Norman's Conquest
Why Rudy Giuliani loves Norman Podhoretz
By Jacob Heilbrunn
Washington Monthly
When Norman Mailer died in November, it was hard not to feel a twinge of melancholy and nostalgia for the vanished world of the New York Family of intellectuals. In the past decade, many of its most colorful members have passed away—among them Leslie Fiedler, Saul Bellow, and Seymour Martin Lipset. A surviving neoconservative remnant that includes Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb has reached its dotage but is content to see its children carry on the battles and struggles it once waged. Only one original representative of that fractious group of intellectuals remains in the fray. That is Norman Podhoretz, who, at the age of seventy-seven, has recently—and improbably—reached the height of his celebrity and notoriety.
Podhoretz was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, and he has been in the forefront of support for the Iraq War. In the late spring of 2007, he met with President George W. Bush and Karl Rove to urge Bush to bomb Iran. His son, John Podhoretz, was recently chosen to be the next editor of Commentary, the magazine that Norman himself headed for several decades. Impressive as this reach may be, however, it is Podhoretz's newest sphere of influence that has most vexed—and frightened—his detractors. He is a close confidant of leading Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.
In June, the former New York City mayor named Podhoretz a senior advisor to his campaign. It is no ceremonial post. Podhoretz speaks regularly with the candidate and trumpets their association. "As far as I can tell there is very little difference in how [Giuliani] sees the war and how I see it," Podhoretz told the New York Observer in October. And indeed there isn't much daylight between what Podhoretz has written and what Giuliani is saying on the stump. Podhoretz has judged the war in Iraq an "amazing success"; Giuliani in November declared that he "never had any doubt" about the wisdom of invading Iraq. On Iran, Podhoretz has said, "The choice before us is either bomb those nuclear facilities or let them get the bomb." Giuliani told an audience in October: "If I'm president of the United States, I guarantee you we will never find out what [Iran] will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they're not going to get nuclear weapons."
(Continued here.)
By Jacob Heilbrunn
Washington Monthly
When Norman Mailer died in November, it was hard not to feel a twinge of melancholy and nostalgia for the vanished world of the New York Family of intellectuals. In the past decade, many of its most colorful members have passed away—among them Leslie Fiedler, Saul Bellow, and Seymour Martin Lipset. A surviving neoconservative remnant that includes Irving Kristol and Gertrude Himmelfarb has reached its dotage but is content to see its children carry on the battles and struggles it once waged. Only one original representative of that fractious group of intellectuals remains in the fray. That is Norman Podhoretz, who, at the age of seventy-seven, has recently—and improbably—reached the height of his celebrity and notoriety.
Podhoretz was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, and he has been in the forefront of support for the Iraq War. In the late spring of 2007, he met with President George W. Bush and Karl Rove to urge Bush to bomb Iran. His son, John Podhoretz, was recently chosen to be the next editor of Commentary, the magazine that Norman himself headed for several decades. Impressive as this reach may be, however, it is Podhoretz's newest sphere of influence that has most vexed—and frightened—his detractors. He is a close confidant of leading Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani.
In June, the former New York City mayor named Podhoretz a senior advisor to his campaign. It is no ceremonial post. Podhoretz speaks regularly with the candidate and trumpets their association. "As far as I can tell there is very little difference in how [Giuliani] sees the war and how I see it," Podhoretz told the New York Observer in October. And indeed there isn't much daylight between what Podhoretz has written and what Giuliani is saying on the stump. Podhoretz has judged the war in Iraq an "amazing success"; Giuliani in November declared that he "never had any doubt" about the wisdom of invading Iraq. On Iran, Podhoretz has said, "The choice before us is either bomb those nuclear facilities or let them get the bomb." Giuliani told an audience in October: "If I'm president of the United States, I guarantee you we will never find out what [Iran] will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they're not going to get nuclear weapons."
(Continued here.)
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