The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Perils of Presidential Oratory

After yesterday’s epic rant against Obama’s pay-freeze speech, I still had lots of snark left over, so I wrote a 1,700-word column for The American Spectator: President Obama gave a speech Monday, which isn’t particularly newsworthy in itself, as part of the president’s job is to be Speechgiver-in-Chief. But this speech was different, at least for […]

No Argument Here

Whatever else you want to argue with on Alex Pareene’s list of America’s worst hacks — my original criticisms here — no one can possibly disagree with his choice for No. 1: The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen has been a columnist since 1976. He’s good friends with Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn. He works one day a […]

Alex Pareene: Expert on Hackdom

Takes one to know one: These are the most predictable, banal, intellectually dishonest and all-around hacky newspaper columnists, cable news shouting heads and political opinion-mongers working today. . . . We cut the list down to 30 people whose continued employment most baffles us, and then we ranked them in order of shamelessness. When I […]

OK, This Is Pretty Cool

Guess who re-Tweeted my American Spectator item last night? Maybe you should consider subscribing to the print edition of The American Spectator. Makes a great Christmas gift. Just sayin’ . . .

Except It’s Not Called Newsweek

“In this climate, there should be room for a general-interest magazine to reinvent the old middlebrow formula. There should be room for a magazine that counterprograms against the ceaseless ephemera of much of the online world and offers things you will remember, a magazine that doesn’t endlessly chase buzz, that isn’t coastal urban journalists writing […]

Washington Times Fires Editor; ‘National Search for a Permanent Replacement’

Interesting news about my former employer: Sam Dealey will be stepping down as editor of the Washington Times, following the sale of the paper to a group led by members of the paper’s old guard who were ousted a year ago, sources close to the paper tell POLITICO. Dealey was informed this afternoon. The change […]

Post-Weigel Journalism? Impossible!

Once David Weigel left the Washington Independent, they were doomed to oblivion: The crisis in the world of journalism today isn’t really about journalism — it’s about the bottom line. Reporters and editors everywhere are trying to find a way to keep their very good work alive. We thought our model had a chance. It […]

The Weekly Newsbeast?

MSM meltdown yields a hideous amalgam: The newsmagazine that Jon Meacham ran into the toilet will merge with Tina Brown’s HuffPo knockoff: Newsweek and The Daily Beast will announce tomorrow morning that the two publications will merge, a source close to the deal tells The Observer. It will be a 50-50 merger of the two […]

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