Gutter Journalism

Michael Barone bitchslaps the Washington Post for its "flagrant electioneering" efforts to destroy Bob McDonnell's gubernatorial chances. The Post. Didn't it have something to do with journalism a long time ago? Before it became a Democratic Party organ?

The Post's campaign to 'Macaca' McDonnell takes a new tack
By Michael Barone, Senior Political Analyst

The Washington Post Metro page, sputtering in its attempts to “Macaca” Bob McDonnell on the basis of his 1989 Regent University thesis, has shown the “considerable ingenuity” I predicted last week in getting issues related to the McDonnell thesis on the paper’s front page.

Today’s front page story by Amy Gardner and its placement by Post editors on the front page is one of the most flagrant examples of electioneering by a paper’s news pages that I have ever seen. “Scrutiny Spreads to ’03 McDonnell Remarks,” the headline proclaims. The subhead reads, “’Homosexual Conduct’ Comments ‘Irrelevant’ to Campaign, He Says.” The obvious message to readers: this candidate thinks it’s all right to penalize people, in some unspecified way, for homosexual conduct.

The blatant purpose of this story is to suggest that McDonnell thinks that homosexuals should not serve as judges. But the fact is that he doesn’t think that. [link]

Read the whole thing. The calculated effort on the part of the Post and its "reporter" to distort a story (from long ago) is eye-opening.

And they wonder why newspapers are folding around the country.