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When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

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It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

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Fuck these fucking interesting times.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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T R E 4 5 O N

So many bastards, so little time.

You are here: Home / Bruni to the Op-Ed Pages

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    WereBear

    My reaction: oh heavens, not this clown.

    AND they are shifting the Sunday Review away from news and into opinions.

    Are we really moving full steam ahead into the Century of the Asshole?

  5. 5.

    Jim Pharo

    Hard to imagine he’ll have much to offer in the way of insights or analysis. I’ve found him to be a rather conventional writer and thinker — hence the call to write NYT op-eds….

    Expect more from Bitman, who’s the opposite — thoughtful, insightful, smart, etc.- he is also supposed to be writing op-eds…

  7. 7.

    Forked tongue

    Didn’t he write some fatuously Bush-positive book about the 2000 campaign?

  8. 8.

    alwhite

    Continuity is always important to an organization. Try to think if it that way instead of thinking of it as assclowns on parade.

  9. 9.

    arguingwithsignposts

    “This column, which will be a new anchor feature of the section, will be a sharp, opinionated look at a big event of the last week, from a different or unexpected angle, or a small event that was really important but everyone seems to have missed, or something entirely different,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “It will fast become a destination for our readers with Frank at the keyboard.”

    That paragraph is just sad.

  11. 11.

    Stefan

    “This column, which will be a new anchor feature of the section, will be a sharp, opinionated look at a big event of the last week, from a different or unexpected angle, or a small event that was really important but everyone seems to have missed, or something entirely different,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “It will fast become a destination for our readers with Frank at the keyboard.”

    But what of your readers without Frank at the keyboard?

    WHAT OF THEM?

  16. 16.

    Ija

    I think it’s appalling that to be the chief restaurant critic of the NYT, the only experience and qualification you need is a few years covering politics. I mean, of course that’s more than ample qualification to be an op-ed writer, but surely we expected better from the restaurant critic?? This was the guy making or breaking the restaurants in New York?

    I’m not being snarky. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get someone who actually knows something about food to be the restaurant critic rather than a guy whose last job was covering the presidential election? What next, Matt Bai to take over Michiko Kakutani’s job reviewing fiction?

  17. 17.

    geg6

    The guy’s an idiot. But then, almost everyone with a brain has run, not walked, away from the NYT and WaPo editorial pages. I don’t even read that shit anymore, even though I’ve been an online subscriber for at least six years.

    I read the only one that matters both online and on Saturdays in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Krugman. All the rest are clowns. Though I do sometimes read Gail Collins, but she, at least, knows she’s a clown.

  18. 18.

    Superking

    According to the announcement, Frank is the first “openly gay” columnist. I want to know who the first gay columnist was. Can the Times out someone from the 1850s?

  19. 19.

    Crust

    Comment 22 at John’s link sums it up nicely:

    I am deeply saddened and angered by this choice. Bruni’s breathless adoration of George W. Bush is still fresh in my memory: (from the Times, 09/1999): “When Gov. George W. Bush of Texas first hit the Presidential campaign trail in June, he wore monogrammed cowboy boots, the perfect accessory for his folksy affability and casual self-assurance.” Bruni has referred to Bush as having “…a clear self-knowledge about his own failings.” He’s described Al Gore as ”a pumpkin-headed sigh master.” (Both quotes from a gossipy, lightweight book Bruni wrote about Bush in 2002). There’s one word to describe Bruni’s political thinking: vapid.

  20. 20.

    Upper West

    @Forked tongue: Yes he did, in which he admitted that he thought Bush was awful in the first 2000 debate, and yet wrote in his next day coverage that Bush “exceeded expectations.” (thereby helping Bush get those 537 FL votes that he needed to steal the election.)

    A lightweight, following in the “grand” tradition of John Tierny and Bill Kristol.

  21. 21.

    Stefan

    Considering all the talent that’s come up through the blogosphere in the past ten years that they could have tapped, they gave it to Frank Bruni? Sigh….

  22. 22.

    Brandon

    You are asking what we think? You can’t be serious. And judging by that statement from Rosenthal, I expect his writing to stay firmly entrenched in Obama’s choice of mustard, leafy greens and clothing colors.

  23. 23.

    Stefan

    The guy’s an idiot. But then, almost everyone with a brain has run, not walked, away from the NYT and WaPo editorial pages. I don’t even read that shit anymore, even though I’ve been an online subscriber for at least six years.

    I have to say that I read less and less of the regular Op-Ed columnists. Douthat? Brooks? Why would I waste my beautiful mind with such pablum? It’s not that they write things I disagree with — it’s that they write such predictable, boring, dishonest things I disagree with.

  24. 24.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Upper West:

    he admitted that he thought Bush was awful in the first 2000 debate, and yet wrote in his next day coverage that Bush “exceeded expectations.”

    Now, now. It is possible that Bush was awful and that he exceeded expectations. Expectations could have been that he would be abysmal.

  25. 25.

    Stefan

    “When Gov. George W. Bush of Texas first hit the Presidential campaign trail in June, he wore monogrammed cowboy boots, the perfect accessory for his folksy affability and casual self-assurance.”

    Proof, right here, that the press merely constructs its own narrative and them jams the facts in to fit. Had authentic Southerners Bill Clinton or Al Gore ever worn monogrammed (!) cowboy boots, it would have been seen not as signs of “folksy affability and casual self-assurance” but as entitled arrogance and phony posturing.

  27. 27.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Stefan: But they were Democrats, so it is different. I would think that you would understand this by now.

  29. 29.

    Suffern ACE

    @Brandon: Yep. Maureen Dowd must be on her way out. That’s her game. I doubt we’ll get much “big events from a new perspective” but instead more “trivial events puffed up to insane proportions”.

  30. 30.

    J.W. Hamner

    If he writes about food it could be good, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case. I’m not entirely sure I care what he thought about George W. Bush in 1999 though.

  31. 31.

    Warren Terra

    Certainly my recollection of his performance during the candidacy and administration of George Walker Bush is that if they want to find him and give him the job it will be a major excavation job on the former President to dig Bruni out of his asshole, given how far he crawled up there.

  32. 32.

    pablo

    I was hoping Matt Taibbi would get the gig, but fat chance, I’m reality based!

    ps: I just subscribed to New York Mag so I can get Frank Rich. (am also a NYT hard copy guy)

  33. 33.

    LosGatosCA

    Good to see the NY Times embracing ‘fair and balanced’ as a brand.

    Bruni was 46 in 2000, maybe. Supposedly, Chelsea Handler is 34, and frozen there in time, also, too. I read that Kirstie Alley is down to a size 6.

    I believe everything I read on the Internet so it will be good to have Bruni adding to a higher level of consciousness at the intersection of food, politics, and Al Gore’s obese unlikability. I’m starting to see the genius of the Times new pay business model.

  35. 35.

    cleek

    @Crust:
    2002 ?

    anything written in 2002 can probably be dismissed. those were the days of Bush’s 90% approval rating – nearly everybody was high on 9/11 fumes.

  36. 36.

    kindness

    The NY Times is telling me I’ve used up my 20 free articles for the month. It’s funny, I don’t remember going there that much but I do hit the links on blogs pretty freely.

    Is it something others are seeing?

  39. 39.

    Upper West

    @Omnes Omnibus: @Omnes Omnibus: Actually, “expectations” was the main problem with that debate. The Bush people (abetted by the likes of Bruni) had lowered Bush’s expectations to the point that if he didn’t blubber and drool, he would have exceeded expectations. And that’s what in fact happened. I watched the debate and believed the election was over because Bush revealed himself to be obviously incompetent. But because he avoided the drool, he was proclaimed (again by the likes of Bruni) to have exceeded expectations and therefore supposedly established that he could be President. The whole thing still makes me furious.

  41. 41.

    handy

    @Upper West:

    They tried that tack with Palin IIR. Thankfully she brings the kind of derangement you just can’t airbrush away so nicely.

  42. 42.

    Crust

    @cleek:

    2002 ?

    He was pretty vapid during the 1999-2000 prez campaign too, if perhaps not quite as bad as post-9/11. Check out the Bob Somerby link I gave before for examples.

  43. 43.

    Jager

    When Bruni reviewed Mario Batali’s Babbo he said he would have given it 4 Stars because the food is delicious, but he couldn’t because “Led Zeppelin with linguini, the Black Crowes with bucatini?” Mario’s response, “I like rock and roll.” Bruni also was critical because the wine list was all Italian, Batali responded, “Its an Italian restaurant, what he doesn’t drink, I will!”

  45. 45.

    Brachiator

    Sounds like the Times is continuing the trend of media organizations going for “edgy” columnists who write with a certain flair which supposedly appeals to younger readers, without regard to whether the columnist has a brain in his head or knows anything worth writing about.

    “Sharp, opinionated.” Isn’t MoDo already the designated Bringer of op-ed snark? Is it possible that she might be on the way out?

    Otherwise, it’s just another insider writing for those who want to be safely rocked into their afternoon naps.

  48. 48.

    Stefan

    Sounds like the Times is continuing the trend of media organizations going for “edgy” columnists who write with a certain flair which supposedly appeals to younger readers, without regard to whether the columnist has a brain in his head or knows anything worth writing about.

    It’s the Poochy strategy.

  49. 49.

    Upper West

    @handy: Except, of course, for the likes of those like Rich Lowry, who saw “starbursts” coming out of the TV.

  50. 50.

    Stefan

    “When Gov. George W. Bush of Texas first hit the Presidential campaign trail in June, he wore monogrammed cowboy boots, the perfect accessory for his folksy affability and casual self-assurance.”

    Once again, because I just can’t get over this: people who have folksy affability do not monogram their cowboy boots. People with casual self-assurance do not monogram their cowboy boots.

  51. 51.

    Tehanu

    @Stefan:

    I have to say that I read less and less of the regular Op-Ed columnists. Douthat? Brooks? Why would I waste my beautiful mind with such pablum? It’s not that they write things I disagree with—it’s that they write such predictable, boring, dishonest [my emphasis] things I disagree with.

    Boy, did you ever call it. Thanks!

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