'NY Times' Columnists Meet on TV for First Time

By: E & P Staff Sunday night on the Discovery/Times Channel, four New York Times op-ed columnists come together, for the first time on TV, to discuss the presidential race, their roles at the newspaper, and the response they get from readers. David Brooks, according to a transcript of the taped program obtained by E & P, reveals, "My most common email says, 'Krugman's great, you suck.'"

The exchanges take place over dinner and drinks on Todd Purdum's program, "Political Dish."

Other highlights:

WILLIAM SAFIRE (on President Bush attacking The New York Times by name in his acceptance speech at convention): "That was the certainly the first time to my knowledge that any major party candidate talked about a specific newspaper in an acceptance speech."

PURDUM: "Why do you think he did that?"

SAFIRE: "Because it is a surefire applause-getter, and you are running against the media, and the New York Times is the primary example of the media."

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PAUL KRUGMAN: "The biggest email dump I've gotten was about two months ago when I wrote saying, 'gee it kinda looks the economic recovery is lulling.' It was the least political column I've written in months and I got outraged, angry emails from people that said this doesn't bare any resemblance to anything I've seen on TV, and it's really funny."

BROOKS: "It's a good sign."

KRUGMAN: "Yeah, it was a good sign. Of course, I was right. But it was funny. Usually the ones where I say, you know, 'George Bush is a bad man,' I get the usual dump of stuff, but it turns out that saying the economy is not all that you thought it was drives people crazy."
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BOB HERBERT: "I think there is a danger with daily journalism, I mean, you know, there's got to be a story every day, columnists are a little different but reporters, they want a lead every day.... And so, you want to dramatize everything. And every story is like the greatest and every campaign is the meanest and that sort of thing. So I think there's a certain hyperbole that's sort of the nature of daily journalism."

SAFIRE: "It's wilder now, it doesn't have the structure...Back then...the news cycle was like a daily cycle instead of a minute-by-minute frenetic business that it is now, and that's why guys like us bring to this thumbsucking, which is a very important thing, and we can lay back and thinkfor a whole day, sometimes two days and come back with all that 48-hours perspective.