BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Times signs write-o-matic
Brooks. David Brooks is a fine writer, a provocative thinker, a
sensible conservative, and a hell of a nice guy. He is also
dangerously overexposed.
You can read him in the Weekly
Standard, the Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, the
New York Times Book Review, the New York Times
Magazine, the Times of London, and on the Wall Street
Journal editorial page. You can see him on The NewsHour with
Jim Lehrer. You can hear him on All Things Considered.
Several years ago he wrote a briskly selling book about the nouveau
riche called Bobos in Paradise. If he were a pop star, his
agent would tell him to lay low for a while and cultivate an air of
mystery.
Today we learn that he will soon
begin writing an op-ed-page column for the New York Times. The
news comes in the oddest of places: buried
inside a Times feature
today on summer jobs. Brooks is quoted on the subject, and his
forthcoming new gig is revealed as an afterthought. (Note: After posting this item shortly before 9 a.m., I was immediately informed that Brooks's appointment is not news. Must have happened while I was on vacation.)
I'm sure Brooks is not looking for
Media Log's advice, but I'm going to offer some anyway. Brooks can be
a terrific op-ed columnist. But he's going to have to devote most of
his attention to it and cut way back on the outside work. The
Times job will be the most important thing he does.
Besides showing that the liberal
media are far more open to conservative voices than the conservative
media are to liberals, Brooks's addition will be welcome because he's
so good at what he does. But if he doesn't cut way back on his
outside work, he runs the risk of becoming not a writer, but a word
processor.
Slick Howie. The Howard Dean
described this morning by Boston Globe columnist
Scot
Lehigh sounds like someone
who is pragmatic to the point of being cynical.
Lehigh doesn't draw the analogy
directly, but that whatever-it-takes attitude, unattractive though it
may be to those who have to interact with him personally, calls to
mind another politician whom many Democrats are pining for these
days: Bill Clinton.
Joe Fitz, paragon of
objectivity. The funniest thing about Boston Herald
columnist Joe
Fitzgerald's screed
(sub. req.) today is that you have to pay to read it online.
The second-funniest thing is his lame-o attempt to wag his finger at
the Episcopal Church for confirming
Gene Robinson, an openly
gay man, as the bishop of New Hampshire.
Fitzgerald claims Delphic powers of
insight, writing, "To more objective observers ... Robinson's
ascendancy is an abomination, which is precisely how Scripture
describes the kind of lifestyle he maintains." I guess Fitzgerald
considers all that love stuff attributed to Jesus as a bunch of
'60s-style hooey.
Even better, Fitzgerald quotes
Martin Luther King Jr. as an authority for his side of the argument.
Give Fitz this much: he knows King isn't going to complain.
Media Log update. Due to
some recent changes in Blogger.com's software, I am now going to
upload each morning's items as one post, rather than as individual
tidbits. It'll save me a minute or two, and make it easier to post
items in the order that I want.
This should only create a minimum
of hassle to websites seeking to link to Media Log items. It is also
the practice followed by many other weblogs, including that of the
prolific Andrew
Sullivan.
posted at 8:59 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
