Real Solutions Welcome to golden age of conservative magazines
As we talked, two women caught sight of Kristol from outside and walked in to greet him. The older turned out to be Juleanna Glover, an early Weekly Standard employee who is now a prominent political strategist, and the younger was Shoshana Weissmann, a recent Weekly Standard alum now at a libertarian think tank.“We were literally just talking about why we love Bill Kristol,” said Glover, who knelt down next to Kristol’s chair to chat.I asked her to elaborate.“He’s one of the most noble, principled, thoughtful, brave —”“Check’s in the mail,” Kristol broke in.As Glover and Kristol caught up, Weissmann, whose hair had a wide purple streak, told me that she had worked for the Weekly Standard for a year and become a big Kristol fan. “I’m a libertarian, so it was a little different, but he’s become like my grandpa, and I love him and he’s adorable,” she said, adding, “I will love you forever if you quote me saying he’s adorable.”Moments like this can be a reminder of how echo chambers form. But Weissmann’s perspective on Kristol points to another reality as well: While the Weekly Standard has generally reflected a conventionally hawkish Republican worldview, it has also been willing to entertain varying political outlooks, with its writers landing in different places on Trump and many other matters. Labash, for instance, never hid his opposition to the war in Iraq. “It’s a magazine, not a cult,” he says. “You’re free to think freely.”
