During a recent interview, President Obama said: “I think ordinary folks understand I spend all my time thinking about this stuff (jobs, the economy), because I’m talking to these folks every single day.” Every time a politician talks about “folks,” listeners or readers should cringe. Journalists should sit up and pay attention. The term often…
The New York Times, America’s paper of record, doesn’t shout its social commentary from the proverbial rooftops. On Sunday, June 12, one of the paper’s seminal insights about what’s happening in America did make it to page 1, although disguised as a lifestyle tale about our country’s super-rich. The story, “For the Executive With Everything, a…
For more than 86 years now, they still can’t get Coolidge right. America’s 30th president has been quoted year after year with mind-numbing ignorance by newspapers and television personalities as having said that “The business of America is business.” What he said, in that speech on January 17, 1925, was: “After all, the chief business of the…
March 2011 has been a cruel month for America’s progressives and liberals. Two of their best known voices, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert, quit their columns on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times.
Readers will miss them. Right-wingers will praise them as worthy opponents and chuckle. Does their absence from our most prestigious newspaper mean anything more significant for the progressive agenda or for journalism?