I don’t read the nutcakes over at NRO, but I always enjoy what those with stronger stomachs have to say about the darling tykes. This, from Wolcott:

As a staunch believer in the ongoing vitality of web opinion, I was following the fitful progress of National Review Online’s fundraising drive with keen interest. I pointed out the peculiarity of a site featuring a banner ad from The Cato Institute soliciting donations from readers whose fondest dream is to have a picture taken of themselves with Victor Davis Hanson reenacting the flagraising at Iwo Jima. Surely some of the think tank money slushing around Washington could be siphoned its way to support the heroic mission of the National Review to wage war abroad and roll back the New Deal at home.

Over the weekend, I noticed that the fundraising thermometer on the site seemed stuck just above $20,000. Perhaps, I thought, there is a lag time before they update the graphic. But each time I checked in the red in thermometer had barely budged upward.

I wondered if perhaps the graphic needed to be updated to excite reader interest and participation. I was going to propose that instead of a corny thermometer the web designer might devise a Terry Schiavo Memorial Feeding Tube, in which each contribution would help keep National Review on life support for the foreseeable future.

Sometimes you have to think “outside the box.”

But then when I logged on earlier today the thermometer was gone, and the front page of the site bore no mention of the fundraising drive. I checked The Corner, and there was a brief statement from publisher Ed Capano thanking readers for their donations, but admitting, “We fell a bit short of our goal…”

A bit short of our goal sounds like a bit of an understatement.

As I say, over the weekend the tally in the thermometer has nosed just above $20,000.

The top of the thermometer was $100,000. If they were hoping for $100,000 and only pulled in somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000, that’s a helluva shortfall. They may have to cut back on reimbursing David Frum for all the lipstick he purchases to add color and vibrancy to his submissive ass-kissing of President Bush. That’ll save a couple thousand a year right there.

I fear that my earlier fear has been confirmed. That the introduction of a new primate–John Podhoretz–has upset the delicate ecosystem of the NRO’s Corner that has metastasized into the site.

God, what I wouldn’t give to be as funny as James.