Didn't you used to be David Rieff?

David Rieff, the sole child of Susan Sontag, is definitely the type of person I'd call a public intellectual.

I became Twitter friends with him on a previous account, the one that Elmo's Jack-off's minions suspended for violating Twitter rules. I'd tagged him with the link to my review of his "The Reproach of Hunger," a great book on all the wrongs of the international development industry.

I refriended him on my new and current account, but he didn't reciprocate from his account this time.

That may be why he doesn't show up in my email feed from Elmo.

That said, since the spring of 2022? Seemingly a different person. Or maybe more has been brought out, about the person he's been for some time.

On Russia-Ukraine, he's basically one of the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™. While he is not a foreign policy guy, nonetheless, as a public intellectual conversant in multiple languages, he's informed enough. And, it's interesting, because, per a WSJ opinion piece, he said, circa 2005, that he used to be a liberal interventionist, but he dropped that. Isn't the Russia-Ukraine war liberal interventionism by proxy?

On Israel?

He seems to be trying to fly under the radar screen. Doesn't work, David.

That's especially when, via multiple retweets, you'll post only the worst about the Houthis. 

(Actually, I've since seen him retweet paid hasbara-ists, among others.)

You accept Israel's genocide if you don't call it out, even if you're not a Zionist. You accept Biden's war expansion here along with the proxy war in Ukraine.

You're well enough known, with enough gravitas. No, you wouldn't sway Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi. But, maybe, Bernie Sanders?

I halfway agree with him, perhaps more, but don't want to commit to that, on the transgender world issue. Reminder: sex is not gender, ergo transsexual and transgender are two different things. On the "woke" world, I agree no more than 25 percent, while not saying I reject everything he has on Twitter.

The old "classical liberal" term arises, but he seems to be a more realistic, and certainly less wingnut, embodiment of it than Andrew Sullivan.