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Sunday, August 31, 2003
posted by gbarto at 1:21 AM:
A Dog's Life has a very nice dissection of Nicky Kristof's columns from the Ukraine. It is striking how wrongheaded one can be and still get a column with the paper with all the news that's fit to print. It's no wonder Sullivan's gone; the only question is how people with the talent of Postrel and (Chris Buckley pal) John Tierney can stay around.Kristof's problem is he can't quite get over the idea that Communism wasn't just a stinker of an idea but drifted into the sort of evil that Times people prefer to associate with right wing regimes, so much so that they even transmogrify the Nazis into right-wingers, forgetting that the second half of the name of Hitler's party was "socialist." But in fact it is the almost religious nature of regimes in which the state becomes God, the end of history, the Way, that leads to total social devastation and these usually come with Big Ideas like socialism and communism, not with petty corruption. Sure, lots of Pinochet's enemies disappeared. But it takes a Hitler or a Stalin for the political omelets to start requiring eggs in the millions. Until Kristof gets the difference, his columns may be nice for local color, but those seeking insight will have to look elsewhere.
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