Lincoln Memorial and the Pashas of the Right [Conservative, Inc. media sides with the Left]

National Review has always had a liberal problem. It will surprise many to learn that at least three effective spokesmen for liberalism emerged from N.R. back in the '60s, when it was firmly under William F. Buckley's leadership. Garry Wills, dominant liberal spokesman for decades; John Leonard, later editor of no less than the New York Times Book Review; and Joan Didion, a great writer of fiction whether working on novels or journalism, all had their start at N.R. I don't know how this could possibly have happened – perhaps Daddy was a friend, or they went to the right college, or belonged to the right clubs. The truth is that even in its golden age, N.R. was a collaborationist outfit.

And today? Today, that's all there is. There's a quote from an unnamed N.R. staffer asserting that the magazine couldn't back the Covington students because it might "jeopardize the status we've gained among liberals." That's what counts in 2019.

In fact, it's twice in the past two weeks that conservative media, instead of the thoughtful, measured approach required of them, immediately jumped through the hoops set up by the left and then lined up happily, dancing on their hind legs and barking for treats.

The first involved Steve King and his "white supremacy" oration. Now, don't get me wrong: King clearly revealed himself to be a jackass. At best, he's the latest in a long line of conservative pols (George H.W. Bush, Todd Akin, and Roy Moore among them) who pranced into the lair of the left-wing mass media, certain that they were pals and that they didn't have to worry about anything in speaking to them. At worst, King is a near dull-normal who blurts out whatever occurs him to him at any given moment.

This brings us, once again, to our conservative elite, who were right there beside the contenders from CNN, the NYT, and MSNBC.

* * *

The major source was, once again, National Review. The bunker on 44th Street immediately produced an uproar of a type that you'd expect from Anderson, Rachel, or Alyssa. It wasn't just one or two, either – we heard from Rich Lowry, Jay Nordlinger, and Nick Frankovich. All of them took the same stance: the Covington kids were thugs who deserved the most condign punishment – expulsion, ostracism, up to and including physical chastisement. (One lefty freak called for stuffing them in a wood-chipper, à la Fargo.)

We need to keep in mind that the Lincoln Memorial incident was designed to do three things: to cow the right, to once again slander Donald Trump as a "racist," and to enflame the public temper to a point where the left will feel justified in physically attacking opponents on sight. If those kids had done anything else but what they did, if they'd struck back, or showed the slightest trace of fear, they would have been swarmed and beaten to within an inch of their lives.

This was one of those Philip K. Dick moments where the distorting mirrors fall and you see the world, perhaps for the first time, the way it actually is – the nightmare scenario that you've always suspected, always feared, but could never be quite certain of. Yes, there are people on the far side of the mirror looking back at you. Yes, your girlfriend is a replicant. And yes, the people whom you trust to steer your political movement are working hand in glove with the other side

That has to be true of Lowry and the N.R. crowd. There's no other rational explanation. These people are media professionals, trained to analyze events, to recognize and rank them in importance and effect, to realize when they are being manipulated. They know, the same as we do, that we live in a media environment in which events are manipulated to purpose, that certain incidents are selected, massaged, and reworked to fit particular agendas. They know the Trayvon and Michael Brown mythologies. They know that every last one of the big-top campus rape stories from Duke through "Jackie" through Lena Dunham was fake. They know that almost all the campus racist sagas – the ones where somebody comes across a "noose" hanging from a tree on the quad and collapses into a coma as he mentally relives his life as a slave – are also frauds. (I say "almost" because, although I haven't heard of one of these incidents that actually proved out, I have to admit it's possible it may have happened in one case or another.) Rich, Jay, and the rest of the N.R. gang know all this. And yet they reacted as they did anyway. They saw the hoop, and they jumped through it.

The worst of these was Nick Frankovich. His title was "Covington Students May as Well Have Spit on the Cross." The title alone clearly implied that the Covington kids had attempted to crucify Phillips (also implicitly characterizing Phillips, a liar and petty crook, as Jesus Christ). The text echoed this in detail, characterizing the kids as Roman centurions (in their "Iterum Magna fac Americae" helmets). "Over the top" is not an adequate phrase for this.

And when he was proven wrong, what did he do? Abase himself? Resign? Kneel in the center of W. 44th and slice his belly? No, he did not. Several sources state that he doubled down on Twitter, insisting that he was, in fact, correct, and the Covington kids were guilty. It's impossible to check this, since a full two days – last Saturday and Sunday – were pulled from his Twitter thread.

But it's Rich Lowry's response that's most telling. Lowry pulled Frankovich's original column and, in an insouciant follow-up, effectively dusted off his hands and said, "That's it – all over with...now let's go and discuss whether the 1% should be taxed 99.25% or 99.5%."

Jay Nordlinger, usually level-headed, said much the same thing on his own Twitter thread. Even Kyle Smith, another avatar of good sense, fumbled while giving the magazine's only honest description of what had happened at the memorial and how it was distorted, only to fail by insisting that the students had been "rude" to Phillips. I confess I'm at a loss here. How the concept of "rudeness" comes into play when a man is beating a drum three inches away from your face eludes me. Perhaps Kyle will go into a further detail in the future.

Frankovich finally published an apology on the 21st, all of eighty words long and saying nothing at all about the damage he caused. The day after that, "The Editors" of N.R. finally ponied up. The first sentence will suffice: "A fuller and more complicated picture emerged. Just so."

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