Can’t win
: Right before he engages in the time-dishonored tradition of cat-blogging, James Wolcott proves Dan Okrent’s point in his column yesterday: The NY Times can’t win when it comes to accusations of political bias in this campaign. It’s the Valley of Death: legions to the right of them, Wolcott to the left of them:
The New York Times under editor Bill Keller is a political catastrophe. He’s worse than Howell Raines, but smart enough to stay under the radar and not make Times coverage seem like his personal mission. Worth’s worthless front page article is only one example of the manure-shoveling the paper has been doing on Bush’s behalf, feeding the fury that paper’s ombudsman Daniel Okrent finds so inexplicable.
I’ll let my friends Jim and Dan duke it out.
Wolcott also tries to farm a chestnut I’d seen only in a comment on this blog, arguing that the Dean Scream and the Bush Snitfit were equivalent performances:
I was naive enough to think that Bush’s tantrum the other night at the townhall debate would get at least half of the coverage and mockery that Howard Dean’s infamous scream received, which was foolish of me. Our great editors and pundits have apparently decided to avert their eyes from a rageaholic president with presenile dementia who needs to have answers fed to him from a boxy receiver because–well, at least he’s not conceited.
That’s so much cat poop. The Dean Scream was an insane moment of overdone and staged joy in the midst of a loss. The Bush snit was about issues in a debate. Style v. substance, substance w/style. I happen to be a critic of both performers and so I’ll have to say they were nothing alike.
