Maguire Parts the Curtain
For those of us (there must be at least two or three people out there) that can’t live life without their dose of NY Times punditry, Tom Maguire parts the TimesSelect curtain to reveal their sentiments towards the port controversy. A sample (MoDo, of course):
Maureen Dowd, as is her wont, favors hysterical shrieking (Shrieks about sheiks – hey, being MoDo is easy! But wait, should that be “Quakes about sheiks”? Maybe she *does* earn her big bucks)…
Of course, people with far too much time on their hands and a basic knowledge of Google (including Google Groups) can usually find the Times columnists, in their entirety, for free…but you didn’t hear that from me…
UPDATE 2:01 p.m.: For example, you might find the Maureen Dowd column in its entirety, oh, say…here…A sample of the brilliance that awaits you:
Was W. too busy not calling Dick Cheney to find out why he shot a guy to not be involved in a critical decision about U.S. security? What is he waiting for — a presidential daily brief warning, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S. Ports?”
Oooh, that’s brilliant…
Honest question. If you hate the Times so much, why do you constantly talk about it and link to it and feel the need to read it and tell everybody else how terrible it is, each and every time anything comes out of it?
Multiple reasons:
(1) Like most Americans, I get a perverse pleasure from deflating the reputations of the overrated;
(2) the Times brings an increased level of attention on itself with its claim to be ‘the newspaper of record’;
(3) I believe what could be a truly great newspaper is suffering greatly under the Pinch regime and the pathetic editorial page policy of Gail Collins;
but mostly because I want to…
I’m following in a long tradition here, from other bloggers like Tom Maguire and Mickey Kaus and Tim Blair, to magazines such as the New Yorker, Spy Magazine, Vanity Fair, etc., of making sport of widely quoted but poorly written media outlets…
I love Maureen Dowd.
That the NYT wastes its editorial space with the intellectual equal of middle school love notes to the dems is priceless.
Her pulitzer is for covering Monica-gate. The ultimate irony. Her other credentials? A Howell Raines hire and a BA in English from catholic univ.
She does give hope to all intellectual lightweights, everywhere.
MoDo is always good for a laugh, how can you not appreciate the gift that keeps on giving?
Not to change the subject here, Mark, but awhile back we discussed the underreported US naval movements in the Indian ocean and surrounding environs. We discussed whether these movements may have presaged an attack on Iran – well, check out this little primer:
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/topten/articles/20060222.aspx
Uh, oh…looks like things are ramping up here exponentially.
Allah Akbar! Indeed.
Very, very interesting…
Strategypage is run by James Dunnigan. He is simply the best. I’ve meet him a few times at various conventions and have been reading his material for 30 years. He is always worth listening too.
In your opinion, which American newspapers are better than the New York Times?
Without hesitation, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal – in their editorial capacities – note that I’m usually very careful about not denigrating the straight reporting…
An unfair comparison…
The NYT is still an astounding paper in other areas. The issue is that their domestic political coverage is overshadowing the rest of the paper. In part it would seem that politcal division is squandering the crediblity of all other divisions.
I’d rather read USA Today’s editorial section. IT is far closer to mainstream America.
Well, I’m glad to see that you apparently think highly of the Times’s reporting. If there is an American newspaper with better reporting, I’m eager to know what it is. (Although I think the LA Times comes close in breadth and quality).
I find the WSJ reporting to be have the same quality of reporting as the Times, although of course the Journal’s mission is not to have comprehensive news coverage (outside the world of business). However, I think their editorial pages are shrill and intellectually lazy, as they repeatedly comb over the bald spots in their arguments with ad hominem attacks. Also, since Al Hunt left the paper, there is no diversity of opinion – it’s all hard right. But, as they say, that’s what makes a stock market…
The Times, at least at this point in our history, cannot be ignored. It is a political and cultural activist institution with a vast power to shape opinion, for good or ill. Me and like-folks think for ill for the most part, especially on the economic/political front. When the “defense” by your interlocutors of their bilious positions consists of a shrill anouncement “I read the New York Times! Every day!”, well, responsible citizenship requires at least a weather eye on same. If it’s good for a larf, so much the better. Again, if you want to know what a left-leaning but fundamentally fair paper might look like, voila, The Washington Post. A tendentious, ignorant socialist rag? NYT.
“However, I think their editorial pages are shrill and intellectually lazy, as they repeatedly comb over the bald spots in their arguments…”
Perhaps sometimes they are guilty of such, but no paper has received the kind of widespread scorn and derision that the NYT’s stable of braying donkeys has over the past few years. As we’ve previously discussed, Daniel Orkent has made many unrefutable charges of blatant fact manipulation and outright falsehoods printed in MoDo’s, Rich’s and Kruggie’s columns – no one has effectively challenged the WSJ’s editorials in the same context. You may not agree with their opinions, but you cannot challenge them on the facts they cite that form the basis of their underpinnings. This is the critical difference between the two news outlets – transparency is obvious in the WSJ, while obsfucation is part and parcel of the NYT.