Replies

The Corner from National Review Online has more comments that seem to illustrate the situation a lot more..

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

Sounds like National Review's getting ready for some clean-up work.