Kos To Pen For Newsweek

Kos will be providing commentary for Newsweek's readers as Nov '08 approaches and I am all for it - let's eliminate the MSM filter, bring the crazy aunt down from the attic, and let America get to know the Nutroots in their unvarnished glory.  And if anyone has a problem with that, screw 'em.

I am much more concerned about Newsweek's yet-to-be-announced pick to represent "the right" in our monolithic glory.  I don't think anyone can plausibly argue that Kos is not a fair representative of the Nutroots, but I don't see that he has any counterpart on the right.  Presumably Newsweek will want to pick some obscure ranter so they can embarrass "the right" while applauding themselves for being controversial. 

As to whom they ought to pick?  A logical starting point would be the Weblog "Best Conservative Blog" nominees; second-place Michelle Malkin is already a semi-prominent media figure, but second runner-up Captain Ed would be an excellent choice.  (I am passing over the winner, Ace of Spades, since it is a group effort, although the Ace himself would be aces for the Newsweek gig.)

Suggestions are welcome below.

UPDATE:  Hmm, either Captain Ed is in for a Thanksgiving surprise or I am in for disappointment.

Comments

[centralcal]

So many to choose from. How about Dean Barnett as a counterpoint to Markos? (I know he is with Weekly Standard now, so I guess he would be excluded. Darn!)

Actually, erase that --- who reads Newsweek anyway? Markos is just the *right* fit for them. No need to balance them out. Let them go over the cliff under their own steam (which they are pretty well doing, slowly but surely anyway).

[Huggy]

For newsweek I would think Walter Mondale would be the person.

[MayBee]

Tom Maguire! Tom Maguire!

[MayBee]

Over at Kos, he said it would make the left's heads explode. Which probably means someone at Redstate. I don't know anyone at Redstate.

[centralcal]

Oh, darn they are going to "balance" out per Kos.

Hmmmm - exploding heads on the left.

Pretty much anyone on the right could cause that to happen.

[narciso]

On the self referential front, there's Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker congratulating Sydney Blumenthal's Bush is Musharaff essay in the Guardian. One recalls that Sydney was a colleague of Phillip Agee when he was contributing essays in the Boston Phoenix and "Government by Gunplay"; the latter a projectof his KGB/DGI colleague's disinformation effort at a time when Agee's plagiarization of Mader's research was 'burning
CIA officials from Athens (Avrokotos & Welch) Jiddah (Cannistraro) Rome (Montgomery)et al.

[narciso]

On the self referential front, there's Hendrik Hertzberg in the New Yorker congratulating Sydney Blumenthal's Bush is Musharaff essay in the Guardian. One recalls that Sydney was a colleague of Phillip Agee when he was contributing essays in the Boston Phoenix and "Government by Gunplay"; the latter a projectof his KGB/DGI colleague's disinformation effort at a time when Agee's plagiarization of Mader's research was 'burning
CIA officials from Athens (Avrokotos & Welch) Jiddah (Cannistraro) Rome (Montgomery)et al.

[Tom from LA]

That Balloon Juice dude.

[Jane]

I'm not sure it is possible to "balance out" Kos. It could require an army of Ace's to even get close. And sheesh do we need that kind of balance? Let Kos singularly drag Newsweek down the tubes. It will be fun to watch.

[Paul Zrimsek]

Will Tom's chances with Newsweek be hurt by being Time's Man of the Year?

[Clarice]

You know, that might be a problem.

Who reads news magazines anyway. It's like buying buggy whips.

[Sue]

Are these people nuts? Huckabee can't even beat Hillary in his own state.

Huckabee surge

[GMax]

OOPS! Jess fell back a point last evening. We are so close, lets not let them back in the race now.

Please vote a bunch today. But every vote is precious so if you can vote but once, thanks in advance.

Vote JMAX! one week to go

[Clarice]

Math is so hard.

Suicide

[cathyf]

Of course they'll go for ranter, and you're being a bit naive if you think that all of the right-wing ranters are obscure. Coulter will be their first choice, of course, because she's a loose cannon who can be counted on to make conservatives look insane. If they can't get Coulter, they'll pick some other nutcase. The last thing they want is some reasonable, articulate conservative voice who can make points without bringing up extraneous issues just to make people mad.

Absolute perfection from a Newsweek editor point of view would be Carol Herman.

[RichatUF]

Clarice-

I'll see your math link and raise you inflation

I've been keeping tabs on the headline and it has increased well over 100% in 24 hours...End The War: S-CHIP for Everyone

Rick-

Question for you: Why is it that the "super-rich" like Warren Buffett don't want the estate tax repealed? The only thing I can think of is that some sort of foundation/endowment loophole exists that he can only exploit through the estate tax, but I don't recall anyone writing about it exactly.

[MayBee]

Absolute perfection from a Newsweek editor point of view would be Carol Herman.

heh.
I actually agree with Tom from LA that Newsweek's idea of a sensible conservative would be John Cole, just like TIME's idea was Andrew Sullivan.

[Greybeard]

Sue,
Ref. "Hillary's State"... I'm confused.
Illinois, Arkansas, or New York?

[Clarice]

Donor
He's a political donor and encourages others to donate to Dems. Doesn't this create a problem for Newsweek (via instapundit)

[Annoying Old Guy]

Rich;

The foundation aspect is one aspect, and not a small one. The other is that even after the estate tax, Buffet's descendants / heirs will still be set for life. It's middle and upper middle class people for whom the tax can make a real difference in what their heirs receive. So Buffet's kids only get $200M instead of $300M. Who cares? But the son of a farmer or small business owner, who has to sell to pay off the tax would have a different view.

[Sue]

Sue, Ref. "Hillary's State"... I'm confused. Illinois, Arkansas, or New York?

Posted by: Greybeard | November 14, 2007 at 10:30 AM

Heh. I like the joke but I think you misread my post. I referred to Huckabee's state. Arkansas. Democrats tried that with Gore and we know how that turned out.

[Sue]

Annoying Old Guy,

The same can be said about raising the income tax. Those like Mz. Kerry-Heinz would not care how high the income tax went, since the majority of their 'income' is from tax-free munies.

[RichatUF]

Newsweek needs a conservative...I'd nominate Joe and Valerie Wilson

2-for-1, they're not doing much, etc&. make um an offer

[MayBee]

Oh Rich, good idea! Another exciting Republican blogger would be Larry Johnson.

[centralcal]

Carol Herman! Perfect!

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

I'll second AOG's comment from a practical viewpoint. No billionaire will ever pay more in estate tax than he chooses. I believe that Buffet may be making a political/philosophical statement concerning wealth concentration and the power of compound interest. In general, people consider those who choose to 'live off of the state' to be parasites, recognizing the difference between the helpless poor, who rarely number more than 5% of the population, and those who are most kindly described as shiftless, worthless waste of the skin which they inhabit. I would suggest that Buffet sees the rise of the trustafarian class as akin in nature to the second group and I would find it difficult to disagree. A trustafarian sipping white wine on Martha's Vineyard has no more value to society than a deadbeat dad guzzling Ripple while sitting on the couch in his newest girlfriends apartment. Perhaps a tiny bit more economic value, given that the trustafarian pays for his consumption with other than public funds but that's all. Perhaps Buffett is thinking of something else entirely but I believe that his focus is on wealth concentration, particularly that which occurs in foundations.

I'd like to see forced dissolution of foundations at fifty years. Henry Ford and Pew are probably spinning so fast that it would take a tachometer to count the revolutions.

[Clarice]

I agree on foundations which are sitting on billions, are unfettered and engaged in all sorts of troublemaking way out of line of the founders' interests. But I'd make an exception for those designed to support individual charitable institutions like schools and hospitals.
Pew, Ford, Rockefeller, Heinz--50 years and out.
I also think the money laundering Tides Foundation should be shuttered immediately--if the law is inadequate to do that , change the law. There is no decent reason why tax exempt charities should be hiding what they are supporting.

OTOH I do not see Congress ever doing that.

[paladin2]

I'd nominate Clarice or Rick Ballard

[nawoods]

If they are looking for a true conservative, the only real choice is Greenwald(s)....

[nawoods]

If they are looking for a true conservative, the only real choice is Greenwald(s)....

[nawoods]

If they are looking for a true conservative, the only real choice is Greenwald(s)....

[Clarice]

Sweetness & Light reminds us Kos was a paid Dean stooge.
Does this count as a Newsweek Contribution?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Speaking of Bush Derangement, here's a good read (I hope Krugman was in attendance):

But Bush hatred is different. It's not that this time members of the intellectual class have been swept away by passion and become votaries of anger and loathing. Alas, intellectuals have always been prone to employ their learning and fine words to whip up resentment and demonize the competition. Bush hatred, however, is distinguished by the pride intellectuals have taken in their hatred, openly endorsing it as a virtue and enthusiastically proclaiming that their hatred is not only a rational response to the president and his administration but a mark of good moral hygiene.

This distinguishing feature of Bush hatred was brought home to me on a recent visit to Princeton University. I had been invited to appear on a panel to debate the ideas in Princeton professor and American Prospect editor Paul Starr's excellent new book, "Freedom's Power: The True Force of Liberalism." To put in context Prof. Starr's grounding of contemporary progressivism in the larger liberal tradition, I recounted to the Princeton audience an exchange at a dinner I hosted in Washington in June 2004 for several distinguished progressive scholars, journalists, and policy analysts.

To get the conversation rolling at that D.C. dinner--and perhaps mischievously--I wondered aloud whether Bush hatred had not made rational discussion of politics in Washington all but impossible. One guest responded in a loud, seething, in-your-face voice, "What's irrational about hating George W. Bush?" His vehemence caused his fellow progressives to gather around and lean in, like kids on a playground who see a fight brewing.

Reluctant to see the dinner fall apart before drinks had been served, I sought to ease the tension. I said, gently, that I rarely found hatred a rational force in politics, but, who knows, perhaps this was a special case. And then I tried to change the subject.

But my dinner companion wouldn't allow it. "No," he said, angrily. "You started it. You make the case that it's not rational to hate Bush." I looked around the table for help. Instead, I found faces keen for my response. So, for several minutes, I held forth, suggesting that however wrongheaded or harmful to the national interest the president's policies may have seemed to my progressive colleagues, hatred tended to cloud judgment, and therefore was a passion that a citizen should not be proud of being in the grips of and should avoid bringing to public debate. Propositions, one might have thought, that would not be controversial among intellectuals devoted to thinking and writing about politics.

But controversial they were. Finally, another guest, a man I had long admired, an incisive thinker and a political moderate, cleared his throat, and asked if he could interject. I welcomed his intervention, confident that he would ease the tension by lending his authority in support of the sole claim that I was defending, namely, that Bush hatred subverted sound thinking. He cleared his throat for a second time. Then, with all eyes on him, and measuring every word, he proclaimed, "I . . . hate . . . the . . . way . . . Bush . . . talks."

[Elliott]

What about Allahpundit? Would he rate highly enough on the Dems' cranial detonation index?

[Sue]

Does Scary know how to counter an argument without using the word "moron"?

[Clarice]

I had much the same thing happen to me as happened to Berkowitz, when after a pleasant dinner at the home of a liberal I was asked my opinion of Bush and said I liked him very much. My host turned red, his face constricted and he shouted he couldn't believe how "close minded" I was. LOL

[Sue]

Then, with all eyes on him, and measuring every word, he proclaimed, "I . . . hate . . . the . . . way . . . Bush . . . talks."

You know, I understand this sentiment perfectly. I....hate....the....way...Gore, Kerry and Clinton, Hillary, that is....talk.

[MayBee]

Elliott-
I thought of him, and he'd be a good pickup. His head explosion powers would be derived from his current employer, I think.

Sue- you moron.

[Sue]

Oh, and I don't like Pelosi's voice either. She sounds like her false teeth are about to fall out.

[Clarice]

I've tried to figure out what about Bush drives these people insane and all I can come up with is that he represents to them in the flesh a repudiation of the notion that their views are so correct that they are born to lead us all. They can't say they hate democracy, of course, so they have to invent that he is a usurper who holds his position illegitimately and from that all else flows.

[Sue]

Clarice,

2000. They have never felt he was legitimate and he should have never acted like he was legitimate. Even though more of the country voted for him than Clinton, both times, he should have presided over his presidency with the thought always in his mind that he was illegitimate.

[Rick Ballard]

Sue,

Here's some visual imagery to bear in mind when their dulcet tones are heard.

[Jane]

Patrick - great article.

Elliott - can you blog the debate tomorrow. I've got plans so I will miss the beginning.

Everyone - anyone ever empanel a grand jury? How about serve on one?

[MayBee]

When my friends say BDS things to me, I just tell them to remember how they didn't hate Clinton when other people did. Then imagine that's how I feel about Bush.
Sometimes it works, but usually when they launch into a tirade I tell them I know they feel that way. It sounds sympathetic, yet it really isn't.

[Clarice]

I never have, Jane. Maybe OT,vnjagvet or Walter have.

[Jane]

Here is the question I want asked at the debates:

For the democrat:

How do you plan to unite America? After the 2000 election I vowed I would never treat an American president the way liberals treated George Bush. After 7 years of BDS I'm not sure I can restrain myself from returning the favor. So what will you do, to encourage me to put my love of country in front of my complete disgust for the democrat's actions over the last 7 years.

[MayBee]

Great question, Jane!

As for Kos blogging, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Stripped of his orange background and his puffery, he is really a very average talent. His writing is about as bad as mine, and he isn't particularly politically astute. Even at his own website, his stories rarely receive more attention than the (often insipid) recommended diaries.

I think Newsweek was going for numbers here, but I'll be surprised if kossacks follow him over there. Unless they can write diaries and make comments and post their cat pictures.

[Sara]

I nominate Jeff Goldstein of Proten Wisdom. He is an excellent writer, regularly takes on the nutroots and choosing him would definitely make the nutroots heads explode. I'd pay to see that.

[Rick Ballard]

If I could ask a question it would be:

Given that their are several sitting legislators who are members of the current majority among this group, why have none of you proferred any legislation whatsoever in order to implement any of your policy proposals?

(I'd probably let them choose between mendacity and incompetence as appropriate responses but that might be considered too forceful.)

'Course, 'comity' isn't in my top 1000 things of value...

[Clarice]

Great question, Jane, and great suggestion, Sara.