In which we decide to add a blog to our highly exclusive list!

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2012

Rosenthal takes a stand: Yesterday, we finally did it.

We don’t read a lot of blogs. Yesterday, we added Andrew Rosenthal’s blog, The Loyal Opposition, to our highly exclusive list.

Rosenthal is the editor of the New York Times editorial page. Watching him on TV, he has always struck us as a warm, genial person. But we haven’t been fans of his editorial page—and we were puzzled late last year when he started his blog. How could someone in his position have time for all this crap?

Yesterday, it was this post which caused us to add his blog to our highly exclusive list. Rosenthal wrote direct from Des Moines. Slaying an imagined dragon, he started out like this:
ROSENTHAL (1/3/12): Nobody Likes to Talk About It, but It’s There

DES MOINES—Talking about race in American politics is uncomfortable and awkward. But it has to be said: There has been a racist undertone to many of the Republican attacks leveled against President Obama for the last three years, and in this dawning presidential campaign.
“Nobody likes to talk about it?” Whatever you may think of Rosenthal’s complete post, he rattled off some of the most familiar material in the current political playbook. Everybody has made the same points; so has everybody’s uncle and everyone else’s great aunt. Whatever you think of Rosenthal’s post, the points he makes are extremely familiar. And yet, the editor of the Times editorial page seemed to think he was taking a dangerous stand. He seemed to think he was saying the things no one dares express.

Watching Rosenthal on TV, he has always struck us as a genial person. For the most part, though, we think the editorial page has done poor work under his direction. In the next few days, we may cite a few recent posts from his blog—for example, this. But good grief!

When we read that headline, we finally knew! Due to Rosenthal’s high position, we simply had to add this blog to our exclusive list.

47 comments:

  1. I cannot understand this entry. What is it that "we" finally understand and what does it mean to be added to Bob's blog list? Is Andrew Rosenthal commended for mentioning the level of racism in the current election or ridiculed? Judging from the tone of yesterday's pronouncement about Santorum's statement on entitlements, I'm think the worst of this blog and opting out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amazingly, all the comments to Rosenthal's posting concur with the trope that "at last someone is mentioning it."

    ReplyDelete
  3. In fairness, Rosenthal actually says nobody LIKES to talk about it -- not that no one talks about it. He also says that "talking about race in American politics is uncomfortable and awkward." And it is. Again, that doesn't mean that no one talks about it, but, yes, it is uncomfortable and awkward. As for "familiar material" --that is absolutely true. Lots of people have made the assertion that there has been a racist undertone to many of the attacks leveled at Obama.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nobody likes talking about it? Rachel Maddow and, indeed, the whole MSNBC crew LOVE talking about it. They talk about it for hours on end!
    Also, I question whether endless variations on the theme "Our adversaries are our moral inferiors" actually constitutes "talking about race."

    ReplyDelete
  5. This one must be tongue in cheek somehow, but I do sympathize with Anon "I cannot understand this entry."

    My guess is the 'exclusive list' means to be excluded!

    And of course Rosenthal's quoted remarks are tired, and just plain boring. Besides being a tribal screed.

    But Anon, I have to urge you to reconsider at least a bit, and take a look at the Howler's work on tribalism, which truly is incomparable and hardly ever, if ever seen elsewhere.

    ReplyDelete
  6. (cont.)

    Anon, maybe check out http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html

    for an example of one of the greatest blog posts ever, IMHO, and that of a different commentator.

    Here's one snip:

    MISSING MOVEMENT WATCH: If we could talk to the animals!

    FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2011

    PART 4—IMPROVING OUR GAME: How good is Michael Kazin’s new history of the left, “American Dreamers?”

    "...We liberals can’t “only talk to each other?” Could that mean that we will have to talk to “Those People” too?..."

    There are few voices that equal the Howler's cutting objective insight on the press, and no one on earth equals the Howler on this profound insight reflected in this post I cited above, and in his other work like it....

    ReplyDelete
  7. Funny how Andrew Rosenthal et al didn't have a problem when Obama & Team used racist language against Bill and Hillary Clinton.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Even our old pal Gene Lyons is a little quick on the racist draw with Ron Paul, you ask me....

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hey, you anonymous guys, could you please just assign yourselves little IDs so your posts can be distinguished from each other? Especially the smart ones. Do you really want to be confused with the dumb ones?

    casey451

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