Seriously, what is the point of having an ombudsman whose only job is to constantly defend the newspaper against the indefensible? That's a propagandist, not an ombudsman.
Her latest LATEST atrocity? Penning a column yesterday defending the Washington Post's editorial board for writing an editorial that outright lied to you. You remember, the one entitled "A good leak."
You see, according to Howell, the concept of truth doesn't exist in journalism - or rather, truth is not an absolute, it's a universal. Meaning, truth is everywhere and in everything and no matter what you say or what you do you, no matter how wrong and how NOT based in fact you are, you will always find truth and be known as a defender of truth. Truth simply is. (Pass the bowl.)
For example, some people say the moon is made of rock, others say green cheese - the beauty of the Deborah Howell school of journalism is that both are right at the same time (think Schroedinger's cat, except that the people proposing the theory are not brilliant scientists, but rather total idiots).
You see, the Washington Post editorial board and the Washington Post front page - which debunked the entire Post editorial - are ALLOWED to use a different set of facts. In fact, it's even encouraged! It shows their "independence" from each other. Kind of like how flunking a trigonometry test shows your independence from Isaac Newton. It's a good thing.
But of course, Mrs. Howell ups the ante. You don't even need different sets of facts to be equally defending the truth, you can even use the same set of facts - or rather, don't use facts at all! Have one guy state an accepted truth, have the other guy just make shit up, and in Howellville, it's all good - hell, it's practically required.
To wit? The following explanation/defense from Howell explains the purpose of the Post editorial was:
The Post editorially has supported the war, and the purpose of the editorial -- headlined "A Good Leak" -- was to support that leak as necessary to show that the president had reason to believe that Iraq was seeking uranium.Yeah, but the issue at hand, which of course Howell doesn't even address, is that THE INFORMATION THE PRESIDENT LEAKED HAD BEEN DEBUNKED MONTHS BEFORE.
Let me try that again.
The information Bush leaked had been debunked by the administration months before.
So Bush either knew or should have known that he was intentionally misleading the American people. Bush was NOT, as the Washington Post claims, trying to show the American people that he had reason to believe that Iraq was seeking WMD. He was intentionally peddling lies in order to trick us.
Let's venture into analogy-land, since we are dealing with the intellectual equivalent of children here.
I steal a car.Facts. Right and wrong. Truth and lies. They aren't rocket science. It simply takes half a brain and a bit of character to sort these things out.
The cops catch me.
I tell the cops, and all the local newspapers and tv stations, with tears in my eyes, that the reason I stole the car was to get my pregnant wife, who was in the midst of hemorrhaging, to the hospital before she and our not-yet-born baby died.
There's a groundswell of public support for me and my wife, and the cops let me go.
Of course, it's a total lie.
I stole the car to go joy-riding with my mistress.
According to Deborah Howell, however, I told the cops that my wife was hemorrhaging in a valiant effort to explain my actions to the American people. In fact, I was lying out my ass in an effort to trick you and not be held accountable for my crimes. But to Deborah Howell and Fred Hiatt, I am Schroedinger's cat anthropomorphised - a liar and an American hero at the same time.
Too bad Howell hasn't the brain, and Fred Hiatt and Donald Graham lack the character.
PS Deborah Howell wants to Thank You All For Smoking.
(A more detailed take-down of Howell's latest anti-intellectualism from Media Matters.
