David Plotz

Slate Writer: You're a 'Bad Person' if You Send Your Kid to Private School
By Ken Shepherd | August 29, 2013 | 11:51 AM EDT

Update: Benedikt sent her child to a private pre-school (see bottom of post; h/t Josh Trevino) |Do you now or have you ever sent your child to a private school? You sir or madam are a "bad person." That's the argument of Slate's Double X blog editor Allison Benedikt in "a manifesto" she published today at the liberal website headlined, "If You Send Your Kid to Private School, You Are a Bad Person." One presumes that homeschooling parents are even worse, perhaps "evil," but we'll wait to see if Benedikt issues another manifesto on that issue.

Benedikt opens by qualifying that private-school parents are not "murderer bad," but they are "ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid." Sounds like an argument MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry would agree with, after all, your kids are not yours, they belong to the community. Benedikt continued to lay out her case by qualifying that she is:

Slate Editor Proudly Proclaims Magazine Will No Longer Use ‘Redskins’ Name
By Paul Bremmer | August 9, 2013 | 7:25 PM EDT

Just in time for the start of the NFL's preseason, the leftist online publication Slate is fed up with the hateful nickname of that NFL team in Washington. On Thursday, editor David Plotz self-righteously penned an article announcing that Slate will no longer refer to that team as the “Redskins.”

Plotz explained in the second paragraph: “For decades, American Indian activists and others have been asking, urging, and haranguing the Washington Redskins to ditch their nickname, calling it a racist slur and an insult to Indians.” You would think that if Plotz were really so concerned about offensive language, he would use the term “Native Americans” rather than “Indians.” We have long since learned that they are not from India or the Indies, and yet the incorrect term “Indians” has stuck.

Slate’s Anti-Wall Street Mob Populism: 'We Should Go After Them with Pitchforks, Knives, Guns, Clubs…'
By Jeff Poor | April 24, 2010 | 11:12 PM EDT

Does anyone remember when the liberal intellectuals decried populism coming from the likes of Glenn Beck and other conservatives that was aimed at the direction the country is going under the leadership of President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress?

Throughout 2009, that so-called "bottom-barrel demagogy," as Troy Patterson called it in an post for Slate one year ago, was the focus of much consternation from the intellectual class that resides in the Northeastern U.S. corridor. One example was a critique of the Rick Santelli call that inspired the Tea Party movement, which John Dickerson called "impassioned, scattershot, and ultimately clownish" in a post for Slate back in February 2009.

Apparently it is OK to cry foul on so-called populist rants when the mouthpieces tend to be right-of-center. But now, with Congress debating financial regulation, this sort of above-the-fray approach has gone by the wayside, at least for Slate.com. On Slate's Political Gabfest podcast for April 22, moderator John Dickerson asked his panel consisting of Slate editor David Plotz and Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon, if Wall Street banks had a responsibility to self-regulate and do what's right as opposed to solely relying on legislation to set the boundaries. That inspired an "impassioned" populist response from Plotz.