Some Collegial Advice

Whether or not one enjoys blogs and blogging, I don't think that writing a blog that seems to consist primarily of complaints about blogging is likely to attract a large audience to the new Jeffrey Goldberg blog. Blogs are mostly read by people who like blogs -- writing about the evils of blogging is probably a good op-ed subject.

Like rather than wondering aloud "why more people don't simply pick up the phone once in a while" why not pick up the phone once in a while and write a blog that's dramatically better than all the phone-less blogs out there, thus proving the superiority of phone-based blogging? Meanwhile, though, thanks to the blog I saw Goldberg's Q&A with Shmuel Rosner in which he makes a ton of good points.

Comments

Goldberg's first blog post namechecks Sullivan, Fallows, Douthat -- but not Yglesias? Let the catfight begin!

No seriously, I know you won't slag a fellow Atlantic-ite too much, but open some threads on Goldberg posts now and then. Your commentors will have Strong views.

Posted by Ikram | April 30, 2008 2:28 PM

Just what The Atlantic needed another blog that doesn't allow comments. Jeffrey Goldberg's blog needs a comment section with for 4059+ comments per blog entry.

Posted by bjd | April 30, 2008 2:29 PM

wow, it's jeffrey goldberg day! atrios is listing some of his golden oldies. i guess we should not be dismissive of mr. goldberg despite being profoundly wrong and disturbingly immoral, but, you know, could he at least acknowledge that some of what he has written in the past five years has been just a wee-bit off? why is that too much to ask?

Posted by larrybob | April 30, 2008 2:32 PM

Wow. He thinks the Observer post noting his support for the Iraq invasion was an "online mugging"?

If only Goldberg had a comments section, sprezzuratura would be able to come to his rescue.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 30, 2008 2:35 PM

OK, that's a start. Now when can we expect the next edition of The Table, with you and Goldberg slugging it out over Iraq and foreign policy in general?

Don't be a wuss and outsource all your Goldberg bashing to Ackerman just because you share a masthead with him now.

Posted by Bragan | April 30, 2008 2:38 PM

Was his point not that he called him, and "the dean of global journalism", had solicited opinions, come up with something almost approaching reporting, and could thus take the moral high-ground on this issue?

The no comments does suck, though.

Posted by Pete | April 30, 2008 2:42 PM

The question on the table is, what the hell is the Atlantic Monthly doing to its brand, putting garbage like Goldberg, MrcAddled, and the (sorry, Matt) ludicrously posturing, callowly moralistic Ross Douthat up here with the likes of you and Fallows and...um...well, that's about it.

?

Posted by elle loco | April 30, 2008 2:54 PM

Truly some auspicious company on the parent site.

Posted by norbizness | April 30, 2008 2:55 PM

MY, let me take this opportunity to thank you for keeping your comments section open. I don't know if you read them, but I respect the fact that you think highly enough of your readers to permit the open forum. (Cf. Ambinder) (I should add that, while I voted in favor of comments when Sullivan asked his readers, the majority voted no, and at least as far as I know, he's been consistent.)

As Greenwald, Atrios, and others note, its amazing that someone like Goldberg, or Kristol - so fantastically wrong on the biggest foreign policy decision in a generation - can continue to get prominent positions in journalism. In an efficient market, the authors of such statements would be relegated to the dustbin.

"There is not sufficient space…for me to refute some of the arguments made in Slate over the past week against intervention, arguments made, I have noticed, by people with limited experience in the Middle East (Their lack of experience causes them to reach the naive conclusion that an invasion of Iraq will cause America to be loathed in the Middle East, rather than respected)…

The administration is planning today to launch what many people would undoubtedly call a short-sighted and inexcusable act of aggression. In five years, however, I believe that the coming invasion of Iraq will be remembered as an act of profound morality."

- Jeffrey Goldberg, 10/3/2002, Slate.com

Posted by Ready for change | April 30, 2008 2:55 PM

Just what the blogosphere needed - another stupid fucking wanker who thought the Iraq War was a good idea despite not having to put his own skin on the line and being unrepentant about his imbecility.

Great going, Atlantic.

Posted by calipygian | April 30, 2008 2:59 PM

The same lament occurred to me, elle loco. The masthead is dipping even further to the right. I can sort of understand why an establishment newspaper like the WaPo has such a rightwing opinion imbalance, but why would the Atlantic do that, particularly given the relative strength of the liberal blogosphere vs. the conservative side?

Posted by Bragan | April 30, 2008 3:02 PM

"In five years, however, I believe that the coming invasion of Iraq will be remembered as an act of profound morality."

Only a fool - or possibly a Frenchman - could conclude otherwise.

Posted by Richard Cohen | April 30, 2008 3:02 PM

So Goldberg's going to be doing a lot of blogging on Israel. How exciting. There certainly isn't enough blogosphere attention paid to that tiny country of 6 million people. But why be interested in places like Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria or Indonesia? Or India? Those are just all very large dynamic countries that will actually be important to the US in the 21st century.

Posted by vanya | April 30, 2008 3:07 PM

It featured, of all things, a discursion into "a decrepit prison in Iraqi Kurdistan" where "a senior interrogator with the Kurdish intelligence service" tortured an Arab prisoner. Goldberg mentioned not a word of what his last dalliance with Kurdish intelligence yielded. To anyone who read his 2002 and 2003 pieces, it appeared that The Atlantic writer was returning to the scene of the crime.

My advice to you, young Matthew, is to stay away from sociopaths like Goldberg who can stand by and watch someone tortured and react as if it were only a news story.

Goldberg, in a different era, would have sent the skulls of dead Japanese soldiers home as souvenirs of his day and a half covering the aftermath of the invasion of Iwo Jima six months after it was over. Because, Lord knows, a chickenhawk like Goldberg wouldn't dare risk his precious ass anywhere near a warzone.

Thats for the little people.

Posted by calipygian | April 30, 2008 3:09 PM

The same lament occurred to me, elle loco. The masthead is dipping even further to the right.

Y'know, for a long time, I felt like the GOP's catastrophic, apparent wrongness on everything, and the liberal blogosphere's advantages in substance, style, and sanity over the right would eventually carry the day.

I wonder if Chinese democracy protesters felt the same way in April 1989.

I am not comparing the Atlantic's hiring of Jeffrey Goldberg to the Tiananmen Massacre.

The point is just that, even if you have every practical and moral reason to believe the wind is at your back, entrenched interests might be able to maintain their power without accountability.

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 30, 2008 3:11 PM

I'm cancelling my subscription to the Atlantic as we speak. McArdle was bad enough, but Goldberg crosses a line.
And he doesn't even have a comments section.

Posted by John from Salem | April 30, 2008 3:25 PM

I know it's small potatoes compared to the iraq and torture commentary, but the lazy, vapid, self righteous attitude that Goldberg expressed in the Wire dialogue might tell you what to expect from him. Seriously, what a bad hire.

Posted by ml | April 30, 2008 3:27 PM

Are you serious? Bitching about blogging is a _great_ topic for a blog. All navel-gazing, all the time, man. Where do I sign up?

Posted by Sanjay | April 30, 2008 3:33 PM

I was just beginning to consider subscribing to the Atlantic after a decade+ long hiatus, but Megan McBrainless and now this wanker? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Posted by Brautigan | April 30, 2008 3:40 PM

Since someone has already posted the quote from Goldberg's article in Slate from 2002, I won't repeatorm. If people want to read the whole thing, and how it was framed to simply scare the bejeezus out of anyone reading it, you can go here. http://www.slate.com/toolbar.aspx?action=print&id=2071670.

I would say one thing about Goldberg that is different then many hawks. He went to Israel and served in the Israeli Defense Forces so he has at least some actual experience of war and its tragedy. But he was not one of those offering retrospectives about why he was wrong about Iraq, so perhaps he thinks the U.S. remaining in an intractible occupation is a satisfactory outcome.

http://www.slate.com/id/2093620/entry/2093641/

Posted by Rickster Sherpa | April 30, 2008 3:40 PM

A principled resignation is in order.

Either that, or ask your boss for a fucking pony.

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | April 30, 2008 3:42 PM

Goldberg should be begging for a job rather than being courted with ponies by the owner of the Atlantic.

Posted by Bragan | April 30, 2008 3:45 PM

...even if you have every practical and moral reason to believe the wind is at your back, entrenched interests might be able to maintain their power without accountability.

The Bush Jr. years have really been instructive about the nature of the ruling class in this country. It's way beyond "Bush sucks". The rot is extremely deep and spread across multiple institutions and sectors. The analogies to Rome are a bit cliched, but it does feel the 'American experiment' (whatever that means) is over. Sometimes it seems like we're going to eventually resemble Russia or Brazil.

How do empires usually turn out? Maybe we can take some tips from Great Britain to soften the landing.

Posted by Waingro | April 30, 2008 3:47 PM

Here's something I never truly comprehend.
How can someone (Goldberg) argue for a Zionist state then say, "This is something people don't talk about, but the impulse toward religious and ethnic purity is quite strong in the Arab world"?
It seems incongruous in a goose/not gander sort of way.

Posted by carsick | April 30, 2008 3:50 PM

I'm cancelling my subscription to the Atlantic as we speak. McArdle was bad enough, but Goldberg crosses a line.

My subscription is up in June and I won't be renewing. I'm not going to subsidize writers like Douthat, McCardle, Sullivan, and now Goldberg - there are plenty of conservative think tanks out there that'll have them living in high style. And the magazine has just gone downhill lately with inanities like "Marry Him!" and nearly the entirety of Caitlin Flanagan's oeuvre.

If The Atlantic ever balances out its slate of bloggers by adding some more rational and progressive voices (hilzoy, Digby, and publius
come to mind), I'll be back. But I refuse to pay for conservative garbage, particularly when I can read it for free.

Posted by Erika Froh | April 30, 2008 3:51 PM

I canceled my subscription when the Atlantic moved from Boston to DC. I suspected at the time that the move would just lead the magazine even further down the path to becoming a house organ for the beltway elite, and every sign so far shows I'm correct. It's going down hill even faster than I feared.

I'm not sure to whom the Atlantic Monthly thinks they're going to appeal in the future. On the one hand AM seem desperate to alienate the non-Washingtonian academic and literary types who used to read it, but the wing-nuts already have real product on offer at the Weekly Standard and NR, so the market for the watered down right wing gruel offered by Flanagan, McArdle and Goldberg can't be that large. Maybe the Washington Post and the Atlantic can just have a mutual admiration society.

Posted by vanya | April 30, 2008 4:03 PM

Come to think of it, the Atlantic could have done a helluva lot better to hire the inane Flanagan as opposed to the blood-pressure rise inducing Goldberg.

You could get a lot of snarky miles out of mocking the assinine Flanagan, with the added bonus that her writing hasn't contributed to anyone being tortured and/or killed.

Posted by calipygian | April 30, 2008 4:06 PM

I'm not familiar enough with Goldberg's work to really judge him, though from what I've read he seems decent enough when he sticks to reporting. But Caitlin Flanagan is a great writer -- funny, thought-provoking, razor-sharp (in fact, her prose style is so good she'd never stoop to using a cliche like razor-sharp). Since she's a social conservative and an economic populist, I disagree with almost everything she says. I can still appreciate her writing, though.

Posted by too many steves | April 30, 2008 4:26 PM

Liberals will ask, why did the Atlantic hire Goldberg? Why do they push him so? Why, his work is dreadful! Situation makes no sense!

And some day some of those liberals will understand and so become leftists

Posted by Mark | April 30, 2008 5:02 PM

MY, let me take this opportunity to thank you for keeping your comments section open. I don't know if you read them, but I respect the fact that you think highly enough of your readers to permit the open forum

I read them.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | April 30, 2008 5:37 PM

I'm cancelling my subscription to the Atlantic as we speak. McArdle was bad enough, but Goldberg crosses a line.

But didn't Goldberg join the Atlantic like six months ago? Are you cancelling your subscription now because he started a blog?

Posted by right | April 30, 2008 6:07 PM

The open and unfiltered comments section is one of the main attractions of MY.com.

Posted by otto | April 30, 2008 6:32 PM

MY - glad to hear you read the comments. Thanks, and keep it up.

What do you think about Agent Zero taking himself out for the season minutes before an elimination game?!?

Posted by Ready for change | April 30, 2008 6:59 PM

It featured, of all things, a discursion into "a decrepit prison in Iraqi Kurdistan" where "a senior interrogator with the Kurdish intelligence service" tortured an Arab prisoner.

Yeah, I mean, WTF? Dude's committing war crimes in front of him, and this is supposed to emphasize Goldberg's cred?

Try reading that quote with "tortured an Israeli prisoner" and see how it grabs you, folks.

Posted by Anderson | April 30, 2008 7:14 PM

Liberals will ask, why did the Atlantic hire Goldberg? Why do they push him so? Why, his work is dreadful! Situation makes no sense!

And some day some of those liberals will understand and so become leftists

Heh. Indeed.

Posted by Kalkin | April 30, 2008 8:09 PM

I started reading Jeffrey Goldberg when he had a column for the Forward. He is a liberal hawk, not an ideological conservative like Douthat or Sullivan. This is the first I heard of his Iraq war shilling. Goldberg benefits from the scarcity of reporters who can travel to the Middle East and speak Hebrew and Arabic. He can also make the readers believe that they have learned something besides tired talking points.

Posted by 4jkb4ia | May 1, 2008 1:20 AM

I'm not surprised the Atlantic hired Goldberg. I quit my subscripion to the dead tree magazine back when editor Michael Kelly went off his meds and starting flinging his feces at Al Gore. That was the same Michael Kelly who, by the way, cheerled the Iraq war and got his just desserts in the very same country. Goldberg's not as inflammatory or flamboyant as Kelly was, but he's cut from the same ideological cloth.

Posted by Jake | May 1, 2008 2:04 AM

Didn't Judy Miller also sit in on the Israeli torture of an arab prisoner?

Posted by otto | May 1, 2008 2:04 AM

Christ, Matt, Goldberg has barely three posts yet and you're already on him! Give the guy a break -- and saying something snarky and calling it "collegial" advice is just ... snarky.

Posted by scritic | May 1, 2008 9:17 AM

OK -- Moving on the generic Goldberg-bashing (not that there's anything wrong with that) to more specific criticism -- Goldberg doesn't get blogging.

Blogs are an opinion medium, not a reporting medium. That's why Matt has always been a successful blogger (despite not even being the best reporter in his house). Blogs also work well as a clipboard. Laura Rozen is a good journalist, but her blog is a compendium of links, not a place for her original journalism.

Goldbergs' latest piece shows how his style of writing isn't really suited to blogs. It's a interview where Goldberg's own are only expressed through the choice of questions. Rather than being up front, Goldberg's views come out in indirect ways -- the choice of questions, the headline on the post. As if he is trying to maintain a pretense of objectivity.

Godlberg might figure out how blogs work -- he is a smart guy. But right now its like a long time skier taking up snowboarding and complaining about the lack of control.

Posted by Ikram | May 1, 2008 9:39 AM