Politics: Nose Brown Enough For Ya?
Has anyone noticed that Washington D.C.'s newspaper of record, the Washington Post has been nursing an unbelievable hard-on for new Republican Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich since about June 2002? Is it just me?
Perhaps the rah-rah tone of the Post's coverage of Ehrlich's new budget didn't clue you in. Maybe the laudatory coverage of Ehrlich's inauguration, where it took six paragraphs to mention that Ehrlich's major pre-inauguration action was vowing to lift the moratorium on Maryland's racially imposed death penalty. Perhaps your eyes had already glazed over before you reached this mealy-mouthed puff piece accessory to the aforementioned boner-for-Bob cover story (don't miss the pot-shot at Kathleen Kennedy Townsend). It would have been easy by then to skip the adulatory editorial where the only mention of any minor quibble (Ehrlich had pre-fired thirty career [non-political] employees in a clear bloodbath in the days before his inauguration) occurred only four lines from the end.
If you skipped the entire A-section that day, and flipped to Style in the hopes of seeing something cynical or newsworthy, then you couldn't possibly have helped noticing the cover piece where Republicans were greeted like prodigal sons, welcomed back into the Post's open arms. By then, with misery on your face from the heaping helping of unbelievable bias, you would be forgiven if you didn't check out this little number on Ehrlich's dirty money juggernaut, which manages to work in Maryland GOP Chairman John Kane's fundraising pitch, but somehow omits any mention of Democratic fundraising.
How is it that the Post has shifted so far to the right? Why is this type of bias permitted to tarnish the current persona of one of America's great newspapers? The answer may well be in that fundraising piece. Many of the people giving money and turning up at the Ehrlich inauguration are newcomers to GOP events. They have spent the last few decades buying access with their campaign money from Democrats. Well now they need to start shopping in GOP-ville. I believe that the Post, in a disturbing role for a news organization, has decided to essentially build a reserve of goodwill with Ehrlich through these pieces (sort of like the enormous honeymoon President Bush has enjoyed with hundreds of news organizations, including and especially the very same Washington Post).
It may be good politics but stinks of rank disservice to readers. How much does that home-delivery subscription to the New York Times cost?
Has anyone noticed that Washington D.C.'s newspaper of record, the Washington Post has been nursing an unbelievable hard-on for new Republican Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich since about June 2002? Is it just me?
Perhaps the rah-rah tone of the Post's coverage of Ehrlich's new budget didn't clue you in. Maybe the laudatory coverage of Ehrlich's inauguration, where it took six paragraphs to mention that Ehrlich's major pre-inauguration action was vowing to lift the moratorium on Maryland's racially imposed death penalty. Perhaps your eyes had already glazed over before you reached this mealy-mouthed puff piece accessory to the aforementioned boner-for-Bob cover story (don't miss the pot-shot at Kathleen Kennedy Townsend). It would have been easy by then to skip the adulatory editorial where the only mention of any minor quibble (Ehrlich had pre-fired thirty career [non-political] employees in a clear bloodbath in the days before his inauguration) occurred only four lines from the end.
If you skipped the entire A-section that day, and flipped to Style in the hopes of seeing something cynical or newsworthy, then you couldn't possibly have helped noticing the cover piece where Republicans were greeted like prodigal sons, welcomed back into the Post's open arms. By then, with misery on your face from the heaping helping of unbelievable bias, you would be forgiven if you didn't check out this little number on Ehrlich's dirty money juggernaut, which manages to work in Maryland GOP Chairman John Kane's fundraising pitch, but somehow omits any mention of Democratic fundraising.
How is it that the Post has shifted so far to the right? Why is this type of bias permitted to tarnish the current persona of one of America's great newspapers? The answer may well be in that fundraising piece. Many of the people giving money and turning up at the Ehrlich inauguration are newcomers to GOP events. They have spent the last few decades buying access with their campaign money from Democrats. Well now they need to start shopping in GOP-ville. I believe that the Post, in a disturbing role for a news organization, has decided to essentially build a reserve of goodwill with Ehrlich through these pieces (sort of like the enormous honeymoon President Bush has enjoyed with hundreds of news organizations, including and especially the very same Washington Post).
It may be good politics but stinks of rank disservice to readers. How much does that home-delivery subscription to the New York Times cost?
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