« Bad Max | Main | The Case for 1997 » Boring Pundits19 Sep 2007 01:28 pm Everyone's talking about T.A. Frank's article exploring the question of why people find Bob Herbert dull. More interesting, who is it, exactly, who has the stomach to read Robert Samuelson's columns? Today, he's writing the country's strong economic performance during Alan Greenspan's tenure at the fed: "Was this luck -- or Greenspan's skill? The answer: some of both." Some of both! Fascinating. Comments (39)
Robert Samuelson is the most irrelevant columnist working in DC today, and that's saying something. Seriously, what thinking person would pay to have him give a lecture, or appear on a TV show? What position does he advocate on any issue at all? He lacks even Richard Cohen's negligible charisma. 
Matt, some of the stuff you write drives me nuts, but it is stuff like the bizarre, yet badly needed, jihad you are waging against the ridiculous Samuelson that keeps me coming back. He may only be the second-most ridiculous pundit with a walrus mustache, but he is fucking awful.
Fairly simple, Samuelson is a white guy writing about how to keep rich guy's taxes low--Interesting! Herbert is a black guy talking about the poor and minorities-Dullsville!
Bob Herbert broke the Tulia story nationally, and he's a hero for that. I still remember his reporting on Tulia; I don't think I could describe any individual columns Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, or Paul Krugman wrote more than two weeks ago. NOT BORING.
In my opinion, people find Bob Herbert's writing dull because-- despite the man's intelligence, thoughtfulness and concern for relevant-yet-overlooked issues--his prose is, stylistically, unrelentingly drab and monotonous. He's the anti-Christopher Hitchens. Robert Samuelson, on the other hand, is at least sort of readable, whatever intellectual shortcomings he may have.
Rob's substantially correct, although it's probably true that if Herbert was a black person who talked about how awful blacks are, he'd be considered very interesting indeed.
Thanks for the reference to Tulia. I'd never heard of it. A horrifying disgrace to everyone (Clinton, Bush, Cornyn, Ashcroft, et al) who flinched from the case until Herbert publicized it.
Re Samuelson As bad as Samuelson is, he's no worse then Tom Friedman or Maureen Dowd and is certainly to be preferred to a degenerate like Robert Novak.
If were Herbert and the NY Times, I would re-assign myself to 6 articles in the NY Times magazine a year versus a twice-a-week column. The article Matt linked covered this briefly: Herbert writes in a style that never leaves any lingering images unless it covers specific injustices. If you gave Herber the a NY Times mag slot, he could bang out some tremendous articles that take advantage of his assets, which are his reporting skills and ability to delve into situations/topics that demand more than 700 words. A 700 word column requires either catch-phrases (Friedman learned this a long-time ago - you can be an idiot, but if Russert and Mathews find your metaphor amusing, your in) and quick hits. It must attack, often forgoing the necessary depth required for such a topic. Krugman's talent lay in his ability to throw statistics at you in one sentence, and then attack in the very next sentence.
Sameulson is somewhat dull but unexceptionable. He's very conventional, but not usually outright wrong, and stuffs his columns with enough facts that you might actually learn something by reading them. Not if, you know, you already knew something about the topic, but in other cases. This actually puts him miles ahead of most other columnists.
You know what, this just came to me, but tell me if this summarizes Herbert's reputation for being boring: Herbert writes his columns in the same manner as the board editorials are written. I have not read a NY Times editorial in years either.
In an odd twist, his latest column (September 18, 2007 "GOP 's Dirty Tricks Begin" is actually interesting.
Good point on the editorial board thing, Brad. You need to be a highly individual performer or incredibly connected to make it as a columnist. There are very few who can be performers without being buffoons, or connected without being sellouts.
Fairly simple, Samuelson is a white guy writing about how to keep rich guy's taxes low--Interesting! Herbert is a black guy talking about the poor and minorities-Dullsville! Yep. Sameulson is somewhat dull but unexceptionable. He's very conventional, but not usually outright wrong, and stuffs his columns with enough facts that you might actually learn something by reading them. Not if, you know, you already knew something about the topic, but in other cases. I've long thought that Samuelson benefits from the innumeracy that's common among those with an "education" in journalism. The typical Samuelson column is stuffed with numbers. He may be lying with them, and they may be only tangentially related to whatever point he's trying to get across. He could certainly present them with more clarity and economy in a table or chart. But in any case he shoehorns the stats into every paragraph, and that alone might be enough to overawe his readers and his editors, even as their eyes glaze over.
R. Samuelson is infuriating from the economist point of view. Whenever I fail to skip reading him, I foam at the corner of my mouth in anger.
R. Samuelson is infuriating from the economist point of view. Whenever I fail to skip reading him, I foam at the corner of my mouth in anger.
Today, he's writing the country's strong economic performance during Alan Greenspan's tenure at the fed: "Was this luck -- or Greenspan's skill? Better that than yet another hackish piece about how the Entitlements! Crisis! means we have to cut Social Security benefits.
Herbert is tedious not because he often writes about poor blacks but because he deals in emotionalism and seems incapable of connecting the dots to broader policy issues. For example, his recent column on the lack of jobs for black teenagers made no mention of the impact of illegal immigration. Might not there be more jobs for black teens in landscaping or the restaurant business if employers didn't have the option of hiring more docile illegal Mexicans? Don't expect Herbert to touch that one. To Samuelson's credit, he has written rationally about the effects of unskilled immigration. Also, Herbert's attacks on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as an affirmative action hire were an embarrassing case of the pot calling the kettle black: they were both affirmative action hires, obviously. If the Times could have avoided hiring the crappy Herbert and gotten a first-rate black writer by offering the job to John McWhorter. As an added bonus, McWhorter, a conservative, would have obviated the need to hire the milquetoast mediocrity David Brooks. The Times could have easily went back to the bench to get another liberal columnist.
they were both affirmative action hires, obviously. Oh, obviously. Everyone knows them ni**ers'd all be where they belong--shinin' shoes 'n' pickin' cotton--ef the dam' librul ni**er-lovers din't go givin' em high-level jobs.
James Gary, Why must you make an a** of yourself? John McWhorter is black. He would be an eminently well-qualified op-ed writer, because he can write intelligently and rationally about policy; Bob Herbert isn't because he can't. That the New York Times has a soft spot for African Americans and is prone to giving them affirmative action is an accurate observation, not a racist statement. See, for example, the Jason Blair affair. And I never said that affirmative action is solely the province of Democrats. Republicans have been guilty of this too. Clarence Thomas is an obvious example.
Matt, stick to foreign policy where your logical skills give you a big advantage over just about anybody out there. This kind of content-free sniping at Robert Samuelson, however, just exposes that you've got a lot of work to do on your numeracy before you take him on.
Bob Herbert's an affirmative action hire, but he represents the best case scenario for affirmative action: he's qualified for his job, he's just not the best person they could have hired for the job. But they had to hire somebody black so they hired him, and he turned out to be hard-working, reasonable, and dull. Really, though, two out of three ain't bad (as Jack Nicholson says in "Mars Attacks"), so I'd cut him some slack.
The other reason nobody in the blogosphere pays any attention to Herbert is because white liberals in 2007 find thinking about blacks (Herbert's main subject, especially poor blacks) to be depressing and boring. It's much, much more fun to hate white conservatives! Of course, accusing other whites of racism (as in the Duke Lacrosse case) is tons of fun for white liberals, but most white liberals deep down understand that black problems by now, a couple of generations after civil rights, are increasingly self-inflicted and that they don't have a clue what to do about it. So, why read dreary old Bob Herbert?
I think that Herbert is ignored for the same reason that Paul Wellstone lost 99-1 so many times. The limit of the possible have been changed since 1980 and 1994. Lots of people who think they're "on the left" will say "That's all very well, but let's be realistic". Herbert's issues have been written off. After they say this a few dozen times, people "on the the left" basically lock themselves into a habit of dismissing or minimizing this kind of issue. Same with Kucinich and Gravel. They're the only one's with Iraq policies that Kos would be willing to support, but Kos ridicules them. They're outside the limits of the possible. (So is Kos, but he doesn't know it. We all may be).
We all may be. Except for Fred, of course, and the visionary Steve Sailer.
The main reason Matt doesn't like Robert Samuelson is that Robert Samuelson, more than any other journo, keeps his focus on the immense fiscal problems we will face when baby boomers start to retire. We're in the middle of a long slog in which we will go from having four workers for every old person reliant on government checks to a two to one ratio. Paul Krugman has somehow convinced himself this is no big deal, and Matt believes him.
Right, and Samuelson, bravely, points out that importing millions of illegal unskilled immigrants isn't going to solve the long run fiscal problems. Unskilled immigrants and their children tend to be net tax consumers.
Herbert is "dull" because he's not a shallow, snarky creep like Maureen Dowd and he doesn't have the grotesquely amusing writing style of Tom Friedman. This is to his credit. It is true that Krugman is both substantive and a better stylist than Herbert, but ya know, maybe the affluent readership of the NYT could give up their right to be amused for a couple of minutes and read Herbert because he has something to say. Or maybe this is too much to ask from the class of people who've evidently made Tom Friedman a best-selling author.
"It is true that Krugman is both substantive and a better stylist than Herbert..." Since you concede that Herbert, a professional journalist, is a worse writer than an economist moonlighting as an op/ed writer, aren't you forced to concede that he is an affirmative action hire? Jason DeParle could write twice-weekly lamentations about poor blacks better than Bob Herbert does.
This is truly a disgusting thread.
"If were Herbert and the NY Times, I would re-assign myself to 6 articles in the NY Times magazine a year versus a twice-a-week column." They already have Jason DeParle, who can do this better than Herbert.
Since you concede that Herbert, a professional journalist, is a worse writer than an economist moonlighting as an op/ed writer, aren't you forced to concede that he is an affirmative action hire? Jesus fucking Christ. Dan Brown, a professional novelist, may be the worst writer in the history of English letters, and I include William McGonagall. Therefore Dan Brown is clearly an affirmative action hire designed to appease the politically correct hordes of lumpy white people with weird ideas about Catholicism ripped off from Frenchmen. It's a fun game to play at home! Now explain Friedman.
This is truly a disgusting thread. Fred is truly a disgusting human being. Or at least he plays one on the internets, as grim fool to Sailer-boy. (If the latter's the case, I hope he's well compensated.) Herbert isn't the most compelling prose stylist; he'd be better suited writing for a different format, because the 700-worder does need to stab you in the eyes. (Though we can also speculate on the future of the 700-worder.) But damn, he comes up with more substance in a week than Richard Cohen produces in a year.
Your summary of Samuelson on Greenspan might just as well apply to Brad DeLong's review of Greenspan's book in the LATimes Sunday. DeLong has supported Greenspan right along and that's why I stopped reading him. What to make of 'left' economists who have been wrong all along?
"Jesus fucking Christ. Dan Brown, a professional novelist, may be the worst writer in the history of English letters, and I include William McGonagall. Therefore Dan Brown is clearly an affirmative action hire..." That has to be the worst analogy I've seen on this blog yet. How can Dan Brown be an affirmative action hire if no one has hired him? You understand that novelists don't work on salary, right? "Now explain Friedman." Touché. Friedman has a masters degree from Oxford, two Pulitzer Prizes for reporting, a third Pulitzer Prize for commentary, a few best-selling books, and a National Book Award. Herbert has a bachelors from Empire State College and a Meyer Berger Award.
Friedman also has the worst moustache in all of punditry. It is not long enough to hail as a "porn" stache, and then actually be cool in an ironic manner. Nor is it short enough to illicit style (think Timothy Dalton in his roles in period pieces). Instead, it is stuck in 1985, when aging Boomers still thought staches were cool, but had to trim them for the boss. As such, Friedman looks like an insurance salesman from Omaha.
Interestingly enough, Sullivan also decided to get in on the action at his blog. He writes: He is cruel to Herbert, yet, cannot see the hypocrisy of calling another writer self-righteous right above posting this: "Previous war-presidents have gathered opponents into their cabinets, reached out to estranged former allies, engaged in aggressive diplomacy to maximize effectiveness and rallied the whole country for the fight. What does this one do? Gets a bunch of right-wing "journalists" into the White House to spread some partisan talking points. What a f'n (edited for content) disgrace this man and his journalistic lackeys are. Excuse my language. But I can't take this any longer. We're at war; and he's still playing Rove's game."
And as for Herbert, his issue is that he never really provides opinion. Instead, he writes a 700 word article.
[Samuelson on] Alan Greenspan's tenure at the fed: "Was this luck -- or Greenspan's skill? The answer: some of both."Shouldn't it be "some of each"?
Comments closed October 03, 2007. |
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Heads in the Sand
doesn't the very existence of the "why is frank herbert dull?" question undermine your earlier assertion that all the NYTimes columnists aren't worth reading?
i mean, the entire herbert-is-dull thing is premised on the notion that he, unlike the other NYT columnists doesn't become part of larger policy discussions. but the flip-side of that is the idea that everyone else other than herbert is part of the discussion.
not that i'm not cheering the end of the times select firewall with everyone else. i just think the herbert debate demonstrates that, in fact, most of the times columnists managed to remain relevant notwithstanding the firewall.
Posted by upyernoz | September 19, 2007 1:38 PM