[Aah, hell. You can get away with reading just the quote and the short second paragraph following it. The rest isn't up to snuff.]
In the 'Left' blogosphere, Ezra Klein is rated more accurately than Matthew Yglesias (neither is an intellectual heavyweight but Klein seems to be the more serious of the two). But I'm reminded periodically that one of the major weak spots in poli-blog discourse, leftish and rightesque, is the pressure against any kind of serious engagement with full-blown ideas (rather than rhetoric/talking points) from one's ideological opposites, and it affects him too. The 'wisest' liberals should have things to say to the wisest conservatives, and vice versa; it ain't necessarily so.
Klein wrote on Monday:
Clint asks, "I'd love to have a summary of who you think of as the 'Ezra Klein' of conservative bloggers. Or maybe your top 5, since conservative means many things."This is a tricky question to get into, because folks get all sorts of pissed off when you approvingly link to writers you disagree with, and because, as Clint says, conservative means many things. In particular, I worry that I don't have any standard issue Republicans. [... my emphasis --wa.]
Predictably, Klein's commenters get their tight whites in a bunch over his mention of Megan McArdle (who, in fairness, really doesn't know her ass from her elbow, near as I can tell). A lot of that is the usual young-blogger resentment, mixed with 'conservative chicks are so horrifying' feelings, blended with the tendency to go after low-hanging fruit (she's an 'economics blogger' with an MBA). And unsurprisingly, his commenters have few alternative suggestions to make - Larison, Drezner, a couple grudging mentions of Sullivan, etc. Basically, his commenters (a small fraction of his readership) have no interest in the arguments of Klein's opposite numbers in Right Blogistan.
Must it be said? That's a problem. Even if Klein is straightforwardly describing the feedback he gets, rather than justifying his own lack of engagement, it's a scary thing he's saying. If you can't approvingly cite anyone but your ideological fellow-travelers, you're not doing serious intellectual work; you're doing PR.
Many, many, many 'Left' bloggers write as if there's no such thing as a good conservative idea (or ideal). Disgust with Republican politicians is reasonable; their organization is corrupt and, in many cases, flat-out evil, and the national GOP is complicit in various war crimes including torture, so it's sometimes OK to dismiss Republican maneuvers at first glance. And we might note that disgust with Democratic politicians is equally justified, with a minute of Bonus Hate for their absolute lack of testicular fortitude. But it astounds me that - in a year when the presumptive Dem nominee, an African-American Harvard grad, has more cross-party appeal since any politician since Reagan and is renowned for his ability to speak to conservatives - the 'thought leaders' who support him show no interest in extending the same basic courtesy, in finding common cause and joining wider discussion. No wonder our bloggers have been so obsessed with politicians who 'pander to the base': that's the basic model for blog audience-building among our young up'n'comers.
I think you don't have the correct take on this matter. We're in this never ending dance. There is nothing that new to report from either side. Tighties are bunched because EK plays nice with his new club. Megan is read by many, derided by even more. When your job is to play pundit and you are constantly and obviously, and not even interestingly wrong all the time there comes a point when you should be ignored or derided, in general. You may have a cookie if you are occasionally say something not stupid. As much as many would like to create a giant game of Crossfire, if merely to legitimize themselves, this really is nothing but a flamewar. Given certain execrable ideas expressed by MM, the point is when she becomes illegitimate as a pundit? There should be no need to reach out to Professional Conservatives With Pundit Jobs. conservatives who are small-c real people are a different matter.
That said, EK is superior to MY, if only because he maybe reads more. They are both young pundits with no other jobs. They are on their way to Op-Ed hell, and winning for them is being somewhat correct 51% of the time on hard stuff, while saying a lot of obvious, commonsensical stuff on the easy things.
Posted by: Pinko Punko | 07 May 2008 at 12:36 PM
Even granting this - though I don't - what does 'new' have to do with anything? 'Good' is maybe a better metric than 'new' for deciding whether to respond to the ideas of one's 'opponents' (another creepy term, especially in punditville). Unless of course everyone's already figured everything out to their satisfaction, in which case I'll go into my cave and shoot myself. I guess my fiancée can take over the blog?!
Shouldn't the number of people deriding her be less than or equal to the number of people who read or have read her writing? I'm dead serious: what are Ezra Klein's readers doing bitching about someone they surely read, if at all, solely to cherrypick damning quotations, to safely experience low levels of outrage at a Uppity Girl talking politics without their party's seal of approval?
OK: how much of that reaching out is happening? Nice idea, but isn't (e.g.) one of the big points of the Obama campaign that syncing up 100% with someone ideologically isn't a precondition for social action and betterment? Admittedly Ezra Klein's awful comment threads aren't the place to look for bold moves toward social justice, but how many of Klein's commenters also take part in substantive discussions at conservative blogs? Or vice versa? There are at the absolute minimum thousands and thousands of blogs from recognizably conservative perspectives, many with a political focus. Where's the outreach? Is it in the streets? News to me.
'Crossfire' isn't the paradigm I'm wishing for. That's clear, right?
Posted by: Wax Banks | 07 May 2008 at 01:15 PM