How are the Washington journalists responding to the selection of new NYT op-ed columnist Ross Douthat? The Atlantic‘s Marc Ambinder, for one, has mixed feelings: “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… Bill Kristol was just a mistake, but boy, talk about the rebound: I think Ross is the sharpest, most innovative heterodox thinker of his generation, left or right… As the chairman of the Atlantic would say, Ross is in his vertical hour. And now, one of the greatest minds in the country has one of the world’s best megaphones.” He concludes that Ross Douthat is best read while in the nude. [Marc Ambinder]
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{ 55 comments }
LOL @ masturbating boxer.
But what does Rush think about him?
Goddamnit that dog is cute.
OMG. Marc Ambinder probably has one of those freaky little rooms in his place with pics of Ross everywhere, some candles, a ceremonial chalice, and a sticky yoga mat.
Thank god he’s hetero.
What’s a “vertical hour” – and should a doctor be called if one has more than 4 vertical hours?
Pft, didn’t even mention those penetrating eyes that get inside you and make you know that everything will be alright.
I am sooo not having a vertical hour right now.
Wonkette is best read in the nude, which is why all of the commentors are unemployed.
This is all fine and good, but how does it get Meghan McCain laid?
Alt-text FAIL, Jim Newell.
…so essentially he is the Frankenstein of journalism? A whole bunch of mismatched and poorly assembled pieces, mashed together to make a walking abomination!
Also, is Douthat really pronounced “Douche Hat,” as the French would have it?
[re=263865]bhosp[/re]: That’s a mastiff.
Someone’s in luuuuuuurve!
[re=263887]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]:I believe it’s Do-Shat.
…if Marc Ambinder manages to find a moment to get off his knees and remove Ross Douthat’s dikk from his mouth please tell him to call his mother!
[re=263876]Custerwolf[/re]: That was going to be my joke. Hats off to you, sir.
The range of a Hitchens? What, he’s up for scotch, vodka, whiskey, and/or gin?
[re=263887]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: Yes, it’s pronounced “Douche Hat”. And he’s also an actual “DoucheHat”, so feel free to refer to him only as “DoucheHat”, in perpetua.
At least he didn’t call him dashing.
[re=263901]Anonymous Office Zombie[/re]: Men and women.
[re=263896]Red Zeppelin[/re]: You can take credit – since I didn’t get the joke until after I’d made it.
How does one become an intellectual at 20 something?
so can we expect some assfucking on the NYTimes op-ed page now?
that’s *assfucking*, not *assfuckery*, which they’ve got in spades with Tom Pornstacheman
All I got from that is that he’s “hetero.” Are you sure he is a conservative?
So, is Ambinder trying to say that he is gay or British? If there is a difference.
If he’s so smart why is he a Republican, and why would he waste mortal time trying to change the GOP into something grand and new? On the contrary, he sounds like a retard.
Heterodox is one of those words that sounds like the opposite of what it means. Or maybe not. Also.
Ha. So no pressure on Douthat to produce in his debut column. But if it is anything less than the greatest article of the 21st century, he can expect rotten cabbages from the stalls.
I have never heard of “The Atlantic” but I assume it is some kind of gay magazine.
A heterodox with the world’s best megaphone? WTF?
There were number of typos in the original, which I have corrected for your folks:
“Ross is a late-twenties-year-old pubic intellektual with the sexuality of a 60-year eminence grise, the liver of a Hitchens, the penis of a conservative AJP Taylor, the practical skills of a Neibuhr and the intellektual honesty of his frequent sparring partner, former Iraqi Minister of Information Mohammmed Saeed “Baghdad Bob” al-Sahaf. Bill Kristol was just a mistake [Nb. No correction required], but boy, talk about love-on-the-rebound: I think Ross is the sharpest, most innovative heterodox thinker of the 17th Century generation, left or right . . . . As the chairman of the White Star Line – Atlantic would say, Ross is unsinkable. And now, one of the “Best & Brightest” minds in the country has one of the world’s best about-to-go bankrupt megaphones to broadcast the same truth in journalism as made famous by Judith “I SAW The BOMBS” Miller.”
Take the dog in the picture, sedate him, and that’s how excited I am about staff changes at the NYT.
I can only interpret “intellectual honesty of…Andrew Sullivan” as a veiled insult. Dammit, it has to be!
[re=263985]reluctantlychad[/re]: I didn’t think it was that veiled.
The conscience of Neibuhr! How can any of us bear to even look directly at such a shiny, golden, god-man?
As someone pointed out yesterday, how bright can this douche hat be if he’s 29 and is still a republican after the past 8 years, plus whatever relatively successful Clinton years before that? This smells like a kid who got peed on after falling off the monkeybars and is just being contrarian in an infantile attempt to get back at the bullies. Plus all his photos make him look super ghey. Oh, so I guess he’ll fit right in.
[re=263887]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: I heard it rhymed with “Doubt That” … which seems apropos as a reaction to the glowing purple prose about the guy.
[re=264017]hobospacejungle[/re]: “contrarian in an infantile attempt to get back”
Oh, Lordy, don’tcha just know it?
I have the bad fortune to be associated with the Electronic Music and Dance “Scene” (such as it is) here in LA … which seems to be a great place for geeky little fanboy types to end up.
A great many of them are (drumroll please) newly-minted Libertarians. Now … I define “Libertarian” these days as “a neocon who wants to smoke pot” or “a neocon who wants to pretend he never supported the Bush administration.”
Libertarianism, complete with childlike belief in the Free Market Fairies, seems to be quite the trend among selfish clueless wet-behind-the-ears 21- and 22-year-old male LA asshats who want to seem Edgy and like they’re Nobody’s Fool.
Conservative and Libertarian posing in the very young is the most nauseating posing there is.
You have to be under 25, I think, to believe that you’ll never require health care, and so all anybody *else* has to do to have healthcare is just … save up their money! To these kids, people who are knocked out of the middle class, sometimes all the way to homelessness, just weren’t Planning Ahead, like all these Bright Young USC Assholes claim *they* would surely do.
But, of course, none of them actually have.
[re=263919]AfghanVet[/re]: You need to be either very, very, very, very good, or very, very, very, very pretentious.
I’m betting it’s the latter.
Douthat is an asshat. Thank you.
[re=263985]reluctantlychad[/re]: I, too, read that Andrew Sullivan comment as underhanded. I mean no one actually thinks of Sullivan as an intellectually honest individual? What does that even mean?
Reading Cardinal Douie will be almost as good as going to church. Praise Jesus.
“When I read Ross’s columns on The Atlantic website little starbursts shoot out from my computer screen and ricochet around the room and off the box of Kleenex and jar of lotion I keep on my desk.”
Starbursts!
The Atlantic Monthly, with the exception of Ta-henisi Coates (sp?), really is a collection of steaming piles of freshly minted elephant dung posing as political columnists. Most of them are commentless hacks, starting with Jeffrey Goldberg and Ambinder; Sullivan has about as much intellectual honesty as a package of oyster crackers, and Megan McArdle doesn’t appear to have the brainpower to involuntarily regulate her heartbeat, much less spew glibertarian nonsense on the half-hour.
Heterodox. What exactly is unorthodox about spouting standard neo-con/psuedo-libertarian garbage in a new and exciting way? There is a term for persons who sell you crap and tell you it’s new and exciting: that term is con artist.
[re=264035]iolanthe[/re]: Most succinct and accurate description of psuedo-Libertarians ever. I salute you, sir.
Man, Assbinder, get a room (or a stall at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport). I’m going to shower right now since I feel so dirty.
Also, does Douchehat have that same sticky hair as Hitchens and that fat jowly mein that always made him so attractive at lunchtime at City Grill on Connecticut? Ick
[re=264035]iolanthe[/re]: Libertarians are just conservatives that have never had to file for unemployment.
[re=264275]Pop Socket[/re]: That’s a great line Pop.
[re=264166]norbizness[/re]: Megan McArdle doesn’t appear to have the brainpower to involuntarily regulate her heartbeat.
Thank you for that beautiful beat down. I think I tried to read her once and gave up halfway through. Didn’t she play Little Orphan Annie on Broadway when she was a kid?
I copied that quote over to Babblefish, but could not get a good English translation. What is it, L33T speak?
[re=264096]imissopus[/re]: Exactly; he sits up a little straighter in his chair, and wonders if Ross was winking at him. Hopefully MTV’s Room Raiders (is that show still on?) will appear unannounced and find all the starbursts in Ambinder’s room with the ultraviolet light.
i wonder if he re-read his own comments at home with a stiff drink and stiff…seating arrangement?
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