James Howard Gibbons must have been really eager to get out of the offices at 801 Texas Avenue on Friday to get started on a long weekend, because he certainly left a dud of an editorial page for Sunday readers.
There’s a staff editorial that argues the U.S. needs to lower its dependence on oil, a cutting-edge notion.
There’s a staff editorial that criticizes conservative city council member Addie Wiseman for the suggestion that perhaps the city ought to be interested in whether or not vulgar and/or obscene material is being broadcast on its public access channel. The same editorial board that favors restricting some political speech erroneously says the First Amendment means anything goes on public access; it does not. (Personally, I think it would be fun if devout Christians took over the channel and began proselytizing in the wee hours of the morning, just to see how quickly the editorial board would reverse course.)
There are the usual Sunday snoozers from Cragg Hines and Clay Robison.
And then there are the items chosen by Gibbons and crew to fill out the editorial page.
Four of those stand out: We can all learn from LBJ, Ev by Jack Valenti, Tom Cruise: You are out of control by Brooke Shields, Running away from America, until I stopped by Kennedy School student Fatina Abdrabboh, and Betting our future on the mirage of endless Saudi oil by Hubbert Peak enthusiast Michael T. Klare.
Valenti’s op-ed first appeared in the New York Times on 24 June 2005.
Shields’ op-ed first appeared in the New York Times on 1 July 2005.
As David Benzion points out, Abdrabboh’s op-ed first appeared in the New York Times on 23 June 2005, and has been widely derided across the blogosphere.
Klare’s op-ed first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on 27 June 2005. Klare is one of many Hubbert Peak enthusiasts who take disputed geological facts, make a series of (frequently unstated) economic and political assumptions, and then predict calamity in the very near future. Alan at Petrified Truth alerts us to Mr. Klare’s association with any number of leftist political organizations, associations that go unmentioned in the op-ed and byline but that are not irrelevant given the political and economic assumptions involved.
All of these op-eds are old — really old, in internet time.
James Howard Gibbons, who once lectured bloggers on the superiority of editorial pages in their ideal state, ought to be embarrassed that he put out this collection of “olds” and otherwise mediocre opinion writing in a Sunday edition, holiday weekend or not. Even if he is not, one would think folks higher up the food chain at Hearst might be concerned.
