Today’s smart remarks by Eric Alterman
I was saying to my token Republican friend yesterday that what I think or hope is going to defeat Bush (for whom she voted, I feel compelled to point out, but no longer supports) this year was that even if you agreed with all his opinions, you have to admit that he isn’t doing his job very well.
Alterman has a good run-down on this in Altercation today.
A little later the same entry we find this thoughtful little nugget:
“this is the thing about TNR, Slate and the entire Kinsleyeque contrarian culture of “smart” journalism. They don’t bother with evidence. They just kinda feel something and because they’re so smart, that makes it so. Kinsley really is this smart, and it works for him. But hardly anybody else is, yours truly included. Blogging tends to take this problem into the stratosphere of antimatter-unreality but journalistically-sponsored blogging ought to be more careful. It usually isn’t.”
And a matching set of Jon Stewart quotes of the day. But not this Ed Helms quote, from the episode of The Daily Show airing even as I type this: “First rule of journalism, Jon–fact-checking is for pussies. Cronkite taught me that.”
