the influential lib-turned-paleocon-hawk Norman Podhoretz died this week. I think about @davidklion.bsky.social's assessment of his memoir quite often: jewishcurrents.org/the-making-a...

Exactly whom I wanted to read about Podhoretz, whose world we are definitely living in now

My first job out of college was securing permission to republish content in textbooks. One time as part of the job I talked to him on the phone, asking to reprint some ancient piece of his. He was reluctant to agree because he basically said he no longer believed what he had written, lol.

"It’s fitting, then, that Podhoretz’s final piece of writing, published this April, landed at The Free Press, Bari Weiss’s latter-day neocon website."

For @thenation.com, here's my obituary of Norman Podhoretz—the last canonical New York intellectual, and the first of a now-familiar breed of discourse demagogue

I was at the Ackman keynote, a squalid affair but also an illuminating one. Wrote it up for @jewishcurrents.bsky.social. Ackman's donations were the obvious subtext of the whole event. jewishcurrents.org/the-end-of-t...

A piece Olivia Nuzzi published yesterday (as part of a Substack Q+A) called "Signs Your Book Rollout Has Gone Awry":

Bonus - Liberal Zionism After Gaza w/ @davidklion.bsky.social David Klion joins the show to talk about fractures in the American Jewish community and institutions. Link in the replies.

Wild that Trump is doing viral marketing for @davidklion.bsky.social's book

All day, many of you have been asking for a Cheney obituary from me. Get ready:

The White House has posted a photo that shows Bari Weiss was in the room for the 60 Minutes interview of Donald Trump. Weiss is obscured, but she's just to the right of Norah O'Donnell.

Men would rather release a crudely recorded, willfully anti-commercial album about heartland serial killers than go to therapy.

This was just posted by a CBS News producer on their Instagram stories.

so here’s the thing, Bari, you’re running an organization full of weapons-grade gossips who hate you www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/b...

I slated about Bari

Great @davidklion.bsky.social review of One Battle After Another. The Coates point changed my view of today & tomorrow when I heard it. “not that things will necessarily be better in my lifetime, but that I will make the contribution that I am supposed to make.” newrepublic.com/article/2011...

"One generation’s failure to defeat fascism becomes the next generation’s shot at redemption, and the next after that, one battle after another. It’s not much consolation, but under our present circumstances it’s the only honest one." Great piece by @davidklion.bsky.social

First reading of @davidklion.bsky.social was his thoughtful review of The Outsider. Have since relished his political writing, now at Nation. Fitting to read here his 5-star review of 5-star One Battle After Another, both a delight: David does sublime movie justice. newrepublic.com/article/2011...

It's so hard to describe this amazing movie, but @davidklion.bsky.social did it. Tho my read of its "when" is that it starts in 2026 & jumps to 2042. The hopeful explosions of the French 75 is where we are; Sensei's careful underground networks is where we're going.

“Most people, after all, aren’t looking to kill or be killed; most people just want to know how to build communities that can defend themselves.” @davidklion.bsky.social on the durable resistance of OBAA’s Sensei Sergio in @newrepublic.com

newrepublic.com/article/2011... Nice one, @davidklion.bsky.social

Obviously the Godfathers, obviously Annie Hall and her other stuff with him (with all the caveats, which I’ve written all about). But this is a personal favorite: Diane, Jack, the Elaine May dialogue, the perennial intraleft tensions perfectly captured: youtu.be/JXP5LQx4slc?...

The email from hell

News: Bari Weiss just sent a memo to staffers at CBS News asking them to produce a memo explaining "how you spend your working hours—and ideally, what you've made (or are making) that you're most proud of." One CBS News staffer puts it like this to me: "We just got Elon Musked."

Fun to see @davidklion.bsky.social for the first time. Didn't know he went to college with Bari Weiss. Unsure which one is the other's Wario.

Paramount has bought the digital outlet @thefp.com and made its founder Bari Weiss the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. Journalist @davidklion.bsky.social details how the "anti-woke" crusader and pro-Israel pundit rose to the top of the media industry.

"The pattern is clear: if you work at a liberal institution and you want the Trump-controlled federal government to step in and discipline it, Bari Weiss is there to help." www.theguardian.com/media/ng-int...

As a news nerd I'm always fascinated by org charts, and to me even more telling than who Bari reports to is who will report to her. Troops, territory and budgets are the actual stuff that shapes news coverage. Controlling them is how you control the narrative a news org shapes.

The notion that Bari will be "running CBS News" is slightly misleading. What the reporting suggests is that Tom Cibrowski, a guy with normal qualifications, will be doing that. Bari will be Emperor Ellison's Vader-esque enforcer, outside the chain of command, intervening at will.

The two most cynical people I've ever known are both in the news today. One of them, you've no doubt heard, is taking over CBS News. The other is this guy:

(get the numbers wrong by a full order of magnitude and then) do the math

Yes, maybe!

Best of luck to the working journalists at CBS

@davidklion.bsky.social nailed the convergence of some pop culture discussions I've been having with friends. I'm at once envious of his work and inspired to write something of my own. newrepublic.com/article/2011...

For @newrepublic.com, I reviewed One Battle After Another and reflected on the fantasy of left-wing political violence that both left and right are indulging right now, even though the real thing barely exists

If you want to understand how the attacks on Ivies illustrates a close coordination between trumpland, trumpists inside notionally liberal institutions, and purported free thinkers working as state press, listen to @jeetheer.bsky.social interview @davidklion.bsky.social overcast.fm/+AA5oOCynyqs

Enjoyed talking about the Bari Weiss takeover of CBS on The Majority Report with @samseder.bsky.social and @emmavigeland.bsky.social this afternoon!

Was glad to be able to have a frank discussion of Charlie Kirk with my @jewishcurrents.bsky.social colleagues, and to talk about this fantasy of "left-wing violence" that the right (along with some fringe parts of the left) has an interest in pretending is real

On the latest episode of On the Nose, Arielle Angel, @davidklion.bsky.social, @benlorber8.bsky.social, and Maya Rosen discuss reactions to Charlie Kirk’s assassination across the political spectrum, as well as the outsized response in Israel. jewishcurrents.org/charlie-kirk...

"To applaud those making the long-foretold pivot for their moral courage is not only unnecessary but perverse; they are, at best, joining a coalition built by the people they insulted, scorned, and in some cases called for arresting when their words counted most." www.thenation.com/article/worl...

"The Democratic establishment in Washington abounds with people who faced no meaningful consequences for their disastrous judgment in the early 2000s, and who have gone on to exercise even more disastrous judgment in the 2020s" www.thenation.com/article/worl...

The President of Barnard College calls for more controversial speakers like the late Kirk (without citing any of his controversial views), a position at odds with what Barnard colleagues describe as a track record of censoring events and speakers on Palestine. (1/4) www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/o...

"There may be room for [latecomers] in the tent, but to meaningfully participate will require teshuva, the Hebrew word for 'repentance'—honest self-examination and a dedicated, continuous, lifelong effort to atone for even passively supporting this genocide." – @davidklion.bsky.social

in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, "it was a better career move to be wrong at the time and apologize later, if ever. This crisis of accountability has haunted US foreign policy ever since." www.thenation.com/article/worl...

Atonement is important — and so extremely rare — not just because it suggests actual personal transformation, but because it rewrites the consensus about what was right and what was wrong. It’s not good enough for people to come along to what’s obvious now.

David Klion writes in @thenation.com that in light of today's UN report, liberals must atone for their two years of complicity in Israel's genocide www.thenation.com/article/worl...

Repentance "could begin with some displays of real courage—including the courage to take actual risks, like so many activists have already done, often losing jobs, friends, and even freedom in the process."