A Conference of Podhoretzes

Next summer the no-longer-so-prestigious neoconservative journal Commentary will be hosting a luxury cruise to Alaska, billed as a “Conference of Ideas.” Of the eight featured speakers on the cruise, four are members of the Podhoretz family: Commentary editor John Podhoretz, his father and predecessor Norman Podhoretz, his mother Midge Decter, and his brother in law Elliot Abrams.

A friend said that if you were on that cruise you would feel funny, as though you had intruded into the Podhoretz family’s private space.

But really, isn’t that what the neocon movement has always been—the Podhoretz family, surrounded by a series of concentric circles of retainers and followers?

And speaking of being beyond embarrassment (well, I hadn’t spoken of it, but now I am), guess what wealthy Canadian immigrant on the make is featured in the current issue of Commentary? Our man David Frum, pushing his idea that the way for American conservatives to revitalize conservatism is to imitate … the British Conservative Party under the laughably effete, pro-feminist, pro-open-borders, pro-multiculturalist, pro-Islamization liberal David Cameron.

Frum lays out the Tory Party’s steps that American conservatives ought to emulate, including changing their party symbol from a torch of liberty to a green tree, dropping opposition to tax increases, and supporting same sex marriage. He continues:

[on other issues the Tories] shifted emphasis or tone: a once-full throated enthusiasm for the Iraq war softened into grudging acceptance.

Remember that this is being published in Commentary, the Galactic Headquarters of Full Throated Enthusiasm for the Iraq War and its supporting ideology, the Bush Doctrine.

Commentary is always very much aware of its “party line.” It wouldn’t publish such an idea, unless it was moving in that direction itself.

The neocons pick up a position, support it full blast, get a president to back it, bully other people into supporting it, call other people names for opposing it, create infinite mischief and disaster in the world—and then quietly walk away from the same position when it suits their convenience.

Why should anyone take seriously anything these people say?

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An Indian living in the West writes:

David Frum’s suggestion that the Republicans imitate Cameron’s party has to be in the “you couldn’t make this up” section. I had to rub my eyes in disbelief upon seeing that.

What Frum doesn’t realise is that it is almost a foregone conclusion that if the Tories win the next election (and they may do so comfortably—so deeply disgusted the voters in Britain are with Gordon Brown and his fellow clowns), the mess that Brown has made of the British economy will be so bad that when the Tories come to power they may almost wish they hadn’t. Britain is heading for bankruptcy a bit like it did in 1976 when the IMF bailed it out. This time the IMF doesn’t have the funds and neither does America.

Cameron will almost certainly pave the way for another five years of Labour in another form and that will really seal Britain’s fate.

LA replies:

I mentioned this new line of Frum’s, about following the example of the wonderfully successful Canadian and British conservatives, a few days ago.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 28, 2009 06:43 PM | Send