A giant of conservative journalism

Bobby writes:

During the midst of the biggest debate (the Senate immigration bill) of our age, John Podhoretz offers the most worthless, childish (he goes by the childish nickname JPod at the corner), and vapid posts I’ve seen out of a grown adult in my life (nonetheless a self-described journalist), at America’s foremost phony conservative magazine—National Review:

Fountains of Wayne … [John Podhoretz]
… is the name of my favorite pop-rock band, whose new album Traffic and Weather is almost as good as their last, the spectacular Welcome Interstate Managers. The songs they write—witty, clever, haunting, and resolutely about middle-class suburban life and its discontents—are invariably interesting even if they don’t knock you over. Adam Schlesinger, the band’s chief lyricist, is writing occasional pieces for The Onion’s AV Club (the part of The Onion that isn’t parody) about the band’s tour for Traffic and Weather. Here’s the first one. It’s hilarious (warning: there are a few dirty words). Sample:

Anyway, about a week ago, we started our first tour in several years in typically grand fashion, playing at a computer store in New York City. We had to cut down on the pyro effects for this show, due to the low ceilings. But I think it was a nice way for people to get to see us up close and check their e-mail at the same time. We played a short set which was billed as “acoustic” because at least one of us played an acoustic instrument. The after-show debauchery included intense discussions with the sales staff about the upcoming release of the Apple phone.
06/15 12:42 PM

Kevin Spacey is Done with Acting [John Podhoretz]

The two-time Oscar winner tells the Times of London, “I don’t care about my personal acting career any more. I’m done with it.” Couldn’t he have made this decision before he starred in Pay It Forward, K-Pax, The Shipping News and The Life of David Gale? Was he deliberately trying to torture us?
06/14 02:55 PM

The Best Read of the Day [John Podhoretz]
Nothing political here—just an extremely well-told tale of a journalistic con artist.
06/14 11:30 AM

JPod is a regular modern day H.L Mencken. Thank God he’s in this world to protect us the from those evil democrats and racist right-wing bigots.

LA replies:

The inexpressible harm that National Review Online does to conservatism by publishing these adolescent musings by its regular contributors is that it tells readers that this is what leading “conservatives” care about when they’re not writing about politics. Conservatism used to mean that there were larger and more enduring things in life. But NRO conveys the message that the main thing in life, outside of politics, is degraded pop entertainment. And again, there is evidently not a single person in the National Review world who has a higher or adult view of things and says that this is not appropriate content for a conservative magazine.

Also, though I have gone for long periods barely looking at NRO, it has been a center of debate on the immigration bill and has become must reading. So you go there to follow the most important debate of our time, and you find the likes of Goldberg and J. Podhoretz talking about Kevin Spacey.

Paul K. writes:

Bobby has identified one of the things I find so irksome about “The Corner”: JPod and Jonah Goldberg prattling on incessantly about the most inane, jejune topics. What galls me though is that the participants who often DO have worthwhile things to say, such as Derbyshire, Steyn, Krikorian, and others, feel they have to treat these two respectfully as peers.

You will often see Jonah Goldberg post a half-baked hypothesis on a serious topic which is quickly shot to ribbons by more informed sources, often his own off-line correspondents. Does this cause him to consider that perhaps he is not qualified to propose hypotheses on topics which he knows nothing about (i.e., virtually any serious topic)? So far, evidently not.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 18, 2007 10:42 AM | Send