Ezra has already written about Jonathan Krohn, and his fifteen minutes seem to be about up, but it's worth highlighting Ta-Nehisi's comments on the conservative wunderkind:
If you're a conservative and you care about this kid, you don't give him a public forum. You give him your card, and you take his e-mails. You give him a list of books that he needs to read. Then when you see him, you quiz him on those books. You tell him that you're glad he showed the initiative to write and publish himself, but his thesis is actually banal. That if he's going to play in the big leagues, he should expect to get hit and prepare himself thusly. You warn him away from sideshows, and teach him to pride hearing over being heard. You teach him that these are his weapons and his shield in the great war of ideas.It's easy to use Krohn as a bludgeon against the GOP as a whole, as the next logical step after Joe the Plumber in the party's descent into a state of aestheticized ignorance. But like Ta-Nehisi, I mostly feel sympathy for the kid. I know what it's like to be an cocky, brash, 13-year-old political junkie. Hell, I wanted to be Krohn at that age - or rather the Krohn of six years past, Kyle Williams. And in retrospect, I'm really glad I wasn't. I had time to read, time to think, time to convince myself and un-convince myself of things at my own leisure. That's something I suspect Krohn won't have.
To some degree, this is due to his own choices, but the deck is also stacked. What 13-year-old wouldn't want to be on radio programs millions of people listen to? What 13-year-old wouldn't want to be able to show off a copy of the New York Times with his picture in it? A 25-year-old or even an 18-year-old faced with those choices would think more carefully, but it's unreasonable to expect him to be looking out for his own long-term interests. That's a job his parents - and mentors like Bill Bennett - have to take on, at least in some part. They've failed in that capacity, and if (when) Krohn emerges in four or five years not having learned to doubt, I suspect they'll regret helping him take things this far.
