As everyone paying attention knows, yesterday’s hearings in the House of Representatives saw some powerful testimony from an array of conservative organizations about their intimidation and harassment at the hands of the Internal Revenue Service. The testimony has been widely reported on Fox News, which has its own stories about harassing tactics that had the personal approval of Attorney General Eric Holder.
But what about the watchdog media in the nation’s capital?
Well, the Washington Post is back in full cry “water carrier” mode as its morning headline email, and its main webpage, make clear. Neither carried a story about the Congressional testimony on IRS misconduct. Nothing.
The only reference in either Post summary of the day’s leading stories was a link on the paper’s main web page to Dana Milbank’s opinion column, which bears the title “Republicans take refuge in scandals.” Mr. Milbank can always be relied upon for accurate regurgitation of the administration’s current talking points.
Turning to the Post’s daily headline email, the top three stories, under the heading “Nation,” concerned (1) the dispute between Planned Parenthood and the Komen charity, (2) a paleontologist who named a lizard in honor of Jim Morrison, and (3) the killing of a “protector of turtles” in Costa Rica. Is this really a serious newspaper?
Of course, we also learned today that our President is sticking to his “in your face” strategy in his administration’s response to the scandals by appointing serial liar Susan Rice as his National Security Advisor.
Perhaps that has some explanatory value in assessing the behavior of the Washington Post, which apparently has decided on the journalistic version of this same strategy, manifested by its repeated and deliberate editorial decisions to bury stories that reflect negatively on the administration.
Once upon a time, we’re told, the Post spoke truth to power. Now, however, there is only the Narrative.
