Terrific news! My pick for Bill Kristol's replacement at the times, the brilliant Ross Douthat, was also the NYT's pick! Happy happy joy joy! I'm doing a little right-wing Snoopy dance around my desk right now. I am used to unrelenting bad news from the world of newspapers, but this is unqualified good news. Ross has just been moved to very top of American opinion journalism, and I have every confidence that he will use his position to advance smart conservative reform.
And please understand this: The New York Times has just hired as an opinion columnist a pro-life socially conservative Catholic.
Congratulations all around. I am sure this is one hire the Times won't regret. Ross's blog is one of the few I check 10 times a day. I will miss it at the Atlantic, but that's a small price to pay for having one of our own (if I may say so) as a Times columnist. Sometimes, the good guys really do win.
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Great news, but I fear that there will be a lot of complaints from the Norqist-Limbaugh Right that the *Times* should have chosen a "real" conservative--someone who said nothing but "cut taxes, cut spending, bomb Iran" 24 hours a day. In other words, a "Reaganite"--or more precisely, someone who conforms to their distorted image of Reagan, not to the real Ronald Reagan.
But for people who want that sort of thing there is always talk radio and Fox News. (A funny thing: when the "mainstream media" were unchallenged, the GOP won both the popular and electoral vote in five out of six elections from 1968 through 1988. From 1992 on, they have lost four of the last six presidential elections, and lost the popular vote in *five* of them. Now I'm not saying the "new" right-wing media which started gaining prominence around 1990 are the reason for this. But they sure don't look like they have helped.)
I hadn’t thought Ross Douthat would be picked by the NYTimes. It had crossed my mind that he could be recruited to fill the gap left by the death of Rev. Richard John Neuhaus at First Things.
His move to the NYTimes is merited and promising. I can’t think of another realistic choice that would have pleased me more. Douthat’s rise is a rebuke to those pundits and their followers who complain about “the MSM” keeping them down. Talent and a congenial personality can take you far.
When panthera writes something like the claim that Ross Douthat is "one of the extremely few conservative Christians who are actually capable of rational though," why is that claim allowed to stand? Why is the post not deleted? It would be deleted most places if panthera or anyone else made the same sort of statement about almost any other group of people, besides of course "conservative Christians." How does letting someone like panthera post here foster conversation and civil debate? Do the "rules of conduct" mentioned above the post-box not mean anything at all? I'm asking because I'm new here, so I really don't know. But the impression I get from panthera's post and from others of his or hers that I have read is that the "rules of conduct" don't amount to much. Which is discouraging and disappointing, since alot that is worthwhile seem to go on here, otherwise. The question remains though whether it is good for this blog to ask that people subject themselves to abusive and derogatory trash like panthera's posts as "the cost of doing busines" here.
Bryce: When panthera writes something like the claim that Ross Douthat is "one of the extremely few conservative Christians who are actually capable of rational though," why is that claim allowed to stand? Why is the post not deleted? It would be deleted most places if panthera or anyone else made the same sort of statement about almost any other group of people, besides of course "conservative Christians." How does letting someone like panthera post here foster conversation and civil debate?
You know, you're right. And so I will go in a moment and delete it. Panthera, I've called you out publicly and written you privately about your conduct here. I think it's time for you and this blog to part ways. You are an intelligent person with a lot to contribute, but you cannot seem to get over your spite for conservatives, and conservative Christians. I do not, of course, require that you or anybody agree with us, or keep your dissenting opinions to yourself. But I honestly don't believe you can help writing and thinking this way. That's too bad. It really is.
David T.: "From 1992 on, [Republicans] have lost four of the last six presidential elections, and lost the popular vote in *five* of them."
Were we reading that sentence after November 6, 2012, in the wake of another Democratic victory, that would be true. Corrected, the sentence would read:
"From 1992 on, [Republicans] have lost three of the last five presidential elections, and lost the popular vote in *four* of them."
And though it might afford small comfort to the Republicans, we might throw them a bone in the form of the following fact:
"From 1992 on, Democrats have received less than half the popular vote in four* of the last five presidential elections, and therefore more than half in only one."
*1992: 43; 1996: 49.2 2000: 48.4; 2004: 48.3; 2008: 52.9
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