Monday, August 17, 2009

Somebody start a pool:
How long before Rich Lowry gets fired?

Accusing Sarah Palin (and her supporters) of "hysteria" over health care?

Once again, as I said two weeks ago, National Review contributes more evidence for the prosecution in the continuing case of Why Rich Lowry Should Have Been Fired No Later Than 2001.

Jonah Goldberg says he doesn't want the top job -- he actually considers Lowry a friend -- but I've warned him he might not have a choice. No matter how loudly paleos and libertarians would howl in fury at Goldberg's elevation, he at least has the necessary thirst for combat against liberals, rather than engaging in a lot of snotty nancy-boy whining about the uncouth Republican rabble.

Replacing Lowry with Goldberg would produce an immediate 47% reduction in the Effete Douchebag Index at National Review. Lowry's stayed too long at the dance, and people are getting sick of NR being the official Mitt/Jeb 2012 campaign journal, repeatedly slagging Palin and the grassroots. We're in the seventh inning, the home team's down by three, the starting pitcher just walked the bases loaded, and I expect to see the manager make his way to the mound and signal to the bullpen any minute now.

More at Conservatives4Palin and Riehl World View.

33 comments:

  1. I have been reading NR since the 1970's. It has always had what many call a 'snobby' element to it; after all, it is meant to be more of a philosophical publication, concerned with 'higher' things. In other words, I always expected an elitist air to surround it. But something has seriously gone wrong since Rich Lowry has been running it. I see WFB as the father who, through relentless toil, built up the company, John O'Sullivan as the uncle who took over the day-to-day for a time while Lowry, the son was being groomed. Sadly, Lowry is the kind of son who has run many a company into the ground. Much better, as you suggest, that cousin Jonah Goldberg take the reigns before its too late.

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  2. It accuses her detractors of hysteria too.

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  3. Oh, God, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease replace Lowry. I cannot stand that prissy little dweeb. Since he took over I've about stopped my visits to NRO (except for Goldberg and VDH). His snobby attitude is nauseating.

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  4. Who actually has the power to remove Lowery? Hasn't he stacked the board by now?

    At least if Goldberg took it on we would have to debate the magazine's seriousness any more. We would know it's a joke. I've been reading NR since the late 50's. It used to be stuffy and a bit prudish as befitting a magazine commanded by an old money Catholic. Now it's just thin and juvenile.

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  5. I can't see why paleos or libs have any stake in who runs NR.

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  6. Ace has a good take on Andy McCarthy's NRO bitch-slap of the editorial (and, by inference, Lowry).

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  7. Still can't ever forget how Lowry pissed in his panties after Zell Miller's speech at the 2004 RNC, scared to death that someone actually took a Democrat to task for numerous anti-defense votes.

    Oh, and if he goes, can they take K-Lo and her pathetic schoolgirl crush of Mitt "Conservative of Convenience, not Conviction" Romney with them?

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  8. THE FOLLOWING IS FROM JONAH GOLDBERG AND IT STRIKES ME THAT HE IS NOT ONLY NO BETTER THAN LOWRY, GOLDBERG IS EVEN WORSE:

    BY JONAH GOLDBERG, AUGUST 2001:
    A Mexican suicide bomber walked into a pizza restaurant in a Santa Fe, N.M., mall this morning, killing at least 15 people, mostly children. Up to a hundred others were wounded. The bodies of two young boys who had been playing hooky from school were found in a cave outside of Phoenix. They had been beaten to death, and their bodies mutilated. Authorities are looking for Navajo separatists they believe are responsible. Militia in Tijuana, Mexico, fired rocket grenades into downtown San Diego, killing 20, wounding 50 and, once again, snarling morning traffic.
    Still, imagine if such things happened here instead of in Israel on an almost daily basis. How do you think the United States would respond?


    Indeed, the comparison is less outlandish than you might think. After all, the United States took land from American Indians. It took land from Mexicans. In a sense, "we" even took land from the British. And, no matter how you slice it, America's claim to Texas and the Southwest is certainly far less morally compelling than Israel's is to its land. When the European Jews not already living in Palestine arrived there after World War II, the area was largely empty. What is today called Jordan was the historic home of many "Palestinians." And, after all, even the most militant Muslim must concede that the Bible places the land as the historic home of the Jews. Meanwhile, when European colonists came to North America, they had no historical claim to the land whatsoever and, besides, it was occupied.

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  9. When I check out The Corner, I pretty much stop on posts by Victor Davis Hanson, Mark Steyn, Mark Levin or Goldberg.

    Pretty much anyone else there is skimmed over.

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  10. I think Paleos and libertarians gave up on the magazine years ago. I'm not a Philosophical Puritan, but I do fit comfortably in either of those camps (I prefer the term Old School Conservative), and even I gave up reading NR years ago.

    Clark,

    Because paleos and libertarians made-up the philosophy that originally made NR the success it became. Neocons didn't even exist at the time.

    IMHO (and I could be wrong), most people who consider themselves neocon, as in "new," aren't really aware that the actual movement is an extension of Wilsonian progressivism and Trotskyism.

    As far as the conservative camp goes today however, in the immortal words of Rodney King, "Can't we all get along?" At least enough to push back the Leviathan (at least a little bit).

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  11. Sorry, I think the way WFB set up the magazine one person owns all the stock, the editor in chief. There will be no defenestration of Lowry. Also, I think WFB would respond the way his last book does "Cancel your own goddam subscription."

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  12. The Republican Party has always been defined more by its choice of enemies than by any shared policies. People like Lowry, whose IFF circuits are AFU, need to be stripped of their posts at best and ignored at worst.

    PW: proelluf. Heh.

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  13. There's always....

    The American Spectator. R. Emmett Tyrrell is at the helm - and one of the finest writers alive.

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  14. Stopped reading NR years ago. Goldberg is a Neo-con and Lowry is even worse. Remember its NR that fired Coulter and hired Frum - its NR that called Robert Novak (!) unpatriotic.

    How much longer before NR labels Palin a "racist" or a "Homophobe" - or have they already done that?

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  15. Dr. Thomas HendricksMon Aug 17, 07:55:00 PM

    Jonah Goldberg ?!! Are you kidding me?

    Are you forgetting what that assclown published at NRO (and syndicated papers around the country) on July 3, only HOURS before Palin's stunning resignation announcement:

    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGE1OTE3OTFhMmZkOWE5MDQ5MmZhZTFjMzE2MjcxNTM=

    "A Letter to Sarah
    Stay home and do your job and your homework"

    How is this douchebag any different from Lowry, Parker, KLo, Frum, Brooks, Noonan, and all the other NRO bedwetting backbencher Romneybots??

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  16. Pfft. TAS is okay as long as RSM is around. I'm not so sure about the rest of the writing staff.

    Again, it's okay, certainly not what it was during the glory years of early Reagan, late Carter.

    Ramping up TAS is NO SUBSTITUTE for a blood purge of the Vichy Republicans over at NRO.

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  17. Lowry responded to Andy, and Andy responded to Lowry.

    Looks like he's feeling some heat somewhere.

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  18. National Review... isn't that the magazine my dad used to ignore when he voted...?

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  19. Is it time for a de-linking policy around the Right Blogosphere for the Corner?

    WFB knew what he said about being led by the names in the phone book vs. being led by Ivies.

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  20. Sign of the times with NRO.

    Lowry trying to dance around the ring with boxing gloves peppering Obamacare with meaningless jabs and holding once the left punches back...

    ...Meanwhile Palin has her 4oz gloves on and put Obamacare on the ground and is trying sink in a rear-naked choke.

    Lowry and the NRO is running around waiting for the judges' scorecards and Palin is looking for a tapout.

    Sorry, watched a UFC replay yesterday.

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  21. Smit-TAY!

    You can't be serial? JEB in 2012?

    They are not really considering going back into the Bush are they?

    The Bush is wild country. Sweater-vested men pose as fiscal hawks but in reality just throw tax payer money down the toilet. At every turn, they will let their enemies draft their education bills and allow Goldman Sachs tribals to run rampant with tax dollars.

    We escaped the Bush and fell into the serfdom of Obmamunism. However, the idea of returning to the Bush...

    I shudder.

    The "moderates" will kill us all.

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  22. NRO is at it's best with VDH, Sowell, Levin and Steyn.
    McCarthy gets props for taking on Lowry (a wuss in my book). I'm not going to waste my time on round two. No time to waste on anti-Palinism. I don't begrudge others preferences but I also do not condone breaking the 11th commandment either. Cursory cruises for moi.(exception if the jr high drama gets too juicy NOT to watch...

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  23. Steyn has just jumped in siding with McCarthy.

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  24. Rude Dog,

    I will never, ever vote for another goddamn Bush again. EVAH! I don't care if it's W's 43rd cousin 18 times removed. I'll write Palin's name in if another one of them is on the ballot.

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  25. Lowry has just never looked right in long pants. Put him in a nice Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, and he blends well.

    Steyn, Hanson, McCarthy, Levin, Y. Levin, Ledeen, and Geraghty are worth the click to the Corner (and whatever they've rennamed Geraghty's place), and the main page sometimes offers Sowell or Krauthammer. But remember they also gave Frum his own blog . . .

    One suspects WFB,Jr. had deeper thoughts while evacuating than Lowry's ever imagined.

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  26. I dropped my NR ODT subscription because Lowry took the magazine places it shouldn't have gone.

    I hardly ever read The Corner, unless another blogger links to a good Steyn or VDH piece.

    Goldberg is a great #2, a good wingman, but I don't think he has the stomach to battle K-Lo and the rest of the Lowry accolytes. Their whole love affair with Mitt borders on the ridiculous.

    Now, with a guy like Stacy McCain at the helm? NR might just become relevant again!

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  27. Goldberg chimes in siding with McCarthy and Steyn. I don't think those here trashing Goldberg have read his book, which McCarthy says is one of the most important books of the last 25 years.

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  28. Jonah has taken Steyn and McCarthy's side: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OGFkMjBlMzk3YWUxMWY3N2VhMDQ0M2JjZDQ3MDk4Njc=

    Chris W.: You may be right about Jonah, although he ran a good ship when he was Editor of NRO.

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  29. Dr. Thomas HendricksTue Aug 18, 04:47:00 PM

    Anonymous: Goldberg's BOOK is just fine, it's his character and his cajones I have a problem with. He was trashing Sarah Palin the same as the rest of them in a "me too" attempt to be the smartest kid in the room, then ended up with egg all over his face. Now he's backpeddling to the right as fast as he can. His book didn't get the "Death Panels" taken off the table, SHE did that with a little Facebook post. They are all pathetic wannabes, and it's no wonder that Levin rarely shows himself there anymore. You can read Styne and VDH at thier own sites. As for the rest, who gives a damn??

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  30. I don't consider Goldberg a "neocon", whatever that is supposed to mean. He never banged the drum for the Iraq War, for instance. He was professionally neutral about Lowry's dumping of Coulter, because he is a professional. He's quietly distanced himself from the execrable Frum, not so quietly distanced himself from the idiotic Dreher, although I'm sure he was instrumental in telling Dreher it was time to find another gig.
    Lowry is a clown, albeit not as buffoonish as Lopez, a sible-issue moron. I happen to think Goldberg is a brilliant no-prefix-needed conservative, always true to the cause. But I don't think he'd want the job: too much management, plus the awful fact that he would have to have a studied position on every single frigging issue, no matter how boring.
    It's a bureaucrat job, and ultimately a staff gig. Not much fun in that after you've dropped your fancy embossed card on a few bars.
    I see Jonah as more of a start-up guy, trying a new venture with some libertarian brethren, and a like-minded liberal like Kaus on board.

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  31. Goldberg was not trashing Palin, he was giving her advice on what to do to become a serious presidential candidate, which was his hope for her. The tone was totally different from the bloviating of Frum, Brooks, et al.

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  32. RICH LOWRY DELANDA EST!

    Linked to at:
    http://www.thecampofthesaints.com/2009.08.16_arch.html#1250896780597

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