Free Republic

Nation columnist and government worker, tenured professor Eric Alterman defends public employee unions

The following 65 names are confirmed members of the now-defunct JournoList listserv. 1. Ezra Klein 2. Dave Weigel 3. Matthew Yglesias 4. David Dayen 5. Spencer Ackerman 6. Jeffrey Toobin 7. Eric Alterman 8. Paul Krugman 9. John Judis 10. Eve Fairbanks 11. Mike Allen 12. Ben Smith 13. Lisa Lerer 14. Joe Klein 15. Brad DeLong 16. Chris Hayes 17. Matt Duss 18. Jonathan Chait 19. Jesse Singal 20. Michael Cohen 21. Isaac Chotiner 22. Katha Pollitt 23. Alyssa Rosenberg 24. Rick Perlstein 25. Alex Rossmiller 26. Ed Kilgore 27. Walter Shapiro 28. Noam Scheiber 29. Michael Tomasky 30....

After our very own Editor-in-Chief David Horowitz wrote a post blasting progressive columnist and Professor of literature Eric Alterman, I sent the latter an email, inviting him to respond to Horowitz’s post right here, at NewsReal Blog. Why? Well, because we, unlike most progressives, mean it when we say we encourage debate. Alterman emailed me back immediately. The answer was short: “No thanks.” It’s what I should have expected from a leftist, of course, but for some reason, I expected better of Alterman. I thought he would actually be willing to break ranks with the rest of the radical progressive...

From a non-Jew, it would smack of anti-semitism. From Eric Alterman? You be the judge. The author of the Altercations column at Media Matters has a running complaint: Rick Klein, editor of The Note at ABC News, pays too much respect to the writings of other Jewish pundits. Jennifer Rubin, one of the chief bloggers at Commentary's "Contentions" blog, was Alterman's first target, in his August 1 column [emphasis added throughout]: "I realize I may be the only person in the world to care about this, and I only care a tiny bit, but what does Commentary's Jennifer Rubin have...

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN ) – Columnist and author Eric Alterman was arrested Sunday night inside the debate spin room and charged with criminal trespass after police say he refused repeated orders to leave.

How out there on the left wing is Eric Alterman? MSNBC, the network of Keith Olbermann, he who has accused Pres. Bush of fascism and called for his impeachment - fired him, presumably for being too extreme.But not to worry, Alterman's column, 'Altercation,' was promptly picked up by David Brock's Media Matters. For my sins I recently subscribed to the column's email list. Reading through this evening's edition, one thing emerges: Eric Alterman is one angry guy. In the course of one mere column, Alterman vents his bile in these diverse directions: "This notion of a leftist alliance with Islamic...

I've been in a tiny minority of late - well, it's been me and Karl Rove and a few others - who worry that the polls indicating a Democratic tsunami taking over both houses of Congress may be vastly overstating the likely result. When NBC reports that "52% say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, compared with 37% who want Republicans to maintain power", that's both a misleading and irrelevant statistic. This is not a national election. It is about 500 individual elections, the vast majority of which are fixed by structural factors including gerrymandering, money, population disparities and the power...

At a recent conference on the Clinton Administration at Hofstra University, ex-press secretary Jake Siewart made a point that had previously eluded me: It was during the early days of Clinton's presidency that the democratization of instant information made the insider press corps obsolete. To retain their importance and self-regard, these journalists had to invent a new function for themselves, and they did: interpreting, not reporting, the news. But instead of doing the hard work of researching the historical, economic, sociological and political contexts of a given story and then finding a way to explain these in lay terms, they...

According to Eric Alterman, conservative Christians don’t really like the Jews. The left-wing writer suggested this in the Thursday edition of his MSNBC blog, despite admitting that he knows "darn few" right-wing Christians. (Alterman is known for writing books such as "What Liberal Media?" and others.) He came to this conclusion while expounding on the perceived anti-Semitism of some Europeans: "I wouldn’t argue that the French are not anti-Semitic and that American right-wing Christians are not philo-Semitic, but it’s not that simple. France had Jewish prime ministers in both the thirties and fifties and might get another one soon. No...

After chugging down a rancid carton of Air America Brand milk, well past its sell-by date, MSNBC's Eric Alterman concludes we're the network's real problem. Hope he didn't give them all of his lunch money. MSNBC NewsYes, it's a right-wing conspiracy to silence the "progressive" alternative, led by yours truly, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. It couldn't have anything to do with $875,000 in shady taxpayer grant transfers from a Bronx-based community nonprofit, to the liberal network and resulting city investigation, right? Or that we proved (after producing a signed, notarized document) Al Franken knew about...

Al Franken And  Other Airhead Americans Beg Congressional Forum - "Stop Conservative Bias" In Media Al Franken, Randi Rhodes (Infamous for kill-the-president skits), Eric Alterman (Center For American Progress i.e.. Communism), Traitorous David Brock and other intellectuals yukked it up at a Congressional Forum led by Representative Conyers http://www.conyersblog.us/ on Capitol Hill -Tuesday, May 24. They, and other forsaken liberal pundits, were crying out for the Fed gov to exercise more control over the dominant conservative media which has duped a large number of audience-citizens into believing that liberals are fools, unpatriotic, and even, imagine this. . . not funny!...

Alterman's attempt at post-election introspection: Let’s face it. It’s not Kerry’s fault. It’s not Nader’s fault (this time). It’s not the media’s fault (though they do bear a heavy responsibility for much of what ails our political system). It’s not “our” fault either. The problem is just this: Slightly more than half of the citizens of this country simply do not care about what those of us in the “reality-based community” say or believe about anything.

In an effort to galvanize the message Kerry wants to deliver in the time remaining, he convened a powerful roster of journalists and columnists in the New York City apartment of Al Franken last Thursday. The gathering could not properly be called a meeting or a luncheon. It was a trial. The journalists served as prosecuting attorneys, jury and judge. The crowd I joined in Franken’s living room was comprised of: Al Franken and his wife Franni; Rick Hertzberg, senior editor for the New Yorker; David Remnick, editor for the New Yorker; Jim Kelly, managing editor for Time Magazine; Howard...

I'm in a rental car with Al Franken, and we're driving across New Hampshire on the Sunday before the nation's first primary, heading to a John Edwards rally. The Democrats are in a kooky mood following the sudden collapse of Howard Dean in Iowa, and Franken -- comedian, celebrity, scourge -- is spending two days in the state not in any official capacity but as a sort of good-will representative from the party's satiric wing. He is not, as you might think from the outrageous trappings of his comedy, an extreme lefty but rather a devout party man, one who...

Frustrated liberals, angry at having to spend an entire week watching the nation pay tribute to the man they derided alternately as "an amiable dunce" and a heartless autocrat, are now claiming that Bill Clinton was actually a more popular president than Ronald Reagan. "In truth, Ronald Reagan was never as popular as he is being presented to be with Americans," writes Slate Magazine's Eric Alterman. "As president, [he] was never even as popular as Bill Clinton during the period of Clinton’s impeachment," argues the disgruntled Democrat. For evidence, Alterman cites a Gallup poll that tracks approval ratings for...

It may have the ring of cliché, but America's next presidential election will be among the most crucial events in contemporary history. Rarely in the modern era has the world seen such unchecked power exercised so ignorantly, arrogantly and with such profoundly counterproductive results as the Bush Administration's bait-and-switch invasion of Iraq. As Al Gore told an audience at NYU recently, "The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States." The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Gore noted, has...

The Death of Journalistic Ethics There has been a subtle shift in opinion journalism in America in the past few years. Now, we have people working for newspapers and magazines who are devoted to getting certain polticians -- namely the left -- elected to office. While Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing talk show cadre are entertainers -- and describe themselves as such -- these people are embedded in the elite media and are not supposed to be political activists. In a stunning admission in Sunday's New York Times, the following people attended a meeting with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in...

I sat between this incredible guy who had been on death row for eighteen years before being freed by the Innocence Project at Medill Journalism school (the winner of this year’s $100K Puffin/Nation prize) and Joe Wilson, winner of this year’s Ron Ridenhour prize. I asked Joe why Powell had turned out to be such a wimp—failing to use any of his prized credibility to put the breaks on his lying colleagues, and instead telling all those falsehoods at the UN and convincing a boatload of gullible reporters of a whole mess of stuff that just ain’t so. Wilson—whose speech...

Bush Lies, Media Swallows Print this article E-mail this article Write to the editors he more things change... Roughly ten years ago, I celebrated the criminal indictment of Elliott Abrams for lying to Congress by writing an Op-Ed in the New York Times on the increasing acceptance of official deception. (I was just starting my dissertation on the topic back then.) The piece got bogged down, however, when an editor refused to allow me even to imply that then-President Bush was also lying to the country. I noted that such reticence made the entire exercise feel a bit absurd. He...

Back in March of this year, way before Rush Limbaugh and ESPN, Esquire ran an interview with a liberal journalist – an interview that, outside the Internet, made only a few ripples. In the exchange with Esquire, Eric Alterman, who writes a column for the Nation, a far-left political magazine, charmingly told the interviewer, “I hate to say it, but I wish the guy [Rush Limbaugh] would have gone deaf.” Call me crazy, but when Alterman says, “I hate to say it,” I have the funny feeling that he really means “I love to say it.” Anyway, it’s not just...

<p>Howard Kurtz, writing in the Washington Post notes the sudden appearance of multiple stories critical of various conservative symbols and causes.  Liberals love it, and conservatives claim conspiracy.  Whatever.   A Wall Street Journal columnist notes that it represents ''an outsized, mad hostility that even the assault on Clinton, which was poisonous, does not match,'' she said. ''A bottom level of partisan craziness and zealousness has infected the media.''</p> <p>The Los Angeles Times dropped an October surprise on Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday, running detailed interviews with six women who say the actor groped them during the last 30 years.</p>

September 11 is often said to be the defining moment in the Bush presidency, even of modern history. How strange, therefore, that Bush's behavior that morning--along with that of his Administration--is almost never examined in any detail. This is all the more incredible when one considers the fact that 9/11 is among the most exhaustively chronicled days in human history and Bush among its most heavily covered individuals. No less odd has been the media's willingness to let the many inconsistencies in White House stories pass unexamined. They seem content instead to let Showtime tell the story, Leni Riefenstahl-style. That...

I went to an off-the-record fund-raising breakfast with John Kerry yesterday. I can’t quote him or anything. But I came away with the strong impression that he’d make a first-rate president in every way but I have trouble imagining how he’s going to get there. He is articulate, intelligent, well-prepared, thoughtful and has some really good ideas, particularly on health care. But he has zero personal charisma and jes’ folks communication skills, which Bush has in abundance. (Don’t let’s even bring up Clinton.)        I hate the fact that this matters, but it in our infantile political culture,...

Washington (CNSNews.com) - The author of a book denying the existence of a liberal media in America declared that the right wing media "machine" is now so powerful that it acts as "a steamroller" of liberal ideals. Eric Alterman - author of What Liberal Media? - appeared at a workshop called "Reversing the Right's Hold on the Media" on the final day of the three-day "Take Back America" conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic party to the left. Alterman said the dominance of conservatives in the media is now so...

(Language in this article may be offensive to some readers) Washington (CNSNews.com) - The author of a book denying the existence of a liberal media in America declared that the right wing media "machine" is now so powerful that it acts as "a steamroller" of liberal ideals. Eric Alterman - author of What Liberal Media? - appeared at a workshop called "Reversing the Right's Hold on the Media" on the final day of the three-day "Take Back America" conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic party to the left. Alterman said...

(Language in this article may be offensive to some readers) Washington (CNSNews.com) - The author of a book denying the existence of a liberal media in America declared that the right wing media "machine" is now so powerful that it acts as "a steamroller" of liberal ideals. Eric Alterman - author of What Liberal Media? - appeared at a workshop called "Reversing the Right's Hold on the Media" on the final day of the three-day "Take Back America" conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, which states as its goal pushing the Democratic party to the left. Alterman said...

<p>BOOKING LUNCHES FOR LIBRARY The crowds started to gather early yesterday afternoon at the corner of State and Washington streets downtown - after all, a pair of black limos and men wearing dark suits, sunglasses, and earpieces are a little hard to hide. So even though Bill Clinton was at a private lunch at the offices of Boston Capital honcho Jack Manning, half of downtown knew that the former president was in the neighborhood.</p>

Tune in now to hear Alterman's Comments on FR

The “Freedom Fry” brigade in America is almost by definition an idiotic bunch, but perhaps some of them have been honestly misled by the dishonesty of the American government in recounting the French position on the war. In the current New York Review of Books, the great Stanley Hoffmann sets us straight on something with which the administration has consistently slandered the French vis-à-vis that nation’s willingness to go to war. And can anyone doubt that the French were absolutely right not to believe Powell’s lies and exaggerations about the extent (and perhaps existence) of Iraq nuclear and WMD capabilities?...

We all do stupid things, but we all don't write about them in a column. I am one of the few who openly wrote about a stupid thing I did. And, it seems, everyone takes notice when you make a mistake, considering the dozens of letters I have received regarding this, and even Bill Press brought it up when I appeared on "Buchanan and Press" last week. I usually don't talk or write about myself, but my conscience compels me to do so now. In my column of April 26, I wrote, "As I was walking through Barnes and Noble...

Stop the presses! Lefty Alterman defends WSJ's Fund. Conservative Wall Street columnist John Fund may be one of those terrible right-wingers who picked on poor Bill and Hillary Clinton, but he is "not the kind of guy who pretends to want to marry women and then beats them up," wrote the "Nation's rabid leftie Eric Alterman. Noting Fund's conservative sins, Alterman says it "was fun to imagine, after he got himself arrested last year, that Fund was really a monster who had walked out on a planned marriage with his girlfriend and then beat her up - the dastardly deeds...

Stop the Presses by Eric AltermanBush Goes AWOL [from the May 5, 2003 issue] One of the many maddening feats of this Administration is that in choosing to fight the war on terror by going to war with Iraq, George W. Bush has inspired new terrorist threats to the United States--according to the official testimony of his own CIA--where none existed. At the same time, he purposely starves those localities and institutions on which the complex and expensive task of terrorist protection ultimately falls. The Economist compares New York City to Atlas, bearing the weight of the world on...

       I WAS WRONG              Paul Wolfowitz thought U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. I did not. His prediction in this case, was correct. I was wrong. (And not for the last time, I’m guessing.)               I hope Mr. Wolfowitz has equally good luck in the rest of his predictions since they seem to be driving U.S. foreign policy right now. I’d be amazed, and the consequences of his being wrong will likely be catastrophic for this country, but as I said, I’ve been wrong before. And as far...

I WAS WRONG Paul Wolfowitz thought U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators in Iraq. I did not. His prediction in this case, was correct. I was wrong. (And not for the last time, I’m guessing.) I hope Mr. Wolfowitz has equally good luck in the rest of his predictions since they seem to be driving U.S. foreign policy right now. I’d be amazed, and the consequences of his being wrong will likely be catastrophic for this country, but as I said, I’ve been wrong before. And as far as the Iraqi liberation goes, I’m extremely pleased to be wrong...

April 10, 2003, 7:45 a.m.Hall of ShameMedia recriminations after VB Day.By NR Staff o many pundits, pols, and, yes, celebs, said so many wrong — and downright silly — things about the war in Iraq, prewar. We knew that back then, but now that Baghdad has effectively been liberated by the U.S.-lead Coalition, we provide a handy snapshot of what was said by some of those who should be looking down and making their apologies. Included here are Maureen Dowd, Chris Matthews, and Barry McCaffrey, the latter one of the retired-general second guessers Vice President Dick Cheney dubbed “embedded...

Calling the conservative bluff By John Mark Eberhart, Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT) What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News By Eric Alterman Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly; oh my. Goldberg and Goldberg, Buchanan and Drudge. There they are: Ann and Rush and Bill, Bernard and Jonah and Patrick and Matt. Seven of the most popular political pundits in America, their views on display in newspapers, voices crackling across the airwaves, opinions flying through cyberspace. And nary a liberal among them. But now Eric has come forward to call their bluff. That’s Eric as in Eric Alterman, author of What...

THE WAR IN IRAQ When the Press Goes Patriotic Eric Alterman, author of "What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News," analyzes how well the press is covering the war in Iraq:Q: What do you think of the coverage so far? A: I think it's been predictable. The press' instincts are to demonstrate its patriotism. Q: Why would it feel it had to? A: One, it really is patriotic. September 11 changed a lot of people's attitudes, and sort of made the whole reporting of foreign affairs a less objective enterprise. Two, many people in the media are...

March 16, 2003 The Wayward MediaBy TED WIDMER Deborah Copaken Kogan/Basic BooksEric Alterman, author of the book "What Liberal Media?" WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA? The Truth About Bias and the News.By Eric Alterman. 322 pp. New York: Basic Books. $25. DEMOCRACY AND THE NEWS By Herbert J. Gans. 168 pp. New York: Oxford University Press. $26. First Chapter: 'What Liberal Media?' (March 16, 2003) First Chapter: 'Democracy and the News' (March 16, 2003) he only authors whom I acknowledge as American are the journalists,'' Alexis de Tocqueville wrote. ''They indeed are not great writers,'' he added with Old European disdain, ''but...

What Liberal Media?A Challenge: Let's Debate Bias and Slander    It’s time for Bernard Goldberg and Ann Coulter to defend their books, Bias and Slander, which supposedly prove an old saw -- that liberals dominate the news media.    After the books were published, the press lavished attention on both authors -- much of it uncritical, if not fawning. Ironically, such a reception should have provided primary evidence against their allegation (if a random survey of TV pundits or Washington Post editorials wasn’t proof enough).    Now comes Eric Alterman’s new book, What Liberal Media? It shreds the ‘liberal media’ myth, and with it Bias...

Brussels, Belgium January 26, 2003 Ok, I didn’t really have breakfast with Alterman, but I sat close by in the posh dining room of the ultra luxury Hotel Amigo in Brussels while Alterman held court with two unidentified associates this morning.

An hour ago on C-SPAN's "Book TV" uber-puke Eric Alterman went on a semi-coherent tirade about Free Republic.While in the process of flacking his book..."The Myth of Liberal Bias" (or sumpin like that), he claimed that, during the Florida recount, the saint-like members of this forum posted the phone numbers and home addresses of the Florida Supremes for the expressed purpose of harassment and/or "whatever". The "whatever" was obviously the suggestion of violence.He also said Free Republic was repsonsible for the flood of Republican activists who descended on the state and therefore was responsible for the Bush presidency.This is one...

I just was listening to Eric Alterman (if you want to know the full story of what he said about Limbaugh clikck the link.) He was just on a local Chicago talk radio show with a conservative woman named Eileen Byrn. Who as she said, read his book and then argued some points with him. Throughout the interview she was the picture of civility. He, on the other hand called her "hey lady". He said hers was the stupidest show he had been on and called her all sorts of other names. In spite of his billigerence she argued only...

The Shropshire ChallengeWill Michael Moore put our money where his mouth is?     There are a lot of chickens*** loudmouths out there, and Dr. Weevil is calling their collective bluff.  Is it worth $20 or $50 to send Michael Moore, or Eric Alterman, off to battle the forces of evil (with real bullets flying about)?  How about Noam Chomsky? You betchum, kemosabe.

COUNTER-COULTER And yes, on the topic of Ms. Coulter, I do not think it impossible — or necessarily unlikely — that were she a leftist, Mr. Ashcroft would seek to imprison her for regular endorsements of mass violence and even political assassination. (She may be joking, but I can’t tell and I doubt Ashcroft could either.) Were she an immigrant, there is no question that she would be jailed and probably held incommunicado and in solitary confinement. That she is taken seriously by anyone with access to a television camera or a printing press is one of the most shaming...

COLUMN | April 8, 2002 ERIC ALTERMAN Sullivan's Travails: Stop the Presses Andrew Sullivan cannot have an easy life. A Catholic gay man who is also HIV positive, his political views have led him to attach himself to a party, a movement and a church that believe him to be practicing an abomination. Influential Republican power-brokers blame America's sexual tolerance for the attacks of 9/11. The military he reveres is kicking gays out at a rate unseen since the presidency of Ronald Reagan--another Sullivan hero. And his church offers a warmer embrace for pedophile priests than for honest homosexuals....