Noted in passing, without comment, because I believe these are the sort of things that should be noted.
The Washington Post's ombudsman stated that Jack Abramoff made contributions to Republicans and Democrats, a demonstrably untrue claim. When pressed by hundreds of public commentors (for whom she is at least a titular advocate), she refuses to correct herself unequivocally and contends that Abramoff "directed" clients to make donations to Democrats. Post media critic Howard Kurtz dismissed the media criticism levelled at the ombudsman by explaining that her statement was "inartfully worded." After a great hullabaloo of Post blog entries and live discussions, the Executive Editor killed blog comments on the ombudsman's entry. In his live discussion today, he explained that too many comments constituted hate speech. The request for a formal correction remains unsatisfied.
Chris Matthews says of Osama bin Laden, "I mean he sounds like an over the top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore." (America, The Book, we should remember, advises people to maintain some distance from Matthews, as he tends to deplete oxygen within a sizable radius of his mouth).
The Bush administration again insists that it has the right to bypass FISA to spy on citizens.
The Bush administration subpoenas Google search records.
Karl Rove is back in public, claiming that Republicans should run on national security in 2006.
I guess I'm sort of losing control of my tone here, as those last points are swaying toward the cheaply ominous. I really just wanted to make a public list of worrisome things that came to my attention this week. There are vastly more thorough sources to fill in the context and meaningfulness of each of the above. I'll leave the hard work to them.
Posted by dave at January 20, 2006 6:31 PM | TrackBack