Hilarious condemnation is much better than a takedown — Late last week, Joseph Epstein wrote a ridiculous and insulting opinion column for the Wall St. Journal. It suggested that Jill Biden, holder of an educational doctorate, not a medical doctorate, should not call herself “Doctor.” It was a weak, insulting column that relied on a dated snobbery and evident…

This stuff is complicated which is why it is important to get it right. — BY TIM WU & SCOTT HEMPHILL Law is complex and antitrust law is even more so. Nonetheless, the business and the tech press keeps making the following repeated errors in their coverage of the Facebook antitrust case: 1. Reporting that the Instagram and WhatsApp mergers were approved in 2012/2014 and discussing such “approvals” as if they are legally binding precedent

At least we’re united in being crazy — As everyone knows, the United States is divided, yielding completely different interpretations of the same news items. The usual presumption is that the divide is between red minds and blue, conservatives and liberals. I beg to disagree. As a strangely obsessed reader of wacky newspaper comments, online forums and insane…

Repealing “Section 230” won’t do what anyone wants — I like to think of myself as someone who’s been decently critical of excessively concentrated power in the tech platforms. Back in 2010, to general derision and laughter, I wrote that tech platform monopolies might well be a growing problem, and I like to flatter myself in suggesting I was…

How Trump’s lawyers lost their minds — It is a well-established fact that many of Donald Trump’s associates are lowlives and crooks. But I’ve long felt that a special kind of attention need be paid to his collection of personal lawyers, who collectively make up some of the most depraved, unethical, and generally repulsive characters to have…

We seem to forget how many are actually Asian-American — A consensus verdict on the 2020 election has been that suburban voters did Trump in. In the public mind’s eye, what really decided the election was a Carol Brady-like figure, the white suburban mom, who, alarmed by Trump’s indifference to public health and his general vulgarity, went with good old…

In which the Kool-Aid gets stirred — I was impressed by, and enjoyed, the first two-thirds of Ben Thompson’s response to my critique of his work related to tech platforms and the Google antitrust case. (The last third is more regrettable, but I’ll address that, too.) I’ve enjoyed most of the exchange, and it has helped me…

Biden leads in polls; Trump leads the lawns — does it mean anything? — Back in the Fall of 2016, when I was working in the White House, it was safe to say that (as the proverb goes) the curtains were being prematurely measured. Everyone had long and foolishly assumed that Clinton was going to win; the question was how to manage the handoff. …

Smart, but a little too much Kool-Aid — Ben Thompson is the author of Stratechery, a popular newsletter that “provides analysis of the strategy and business side of technology and media.” Thompson, who has an MBA, is a former tech industry worker who has spent time at various tech firms, including Apple and Microsoft. He is a smart…