Now Reading
Movable Snipe: The Tory and the Masochist
Slut for Slicha
A Very Jewcy Rosh Hashanah
Snipped and Satisfied
Schtupless in Seattle
Gefilte Guilt
Messy Meshugane. Again.

Movable Snipe: The Tory and the Masochist

I had such fun getting called a urinal cake of wannabe hipsterism by Crooked Timber a couple weeks ago, that I decided we should do the blog criticism again soon. So it's time for another coruscating installment of Movable Snipe, the Jewcy feature where two hierophants of ink-stained journalism spend a week reading five blogs of our choosing and offering their harshest or gentlest verdicts. ("Internet, schminternet. I was writing notes on camp when Steve Jobs still had hair.")

This week's Snipers are John Derbyshire, our favorite cant-hating National Review Tory who thinks Humbert Humbert wasn't that bad, and Daphne Merkin, the spanked feminist of belles lettres, for whom the expression "tell all" — not to mention "safety word" — might have been invented.

Their quarry:

1. James Wolcott: It's been said that Jimmy Jazz lost his touch until Adam Gopnik came along to replenish the Midas quotient. What's it like clicking "Publish" without Graydon looking over your shoulder? Are liberal hawks just costumed attack poodles pissing and shitting in front of landmark buildings on Sutton Place? Is it cool for a former Village Voice chronciler of punk rock to have so many cats lying around the house?

2. Reason's Hit and Run: The Cato Institute meets the Sex Pistols under the leather-dudded stewardship of Nick Gillespie (full disclosure: he's a bud of mine and was very kind to me during my abortive D.C. stint at Wonkette a year ago). Reason specializes in collective editorial blogging and unity of voice. Not like 'round these parts with the Trotsky-this, K-Fed-that.

3. Design Observer: A graphic arts and culture hodepodge run by the people who bring you shiny and new publications by NextBook. For some reasons, visions of SoHo, glass blocks and brushed steel furniture and a little something to get you started, love mom and dad — flit through my head.

4. Kesher Talk: Where John Bolton's cookie-duster mustache is damned sexy, Moynihan and Glazer's Beyond the Melting Pot was too hard on the blacks, and Israel may also be mentioned.

5. Matt Yglesias: Andrew Sullivan names an award for political self-criticism after him. Because admitting your side is wrong is now as laudatory as letting that call from Judy Miller go straight to voicemail.

Round One begins with Derbs. Enjoy!

View Comments (304)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Scroll To Top