The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Fear and Loathing at the #NRISummit: Can We Survive the Sarcasm Deficit?

Perhaps National Review‘s famed cartoonist Roman Genn can do a savage caricature of the donnybrook brawl I’ve been trying to incite for this weekend’s National Review Institute “Future of Conservatism” Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. Was it a smart career move to kick Jonah Goldberg in the knee? No, of course […]

National Review Institute Summit: Will This Controversial Event Make Headlines?

My decision yesterday to kick Jonah Goldberg in the knee promises to yield enormous dividends both ways. Goldberg has denounced my criticisms as “preening b.s.,” and he’s vowed to fire back at length later today, so I look forward to a (no doubt well-deserved) ass-chewing. Do I expect Jonah to say nice things about me? No, but […]

Jonah Goldberg, Professional Loser?

“We lost. We are losers. . . . Our operatives are incompetent and we live in a dream world.” — Rob Long of National Review, in an interview with Joe Hagan of New York magazine during a Caribbean cruise in November Has National Review, an institution founded in opposition to liberalism, become part of the […]

Jonah Goldberg Is Wrong

He has made his peace with “compassionate conservatism” with an argument that bespeaks intellectual fatigue: The evolving demographics of the country, combined with the profound changes to both the culture and the economy, demanded that the GOP change both its sales pitch and its governing philosophy. Compassionate conservatism increasingly faded from view after 9/11. Bush […]

From the Home for Elderly Bloggers: Disrespectful Young Whippersnappers! UPDATE: Ten Cents a Column Inch

Of course, I refer to Jonah Goldberg who, at the tender age of 43, is a callow parvenu — a mere stripling! a rookie! — by comparison to my superannuated 52-year-old self. Nevertheless, Goldberg is old enough to resent the pretensions of still younger punks: “It is a simple fact of science that nothing correlates […]

‘The President’s Supreme Confidence in His Intellectual Abilities …’

. . . has proven sadly mistaken.” Just kidding. That’s not how the sentence in Scott Wilson’s Washington Post column actually ends. No credentialed member of the White House press corps would ever write a sentence like that. But dishonesty as a prerequisite for membership in the White House press corps was not a subject of […]

Jonah Goldberg, in Fine Form

Worked up into a long-overdue rant: Tom Friedman — who knows a bit about Hezbollah — calls the tea partiers the “Hezbollah faction” of the GOP bent on taking the country on a “suicide mission.” All over the place, conservative Republicans are “hostage takers” and “terrorists,” “terrorists” and “traitors.” They want to “end life as […]

When I Grow Up …

. . . I want to be so cool that I get invited to be a guest on Instavision: BTW, the Weiner scandal dominated the news last week.

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