I think the pathetic phenomenon of National Review going from publishing the likes of Russell Kirk to not-yet-shaving Rich Lowry or Boy Goldberg is a manifestation of the fact that the “conservative” movement has abandoned its interest in the ideas of limited government and has become a mere appendage to the Republican Party. We see this with all the “conservative” organs, from NR to Fox News to Rush Limbaugh. And the “movement” is filled with political hacks like Lowry, Goldberg, etc. I first noticed this in the 1980s when the flagship publication of the Heritage Foundation, Policy Review, quit publishing articles by Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell and constantly featured flaky puff pieces by congressional staffers and other D.C. hangers on.

A Washingtonian who has followed the haywire neocon tantrum over my book, The Real Lincoln, informed me that some of my crudest and most apoplectic critics are graduate school dropouts who never finished school, have never written a real book of their own, or have never even published a scholarly article, but are paid quite well by propaganda mills like the Claremont Institute or the Declaration Foundation to spew the propaganda line of “The Party of Lincoln.” One Richard Ferrier, for example, apparently has a “book manuscript” on Lincoln that he copies on his own at Kinkos and tries, apparently unsuccessfully, to sell. When he began his personal attacks on me I did a Google search on him and could not find any publications anywhere but his own web site.

These are people of little talent who can be easily bought off by the neocon foundations who then use their resources to broadcast their puerile views far and wide. That’s why you don’t see any genuine scholars like Friedman or Sowell or Walter Williams hopping on the neocon bandwagon.