COMMENTARY has announced that John Podhoretz will become the new Editor in 2009, succeeding Neal Kozodoy, who has been the Editor since 1995 when Norman Podhoretz retired from that position after serving in it for 35 years.
This produced a piece from the New York Times about nepotism, since John Podhoretz is Norman Podhoretz’s son and will be succeeding him a mere 14 years after his father left the post (during which time John co-founded The Weekly Standard, wrote three books, established a widely-read column on politics and culture for the New York Post and blogs daily at The Corner).
Ed Lasky demolished the Times’ story in four short paragraphs, noting the irony of an article on nepotism from those who took the “paper of record” and turned it into an agenda-driven journal with (in Renata Adler’s words, writing in 2001) “no reliable, uninflected coverage of anything, least of all the news” by handing the paper from “Punch” to “Pinch” Sulzberger and then institutionalizing the nepotism with a corporate structure that prevents Pinch’s removal.
The large shoes John Podhoretz must fill actually belong not to his father but his father’s successor. Neal Kozodoy this year accomplished a trifecta unlikely to be seen soon again: he was named as the guiding influence in three of the most important books published this year:
David Gelernter, in “Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion,” acknowledged Kozodoy “above all” for any good points in his book. Ruth Wisse dedicated her career-capping “Jews and Power” to Neal Kozodoy and thanked him for “the exacting generosity that makes him a legend among editors.” Joseph Epstein in “In a Cardboard Belt!” included this two-page description of Neal’s editing:
Neal Kozodoy is a big-cut man, a founding member of the less-is-more school, known to many of his clients as “the Butcher of 56th Street, though I prefer to think of him as “Cleaver,” as in “Leave It to Cleaver,” which I seem frequently to have done by sending him manuscripts longer than he wished them. On one piece I wrote for him, I sent, via e-mail, the following communication: “Dear Neal, Wrote five fine paragraphs of Solzhenitysn piece yesterday, four of which you should be able to remove easily.”
One of the saddest lessons any writer has to learn is that anything he writes can be cut and that, worse news, the writing is often – not always but more often than not – better for being briefer. The
Gettysburg Address is 272 words long; with an editor’s help, I’m surecould have brought it in at under 200. . . Lincoln
I have neglected to add that I think Neal Kozodoy one of the very best editors going, and the one whom, because of my regard for his acumen and his strong anti-crapola radar, it gives me the greatest delight to please. He, of course, would have cut this entire paragraph.
As the ellipsis at the end of the second paragraph in the above excerpt indicates, I have edited it.
Given the quality of the editors of COMMENTARY over the last 47 years, it is fortunate they have found someone of John Podhoretz’s intelligence, accomplishments and journalistic talent to take the job after Neal Kozodoy. The New York Times should be so lucky.