Friday, February 29, 2008

The WSJ does it -- again.

Not in Time, or Newsweek, or the NYT. Nope, only the Wall Street Journal talks about stuff like this:

Given McCain’s reputation for reaching across the aisle and his daily pledge to treat Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with respect, Washington Wire was a little surprised to hear McCain using the same language.

“One thing I’m not any good at predicting is the outcome of Democrat elections,” he said Tuesday aboard his bus, dubbed the Straight Talk Express. A day earlier, he had mentioned his “Democrat friends” to a Cleveland-area audience.

Asked aboard his bus about the “ic,” he replied, “I’m sorry, I usually say Democratic. They prefer Democratic, so I try to say Democratic… It offends some members of their party, so I’ll say Democratic if that’s what makes them feel better.”


Yep, it's minor stuff in one way, but it really should be talked about for several reasons, not the least of which is McCain's claim about what a straight-shooting standup guy he is. And of course, it highlights the death grip that wingnuttery has on conservative political discourse: a sitting president went around the country pulling that childish stunt in a desperate attempt to score votes, and now McCain thinks it's a winning play as well.

Now that Murdoch is running the WSJ, I wonder how long you'll be able to see things like this anywhere. Because of the insanity of its editorial pages, the Journal enjoyed the status of a right-wing bastion. This gave it cover against the charge of "liberal media," and along with the commitment of the Bancroft family to maintaining the paper's tradition of excellence, allowed the actual reporting it did to be the best in the country -- honest and fearless in a way that no other national publication has been in almost 20 years. Murdoch doesn't do, or tolerate, honest and fearless. I'm really going to miss that paper.