JONATHAN CHAIT APRIL 1, 2011
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[Guest post by Isaac Chotiner]
In an excellent interview from Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Andrew Goldman has this exchange with Arianna Huffington:
You’ve been saying recently that The Huffington Post is not a lefty publication?
Actually I’ve been saying that for three years. The tag line that we’ve used a lot is “Beyond left and right.”
Three years ago was 2008. I looked at The Huffington Post a great deal during the election. It felt like the Internet version of Keith Olbermann’s show, and if that’s not lefty. . . .
Why don’t you be more specific? What were the messages that you considered lefty?
It’s as if you’re trying to tell me that Smurfs aren’t blue.
I’m just telling you that it is very clear that we have progressive views, but to call everything we’re doing lefty — it misses the whole point that American policy needs to be redefined beyond left and right. It’s a completely obsolete view of politics.
Huffington has been saying this a lot lately. And even as far back as 2008, in one of her books, she wrote:
"Someone please alert the media: not every issue fits into your cherished right/left paradigm. Indeed, that way of looking at the world is becoming less and less relevant--and more and more obsolete. And more and more dangerous."
As I pointed out in my review of the book for TNR, these sentences occurred in a book called Right is Wrong! This is the game Huffington plays, and has been playing, for quite some time. Chris Rovzar, in a short New York magazine piece, tries to defend Huffington by saying she is "inadvertantly hilarious." He then goes on to add, "But she's not an asshole. She's actually a very bright and adept interview subject. She wouldn't be where she is today if she weren't capable of charm, and of handling a simple Q&A." This would seem to contradict Rovzar's earlier confession that her answers were inadvertantly hilarious, but no matter. Huffington's clever reinventions should never be taken at face value.
8 comments
Absolutely never.
- liberalref
April 2, 2011 at 5:45am
Lib Ref: who sheds their skins more often: Sullivan or Huffington? I'm thinking Sullivan with Huffington giving him a good run for his money.
- basman
April 2, 2011 at 8:49am
Somebody needs to tell Arianna that a collection of the most knee-jerk reactionary leftist articles with a few postings by The Family Research Council and the odd Krauthammer article isn't "beyond left and right", its schizophrenic.
- Tristan
April 2, 2011 at 11:10am
Well, I think the prize goes to AH. I first came across her in 1977, during my youthful conservative days. She was on the right, at that time. Then much later, she lurched way to the left. Now she is trying to position herself as a centrist. AS is mercurial, but there at least is some continuity to his intellectual and political odysseys.
- liberalref
April 2, 2011 at 11:45am
No. She IS an asshole.
- Robert Powell
April 2, 2011 at 3:51pm
I have no doubt her midi-chlorian count registers less than zero.
- Bukharin
April 2, 2011 at 4:18pm
I though she wasn't an asshole at all in the CA gubernatorial election a few years ago, but guess who did behave like one? Arnold, that's who.
- ironyroad
April 2, 2011 at 4:56pm
Very off topic, but don't know how to reach Mr. Chotiner otherwise. At the end of Andrew Nathan's review of two books about the Chiangs is the note "Please read a note from Isaac Chotiner, executive editor of The Book". Clicking on this like produces a page asking me to log in to "Microsoft Outlook Web Access" using my "Domain\user name" and "Password". Why do I need a password to read a note from the editor (I am a subscriber to TNR)? Is it even possible for someone who doesn't run Microsoft software to access Microsoft Outlook? Please reply to jonrysh@pacbell.net Thanks - jon
- jonrysh
April 3, 2011 at 3:51am