Yes, it's true, The Weekly Standard decided that the best candidate to assess the ongoing progress of the Bush/McCain/Kagan surge plan was Fred Kagan's wife, Kimberly. Worse, Andrew Sullivan reports that she was on the planning team her husband put together to write the surge plan in the first place.
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All in the Family
04 Mar 2007 04:33 pm
Comments (30)
You guys see Tolliver (Creighton) play today? Dominating.
I believe Laura & Barney are ghost-writing the accompanying editorial.
This is beyond absurd. How can anyone read The Weekly Standard as an honest rag?
I emailed that connection to Sullivan a couple days ago. Glad to see he finally corrected the record, after suggesting that Kimberly Kagan wasn't a shill for anyone.
I can't believe it didn't occur to Sullivan.
Oh Wow! Fred Kagan actually got someone to marry him?! Surge takes on a whole new meaning...
"Yes, I agree with Fred that the pacification of Bagdad could be accomplished by June. Of course, that is what he said about fixing the oven."
Polls show that neoconservatism is deeply unpopular in the Jewish community, so it makes sense that the neos all have to marry each other. If the male:female ratio goes up too much, they'll have to buck their fundie partners on the gay marriage issue.
I can't believe it didn't occur to Sullivan.
Oh, I can. Being told repeatedly by bigots that you can't get married probably makes a person develop a blind spot to such things.
Nepotism is, of course, one of the defining characteristics of the neo-conservatism as a whole. The entire neo-con movement is filled with children following in their more illustrative parent’s footsteps. It’s telling that Adam Bellows (the neo-con son of Saul Bellow) wrote a book entitled In Praise of Nepotism. Has anyone ever done a chart tracing out the neo-con family tree? Just from memory, I know that William Kristol is the son of Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb. John Podhoretz is the son of Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. Elliot Abrams is the son-in-law of Podheretz/Decter, as is Sam Munson. (Podhoretz/Decter also have daughters that occasionally write for Commentary. In fact, at a guess, I’d say Commentary has published nearly a dozen writers of the line of Podhoretz/Decter). Daniel Pipes is the son of Richard Pipes. The Kagans, as Sullivan notes, are brood apart: Fred, Robert, Donald, Kimberly. Michael Novak’s daughter co-wrote a book with her old man and edited a Catholic neo-con journal. I can’t think of another intellectual movement so heavily nepotistic. On the liberal left you have Galbraith’s sons. Barbara and Jason Epstein have a daughter who occasionally writes for the New York Review. But that’s about it. Am I missing something?
When Sullivan first made the announcement about Kimberly Kagan reporting on the Iraq situation, he provided her CV, which looked okay. But I was suspicious and Googled and Wikipedia'd and checked around to see if there was a connection between her and Fred or Robert Kagan. Couldn't find a connection. So, while still suspicious, I accepted that there was no linkage.
Sullivan's blog is the only place I've learned of it (so far).
"Oh, I can."
Sully has an amazing weak spot for his estranged bed fellows even though at this point about all they agree on is a blind loyalty to Israeli interests.
In my more generous moments I imagine that he just can't really believe their mendacity. After all he got loaded with them.
But no, it is really just his natural propensity to be a major twit.
Re Kristol, mere et fis
It might be if some interest that William Kristol is a professed believer in Intelligent Design and that his mother once wrote a book critical of the theory of evolution, a subject on which she was totally ignorant.
How can we discuss nepotism among right-thinkers without mentioning the great Mother-Son pair, the Goldbergs Lucianne and Jonah?
"Nepotism is, of course, one of the defining characteristics of the neo-conservatism as a whole."
Wow, I wasn't aware it went that deep. Definitely something to note with interest.
Re Lucianne Goldberg
Anyone who thinks that Jonah is a wanker should be advised that his mother claims to have had an affair with President Truman!
Actually, there is more to the William Kristol/Gertrude Himmelfarb connection. In the early 1960s, Himmelfarb actually wrote a decent book on Darwin's ideas, their background and reception (Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution). Even in that book she gave a little too much credit to some of Darwin's "philosophical" critics. But still, a very good book. It was only later in the 1970s and 1980s when the neo-cons forged an alliance with the Fundies that Irving Kristol started making friendly comments about creationism. Now the whole clan has signed up for Intelligent Design. A real example, I think, intellectual decline rooted in opportunism.
>"Yes, I agree with Fred that the pacification of Bagdad could be accomplished by June. Of course, that is what he said about fixing the oven."
FTW.
Charlotte Allen coined the expression "minicons" to describe this web of nepotism.
Kimberly Kagan is like a bizarre female version of Victor David Hanson. Rome beat Carthage, hence we will triumph in Iraq!
It would be nice if one of those people had expertise in 20th century Islam and the Middle East, instead of classical wankery from 2000+ years ago.
Has anyone noticed the irony that these guys who have spent the last three years denouncing Joe Wilson for a non-existent working relationship with his wife now see absolutely nothing wrong with an independent assessment from....the wife of the person who concocted the plan in question? That hypocrisy, to me, is absolutely central to the offensiveness of the Weekly Standard article in question.
And where does Daryn Kagan fit into this? Or, for that matter, Samantha?
Maybe he/she could go to work for the CIA. They'd fit right in.
Remember kids, just 'cause the Old Testament condones inbreeding doesn't mean you should.
This is getting like France in June, 1940 - panic, ridiculous military quackery, the prime minister's mistress sitting in on cabinet meetings, and the high mucky-mucks getting ready to turn collaborator.
"And where does Daryn Kagan fit into this?"
Under Rush Limbaugh, somewhat uncomfortably?
Actually, I'm pretty sure she's not related. You can tell because she's in a line of work other than 'fomenting'. Also, I think she dumped Rush.
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Comments closed March 18, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Nepotism is such an ugly word. Let's call it 'traditional family values'.
Posted by Tom Hilton | March 4, 2007 4:54 PM