Conservative media critics know New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse as an overtly liberal reporter who has marched in pro-abortion protests and gives speeches about her crying at rock concerts about how conservatives have ruined the country and mangled the promise of the baby-boomer generation. But at the end of the PBS chat show Washington Week on June 27, NBC's Pete Williams praised her as a clarinet virtuoso of a reporter, the best the Supreme Court has ever seen.
GWEN IFILL, host: Before we go tonight, we want you to join us in saying congratulations and farewell to Washington Week's longest serving panelist. Linda Greenhouse has been covering the Supreme Court for the New York Times for 30 years. That's more than 2,800 bylined stories.... She's leaving the Times, among other things, to teach at Yale - what Chief Justice John Roberts, a Harvard man, recently called one of the best law schools in New Haven. I have to ask, though, what is it like to compete against Linda, Pete?
PETE WILLIAMS: When I started covering the Supreme Court fifteen years ago, I would get up in the morning and read Linda's story to see if I got it right. But I think that learning to cover the Supreme Court is a little like learning to play the clarinet. And the more you learn the instrument, the more you begin to recognize the talents of a virtuoso. (Laughter, but collegial laughter, not derisive laughter.) It's true. And I will miss Linda's story because she has such grace, she has such ability to know when do you talk about the precedents and where you do you put the dissent in and how do you put this on the larger picture. I really think that she is the best it's ever been, and it will never be better, and we will miss her desperately.
Everyone can understand kind words for a retiring colleague, but these words clearly go beyond what politeness requires. You could praise her for being knowledgeable or helpful or skillful. But when you start describing someone as the equivalent of a musical genius, and describe how you measure your own work by how it matches her music, then you have the sound of adoration.
—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center.
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→ Linda Greenhouse-Gas
July 4, 2008 - 07:55 ET by Cool ArrowWhat? CO2 has a first name now?
Well, I have to admit I've managed to miss Linda Greenhouse for 30 years now and am looking forward to missing her in the future.
LYDSEXICS UNTIE
→ Now I remember her
July 4, 2008 - 07:59 ET by Cool ArrowI think I remember her, but wasn't she married to Punxatawney Phil?
LYDSEXICS UNTIE
Let's not forget
July 4, 2008 - 08:17 ET by American Infidelthat her husband Eugene Fidell has argued cases in front of the supreme court, some cases that Greenhouse has written columns about. Talk about your conflict of interest. But then again liberalism is so incestuous.
We've finally given liberals a war against fundamentalism, and they don't want to fight it. They would, except it would put them on the same side as the United States. Ann Coulter
The unbiased, speaking of truth -
July 4, 2008 - 08:28 ET by FastEd"how conservatives have ruined the country and mangled the promise of the baby-boomer generation."
Lets look at what the libs have done - war on poverty, better educated children (it's all about the children) Social Security "lock box protection", national security (anyone remember the bj Clinton years?), and the glue that they've spread, the binder that keeps us ALL together - diversity of thought and culture.
Meanwhile, when pubs had a pair, there was lower taxes, welfare reform, and a desire that the US of A was the pride of every citizen, not just the conservatives among us -
The bright spot in this is: there IS a quiet movement happening, where people are actually learning and leaning about/towards conservative thinking. We're a few years away, but it is inevitable, and the libs will become, so sad, a footnote, explained as a radical, nonsensical movement, used to prove the reality and liberty-seeking conservative way of thinking.
There is no sense in being stupid, if you can't prove it! - my dad V
Aw Lighten Up Timmy....
July 4, 2008 - 09:00 ET by BeresfordJeez Louise.....it is possible to recognize that a reporter writes well and knows a lot about stuff...without saying that you agree with what their views are.
One could say Bill Clinton is a helluva politician and can be spell-binding on the stump -- but that doesn't mean you believe what he is selling for a minute.
If you are trying to paint Pete Williams as just another left-wing commie pinko reporter, remember that before he got back into TV news, he was the long-time spokesman and friend of that bastion of liberalism - Dick Cheney.
Happy 4th of July.
why beresford,
July 4, 2008 - 10:15 ET by larry on LIhave you not discovered that money makes strange bedfellows? and yes pete williams is a fellow traveler, imho.
No More Greenhouse Gases?
July 4, 2008 - 12:58 ET by on-the-rocksSorry, I couldn't resist.
My bad.
Just my rambling thoughts this Independence Day
July 5, 2008 - 01:08 ET by Rush FanYou can get away with overzealous comments at someone’s retirement or anniversary if you are on the left side of the political spectrum. BUT if you are on the right side of the aisle and you say kind words about a friend, there is a good chance it will be deliberately taken out of context by the liberal media and you may LOSE your job. Remember when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott praised retiring Senator Strom Thurmond at Thurmond’s 100th birthday party with some innocuous comments? The MSM went crazy with calls of racism! Lott eventually resigned from his leadership positions. I wish he hadn't given in to the liberals clamoring for his resignation.
Speaking about how liberals deliberately take things out of context, remember how Media Matters with the help of Dingy Harry Reid deliberately took Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" remark out of context?
I listen to Obama, McCain and many others praise the importance of compromise, 'finding a middle ground' and 'reaching across the aisle'. Why would anyone want to compromise with a bunch of lying, deceitful liberals? As Rush Limbaugh has said many times, compromise to a liberal is when you agree with them! Just my rambling thoughts this Independence Day.
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I'm voting for Barack Obama now that an AP poll shows people would rather barbecue burgers with Barack Obama than with John McCain. http://news.yahoo.co...