Eric Alterman

The Bush Presidency, Undead

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on April 26, 2013 - 12:11 PM ET

My new Nation column is called “The Reluctant Fundamentalist (and the Journalist Spy)” and it’s about the conflicts raised by Mira Nair’s challenging new film.

And here’s a second column I did for the Nation website on Maureen Dowd’s various crimes against common sense and gun control.

Oh, and I gave a talk at to Cornell’s Mario Enaudi Center for International Studies on the topic of “On the Search for a Liberal Foreign Policy” on Monday afternoon. It’s written up here and you can watch it on video, here.

On MoDo

Eric Alterman on April 25, 2013 - 2:41 PM ET

Barack Obama lays out his gun control package with Joe Biden in January. (Reuters/Larry Downing.)

It’s no easy task to come up with an interesting newspaper column twice a week. Virtually no one has genuinely original thoughts—or groundbreaking reporting—on so demanding a schedule. Columnists therefore rely on hobby horses, lenses through which they see and interpret events that lead the front pages and other news outlets.

Give Me the Bad News First

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on April 18, 2013 - 4:56 PM ET

My new Think Again column is called “‘Class Warfare’ Revisited” and it’s here.

This might interest some people: Mel Scult and Susie Heschel discussing “Abraham Joshua Heschel and Mordecai M.Kaplan : Cross Sections and Intersections” at the Jewish Theological Seminary last week. Note, by the way, that Cornel West is sitting in the front row and JTS chair Arnie Eisen notes that Cornel is teaching a course on Heschel and writing a book on him right now. An odd choice for an alleged anti-Semite. Also note that Susie Heschel remarks of Barack Obama’s expressed admiration for her father. Again, weird for a guy who hates both Jews and Israel, huh?

But speaking about Jews, yet again, let us note that the BDS lecture at Brooklyn College reflects even worse on the BDS movement than merely the cynicism of its proponents. Note the letter Brooklyn College President Karen Gould wrote below with regard to the forcible rejection of Jewish students from the hallway:

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The Beltway Media's Best-Kept Budget Secret

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on April 11, 2013 - 4:15 PM ET

My new Think Again column is called “Campaign-Finance Reform in an Age of Corporate Influence,” and it’s here.

My new Nation column is called More BS About 'Both Sides' and it’s here.

Below is a copy of a letter I sent to The Forward regarding the newspaper’s coverage of the hiring of Josh Block to run The Israel Project. The sections in bold are the ones they chose not to run. (It was edited without my participation and The Forward does not appear to have updated the “letters” section of its website since December.)

The 'Undo-Everything' Congress: What the Press Doesn't See

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on April 5, 2013 - 11:22 AM ET

My new Think Again column asks the (obvious, I think) question: “Shouldn't the Iraq War have finally killed the "Liberal Media?"

One question that if you read me at all regularly you know constantly confuses me is “What do the US leaders of the BDS movement think about Hamas?” I always suspected this, but now it’s official, at least if you take Sara Schulman as your guide. They don’t. Amazing, I know, but how else could a leftist lesbian feminist activist support a movement that is virulently and violently opposed to everything for which they profess to stand?

And since I don’t like to be personally abused from my left without also catching flak from my right, I note with regret that The Israel Project is being taken over by one of Washington’s foremost Jewish McCarthyites, ex-AIPAC flack Josh Block. In the universe of The Nation, I am often accused of being no better than AIPAC on the issue of Israel/Palestine, and so it's funny that in the universe of AIPAC I get the no-less ridiculous accusation of actual anti-Semitism. Anyway, Block’s appointment is bad news for honest, respectful discourse about Israel and the Palestinians but good news for Sarah Schulman and BDS, since behavior like Block’s often pushes people in the camp of BDS, simply out of distaste for the hardline tactics of the Israeli right-wing. What neither organizations will do, I can promise you, is further the cause of Middle East peace or improve the lives of the victims of its violence.

Propaganda Propagation

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on March 28, 2013 - 6:35 PM ET

My new Think Again column is called “Acknowledging Our Mistakes in Iraq Would Prevent Us from Repeating Them” but I would have called it “Liberal Hawks on Iraq Anniversary: 'We were right to be wrong.'" Anyway, it’s here. You can be the judge of what it should be called.

My Nation column is called “The Passion and Eloquence of Anthony Lewis” and it is here.

How to get into Bruce Springsteen.

30 Seconds Over Toledo: How Political Ads Spell Trouble for TV News and Democracy

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on March 21, 2013 - 5:09 PM ET

Cakewalk:

My new Think Again column is called “Are Journalists Any Less Gullible Today than They Were 10 Years Ago?” It’s mostly about Iraq but also the 2013 State of the News media and it’s here.

I also did a long piece about Andrew Cuomo, his hopes for 2016, his governance of New York state and what all this means for liberalism and that’s here.

The Dark Side of Democracy

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on March 14, 2013 - 4:58 PM ET

My new Think Again column is called “Real Reporting and Right-Wing Ideology Don’t Mix,” and it’s here.

My Nation column is called “The Rehabilitation of Elliott Abrams,” and it’s here.

Alter-reviews:

Looking Back, Moving Forward

Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson on March 7, 2013 - 6:47 PM ET

My new Think Again column is called “The Terrible Power of Purposeful Ignorance.” It deals with the decision to invade Iraq together with arguments over the sequester and it’s here

I wrote (what is for me, an oddly) confessional piece about my career of being made to feel like an idiot by William F. Buckley Jr. for the Columbia Journalism Review. They called it “Aspiring Line,” and it’s here.

Also, I gave a talk on liberalism at All Souls Unitarian Church on the Upper East Side this past Sunday. They videotaped it and it’s here.

My Favorite Things: God Bless America Edition

Eric Alterman on February 28, 2013 - 1:41 PM ET

My new 'Think Again column is called "Republicans Ignore the Evidence About Higher Taxes on the Wealthy," and it's here.

Alter-reviews: Peter Wolf, The Mavericks and WHN

So, Monday night I stopped by Hill Country Barbeque for some excellent guess-what and to listen to a bunch of radio old-timers reminisce about the good old days when New York had an AM country radio station, WHN, which it did between 1973 and 1987. I originally discovered the station looking for Mets games, but it turned out to be the best thing on if you were in a car and didn't have an FM radio. The panel, moderated by Ed Salamon, former WHN Program Director and author of the new book WHN: When New York Went Country was pretty good humored, and most of the audience was made up by former employees of the station, and everyone had a nice cozy feeling. One problem: Alan Colmes was on the stage, but none of the other people seemed to know him.