The overall theme appears to be "LOOK! Here are boring things he wrote that he later explicitly or implicitly disavowed with more interesting comments! Tell your leftist friends who haven't read his stuff before so they can prejudge him!"
Some writers maintain a consistent voice from college into their professional lives, such as David Brooks, or my friend Jamie Kirchick. Others really, really don't. The man has written two books, a ton of articles, and blogged for years.
Look, there's nothing wrong with mining the archives. But responsible journalism seeks to put these things in context.
Especially because Dylan Matthews posted this yesterday:
ReplyDelete"I wanted to be Krohn at that age - or rather the Krohn of six years past, Kyle Williams. And in retrospect, I'm really glad I wasn't. I had time to read, time to think, time to convince myself and un-convince myself of things at my own leisure. That's something I suspect Krohn won't have."
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=03&year=2009&base_name=sympathy_for_the_imp
Also, SO MUCH LOVE for this post's title.
ReplyDeleteIt is timely and clever.