{"id":1084,"date":"2006-05-07T16:43:42","date_gmt":"2006-05-07T16:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:09:45","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:09:45","slug":"this_morning_th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1084","title":{"rendered":"This Morning, The LA Times Email Servers Are Gonna Melt Down…"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Update:<\/i> We’ll be seeing a lot of comment traffic from Kevin Drum’s site<\/a> where he’s posted an puzzling and inaccurate precis of our talk. Developing, as they say…]<\/i><\/p>\n

I was scanning the paper on my way out to door for a ride, and d**n if I didn’t see something that made me stop and boot up the laptop.<\/p>\n

It was today’s “Current” (the old Opinion section – editorials, commentary, and opeds).<\/p>\n

The lead article was headlined “Draft Hollywood<\/a>,” and is by detective novelist Andrew Klavan<\/a> (don’t know his work, sorry) in response to ‘United 93’.<\/p>\n

… “It is hard for those who live near a Police Station to believe in the triumph of violence,” as T.S. Eliot wrote. That’s us \u2014 we Americans, protected by a mighty military that by and large obeys the rules of our republic \u2014 safe enough, and keeping much of the world safe enough, so that we find it hard to believe in what would happen if that protection failed.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\nBut these fighters do keep us safe. And because keeping us safe is harsh, dangerous work, we should glorify them, exalt them in story and song by way of appreciation.<\/p>\n

\n“United 93” \u2014 the film celebrating the heroic civilian attempt to retake a hijacked plane on 9\/11 \u2014 opened last week. That’s great. Well done and about time. But now, let’s have some war movies.<\/p>\n

\nWe need some films celebrating the war against Islamo-fascism in Afghanistan and Iraq \u2014 and in Iran as well, if and when that becomes necessary. We need films like those that were made during World War II, films such as 1943’s “Sahara” and “Action in the North Atlantic,” or “The Fighting Seabees” and “Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo,” which were released in 1944.<\/p>\n

\nNot all of these were great films, or even good ones, but their patriotic tributes to our fighting forces inspired the nation.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Go read the whole thing.<\/p>\n

Now this is an issue that’s near and dear to me – I’ve blogged about it<\/a> more than a bit.<\/p>\n

But more important to me, it’s the beginning of a change in our regional paper of record. Now, I’m no Patterico – I’m not focused with Ahab-like intensity<\/a> on the problems that the Times seems to flaunt. And, unlike Patterico, I’m not a conservative who wants my team to get a fair shake from the press. (Note that I do come down firmly on the side of the press being liberal – but establishment liberal)<\/p>\n

I’m a liberal Democrat (Kevin Drum, at dinner, expressed shock at the kinds of policy proposals I thought the Democratic Party should be making) – and I think the paper needs to be balanced so that the liberal Establishment can stop deluding itself<\/a> and start dealing with reality.<\/p>\n

Reality abroad, and at home.<\/p>\n

The title of this post? Well, I’m immature enough to enjoy the vein-popping rage that many Times loyalists must be feeling this morning. (there was also a pro-Lieberman<\/a> oped by Jonathan Chait)
\n  <\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> So, what exactly did I say during our dinner talk? Read “A Response to Kevin Drum<\/a>” for my thoughts re: a working-class liberal alternative. My key question:<\/p>\n

bq. What benefits does the Democratic Party bring to a 35-year old single mom, who’s trying to raise her two kids as best she can while living three paychecks from homelessness? Or a working couple who collectively make $70k year, and are officially ‘middle class’ but can’t afford decent childcare, health care, or to live anywhere near where they work? Or an immigrant family, trying to live on $40K year?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An LA Times lead opinion piece supports war movies. Go figure!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}