Columns Right

For the last generation at least, liberals and centrists have dominated the field of syndicated columnists. David Lawrence's death last year left a thin list of conservative pundits who have large audiences. Beyond William F. Buckley Jr., James J. Kilpatrick and William S. White, there have been few compelling voices from the right. Now they are getting reinforcements.

One reason that conservatives are finding a larger market is the general disillusionment with conventional liberalism. Another is the Nixon Administration's longstanding plea for "balance" in the press. The result is that some editors and publishers have sought out conservatives in the way that the New York Times recruited William Safire (TIME, Feb. 12, 1973). The former Nixon speechwriter calls himself a "libertarian federalist" rather than a conservative, but that distinction is a fine one. Safire and other new writers have surfaced during the Watergate torrents, and some have turned on the Administration that they would otherwise be supporting. Among the fresh commentators:

P: Kevin Phillips, 33, a onetime Nixon campaign aide. Syndicated in about 125 papers, Phillips' crisp columns have harshly criticized the President for diverting Republican opportunities for conservative reform into "pep rallies, zigzagging, shallow domestic policies, dress uniforms for the White House police, and real estate deals with aerosol kings." Phillips has balked at impeachment because of "the chaotic consequences of allowing pressure groups to bring down a President."

P: John D. Lofton Jr., 33, the former editor of the Republican weekly newsletter Monday. The transition from party polemicist to political columnist has not been easy for Lofton, who seems happier attacking personalities than discussing issues. His columns, carried by some 60 papers, occasionally amount to sophomoric japes. In one piece he calls Bella Abzug a "congressthing" to ridicule the feminist cause. Lofton has written no columns about impeachment.

P: Vic Gold, 45, former press secretary to Spiro Agnew. Gold, who appears in 97 papers, dislikes the conservative label, describes himself as a "smartass iconoclast" at a time when "most icons are liberal." Gold's work thus far has been heavier on vitriol than substance. He spent two columns attacking the new reverence for Harry Truman ("I'm tired of all this crap about cuddly old Harry"), and he uses Nelson Rockefeller as a prime whipping boy. He has not addressed the impeachment question, other than to offer one veiled suggestion that Congress "go with the Madison Plan [impeachment] or cut bait."

P: William Rusher, 50, publisher of the National Review. Rusher has emerged from NR Editor Buckley's shadow with a pungent wit of his own. His column now appears in 53 papers, often veers from sharp attacks on liberalism into Panglossian mood pieces (the pleasures of salad making, for example). Rusher raps the "bully boys" in Nixon's 1972 campaign but spreads the blame for Watergate around: "For liberals to denounce the Nixon Administration for aggrandizing the power of the presidency is enough to cause hollow laughter in hell; their own 40-year record on that subject is surely enough, in common decency, to strike them dumb forever."

Unchecked Power. The youngest and most engaging of the new group is George F. Will, 32, Washington editor of the National Review. After irregular appearances in the Washington Post last year. Will began a twice-weekly column in January. A former college professor who has a Princeton Ph.D. in political science. Will skewers his victims with sharp erudition and marinates them in martini-dry wit. His prose is livened with quotations from T.S. Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, Mark Twain and Yogi Berra. One recent column contained unacknowledged quotations from

Don Quixote, Henry IV and Hamlet. For nearly a year, in the Post and NR, Will's point has been the same: "The misdeeds of the Administration strike at what conservatives cherish most: the institutions and procedures that guarantee limited government and prevent ordered liberty from degenerating into the licentious abuse of unchecked power."

His attack on Nixon from the right has matched anything launched by liberals. Will explains his passion on the subject: "The issue that Watergate raises is an issue of particular importance to conservatives, and that's custody of the Constitution." He denies any vendetta against the President: "I voted for Nixon twice. I agree with him on most of the issues. I think he's guilty." Will has strongly pushed impeachment, arguing that nothing can now salvage the "disgrace" of the President.

Will also jabs at other conservative targets. The unbridled hedonism of The Joy of Sex, a bestselling how-to book for the physically adventurous, left him cold: "This book directs my attention to erogenous zones that are in places I didn't even know were places." Assessing the presidential prospects of Democratic Senator Walter Mondale, Will says: "He generally committed liberalism all over the map. He will have no difficulty passing the saliva test that bitter-end McGovernites will apply."

But Will's attacks on Nixon and his prominent position in the Washington Post enemy camp have won him critics. Says Presidential Aide Patrick Buchanan: "Will is a theoretical conservative. His idea of a hot issue is where Edmund Burke would have stood on seat belts." (Will has indeed attacked mandatory seat-belt use as an infringement of individual rights.) Will's conservative competitors call him "arrogant" and the Post's "tame house pet."

Will admits to some arrogance:

"There's not a lot of 'Aw, shucks' good-natured stammering about me." But he denies shaping columns to the Post's specifications. As his audience grows (he is syndicated in 30 papers). Will is happy to be out of academic life and on the scene in Washington. "I don't have an ideological answer to all the problems of America," he says. "It seems to me what America needs is not a jolt of liberalism or a jolt of conservatism but reasoned discourse."

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