From TAS to the NYT
Congratulations to Ross Douthat, one of the founders of The American Scene, on his greatly deserved new gig on the opinion page of The New York Times. Ross is a generous and eloquent writer, a brilliant synthesizer of ideas and trends, and one of the most formidably well-read people you’ll ever come across. I’m thrilled to see the Times bring on their first staunchly pro-life columnist (even if Ross does claim to be a bit squishy), and I hope he’ll continue to find time to keep an eye on movies, television, and the rest of the pop culture universe while he’s busy opining on the national political scene.
Damn liberal media.
— someguy · Mar 11, 10:42 PM · #
I like how as soon as someone brought up the possibility (maybe Reihan?) it seemed so obvious. Untrustably obvious, which is why I’m still pleasantly surprised.
— Daniel · Mar 12, 03:52 AM · #
I really enjoy reading Douthat, but, ick. They’ve got Brooks already and there’s a lot of overlap there (which is why the glorious Reihan would’ve been an even worse pick): hell, if you put Brooks and EJ Dionne in the same medium, as is NPR’s love (heh: Brooks & Dionne: they should write country songs), Douthat would form the third leg of a sort of genial stool.
If the idea of hiring Douthat was to give NYT readers a great and interesting voice to read, bravo. But it wasn’t: it was to fill the generic “conservative” slot once occupied by Safire and then, God help us, Kristol. The NYT will now consider the mission accomplished and I don’t know that it really is: the very mavericky-ness (sorry) that makes Douthat or say Frum interesting to read makes them kind of the wrong choice here.
Unless of course they rethink how the ed page is structured, in which case, bravo. I’d have liked to see a balance to Krugman, too — John Kay or Martin Wolf leap to mind but I’m a FT subscriber and I don’t think you could pull either man away anyway.
Incidentally, nine times out of ten I Lynx to this site so the new comment verification locks me out, but I suppose that’s Society’s gain. F’in awesome: my words are “the appointed.” No kiddin’.
— Sanjay · Mar 12, 02:18 PM · #
CampusProgress.org reports that Douthat’s Crimson writings include a piece on
how Asians are weird. Can Reihan confirm?
— Wrongshore · Mar 12, 07:33 PM · #
Congratulations to Ross. I’ve been following his material here, at The Atlantic, with his book, and his bloggingheads appearances. I don’t always agree with him (I’m more libertarian) but I always find his work thoughtful, intelligent and interesting. I look forward to his work in the NYT.
While I agree that there is considerable overlap with his voice and Brooks, I don’t think the alternative should have been someone to “balance” Krugman. The NYT is a liberal paper with a liberal readership. It is never going to be balanced, nor really should it. It should seek out conservative voices, like Ross’, that can at least get an airing among the NYT readership. A more traditional, check-the-box conservative would be ignored. Ideally, I personally would have liked someone more libertarian, like when John Tierney and Bill Safire had columns, but this is an excellent alternative.
Best of luck to Ross.
— wph · Mar 12, 07:33 PM · #
As much as I like Ross, if I were picking TAS contributors to go to the NYT, I’d like to have seen Jim Manzi go. I love his emperical attitude, and there’s much less overlap with Brooks.
— TW Andrews · Mar 12, 07:44 PM · #