Dec 1, 08 | 9:36 AM
I am as pathetic a writer as any. That’s why I was hoping for a good review of my book in the New York Times today—in spite of the fact that the book, The Man Who Owns the News, a biography of Rupert Murdoch , is also implicitly about the failures of the Times and its publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. Janet Maslin, the Times’ daily book critic, spends most of her review of the book quoting me. Practically speaking, I do her heavy lifting, filling her review with juicy Murdoch stories. But her ultimate judgment is that, when it comes...
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Nov 28, 08 | 3:21 PM
How come Karl Rove now seems so reasonable and accommodating? The Obama choices for economic leadership positions are fair and balanced and responsible and many other good things, Rove says in the Wall Street Journal today. This may be because the Republicans have no new economic solutions to offer and are delighted and relieved to let the other guys do it—and, for the foreseeable future anyway, to fail at it. Or it might come from a fundamental sheepishness. Karl Rove, of all people, knows which way the wind is blowing, that the return to a Republican majority is...
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Nov 26, 08 | 8:36 AM
Hannity dumping Colmes is not exactly the break up of the Beatles. It has, though, the smell of agitation and recrimination in the conservative ranks. The eager-to-please Alan Colmes, of course, was never the main act, but rather the “ghoulish figure of the left,” as one Newser commenter accurately describes —a mere appendage to an always-snarling Sean Hannity. But disappearing him now feels a lot like conservative petulance and anxiety. Colmes, whose presence on the show represented some sort of act of generosity or of condescension when the conservatives...
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Nov 25, 08 | 8:40 AM
After failing institutions come failing individuals—which are more fun. The person most dramatically on the precipice of personal collapse this morning is Sumner Redstone, who, Tim Arango reports in the Times, is quite likely no longer a billionaire. Redstone is caught in the kind of bind that most other inordinately wealthy people will shortly face: the value of what they own, which underwrites not just their identity but the debt which supports their cash flow and lifestyle needs, is not what it once was. This value discrepancy embraces homes, art work, securities,...
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Nov 24, 08 | 9:28 AM
Citigroup is collapsing , but the protégés of Bob Rubin, a key Citigroup director as well as the architect of so much of the bubble-making economics of the 1990s, are going to Washington to solve the financial crisis. While a few eyebrows have gone up, it’s a gentle sort of irony. The Times charts the changing nature of Rubinomics today, but barely makes a suggestion about issues of underlying credibility or about the obvious difficulties involved with these guys cleaning up a mess that they have had so direct a hand in helping to create. This is...
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Nov 21, 08 | 7:42 AM
The depression may have started today. Depression is short hand and state of mind, as well as economic condition. Such short hand and state of mind undoubtedly helps create the economic condition. My father, a child of the Depression, would say during downturns that followed, we no longer have depressions, we have recessions. A depression was an archaic condition like tuberculosis, or an historic exception, like Hitler—if you have any sense of perspective, you don’t make light reference. True, as the current economic mess began earlier this fall, there have been a...
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Nov 20, 08 | 7:26 AM
Well, it does seem to be Clinton. Which makes this one of the odder roll-outs of a presidential appointment. Balloon is floated; interest is confirmed by both Clinton and Obama; minor debate ensues—with generally positive response (Clinton is deserving and capable; will heal inter-party wounds); Bill becomes side issue; a major paper, albeit a foreign one (the Guardian), reports she has the job; the US media ignores this and continues to report that the nomination is fraught and far from sure. And now today, the Times has another front page story which pretty...
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Nov 19, 08 | 8:49 AM
There is no place quite so important to the American media as Detroit. The automotive industry has supported the media—made it, really, what it is. Hence, there are two telling, and contradictory, elements to the present debate over the future of the auto business. The first is that the Big Three and their chief executives reasonably believe that the threat of a world without them is so existential that they can use their friends in the media to create a groundswell of goodwill, which Washington will not be able to resist. The second is that, in fact, the media has turned...
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Nov 18, 08 | 6:31 AM
If Hillary Clinton becomes the next Secretary of State we will have learned it first from the Guardian, rather than the New York Times. The Times this morning is gnashing its teeth over Bill Clinton’s post-presidential financial and foreign exploits, implying that they could easily disqualify her, while the Guardian is dismissing those reports and saying the deal is done. Part of the backstory here is that the Times continues to regard Bill Clinton sourly and the Guardian, like most Europeans, loves him unequivocally. A further backstory...
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Nov 17, 08 | 7:33 AM
Here are two things the liberal media doesn’t like: Dan Rather and conservatives. But it likes Dan Rather rather less. For one thing, Rather, when he was the Evening News anchor at CBS, got the network in trouble with the conservatives. For another, Dan is odd—his tone is off, too strident, too insistent, too much the prima donna (an odd, tonally off, prima donna at that). So it was an easy decision, back when George Bush was riding high in 2004, to throw Rather to the wolves when the network got caught out reporting (a correct report from dubious sources) that...
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