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Once Jimmy Carter's speechwriter, Hendrik Hertzberg is evolving into one of the Left's most reflective voices, as profiled in Harvard Magazine:

Hendrik Hertzberg (known to friends as "Rick") returned to the New Yorker, where he has since become the most stylish liberal political essayist in America. The magazine's "Talk of the Town" section characteristically opens with a thoughtful reflection on some recent news event (under the red-ink heading "Comment") usually written by Hertzberg. Many of the New Yorker's 900,000 readers seize upon his witty, perspicacious columns as a kind of weekly map through the trackless turmoil of the news.

"He's the political voice of the magazine," says David Remnick, the New Yorker's editor since 1998. "Rick's writing has a kind of moral tone that is irreplaceable—he has tone control the way Billie Holiday had tone control, and his sentences are as well-timed as the most brilliant joke or song phrasing. Attached to this is his way of thinking, his lack of cruelty or cheapness. 'Comment' is the first thing people read when they open the magazine; it has to be just right, and it invariably is."

As one of those 900,000 readers who look forward to his columns, I'm in complete agreement. Link courtesy of Romenesko.

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