Comments: You Don't Know Me!

Burke would, with few exceptions, have nothing but contempt for today's GOP, because they have no conception of tradition or honor, and they consequently demean the offices they hold (of course, you can guess what he'd think of Clinton). Mind you, Goldberg has likely read neither Burke nor a biography of him. Coulter takes up so much time. Hey, at least he knows how to spell it.

Posted by John Isbell at March 29, 2004 02:19 PM

Is the right full of self-hating academics?

possibly. it's certainly promoted by self-important elitist windbags.

Posted by ChrisL at March 29, 2004 02:32 PM

I knew this sounded familiar...

Otto: Apes don't read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto, they just don't understand it.

-- A Fish Called Wanda

Posted by Redshift at March 29, 2004 03:20 PM

Jesse,

What's with the Goldberg obsession amongst our crowd? He strikes me as a rather flat suburban hack who shouldn't merit our interest or consideration. I understand that his Mom has pull in the conservative circles, but that nepotism should only justify "Neil Bush is getting a SEC post?!?" guffaws from the audience. Still, I hear about this guy quite often from Alterman, you, Atrios etc. Is it because he's young? Do you think you're going to have to deal with him once he matures, and are just getting some practice in while he's still a big and slow target? Is there some animal magnetism that I just don't feel?

Posted by rooser04 at March 29, 2004 04:41 PM

What's with the Goldberg obsession amongst our crowd? He strikes me as a rather flat suburban hack who shouldn't merit our interest or consideration.

I think it's in part because Goldberg is one of the most well-known and prolific figures over at NRO. He writes a lot, and his columns/posts usually contain lots of cheap shots at liberals. So it makes sense for liberals to respond to the stuff he puts out. Sure, there are others who write comparable stuff, and maybe they don't get as much attention. But I don't think that the Lucianne connection explains the "obsession," if you want to call it that. I didn't even know that the two were related until relatively recently.

Another reason why Goldberg might draw a lot of fire is because he tries to pass himself off as "hip" and "funny." And conservatives tend to react to him that way. One 20-something Republican I know likes Jonah because he uses cultural references of the younger generation (recall the attention he got for using the "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" line from the Simpsons). Someone like, say, William F. Buckley doesn't get as much attention from people like Jesse and Ezra, because he doesn't even pretend to have a connection to their generation. He's a stuffy old coot and content to be one.

Posted by John at March 29, 2004 05:12 PM

As for what to make of Jonah's pompous claims about the deep connection between philosophy and modern conservatism, it's worth remembering that the Corner is little more than light entertainment for conservatives. It doesn't have to have any consistency; it's good enough if it makes its readers feel smug for a moment about their chosen political position. If Jonah and the gang want to post one day about how conservatives are all well-grounded in Western philosophy, and the next day about how conservatives don't go in for any of that high-falutin' book learnin', they'll do it, and none of their fans will call them on it. Besides, conservatives have been trying to have it both ways on this issue for a while--they want to claim that they're smarter and better-read than those stupid, overemotional liberals, while at the same time claiming to disdain any trace of intellectualism.

Posted by John at March 29, 2004 05:37 PM

I've been thinking a lot about Edmund Burke lately, with no reverse-nepotism (the guy is an ENGLISH Burke, which is not Us) and I come to the same conclusion as John Isbell: very, very few contemporary conservatives could be called Burkean. I'm sure they'd be jazzed to hear they were, but anybody who called them that would have no idea what they were talking about. Burkean--or Hayekian--conservatives or Republicans are very unusual in the contemporary party. Libertarians are another matter--but why some of them line up behind the Republicans is a deep mystery.

Posted by Timothy Burke at March 29, 2004 05:59 PM

Good point. That was a really stupid post. Half of family is conservative. Guess which half never reads (at all)? Guess which half not only reads but reads philosophy, the classics, you name it?

Posted by Marty Moose at March 29, 2004 09:58 PM

Jesse,
I don't know if you've read Sarah Vowell's A Partly Cloudy Patriot, but if you haven't, you'd like it. She has a funny essay about nerds and the 2000 election. In her opinion, and I have to agree with her, people who say they like Bush because he's a nice guy are flattering themselves. Bush vs. Gore was a straight up replay of the old high school jocks vs. nerds, and just like high school everyone sides with the jocks because they don't like people who are smarter than they are and aren't afraid to show it. But she says it nicer than that.

Posted by Amanda at March 30, 2004 12:31 AM

Come on, I think President Bush would be very proud to be called 'Hayekian'

"Yeah, I thought my looking-for-WMDs skit was pretty funny, too. Hayuck, Hyuck, Hyuck."

Posted by MikeN at March 30, 2004 09:19 AM
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