The Spectator’s Resident Anti-Semite

As we have mentioned before, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” very much enjoy The Spectator, the delightful London political and cultural weekly. The Speccie, as it is affectionately called, is truly a charming publication, and thus not to be confused with The American Spectator, which is a pile of garbage that features articles by such worthies as Ted Nugent.

If you ask us, The Speccie makes for a good read; The American Spectator makes for good kindling. (Albeit not as good as The Nation, which, like a feminist’s bra, really burns well. It must be that toilet-paper it’s printed on.)

We must temper our profuse praise of The Speccie in a few respects, however. First, we should note that its recent decision to give the inimitable Mark Steyn the boot was outrageous. The film reviewer who has replaced him—Deborah Ross, we believe—isn’t nearly as witty; she seems to believe lame Limey slang like “toodle-pip” is hysterical. Note to Ms. Ross: Sorry, luv, but that isn’t going to cut it.

The radio column, in addition, hasn’t been the same since the recent passing of Michael Vestey. We eagerly took in Mr. Vestey’s musings on all and sundry, and the new gal (Kate Chisholm) isn’t nearly as fun.

All of these criticisms, however, pale in comparison with what we deem the most odious feature of The Spectator. By this, of course, we mean Taki Theodoracopulos, the infamous author of the “High Life” column.

Perhaps you know Taki, as he calls himself. The heir to a Greek shipping fortune and a self-described anti-Semite, Taki is an old coot who spends his time snorting cocaine and attempting to bed young ladies. In between bouts of drink- and drug-besotted lechery, Taki writes a few articles for publications to which he contributed a sufficient amount of money to earn some column space.

Perhaps Taki is most famous in this country for floating the cash to establish The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan’s bastion of irrelevant and odious paleo-conservatism. Across the pond, however, Taki must be best known for his “High Life” column.

In the November 11 number of The Speccie, Taki offered one more reason to hate him. His column, “The neocon con,” presented yet another tired retread of Taki’s typical “blame the Jews” rhetoric.

Those insidious Hebrews, he fumes, have fooled American conservatives to unmoor their movement from “traditional conservatism” in favor of pro-Israel craziness. He writes:

…the conservative movement, both in America and Britain, has abandoned the basic items of the conservative agenda. When William Buckley drove Birchers, racists and assorted anarchists away from his conservative movement 50 years ago, he tried to shape conservativism into a party that drove away fewer people than it attracted. In this he succeeded, hence Reagan and Bush the First. Then the Fifth Columnists went to work, under the cute label of neocons. They are the real enemies of the conservatism of old, as well as that of the real civilisation of the West.

What a bunch of vile, anti-Semitic trash! The—mostly Jewish—neoconservatives are “Fifth Columnists,” eh? What a clever way to offer the old canard about Jewish dual loyalties! Perhaps William F. Buckley, Jr. didn’t remove all the disgraceful racists from his conservative movement.

It is a real gas that Taki, who laments the “draconian and devastating economic embargo on the Palestinian population,” claims that neoconservatives are the enemies of Western civilization. Ah, yes: Taki’s unbending support for the Palestinians, who revel in anti-Western violence, who support violent jihads against Westerners, who oppose the rule of law, women’s rights, and political liberty—that’s support for the true pals of the West.

This begs the question: Taki, as an apologist for violent Islamism, could you tell us whether the Palestinians or the Israelis cheered in the streets on 9/11? Which group would a civilized West and a civilized Western conservatism support? You anti-Semitic clown.