Washington Post Death Spiral Watch: Alec MacGillis Edition
Alec MacGillis, staff writer of the Washington Post, needs to leave journalism immediately to find a profession in which he is half-competent. Let's give the mike to Ezra Klein:
EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect: George Zornick, filling in for Eric Alterman, points out yesterday's Washington Post article asking whether Obama is...gasp!...a liberal. "What's so strange about the story," says Zornick, "and others like it, is that it never attempts to define liberalism, simply presenting it as a self-evident insult." Yep. There's never a moment in the article in which the reporter says that Obama believes liberal orthodoxy X, and liberal orthodoxy X is unpopular, and this will pose a problem for him in the election. Rather, it's the very fact that he can be called a liberal, no matter how popular or mainstream his policy ideas, that's the problem....
Presumably, being "a liberal" is bad because Americans disagree with liberal policies. But it's hard to find the policy plank of Barack Obama's that's wildly unpopular. That may make him timid -- (coughcoughmandatescough) -- but it doesn't make his ideas divisive. And if liberal just means broadly popular policy ideas, then it's obviously not a political danger. Yet it's still treated as a political problem, even though the word, in this article, is basically an empty container. Reading the piece is like watching the reporter drink water from an empty glass. To most readers, it sure looks like he's drinking something. But to anyone looking closely, there's no there there...
Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?
