Thomas Frank Takes Spot At WSJ; Frost Reported in Hell

The lunatics have taken over the asylum. Or at least a room of it, anyway.

By which I mean -- Thomas Frank has begun writing a weekly column for the Wall Street Journal opinion section.

Oh. My. God.

This development would be akin to Focus on the Family giving Amanda Marcotte a column in their newsletter. Or the Discovery Institute hiring Richard Dawkins as a senior fellow. Or PNAC bringing Noam Chomsky aboard as their new executive director.  Or . . . well, you get the idea.

If you're familiar with Tom's work, you know there is no one out there who is a more passionate champion of economic populism, or a more fearless, and hilarious, scourge of economic elites. That the Wall Street Journal opinion page -- the ultimate high church of voodoo economics and all other things wingnuttia besides-- has brought him onboard is a very interesting development indeed. A while back -- was it last year, maybe? -- when the WSJ's one and only liberal columnist, Al Hunt, retired, he was not replaced by a liberal. And at any rate, Hunt was the kind of milquetoasty liberal conservatives like, not the kind of firebreathing lefty likely to drive up their blood pressure, as Tom is.

Those of us with long memories may recall that, back in the 80s, the WSJ did publish a column by an actual lefty, Alexander Cockburn. But the fact that they replaced him with a "let's make nice" sort of liberal like Hunt, and then replaced Hunt with nobody -- well, that seemed as good an indication as any of the increasing marginalization of liberals not only in the media, but in American life as well.

That the WSJ has brought Tom aboard is a fascinating, and highly encouraging, development. They see the writing on the wall, and they know they can't ignore liberals anymore. The country really does seem to be coming around to our point of view, at long last.