Jay Nordlinger, Byron York, and the rest of the National Review team.

Kathryn Lopez: That's right Jonah. Who can forget such highlights from the last season as Victor Davis Hanson's knee-slappers: "A Funny Sort of Empire" and "Doom, Doom and More Doom."

Goldberg: That's right Kathryn. Plus: Because of support from readers like you [speaking to camera], we can afford to send our correspondents all around the globe. What other website has scored interviews with General Pervez Musharraf and Kim Jong-Il.

Lopez: That's right Jonah. But we couldn't do this alone. We need the help of our readers. Readers like John from Cincinnati who … who… who will throw a brick through National Review's window if we treat them like the cud-chewing mindless automatons who write checks to PBS! I can't read this.

Goldberg: Oh come on K-Lo, get with the program. It's not a big deal.

Lopez: Easy for you to say! You don't work for a living. All you do is lie around on the couch all day and talk about your dog! I've got to put a frickin' magazine together!

Goldberg: Nurse! You promised me that Lopez's medication would last until we were done! If she bites me again, you're gonna be back handing out tetracycline to Jerry Springer supporters and Bill Clinton's interns.

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE PLEDGE APPEAL: TAKE FIVE
Goldberg: Hi, I'm Jonah Goldberg.
Baldwin: And I'm Alec Baldwin.
Goldberg: I'm the editor-at-large of National Review Online.
Baldwin: I can count to eleven.
Goldberg: Alec, please read from the cue cards. See? Where it says "And I am an ACK-TOR. But I also like to reed Kon-SURV-a-Tiv Kom-Men-Tare-EE frum America's most EM-UH-NENT RIGHTERS."
See? we spelled everything out to make it easy to read.
Baldwin: Ok. I'm sorry. Just one question.
Goldberg: What?
Baldwin: Why would a candy want to write?
Goldberg: Huh?
Baldwin: M&M writers.
Goldberg: Oh geez. Can we get the couch back in here?

CUT TO JONAH
You see what I mean? But you guys get the point. NRO needs your support. You can do your part by donating — once, or in installments here — or (and?!) by subscribing to National Review on Dead Tree here. A subscription to NRODT promises a biweekly delivery of more of many of your NRO favorites — Frum, Derbyshire, Ponnuru, Lowry, Nordlinger, and more and faces you don't hear enough from on NRO: Washington sage Kate O'Beirne, Hollywood funnyman Rob Long, and lots more. To sum it up: We need you and you can't lose.