Former Bill Bradley Speechwriter Named Managing Editor of Time Magazine

Richard Stengel, a former adviser and speechwriter for presidential candidate Bill Bradley, has been named the Managing Editor of Time magazine. Stengel has written and edited for the magazine in the past and has a long history of attacking Republicans and conservatives. The Media Research Center has been documenting his bias through the years. One of his more famous comments, recounted in the June 14, 1999, edition of Notable Quotables, was the assertion that the Communist-exposing Whittaker Chambers may have been right, but he sure was mean:

"Whittaker Chambers was mostly right about communism and Alger Hiss, but he was a nasty piece of work and nobody likes a snitch. Even Joe McCarthy may have been on to something, but he was a crude and cruel man who ruined people's lives for 48-point type. You might call this the When Bad People Spoil Good Things school of history."- Time's Richard Stengel on "Dubious Influences," June 14 issue.

In 1998, this remark by Stengel appeared in the September 9 issue on NQ:

"Inside the Beltway, the scandal is not the lie but the unvarnished truth. George Bush’s campaign barb about Reaganism being voodoo economics raised far more hackles than his claim that Clarence Thomas was the most qualified man in America to be on the Supreme Court." -Time Senior Editor Richard Stengel, August 31 news story.

The MRC’s MediaWatch noted the lengths to which Mr. Stengel would go to attack then presidential candidate Steve Forbes. This is from January of 1996:

"At first glance, Steve Forbes' presidential campaign would seem to fulfill the media's standards for a proper Republican candidate: One with sufficiently soft stands on social issues to avoid the ‘divisive’ label. Unable to attack Forbes as extremist (he has suitably ‘tolerant’ stands on such issues as abortion and immigration), in the December 4 Time, Senior Writer Richard Stengel charged that ‘for all his patrician good humor, Forbes' message and his campaign have begun to show a hard edge.’ Stengel exploited a tenuous link between Forbes and Senator Jesse Helms' racially-tinged campaigns: ‘While Forbes generally shuns the politics of exclusion, he has nonetheless attracted to his organization two veterans of Jesse Helms' race-baiting campaigns.’"

So, just to recap, Whittaker Chambers was "nasty" and a "snitch." Clarence Thomas didn’t belong on the Supreme Court and Steve Forbes is guilty by association. It appears as though Time magazine will continue with the fine, objective reporting that they are known for.