Commentary (magazine) - Moving Right

Moving Right

The emergence of the New Left--which was bitterly hostile to Johnson, to capitalism and to universities—angered Podhoretz by its perceived shallowness and, especially, by its hostility to Israel in the 1967 war. Articles attacked the New Left on questions ranging from crime, the nature of art, drugs, poverty, to the new egalitarianism; Commentary argued that the New Left was a dangerous anti-American, anti-liberal, and anti-Semitic force. The shift helped define the emerging neoconservative movement and gave space to disillusioned liberals.

As the readership base shifted to the right, Commentary filled a vacuum for conservative intellectuals, who otherwise were reliant on William F. Buckley's National Review. In March 1975, Daniel Patrick Moynihan's article "The United States in Opposition," urged America to vigorously defend liberal democratic principles when they were attacked by Soviet-bloc and Third World dictatorships at the United Nations. Soon President Gerald Ford appointed Moynihan as be ambassador to the United Nations, where his outspoken advocacy of American values led to election to the Senate in 1976. Political scientist Jeane Kirkpatrick's November 1979 denunciation of the foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter, "Dictatorships and Double Standards," impressed Ronald Reagan, who defeated Carter in 1980. In 1981 he appointed her to the United Nations ambassadorship and Commentary reached the apogee of its influence.