Congrats to Ross Douthat, who will be taking over the Kristol seat at the NY Times. No word on whether Kristol gets to keep the dunce cap.
My first choice was Larison, but with Douthat we get someone who will at least from time to time make interesting arguments. And considering how low a bar Kristol has set, if Ross makes it through his first column without misspelling his name and being forced to issue three factual corrections, he will already be a move in the right direction.
No word yet on whether the Tibetan Freedom Fighters over at the New Republic and the Weekly Standard approve of this pick, so let’s not pretend the deal is completely done. We better make sure that Michael Goldfarb and Chait and Marty Peretz approve of Ross’s views on China. We saw what happened to Charles Freeman when people’s views on Tibet are not given a proper vet.
*** Update ***
Looks like preliminary approval from the TNR. Unless Goldfarb can dig up some stuff about the pedophile lobby, the Douthat pick looks safe.
JenJen
Damn. I was really pulling for Ben Domenech to get the slot.
Seriously, I enjoy Ross Douthat, and find him to be one of the few rightie columnists that don’t make my knees jerk involuntarily. I wouldn’t go so far as Marc Ambinder did, writing, "I think Ross is the sharpest, most innovative heterodox thinker of his generation, left or right."
But at any rate, Congrats, Ross!
Warren Terra
I dunno. Douthat and Larison are supposed to be the smartest, sanest, most reasonable and most honest conservative commenters out there right now – but I fund that for either of them that whenever the topic connects remotely with religion or "social issues" then they just go completely nutty.
Hopefully Douthat will minimize the time he spends on such topics at the Times.
demkat620
Larison would’ve been a great choice. He really gets it right now. Douthat is meh.
aimai
Larison would have been good. I can’t stand touthat. I consider him a slightly smarter Brooks. But no doubt the dumbing down process starts immiediatly and pretty soon we’ll be able to tell exactly what Obama’s problem is by th way he starts his columns by talking about something completely different.
aimai
schrodinger's cat
You should have a NYT column instead of Mr Religious conservative goody two shoes. His blog is super boring and does not even allow comments. If his columns are anything like his blog, that would be one more NYT columnist I can skip.
John Cole
I want a column at the NY Times like I want a gaping head wound.
JenJen
@John Cole: I dunno. What if they offer stock options? ;-)
Ned R.
@John Cole: Well, depends who has the head wound.
gex
@schrodinger’s cat: They would never consider Cole a conservative. He just isn’t that into endless war and theocracy.
gex
@John Cole: Okay, but even with the gaping head wound you’d be better than Kristol.
Comrade Stuck
Cole and Modo in the same workspace. BOOM!
John Cole
I don’t consider myself a conservative, TBH. I don’t know what I am.
Unitarian Jihad.
Seriously though, I understand folks continue to pretend there is some sort of principled conservatism out there, but I, for now, have kind of given up on it. Conservatives got everything they wanted the last couple of decades with the exception of war in Iran and Terri Schiavo’s lifeless body sustained for eternity with feeding tubes, and the country is a capital D Disaster.
At some point, those defending conservatism start to sound like the communists defending the Soviet Union years after it is clear it has failed- the “It just wasn’t implemented properly” nonsense is pretty easy to see through.
Punchy
I give Ross Dou…..hat 2 weekz before the wanton lying commences. Really, they have nothing to screed if not peddling lies.
schrodinger's cat
Ok, I don’t want you to have a gaping head wound, I will just read your blog instead.
Dr.BDH
All I want to know is, will the ink from Douthat’s column stain the fish I wrap with it?
AhabTExpropriator
Shit, I thought that the entire White House sounded like Baghdad Bob for the last two years, and then it infected McCain’s "campaign."
TheHatOnMyCat
Well. I have read exactly one Douthat column, this one, and all I can say is, good lord. This is what passes for reasonable righty commentary?
Blech.
I am thinking of a guy looking at the Dust Bowl and discussing whether to buy Pledge(tm) for our fine furniture.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
As long as the south has the GOP by it’s acorns, not much is going to happen, until some brave conservatives with a half a brain decide to go Jihad on the Malkin/Limbaugh toad fuckers to make a new and sane party alternative. It would take many election cycles and much entertainment for us lifelong lib/dems, but could be done. Nah, likely not.
demkat620
Sort of off topic but, what is John McCain up to? He’s not going to be the nominee in 2012. What the fuck? And did y’all catch Huckleberry trying to demand a sort of co-presidency. Urging Obama to basically run everything by McCain first. Seriously, wtf?
c u n d gulag
Will Douthat be better? I’d love to write, I ‘Doubtthat.’ But, after Kristol, any imbecile who can write a sentence in English, let alone an engaging one, would be an improvement.
les
I keep seeing this "Larison is good" thing from folks here, who give every appearance of being otherwise not crazy. So, I tried (still do try) to read him. Great vocabulary, wonderful way with words, some sort of surface sanity overlaid on fundamental irrationality, no more chance of impacting or forming a political movement than I do. Kinda/sorta libertarian but can’t stand libertarians, some micro-sect conservative (paleocrunchyneoblahblah), and the only true conservative; all the other conservatives are "classical liberals," and liberals are crazed radical hippies, I guess. Adopts some sane positions, but rejects those same positions from anyone who doesn’t "ground" them in his specific vision of the revealed truth of his particular big sky daddy; can’t believe in the viability of any political movement or society not based solely on instructions from above; in short, rabidly exclusionary and discriminatory. Aside from the pleasure of seeing good writing, he doesn’t seem to offer anything of value whatsoever.
Indylib
@Warren Terra:
No shit, here’s his take on the embrionic stem cell debate –
"Also, to the extent that pro-lifers do accept the current fertility-clinic culture as a given, I still think there’s a worthwhile moral distinction to be drawn between "pointlessly" freezing the embryos left over from an attempt to have children, and just handing them over to be killed. Yes, a frozen embryo will probably be destroyed eventually, and the pro-life gesture involved in freezing it is probably just an empty gesture. But there’s still a difference between a situation in which death is probable and a situation where it’s inevitable, and I think it’s a mistake to efface that line as completely as Kinsley’s argument would have us do. "
What a piece of crap justification for the "pro-lifers" who don’t scream bloody murder about IVF clinics throwing old frozen embryos in the trash, but call the use of them for stem cell research murder.
schrodinger's cat
gex @9 why does Kristol’s replacement have to be a conservative?
To my mind, conservative just seems to be a short hand for Republican. NY Times could benefit if it has someone like John who questions the conventional wisdom and MSM group think.
Laura W
@demkat620:
If Obama weren’t suck a slacker procrastinator, all of this could’ve been pre-approved by McCain months ago in the never ending series of weekly town halls that he
demandedrequested last summer.binzinerator
Douthat: One-eyed among the blind.
JenJen
@Laura W: Speaking of McCain, his Twittering is absolutely hilarious, and not in the intentional way, either. I highly recommend.
Comrade Stuck
testing
Joshua Norton
And Victoria Jackson, too.
J
I don’t see why anyone is seriously applauding this. Dude’s last article for Atlantic basically came down to "I don’t like porn, and anyone who masturbates is a less worthy human being than I am." If there were any ideas connecting or underlying those ideas, I didn’t find them. His arguments against Democrats often amount to "Wrong Shirts," and all I’ve been able to gather about his book is that people who love Jebus as much as he does should get more money from the government.
This is how low we’ve come in our standards for "reasonable?"
gbear
@schrodinger’s cat:
The NYT allows comments so Mr. super boring will have to adapt to that. Maybe those will be fun to read when his columns aren’t. The comments to Kristol’s columns were pretty entertaining.
robertdsc
Haven’t conservatives done enough damage? Why not a liberal instead?
DarrenG
@binzinerator#25: Nailed it.
Douthat is predictably crazy and irrational on subjects where anyone with ambitions towards conservative street cred must be crazy and irrational, but he does occasionally find a nut.
The biggest win here is that he isn’t just another stenographer for the Rove/Drudge/Limbaugh/Perkins fax-blast brigade, and is occasionally willing to challenge GOP orthodoxy in minor ways.
I was rooting for Bacevich myself, but I suppose that was way too much to hope for.
Just Some Fuckhead
@robertdsc: Quotas. It’s the only way conservatives can get ahead in a meritocracy.
Andrew
Douthat is a cowardly prick who can’t take the slightest criticism. He shut down his comments around the time he went full retard with his "Barack Hitler Obama" post.
He’s incredibly intellectually limited, thin skinned, and wrong most of the time. The perfect heir to Kristol’s throne (very much in the toilet sense).
xochi
He’ll be at home with the cadre of middlebrow mediocrities that make up the Times Op-Ed page. If you pit him against luminaries like MoDo and Tom Friedman, he holds his own. And John, a gaping head wound wouldn’t pay for that house in the Hamptons. I’m just sayin’.
Johnny Pez
Fixed.
Josh Hueco
I know it’s bien pensant to call Larison the ‘good’ conservative, but he is/was a member of the League of the South, a bona-fide hate organization according to the SPLC. In his defense, Larison explains himself here.
John Cole
@Josh Hueco: I don’t care what kind of “conservative” he is, I like Larison because he is consistently interesting and has a unique world-view. I think he has some pretty crazy views about religion and monarchy, as well. But, to each his own.
John Cole
Also, anything that pisses off Jamie Kirchick can’t be all bad.
Andrew
JC – As long as you’re willing to admit that Larison is fucking crazy, we can dialogue.
The guy is a Lincoln-hating monarchist.
I mean, what the fucking fuck? That’s so far beyond conservative that it might start encroaching on Genghis Khan territory.
Jim Pharo
Can we just say something out loud that we all know (a/k/a "Things We All Know(tm)")?
Douhat’s appointment is but the latest example that the lines for advancement are much shorter on the Republican side of the aisle, as far more talented and thoughtful people choose the Democratic side — because we are right.
Would the NY Times in a million billion years replace MoDo or Herbert with Duncan Black? It might accept JMM since he was once a part of their little MSM club. But a 29 year old whose primary experience is writing a (liberal) blog? I think We All Know the answer to that one…
I wish Douhat well. I find that, like Larison, when he is making the most sense he is sounding the least conservative. Sometimes, if I close my eyes, I can almost hear their inner liberal speaking…
Andrew
I would add that fucking crazy people sometimes do say interesting things, and Larison certainly does do that. Which makes Douthat look even more pathetic because he never says anything interesting.
How’s them Sam’s Club voters doing for the GOP now, Ross?
Zandar
If you have to have a conservative on the payroll of the Times, you could do a lot worse than Douthat.
Which is like saying "If you have to have a take a bullet, you could do a lot worse than getting hit in the fleshy part of the upper arm."
b-psycho
You know who would make an interesting "major" paper columnist at the moment? This guy.
Josh Hueco
@John Cole:
I agree about him being interesting and all, but I don’t know how well his affiliations and ideas would go over with the editorial board and readers of the Times. It would be interesting.
Tiparillo
So will Ross’ beat still be movie reviews and God-talk?
Dennis-SGMM
You say the word "purple" 267 times.
The 268th time you say "purple," Douthat picks up the purple crayon.
Duckrabbit
@Andrew: I don’t see much if anything wrong with hating Lincoln, but since when is Larison a monarchist?
Comrade Stuck
They all look alike to me.
Tonal Crow
@Duckrabbit: I can’t agree about "hating" Lincoln, but I not-infrequently think that he ought to have let the Confederacy secede, particularly when some religionist moots some new assault on Liberty. Still, I can’t wholeheartedly adopt my thought, since it’s so difficult to know how the alternate history would have played out (e.g., would the Confederacy have survived until WW II, and joined the Axis?)
John Cole
@Duckrabbit: They are somewhere on his old site. I know some people who find his views on Putin repellent, but I still think Daniel is an interesting guy and well worth a read.
And he is far more in touch with reality than anyone who currently identifies as a conservative. He figured Palin out in about 30 seconds and understands Obama far better than many of the people who voted for Obama.
Josh Hueco
@John Cole:
He is a different cat. I can’t find it on Google, but I swear I once read an old, pre-AmCon post of Eunomia where he admitted converting to Islam for a (very) short period of time in his 20s.
Ben
Ross’s Palin boosterism prevents me from taking him seriously, but I suppose liking Palin was a requirement for the job. I think he was a decent choice simply because he’s a good writer, which is an improvement. Kristol’s prose would embarrass a reasonably intelligent eighth-grader.
Chuck Butcher
@John Cole:
Stepping out of the Republican version of conservativism creates difficulties, things get complicated. That version of conservativism thives on simplicity, a few tag lines will cover most situations. Once you accept that god, gays, guns, and tax breaks don’t solve or address the problems of a nation you enter a world of complications. I can say I’m a Democrat because I believe in economic and social justice, which sounds fine but gets reeeallly messy in fact.
People mock Democrats as being cat herding or other nastier versions of disorganized. Well, hell – it isn’t simple, it’s messy enough just trying to do a policy philosophy out of that much less deal with the politics of it. If Democrats weren’t a mess, it would damn near be a guarantee that they’d gotten it wrong. Exposure to that messiness creates a lot of questions about one’s orientations.
You consistently take some very left positions out of a sense of justice or conscience, like gay marriage. That might not make you a leftist in economic thought, but your reactions to our current mess sound quite leftist. If you keep finding yourself in the company of lefties at some point you have to admit to yourself that you’ve become one.
I know it’s a horrid thought, but look where you hang…
Aimai
My reason for preferring parison is that he’s crazy right wing but he is at least honest and courageous enough to follow the logic of his own ideas wherever they lead him–even if that makes him reverse course or admit that the actual GOP is an utter sham and incapacle as constittuted of doing it’s job. Douthat is simply a cog whose function is to run interference for a failed ideology and to concern troll the dens. He’s a dishonest hack inorger words
les
@
That was our noble host–there’s something wrong on Firefox with the refer to a comment thingy.
John, I just don’t get this. Yeah, occasionally he (Larison) picks something "right"–that is, he appreciates the obvious–but everything he believes, by his own statements, must be grounded in the proper base; that being whatever version of the bible and associated apologetics attendant on (the appropriate regional version of) orthodox catholicism. He doesn’t trust or appreciate your agreement with him, if you’re in touch with reality directly; and, to my mind, you absolutely cannot trust what he says, because the essence of his view is irrational. The various views he proposes, including the ones "in touch with reality," don’t make sense as a whole. His level of cognitive dissonance approaches Sully–it’s simply not believable.
Bostondreams
Read Harry Turtledove. His counterhistory, the Timeline 191 series (named so because Lee’s Order 191 was never accidentally discovered prior to his Pennsylvania invasion)begins with ‘How Few Remain’ (the US loses the Second War Between the States when they fail to keep the Confederacy from absorbing Mexico and end up allying with Germany, since the Brits and French allied with the CSA).
It continues with the ‘Great War’ series, where WWI is fought on both American and European soil, trench warfare on both continents, and this time, the Central Powers (including the US) win, so there is no rise of the Nazis. Instead, in ‘American Empire’, a newly energized United States flexes its might and the story traces politics and society in the CSA and USA. A fascist party rises in the humiliated and debt ridden CSA, very similiar in tone and intent to the Nazis in the ‘real’ timeline, with that party (the Freedom Party) led by a charismatic former CSA seargant who restores Confederate pride and blames the loss on traitors and inferiors.
The series concludes with ‘Settling Accounts’ which traces a Second World War fought on European, American, and Asian Soil. Except the Russian Empire never fell (Germany had no need to send in Lenin, as they won the First World War), so no draining invasion by the Germans (no Hitler either!), and the CSA, Russia, and France all are hit by nuclear weapons from the Central Powers. The Japanese are fighting both sides, ironically enough. During the war, the Confederates are able to kill US President Al Smith in a bombing run, and he is replaced by his VP Charles La Follete, who leads the US and the other Central Powers to victory, and the Confederacy is eventually reabsorbed into the Union, with Confederate leaders put on trial for crimes against humanity (the camps discovered in Texas that were exterminating the perceived enemies of the Confederacy (guess which group) were horrific).
As a history teacher, I LOVE this series. Most of the characters are real historical figures. For example, Woodrow Wilson, as President of the CSA, squares off agaisnt the American President, Democrat Teddy Roosevelt (the Republican Party is reduced to a weak regional party after the loss under Blaine in the Second War Between the States, and the two main US parties are the Socialists (founded in part by a disgraced Lincoln) and the Democrats).
Silver
You write "pedophile lobby" and the words "Catholic Church" pops into my head.
Odd that…
jcricket
You’re probably a pragmatist, like Obama and most modern Democrats. The more I read about gun control the less I care about it as an issue, despite it being something I was attached to for quite some time. The more I read about abortion bans, the more committed I am to expanding birth control access and not banning abortion, because abortion bans do nothing but harm women.
War? It’s complicated. Can’t say I fall on any one side all the time.
Taxes? Sure, they could be too high, but zero is too low.
Healthcare? Single payer sounds the best, but I’m sure we’re not going there, or would fuck it up. But if you can show me a private system that works better, I’d get behind it.
If you are a pragmatist, and a Democrat, you get to change your mind when the facts change. Republicans used to change too. It’s only Republicanism from 1970 onward that seems stuck in time.
Perry Como
Umm, who the fuck is Ross Douthat?
Oberg
I am a relative newcomer to this blog, but have been impressed by quite a few posts and articles, as well as the general tone. balloon-juice has been added to my daily reading list, and I have not been disappointed. But the anti tibet liberation talk is really grating on me. Are there posts in the archive that talk about the views of John,Tim, Doug, etc? Why is being concerned with the occupation and cultural annihilation of another country so easily mocked and sidelined, while so many other issues are taken seriously? What makes this issue so extreme?
Steeplejack
@Oberg:
On the off chance that you come back to read this . . .
This is of recent vintage and is a joke about the Israel lobby’s blocking of Chas Freeman’s nomination as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. No denigration of Tibetan liberation intended.
On his blog Andrew Sullivan linked to a news story that said this:
To which Sullivan quipped: "E-mail trails? Tibet is that advanced?"
And then John Cole, in his "Obligatory Chas Freeman Post," linked to that and said: "In the end, I guess the thing that surprised me the most is the behind the scenes power of the Tibet lobby. All this time I thought it was just Richard Gere."
After that the Balloon Juice commentariat was off and running. And now you’re all caught up.
John Cole
@Oberg: What Steeplejack said. It is a snide jab at the Chait, Peretz, and the rest of the clowns who opposed Freeman solely because of his views on Israel, yet spent the last three weeks chucking all sorts of nonsense out there about China and Tibet and what not. We had the odd spectacle of these guys, who have not met a war they didn’t like, citing Human Rights Watch.
They have no damned shame, and more offensive, they have no balls. Just admit that the only thing motivating your smear campaign was Israel.
Duckrabbit
@Tonal Crow: What’s happened happened and nothing will change that. So whether someone hates Lincoln or not makes no difference to me.
Steeplejack
@John Cole:
Yeah. I just got done reading Greenwald on the subject from the link you provided, and my rant-gland got drained again. Hard on my system.
Kevin Carson
Laura W: Yeah, seriously. I can imagine McCain someday addressing the UN Security Council from his underground bunker at KAOS headquarters, preparing to push the button that will detonate a global network of 100MT cobalt bombs and exterminate all life on Earth: "I wouldn’t be forced to do this if Obama had agreed to those town hall meetings in 2008."
Oberg
@
Oberg
(Odd that my first reply appeared fine in the preview, looked fine when I posed it, but coming back this morning it was blank). Here is what I wrote:
@SteepleJack:
Thanks for the clarification, I am glad I asked! Now if only I could figure out the US / Israel business…