The Goldberg Variation

by digby

Jane had a great post up today about GOP nepotism and the inevitable decline in quality that always results from second and third generation copies.

This is exactly the kind of second-generation junk thinking being produced on the right by people like Ben Domenech, Jonah Goldberg and George W. Bush — people who vault into to highly paid, influential positions despite a complete and utter lack of talent or skill purely because of who their parents are and their willingness to say just about anything. Badly. A group who have tragically confused the wingnut welfare system for some kind of meritocracy, who think their megaphone comes as the result of skill and don’t acknowledge that both privilege and think tank underwriting are largely responsible for the opportunity to appear on the stage in the first place.

I always like the articles these pissy rich kids write about the welfare state and how it doesn’t encourage people to refine themselves and their ideas by engaging in competition. One need look no further than this article and those by people like Herbert Spencer scholar Jonah Goldberg (oh and let us not forget his work on Upton Sinclair) to see the utter hypocricy involved in this argument by those who are usually making it: nobody would pay for their crap if it wasn’t being underwritten by someone with a political agenda, and there is no need for their work to rise to anything above sub-mediocrity in order to keep getting subsidized.

It turns out that it isn’t only those of us in the fever swamps who’ve noticed. Kevin Drum excerpts a review of “The Making of the Conservative Mind” written by one of the old guard writers from the halcyon days of National Review:

Hart is clearly uneasy about the rise of the younger generation, which, under the editorship of Richard Lowry, has been generally enthusiastic about the Bush administration. “Perhaps surprisingly, none of these now prominent figures at the magazine had been known for books or even important articles on politics or political thought,” he sniffs. “Where they stood on the spectrum of conservative thought — traditionalist, individualist, libertarian, skeptical, Straussian, Burkean, Voegelinian — was completely unknown.”

I don’t think Jonah and K-Lo will want to have a beer with this guy.

.