Partial Readings: Reasonable Men
Partial Readings: Reasonable Men
Partial Readings: Reasonable Men
America’s Most Dangerous Newscaster
Glenn Beck may have some competition: Fox News’s latest hire, John Stossel, who believes that it is his “job to explain the beauties of the free market.” He’s been offering some concrete libertarian proposals, like repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act and granting private businesses the “right to be racist.” James Rucker, executive director for Color of Change, notes that Stossel only appears to be less out there than Beck: “Folks like Stossel make [his viewers] feel comfortable where they are without having to join the Glenn Beck circus.” Look above this sane man’s sofa for “Barney Frank in effigy.”
Burkeans in Paradise
A fawning profile of David Brooks in New York Magazine reveals the close relationship between the New York Times columnist and the president: “At another meeting with journalists, Brooks sat next to Obama, who would periodically turn to Brooks and point out that the policy being discussed was quite Burkean.” Christopher Beam writes copy that Brooks might have chosen to describe himself: a ?reasonable man? who ?pits one ideology against another;? an ?even-keeled? conservative who ?gets liberals? but ?never gets riled,? a maverick whose “anomalous” “synthesis” of Alexander Hamilton and Edmund Burke makes him “a party of one, without followers.” Paragraphs after mentioning that Brooks “knew the war was profoundly anti-Burkean,” he writes that Brooks only has second thoughts about the Iraq venture because it “wasn?t sufficiently Burkean.” On the basis of his presidential access and familiarity with the adjectival form of one political philosopher’s name, Beam dubs Brooks “the essential columnist of the moment.”
The Spirit of Giving
Outraged by the sight of children giving away free lemonade on a hot day, Terry Savage, a conservative financial columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-host of TV show “Monsters and Money in the Morning,” condemned the tykes’ misguided venture:
That’s not the spirit of giving. You can only really give when you give something you own. They’re giving away their parents’ things — the lemonade, cups, candy. It’s not theirs to give…We all act as if the ‘lemonade’ or benefits we’re ‘giving away’ is free. And so the voters demand more — more subsidies for mortgages, more bailouts, more loan modification and longer periods of unemployment benefits…If that’s what America’s children think — that there’s a free lunch waiting — then our country has larger problems ahead. The Declaration of Independence promised ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ It didn’t promise anything free.”
Promises, Promises
Eric Alterman recounts Obama’s unfulfilled campaign promises and offers a comprehensive look at the factors that hinder progressive governing:
Remember when Obama promised, right before the election, to ‘put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road I’ve been calling for since March?rules that will keep our market free, fair and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms’? Neither, apparently, does he?Indeed, if one examines the gamut of legislation passed and executive orders issued that relate to the promises made by candidate Obama, one can only wince at the slightly hyperbolic joke made by late night comedian Jimmy Fallon, who quipped that the president’s goal appeared to be to ‘finally deliver on the campaign promises made by John McCain.’
Image: John Stossel (Nightscream/Wikimedia Commons)
