The Albuquerque Journal carried an Op Ed piece Feb. 9 by one Michael Goodwin, identified as a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Daily News. Goodwin opined that the Democrats are committing suicide by choosing former Vermont Governor Howard Dean as party chairman. He said Dean "will take the party over the cliff and into an abyss of fringe liberalism that has no foundation in the American populace." He put Dean and Michael Moore in the "wackadoo wing" of the party, called him extreme and chided those who think Dean a moderate for overlooking "his far-left campaign for president."
The piece runs 15 paragraphs, yet Goodwin never defined "liberal" or "extreme" or "far left."
As a columnist, I know and appreciate the freedom we get to state and defend a point of view. It's also great that we are exempt from most of the rules imposed on reporters. But the columnists I respect back their arguments with some evidence and some logic.
Goodwin is not alone in substituting name-calling for thinking, but he has a
Pulitzer, fer gosh sakes. I never knew they awarded them for distinguished labeling.