Seriously?
Andy Rosenthal, the New York Times Editorial Editor, had this to say in response to an online question about why the Times has no “serious” female columnists:
I would be the last person alive to suggest that Maureen Dowd and Gail Collins are not serious columnists. They are indeed, very serious.
The last time I saw Rosenthal call someone “serious” was when he said this about Bill Kristol, who had just been given an Op-Ed Column:
The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing. How intolerant is that?”
Kristol, remember, is the “serious, respected conservative intellectual” who met Sarah Palin during a stopover in Juneau on a Weekly Standard cruise, and was so impressed with her that he went back to Washington and became one of her biggest cheerleaders. As for whether Palin herself is a serious, respected intellectual, we’ll have to check with Rosenthal about that.
Is SERIOUS a good thing, Mr. Rosenthal?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:19 pmI bet he thinks Keith Gessen is serious. (ref. nnyhav’s comment on out-hipstering the hipsters).
April 15th, 2009 at 5:55 pmCarol: I gather that you don’t?
I wouldn’t be so sure about Rosenthal. He was more or less my boss for about 6 months. He may be fatuous and self-satisfied, but he’s not pretentious. One reason he can think of Kristol as a serious intellectual is because he probably does not think of himself as an intellectual, and my guess is that he views high brow art and literature with a fair amount of suspicion. I seem to remember that he was an Elmore Leonard fan (not that Elmore Leonard and high brow lit are mutually exclusive, and not that I think “high brow” is a very useful label).
I’ve never read Gessen, or taken more than a quick glance at n+1, so I’ll refrain from taking a position on his seriousness myself. He seems to genuinely care about writing and books, so more power to him.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:31 pm