From Curmudgeonly To Contemptible

National Review's painfully public self-immolation continues. A few recent tidbits from John Derbyshire, the latest on March 21st:

One doesn’t want to be accused of inhuman callousness; but I am willing to confess, and believe I speak for a lot of THWTHs (and a lot of other Americans, too) that the spectacle of Middle Eastern Muslims slaughtering each other is one that I find I can contemplate with calm composure.

And for those who might have missed it, this on March 3rd:

In between our last two posts I went to Drudge to see what was happening in the world. The lead story was about a ship disaster in the Red Sea. From the headline picture, it looked like a cruise ship. I therefore assumed that some people very much like the Americans I went cruising with last year were the victims. I went to the news story. A couple of sentences in, I learned that the ship was in fact a ferry, the victims all Egyptians. I lost interest at once, and stopped reading. I don't care about Egyptians.

To note, as I did last month in this post, that this atavistic tripe is contrary to the dynamic that underpins capitalism and free trade is to point out only one part of the problem here. In 2001, National Review severed its relationship with Ann Coulter after she wrote two typically bombastic pieces. Jonah Goldberg told WaPo's Howard Kurtz: "We didn't feel we wanted to be associated with the comments expressed in those two columns." I've always viewed Coulter's rants as profoundly unserious as well as in poor taste; I believe that most of what she spews is simply the product of an empty mind laboring to produce something substantive or thoughtful. I consider Derbyshire's rants to be in poor taste as well, but I also have no doubt that he believes deeply in what he writes. Farcically unserious bombast, and deadly serious xenophobia---which is worse?

John Derbyshire is free to write and speak his mind, of course. But Ann Coulter was as well, and National Review decided that it didn't wish to associate itself with her. Unless NR's editors think mistakenly that their once-proud institution still has room to fall, it's time for them to show Derbyshire the door as well.