Into the mind of a local Republican hack

This week's Creative Loafing features an ombudsman-like critique of the paper titled "Where are CL's editors." It's written by Phil Kent, a conservative author, media consultant, and panelist on Fox 5 talking headfest Georgia Gang.

Near the end, Kent makes some comments about a column of mine that ran in last week's issue of CL. The subject of my column was the National Academy of Science's recent verbal sparring match with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear power industry over safety practices.

Writes Kent:

There's not enough space to refute the tiresome anti-nuclear industry musings of columnist Andisheh Nouraee. Why do so many "progressives" fail to see the benefits of clean, safe, cheap nuclear power for electrical reliability, and that America needs one permanent nuclear waster repository? Europe, China and Russia are building state-of-the-art nuclear plants for electricity generation - why not the U.S. again? Assuming he could pass through security, the columnist should tour Plant Vogtle near Augusta to learn something about one of the safest and most efficient nuclear plants in the country.

Very nice, but did you notice how he failed to address anything I actually wrote in the column? My column was not about whether nuclear power is a good or bad idea.

So I sent Phil Kent an e-mail:

Dear Phil:

I just finished reading your "Where Are CL's Editors" column in this week's CL. You implied that my column is overflowing with refutability, yet you didn't refute, or even attempt to cast doubt on, a single point in the article. All you did was complain about how progressives fail to understand nuclear power's great potential -- a subject that the column isn't about, even partially. (By the way, it's a point on which we are in agreement).

If you've got a minute, I'd love to know some specifics. What do you think the column got wrong, or even a little off?

Thanks,
Andy

To which Phil Kent replied:

Hi Andy--

Good to hear from you & I look forward to meeting you down the road. Unfortunately, any ombudsman column is flawed-- the main flaw with mine is that it was capped at 850 words and my instructions were to be brief but cover a wide range of items in the last issue with my critiques. (I didn't even mention the cover story! Another drawback. Anyhow, you well know the pressures of space.)

So, you are correct, there was opinion but no specific refutations re your column -- because there was no room. And all too often that isn't fair. Rather than writing today a long detailed explanation re your column (and, by the way, I've liked some of your others in the past.

Perhaps you and I could grab a drink one day next week, get to know one another and compare notes on that particular column and nuclear power in general.

Doing anything next Thursday after work?

Phil

Phil Kent Consulting, Inc.
website: www.philkent.com

In other words, he has no actual facts on which to base a critique of my column. As the kids like to say, "All he was doin' was sayin'."

He has enough space to say that I was chock-full o' wrongness, enough space to change the subject and talk about how nifty nuclear power is, enough space to imply that I'm a security risk (an attempted joke that offends me, not as an Iranian-American, but as a comedy writer), enough time to want to grab a beer with a "tiresome" potential national security threat like me, but not enough time or space to even HINT at a single fact that I got wrong or misunderstood. Not one.

In other words -- local hacktacular hackery at its finest. Like so many other so-called conservative commentators, Phil Kent's idea of political commentary/ombudsmanship is to drop the usual conservative talking head catchphrases (the rest of the article includes gems like "People's Republic of Berkeley," "left-wing hatred," "tort reform," "knee-jerk," "crypto-Marxist," and "High-Priest of Left-Wing Dogma") while hardly, if at all, addressing the substance of what it is he's supposedly critiquing . Remember that next time you read or hear his "work."

By the way, I was gonna tell you how Phil Kent relaxes during Georgia Gang commercial breaks by tongue-kissing his fellow panelists, but darnit, I've run out of space.