In direct contravention of my wife's explicit instructions, herewith I inaugurate my first blog. Long may it prosper.

For some reason, I think I have something to say to you. You think you have something to say to me? Email me at: gideonsblogger -at- yahoo -dot- com

 
Following up to the last post, and to the ongoing discussion about the paleos.

I think I can confidently state that William F. Buckley - the fellow who threw the Birchers out of the conservative movement - would have pulled the switch on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg himself had his involvement been necessary. I dare say all the Jews at NR today would affirm that they would have done the same.

Let's make something clear: the original Jewish neo-conservatives - Irving Kristol et al - that the paleos so malign are people who defined their politics by the struggle against Communism, not the defense of Israel. (Back at that time, Israel was a Socialist country supported more strongly by France and Czechoslovakia than by America; Eisenhower's Administration tilted pro-Arab.) I needn't remind my audience, moreover, that the paleos consider Communism to have been an essentially Jewish enterprise, and while that isn't true, it is true that Communism had more "soft support" among Jews than should make us (Jews) comfortable. By that I mean that while 99.99% of Jews would never have done what the Rosenbergs did - any more than 99.99% of Brits would have done what Kim Philby did, or 99.99% of Anglo Americans would have done what Alger Hiss did - sympathy for the Rosenbergs, and disbelief in their crimes, was far more widespread. (And probably remains so.) The point being: if there was ever a group of people who had decisively proved their loyalty to America and its ideals over the prejudices of their narrow ethnic constituency, the Jewish neo-cons are that group. Interesting then that the paleos have spent so much of their energy attacking precisely this group of people, and ignoring the sorts of folks that Grover Norquist has been hanging out with.
posted by Noah at 10:32 PM