Yes, the word is that Bill Kristol’s bawling, brawling neocon baby, the Weekly Standard is no more, mourned in predictably fatuous fashion by co-founder John Podhoretz, “The Murder of the Weekly Standard* and long-time contributor David Brooks, among others, for heroically refusing to swallow the Trumpian swill that is now de rigueur on the Right,1…
Search Results for: Max Boot
The Snake at the Table
A month ago, thoughtful conservative Ross Douthat wrote a column, “The Necessity of Stephen Miller”, in which he argued that if liberals want a deal on immigration, they’re going to have to allow White House dude Stephen Miller a place at the table. Yes, Ross acknowledges, El Stevo has views on immigration that are at…
The British are not coming!
Conservative “analysts” are worried, as well they should be, that the British lion is no longer willing to play up, and play the game. A week before the election, the Washington Post could already read the handwriting on the wall: “the overarching result is already clear: A stalwart U.S. ally is growing weaker, more inwardly…
The surge that wasn’t, the surge that didn’t
Max Boot’s rather un-Bootish* review of Robert Gates’ memoir, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, gives me an opportunity to take another whack at Bob, who in some ways was not that bad a SecDef. I mean, he didn’t bomb Syria or Iran. Nice guy! Still, there are things from Bob’s memoir that rub…
The Apostasy of Anne, the Sadness of Sarah
Anne Applebaum’s slapdown of John McCain, which I heartily praised here, is causing some heartburn on the Right. “There have been a number of absurd reasons given recently by self-described conservatives who are endorsing the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate in his bid for the presidency, but none are quite as unconvincing as…
Peter Watson’s The German Genius: Ist es deutsch? Ja, allzu deutsch.
Peter Watson’s massive (996 pages) study, The German Genius, is one of the most confounding books I’ve ever read, “impressive” for most of its great length, often “brilliant” in its discussion of 20th century Germany, but then lurching downhill drastically in places, descending to the level of Nazi apologetics at its worst—plus one whopping mathematical…
McConnell to Trump: “You weren’t supposed to use me! I was supposed to use you!”
WashPost reporters Josh Dawsey and Ashley Parker fill us in on what future historians will undoubtedly refer to as “the Revolt of the Bitches”—the painfully reluctant decision of Vice President Mike Pence not to fulfill President Trump’s demand that his Veep piss all over the U.S. Constitution and unilaterally declare Donald Trump effectively President for…
The Billiard Ball Causality of Francis Fukuyama, Together With Other Considerations
I have recently finished reading Francis Fukuyama’s excellent book, Identity The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, published back in 2018, trying to explain why the world isn’t behaving the way Francis and I think it ought, and not doing a bad job of it at all. I’ve written round and about Dr….
Winston Churchill, Total Homo
Yeah, you read that right. Winston Spencer Leonard Churchill, worshipped by neocons as a monumental, more than human demi-god, had an eye for the lads. Or so says Michael Bloch in his diverting 2015 opus, Closet Queens Some 20th Century British Politicians. Although there’s no good evidence that Sir Winston ever went to bed with…
The Republicans: WTF Happened to this Party?
We’re in such a mess these days, one can either bemoan that mess, or wonder how we got here. I feel a little helpless to be just bemoaning, and, as the situation changes from day to day, one is compelled to constantly update one’s bemoans, which in retrospect can begin to sound both repetitive and…