5 Feet of Fury

Diana West fires back — at her own editor!

An newspaper editor who disapproves of “confrontational” columnists…?

I am responding to Editor Marc Charisse’s column about my work, a column I found striking for its mud-slinging crudity. (…)

I’ll take Charisse’s assessment of my work as “confrontational” as a compliment, even if he didn’t mean it that way. After all, what columnist worth his space, from Paul Krugman to Pat Buchanan, isn’t confrontational? But as for branding my ideas as “inappropriate” and “out of place”—well, isn’t that less the language of an American newsroom than an old Soviet politbureau?