Word has it that the Atlantic’s Ross Douthat will be picking up where Bill Kristol left off at the New York Times’s op-ed page. Here’s the email the Times’s Andrew Rosenthal sent to colleagues announcing the hire:
Folks:Some exciting news. We’ve hired Ross Douthat, currently of Atlantic. Ross will be joining the Times staff in mid-April and will be based in the Washington bureau. He will start out primarily online, but will soon be writing with increasing frequency, and then regularity, on the Op-Ed page, in the Monday slot opposite Paul. At some point, he’ll also resume his work as a blogger, which I highly recommend.
If you don’t know Ross, you’ll find him funny and smart and sharp. He’s going to be a great addition to our team. I know you’ll make him welcome.
Andy
Let the online commentary evisceration begin! Cue the hysterical liberal lions!
Posted by Anon 1:50 on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 04:31 PM
If I remember correctly he is a Baltimore Lostie, which makes him A-OK in my book
Posted by Heather on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 04:44 PM
In the eyes of this hysterical liberal lion, Douthat is a huge upgrade over Kristol (aka official GOP talking points stenographer). Billy boy didn't seem to have an original idea in his pretty little head. Douthat is a conservative; he's also thoughtful and creative. After whiffing on the first pitch, the Times has hit this one out of the park.
Posted by boffo on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 04:53 PM
> Let the online commentary evisceration begin! Cue the hysterical liberal lions!
I don't know why you would say that - I'm as lefty as they come and I generally find Douhat to be a thoughtful and interesting writer. I don't frequently agree with him on policy, but at least he brings the kind of conservative intellectual heft that is so lacking nowadays from the right. Certainly will be a darned sight more interesting to read than Kristol!
Posted by Katy on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 04:54 PM
I remember his ignorant piece on academic philosophy, which showed a total unwillingness to report or fact-check his vague impressions ... kinda like Kristol, Will, et al
He'll fit in perfectly.
Posted by David on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 05:11 PM
Far from a liberallion, buut I do find Douthat's blog to be boring. Movie reviews and God-talk - oh my!
Posted by Tiparillo on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 05:17 PM
Douthat is a nice guy, but that beard is peach fuzz. Last week, he was writing about not getting into college parties. This week he has a regular column at the New York Times? This is what conservatism has come to? A fourteen year old at CPAC and a twenty-something at the Old Gray Lady?
Posted by GWill on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 05:28 PM
I think this is a great choice. I don't agree with Douthat politically at all, but I do think he's an interesting writer. He's got an actual *sensibility*, not just a political shtick. It's a sort of theoconservatism I can understand, shaped by C. S. Lewis and Tolkien as much as anything. I don't agree with him, but at least I can see that there is actual thought going on in there.
He can be sentimental, and his political instincts are dubious. (He loved Palin and Jindal -- enough said.) But he's far more interesting than someone like Frum -- not to even mention Kristol, who is morally unfit to write a column.
Posted by Ted on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 05:31 PM
I'm so Librull that I actually registered as a Republican so's I could vote against Ronnie in the Illinois Primaries. Kristol's an "adjust-your-expectations" conservative that limits his intellectual engagement to decide which neocon talking point to spout when questioned ("knee-jerk liberal" -- hey, remember THAT one?)
I can't think of a single issue that I agreed with Douthat on-- we really ARE on opposite sides--- but I always had to engage his ideas, if only to refute them. Not so with Mr. K-- even armchair pundits can punch in stock replies to stock questions. The idea gap on the Right is fun to see right now, but it's no help to the Left in the long run. I hope RD is sharpening his pencil, and I'm looking forward to his NYT columns-- and even more to the responses they will generate.
Posted by Diogenes on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 05:34 PM
Ted wrote: "He's got an actual *sensibility*, not just a political shtick. It's a sort of theoconservatism I can understand, shaped by C. S. Lewis and Tolkien as much as anything. I don't agree with him, but at least I can see that there is actual thought going on in there."
Citing C.S. Lewis and Tolkien passes for deep thought these days? Perhaps that's why op-ed pages are in the shape they're in.
I'll grant that it's a step up from thinking The Godfather movies tell us how to conduct foreign policy. But, jeez, surely we can do better.
Posted by David on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 06:00 PM
"Jeez, surely we can do better."
Yes. But the right has a long way to go. Baby steps into the light . . .
Posted by Ted on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 06:06 PM
The problem with the Times' choice of Ross Douthat is that it falls into the casting trap of "conservative" vs. "liberal." From what I've read of Douthat, he excels at Jesuitical argument but not at the sort of plain common sense that I miss most on the Times' op-ed page these days. He's a debater - a clever, over-blogged rhetorician of the Conservative line who smacks of little experience in the world where the endless back-and-forth between the two "camps" has become a serious drain of our natural energy. Why couldn't the Times have picked someone above that stale fray , someone with a good open mind and strong, clear voice, someone with the Emersonian ability to juggle two opposing ideas at once —someone in the mold of, let's say, George Orwell, Scotty Reston, Walter Lippmann or, dare I say, Thomas Paine?
Posted by Charles Michener on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 06:17 PM
It would be good if NYT would put a progressive on their op-ed pages. Liberals and conservatives are not the only ones out there.
Posted by Bill Q on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 06:55 PM
If this is the best they got we got nothing to worry about. This guy is a lightweight.
Posted by Rusty Austin on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 07:05 PM
Yeah, you progressives sure are underrepresented. How do you manage?
Posted by Libertarian on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 07:18 PM
Douthat sucks. His hire is affirmative action for conservatives, nothing more.
Posted by Lee Harvey on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 07:56 PM
A "conservative" so popular with the left isn't very.
Add him to David Brooks, get two more just like them, and maybe there's one testicle to share between them.
Posted by Adjoran on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 08:38 PM
I find Douthat to be (far) superior to both Brooks and Kristol, but also inferior to many of the young conservative writers at the American Conservative magazine. They have a columnist, Daniel Larison, who does Douthat better than Douthat ever could.
Posted by Matt on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 09:11 PM
I tower
I astonish with my shake and swish
I overwhelm, yet frame
I am
Ross Douthat's Hair
Posted by Ross Douthat's Hair on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 10:00 PM
Larison is a good writer and an interesting thinker. I follow his blog, but not Douthat's. On most issues his writings challenge you to think, and you will learn from him even if you disagree with him - and I often do. But if he were writing for the Times, can you imagine the first time he wrote on foreign policy toward Israel or shared his views on President Lincoln? (Here's a twofer.)
Besides, if you truly read his blog, what are the odds that he could keep to an 800 word column? Their new tag line might be, "Dan Larison, and all the news we could print in the remaining few column inches." I kid - but it would take five of me to produce a similar quantity of posts, and that's before considering the quality. (And he's simultaneously working on a Ph.D. thesis? The mind boggles.)
Posted by Aaron on Wed 11 Mar 2009 at 11:39 PM
Aaron, he chops his magazine pieces on politics down to a manageable size, so I imagine he could do it.
In ten or fifteen years, after the conservative color wars have faded away, this guy will be recognized the new George Will.
Posted by Matt on Thu 12 Mar 2009 at 08:25 AM
Charles Michener, you sure have reasonable expectations. Come to think of it, why COULDN'T the NYT have found another George Orwell or Thomas Paine? I mean, they grow on trees, right? Don't they know that?
I'm not sure why they wouldn't want a "debater" as part of their op-ed team... But anyway, his blog is one thing. He also happens to have a pretty thoughtful grasp on ... gulp ... real-world policy, in additional to a reasonable approach to social issues, which makes him a rare thing right now for a conservative.
Posted by Joe on Thu 12 Mar 2009 at 11:26 AM
I hope Larison doesn't become the next George Will. When Will digresses from baseball, it's been an eon since I saw a column of his that makes me think, or indicates any remaining ability to stretch beyond his established orthodoxy. Alas, I guess we all grow old at some point.
Posted by Aaron on Thu 12 Mar 2009 at 05:39 PM
Douthat's earlier writings for The Harvard Crimson and Salient paint him as someone whose "writer’s zeal as a culture warrior, as well as his often bizarre moral logic, should be disconcerting to readers of the Times who share a few fundamental premises more cosmopolitan than this."
Interesting read:
Great Article on Douthat by Greg Atwan, writer of "Privelege" and co-author of The Facebook Book
Posted by Steven Duque on Tue 24 Mar 2009 at 05:28 PM