Above is the image that the august Atlantic has chosen to run alongside an article by David Frum, the Axis-of-Evil coining, unhinged former George W. Bush speechwriter. The headline is “Russia Has Become Dangerous Again.” Illustrating Russia’s danger, apparently, is such a confusing endeavor that you end up with a graphic depicting a German philosopher and economist who was never a head of state, a German social scientist who was never a head of state, a Russian Marxist who led a revolution to become the head of state, a Russian dictator who was quasi-Marxist at best, and a Russian oligarch who is an enthusiastic capitalist. A corrupt crony capitalist, to be sure, but then in the real world, all capitalism is corrupt crony capitalism. What’s the connection between a poor anti-capitalist German intellectual who never led anything and a Russian billionaire who happily embraced the demise of communism as a means to grab money and power? Who knows! “Bad, bad people who look scary when drawn in a line” seems to be the extent of the thinking here.

Frum, incidentally, is a product of reformocon affirmative action. The man is directly responsible for the demise of the post-9/11 rapprochement between the United States and Iran, which has unquestionably left the world a less safe place, had a hand in the Iraq imbroglio, and holds views on Israel-Palestine that are nutty even in the context of universal nuttiness on that issue. But because conservatism is so desperate for warm bodies that aren’t slobberingly racist rape-denialists, he’s “one of the good ones.” Aside from being an attractive Republican woman or Luke Russert, there’s no lower bar to climb to build a career in media than being a not-entirely-crazy-or-obviously-despicable conservative. If the celebrated conservative reformers like Ross Douthat really cared for reform, they might ask about how the soft bigotry of low expectations keeps them from achieving it. But I suspect that essentially no one involved really thinks reformist conservatism is a serious enterprise. There’s a glaring unreality to it — everybody keeps writing think pieces about the next conservatism, people go on long disquisitions about who and how and why, but nobody really buys any of it. You think Reihan Salam is gonna carry the flag that leads the Cliven Bundy crowd out of the darkness? I kind of doubt it! Even if they could articulate a reform plan that maintains some semblance of modern movement conservatism — and they can’t — they couldn’t possibly win politically.  But then, maybe nobody really expects them to. Rather, I think reform conservatism exists to give reform conservatives something to do. The existence of their jobs is the end itself. Nice work if you can get it.