Richard Spencer

August 06, 2008

In response to my last Taki?s Daily, Jim Antle emailed me the following:

I actually think a conservative Slate would be a good idea and in the current environment it would have to be more paleo than neo. Such a publication would be recognizably conservative in its politics and temperament, but detached, humorous, keeping some ironic distance from the ?movement,? not slavishly pro-GOP, and willing to entertain heterodox ideas. Now, I agree that given the people who are going to be running Liberty Wire, that’s not what we’re going to get?a neocon-liberal echo chamber is more likely. But that’s what I think a right-wing Slate, done well, would really look like.

We should remember the other Big Name conservatives publications launched over the past five yea?The American Interest, The American, World Affairs. All of these are high quality and worth reading, but all are definitely in the neocon orbit. (Although World Affiars does include Andrew Bacevich on its editorial board and is my favorite of the bunch.) Neocons might be intellectually bankrupt, but financially they’re still going strong. The National Interest?s shift in a more realist direction is probably an exception.

Anyway, I hope Jim?s right. Indeed, if Kuo and Bennett actually do want to open it up?not just to apolitical pieces but to ones from the alternative Right, then I promise to take back all the skeptical things I said about LibertyWire and start reading it regularly.