December 21, 2004
IF ONLY THERE WERE A DECENT LEFT:
When the Right Is Right (NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, 12/22/04, NY Times)
One of the most conservative, religious, fascinating - and, in many ways, admirable - politicians in America today is Sam Brownback, the senator from Kansas who is a leader of the Christian right.Sure, Mr. Brownback is to the right of Attila the Hun, and I disagree with him on just about every major issue. But 'tis the season for brotherly love, so let me point to reasons for hope. Members of the Christian right, exemplified by Mr. Brownback, are the new internationalists, increasingly engaged in humanitarian causes abroad - thus creating opportunities for common ground between left and right on issues we all care about.
So Democrats should clamber down from the window ledges, roll up their sleeves and get to work on some of these issues. Because I'm embarrassed to say that Democrats have been so suspicious of Republicans that they haven't contributed much on those human rights issues where the Christian right has already staked out its ground.
Meanwhile, Democrats wonder where Kansas went wrong... Posted by Orrin Judd at December 21, 2004 10:19 PM
It's amazing the hoops Kristof or Tom Friedman have to go though to write a column for the Times that includes the idea that the other side just might be right about a certain issue (which is why it's so much easier to be Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert or MoDo, since they never give the other side any credit and therefore have no need to actually try and think up a column that might pass along an unpalitable notion to the Times' core readership).
Posted by: John at December 22, 2004 12:38 AM"attila the hun"
Are liberal columnists on auto-pilot? I think that they need to come up with slightly different analogies. We've pretty well covered Hitler, Attila the Hun.
John:
The strange thing of it is that Bill Keller, who replaced Howell Raines, wrote a couple of the most insightful and respectful pieces on W:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/webpage/book.htm#kellerereagansson
Posted by: oj at December 22, 2004 8:56 AMOJ --
I grew up hanging around for a while in the early 1960s with Pinch Sulzberger's alleged illigitimate half-brother, at least according to Pages 295-99 in "The Trust", the 1999 bioography of the family and the New York Times. If Pinch has anywhere near the same disposition as publisher that his half-sibling did as a boy, it would go a long way towards explianing why the shift from Raines to Keller has made barely a dent in the Times' overall political coverage and view of GWB.
Posted by: John at December 22, 2004 9:17 AMAye, it's strange that to be a Leftist/Liberal today means that one promotes status quo.
Posted by: Thomas Hazlewood at December 22, 2004 11:47 AM