The Crossed Pond

Kathryn Jean Lopez has been more forthcoming about apologising for the W. Thomas Smith nonsense, with a more detailed apology posted in NRO’s The Tank blog (that I missed last night), presumably responding in part to timeline questions like this one from Andrew Sullivan (admire Lopez’s description of “Deep into the second week of November”, which I guess is in answer to Sullivan). There is also an update and link post in The Corner this morning, following Peter Wehner’s post about the TNR-Beauchamp debacle. Lopez ends her Tank post:

I wish this hadn’t happened. I still think Smith is a well-intentioned reporter. We post him on a submission-by-submission basis and will continue to do so unless we have reason to decide otherwise. (And we are currently doing a more thorough review of all his work.)

That sounds like the vote of confidence in a football* manager that generally precedes dismissal. I personally don’t have any inclination to call for Smith’s head; I just want now to see Smith show signs that he realises that he screwed up, none of this ‘detractors and critics’ nonsense, but an honest apology for screwing up and also treating his first apology as a chance to score points.

I’m not particularly a fan of Lopez — I think that she can be prissy and wildly prone to seeing what she wants to see and she can also act the weasel — but I think that her heart and commitment are in the right place and that she’s fundamentally pretty honest. As it stands, I’m OK with her explanation (although perhaps I don’t have all the information I should) but I’m most definitely not OK with W. Thomas Smith’s explanation/pseudo-apology and I’m not even sure that he is acting appropriately as a journalist at all (as alluded to with various levels of vehemence here). Frankly, he’s looking like a lite version of Michael Yon (whom everyone should read at least once, whether or not they agree with him), but one that pretends (unlike Yon) to be something other than what he is.

I am always ambivalent about NRO — I like some of their posters a lot, but in my opinion there’s a bunch of opinionated nonsense from some unlikeable individuals, too — and would feel a lot easier of Kathryn Jean Lopez posted more and had posted what she has posted somewhat earlier. In particular, I’d like to have seen more comment from her about W. Thomas Smith’s own non-apologetic apology — as it is, this is pretty much all we have, and it was in response to Michelle Malkin’s commentary on Smith’s post rather than on Lopez’s own initiative, as I mentioned in this comment.

*Proper football, not the silly version that’s like a slow, toned-down version of rugby but with all the players wearing padding so that no one breaks a fingernail.