Joy: Wall Street Journal signs up condescending liberal columnist!
If you’ve followed the coverage of Crackerquiddick (and Arugulagate and Cheesemistake) , you might have seen the name Thomas Frank mentioned. He’s the guy who wrote What’s The Matter With Kansas? I haven’t read it, but Mark Steyn reviews it succinctly:
Obama and far too many Democrats have bought into this delusion, most thoroughly distilled in Thomas Frank’s book “What’s The Matter With Kansas?”, whose argument is that heartland voters are too dumb (i.e., “moronic muppets”) to vote for their own best interests.
Or, you can read Frank’s own take on the elitism hullabaloo in the Wall Street Journal:
It is a stereotype you have heard many times before: Besotted with latte-fueled arrogance, the liberal looks down on average people, confident that he is a superior being. He scoffs at religion because he finds it to be a form of false consciousness. He believes in regulation because he thinks he knows better than the market.
“Elitism” is thus a crime not of society’s actual elite, but of its intellectuals.
There’s also a slam on Hillary’s fauxletarian barhopping:
Ah, but Hillary Clinton: Here’s a woman who drinks shots of Crown Royal, a luxury brand that at least one confused pundit believes to be another name for Old Prole Rotgut Rye.
Well, Crown Royal is a special-occasion tipple, but it isn’t Lagavulin. And what’s more, “buying the bar a double round of Crown” makes an appearance in the decidedly non-elitist Big & Rich country chart-topper Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy. Come to think of it, I’ve seen Crown Royal bags around people’s houses all my life, so I think it actually has more regular-folks credibility than Hillary Clinton does. But that’s whiskey under the bridge. What really motivates Frank?
If Barack Obama or anyone else really cares to know what I think, I will simplify it all down to this. The landmark political fact of our time is the replacement of our middle-class republic by a plutocracy. If some candidate has a scheme to reverse this trend, they’ve got my vote, whether they prefer Courvoisier or beer bongs spiked with cough syrup. I don’t care whether they enjoy my books, or would rather have every scrap of paper bearing my writing loaded into a C-47 and dumped into Lake Michigan. If it will help restore the land of relative equality I was born in, I’ll fly the plane myself.
There’s the real problem with America. Forget terrorists, war, nuclear proliferation, illegal immigration, gun control, or abortion, you deluded rubes…don’t you realize that somewhere in America, someone is getting rich? Quick! Stop them!
Why am I bothering with Frank? Well, the end of the column indicates that Mr. Frank will begin taking up this war on plutocracy on a weekly basis in the pages of the Wall Street Journal next month. If they wanted to diversify, they could have gotten someone with a different take on conservative issues than their editorial board–a libertarian, or even better, a border-security conservative. But no, they went for broke and got a class-warfare one-trick progressive pony. I’m sure the WSJ’s rich-business-guy target demographic will love this new weekly reminder of how evil they are.
_________________
If you’d like a quick measure of Frank, here’s a 2005 article he wrote on his favorite subject of Republican class warfare for the New York Review of Books. Now, obviously this was before Barack Obama and Bill Ayers’ bee-yootiful friendship became a news item, and before FARC and Hamas endorsed Obama, so I wonder whether Frank might wish to reconsider this passage:
If you talk like a Texan, you are a two-fisted he-man who knows life’s hardships and are ready to scrap at a moment’s notice. This is the reason conservative authors and radio demagogues find it so easy to connect liberals and terrorists.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
And ignore that possibility which Frank never quite gets around to addressing: that liberals are thought to be condescending elitists who despise Southerners and small-town values because they actually are condescending elitists who despise Southerners and small-town values. That’s just what Karl Rove wants you to think:
(Language warning)
It’s all in your head.
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Cdub –
i think you’re reading this wrong. this is a stroke of Rovesque genius. what BETTER person to put in the pages that conservatives read? condescending? NICE! liberal? PERFECT. Frank is the type of liberal that makes conservatives.
Small-town America. Nothing more/less/else.
Gee. I always made the connection because they seem to be in a symbiotic relationship. Silly me.
bloghooligan said it well. The extreme contrast of ideas will pave the road to our conservative victories.
This isn’t the first time that the WSJ has put a dyed in the wool liberal on its oped pages. Back in the 1980s, the WSJ put on the oped page a far left antiAmerican radical named Alexander Cockburn. Cockburn fancied himself a Middleeast expert and devoted most of his columns to venerating Yasser Arafat, questioning the legitmacy of the State of Israel and blaming Ronald Reagan for every dispute between the US and the Soviet Union. The WSJ loved Cockburn’s slash and burn style. I’m not surprised that the WSJ found another far left guy to put on the page.
I somehow managed to force my way through What’s The Matter With Kansas? about a year ago. Like any good Marxist, he thinks economics and class are (and should be) the ultimate driving force of history. He finds it absolutely unbearable that people decide their vote on on other factors, such as abortion, and concludes these voters are delusional. Why can’t they see that lynching the rich and dividing up the spoils is in their best self interest? The views expressed in this book are a guide to liberal snobbery. and is a must read for all aspiring elitists.
Thomas Frank understands us benighted untermenschen in flyover land far better than we understand ourselves. Like Garrison Keillor, only funnier.
This brings back memories….from the 80′s
.
.
.
when I used to read the Journal.
If they want to sell papers in New York they need liberal oped writers. Its too bad that an entire state is sullied by one city.
Wow, they’re actually pterending to be men…
Oh goody, goody gum-drops – more exposure to the liberal point of view in print media! How original!
Expat, an entire state sullied? Half the population lives in or near the city. Give NYC some credit.
This is no different than the NYC hiring that hack, Bill Kristol. When an editorial page has a certain reputation, the easy fix is to hire someone on the opposite of the ideological spectrum. Talent is not a prerequisite.
Larraby–
I didn’t know that about Cockburn. I run into his name quite often because he’s a moonbat’s moonbat–a truther who thinks the CIA is some kind of global narcoterrorist mafia. The thought of him writing for the WSJ op-ed page (especially under the sober eye of Bob Bartley) is hilarious.
I used to read the journal when they had Al Hunt writing op-eds from the left, but he was fairly innocuous. And he was a decent political reporter, too.
I don’t necessarily mind them adding a liberal columnist if they think it will help sell papers, but a class-war prophet like Frank seems a very odd choice for the WSJ.
The oft repeated complaint on this site is that “diversity” is a catchphrase the left hypocritically employs to promote race, sex and religious quotas – but which conspicuously omits political difference. Yet, here is an example of diversity as dreamed of by so many regular posters on this site! I would assume this effort to include a (token) voice from far, far outside the conservative mainstream of WSJ would be welcomed and praised!
Ha. I keed, I keed.
Trust me – if you’re even half as annoyed by this as I was when the Times hired William Kristol, my heart goes out to you.
Cockburn used to write for the Village Voice with James Ridgeway. The Voice dropped him when it was revealed that he was taking, shall we say, Middle Eastern money.
Rusty,
I give the city lots of credit but the people in the city are a different story. A lot of them are the same Westchester crowd that voted Hillary into the senate. I grew up on Long Island and have a great love for New York and the northeast. I just get troubled by the libs who run things.
Rusty, NYK–I’m not that annoyed by the WSJ’s decision; like I said in the comment above, they need to sell papers, but I do kind of regret they didn’t go for a different sort of conservative. This guy just seems like a particularly bad fit for their audience.
Funny thing: conservatives hired for a left-leaning publication (i.e. David Brooks for the NYT) seem to veer left once they get the new slot. But lefties like Al Hunt stay reliably on message throughout their tenure.
Any guesses as to why that is?
WSJ is a business advocacy newspaper, and smuggling in illegal aliens is good for the bottom line and for subsidizing non-competitive businesses.
It is also socialistic as the taxpayer picks up the tab for the expenses of the illegal aliens over their paycheck. Also corrupt to smuggle in illegal aliens.
It is therefore a mistake to attribute to the WSJ editors anything more than a selfish advocacy for business at the expense of the nation as a whole. They may disguise their selfishness and lack of patriotism as free trade philosophy, but there isn’t really much to these people other than a lowbrow bottom line world view. Bottom feeders.
It is all part of the Neocon-lefty alliance forming at the WSJ.
Long time lurker. First time poster. That You Tube video of the young moonbats from UW is frightening.
It becomes more clear every day that Liberalism truly is a mental illness.
Love ya Michelle. My wife is Filipina-American like you. We really appreciate your work.
Well, ain’t that rich…everything old is new again. Memo to Mr. Frank: economists call this the paradox of public choice, and it applies to *all* voters regardless of whatever class you want to lump them into. Your take on this issue is nothing but rehashed economic philosophy aimed at a segment of the popluation you snobishly disparage. Take my word for it: they don’t care what you think. They can, will, and do act in their own self interest, no matter what any self aggrandizing asshat thinks – (that would be you, Mr. Frank) – or any politician – for what it’s worth. *out*
According to the release emailed out the OpinionJournal subscribers last night, the move to add Frank was specifically to add a “left-of-center” viewpoint and to replace the more liberal side of things that had been lacking for a number of years on the opinion pages. To get there, they’re expanding the OpEd of the paper’s Section A to be 3 pages rather than 2.
Guess we’ll see how it plays in the market, how the readership of the WSJ actually respond to it. Personally, I gotta agree that the whole coast vs midlands position is inherently elitist, but that’s nothing new. As Frank points out, it’s been around for years!
This guy has been thoroughly discredited. He is openly ridiculed by pundits as the ‘problem’ liberals have. So why hire this creep?
Yep! Keep looking your elitist noses down at the common citizen in flyover country you snob. At least when stuff hits the fan most of us will be able to take care of ourselves and our neighbors unlike the sophisticated big city dwellers that will have a nervous breakdown when basic services are no longer available and they won’t be able to get their morning Latte.
Read “What’s The Matter With California?” by Jack Cashill. The book analyzes certain past events that have contributed to California-style liberalism. It’s not a perfect analysis, but it’s a good counter to the spiteful “Kansas” book, which reads like an exercise in bitterness.
And, Mr. Frank, who exactly qualifies as an intellectual? I guess Mr. Steyn doesn’t qualify. And especially not I. I still have to use a calculator once in a while. I do like a good cup ‘o coffee, though.
I’m getting bitter with the overuse of the word “bitter” lately. Admittedly, I’m guilty of overusing it lately, too. I like “rancorous.” Reminds me of the big pit monster from “Return of the Jedi.”
Would Obama prefer we were apathetic? I think I just answered my own question.
Yeah, the Wall Street Journal ceased to be a conservative publication when Murdoch acquired it. Can we honestly call Fox News conservative? I’ll move to a contrarian position and say that I agree with the below quote:
He’s spot on about this, but most likely for the wrong reasons. The transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy does not come from ‘greedy’ corporations or successful individuals, it originates from the Federal Government and its lacky Federal Reserve’s borrow, spend and inflate policies. There’s no better way to kill the middle class then to cause massive inflation and put them in the poor house.
A positive note is that this problem will get a weekly column in a prestigious publication, the negative is he’ll most likely not be putting the blame where it belongs. Which might be worse in the long run…
This guy won’t last. Remember the last liberal columnist at the Journal? Neither do I, but there was such an individual. I sent several emails protesting his mindless, stereotypical liberalism. Suspect the editors received several thousand similar missives a week. And then he was gone. We’ll get rid of this moonbat as well.
Heh. Funny video. I especially enjoyed how they continually mixed up their “redneck” and “hood” dialects. Morons.
How timely, I just got my WSJ renewal notice.
mnmike, that’s one more good reason to read blogs: saving you money on things you don’t need.
Rusty,
Let me flip the script on you . . How much “credit” does the NYC crowd give to the rest of the state, or the rest of the coutry, for that matter?
They think they are the center of the earth or something, yet most people in Manhattan live a third world existence. Existence is the right word for it. Cramped quarters. No yard. Always eating out. Secular. Everyone you know is a liberal and likes sushi (or pretends to like it). The kind of place that inspired John Lennon to write “Imagine”.
I loved visiting New York, but I often wonder how people live there.
I have subscriped to the WSJ for years and been upset with their drift. After todays editorials I will not renew.
One reason I went to IBD.
Try Investors Business Daily. Much better investing info, and a conservative editorial board.