Recent Newsweek Cover

Of course he is a joke, though he is smart enough to know what his role is.

I remember when Time, Newsweek and US News and World Report were magazines of enough integrity to be allowed to be quoted and referenced in various papers we wrote as students in the 50s. Now that my freshman English professor has passed away I can probably own up to using a Newsweek article as the unattributed main source for a longish term paper I wrote for that dear lady. Nowadays, it seems to me they are not taken seriously, rather like the mainstream TV networks.

I must confess that I haven't been paying much attention to the erstwhile Senator Claghorn, or was it Jack S. Phogbound, but now a useful contrasting Vice Presidential fool for President Obama. When I saw this cover I immediately wondered what he had been up to which triggered this defensive, backhand stroke from one of our mainstream weeklies. Maybe we shouldn't tell them how we use them in a 180 degree Pravda-like manner but I think they are sufficiently insensitive for it not to make much difference.