Achtung, Tikkun

TBogg has more on the latest attempts to rework Jonah Goldberg's fan fic tome, I Married A National Socialist, into acceptable form. The newest title of the book is "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning."

As one of TBogg's commenters notes, the new title suggests Jonah's decades of research uncovered the fact that Il Duce spent a number of years as a Peace Studies Professor in Madison, Wisconsin.

I suspect the next thing to be replaced is the cover. Expect an illustration of that infamous fascist, Michael Lerner, swinging from a meat hook by his heels.

Creep With A Video Camera

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog notes that D.C. Lobbyist Rick Santorum is again exploiting his daughter for political purposes.

Thank God We Live In A Meritocracy

Commentary magazine has named its first female editor in its six decade history. (Not right away, mind you.) Congratulations, Tiffany!

We are delighted to announce that John Podhoretz has been named to succeed Neal Kozodoy in the position of COMMENTARY's Editor as of January 1, 2009.

Mr. Podhoretz will join the COMMENTARY staff this November. In the interim role of Editorial Director, he will assume particular responsibility for the development and expansion of our online editorial activities. Our blog, inaugurated less than a year ago, has become an important daily source of thought and opinion for readers around the world, and online operations will play an increasingly significant role in COMMENTARY's growth.

Mr. Podhoretz, who upon his accession in January 2009 will become the fourth Editor in COMMENTARY's six-decade history, brings long and varied experience as an editor, columnist, writer, and blogger. He has held executive positions at several publications, including the Weekly Standard, which he co-founded, Insight, and the New York Post. The author of three books about presidential politics, he is the lead political columnist of the New York Post, has served as the regular film critic of the Weekly Standard since its inception, and is a daily contributor to "The Corner," National Review’s group blog. He was a regular on CNN's "Reliable Sources" and is now a frequent on-screen contributor to the Fox News Channel. In government, he was a speechwriter to Ronald Reagan in 1988.

Mr. Podhoretz, forty-six, lives in New York with his wife and two daughters. He is the son of Norman and Midge Podhoretz.

Yes, Commentary's blog is quite impressive. So impressive that the magazine has forgotten it actually has three blogs.

But I digress. After years of being propped up by family friends Sun Myung Moon and Rupert Murdoch, our Tiff has finally struck out on her own. Leaving the nest at 46 is always big step, but we wish you only the best.

One piece of friendly advice: When you practice your formidable editing skills on such articles as "The Case For Bombing Iran," remember that a light touch works best. You're not a trained psychiatrist, and it's never too late to change the will.

The Enemy of His Enemy

I stand second to no man -- except Himmler, of course -- in my opposition to cruelty toward animals. That said, the question of whether or not Mickey Kaus blows goats is one best left to state regulators, the U.S.D.A. and the investigative unit of Cattle Fancy magazine.

I'm more disturbed -- but not surprised -- by Kaus's blowing of the white racist website VDARE.com, with which the hairless hack has found common ground in the loathing of immigrants. (Scroll down to October 13, 6:04 p.m.) That's not a one-off link, either. And Kaus recently shared the stage at the Hudson Institute with VD's intellectual midgets and fellow immigrant-haters.

Just remember, Mickey -- when push comes to shove, the VDARE folks aren't all that fond of your pale ass, either.

In addition to some of the G.O.P. Presidential Candidates (but not Alan Keyes), guests scheduled to speak at the 2007 Value Voters Summit later this week include:

Roger Hedgecock:

In 1985 he was forced from office after being convicted on one count of conspiracy and 12 counts of perjury involving improper campaign contributions. Hedgecock failed to report over $350,000 in illegal contributions from Nancy Hoover, David Dominelli, and the J. David Company. The perjury charges were later overturned due to an erroneous jury instruction taking the issue of materiality, an element in every perjury charge, from the jury's domain as well as jury misconduct. Later, in a deal with prosecutors, Hedgecock pleaded guilty to misdemeanor money-laundering. After a year on probation, the charges were dismissed (the norm in California for first time misdemeanants).

Rabbi Daniel Lapin:

The Washington Post reported on October 16, 2005, that Toward Tradition received a $25,000 donation in 2000 from online gambling company eLottery, a lobbying client of Jack Abramoff and his employer, Preston Gates Ellis, despite Lapin's professed opposition to gambling. Some or all of the money received by Lapin was then transferred to a company run by the wife of Tony Rudy, an aide to Tom DeLay who was instrumental in killing an antigambling bill that eLottery and Abramoff were lobbying against. In a follow-up article published by the Washington Post on January 9, 2006, it was alleged that Toward Tradition was the "non-profit entity" referred to in Abramoff's plea agreement in relation to a $25,000 contribution made by Magazine Publishers of America which had hired Abramoff for a campaign against the postal rate increase. In March 2006, Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy relating to the money his wife had received via Lapin.

And Tony Perkins:

Four years ago, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), America's premier white supremacist organization, the successor to the White Citizens Councils, which battled integration in the South. In 1996 Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was the campaign manager for a right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the campaign Perkins ran $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke.

Also slated to appear are convicted Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson, family man Newt Gingrich. thumb-headed playboy John Fund and anti-Semitism apologist Ben Stein.

Attendees would be well advised to leave their wallets in their hotel rooms and their children in another state.

Howie "the Putz" Kurtz spent the first segment of his CNN program this morning plugging his book, Canker Sores. To return the favor, Kurtz then ran a commercial for Time magazine in the guise of an interview:

KURTZ: Even on TV there was a lot of pundits talking about whether Giuliani or Romney had won that exchange, but again, not much on who was actually right or wrong. Mark Halperin, you mentioned the role of the new media. When you were at ABC News, you wrote something called "The Note," which was sort of an insider's guide to politics. Tomorrow you are going to debut a new Web page called "The Page" at time.com.

Tell us a little bit about that.

HALPERIN: Well, "The Page" is for people who want to know what's going on in the presidential race all the time, 24/7. We are updating it all the time. Time colleagues overseas as well. So while we sleep here on the East Coast, the site is being updated. The Web page is thepage.time.com. It has got everything, the best reporting from Time magazine but reporting from around the whole country, local papers, local television, national television, cable, all consolidated on one page.

So if you're interested any time in knowing what's going on in this race, "The Page" is where people are going to look, I think and I hope.

KURTZ: Just briefly, do you think we're drowning in information on the Internet? And are you trying to sort of organize it?

HALPERIN: Even my colleagues -- our colleagues who cover this day to day, even the campaigns, there is so much to read, there is so much good journalism being done, watching on television, listening on the radio. Our idea is to consolidate that, to aggregate it all in one place. So if you are busy and you can't read every paper or watch every TV show, "The Page" is the one place where it is all going to live all the time on one page.

Jaysus. The product placement is more subtle in a Rob Schneider movie.

Howie then went back to plugging his book.

Halperin, of course, is the former ABC News political director who proudly takes his marching orders from internet slander merchant Matt Drudge. (And yet he claimed today that he was interested in honesty. Imagine that.) Fortunately, Time doesn't have a reputation which can be tarnished.