Crook's Dorsal Fin: Dolphin or Shark?

As noted by Brad and M. Bouffant, a new Atlantic Voice has suddenly appeared, a Mr. Clive Crook. His archives go back to October, but his blog wasn't added to the Voices roll until a week or so ago. Yglesias, for one, was apparently not informed that an Atlantic Senior Editor was starting his own dang blog. Now, I've given Crook a read, looked at some of his earlier work and traced the entrails of his admirers, and can report that the man is a much better writer than McArdle, but what he's saying isn't much different. He loves Friedman, hates Krugman and thinks that school vouchers are neato. In fact, his views are so like McArdle's that I think it's fair to speculate just WTF is going on over at Teh Atlantic. Did Crook bring McArdle onboard? Are they sincere fellow travellers, or is one (coughmcardlecough) consciously mirroring the intellectual value sets of the other as a career move? If the practical differences between them can be reduced to the level of chromosomes, with Crook being the better economics writer and a Senior Editor, whither McArdle? Will she cease her infrequent econoblogging and embrace a new, more general identity? Will she link to him constantly? Did she put those fucking strobovomit ads back on her blog to register her displeasure at being undercut? Was it an accident of timing that Crook's blog went live while McArdle was off muttering about coal in Vietnam?

Finally, does anyone else get a creepy Glenn Reynolds vibe from this guy?


"You can call me Glenn if I can call you Jane.
Oh! I seem to have set your ottoman on fire."