The Right Thing (ACU's Keene slams Frum over NR article)

Makes as much sense as your previous pronouncement that they ~want~ Saddam in power.

If you don't want to remove him from power, you must want him to remain in power.

That makes sense to me. Otherwise, one of the peaceniks would have figured out how to get him out of power by now.

Sinky, the tar baby kid.

RE: Paleo by GOPcapitalist: The term is generally used to describe a faction of conservatism normally associated with Buchananites, anti-immigration people and the sort. Some argue that they are anti-Jewish as well, though there are also Jews who describe themselves as "paleos."
RE: Neo by u-89: Basically the neocon's accept FDR's New Deal socialism as well as Johnson's Great Society as good ideas (just managed poorly) i.e. they are for a strong central government and the welfare state. On foreign policy they go far beyond national defense to the point where they are down right aggressive, belligerent even.

Hmmmm...is there a "None of the above" option? :) Or a list with more selections?

If you don't want to remove him from power, you must want him to remain in power.
-SS-

Who ~doesn't~ want to remove him from power?
-- Quote some lines from people who take that position. -- You can't find any, except in your fevered imagination.

Neo's actually tend to think that the Great Society was an unmitigated disaster. They got mugged by reality, and admit it. Indeed, neo's were the primary source of ideas that discredited the Great Society in and amongst the establishment. This neo tended to think it was a disaster in the making as a witness of its creation, but then this neo was never a liberal.

Novak was opposing this nation's enemies before Frum was even born. One can question the man's judgment and sometimes even his facts, but to suggest that Novak is no different from the crypto-fascists and Marxists organizing "peace" rallies these days says a lot more about David Frum than it does about Bob Novak.

BUMP

Let's hear what Frum had to say about this as well:

http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary032503.asp

MAR. 25, 2003: MEDIA NEWS

Howie Kurtz reports yesterday morning on my article about paleoconservatives in the print NR and on the reaction. If it weren’t a trademark violation, I’d say the piece was both fair and balanced.

There is a point that emerges in Kurtz’s careful story – and in some of the other commentary that is now appearing in print and on line – that does seem to me to call for response: the suggestion that my comments were somehow improper. Novak himself said that my article “poison[ed] the political discourse.”

I suppose I could reply that this is a very strange protest indeed from a man who has spent the past year insinuating that the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy is a Zionist plot against American interests.

But let’s deal with the substance of Novak’s complaint. Is it indeed “poisonous” to quote a writer’s words and hold him to account? Novak may genuinely think so. He has a habit of saying horrifying things and then exploding in rage when others venture to discuss them. Thus, on the November 24, 2001, edition of Capital Gang, he condemned Israel for killing Hamas leader Mahmoud Abu Hanoud. Margaret Carlson pointed out that Hanoud was after all a terrorist: He had organized, most recently, two suicide bombings in that had killed a total of 36 people, all civilians, many of them teenagers. Novak’s answer: “Well, why do you call him a terrorist? I mean, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. They’re trying to get their own land.”

These words of Novak’s prompted former New York mayor Edward Koch to lodge a very respectful protest in a newspaper column and then, a year later, a rather less respectful protest in a radio commentary. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Novak described Koch’s protests as “filth.”

Today Novak is once again demanding exemption from the criticism he happily metes out to others.There’s a war on, you see, and it’s time for national unity. Just as Tom Daschle has rallied to the president, so the pro-war conservatives should rally to ... Bob Novak.

“Daschle,” Novak wrote in a Monday column in his Inside Report, “ended up following the old American custom of supporting the war once the shooting starts. Frum, on the other hand,chose that moment to begin shooting at ‘paleo-conservatives.’” Novak was irked by my NR cover story that connected his antiwar views to the blame-America politics of the paleoconservatives.

You can see why this no-criticism-of-Robert-Novak-during-wartime rule would appeal to the thin-skinned pundit. In fact, the rule could prove to be the one and only thing that yet might win Novak’s support for the war on terror.

In his Inside Report, Novak passionately repudiated the “paleoconservative” label. He said he “abhorred” the paleos’ “anti-semitic and racist” views. All he had ever done, he said, was question “an overly close identification of the U.S. government with Israel.”

You can understand his point of view: things have come to a pretty pass indeed when a journalist cannot write that the U.S. government is secretly controlled by a cabal of war-mongering, um, neoconservatives without being accused of anti-semitism - and predicting that every action and decision of the U.S. government will end in total disaster without being called a defeatist.

---

Frum also raises a valid point: It seems Novak can dish out criticism, but he can't TAKE it.

He asks good questions in the diary in response. And I, for one, have to admit that Frum's pretty close to the mark again. I suppose that makes me some neo-con Bushbot. Guess I'll just have support an agenda that makes sense and let the criticism come.

"Paleos tend to be protectionist, nativist, isolationist, enthusiastic about waging the culture wars, pessimistic about the future of American prospects, particularly from a cultural point of view, suspicious of the motives of Jews, and indulge a nostagia for the Confederacy"

Being a libertarian I do not support all so called paleo ideas but I think your descriptions of certain positions here need some qualifying.

* protectionist - only if one supports managed trade and punitive tariffs. Not sure all paleos share Buchanan's trade policy views. However I do not see concern over the current economic transition a bad thing.

* nativist - The idea that a dominate race protecting itself from extinction is a great evil is a modern concept that is unevenly applied. Only white Europeans are expected to die off and take their culture with them. I can't fault those concerned over this even if some of their language is undiplomatic. Self preservation is a basic instinct after all.

* isolationist - free trade with all and foreign entanglements with none is not isolationist. None of the paleo's wish to turn the US into pre-Admiral Perry Japan.

* enthusiastic about waging the culture wars - Again when did self defense become so wrong? Cultures do naturally shift with time but the counterculture revolution that broke out en masse in the 1960's was a planned event - Gramscian. As a libertarian I see the problem is the government being involved with both sides of the war. I don't agree with some paleo fixes but I understand their concern.

* pessimistic about the future of American prospects - Anyone who understands that socialism is doomed to fail would be concerned.

* suspicious of the motives of Jews - I believe the concern is over some Americans having a passionate attachment to another country - our founders warned against this sort of thing. (Many Christians share this particular passion so it is not just a Jewish thing.) BTW if Ireland was the mess that the mid-east is I believe certain Irish Americans might be suspect then as they are passionate for their home country even after 5 generations here. (Living around some of these I know of what I speak.)

* nostalgia for the Confederacy - From what I read I see some of this as a regional sense identity and pride - it's pride in and defense of a cultural that is under constant attack. Others do not defend the Confederacy they see the constitutional argument of secession as being correct and call 'em as they see 'em. These types also see the birth of the strong central government and the demise of states rights beginning with the success of the north in the civil war.

All told I do not see paleos as nefarious but I do see where neocon's can't exist in the same movement with them.

cordially,

A very intelligent and thoughtful post on your part, even if I think you have given a much too generous spin to the movement's views. Well done.

Great post.

That no-criticism-of-Robert-Novak-during-wartime rule made me bust out laughing!

I remember you slaying the paleos on an earlier thread today. Keep up the good work, the day we give up the Republican party to the 5% Conspiratorial Losertarians is the day the news media can quite effectively pigeonhole the party as anti Semite and paranoid.

More importantly, that day we throw up our hands and put a Buchanon on the ticket is the day we LOSE the war on terrorism.

Novak's never tried to hide his sympathy for the Palestinians, including the ones who blow up innocent civilians.

"Freedom fighters" indeed!

So whose party will it be?

Paleos have a burr under their saddles about Israel, and, some of them, about Jews in general.

You know I'm getting quite tired of this slur against paleoconservatives. I am a Southern paleoconservative and I fully support not only Israel but the Jewish race as well. I know the heritage of Southerners and the Jewish people and am quite proud of the Jewish men and women that stood with us against tyranny

They also think we can just roll up the sidewalks and walk away from the rest of the world.

Roll up the sidewalks? Of course not. Quit sticking our noses into every little issue and in doing so make the situation worse 20 years down the road than it may have been? Of course

They're worthless on this war on terrorism. Absolutely worthless. They think the Constitution is a suicide pact.

Well, thanks for that vote of confidence. Considering that many of the terrorists leaders that have attacked this nation or may attack this nation of states within my lifetime are former employees of the taxpayers to the bureaucratic behemoth we call the national government (through the CIA and other covert operatives of the government), I do have the right to say what I feel. The Constitution is not a guideline, it's not a suggestion, it's a document that clearly and succintly states what the national (since it's no longer a federal one) government is to be about in its business. You follow it or you don't. But don't drape yourself in the symbol that represents said document if you're not going to bother following the document in the first place

re:Your comments about paleo's and no desire to cut the social security net -
I could understand that in today's light - it would be politically impossible but originally they didn't support it and once apon a time they did want to roll back the entire new deal. This illustrates the evils of socialism - not too far down the path there is a point of no return.

Your point about paleo's embracing German style socialism is new to me. Could you recommend some reading material? I do see where Republicans in general are big on "corporate" welfare. I guess there are various flavors of paleos - the ones I am familiar with are closer to libertarian economic principles - not a carbon copy but closer here than to Euorpean advanced civilized life styles. To my understanding Buchanan is not a true economic conservative anymore and I am not sure to what degree other paleos agree with his economics.

The thing is, I, as someone who is more and more comfortable with the neo-conservative label, feels the need to point out that I would NOT want to be associated with people who make comments like these, nor do I really desire to tolerate those that make them:

"I respect and admire the French, who have been a far greater nation than we shall ever be, that is, if greatness means anything loftier than money and bombs."
— THOMAS FLEMING, "HARD RIGHT," MARCH 13, 2003

"[Clarence] Thomas calls the segregation of the Old South, where he grew up, 'totalitarian.' But that's liberal nonsense. Whatever its faults, and it certainly had them, that system was far more localized, decent, and humane than the really totalitarian social engineering now wrecking the country."
— LLEWELLYN H. ROCKWELL

"How horrible to realize, ten years after the Cold War, that the real evil empire is not some foreign regime, but the U.S. military state. It bombs buses, bridges, factories, churches, and schools, expresses 'regret,' and then continues to do the same. A host of innocents have died from U.S. attacks — a fact which should make every patriot wince. The propaganda should also make us wonder to what extent the old Communist Threat was trumped up to plunder the American taxpayer."
— LLEWELLYN H. ROCKWELL, "THE END OF BUCKLEYISM," IN SPINTECH, JUNE 12, 1999

"It is clear that neither laws nor any sense of fair play will stop this rampant U.S. arrogance. The time may soon come when we will have to call for the return of the spirit of the man who terrified the United States like no one else ever has. Come back Stalin — (almost) all is forgiven."
— GEORGE SZAMUELY, IN "TAKI'S TOP DRAWER," NEW YORK PRESS, JULY 11, 2001

"The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people." — SAMUEL FRANCIS, SPEECH AT THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE CONFERENCE, MAY 1994

"The Bush administration should not only ignore the advice of such characters as Mr. Ledeen and Mr. Podhoretz but consider placing them under surveillance as possible agents of a foreign power." — SAMUEL FRANCIS, IN CHRONICLES, DECEMBER 2002

"The U.S. government has probably killed more people outside its own borders than any other. Or am I overlooking something?"
— JOSEPH SOBRAN, SPEECH TO THE JOHN RANDOLPH SOCIETY, HERNDON, VA., JANUARY 1992

Those were the EXCERPTED quotes that Frum highlighted in his original article.

Now, look at what other folks at National Review have pointed out:

From Jonah Goldberg at 11:22 AM on 3/19/03:
"In general National Review has followed a policy of ignoring the fever swamps which claim to be to our right and I am loath to give these folks even a thimble of satisfaction. They pound on their high chairs and shout nasty curses and think they are great thinkers if anybody pays attention. On the other hand, partly because of the levelling effect of the web, this coalition of cranks and malcontents (with a few decent but mislead types as well) has gained a smattering of influence. And, because Pat Buchanan retains credibility with many for his past accomplishments and his eloquence, some paleo ideas leak like contaminated water from below into mainstream debates. And, sometimes bad arguments must be fought with good ones rather than ignored.

"Also, I should point out that I am also a bit envious. David Frum is undoubtedly more qualified to lead this charge than I, but as I feel I have a personal stake in this, I hate it when I feel like others are making my fight for me. Of course, this is larger than me, but the paleos have been goading and mocking me for so long and with such intensity I sometimes expect to find Lew Rockwell sitting outside my house in a gray Buick wearing a trench coat. I have had several email exhanges with several Lewrockwell and VDare authors and scores of their readers. My contempt, with a few exceptions for individuals who've mistakenly aligned themselves with these people, is total. With a sophomoric joy one usually finds with skinhead wannabes just smart enough to be dangerous, they call National Review, "Goldberg's Review" -- something they would never do were my last name O'Mally but my politics the same. They talk about preserving the genetic stock of America, they blame their shabby careers on Jews they've never met, they compare Lincoln to Hitler and America to Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. And the misguided few who don't write such things, have no problem associating themselves with those who do. They've made their bed as far as I'm concerned.

"I do not know how long the window on the "let's ignore them" policy will be, or should be, open. But let me take this brief intermission to salute David on a job well done and the editors of National Review for deciding that the job must be done. And hopefully this sad crowd will continue to scoot themselves ever deeper into the dustbin of history where they belong."

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_03_16_corner-archive.asp#005147

Stanley Kurtz, 12:23 PM on 3/19/03:
"I’ve just finished reading David Frum’s very powerful indictment of Buchananite pale-conservatism, in the latest issue of National Review magazine. Frum charges leading paleo-cons with the worst sort of bigotry and anti-Americanism, and he backs up his charges with many detailed quotes. This article is going to mark a watershed in the battle to define conservativism."

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_03_16_corner-archive.asp#005150

Jonah Goldberg at 12:49 PM on 3/19/03:
"But, when it comes to immigration I think there's something important that needs to be added. Ramesh Ponnuru, for example, has written with great intelligence in favor of a more restrictionist immigration policy. Rather than greet Ramesh's efforts as good news and opportunity to build a pragmatic consensus etc, they respond with sophomoric taunts about his ethnicity and suggest that anybody who disagrees with them "isn't serious" and is part of the problem. Even on immigration, even if I disagree with you, I don't see that they offer much by way of new "ideas." They offer a sentiment, a pang, a grievance and when serious people try to translate that pang into policy they reject it out of hand in the name of purity -- purity of politics and purity of ethnicity since Ramesh (born in Kansas) has committed the sin of having Indian immigrants in his family tree."

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_03_16_corner-archive.asp#005156

Rod Dreher at 3:11 PM on 3/19/03:
"I suppose it might be unseemly to praise one's own magazine, but I am proud to be associated with a publication responsible for David Frum's magnificent and necessary essay. I've never paid much attention to the paleocons, to be honest. I find the interest many of them have in traditional forms of Christianity to be appealing at some level, and I share too their concern over the loss of certain aspects of traditional culture, particularly in light of the role the free market plays in exacerbating and accelerating this destructive dynamic.

"Since 9/11, however, I've been increasingly disturbed by anti-American and racialist rhetoric emanating from the paleos. I suppose it may have been there all along, but not paying close attention to them, I never saw it. Not long after the 9/11 attacks, I investigated what I came to believe were credible reports that paleocon students at a conservative Catholic college were going around saying the terrorist assaults were a good thing, because wicked America deserved it -- and that there were professors at this college encouraging students, from a rightist perspective, to see the American founding as illegitimate. I found it hard to believe that there were actually people on the Right saying these kinds of things, but as Frum details, this vile sentiment is now something some leading paleocon writers are willing to say publicly. I met a traditionalist Catholic at a party who, upon learning that I worked for NR, said cheerily, "Well, I'm anti-American." He himself was born and raised in America, a country which, for all its problems, is still a land where the Catholic faith is practiced to a degree no longer known in the European countries he and his sort revere. I've heard some of this same crowd, who have been untiring in their declaration that Pope John Paul II has been a disaster for the Church, now talking of the Holy Father as a prophet because the pontiff has set himself against America in the cause of war on Iraq.

"I am in no way a "my country, right or wrong" man, but neither do I understand irrational hatred of this country, one's native land, and its institutions as a virtue, particularly a conservative virtue. And Jew-hatred is a sin and a disgrace. National Review has acted in the past to rescue conservatism from this lot, and has done so again."

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_03_16_corner-archive.asp#005175

Ramesh Ponnoru at 3:24 PM on 3/19/03:
"David’s essay on the paleos is not only an important act of moral, intellectual, and political hygiene. It’s also, as essays go, a rollicking good time. It’s both heated and funny."

http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_03_16_corner-archive.asp#005178

---

This type of stuff has CLEARLY gone outside thebounds of civil discourse. If anything, it is rude and destructive. All told, the neo-conservative view that the paleos ARE nefarious and destructive seems to have a lot of evidence to back it up.

Particularly when Mr. Frum receives e-mails like this:

“Mr. Frum,

“I have on my desk at work a copy of the very first issue of The National Review. The National Review that you write for today has as much in common with that original edition as a horse has with a horsefly.

“You are not a ‘conservative’ nor are you an ‘American’ as you describe yourself.

“You are a jew. First, last always.

“You have been identified and people are no longer afraid to name the jew and to point out the irrefutable pattern of obfuscation, denial, silence and attacks used in the past to keep Americans from identifying jews as the problem with America. The ability to contain that absolute truth of nature- not rhetoric- has slipped past you while you pontificated about what America is. You wouldn't know, because it was a creation of White men, not jews. A stranger can tell me nothing about my own child and so the jew has nothing to offer me in describing my own nation.

“Jew.

“Enemy of the White Western Man that created our culture and our
civilization. The polio vaccine is not enough to undo the damage caused by the Jew and as a far brighter man than you once observed about you and yours-‘Quickly he turns the attacker's charges back on him, and the attacker becomes the liar, the troublemaker, the terrorist. Same exact enemy. How to respond? Nothing could be more mistaken than to defend oneself. That is just what the Jew wants. He can invent a new lie every day for the enemy to respond to, and the result is that the enemy spends so much time defending himself that he has no time to do what the Jew really fears: to attack.’

“It is time to step up to the plate and men, good men, intelligent and deeply patriotic men are doing just that.

“I served my country in combat and so did my father and his father before him, for our people, not for yours- I don't fear conflict like the Fleishers, Perles, Wolfowitzes, Kissingers, Feiths, Abrams and Frums- I relish it.What unit did you serve in, chickenhawk?

“No one cares about the labels anymore, no one cares about the smears.We want our nation back, and we will have it.It doesn't belong to you and it never has. So call me what you like, for I know what you are- Jew.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary032203.asp#005586

I don't know about you, but there's a bunch of evidence to back up the claims Frum has been making. A bunch of it. I do not think I would be long for FR if I were posting such repulsive and bigoted statement in ANY other context than as quotes. I'd probably be banned.

Frum also raises a valid point: It seems Novak can dish out criticism, but he can't TAKE it.

That he may. It also appears that Frum and some of his other allies at NR are guilty of the same. They've been unusually sensitive both in Frum's blog and on the main one in the wake of his article and the storm of criticism it has unleashed.

Sadly, this sort of thing is common place these days. I was one of several dozen if not hundreds who got a glimpse of Jonah Goldberg's much-discussed outburst in the hallway at CPAC this year. He was apparently arguing with somebody at the conference over the lewrockwell.com/nationalreview.com web hits debate for quite some time. During the part that I heard and, based on what I've read of it, many others heard, Goldberg lodged a complaint about personal attacks and name calling on him and other NR writers by the LRC crowd. That was and remains a valid point but then, barely a sentence or two later, he turned around and started referring to LRC writer Paul Gottfried with none other than his own brand of namecalling. Several accounts quoted Goldberg shouting "Gottfried is a crank," which sounds about like what I heard. Needless to say, there is a lot of whining going on.

Hmmmm...is there a "None of the above" option? :) Or a list with more selections?

Yeah, I suppose. I prefer to call it "just plain conservative"

Every Paleo I have met, and I know a few, waxes nostalgic about the white ethnic worker earning a high wage working the open hearth furnace in the heartland. To my knowledge, they have always been suspicious of free markets. A robust capitalism frightens the hell out of them, just as it enthuased Marx; both viewed it as a vehicle for social change which the former fears, and the latter celebrated. For the Paleo's, free markets are simply too culturally disruptive to their nostalgic view of a society that never really was, but is through their rose colored glasses. The German analogy is mine alone. It really effects what they want in their hearts to accomplish.

A Sam Francis Southerner? You hang out at VDare?

You have done an excellent job of standing up to the paleo-cons yourself. Indeed your comment about nominating a Buchanan is dead on target.

We have only two feasable courses of action: We can cut and run, leaving allies to their fate and hoping against hope that our craven act of appeasement will end the anger of those who seek the destruction of our freedoms, OR we can go in and deal with this cancer NOW, before it spreads any further, even though there are risks involved.

I choose the latter course of action.