James Taranto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Taranto (born 1966) is a Manhattan-based columnist for The Wall Street Journal and editor of its online editorial page, OpinionJournal.com. He is best known for his daily online column, entitled Best of the Web Today, in which he links to and comments on news stories and Web sites submitted by readers.

Most of Taranto's commentary is politically oriented and conservative/libertarian in perspective. He lambastes various public figures and organizations, from John Kerry, often described as "the haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat, who by the way served in Vietnam," to Reuters, for which he uses headlines with excessive use of quotes in mockery of the service's overuse of scare quotes. He sometimes mentions the Roe effect (which proposes that parents who support abortion will have fewer children, causing support for abortion to decline among young people) in his column and also wrote an article[1] about it.

Best of the Web Today also includes non-political items which are concerned with journalism nationwide. Often-seen titles are "You Don't Say," "This Just In," or "Stop the Presses," followed by a common-sense headline such as "Shedding a Few Pounds Beneficial for Obese" (June 1, 2004) or "Sperm May Play Role in Growth of Embryo" (May 13, 2004). Another commonly used title is "What Would We Do Without Experts?," followed by headlines such as "Experts Remind Staying Warm Important After Cold Contributes to 5 Deaths" (January 7, 2004). "World's Smallest Violin" is his lead-in for stories about whiners undeserving of sympathy. A more recent recurring feature is "Bottom Stories of the Day," rounding up supposedly unimportant or unsurprising news items, such as "No E. Coli Reported in Tompkins County" (December 8, 2006).

Taranto exposes what he sees as overly harsh punishment of minor drug- or weapon-related offenses in schools under the title "Zero-Tolerance Watch." He corrects his previous mistakes under the title "Homer Nods." Taranto used to publish a section called "Good News Watch" to counteract what viewed as liberal media bias in covering the 2003 Iraq war and the subsequent U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. The last "Good News Watch" entry is from June 2004.

Mr. Taranto attended California State University, Northridge.

[edit] Excerpts

Taranto's column has a signature style by which he replaces the actual headline with his own headline or write a witty reply to the headline and links it to the site he is discussing.

You Don't Say

"Area Graduates Become Alumni"--headline, Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer, May 10

When Lethal Injection Just Won't Do

"Public Authorities Committee Gets Chair"--headline, Crain's New York Business, May 11

But Not a Minute Sooner

"From the moment I take office, I will stand up to those special interests and stand with hardworking families so that we can give America back its future and its ideals."--JohnKerry.com

Contre le Stéréotype

A New York Times report suggests maybe the French aren't cheese-eating surrender monkeys after all:

A Paris court today sentenced a Frenchman with ties to a suspect in the Madrid train bombings to four years in prison for helping Islamic terrorists in Europe.

The man, David Courtallier, was convicted of conspiring with criminals engaged in a terrorist enterprise and was not implicated in the Madrid bombings, which killed 191 people on March 11. But Mr. Courtallier, a cheese vendor from France's Savoy region who converted to Islam in 1997, had been in contact with Jamal Zougam, one of the first suspects arrested in the Madrid attacks.

That they have arrested him in spite of his vocation is all the more impressive.