It sounds like everyone on this thread says Jindal is terrible.
Posted on 03/11/2009 3:06:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Ross Douthat, 29, a senior editor and conservative blogger for The Atlantic magazine, has been hired by The New York Times to write a regular column online and then fill the weekly Op-ed slot occupied by William Kristol during 2008.
A New York Times spokeswoman confirmed the hiring to E&P this afternoon. Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor, asked by E&P's Joe Strupp why Douthat had been picked, cited his youth, Republican politics, "iconoclast" leanings and intelligence.
He also said that he had interviewed several applicants after reading widely the work of many conservatives (see separate story).
Rosenthal had sent around the following e-mail:
"Some exciting news. We’ve hired Ross Douthat, currently of Atlantic. Ross will be joining the Times staff in mid-April and will be based in the Washington bureau.
"He will start out primarily online, but will soon be writing with increasing frequency, and then regularity, on the Op-Ed page, in the Monday slot opposite Paul. At some point, he’ll also resume his work as a blogger, which I highly recommend.
"If you don’t know Ross, you’ll find him funny and smart and sharp. He’s going to be a great addition to our team. I know you’ll make him welcome."
Douthat has written articles for the Times and, unlike Kristol, is not known for regularly attacking the paper in print.
His bio at his Atlantic blog reads:
"Ross Douthat is a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is the author of 'Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class' (Hyperion, 2005), and the co-author, with Reihan Salam, of 'Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class And Save the American Dream' (Doubleday, 2008). He is the film critic for National Review, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, GQ, Slate, and other publications. A native of New Haven, Connecticut, he now lives in Washington D.C."
His name, he notes, is pronounced "Dow-thut."
Marc Ambinder, his colleague at The Atlantic site, writes today, "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."
He’d better get his money up front.
Okay, lost me on that one
Haha the NY Times are such slimeballs. Only conservatives that bash conservatives are allowed to write for them. A-holes.
I wonder if those “sparring sessions” take place during pillow talk.
“I wonder if those “sparring sessions” take place during pillow talk.”
Which one is Doris Day and which one is Rock Hudson, not that it matters which one is Rock.
Never heard of him.
and the intellectual honesty of his frequent sparring partner, Andrew Sullivan.
ROTFL.
Bleccch. The armchair gynecologist himself. What a horrible person.
I've read him on and off for the better part of two years, and frankly, I'm not sure how he got his reputation for being a conservative.
Perhaps over at the Atlantic, he passes for one.
Okay, I laughed.
And Jindal - yeah, he was just as lousy as everybody's saying. As far as themes and messaging went, he basically chose option A on Ambinder's list - government isn't the solution; pork is the problem; etc. - and embedded it in a weak, sing-song delivery that I suspect left even the people who respond favorably to that message cold. Sure, responding to a Presidential speech is almost always a thankless, hopeless job - but shouldn't someone as smart as Jindal have recognized that, and either turned the opportunity down flat, or found a way to sound like something other than a kindergarten teacher delivering familiar GOP talking points? In the event, his speech was the capstone on a lousy night for conservatism: If that's the best the Right has to offer as a rebuttal to Obama, American liberalism is going to be running untouched down the field for years to come.
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Republican Response to The One- - Jindal - LIVE THREAD
He has a sing-song cadence, like he is talking to a group of 4th graders.
Like that will stop people from calling him "Do-that" or "Dout-hat."
His blog is at http://rossdouthat.theatlantic.com/.
Douthat's not that bad a guy from what I've read. He's certainly more conservative than Brooks, and probably more conservative than Kristol.
But he's not an attack dog, and that will turn some people off big time.
From what I could scan from his blog, there was no conservative apostasy, neither was there anything Coulterian for the NYT to fear.
LLS
Wow, I even named Ross...and wrote to Jonah about it...do we know these creeps or what!!
Never a doubt my FRiend! Our track record is almost as good as Rush’s!
LLS
Douthat is a nutmeg wanker of the first degree.
He’ll fit right in at the Old Grey Lady.
Several dozen freepers who casually post on FR are better informed and better writers than this guy. His fluff is so limpwristed to start there will be nothing left once the NYT editors hack his pieces apart.
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