The thoughtful Michael Kinsley of the 1980s, rather than the snide, opportunistic heckler he is most of the time these days, returned to print today with a column appearing in the LA Times, WaPo, and probaly elsewhere on the subject of New Orleans and "the fetid aroma of hindsight."
Money quotes:
Landrieus I-told-you-sos would be more impressive if the press release archive on her website didnt contain equally urgent calls to spend billions of dollars to build boats the Navy hasnt asked for in Louisiana shipyards, self-congratulations for having planted a billion dollars of "coastal impact assistance" for Louisiana in the energy bill (this is before the flood), and so on. Did she want flood control or did she want $10 million to have " Americas largest river swamp" declared a "National Heritage Area"?In fact, the one president who is pretty much in the clear on this is our current Bush — not because he did anything about the levees but because even if he had started something, it probably wouldnt have been finished yet.
As the saying goes, read the whole thing.
The current link to Kinsleys article is broken.
It should be https://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-kinsley11sep11,0,5042004.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
The "link" is not working.
Cliff
I dissent from Steves approbation; Kinsley is simply displaying another side of his nihilism: https://www.claremont.org/localliberty/archives/003744.html
I knew after I posted the story that I should have said "occasionally" thoughtful about Kinsley in the 1980s, when he was running The New Republic. But, like a stopped clock, even a nihilist is right once and a while.
Thats a wonderful comparison.