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Nearly fifty topsy-turvy days into Trump 2.0, we thought it'd be a good idea to zoom out some to better distinguish the signals from the noise. To that end, the gang sits down with Wall Street Journal Editor at Large Gerard Baker. Gerry covers everything from Trump's tariffs and geostrategic reshuffling to the media's collapsed institutional repute.
Plus, Charles, Steve and James notice hints that ambitious progressives are maneuvering to sound like normal people; and they bewail the caprices of the muses now that they've repossessed the recently-acclaimed (and highly profitable) artistic inspiration from Hunter Biden.
- Sound clip from this week's open: Mike Johnson restoring order during Trump's address before Congress on Tuesday.
Charles C. W. Cooke
James Lileks
Steve Hayward
Gerard Baker
Discussion (7)
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When Trump babbles about trade deficits, it's really stupid. If you were getting everything for 75% off, you wouldn't care how big the trade deficit was. Etc.
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I agree, he should stick the retaliatory tariff argument. With China, he should emphasize decoupling from the CCP
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My amateur observation on the poor quality of news reporters is that few have covered local school board, planning commission, and city council meetings, or reported on other local issues in which the reporter is exposed to, and deals in real personal life with, people on different sides of an issue for whom the issue is a daily reality. Without that experience on living with differences, it is hard to understand (and thus report on) different views.
I don't have a solution, as I see why it's so difficult for a local newspaper to make a profit.
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Gerald Baker is not a good interviewee. I'm not sure he completed all his sentences, but even when he did, he would sidetrack into something else, and then something else again, before making his original point.
After awhile, all I was hearing was blah, blah, blah.
He works for a premier publication's editorial page, in part because he's an excellent writer an editor. Those are his strengths.
He might be a good interviewer. But I haven't watched his show on Fox.
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On the over education of journalists, I thought I'd look up the education pedigree of the Wall Street Journal editorial page's regular writers. I didn't look all of them up, but most of them attended upper tier schools. Gerald Baker (Oxford) has been a part of the upper management of the Wall Street Journal for a decade and a half, I wonder what his record was in hiring reporters from lower tier public colleges? For that matter, Charles (Oxford) primary employer, National Review, skews towards hiring from upper tier colleges.
The more popular commentators on politics on the radio or podcasts, often don't finish college or go at all. Rush Limbaugh was a prime example, and he often bragged about it.
Joe Rogan didn't go. At the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, did go to Harvard, but Matt Walsh doesn't seem to have had any college. Their upper management has people without college.
I'm a heavy reader of National Review, have done their cruises, and I'm a fan of many commentators who have large educational pedigrees. I'm a fan of Steve's, despite his hokey humor.
But when they complain that journalists are too educated, perhaps some throat clearing is in order.
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