According to Media Matters, the possible replacements for William Safire are a disappointing lot. Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes seem to be on the short list along with Fact-esque favorite, John Tierney. (here, here, here, here and here) I think he's the obvious choice - promoting from within and all. He's also got that libertarian curmudgeon vibe that already makes him the John Stossel of the corporate print media. Why not reward that kind of thoughtful reporting? Imagine a bi-weekly, high-profile column with this kind of reasoning:
As the richest parents in history, the baby boomers can afford to worry about minuscule risks that were taken for granted in their own youth. They rode around without seat belts, but their offspring must have air bags. They spent hours in smoke- filled cars and rooms, but when their children go to a restaurant it's intolerable for anyone to be smoking at the bar in the next room.
The boomers are more fearful than their own parents in part because they waited so long to have children — an older parent has seen more go wrong and feels stronger intimations of mortality. They're also fearful because their families are so small. Peasants have generally favored large families as insurance against losing children; with affluence, parents try to buy their way out of risk (and the trouble of raising large families) by investing a lot in a few offspring.
He's a regular sociologist. Or maybe that's satire. It's hard to know with Tierney. When I wrote him a truly satirical letter posing as a person who agreed with his argument since she had already had two boys and two girls and was, therefore, less concerned about losing one of either gender, he wrote back something unflattering about the religious left. I was confused but it made sense to John and that's what counts most when he writes. So I hope he gets the op-ed gig. His venomous and clueless snark will be the perfect compliment to fellow hack David Brooks' folksy, scolding rehashes of RNC talking points. Here's Brooks stumping for globalization:
Over the past decades, many nations have undertaken structural reforms to lower trade barriers, shore up property rights and free economic activity. International trade is surging. The poor nations that opened themselves up to trade, investment and those evil multinational corporations saw the sharpest poverty declines. Write this on your forehead: Free trade reduces world suffering.
Free trade is a panacea and boomers make frightened, aged parents who want to buy themselves out of risk. Really, how can the NYT turn down a shot at having a team of op-ed columnists churning out deep thinking like that?
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