Today, in what is unfortunately his last entry on the Atlantic's web site, Joshua Green says goodbye to his professional home of the past eight years, as he moves to Bloomberg Businessweek. That's his website mini-picture at right.It's pro forma to note in such cases what a sad loss it is when a colleague leaves, etc. But there's nothing pro forma in my saying how much his Atlantic family admires Josh and will miss him as a colleague. In his past few years as a blogger and artist of drolleries-in-miniature via Twitter, he's reminded everyone of why he once worked at The Onion. Given Twitter's memory-hole feature, I can't dig up many of them, but for instance here's his proposal for Ron Paul's campaign bus: " 'The Austrian Express': painted gold, natch, it runs not on gasoline but by burning fiat money."
In the magazine, he's produced an outsized proportion of our political coverage, analysis, and scoops. In the past presidential-campaign cycle, that included very influential stories about what happened (wrong) in the Hillary Clinton campaign and how she had set herself up for that run, what happened (right) with the Obama money-raising strategy, what happened (in every which way) to Sarah Palin in Alaska, and why Timothy Geithner, greatly beleaguered at the time of Josh's writing, was likely to emerge as the Administration's central economic figure -- as he has. Plus, Karl Rove in his early days. Each of these stories offered an outlook that was unconventional when it appeared, and each played a big part in shifting public discussion and understanding in the direction Josh had figured out. And I'll just mention names like Rich Iott, Eric Massa, Judge Roy Moore, and "Inbred Jed the Zombie." Josh's reporting and writing played a role in their lives too. You can look it up.
But you know all that by reading. What you might not know is what a wonderful and generous colleague, friend, and person Joshua Green is -- plus husband and father. Everyone will still get to read his work, though unfortunately not here; and he will remain a friend. But his colleagues at the Atlantic are proud that he's been one of us and sorry he's not any more. The tribe of Washington Monthly alums are proud that Josh is from that heritage too. Congratulations to a colleague who we all appreciate and like.
