New NYT op-ed columnist: Young, Catholic, and really smart
He’s Ross Douthat, erstwhile Atlantic editor and blogger and a serious upgrade from William Kristol, who started badly–not entirely unexpectedly–and went down from there during his year-long stint, which ended–not entirely unexpectedly–a couple months back.
I’d hoped that Douthat would get the nod–and obviously that went into Sulzberger’s decision-making process–despite the fact that he’s so bloody smart and so bloody young (29 years old):
Asked when The Times last had such a young columnist, Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, said, “I don’t think ever.”
Douthat will also bring a Catholic sensibility on ethics and morals and social justice to the page, and of course a politically conservative disposition. Hey, he has time to learn–look how fast David Brooks is backpedaling under the onslaught of reality! And some question Brooks’ conservative bona fides anyway. Douthat may suffer similar slings and arrows, given some of the heterdox views he and Reihan Salam wrote about in their book, “Grand New Party.” (Jim Sleeper reviewed it for Commonweal.)
In his writings at The Atlantic, Douthat has often been brutally honest about the failings of the GOP in the last election, politically and ideologically.
Read Damon Linker’s welcome at TNR, in which Douthat’s frequent sparring partner opines:
Ross’s appointment represents a broadening of debate in the mainstream media. Unless I’m mistaken, he will be the first pro-lifer ever to write a column for what is still (by a wide margin) the premier daily newspaper in the United States. That he’s also a committed orthodox Catholic who enjoys (and excels at) defending his beliefs against critics both serious and silly is a real bonus. Too many pro-life and devoutly religious Americans fall into one of two camps: Either they lack the intellectual ability to engage in conversation and argument with the wider culture, or else they use their intellect to rally their own side for political battle, content to mock and dismiss those outside their ranks. Ross deftly avoids both vices in his writing — and American public life will be elevated because of it.
And his colleague Marc Ambinder reminds us it’s pronounced dow-that — with a soft “th.”
Young, Catholic, and not terribly smart, more like it, I’m afraid. The Village Voice cherrypicks some of Douthat’s more hilarious inanities from his work at the Atlantic and the American Scene here:
http://tinyurl.com/dnxczg
some highlights:
“Douthat complains [link] that liberal novelists won’t write about Republican heroes (“It suggests that there aren’t any interesting Republicans in our fiction not because Republicans aren’t interesting, but because our intelligentsia’s political prejudices blind them…”).
Douthat explains [link] why he would vote for Diaperepublican David Vitter before he’d vote for Barack Obama (“Regretting the passing of a particular moral standard does not require one to always vote as if that standard were still in place”).
Douthat reasons [link] that even sex-and-swears-soaked TV shows like The Sopranos are really conservative and evangelicals should watch them (“it’s clear that Lost ultimately shares with Battlestar Galactica a certain degree of cosmic optimism”).
Douthat bemoans [link] the moral hazard posed by Jennifer Aniston’s waxed pubic hair (“As with breast implants, it’s another instance of modern women taking their sexual cues from pornography…”).
Douthat philosophizes [link] on why, in his experience, women “have a certain amount of difficulty having orgasms.” “
Ah, the VILLAGE VOICE! Is that not the journal which threw away Nat Henthoff, its only serious commentator? Is that the journal which is chiefly supported by advertising for Sexual Services?
Brian,
“Cherrypicks” is exactly right. It’s a mug’s game to find sentences from the work of a prolific blogger that make him look foolish, especially when they are taken out of context. But then, as Gabriel suggests, the Village Voice has lately become a mug’s newspaper. Village Voicers make a point of avoiding people like Douthat; he upsets too many of their easy prejudices.
Gabriel, you’re thinking of the right paper, but you’re wrong on a few counts. First of all, it’s foolish to suggest that anything from the Voice is automatically valueless based on the evidence you cite. But even so, I feel compelled to note that while Hentoff was certainly one of their best, he was just as certainly not the only serious commentator in the Voice. And firing him was not the only, maybe not even the worst, foolish decision made since the paper came under new management a few years ago. As for the sex ads: that was true when they were publishing Hentoff, too. Just because they’re wrong about many things doesn’t mean they’re wrong about everything. And I should note I haven’t even followed the link yet; it may indeed be worthless. But I won’t know that till I read it.
Edit: OK, I peeked at it, and yes, as Matt notes, it’s a waste of time. Their blogger’s verdict: “In short, he’s a little crazier than Kristol” — demonstrably not true — “…not to mention much more Jesus-y…” Well, sure, that’s true, but you say that like it’s a bad thing! Personally, I’m very pleased with the Douthat appointment. It’s about time the NYT had a token conservative who was worth reading and arguing with. It’s certainly the Voice‘s loss if they don’t appreciate that. But the Voice has been through a lot of losses lately.
Douthat is an interesting guy to say the least. He is reported (other than the Voice) to be “squishy about right to life.” Does that mean that Charlie will send him a letter? Will it be congrats or a warning? Now will this guy douthat become important because he is Catholic or because he might have something substantial to say?
It is in his favor that he is young. He thanks the Times for taking a chance on him. I just hope Catholics, conservative or not, will make such a deal about his being Catholic. You know. Make a person’s action count for what he or others call him.
He is, in my view, too worried about how “Christian America” will get like “secular Europe.” You mean like getting into Iraq, Korea, Vietnam and now the financial scandal/ripoff of the century. And for basically giving Israel a Carte blanche in the Middle East? But maybe that is ecumenism….
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/
But Douthat is, perhaps, a work in progress.
should be ” will NOT make a big deal because he is Catholic.
There’s another new byline recently appearing in the Times: A.G. Sulzberger (28 years-old).
That he’s an heir of Punch and Pinch may not be harmful for his future prospects.
http://gawker.com/5165759/sulzberger-son-being-taught-by-the-best
For a smart comment on the Times hire by one of the people who suggested they consider Douthat, see this post by George Packer:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2009/03/ross-douthat-th.html#comments
Packer thinks Douthat was the second-best choice; he’d have preferred David Frum. But Frum would offer nothing the Times doesn’t already have with Brooks, while Douthat is as different from Brooks, in background and ideology, as he is from William Kristol. I think Damon Linker is right: Douthat will be the first pro-life Times columnist. And I think Douthat does himself a disservice by calling himself a “squishy” prolifer — unless “squishy” now just means anyone who’s self-critical and generous. Here’s Douthat on the stem-cell controversy:
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/03/stem_cells_and_moral_seriousne.php
It is hard *not* to be better than Bill Kristol. As NYT columnist, he was a disappointment (to say the least); as writer in general, he isn’t much better either. By training and habit, Kristol wasn’t a writer but a talker: a contrast to his parents who were fine writers and elegant stylists in their respective fields of politics and history.
IMO, the most interesting thing about Douthat is his age. Because of his relative youthfulness, he may turn pretty liberal as years past – or, conversely, more intensely conservative. However, since the majority of NYT readers are liberal or liberal-leaning, he will have to pitch a moderate tone in order to get them ponder instead of jumping at him (as Kristol often did).
I just saw George Packer mentioned up there… Last year he wrote an essay in The NYer that points out how bad Kristol the Times columnist was.
I’ve been reading Douthat’s blog for about a year and I’m addicted.
I couldn’t help reading again Packer’s delightful little beat-up of Kristol’s lousy prose. Douthat will have to be better, hopefully as spinner of opinions but also – for the sake of our civilization – as good writer of prose.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/11/if-kristol-is-a.html
It’s not just that Kristol isn’t another Safire (although an absence of verbal playfulness and wit is a consistent hallmark of the Kristol prose style). It’s not just that his views are utterly predictable (if that were firing grounds, close to half the Times columnists would lose their jobs). It’s not just that he was fundamentally wrong at least every other week throughout the year…
The real grounds for firing Kristol are that he didn’t take his column seriously. In his year on the Op-Ed page, not one memorable sentence, not one provocative thought, not one valuable piece of information appeared under his name. The prose was so limp (“Who, inquiring minds want to know, is going to spare us a first Obama term?”) that you had the sense Kristol wrote his column during the commercial breaks of his gig on Fox News Sunday and gave it about the same amount of thought.
M. Boudway: Thanks for the Packer link. I’d dispute him on one point, which is his take on Bob Herbert. Herbert is I think the class of the page. True, economics is not his forte, so he’s not as sharp as say, Krugman. But then again Krugman can argue anything and I wouldn’t know if he’s right or wrong. Brooks seems to me all over the map, and is right twice a day like a broken clock.
Herbert has a reporter’s chops, which I always fall for. He does go out and report, and talks to people outside the Beltway, beyond Davos, and gets hold of a story–like a death penalty injusitce in Texas, e.g.–and sticks with it. Kristof, while not as exciting, is also admirable that way, on the global scene. He knows earnestness is death, and cheats the reaper best he can.
But as Packer notes, writing an op-ed column is so much harder than it looks. I suspect Kristol had the layman’s view, or the lazy pundit’s view, that it’s as easy as going on TV. Not.
Different tack:
My guess is that we’ll see many more barely-out-of-the-cradle appointments as the newspaper biz struggles to be relevant to young people and make the transition from paper to e-media.
What Douthat and other kids have is tech savvy and understanding of the younger demographic that will make or break newspapers in the next 20 years.
I don’t doubt Douthat’s intelligence or allegiance to Catholicism for whatever that’s worth, but does a 29-year-old really have what it takes to run the op-ed page of, arguably, the nation’s most venerable newspaper? Hope so.
Jean, Douthat is “just” writing a column, no? Not running the whole page. So piece of cake…
BTW, you may enjoy this piece, “J-school: Still eating brains?” at today’s TNR, complete with a refreshing quote (whether apocryphal or not) from the superb Ari Goldman:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2009/03/12/j-school-still-eating-brains.aspx
I think one large problem with the collapse of the newspaper industry and the newspaper culture–well, one, besides the threat to intelligent discourse and a transparent society–is that journos from here on out will have precious little of the experience of research and writing and getting things right. We’re all bloggers now–but with nothing except our opinions (ho-hum) to purvey.
Oops, just got so freaked out about a 29-year-old NYT op-ed writer that I just assumed it presaged the takeover of the NYT by hostile GenX-Yers hoping to hurry us Boomers into an early grave by advocating the cut-off of our SSI and Medicare ASAP and then, when we’re clogging up ERs and park benches b/c we’re sick and have no housing, to start looking into the moral feasibility of euthanizing us and harvesting whatever viable organs we’ve got left.
There’s a lot of things I am happy I won’t live to see, but that scenario isn’t one of ‘em. The oldsters hate us because they don’t believe we ever grew up. The youngsters hate us because we’re taking up the jobs they want and there are too many of us to comfortably support.
Maybe Ross-Boy could write about that.
Re your link above, the brains I eat are quite nicely pickled before they ever get to my plate by the students themselves. With St. Patrick’s Day coming up on the heels of spring break, they should be quite nicely done by the time I resume tucking in on Tuesday.
While I share, to some extent, the concise comment about new media reported in the piece, most students entering the field need some acquaintance with the gadgets because many smaller papers can’t pay for both writers and technicians. Sorta like in the old days when the editor could also pinch hit for the press operator when he was on vacation. Mine could. And did. And sometimes let me press the big button!
I also take issue with those who bemoan “the demise of print media” when they mean the demise of the PAPER media. Blogs, e-stories, video broadcasts–they all start as print. They’re simply now going into a medium you can’t take into the bathroom anymore. Unless you’ve got a Kindle.
Hello All,
I have to admit that I did not know who Mr. Douthat was before yesterday. Thanks to David G. for a very informative post.
I think it might be of group interest to know that in my part of the academic profession, philosophy, Mr. Douthat’s appointment is sparking some terribly nasty reactions. This is in part because frankly, most philosophers I am acquainted with despise anyone who is a conservative columnist. But a more substantive worry is that Mr. Douthat is simultaneously terribly ignorant of what’s going on in the philosophy profession and willing to comment on the philosophy profession as if he were an expert. Here is a representative quote from an article Mr. Douthat published in The Atlantic Monthly.
“The retreat into irrelevance is visible all across the humanities curriculum. Philosophy departments have largely purged themselves of metaphysicians and moralists … .”
I have been in the philosophy profession for twenty years now and I can assure all participants here that Mr. Douthat’s claim is simply false. Indeed, I can think of no reputable philosophy department in North America that does not have faculty who specialize in metaphysics and in ethics. Indeed, in North America philosophy departments’ preference for ethicists and metaphysicians puts specialists in other areas such as philosophy of science and formal logic at a serious professional disadvantage. Mr. Douthat doesn’t even seem to know the research specialties of the Harvard philosophy faculty where he studied, even though a quick visit to the Harvard University Department of Philosophy web site reveals that six of the philosophy department there specialize in ethics and four in metaphysics, even if one does not count the specialists in political philosophy (which can be regarded a part of ethics) and philosophy of mind (which can be regarded as part of metaphysics).
I am sure that David G., whose writings I much admire and who is Mr. Douthat’s colleague, is right to be enthusiastic about Mr. Douthat’s intelligence and Catholic sensibilities. But I wish Mr. Douthat and other right wing Catholic columnists I have read (and now deliberately no longer read) would just stop talking about philosophy and the philosophy profession.
Jean –
About paper v. a screen. For a reason too boring to recount, I don’t take the local paper anymore, I view it online. Sort of. I’ve found that the paper edition is much, much quicker to review and read than the computer version. When I buy a paper I read much, much more of it.
In other words, reading the Picayune online has the same effect as reducing news coverage by the newpaper. That is happening too, sadly.
Thanks for the background, Peter. I wouldn’t know enough to catch that one, but I’ve certainly seem similar inaccurate statements of “fact” from other opinion columnists and commentators (and not just on the right). I think, when you’re getting paid to give your opinions, it’s all too easy to slip into assuming you know enough about any given subject to form an opinion.
Hello Mollie (and All),
I’m sure you are right that such carelessness appears in the spoken and written words of columnists from all over the political spectrum. It just so happens that in my case I’ve exposed myself mainly to the work of editorial columnists who are politically and/or religiously right-wing. (Some time back I tried seriously to study works by figures like George Weigel, Richard John Neuhaus, Maggie Gallagher and many of their allies in hopes that I would learn to be more sympathetic to many of the views they defend. This backfired so badly that I now tend to avoid pieces by columnists of any political stripe, with the notable exception of some who regularly publish pieces in Commonweal.)
I think from now on I will wait until David G. cues us to anything by Mr. Douthat that might be of real value. My philosophy colleagues have been having lots of fun today pointing one another to some of Douthat’s more outrageous views and arguments. I gave in and took a look at some of these posts by Douthat when I took a break from writing exams today. I decided I will not share the links with my fellow Commonwealers because some of these posts are in my opinion not edifying reading for Christians. One of the least offensive (and I’m being sarcastic here) opinions I saw earlier this evening: Mr. Douthat looks forward to the day when developing fetuses who through genetic screening are identified as predisposed to be homosexual can be “treated” with hormone therapy in utero so that they will turn out straight.
Ann O., I think you raise an interesting point–do people read less of the news when they see it online. One of my concerns is that, if you have a yahoo e-mail account (and probably others), you are “fed” the “top stories” on your home page. But are these the stories that you should or need to read? And what are you missing.
Recent exhaustive study on online v. paper readers I’m going to have to revisit and see whether those questions were asked. Tangential to Douthat. Sorry.
Peter, Wiegel wrote a piece a few years ago proclaiming Scotland was “celebrating” its pagan heritage by putting up markers along the roadside to mark the site of Viking invasions. Never mind that the British have gone a long way to preserve their early Christian sites that were sacked, such as Lindisfarne. The premise was absurd and the information selective. I wouldn’t say the essay was typical, but it was a benchmark, for me, of how low he can get at times.
If Douthat really wrote that homosexuals can be “cured” with hormone therapy–and should be–he shows not only his ignorance but his willingness to try to navigate the slippery slope of eugenics. But we’ve been cautioned above not to take comments out of context.
A (rather long) dissenting voice re: Douthat:
http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/03/american-catholic-centrists-and-closed.html
Hello Jean (and All),
To be fair, Douthat did not say that homosexuals can be “cured” with hormone therapy. Douthat did say that the scientific evidence is promising that in time embryos who are discovered through genetic screening to be predisposed to be homosexual can be set “straight through” through a regimen of hormone therapy in utero. But I think even that claim shows remarkable ignorance.
Again to be fair, Douthat thinks that if we ever do discover how to identify homosexual embryos via genetic screening, the “cure” he thinks we are also likely to discover is better than the alternative he thinks many couples who learn their developing embryo is homosexual would otherwise opt for, namely, abortion. He claims that the “cure” would be an alternative everyone would be happy with. I for one think he’s flat out wrong about the latter claim. I also have my doubts about the claim that if we ever learn how to genetically screen for homosexuality that couples who learn they have conceived a homosexual embryo will tend to opt for abortion if no hormonal “cure” is available.
Peter, could you provide a link to this article, please?
Hello Jean (and All),
Try
http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/06/the_future_of_homosexuality_ag.php
Thanks, Peter. I don’t really know what point Douthat is trying to make except to taunt both those on the left and right of the gay rights issue about how deep their sympathies/antipathies about homosexuality might run.
Doubtless he was not hired to write for the NYT on the strength of this very short piece.
Hello Jean (and All),
I’m sure you are right. And since David G. admires at least some of Douthat’s work that’s sufficient proof for me that Douthat is capable of work a lot better than this short piece.
Obviously I got a bit irked by Douthat’s silly claim about philosophy and some of the other terribly offensive statements by him I read on Friday. (Again the statement you saw in the link I posted is by a wide margin the least offensive of those I took a look at.) But I needed to remind myself that almost invariably the views and arguments of any public figure that get the widest circulation are the silliest and/or the most controversial.
“Douthat did say that the scientific evidence is promising that in time embryos who are discovered through genetic screening to be predisposed to be homosexual can be set “straight through” through a regimen of hormone therapy in utero.”
Great! And right after that I’m sure folks won’t object to pre-birth engineering to ensure that preferred gender is born along with desired hair and eye color, nose shape, etc.
Apologies for not weighing in for the weekend (not that I needed to) and thanks for the enlightening exchanges.
Not to be a total weenie, but I would protest that I wasn’t endorsing Douthat’s view with my original post–I’ve read some pieces by him that I loved, some I loathed, and some, meh. I thought he was one of the few conservatives who were honest about the state of the GOP as the campaign progressed.
But my virtual welcome mat above was because I think he is smart, and engaging, and maddening, to be sure, to many–and he is a Catholic who brings a seriousness about Catholicism to his writings. One may agree or disagree, but at least that will be reprsented on a very high-profile op-ed page, perhaps the best op-ed real estate. Douthat will, I suspect, periodically put a Catholic spin on things, and in letters and online people can respond. That’s good.
Maureen Dowd is Catholic, or was raised Catholic, or whatever she says now, and perhaps Gail Collins? (Whom I prefer) I dunno. But they don’t bring any detectable “liberal” Catholic voice to the page, which is unfortunate. So we takes whats we get. (Nick Kristof seems to bring a very discernible mainline Protestant view, which is a very good thing, I think, simply by the fact that someone takes tradition and culture seriously.)
Peter V: (Not that there was anyone after Peter I, har har) many thanks for the info and I understand your frustration, and would agree with you without cavil if I knew anything close to what you do about philosophy. I have no doubt you are right, and I have no doubt that Douthat’s jejeune claims are due to jeunesse, in part, and the demands of journalism and blogging. Columnists–esp when they are not reporters, like Herbert and Kristof–have to come up with Big Ideas and Big Things to say a couple times of week, and sound new. Look what that’s done to poor Thomas Friedman. It’s part of the shtick, part of what they are supposed to do, though hopefully not without really misleading us. It provokes. Sometimes too much, I’ll agree. David Brooks is interesting sometimes, but off base with some of his Big Ideas columns on sociology and such, written, however, with admirable panache and authority.
Alas, there but for the grace of God…
Also, thanks Jimmy Mac for the William Lindsey link. I like his umbrage, but never knew where Douthat came from. Perhaps I am one of those East Coast provincials (and Id love to see the Commonweal West Coast cruise/fundraiser) but I don’t know it–which is proof-positive of provincialism, no? In any case, I’d agree that Douthat is “a Ctholic voice,” for the reasons cited above.
As always, the proof will be in the columns.
FINAL NOTE: What “conservative” Catholic voice would folks here nominate for the Times slot?
PS: Peter V–I enjoyed/shared your frustration over parsing the writings of the Catholic conservatives usual suspects. I think they can only be approached with a Jon Tewart sensibility. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out how to market such comedy…