Greatest Hits From the World’s Worst Political Magazine

National Review, a once-respectable magazine that has descended into the 7th level of right-wing hackery, outdoes itself this week. First, here’s a Corner (their blog) post from one Rod Dreher:

Anybody catch Scott Ritter on Aaron Brown's show tonight? Man, what a pathetic boob. He was asked straight off about his arrest having to do with being caught in an Internet sex-with-minors police sting, and he refused to talk about it. He said he was obligated by "the rule of law" to respect the court's seal in the matter, and not talk about it. Aaron Brown was ready for this, and told Ritter to cut the crap, there was no such law preventing him from discussing this. Ritter wouldn't budge, and claimed that because the case (the details of which he refused to discuss) had been dismissed, we are all obliged to think of him as innocent. He looked like a fool. We'll never hear from him again.

First off, it’s obvious Scott Ritter was set up. Spreading sex rumors about opponents is the favorite tactic of conservative hitmen. I’m sure Dreher is aware of this, which would explain that last sentence from the quote. Second, even if all this is true, so what? It has nothing to do with Ritter’s opinion about Iraq or his expertise as a weapons inspector. Even Neal Boortz acknowledged this on his radio show today.

My other story about NRO involves another Corner post and an email I sent them. Here’s the quote:

They cover the 30th anniversary of Roe by going to Buffalo and telling viewers there will be abortion opponents marching there in defense of the murder of abortionist Bernard Slepian. Thousands praying, readying to march peacefully in defense of innocent life, and a handful of lunatics get the coverage. And least Today doesn't ever promise to be "fair and balanced."

What’s so outrageous is the fact that this is exactly what they’ve been doing with the antiwar protests and the antiwar movement in general. They have had article after article portraying the antiwar movement as a bunch of loony leftists. Of course there are loony leftists in the movement, just as there are loony pro-lifers. By focusing on the left-wingers, they want to discredit the entire movement. Their rule #1 is never to answer an antiwar article by a libertarian or conservative. When these people are mentioned, it’s always a smear. Unfortunately, since their readers rarely investigate for themselves, it’s a tactic that works. What hypocrites. I emailed the woman who posted the comment to point out this hypocrisy, but got no reply. Figures.

There is good news in all of this, however. Even though National Review has been around for over 40 years and has a print magazine to backup their online magazine, lewrockwell.com still has a bigger readership. I bet that gets to them.

David Horowitz, the man who combined the demagoguery of the left with the narcissistic militarism of the right, is at it again. He’s out with yet another “advertisement” to place in college newspapers throughout the country. It’s the same old tired arguments by the same old tired people. Read it for yourself. He makes the claim, yet again, that the peace movement cannot be about peace, because once your country is attacked you only help the enemy by hindering war efforts. Oh yeah, and the antiwar movement is really just a movement to denounce America.

If you point out to these people that Iraq was not the one who attacked us, they argue that Iraq will attack us. If you point out that the radical left does not dominate the antiwar movement, and that there are plenty of voices on the right and in the military against the war, they argue that these voices are irrelevant. They never, ever, respond to articles on lewrockwell.com or antiwar.com, but every once in a while they’ll smear one of the authors on those websites, or simply denounce the website as anti-American. If you point out that a war against Iraq isn’t so much in our interest, but very much in Israel’s interest, they won’t argue with you at all. They’ll simply accuse you of anti-Semitism. The same weak, emotional arguments all the time, and they actually have the nerve to be arrogant about it – constantly portraying peace activists as knee-jerk America-haters who don’t understand the Middle East. It is Horowitz’s followers who don’t know squat about the Middle East. Horowitz knows plenty, which make his ideas all the more vile.

At least my blog doesn't suck as much as this one.