PERSON PROFILE

Norman Podhoretz

AntiWar.com
Justin Raimondo
October 16, 2000

Norman's Narcissm: Podhoretz in Love

[EXCERPT]

The narcissism of Norman Podhoretz has for years inflicted us with a seemingly endless stream of autobiographical musings that, one day, may be the subject of a psychological case study: like a hot-air balloon, his oeuvre expands inexorably and exponentially, year after year, with new tales of his triumphs, his friends, his ex- friends, his feuds, and, most of all, his own sense of self-importance

Through all his incarnations – youthful Pop Fronter and author of "Stalingrad," an ode to the USSR; sometime quasi-Trotskyist; West Side rad-libber; "Scoop" Jackson conservative Democrat; "neo"-conservative Republican – a pattern emerges, the leitmotif of Poddy's career as polemicist and professional scold, and that is his instinct for the main chance. He knew just when to jump on the latest liberal-lefty hobbyhorse – and, more important, when to jump off...

...My Love Affair With America [Podhoretz's latest book] can be read as the author's attempt to finally prove, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that he is not only a real American but the spokesman of the only true Americanism at the center of US politics, the uncompromising guardian against "anti-Americanism" on the Right as well as the Left.

If self-love, the celebration of himself and his friends and associates, is the overarching theme of the Podhoretz's autobiographical series, then the love of war is a major sub-theme, one especially noticeable in the present work...

...The career of Norman Podhoretz, one of the godfathers of neo-conservatism – the doctrine of ex-liberals who were "mugged by reality" and turned rightward – is emblematic of this whole political tendency, whose other godfather is Irving Kristol, Standard editor Bill Kristol's father. It is the ideology of the status quo, of whatever is popular or about to be popular at the time, not a body of ideas so much as a sense of political fashion. This is the real story of Norman Podhoretz and his alleged love affair with America – it is the tale of a faddist with a purpose, a man always positioning himself for maximum access to the one thing he truly wants and worships – power.

Don't Blame the Italians

They didn't forge the Niger uranium documents

Cornered by their critics, overwhelmed by massive antiwar sentiment, and pursued by the relentless Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the War Party is in full retreat, hiding behind the ramparts of an elaborate edifice of lies. The administration's defenders are shooting blindly, averring – per Norman Podhoretz – that, since "everybody" believed what the administration was claiming about Iraq's alleged WMD prior to the invasion, we're all living in the same alternate universe. In the Bizarro World of the neocons, if we all believe a lie, that makes it true. Or, rather, that makes the whole idea of truth irrelevant, and we should all "move on," as the Clintonites used to say.

Read the full report >

New York Times
June 23, 2004