In Annie Hall, Woody Allen’s character Alvy Singer says: “Lyndon Johnson is a politician. You know the ethics those guys have? It’s like-uh, a notch underneath child molester.”
As for reporters, I wouldn’t say that they’re that bad. Heck, I’ll even grant that they’re a notch above child molester. But particularly when it comes to Islam and jihad, they’re generally agenda-driven, short-sighted, and above all, simply dishonest. Not so much in terms of outright lies, but in terms of spin: by omission and juxtaposition, by what they say and what they don’t say, and by how they choose quotations as well as by how they frame them in a story, they attempt to lead the reader to the conclusion they wish him or her to draw.
The best of them are so good at this that most readers don’t even notice that they are being manipulated and propagandized; it is something always to bear in mind when reading anything in, say, the New York Times and the Washington Post. But it is not just the likes of the Times, the Post, and the Economist that have mastered this craft; wannabe Woodwards and ambitious hacks all the way to backwaters like the Washington Independent are doing their bit as well, eager to prove that they have imbibed the relativist multiculturalist gas that permeates everything as deeply and fully as has anyone in New York or Washington.
And so we come to the illustrious Dave Weigel, late of the Independent and now also late of the Washington Post, who did a puff piece about libelblogger Charles Johnson some time ago, trying to bolster the credibility of Johnson’s ridiculous false charges against Pamela Geller and me. Now his relentless animus against conservatives — as if it’s “conservative” to want to protect the West from an ideology that would destroy the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for all — has been exposed.
Weigel is no worse than most of them. He was just not as bright, or as clever at concealing his biases. May this happen to the lot of them now.
“BREAKING: Weigel Resigns,” by Matt Dornic in MediaBistro, June 25 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
FIRST ON FBDC: FishbowlDC has confirmed that WaPo conservative-beat blogger Dave Weigel has resigned after a slew of his anti-conservative comments and emails surfaced on FishbowlDC and Daily Caller over the last two days.
A spokesperson for the Post said the paper will not offer additional comments but confirmed that the writer’s resignation was accepted.