Yesterday, a friend called my attention to a review that ran Sunday in the book review of our former paper of record. The review was by one Damon Linker. It concerned two books: a new biography about the writer and editor Norman Podhoretz and a sort of institutional biography of Commentary, the magazine Mr. Podhoretz edited with conspicuous distinction for several decades.
I had missed Linker’s review, as I miss most things in The New York Times, since I long ago decided that the paper’s irrelevancy was exceeded only by its political tendentiousness. It was that combination of qualities that led me, a couple of years ago, to issue a public letter announcing that Encounter Books, of which I am the publisher, would no longer be sending its books to the Times. Why collude in their pretense of evenhandedness by sending them books that they would never notice? Like many conservative books, the only place Encounter books appear in The New York Times is on their best-seller list. (The most recent such book is Andy McCarthy’s The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.)
The less said about Damon Linker’s review the better. Indeed, I hesitate to mention it, or him, at all, lest the publicity impart more importance to it, or him, than either deserves, which is none. Damon Linker, some readers may recall, is the man who owes his career to Richard John Neuhaus, the late, great founding editor of First Things, where Linker cut his teeth as a writer. In due course, Linker left First Things and promptly repaid Fr. Neuhaus’s benefactions by writing a book attacking him and his ideas.
It was a disgusting if forgettable performance–the book, I mean, not the betrayal which, though disgusting, is certainly memorable. Equally disgusting and forgettable is Linker’s bijou for the Times. Norman Podhoretz, according to Damon Linker, “has grown so intolerant of criticism and dissent, so terrified of impending doom at the hands of militant Muslims, and so furious with his fellow Jews that his intemperate rantings are dismissed by all but his neoconservative progeny. The Brownsville wunderkind has ended up an embittered, paranoid crank, standing by and for himself alone.”
Quite a list: “intolerant of criticism and dissent,” “terrified,” given to “intemperate rantings,” an “embittered, paranoid crank.” This is what passes for judicious criticism in The New York Times. No thanks.
Well, give Damon Linker credit where credit is due: he’s got the ad hominem down pat. Reminds one of the lawyer joke: when you don’t have the facts, argue the law; when you don’t have the law, pound the table. Sounds like Linker fits right in at the NYTimes.
…and when you no longer have a table, you can go pound sand!
“…led me, a couple of years ago, to issue a public letter announcing that Encounter Books, of which I am the publisher, would no longer be sending its books to the Times. Why collude in their pretense of evenhandedness….”
Talk about being “intolerant of criticism and dissent”!
He said he stopped sending books to the NYT because they wouldn’t even take notice of the books. Reading comprehension isn’t one of your strengths, is it, Joe?
Yes, but in Lefty-Land, that’s censorship.
“his intemperate rantings are dismissed by all but his neoconservative progeny”
Typical cheap journalistic technique. Saying it’s so makes it so!
What a person claims about others is often a useful clue as to what that person is troubled about himself. Poor Mr. Linker has sought a career in journalism in NY. He quickly realized that adopting left wing views was the best way to prosper in the world of the Times and other NY media. His remarks about Norman Podhoretz tell us nothing about that subject but indicate that Mr. Linker is having paranoid fantasies about the demise of the Left Wing Media,is at times terrified and embittered, in part because he is himself (along with most of his fellows) intolerant of criticism and dissent.
Pursuing one’s own interests is normal human behavior, and we should have pity on Mr. Linker for his past and present behavior. I wish him well, and hope he someday returns to pursuit of honesty and truth.
A NYT reviewer looks at a dissenting opinion and claims it is “intolerant of criticism and dissent,” “terrified,” given to “intemperate rantings,” an “embittered, paranoid crank.”
That’s my perception of many NYT columnists such as Krugman and Dowd.
Frank Rich, Bob Herbert, Charles Blow, Tom (democracy doesn’t work; let’s be just like China!) Friedman, etc. …
I wonder what the Timespeople might be saying about all the subscribers and advertisers that have left them.
Their appeal is becoming more… selective.
JOSEPH finds Roger intolerant of criticism and dissent, citing this sentence fragment: “…led me, a couple of years ago, to issue a public letter announcing that Encounter Books, of which I am the publisher, would no longer be sending its books to the Times. Why collude in their pretense of evenhandedness….”
The end of the sentence he could not find space for: “…by sending them books that they would never notice?”
To my mind the major barrier to a civil dialogue with the Leftlings is their inability to read sentences all the way through—never mind whole paragraphs.
The late Fr. Neuhaus, of happy memory, often relayed to his First things readers important commentary on what he encountered during what seems to have been a dutiful daily digestion of the NYT. I greatly appreciate all the suffering he endured on my and others’ behalf, and now I understand that this duty may also have had a pastoral element (many thanks!).
P.S. I’ll be sure to keep J.B. in my prayers while he trudges on, apparently, under a similar yoke.
Ahem…
That would be,
“The Anals of swinishness”.
Linker is merely sneering to his sneering crowd. Why even look in his direction?
Hello, Roger.
My name is Roberto, I’m a 23-year-old Brazilian admirer of your work. I’m a frequent reader of this website and have read a few of the articles on City Journal and passages from your books dozens of times. I applied for a scholarship in the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema, in Rome. The task given by the school to the candidates was to deliver a movie with maximum running time of 10 minutes. Italian cinema has been dead and gone for many years, but I thought this was the only possible alternative for me, a broke student from Brazil to make movies with good equipment without relying on public funding and –who knows– maybe learn something there. Well, I got rejected. They said the movie was too religious and abstract. Pfui! As an admirer of your essays and criticism, could you please take a look at what I’ve done? It would mean a lot.
So all I’m asking you is 10 minutes (or less if you find it boring and turn it off earlier) of your time that can make a huge difference to me, this unknown person on a small town on the other side of the globe.
You can watch it on Vimeo. Here’s the link:
http://vimeo.com/3387352
Please be unmerciful.
Thank you in advance,
Roberto
PS to People from Pajamas Media: I know it’s off topic, but I could only find this way to contact Roger. If I committed a faux pas, I’m really sorry. Perhaps you could send this directly to him instead of leaving it here. Thanks.