T.A Frank writes:
In a sea of plugged-in, powerful pundits, Herbert is the lone unplugged spokesman for America's little guy. He's the delegate of the deprived. I could not admire his efforts more.
But, honestly, I don't read him either. I'll devour a Maureen Dowd column in which David Geffen trash-talks the Clintons. But I'll skip the next day's Herbert column counseling me to pay less attention to Anna Nicole Smith and more to, for instance, rebuilding New Orleans.
I feel lousy about saying this. Bob Herbert's on my team. By contrast, I could easily name ten other columnists who seem to make it their mission to find new, untested forms of destruction to bring upon us. If you told me that, say, Charles Krauthammer's articles were ghostwritten by Skeletor, I doubt I'd blink.
Franks goes on to explore a couple explanations for why Herbert is relatively less-read than other liberal columnists: It's his fault, it's our fault, it's the media's fault, it's our brain's fault, etc. All have some explanatory power. None are quite sufficient. My hunch, though, is that speaking about the marginalized doesn't have much of an audience. Frank notes that "Herbert's column in August decrying conservative attempts to block the expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program as 'cruel' was read less than Paul Krugman's column one day earlier on the same topic." In general, Herbert is likely to write that column with an eye towards the children who'll be hurt, while Krugman will write that column with an eye towards the Republicans who need to be flayed. And flaying your enemies is always more popular than shining light on the invisible.
