Ross Douthat: New York Times' Bill Kristol Replacement

The New York Times has selected Ross Douthat to replace Bill Kristol on the newspaper's editorial page. Editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal emailed Times staffers this afternoon with the following announcement:

Folks:

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.

Andy

Douthat's Atlantic colleague Marc Ambinder offered praise for the "late-twenties-year-old public intellectual" tapped by the NYT.

"Bill Kristol was just a mistake," Ambinder wrote, "but boy, talk about a rebound: I think Ross is the sharpest, most innovative heterodox thinker of his generation, left or right."

Ambinder described Douthat as a "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."

Kristol wrote his final column for the Times in January.

Comments

[StevenDuque]

"There’s a lot of promise in conservative circles—and terror in liberal ones—that Douthat (DOW-thut) can return the loyal-opposition spot at the paper of record to its Safirian glory days: He seems to possess neither Kristol’s wince-worthy GOP-line orthodoxy nor David Brooks’ exhausting tepidness. And unlike both, but like Safire, he’s a gorgeous prose stylist. Privilege, his memoir of being the odd thinker out at another giant, floundering liberal institution—Harvard College—is honeyed and beautiful and worth picking up for, if nothing else, a shockingly non-homoerotic narrative of skinny-dipping with the late William F. Buckley."

An interesting take on Douthat's earlier career by Greg Atwan, Author of "Privilege" and "The Facebook Book:

http://bigthink.com/blog_entries/498-A-Portrait-of-Ross-Douthat-as-a-Young-Republican

[AbstractImp]

Oh, no, no one could replace Bill Kristol . . . 'cept maybe, Glen Beck !

[DAdvocate123]

This guy is no Conservative. He's to the Left of David Brooks.

[serecovery]

Why do all young conservatives look like they've just come out from their Y2K bunker.

[Raiderfan0524]

But will he be more accurate than Kristol? That's the big question.

[ThomasMc]

But can he be wrong in EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE like Kristol?

[spd]

The Too Late Times has already lost all credibility with me for ever floating this guy.
Now that the neo-cons have finally lost their culture war, only now NYT happen to have seen the light of day. How convenient for you.
Forget you!
You are a dinosaur.

[writerroz]

Maybe the "Times" is downgrading in these financially trying times. Can't blame a failing newspaper for going to cheaper labor. And anyway, the supposedly intelligent ones sometimes "don't get it." Intellect is sometimes what one does as compared to what one says.

[ZenSufi]

Times, Times, everywhere The Times,
Blocking out the scenery, Breaking my mind,
Douthis, Don't Douthat,
Can't you read The Times.

[twisted-european]

Please can somebody tell me what a token Republican brings to the NYT table other than weirdness?

[swift goat pet for truth]

I have read some of Douthat's articles.
Quite interesting.

I have also read some of his articles, and they are quite good.
And I believe Ezra Klein.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein

[Witchitalineman]

I didn't know that Kristol got the boot. It's a good thing!

[swift goat pet for truth]

nobody can replace Kristol.

Thank god.

[Lex10]

Now who will run me over?

[conniedogs]

He looks like Joel McHale of the "Soup".