Poser

First issue, 1857, via Wikipedia.

OK, so one last moment of engagement with the saga of Kevin D. Williamson, because as it turns out the whole thing really was about one tweet, apparently, or Williamson's inability to give a satisfactory explanation of it to the Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg:

Specifically, the subject of one of Kevin’s most controversial tweets was also a centerpiece of a [2014] podcast discussion in which Kevin explained his views on the subject of the death penalty and abortion. The language he used in this podcast—and in my conversations with him in recent days—made it clear that the original tweet did, in fact, represent his carefully considered views. The tweet was not merely an impulsive, decontextualized, heat-of-the-moment post, as Kevin had explained it. Furthermore, the language used in the podcast was callous and violent. This runs contrary to The Atlantic’s tradition of respectful, well-reasoned debate, and to the values of our workplace.

Kevin is a gifted writer, and he has been nothing but professional in all of our interactions. But I have come to the conclusion that The Atlantic is not the best fit for his talents, and so we are parting ways.

Which was the one issue I hadn't really given a lot of attention to, interested as I was in Williamson's general tendency to dehumanize whoever he doesn't like, from African American children in East St. Louis, Illinois to the Trump voters of Hardscrabble, New York and Childwhelp, Kentucky, and the success with which he masquerades (like William F. Buckley, Jr., or Mr. Bret Stephens) as the kind of writer somebody like Jeffrey Goldberg might refer to as "gifted".

For the Record: How Many Divisions Has the National Review?

Via.

The genial Jeet Heer of what we used to call Even-The-Liberal-New-Republic is flummoxed, and he's not the only one, by the Atlantic's hiring of Kevin D. Williamson not just because he's a colossally bad, pretentious and malapropic writer (in The Atlantic of all magazines, whose founders included Emerson and Longfellow and whose first editor was James Russell Lowell, with a history of immense literary distinction down to Ta-Nehisi Coates), not just because he's unable to refrain from insulting persons of genders or skin colors other than his own—but just because who cares what Kevin D. Williamson thinks, or the brave little coterie of anti-Trump conservatives in general (including Bret Stephens recently posted from the Wall Street Journal to the New York Times, and Megan McCardle from that same Atlantic to the Washington Post a movement of less intellectual significance now than it has had for more than 60 years, a bunch of utterly discredited cranks with no ideas at all:

On the Kevin Williamson thing, leaving everything else aside, I'm just puzzled by mainstream editors elevating Never Trump conservatives, who nearly rival tankies for political irrelevance.

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) March 24, 2018

So I believe I actually have a piece of an idea: