James Taranto, Author at The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Authors
James Taranto
James Taranto, a member of the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board, writes the Best of the Web Today column for OpinionJournal.com.
by | Nov 17, 2014

We often assume that racism or sexism is primarily about in-your-face bigots or misogynists,” op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof lectured his New York Times readers in June. But no, it turns out “research” has demonstrated “that the larger problem is unconscious…

by | Aug 31, 2014

Jill Abramson overflowed with praise when the New York Times promoted her to its top editorial position. “In my house growing up, the Times substituted for religion,” she said in a June 2011 interview with her own paper. “If the…

by | May 21, 2014

All you need to know” was for years the slogan of KNX 1070, a CBS-owned and -operated news radio station in Los Angeles. I was there, as a college intern, when management introduced the catchphrase in 1987. It met with…

by | May 2, 2014

Before this year I never had much of an opinion on the perennial debate over cameras in the U.S. Supreme Court. I had a vague aversion to the idea, but no clear argument to back it up. That changed in…

by | Apr 30, 2014

It was an idea so frail, it quickly died from exposure. The Multi-Market Study of Critical Information Needs—or CIN, pronounced “sin,” for short—was the brainchild of Mignon Clyburn, a Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission and daughter of Rep….

by | Mar 31, 2014

Phil robertson makes duck calls, but nobody can accuse him of using dog whistles. “He’s got lots of thoughts on modern immorality, and there’s no stopping them from rushing out,” Drew Magary observed in a profile of the Duck Dynasty…

by | Feb 28, 2014

Everyone loathes the media, including the media. In late November, as the Obamacare disaster continued to unfold, there was so much blame to go around that even journalists who aren’t conservative started directing some of it at other journalists. Appearing…

by | Jan 15, 2014

The disastrous October 1 launch of Healthcare.gov surprised even those of us who expected Obamacare to fail. The economics of the law are impossible, but who’d have thought just building a functional computer system would prove an insurmountable challenge? As…

by | Dec 8, 2012

PRIOR TO ELECTION DAY, I had been planning a triumphal column explaining how Mitt Romney’s victory vindicated the Taranto Principle, but events intervened. Here instead is a circumspect column explaining how Barack Obama’s victory vindicated the Taranto Principle. The Taranto…

by | Nov 24, 2012

FORGIVE THE MIXED METAPHOR, but did the mainstream media jump the shark this summer? The expression “jump the shark” comes from the long-running 1970s sitcom Happy Days. In the 1977 fifth-season premiere, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) dons water skis, swim trunks,…

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