There is an Associated Press story in today’s Albuquerque Journal on the response of "liberals" to Karl Rove’s comments on their reaction to 9/11. It is a case study in lousy journalism.
This is the first paragraph, the lead, of the story:
Democrats said Thursday that White House adviser Karl Rove should either apologize or resign for accusing liberals of wanting "therapy and understanding" for the Sept. 11 attackers, escalating partisan rancor that threatens to consume Washington.
Notice those words following "Sept. 11 attackers," in which reporter Jim Abrams puts the Democrats’ protest in the context of partisan rancor.
In the next paragraph he details that context, tying the Democrats' complaint to Howard Dean’s criticism of Republicans, a House GOP Representative’s statement that Democrats demonize Christians and Senator Durbin’s reference to Nazis and Soviets when he read from an FBI report on Guantanamo Bay.
Note, however, he has yet to consider Rove’s statement in the context of the historical record.
The story proceeds to quote the White House response to Rove and complaints about Rove from Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, as well as a comment from Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, who deplores polarization. And it devotes a long graph to recapping Rove’s comments.
Still no consideration whatsoever of the truth of Rove’s charges.
In fact, as everybody but Rove surely knows, in the wake of 9/11, the nation was just about unanimous in backing a military strike on al Qaeda and its protector, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. (Dissent came when the President and his men wrapped a pre-existing target, Iraq, into a "War on Terrorism.")
The reporter – assuming he was born yesterday – might have looked at the clips. In which case, he might have been moved to say – what? - that Rove was mistaken? Maybe. That he obfuscated? Maybe.
Now "partisan rancor" is a valid concern these days, but surely the more basic question is whether President Bush’s political right-hand lied. And a journalist who writes at least nine paragraphs (the Journal might have cut some from the bottom to fit the space) without getting anywhere near that question simply doesn’t know what he is doing. Probably – I’m guessing - he thinks he’s being objective. Getting both sides, you know.
And so what if he ignores the simple question, "What’s true?"
This is the same "objectivity" that helped a cynical little alcoholic from Wisconsin become the powerful and terrible Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy 50 years ago.
Will we ever learn?