Mar 11th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Ross Douthat Replaces Bill Kristol as New York Times Columnist
I’d say congratulations are in order to Ross Douthat, the new hire at The New York Times. Dumping Bill Kristol in favor of Ross is a very smart move—probably the smartest one (Virginia Postrel?) the Times could have made—and will generate a conservative column that progressives will have reason to read and take seriously.
On a personal note, I’m pretty sure that when I was talking to Ross about leaving The Atlantic I specifically told him that the Times wasn’t going to have an op-ed page by the time they got around to giving guys our age columns, so there was no sense in him clutching to his idle legacy media dreams.
98 Responses to “Ross Douthat Replaces Bill Kristol as New York Times Columnist”
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March 11th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
probably the smartest one (Virginia Postrel?) the Times could have made
Postrel would’ve been fucking annoying. The only other young choices would’ve been Daniel Larison or Dreher. So, good deal.
max
['Good luck to him, he's going to need it.']
March 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Excellent pick considering the scrary people on the right they could have picked. David Brooks and Ross Douthat might be the two most reasonable right wing columnists.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Yeah, the problem isn’t Douthat, who’s great. The problem is that Douthat has been too honest for too long to have much credibility with the hard right.
He’ll be great at exploring conservative issues for a mostly liberal audience, but I don’t think he can get any farther than Brooks at convincing conservatives to reexamine their approach to governance.
Still, he’ll certainly be worth reading – and the Times paycheck may get him to post more often than he has lately.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
“David Brooks and Ross Douthat might be the two most reasonable right wing columnists.”
Considering that Douthat’s central premise seems to be that low income voters love the GOP (and lets not even get into the historical analysis of Grand New Party), that really says something about the American right doesn’t it?
March 11th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Max,
Rod Dreher isn’t ‘young’ per se, and Larison is much, much too right-wing (even though in a fascinating and brilliant way) to be hired by the New York Times.
I mean, I love reading Larison’s commentary, but Larison and the New York Times are like oil and water.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I hope, in Ross’ first column, for evidence of his conjecture that banning gay marriage will boost middle-class wages. I always suggested that McArdle help him with the comparative statics until I realized that she didn’t have a clue about economics or math.
Unfortunately, it will probably be a column extolling the virtues of Papism.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Well, it’s going to be interesting. He’s presumably not going to use the slot in the same way as Kristol, i.e. to launder wingnut talking points, or have the kind of insider sources as Safire. But he has the potential to both reflect and shape the internal debate on the right. Let’s see how long it takes for Limbaugh to declare him persona non grata.
Mostly, thank fuck it’s not McAddled.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I don’t even begin to understand the parenthetical reference to Virginia Postrel as a good choice. Is there a planet on which she’s a respected thinker?
Anyway, congrats to Ross. I rarely agree with him, but he’s usually worth reading… which is more than I can say for any other conservative writer they were likely to hire.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Haha, I called it! Congratulations to Mr. Douthat.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
If Gitmo was ever made for someone, it would be Bill Kristol and his cohorts in the conservative illuminati…
http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/
March 11th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Excellent choice. The Times may as well challenge its readers with whiff of traditionalist, Buckley-style American conservatism, instead of taking the easy way out and going for (yet another) tired, cliche ridden libertarian. Plus, he’s not a crazy neocon or Paleocon. Plus, by being a conservative who actually admits we have a problem with inequality — and that, heaven forbid, government might actually play a useful role in addressing it — he’ll drive the wingers utterly batshit crazy. Finally, his dense, overly long to the point of unreadable blog posts will benefit from the limits The Times will enforce.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
This is refreshing news! I’ve been steering every conservative friend and foe in Ross’s direction for a while now. This makes it easier. It’s important to have a viable climate of political opposition that doesn’t descend into, well, what is current today. Ross is a compelling writer. I look forward to seeing if he can cause some constructive ruckus standing on a bigger soapbox.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
I don’t know, I’ve got a huge problem with Ross: he’s one of those Christianists who don’t get that non-believers can have strong morals. Drives me crazy when he starts postulating as if the only path to good deeds is through god. That’s a form of bigotry.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
Douthat is a good choice. Since when did the NYT become the new destination for conservative thought? The irony: honest conservative intellectuals can only ply their trade under the auspices of the “liberal” media.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Excellent choice! Another out-of-touch Northeast elitist who won’t challenge the NYT’s core assumptions.
As I wrote in comments here:
Ross Douthat: you’re a complete lightweight.
You wouldn’t call this an “implausible fantasy” if you knew anything about this issue. The MexicanGovernment has been able to obtain a great deal of PoliticalPower inside the U.S. and to a certain extent we already have some form of condominium relationship with that country. As we allow MassiveImmigration from Mexico that will only get worse, and we’ll end up with a defacto arrangement with that country or some new autonomous region. That’s been promoted by various academics and politicians, and recognized by both SamuelHuntington and DavidKennedy.
Let me suggest actually knowing what you’re talking about before discussing issues like this.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Shut the fuck up, Lonewacko.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Should’ve been Larison, but congratulations to Ross.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
It’s even worse than I thought. Apparently the MexicanGovernment and the PoliticalPower are already conspiring to steal the SpacesBetweenWords and replace them with RedundantCapitalLetters.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
If most of the people who read this blog think that Ross is a decent choice, that alone is proof positive that he is out of step with today’s Talibantastic GOP. Ross will either have to turn hard right to gain some wingnut credentials (I say that is likely) or he will be relegated to the Brooks and Frum country music jamboree out near the woodshed.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
It’s even worse than I thought.
Well, it’s WhackADoodleDipshit being more explicit than usual in his conspiracy theorizing. The ScaryBrownPeople are actively planning to do to America what the slaveholding gringos did to Texas in the 1820s?
Really? Really?
March 11th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Zic,
He doesn’t believe that, at least inasmuch as he’s a traditional Christian. As Aquinas said, explicating St. Augustine (who was, in turn, explicating St. Paul), all men, Christian or not, are able to perceive the natural law written on their conscience.
‘On the contrary, Augustine says (De Lib. Arb. i, 6) that “knowledge of the eternal law is imprinted on us.”
I answer that, A thing may be known in two ways: first, in itself; secondly, in its effect, wherein some likeness of that thing is found: thus someone not seeing the sun in its substance, may know it by its rays. So then no one can know the eternal law, as it is in itself, except the blessed who see God in His Essence. But every rational creature knows it in its reflection, greater or less. For every knowledge of truth is a kind of reflection and participation of the eternal law, which is the unchangeable truth, as Augustine says (De Vera Relig. xxxi). Now all men know the truth to a certain extent, at least as to the common principles of the natural law: and as to the others, they partake of the knowledge of truth, some more, some less; and in this respect are more or less cognizant of the eternal law.’
March 11th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
As Aquinas said, explicating St. Augustine (who was, in turn, explicating St. Paul), all men, Christian or not, are able to perceive the natural law written on their conscience.
And then we stopped being medieval and shit.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
26 comments and no one made the Douchehat joke? COME ON PEOPLE, get on the ball!!
March 11th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Pseudonymous,
Would you care to debate what St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, or Blessed Paul the Apostle had to say on the extent to which the natural law can be apprehended by nonbelievers, or would you prefer to indulge the typical hipster BS? I thought so.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I don’t know, I’ve got a huge problem with Ross: he’s one of those Christianists who don’t get that non-believers can have strong morals.
Well, he’s a self-described (Catholic) Christian, that’s true. I don’t know why we have to apply to him the Andrew Sullivan-invented appellation “Christianist” (a useful moniker, to be sure, but I don’t think it ought to apply to an evolution-believing, reasonably serious thinker like Douthat). And I also don’t know where’s the evidence that he thinks non-believers can’t have “strong morals.” I suspect he doesn’t agree with the morals of a lot of non-believers. But that’s different from thinking they don’t have any. Then again, I haven’t been reading him much since he banned comments. Either way it should be an interesting development.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Zic, you just had to goad Hector into another St Augustine reference, didn’t you? At least he embedded it into an Aquinas quote this time. But then he mentions Paul, who drives me nuts. Paul did more to destroy the message of Jesus than anyone in history. The people of Ephesus should have lynched him when they had the chance. But they didn’t, so Christianity became a Roman enterprise having little to do with the teachings of Jesus. The world is a much more violent place because of it.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
So it’s official. Ross Douthat is no longer a conservative. Of course, that same litmus test didn’t apply to Bill Kristol because, well, he’s Bill Kristol.
And unlike Kristol, I doubt I’ll finish reading his columns thinking, “Of course, he really doesn’t believe that.”
Sarcasm aside, this is a good choice on the Times’ part, much as I disagree with much of his writing. I’m also sad he won’t be writing so much about film & TV, which I always enjoyed.
I can’t wait for the reaction from the conservasphere. I’m willing to bet many will be upset that it wasn’t Mark Levin or Michael Savage or someone else in the pup tent that is contemporary conservatism. Still, I’d take those guys in exchange for Tom Friedman. And Perez Hilton for MoDo!
March 11th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Just another quick vote for Douthat. I disagree with him about almost everything, but at least I can tell that he’s *trying* to tell the truth.
That commitment puts him head and shoulders above most other right-wing pundits. Kristol lies on principle; Will thinks his job is just to spin plausibly, etc. etc.
Yes, he’s Christian. So are a lot of people on the right. The Times needs a social-conservative voice; Douthat is one of the smartest. Great choice.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
No respect for the Times or Ross Douthat, Larison would’ve been much better.
Frankly, I lost a lot of respect for Douthat when he removed the comments from his Atlantic blog. Douthat took down blog comments soon after he posted this absurd defense of Reagan and his “Welfare Queens” wherein his significant piece of evidence in support of the existence of Welfare Queens in society was that a black woman in public housing had a large television. Mind you, it was a really old projection model big screen, but that didn’t stop Ross from calling it (despite all appearances) an enormous ‘flat screen television’.
161 comments later Ross and several of his followers look like racist douches for using this picture of a black woman and her 15 year old TV to defend Reagan’s race-baiting and using it as evidence that the poor in Louisiana STILL have it too good, even after Katrina.
So what did Ross do? Apologize? See the error of his ways? Nope he just turned off the comments. With an attitude like that, it’s easy to see how he’ll fit in just fine with the establishment hacks already working @ the NYTimes (Krugman excepted).
March 11th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Douthat’s recent post attempting to reconcile evolution with Christianity is just embarrassing.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I don’t see why a lack of right wing credentials will be a problem for Ross. I don’t give the Times readership much credit, but I think they’ll recognize him for what he is. And what Limbaugh thinks doesn’t really matter. The right wing has sidelined themselves to the extent that the Times won’t mind the criticism.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Hector, would you care to stop pretending that it’s 1350? Thought not.
Given that you think western civ. has been on a downhill path since the Black Death, you’re really only good for ridicule. Erasmus? Clearly just a fucking hipster.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Re: Douthat’s recent post attempting to reconcile evolution with Christianity is just embarrassing.
I thought it was pretty smart, personally. Of course, it was simply codifying what I’ve felt for a long time. Evolution may be incompatible with a fuzzy, Unitarian god who creates a world in which ‘we can all just get along’, but it’s perfectly compatible with a view that takes seriously that, as Blessed John the Apostle puts out, an evil power is “the ruler of this world.” For more on this, see the latter part of my blog post here: http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2009/03/meditation-on-temptation-of-christ.html
As for Douthat’s views on nonbelievers, he’s conceded before that the largely atheistic/agnostic Swedes and Norwegians do a better job at caring for their children, not abandoning them to single parenthood, and not aborting them, than comparatively more religious people in the American South. Those would seem to be important dimensions of morality for a conservative Catholic.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
it’s perfectly compatible with a view that takes seriously that, as Blessed John the Apostle puts out, an evil power is “the ruler of this world.”
Christinaity does not teach that an evil power is the ruler of this world.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Hector, I didn’t base my comment on an ancient saying; I based it on Ross’s writing, strung through with magical thinking instead of rationality.
I find it offensive. What common sense Douthat does have gets lost in the muck of his magical beliefs.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
If they were looking at Douthat they probably also at least glanced at Reihan Salam, and I kind of wonder why they didn’t pick him. He’s a much more interesting, flexible thinker/writer than Douthat, I think.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
ITS NOT MCARDLE THANK GOD THANK GOD WHOO HOOO!!~~!~
And yea, nice move by nytimes and good for douthat. Maybe his first column will be about some up and coming GOP star to lead the Grand New P, but who will ultimately become a wingnut laughing stock.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
I’d also add that douthat’s arguement that porn=adultery was absurd and makes me think he is a major, MAJOR, consumer of porn.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Would you care to debate what St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, or Blessed Paul the Apostle had to say on the extent to which the natural law can be apprehended by nonbelievers, or would you prefer to indulge the typical hipster BS? I thought so.
I believe there are two discussions therein, both worthy in their own way. Whether natural law precludes a designer or not is one. The other involves the biological underpinnings of moral reasoning. Neither of which have much to do with Ross Douthat, though I suspect he’d enjoy the way this part of the thread ambled.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
If only the Times would hire a liberal columnist (other than Krugman) that progressives could read and take seriously.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Conrad,
Take it up with Blessed John the Apostle. For my part, I freely acknowledge that I am somewhat heterodox (if you prefer the word, heretical) on this score. I think that orthodox Christianity has historically underestimated the strength, reality, and coeternality of evil and the evil power, and that evolution should prompt Christians to take a good look at the world and maybe question some of the historical teachings that have minimized the evil power. I think Ross may have been getting at something similar though he’s more orthodox than me.
Zic,
You’re free to find the writing of Ross, me, or anyone else who’s a serious Christian “offensive”, and we are free not to take you seriously.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
CD,
Porn is a crime against _nature_, as is adultery- adultery is probably more of a crime against one’s _spouse_ specifically. I thought that Douthat’s reasoning on that score was pretty strong, although he didn’t ground it enough in natural law as I would have liked.
March 11th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Take it up with Blessed John the Apostle.
He’s dead.
For my part, I freely acknowledge that I am somewhat heterodox (if you prefer the word, heretical) on this score.
If you believe that an evil power is the ruler of this world you are either a deeply heretical Christian or not a Christian at all.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I think that evil is….coeternal? well, perhaps….definitely a fundamental aspect of the world, and has been present in the world since the beginning. Perhaps coeternal, I’m not sure how far I want to venture into heterodoxy there. But I can definitely see the argument for the evil power being coeternal with good. and certainly i think in the forward direction, there can never be a time when evil is blotted out entirely. For God to extinguish evil would be to detract from His own perfection, and clearly that is impossible.
This world is fallen, and was (at least until 27 AD or so) under the domination of the evil power to that extent: St. Luke’s account of the temptation makes that clear.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
If you believe that an evil power is the ruler of this world you are either a deeply heretical Christian or not a Christian at all.
C.S. Lewis had a similar opinion. It depends on what you mean by “ruler.” But I doubt it’s heretical to view evil as a sort of ruler of this secular world. A temporary occupying power (Lewis’s metaphor, IIRC), as it were. I doubt very many (say) French viewed Hitler as the true (as in the sense of “legitimate”) ruler of their country during the war years, and he wasn’t. But alas he did temporarily manage to occupy their country, and “rule” it.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
No, C.S. Lewis took the mainstream Christian view that evil is somehow necessary for God to bring about the greatest good. He just couldn’t explain how.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
This is a great choice — best move the Times has made in a long, long time.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Like Judas, the Times will bring about the very last thing they intend: the conversion of America to a culture of life.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Big media ross
March 11th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Could’ve been a lot worse. Could’ve been McArdle. Anyhow, did you catch Marc Ambinder kissing Douthat ass. What is wrong with Ambinder? I don’t get him.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Like Judas, the Times will bring about the very last thing they intend: the conversion of America to a culture of life.
No chance, Hector. Abortion is part of the middle class toolkit, and facilitates the sexual revolution that at least 80 percent of Americans buy into (in terms of their conduct, whatever they might express to pollsters about it). Plus, Americans want their stem cell research and don’t care for keeping the Terri Schiavos of the world alive.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
They’re too busy trying to end usury for that. But, then, fractional reserve banking doesn’t offend christianists like you.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
wonderful news!
March 11th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I am a glorious mushroom
Expanding
Behold my empire.
I am … Ross Douthat’s Hair
March 11th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Good move by the Times! Ross is smart and usually interesting to read (although he’s wrong about the GOP support base being lower-middle class and the Democrats’ being upscale; the Democrats win the under-$50,000 demographic which is about half the US population, while the Republicans are stronger among the more well-off). A Republican who actually has ideas about things like health and education policy and understand that people care about them is a rarity these days – and the Northeast media could use a social conservative who can write intelligently about social conservatism.
I was hoping for this.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Well, he’s a sexist, but since this is probably the most anti-feminist “liberal” blog that I know of, I didn’t expect that to come up. Nothing bothers eight Yglesias or the majority of his commentors less than a sexist, a sexist policy, or a sexist statement.
But when he steps in it, he’ll step in it there. Remember who told you throwbacks first.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
SavageView,
Given that capitalism as a whole offends me, very much, I’d certainly include ‘fractional reserve banking’ in that blanket condemnation.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I’d rather have seen the space go to progressive bloggers like Digby, Marshall, Kos, or Yglesias. Some new voices.
Douthat has nothing to say. There is simply no substance to conservatism.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Catherine,
Yes, I can see that decrying the legalized butchery which is abortion would be sexist. Whatever.
Domine Jesu Christe, Fili Dei, miserere nobis peccatoribus.
Katherine with a K, I agree with you a whole lot more.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Dilan,
The triumph of modern America was built on millions of murdered African slaves, millions of dispossessed Native Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians obliterated at Hiroshima, so I’m not surprised that 50 million unborn children have been added to the lot. The United States of America was conceived in sin, and in sin shall she expire.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Re: The problem is that Douthat has been too honest for too long to have much credibility with the hard right.
This a problem? I suppose it is if you think conservatism should only be represented by wingnut looney-tunes. But the only way conservatism will ever recover is if sane and rational voices are brought to the fore. I don’t agree with Douthat on any number of topics, but I would much rather see him given this megaphone than some Sean Hannity clone.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Really? I’ve never been that impressed by Douthat. I mean, sure, he’s no Bill Kristol– but I’m hardly prepared to grade on that kind of a curve.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
I’m glad Ross got it. He really was the best possible choice for it was slotted for a conservative. He’s a good writer and as cons go, he’s not a hack… so yeah, I guess you do have to grade him a curve.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:15 pm
@62: interesting criticism, which we could probably stand to hear more often.
But as far as Douthat goes — many of the people praising him on this thread don’t agree with him about much of anything. I’m a pro-choice atheist, and I agree that Douthat’s ideas about marriage are bassackward. The thing is that he’s *interesting,* and semi-candid.
We need to have some voices on the other side who don’t think “analysis” and “candor” are a sucker’s game, or a scam invented by the left.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Douthat and Brooks are savvy conservative columnists that progressives can learn something from, at least some of the time. But both have a bothersome quirk when it comes to writing about the built environment — a soft spot for Joel Kotkin and his false framing of a war between “urbanists” trying to crowd everyone into big cities and those like Kotkin who recognize the powerful appeal of yards and bar-b-ques, while granting that suburbs evolve for the better when they become more walkable and less auto-dependent. Of course, most urbanists celebrate a full range of walkable places, from big city downtowns to streetcar suburbs and even small town main streets. It gets annoying to read these guys channeling Kotkin, as if this is a smart critical view of planning and design rather than the kind of cheap straw man found on lesser editorial pages.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:11 am
The good news is that he’s intelligent enough that you want to respect him, and the bad news is that he isn’t smart enough that you actually do.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Of course, most urbanists celebrate a full range of walkable places, from big city downtowns to streetcar suburbs and even small town main streets.
The problem for such urbanists is that most Americans ultimately prefer to live in suburbs that are not “walkable” in the urbanists’ sense, and prefer to do almost all of their traveling by car. Until urbanists learn to “celebrate” that choice too, they’ll continue to be at odds with most Americans about where to live and how to get around.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:40 am
The whole “urbanism” debate that breaks out ceaselessly on this blog is really silly, inasmuch as it confuses
a) a choice between two differently-weighted spectrums
with
b) a choice between two different points *on* the spectrum.
Everyone knows that you’re going to have rural areas, and less dense suburbs, in any plausible vision of the future. No one is trying to eliminate them. Nor is anyone really proposing to build a lot of new Manhattans. The question is whether we encourage a slightly greater proportion of “streetcar suburbs” and a slightly smaller proportion of sprawl.
I’ve lived in both kinds of neighborhood at different stages of my life, and I wouldn’t want either to disappear. But I agree that it’s better for us all — and for our grandkids — if we encourage a slightly greater proportion of streetcar development. That’s the premise that needs to be engaged, but people on the other side never do directly engage it. Instead they constantly construct straw men, for reasons that escape me.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:41 am
Hector is a Zoroastrian?
March 12th, 2009 at 12:41 am
Don’t forget the five million Vietnamese, Hector.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:51 am
You’re not fooling anyone, ‘charles’.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:55 am
keatssycamore wrote: “I lost a lot of respect for Douthat when he removed the comments from his Atlantic blog. Douthat took down blog comments soon after he posted this absurd defense of Reagan and his “Welfare Queens” wherein his significant piece of evidence in support of the existence of Welfare Queens in society was that a black woman in public housing had a large television. Mind you, it was a really old projection model big screen, but that didn’t stop Ross from calling it (despite all appearances) an enormous ‘flat screen television’.
161 comments later Ross and several of his followers look like racist douches for using this picture of a black woman and her 15 year old TV to defend Reagan’s race-baiting and using it as evidence that the poor in Louisiana STILL have it too good, even after Katrina. ”
And let’s not forget how Ross linked to white supremacist/all-around scumbag Steve Sailer’s hate site for most of his Atlantic tenure. I guess he finally decided to ditch Sailer when he wanted to make his move for a higher profile.
Ross’s casual racism makes him a typical GOP foot soldier, of course – and the bottom line with him is that his party loyalty is just as strong as can be. Ross thinks that if he’s a good GOP boy his whole life he’ll get to sit on Saint Reagan’s lap when he gets to Rich White Man Heaven.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:58 am
The question is whether we encourage a slightly greater proportion of “streetcar suburbs” and a slightly smaller proportion of sprawl.
Is it? I’ve never gotten a clear answer from the urbanists as to how large a shift they seek away from sprawl and towards “walkable” urbanism. I’ve never seen any statement from Matt to the effect that all he is seeking is a “slight” shift towards higher density or a “slight” shift from cars to transit. In fact, since he endlessly promotes the idea that density-and-transit would produce substantial environmental benefits and make a significant contribution to the fight against global warming, he seems to have in mind a very large-scale shift indeed.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Reading through all of the above, I’m almost sorry the Times didn’t pick Hector. His metaphysical/quasi-Manichaen stuff always reminds me of Tolkien-style mythology, and that’d be at least as entertaining as anything Douthat is likely to hack up.
March 12th, 2009 at 6:06 am
well spotted Moe – how odd that the Sailer link suddenly disappears from douthat’s links, despite previously being there for years.
and how unfortunate for him that archive.org has him linking to him from the very first archive of April 2007 to the most recently archived link of feb 2008.
Sailer’s comments on Katrina were:
“What you won’t hear, except from me, is that ‘Let the good times roll’ is an especially risky message for African-Americans. The plain fact is that they tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better-educated groups. Thus they need stricter moral guidance from society.”
Ross is a hypocritical piece of shit on race and countless others. It shows how bad the NYTimes has become for hiring him, and how desperate conservatism is that he’s actually far better than Kristol.
And for the circle jerk by MY, but especially Ambinder; ugh.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:55 am
For my money, I would have preferred that the NYT had hired Joe Guzzardi.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:01 am
@79: That’s disingenuous as hell, and you know it — which is, I guess, the definition of “disingenuous.”
You don’t have to look into Matt’s eyes and see his soul in order to figure out “how great a shift he’s seeking,” because it’s not a question of personal trust, or a question of motive.
In practice, a shift of this sort can *only* take place slowly, because there’s a huge installed base of houses, roads, etc. There’s no realistic way to produce a large or rapid shift. So there will always be p l e n t y of time to say “whoa, we’re going too far — I love me some strip malls and giant parking lots, and if we keep heading this direction they’re all going to be replaced by pedestrianized boutiques!”
You’re perfectly illustrating what I said about the reliance on straw men, and I’m beginning to suspect that mixnerspotter had a point.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:01 am
Excuse my stupidity, but…
Why does everyone say Larison is extremely right-wing? From what I’ve read, he hasn’t argued for anything extreme, and he makes a hell of a lot more sense than the knuckledraggers at VDARE.
What are his “extreme” positions, anyway?
March 12th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Harold,
Yes, I could (should?) have included the five million Vietnamese and probably at least several hundred thousand Central Americans, but I didn’t want to make the sentence too long.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Dilan,
Seriously, I want to press you further on this. You say that there’s a concensus in the United States in favor of preserving Roe v. Wade, and you’re right. To be fair, most Americans may not know the actual extent of the abortion licence in this country. The latest polling data here
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
indicates that about 35-45% of Americans want abortion to be illegal in “most or all” cases. But you’re right if you don’t take that too seriously- most Americans don’t _vote_ that way, as the ballot initiatives in 2008 proved.
That said, why do you think this couldn’t change in future? Do you think that this is set in stone forever? Modern late-capitalist America is not going to last forever in its present form- the various environmental crises should drive that message home. Why believe that its various cultural accretions should be permanent, either? There are plenty of examples in history- from early Christian Rome to modern Russia- of societies which became more restrictive regarding abortion, as well as societies which became less restrictive.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:10 am
26 comments and no one made the Douchehat joke? COME ON PEOPLE, get on the ball!!
No, no, no. The accepted way to mock this guy’s name is to call him Ross “would do anything for love but won’t” Douthat.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Wait, isn’t the derogatory term for Ross “Liberals support eugenics, just like the Nazis did” Douthat usually “Asshat”? I’ve never caught Ross “Ban gay marriage” Douthat referred to as “Douchehat.”
I guess the criterion for judging the quality of one mendacious right-wing shit over another is… who’s Matt’s friend. And in this case it’s Ross “Welfare Queens” Douthat who’s Matt’s friend. If only Mr. Kristol had realized that he needed to hang more with Yglesias if he wanted to receive the same buildup as Ross “Sarah Palin is a RISING STAR!” Douthat.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Is this kid supposed to save the Times?
Think back: in the midst of declining readership and ad revenue a spike in people visiting the “my bitchen opinion” page. Wrongfully attributing this spike to a genuine interest in the Times (rather than the presence of fruity right-wing administration in the White House) they start to charge for the stuff; it doesn’t work. They hire the Kristol fellow to appease the large number of kooks who write and email them on a daily basis; it doesn’t work.
So now they’re back to: don’t offend the liberals.
And don’t try overly hard to bring back excellence to this paper. (I’m sure the kid is smart and everything but he’s obviously no Safire anymore than almost any and probably all of the other columnists are worthy of the ones from twenty-five years ago.)
You read the Journal because you want to; it has information about businesses and industries you put your money in, or might. You read the local paper because they have the 10 day weather report, yard sales, and coupons for meat. You read the Times (less and less) because you’re supposed to: and that isn’t good enough.
As the Single Most Important Paper in the Most Powerful Country Ever they need to do more than tell us that Professor Obama gave another freakin speech in Ohio (he gives good speeches, right?).
They need to excite, and piss people off. They need to be something like the national conscience. I think that means turning over page 1 to near-kamikaze, blitzkrieg crusades (amphetamines and all) on the underlying issues, matters of national concern: civil liberties, the continued orgy of incarceration and the horrifying conditions in American prisons, the immoral war on drugs.
I’d also like some coupons for the Home Depot.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
When it comes to housing development, Matt’s basic thesis seems to be we should remove market-distorting regulations and then see what happens.
Terrific. First, let’s remove the regulations that subsidize transit users for almost three-quarters of the cost of the services they use. They pay around $1 for a bus or train ride that actually costs around $4 to provide to them. These regulations clearly promote massive overconsumption of transit.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Seriously? Picking a self-righteous anti-choice anti-gay racist little shitstain like Douthat is motivated by not offending liberals? I’d deconstruct this further, but as a liberal I’m too busy with what Douthat, with his vast intellectual honesty, calls “making apologies for terror and mass murder.”
March 12th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Here are Mark Twain’s thoughts on the Ross Douthat’s of the world (and that includes all those early Iraq War supporters who later decided it maybe wasn’t such a good idea after all) – just change the country names:
“I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiaochow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.”
March 12th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
“Seriously? Picking a self-righteous anti-choice anti-gay racist little shitstain like Douthat is motivated by not offending liberals?”
I think that’s what they think they’re doing (not offending the libs I mean).
March 12th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Daniel Larison would have been better. But he is so principled in his conservatism that half the time he ends up sounding like a communitarian/anarchist–what with his criticisms of the assumptions behind the fetishizing of an ever-growing economy and the dangers of the military/industrial complex and capitalism’s role in creating a variety of social ills.
No–the Times needs someone on the Right who can still be counted on to behave themselves amongst the “adults”–Beltway insiders, people already in power, etc. Ross will spout bland social conservatism and will be only slightly, and then understatedly, critical of movement conservatism.
And saying he’s better than McArdle or Kristol is not saying much.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
WJ,
Yes, Larison would have been better. But I think his brand of Counter-Enlightenment, monarchist conservatism is a little too far for the New York Times. A lot of its readers, I suspect, are neither aware nor particularly want to be aware that there are people out there who don’t think that Enlightenment liberalism is a particulalry good idea.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
The polling on abortion is possibly best summarized thusly:
56% oppose overturning Roe v Wade (32% strongly)
12% don’t like abortions happening but are not sure of what to do/support; these voters split about 50/50 in voting on bans
8% variants of “ban it for all those sluts and morons and the underclasses, but not for me/my relatives”
24% want to ban abortion under any circumstances; sincerity somewhat questionable
Recent referenda on abortion bans tend to have the pro-choice vote run 6-10% ahead of the national Democratic vote percentage.
Things changed in 2005/06; the popular anti-choice coalition began to weaken and their previously unconditional unity began to break up into the standard Right ideological factionalisms with the O’Connor resignation and Carthart decision. The 24% social conservative factionalists are really the only people who are hanging onto a belief banning abortions is a realistic prospect anymore. They are talking about it taking 1-2 generations and agree that it’s hopeless now and for at least the next decade.
Frankly, the game is about waiting out the social conservatives until they are discredited and gone and resistance to RvW on ‘religious’ (magical/occultic/authoritarian) grounds has collapsed. Only then the honest and practical and compassionate discussion of the matter will take place and resolve.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
JonF writes: “I don’t agree with Douthat on any number of topics, but I would much rather see him given this megaphone than some Sean Hannity clone.”
Sure, but that’s really a false choice. Why can’t the Times pick a conservative who doesn’t have his tongue buried deep in the GOP’s ass? Douthat doesn’t qualify – he’s a party toady down to the bone.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Re: Why can’t the Times pick a conservative who doesn’t have his tongue buried deep in the GOP’s ass?
For that they’d have to go overseas.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
JonF, they would have more to choose from abroad, that’s for sure. Most conservatives in this country are insane or stupid or both at this point in history. I guess Douthat was chosen because he’s neither – he’s just an immature social climber with a deep need to be loved by the dimwitted lunatics.
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