Thomas Frank Pulls a Slater

Thomas Frank offers a graceless goodbye to the Wall Street Journal after just two years. He'd hoped the world would take his left-wing views more seriously.

Where I most expected changes, though, was in the world of professional punditry, which had largely failed to raise questions about the disaster as it loomed. Today it's two years on, and nobody has changed the water in the fish tank, as a friend of mine likes to say. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times still burbles about theories of creativity that were management clichés 10 years ago. The Washington Post prosecutes its undeclared war on Social Security by having former TARP czar Neel Kashkari explain why banks had to be bailed out but "entitlements must be cut." The need to balance the federal budget is almost universally thought to be urgent. And bipartisanship still intoxicates the pundit mind with its awesome majesty.

On Wall Street, the road to hell is still lined with bonuses. And Washington feels the same as ever. The prosperous, well-educated people still tote their yoga mats around town, line up outside the special cupcake shops, and listen to NPR talk show hosts welcome the next generation of boring centrists into the glorious circle of the right-thinking. The lobbyists still gather at the tasteful restaurants du jour, doing their work on behalf of the forgotten men of the uppermost one percent.

As for me, it's two cans of beer and the escape chute to terra firma. Goodbye and good luck.

Sound like he he got hit on the head by a piece of luggage. Hope he has a friend at home to console him.