With the departure of notable space reptile William Kristol, the Times latest affirmative action hire is one Ross Douthat, a sub-Freudian case study in sublimated sexuality and a young man who has inexplicably chosen notable medicine ball Jonah Goldberg as a model for his facial hair. Says Mark Ambinder, a colleague:
Ross is a late-twenties-year-old public intellectual with the sensibility of a 60-year eminence grise, the range of a Hitchens, the pitch of a conservative AJP Taylor, the conscience of a Neibuhr and the intellectual honesty of his frequent sparring partner, Andrew Sullivan.In translation: Ross' conservativism is the affectation of sentimental nostalgia for a time in one's distant youth that did not exist; his incoherency is to be taken as evidence that he's a polymath; he occasionally adopts the cadences of better writers without being able to ape the content of their writing; he lurves Diamond J; he is willing to admit that he cannot remember what transpired mere seconds ago--his moral universe exists in a present without context, past, or meaning.
25 comments:
Boy. How ya gonna keep 'em down on
the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus.
Ah, Ross Douthat. He went to Harvard and can speak whole sentences without spitting or dribbling, which makes him a "smart conservative." But he's one of the good ones, see, because he wants to transform the Modern Conservative Movement from a bunch of paranoid old robber barons and religious crazies into a bunch of paranoid old robber barons and religious crazies who occasionally name-drop Edmund Burke.
the intellectual honesty of... Andrew Sullivan
Wait -- this was supposed to be flattering?!?!
-- sglover
Probably should give some examples when you make generalizations like these...
(Note: I am barely familiar with Douhat, guess I'll get to know him soon in the Times.)
What is a 'public intellectual'?
A pundit with glasses.
Face-mullets. What's w/yellow elephants and face-mullets?
Douthat isn't an intellectual - he, like Obama, takes right-wing policy positions and pretties them up with liberal language. Does a better job than Bush's people who covered every newly-minted crime with "compassionate conservative" drivel, but really just the same.
Everyone seems to be of the opinion that Reihan was the better of the pair (though he does self-describe as neocon at times). He's too off the wall to have a column in the Grey Lady though. I would have preferred if they picked Larison.
sour grapes does not become you IOZ
Bill Moyers had Ross Douthat on his PBS show a while back... here's the link where you can watch the interview:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07112008/watch.html
It's quite good .. gives you a chance to see how these conservatives are trying to reinvent themselves and cover up the complete and utter failure of their rotten ideology and movement. As Digby says all the time: "conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed". Christopher M has got it right above. Ross Douthat is the same rotten, right-wing scum: he's just able to argue for the same failed and rotten ideology with more sophistication than what passes for your average conservative "intellectual" these days.
Yo, erin, uh, what? Was I up for the job? Last time I checked I ran a blog with a daily readership of a few hundred.
To be fair, I was also disappointed that the Steelers offered Colon that one-year contract instead of giving me a shot.
Yet, no unprovoked assault on Colon...
And hey, don't feel bad, at least your readers are mostly loyal sycophants
And hey, don't feel bad, at least your readers are mostly loyal sycophants
insane, probably. sycophants, no.
And hey, don't feel bad, at least your readers are mostly loyal sycophants
[Dramatically spits drink across the room]
Reading comprehension: you're doing it wrong.
Meh. I like Ross Douthat. Although he may be wrong about many things, he's at least honest with himself and others. One of the nasty things about our political discourse is resorting to calling people one disagrees with "scum" or stupid or crazy. He's smart, thoughtful, and temperamentally *conservative* in the way William F. Buckley was conservative. Not just politically conservative, but deferential and polite, intellectual. In this respect, Rush Limbaugh is a political conservative, I suppose, but temperamentally not at all. Limbaugh is just right-wing. Douthat is *conservative* in a manner I can respect.
He's smart, thoughtful, and temperamentally *conservative* in the way William F. Buckley was conservative.
What rubbish. William F. Buckley was a right-wing thug and utter scum. Would you like to post various gems of his from his National Review magazine, from example, arguing that blacks shoudn't be granted civil rights, or his support of the fascists and Franco during the Spanish Civil War?
Just because Buckley and his fellow conservative "intellectuals" had and have the sophistication and education to rationalize Western and American barbarism and rationalize the same rotten, elitest, racist, murderous, imperialistic, neo-fascist right-wing ideology that is American conservatism that Limbaugh and Glen Beck do with much more honesty and crudeness these days doesn't mean the William Buckleys, David Brooks, Ross Douthats of the conservative intellengtsia are any better than their populist counterparts. In fact, they're all the more dangerous because they're able to *appear* moderate all the while rationalizing and propagandizing for very extreme right-wing policies.
Remember that the next time you see one of these right-wing scum "politely" rationalize barbaric policies such as torture under the cover of "moderation" and "centrism".
By the way, Anonymous, I never used the words "stupid" or "crazy". On the contrary, I'm sure Ross Douthat is quite intelligent and "polite" and is "temperamentally conservative" in the mold of the patron saint of American conservatism, William F. Buckley, who you seem to be a great admirer of. But what the fuck does that have to do with the content of Ross Douthat's philosophy and the things he continues to believe in and propagandize and rationalize for?
Intelligence and "rationality" have nothing whatsoever to do with morality, or even ideological coherence. Human beings are incredibly flawed creatures: they are capable of great self-delusion, and are able to rationalize almost anything despite all empirical and historical evidence to the contrary, whether it is continued belief in a contradictory, incoherent and failed ideological positions that is American conservatism despite all empirical evidence pointing clearly to the utter failure of that rotten, corrupt ideology in practice in the real world, or whether it rationalizing immoral, barbaric and murderous policies such as aggressive war, mass-murder, torture, colonialism and imperialism.
The halls of most hallowed American institutions such as newspapers (New York Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, etc), American academia (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) and government are full of incredibly intelligent, rational, Ivy-League educated people who regularly rationalize American and Israeli barbarism, imperialism, torture, or economic policies that are only beneficial to the American ruling class, truly one of the most vicious and greedy ruling classes of them all, not to mention regularly rationalize various other barbaric, murderous, elitest, racist, and morally bankrupt policies that make up the rotten ideology that is American conservatism.
But I guess if they're polite, highly educated and are therefore able to rationalize and legitimize American and Israeli barbarism with the sophistication, education and "temperamentally conservative" demeanor of a William F. Buckley or Ross Douthat, that's fine by you.
You strike me as someone who doesn't read much Douthat. He made a thoughtful and honest argument about his own struggles with the torture issue, and concluded that torture is, y'know, wrong. Now, I don't much care for conservatism, though I have a soft spot for Buckley as a person, not he politics necessarily, but I could care not a lick for standard left-wing screeds I've heard countless times--all this bleating about "elitest, racist, murderous, imperialistic, neo-fascist right-wing...imperialism...colonialism." It's like the sentences write themselves. Whatever. Later kids.
I have a soft spot for Buckley as a person, not he politics necessarily,
wtf is that supposed to even mean? Are you sure you aren't a conservative? Your intellectual incoherence and excuse-making for Buckley and American conservatism sure makes you sound like one.
Yes, I'm sure some people thought Hitler was a swell guy.. real family man and all.. If only it wasn't for his politics and policies.
And boo hoo.. You say "left-wing screeds" as if that's an insult. If anything, the last 8 years have proved that many of the those very "left-wing" critiques that the likes of you would try to marginalize and scoff at, whether it was left-wing critique of economic policy or of American foreign policy, military aggression and imperialism, Israeli policy and aggression, etc, have more than proven correct.
You can continue to make excuses for William F. Buckleys and the Ross Douthats of this world, while I'll proudly and unapologetically stick with Chomsky and his "left-wing screeds".
Of course, I'm sure you're some smug, white American living in the belly of a racist, imperial state, so you can afford to be charitable towards vile, right-wing thugs and conservative apologists for American-sponsored state-terror and mass-murder like William F. Buckley and Ross Douthat. It's not like American manufactured bombs and killing machines are destroying your country and killing people around you. The brown people in the 3rd world who are at the receiving end of those murderous American and Israeli imperialistic policies that American conservatives gleefully propagandize for do not have the same luxury.
He made a thoughtful and honest argument about his own struggles with the torture issue, and concluded that torture is, y'know, wrong.
I can't wait for Ross Douthat's very "thoughtful and honest argument about his struggles with the" rape issue, and how he heroically concluded that rape of women is, "y'know, wrong".
It isn't the same thing? Why not? Because the torture in question is most likely that of some brown Ay-rab and raghead and therefore it's harder for some smug, white, racist American conservative to conclude torture is wrong, so he should be congratulated for arriving to a conclusion that any other decent, moral human being would arrive at without hesitation.
The point is that only a conservative would need to go through some "struggle" to concluded that torture is wrong.
hv---
You read like a truly Good and Decent Person, not like a conservative at all. Bless your courageous, principled opposition to organized violence and torture. I somehow sense that you were among the first to mount the rostrum in outrage after the Daniel Pearl atrocity. Don't let anyone accuse you of sanctimony and situational ethics!
We Americans needed your bold reminders after Pearl, first, that the biggest danger going forward was the propect of anti-Muslim sentiment among American proto-racists, and second, that we were Pearl's beheaders anyway, in that Because of Recent Colonialism, Islamist mass-murderers can no longer be considered three-dimensional moral actors, but Avatars of Justified Pain and Woe (after all, before the Recent Colonialism, they had their own Empire founded upon military conquest and cultural hegemony).
If I believed in Al-lah, I would pray for there to be more Americans just like you, hv.
inkberrow: I have to say bravo! man. THAT is a blog comments post-and worthy of the cyncicism here.
That doesn't mean that I disagree fundamentally with hv. What hv misses, of course, is that the vaunted "liberal" wing of American politics is as guilty of these crimes as "conservatives." They just cloak it better. Save Darfur! Even if that means dropping tons of bombs and soldiers into an unstable, far more complicated region than these oh so virtuous lovers acknowledge.
America is fundamentally a monstrous creation. All empires are. Wattayagonnado?
Inkberrow,
first I'm not American. I just happen to have a perspective that is a little different from your average Westerner, having grown up and lived in both the East and the West. So I see the problems with both civilizations, and trust me, when it comes to moral bankruptcy, deep racism, and the legitimization of barbarism, mass-murder and imperialism, nothing beats the West, and especially America, which today is simply the manifestation of the imperial West, having succeeded the British Empire after WW-II, and before that, the various European colonial and imperial powers that laid waste to and raped various societies and cultures in their genocidal, barbaric colonial spree of the last 500 years.
Yes, Daniel Perl's beheading was an atrocity, and there is no excuse for it, regardless of whatever legitimate grievances Muslims have with the West, and with AMerica and Israel in particular. But wtf has that got to do with any of my points above? Who the hell is defending this atrocity? If it makes you feel better to erect your own strawman and then conveniently knock him down, fine.. but don't pretend you're addressing any of my criticisms of American conservatism, and the likes of vile, morally-reprehensible, racist, elitest right-wing scum like William F. Buckley. You in the West, who elevate "rational" monsters like Buckley and genocidal trolls like Henry Kissinger, the latter whose policies have caused the death and destruction of millions and laid waste to entire countries through wholescale slaughter and carpet-bombing have a lot of nerve blathering on about the comparitively small-scale and minor acts of violence by those scary Muslims you so much love to dehumanize and vilify in the West. The truth of the matter is that considering the kind of barbarity, and atrocities and mass-murder that Muslims in recent history all over in the Middle-East have faced as a result of direct or indirect American and Israeli aggression and American interference in their lands, governments and countries, the level of blowback by Muslims is quite minor. Contrary to the propaganda I'm sure you're used to swallowing from the likes of Buckley and the American right-wing, the level of extremism in the Muslim world is quite low.
Also, as much as it is a favorite right-wing tactic to dismiss Western colonialism and imperialism as all in the past, and to marginalize the left who frequently bring up these things in their analysis of international affairs, anyone with the modicum of intellectual honesty who observes the power-structure of the world as it stands today should come to realize that Western imperialism and colonialism is still very much present, whether it is in the more overt form of Israeli colonialism of Palestinian land, and of course, constant American meddling in the affairs of other countries and military aggression, direct or indirect, in "strategically" important areas of the world such as in the Middle-East for its oil, or in the less overt form of economic imperialism of the West and the externalization of economic costs by the West in the 3rd world in the form of American and Western dominated economic institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, or until very recently, Western dominated and run mass-media outlets, which resulted in the West disseminating international affairs through deeply racist, biased and propagandistic Western and American filters.
Finally, I would say it is all very well for you smug, white Westerners in the West to rationalize the full-scale destruction of entire countries and societies and mass-murder of brown people, from Indo-China in the 70s, Latin American from the 60s onward, and of course, the Middle-East since America emerged as the new super-power after WW-II and realized the strategic importance of the oil-rich Middle-East, but you can never understand the kind of gaping wounds you cause in entire societies and cultures as a result of the whole-scale destruction and mass-murder that you so easily rationalize and sweep aside unless you have been on the receiving end of such barbarity and whole-scale death and destrction. Just look at the insane and counter-productive reaction of Americans and the American state after 9/11, which was an atrocity without a doubt, but frankly, a relatively minor one compared to the amount of death and destruction the West before, and America more recently, so routinely dishes out to the 3rd world. Some of these societies and countries that you in the West and in America have laid waste to will perhaps never recover, their growth and development stunted from these wounds. Imagine, for example, how the development of America would have proceeded if other countries had constantly interfered with your government and state, and killed off various leading intellectuals and politicians and thinkers before they could ever make an impact on American society, from your founding fathers to more recent giants in AMerican history, such as Martin Luther King. Every individual human life is sacred and important, not only because of this is a fundemental moral principle, but because of the huge impact a single human being is capable of making on a society. Now imagine that other countries and other societies keep losing their "founding fathers" and intellectual and moral giants because of repeated foreign interference and aggression, causing entire societies and countries to veer off into extremism in response, such as Iran after the 1953 coup engineered by your American CIA thugs and murderers, which brought into power the brutal Shah and unnecessarily radicalized the population, and led to the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
It cannot be emphasized enough just how profound and damaging these acts by the West really are to the 3rd world and the Muslim world, e.g., European colonialism before, which divided the Middle-East into arbitrary territories with the explicit purpose of keeping the people of the Middle-East weak, divided and pliant for Western interests, and more recently, American imperialism, and interference and military aggression aganst states and societies in the Middle-East and elsewhere. Like I said already, smug, white WEsterners living in the relatively comfort, privilege and security of a Western racist, imperial state, and living in a world where the power-structure is greatly tilted in favor of the West, have the luxury of being dismissive of the long, brutal and damaging history of Western colonialism and imperialism, but the people in the 3rd world don't have that same luxury. They are living with the consequence and realities of that history and global power-structure every day.
BrianM,
You're right that the American liberal establishment liberal wing of the American political spectrum can frequently be as morally repugnant and barbaric as the right-wing wing. Thomas "suck-on this" Friedman is one such prominently example, among many others.
However, Inkberrow was making a typical anti-Muslim right-wing argument in defense of American imperialism and American conservatism, so I'm not sure where your criticism of American liberalism, which is a criticism from the left, fits in with his points. Based on his comment, Inkberrow probably hates American liberalism for very different reasons than you and me and his critique of liberalism would likely be from the right.
I was simply focusing my critique on the American right-wing and on American conservatism because that was this particular blog posting by IOZ is about Ross Douthat and American conservatism, and I wanted to stay focussed on that. I certainly am well aware of the leftist critique of the American liberal establishment, and of American liberalism in general, as I happen to be one of those leftists, which I have already directly and unapologetically asserted above.
And as much as I distrust American liberalism, and have even grown to loathe American establishment liberals such as Thomas Friedman almost just as much as those on the American conservative end of the political spectrum, it would be intellectually dishonest to equate right-wing scum like Buckley and the various foot-soldiers of the American conservative movement with American liberalism. They're not the same. While both seem to propagandize for and apologize for American and Israeli state-terror and imperialism, the level of deep racism and hatred against "the other", whether that other happens to be Muslims today, or those "gooks" in Indo-China yesterday, is just not the same. The mainstream American conservative/right-wing movement and intelligentsia has overt and strong undercurrents of racism and eliminationism and genocidal tendencies and fantasies that simply doesn't compare with the mainstream American liberal establishment and intelligentsia.
Also, least the American liberal establishment was and is more civilized, humane, and sane when it comes to domestic policy. Thus, the American liberal establishment was in favor of granting civil rights to African-Americans, while right-wing racist scum like Buckley and his fellow conservatives were against it. Of course, apologists for Buckley like Anonymous above will argue Buckley and American conservatives had a "sophisticated" conservative argument against granting civil rights to African-Africans, and they weren't really motivated by racism, but really.. who the fuck are they kidding? The American liberal establishment is critical (how much so varies with time) of right-wing and American conservative economic agenda of rolling back progressive taxation and continual gutting of the American welfare state, which is already quite weak compared to other advanced, Western industrialized states.
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