Matthew Yglesias Gets Medieval on Fred Hiatt (Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?)
Yes. It's another Washington Post edition. Matthew Yglesias watches notable skank Fred Hiatt turn into a concern troll, as he worries that Bush's "valuable strands of policy" may wind up "strewn in the wreckage" as the "Bush presidency implodes." Yglesias leads Hiatt to the clue train: The policies that were Bush's weren't valuable. The policies that were valuable weren't Bushes--they were either implemented by others or they never got implemented, being for the Bushies at most boob bait for the bubbas who populate the Washington Post editorial board:
Matthew Yglesias: Fred Hiatt concedes that George W. Bush is a bad president but manages to lavish undeserved praise on him anyway:
But valuable strands of policy also may end up strewn in the wreckage, victims (in varying combinations) of President Bush's ineptitude, inconstancy and unpopularity. Among these are what Bush called compassionate conservatism, now moribund; American promotion of democracy abroad, now flailing; and accountability in elementary and high school education, losing ground as it approaches a major test in Congress...
[Hiatt's] editorial goes on to note, correctly, that compassionate conservatism never actually existed... that Bush has not, in fact, promoted democracy.... On education, meanwhile, the main legislative forces behind No Child Left Behind -- Ted Kennedy and George Miller -- are chairing the relevant House and Senate committees and none of the Democratic presidential candidates favor ending the school accountability provisions whose continuation Hiatt is worried about it.
There's just no story here.... [O]n those areas where good things have happened (NCLB and AIDS funding are the two I can think of) Democrats show every sign of wanting to continue the positive and perhaps make some improvements around the margin.... I, too, would rather... [find] some hidden downside to Bush['s collapse]... but there's nothing there.
