THE DESPAIR OF THE NEOCONSERVATIVES

The human capacity for self-deception and self-righteous indignation is almost unlimited. Take the case of discredited Bush speechwriter David Frum. Like the rest of the neoconservative brotherhood, Frum has made a spectacle of himself over the years, telling any tales that will serve the neoconservative cause while pretending to be "an objective observer" of the conservative movement, and sucking up mercilessly to the Republican Party. But let a Republican fall from grace, and he—and they all—are after him like jackals attacking a wounded lion.

Who are these anti-Semites? Why, the paleoconservatives, whose existence as a movement he denies. Does he contradict himself, very well then, he contradicts himself, for he contains multitudes (or, as they say back in Strom's home state, he's more full of s-t than a Christmas turkey). By the way, for the neocons who don't know American literature, that was a reference to Walt Whitman—the multitudes part, David, not the turkey.

It used to be said that an anti-Semite was anyone who won an argument with Norman Podhoretz. Frum goes farther. Now an anti-Semite is anyone who uses the term neoconservative. See, it's a codeword. (Forgive me: I can't help writing like an adolescent when I so much as think about NR's new kids on the block.) The logic is staggering. Trotskyists reinvent themselves and make up a word for their assumed identity, but we are anti-Semites if we dare use it in print. And since when is neoconservatism a Jewish movement? Virtually everyone, gentile or Jew, who writes for the Weekly Standard and National Review is a neoconservative, and so are Michael Novak, Richard John Neuhaus, and the editors of Crisis. (For the record, we have published some academic neoconservatives and admire many of their heroes like Edward Shils and Edward Banfield.) What Frum apparently means is that he regards neconservatism as some kind of Jewish conspiracy with gentile front men. Now that's anti-Semitic paranoia.

The sheer nuttiness of Frum is worth reading, if only as a reductio ad absurdum. (That's a Latin expression for neocon, David.) Bob Novak, for example, is a newcomer to conservatism, because he once supported Wendell Wilkie. I know Frum is only a poor Canadian (Next, we'll be accused of anti-Canadism), but can't he check an almanac? Wilkie was out of politics and Novak had turned conservative before Frum was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Frum insists that Irving Kristol was a conservative before 1972, but pace (translation, "peace to") my late friend Russell Kirk, whom the neocons accused (along with George Bush I and the Pope) of being anti-Semitic, Irving Kristol evolved at best into a Truman Democrat. Novak's liberalism, in other words, was slightly to the right of the godfather's conservatism.

But wait, there's more. Novak used to be a liberal because he supported civil rights. Frum says this even while declaring that support for civil rights is a sine qua non (that means, "without which not" or "something essential") of "mainstream" (i.e., neo-) conservatism. In a nasty bit of innuendo he would like us to believe that Novak, born and brought up Jewish (and later became a Catholic convert) is really an anti-Semite like all other paleoconservatives. Americans used to call this kind of broad-brushed tarring of enemies "bigotry"—and some of us still do.

You may think I making all this up in order to slur poor Frum, who has told lies about me in print on several occasions before I told him I would never give him another interview. (His response was to call me "weird" and "a failed poet"—or was it a "failed classicist"?) Read his hilarious piece (on National Review On-Line, the best internet source for unintended humor) for yourself, and you can find out what weird is.

Oh, just one more point. Frum says that someone told him that among ourselves paleoconservatives now use the term "judeocritical" instead of anti-Semitic. Another masterpiece of infantile innuendo. In thousands of hours of conversations with the so-called paleconservative leaders, I have never once heard such an expression. They desperately want to think we lie awake worrying about the brilliance of Krauthamer, the savagery of Frum, the wit of Jonah Golberg, and the devastating good looks and robust good health of John Podhoretz, but, although they may find this impossible to believe, whole weeks and months go by in which I do not so much as hear the word neoconservative, much less read the "mewling and puking" they ask us to admire.

They cannot believe this, because in their solipsistic (oh, just use a dictionary) universe, these little fellows make up their world as they go along. They have to. Lacking all knowledge of history, literature, philosophy, and science, they have to construct useful myths to inflate their imaginary significance. If they had any importance, it was during the Reagan years, when they destroyed the conservative movement. Now, they are just an echo of New Republic leftism, useful—to some extent—in continuing the destruction of the old republic and in tearing up what is left of civilization, but incapable of saying anything that leftists have not been saying for 200 years. In that sense, they really are conservative.

Finally (and this really is finally), neoconservatives don't care one bit about anti-Semitism, because they care nothing at all for Judaism. Believing Jews and brave Israelis alike would spit on these little slanderers and cowards. If they ever wake up and find something to believe in, something to love, something to risk lives and careers on, then they might be worth something either as enemies or friends. Even a gang-banger who loves his brothers and his territory is more worthy of respect—though the negrophobic neoconservatives can never find anything good to say about real black people in America. The dirty little non-secret of the neoconservatives is their paranoid hatred and fear of African Americans. Beneath their angry diatribes against Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and their denunciations of affirmative action lies the recognition that black males are men, whose virile capacity for both joy and violence intimidates them. I have heard this repeatedly from unnamed sources close to their movement.

We know what they hate (Arabs, blacks, Christians, conservatives, America down to 1970), but what do they love? Certainly not Israel, which is to them a purely abstract notion to be invoked in their struggle for wealth without work and success without talent. To neoconservatives, real Israelis, whom they are egging on to kill and die, are only pawns in their own dirty little game—and many Israelis know this.

There is a terrible struggle going on in the Middle East, and we (I only speak for us at Chronicles) would like to see both Israel and the United States survive and thrive in a world where Islamic aggression is the main enemy we face. Sensible Americans should be forging alliances based on America's strategic interests and our respect for an ally we ought to regard as a European colony in a hostile Islamic world. Using the charge of anti-Semitism to silence dissent is not only a dangerous tactic that will surely backfire by alienating more and more non-neo-conservatives, but it is also a despicable and cynical abuse of the authentic sufferings of Jewish people.

I would say "For shame," but Frum and his epicene little friends are incapable of shame or honor or courage. When the Jihad comes to North America, he'll be banging on our doors, begging us to protect him from the big bad Arabs. The sad part of it is, I'll probably let him in. I guess that makes me a Christian, which—in David Frum's eyes—makes me an anti-Semite.

Thomas Flemming has gone off the deep-end here. Bitterness has finally blinded him to reality. This article shows the resentment and hatreds at the core of many paleoconservatives, especially of the neo-confederates who have tried to hijaak conservatism. The article should be entitled, "The Despair of the Paleoconservatives"

Trent Lott is a poor politician and unworthy of respect (except to the members of his party); Strom Thurmond, whom I met several times, was an odious character throughout his career. They are not my leaders, but the leaders of David Frum's party, and any Republican employee with a spark of loyalty or decency would have treated the leaders he was helping to topple with a least a modicum of respect. But not content with attacking Lott's character and purging the GOP and the conservative movement of the "racists," namely, anyone who politely disagrees with quotas, affirmative action, forced busing, and the judicial destruction of the US Constitution, Frum now goes on to say it is time to get rid of the anti-Semites.
If there is one unifying factor among neo-cons around race, it is the desire to have a color blind society and government. Conservatives vociferously oppose affirmative action, which they, rightly, see as rascism.
Moreover, given Flemmings later obsession with Jews, he should know that Jews are among the biggest losers to affirmative action and Jewish voters oppose it.

Who are these anti-Semites? Why, the paleoconservatives, whose existence as a movement he denies.
Where has Frum ever denied the existance of paleo-cons?

It used to be said that an anti-Semite was anyone who won an argument with Norman Podhoretz.
Only by anti-Semites trying to downplay the label.

Frum goes farther. Now an anti-Semite is anyone who uses the term neoconservative.
Where did he say this? Neocon is a standard word, when speaking of Ameican politics. However, many critics will harp on the word as a way of delegitimizing neocons, and some will go further to attack the Jews who are disproportionately in this movement.

The logic is staggering. Trotskyists reinvent themselves and make up a word for their assumed identity, but we are anti-Semites if we dare use it in print. And since when is neoconservatism a Jewish movement? Virtually everyone, gentile or Jew, who writes for the Weekly Standard and National Review is a neoconservative, and so are Michael Novak, Richard John Neuhaus, and the editors of Crisis. (For the record, we have published some academic neoconservatives and admire many of their heroes like Edward Shils and Edward Banfield.) What Frum apparently means is that he regards neconservatism as some kind of Jewish conspiracy with gentile front men. Now that's anti-Semitic paranoia.

Given the episone were Flemming ande the rest of the Chronicles crowd organized a putsch in the Rockford Isntitute to expell First Thimgs, Flemming is well aware taht not all neocons are either Jewish or former communists.

I don't know any neo-con who called Kirk an anti-Semite. If he were, why would he have been involved with the Heritage Foundation.
Bob Novak is an ex-Jew who worries about Jewish influence and hates Israel. It is not a stretch to see anti-semetism here.
As for the Pope, most neocons have been supporting Popes and John Paull II and Pius from attacks by the left. (Here's a hint. Goldhagen is of Jewish decent. That doesn't make him a neocon.)

Perhaps Frum would feel more comfortable back in his own homeland, where he could make it illegal to criticize David Frum. In Canada, it is already illegal to prefer one ethnic group to another and actionable even to mention Biblical strictures against sodomy in a sermon. From the beginning, the neoconservatives (if you'll pardon the expression) have worked to eliminate all vestiges of conservative thought from the conservative movement. Now, presiding over a movement they have destroyed, the David Frums want to silence all dissent.

The famous mantle of victimhood appropriate by the bitter-cons. At any rate, The Weekly Statndard and NR, both have attacked Canadas anti-free speech laws. Either Flemming is ignorant or he is purposely lying about Frum and other neocons.

To be an NR conservative these days, you have to applaud Norman Podhoretz's Christophobic new book as a great Christmas book. Podhoretz, in his latest incarnation as biblical scholar, "proves" that Isaiah's prophecies do not apply to Jesus Christ. Season's Greetings from National Review. Will Herberg, the righteous Jew who served as NR's religion editor, must be rolling in his grave.

That is a paranoid interpretation. The fact ath NR praised a book that, among other things, viewed Isaiah in its proper context, does not presume that NR takes a position on this or that the magazine of Bill Buckley has become Jewish. (oh wait, Flemming Called NR neo-con, it isn't, thus it must be Jewish. all facts be damned!)

they ever wake up and find something to believe in, something to love, something to risk lives and careers on, then they might be worth something either as enemies or friends. Even a gang-banger who loves his brothers and his territory is more worthy of respect—though the negrophobic neoconservatives can never find anything good to say about real black people in America. The dirty little non-secret of the neoconservatives is their paranoid hatred and fear of African Americans. Beneath their angry diatribes against Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and their denunciations of affirmative action lies the recognition that black males are men, whose virile capacity for both joy and violence intimidates them. I have heard this repeatedly from unnamed sources close to their movement.
From a defender of segregation, this is hillarious!

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