Free Republic

NPR.org, February 13, 2005 · Do you like the Whack-a-Mole game from the old arcades? Would you really want to be the Mole? Michael Kinsley apparently would. He's the relatively new editorial and opinion page editor for the Los Angeles Times. And over the past several Sundays he's invited a series of critics of the Times to beat the paper up -- in the paper's own editorial pages. The first guest Kinsley landed for the guest column? Blogger Mickey Kaus, who writes a feature called "Kausfiles" for the online magazine Slate -- a skeptic so severely disposed against the L.A....

Just a few of the tidbits the LA Slime had to say about the most beloved President of our lifetime: ...ignoring unpleasant facts, idealizing hopeful fantasies. .... notoriously detached and inattentive to the details .....playing his best role ever. ..... federal debt that was nearly triple its level .....the fallacious "supply side" economic notion that government revenues rise if taxes are cut. While espousing basic small-town American values, he was a divorced man with estranged children. poor got poorer.....helped create the savings and loan debacle......jobs lost to corporate downsizing and outsourcing......

<p>The Los Angeles Times editor behind the controversial revelations about Arnold Schwarzenegger's groping exploits said the governor-elect was fair game, and the paper has no regrets about an exposé that came late in the campaign.</p> <p>John S. Carroll, the L.A. Times' top editor, said the decision to go after the gubernatorial candidate was made early in the campaign, without the help of Democratic operatives or Gov. Gray Davis, whom voters decided last week to replace with the Hollywood action hero.</p>