Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently generated a furor among Palestinians and other Arabs by praising as "unprecedented" an offer by Israel to slow down, but not stop, construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Twelve days after the storm, the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire column generated a furor when it reported that Richard Baker, a Republican congressman from Baton Rouge, had been overheard telling lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans.
He has been lambasted by some of his most important coalition partners for generating a furor on the issue, which his party has promised it would not pursue, in exchange for the support of secular-minded parties.
But that never generated as much furor, in part because vacationing in the United States is not as politically delicate for American leaders and their families as doing so in foreign countries.
And it should not be a surprise that the two who have come in for by far the most vitriol and demonization are a black man (Van Jones, who resigned in response to the furor generated by Beck) and a gay one (Kevin Jennings).
Michelle Goldberg, writing in Salon in response to the furor generated when Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted the death penalty sentences of 167 death row prisoners, argued, "No psychological study has ever concluded that the death penalty brings 'closure' to anyone except the person who dies, and there's circumstantial evidence that it can prolong the suffering of grieving families".
Russia's biggest track and field star, Yelena Isinbayeva, was engaged in damage control, attempting to calm the furor she generated at a news conference Thursday with her comments about homosexuality in Russia and her support of the new law that is widely perceived as antigay in the west.On Thursday, Isinbayeva, who won the gold medal here, suggested that the law reflected the country's views.
A thoughtful article in the Village Voice this week, by Kevin Baker, about the writer Darin Strauss's disillusionment with book tours and the outsize furor his comments generated in the blogosphere, brought to mind my experience working at Cody's Books, the indie institution in Berkeley, California, in the late nineteen-eighties.
By Vicky Raab December 11 , 2008A thoughtful article in the Village Voice this week, by Kevin Baker, about the writer Darin Strauss's disillusionment with book tours and the outsize furor his comments generated in the blogosphere, brought to mind my experience working at Cody's Books, the indie institution in Berkeley, California, in the late nineteen-eighties.
A furor ensued, some of it generated by political opponents of Mr. Berlusconi, who is Italy's richest man, the owner of three television channels and master of the three state channels.
