Ever since Bill Keller took over at the NY Times, the paper has been bending over backwards to dignify right-wing stupidity at every opportunity--predictable, I suppose, based on Mr. Keller's op-ed columns before he became the editor. One sign of that was the creation of a regular column for David "smear 'em with a smile" Brooks. Another has been the way purportedly "news" items go out of their way to present "the other side," so, e.g., if a story is purportedly about the fact that "50 million people marched on Washington to protest the Bush Administration policy that 'up is really down' and 'war is really peace,'" you can rest assured that we'll get several paragraphs of Karen Hughes, or some other professional prevaricator, explaining that "up is really down" and those who deny it are aiding and abetting terrorists.
In any case, what brought all this to mind is that a trusted reader of this blog recently wrote to the News Section of the NY Times to protest their coverage of the March on Washington for abortion rights which, in its original version (they've now edited it!), devoted several paragraphs--in the middle of a story about the protest--to Karen Hughes explaining why the Bush Administration was "moderate" on the subject, and which included this memorable line from Hughes:
"'I think that after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life,' she said. 'President Bush has worked to say, let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions. And I think those are the kinds of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy and, really, the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life.'"
So the hundreds of thousands of marchers in Washington yesterday were actually agents of al-Quaeda.
Now that's fair and balanced reporting.
In any case, my trusted reader wrote to the News Section, and got a perfunctory acknowledgment, which included this striking line:
"News and opinion departments operate separately at The Times."
To which my trusted reader replied: "You are speaking tongue-in-cheek, are you not?"
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