Death of The Weekly Standard Signals Rebirth of the Right

By Chris Buskirk| December 17th, 2018

Neoconservatism is dead, long live American conservatism.............The Standard was a creature of a particular time and place—the 1990s, the Bush-Clinton ascendancy, and Washington, D.C.’s insular, self-referential political class. As such, it never really fit within the broad flow of historic American conservatism. It was always, and intentionally, something different.............They were always blithely unconstrained by any identifiable political philosophy other than the unwavering belief that they should run the country. They represented nothing so much as the mid-20th-century country club set that was content to see the size and scope of government expand as long as they got a piece of the action. And The Weekly Standard was there every step of the way, advocating so-called big-government conservatism at home and moral imperialism abroad..........

Get it? In their worldview, Phil Anschutz is a dilettante incapable of rising to their level. But they were plenty happy to take his money while it lasted. By all reports, Anschutz has subsidized many millions of losses at The Weekly Standard to say nothing of the embarrassment of the past few years.

Perhaps the final nail in the coffin was the revelation by Julie Kelly that Bill Kristol and his claque of NeverTrump agitators did not have simply a principled difference, but in fact had become fifth columnists financed by left-wing billionaires like Pierre Omidyar..........To Read More....