Andrew Bacevich

Joe Joffe--a realist, moderate politically (best I can tell), and international but with real knowledge of the US.

The Economist is making money b/c it's $125 for a subscription. It's also seriously deteriorating in quality. Their last article on Bush had more good things to say about the guy than bad, but they deemed him to be disastrous b/c people don't like him. Didn't make much sense to me.

Lexington became completely unhinged during the campaign, repeating some of the worst (and most untrue) rumors about McCain and Palin. It's not like there was any shortage of criticisms to say about their campaign that were true - instead Lexington went off the deep end.

Peter Feaver wouldn't be bad, since he has plenty of D.C. experience. He already has a blog with WaPo too.

I liked Kristol by the way. Also heard a rumor they were thinking about Ramesh Ponnuru. Perhaps just a coincidence he fills in for Brooks on the Newshour. I would not like that though. What does everyone think the chances are they would go with an academic as opposed to a journalist though?

Judge Richard Posner.

(no, I don’t mean me).

Stephen,

why don't you offer them a link to your Blog?
We would enjoy ourselves better;->>

Grand Sen~or

It would be great if the Times chose an knowledgeable academic to replace Kristol.It would be good to read an informed op ed for once.
I think Robert Jervis would be perfect for the role, it would put a realist perspective on the Times, and he is in NY as well so that goes pretty well.

Someone from The Economist would be an excellent choice, though I wouldn't necessarily call it conservative by American standards.

I always think Brink Lindsey is interesting. I don't know if he would be called a "realist", but, coming from the Libertarian point of view, would be pretty sympathetic to realist arguments.

subscribed to the economist for its pleasing language, but their empty suit was firmly on even before they endorsed the iraq war. i still had the atlantic monthly when i discovered that they were the ones commissioned m/w to write on israel and american politics, then cowardly turned the finished product down. well, i picked up the phone and called off further delivery. there's only one little national paper in America that has any journalistic integrity--the Monitor. (they dropped their paper circulation a few days ago.)

Nyt has been my clear favorite over wp--not so blatantly biased/opinionated. But they can work on publishing some real thoughts, vs axe-grinding. My unrealistic wish is they not hire anybody who has a pet perspective.

but while we are at it, why don't we also petition nyt to dump tom friedman? he is the biggest fraud of them all.

Andrew Bacevich would be my choice

NYT is less blatantly biased than the WaPo? What reality are you living in? WaPo isn't great, but at least they don't cut out a position for a token conservative amongst all the other liberals at the paper (Hiatt, Krauthammer and Applebaum are generally right of center).

I agree with you on the Economist though.

I don't think it should be an academic,unless they have prior experience as a columnist. No offense but the IR scholars I've read aren't always the most engaging. Newspaper audiences aren't going to be reading for treatises on soft balancing or the stability-instability paradox. If you need a realist, which would be fine, though not necessarily a conservative, Joffe was a good call. He may not be a Walt/Mearsheimer realist, but he's certainly no neocon.

Fukuyama.
Bacevich.

Some other contributor to The American Interest or AmConMag (other than SM Walt or JJ Mearsheimer)?

I doubt SM Walt will like this pick, but James Q. Wilson (looking at The Ameerican Interest masthead) - c'mon, who else compares the DMV to McDonald's?

For that matter, I'd actually be inclined to pick JJM or SMW. Contrarianism rocks. Hell, how about pretty much any of the bloggers on FP - I'm really thinking about Drezner. Not sure he could write downhome a la Friedman, but still...

But I probably ought to stick with FF, AB, JW, SW, or JM.

Lexington is not super-anonymous at all; he is The Economist's Washington Bureau Chief, Adrian Wooldridge.

walt is blogging way too fast to keep up--hope he still reads suggestions to this entry.

few can write two per week interestingly, even Maureen Dowd gets to be tiring. on the other hand, heard some academic types complain of the degenerating effect on the english language from mass writing on the web: why don't the nyt save the spot to pick up one nice unpaid blog entry with concentration on foreign policy (hot, hot), twice a week? most blogheads doing it free of charge therefore a bit carelessly--a new uptodate format for the nyt and incentive to shape up web language. don't use individual name, simply, the Bloggerster.

now i'm going to rescue smw from those tedious not very original attacks!

I do read the comments when I have time, but can't claim to do so consistently.....sorry! Actually, I'd have no problem with James Q. Wilson--he's a smart conservative who wrote some important books--but my guess is that he wouldn't be interested at this point in his career. The idea of a rotating set of columnists is a good one, but there's also something to be said for letting a good analyst and writer develop a position and lay it out over months or years. Overall, I'm mostly struck by how the most interesting things I read are not on anybody's OP-ED pages. I find them in the blogosphere, in serious scholarly journals, or in some popular journals of opinion. Hmmm. I wonder why that is.

Glad you liked the JQ WIlson suggestion - former U of C student. :-)

Dr Walt,
"Surpisingly scarce" is a left handed admission that 911 incinerated concepts like realpolitik as surely as the nearly 3K innocents who made it to work that late summer day.

Dr Fred Kaplan seems to be the most consistent and prodigious realpolitik fan. Dr Kaplan's trilogy - starting with his "Condi is a retard" rant at WaPo, followed up with a rather lame lament about Great Satan's "Globestomping" in the LA Times and ultimately unleashing realpolitik's raison d'etre' "Daydream Believers" should certainly earn him a spot on the short list, nicht war?

Dr Kaplan's work could well be the ultimate chronicle of the unconvincing "... inner ethical wrestling match slide from Cold War Realpolitik's amoral, corrupt cult of stability to a new millenium's amoral, corrupt cult of stability."

Andrew Bacevich would be a great choice. Andrew Sullivan would be another good one.

Sullivan's a conservative still?

Both of these guys would offer their opinions in a witty, thoughtful and provoking way. Steyn especially would tick a lot of people off.

David Gergan