As long-time readers well know, the degeneration of National Review and its web site NRO has long been of interest to VDARE.com—not least because of the eviction of Peter Brimelow from the magazine and the four year moratorium on immigration policy discussion. That was what caused VDARE.com to start up.

Our friend and occasional contributor Tom Piatak has just shed light on another NRO peculiarity: the Crush it seems to have on Establishment Leftist Christopher Hitchens. (Hitchens and NRO Takimag.com June 15 2008.)

Surfing the web, I came across Christopher Hitchens’ review of Pat Buchanan’s most recent book. No surprise, he hates it. A considerable part of Buchanan’s argument in the book is grounded in anti-communism, and Christopher Hitchens is deaf to such arguments, to put it mildly.

What is interesting is where I found Hitchens’ review—at NRO’s Daily Web Briefing. Hitchens’ writings often pop up there. By contrast, I have never seen a column by Pat Buchanan there. Or anything written by Tom Fleming, Peter Brimelow, or Steve Sailer. Or anything appearing at Takimag, or Chronicles, or VDARE, or the American Conservative. Apparently, there is a de facto ban on including anything written by anyone to the right of NRO in the Daily Web Briefing.

VDARE.com note: links in original.

To my mind, the conclusive proof of where NR/NRO’s heart — or perhaps wallet — is, can be seen in the total abandonment of the War Against Christmas issue, which stems from a competition started there by Peter Brimelow in the mid 90s and abruptly suppressed after the purge.

This put the once devotedly Catholic as well as Conservative entity in the curious position of disdaining the most successful grass roots conservative cultural uprising in recent years, and one which it could realistically claim credit for instigating (albeit only in an institutional sense).

Not that NR hesitated to try using Christmas loyalties for a cause it really cared about. Or was paid to care about.

My own theory about the Hitchens infatuation: he is influential with the guest-list managers at fashionable NY/DC cocktail parties and dinners. The NR drones deserve their nectar, don’t they?

It’s hard work, licking the MSM’s boots.

Ask Gatekeeper Katherine Lopez why the Conservative voices Piatak cites are excluded.