Printer Friendly
The Free Library
14,792,997 articles and books
Member login
User name  
Password 
 
Join us Forgot password?

Notes & asides.


* June 29, 2004

Memo to the staff of NATIONAL REVIEW

As you may have read in the New York New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of
 Times, I will tonight step down as chief executive officer of NATIONAL REVIEW, yielding my place to Ed Capano. Rich Lowry will stay on as editor, and Dusty Rhodes will be chairman. I write this note to say how utterly confident I am in the capabilities of my successors, and I know they are grateful to all of you who have labored in our grand little vineyard, chasing down history and making it.

Ever, WFB WFB Warhammer: Fantasy Battle (game)
WFB World Fellowship of Buddhists
WFB Wells Fargo Bank
WFB William Frank Buckley (founder and editor of National Review Magazine)
WFB WorkFlow Builder
 

[The editors of NATIONAL REVIEW will comment on Mr. Buckley's retirement in the next issue, which will also include excerpts from his autobiography, Miles Gone By, published July 15.--Rich Lowry]

* WFB's introduction of David Brooks, Manhattan Institute luncheon, June 8

It was too good to be true that David Brooks would be allowed to come and go through public life without vivisection vivisection (vĭv'ĭsĕk`shən), dissection of living animals for experimental purposes. The use of the term in recent years has been expanded to include all experimentation on living animals, rather than just dissection alone. , but then that which is too good to be true doesn't happen, does it? I had the good fortune to meet today's speaker when he came to NATIONAL REVIEW as a young editor, before going off to disport dis·port  
v. dis·port·ed, dis·port·ing, dis·ports

v.intr.
To amuse oneself in a light, frolicsome manner.

v.tr.
1. To amuse (oneself) in a light, frolicsome manner.

2.
 with the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Weekly Standard. And of course a year ago he was given prime journalistic acreage, a regular column in the New York Times.

During these years he has written widely, even coining a term to describe a certain class of Americans, the Bobos. These are bourgeois Bohemians, and recorded as living in Paradise. The reviewer in USA Today called this book "a breezy, well-argued explanation for why affluent well-educated people crave Sub-Zero refrigerators." Christopher Buckley called it "an absolute sparkler spar·kler  
n.
1. One, such as a highly polished metallic surface or a virtuoso performer, that sparkles.

2. Informal A diamond.

3. A firework that burns slowly and gives off a shower of sparks.
 of a book which should establish David Brooks as the smart, fun-to-read social critic of his generation." That's nice, even if he inherited the title after an act of parricide PARRICIDE, civil law. One who murders his father; it is applied, by extension, to one who murders his mother, his brother, his sister, or his children. The crime committed by such person is also called parricide. Merl. Rep. mot Parricide; Dig. 48, 9, 1, 1. 3, 1. 4. .

And of course we are here to celebrate the book's sequel, On Paradise Drive.

Now, this book has driven some people, apparently normal, quite round the bend, for instance Michael Kinsley--though he isn't, really, normal enough to appreciate David Brooks. Kinsley began his review by remarking that Brooks has been "every liberal's favorite conservative." He explains: "This is not just because he throws us a bone of agreement every now and then. Even the most poisonous propagandist"--Kinsley cites Bill O'Reilly--"knows that trick. Brooks goes farther. In his writing and on television he actually seems reasonable. More than that, he seems cuddly." Kinsley goes on to suggest that of course this is a grave misimpression mis·im·pres·sion  
n.
A faulty or mistaken impression.
.

Well, I don't really think it is. I think David Brooks is cuddly. Twenty years TWENTY YEARS. The lapse of twenty years raises a presumption of certain facts, and after such a time, the party against whom the presumption has been raised, will be required to prove a negative to establish his rights.
     2.
 ago, just graduated, he came to NATIONAL REVIEW to work. Recalling that experience some years later, he wrote that he found the magazine "a convivial con·viv·i·al  
adj.
1. Fond of feasting, drinking, and good company; sociable. See Synonyms at social.

2. Merry; festive: a convivial atmosphere at the reunion.
 ship." It hadn't always been so, he wrote. "In the early days, apparently, NR was like a crowded valley in the Appalachians, with rifle fire from shed to shed." What happened? "We were all so wrapped up in admiration for managing editor Priscilla Buckley," he explained in his essay, "that we weren't in a mood to feud." He was too self-effacing to remark that Priscilla had found him cuddly, while the rest of us spent our time conspiring to prevent him from tossing too many bones to the liberals.

David is of course sharp as a tack, but his good nature is almost always on exhibit, and he knows that political conversation can be hard to do, if you commit the effrontery ef·front·er·y  
n. pl. ef·front·er·ies
Brazen boldness; presumptuousness.



[French effronterie, from effronté, shameless, from Old French esfronte
 of presenting a sociological vision of modern America entirely ignoring the coordinates of Marx and Freud. He is aware of the problem. He wrote recently, "I realize it's now practically illegal to have modulated views about anything related to the Bush administration"--but even so, Brooks wrote, he thought the economists who gave Bush passing grades were justified in doing so.

Indeed, a year ago he got right off that fence astride which conservatives seeking to be tolerated sit. He wrote: "Have the Democrats totally flipped their lids?" He quotes Senator Robert Byrd: "This republic is at its greatest danger in its history because of this administration." And David quoted Bill Moyers on the Bush agenda: "I think this is deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. The name of this country. The United States, now thirty-one in number, are Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, ." Bill Moyers must have meant to say, "as much destruction of the United States of America as hadn't already been done by Ronald Reagan," at whose funeral on Friday world leaders will gather to mourn the loss of the American president who discovered supply-side economics supply-side economics, economic theory that concentrates on influencing the supply of labor and goods as a path to economic health, rather than approaching the issue through such macroeconomic concerns as gross national product. .

But America destroyed isn't David Brooks's America, which he describes in his readable new book as having its problems--what else does one expect? We are a problem-solving nation, so in order to exercise our national skills, we have to begin by having problems. But David Brooks loves his country, looks its quiddities in the face, and writes with amusement and some serenity about the nearest thing there is to paradise on this planet, in a quite cuddly way, and this brings distress to much of the critical community. He has done much to reciprocate re·cip·ro·cate  
v. re·cip·ro·cat·ed, re·cip·ro·cat·ing, re·cip·ro·cates

v.tr.
1. To give or take mutually; interchange.

2. To show, feel, or give in response or return.

v.
 what his country has done for him, and his friends, I have reason to know, are always in his debt.

--WFB
COPYRIGHT 2004 National Review, Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2004, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

 Reader Opinion

Title:

Comment:



 

Article Details
Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Author:Lowry, Rich
Publication:National Review
Article Type:Column
Geographic Code:1USA
Date:Jul 26, 2004
Words:881
Previous Article:Moore and his friends.(Politics)(Michael Moore)
Next Article:Taboo: Abu Ghraib images are one thing. But 9/11? Off limits.
Topics:



Related Articles
Notes & Asides.(Column)
Notes & Asides.(Brief Article)(Column)
Notes & Asides.(Column)
Notes & Asides.(Column)
Goodbye to all that.(last word)(columnist signs off)(Column)
Notes & asides.(Column)
Notes & asides.(comments on editor and author Whittaker Chambers)
Notes & asides.(Column)
Notes & asides.(death anniversary)
150 years of keeping the faith.(HUMOR)(Column)

Terms of use | Copyright © 2010 Farlex, Inc. | Feedback | For webmasters | Submit articles