Soccer Dad

Calling the kettle black

It's interesting being accused of cherry picking and dishonesty by a guy whose idea of media criticism is copying from Eric Alterman, James Wolcott or David Brock and highlighting one paragraph with the heading "money quote" rather than someone who actually does his own research.

Recently I showed the contrast between headlines for current Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts and President Clinton's nominees, Justices Ginsburg and Breyer. The headline that upset me about Judge Roberts was "Democrats Say Nominee Will Be Hard to Defeat." I couldn't imagine a similarly headline for either President Clinton's nominees; and indeed, when I researched the Washington Post's archives, I couldn't find one.

DovBear, in his comments, drew a phony distinction between "profile" and "process" articles. The Post had run a couple of positive "profile" articles about Judge Roberts; something I freely conceded. However I pointed out that there was no similarly negative article about either Judges Ginsburg or Breyer. (And one of the articles about Judge Ginsburg was a "process" article that heralded the ease of her confirmation. Something that DovBear, apparently missed.)

I guess DB was frustrated that comments close after a week, so he actually posted again on his own blog and claimed that I cheated. (Closing comments was a necessity because of comment spam.) He claims that the article that upset me was anything but adversarial. Here's paragraph 3:

An array of interest groups on the left began mobilizing opposition to Roberts, but reticent Senate Democrats demonstrated little eagerness for an all-out war against him. Some Democratic senators laid the groundwork for a struggle focused on prying loose documents related to Roberts's career in government and using any resistance by the administration against him. Yet as the day progressed, Democrats seemed increasingly resigned to the notion that they cannot stop his appointment.

"Increasingly resigned?" and the article's not adversarial? The Democratic side of the article is presented as a how and why the Democrats may derail or at least oppose the nomination. No it's not completely adversarial, but it's not simply descriptive of the process either. This is crossing a line between reporting and advocacy.
I have nothing further to say on the topic and just wish that DB would get over his need for attention by being nasty whenever he disagrees with someone. There's a difference between analysis and name calling, alas he doesn't seem to grasp it.

Posted by SoccerDad at August 1, 2005 05:21 AM | TrackBack