Today the Washington Post announced they were starting a new blog today devoted to covering think tanks. Sure, why not? It strikes me that this is a good idea. Then I read the rest of the press release:
Allen McDuffee is a New York-based politics writer. Part reporter, part investigative journalist, part blogger, Allen has written for The Nation, Huffington Post, AlterNet, Raw Story, New York Observer, In These Times and Truthdig, among others.
Emphasis added. The Nation? AlterNet? Raw Story? Truth Dig? Those are decidedly left-wing outlets. Can you imagine the post hiring anyone from, say, World Net Daily? Because that’s about the right-wing equivalent of some of those publications.
Well, I suppose that it’s possible to write fair and objective journalism anywhere. Let’s take a look at some of McDuffee’s journalism, starting with “Neocons Have Disturbing Amounts of Influence Over Obama“:
According to a May report (pdf) from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC think tank, neoconservatives associated with prominent figures like former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and pundit Richard Perle are still broadly active, despite policy failures associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
And here’s another gem:
The neo-cons may be coordinating with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and all the usual suspects to build enough public support to bomb Iran
Is there any reason at all that the American Enterprise Insitutute or anyone at any right-of-center think tank should answer McDuffee’s phone calls and expect to be treated fairly? Perhaps McDuffee will prove critics wrong, but the the evidence suggests otherwise.
