If one looks at the politics of pseudo-conservatives Andrew Sullivan and Conor Friederdorf at the Daily Dish, along with their link patterns, they may be more Trotskyites than conservatives. Propped up by a Left-leaning magazine and approvingly linking to the Left more often than the Right, they are also conducting a not-so-subtle campaign to quash the most ardent and honest voices of conservatism.
Yesterday, they again partnered with the Left to launch a dishonest attack on National Review’s Andy McCarthy. Below, the aptly named Adam Serwer writes for the American Prospect. One can make what they will of Beck’s bit. A McCarthy passage Friedersdorf dishonestly casts as the same thing Beck is saying isn’t that at all. But Friedersdorf never seems to have a problem lying to push his agenda.
Once again, Adam Serwer is calling out Rich Lowry for criticizing Glenn Beck’s loony ideas even as he publishes similar stuff:
Either these guys don’t read their own magazines, or they’re perfectly comfortable printing paranoid nonsense about American liberals and Islam if it fits with their political agenda. The only real difference between Beck, Kristol, and Lowry is that the latter two let the mask slip more often.
That goes a bit too far, but it’s true that Lowry has published lots of indefensible work by Andy McCarthy. And every so often you’ll see something at NRO that makes you wonder what exactly they’re about:
Below is what McCarthy wrote that has Friedersdorf attacking him. It’s fact-based, not the thinking of some crazed conspiracy nut. Conservatives have had problems with State as far back as WWII. It’s no secret that they often tend toward accommodation, as opposed to confrontation, when it comes to America’s enemies.
Frankly, it’s despicable that an unaccomplished light-weight like Friedersdorf, propped up by the Left-leaning Atlantic, is paid to attack people like Andrew McCarthy everyday for money, while calling himself a conservative. And he doesn’t stop there. He consistently tries to drive wedges between some of the best and strongest voices on the Right and the more establishment elite.
Islamists were sent on State Department junkets and recruited to indoctrinate our agents and our armed forces in Islamic sensitivity. The State Department became transparently pro-Palestinian and pro-sharia — even helping establish sharia’s centrality to the new constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Clinton and Bush administrations regarded Islamist regimes like Saudi Arabia and Yemen as “strong allies” of the U.S. Clinton and Bush sought the holy grail of a grand deal with Iran, all the time overlooking or rationalizing the mullahs’ killing of Americans.
Yesterday, he was trying to drive a wedge between Lowry and McCarthy.
That goes a bit too far, but it’s true that Lowry has published lots of indefensible work by Andy McCarthy. And every so often you’ll see something at NRO that makes you wonder what exactly they’re about….
Last week, he was fueling division between conservative radio hosts and Lowry at NRO.
Yesterday I encouraged Rich Lowry and other conservatives to ponder the consequences of the way movement magazines treat the right’s entertainers, and suggested that on the whole staffers at institutions like National Review don’t level with their audience when it comes to assessing talk radio and cable news personalities.
He was after McCarthy as far back as August, when I pointed out how he consistently uses the same tactics against any strong voice on the Right, from Mark Steyn, to Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and beyond. Not even Libertarian Glenn Reynolds can escape his disingenuous attacks.
Andrew Sullivan’s voice stopped resonating on the Right some time ago, most now seeing him as somewhere between bizarre and simply unhinged. Friedersdorf’s voice has never resonated anywhere as, time and again, he has failed to build an audience on the Right. So, what does he do instead?
He signs on with a Left-leaning publication and attacks, attacks, attacks. What? Does this fool actually think that if he can unseat solid and serious people who advocate for conservatism so well, maybe he’ll get a call to fill the resulting gap? It’s either some foolishness like that, or he’s flat-out lying when claiming to be conservative and is little more than a Leftist using deplorable, McCarthy-ist tactics to attack the side he claims to be on.
If the Sullivans and Friedersdorfs actually had anything worth contributing to the Right today, there would be no reason to constantly attack our stronger voices and brighter stars. They can say what they want and let the marketplace determine who gets to speak for the Right, instead of a media group fond of useful idiots, one that that hires Exec VPs right out of the Obama White House.
I may not always see eye-to-eye with Rich Lowry and some at NRO. But I would hope we can all agree that both Andrew Sullivan and Conor Friederdorf are completely unqualified, and the last people in the world of punditry to determine who gets to speak for conservatism and who does not.