Paul Greenberg in the Southern Quote
Paul was born on Jan. 21st 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. His father Ben was a merchant, his mother Sarah a seamstress and housewife. Sarah had come to America from Poland as a nineteen year old following the First World War. She willed her undying gratitude and patriotism to her new country into everyone in her family.
From a child Paul loved everything about words; even the different typefaces fascinated him. Today he is the one of the most respected commentators in America. Paul Greenberg was awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in 1969. Much of his talent lies in an ability to opine on the hot topic issues of our time with an easy wit rather than the flame-throwing rhetoric that characterizes many of his contemporaries. It was Paul Greenberg who lent Bill Clinton a nickname that stuck to the soon-to-be president like tar on your tennis shoes from a hot country road. “Slick Willie” lives on.
Mr. Greenberg builds his ideas on an incredible grasp of history. Even if the reader disagrees with the summation, he comes away from Mr. Greenberg’s work feeling as though he just enjoyed a thought-provoking visit on the front porch with a friend.
Today, Mr. Greenberg lectures nationwide and serves as the editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. His popular column is syndicated and distributed three times a week by Tribune Media Services. And in today’s Southern Quote we hear the acclaimed columnist speak to a contemporary sense of entitlement that should embarrass us all. Mr. Greenberg has said,
“It’s a complicated thing – it can be an awful thing – to build and defend a country where simple things are taken for granted. But we take this peace as our due, and complain when it is interrupted in the slightest way, as if liberty and order were ours from the beginning, not the result of the struggles and sacrifices of each generation.” — Paul Greenberg