Best bullshit line of the day

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Thursday, May 28, 2009 - 5:13 PM Share

"My friend Alex Strick van Linschoten, who is one of the only independent journalists living in Kandahar full-time," begins Joshua Foust...

As opposed, I reckon, to the dozens of MSM hacks who line up for frosty Taj beers by 3 pm each day at the bar of the Kandahar Foreign Correspondents Club. Bonus points for the four-barreled name featuring a "van." Didn't young van Linschoten's cousin Winston prep at St. Paul's, and later get involved in a regretful scene at a Princeton boathouse with two Emma Willard girls and a wolverine that had imbibed too much champagne?

In reality, I am told the best bar in Afghanistan outside Kabul remains the Bamboo in Jalalabad. They also can arrange a tour of Tora Bora for you, but the heavy security costs extra.

EXPLORE:AFGHANISTAN, MEDIA

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RUBBER DUCKY

6:49 PM ET

May 28, 2009

Close...

It was the girls who imbibed. The wolverine was a teetotaler.

JAMIET

12:46 PM ET

May 29, 2009

what?

what a stupid fucking comment.

GRAHAM HOLLIDAY

1:42 PM ET

May 29, 2009

And your point is?

What is your point? If you're trying to sound clever and informed, you failed miserably. Couldn't you just Google Alex's name to find out the facts. Or is that a little too much like journalism?

Alex is one of 30 or more foreign correspondents who blog with us at the Frontline Club - http://frontlineclub.com/news/blogs.html - and he's lived in Afghanistan on and off for a number of years.

If you can you name any other unembedded journalists based in Kandahar city I'm all ears. I don't think Alex or Joshua, who you quote, deserve your trite, uninformed ridicule.

TOM RICKS

8:32 PM ET

May 29, 2009

Chill

All I was saying was that I was struck by the pomposity of the lede.

FNORD

9:51 PM ET

May 29, 2009

Whats the pompous part of it? The part of "independent journalist", the part about Foust knowing him or the fact that the journalist in question has a "funny" name? Strange snark...

EASTGATE

5:15 PM ET

June 1, 2009

I'm confused, too: on newspaper tradition

I'm confused by this post, too. I know it's a small thing, but I'd really like to understand what you had in mind.

I'm supposing you were struck by the juxtaposition of the ten-gallon name and the half-pint affiliation -- sort of like "James Q Throgglebotton III from the Quincy Ledger". But it was my understanding that correspondents, especially in Asia, traditionally laid aside their affiliations and despised all competitors equally. (Compare, for example, Stoppard's newspaper play, "Night and Day")

In particular, reporters overseas were free to eat and drink together. Back home, you wouldn't do this: no one from the Daily News, as I understand things, would think of buying a drink for someone from The Trib. And even then, you didn't hold the paper's failings and biases against a fellow, since reporters are all working stiffs. (The latter was really important for Mom, who wound up writing for the benighted Chicago American)

Or is this something else entirely?