Usually it's easy to figure out how articles make their way on to the Most Emailed Articles list of the New York Times. But the presence (and #3 ranking) on the list of this column, by Bob Herbert, has me puzzled. Whether you agree or disagree with the substance of his argument, the piece itself is completely banal. One would be hard-pressed to find a single original thought in it.
To be sure, many NYT columnists -- including some of the most wildly popular, like Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich -- write columns that are less than completely original, drawing heavily on their past work. But at least Dowd and Rich are often scathingly funny. Herbert's column is devoid of humor and frighteningly earnest. One would expect to find it in the pages of a Long Island high school newspaper, penned by a guilt-ridden teenager from an affluent background -- not in the pages of the Gray Lady.
Nightmare Before Christmas [New York Times]
