Bob Herbert is leaving the NYT and goes out with a tour de force:
So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.
Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.
It’s more or less downhill from there. I hope the Times has the sense to replace Herbert with someone as passionate about these class and pocketbook issues–issues largely ignored by his colleagues. (With the partial exception of Paul Krguman.)
A Thinking Reed 