If Joe Lieberman is a moderate Democrat, then who exactly is a conservative Democrat in Adam Nagourney's view?
Joe Lieberman is a conservative Democrat and is widely known as one. He supports President Bush every chance he gets, including Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq about which he claims it's going really well. That would put Lieberman at odds with 60-some percent of the American people - not just Democrats, the American people at large. So what part of that minority Republican view makes Lieberman the "moderate" voice of the Democratic party?
And just as importantly, why is the New York Times allowing partisan editorializing in a news story?
Bloggers, for all the benefits they might bring to both parties, have proved to be a complicating political influence for Democrats. They have tugged the party consistently to the left, particularly on issues like the war, and have been openly critical of such moderate Democrats as Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut.Tug the party to the left? You mean, the 60-some percent of the American people who agree with Democratic/progressive blogs that the war in Iraq is a disaster are now "lefties," all 60-some percent of them? That is simply absurd.
We had intelligence a few weeks ago that Nagourney was trying to write a hit piece on the progressive blogs. He was intent on slamming us with this article, no matter what the facts said. You'll note that Nagourney's piece says nothing negative about the right-wing blogs. Not a word. It doesn't mention the embarrassment of the Domenech fiasco last week. It doesn't mention that the right-wing blogs are the far-right of the Republican party, whereas the Democratic blogs are the center of the Democratic party.
Nope.
Nagourney even mentions the Republican attack sites like FancyFord.com, yet somehow fails to mention the Democrats' response, FancyFrist.com. Isn't that amazing.
All you read in Nagourney's piece is criticism of progressive blogs, and no criticism at all of the right-wing blogs that are far more extreme politically, and strident, than anything you'd find on the left.
It's fine for the New York Times to quote someone saying they think the progressive blogs are pulling the party to the left, that would be that person's OPINION - totally quotable. But then you'd find another expert to see if they agree with that assessment, or even better, you'd interview a left-wing blogger to respond to the charge. Not this article. We don't even get the charge in a quote, we get it in blatant editorializing by the reporter himself.
I'll leave you again with Nagourney's ridiculous notion that Joe Lieberman is a moderate Democrat. A moderate Democrat. So Nagourney thinks that the majority of Democrats are immoderate, since almost every Democrat in the Senate is to the left of Joe Lieberman?
Real news, real journalism, doesn't include such editorializing, especially when the editorializing is based on the reporter's known bias rather than fact.
We knew it was coming, we went public in the hopes that a New York Times editor would keep an eye on Nagourney while writing this piece, and the Times dropped the ball. This is why the public is losing faith in traditional journalism.
And finally, it would have been nice if Nagourney had revealed his own conflict of interest with this story. He's been the subject of a humorous attack from a blog claiming to be his own, AdNags. It's difficult to imagine with all the publicity this blog ahs gotten that it hasn't influenced Nagourney's perception of progressive blogs. But you won't find that mentioned in the story because that's what an impartial journalist would do.
