Profiles, Interviews, Critiques, Appreciations

"Critiques" refer to essays where I gang up on a single person. This list includes a handful of Nader features that profile specific aspects of his personality.

Echo Chamber in the Superdome
A Louisiana National Guardsman Explains How He Dealt With False Rumors Being Piped Into Ground Zero of Hurricane Katrina
Reason Online - October 4, 2005

Baby Love
The Hippie-Capitalist Wisdom of CD Baby Founder Derek Sivers, Hero to 93,000 Indie Musicians and Counting
LA Weekly - June 10, 2005

Cuba Spring, or Trap?
Cautious Optimism About Castro's Opponents
Reason Online - May 25, 2005

Watching Dave Hansen
Living Vicariously Through the Career of a Pinch-Hitter
Baseball Analysts - May 5, 2005

Locker-Room Liberty
Athletes Who Helped Shape Our Times and the Economic Freedom That Enabled Them
Reason - May 2005

A High White Note
Hunter Thompson's Writing -- and Politics -- Were One of a Kind
Reason Online - February 22, 2005

Deaniac Democrats
Will the Vermont Screamer and His Enfranchised "Net Roots" Marginalize or Revitalize the Party of the People?
Reason Online - February 7, 2005

Song for Dan Rather
No Critic Could Hate Diamond Dan More Than He Hated Himself...and the Rest of Us
Reason Online - November 29, 2004

Bush Unbound
Republicans (Probably) Get an Actual Mandate
Reason Online - November 3, 2004

The Providential Scholar
Professor Michael Mann's Journey From Ancient Rome to Nazi Europe to the Iraq War
UCLA Magazine - Summer 2004

McCain's Bane
Q&A;: FEC Chair Bradley Smith Explains Why He Voted Against Regulating 527s
Reason Online - May 13, 2004

Value Added
Since Long Before 'Character Education' Became Trendy, Gene Doxey Has Taught His Students Right From Wrong
Teacher Magazine - May 2004

Culture Clash
What Happens When a Harvard Man With a Computer Is Given the Keys to Chavez Ravine?
Orange County Register - April 4, 2004

Unsafe at any Election
Ralph Nader Takes Another Swing ... at His Own Reputation
National Post - February 29, 2004

Michael Moore et ses 'Petite Arragements Avec la Realite'
Des Critiques, Parfois au Sein Meme da la Gauche Americaine, Denoncent des Approximations du Realisateur de Bowling for Columbine
L'Hebdo - January 22, 2004 (with Emmanuelle Richard)

Open Season on 'Open Society'
Why an Anti-Communist Holocaust Survivor Is Being Demonized as a Socialist, Self-hating Jew
Reason Online - December 8, 2003

Socially Liberal, Fiscally Conservative, Personally Narcissist
Can Arnold Deliver on his Substantial Political Promise?
Reason Online - November 17, 2003

France's Young Contrarian
A 22-year-old Leads the Revolt Against Strike-addled Culture
National Post - October 25, 2003

Bad Boys Get Spanked
Recall Was About One Important Issue -- Firing Gray Davis
Reason Online - October 9, 2003

The Body Politic
The Walrus on Arnold Schwarzenegger's Politics
The Walrus - October 2003

Liberty Belle
France's New Libertarian Youth Leader
Reason - October 2003

BASE! How Low Can You Go
Gray Davis' Nauseating Pander to the Left
Reason Online - August 1, 2003

Turning Baseball on its Ear
How an Amateur Army Outsmarted a Sport's Gatekeepers
National Post - June 21, 2003

Velvet President
Why Vaclav Havel Is Our Era's George Orwell and More
Reason - May 2003

Is 'Bandar Bush' Above the Law?
Saudi Ambassador and Wife Should Be Deported for National Security
National Post - April 19, 2003

Paper Cuts
Student Op-ed Pieces Result in Free-speech Fracas at Cali High School
Teacher Magazine - January 2003

Manufacturing Dissent
Noam Chomsky Calls the U.S. a Terrorist State. Much of the World, it Seems, is Listening
National Post - June 8, 2002

Foul Ball
How Castro and the Embargo Have Silenced a Cuban Baseball Historian
Reason - June, 2002

Speaking Lies to Power
Ralph Nader Fudges the Truth Just Like a Real Politician
Reason - May 2002

The Cuban Senators
Julio Becquer and the Last-Place Cuban-Flavored Teams of 1950s D.C.
ESPN.com - March 11, 2002

The Web's Most Curious Man
15 Questions With Online Journalism Pioneer Tom Mangan
Online Journalism Review - May 3, 2001

New Jersey's Teen Matt Drudge
Sergio Bichao's Underground Web Newspaper has his High School Reeling
Online Journalism Review - March 12, 2001

Michael Kinsley: The Apologist
Talented Slate Editor Has Spent Past 4 Years Telling Awkward Jokes About Bill Gates, Defending Microsoft, and Making the World Safe for Selling Out
Online Journalism Review - January 22, 2001

Hunter Thompson, Online Columnist
How the Man Who Launched a Thousand Newspaper Careers
Ended up at ESPN.com
Online Journalism Review - December 21, 2000

The Spoiler's Fuzzy Math
Nader's Defiance and Evasion Reflect Schizophrenia of a Third-Party Campaign That Was Essentially a Liberal-Democrat Revolt
mattwelch.com - November 9, 2000

Behind Nader's 'Mad Dash'
How a Third-Party Mumbler Sold out Arenas Like a Rock Star
NewsForChange - November 7, 2000

The Gloomy Comedian
He May Want to Expand the IRS, Raise Taxes and Crack Down on 'Trivial Small-Talk,' But Nader is a Surprisingly Humorous Campaigner
NewsForChange - October 20, 2000

Nader's Race Problem
Candidate Has Most 'Progressive' Affirmative Action Agenda by Far,
But His Class-Based Philosophy, Personal Awkwardness and Siphoning of Democratic Votes Leaves Some Minority Leaders Cold
NewsForChange - September 22, 2000

Biting the Hand That Doesn't Feed
How an Attention-starved Nader Flatters Reporters in Private, Trashes 'Corporate Media Oligarchs' in Public, and Calls for Billion-dollar Broadcast Taxes to Pay for 'Our Own Stations'
NewsForChange - September 19, 2000

Homeless Activist Slams Anarchists
Kids Are 'Imposing Their Ideology,' Sparking Cop Backlash, Flores Says
NewsForChange - August 15, 2000

Where Have You Gone, Bill Kovach?
Journalism's First Ethicist Says Nothing While Employer Sweeps Ethical Mess Under the Rug
Online Journalism Review - April 17, 2000

Bye Bye, Brill
Media Cop Turns Media Whore
Online Journalism Review - February 10, 2000

Spin City for Troubled BMG Music
Boss Strauss Zelnick Downplays Botched Firing of Clive Davis,
The Threat of MP3, and the Mergers That Left Him Behind
Wired News - February 4, 2000

The Internet's Dr. Frankenstein
UCLA Professor Leonard Kleinrock Is Still Dreaming up Schemes,
30 Years After he Plugged in the ARPANet
Zone News - January 1, 2000

Making Crime News Pay
How AP-style Sobriety, When Applied to a Tabloid Topic,
Equals Internet Millions ... Even Without a Business Plan
PLUS: APB's Schanberg on Journalism's Ills
AND: Judge Blocks APB's Right to Publish
Online Journalism Review - December 14, 1999

The Stealth Revolutionary
Why the Record Industry Should Be Terrified of
Marc Geiger and ARTISTDirect
Zone News - October 1, 1999

Thomas Dolby Says it's Payback Time
Major Labels Deserve Everything They're About to Get, Says
Nerd-Rocker
Wired News - September 9, 1999

The Daily Blunder
Slipup.com Trying to Get People Excited About Online Corrections Policies
PLUS: Debunking Urban Legends from the SF Valley
AND: Round-up of Sites that Track Media Error
Online Journalism Review - March 4, 1999

Ex-Cop's Daughter Hounded by Police
Politically Incorrect Father Arrested for Contributing to Delinquency in Tennessee; Baffled Teen Flees State
Putnam Pit - March 1, 1999

New Utopia to Rise From the Sea!
Prince Lazarus Building Tax-free Island of Polygamy and Eternal Youth
Tabloid - December 9, 1998

Blues You Can Use
NewsBlues Lets TV Hacks Blow off Steam, Gather Intelligence
Online Journalism Review - October 22, 1998
LATER: NewsBlues Dies From Own Success (Nov. 13)
LATER STILL: NewsBlues Resurrected (Nov. 18)

Cookie Monster of Putnam Pit
Why One Beverly Hills Journalist Is Fighting an Entire Tennessee Town ... And Defining Internet Sunshine Laws Along the Way
Salon - October 15, 1998

Sports for Smart People
Gang of Academics and Rank Amateurs Launch Intelligent Sports Site
Online Journalism Review - September 28, 1998

Where Are the New Stephen Cranes?
Writer/Lout Did More in 28 Years Than Anyone Does in a Modern Lifetime
Tabloid - September 11, 1998

Salon's Broder Attacked for Plagiarism
Conservatives Rehash Shameful Old Episode After Reporter Connects
Dots of 'Right-Wing Conspiracy'
Online Journalism Review - July 13, 1998

Fear & Loathing at the Multiplex
Notes on a Hated Movie, and an 18-year-old's Eventful Encounter
With a Savage (and Influential) Southern Gentleman
Tabloid - May 27, 1998

Salon Detected on Beltway Radar
Investigative Scoops on Scaife & Specatator Earn Respect, Scorn
Online Journalism Review - April 30, 1998

Ex-Print Muckrakers Thrive on Net
Driven Away by Bland Newspapers, Hell-raisers Make Their Mark
Online Journalism Review - March 31, 1998

How Havel Finally Found God
A Dissident-President's Spiritual Journey
Prognosis - July 28, 1994

Comments, questions, bad links? Send e-mail to Matt Welch.