No, those are the reasons. That the floor leader of the U.S. Senate is a vacuous careerist is a real problem. That magazine writers are largely useless is a minor problem.

1. He’s not a legitimate intellectual.

3. He is, by all appearances, kind of a wimp both mentally and physically.

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1. No, he meets a standard definition of ‘public intellectual’. He may be less educated than others in that trade and may be superlatively bad at it, but that doesn’t make him ‘illegitimate’. It makes him a poor performer.

2a. Supposedly, he was, in essence, broke when Richard Lowry hired him to set up and run National Review Online. He’d previously had positions at AEI and in production companies which contracted with PBS. His successor had a similar background when she was hired at National Review for a different position. The two notable differences between the two were that he was hired to start something from scratch and she was promoted to run a going concern. I don’t think Miss Lopez had any connections in the world of foundation-supported publishing. It wouldn’t surprise me if landing the positions he did in the seven years prior to his hire at National Review were crucially assisted by his father being an official of a newspaper syndicate and his mother a literary agent, but unless it’s your view that every position he holds until he dies or retires is to be deemed to have been derived from nepotism, I’m not seeing how that’s relevant to his being hired at NR. While he’s not the most educated of their contributors, he does have talent in the realm of topical commentary. One thing that became evident when Heritage put the Townhall site up was that there actually weren’t that many people who could produce satisfactory newspaper columns every bloody week, and most of their contributors were meh on a good day. Goldberg actually knew how to do this.

2b. Some people work for the government and some work in the philanthropic sector. He might write better columns if he’d been employed by a business concern all these years. NB, Jack Dunphy is career government and writes well. His writing is his writing. His history is only relevant if you can attribute some recurring fallacy to that history. As for ‘creative destruction’, only a modest minority of people ever attempt to make their whole living by founding a business. At any one time, about 12% of the workforce have some self-employment income, but most of these make their real living doing something else.

3. He’s 51. It’s not unusual to be out of shape when you’re that age. Not sure what it means to be a ‘wimp mentally’, but his writing bears little resemblance to that of Conor Friedersdorf or Ross Douthat, who actually are capons.

You appear to be fixated but don’t recognize it 🙂

That said, I can’t support Goldberg’s positions on Trump. I’m not sure how he got there, though I suspect it has as much to do with the tidal wave of viciousness he experienced from Trump supporters as his corruption by the Beltway set.

People aren’t computers. We evolved to survive, not to perform logical computations. Our minds are limited and we have all sorts of emotional thumbs on the scale when we weigh our assessments.

It’s a big reason I read neo’s blog that she regularly contemplates this mystery.

That hole you’re digging is big enough for Jonah Goldberg too? It’s starting to look like the Grand Canyon. Jonah went off the rails into TDS, but stay focused sir, it’s about ideas not physical appearances? Or did he take your lunch money back in the day; you have been around for a while after all. 🙂

And while the Doughy Pantload Jonah Goldberg is inconsequential as a thinker, a writer, and a person, he’s a great example of the atrocious conservative intellectual in that:

1. He’s not a legitimate intellectual.

2. He’s a nepotism/legacy hire who has spent almost his entire life sheltered from the “creative destruction” of the market.

3. He is, by all appearances, kind of a wimp both mentally and physically.

4. He has more regard for fellow elites, even ones he supposedly profoundly disagrees with, than he does the conservative public he theoretically leads/represents.

5. He has not only learned NOTHING from the rise of Donald Trump but has actually doubled down on his every terrible instinct and attitude.

Mike

Here’s a tip: when you respond to someone without actually engaging with their argument, it doesn’t make you look grownup and smart. It makes you look like a child throwing a tantrum.

Mike

I wouldn’t blame Jonah Goldberg for your problems. He’s not consquential, never has been.

1. Our institutional set up is wretched and allows ample opportunity for obstructive veto groups to frustrate reforms.

2. The Republican Party has generally not had a secure majority in Congress. There isn’t the opportunity anymore to pick off more than a few Democratic votes. It’s quite possible for a small caucus of careerists and chronic temporizers to frustrate efforts at reform, especially if they’re in gatekeeper positions.

3. So you see these cock-ups where a Republican legislature will pas tax cuts and then the careerist caucus frustrates an effort to pass matching spending cuts. The state runs red ink and the tax cuts have to be rescinded by a subsequent legislature.

4. NB, people who acquire seniority in legislatures and who politick well in caucuses are often vacuous on policy. See AM McConnell for a fine example of the breed.

5. A great many Republican legislators are bought off by the Chamber of Commerce. Big business is not your friend. They regard politicians as fungible, they’re inveterate carve-out hunters, and their extensively educated executives will default to the faculty worldview on subjects where they don’t have much expertise.

6. The federal courts are the enemy.

Keep digging in that hole, you will reach those chickens eventually. Andy McCarthy will probably write another column about something in the future maybe you should conserve your resources for that battle, or not.

Part of my problem is that I’m not a fanboy. I don’t develop emotional attachments to public figures and don’t feel any need to defend or forgive them,

The other bit is I’ve been around long enough to notice when the same problems keep cropping up and ponder why that happens. For example, why has the conservative movement been so persistently unsuccessful at winning cultural and policy victories? The American Right has access to enormous financial resources, scads of legitimate intellectuals, a roughly equal or even greater share of public support than the Left, has won six of the last 10 Presidential elections, and has controlled one or both houses of Congress for much of the last 26 years. And what do we have to show for it?

A big reason for that conservative futility has been atrocious intellectual leadership. McCarthy is far from the worst offender in that category but that is who we’re discussing right now and it doesn’t help anyone to give him a pass. Error unacknowledged is ultimately repeated.

Mike

“…but not everyone knows that SCO *also* initially charged GP with ANOTHER major felony at the same time: 18 USC §1519 “obstruction” for destruction/concealment of records. And unlike the 5 years maximum for false statements, this can attract up to *20 years* imprisonment”

Flynn prosecuting attorney Brandon van Grack makes recurrent appearances. “GP” like Flynn is a naïf in the nest of power mad Deep State vipers.

For example, the F B I threatens GP with a serious obstruction charge, after GP buy a new cell phone and deletes his Facebook accounts, containing emails from (The still today missing) Josef Mifsud.

As George says in his interview, the FBI wanted him to wear a wire in London and meet Mifsud.

But the FBI lacks intent. GP was actually frightened into getting a new phone in order to prevent further contact by phone from a Mifsud! So, apparently, the FBI paid naïf and Boyscout GPS college buddy to offer to buy George an untraceable burner phone! The set up attempt fails because George declines.

Just like with Flynn, GP gets neglectful or absent legal advice. George does not know what’s going on, just like Flynn.

Here’s the link to UndercoverHuber’s documentary review thread:
https://twitter.com/JohnWHuber/status/1264599255366459399

Again, while Obama wanted a form of insurance policy for his Iran Deal. What his real crime went further, ithe persistent, recurrent use of the security state to protect his power. THAT can’t be exposed.

Remember, because of George W. Bush’s concessions to the Institutional State, like Senator Burr of NC, the IC failed upward after 9/11. 3,000 was the body count of failure in 2001. Yet the IC gained new funding and two additional agencies, Homeland Security and Department of National Intelligence. In addition to their old portfolio of 15 or 16 intel agencies (numbers are debated because certain ones may be secret).

After 9/11, the IC failed upward. They have 20 years invested in accumulating a cushy sinecure. Why would they suddenly let outsider Trump and his lackey Flynn come in and upset all this vast power and comfort?

Flynn planned to reduce their size and number and seriously reorganise the IC for efficiency. In other words, doing what Bush failed to do.

The question must be asked is did Obama own the IC, or was it the reverse? Legitimacy is a fragile form of human capital in popular government.

Here’s a refreshing walk down memory lane, fromFISA court Judge Rosemay Collyer through the spying on the Trump campaign from Spring of 2016 and IC “help” onwards. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/obamagate-trump-tweets-tucker-carlsons-crushing-breakdown-why-former-president-should-be