Mary Fitzgerald
"Too Amazonian"
In its wisdom, Standpoint magazine chose Samantha Power for its “Overrated” slot last month. Ms Power has the audacity to be not yet 40 years of age and, among other things, craftily impresses interviewers with her “Amazonian looks and athletic prowess,” the anonymous author writes.
Power might have been forgiven these attributes, had she not “used her experience as a reporter in the Balkans to become an academic expert on genocide.” One might ponder what better starting point there could be than first-hand experience of such an issue, but no suggestions are offered here.
The article also claims that scant attention has been paid to the “dubious ethics of a Pulitzer Prize-winner seeking to withdraw a remark made on the record”—a reference to “Monstergate,” in which Power dubbed Hillary Clinton a monster and subsequently had to resign as Barack Obama’s foreign policy adviser. The dubious ethics of the journalist who was interviewing Power and decided to print the comments, which Power had specifically labelled “off the record,” are not mentioned here: a strange inversion of the whole protocol. Nevertheless, the author steamrollers on: “Monstering Hillary seems an unlikely qualification for a career as a White House foreign policy adviser.” Which makes one wonder what made Hillary Clinton qualified for her job? Was it her tireless questioning of Obama’s readiness to be a leader throughout her nine-month long nomination campaign?
“That a woman of [Power's] views should have the ear of the president is alarming,” the author warns—making one wonder if would it be less alarming were Power a man—before, finally, the real beef emerges: Power once suggested that the US should cease to “service Israel’s military” in order instead to “invest in the new state of Palestine.” She also, apparently, believes that America needs to be multilateralist and “European”. Well indeed. What could possibly be worse?
James Crabtree
Generally intellectual
Noam Chomsky. Francis Fukuyama. Anthony Giddens. Christopher Hitchens. Slavoj Zizek. All names that didn’t even make the top 10 in Prospect’s contest to crown 2008’s public intellectual of the year. So who did? Moving on from previous attempts to list the world’s 100 greatest living public intellectuals, this year we decided to name those who had the most impact in 2008 alone. We took soundings—from friends, here on First Drafts and on our Facebook group—to bring up a shortlist. From there it was down to our panel of judges. A three-way contest emerged, between economist Nouriel Roubini, social scientists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, and General David Petraeus. Our judges voted according to type: the wonks liked the Nudge duo, the more economically minded wanted a thinker linked to the credit crunch, while foreign policy watchers thought the soldier-philosopher deserving of the nod. On our website we provide details of all our judges’ votes, and their reasons, along with short bios of all those we considered. Ultimately, though, there could only be one winner. As in Iraq, so in Prospect: Petraeus surged to victory.
James Crabtree
but who is 2008's biggest public brain?
We just put the Christmas edition of the magazine to bed, at 3am on Wednesday morning. If you join up for our Facebook group you can see the new cover, and get an overview of the contents. If you aren’t on Facebook, like David Goodhart, our hold-out editor, I’ll put it up here in a day or two. The magazine, meanwhile, arrives at a train station near you in the middle of next week.
Personally, I’m most excited about the results of our public intellectual of 2008 poll. This is different from our previous public vote poll, run with Foreign Policy, to find the greatest living public intellectual. This one is just about the figure who did best in 2008 – and is picked by us, and a team of all-star judges. Thanks to any of you who threw names into the hat for consideration, when we announced it here on First Drafts a month or so ago.
I can’t put the winner on here just yet, but will put the shortlist up shortly. In the meantime, below, are the people who just missed out on the top 10 – those we liked a lot, but didn’t make the cut. More on who actually won in due course – along with the judges’ decisions, and the eventual winner. If this lot didn’t win, who would you have given it to? And what do you make of this longlist – just the same old group of old white English-speaking men? Click the more button to see the list…….
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