Gonzocons Erase History - by Martin Kelly

Oh, to be a gonzocon in denial!

Has National Review online (NRO) become the National Backward Glance? Are all the rah-rah warmongers and Star Trek fans on "The Corner" beginning to feel the breath of history down the backs of their necks?

Or, to paraphrase Tolkien, is Smeagol losing his nerve? Why, ragin' Rich Lowry has actually published an editorial suggesting that America "negotiate with elements of the insurgency"!

What's that he said? "Negotiate with elements of the insurgency"? Dudes, you're neocons! Are you having some kind of group panic attack? If you negotiate with insurgents, doesn't that make you (gulp) – appeasers? Rich sure used to think so!

"Appeaser" is an ugly word, one that the gonzocons have been screaming at their enemies for the past three years like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But is this new realism a sign of blossoming intellectual maturity from the scribes of Gonzoconia, or are some of them trying to emulate their Marxist masters and re-write history?

Take David Frum, for instance. Apart from having a penchant for ridiculous man-of-action poses, Frum was the author of one of the most scurrilous of all ideological attacks on neoconservatism's opponents, entitled "Unpatriotic Conservatives," which NRO published on March 19, 2003.

What? The link's gone? Never mind, here it is, reprinted at Moonbat Central. But what makes this puzzling is that if one scrolls down to NRO's archives for March 19, 2003, "Unpatriotic Conservatives" is the only article from that day that is unavailable. One can almost imagine the webmaster standing before William F. Buckley Jr., his head hanging in shame, saying "Sorry, boss, one of our smear-jobs is missing," like Tattoo in Fantasy Island. It's also very, very strange that the one they're missing is probably the most controversial piece the Web site has ever carried.

And in case rantin' Rich Lowry ever tries to paint himself as a reasonable man, does (ahem) anyone remember that item he posted on "The Corner" on March 7, 2002? You know, the one where he said that he was hearing "lots of sentiment for nuking Mecca"? The revelation that their editor, their boy, fantasized about the mass murder of Muslims must really have sent the publishers scurrying in search of their major advertisers. Hello, Mohammed? Hello? Yes, it's Bill Buckley here. About what Rich just said about Mecca…

Man, don't you just love the smell of freshly raked muck! Or the sound of skeletons rattling in cupboards! Lowry later really had to grovel, really get his nose down in the dirt, after the firestorm of protest that erupted after his display of stupidity and crassness.

Is there anything else that might possibly be embarrassing to future career or political prospects, the product of a moment's indiscretion at the keyboard, lurking on "The Corner," archived away from public view like Mrs. Rochester? I mean, apart from John Derbyshire's fantasy about brutalizing Abu Ghraib inmates? If Derb were a comic book villain, he'd be called Volte Face.

If the removal of Frum's article is deliberate, then the editors and publishers of NRO have set out to try to deliberately mutilate and refashion the public's perception of them, what they have written, and what they have allowed to be published.

This would be both disreputable and, to use an archaic word, dishonorable in the humblest private person. But the NRO gonzos consider themselves to be Gods of the New Domain, with a proven lust for war and no conscience as to how it disrupts or terminates the lives of others, no matter where they come from.

Their stock in trade is lies, their spoor is death. As they will always remind us, Buckley kicked off National Review in 1955 with an editorial that declared its purpose was to stand "athwart history, shouting 'Stop!.'" Now they seem to be standing athwart history, shouting "Reverse!"

They are such good Communists.