AND IN THIS CORNER ...

By Richard Lacayo

The other famous son with a new magazine this week is William Kristol, whose father Irving is an elder statesman of neoconservatism. Kristol is editor and publisher of the Weekly Standard, a conservative review of politics that he founded with John Podhoretz (son of noted neocon Norman) and Fred Barnes (ex of the New Republic) with financing from Rupert Murdoch. Let George bill itself hopefully as "post partisan.'' At the Standard it's the dawn of a postliberal age, for which they would provide a forum and rumpus room, a place where conservatives could not only cackle over the death throes of the left but spat among themselves as well.

In a field already occupied by such established conservative journals as the National Review and the American Spectator, is there room for one more? Livelier than the Review, less bratty than the Spectator, the Standard is modeled most obviously on the New Republic, but with a more narrow focus on politics. And a more consistent tilt to the right, though with a few surprises. Among several admiring pieces about Newt Gingrich is one by Charles Krauthammer that spurns the House Speaker's chipper vision of a techno-Utopia. Technology makes many problems worse, Krauthammer warns, leaving politics to clean up the mess; besides, conservatives shouldn't promise Utopia. If the Standard can shake up its friends in every issue, it could become the standard by which the other guys are measured.

--By Richard Lacayo