Obama Is a True Conservative

Sam Tanenhaus Take 1: Obama Is a True Conservative

Barack Obama is "a president who seems more thoroughly steeped in the Burkean principles of 'conservation' and 'correction' than any significant thinker or political figure on the right today."
"Obama's plan to extend health coverage to the nearly fifty million Americans who lack it is pure Disraeli." - Quotes from Week in Review and Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus's recent book "The Death of Conservatism."

Tanenhaus Take 2: "Conservatives" Aren't Conservative, Actually Radicals

Bill Moyers: So, if you're right about the decline and death of conservatism, who are all those people we see on television?

Sam Tanenhaus: I'm afraid they're radicals....And this is a strong strain in modern conservatism. Like the 19th Century nationalists who wanted to recover parts of their country that foreign nations had invaded and occupied, these radical people on the right, and they include intellectuals and the kinds of personalities we're seeing on television and radio, and also to some extent people marching in the streets, think America has gotten away from them." - From Tanenhaus's appearance on the September 18 edition of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS.

Tanenhaus Take 3: Conspiracy Theory

Tanenhaus: "But what happened was the right was so institutionally successful that it controlled many of the levers, as you say. So, what happened in the year 2000? Well, the conservatives on the Supreme Court stopped the democratic process, put their guy into office." - From Tanenhaus's appearance on the September 18.edition of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS.
That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century ." - From Thomas Friedman's September 9 column.

But the sense that we have got to act because otherwise the world might end is fading away and that makes it very hard to do stuff." - Columnist Paul Krugman on the September 23 edition of The Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC.

Ted Kennedy's Flaw: He Helped Reagan Win Presidency

" There's a further paradox to this, which is we sometimes forget, I mean, all of the wonderful things being said about this extraordinary figure Edward Kennedy, that he was partly accountable for Ronald Reagan's ascendency. " - Times Week in Review and Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, on the August 28 New York Times edition on MSNBC.

We'll Bleat Again

- From Alan Cowell's September 21 "Memo From London" profile of World War II British songstress Vera Lynn, who ascended to the top of the British music charts last week with an anthology.

"Hate-Filled Rubes" of Idaho?

Columnist Peter Applebome describing Stalinist and actor Paul Robeson in a September 3 column, which featured a text box calling Robeson "a giant of the civil rights movement."

Really Now?

"While the month of August clearly knocked the White House back on its heels, as Congressional town hall-style meetings exposed Americans' unease with an overhaul, the uproar does not seem to have greatly altered public opinion or substantially weakened Democrats' resolve." - Sheryl Gay Stolberg, September 9.
The Associated Press, September 9.

Good Thing Keith Olbermann Never Says Anything Inflammatory

"When he is not calling the president a racist or finding some other way to infuriate plenty of Americans, Glenn Beck, the provocative and popular conservative broadcaster, occasionally drifts into reverie." - William Yardley in a September 10 story on criticism of Mt. Vernon, Wash. Mayor Bud Norris for giving the talk show host the key to the city of his birth.

Maureen Dowd Is Hearing Things

"The normally nonchalant Barack Obama looked nonplussed, as Nancy Pelosi glowered behind. Surrounded by middle-aged white guys - a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men's club - Joe Wilson yelled 'You lie!' at a president who didn't. But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!" - Maureen Dowd in a September 13 column on Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during Obama's health care speech.

"I'm well aware that various conservative commentators regularly and loudly denounce The Times for being 'a liberal rag.' It just isn't so." - Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson on a Q&A with readers the week of September 7-11.