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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (30567)	5/24/2002 11:04:35 AM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

that was a decent column, I thought, with some solid recommendations that should indeed be pursued. But it also illuminates my problems with columnists. Basically, Kristof is a smart, experienced reporter--not a national security expert, not someone with a background in government or policymaking, not a scientist or regionalist or area expert. So what you get when you read him is a smart, experienced reporter's take on current events, supplemented by what he gleans from the real experts he talks to. The problem with that is that we, his readers, are thus prisoners of his own lack of expertise or the people he chooses to consult any given week. This was made dramatically clear the other day when he changed his mind about Arafat. Unlike most other columnists, he was honest enough to do so openly, and explain why: "In several columns I sneered at Mr. Arafat and reiterated the common view that he had rejected very generous peace deals proffered by Ehud Barak. That is a nearly universal understanding in the West, expressed by everybody from Henry Kissinger to the cocktail party set. But, prompted by various readers, I've been investigating more closely and interviewing key players. This is what I found..." (May 17) My question is the following: why, for god's sake, should we bother to listen to Nick Kristof (let alone any of his far-less-talented colleagues) when, thanks to the information revolution and the multitude of material published in various places, we can consult the "key players" themselves? Should we worry about Iraq? take measures against potential bioterrorism? Sure. But I, for one, will get my information about such stuff from the horse's mouth, not the chatterbox generalist yahoo on cable or filing two columns a week on everything from smallpox to Chandra Levy. Those interested in what real experts have to say about how the country should handle biological threats are encouraged to check out the (admittedly boring) piece by Stanford's Chris Chyba, "Toward Biological Security," in the May/June issue of FA (print only, sorry). tb@endofrant.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (30567)	5/24/2002 1:19:00 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

That Kristoff column today was interesting, Bill. Al Hunt had an interesting column in yesterday's WSJ on a related topic: given the political smarts of the Bush administration, why are they being so dumb on the questions of a commission to investigate pre 9-11 intelligence issues. He argued their fear was that it would become public that they had put the terrorism issues on the back burner, the better to get other stuff up and running. I would post the column here or the link but it takes a money to subscribe and a password to get in. And they don't feature Hunt's columns on their opinionjournal website. You can find them but it takes you to a login rather than the article.