If only Ann Coulter would take him on and finish him off. In mannerism and pomposity, the insipid effete Charles Cooke is National Review’s Piers Morgan of the Right. These newer, washed-out British imports are nothing like the brilliant Christopher Hitchens. In fact, a Hitchens witticism nicely encapsulates the enterprise of the Cooke Republicans: “What is original is not true and what is true is not original.”
The few essays of Cooke I’ve read sport a sort of crass pragmatism. Perhaps it has to do with the impetus of his expertise: “British liberty,” and “American exceptionalism,” the latter being the hobby horse—really the Trojan Horse—of neoconservatives. As to British liberties: Our learned friend, Paul Gottfried, intimated, in Conservatism in American, that English prescriptive liberties are not exactly an American thing.
Note below Cooke’s silly psychologizing, connoted in Kelly’s tweet. Silly, since it is quite possible that Donald Trump is a natural strongman. Trump seems as authentic in his macho man persona as Charles Cooke is in his girly mannerism.
.@charlescwcooke on Trump: “He has tried to build himself up as a strong man & he’s done that b/c he knows nothing about policy.” #KellyFile
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) March 15, 2016