The Conservative Mind, Circa 2007

Kathryn Jean Lopez writes:

I just did a quick flip through a Simon & Schuster catalog for the fall. Mary Matalin’s Threshold imprint looks to be really taking off. How can you not be excited by the upcoming John Bolton Surrender Is Not an Option (Amen!)? She’s also got a Lynne Cheney autobiography (our next First Lady!), What’s the Matter with California?, and a book by the Duke lacrosse coach — subtitled: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case and the Lives It Shattered. One can’t help to be glad that she’s in the book business.

Allow me to torpedo my chances of signing a lucrative book deal with Threshold by suggesting that if I were placed in charge of a right-leaning imprint at a major publisher, I hope I would manage to make it something more than a clearinghouse for Cheney family memoirs, screeds by loudmouthed TV personalities, ghostwritten quickie books, anti-Malcolm Gladwell Malcom Gladwell knockoffs, and polemics by TWA Flight 800/Ron Brown conspiracy theorists.

Comments

So you're saying the Ms. Lopez's thoughts are none too deep and sort of pointless? Thanks for the newsflash.

Posted by tgb | May 22, 2007 3:30 PM

I agree that "the Ms. Lopez" is "none too deep." Perhaps tgb can help NRO deepen its "thoughts."

Posted by Aaron | May 22, 2007 3:36 PM

I don't know. The John Bolton book might be fun. However, the snobbery of your outlook is always refreshing. John Crowl Ransom it is not.

Posted by jjv | May 22, 2007 3:47 PM

if I were placed in charge of a right-leaning imprint at a major publisher

While I mostly agree, this is exactlly why you would not last as the head of a right-leaning imprint.

This crap is what sells.

Posted by Steven | May 22, 2007 4:22 PM

She’s also got a Lynne Cheney autobiography (our next First Lady!)

So which is K-Lo predicting -- 43's impeachment or resignation?

Posted by william | May 22, 2007 5:45 PM

The Corner would be profoundly better off without Lopez. She clutters it, and is annoying to boot.

Posted by Jay | May 22, 2007 5:49 PM

Well said, Ross. The reality is that if Edmund Burke or Russell Kirk could see some of the absolute rubbish being churned out by the political publishing industry today they'd be turning in their graves.

That said, it's never been entirely clear to me quite why K-Lo has managed to rise as high as she has. She rarely has much of interest to say, has overseen a distinct decline in editorial standards at NRO and her blog posts largely seem to consist of gushing sycophancy directed towards whichever figure is being lined up as Churchill-resurrected that particular week.

Still, never mind. Let the children have their toys.

Posted by Anthony C | May 22, 2007 6:20 PM

Thankfully, Ross favors a more thoughtful brand of conservatism than those that seem to capture the most public attention. For liberals who find the anti-intellectualism of popular conservatism to be among its more persistent and exasperating features, posts like this one are very much a relief.

Posted by jason | May 22, 2007 6:38 PM

"How can you not be excited by the upcoming John Bolton Surrender Is Not an Option (Amen!)?"

One of the funniest lines I've seen on the net for quite a while.

Ditto to Jason above when he says that Ross gives us some hope for an intellectual renaissance of conservatism.

Posted by mq | May 22, 2007 8:14 PM

I hope so, too, Jason and mq, but then Ross'll go and write something like that Rudy Giuliani would be super-duper tough on corruption (um, Bernie Kerik?), or that people don't like John Ashcroft just because they're biased against religious people.

Ross is definitely benefitting somewhat from the soft bigotry of the low expectations that NRO and the like have created.

Posted by the human blob | May 22, 2007 8:21 PM

If only Ross would make his views on the Church known. Motu Propio? Thoughts? Ross?

Posted by Aaron | May 22, 2007 9:14 PM

Steve Sailer has argued that it's not so much that no good right wing books are published any more, but they don't get the needed publicity from what passes for conservatives. As he puts it, *The Blank Slate* would have been hailed by the *original* neo-conservatives of the 1970's but those of the 2000's don't want to upset the religous right by praising a book based on Darwin.

Posted by David T | May 23, 2007 1:35 AM

And like every K-Lo post of more than one sentence, there's a grammatical error:
"One can’t help [but] to be glad."

Posted by JD | May 23, 2007 1:36 PM

You and that other silly poof, Andrew Sullivan, that work here are probably still afflicted with Peyronie's disease. So please STFU and leave Mary alone.

Posted by James Carville | May 23, 2007 5:51 PM

I don't think rightwing publishers intend anyone read this stuff. I figure it's just a form of wingnut welfare and makework. I imagine there are warehouses full of the stuff like at the end of Indiana Jones.

Posted by Bhh | May 23, 2007 9:29 PM

"The John Bolton book might be fun"

Only if the title were "Shaving Is Not An Option"

Posted by Jon H | May 23, 2007 9:41 PM

Lynn Cheney, our next First Lady! and Rick Santorum our next Supreme Court Justice!! Oh, my!!!

Poor, poor K-Lo

Posted by Patrick | May 24, 2007 4:12 PM

The Blank Slate? Who cares, these days? It's substantially less controversial than, say, Freakonomics.

Steve Sailer's still refighting the legendary PC wars of the 90s in his entirely postracist mind. I'm sure he recalls them quite vividly -- after all he is a movie critic.

Anyways, if we're going to talk about books consistent with historical conservatism, let's see how much promotion Glenn Greenwald's next book gets from "what passes for conservatives."

(crickets)

Posted by theo | June 20, 2007 8:14 PM

Very good site. Thank you!

Posted by steroid in baseball | July 13, 2007 11:44 PM

xefymgj bqzh eomdbusx oagld bpkluzfws xuoate nsqhaj

Posted by elwg dmzrgqy | July 28, 2007 7:58 PM

Hi, Nice Day
Please send me only one a complimentary copy of your printed catalog, to my address:
ATIF M ALI
CENTRAL POST OFFICE
P.O.BOX 11191
KHARTOUM 11111
SUDAN
Many Thanks

Posted by ATIF M ALI | September 7, 2007 3:58 AM

Check out these special offers!
checking the appropriate boxes next to each offer.

Posted by pizdecdaitenapivo | October 4, 2007 5:16 PM