TRB

TRB is the ghostwriter name used by the editorial "leader" of "The New Republic" magazine.

The writer most identified as being TRB is Richard Strout, who wrote TRB's column from 1943 to 1983. Other TRB columnists include Michael Kinsley, Andrew Sullivan, Peter Beinart, and (currently) Jonathan Chait.

Richard Strout on the origin of the name "TRB":

Bruce Bliven invented that. They wanted it -- the magazine was published in New York at that time and they wanted an inside column from Washington, and they wouldn't have a name on it because they wanted to alternate it with various newspapermen. Frank Kent was the first one, so they decided they would put some initials on it, and they waited and waited and finally the composing room man came to them said, "You've got a half an hour to think what you are going to sign on it, the initials." And Bruce Bliven had just come over from Brooklyn on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit, BRT, so he just changed it around from BRT to TRB. [Truman Library [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/strout.htm Interview with Richard Strout] ]

In 1923, Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company was acquired in bankruptcy court by Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), so by 1943 "BRT" was already 20 years obsolete.

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