New Yorker's (and Jimmy Carter's) Hendrik Hertzberg on Lord Obama's "Nominally Respectable" Opponents
Over at the always-ennertainin' Splice Today, Russ Smith writes up a list of President Obama's supporters in the press and zeroes in on The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg:
Ignoring the plain fact that droves of Independent voters were responsible for GOP wins in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts, Hertzberg claims that Obama's been damaged by "an essentially nihilistic opposition party dominated by a pro-torture, anti-intellectual, anti-public-spirited, xeonophobic 'conservative' movement; and a rightist propaganda apparatus owned by nominally respectable media corporations and financed by nominally respectable advertisers."
Far out, man: a generation ago I'd be asking for a hit of whatever's causing you these hallucinations. Brown received 52 percent of the vote in Massachusetts on Jan. 19: is Hertzberg saying these people are nihilists? In fact, a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC New poll showed that a full 72 percent of Americans identify themselves as either "moderate" or "conservative." As for his obvious dig at Fox News, which is of course a conservative television station (just as The New York Times is a liberal newspaper), it's quite a leap to call Fox's advertisers "nominally respectable." Last time I checked, Fox had the same rotating commercials as its competitors: spots for prescription drugs, cars, beer, junk food and financial institutions.
It is always great to see folks such as Hertzberg elevating the level of discourse.