Maureen and The Herald Tribune

Maureen Dowd, as many probably already know, did win a Pulitzer for Commentary in 1999–twenty years ago. That was when, to me, she was a better writer than she is these days. These days she appears only once a week, on Sundays, and most of the time turns in a piece that reads like she phoned it in while having breakfast at a diner, filled with the names of name-drooped publications, like The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Only sometimes my comments get approved to appear. I understand.

Today's column is about Trump being Trump and cancelling the White House subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, two newspapers that are always highly critical of our thin-skinned president, and who he feels should not be read by anyone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. My guess is that the car that comes by in the very early morning hours and throws my New York Times and Wall Street Journal in my driveway will not be cruising down Pennsylvania Avenue and aiming for the White house door. His loss, but he's never struck me as much of a reader anyway.

Dowd today scores a bull's-eye, and I attempted to give her credit for it, after so many times giving her heat for not being Russell Baker and adhering to at least a modicum of a work ethic.
Well, the Comments section was closed at 419 this morning at 8:50 A.M. EST. This means a good number of people responded to her piece, and did so early, likely late Saturday night when the Sunday online edition comes "off stone."

I opted for the less public display of my opinion by sending an email to letters@nytimes.com. I have no illusions that anything I write will ever make it into the NYT (other than my 1994 piece about the baseball and hockey strikes that Dave Anderson quoted in his Sports of the Times column on Christmas Day, 1994. I had to boast.)

I congratulated her on having it in her to write a good one. Somewhat like a veteran pitcher, banged up and operated on, who throws a shutout.

To me, the best part of what she wrote was the story that JFK was once made fun of because he once stopped having The New York Herald Tribune delivered to the White House. The Tribune was owned by the Reid family and was the Republican New York paper. The New York Times wouldn't allow it in the house. He'd read any of the other New York papers of the day, even The New York Post, but particularly liked The Herald Tribune.

You have to be of 'a certain age' to remember The Herald Tribune. My friend still tells the story of an elementary school teacher who made a current events assignment out of reading something in the NYT.

The family lived in Manhattan, and the school was only across the street. The teacher lived in their building on West 55th Street. The father had a FIT about the assignment, and confronted the teacher. Subsequent current event assignments were only ever completed from that household with stories from The Herald Tribune.

Ms. Dowd completes her JFK Herald Tribune story by telling us that JFK would sneak the paper in regardless of his outward stance, and eventually put the paper back in his graces.

And why wouldn't he? I remember The Herald Tribune, and to this day still miss it. If it were being published, I would be getting it rather than the NYT. I mean, sports, news, editorial cartoons,Walter Lipmann, and comics. How could you hate it? One of my favorite comics was 'Our Miss Peach.' I do miss that paper.

The Times of the era had a reputation since the '30s of being soft on Communist Russia. My wife's father, a strong union man and a NYC IRT subway motorman living in the Bronx, was amongst the many who called The Times a 'Pinko Commie rag." The pink comes from the arrest cards of those Communist Party members who were arrested at rallies in New York City. The cards were pink.

The NYT reporter who was perceived as being soft on Communism, was Walter Duranty, a Pulitzer winning journalist, who was felt to turn a blind eye on Stalin's atrocities. Duranty was the Moscow Bureau Chief from 1922-1936. His name was in the news recently for a suggestion that the Pulitzer committee should again consider rescinding the 1932 award. It is not going to happen.

Anytime you're alive you live in interesting times. And in our household there is nothing more interesting than my readership of the NYT, not for opinion, but stories–where else would I freshly read about Murf the Surf, or enjoy obituaries?

My wife, who is NOT a newspaper person, but a TV news person, principally a Fox News person at the moment, is usually making some stupid remark about my reading "the Pinko Commie Times." The phrase is so dated it's funny, but I know where it comes from. Da Bronx. I even showed her the recent story on Duranty and all she had to say was, "see."

No matter. My allegiance is not political, but based on reading something that is well written. After Trump won the election I wiseacred that it was amazing that the NYT was able to publish the next day, since so many of its staffers had to be in the ICU at St. Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital suffering heart attacks when the concession speech came from Hillary. My guess is the hospital is still busy with staffers in the ER.

And there was have it. The Snowflake president, as Maureen calls him, who thinks the government will save money by cancelling newspaper subscriptions.

We do live interesting times.

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