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08/08/2003 Archived Entry: "neocon vs. paleocon sniping"

MORE NEOCON VS. PALEOCON SNIPING: Somewhat along the lines of Izzy's post about criticism of WorldNetDaily over at LewRockwell.com, we seem to have entered into a second season of sniping between neocons and paleocons.

Over on the front page of VDARE, there are no fewer than three articles criticizing neocons. Perhaps the most noteworthy is the publication of J.P. Zmirak's remarks at an America's Future Foundation discussion of this intramural dispute. Fellow participant Ramesh Ponnuru, a National Review senior editor, was not amused. Using somewhat less inflammatory language than "Vichy-con," Peter Bradley pronounced the Beltway Right bankrupt and cataloged the issues on which it was effectively AWOL.

What does it all mean? At the risk of offending everyone in this debate, I am neither a paleocon nor a neocon. I think paleocons have a tendency to live in an unrecoverable past while neocons prefer to live in an imaginary unattainable future. In my opinion, certainly not shared by everyone at ESR, paleocons have sounder instincts on constitutionalism and immigration. Neocons are better on defense spending and trade policy. Both do a fine job of criticizing the others' excesses, although the debate has unfortunately not gone much farther beyond that. Both are bad for limited government in different ways. Much of the debate revolves more around personal grievances than substantive political disagreements, although such disagreement is real and at times substantial.

But let's face it. As I've said before, the shrill tone of the paleocon-neocon bickering occurs for a simple reason. Many paleocons are resentful of the neocons for getting all the cool jobs at respected magazines, think tanks and talking head television programs (a few of them are resentful because they once had such jobs and attribute their loss of them to neocon influence). Many neocons are fearful of the paleocons because their alternative media (LewRockwell.com, VDARE and to a much lesser extent The American Conservative) are gaining on, and in some cases surpassing, the mainstream right's outlets. The politics of National Review have been a major focus because when John O'Sullivan was editor, the magazine did a good job of keeping both paleocons and neocons on board. The current editor, Rich Lowry, appears to be less interested in doing so. If O'Sullivan were still NR's editor, VDARE, to name just one example, probably wouldn't even exist. Peter Brimelow would still be working at the magazine.

I'm not minimizing the slights that various players in this debate have received at all. Some incredibly nasty things have been written; job loss and a reduction in prestige is a legitimate source of grievance. But I do think this debate would be a lot more interesting if it centered more on the differing philosophies between the two camps. Or if people would even bother to define "neoconservative" and "paleoconservative" as something more specific than "a right-of-center person who disagrees with me."

Replies: 5 comments

As a paleo-con light, I can agree with you concerning the tone of debate between paleo and neo cons. Which is why I like American Conservative, but have a few problems with the tone and unrealistic viewpoints of some of Lew Rockwell's writers.

Posted by Pete Vere @ 08/08/2003 12:42 PM EST

Well said Jim.

Posted by Steven Martinovich @ 08/08/2003 01:14 PM EST

Too bad you're not a talking head, Jim.

Believe it or not, this kind of in-house nd of in-house sniping occurs in the home edcuation community between the secular and religious camps. It's very polarizing and causes us to lose sight of the issue that we do agree with - parental rights and protecting children.

Posted by Izzy @ 08/08/2003 01:59 PM EST

whoops. I mispelled edukashun, didn't I?

Posted by izzy @ 08/08/2003 02:00 PM EST

I disagree with a lot of what I read in the American Conservative, but I agree that its tone is different from, say, LewRockwell.com's. I think there are several reasons for this.

First, the AC crowd consists of a higher number of people with practical political experience than LRC. The only regular LRC columnists I can name off the top of my head with such experience are Congressman Ron Paul, Lew himself (he was a congressional aide) and Christoper Manion. James Ostrowski has been active in the Libertarian Party.

It's also the case that AC is produced by people who broke with the mainline right much more recently than the Rothbardians. Pat Buchanan was a major figure on the right and he was pretty much in the conservative mainstream until mid-1990s. Taki is to this day on National Review's masthead. Scott McConnell used to write for such magazines as Fortune and Commentary; he was editorial page editor of the New York Post.

Finally, LRC is pretty much an ideological/intellectual exercise, while AC clearly wants to have some political impact. This means political feasibility has to be somewhat of a consideration for the latter but not the former.

Posted by W. James Antle @ 08/08/2003 02:30 PM EST