Posted on 04/02/2003 4:50:32 AM PST by Lance Romance
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:09:25 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
HOW DOES George W. Bush get away with it?
His trademark is the use of liberal-sounding rhetoric -- on health care, education, jobs, tax fairness, the environment -- while his policies do the opposite. To watch his recent address on Medicare and Medicaid (which he wants to gut), you would think you were listening to Ted Kennedy.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
This guy is delusional, doesn't he remember the Donahue show, not to mention Bill Maher? The rest of the Hollywood morons and the generous coverage of the anti war movement.
Those guys are addicted to power & just can't stand it when they're on the outs!
Another point:
"... the Globe and The New York Times play it absolutely straight in their news reporting..."
What planet is this guy from that he thinks nyt or the 'globb' do or report anything 'straight'?
I'm having trouble reading the entire article, but "the decay of democracy" is something that has come about here because of its steady drift to the left, pushed along by socialists like this author, Robert Kuttner. Note his use of the phrase "repairing democracy," almost a match for the frequently used euphemism for socialism "repairing the world."
Kudos the the wife.
No, it is NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, the NYTimes, the Washington Post, the Globe, the LA times etc., etc. Kuttner lost all credibility with this statement, with the obvious exception of Rush, who has no counterpart in the liberal media, because they don't have truth on their side. I think the Media Research Center deals with the "playing it straight" of the Times and the others quite nicely.
Kuttner is simply a liberal hack preaching to the choir in Boston.
"Near-absolute" is necessary usage, here, because Mr. Kuttner himself enjoys some of the good life, which he would absolutely not give up.
He's a "product" of Oberlin College, as is Robert Krulwich, the word-fashioneer over at ABC News. Both these fellows spend a lot of time trying to claim that their Bolshevism is "centrist," the very same "leaning" as The New York Times Stalin-apologists of the 1930's.
Boston Busines Journal [online], June 14, 2002
by Donna L. Goodison
Slate.com blogger -- "web logger," for the nontechies -- Mickey Kaus has been reporting that The American Prospect is in financial trouble, but founder and co-editor Robert Kuttner says the magazine is doing just fine, thank you."He's been a detractor of ours for many years," Kuttner said of Kaus. "We're fine."
In his Kausfiles column on May 13, Kaus said American Prospect board member Michael Johnston had "sounded the alarm" about the magazine's books. In his May 30 column, he referred to the magazine, whose operations are split between Boston and Washington, D.C., as "foundering."
The American Prospect went from a bimonthly to a biweekly publication in November 1999 with the aid of a multimillion-dollar grant from the Florence & John Schumann Foundation of Montclair, N.J.
The magazine, which Kuttner described as one for "sensible liberals" who want authoritative articles on major policy issues, also was redesigned as an attempt to broaden its appeal and boost its then-18,000 circulation to upwards of 80,000 in five years. The magazine's circulation stands at 50,000 now, according to Kuttner, who noted little advertising is received.
In May 1999, the Schumann Foundation gave the magazine $5.5 million for two years and was expected to commit to a total of $11 million after an evaluation period. In May 2001, the magazine received another $2 million for a one-year period.
"Each year, they review it," Kuttner said. "We got the money, $2 million, this year. We're coming up on our regular review, and we expect another $3 million for the remaining two years, and that will be the end of the grant. By then, we expect to be self-sufficient.
"That doesn't mean we break even, it just means we have enough foundation support to continue," continued Kuttner, who noted The Nation and The New Republic, also left-leaning publications, also fail to break even. "Our understanding with them (the Schumann Foundation) is we wouldn't have asked for money from them after the five years."
And additional Schumann Foundation money isn't built into the American Prospect's budget, according to Kuttner, who launched the magazine in 1990 with Paul Starr and Robert Reich under the nonprofit American Prospect Inc.
Kuttner maintained the magazine will remain a biweekly, unless the "bottom fell out" and necessitated a reassessment, he said.
"If somebody wanted to write us a large paycheck, we would go weekly," Kuttner said.
Johnston, the Schumann Foundation appointee who has been on The American Prospect board for about a year, denied that he "sounded the alarm" -- those are Kaus' words -- after looking over the magazine's books.
"We're happy with the magazine," said Johnston, executive vice president of the Capital Group Cos. Inc. Los Angeles. "There's no problem with the books. It's just that magazines like this always need money. We told them five years ago we would help them ramp up. The plan was, and is, to have us fade into the background and have other foundations and endowments pick up the slack, and that seems to be the case. We've been their principal funder, and we are grateful that others are stepping forward to run the magazine."
Reached by e-mail, Kaus said that his use of "foundering" to describe The American Prospect was a little harsh, and that "floundering" may be a better description.
"I assume (Schumann Foundation head and PBS personality Bill) Moyers will give him more money," Kaus said. "But I stand by everything I've written about the magazine's financial crisis, plus the ongoing editorial troubles. I've gotten no hint from anyone ... that I got it wrong. I would say Kuttner's credibility on these matters is not high. He's denied things before -- e.g., that Robert Reich wasn't going to leave the magazine, which Reich has now done -- that have turned out to be true." (Reich, a Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate, was the magazine's chairman and now is on leave from the publication.)
Kaus acknowledges, though, that he and Kuttner have "had spats in the past."
Although he agrees with Kuttner's take on health care policy, he says he doesn't like Kuttner's politics in general. (Fifteen years ago, Kuttner was the house liberal and Kaus was the house conservative for the New Republic.)
"I wrote a whole book attacking his brand of liberalism, which I think is too fixated on money redistribution and too committed to pleasing Democratic constituencies," Kaus said. "That's what one of the spats was about -- an article I wrote in advance of the book summarizing it. It's why I think he's worth attacking. I don't know him well enough to dislike him personally."
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