Until recently, the most recent columnist added by The Progressive was Luis J. Rodriguez, a Latino male, well over forty-years-old. He was added in 2006. Columnist Molly Ivins, whose column ran on the last page of the magazine, died in January 2007.
The March issue of The Progressive brings news on the columnist front: two new columnists!
Let's meet the women . . .
Oh, wait.
They aren't women.
They are Dave Zirin ("a terrific writer on the politics of sports" enthuses Matthew Rothschild) and Jim Hightower ("the Texas populist," declares Rothschild).
If you've never seen the men, they are both White.
Starting in 2006, the magazine has added three columnists. All men.
Now Andrea Lewis actually writes about sports so if Rothschild were interested in a sports perspective it would have made more sense to offer the job to someone already covering the sports beat for The Progressive's syndicated columns. Jim Hightower?
He's got a good heart but everything he had to say he said by 1991 and has largely just been repeating himself ever since. We shudder to think "the Texas populist" is Molly's replacement.
But how does The Regressive, er, The Progressive, manage to add two columnists in one month and they're both men. They're already top-heavy with male writers but apparently they didn't grasp that. (Do they not read their own monthly magazine?)
We would ask, "Is Matthew Rothschild afraid of women?"; however, we've read his writing during the current campaign season so we already know that he is.
Apparently he's in a competition with The Nation to demonstrate which allegedly left magazine can publish more men.
Sorry, Matty, try as you may, in this pissing match, our money's on Katrina vanden Heuvel.