National Review News

Daniel Foster, National Review, And Conservatives Just Don’t Get It

11:00 pm EST April 2nd, 2010 | Conservative | 14 Comments

Clouseau, Pink Panther

National Review’s Daniel Foster posts on The Corner about Alan Colmes’ observation based on the blog entry I wrote about the lack of diversity for National Review’s symposium about black unemployment.

To recap: Foster’s response was “we don’t do quotas” and then he pointed out that Thomas Sowell regularly writes about economics for National Review. Sowell is, of course, black. Colmes responded: “Daniel Foster of National Review tweeted to Willis that they do have a black guy who writes for them named Thomas Sowell. Good that they could find one.”

And here’s Foster’s response:

Admittedly, nobody wins when conservatives feel the need to start name-dropping minorities to prove their diversity bona fides; and trying to convey sarcasm via social media is a rookie mistake. So I’ll take ownerhsip of all that. But c’mon, if you’re reading this post, you either know who (National Humanities Medal-winning economist and NRO immortal) Thomas Sowell is, or you’re Alan Colmes.

My point was that one of the preeminent economists and public intellectuals of our age — a man whose thought effortlessly transcends his color — is a philosophical anchor for NRO, and Willis is fretting that we don’t have an African-American perspective to interpret some unemployment data.

Now Foster plays a neat trick here, and while I would like to think it’s unintentional, knowing the way the right often operates — it probably isn’t. He says “Willis is fretting that we don’t have an African-American perspective to interpret some unemployment data“. (my emphasis)

Clue Putting aside the notion that I fret about anything in the National Review (admission: I don’t unless it puts faulty information out into mainstream dialogue, which happens too often), Foster omits the fact that this wasn’t a symposium just on “some unemployment data”. It was a symposium, to quote National Review, on “black unemployment”. (my emphasis)

That’s the whole reason I wrote the blog entry in the first place. It would be jarring for National Review to have a symposium on unemployment without one of the minority conservatives the right is always touting, but it was especially jarring for them to have a symposium on black unemployment with no minority voices especially because Thomas Sowell writes for them.

Now, I have little to no respect for a guy like Sowell, who lied that nobody ever advocated “trickle down”, called homosexuality a “deathstyle”, compared Obama to Hitler and Mao and said that old people would be sacrificed after health care reform’s passage. His comments are all too typical of the brand of nonsense required for blacks and other minorities to be accepted in conservative circles.

But he’s a black conservative who’s supposedly an economic expert, so you think they would have added his voice in a roundtable on an economic issue affecting minorities. But they didn’t. It’s all too typical of the conservative approach to issues affecting minorities where they would rather not hear from actual minorities lest they offer a different point of view informed by their race. The right sure didn’t like it when Condi Rice and Colin Powell indicated some level of support for affirmative action.

You don’t even have to take my (admittedly and proudly liberal) point of view on this. Robert A George, a black conservative who has written for National Review, noted on Twitter that a conversation on black economics should probably have had a black voice involved.

When it comes to issue of race, I generally expect that conservatism is never far from the very same National Review in 1964 when they wrote “For years now, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and his associates have been deliberately undermining the foundations of internal order in this country.” Sometimes they seem to grow up, but more often than not they make it patently clear that to point out for a second that life’s answers don’t all come from National Review’s standard-issue demographic is to commit heresy of the highest order. They deflect this inherent bias by claiming that liberals are demanding “quotas” or “preferences” or whatever comes up in b.s. bingo, but they can’t ever remotely make some progress on these issues.

And then they blame the minorities themselves for the overwhelming lack of minority conservatives, especially black ones. The welcome sign ain’t exactly on the front door.

Topic: National Review, Race

National Review Has “Symposium” On Black Unemployment, Apparently No Blacks Included

2:17 pm EST April 1st, 2010 | Conservative | 60 Comments

So I noticed that National Review had an online “symposium” called “Really a Racial Recession?” where they asked if “blacks in America suffering a Great Depression, suffering worse than other Americans because of undeniable employment discrimination?” National Review stated that they based the symposium on this article by AEI’s Kevin Hassett.

Kevin Hassett

Here are the “symposium” participants:

Roger Clegg of “Center For Equal Opportunity”, who has an “Affirmative Action Watch” hotline

Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute

Amity Shlaes, author of the factually incorrect “The Forgotten Man”

Samuel Staley of the Reason Foundation

Stephan Thernstrom of Harvard University

The thing is, there’s no law or rule that only black people can talk about issues affecting black people, or the same for white, latino, asian people, etc.

But considering the way the conservative movement insists that it is diverse, they couldn’t find one black person for their symposium? Not one?

Topic: National Review, Race

National Review Is Funny

9:10 am EST March 10th, 2010 | Conservative | 63 Comments

I like how they pretend that Thomas Friedman was this uber-liberal opposed to war in Iraq.

Here’s Thomas Friedman in 2003 saying we need to tell Iraq to “suck. on. this.”

Here’s the Daily Show explaining why “we won” in Iraq is still the dumbest thing ever.

Topic: Iraq, National Review, Thomas Friedman

National Review’s Mark Krikorian Honest On Conservative Hatred Of Latinos

10:29 am EST December 16th, 2009 | News | 54 Comments

I prefer when conservatives admit their hate and don’t sugarcoat things:

One of the Census Bureau’s “partners” has produced a poster urging Hispanics (illegal aliens, really) to be counted next year, just as the Holy Family went to Bethlehem to be counted:

Conservatives widely view latinos as not really Americans, and the vast majority of con talk on immigration is just the same old minority bashing we’re used to from the right. Krikorian drops the mask here for a second, showing us that they think hispanic = illegal alien.

Topic: Immigration, Latino, Mark Krikorian, National Review

Who Will Speak Up For The Poor Downtrodden Folks Who Make A Quarter Of A Million Dollars A Year?

7:02 am EST March 6th, 2009 | News | 68 Comments

National Review’s Lisa Schiffren, that’s who!
MONOPOLY MAN DIED FOR YOUR SINS

They are mostly the meritocrats who worked hard in high school and got into the better colleges and grad schools, where they studied while others partied. They pushed through grueling hours and unpleasant “up or out” policies in their twenties and thirties at top law firms, banks, hospitals, and businesses to earn salaries in the solid six figures (or low seven) today — in their peak earning years. Their work ethic is prodigious, and, as Tigerhawk points out, in their spare time they sit on the boards of most of the complex charities and arts institutions that provide aid and pay for culture in America. No group of people contribute more to their community.

Now, as John Cole noted, these poor downtrodden people with six-figure salaries (and not even the folks making $100K-$249K!) are going to be punished by the peasants in the valley. The punishment will change their tax rate from 35% to 39.6%. This piddling increase will take America back to the dark ages of the 1990s when these folks eked out an existence with… six figure salaries.

Look, I’ll give Schiffren this much credit: Usually conservatives couch their support of the wealthy not contributing their fair share in more populist terms – the usual conservative boogeyman that tells middle class Americans that they too will be taxed out of existence by the Democrats so they better vote against the slight chance a millionaire might have to pay a little more during say the gravest economic crisis the planet has faced since the Depression.

Schiffren, and the National Review is telling us we should get on our lowly knees and thank the Lord Jesus Christ himself for people who are pulling in $250K plus and who the eff do we think we are to raise their taxes a few percent to keep the country going! That’s time we should b spending kissing their alligator leather covered feet, knave!

Of course the reality is that most of the people in this tax bracket won’t even seriously notice the change in rate and as the economy improves they’ll be the first to reap the benefits of even more freaking money – and God bless them for that.

>> POOR LITTLE RICH BOY
>> There are no gimmes in Galt Golf. You have to earn it.

Topic: Economy, National Review

Jim Geraghty And The Latest In Moral Equivalence

8:13 pm EST March 5th, 2009 | News | 10 Comments

They’ll say anything to defend Leader Limbaugh. Anything.

rush limbaugh mugshot This example is National Review’s Jim Geraghty* who takes issue with characterizations of Leader Limbaugh as a pill-popping oaf. Geraghty says, wouldn’t that justify calling President Obama a “cokehead” for his previous drug use?

But here’s the difference – President Obama did this when he was a young kid. He has made it quite clear that it was a stupid thing to do. In fact, he lectured youngsters on how stupid it was.

When Rush Limbaugh was busted for his addiction to Oxycontin he was, to take a phrase from Cedric The Entertainer, a grown-ass man. A grown-ass man who had spent decades, at that point, pointing to himself as a moral better of anyone else in the world.

In Geraghty’s world of moral equivalence, the stupid actions of a youngster are just the same as the self-described leader of the Republican party.

Well, maybe he has a point.

* I’d also like to point out that this is the ad copy used to sell Jim Geraghty’s book “Voting To Kill: How 9/11 Launched The Era Of Republican Leadership”

From “security moms” to neo-Jacksonian bloggers, people across the country are confronting the post-9/11 era with white-knuckle anger and relentless determination. Voting to Kill captures this zeitgeist, showing why terrorism was the defining issue in 2002 and 2004, and will be in 2006 and 2008, as Republicans rev up instinctively hawkish Americans to vote and campaign as if their lives depend on it.

Geraghty’s book was released in September of 2006, two months before anti-war Democrats swept to control of the House and Senate, and two years and two months before an anti-war Democrat was elected to the presidency by a margin of over 10 million votes. So if you want someone with their finger on the thud-thud-thud pulse of the American people, Geraghty is clearly your man.

Topic: Drugs, Jim Geraghty, National Review, Rush Limbaugh

They Really Are That Clueless

10:52 am EST October 18th, 2008 | News | 8 Comments

National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez tries to compare a Palin rally with high attendance to the spectacular scene at Invesco… but even worse the Palin rally is being held in Indiana.

Look, I 100% agree with Sen. Obama that we shouldn’t be cocky and Dems can always find a way to lose these things. But there is a reason Obama/Biden have no rallies planned in Massachusetts or California.

UPDATE: 100,000 for Obama. In Missouri. (53%Bush, 46% Kerry in 2004)

Topic: National Review