Asymmetrical Information

The "hot air" and "cojones" arrows are suprisingly juvenile for the Economist.

The "hot air" and "cojones" arrows are suprisingly juvenile for the Economist.

It’s true of pretty much the entire cover which is fitting for the target audience.

I wonder though if they had an alternate cover for “Ways to attack John Kerry” story which is also featured in this issue. That might be rather clever to have one issue with two different covers – one attacking the Republican and the other attacking the Democratic candidate (sort of like the A and B covers of some comic books).

Yes Xavier, but very typical of the Economist they are spot-on accurate. I notice that they have a similar piece on Kerry (without the picture). I'd love to see that too.

Kate-

I would agree on the accuracy of the cover if you are referring to areas that Kerry could attack and possibly be successful, truth be damned. However, about half the "data points" are wrong.

Xavier/Thorley-

I agree- very juvenile, Rush"ish" brand of "analysis". My perception of the Economist was about two notches higher on the "high road" scale.

Sorry Kate, snarky isn't accurate. You can't sum up a person's shortcomings with snide remarks. Granted it's just a cover and isn't meant to be the whole story, but items like that don't indicate the story has any meat, just slander.

Notice that they have the picture for Kerry inside. Gotta buy tht one.

I am a subscriber to the Economist. My guess is that this superb weekly will soon put John Kerry on the hot seat. I consider the Economist as a fairly balanced publication---except on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. In the long run, its editors have far more serious reservations concerning Senator Kerry. Oh well, we will find out soon enough.

I'm also an Economist subscriber, and generally find it pretty reasonable. But it's very odd to think it takes less cojones to face down Saddam Hussein than to beat up on Israel. (And, given that Saddam tried to kill Bush's father, the cojones level requirement was even higher than it would normally be.)

Off-topic: Megan, as an economist, do you want to weigh in on the FASB draft for expensing of employee stock options?

suprisingly juvenile?

I've been reading The Economist for quite a while and this is very much their kind of a cover.

Anyone remember the cover on the When Mergers Fail issue?

Jay H wrote:

I would agree on the accuracy of the cover if you are referring to areas that Kerry could attack and possibly be successful, truth be damned. However, about half the "data points" are wrong.

"The "hot air" and "cojones" arrows are suprisingly juvenile for the Economist."

Err, you've never met an Economist journalist, have you. They're (with the gracious exception of our host) usually twenty-something males from Oxbridge with a keen wit and an ego to go with it. The one I knew from Cambridge was a bit of a clown, smart (but not as smart as he thought). But when he got his job at the Economist, I thought "yeah, that's the right place for him".

And, it might be said, the art of lampooning candidates is sadly atrophied. There isn't a cartoonist now who could hold a candle to Punch's cartoonists in it's heyday, or, say, John Heartfield's montages in the 1930s. As H.L. Mencken said, there just isn't enough lack of respect anymore.

April 1st?????

See, I agree with the cover on Palestine & Israel. If Bush had cojones, he'd stop making the token protests over Israeli actions and declare that we are withdrawing aid from Israel . . .

. . .until Arafat has been killed.

"Anyone remember the cover on the When Mergers Fail issue?"

That picture, of two camels copulating, was a hilarious parody of two ungainly corporations attempting to merge. The current Bush-bashing cover is about as witty as a junior high school's journalism class. No comparison between those covers.

The problem is that the Economist has decided that Bush sucks, although they strongly supported the invasion of Iraq. They're presently fixated on his warts. We'll see how 'impartial' they are when (if) Kerry gets an Economist going-over.

And agreed, they're great Palestinian supporters, and have long been been so. A fine magazine in general, but with some strong warts and biases of its own.

Why not just throw a bomb here? There seems to be an agreement that The Economist is unfairly biased against Israel. There also seems to be, out there, an agreement that the UN is biased against Israel. And when you look at it, the Europeans are biased against Israel. And when you look a bit more, the whole world seems, well, kind of biased against Israel. Everyone is biased against Israel except, well, America and Israel. Anyone want to (please, please, take a deep breath first) take a crack at why that is? I honestly want answers, not anger, so please re-read that thing about the deep breath.

Contributor A -- I love your opening sentence, and while I have a hard time believing you haven't heard many reasonable answers before, perhaps you haven't, so here goes one common one:
-- Assuming most of the world is biased against Israel (and, increasingly, the US), one could argue it's not due to the inherent existence of the country, but rather to specific policies that country carries out. Just as most environmentalists probably don't hate GW Bush as a person, they hate his policies and would love to see him cease to be in power. And while certainly some people hate the concept of Israel, just as there's probably even a couple of people who 'hate us for because we're free' .. chances are good the majority of the haters just don't like the foreign policy.

Unfortunately, these legitimate arguments against specific policies get quickly picked up by the raucus few who have actual prejudices against a country, and the messages get mixed. People who start out thinking the policy is bad end up hating the country (or the person .. see the Bush example above).

As a proponent of most of what [I believe] Israel stands for, it saddens me to see them undercut themselves by giving a world with just a bit of bias towards them more than enough ammunition to end up hating them. Of course it saddens me to see the US doing the same...

Much of British humor (or is that "humour"?) is "surprisingly juvenile" as it were; and whatever else that style of wit may or may not be, the Economist covers have always been a very good example of it. The cover in question is indeed a bit juvenile but IMO not particularly surprising.

Josh - I wrote last night's post rather late and without elaborating (and last time I started a debate here a few people yelled at me for stipulating too many things); yes, of course I'm aware that Israel does many foolish and bad things that cause people not to like it. But so does Burma, and lots of other countries. Yet I would argue that Israel is uniquely disliked - there have been more General Assembly resolutions against it (and US-vetoed Security Council resolutions) than any other place. And there's that famous Zionism=racism GA resolution. Scary stuff.

Is it becuase it is a democracy and does so many nasty things? Like apartheid South Africa, which was a democracy if you were white, maybe? Note that I'm not saying Israel is apartheid South Africa, merely saying both are democracies and maybe get more attention for that reason.

Interestingly, it just occurs to me that white South Africa and Israel are basically western countries outside the West, too. Could that be it?

A lot of Americans seem to think that the cover was an example of the Economist debasing itself in order to take down George Bush, because they're a bunch of euro-weenies. Those who've read the articles ought to know that that isn't true; the Economist is no Kerry partisan or Bush hater. The cover is simply a result of a different journalistic style; British journos regard it as saucy, rather than offensive. In general, the tolerance for . . . er . . . biological humour is a lot higher on the other side of the pond.

It takes more cojones to go after someone that goes after your dad than an ally? On what planet? Someone tries to kill my dad, I have no qualms about trying to avenge it (some call me Inigo). Standing up to a friend and ally because it's right, is significantly harder.

Note this analogy is for demonstration purposes only: You're arch enemy tries to kill your father. Quite easy and doesn't take much courage to go after him. Your friend cheat/lies/breaks the law. You are expected to call him on it in front of the world, instead of standing up for him. The first is easier and not as brave an act as the latter.

Contributor_A -- this is increasingly off-topic, but hey -- who reads commentaries on old postings anyway.

If you are serious about reading more into this, there are a lot of similarities, and of course discrepancies, between Israel and pre-apartheid south africa.

As you mention, both get lots of negative press, and one could conjecture it's because they are isolated 'democratic' countries or for many other reasons. But aside from negative press let's look at a few other comparisons:

Foreign Policy of RSA vs Israel: So many differences it's almost not even comparing the same fruit, but please take the best 'we can't believe you didn't take it' offer that netanyahu _allegedly_ gave to arafat/palestinians and compare that offer to the actual bantustans that RSA did create for their semi-citizens. I think you'll find Israels' best, best offer, and one they repeatedly swear they will not offer again, pales in any reasonable comparison in terms of land grab, ability for the less-than-citizen people to move about freely, and in terms of their ability for self-rule. Note also that the bantustans were considered cruel and wrong enough that they were at the center of the attacks on apartheid.

Now keeping that in mind, check out sanctions on the countries: As I recall, there was a worldwide effort, joined though not led, by the USA to punish RSA economically. I notice far fewer Euro sanctions on trading w/Israel, and certainly the US policy is quite opposite.

I could go on for many pages, but would conclude that in general, despite the ugliness of apartheid south africa, their policy was almost never anything close to that of Israel. More to the point, severe and drastic world action against south africa took a HUGE part in helping them realize their system was not sustainable. I am not terribly optimistic Israel hasn't already passed the point of no return in terms of acheiving anything like the _amazing_ and _incredibly surprising_ peaceful solution that RSA managed .. but their current actions _AND OUR SUPPORT OF THEM_ makes this tiny chance become negligible.

-Josh

I think this cover is another example of how the Economist has lost their collective minds this election season. I've read them for 12+ years and only in the last few months have they been so obviously biased and dishonest.

They constantly harp on about Bush, usually repeating lies that the left tells and that have been debunked (they continue to hype Richard Clarke's book while pretending that the guy hasn't been shown to be a charlatan). They can barely bring themselves to issue mild criticisms of Kerry and they even ran a column defending him as not a flip-flopper (!) last week. They keep pointing out that yes, they did support the Iraq war, but they only have to keep reminding us because all of their coverage is 100% anti-American and spins everything in a lefty/Guardian way.

As a few others above have mentioned, they also continue on with their long history of Jew-hating and Palestinian terrorist-loving. Previously, that had been just a small bit of madness in an otherwise excellent newspaper.

Thanks to their lack of bylines it is hard to tell if they've had staff changes to explain their insanity or what. I'm been on the verge of cancelling my subscription for weeks now. This latest cover might push me over the edge.

(Albert has nothing constructive to share. Thanks to A Small Victory for the graphic)

:) No doubt!

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