The Times' Columnists

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The Times is doing itself and its readership a serious disservice with the columnists they've recently added plus their continuation of Friedman.

Krugman, IMHO, is their best. No, not just because he takes on the Bushies, but because he looks beyond the numbers and I think he spins a lot less than most columnists. I don't think he set himself up to be the favorite target of the extremists; instead, the extremists targeted hm so severely that they may have pushed him to oppose them. But I still do not believe what's said about him cooking facts and figures, not when so many other economists who are not political commentators, seem to be saying much the same thing.

Krugman's words today remind me of words spoken by Richard H. Slone, a psychotherapist I saw for a time in the 1980s: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is crucified." In my 20s, I didn't "get" it; now I do - oh boy, do I ever.

Bush hands us unrealistic bullshit and, when Krugman tries to counter it with facts and figures, the extremists jump all over him and act like he's responsible for the mess.

Bob Herbert is also very good, but gets far less attention than he deserves. Maureen Dowd can be good, but she often comes out as shrill and inconsistent. One woman in all those male columnists. But I'm becoming a fan of her TV appearances where I think she's the rare person who can express herself better verbally than in columns. I definitely want to get her next book.

David Brooks, as I've said, struck me as fairly reasonable for a rightie until he began doing a column for The Times. His columns are consistently baffling, bizarre, myopic, and untruthful. He was a token hire, and a bad one at that.

John Tierney, who replaced the ridiculous and mean-spirited Nixon devotee, Bill Safire, is like a caricature of himself. His great insights include "being overweight is good for you" and "the difference between wealthy people and those struggling paycheck to paycheck amounts to a bad attitude". Oy, says this goy!

Bill Keller should return to writing columns; I'm not sure he's been a great top dog. I believe it was his promotion that led to the sad naming of Brooks the Op/Ed page.

And Friedman? Give him a job with Murdoch's murky media. He only comes off well when compared to the real nutcase whackjobs like Bill O'Reilly and Charles Krauthammer, the so-called shrink who writes for the Wapo where he tells us every week that Democrats are insane and morally bereft. This illness, he insists, also applies to any non-Democrat who doesn't kiss Bush's rump.