And Now...This Fucking Guy

Pictured on the left is Mr. David French, debating whether Jesus was a flat-tax proponent 
with Ross Douthat and Mr. Bean, although I may be wrong about some or all of that.

Until very recently, if you had heard of Mr. French at all, it was probably as a third-tier writer for the National Review, as a holder of extremely, uh, "rustic" Conservative evangelical views on the roles of women in society, gay marriage and LGBTSQ+ issues general, and "served as a lawyer for the libertarian public interest law firm FIRE, for Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, and for the social conservative Alliance Defending Freedom."

Or maybe you vaguely recall that he was the guy that Bill Kristol plucked from obscurity to [checks notes] run against Donald Trump in 2016 as an "independent" and, y'know, save Murrica from Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  

No kidding.  It was in all the papers.  

Well, it was in one paper.  From Vox:

Meet David French: the random dude off the street that Bill Kristol decided will save America from Trump

...If your reaction to that is, "Who?" then congrats, you nailed it. David French is exactly as obscure as you think he is. I've read French's writing, but just at National Review, Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Rich Lowry, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Reihan Salam all come to mind as obviously better known.

So, what do you care, amirite?  Just another of the Conservative goobers who came off the same assembly line as all the other "respectable" Conservative goobers who got cut loose from the mothership once they handed the keys to Trump,  but who never missed a meal thanks to the extremely well-funded Wingnut Welfare system.  

French took french-leave (heh) of his gig at the National Review once it irreversibly committed itself to being a Trump splooge rag and was almost immediately installed at The Dispatch -- an outfit that was conjured into existence after the pro-Trump shitshow at Fox got to be too much even for Stephen Hayes and Jonah "Dought Pantsload" Goldberg, who scampered across town, started The Dispatch on SubStack, quickly raised six million dollars and were off to the races.

Other than French, notable Dispatch employees include

• Chris Stirewalt, late of Fox News.

• Sarah Isgur, former spokesperson for Donald Trump's Department of Justice where she defended the Trump administration's family separation policy, as well as Trump's travel ban.  Isgur was also hired as an analyst by ABC news.

• Nick Catoggio is better known to you and I by his wingnut blogger pseudonym Allahpundit.  He was also the former senior editor for the godawful Hot Air from its founding in 2006 through his resignation on September 2, 2022.

• Kevin D. Williamson, who, it seems, has always been going through some stuff.  From Brother Charlie Pierce in 2018

Forget Kevin Williamson's Firing. The Free Press Is in Actual Peril.

Another conservative victim emerges where real ones ought to be in the spotlight.

...

I would not have hired Kevin Williamson at The Atlantic. Hell, I knew the way he felt about abortion and I’m not in charge of a major American magazine. I just run this shebeen here. Once he hired Williamson, though, Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, proceeded to make a complete mound of hash out of the entire episode. We are to believe now that the scales did not fall from Goldberg’s eyes until Media Matters dug up a podcast in which Williamson repeated his opinion that women who have abortions should be hanged.

Up until then, what we got from Goldberg was airy flummery about a diversity of voices and a whole lot of other banana oil that was seconded by Bret Stephens in a memorably misinformed column in The New York Times. I think this is not the way it happened. I think Goldberg reneged on his offer to Williamson because he got scared out of it by the rising backlash. The results may be applauded but, if I’m a reporter at The Atlantic, I’m wondering how firmly my editor has my back if things heat up.

Si why are you hearing about Mr. French now?

Because (from The New York Times):

David French Joins The Times as an Opinion Columnist

Opinion announces that the writer and legal scholar David French is joining The New York Times staff as an Opinion columnist. Read more in this note from Kathleen Kingsbury and Patrick Healy.

Because apparently the first tier of American political opinion-having doesn't already have enough privileged, white, recently-former middle aged male Republicans, who, damnit, have a thing or two to say about the goings in in there here country that need to be said.

And so the Times' has hired themselves a  third, auxiliary, break-glass-in-case-David-Brooks-retires Very Serious and Humble Conserative Defender of...whatever.

And for his inaugural Time's column, Mr. French has apparently borrowed the algorithm that David Brooks has been using to crank out weekly Both Sides Do It claptrap at the Times for the last two decades, and had cranked himself out a big, steaming log of Both Siderism of his own.

Special thanks to Dan Froomkin for locating all the "razors in the apple", thus sparing us the need:

Just what we didn’t need: Another asshole @nytopinion columnist saying conservatives *discounting the Black experience* (!!) are no more extreme than lefty excess in trying to create inclusive environments on college campuses. Then denying he said so. https://t.co/XVGAz62Zxf pic.twitter.com/wip3f3fIWL

— Dan Froomkin/PressWatchers.org (@froomkin) February 5, 2023

By now the well-trod path from Conservative media thuggee to mainstream media respectability has become very clear.  

First, spend years in the trenches helping to create the toxic environment that would eventually spawn monsters like Trump.

Second, while down in those trenches doing the devil's work, don't forget to make Useful Professional Contacts.

Third, once the stench from the rot inside the Right becomes impossible to ignore, become a professional Both Siderist.

Fourth, hang onto your Conservative gig, Both Sidering your lil heart out, until they show you the door or until the place is shuttered.

Finally, lean on those Useful Professional Contacts to migrate to one of the other Conservative media outlets funded by   deep-pocketed donors who still want someone out there telling comforting fairy tales about the nobility of  True Conservatives and the villainy of the Extremes on Both Sides.

One last note: maybe one in a hundred readers will get why I'm ending this post with a video of a late-1970s Canadian punk band.  This one's for you brothers and sisters!

I Am The Liberal Media