Op-Ed Sections, Threat or Menace?

Any arguments that point to "religious freedom" or "free speech" mostly come from white Christians who want to freely disparage non-Christian and non-white people without fear of retribution.

 

The one thing I do completely agree with from Weiss' letter was how tiresome each "new" op-ed about Donald Trump being a dangerous lunatic is.

Is any of that revealing? Anyone with half a brain knew that Trump was a horrible human being a long, long time ago and can't be remotely surprised by what a disaster his presidency has been.

Complaining about him only brings attention to him, which he thrives on. I swear, if as soon as he was elected everyone just pretended he didn't exist, he would've gotten bored and quit within 6 months.

Anyway, that's getting off-topic. Carry on.

 

The thing I say about this to white Christians who think people are being unfair to them right now is this: Shut up.

You've been unfair and bullying to people for many centuries. Swallow your pride and take it for 20 minutes if you have to.

 

That's not getting off topic at all. The topic is od-eds.

I mean, what else is a progressive op ed board going to write about, save the 3-4 major political issues of the day? The board wants major political change. It has to write about those things a lot.

 

Correct. But is writing the very obvious about how Donald Trump is an incompetent narcissist really working toward that?

It's far more useful to examine why such a man rose to the presidency. We all know he's terrible. Even those defending him know he's terrible, they just don't want to admit it because they're more involved in political capital.

Trump is not remotely the problem. He's a symptom of the problem. I despise the man, but at this point his critics are actually contributing to how dangerous he can be. It's a shame people didn't just dismiss him his whole life. You'd never have heard of him if what should happen with people like him happened.

 

Bennet was fired, rightly so, for not doing the work. He approached Cotton's office to write an op-ed, and when it came, he never read or participated in the editing process. He also never read the final version. His job was editor of the editorial page and he didn't do it. Not after the fact, well he was cancelled -- whatever the hell that means -- changes the fact that he didn't do the work.

As for Weiss, who gives a shit? I read a ton. And as I have more time now, I somehow read even more and I can't think of a single piece she did that was thought-provoking or made me reexamine my priors. Mostly her takes were boring and conventional. As a writer and thinker, she's not worth a damn. And it is weird, or maybe not, that the other Times opinion writer that applies to is Bedbugs and they're both WSJ alums.

If she really had a problem, then go to HR, or go to the publisher and bring the receipts. Provide the slack messages that were "anti-Semitic." The reality is, based on everything out there, is that her co-workers just didn't like her. And that might be because she was a green-room superstar that didn't do the work. Which is true for lots of opinion writers who spend more time on TV then writing their columns.

Next up is her and Sullivan and Ben Shapiro to launch some bullshit site that will be the landing page for the Biden resistance folks as they'll need a place to roost.

 

I would hate to be an op-ed columnist because it is extremely difficult to come up with semi-original thoughts on the issues of the day, or even not-so-original thoughts expressed well enough to be worth reading. Only thing worse would be to be a humor columnist. If it ain't funny, you're dead. But why I seldom read op-eds is that I know beforehand what 99 percent of them will say just after seeing the byline. Krugman isn't like that on technical economics, but on everything else he is, and even if I agree with him, why bother. Douthat TRIES to come up with new spins, or least old wine in new bottles, but as I said, it's hard. It does earn him a couple of paragraphs before I tune him out. Haven't read Brooks in years, Friedman since Iraq, Dowd in decades.

 

He wasn't fired.

Also: Help me out. What's "out there" about Weiss that's objective? There may be a ton for all I know. But what is it?

 

c'mon

 

Neither was Ms. Weiss.

She's a quitter, not a martyr.

 

In her case, depends on what those Slack messages said.