Influential Times Editor Calls Anti-Tax Protesters "Tea-Baggers"
Influential Times Editor Calls Anti-Tax Protesters "Tea-Baggers"
Even today the right insists it is driven by ideas, even if the leading thinkers are now Limbaugh and Beck, and the shock troops are tea-baggers and anti-tax demonstrators." - Week in Review and Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, in an October 1 exchange with Reihan Salam at Slate magazine's "Book Club" feature discussing his recent book "The Death of Conservatism."
If Only Life Were More Like a Ralph Nader Novel
"Maybe the jolt of billion-plus losses can spur plutocrats to change. Ralph Nader just wrote a novel called 'Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!' in which Mr. Buffett (already a major philanthropist), Ross Perot and a few other billionaires go to Maui to 'redirect' society onto the right path. Warren Beatty gets to run California. Wal-Mart workers unionize. Corporate greed is brought to heel. There is no sign of such enlightenment on Wall Street." - Economics reporter turned editorial board member Eduardo Porter, in an October 5 signed editorial.
You Don't Say
"It always amused me that this conservative Eastern elitist was a deep-dyed populist when it came to grammar and usage, while I, liberal to radical on most issues, was a traditionalist in such matters." - Former Times Executive Editor Howell Raines, in a September 29 tribute on The New Republic website to former Times colleague, columnist and wordsmith William Safire.
Liz Cheney's "Cable-Ready Ferocity"
"Like her father, [Elizabeth] Cheney speaks in understated, almost academic cadences, head veering down into her notes. She also shares his willingness to pummel President Obama in stark, disdainful tones, not so much criticizing as taunting him....She argues her father's positions with a cable-ready ferocity reminiscent of her mother, Lynne (a former regular on CNN's 'Crossfire')." - Mark Leibovich's profile of Dick Cheney's daughter, September 28
Tea Parties Prelude to Obama Assassination?
Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassinationo From Thomas Friedman's September 30 column
No More "The Day After Tomorrow" Rentals for Friedman
"We never know when the next emitted carbon molecule will tip over some ecosystem and trigger a nonlinear climate event - like melting the Siberian tundra and releasing all of its methane, or drying up the Amazon or melting all the sea ice in the North Pole in summer." - From Thomas Friedman's October 7 column
No Urban Liberal Hysteria Here
"Trying to keep obese students away from their favorite poisons." - Text box accompanying Jennifer Medina's October 3 Metro story on the New York City school system banning bake sales in the name of health
Movie Critic Again Ponders Marxist Uprising
"I imagine they would argue that they are sowing the seeds of a populist revolt somewhere down the line. If they can do it, why not us?" - Movie critic Stephen Holden, praising a left-wing mockumentary attacking corporations, "The Yes Men Fix the World."
High Taxes As Societal Imperative
"And taxes are supposed to rise as a country grows richer . This is Wagner's Law, named for the 19th-century economist Adolf Wagner, who coined it. As societies become more affluent, people demand more services that governments tend to provide, like health care, education and a strong military. A century ago, federal taxes equaled just a few percent of G.D.P. The country wasn't better off than it is today." - Economics writer David Leonhardt in his October 7 "Economic Scene" column
