Recently, the Athenaeum has become something of a refuge for left wing bloggers. It's a shame, but it looks to be a trend.
Take a recent sampling. This semester alone we have several such bloggers.
Andrew Sullivan
Marcy Wheeler
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Matthew Yglesias
It's not like the Right doesn't have equivalent figures of equal or greater merit, but something tells me their invitations won't be forthcoming. Why not? I'm not suggesting that we disinvite some of the left wingers, but maybe more balance is in order. We could even do some kind of panel.
Take some of the greatest conservatives out there: Glenn Reynolds, Matt Drudge, Michelle Malkin, Amanda Carpenter, Ed Morrissey, Rush Limbaugh, etc and bring them to campus.
And we haven't even discussed the libertarian side of blogosphere.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
What's With All the Left Wing Bloggers at the Ath?
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16 comments:
Michelle Malkin.
Greatest conservatives.
Remember when we talked about wild, untrue claims?
Is Karl Rove conservative? Wasn't he here two weeks ago?
Isn't Andrew Sullivan a classical libertarian conservative? Didn't he support Ron Paul more than anyone else in the primaries?
Karl Rove? Tom Bevan?
When is Andrew Sullivan speaking? I don't see him on the Ath schedule. He spoke about two years ago, I think, before he began leading the Trig Palin truth brigade. Back in the days when he was just a conservative who disliked the president and a Catholic who disliked the pope.
Like Andrew Sullivan, Marcy Wheeler is also a former Ath speaker. I don't find her name on this year's schedule.
By lately, I was referring to the last two years.
I think the confusion lies in you using "This semester alone we have several such bloggers." in the sentence preceeding your list.
Also, the Ath hosted Hugh Hewitt in 2005, the same year they hosted Sullivan.
The ath does a pretty good job about trying to bring in a variety of view points every semester. That said, they get who they can for a variety of reasons (personal contacts, ties to classes, monetary reasons, schedualing), but I really don't think a partisan agenda is one of them.
Is Victor Cha conservative? Wasn't he here two DAYS ago?
Andrew Sullivan has been a conservative his whole life. Like 70% of this country, he is disenchanted with Bush and the current Republican party so is supporting Obama. His most recent book was on conservatism. He hasn't spoken at CMC for several years.
Marcy Wheeler was last year.
I was speaking of conservative bloggers, obviously. Ideally, I would just as soon see no bloggers speaking at the Ath, but that seems a bit much.
As for Cha speaking at the Ath, it's quite rare indeed to get an international relations specialist who isn't a left winger. Kudos to the Keck Center for inviting him.
To suggest that Andrew Sullivan is a conservative is silly at best.
He's broken with conservatism on a whole host of issues and been nothing short of an apologist for Obama, a man who wants to increase federal spending by $200 billion. He's gone off the reservation, to be sure.
Oh come now, Charles. Andrew Sullivan is not a left-winger. He's a classical liberal.
Matthew Yglesias is a noted liberal, but I wouldn't call him "left-wing."
Besides, you've left off the many conservative bloggers and journalists the Ath HAS hosted recently: Hugh Hewitt, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, George Will. I could go on.
The pity, Charles, is that there ARE indeed plenty of of things in this world to complain about. As a fellow conservative, I would even join you in such complaints. The Athenaeum's selection of speakers, however, is just not one of them.
Look at what Sullivan advocates lately. It certainly isn't conservatism. Again, Hugh Hewitt, David Brooks, Bill Kristoll and George Will work for serious newspapers or magazines and have for quite awhile. They are more analogous to the whole host of liberal journalists we have brought. These include or will include Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and James Fallows.
Dude, you're doing that thing where you make no sense again.
"I was speaking of conservative bloggers, obviously."
Michelle Malkin is syndicated in 200 newspapers. Rush Limbaugh is most noteworthy as a radio host. Matt Drudge is not a blogger, but rather an editor of a news site. Andrew Sullivan might no be conservative, but to call him "left wing" is farcical."
Do you even remember why or what you're arguing?
Charles,
Sullivan is not the pocket of the Republican party and is never afraid to change his mind. He has written for tons of "serious" publications and for most of his career has been a self-identified conservative. It's only in this most recent election that he's supporting a Democrat.
He hasn't "broken with conservatism." He's broken with the current Republican party, which is about as un-conservative as you can get, which is why your line about Obama "increasing the size of government $200 B" is all the more ironic.
Read his book "The Conservative Soul."
What ever happened to the days of you being a libertarian? Your blogging of late seems to be an endless towing of the Republican party line. And the Republican party, whether from growing the size of government (and pursuing incredibly expensive nation building projects like Iraq abroad) to seeking to regulate private / in-the-home issues, seems awfully anti-libertarian.
Sullivan is hardly a libertarian or a conservative. He calls himself a Burkean in the Conservative Soul (which I have read) and yet the institution he most clearly wants to disrupt is that of marriage. He now suggests that the "Christianists" that apparently run the government are the same as the Islamic terrorists who would kill us all, suggesting a false moral equivalence. He also suggests that we are a "thinly-veiled dictatorship" which ignores the millions of Americans who voted for the President and would like to see us win in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His notion that conservatives have lost the skepticism that they used to carry as a badge of honor is frankly insulting to all of us who have criticized the President and the GOP on libertarian grounds.
He is also a liar. He has said that John McCain probably wasn't tortured and he has spread vicious rumors on his blog about Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol. He has sent out anonymous ads seeking to have sex bareback with fellow homosexuals, despite the fact that he is HIV positive. So much for encouraging gays to be monogamous...
I'm hardly toting the Republican line, but I'm getting real about the dangers we face from an Obama presidency and a Democrat congress. Obama has favored additional spending of 200 billion. McCain is less than ten percent of that.
As for the Iraq war, it's been less than one percent of the federal budget. One percent per annum. That's a trivial amount of money for the liberation of millions. I find it interesting that the supposed libertarians that criticize the Iraq war fail to note 1) that we're winning now 2) that there are massive and huge welfare entitlements on which they are absolutely silent. Of course I was against the Iraq war first and have reconciled myself to the event.
Finally, how is the Republican party trying to regulate in-home issues? True libertarians don't believe in license, they believe in and accept and love responsibility. Lately Sullivan has been exceptionally irresponsible. It is doubtful that he ever truly understood the meaning of conservatism, finding its roots in Oakeshott rather than Hayek and the Ancients. Of course those who demand that they ought not to be judged seem perfectly willing to judge others. Take Ross Douhat's summation of Sullivans' character assassinations as exhibit A for how Sullivan has gone off the reservation... I'll leave you with this.
"For months and months, all through Hillary Clinton's losing campaign for the Presidency, my colleague Andrew Sullivan insisted over and over again that his furious anti-Hillary partisanship was in fact a defense of authentic feminism, since Hillary's ascension to the White House would represent the worst sort of pre-feminist, second-hand success - a woman marrying her way into power, that is, rather than attaining it on her own. Well, now John McCain has picked as his running mate a woman who embodies all the post-feminist virtues Andrew insisted were absent in Hillary Clinton's ascent - she's risen from working-class obscurity to govern a state dominated by an old boys' network (where the other prominent female politician is a classic legacy pick), while successfully juggling motherhood and her career and never, ever, piggybacking on any of her husband's achievements. (Though admittedly, Todd Palin would probably kick Denis Thatcher's ass in a snowmobile race.) Obviously, there are serious questions about the wisdom of the Palin pick, and as an Obama partisan Andrew has ever reason to go on one of his characteristic blogging tears against her candidacy. But given his primary-season insistence on his own credentials as a feminist, you'd think that Andrew would confine his attacks on Palin to critiquing her record and mocking her lack of experience, rather than, say, posting emails accusing her of being a bad mother for accepting the nomination, snickering over her children's names, and razzing her as a bimbo and a "trophy candidate." Or, you know, not."
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