TNR`s Preemptive Smear On TAC


[VDARE.COM comments:

We welcome our friends at The American
Conservative, although we think the day of the

treezine
is over –
and not just because

forest-loving
environmentalists
are our

objective allies

against mass immigration
.]

The snide commentary by Franklin Foer in The New
Republic
(July
22, 2002
) on The

American Conservative
magazine, scheduled for
launch in September, disappointed me deeply. Foer –
certainly better read than the average neocon who, in
the graphic phrase of
Sam
Francis
,  has “the IQ of a sea scallop” –
interviewed me over the phone for more than forty
minutes. He told me, after discussing my

monograph
on

Carl Schmitt
with surprising thoroughness,
biographical details I had not known about the sponsors
of the new conservative fortnightly, for example the
happy connection of my friend

Scott McConnell
to the Avon fortune and Taki`s

brush with the law
in 1984.

But Foer had a storyline that he would not abandon,
no matter how hard I tried to correct him: that the

American Buchananite Right
had more in common with
the leftists at the Nation than with the “real
conservatives” in the neocon camp and in the Republican
Party.

Foer implies that the Old Right has painted itself
into a leftist, anti-Semitic corner. This is not
original: As I have tried to show in the The
(British) Spectator (June
1, 2002
), there is a convention of throwing together
the non-neocon Right with the anti-Zionist Left into the
same fascist, anti-Semitic heap. Whence the ease with
which the entire neocon press, led by

Charles Krauthammer,
George Will, and

Jonah Goldberg
, rushed to equate the European
pro-Palestinian Left with the interwar European
anti-Semitic Right.

Foer`s proposed American counterpart for this
European alliance of bigots are those who rally to “the
Buchananite docket of suspicions,” critics of “Wall
Street, capitalism, Zionism, American power,” in short
“the anti-globalization left,” of which The American
Conservative
is destined to become a powerless
adjunct. Thus the magazine will supposedly come to
nought because it is not conservative. It will be a
feeble echo of the Left, trying to recycle leftist
“critiques of American internationalism” to a
non-receptive target readership on the Right.

Of course, Foer is correct that the new magazine will
have to row against the current, not enjoying the media
acceptability of neocon journalists. But his other
assertions are mistaken. The Old Right and the
isolationist Left have not become the same simply
because neither has declared for the neocons, or because
both entertain suspicions about the global democratic
crusades advocated by the New Republic and the
National Review.
On almost all social issues,
starting with

Third World immigration
,

feminism
, and

civil rights
, neoconservatives are far closer to the
Left than they are to the Old Right. The fact that
neoconservative magazines are open to leftist writers,
providing they`re OK on Israel, but are hermetically
sealed to would-be contributors from the Old – that is,
pre-neocon, Right – reveals the true positioning of the
rival camps.

Foer is also all wet on the Old Right`s being more
against capitalism than are the neocon allies of the
New Republic
. What separates the two sides
economically is certainly not that the Old Right is
calling for the larger welfare state or is itching for a
federal tyranny over commerce. On both positions, the
pro-McCain Weekly Standard and neocon
columnist
Irwin Stelzer
, who wish to get the federal
government to police corporations more closely, are well
to the left of the Buchananite Right. In fact outside of
the trade issue, Buchananites are far more critical of
the federal bureaucracy and its control of the private
sector than is most of the neocon press.

One should not mistake

global free trade
, under an ideologically-driven
American central government, with a free market economy.
Nor should one equate a

critical stance
toward the nationalist Right in
Israel with hating Jews or with trying to stir up
anti-Semitic politics in the U.S.

Although I personally do not share McConnell`s
sympathetic opinions about Palestinian intentions, it is
upsetting to see those who disagree with Marty Peretz
being tarred as anti-Semitic. Such a baseless charge
cost me a job at Catholic University of America twelve
years ago, although at the time I did not hold the
dovish views on Israel attributed to me.

But most misleading, and perhaps even mendacious, is
Foer`s description of how the “mainstream” conservatives
have

“masterfully preempted
the anti-immigration backlash Buchanan would like to
foment. Although Bush still talks about tolerance for
Muslims,
and even tried to restore

food-stamp benefits
to legal aliens, he has endorsed
a major overhaul of the border control, tougher
endorsement of student visas, and a fingerprinting
system that amounts to

racial profiling.
Similarly, pro-immigration
magazines like The Weekly Standard and

National Review
have turned racial profiling and
a tougher visa system into crusades, leaving Buchanan
and his allies little room to accuse the conservative
establishment of sacrificing American security for
political correctness and

cheap labor
.”

Curiously, this is in direct conflict with Editor
Peter Beinart`s

claim
in New Republic a few weeks earlier
that Bush, in alliance with Bill Clinton, had
masterfully etc. defeated the move to reduce
immigration.

In fact, of course, “mainstream conservatives” have
not preempted anything. They have merely called for
strong actions against those who might be associated
with Muslim terrorist groups. As far as I can determine,

John Miller
and

Ramesh Ponnuru
continue to hold sway at the
National Review
; and, except for added hardness in
attacking anti-Israeli Muslims, their views on the
broader question of immigration have not significantly
changed, as Chilton Williamson has documented. Our
president continues to support

amnesties
and

set-asides
for Hispanics; and if

Steve Sailer
,

Paul Craig Roberts
,

Michelle Malkin
, and

Sam Francis
have their facts straight, Bush has
proved to be as outreaching toward the Hispanic
immigration lobby as his Democratic predecessor –
without any reward, of course, but that`s another
matter.

In telling contrast to Foer, sometime VDARE.COM
contributor

Robert Locke
 in his weblog (July
3, 2002
),
makes an immigration reform pitch to neocons, and
specifically to Jewish neocon journalists. Locke
explains that “too much immigration may be bad for
Israel,” and that American Jews should deem themselves
fortunate to live in a Christian society that is
overwhelmingly “pro-Jewish and pro-Israel.” He observes
that it is simply not in the interest of Jews to change
this demographic and cultural situation in favor of one
more closely resembling the membership of the United
Nations.

Locke`s heart is in the right place. He understands
what are the only grounds on which one can get neocons
to move on a vital issue. God knows it will not be the
threat of Hispanic irredentism or even violent crime
(most of them live in insulated suburbs or in safe,
gentrified districts in Manhattan and Northwest
Washington)!

But Locke wrote this polemic in response to an
unabashedly

pro-immigration statement
on July 3, by neocon
author

Tamar Jacoby
, in the unabashedly pro-immigration
neocon newspaper the New York Sun. Unlike
Foer, Locke did not pretend to notice the neocons
running to preempt the immigration issue. In fact, he
was plainly shocked by their irrational attachment to
exactly the opposite course.

Foer, not having the “IQ of a sea scallop,” may have
observed the same. But not all observable truths are
professionally appropriate to communicate in print – at
least on paper. 


Paul Gottfried
is Professor of Humanities at
Elizabethtown College, PA. He is the author of

After Liberalism
and

Carl Schmitt: Politics and Theory.

August 07, 2002