The George Will Effect

A new report from Media Matters for America concludes that the op-ed pages of U.S. newspapers are "dominated by conservatives." The group contacted all 1,430 English-language daily newspapers in the country and asked them which nationally syndicated columnists they ran regularly and which they ran occasionally. Based on responses from 1,377 (96 percent), it found that "conservatives" had a distinct advantage over "progressives" by various measures. Although MMA counts more progressives than conservatives among nationally syndicated columnists (79 vs. 74), it finds that "sixty percent of the nation's daily newspapers print more conservative syndicated columnists every week than progressive syndicated columnists," while "only 20 percent run more progressives than conservatives" and "the remaining 20 percent are evenly balanced."

That sounds impressive, but those numbers do not take into account circulation or the size of the conservative edge at each paper. By other measures, the rightward tilt is less dramatic:

In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.

The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.

I won't quibble over MMA's decision to classify libertarians such as Steve Chapman and Walter Williams, who often part company with conservatives, as right-wing columnists. That sort of misclassification does not make much difference in the overall numbers. Not so the decision to separate "centrists" from "progressives." Placing David Broder, Cokie and Steven Roberts, and Thomas Friedman one degree left of center would make a substantial difference. The "top 10 columnists," whether measured by number of papers or total circulation, then would be evenly split.

Then there is the George Will effect: He is so popular, running regularly in 328 papers with a combined circulation of 21.3 million and occasionally in another 40 reaching an additional 5 million or so, that taking him out of the mix would virtually eliminate the conservatives' readership advantage. If you took out Will and the libertarians (all right, now I'm quibbling), progressives would come out ahead. 

So perhaps the question is not so much why op-ed editors prefer conservative columnists (a question MMA does not try to answer) as why they like George Will so much. Maybe it's because he's a clear thinker and an elegant stylist. Although I don't read him every week, I much prefer Will to the rest of the top 10 columnists (measured by circulation): David Broder, Kathleen Parker, Ellen Goodman, Cal Thomas, Leonard Pitts Jr., Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and David Brooks. All right, I confess I don't know who Leonard Pitts Jr. is. But Will is definitely more interesting and more of a pleasure to read than the rest of them. Possibly those things matter to newspaper readers, and therefore to newspaper editors. I'm sure Will's Pulitzer and his high profile, thanks to his regular TV appearances, don't hurt either.

Comparing MMA's lists of the top 10 conservative and progressive columnists (measured by total circulation), I see three conservatives (Will, Jonah Goldberg, and Robert Novak) whose work is generally not a waste of time, and maybe one progressive (Clarence Page). I don't think it's because I agree with the conservatives more; I'm not even sure that's true. Could it be that conservatives are doing somewhat better on the op-ed pages because they are, on average, producing more interesting and entertaining work? Discuss.

Comments

[carrick]

All right, I confess I don’t know who Leonard Pitts Jr. is.

You should look him up. You might be impressed.

[New World Dan]

George Will for President! Seriously, I’d take him over anyone in the field. On the other hand, I think the man really needs a nice long vacation. Watching him on Sunday monrnings lately, he just has the look of “why do I bother anymore?”

[M]

FWIW, The Wall Street Journal, at least a while ago, famously had conservatives writing the op-ed pages and liberals writing the news stories up front. News stories and their slant get more attention than op-ed pieces, and their slant is covert (to mangle some metaphors).

[Timothy]

THIS JUST IN: Media Matters dominated by wackos, douchebags. FILM AT 11!

[Lamar]

This is an amazing conclusion. If you take the conservative writers out of the mix, there are more progressives writing columns? And if you leave all the conservatives in, then rearrange the numbers a little, the conservatives have a smaller lead than suggested by Media Matters?

[Scop]

I’m sorry, what was the point of this posting?

[ClubMedSux]

I’ll second carrick’s endorsement of Pitts. While his columns often straddle the line between political and lifestyle columns, he’s one of the few columnists who tends to give me something to think about even when I disagree with him.

[ChrisO]

It always comes down to how one defines such vague terms as “progressive,” “centrist,” and “conservative,” doesn’t it?

Personally, I find George Will and David Broder both to be individuals of the species pompous washingtonius with slightly different markings.

In any event, the older I get, the more I wonder at how these lucky bastards actually get paid to do the same bloviating that I do for free. Great work if you can get it.

[ChicagoTom]

Comparing MMA’s lists of the top 10 conservative and progressive columnists (measured by total circulation), I see three conservatives (Will, Jonah Goldberg, and Robert Novak) whose work is generally not a waste of time

Jonah Goldberg? His column is fantastic for lining my cat litter box. Not much else. The guy is an intellectual lightweight whose claim to fame was his mom.

And Novak is a good read when he is talking about insidery washington goings on, but apart from that his columns are quite intellectually dishonest.

Could it be that conservatives are doing somewhat better on the op-ed pages because they are, on average, producing more interesting and entertaining work?

Doubtful. I read the Conservative columnists run in my local newspapers (the Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune) and and they are some of the worst written tripe ever.

[Lost_In_Translation]

That was some sweet mental masturbation up there. I don’t even know why I’m posting a comment.

[Edward]

Mr. Sullum:

Why do you think a detailed exposition of your op-ed reading preferences is interesting enough to elicit anything more than a response pointing out that it isn’t? Oh, I guess it is.

[John]

Assuming there is a gap, which I question but for the sake of argument let’s say there is, I think that the reason is the nature of being an opinion writer. To be an opinion writer, you have to write something provocative and different than what is on the editorial page and in the news section. Since media conventional wisdom is generally liberal in slant, this gives conservatives an advantage because it is easier for them to stand out. What purpose does someone like Bob Herbert serve? He says absolutely nothing that is not preached on every evening news cast and news “analysis” story. The good columnists, liberal and conservative actually think about things and bring in a different perspective. Since default perspective is liberal, it is a lot harder to be a liberal columnist. Only really smart people like Michael Kinsley or Leonard Pitts can do it very well. Mediocrities like Herbert or America’s dumbest legal correspondent over at Slate Dalia Lithwick are not up to the task. If Lithwick or Herbert were conservatives, they would probably be a lot more readable because the task of standing out from a conservative viewpoint is just easier.

[John]

“Doubtful. I read the Conservative columnists run in my local newspapers (the Chicago Sun-Times and the Tribune) and and they are some of the worst written tripe ever.”

Translation, if I don’t agree with the perspective, it is automatically bad writing. So basically Tom, no one writing anything you disagreed with can ever write a good collumn. That is nice, but I fail to see how your opinion of writers holds much weight.

[J sub D]

All right, I confess I don’t know who Leonard Pitts Jr. is.

Leonards is OK. I disagree with him often, but he’s rational and doesn’t make crap up to prove a point. Plus he’s a pretty decent writer.

[John]

“Leonards is OK. I disagree with him often, but he’s rational and doesn’t make crap up to prove a point. Plus he’s a pretty decent writer.”

I disagree with him to most of the time, but you can tell he is a smart guy who really does think about things and try to be fair. He is not a raving fanatic like Paul Krugman or a dogmatic nitwit like Lithwik or conventional wisdom machine like Herbert. That is really all you can expect out of an opinion writer.

[Dan T.]

It’s subjective, I know, but the conservative opinion writers seem on the whole to be a lot farther to the right than the liberal writers are on the left.

For example, who is the liberal Ann Coulter?

[Fred]

Or maybe it’s just that lots of papers view the nationally syndicated columnists as a way to round out their op-ed section. Given that by and large the left-hand page is going to tilt leftward, wouldn’t one expect the right-hand page to tilt rightward?

[Devil\'s Advocate]

This is the most flawed study I have ever read, and I understand social science studies.

You can read my complete analysis below. I touched on some of what you mentioned, but I also added quite a bit. Great work!!

Media Matters Spouts its Own Flawed Study as Fact: How They Did It, In Great Detail

[Waquoit]

They haven’t been able to find a replacement for Molly Ivans yet. Probably never will.

[Dan T.]

Another possibility is that conservatives like to be preached to (hence the popularity of right-wing talk radio) while liberals like to do the preaching (hence DailyKos).

[Voton]

For example, who is the liberal Ann Coulter?

That would be Paul Krugman.

[rho]

For example, who is the liberal Ann Coulter?

Michael Moore.

[Legate Damar]

For example, who is the liberal Ann Coulter

Isn’t that Dowd? Wasn’t Coulter referred to as MoDoCon (as in “a Maureen Dowd Conservative”)for an extended period of time?

[Dan T.]

For example, who is the liberal Ann Coulter?

Michael Moore.

Maybe, but what mainstream newspaper runs Michael Moore opinion pieces?

[MattXIV]

I’m not suprised that the results depend on where you peg the center. Media Matter’s raison d’etre is to bitch that the media isn’t “progressive” enough. Perpetually aggrieved professional ref-workers like them (and their conservative counterparts like AiM) are even more useless as a source of information than their targets.

[Kaganspawn]

Dowd ain’t no Coulter — not in the same class. Dowd does not represent my views consistently and has only a little liberaltarian streak, but is delightful to read because she is the snarkiest of the snarky. Some people may find her too arch, but I paid my $$ to get behind the Times wall mainly for her column. For example, it’s great the way she makes fun of the President as a little boy who needs his Daddy. Cheney is the dark puppetmaster of evil, etc.

[fyodor]

Finding that I preferred to read conservative opinion columnists to liberal ones played a role in fomenting the original fissure in this one-time good liberal’s POV through which libertarianim eventually seeped and took over. Conservative columnists more often (not always, mind you, but more often!) seemed to tackle issues head on in a hard-nosed (hmm, one too many body metaphors?) and rational style, whereas liberal writers seemed to skirt around the issue more and play more on emotion. Agree or disagree, I knew where the conservatives stood and why they stood there and I could formulate what my response would be in a much more concrete way than with the liberal writers.

Now, regardless of whether this is or isn’t reflective of each species en masse, this was the impression I got from the folks I read, and it had an impact on me.

[isildur]

Edward et al:

OMG SULLUM TOTALLY WASTED THOSE ELECTRONS MAKING THIS POST

For fuck’s sake, it’s a BLOG.

Also, to be vaguely on topic: I like Will because he looks so smooth and airbrushed. If I were to meet him in person and discover that he had actual pores or facial hair, I’d be so disappointed I might snap in some gruesomely violent way.

[John]

I think Kieth Oberman would count as a liberal Ann Coulter. I know he is a TV blowhard rather than a collumnist but if you look at the content of his ranting he is pretty much the flip side of the Colter coin. He is really a lot worse than Moore.

[101010]

Is American political media some ginormous scale that has to be constantly kept in balance? I don’t give a wet turd how it balances. And it doesn’t give an accurate assessment of general American political attitudes, anyway. Who can even tell the difference between Republicrats anymore? Big Gov’t to pay for a welfare state compared to Big Gov’t to pay for a warfare state. Wow, can’t wait to enter the booth this election cycle. There ought to be a giant lever, you can move it left for Welfare State, right for Warfare State. They fill in the candidates for you. Unless Hillary gets the nom, then the lever slides right no matter what you do to it.

And George Will is as popular as he is for one reason: the bowtie. Why it didn’t save Tucker Carlson’s ratings is beyond me.

[ed]

It’s hard to imagine George Will in the shower.

[Mo]

Am I the only one that found John’s blasting of ChicagoTom’s dislike of righty opinion writers as closed-mindedness and then unironically blasting lefty opinion writers as bad writers hilarious? He even flat out said that Lithwick would be interesting if she was conservative.

DARPA needs to research John’s head to figure out how it can hold two contradicting ideas in it at the same time without exploding. With that technology we’d be able to eliminate all casualties due to IEDs.

[John]

Its the bowtie revolution. Right now its Will, Carleson, Orville Ridenbacker and that dude that sells books on how to get government grants.

[John]

“Am I the only one that found John’s blasting of ChicagoTom’s dislike of righty opinion writers as closed-mindedness and then unironically blasting lefty opinion writers as bad writers hilarious? He even flat out said that Lithwick would be interesting if she was conservative.”

I am sorry you are so stupid Mo. I will try to make it simpler for you. I said Lithwick might do a better job if she were a conservative because it is easier to write from the conservative perspective than it is a liberal one. She would still be a nitwit but since the task of being a conservative writer is easier, the fact that she is a nitwit would matter less. That doesn’t mean that I automaticlly think that things I agree with are necessarily better writen. There is plenty of bad conservative writing. And some good liberal writing.

[the innominate one]

I wish Edward would make good on his oft-repeated threat to stop posting here.

[101010]

Its the bowtie revolution. Right now its Will, Carleson, Orville Ridenbacker and that dude that sells books on how to get government grants.

Carlson needs a leisure suit covered with question marks.

[Franklin Harris]

that dude that sells books on how to get government grants

Ah, that would be the insidious Matthew Lesko, who has taken more to dressing like The Riddler nowadays.

[stuartl]

Is the name change from “liberal” to “progressive” now official?

[kohlrabi]

John,

As a proud wearer of bow ties, I should say that we are in better company than your post might suggest. Why there’s… and… he… well, crap.

[Max]

Setting aside the narrow and artificial “columnist” category, the liberal side is having a blast with satire. Jonathon Swift on the web, Colbert Report on broadcast. The conservatives are in the doldrums, robotically defending the indefensible.

[J sub D]

It’s hard to imagine George Will in the shower.

That’s because he never gets dirty.

[Lamar]

“Is the name change from ‘liberal’ to ‘progressive’ now official?”

I see no reason not to call people what they want to be called.

[Dan T.]

I said Lithwick might do a better job if she were a conservative because it is easier to write from the conservative perspective than it is a liberal one. She would still be a nitwit but since the task of being a conservative writer is easier, the fact that she is a nitwit would matter less.

So…John is saying that being a nitwit is not an obstacle to becoming a published conservative editorial writer?

Can’t argue with that.

[anomdebus]

Lamar (@2:50pm),
Would you also object to a statement regarding US deaths by terrorism that they are extremely low if you dismiss the outlier of 6 years, 1 day ago?

[Matthew]

Kaganspawn

. . .she makes fun of the President as a little boy who needs his Daddy. Cheney is the dark puppetmaster of evil

With such wit, it’s not surprising she is famous.

[101010]

“Is the name change from ‘liberal’ to ‘progressive’ now official?”

I see no reason not to call people what they want to be called.

Even if a tee-totaling former coke-head wants to be called “The Decider”?

[Mo]

Dude, Orville Redenbocker (sp?) is dead. Which makes the new commercials he’s in super creepy.

John,
You still failed to note the way how every columnist you attacked was a lefty. Perhaps writing as a conservative is easier for you because you find the view appealing. I could flip your reasoning and say writing as a lefty is easier. Considering that it’s more entertaining to tear down the establishment and the government has been conservative for the past 7 years, lefty writers should have an easier time.

The irony is when ChicagoTom says he doesn’t like righties in the CST, it’s his fault. When you don’t like lefties, it’s the writers fault. That’s known as the Fundamental Attribution Error.

[Vapor]

I visited their website, based on their political positions, I’m guessing that their definition of a Conservative is anyone to the right of Leon Trotsky.

[Lamar]

anomdebus: our terrorism figures are even lower if we remove Islamic terrorism from consideration.

[Matthew]

Even if a tee-totaling former coke-head wants to be called “The Decider”?

Especially with the former cokeheads.

[Lamar]

In 5 years the kids will be saying: There’s no way I’m gonna let you decider all my blow, you jerk!!

[Jon H]

On what basis should Broder, Cokie, and Friedman be considered *centrist* at all left of center? If anything, they lean right.

[ChicagoTom]

Translation, if I don’t agree with the perspective, it is automatically bad writing. So basically Tom, no one writing anything you disagreed with can ever write a good collumn. That is nice, but I fail to see how your opinion of writers holds much weight.

The pot calling the kettle black! How nice.
I suppose my opinion of writers carries exactly the same amount of weight that yours do.

John, there are plenty of people who I disagree with who aren’t hacks, but unfortunately hackery is abound on most op/ed pages (there are many “liberals” whose writing is pure crap as well as righties…off the top of my head I would say Maureen Dowd and Richard Cohen are rather craptastic)

But in any case, *MY* point was to refute the “Could it be that conservatives are doing somewhat better on the op-ed pages because they are, on average, producing more interesting and entertaining work?” Question. Most don’t. In fact most OP/ED writers on any political persuasion don’t usually produce that much interesting or entertaining work.

[Lamar]

How is Thomas Friedman anything but right of center?

[Happy Jack]

Who cares? The opinion pages haven’t been worth reading since Royko died.

[SIV]

On what basis should Broder, Cokie, and Friedman be considered *centrist* at all left of center? If anything, they lean right.

WTF?

NO THEY DON”T!

[isildur]

“That’s because he never gets dirty.”

Sure he does. And then he peels off his silicone synthetic skin, and pulls on a new one, and sends the old one out to be destroyed.

[joshua corning]

How many are libertarian and how many are hostile to libertarian thought?

[joshua corning]

How is Thomas Friedman anything but right of center?

His unblinking support of Clinton.

But yeah Lamar if you were the center then Friedman and Clinton would be right of center…those two guys and Che.

[DannyK]

George Will is OK, but Jonah Goldberg? The man hasn’t had an original thought in his life.

[grumpy realist]

Also remember that “Broderism” has entered the vernacular to denote the type of Serious Centralism best denoted by the Onion’s headline:” Shape of the Earth–opinions differ.”

99% of commentary by pundits and the Very Serious Class is nothing more than verbal masturbation by the Washington “intelligencia” and the aspirers to the stratum.

The rest of us living down here in reality think they’re nothing more than total wankers.

[highnumber]

In Chicago, at least, Royko did not run in the opinion pages.

Sun-Times dropped Will’s column. I am not happy about that.

I like Will. If he wasn’t such a fuddy-duddy, he would surely call himself a libertarian.

[Kaganspawn]

Matthew,

OK, Dowd is an acquired taste. The point is that her willingness to speculate about human or personal, conscious or unconscious motivations for the actions and words of politicians pushes irreverance to the limit, and to me that mean she exemplifies a free press. Contrast Friedman who always seems as if he is worried more about pleasing or offending the powerful than persuading them.

[sighs, returns to ‘batin]

[Mr. Nice Guy]

“I won’t quibble over MMA’s decision to classify libertarians such as Steve Chapman and Walter Williams, who often part company with conservatives, as right-wing columnists.”

It’s good you didn’t quibble, because I’m sure those progressives are just monolithic, right? I mean Mike Kinsley for example never honks the Dems and liberals in general, right?

I like George Will. He’s got a PhD and a backbone. He calls the Bush administration on many issues.

“On what basis should Broder, Cokie, and Friedman be considered *centrist* at all left of center? If anything, they lean right.”

I have to (gasp) agree with SIV, they don’t lean right. But these three are so far from being mainstream progressives it is not funny. Try reading the Progressive or Nation now and then if you want to see how far those three are from the mainstream of “progressive” thought…

[joe]

By other measures, the rightward tilt is less dramatic

Exactly right; the conversation is about how dramatic the righward tilt is. Similar results are found if you look at the partisan or ideological breakdown of pundits on cable news, or on the Jim Lehrer News Hour.

Placing David Broder, Cokie and Steven Roberts, and Thomas Friedman one degree left of center would be fundamentally dishonest.

I’m proud to note that I don’t regularly read any of the top-ten columnists.

[Mr Nice Guy]

“David Broder, Kathleen Parker, Ellen Goodman, Cal Thomas, Leonard Pitts Jr., Charles Krauthammer, Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, and David Brooks.”

Jesus that is a terrible list…Krauthammer is a Likudian nutjob (I love his criticisms of when people psychologize GW, but he himself used to that to Gore (“he’s off his med”)…Dowd and Goodman just plain suck, as does Parker…

Howeve, did anyone catch David Brooks in that Cato event on C-Span where he discussed that Brink Lindsey’s work? He certainly demonstrated the differences between National Greatness conservatives and libertarians, but he was very thoughtful, nuanced and insightful…I have a new view of that guy.

[joe]

Watching people trying to come up with a liberal equivalent of Coulter is hilarious.

Whose death had Paul Krugman called for? Who does Maureen Dowd want hung for treason?

[cbmclean]

I was wondering who amongst us readers thinks that the discourse on Hit and Run is actually useful dialogue? I have been annoyed for some time now by the fact that it seemed to me that 99.999% of our comments are either name-calling personal attacks, corny jokes, or attempts to show everyone how smart we are through biting satire. However, while I was thinking about writing this post, I considered the other side of th coin; namely that this is all part of the intelectual milieu, and it would be arrogant of me o presume that its not valuable dialogue just because I don’t like it. So I was wondering, what do you guys think?

[highnumber]

Liberal equivalent of Ann Coulter?

Maybe the Jane Fonda that lives in some people’s heads?
Joe Stalin if he were a political columnist?
Is there any piece of trash, left, right, or center, who comes close to her?

And, cbmclean, shut up, you stupid head! Yer a jerk! JERK! JERK! JERK!

[prolefeed]

I’m proud to note that I don’t regularly read any of the top-ten columnists.

And, joe, judging from the remarks you make here, you also proudly don’t read anyone who understands libertarian thought or any history book written by a non-socialist. And you for damn sure haven’t read “The Machinery of Freedom”.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

joe-I agree, sort of. I can’t think of a liberal equivalent of someone like Coulter who has the national prominence she does (but is she syndicated in newspapers? I’ve never seen her). The closest thing would be some media celebities with strong leftist tendencies who say some outrageous things and some left wing activist types…

[joe]

You can find leftist equivalents to Ann Coulter, but you have to look in fever swamps like Z Magazine. Those people don’t even get close to the Nation, nevermind national syndication.

[prolefeed]

I have been annoyed for some time now by the fact that it seemed to me that 99.999% of our comments are either name-calling personal attacks, corny jokes, or attempts to show everyone how smart we are through biting satire.

cbmclean — So, thanks to your perceptive remarks, we have to wade through about 100,000 more posts before we can expect to see the next readable one. Mahalo!

I suppose the website could censor any remarks that feature “name-calling personal attacks, corny jokes, or attempts to show everyone how smart we are through biting satire” (not to mention over-the-top-exaggerated-statistics such as “99.999%” 😉

Course, that wouldn’t be very libertarian, would it? Or interesting. Or funny.

But, even with the trolls and people who don’t even pretend they aren’t socialists, I for one enjoy about a third of the remarks that are posted — a pretty good ratio.

[Ashish George]

George Will is a good writer and it’s true that he has sometimes very forcefully broken with this administration, which is more than can be said of many conservative columnists who are Republican partisans first and foremost. But the guy is still a douchebag.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0102-10.htm

[joe]

prolefeed,

If you’re going to attach yourself to a fringe ideology, you’re going to have to internalize something:

It isn’t just that people don’t understand your crackpot theories; many of us do, and just disagree with them.

[Pig Mannix]

@ChrisO

Personally, I find George Will and David Broder both to be individuals of the species pompous washingtonius with slightly different markings.

I can’t let a mention of George Will pass without a link to this.

[cbmclean]

Prolefeed,

That was the point of my post. i was getting ready to complain about low post-quality, but then my self-righteousness/self-bullshit alarm started ringing loudly, so I instead decided to ask a more thoughtful question. You are right that hyperbole like 99.999% is low quality. It’s hard to pin down a number but I enjoy maybe 25% of the posts, but that number may be skewed downward by posts that go off on side tangents in which I’m just not interested. And of course, there’s always the perfect criticsim to any such complaints. If I don’t like it, nobody is forcing me to read Reason H&R.

[Kaganspawn]

The piece linked by Pig Mannix is worth reading, but the author almost lost me with the cheap shots at Will’s elevated diction. Surely this generation understands better than any before it that the medium is part of the message, right? Baroque constructions, recherche allusions — all these enforce the impression of Will’s gravitas. Nevermind Politics and the English Language. Ornate turns of phrase and purple grandiloquence do have their place in reasoned discourse.

[Snarls, turns on ultimate fighting championship]

[joe]

Are you Kagan’s Pawn? Or Kagan Spawn?

Anyhoo, my favorite George Will column was the one he wrote the day after Reagan and Gorbachev signed their Arms Control deal.

“Yesterday will be remember as the day American lost the Cold War.”

[joe]

Except George Will used proper English.

Grrrrr……

[Ashish George]

The first line in the column Pig Mannix links to above has a very concise description of George Will that pretty much everyone who reads the guy should internalize. Saturday Night Live also produced a very good spoof of Will.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/89/89qsportsmachine.phtml

It’s also worth pointing out that Will’s occasional disagreements with the Bush administration haven’t prevented him from offering dishonest defenses of the Great Leader.

https://www.reason.com/blog/show/116973.html

But on a more positive note, who do you guys think deserves a widely read newspaper column but doesn’t have one? My list of ten to replace Friedman, Krauthammer, etc.: Matt Yglesias, Julian Sanchez, Ezra Klein, Daniel Larison, Ross Douthat, Radley Balko, Garance Franke-Ruta, Justin Logan, Peter Singer, and Jeffrey Hart.

[x,y]

Maybe, but what mainstream newspaper runs Michael Moore opinion pieces?

If he were a skinny, blonde, woman, they would.

[joe]

Radley Balko is going to be a celebrity someday. Just you wait and see.

[Kaganspawn]

Joey,

Gettin’ a little personal there. I yam what I yam.

Ashish,

You picked Julian Sanchez, so you established some cred with me. I’m going to look up the ones I never heard of.

[joe]

Kaganspawn | September 12, 2007, 8:47pm | #

Joey,

Gettin’ a little personal there. I yam what I yam.,/i>

Fredrick Kagan gave birth to a sweet potatoe!

I KNEW it!

[daveinboca]

Ezra Klein and Garance-Ruta are more dishonest and tendentious than any righties except perhaps Krauthammer. Strange how liberals work from a sort of consensus mass psychosis that the US govt has been massively intruding on their “privacy” in protecting the country from overseas phone calls & other possible foreign conspiracies. It’s simply due diligence, yet the left, in an apparent hangover from its ’50s McCarthy paranoia, screeches and squawks incessantly and brandishes Hitler metaphors at the drop of a hat.

Personally, I believe that a lot of columnists like Ellen Goodman and Maureen Dowd are so superficial and psycho-babble oriented that they themselves are projecting their over-the-hill nastiness toward GWB & his people.

[joe]

Oh, well, if it’s done in the name of good cause, then it can’t be an invasion of privacy.

Sure, that’s exactly how it works. The logic there is irrefutable.

[Kaganspawn]

Still here, but ignoring the troll.

I don’t like it when people pronounce that someone has “won the thread”. First, it’s a discussion, not a contest. Second, even if it were a contest, who appointed you judge?

Nevertheless, Dan Quayle wins the thread.

[rho]

Maybe, but what mainstream newspaper runs Michael Moore opinion pieces?

It’s not 1:1, but there are worthy parallels:

1) Both are caustic
2) Both are prone to simplistic polemics
3) Both are popular within their True Believer Camps
4) Both are on extreme ends of the BMI
5) I like pie

I thought Roger and Me and TV Nation were entertaining, and I religiously read Ann Coulter’s column every week. I guess that brings us to 6) they’re both highly skilled in their respective idioms.

For right-wing commentary you can’t beat P.J. O’Rourke for style, but Ann regularly hammers the homer; for left wing agitprop, there’s Michael Moore, and nobody else. Well, Colmes had a decent radio program, but now he serves as Hannity’s Man Friday.

[dhex]

Second, even if it were a contest, who appointed you judge?

urkobold?

[Kaganspawn]

Urkobold exists
like the Sasquatch
the stuff of legend only.

[dadanarchist]

You had me until Jonah Goldberg…

[stuartl]

Is the name change from ‘liberal’ to ‘progressive’ now official?

I see no reason not to call people what they want to be called.

Agreed, unless they are taking someone else’s name. Bill Maher is a libertarian(!?)

In this case Sollum and MMA are both referring to a group of writers that would have been generally labeled liberal as recently as a year ago as progressive. Do all the writers self identify as progressive? To me, progressive brings to mind the stuff of newsreels, Wobblies chanting about worker solidarity, socialism, etc.

I don’t mind, it may mean that I soon can drop the “classical” when I self identify as a “classical liberal.”

[Urkobold™]

dhex,

WE NEED TO DISCUSS IF YOUR POWERS EXTEND TO POLITICAL COLUMNISTS. WE MAY HAVE PROMISED THIS TO Mr Steven Crane. CAN YOU TWO SHARE?

[dhex]

mr. crane is a man of fine judgment and taste, so yeah, probably.

[ChrisO]

I was wondering who amongst us readers thinks that the discourse on Hit and Run is actually useful dialogue? I have been annoyed for some time now by the fact that it seemed to me that 99.999% of our comments are either name-calling personal attacks, corny jokes, or attempts to show everyone how smart we are through biting satire. However, while I was thinking about writing this post, I considered the other side of th coin; namely that this is all part of the intelectual milieu, and it would be arrogant of me o presume that its not valuable dialogue just because I don’t like it. So I was wondering, what do you guys think?

I think that I would rarely visit H&R if it was all sober, serious discussions of…whatever. There’s plenty of that shit to be had elsewhere.

I think partly because the majority of H&R posters exist outside the boring confines of Team Red and Team Blue, we can engage in a more freewheeling, humorous take on everything than you’ll find at Kos or Lucianne.com. And, of course, the resident partisan hacks here (you know who they are) only add to the hilarity.

[Bubba]

George Will is OK, but Jonah Goldberg? The man hasn’t had an original thought in his life.

You miss the point: the job of a columnist isn’t necessarily to have “original thoughts,” but to present other people’s original thoughts with clarity. Goldberg does that well.

For right-wing commentary you can’t beat P.J. O’Rourke for style, but Ann regularly hammers the homer

The difference between Michael Moore and Ann COulter is that while Coulter may frequently be mean and rude, at least she cares whether she tells the truth. Liberal columnists just keep repeating the same old lies. (And no, I’m not a big fan of Ann).

So perhaps the question is not so much why op-ed editors prefer conservative columnists (a question MMA does not try to answer)

Has anyone answered this yet? I will: they choose conservative columnists because of clarity of thought, because they’re popular with readers, and, most importantly, to balance out the shrill left-wing detritus that gets shovelled out by the editorial board.

You see, here’s what Media Matters missed: THEY’RE COUNTING COLUMNISTS, NOT EDITORIALS BY THE NEWSPAPERS THEMSELVES. And newspaper editorials trend heavily to the left.

[Bubba]

To the above I’d also add that Media Matters doesn’t – can’t – take into account guest columnists, who are amateurs – usually local left-wing activists of one sort or another – writing a one-time column on a single subject. It also doesn’t take into account local, non-syndicated columnists, who, in my experience, tend to trend left, too.

By focussing only on nationally syndicated columnists and ignoring editorials, local columnists, and guest columnists, Media Matters gives us a very distorted picture of the average OpEd page.