This letter is associated with the following article:
Letters
Monday, January 5, 2009 12:00 AM

Obama's impressive new OLC chief

A law professor with a history of strident condemnation of Bush radicalism is named to one of the most important positions in the executive branch.

Read other letters about this article

  • Monday, January 5, 2009 02:50 PM

    Hankest;

    "....you reveal yourself in their usage to be more the lawyer than the journalist."

    Wow, you're kidding with that one, right?"

    No I don't think so mate. This is from Glen[n]'s bio.

    "I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York."

    So then that appears to be our columnist's first discipline. And no bad thing to[o?]. Being that's the case Glenn brings to journalism those qualities that have been sadly lacking. Someone on another thread accused him of being "verbose". The more accurate term would have been "exhaustive". That's what you would hope for from a lawyer being well on top of his brief. Another value is that all journalists whether good or bad eventually write to market. This they can't help eventually doing and it even turning into their "shtick" because they were writers to begin with. And all writers that want to get paid for doing it have to in some way please their audience.

    The good thing about having law as a first discipline is that you just write the best opinion that you can irrespective of whether the client likes it or not.

    Now all Glenn with an "nn," like Liza's got a "zz," has to do is something quite outrageous. Put out the feelers for some old hand tabloid writer with a sound mind and a good grasp of the CRAFT of tabloid writing to give some guidance and see if there are any useful tricks to be learnt and he could widen his readership by a considerable margin.

    In other words go from writing albums for a cult following to writing 3 minute hit singles for the masses.

    The thing about the net is both a strength and a weakness. There is no obligation to limit the word count of a column.

    Like musos with too much studio time you can end up suffering with an accute case of what I call "Dave Stewartitus."

    Fucking fatal it is.

Most Active Letters Threads

516

The crazy, irrational beliefs of Muslims

Tom Friedman explains the real problem: stupid Muslims think the U.S. is about war and aggression.
426

A key British official reminds us of the forgotten anthrax attack

A vast array of establishment and expert sources do not believe this episode was really resolved.
378

The face of rotted Washington

Evan Bayh demands more debt-financed war - fought by others - while boasting that he's a stern "deficit hawk."
210

Is Obama's civil liberties record understandable?

Was it unreasonable to expect him to adhere to his commitments regarding the Constitution?
175

Bigotry wins in Switzerland

By voting to ban the construction of minarets, Switzerland apes the most extreme intolerance in the Muslim world

View all »

Letters Help

Currently in Salon