"It Couldn't Get Any Worse"

Few statements that general are invariably false. If you can think of even a second case, Dr. Bones, please let me know at once.

At the moment what is degeneratin’ from an already low base happens to be that prestige organ of the señorito element at Wingnut City, The Weekly Standard. Before we get to the nature of this perceptible degeneration, though, allow me to indicate the probable cause:

Philip Frederick Anschutz (born 28 December 1939 in Russell, Kansas) is an American businessman. With an estimated current net worth of around $7.8 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 31st richest person in the USA. (...) He graduated from Wichita High School East in 1957, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Kansas in 1961, where he was also a brother of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. (...) A member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, he is a conservative Christian.

And there is a badness behind that badness, for listen to what the neocomrade proprietor's smelly little neoörthodoxy is like:

The EPC began as a result of prayer meetings in 1980 and 1981 by pastors and elders increasingly alienated by liberalism in the "northern" branch of Presbyterianism (the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., which merged with the Southern and border-state Presbyterian Church in the U.S. in 1983 to form the present Presbyterian Church USA).... the increasing influence of theological liberalism has led many in the mainline Presbyterian Church (or PCUSA) to seek a new denominational home. The EPC has become the refuge of choice for many of these churches in the last few years. One of the major reasons for many of these churches to align themselves with the EPC has been a shared missional vision for the 21st Century.

I betcha, Dr. Bones, that Century XIV/XX/LVII is go’n’ta let this litter of sweet puppies down rather badly. But that's their look-out. Mine is merely that it would take only a very few weeks standardized to that hymn tune to demote me from cultivated despiser of TWS to resolute ignorer. Plus of course Rupert Presslord Murdoch was, in his way, an antagonist of stature, whereas it is by way of a happy accident and silver linin' amid the encirclin' gloom that Anschutz could be (slightly forcibly) rhymed with, say, "rich klutz."

As regularly happens when news of such a transaction inside the secret or private sector leaks out, we despisers, as well as the loyal customers of the neoörgan in question, are assured that nothin’ will change just because it's now to be Big Phil of Witchita payin’ the bills (and reapin’ the vanity) rather than his presslordship from the remoter antipodes. Aunt Nitsy reports as follows:

In June, the magazine was handed from one conservative billionaire, Mr. Murdoch, to another, Philip F. Anschutz, for about $1 million, according to an executive close to Mr. Murdoch who spoke anonymously because the terms of the deal were meant to be confidential. The new ownership comes at a time when conservatism, especially the version espoused by The Standard involving American muscularity to spread freedom abroad, is not in the ascendancy. Mr. Anschutz, who made his billions in oil, real estate, railroads and telecommunications before turning to media, is more closely aligned with Christian conservatism, a thread not associated with The Standard. Staff members say Mr. Anschutz, who has visited the magazine’s Washington offices once since buying it, did not meet with the staff as a whole. He instructed the two top editors — William Kristol, who last year was also a columnist for The New York Times, and Fred Barnes — not to alter the publication’s ideological complexion. Mr. Anschutz, as is his custom, [1] declined to be interviewed. His spokesman, Jim Monaghan, said, “We have a high regard for the magazine, and a high regard for the leadership in Kristol and Barnes. We look forward to increasing circulation, increasing advertising and Web presence.”

You may have noticed at once, Dr. Bones, that Nitsy's boy takes for granted that the vanity-press neocomrades are fibbin’ about "not to alter the publication’s ideological complexion." I don't quite see why he (Mr. Tim Arango) expects the Domino Democracy™ ideoproduct in particular to be soft-pedaled. I can't, myself, think of much antecedent incongruity between DD™ and the sort of "shared missional vision for the 21st Century" likely to emanate from the wronger parts of Kansas. [2] Still, the odds are high that Mr. Arango is correct to anticipate major changes in the TWS ideoproduct line, even if he picked a dubious example. After all, that is what usually does happen: a case like Presslord Murdoch more less keepin’ his paws off the Wall Street Jingo after he bought it is exceptional.

(( Digression. Mr. Arango cannot, I presume, discuss the S*m*t*c, or call it the ‘demographical’, aspect of this transaction. In addition to bein’ frabjously braindead, poor Fred is of course a humble dhimmí. If I recall correctly from years ago, Neocomrade F. Barnes is pretty much the same brand of militant extremist dhimmí as Neocomrade Ph. Anschutz looks to be. One mustn't say ‘fundamentalist’, I guess, because the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (¡FZPIS!) does not care to be so described. But you know what I mean, sir. (Don't you?)

(( "Change and decay in all around I see"! His Kangaroostání presslordship was not like Fred and Phil at all. One of the unchosen many was their Rupert, to be sure, but at least a thoroughly this-worldly unchosen, with scarcely a ‘missional’ bone in his entire carcass. ))

Rather than muck about with neocomradely ‘ideology’ and ‘complexion’, it would be simpler to assume that Fred is in, and, correlatively, that Kristol Minor is probably on the way out.

Though it would be fun to gloss and cross-examine Mr. Arengo at length, we must postpone that pleasure to another occasion. This morning I want to adduce some evidence that the newer-than-neo rot has already set in.

Exhibit A (basically about l'obésité en Amérique)

Reductionism is the metaphysics of our intellectuals. Somehow they have convinced themselves that the most accurate way of accounting for reality is to reduce everything that happens to its physical processes: neurons dart, chemicals percolate, synapses bristle, and--presto--you've got the Sistine Chapel and the Bhagavad Gita, the Little Sisters of the Poor and the bombing of Hiroshima, Rosalyn Tureck playing the Goldberg Variations and an American consumer going limp watching an ad for a Triple Stack Baconator from Wendy's. Reductionism gives off an air of scientific rigor. With Kessler it makes his case for regulation appear more impressive and, what amounts to the same thing, more complicated than it really is.

(( Dr. David Aaron Kessler was Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under St. Bill Clinton. ))

Exhibit B (basically about the debility of the Native Mind™)

Arab and European intellectuals seem to suffer from the same intellectual vertigo: they don't grasp the central religious rationale that has guided and legitimized successful democracies, namely, the idea of a loving God who has endowed every individual with natural rights and binding obligations. Chief among these rights is the freedom to seek spiritual truth without fear of penalty or coercion. This is what we mean in the West by religious liberty--including the liberty to change one's religion. It is a central duty of the State to protect this right, without discrimination, for all its citizens. This is what we mean by equal justice under the law. "Neither pagan, nor Mahometan, nor Jew, ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth, because of his religion," wrote John Locke in A Letter Concerning Toleration "The Gospel commands no such thing . . . And the commonwealth, which embraces indifferently all men that are honest, peaceable, and industrious, requires it not." The genius of the American Founders--who drew heavily on Locke--was their ability to find within the prevailing religious tradition, Protestant Christianity, the moral and spiritual resources to anchor democratic government. Their argument about "inalienable rights" drew its strength from a belief in the transcendent source of human rights. Neither Madison nor Jefferson could conceive of a just society without protections for the rights of conscience, the crown jewel of democratic freedoms.

Both señoritos (Neocomrade A. Ferguson and Neocomrade J. Laconte, respectively) wander far from their announced topic to purvey much the same sort of rancid tripe and baloney. I do not need to explain to you, Dr. Bones, what makes it so rancid, although Master Laconte plays such an amusin’ pack of tricks on the dead that I am tempted to waste time exposing them.

But that is a secondary matter. The main thing is that one did not often encounter this particular whiff back in good Presslord Rupert's golden days. I noticed the two foul odors and the resemblance between them well before remembering that the neoörgan had changed hands.

Now I put it to you, Dr. Bones, that this detestable whiff must be the sort of whiff that Señorito de Barnes likes, but which Kristol Minor used to be able to keep in check. In short: Freddie’s in, and Billy's out.

And if that be not Change and Decay, sir, what on Gore's green earth is?

Happy days.

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[1] By no means does this quaint parochial custom pertain to Neocomrade Ph. Anschutz alone. "Declined to be interviewed" is standard operatin’ procedure in the fastnesses of the SoPS, the "secret-or-private sector." Indeed, "declined to be interviewed" is mostly why one troubled to make up that particular pet name for the Baní John Galt in the first place.


[2] "Everythin’s up to date in Kansas City / They've gone about as fur as they can go" comes to mind irresistably. Though of course that will have been Kansas City, Missouri.