EPISTEMIC CLOSURE (HORIZONTAL VERSION)

In the wedding listings in The New York Times -- yup, right alongside all those folks getting gay-married -- I see this:

Anne Kristol and Matthew Continetti

Anne Elizabeth Kristol, a daughter of Susan S. Kristol and William Kristol of McLean, Va., is to be married Sunday evening to Matthew Joseph Continetti, a son of Cathy Continetti and Joseph F. Continetti of Springfield, Va. Rabbi David Kalender is to officiate at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington.

The bride, 26, who will be taking her husband's name, is studying for a master's in secondary education at George Washington University. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis.

Her father is the editor of The Weekly Standard, the political journal, in Washington. The bride is a granddaughter of Gertrude Himmelfarb, the historian and author, and the late Irving Kristol, the political commentator and author.

The bridegroom, 30, is the editor of The Washington Free Beacon, a political Web site, and works in Washington. He is also a contributing editor for The Weekly Standard. He is the author of ... "The Persecution of Sarah Palin: How the Elite Media Tried to Bring Down a Rising Star." ...

Yup -- there's going to be another generation of wingnut purebreds in the Kristol dynasty.

Bill Kristol and the rest of his family and friends have had their eye on young Mr. Continetti for quite a while, as you learn when you go back to read this 2006 New York Observer article, which I've quoted here a few times:

... Doubleday editor-at-large Adam Bellow came up with the idea [for Continetti's first book] shortly after the Presidential election in 2004. ... he needed to find someone to write it. So he did what any media-savvy individual in search of fresh, right-leaning blood would do: He telephoned The Weekly Standard's editor, Bill Kristol.

Mr. Kristol suggested one of his own reporters, Matthew Continetti, 25, for the gig....

Mr. Bellow, who in the past has edited such conservative writers as Dinesh D'Souza and Wendy Shalit, helped his lucky new scribe hammer out a proposal, which Mr. Kristol and others reviewed....

Before Mr. Continetti found himself completing his first book, he was treading a path through a system that connects such ideologically aligned dots as Mr. Bellow, Mr. Kristol and himself....

Mr. Continetti ...was awarded a 2002 summer internship at the National Review through the Collegiate Network, a division of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute that was founded by Irving Kristol and William Simon Sr. in 1979, which directs money into American colleges to fight what it characterizes as liberal bias on campuses....

The network also funds yearlong fellowships, of which Mr. Continetti was a recipient upon graduation. He spent his year at The Weekly Standard as a fellow under Fred Barnes and received a stipend of approximately $28,000 from the network; when it was over, the magazine hired him full time....

And now there's the book deal. Mr. Bellow said that he was taught a "whole generational theory of publishing" by his mentor at the Free Press, Erwin Glikes, who had hired him based on a recommendation from Irving Kristol (who was an acquaintance of his father,, Saul Bellow). The theory consisted of finding the best of the younger generation and giving them book contracts....

You read this and you really start to think Continetti was chosen and groomed for breeding purposes. (And yes, I don't blame you if you read about Continetti and ask yourself, "This guy was best in show?")