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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / The BCS of BS

The BCS of BS

by DougJ|  November 24, 201012:54 pm| 114 Comments

This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Blogospheric Navel-Gazing, Our Failed Media Experiment

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As Salon counts down the 30 biggest hacks in American media (here’s Friedman at number 3), the thing that strikes me most about the current pundit landscape is the complete lack of anyone who seriously criticizes our current system beyond saying “things were better in the ’50s” (which we hear a lot in one form or another from conservative columnists).

While I don’t enjoy the lefty “everything sucks now worse than ever before” screeds in Harper’s, I’d like to read a bi-weekly column written by Noam Chomsky. I’d like to read a columnist whose reaction to TSAGate was “people are going to blow shit up and we can’t turn our society into 1984 trying to avoid it”. I’d like to read a columnist who is an old-style non-interventionist like Daniel Larison. I’m not saying I’d even agree with any of these columnists, but it would be a change of pace.

In fact, I do read things like this all the time, on the internet, on blogs. But never in a major paper.

For all the bullshit about a free-wheeling marketplace of ideas in our media, the range of acceptable opinion is remarkably narrow. Nearly all the major pundits like having a large military/police state to keep us safe, nearly all think “we need to sacrifice”. Almost none are troubled by the fact that we live in a corporatocracy. There are a few ideas you do see that strike me as truly radical — the neocon notion that we should invade willy-nilly to spread peace and freedom, for example — nearly all of them on the right. You do see a lot of contrarian attacks on what are perceived as liberal ideas (these are usually written by columnists who are identified as liberal). But that’s about as edgy as it ever gets.

For the most part, what you see is bland, shallow, pro-establishment tripe. There’s no way that very many people are interested in this stuff. There’s no way this is part of an actual plan to increase readership/viewership.

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Reader Interactions

114Comments

  1. 1.

    Triassic Sands

    November 24, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    Almost none are troubled by the fact that we live in a corporatocracy.

    Why would they? They owe their jobs to the corporatocracy. They may be stupid, vapid, insipid, etc., “but don’t bite the hand that feeds you” takes minimal brain power to understand.

  2. 2.

    Mark S.

    November 24, 2010 at 1:02 pm

    Almost none are troubled by the fact that we live in a corporatocracy.

    Have you seen what some of these tools make a year?

    Awesome post.

  3. 3.

    eric

    November 24, 2010 at 1:04 pm

    See Chomsky, Noam & Herman, Edward, Manufacturing Consent.

  4. 4.

    Culture of Truth

    November 24, 2010 at 1:06 pm

    My concern is that a lot of middle-class Americans grab their morning paper on their way to work and their busy lives, and nearly forced to scan this thoughtless shit, written by talentless assholes, syndicated widely as they are, and that over time it can so affect the thinking of even educated, intelligent people that they can come to think of Tom Friedman as reasonable, and even brilliant.

  5. 5.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    Halperin is #2

  6. 6.

    geg6

    November 24, 2010 at 1:09 pm

    Oh, Doug, Doug, Doug. Of course it’s not about attracting readers or viewers. It’s about polishing the knobs of the Villagers and their corporate overlords. Frightening as I find Tunch, I’m happy he’s my pet overlord when I see the degrading and debasing shit you have to do for corporate overlords. Tunch, at least, is reality based.

  7. 7.

    dhd

    November 24, 2010 at 1:10 pm

    If I were a woman, I’d want to have Alex Pareene’s babies.

  8. 8.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 1:11 pm

    You know, the thing that strikes me is the (accurate) sameness of Slate’s critique across their choices. It’s pretty much the same shit coming out of different pieholes, and the media actually is vying for these eejits’ bylines.

  9. 9.

    StevenDS

    November 24, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    Krugman is of course the exception. And Froomkin, when he was with the Post. Does Taibbi write for the “MSM”?

  10. 10.

    DougJ

    November 24, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    @Poopyman:

    I agree.

  11. 11.

    Steve

    November 24, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    In our media, even the contrarianism toes a party line.

  12. 12.

    beltane

    November 24, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    @Poopyman: Dick Morris or Charles Krauthammer for #1. The betting is still open.

  13. 13.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    November 24, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    @DougJ: You agree that the hack series is being published by Slate?

  14. 14.

    gnomedad

    November 24, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    @Poopyman:
    No Krauthammer yet. Here’s hoping …

  15. 15.

    Tom Levenson

    November 24, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    I actually am deeply satisfied by the Salon 30, not just because it makes for delicious reading, but because this is, in fact, how oligarchies erode.

    These folks are recognizably, easily identifiably hacks. We all know it, and I for one take it as part of my duty to whack at them when ever time permits. They no longer work in an echo chamber.

    It’s frustrating as hell that they still make good livings; but everyone of them is working in declining venues.

    Our task is now to (keep on) building the alternative media that will, over time, salt the fields these bozos till.

  16. 16.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 24, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    so is anyone thinking hack #1 is anyone *other* than Krauthammer?

  17. 17.

    El Cid

    November 24, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    As much as I love Noam, I just don’t think he’s suited for columns bi-weekly. And to most people his super-compacted sarcasm just won’t make a lot of sense to most readers.

  18. 18.

    david mizner

    November 24, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    This is an odd rant. I certainly share the emotion (and the politics) underlying it, but you might as well be saying “I wish white were black.”

    The media establishment is the establishment. It doesn’t slip up and let a radical into its midst anymore than the political establishment slips up and lets a radical into the White House. The Washington Post could’ve even abide Froomkin.

    There’s a reason that Ross Douchehat got a NY Times column and not, say, Greenwald (who’s getting increasingly radical.)

  19. 19.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 24, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts: Fred Hiatt?

  20. 20.

    DougJ

    November 24, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I agree that the critiques all sound (accurately) exactly the same. I know it was in Salon.

  21. 21.

    cleek

    November 24, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    @Triassic Sands gets it in one.

    our pundits are employed by entities which have the establishment to thank for their existence. these companies have no interest in making Joe Sixpack angry at the system which sustains them.

  22. 22.

    Mark S.

    November 24, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    It’s gotta be.

  23. 23.

    Elizabelle

    November 24, 2010 at 1:17 pm

    OT (and I can’t wait to see Salon’s Top 10 although they were entirely too respectful to David Brooks):

    College student strips down to Speedo in TSA line, “Screw You Big Sis” marked on his back.

    TSA: “Put your clothes back on.”

    Student: “Am I legally obligated to?”

    his blog and videolink: http://jonanderic.blogspot.com/2010/11/tsa-speedo-protester.html

    They’re Ron Paul supporters.

    http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/11/24/us/AP-US-Airport-Speedo-Protest.html?hp

  24. 24.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    @gnomedad:

    No Krauthammer yet. Here’s hoping …

    (Poopyman anxiously knots his hanky at his breast, biting his trembling lip.)

  25. 25.

    cyntax

    November 24, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    OTOH, Taibi’s takedown of Hot, Flat, and Crowded (which is linked to in the Slate article on Friedman) had me doubled over with the cubicle giggles.

  26. 26.

    Culture of Truth

    November 24, 2010 at 1:18 pm

    Silver medalist, Mark Halperin. Perhaps the ultimate hack, if not as dickish as Cohen.

    Remember when John McCain “suspended his campaign” to fix the economy? Mark Halperin said McCain won the week.

    I remember watching that day and being gobsmacked by his stupidity. At least recite conventional wisdom, for crying out loud!

  27. 27.

    eric

    November 24, 2010 at 1:20 pm

    @david mizner: speaking of white and black….the color of the miscreants in these profiles is further evidence of just how non-diverse the media truly is and why they so often dont understand what is going on in “minority” cultures. By extension, they are class-separated from the majority of the people in the US and are generally hostile towards organized labor because their institutions are hostile to better pay for their workers. these people explicitly and implicitly believe in a meritocracy because they see themselves as being at the pinnacle of American Political Society

  28. 28.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 1:20 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    so is anyone thinking hack #1 is anyone other than Krauthammer?

    I’m getting the feeling that Pareene has a special disdain for the insider posing as fair and balanced, and I don’t see Chuckles as being especially insiderish.

  29. 29.

    Zifnab

    November 24, 2010 at 1:20 pm

    For all the bullshit about a free-wheeling marketplace of ideas in our media, the range of acceptable opinion is remarkably narrow. Nearly all the major pundits like having a large military/police state to keep us safe, nearly all think “we need to sacrifice”. Almost none are troubled by the fact that we live in a corporatocracy.

    It’s not a terrible shock. Who cuts the paychecks for these guys? How many directly or indirectly benefit from a nice, strong police state to keep them safe? How many preachers of the gospel of “sacrifice” actually intend to give anything up?

    These guys are all working in their own best interests. The corporate media machine selects and incentives the pundits with interests in common.

    If I grabbed a bunch of New Jersey bus drivers or California IT managers or Texas oil tycoons and gave them all media gigs, would you seriously be shocked that they all happened to have the same opinion?

    These guys are just clones of one another. No shit they all hit on a consensus.

  30. 30.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 24, 2010 at 1:20 pm

    In honor of silver medalist Halperin:

    This is good news for John McCain!

  31. 31.

    david mizner

    November 24, 2010 at 1:21 pm

    Chris Hedges is another one. Former Times reporter, author of several books, Pulitizer Prize winner — totally qualified for a MSM column, but I I hope he’s not waiting by the phone.

  32. 32.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    November 24, 2010 at 1:21 pm

    @DougJ: I was just teasing. Poopyman and you, he just typoed “Slate” and meant Salon.

  33. 33.

    Culture of Truth

    November 24, 2010 at 1:21 pm

    Oh darn. If not Krathammer yet, then that pretty much seals it.

    So no Cohen or Hiatt, which I can understand, since Hiatt is an employer to hacks, really. The Hackfather.

  34. 34.

    John W.

    November 24, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    The bigger question is why do we still have op-ed columnists in newspapers at all.

    Luckily (or not?) it’s not a problem we’ll have for long.

  35. 35.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 24, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    I’m sorta surprised Kathleen Parker didn’t get a nod somewhere. She’d be much better fodder than Ingraham.

  36. 36.

    Winston Smith

    November 24, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    I’m in a hotel in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

    Among the promotional pamphlets in the lobby was one explaining how to take advantage of Germany’s medical system (at cost). Need your medications delivered directly to the hotel? There’s an app for that.

    Germany is out of recession and growing. They’re under a heightened terror alert, yet I got my bag at baggage claim and simply walked into the country. I didn’t even pass a border guard (I’d already cleared passport control).

    I had a big hassle in Belarus because I overstayed my visa by one fucking day. I was an illegal alien in that country for about 36 hours, and nobody suggested that I would have to go to jail. I paid some fines, waited hours for my paperwork to be squared, took it up this ass changing my return flights (thank you, Lufthansa), but otherwise had a pleasant stay… and Belarus is a Soviet-Style dictatorship with rocky relations with Western Europe and the US.

    All medical care in Belarus is free; foreigners are required to buy medical insurance which will run you $260 a year. My wife obtained genuine Pfizer Lyrica for about $1.15 a capsule there. It costs about $6/capsule in the US. Same shit. Of course, our insurance covers a lot of it, but we still end up forking over about $1.50 a pill. She takes 6 per day, and it adds up. Oddly, in Belarus, she took only about 3 per day. Somehow not eating highly-processed foods and spending two hours a day driving helped her feel better.

    Tomorrow, while everyone else is eating Turkey, I’ll be eating shit at TSA check-points, where I should be, I’m told, thankful for being so free. God forbid anyone in the US chattering class suggest that any other country got anything at all right. I’m not saying Germany and Belarus don’t have their own problems (particularly Belarus), but if you try to tell real ‘Murkans about the nice things in those countries, all they need do to confute your praise is say, “Yes, but those countries are socialist.”

  37. 37.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 24, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    @Culture of Truth: That’s why he should be #1

  38. 38.

    PeakVT

    November 24, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat: I don’t think Hiatt by himself will be #1. But as a stand in for all of the hacks he publishes, perhaps he might be.

  39. 39.

    david mizner

    November 24, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    @eric:

    The unbearable whiteness of news outlets…but that’s true not just of the corporate media. I know people who work at the Nation and Frontline — both overwhelmingly white.

  40. 40.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    November 24, 2010 at 1:25 pm

    Hmm, Alex seems to have mixed up Mark Halperin and Mark Helprin, who wrote for Bob Dole.

  41. 41.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    November 24, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    @Culture of Truth: He’s more kind of the Madame, really.

  42. 42.

    geg6

    November 24, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    It cannot possibly be anyone else. I must admit to a slight disappointment that McArglebargle isn’t on it just to see her splutter about it at the Atlantic. Probably using questionable math to show how, statistically, her insightful posts on Peruvian salt and making up what denizens of diverse urban communities say to her when she fantasizes about riding public transport outweigh all her other totally not stupid stuff. She could have easily taken Ingraham’s spot.

  43. 43.

    TooManyJens

    November 24, 2010 at 1:26 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim: Yeah, I tweeted him about that, and he said he got mixed up by an incorrectly transcribed Charlie Rose interview. I assume they’ll fix it.

  44. 44.

    eric

    November 24, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    @david mizner: yes. that is true as well. But in my experience they acknowledge the issue, though I am not sure what they do to change things.

  45. 45.

    Culture of Truth

    November 24, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    I would love it if it were Hiatt. I was boosting him as an especially good choice for the top spot because of his status in the Beltway.

  46. 46.

    YellowDog

    November 24, 2010 at 1:29 pm

    My money has been on Krauthammer for top 5. Looks like a #1 for him (actually, more like #2, but that’s a different rank).

  47. 47.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 24, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    @geg6:
    Someone commented earlier that there seems to be an attempt by Pareene to look past those who began as bloggers. I think that would be why he avoided McArdle, or Sullivan, or the like. Might not want to enrage the Juice Box Mafia.

  48. 48.

    wengler

    November 24, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    There is a solution to this: stop watching corporate-sponsored broadcast news. Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! are a great counter-viewpoint. Their daily hourlong format allows them to dissect feature issues a lot more thoroughly than other places too.

  49. 49.

    Culture of Truth

    November 24, 2010 at 1:36 pm

    Will, Friedman, Dowd, even Broder all make a pretense at being reasonable and praising bipartisanship.
    Krauthammer makes no such pretense. He goes straight for the jugular of decency and sucks it dry.

  50. 50.

    Tom Levenson

    November 24, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    How many so far have the primary home at WaPo? Will and Broder, to be sure. Who else? Has anyone been keeping a box score of the offending homes of these hacks?

  51. 51.

    Suck It Up!

    November 24, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    Was Kristol on the list?

  52. 52.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 24, 2010 at 1:38 pm

    @Tom Levenson: Dana Milbank and David Ignatius off the top of my head.
    ETA: Marc Thiessen

  53. 53.

    Comrade Luke

    November 24, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    If Stephen Hayes isn’t #1 there shouldn’t be a list.

  54. 54.

    Quiddity

    November 24, 2010 at 1:41 pm

    The higher up the Hack List, the more “respectable” they are. I’m guessing Charlie Rose for #1. (Krauthammer is too rancid for that spot.)

  55. 55.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    November 24, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    Marc Thiessen
    Bill Kristol (previously)

    did I get them all?

    edit: right, Millbank and Ignatius too.

    Plus of course many many others at the WAPO who aren’t on the list, a rogues gallery of Neocons and ex-Bush speechwriters.

    That’s why, going back to Doug’s post, you’d need not just Noam Chomsky but about twelve Noam Chomskys, at that paper alone, to have any real “balance”.

    And even the one of course, nah ganna happen.

  56. 56.

    cleek

    November 24, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim:
    he’s also a pretty good writer. ‘Memoir From Antproof Case’ is fairly awesome.

  57. 57.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 24, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    @Tom Levenson:
    That’s a very good idea. Someone should blog about that. If I wasn’t about to head out for the afternoon, I’d do it myself.

    ETA: It would be really nice if they’d have a list recapping the entire 30 after the #1 announcement.

  58. 58.

    geg6

    November 24, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    I’ll tell you, this is turning out to be a Thanksgiving with much to be thankful for, between the Hack 30 and the Motor Trends editor beating Rush over the head with a ball peen hammer. And now Josh Marshall tells me that the SPLC has put the FRC on its list of hate groups to watch. The FSM is giving me all kinds of birthday presents today.

  59. 59.

    Tom Levenson

    November 24, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim: So five (six, counting self-made-son Kristol) out of thirty at WaPo.

    Ugly.

  60. 60.

    PeakVT

    November 24, 2010 at 1:46 pm

    @geg6: McAddled is awful, but she doesn’t have much influence or a top tier platform. But don’t worry; all indications are that she’ll have both one day. When the 2030 Hack 30 comes out, she’ll be in the top 10.

  61. 61.

    Slowbama

    November 24, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    You’re just now figuring this out? Anyone who’s worked at an alt-weekly at any point over the last 40 or so years would tell you this in their sleep.

  62. 62.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 24, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    @Tom Levenson:
    Isn’t Noonan a WaPo as well?

  63. 63.

    Comrade Luke

    November 24, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    There might be a hint, in that he calls Jonah Goldberg the National Review’s second-dumbest contributor…

  64. 64.

    timb

    November 24, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    @Culture of Truth: Considering who is father is and how bright and relatively principled he is/was, Mark is a an even dumber W to even smarter George HW

  65. 65.

    mistersnrub

    November 24, 2010 at 1:52 pm

    Politico in its entirety should be # 1 – everyone else is a pretender to the throne.

  66. 66.

    cleek

    November 24, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    @Comrade Luke:
    that’s why i’m hoping for Lowry

  67. 67.

    Fuzz

    November 24, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    David Foster Wallace said something along those lines in an ideas issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Basically saying that in the same way we accept thousands of highway deaths a year for the sake of convenient travel, we may have to accept a few hundred or thousand killed every few years in order to live in a society that isn’t a security state. Also, even though for the most part Jeffrey Goldberg is a hack, he’s actually great when he writes about the TSA and how pointless it is. He just had a post about what the TSA would do if a bomber put a bomb in his anus (which an AQ guy in Saudi Arabia recently did, it would make the TSA irrelevant) and also about the inevitability of some types of attacks. They don’t need to blow up a plane, they just need to blow up anything. What’s to stop them from detonating themselves waiting on the body scanner line? It’s depressing to think about but he’s right. All of this stuff is security theater at it’s worst.

  68. 68.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 24, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    @arguingwithsignposts: Noonan writes for WSJ

  69. 69.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    November 24, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    How could we forget about Richard “You kids get off my internet” Cohen!?!?

  70. 70.

    Mr. Poppinfresh

    November 24, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    Hah, Richard Cohen! WELL DESERVED.

  71. 71.

    Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle

    November 24, 2010 at 2:03 pm

    @StevenDS: Don’t forget Bob Hebert. He’s not as sexy as Froomkin or Krugman but he does just as good work.

  72. 72.

    asiangrrlMN

    November 24, 2010 at 2:04 pm

    @mistersnrub: Goddamn it, but that’s the dark horse I would really appreciate winning. Let it be so! I think it’ll be Charles K, but only time will tell.

    @Mr. Poppinfresh: Damn! Very disappointing. But, he is very hackish. Still. I liked the whole gang at Politico at number one.

    @Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: I love Bob Hebert. He is low-keyed, insightful, and searing when need be.

    P.S. Why are incite and insight pronounced the same (yes, I know different stressed syllables, but still).

  73. 73.

    arguingwithsignposts

    November 24, 2010 at 2:04 pm

    an upset! cohen ftw!

  74. 74.

    Mr. Poppinfresh

    November 24, 2010 at 2:06 pm

    “First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy.”

    This needs to be on the rotating banner, STAT.

  75. 75.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 2:07 pm

    @DougJ: There’s a difference? *

    (Just back from some lathe work.)

    * – J/K!

  76. 76.

    Morbo

    November 24, 2010 at 2:08 pm

    And yet, just yesterday, Cohen wrote this.

  77. 77.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 24, 2010 at 2:08 pm

    @Tom Levenson: Now, you can add Cohen to that list.

  78. 78.

    Midnight Marauder

    November 24, 2010 at 2:09 pm

    @Tom Levenson:

    Our task is now to (keep on) building the alternative media that will, over time, salt the fields these bozos till.

    Precisely.

    Just like Republicans long ago became accustomed to having an opposition that fails to actually challenge them in a vigorous fashion and play offense on a consistent basis, the Village has gotten quite adjusted to no one else having a platform to expose their ignorance and inanity. They are completely insulated from any kind of real critical and intellectual engagement, since their structures and formats don’t lend themselves to such banalities. But what Villagers forget, and probably will never fully comprehend, is that they no longer exist in a vacuum where their words can go unchallenged, and their erstwhile hidden corporate enabling is now easily discoverable news for those seeking it out.

    Every time they attempt to prop up the status quo, we should be there to not only expose it for the consummate propaganda that it is, but also highlight exactly how that propaganda contributed to, and sustains, the dire circumstances we find ourselves in today as a country.

  79. 79.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    November 24, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    Ah.

    See, there’s a clarification in Alex’s last post: “the hackiest pundit”, okay then. As opposed to say “the biggest hack” which everyone was debating in terms of who had the most influence or etc.

    Richard Cohen as simply the hackiest? Okay I’ll buy that.

  80. 80.

    Fuck! A Duck

    November 24, 2010 at 2:11 pm

    Yeah, I think the internally carried explosive package is likely to continue to succeed only in creating a frightful mess. Mythbusters fairly convincingly demonstrated how effective soft tissue is at muffling explosive and shrapnel effects.
    Unless AQ’s aims shift to covering Westerners in shit and meat, think we are relatively safe from that tactic, the potential of TSA overreactions notwithstanding.

  81. 81.

    Quiddity

    November 24, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    Who reads Richard Cohen anymore? Ten years ago I did, but now he’s completely obsolete. What segment of the electorate, or academia, or business, or anything – does he speak to? (Or speak for?)

    Wrote that before seeing that Pareene asks basically the same question. It’s one that should be directed at Fred Hiatt. I wonder what he’d say.

  82. 82.

    Culture of Truth

    November 24, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    Ah! I called it at 1:18 p.m.

    Truly, I loathe Cohen.

  83. 83.

    asiangrrlMN

    November 24, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    @Morbo: Damn. He’s spot on. So, give him an asterisk by his name. I read the link he linked, though, and disagreed with the ‘bitterness’ factor. It’s not necessarily bitterness–it’s just reality.

    Hey, whyfore the lack of people of color on the list? I protest! On second thought, no, I don’t.

  84. 84.

    gnomedad

    November 24, 2010 at 2:20 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Hey, whyfore the lack of people of color on the list?

    Hack employment is a white privilege.

  85. 85.

    D.N. Nation

    November 24, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    List really needed Tom Sowell, IMO.

  86. 86.

    asiangrrlMN

    November 24, 2010 at 2:23 pm

    @gnomedad: Damn. Foiled again! I would have done it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids! ::shakes fist aimlessly::

    You know America will have reached total equality when a Juan Williams or Michelle Malkin can make the list. Harrumph. ::checks list to make sure neither made it::

  87. 87.

    cyntax

    November 24, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    @gnomedad:

    Hack employment is a white privilege.

    So Juan Williams is a pioneer. Who knew?

  88. 88.

    Mr. F.L. Atulent

    November 24, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    @cleek: Soldier of the Great War was fantastic too. That guy can really write.

  89. 89.

    eemom

    November 24, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    woooohooooo! Cohen!

    I called it, y’all. (well, I said Top 3, being an instinctive bet-hedger).

    A splendiforous finale by Pareene, also. Bravo.

  90. 90.

    asiangrrlMN

    November 24, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    @cyntax: Jinx!

  91. 91.

    catclub

    November 24, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    @Morbo:
    The comments to that article are precious.

    Brain bleach, where are you?

  92. 92.

    Lost Left Coaster

    November 24, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    Obviously you don’t read very much Harper’s. It actually contains some of the sharpest commentary you’ll read about American politics. Rarely will you find an issue treated with more of an eye toward complexity and nuance than you will in that magazine.

    I think you’re thinking of the work of Louis Lapham, former editor, whose Notebook pieces from each issue were getting increasingly pessimistic about the state of the nation as he got closer and closer to retirement. However, he is no longer the editor and no longer a regular writer for Harper’s. I like his work but it did have an increasing grumpy grampa tone to it.

  93. 93.

    eemom

    November 24, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    @Culture of Truth:

    He goes straight for the jugular of decency and sucks it dry.

    I think that’s the best summary of Krauthammer I’ve ever seen.

    I’m not surprised he didn’t make the list because, loathsome as he is, “hack” is really not the right word for him. He’s more profoundly evil than an ordinary hack.

  94. 94.

    catclub

    November 24, 2010 at 2:37 pm

    @Comrade Luke: “If Stephen Hayes isn’t #1 there shouldn’t be a list.”

    There really is an embarassment of riches to choose from.

    I was voting for Cokie.

  95. 95.

    cyntax

    November 24, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    @asiangrrlMN:

    Ohhhh… forgot about Malkin–that’s a good catch.

    Assuming ignorance isn’t bliss, which it might be in this case.

  96. 96.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 24, 2010 at 2:39 pm

    WaPo , the home to the most hacks deserves a front page post from DougJ for being the most hacktacular publication.

  97. 97.

    The Raven

    November 24, 2010 at 2:40 pm

    For all the bullshit about a free-wheeling marketplace of ideas in our media, the range of acceptable opinion is remarkably narrow

    Told ya. See, if on a leftism scale, Grover Norquist is 1, Nancy Pelosi is 3, and Chomsky is 5, most of the debate in the mass media takes place between 2 and 3, with occasional forays down to 1. With the Koch, er, Tea Party now a significant faction of the Republican Party, I expect the forays down to 1 will increase. In this sense “centrist” is around 2.5. But the real center is around three, and, yes, it would be good to hear from Chomsky and other genuinely radical leftists on the mass media now and again, to balance out Norquist and the Heritage Foundation guys. That would be real balance. I would also be delighted to hear from more of the people in the 3-4 area of the spectrum, who I think have valuable ideas that are being discounted.

    Bring back the Fairness Doctrine! Put a Trotskyist on Fox News!

  98. 98.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    November 24, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    @catclub:

    There really is an embarassment of riches to choose from.

    We are the Saudi Arabia of hackery. If we could form a cartel with the other obscenely dishonest and grotesquely self-delusional nations and control the global price of mendacity, we would rule the world! Bwaahaaahaaa!

  99. 99.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 2:44 pm

    Clearly, you all went over to the Hack 30 article and wrote those comments, because there are many calls of “why no Krauthammer?” as well as, also, too, Peretz & Malkin. I can get why no Malkin, though.

  100. 100.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 2:47 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Your analogy breaks down because at some point Saudi Arabia’s oil will run out. Our hacks, OTOH ….

  101. 101.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 24, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    Let’s start a list of honorable mentions, i.e. hacks who should have been on the list but were overlooked

    I submit the following names:

    Robert Samuelson
    Kathleen Parker
    Michael Gerson
    Charles Krauthammer

  102. 102.

    D0n Camillo

    November 24, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    The really handy thing about this list is that it exposes just how many hacks there really are. It’s not until you see a top 30 list and realize how many worthy hacks are being left out, that you appreciate just how fucked up punditry in the US really is.

  103. 103.

    asiangrrlMN

    November 24, 2010 at 3:07 pm

    @Poopyman: Peretz is on the list. #5. And Malkin? She should totally be on it–even if it’s in the high twenties. She’s the token token!

    @schrodinger’s cat: Malkin–but that’s just a personal grudge. It’s hard to say. I mean, if we’re talking about traditional media, mostly, then it’s a whole different list than if we include bloggers.

  104. 104.

    DougJ

    November 24, 2010 at 3:13 pm

    @Lost Left Coaster:

    I like Harper’s too! There’s a certain kind of liberal screed there that I don’t like sometimes.

  105. 105.

    Jay in Oregon

    November 24, 2010 at 3:15 pm

    @Mr. Poppinfresh:

    I never read that column the first time around, so I was gobsmacked to see that paragraph. Cohen actually wrote that? And was SERIOUS???

  106. 106.

    Poopyman

    November 24, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    @asiangrrlMN: Bah! I’m being unbelievably sloppy today. Sorry ’bout that. And now I can’t even figure out who I really meant.

    Sigh.

  107. 107.

    grendelkhan

    November 24, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    I’d like to read a columnist whose reaction to TSAGate was “people are going to blow shit up and we can’t turn our society into 1984 trying to avoid it”.

    Bruce Schneier isn’t a regular columnist, but I’m pretty sure he’s been published in The Guardian. It’s not an American newspaper, but it’s still almost like a sane column being published.

  108. 108.

    asiangrrlMN

    November 24, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    @Poopyman: Perez Hilton, perhaps?

  109. 109.

    PWL

    November 24, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    These are the Villagers. There’s no point, in their view, in rattling the Establishment’s cage–or in biting the hand that feeds them (very, very well, I might add).

    This is Village America, an insular place, out of touch with the rest of us, populated by elitists, who rub shoulders with The Right People. No point in being anything other than bland, pro-corporate, conservative, and nostalgic for the Golden Age of America (the Eisenhower Era). It’s what keeps those fat paychecks coming in…..

  110. 110.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    November 24, 2010 at 4:19 pm

    For all the bullshit about a free-wheeling marketplace of ideas in our media . . .

    This underscores precisely how cynical our media are. And our country.

    Markets are instruments for setting prices. Ideas don’t have prices, they have values. By touting themselves as a marketplace of ideas, the media are freely admitting that they don’t care about the value of an idea, only how much people are willing to pay for it.

    Price of everything and the value of nothing, etc. etc.

  111. 111.

    John Bird

    November 24, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    While I don’t enjoy the lefty “everything sucks now worse than ever before” screeds in Harper’s

    To me, Harper’s is pretty good at grabbing snappy writers who offer keen observations about the right wing and corporate power in America.

    My love for lefty “Everything sucks now worse than ever before” screeds is generally why I read blogs like Balloon Juice, instead of just sitting around and reading Harper’s archives from the Compromise of 1877 or something.

  112. 112.

    Paris

    November 24, 2010 at 5:20 pm

    With the retirement of Helen Thomas, our local small town paper balances Kathleen Parker with Amy Goodman. I don’t mind Parker for the comic entertainment and now the hicks are exposed to a thoughtful column writer who doesn’t just throw bombs (i.e. we also get Bill O’Reilley and Cal Thomas).

  113. 113.

    Triassic Sands

    November 24, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    Just my opinion — Harpers is one of the two or three best print magazines still in existence.

  114. 114.

    Mike G

    November 24, 2010 at 11:03 pm

    @eric:

    the color of the miscreants in these profiles is further evidence of just how non-diverse the media truly is

    The fatc that many of them have been in their positions for decades, with no loss of position for being wrong all the time or descending into absolute mediocrity, is an indication of how ossified the media culture has become. There are no performance standards, no accountability, no penalties, apparently very few ways for them to involuntarily lose their cozy, high-paid jobs — it’s like a stagnant monarchy.

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