This is going to be the same one that I set for conservatives; as I said there, I don't think I've done it for a while. Which liberal columnists, bloggers, radio hosts and TV pundits are overrated and overexposed? Which ones should get more attention?
(And meanwhile -- this is the second time in a week that I forgot to hit the final button for a post to go live. Argghh!).
Sunday, January 27, 2013
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Ed Rendell who seems to often be auditioning to be the new Lieberman.
ReplyDeleteAny of them who aren't really liberals. Just because you've voted Dem in the last six Presidential elections, don't mean you're Liberal. Andrew Sullivan comes to mind, but he who blows goats used to hold that position.
ReplyDeleteIt's a cosmic injustice that Richard Cohen gets paid to write op-eds, while Digby does not.
ReplyDeleteI understand that Rachel Maddow is effective, but something about her presentation gnaws at me.
ReplyDeleteI think Cliff Schecter and Hal Sparks are particularly insightful and engaging communicators who I'd like to see more of.
I'd agree with less Rendell on MSNBC. Also less Sharpton. I'd like to see more of Campos, Lemieux and the whole gang at Lawyers, Guns and Money on the teevee and on dead tree media.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of Matt Yglesias and Jonathan Chait and wished more liberals were as well. Some people seem to think they aren't "liberal enough" but I don't think that's fair, they are pragmatic and are willing to do things like criticize teachers unions if they disagree with them, that's all and that strikes me as a strength rather than a weakness.
ReplyDeleteI think Glen Greenwald is wrong about a lot of stuff and writes in a very uninteresting "holier than thou" tone that I find to be simply awful. I wouldn't call Andrew Sullivan "liberal" (or "conservative" for that matter) and I do think he's a great writer and a pioneer of the internet and blog format, but I don't think he's very insightful. He's been writing about American politics for what, 25 years now? I don't think he understands it very well at all and a lot of his predictions and advice for politicians strike me as being totally off the mark. I think liberals should give him a lot less weight outside of how to write an interesting blog.
Ditto on Greenwald. I do acknowledge that he covers stuff that doesn't get a lot of ink with more mainstream folks, and Im appreciative of that. But he often takes a tone where a lot of the radical things he says are self-evident and don't need any justification. And while I think he's right about a lot of things, I don't think he's nearly charitable enough to his opponents.
DeleteJonathan Chait deserves more attention.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who writes a column that tells Obama to cut "entitlements"deserves less attention. I notice that's ceased for a few days since the "liberal" Inaugural Speech. It's laughable that ALL problems can be solved in the US if Obama would give entitlements deep cuts. They all appear to be Pete Peterson followers since that's in fashion now & almost every article I read has that solution for everything.
I agree with Timothy Egan & Joe Klein. That speech was Liberal in 1961.
Less Ed Schultz and Sharpton. More Ezra Klein and Jamelle Bouie.
ReplyDeleteChris Hayes has been doing amazing work weekend mornings on MSNBC... he could do a lot of good with a bigger editorial platform.
ReplyDeleteGotta go with Jamelle Bouie on the second part. Seems to have a pretty strong grasp of history for someone his age and also his analyses reflect a lot of the political sciencey stuff that mainstream pundits tend to neglect.
ReplyDeleteAnd as for overrated Im gonna go with the guy who eviscerated Chait when he suggested Democrats embrace raising the Medicare age for strategic reasons. I don't remember his name, nor had I heard of him before that particular brouhaha, but I think he's overrated nonetheless.
Deserving of more attention: Jon Chait
ReplyDeleteAll this love for Chait? I read him because I find him very amusing. I don't think he is all that insightful. Greenwald is kind of the opposite: almost oppressive in tone, but very insightful and useful.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest problem with public liberals as Crissa notes above, is that they aren't really liberals. I used to argue that what was called a "centrist" was really a social liberal and economic conservative. But more and more, I think this applies to liberals.
Regardless, just because Andrew Sullivan likes Obama does not make him a liberal. Nor is Ed Rendell a liberal.
Not really liberal/conservative, but Political Wire is pretty great. Especially if you want some headlines to think about while taking a pee break or getting another cup of coffee.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see Charlie Pierce get a shot at a Sunday morning roundtable with George Will. Doghouse Riley is a very underrated blogger. He's a lot like Pierce with a great sense of political history.
ReplyDeleteYglesias is terribly overrated. He is capable of great insight but most of the time he is just astonishingly ignorant and lacking common sense. He writes an economics column despite having no clue about economics. He is also growing more libertarian by the day. I believe that in 10-20 years he will be one of those guys who calls himself a liberal but spends all of his time denouncing government.
ReplyDeleteI have felt that Ezra Klein is too much of a Washington insider now and is getting pulled into the very serious centrist groupthink. Because of this I don't read his stuff and because of that I can't be totally sure of my allegation.
Krugman and Atrios are good but they already get a lot of attention. Henry Farrell, John Quiggin, and some of the others at Crooked Timber are good.
Various modern monetary theory advocates are good; I like Warren Mosler and New Economic Perspectives. These aren't strictly liberal; a lot of that stuff is apolitical economics/finance stuff and there are conservative ideas present as well.
Krugman, Krugman, a million times Krugman.
ReplyDeleteI'm in agreement with some that Greenwald gets too much coverage. He does have that smug demeanor that undercuts anything he tries to say. And how much do we really need an anti-liberal liberal out front and center? I don't know if he's noticed the most cohesive large ideological group is a right-wing one that supports all the same policies Greenwald decries but moreso. First thing's first?
ReplyDeleteHis fellow Salon columnist David Sirota, I'd rather hear more from him. He's a similar unapologetic liberal, willing to attack his own when necessary-- but he doesn't come off as self-righteous and he doesn't frown as much on political realism.
I would suggest that Krugman gets too much, except there's not really anyone to take up some of his slack. Dean Baker, I suppose, but Baker tends to be less diverse in the subjects he talks about.
Chait, Yglesias, Kilgore, Bouie all deserve more attention. Less for Rendell, Sharpton, Sullivan.
ReplyDeleteCorrect me if I am wrong but I though Obama said it was 100% razor focus on jobs only a coouple weeks ago? Hmmm I am glad that everyone has a good job now and the debt is going down and we can focus on the really important stuff like bogus gun and immegration bills so he can say look what I did!
ReplyDelete