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Broadly Diverse

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As we have discussed, the New York Times has added to its Broad Array of Viewpoints on the op-ed page by hiring a third Republican white guy. Jeff Stein interviewed him, and the results are as expected:

It’s a decision that infuriated many of the paper’s liberal readers. Stephens may be a vocal critic of Donald Trump, but his views are firmly right-wing. In an interview on Sunday, his first since joining the Times, Stephens defended his view that fears of climate change are overblown, his argument that the campus rape epidemic is an “imaginary enemy,” and his belief that Black Lives Matter is sending the wrong message.

“Look, at the risk of being incredibly politically incorrect, but I guess that’s my job — I think that all lives matter,” Stephens said. “Not least black lives.”

Whew, finally Times readers can have access to the inane, offensive talking points that have already become cliches. Speaking of which, we also get the slightly more sophisticated variant of “how can there be global warming when it’s snowing in Minot in January” argument:

A guy I know just had a baby and he’s a big global warming, climate change activist. If he thinks in 20 years we’ll be heading toward unsustainable climates and there will be tens of millions of people being displaced, presumably including himself, at the most apocalyptic level, then presumably he wouldn’t be having children.

Ah yes, the old McArdle standby “if you favor higher taxes why don’t you send more money to the government?” It seems highly likely that Stephen’s friend, unlike Stephens, is not a climate denialist and also understands that nobody’s choice to have a single child has any impact on the climate. And here’s another Penetrating Insight:

But it turned out that, in Germany, the sun doesn’t shine all the time. And, even in Germany, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. However, you need power all of the time; because you’re spending tremendous amounts on wind and solar subsidies, you need an alternative base-line.

WOW I HAVE NEVER CONSIDERED THAT THE SUN DOES NOT SHINE 24 HOURS A DAY AND YET THERE ARE POWER NEEDS AT NIGHT I WONDER IF SOLAR ENERGY HAS BEEN DESIGNED WITH THIS NEVER-BEFORE-CONSIDERED FACT IN MIND?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

It’s pretty much all like this; not only are the arguments uniformly dumb you’ve also heard them all a million times before. So what is his contribution supposed to be, exactly? Here’s Liz Spayd:

What I do support — fully — is Bennet’s aim of hiring people who don’t conform to a liberal orthodoxy of thought. And I hope he is right in his unflinching belief that readers will want to hear what Stephens has to say. “The crux of the question is whether his work belongs inside our boundaries for intelligent debate, and I have no doubt that it does,” Bennet told me. “I have no doubt he crosses our bar for intellectual honesty and fairness.”

1)That is one hell of a low bar and 2)it remains unclear why Viewpoint Diversity justifies hiring a a third anti-Trump reactionary white guy but never anybody to the left of Krugman.

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