Voting Station

Michael Kinsley

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Commentator

The Resume

    (March 9, 1951- )
    Born in Detroit, Michigan
    Editor of 'New Republic' and wrote its 'TRB' column (1979-95)
    Co-host of 'Crossfire' (1989-95)
    Editor of the online journal 'Slate' (1995-2002)
    Contributed as a columnist and/or editor to 'Time,' 'The Washington Post,' 'The Los Angeles Times,' 'The Guardian,' 'Harper's' and 'Politico'

Why he might be annoying:

    He descirbed his politics as 'unreliably left of center.... I'm sort of all over the lot, but I average out to sort of a mainstream liberal.'
    His reaction to the 1988 election: 'The voters, or at least a majority of them, are idiots, betrayers of their country's future, misperceivers of their own best interests, ignorant about the issues, gulled by slick lies.'
    While at the L.A. Times, he experimented with 'wikitorials' (online editorials that could be edited by readers) that had to be cancelled when they got swamped by pornographic posts.
    Also at the L.A. Times, he got into a public feud with Susan Estrich over a lack of editorials written by women.
    He declared, 'The newspaper column is pretty close to dead as a medium,' then left Slate to resume writing newspaper columns.

Why he might not be annoying:

    Washington Post editor Fred Hiatt called him 'one of the smartest and funniest guys' in journalism.
    He was named Editor of the Year by the Columbia Journalism Review for his work at Slate (1999).
    He underwent successful deep brain stimulation surgery to treat Parkinson's disease (2006).
    He famously observed, 'A gaffe occurs not when a politician lies, but when he tells the truth -- some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 15 Votes: 53.33% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 72 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 17 Votes: 52.94% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 6 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 16 Votes: 62.50% Annoying