Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post offers today a perfectly reasonable fact check of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s assertion that Republicans have not done anything “constructive” to further President Obama’s legislative agenda and move the economy in a positive direction. Kessler lays out several recent examples of measures passed with GOP support, directly contrary to the Majority Leader’s statement. It’s clear Kessler did his homework.
But at the bottom, Kessler includes this disclaimer:
(Note: We are not picking on Democrats. Both sides play this game of spin. We are still digging into the claimed job-creation numbers offered by Republicans when they introduced last week a mish-mash of previously offered bills as their “jobs plan.” We plan to have an analysis of those figures later this week.)
Now, The Washington Post is rarely, if ever, accused of being a shill for the Republican Party, as are Fox News and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. The Post’s editorial board is arguably as liberal in its ideology as The New York Times — if not more so.
But I question the value of explicitly stating that the Post isn’t “picking on Democrats,” as though the newspaper has been accused of unfairly criticizing the party or its memberson a regular basis and is somehow forced to take up a defensive posture. That somehow its objectivity would come into question for this, by all accounts, innocuous challenge.
The message here is one of reluctant concession — that, yes, unfortunately a Democratic leader pushed his rhetoric too far into the realm of fiction to allow it to pass unchallenged.
But rest assured, dear readers. The Post promises to go back on a Republicans offensive as soon as possible.
Washington Post, was a disclaimer really necessary?
Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post offers today a perfectly reasonable fact check of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s assertion that Republicans have not done anything “constructive” to further President Obama’s legislative agenda and move the economy in a positive direction. Kessler lays out several recent examples of measures passed with GOP support, directly contrary to the Majority Leader’s statement. It’s clear Kessler did his homework.
But at the bottom, Kessler includes this disclaimer:
Now, The Washington Post is rarely, if ever, accused of being a shill for the Republican Party, as are Fox News and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. The Post’s editorial board is arguably as liberal in its ideology as The New York Times — if not more so.
But I question the value of explicitly stating that the Post isn’t “picking on Democrats,” as though the newspaper has been accused of unfairly criticizing the party or its memberson a regular basis and is somehow forced to take up a defensive posture. That somehow its objectivity would come into question for this, by all accounts, innocuous challenge.
The message here is one of reluctant concession — that, yes, unfortunately a Democratic leader pushed his rhetoric too far into the realm of fiction to allow it to pass unchallenged.
But rest assured, dear readers. The Post promises to go back on a Republicans offensive as soon as possible.