Sam Tanenhaus

Strange Days in the NYT: Obama's Opposition to Gay Marriage a Good Thing?
By Clay Waters | June 29, 2009 | 3:41 PM EDT

When Sam Tanenhaus came on board the New York Times Book Review in 2004 he was accused of being conservative, but one would be hard-pressed to convict him based on the available evidence during his tenure -- "the emptiness of free-market liturgy," anyone?Besides having a thin, forced, and familiar feel, Tanenhaus's latest essay for the Times Week in Review, "Sound of Silence: The Culture Wars Take a Break," managed to portray Obama's opposition to gay marriage (which would normally make him a villain or at least hypocritical in the Times's eyes) as a Clintonian-style tactical victory against conservatives, absent of any the usual anti-gay taint the paper brings to bear on the matter.

The culture wars may not have ended, but on some fronts the combat has gotten rather quiet. For instance, family values.

True, David Letterman's awkward joke about a daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska prompted denunciations of the "media elite" (though it also boosted Mr. Letterman's ratings).

Alleged NY Times Conservative Declares Conservatism Dead
By Clay Waters | February 9, 2009 | 6:27 PM EST

"Conservatism Is Dead," blares the cover of the February 18 edition of The New Republic, heralding an article by Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review and Week in Review. Tanenhaus came to bury conservatism, arguing up front that today's GOP is too weak to resist Obama. (Perhaps a premature burial, given the GOP's stand against the "stimulus" package.)Tanenhaus, who was advertised as some kind of conservative when he joined the Times as Book Review editor in 2004, has written nothing to justify that stance since. After Obama's election, he wrote in wonder that

Some 40 years later, there are conservatives who still inveigh against the perils of socialized medicine.

In his New Republic cover story, Tanenhaus sounded at best like a neo-liberal, making brief cursory criticism of liberal overreach while bearing down hard on conservative opposition to food stamps and the welfare state in general, with much discussion of Joe McCarthy, "the emptiness of free-market liturgy," and conservative malice toward the poor.