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TANENHAUS


                                             June      12, 2012
                                             September 21, 2013


This was quite a yawner, as headlines go,
from back on June 9, 2012:

  "Krugman takes dig at Romney"

Buried down in it was the real news:

  "Krugman Bites New York Times Editor".    Back then, Krugman was
                                            pounding the pavement to get
He actually called out Sam                  the word out about his book
Tanenhaus by name, accusing                 "End This Depression, Now!".
him of being a total neo-con
who makes a point of finding                    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/06/09/krugman-takes-dig-at-romney-in-netroots-nation-address/
reviewers who will trash                        Dave Ferguson, June 9, 2012
progressive books.                              "The Raw Story"

I don't know whether Tanenhaus
has been doing this as a rule,
but he's certainly been doing         KENNEDYS_CONSCIENCE
it to Krugman's books.


   I may have dimly heard that Sam Tanenhaus
   was the editor of the New York Times Book
   Review, but didn't connect that up with the
   uh, shall we say *shitty* reviews that Paul       I propose the term
   Krugman books have been recieving from the        "shitty" as a technical
   Times, which one might naively assume would       term since the word
   be on the side of one of their columnists.        "bad" is ambiguous:
                                                     "I got a bad review"
                                                     often just means "I
                                                     got a negative review".


So, in my capacity as a Krugman-fanboy, I'm
inclined to take a dim view of Tanenhaus,
but I resolved to try to put that aside and
see what I could learn about the fellow

He did some interviews on a show called
Openminds.  In Part 1, concerning the
New York Times:

       The Times used to review heated,
       polemical books in a calm tone,
       "I thought the time had come for
       *stronger voices* to be heard".      Well that's
                                            a nice excuse.


       He was formerly the editor of "The New Republic",
       and now regards "The New Republic" as one of
       their competitors... so his current gig is
       the-new-republic-part-II?  That's a bit of a
       problem, right there, eh?


       "-- John Updike and Philip Roth,
       great writers who will be with us
       for a very long time."                 Please no.  No one cares
                                              about Philip Roth except
                                              editors from New York.

                                              (John Updike, at least,
                                              may someday make it off
                                              my "to be read" list.)



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