By James North Studs Terkel was the smartest person I ever met, and the greatest single influence on me as a writer. He was much more than his folksy, cigar-chomping red-checked-shirt persona, authentic as that was. The last time I…
A smear on a good man–Khalidi–in the desperate last days of a presidential race is one of those thrilling political events that is supposed to produce spine-tingling rhetoric. Obama didn’t deliver, of course, because he’s tight with the Is lob….
Smart piece by Ethan Porter in New Republic saying Obama held on to the Jews with many a shrewd move. And making the point that Palin alienated Jews on cultural grounds, being from a small town and not very literate…
Newspapers are in a free fall, and here’s another forum on whether blogging can save journalism, passed on by a newspaper editor (Peter Voskamp). I hate these conversations. Journalism is going to the internet, like it or not. There’s only…
Last night in an interview, Rachel Maddow of MSNBC tried to get Obama to criticize the Republican Party, and he wouldn’t. Obama’s playing for Republicans now. It’s time to identify a central characteristic of this great politician: his ambiguity. Obama…
An excellent piece in Toronto Life about the school once known as Jew U. York University was a home to Jewish up-and-comers in the 60s. Now it’s become a hotbet of Palestinian activism. Kippas versus Kaffiyehs. Of course there are…
Here is how Obama threw Khalidi under the bus, per the JPost: Asked by a member of the Jewish community about the relationship during a campaign stop in Florida, Obama responded, “To pluck out one person who I know and…
Trita Parsi of the National Iranian American Council says in the Guardian says that an Iranian bomb, and more bombs in the Middle East, is a horrifying prospect. Put all international energy into allowing enrichment, thereby allowing Iranian scientific prestige….
From The New York Times today: “It just seems really ironic to me that Rashid would be singled out as a figure in the trumped-up controversy,” Alan Brinkley, Columbia’s provost and a friend of Mr. Khalidi’s since 1985, said in…