Nov 14, 08 | 8:32 AM
By all reasonable measures, Hank Paulson has little idea what he is doing. And yet, even as he has consistently failed to meet the goals he has set or implement the plans he has defined, he has been, in a remarkable demonstration of media generosity, given the benefit of the doubt. This may be because he has a forceful and determined look—bald is photogenic. Or because Goldman Sachs, from where he comes, still, oddly, has best-and-brightest credibility. Or, more likely, because nobody else in media, financial, or political circles, knows what is going on either. Everybody...
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Nov 13, 08 | 8:23 AM
The media business is about the glory of stuff—stuff to buy, stuff to envy, stuff to dream about. But for the first time in modern media memory, stuff is now the enemy. The consumer is in retreat from consumerism. Nobody, for instance, wants Crocs , the plastic clogs, anymore. The fact that people don’t want them now prompts the question of why they would have wanted them in the first place. (AP Image) Indeed, anti-consumerism will shortly become a holier-than-thou sentiment with the media lavishly extolling thrift and the new culture of holding back....
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Nov 12, 08 | 7:38 AM
The fundamental right-left, blue-red political divide undoubtedly remains, but American conservatism won’t recover from this election. That’s because the liberal media, for so long taunted by the conservative media, has its revenge: Sarah Palin . Her career is going to be sustained by the liberal media because she’s a willing and able performer (indeed, a major press hound) and because her presence makes the inescapable point: On the one hand we’ve got St. Barack , on the other hand, this absurd confection. Alessandra Stanley’s coverage of Palin in...
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Nov 11, 08 | 7:51 AM
Something happened, but what? The Times has two entirely contradictory pieces this week about the nature of the Obama victory and the New Yorker a third. Adam Nossiter reports in the Times, reflecting what seems to be the line from the Democratic National Committee, that the Obama election officially marginalizes the once politically all-powerful South. The south, or what Nossiter terms the Appalachian belt, hereby revealed by its disinclination to vote for Obama to be "rural and isolated," and "less exposed to the diversity, educational achievement...
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Nov 10, 08 | 8:44 AM
George Bush undoubtedly woke up this morning with a terrible sinking sensation: Soon the Obamas would be coming. And that's the international story line, here's W facing this extreme humiliation, having to welcome the man who repudiates him in every instance. Indeed, his antithesis, with whom he must make small talk today, has already announced that all the Bush policies that are reversible will be reversed. The media tone is of a unique and historic vindication. Bush, the usurper, is publicly mortified, shorn of self-respect. He deserves it, of course. His certainty...
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Nov 7, 08 | 9:25 AM
Rahm Emanuel was the basis for the character Josh Lyman in West Wing; his brother Ari, the head of Endeavor, the Hollywood talent agency, is the basis for Ari Gold in Entourage. To say the least, it's a little strange for one family to have produced two archetypes. I wonder if this is about a particular sort of super-charged need to achieve and make your parents proud, or a special media savviness. And is it a similar over-achievementitis and media consciousness that has motivated Obama, himself already an historic archetype, to want Rahm next to him? (Is...
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Nov 6, 08 | 8:30 AM
The Obama election is the kind of event that seems to have restored people's interest in the news and, even, in newspapers. Obama may even represent a sort of front page last hurrah, with people lining up at newsstands across the country for their keepsake editions. (In one of my discussions with Rupert Murdoch during the primary season , Murdoch said sagely and approvingly about Obama: "He'll sell more papers.") Obama is an opportunity that could revivify the media business. The Herald Sun in Melbourne, Australia (a Murdoch paper), spent yesterday...
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Nov 5, 08 | 9:17 AM
The nation may have awakened, in Thomas Friedman's estimation, to a "different country," but it took an incredibly boring election night to get there (and an occasionally ridiculous one —i.e. the CNN hologram). There's a reality gap between cool-cat Obama's doubtless victory and this nattering about catharsis and historic transformation—a veritable end to the American Civil War, according to a fumfering and credulous Friedman (people really will say anything the morning after). (AP Photo) This is the JFK moment, the historic passing...
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Nov 4, 08 | 4:51 PM
For a long time I resisted Obama because of Oprah . If Obama won, Oprah's early and passionate endorsement would deserve a big piece of the credit. An Obama presidency would make her bigger than ... well, there would be no limits on her bigness. What would it be like, I wondered, to live in a nation where it would be easier to desecrate the flag than to object to Oprah? Indeed, it wasn't my distaste for Oprah that I found so bothersome, but that it was so necessary to keep the fact that she makes my skin crawl secret—because any hint of Oprah nausea so clearly suggests...
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Nov 4, 08 | 9:27 AM
Murdoch's New York Post has an Obama coronation cover today. "BRINK OF HISTORY" the headline reads. This is unusual because the Post endorsed McCain just after the Republican convention, an oddly early point in the campaign cycle for an endorsement. Most often, when a Murdoch publication makes an endorsement it is little bothered by reality. A more traditional Post headline would be something like: "HERO'S LAST STAND" (if it chose to acknowledge the polls) or "MCCAIN CHARGES UP THE HILL." What happened is that Murdoch and...
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