Should students have to pay to get a newspaper they don’t want to read? I know Pinch is in trouble, but this reeks of desperation. But then, it’s been a long time, if ever, that the paper had any interest in letting the market work. And now would be a very bad time for it to advocate it, given that “letting the market work” would mean a reorganization, in which one likely outcome might be a paper that people actually want to pay to read.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
David Letterman
…really misses the Bush administration. Because, you know, there’s not much to mock or make jokes about in this one.
And you know, Mika, somehow, I managed to watch that entire clip without even cracking a smile. In fact, it was effortless.
The Failure Of Conventional Wisdom
Why (among other things) Obama’s reelection won’t be a slam dunk.
[Update a few minutes later]
This seems related somehow — thoughts on “intellectuals” and “anti-intellectualism.”
[Sunday evening update]
After a relaxing weekend in northern California, it’s a little depressing to look at these scary charts du jour.
Watching The Watcher
Well, this was sort of inevitable.
Going After Rolling Stone
Michael Yon wants a boycott of advertisers. I sure can’t say that I’d miss the magazine.
Obama The Muslim
This headline is not supported by the video.
I don’t think that Donald Trump thinks that Obama is a Muslim. What he said (which which I agree) is that there is something on his birth certificate that he doesn’t want us to see, and that it might be that it says he’s a Muslim (I think it might also, or instead be that Barack Hussein Obama isn’t listed as the father Who knows, unless we can see it?). That doesn’t make him one, though. As I’ve said before, in order to be a Muslim (or a Christian) you have to believe in something greater than yourself. I’ve never seen any evidence that Barack Obama does so.
Welcome To The Club
Howard Stern is upset that Dick Durbin treats him like an idiot. He only just now noticed? And it’s not just Dick Durban — it’s the general electoral MO for Democrats.
Pre-Emptive War
Matt Welch has dismayed thoughts on the new Obama doctrine.
They’re not really anti-war. They’re either just on the other side, or they’re anti-Republican-in-the-White-House-war.
Hoping For A Shutdown?
Howard Dean should be careful what he wishes for.
In general, I’ve never been impressed by Howard Dean’s political perspicacity, and I agree with this:
“This isn’t 1995,” Weber said. “Obama is not Clinton; Boehner isn’t Gingrich.”
There’s something else about it not being 1995 that matters. A lot of the blame on the Republicans was driven by the media, which was still in shock and angry that their political party had been repudiated at the polls (remember the late Peter Jennings’ comment about it being a “temper tantrum” of a “two-year old”?). As I was mentioning to someone on the phone this morning when the topic of a shutdown came up, Fox News didn’t exist in 1995. Neither did the non-leftist blogosphere. They won’t have a free-fire zone to shape the narrative this time. If the Senate holds up a budget, or the president refuses to sign one, over a few billion dollars in budget cuts, when the public is pretty clearly much more concerned about spending levels now than they were then, it will be a lot harder to get the public, and particularly the independents, to blame the Republicans.
Why The Left Doesn’t Understand Iran
A review of a chilling movie.
As a commenter notes, one reason that the left is blind to this danger is that it views the world through a narrow prism of class and wealth, and doesn’t really understand religion or religious fanaticism.