While the New York Times didn’t pick the conservative blogger I had recommended to replace the embarrassing Bill Kristol on their op-ed page, they actually chose a conservative blogger — to say nothing of hiring someone my own age. Marc Ambinder reports:
Ross Douthat’s New Perch
It’s one step back for the Atlantic, but an order of magnitude forward for the country: my colleagues and I learned today that senior editor Ross Douthat will, in short order, become an opinion columnist for the New York Times.
Ross is 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.
Well, I’m not so sure about the last part, but in any case this is great news. Douthat will be less than half the age of some of his new colleagues, which also makes him the first of this generation to occupy such an important place in American opinion. He is also more conservative than David Brooks — a social conservative like Kristol, but one who addresses the issue unlike Kristol. But this doesn’t mean he is predictable, either: not a partisan hack, Douthat is thoughtful and honest (just to clarify my snarky aside at the top of this paragraph) and should be a great read.
So this is a win for the blogosphere, right? You know, I’m not so sure. Ross is a Harvard man and twice-published author, as opposed to an amateur writing during coffee breaks, which is more or less what the term “blogger” originally meant before becoming quickly became problematized by the mainstream media’s embrace of the form. As of 2009, the blogosphere is almost fully professionalized and personal expression has moved to places like Twitter and Tumblr. About which more in another post, but in the meantime, congratulations, Ross.