Good Question

Jack Shafer:

Why the goddamn hell is Barack Obama writing the cover story for next week's Newsweek? He doesn't know anything about Haiti outside of what his aides may have told him. He won't even write it! If the piece is worth publishing, Newsweek should give the byline to its true author.

Comments

[PIRS]

Q: Why the goddamn hell is Barack Obama writing the cover story for next week's Newsweek?

A: Because he can and he has a huge ego.

Any other questions?

[J sub D]

It's official. Time magazine is now the fourth estate equivalent to Monica Lewinsky.

[J sub D]

Ooops. Make that Newsweek. I confess I can't tell the two apart.

[sage]

Why the goddamn hell is Barack Obama writing the cover story for next week's Newsweek?

He's a lame ass turd sandwich. That's why.

[John C. Randolph]

I always thought of him as more of a giant douche.

-jcr

[Johnny Longtorso]

Because Newsweek wants to make Obama look good, informed, caring, wonderful, etc, as befitting the non-biased objective news source they are.

[Fist of Etiquette]

If only Bush had thought to nationalize the media during his natural disasters.

[PIRS]

His father had it nationalized during his war.

[ComradeZero]

Yeah I guess those "embedded journalists" paid the army to come along, eh?

[Fist of Etiquette]

If only I had thought to specify "natural disasters" in my original comment.

[ComradeZero]

My mistake. The disasters Bush 2 caused himself were the ones I was thinking of.

[PIRS]

I think it is important to point out that the August, 3, 2009 cover of Newsweek had a bright blue celebratory balloon on it that read "The Recession is Over".

[PIRS]

Here is a link to the image:
http://afailedblog.files.wordp.....er-cvr.jpg

[no one]

I think you're misinterpreting that cover. There's a pin right next to the balloon, indicating that the issue will pop the notion that we're coming out of the recession.

(I can't believe I'm defending NewsWeek.)

[PIRS]

I am not saying I think they are say "Everything is Okey-Dokey now" but it is still factually incorect as the history since then has borne out.

[pmains]

Yes, there is a balloon, next to a pin. So, draw your own conclusions.

[Libertymike]

The answer to the question is that some guys are real good at getting affirmative action.

[Tulpa]

You guys don't remember the time Newsweek let George Bush write a cover story about Iraq?

[db]

OK,
Why the goddamn hell would anyone solicit a ghost-written piece from a President of the United States on any topic if they weren't just a bunch of unthinking, uncritical sycophants?

[PIRS]

A much better question than the one Jack Shafer asks above. More precise I should say.

[db]

Publications should solicit interviews of the president, asking the difficult questions, and perchance, submitting a record of such answers as they may receive to a wide distribution medium.

[PIRS]

I agree. They should. I don't always agree with Bill O'Reilly. On cultural issues especially he and I do not see eye to eye. But that is one thing he does well. He asks hard hitting questions. He is one of the few people to ever do that with Obama.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/swee.....nterv.html

[Hank]

Georgie Boy busted his balls a bit with the MW definition of a tax.

[smartass sob]

Too bad he didn't hit the dishonest son of bitch in the mouth with the damn book.

[John C. Randolph]

I'm going to go way out on a limb here, and guess that they're doing it because they expect to sell more copies of the magazine that way.

-jcr

[American Delight]

If you were a magazine publisher, and the president of the United States said he wanted to make a guest contribution, you would publish it too.

So I wouldn't blame Newsweek. Blame the president himself. Apparently we (using the word "we" very loosely) elected a freelance journalist instead of a leader.

[Tulpa]

I can't in a million years see Reason publishing a piece by a sitting president, no matter what his or her libertarian credentials. The press is also responsible for maintaining their own independence.

[PIRS]

OK, here is a question. What if Ron Paul became president?

[Tulpa]

Well Reason was always a little conflicted about RP actually. They were friendlier toward him than the other cosmo-dominated organizations, but they didn't hesitate to pick on some of his faults (as they should -- they're an organ of the press, not a fan club).

But in all seriousness I doubt they'd even run a piece by Matt Welch if he became president. They have too much class.

[yonemoto]

class?

I mean don't get me wrong I love Reason, but I think it's unreasonable to read Reason for the reason of it's level of "class".

[Mike Laursen]

In your posited universe, reason would be a mouthpiece of the political establishment and would run the article. Also, in this alternate reality, Matt Welch would be the new Commissioner of Baseball.

[ed]

Why the goddamn hell is Barack Obama writing the cover story for next week's Newsweek?

$

[boxers or briefs]

Please don't get your panties in a bunch. Ghost writing for anyone famous is de rigueur.

[Newsweek]

$

[P Brooks]

Speaking of the media, I watched that "Some Guy Who Isn't George Stephanopholococcus" Show, this morning. Tucker Carlson really disappointed me; Katrina van den Heuvel said something (I cannot even recall WHAT, exactly- it's hard to keep track) utterly, outlandishly stupid. Surprising, I know, but she really outdid herself. Carlson, to my great surprise, did not laugh out loud.

I guess he must want to be invited back, or something.

[Hank]

Holy Shit! I watched that with Tapper. Donna and Katrina - it was fucking nauseating, and depressing. They were channeling Chony. I don't see how in the hell Tucker could even endure that horseshit coming out of their mouths. I did appreciate the "bonus points for defending the indefensible." Katrina van Horseshit should be committed and Donna Brazile needs Corrine Brown as a dialect coach. Go Gator!

[BeesInTheBrain]

Actual Article
Why Haiti Matters

[DJF]

Condescended version, Obama has found another place to send more money borrowed from the Chinese in the name of the US taxpayer.

Would it not be simpler for the Haitians to sell their country to the Chinese and leave out the US taxpayer middleman?

[TrickyVic]

"Would it not be simpler for the Haitians to sell their country to the Chinese and leave out the US taxpayer middleman?"

Simpler, yes. But then the US couldn't look like the worlds savior. For the power hungery, it's imporant to show you're daddy.

Besides, if we only used tax dollars to invade and distroy countries, we would look more like imperialist assholes.

[PIRS]

Strange. The title of the article is "Why Haiti Matters" and yet the goast writer does not answer this question. It is just Obama's hired goast writer patting Obama on the back for helping people with money borrowed from China and our great, great grandchildren.

[PIRS]

Ghost. AHHH. Can't believe I mispelled that!!! AHHH They need to give us the ability to edit!!!

[Matt]

In fairness, the journalist doesn't write the headlines. Sometimes there isn't even a suggestion. It's usually left up to the copy edit staff or the productions staff.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's ridiculous. And what's worse is that this isn't the first time Newsweek as let a sitting president write for them.

[J sub D]

Why Haiti Matters

Other than the people trapped in that third world hellhole are deserving of compassion and moral considerations as people, Haiti doesn't matter.

[Mike]

If Haiti matters than so does every other country on the planet.

[Mike M.]

I don't know what's funnier: Obama writing a magazine article, or watching him now kiss George W. Bush's ass after endlessly badmouthing him and blaming him for everything in the world.

[hmm]

He is not just the US savior. He is the black jesus. Or at least he sees himself that way.

Rush's comments were bullshit, but in ever turd there is a kernel of truth.

[TrickyVic]

What US President in semi-recent times hasn't seem himself as a savior of sorts?

[Libertymike]

"or he sees himself that way."

In my view, if one ia a race hustler, if one thinks that the power of the state should be used to achieve a raical outcome and if a politician, in his own words, expresses that he identifies himself by the color of his skin, then he is most certainly a true racist.

Who here has irrefutable PROOF that Rush Limbaugh is a racist? Does he support the projection of state power to achieve a racial outcome? Does he support affirmative action? Does he support racial, statistical information gathering, such as appear on employment applications, college apllications, the census, etc?

Just look at recent history. The allegations repeated by Rev. Al and other race hustlers and race pricks reagrding Limbaugh after it came to light that he was part of a consortium interested in purchasing the St. Lous Rams crumbled under the weight of no evidence.

Some may not like his parody; labeling it or him a racist is baseless. Would one describe former Bronco great Shannon Sharpe as a racist because he described former Giant conrnerback Jason Seahorn as being "very fast for a white boy?"

If one responds affirmatively to the preceding question, it, in my view, reveals the rot that one's ability to reason has suffered from political correct puritanism.

Tulpa is a prime exapmle of this. Just becuase I have called Obama a "negro communist" he seizes upon the same and calls it "racism." As FIFY noted, it is an accurate assessment of who he is. It does not make me a racist for so observing.

Tulpa is one of those who will argue that if one did not support the Union and its mass murderers, then one is a neo-confederate racist. It is intellectual claptrap. A friend of liberty can recognize that the ante-bellum south was all about the state using force in furtherance of a racial outcome while also recognizing that those who have been hailed as heros for emancipating blacks also raped, torturted and killed blacks in furtherance of their own racial outcomes. Shermans's soldiers come to mind with the practice of "thumbing" recalcitrant former slaves.

Obama wants to be judged by the color of his skin. If he did not, he would not feel the need to write to so extensively about it. If he did not, he would not support affirmative action. He would support elimination of any race based questions on the census (hell, given that the taking of the census is an executive branch undertaking, he could, with a stroke of the pen, end it, presumably).

I submit that to the extent one identifies himself by the color of his skin, one is a loser, a group think piece of shit. That is why I am critical of the folks who want to start organizations predicated upon the color of their skin-be they thuggish, murdering groups like the KKK or the Black Panthers or irritants like The Hispanic Law Students Club or the Congressional Black Caucus or the National Association for the Advancement of White People.

The point is that accusations of racism should be accompanied by irrefutable proof that the one accused supports the use of state power to achieve a racial end and/or the person accused finds his identity in his race. I do not and never have.

Just as a guy who prefers "the asian persuasion" for his sexual partners is not a "racist."

Conversely, all the cops and soldiers who beat, raped, displaced and murdered california's japanese folks, were racists as they used state power to facilitate a racial outcome.

[hmm]

The DNC has been winning elections based on race for a while now. That isn't going to change.

[Hank]

Word. Don't ya know, Libertymike, if you are a liberal, you don't qualify as a racist. In fact, you cannot qualify as a racist unless you are a caucasian "right-winger." Especially those "tea-baggers."

[Hank]

Word. Don't ya know, Libertymike, if you are a liberal, you don't qualify as a racist. In fact, you cannot qualify as a racist unless you are a caucasian "right-winger." Especially those "tea-baggers."

[Tulpa]

The problem is, libertymike, that you keep bringing his race up in the middle of your diatribes against him. I've noticed that, for all the anti-Lincoln animus you display, you never call him "the white tyrant" or "the honkie authoritarian" or whatever. Heck, even if you called Obama "the black socialist" it wouldn't have been a big deal, but you chose to incorporate both a slur (negro) and a lie (communist) in your choice of moniker. And in the thread above this one, you're ranting about him "taking advantage of affirmative action" by penning the Newsweek article.

I'd be willing to believe that your use of the word "negro" was just an indication of Harry Reid-type social imbecile status, rather than full-blown racism, but you keep giving me new material. There are plenty of things to criticize about Obama that have nothing to do with his race -- maybe you should concentrate on those!

[Libertymike]

You're reaching, you're really grasping Tulpa.

First, if one supports an income tax, a progressive income tax, the redistribution of wealth, collective bargainning, closed shops and such, as Obama does, one is a communist. Aftr all, all of the above are part of the communifest manifesto.

The use of the word negro is not a slur; your suggestion of the same only underscores the point that I made above: you are projecting your pre-conceived, politically correct puritanism biases unto those who do not buy your narrative.

The simple folk, a group to which you claim to belong, quite frankly, are fed up with knee-jerk asseverations of racism made by the likes of you. The simple folk know that racism is not exemplified by using the word negro to describe one who is negro and who writes extensively about his skin color.

Yes, one could call Lincoln "The White Devil" or "The Caucasion Communist" and such declarations would be accurate. Perhaps I should do so more in the future.

Some of it is, quite frankly, your intentional refusal to assess, reason and process matters in their entirety and with both comprehensiveness and nuance. Anybody who reads what I have to write knows that I am an individualist and that I abhor the culture of group think, examples of which I set forth above.

I note that for one so quick to brand others as racists, you do not consistently and frequently, as you should, condemn the Japanese interrment as the racist barbarity that it was. Or the fire bombing of Tokyo AFTER we dropped the nukes.

Ditto for the Sand Creek Massacre and a thousand other examples of where white cops and soldiers scalped, raped and murdered native americans. Those actions were racist. Of course, in your view, those things were justified as being part of "law and order." Or "national security."

The differnce between us is as follows:

You support the projection of state power to achieve racial outcomes whereas I do not.

[Tulpa]

Please, mike, take a day trip to a black neighborhood in Boston and go around addressing the people you meet there as "Negro".

[Tulpa]

Also, you are the only frequent commenter here that I have ever called a possible racist. So characterizing such as a "knee-jerk reaction" is ludicrous.

[Wachutu Shaman]

EKWINSU OCHA!

[smartass sob]

... you chose to incorporate both a slur (negro)

Since when is the word negro a slur? It may be a word that is no longer in particular favor with black people, but a slur? C'mon, notable civil rights leaders used the word until other ones like "person of color" or African-American became more fashionable.

[Tulpa]

You must not have heard about the recent controversy involving Harry Reid using that word.

Also, dial up the Abe Lincoln-in-space episode of the original Star Trek. It was produced in 1969. In one scene, the revived Lincoln refers to Uhura as a "negress" and everyone on the bridge gasps. It's clearly intended to be shocking to the 1969 audience. The term has been considered offensive for several decades.

Sort of like you wouldn't call a Chinese co-worker "Chinaman" or "mongoloid" even though those terms were once considered neutral.

[smartass sob]

You must not have heard about the recent controversy involving Harry Reid using that word.

Yes, I have heard about it, and I thought the fuss made over it was ridiculous. I saw nothing racist in his remark; if it was offensive or insulting, it was so because it implied insincerity or dishonesty on the part of Obama. Just because Reid is old and behind the times - well that doesn't mean he's a racist. (I can't believe I'm defending Harry Reid.)

I'm not nearly as old as he is, but when I was a kid the "polite" term used by everyday people was "colored" and the word "black" was thought offensive by some. This began to change sometime in the '60s during the civil rights movement, when the term "black" came into widespread use. But the term "negro" was still accepted as proper and used by educated people, both black and white - just as it had been for at least since the Civil War. The word has since become politically incorrect and I'll grant you that some people consider it to be a racial slur. I'll also grant you that some people go out of their way to find offense where there is none intended - possibly to help justify their own feelings of hostility (note the controversy over someone's use of the word "niggardly" a few years ago.) In any event there will be a real shock for some when they read their Census forms this year, because the word "negro" appears on it.

I vaguely remember the episode of Star Trek to which you refer - I used to watch that series back in the '60s when it first aired. I've probably seen that one at least once more since then. I think that the people on the bridge gasping at Lincoln's use of the word "negress" was not meant to shock the audience so much as it was meant to suggest that people in the future would be aghast at anyone noticing someone's race or mentioning it outloud. I do hope our civilization never becomes quite that touchy.

[Tulpa]

And of course it bears mentioning that the context of the "negro communist" usage by LM was his claim that anyone who tries to stop the assassination of "the negro communist" is guilty of treason.

Racist or not, he's a fucking nutjob and needs to be opposed every time he opens his piehole lest all of us look like we agree with him.

[Libertymike]

Notwithstanding your asseverations to the contrary, the use of the word negro is not a slur.

Just because you do not like the use of the word does not mean that it is a slur.

Does anybody remember that Dr. Martin Luther King frequently used the word negro in his speeches-including his August 28, 1963 "I have a dream" speech. In fact, he use the word on the last night of his life, April 3, 1968.

Only a nutjob would argue that using the word negro, in and of itself, constitutes racism.

Tulpa, as I pointed out above, the difference between us is that you approve of the use of state power to achieve racial outcomes and I do not.

BTW, who is the "we" for whom you purpost to speak?

[CoyoteBlue]

Newsweek just wants a bailout. They have, what, two-three hundred subscribers now. In that situation, you fellate the man who's printing the money.

[ed]

I didn't know Geithner rolled that way.

[Eric Cartman]

The NY Times is letting the Castros write a front-page editorial on how Communism can provide free health care in the US.

[The Libertarian Guy]

What, they couldn't squeeze Obama for that op-ed?

[PIRS]

Or Michael Francis Moore?

[The Libertarian Guy]

Or Chad, for that matter...

Oooh, no he di'in't!

[put up or shut up]

Jack, the relevant question is why a libertarian could not write Why Haiti Matters.

[John C. Randolph]

Haiti matters because 1) a lot of people are suffering there as we speak, and 2) Haiti is an object lesson in how a government can keep people in terrible poverty for generations.

-jcr

[put up or shut up]

I agree with point 1 but Haiti is an object lesson in how a colonialism and slavery can leave a permanent scar.

[hmm]

I personally blame those damnable Sumarians. Those fuckers are the root of all failed governments in today's world.

[The Libertarian Guy]

And HOW LONG AGO was this colonialism and slavery?

[PIRS]

From the timeline I link to below:

"1804 - Haiti becomes independent; former slave Jean-Jacques Dessalines declares himself emperor."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1202857.stm

[The Libertarian Guy]

That was a long time ago. Time for Haiti to stop using its past as a crutch.

[bleek obummer]

@put up or shut up

"The relevant question is why a libertarian could not write Why Haiti Matters."

No, the relevant question is why the supposed author of this article has the time to write it but doesn't have the time to make the health insurance "reform" antics public.

[PIRS]

Government sponsored colonialism IS a form of socialism. Slavery is a form of coercion and all forms of coercion are abhorrent to anyone who can be called any type of libertarian at all.

[Libertymike]

The income tax is one such form.

[D.R.M.]

Every other country in the Caribbean has a longer legacy of both colonialism and slavery, and yet none of them are as screwed up as Haiti. Not even the Dominican Republic, on the same island and which Haiti conquered and ruled for twenty years.

[put up or shut up]

D.R.M. must stand for DON'T READ MUCH.

[smartass sob]

I agree with point 1 but Haiti is an object lesson in how a colonialism and slavery can leave a permanent scar.

Where's the permanent scar that British colonialism left on America?

[put up or shut up]

smartass sob, racism

[smartass sob]

There is no denying that the British brought slavery here or that it left the scar of racism. But colonialism per se - what scar did it leave on the general population? America propered well enough, and it was settled about the same time as the others in this hemisphere.

[put up or shut up]

smartass sob, the native population of Indians were obliterated by the colonist and the island was repopulated with slaves.

[BakedPenguin]

Where's the permanent scar that British colonialism left on America?

It's called Canada.

[hmm]

Hell they were colonial, or without complete independence until the 1980s weren't they?

[smartass sob]

It's called Canada.

Touche! 😉 But seriously, Canada is in no way the hellhole that Haiti is.

[TP]

Newsweek should give the byline to its true author.

Bill Ayers?

[Mr. FIFY]

That's racist! Probably.

[jester]

Why the goddamn hell is Barack Obama writing the cover story for next week's Newsweek?

He was born there. Birthers have just been led astray with that whole Kenya/Indonesia thing. He's really Baby Doc's bastard brother.

[jester]

Haitian doc takes patients into home

-headline from MSNBC

Does the writer of this headline not see that the word doc has a special meaning in Haiti?

[TP]

I got thing about chickens.

[The Libertarian Guy]

I'm not the type to say "there oughta be a law" - we have far too many as it is - but in this case, I think there should be one preventing sitting presidents from writing op-ed pieces... or stumping for candidates in, oh, say... Massachusetts, for instance.

We elect these hood ornaments* to work, not slump around gladhanding voters or having people write opinion pieces for failing newsrags. DO YOUR FUCKING JOB or go to the unemployment line, Barry.

On second thought... just leave. Doing your job just digs us deeper in debt and edges us closer to becoming a replacement for the old East Germany.

*stole that term from Will Durst, back when he was funny.

[MJ]

Another question would be: Who's actually going to write this thing for Obama? Unless there's something I don't know about his personal history, Obama has no experience about Haiti, does not have time now to do any research on it.

[put up or shut up]

"no experience about Haiti, does not have time now to do any research on it." Reminds me of the vast majority of H&R commentators and writers.

[MattXIV]

I appreciate your confidence that our paragraph long interjections are entirely suitable for an national newsweekly's cover story, but I think you may be overestimating us.

[MJ]

H&R posters are way overqualified to write for Newsweek,

[Mr. FIFY]

I think put up is either crayon, or someone like him/her/it.

[put up or shut up]

Mr. FIFY, not even close but you certainly are not the first to make that remark. Now that I think of it: It was you who said it.

[bleek obummer]

@put up or shut up

Stand in front of the mirror when you say that Tex.

[R C Dean]

Speaking of inappropriate sycophantic activities, I believe I saw somewhere that Obama still hasn't turned his $1.+MM Nobel Prize over to the Treasury, as required by law. I don't suppose Reason could follow up on that?

[Cap'n NoStar]

RC, you must realize that we are no longer "a nation of law, not of men."
Given that Obama is "the Man", he doesn't have to obey the law.

[Andrew Lynch]

Why would they bother when the Newsweek non-story is happening right now and the Nobel stuff is so last year?

[KLB]

You are failing to properly experience the cult of personality. It is not enough to obey him, you must love him.

[the buttons]

PIRS|1.17.10 @ 2:02PM|#

Ghost. AHHH. Can't believe I mispelled that!!! AHHH They need to give us the ability to edit!!!

They do:there's button 1. preview which when clicked allows one to edit prior to
button 2.submit which when clicked causes one's wisdom to, well, be submitted.

(that being said - "Yeah, why don't they give us the opportunity edit after - 'cause that's when we/I usually notice the screw ups!)

[Andrew Lynch]

Radley, is this your day-off fun topic? Congratulations on generating a bunch of page views for Reason's version of a Jessica Simpson story.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Die dinosaurs die.