COMM 337, 386: Op-ed columns in Wall Street Journal, in-class reading assignments

Two recent op-ed columns from The Wall Street Journal ...

Jargon alert! An "op-ed piece," for those who aren't yet familiar with newspapering jargon, is an opinion piece. Long, long ago in the olden days of print journalism, opinion pieces used to run on the op-ed page ... which was called that because it was always opposite the editorial page. Most op-ed pages try to offer a balanced variety of viewpoints, from liberal to conservative, often disagreeing with the paper's editorial policy.

Certainly the Journal's does. And the columns linked below are typical.

One is by Peggy Noonan, a contributing editor of the Journal. A speechwriter for President Reagan and author of "What I Saw at the Revolution" (which may be the best memoir by any speechwriter anywhere, ever), Noonan is reliably conservative with a populist streak. This week, she sounded like she didn't know what to think about the week's events on Wall Street:

The financial crisis changes the entire shape and feel of the presidential election. It isn't just bad news, it's bad news that reveals what many people deep down feared, and hoped not to see revealed: that the huge and sprawling financial system of Wall Street is maintained essentially on faith, mood and assumption; that its problems are deep; that at some level the system looks to have been a house of cards. It isn't just bad news; it's deep bad news that reaches into the heart of widespread national anxiety.

Everyone is afraid—the rich that they will no longer be rich, the poor that they'll be hit first by the downturn in the "last hired, first fired" sense, the middle class that it will be harder now to maintain their hold on middle-classness.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans spent the week treating the catastrophe as a political opportunity. This was unserious. A serious approach might have addressed large questions such as: Was this crisis not, at bottom, a failure of stewardship?

Nor did she know what to think about how presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama were handling it:

Open question only history will answer: President Bush did not address the nation on the crisis until Thursday of this week, almost a week after it began, and Democrats are going to try to paint this as 9/11 times Katrina: Where was he? Will this work? Will it stick? They're going to try to turn Mr. Bush into Herbert Hoover. Hoover was not good for the Republican brand.

The economic crisis brings a new question, unarticulated so far but there, and I know because when I mention it to people they go off like rockets. It is: Do you worry that neither of them is up to it? Up to the job in general? Is either Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama actually up to getting us through this and other challenges? I haven't heard a single person say, "Yes, my guy is the answer." A lot of shrugging is going on out there. This is a read not only on the men but on the moment.

Noonan, in my opinion, is always worth reading. She writes well, and she expresses a populism that has given the Republican Party widespread appeal since Reagan's time.

In both classes we'll look at some of of the stuff in Peggy Noonan's archive on her personal website. She's a good writer, with a succinct way of summing up complex human emotions. Too, she has some keen insights into American culture, and when the insights go against the grain she admits it. Students who have heard me talk about Don Murray and the "little green book that wouldn't go away" can guess what's coming next: She surprises. And that's always worth coming back for. In a word, she's important.

Back to the Journal. Near the other end of the spectrum is a piece by Thomas Frank called "Get Your Class War On." Frank is the author of a book documenting what he sees as the Republicans' appeal to class resentments to gain votes. This column, which I suspect was written before Wall Street imploded, sees in Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy more of that tactic:

Now comes the fall culture-war offensive, catching the Democrats by surprise as it always does and spreading panic and desperation among their ranks. As the depth of the Republican breakthrough becomes apparent to Democrats, they launch the same feeble counterattacks that failed them last time, prudishly correcting misleading GOP advertisements and crying for the recess monitor when the other side plays dirty.

And none of this works.

Things would go better for Democrats if they recognized the culture war for what it is: a debased form of class war, a false populism in which an "authentic" America rises up against its would-be masters, an effete bunch of arugula-eaters who say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." But a visceral feeling of class conflict is what lies at the core of the whole thing: a righteous grievance against wrongful, pedantic rulers. It is so attractive emotionally that I often wish I could sign up for it myself.

Both have a point to make. Both write well. Both are worth reading.