Commentary In American Life

9. Commentary's Children: Neoconservatism in the Twenty-First Century

9Commentary’s Children Neoconservatism in the Twenty-First Century John Ehrman C ommentary is synonymous with neoconservatism. Although neoconservatism was born in 1965, in the pages of Irving Kristol’s journal the Public Interest, it was not until editor Norman Podhoretz used Commentary in June 1970 to state his opposition to the New Left that the movement began to attract attention. Indeed, Commentary’s long-established position as a major liberal intellectual journal, Podhoretz’s flair for attracting publicity, and the stridency of the magazine ’s attacks on its opponents virtually ensured that the ideological shift would make a big splash among intellectuals . In the two decades that followed, Commentary’s influence spread well beyond the intellectual community. Two of its best-known contributors, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, served as U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations, where they became known for their strong denunciations of the Soviet Union and Third World radicalism . Moynihan went on to serve four terms as senator from New York, and several other Commentary contributors received high-level appointments in the Reagan administration . Because of its role in developing ideas and people 174 John Ehrman 175 for conservative politics, as well as its continuing criticisms of liberalism , Commentary by the early 1990s had gained a new identity as a leading intellectual journal for the American Right.1 Commentary’s influence in early-twenty-first century America remains substantial. The political climate in the United States is more conservative than when neoconservatism emerged, and many more periodicals, institutions, and politicians espouse conservative ideas than was the case in the early 1970s. However, even if Commentary is one voice among many, the War on Terrorism and the invasion of Iraq have prompted the popular media to pay a great deal of attention to neoconservatism. Much of what has been said or written is erroneous or exaggerated, but it also points to a way of measuring Commentary ’s influence. Looking at the people, institutions, and views that characterize neoconservatism today shows how they have been shaped by Commentary and how the magazine continues to affect American politics. Three Generations Neoconservatism began as a defensive reaction to the New Left’s attacks on post-1945 liberalism. The original neoconservatives—most notably Kristol and Podhoretz—were prominent figures in New York’s predominantly Jewish intellectual community. Many in the group had escaped the poverty of their youths by going to college, and as young intellectuals, they had been active in the anti-Stalinist Left of the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, they became part of the Cold War liberal consensus, strongly anticommunist and believing in the virtues of liberal democracy, regulated capitalism, and—reflecting their personal experiences—rigorous standards for higher education . In Podhoretz’s view, however, during the 1960s the New Left developed an implacable hatred toward these attributes of “bourgeois civilization . . . as well as the values traditionally associated with it (ambition, discipline, work).” In response, in June 1970 he began using Commentary to attack “almost every important aspect of the radicalism of the sixties; its political ideas, its cultural attitudes, its institutional structures, and its literary and intellectual heroes.” This view soon became known as neoconservatism, and Commentary remained 176 Commentary's Children its major intellectual platform, eventually leading the neoconservatives out of the Democratic Party—which it saw as in thrall to the party’s McGovern wing and dangerously weak on foreign policy issues —and into Ronald Reagan’s Republican coalition.2 In many respects, neoconservatism is little changed. Well into its fourth decade, it remains a small movement with only a few defining characteristics. Most neoconservatives are Jewish and are often closely related by blood or long friendships. Indeed, as its adherents are the best-known Jewish conservatives, neoconservatism might fairly be described as the conservatism of the Jews—those few Jews who become prominent on the Right almost invariably identify with it. Recalling their early struggles against fascist and communist totalitarianism, the neoconservatives continue to view external opponents of the United States as threats not simply to American interests but to civilization itself. They also remain intellectuals, not politicians, and are most comfortable as thinkers and writers who, unlike candidates for office, can express their views without reservation. Those who have served in government—with the exception of Moynihan—have done so as appointees and have developed impressive bureaucratic skills that they have...