Why now, TNR?
Of course, The New Republic would choose today of all days, after I've defended it, to print this utterly disagreeable piece.
First, it's a very good thing for the Times print at least one "Capital-D Democrat" in its op-ed pages. Democrats suffer mightily from the public perception that all Democratic analysts and nominal partisans who aren't directly on some candidate's payroll are necessarily perpetually-underwhelmed with the party and its leaders. The Maureen Dowd-Richard Cohen worldview is already overrepresented in the newspapers.
Second, even if Vowell's offerings aren't scintillating, that's par for the course. Most op-eds aren't scintillating. I thought Barbara Ehrenreich's stint at the Times produced a series of real stinkers, but I'd still recommend having her back given the fact that very few people could credibly present a similarly respected "hard-liberal" viewpoint on the paper's pages. More generally, there's no reason to expect "whimsical" partisans to be less vacuous faced with the vacuity-inducing job of writing political op-eds on a bi-weekly basis than non-whimsical, non-partisan centrists like Freidman or Kristof or Dowd, all of whom produce self-indulgent groaners on a regular basis. Op-ed pages are what they are: opinion under deadline from people who represent what the Editors decide is a sampling of mainstream thought. (And given that op-ed writers aren't supposed to refer to their own dreams, I must have missed TNR's "Case Against Richard Cohen", since he's been known to do the same thing.)
Third, in dissing Vowell's qualifications for the op-ed page, Keelin McDonell skips quickly over Vowell's four books, the last two of which sold well and the most recent of which, Assassination Vacation, was very well-reviewed (also it was more of a travelogue than a book of humourous essays). Moreover, her criticism misses the point: what's good, and important, about Vowell is intrinsicly tied to her simplicity. What makes her books tick is their light mockery of her own and her friends' and her urban demographics' moderate liberal identity politics -- the sort that raises the Florida recount to the status and timbre of a Greek tragedy; that wallows in the disappointment of seeing her prefered candidate lose each time; that obsesses in the microfilm section of the library over finding the right historical parallel for the Iraq War, that refuses to give up. In her obsessiveness and half-nerdy, half-glamourous idealism, Vowell foreshadowed the Huffington Post like nobody else in America.
There are really few mainstream writers in America who embrace modern pluralistic liberalism uncynically, who are content to simply pick a side in the political war between left and right and admire the good in yours and detest the bad in theirs. Conservatives certainly do it. That Vowell does it too, with just a hint of a wink, is why she touches a nerve with liberals like me. It might not be McDonell's cup of tea, but that's not the same as saying that Vowell's approach doesn't deserve a place at the table. If McDonell gave some indication of knowing why Vowell is popular and could name somebody who does what she does better, I'd be quite willing to listen. As it is, I think she just doesn't get it.
Update: Whoops. Apologies to Ms. McDonell for getting her gender wrong.
Update 2: Ezra makes a good point about TNR's unfortunate tendency to put its up-and-comers through their non-doctrinaire-liberal paces. The archetype for this has surely got to be (speaking of smart writers) T.A. Frank's article on attending a counter-inaugural event and briefly turning into Rambo. If getting a motley band of Counterpunch readers to picket outside TNR's office was the point of the piece, then it was a success. Otherwise it was simply an attention-getting throwaway, from a writer who is normally very good at not letting irreverence fade into throwaway. It reminded me of a much better, much sadder and more serious piece on the "cultural left" by John Judis published in TNR just before the 2000 election. If TNR is so interested in the break between leftism and liberalism, or between partisan liberalism and ideological liberalism, then let figures like Judis with a history in the movements write about it seriously, rather than sending writer-researchers out to produce hatchet jobs to chortle over. There's a certain discipline involved in dealing with movements that are loosely tied to yours but that have no power, to which most other publications on the left adhere. Taking easy shots at easy targets nominally "on your side" isn't counterintution, it's just laziness.
First, it's a very good thing for the Times print at least one "Capital-D Democrat" in its op-ed pages. Democrats suffer mightily from the public perception that all Democratic analysts and nominal partisans who aren't directly on some candidate's payroll are necessarily perpetually-underwhelmed with the party and its leaders. The Maureen Dowd-Richard Cohen worldview is already overrepresented in the newspapers.
Second, even if Vowell's offerings aren't scintillating, that's par for the course. Most op-eds aren't scintillating. I thought Barbara Ehrenreich's stint at the Times produced a series of real stinkers, but I'd still recommend having her back given the fact that very few people could credibly present a similarly respected "hard-liberal" viewpoint on the paper's pages. More generally, there's no reason to expect "whimsical" partisans to be less vacuous faced with the vacuity-inducing job of writing political op-eds on a bi-weekly basis than non-whimsical, non-partisan centrists like Freidman or Kristof or Dowd, all of whom produce self-indulgent groaners on a regular basis. Op-ed pages are what they are: opinion under deadline from people who represent what the Editors decide is a sampling of mainstream thought. (And given that op-ed writers aren't supposed to refer to their own dreams, I must have missed TNR's "Case Against Richard Cohen", since he's been known to do the same thing.)
Third, in dissing Vowell's qualifications for the op-ed page, Keelin McDonell skips quickly over Vowell's four books, the last two of which sold well and the most recent of which, Assassination Vacation, was very well-reviewed (also it was more of a travelogue than a book of humourous essays). Moreover, her criticism misses the point: what's good, and important, about Vowell is intrinsicly tied to her simplicity. What makes her books tick is their light mockery of her own and her friends' and her urban demographics' moderate liberal identity politics -- the sort that raises the Florida recount to the status and timbre of a Greek tragedy; that wallows in the disappointment of seeing her prefered candidate lose each time; that obsesses in the microfilm section of the library over finding the right historical parallel for the Iraq War, that refuses to give up. In her obsessiveness and half-nerdy, half-glamourous idealism, Vowell foreshadowed the Huffington Post like nobody else in America.
There are really few mainstream writers in America who embrace modern pluralistic liberalism uncynically, who are content to simply pick a side in the political war between left and right and admire the good in yours and detest the bad in theirs. Conservatives certainly do it. That Vowell does it too, with just a hint of a wink, is why she touches a nerve with liberals like me. It might not be McDonell's cup of tea, but that's not the same as saying that Vowell's approach doesn't deserve a place at the table. If McDonell gave some indication of knowing why Vowell is popular and could name somebody who does what she does better, I'd be quite willing to listen. As it is, I think she just doesn't get it.
Update: Whoops. Apologies to Ms. McDonell for getting her gender wrong.
Update 2: Ezra makes a good point about TNR's unfortunate tendency to put its up-and-comers through their non-doctrinaire-liberal paces. The archetype for this has surely got to be (speaking of smart writers) T.A. Frank's article on attending a counter-inaugural event and briefly turning into Rambo. If getting a motley band of Counterpunch readers to picket outside TNR's office was the point of the piece, then it was a success. Otherwise it was simply an attention-getting throwaway, from a writer who is normally very good at not letting irreverence fade into throwaway. It reminded me of a much better, much sadder and more serious piece on the "cultural left" by John Judis published in TNR just before the 2000 election. If TNR is so interested in the break between leftism and liberalism, or between partisan liberalism and ideological liberalism, then let figures like Judis with a history in the movements write about it seriously, rather than sending writer-researchers out to produce hatchet jobs to chortle over. There's a certain discipline involved in dealing with movements that are loosely tied to yours but that have no power, to which most other publications on the left adhere. Taking easy shots at easy targets nominally "on your side" isn't counterintution, it's just laziness.
3 Comments:
I'm not a huge fan of Vowell, but I think she is, in this instance, very fortunate in her enemies. This Keelin McDonell person strikes me as a classic intellectual - someone who gets paid to take him/herself too seriously.
Keelin's a woman.
Yikes. Thanks.
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