- For it, Before She Was Against It
- Please, Please, Reporters with Brains
- Wake Up, Obama Camp
- What About the Curve?
- Free Advice, Worth Every Penny
- Obama Campaign: McCain Is A Reckless Hothead
- McCain Adviser's Horrifying Iraq Track Record: Will the Press Notice?
- All or Nothing
- Intellectual Usury Feels Good, at First
- The Swiftboating Begins
Todd Gitlin
- : New York
- : 65
- : yes
- : sure
- : http://www.toddgitlin.net
- : Todd Gitlin, who professes journalism and sociology at Columbia University, is the author of twelve books including, most recently, The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals (Wiley). For more, see www.toddgitlin.net.
Adversity and Reckoning
The Springfield prologue to the Obama-Biden show has the beat. I hear a particular note, a leitmotif. Obama: "overcome the adversity of the last eight years." Biden: "The next president of the United States is going to be delivered into...more »
Posted on August 23, 2008 3:21 PM
While We Weren't Watching
If you want to take a break from news about Obama's articulate and bright and clean V-P choice (hat-tip to John Dickerson), get a load of this. In a trough of the manic-depressive cycle about Obama's summer doldrums, I among...more »
Posted on August 23, 2008 10:44 AM
Charlie Gibson's Lore
ABC World News Tonight's Charlie Gibson introducing the network's lead piece on McCain and Obama, Thurs., Aug. 21: Today, the two got into a dispute about which of them is richer. No, that's not what happened. McCain said he didn't...more »
Posted on August 22, 2008 8:06 AM
A Speech for Barack Obama
It's pretty presumptuous to propose language to Barack Obama, but here goes anyway, in accord with Josh's suggestion that Obama's complaint about McCain casting aspersions on his patriotism rings tinny. John McCain has the gall to question my judgment about...more »
Posted on August 20, 2008 5:03 PM
Dressing Up the Ranch
I've been wondering why Arizona reporters don't get much national exposure. Since McCain is running on "character," wouldn't reporters who've covered his local doings for a quarter-century be useful witnesses? I'm far from expert, but I've been asking around and...more »
Posted on August 20, 2008 10:37 AM
Obama: The Style, the Thought, the Rhetoric
Don't miss James Fallows' characteristically penetrating piece in the current Atlantic about the seven thousand primary debates and what they reveal about Barack Obama's forthcoming faceoffs with John McCain and even the kind of president he might be, insh'allah. It...more »
Posted on August 15, 2008 10:45 AM
Cheney's Gift to McCain
He's not going to the GOP convention, according to CNN, which is to be congratulated for hiring somebody who can write tart: A Wall Street Journal-NBC News Poll from June showed that while 31 percent of Americans had a positive...more »
Posted on August 6, 2008 10:49 AM
The Right Tone
Here's a clip of Obama today in Berea, Ohio, rightly accusing the Republicans of lying about his energy program when they reduce it to tire inflating. He's indignant but not irate. He plays at disbelief that his opponent could be...more »
Posted on August 5, 2008 9:24 PM
Three Cheers for Rhetoric
Thank you, Michael. It's good to have these speeches within paper covers--Humphrey with McGovern, Hoover right next to FDR. And the latter juxtaposition is where I'll start my little meditation on the significance of great speeches, and also their...more »
Posted on August 4, 2008 8:08 PM
The Anthrax Panic, ABC, Glenn Greenwald, and the End Times
Glenn Greenwald's Salon piece is a must-read. The 2001 anthrax attacks were hugely important in stoking up a War-of-the-Worlds panic. The envelopes of white powder inflamed the sense that They're Everywhere--Lake Worth, FL; Washington; a mailbox in Princeton. Without doubt,...more »
Posted on August 2, 2008 10:53 AM
-
What's a century between friends? Fixed it. Thanks for the snide correction.
Posted at August 23, 2008 9:55 PM in response to Adversity and Reckoning
-
Please.
Posted at August 22, 2008 11:09 AM in response to Charlie Gibson's Lore
-
Great stuff, Theda. I swear (or affirm, actually) that I didn't read you before I posted mine. This fight-back can't just be left to surrogates. Obama's a better speaker than any of them will be--any.
Posted at August 20, 2008 5:25 PM in response to Wake Up, Obama Camp
-
Interesting. Possible that Google rejiggered its algorithm in the time between my search and yours? (Mine now agrees with yours, but didn't before.) I just checked the Nexis database for the last year, searching for McCain within 10 words of "ranch." They come up with 198 citations in US newspapers within the last year.
Posted at August 20, 2008 1:22 PM in response to Dressing Up the Ranch
-
Why assume that the Republicans have their fingers on the pulse of America? Don't we have ample reason to think that they're trapped by their ideological zealotry?
Posted at August 6, 2008 7:14 PM in response to The Right Tone
-
Excellent. Why don't you look for that picture? I'm serious.
Posted at August 6, 2008 11:45 AM in response to Cheney's Gift to McCain
-
Well said. On the other hand, since when are most Americans allergic to celebrities?
Posted at August 6, 2008 11:00 AM in response to New McCain Ad: Will "Biggest Celebrity In The World" Help Your Family?
-
He should take a leaf from FDR (see my last post in the Book Club): attack "the Republican leadership," not "the Republican Party."
Posted at August 6, 2008 8:39 AM in response to The Right Tone
-
Dr. Gitlin recommends a daily worry of five minutes and no more. P. S. For reassurance on Obama's rather stable (though small) lead since the end of the Demo primaries, see Seth Colter Walls channeling Alan Abramowitz on Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/05/is-obamas-lead-in-gallup_n_117058.html).
Posted at August 6, 2008 8:37 AM in response to The Right Tone
-
Amen.
Posted at August 4, 2008 12:00 PM in response to For First Time, McCain Edges Ahead Of Obama In Tracking Poll
