John Podhoretz

John Podhoretz did not consult his father when Neal Kozodoy, the editor of Commentary, called him last spring and asked if he would consider succeeding him.  read more »

A couple days ago I did my most successful item, counting by serious comments: about the vanishing progressive Jewish presence in public life, from my viewpoint as an assimilating Jew. Later that day I opened my email to discover a message from a "John Podhoretz." It was titled "Look Out!"

I don't know John Podhoretz. I opened the note, and it said, "We know where you live!" That was all.

I was disturbed by the note and I emailed the guy back: "Huh? Who are you? What does this mean?"

He wrote back, "AN EVIL NEOCON JEWBOY! Let's see if you can figure it out...."

I felt pretty sure it was John Podhoretz, the New York Post columnist and a regular contributor to the National Review Online. NRO has a conservative community blog called "The Corner." John Podhoretz is often on there, and when you click on his name, you get the same email address from which the notes came to me: jpod@sprynet.com. And looking around, I saw that Podhoretz refers to himself as Jpod.

I called a few of my rabbis. One of them knows Podhoretz and said he felt sure that it was he who had emailed me. The guy has a pattern of sending weirdly antagonistic emails to people he disagrees with, sometimes accusing them of antisemitism. Another described Podhoretz's emails as "acrimonious." Later I saw that paleo-conservative Steve Sailer talks about Podhoretz's emails on his blog, saying that they show him to be a "moron."

I wanted to be sure the emails had come from Podhoretz. First thing this morning I emailed him at his Post address, jpodhoretz@gmail.com, to ask about the emails from the other address. It's 1. I haven't heard from him. I'm pissed off. I'd ask my readers what I asked "John Podhoretz." Who is he and what does this mean?

"Arianna Huffington, among others, has grown besotted with Gore's newfound 'authenticity,' and contrasts it with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton's 'triangulation' and 'phoniness.' New York magazine slapped Gore's face on the cover and dubbed him 'The Anti-Hillary.'" –THE GORE MOMENT, by John Podhoretz, The New York Post, May 26, 2006.  read more »

John Podhoretz has a lesson in national politics for American Idol's Chris Daughtry in his column today. It seems the outrage continues over Daughtry's exit this week, and Podhoretz parallels the weekly vote cycle to presidential primaries.

He writes:

If you want to understand "Idol," you need to understand American politics. And if you want to understand the workings of American politics, "Idol" isn't a bad introduction to the way political coalitions are formed and elections are won.

[snip]

This winnowing process allows the most appealing candidates to pick up steam by adding new voters to their cadre of supporters. And as they do so, the field continues to be winnowed, until finally there are only one or two candidates left standing. The single-issue candidate, the flash-in-the-pan, the guy who has one fantastic debate - they may all have their moments, but in the end, the candidate with the most broad-based appeal will usually win.

And this is what explains Chris Daughtry's stunning loss this week on "American Idol." He has a distinctive voice and distinctive appeal. The problem is that he never broadened his base very much. If you liked him from the start, you stayed with him - which is why he remained solidly among the top contenders through most of the show's run.

And, as in politics, Daughtry already has his first job offer.

—Nicole Brydson

This is the online news cycle: John Podhoretz already has a couple paragraphs up at the National Review's blog, The Corner, with his take on John Spencer's suggestion that KT is a Hillary pawn.

I assure you the Clintons don't care a whit about what's happening in the imploded New York state Republican party. I think what's going on with the McFarland candidacy is very simple: Some political-consultant folks think by putting her up and getting her press, she can raise some anti-Hillary money nationwide that they can then pocket by running a "grassroots" campaign, television ads and direct mail. Significant percentages of the expenditures will go to the consultants. Don't waste your money on this race. It's a done deal.

I've been reading the galleys of John Podhoretz's new book on Hillary Clinton, Can She Be Stopped, of which more later.

His central argument is that Hillary will win in 2008 unless conservatives take pre-emptive action now, trying to force her to choose between left and right in Senate votes and public statements. The trick, he writes, is either to push her so far left that she's unelectable, or so far right that she inspires a Howard Dean candidacy.

Podhoretz has a list of 10 strategies the Republicans should adopt now. You can buy the book for the other eight, but here are my two favorites:

Point #1: Smoke Her Out: ...This should be our cry: "We want to hear it from Hillary." On blogs and radio shows, in letters to the editor and op-eds in newspapers, and in communications with reporters, we should insist on "hearing from Hillary." .... This is one aspect of the Stop Hillary campaign where Republicans and conservatives can expect full help and support from the mainstream media. Point #10: Nominate Rudy...

The newspapers who haven't published those controversial Danish cartoons typically cite appropriateness and editorial judgement. Only a few, notably the Boston Phoenix, have added the obvious: Fear of violent retaliation is a consideration -- and not, as John Podhoretz notes, an illegitmate one, as long as you're honest about it.

New York Press, unpolished, ramshackle place that it is, proved a pretty transparent labrotory for how this happens. The publisher's statment was the usual boilerplate: "We came to the same conclusion as many other responsible newspapers and media outlets that have chosen to not run the Danish cartoons. We felt the images were not critical for the editorial content to have merit, would not hinder our readers from making an informed opinion and only served to further fan the flame of a volatile situation."

But, says former editor-in-chief Harry Siegel, that's not what he was told.

"The owner of the paper [David Unger] was talking to me about his fear that things would get blown up," he said today. "This was expressed to us directly: 'I'm not putting lives in danger. We're not getting things blown up.'"

Harry (full disclosure: he's a former colleague, and current neighbor) said he's been shocked at how this story has unrolled in the American media.

"I honestly thought on Friday that 70% of the newspapers in America would run the cartoons by Monday," he said.

"There's this whole attitude that we can't upset the armed barbarian children who will react to cartoons this way," he said, arguing that it's an insult to moderate Muslims. "New Yorkers of all people should know about rent-a-mobs."

The same under-employed reader who scans Pataki press releases has this note about John Podhoretz's defense of Judy Miller in the Post today, in which the Postie declares:

"No one contemporaneously employed by a newspaper has ever been assailed by a colleague in its pages the way Maureen Dowd assailed Miller on Saturday."  read more »

Our correspondent writes:

"I guess he's not counting Abe 'Who is this nut?' Hirschfeld. He was only the owner."

After being tossed out of their magazines, ex-editors in chief Michael Hirschorn and Kurt Andersen a  read more »

There's been a setback in the Podhoretz-ization of the New York Post .  read more »

Ex-Friends: Falling Out With Allen Ginsberg, Lionel and Diana Trilling, Lillian Hellman, Hannah Aren  read more »