A small news source with a long-loved history in Philadelphia. Back when Philadelphia was a three-newspaper town, the evening Philadelphia Bulletin was the largest-circulation daily with its own building near the main post office and the Penn Station major train terminal. The morning Philadelphia Inquirer and the afternoon tabloid Philadelphia Daily News were jointly owned by Walter Annenberg until '69, then sold to Knight Ridder, and became a big liberal mess. The Bulletin declined out of business in 1982. The Inquirer had not always been left-leaning; at one time it was known as "the Republican Bible", and just lately it has had a Republican editor, Brian P. Tierney, who is trying to bring the Inky back off the edge of extinction, but Philadelphia has long been a union-heavy Democrat stronghold, with its large population of working-class ethnics of many kinds, and non-working persons of color.
Herb Denenberg had been Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and for many years had a pro-consumer radio broadcast about insurance and consumer matters. He is someone whom you would expect to be a Democrat; perhaps he has been registered Dem (he is probably a little older than Ed Rendell, the Dem Governor of PA and former Mayor and DA of Philly, and like Rendell, Denenberg is Jewish). But his stunning biography indicates a brilliant and independent mind -- almost a modern-day Benjamin Franklin. Perhaps the fate of Israel has informed his ardent editorials like the one above. Whatever the case, he is a mensch who has been loved in PA for a long time. Here is his web site: The Denenberg Report
Pinging Kid Shelleen — would your Delaware valley ping list be interested in this Herb Denenberg article?
Thanks for posting some history on The Bulletin and Herb Denenberg, AW.
A couple of FReepers have commented about remembering The Bulletin and Herb from years back and I do recall one saying he used to be a Dem. I guess he’s just too intelligent to have remained one. :)