That Ponnuru quote is from The Corner. Sorry for not mentioning that.

I think the Berkowitz quote was made before the Derbyshire review came out. Ponnuru has a reply to Derbyshire at National Review today.

Am I the only one who thinks Derbyshire is pure evil? I've never read anything by him that is remotely interesting or enjoyable, and several things that made me sick to my stomach, including the "I hate Chelsea Clinton" rant which should have gotten him fired.

No one is pure evil. Not even Derb.

"the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception"

Cute. Tolerating such a ridiculous bigot reflects very, very badly on National Review.

In his NRO article today Ponnuru called Derbyshire "anti-intellectual" and "gaseous" among other things. At least he didn't call him a felon for breaking U.S. immigration laws.

Methinks Ponnuru rightly regards Derbyshire as a bigot. But Ramesh won't make that argument because he knows it might make Derbyshire more sympathetic to a lot of NRO readers. So he attacks Derbyshire from the right on abortion and other issues. Ponnuru knows that gives him a built-in advantage with the NRO audience.

Ramesh Ponnuru is one smart guy.

Ponnuru absolutely cuts Derbyshire to ribbons in his reply:

Derbyshire wants to exclude both religion and reason as guides to the moral truth about abortion, euthanasia, and related issues. In their place he exalts feelings, and criticizes me as �creepy,� �frigid,� �pitiless,� �inhuman,� and, worst, an �intellectual,� for not going along. This is the anti-intellectual core of his essay. (There is also a lot of piling on of rhetoric. �For RTL is, really, just another species of Political Correctness, just another manifestation of the intellectual pathology, the hypertrophied and academical egalitarianism, the victimological scab-picking, the gaseous sentimentality, that has afflicted our civilization this past forty years.� Gaseous is just the right word for this sort of logorrhea.) �America would be a happier and freer nation if the accursed intellectuals would just leave us alone with our lives, our blunders, our tragedies, and our deaths.�

The state cannot �leave us alone� in deciding under what circumstances to kill one another. There have to be rules, and we have to find some basis for figuring out what they should be. The notion that everyone�s natural feelings lead to support of abortion and euthanasia, and that intellectuals have recently been trying to overcome these natural inclinations, is preposterous�something, indeed, that only an intellectual could believe. That abortion was a crime used to be something nearly universally accepted, and felt. It took, among other things, a lot of intellectual work to change that. Many people changed their feelings in response to new ideas, and new situations partly created by those ideas. (And some people changed their ideas based on their feelings.) How should we feel about abortion? Is it a good thing or a bad thing that we feel less appalled by it than we used to? These are intelligible questions. You don�t have to have a high estimate of �the power of reason in human affairs� to think that the enterprise of reasoning about these matters should not be dismissed.

It is interesting�and of course gratifying�that the two leading criticisms of my book (Peter Berkowitz�s thoughtful review in the Wall Street Journal and Derbyshire�s intemperate essay) both attempt an escape from reason. This is nihilism. It is also laziness.

Jonah Goldberg also rallies to Ponnuru's defense.

Derbyshire is the same guy who (alone among NRO-ers) supported Michael Schiavio's "right" to kill off his inconveniently disabled wife and seems to object to immigration on eugenic grounds (rather an odd position for the immigrant father of two biracial children to take). He may not be "pure evil," but he sure seems to be working enthusiastically for the other team these days.

I stopped reading Derbyshire because he is just laughable and a waste of time. I also stopped reading Rod Dreher because he is as excitable and emotional as a 13 year old girl. BTW, I also stopped reading Andrew Sullivan because he is a 13 year girl.

Mr. Morley, I think the "odd postions" show that Derbyshire is not Evil, he's contrary. I was taught at Catholic school that if you can't argue both sides, then you aren't thinking, just reacting. Considering the number of people who have responded by attacking Mr. Derbyshire's history, I would have to agree.

Pchuck, reading the output of a excitable and emotional 13 year old girl who can reason out her position in a coherent and enjoyable fashion is far easier then reading what the eaters of dust are cranking out.

I loves me some Sullivan cracks.

I'll pretty much laugh at anything in the form of Andrew Sullivan is ____.

Seriously, I just laughed at what I wrote.

I need to play harder to get.

Harder.....

HAHA!!!

Derbyshire just posted an "answer" to Ponnuru's rip. Basically it said, gee, Ramesh is smarter than me, so how do you expect me to reply?

Even by Derbyshire's standards, this is lame. Almost as lame as an illegal immigrant peeing on other illegal immigrants because their skins are darker.

Oh, wait...

Derb's religion is Anglican(the Lukewarm Heresy), which is usually predictive in matters right-to-life, euthanasia, etc.

What does the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception have to do with Derbyshire's discussion? It basically says Mary was free from sin. What does that have to do with RTL? I must be missing something. I guess he's just making fun of Catholics. Par for the course.

Bruce - I only read the headlines, so I had assumed he was a Euro-secularist.

Derb fashions himself a latter-day Mencken, but he's less clever and more misanthropic.

PJ -

Yes, they both talk alike, don't they?

My Irish Grandad sometime last year:

That Derbyshire is a fu@#$&* tool.

Actually, Seeing Calving Coolidge In A Dream is a good book.

To give the, er, infernal one his due, Derbyshire is a fine math popularizer. I really enjoyed his book on the Riemann Hypothesis. It even got me to read Riemann's original paper.

Now if Derbyshire could just steer clear of politics and stick to his formulas and proofs...

In his reply, Ramesh says, "Is it a good thing or a bad thing that we feel less appalled by it than we used to?"

I wonder if he has evidence to support that claim. I would be surprised if there was good data on societal attitudes about abortion 50 or 100 years ago. I would guess that people as a whole back then did not care any more about abortion and right to life than people do now. True, there once were laws on the books, but women sought abortions anyway.

By the way, here's the mother-in-law of all Outlasted Another Ones. (If it proves out, of course.)

Derbyshire's by far the best writer they have on NRO.

I disagree with most of his opinions but like Sullivan, I appreciate his willingness to admit inconvenient facts which contradict his worldview and how he's unafraid to take independent stances.

D'oh. It wasn't Sullivan who said that but an emailer to his site.

It's like bringing coal to Newcastle commenting on church dogma here, but IIRC from my catechism days, Immaculate Conception means just that. No earthly sperm donor was involved. However, if memory also serves, Mary was free of Original Sin and was immaculate in that sense as well.

A shake-up is needed at NRO and first one who needs to be shaken off is the loathsome Bill Kristol.

Does he post there?

I thought he was in charge of the Daily Standard.

Bill Kristol runs NRO's biggest competitor, the Weekly Standard. To say NRO needs to shake him off is like saying Chevy needs to shake off all those Ford execs.

Mr. Bigot, aka Derbyshire, really took his lumps on the Corner last night. Ponnuru is well-liked and that review didn't sit well with anybody at NRO. They're also all happy that Zarqawi got killed, which might shut up Derbyshire on Iraq for at least a couple days.

Derbyshire is just an honest Darwinist--always an ugly sight.

erp: The Immaculate Conception has NOTHING to do with Jesus. It means Mary was without Original Sin. Recall from The Song of Bernadette: "I am the Immaculate Conception" was how The Lady identified herself at Lourdes...

Well, it has something to do with Jesus. It's not just a coincidence that the IC happened to JC's mom.

b. I believe I made that same point about Mary being free of original sin while also noting that Jesus had no earthly father.

You're all right about Kristol being part of The Weekly Standard, which should shake him off. NRO went south so long ago, I forgot about their editorial line up.

erp: You said "IIRC from my catechism days, Immaculate Conception means just that. No earthly sperm donor was involved."

I was trying to say that you do not in fact recall correctly. What you wrote was wrong. Sorry.

Sorry.