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On the final podcast before Memorial Day, the COMMENTARY crew takes on the horror in Manchester and what it means about security, terrorism, and cultural integration. They move on to the assault perpetrated on a reporter by an out-of-control special-election candidate in Montana before concluding with the most important issue ever covered: Did Melania swat Donald’s hand away? Give a listen.
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Noah moves his chair over at 36:00.
John Podhoretz at 24:50:
“Imagine a Hispanic-Latino world that didn’t have an entire class of new-class NGO types demanding equal victimhood rights in the country along with African Americans who of course DESERVE to be treated in a slightly different way… (African Americans) are a wildly victimized population. Even 150 years after the end of slavery, they are still dealing with the consequences of the familial issues that were raised by that and other things.”
Now, only a madman or a bigot — or both — would deny that African Americans are far and away the most aggrieved minority in U.S. history. But John’s statement raises the question of how, exactly, we ought to be treating African Americans “in a slightly different way.” (Both on a personal level and as a matter of policy)
Is John making the case for Affirmative Action here? Should blacks, for example, be given slightly more preference in the job market?
Or should blacks be treated with slightly more deference in everyday conversation?
Or treated slightly differently by the courts?
John is reliably articulate and incisive — a pleasure to read and listen to — and I hope he won’t be waving away or (God forbid) ignoring these important questions. After all, he opened the door. So I hope he’ll elaborate.
Thanks so much, gents!
And the candle’s always burning.
I’ve been a Commentary fan from way back; I paid through the nose for an overseas subscription for years, and now enjoy my paperless subscription. I appreciate John’s opinion and his conservative ability to keep his head while those about him are losing theirs, etc. I’m not shy about defending him, even when I do not agree with him, especially as he writes and speaks well and goes down smoothly on re-reading.
However, John, if you do not like or approve of podcasting and of those who enjoy podcasts, why do them? (And by the way, is not the easy availability of different fonts on Ricochet just a tad…cheap?)
Podcasting has not yet taken hold here in Israel, and I’m hardly set up to evaluate the American media zeitgeist, but it looks like the format is just another example of the internet offering more individualized media. What podcasting is competing with, in this case, is radio, and that has always been somewhat ad hoc and yes, sometimes amateurish because it is even more accessible. And that’s not a bad thing.
If setting your own sound levels and recording in the broom closet with sirens in the background disturbs you, please hire a technician or stop podcasting, but don’t put down your audience, especially if it boosts your subscriptions. After all, Commentary needs some way to pay the graphic artists now that you are no longer just designing the covers with oval, rectangular, or triangular templates.
I like not knowing anything in-depth about Melania Trump. I find refreshing and kind of classy.
Regarding Podhoretz’s comment on the ineffectiveness of an immigration ban in preventing attacks like Manchester, his analysis is off by a generation. Part of the idea of an immigration ban is that if the Manchester bomber’s parents had not been allowed to immigrate, then their son would not have turned out to be a “home-grown” British terrorist.