When the NY times put its columnists behind a subscription-only firewall I muttered and swore - but I paid up, just so I could keep getting my Krugman fix.
Folks, it was worth it. The Good Professor absolutely DESTROYS Deborah Howell, Katie Couric, and the whole "bipartisan scandal" meme.
Here's the lead:
"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.
Mr. Corddry's parody of journalists who believe they must be "balanced" even when the truth isn't balanced continues, alas, to ring true. The most recent example is the peculiar determination of some news organizations to cast the scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff as "bipartisan."
more snippets on the flip -
Here's the link, drat the firewall:
http://select.nytimes.com/...
Every word is a gem, but, constricted by fair use, I'll just paste a couple of the best below:
----over the past few weeks a number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to the "Today" show's Katie Couric, have declared that Mr. Abramoff gave money to both parties. In each case the journalists or their news organization, when challenged, grudgingly conceded that Mr. Abramoff himself hasn't given a penny to Democrats. But in each case they claimed that this is only a technical point, because Mr. Abramoff's clients -- those Indian tribes -- gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans, money the news organizations say he "directed" to Democrats.
But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while giving much more money to Republicans.
(snip)
So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.
Please note that Howell, Couric, et al, are not being called out here by us "angry bloggers" - they're being called out on the Opinion page of the NY Times.
Paul Krugman for president! And why is it, by the way, that we never see him on TV anymore? Did the conservatives get tired of being carved up by him, and complain to all the news shows to get him blacklisted?
Anyway - way to go, Mr. Krugman, sir!