Under Murdoch, tilting rightward

Rupert Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, addressing the newsroom at The Wall Street Journal two years ago, when he took over.



Not that the Wall Street Journal was a leftists rag and needed a push to the right; if anything, they were a perfect match.

Glenn R. Simpson, who left the newspaper back in March, is not a fan of the newsier, less analytical Journal.

“Murdoch didn’t ruin The Wall Street Journal; he just rendered it into a much more ordinary paper,” he said.

But there are growing indications that Mr. Murdoch, a lifelong conservative, doesn’t just want to cover politics, he wants to play them as well.

He has always played politics. Perhaps he is becoming less covert, but the change is of style, not substance.

According to several former members of the Washington bureau and two current ones, the two men have had a big impact on the paper’s Washington coverage, adopting a more conservative tone, and editing and headlining articles to reflect a chronic skepticism of the current administration. And given that the paper’s circulation continues to grow, albeit helped along by some discounts, there’s nothing to suggest that The Journal’s readers don’t approve.

More conservative? I don't notice the change; the paper was always conservative. And subscribing to the paper does not equate to approving of its politics.

In response to questions about bias in the newspaper, a Journal spokesman sent along the following statement: “The Journal has always provided its readers with unique, objective news reporting from our Washington Bureau.”

Oy. Fair and balanced?

Tension between Washington bureaus and headquarters is a common feature of newspapers, and none of the people I spoke to suggested that either Mr. Thomson or Mr. Baker lacked savvy as journalists or leaders — only that ideology was baked into the coverage through headlines, assignments and editing in a way that had never occurred in the past.

This Boomer Isn't Apologizing

It is RARE that I agree with a Wall Street Journal opinion column, yet I agree with this one -- but still take issue with the commentator. He takes issue with the blame being heaped on the Baby Boomer generation for having done all sorts of terrible things.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that graduation ceremonies have become collective airings of guilt and grief. It's now chic for boomers to apologize for their generation's crimes. It's the only thing conservatives and liberals seem to agree on. Mitch Daniels, the Republican governor of Indiana, told Butler University grads that our generation is "just plain selfish." At Grinnell College in Iowa, author Thomas Friedman compared boomers to "hungry locusts . . . eating through just about everything." Film maker Ken Burns told this year's Boston College grads that those born between 1946 and 1960 have "squandered the legacy handed to them by the generation from World War II."

Mitchell Elias, Jr. (born April 7, 1949 in Monongahela, Pennsylvania), is a 50-year0old Republican. Tom Friedman, born in 1953, is a 55-year-old "I-know-best" hanranguer. Ken Burns is 9 days younger than Friedman, and thinks he knows everything.

The legacy of the WW II generation? Segregated armed forces, segregated cities, rampant racism, a strong KKK, McCarthyism, a President in Eisenhower afraid of the senator from Wisconsin and without the decency to defend General Marshall, Richard Nixon in all his gory glory, VietNam ... that sort of legacy.

I could go on, but you get the point. We partied like it was 1999, paid for it with Ponzi schemes and left the mess for our kids and grandkids to clean up. We're sorry -- so sorry.

Well, I'm not. I have two teenagers and an 8-year-old, and I can say firsthand that if boomer parents have anything for which to be sorry it's for rearing a generation of pampered kids who've been chauffeured around to soccer leagues since they were 6. This is a generation that has come to regard rising affluence as a basic human right, because that is all it has ever known -- until now. Today's high-school and college students think of iPods, designer cellphones and $599 lap tops as entitlements. They think their future should be as mapped out as unambiguously as the GPS system in their cars.

I'm not apologizing either. If teenagers think such luxuries are entitlements, then their parents are to blame, indeed.

How bad can the legacy of the baby boomers really be? Let's see: We're the generation that spawned Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Google, ATMs and Gatorade. We defeated the evils of communism and delivered the world from the brink of global thermonuclear war. Now youngsters are telling pollsters that they think socialism may be better than capitalism after all. Do they expect us to apologize for winning the Cold War next?

Well, Gatorade is nothing to brag about, and Google was started by post-Boomers, but he makes a very good point. No apologies necessary.

The boomers' children and their children will inherit more wealth and assets than any other in the history of the planet -- that is, unless Mr. Obama taxes it all away. So how about a little gratitude from these trust-fund babies for our multitrillion-dollar going-away gifts?

Aha, there it is: criticize the President as a tax-and-spend liberal, never mind that reagan and Bush, the supposedly fiscally prudent Republicans, got us into this mess.

My kids have never once handed back the car keys because of some moral problem with their carbon footprint -- and I think they are fairly typical.

Why not take the keys away?

Let's see what this next generation of over-educated ingrates can do.

So much anger.

Obama vs. The Beach Boys

An era is ending: Chrysler is in bankruptcy court, GM is about to file for bankruptcy, and Ford is, somehow, hanging on. Japanese and Korean and German car makers now dominate the American car market. All of this has been decades in the making: in the 1980s I refused to consider buying a Ford aftr hearing the pathetic sound its car door made when I tested its sound. If either Chrysler or GM survive, they will be mere shells of what they were 25 years ago.

SUVs are everywhere. Hummers are around. Minivans zoom on the highways, refuges for the meek of heart and macho of huff. And the three US car makers are bankrupt. What we are seeing are the remaking of an industrial market and the emergence of a 21st century economy. Some bemoan the disappearance of their nostalgia. These two commentators are nostalgic, and they have much to say. O'Rourke writes books, and is shutting the curtain on the 1950s a half century after they ended. Hemminger is a right-wing zealot who does not miss an opportunity to bash the leftist, socialist, big-government, activist Obama, and here blames him for ending the Beach Boys age. Pathetic.

My dream car when I was a teenager; I wanted it in midnight blue.













What fins.















A 1950 Studebaker Commander Convertible, with its famous ‘bullet-nose’ front end.



Preston Tucker, in one of the few Tucker cars produced, celebrates being acquitted of charges of fraud over the failure of his automobile business in 1950.










Henry Ford and his Model T.












Louis Chevrolet sits behind the wheel of his prototype car in 1911.











Some people are waxing nostalgic about the demise of the American automakers of yore, the rise of hybrids, and changing times. Author P.J. O'Rourke really waxes (the title of his latest book is Driving like crazy: thirty years of vehicular hellbending, celebrating America the way it's supposed to be-- with an oil well in every backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in every carport, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank mowing our lawn ).

The phrase “bankrupt General Motors,” which we expect to hear uttered on Monday, leaves Americans my age in economic shock. The words are as melodramatic as “Mom’s nude photos.” And, indeed, if we want to understand what doomed the American automobile, we should give up on economics and turn to melodrama.

Politicians, journalists, financial analysts and other purveyors of banality have been looking at cars as if a convertible were a business. Fire the MBAs and hire a poet. The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of financial crisis, foreign competition, corporate greed, union intransigence, energy costs or measuring the shoe size of the footprints in the carbon. It’s a tragic romance—unleashed passions, titanic clashes, lost love and wild horses.

On the other hand,Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal columnist and devoted right wing fringe guy, makes his feeling clear on who is to blame; his column last Thursday was entitled "Obama vs. The Beach Boys," subtitled "Daddy's taking the muscle-car culture away."


When Barack Obama announced that the government will use its fist to wave onto the highways of America cars that get 39 miles to a gallon of liquefied switch grass or something, he said, "Everybody wins."

The Beach Boys

Everybody? What country has he been living in? This marks the end of the internal combustion engine as we knew it, and it is the way Americans have defined, designed and literally driven much of the nation's culture for as long as anyone can remember. Car culture is America's culture.

Obama a Moderate?

The Wall Street Journal is a paragon of the Right, the perfect embodiment of the ideal of anti-leftist and anti-Liberal political thought. It bashes Democrats reflexively. Unfailingly, it does not like, and castigates, what Democrats stand for, do, and propose.

Today's lead editorial, Obama's Secretary of Earmarks - His Transportation nominee is a spending superstar, is typical.

Yet every once in a while it must admit that perhaps the world is not exactly as it sees and proposes. Witness an Op-Ed piece in today's edition: Obama Picks a Moderate on Education. Wha? Obama picked a moderate? Not a socialist? Whoa, Nelly.

Barack Obama picked Arne Duncan only partly for his skills on the basketball court. As secretary of education, he will be running one of the administration's most important finesse games.

The Obama administration will have a number of basketball players. Maybe the could challenge Putin to a five-on-five.

Considering the reviews from the right and the left, you might be confused about whether Mr. Duncan is a signal that Mr. Obama's administration is lining up behind the reformers or supporting the status quo.

He does support concepts that were anathema to liberals until recently; many liberals still don't dare buck the teacher's union, nor support ideas that conservatives champion. Yet some young idealists in the Democratic party want to recapture what should always have been a natural issue for Democrats: helping underprivileged kids get out of failing public schools.

I am not young, but I do think change is needed. Charter schools? Maybe so. But I still wonder why public education is not reformed internally, rather than letting remain a failing system.

Mr. Duncan is certainly no bomb thrower. Thank goodness for that.

A group called Democrats for Education Reform ... are part of the growing voice for reform in the party. DFER is known to cheer Democrats brave enough to support charter schools and other methods of extending options to parents. Joe Williams, the group's executive director, predicted that Mr. Duncan will help break the "ideological and political gridlock to promote new, innovative and experimental ideas."

Three cheers for that. And for this: Cory Booker of Newark, N.J., said that "As Democrats we have been wrong on education, and it's time to get it right."

Michelle Rhee is Washington, D.C., schools Chancellor (and über reformer). She has closed schools, fired teachers, proposed bonuses. Idea the union reflexively, and (I'd say) stupidly opposes.

Washington, D.C.'s Adrian Fenty, a strong backer of Ms. Rhee's effort to negotiate tough terms with the unions, remarked that the politics of school reform are changing fast.

Others are getting on board: Jesse Jackson Jr., Representative James Clyburn of S.C. are two of those challenging the orthodoxy.

It's all a bit delicate, which makes Mr. Duncan Mr. Obama's man for a good reason. He's known for a flexibility that allows him to float between the traditional Democratic strongholds and the new wave of reformers in the party. With proper implementation, Mr. Obama could accomplish on education reform what President Bill Clinton did for welfare reform – taking a previously Republican issue and transforming it from within the left.

Clearly the field of education needs to be shaken up, changed, reconstituted. Even when my kids were in enriched programs (with a disgusting school plant that included faded shades and ugly, beat up desks), I wondered why every kid in the educational system was not getting the same education.

Mr. Duncan is a reformer at heart, if one who works collegially within the system. But in the end, much will depend on his boss. Whether Mr. Obama is an artful fence walker or a real agent of change – on schools or anything else – is a mystery the coming year may finally clear up.

The man is not even in office and some are already criticizing Obama; even this WSJ person (a senior editorial writer at the Journal), who wants to give him some slack can not end without expressing some skepticism. She will be surprised.

Wal-Mart is everywhere

In side-by-side stories on page B3, below the fold, in today's print edition of the Wall Street Journal the reach of Wal-Mart is displayed. One story is about its intention to buy Chile's largest retailer, D&S; the other is about discount prices for prescriptions filled with generic drugs.

Wal-Mart looks to Chile's D&S, whose holdings include Lider, to expand its international presence

D&S's controlling shareholder, the Ibáñez family, has agreed to tender at least 23% of its D&S shares. The family plans to enter into an agreement with Wal-Mart in which the chain would operate with its current management, workers and store brands.

Santiago-based D&S is Chile's largest grocery chain, with more than 140 locations. It posted net income of 52.7 billion pesos ($82.9 million) last year, up 24% from 2006.

People familiar with the deal said the company's various supermarket formats and a credit-card business fit Wal-Mart's strategy of buying established national companies to quickly gain market share, a plan it has executed in Brazil, Japan and China. Wal-Mart said the offer most resembled its acquisition of a majority stake in the Central American Retail Holding Co. from Guatemala's Paiz family earlier this decade, which eventually turned Wal-Mart into Central America's largest retailer.

It has the bank account to simply buy market share by acquiring companies, not needing to bother building its own market share by competition. International growth is declared to be its largest capital expenditure target over the next five years. Wal-Mart can't grow much domestically.

But it can do things to gain market share where it doesn't have a commanding presence; its $4 generic prescription plan introduced in 2006 was such a step. The Journal story points out Wal-Mart's $4 plan generated competition.

Retail pharmacy generic discount programs have proliferated since Wal-Mart Stores Inc. introduced $4 generic prescriptions for one-month supplies of hundreds of unbranded drugs in 2006, and mass merchandisers and grocery stores responded with their own versions.

"Wal-Mart's move was very significant because they were going after a core source of profits for retail pharmacy," said Adam Fein, president of pharmaceutical supply chain consulting firm Pembroke Consulting Inc. in Philadelphia. While offers such as Wal-Mart's have hurt independent pharmacies and regional drug-store chains more, Mr. Fein said, national drug-store chains face significant pressure as well.

Wal-Mart has hurt independent retailer in many industries. Prescriptions is just another market that the behemoth wants to dominate.

Two different stories, same paper

On its website the WS Journal has two opposing stories: one says China will cut fuel prices, the other that China will raise prices.

Stocks managed to post moderate gains in afternoon trading Thursday after China's move to cut fuel prices knocked oil futures lower and investors mostly shrugged off more signs of credit turmoil.

and

BEIJING -- With its controlled energy-pricing system under the strain of oil at $130-plus a barrel, China's government said it will increase retail prices for gasoline, diesel and electricity.

Which one is it?

What's in a number?

Goldman Sachs announced its earning today. Two media outlets have it this way:

Goldman's Earnings Slip 11%

Goldman Sachs reported an 11% drop in quarterly net income amid credit losses, but results improved from the first quarter despite expectations of a rocky spring period for the brokerage. 9:53 a.m.

and: Goldman Sachs profit slips 10%

First one is the Wall Street Journal; second is MarketWatch, which is part of thje WSJ Digital network. So, which is it?

MarketWatch's story spells out the numbers: Goldman said second quarter profit dipped modestly, to $2.05 billion, or $4.58 cents a share, compared to $2.29 billion or $4.93 cents a share a year ago. The firm reported total revenue, net of interest expenses, of $9.42 billion versus $10.18 billion a year ago.

The Journal's story spells out the numbers: For the quarter ended May 30, the biggest Wall Street bank by market value reported net income of $2.09 billion, or $4.58 a share, down from $2.33 billion, or $4.93 a share, a year earlier.

Goldman released a statement; how can two different numbers be seen?

Not the Journal

This is funny.

Another good one: