Pseudoconservative Indeed…
Many were puzzling over exactly what David Brooks meant when he called his former Weekly Standard comrade and now New York Times colleague William Kristol a “pseudoconservative.” Maybe he meant that Kristol has gotten a case of the Huckafever and devoted his first Times column to (sorta) making the case for a Huckabee nomination. Many, including myself, all thought that Kristol wouldn’t be a great columnist because not only has he been embarrassingly wrong about Iraq, but he also views Democrats as always treasonous and is something of a GOP hack. But in this column he goes against much of the conservative establishment media and makes a decent case for Huckabee.
This may sound like weak-kneed groveling, but it’s certainly true that there’s some GOP reformism in Kristol. His magazine, after all, is the one that published Reihan Salam’s and Ross Douthat’s “The party of Sam’s Club” piece. Also, he (with Brooks) was the originator of “national greatness conservatism” which was the GOP reform message circa 1997. I’m still waiting for Kristol to accuse his employers of treason, but this was certainly an auspicious start for his Times gig and if he can keep on writing columns like this, maybe it won’t be such a bad hire after all. Maybe Reihan was on to something after all…
