Last week, we watched as CNN did a couple more of its numbers on Howard Dean. The first was during one of Judy Woodruff’s weekday politics segments, the other in a Wolf Blitzer segment. And, of course, Acrid old Bob Novak got in several digs during “Crossfire.”
The tone of the Woodruff and Blitzer pieces was unmistakably negative. Nothing new there. It’s been obvious for a year now that some person or persons at CNN really have it in for Dean.
Today, we stopped by the Lean Left weblog and saw an interesting item about the Wall Street Journal doing its bit to further damage the public’s already low estimation of American journalism. The right-wing, pro-corporate newspaper’s target? Why, it was Dean, of course.
Lean Left’s post, “The Ethics of the Wall Street Journal,” includes a quote from the Dean organization’s Blogforamerica weblog explaining a Dean staffer’s side of things. Then, Lean Left’s Kevin weighs in with this:
“The Wall Street Journal appears to have used made up quotes and put them in an article — an article that served the partisan interests of their editorial staff quite nicely. It could be said to be both an attempt to damage a popular and effective grassroots organizer and Gov. Dean — thus affecting, possibly, who would be the DNC chair. And they were told by own of their own reporters that the story was a “nonstory.” This is, at the minimum, as bad as what CBS’s 60 minutes producers did. In fact, the CBS producers were guilty of not being thorough enough. The WSJ printed what appear to be invented quotes.
“In other words, it very much looks like the deliberately invented quotes and reported those quotes as “news” for an explicitly partisan purpose. If this is true, then the WSJ has committed the worst of journalistic sins. The WSJ needs to print a prominent retraction and discipline the reporters and editors involved.”
We watched the Democratic National Committee chairman candidates’ forum carried on C-SPAN last weekend and were particularly impressed with three. Of those, Dean seemed best.
The piling on and dumping on Dean that’s gone on all week from interests and individuals not kindly disposed toward the Democratic Party reinforces our inclination to support Dean for the DNC chairmanship. The Dean bashers are doing what they’re doing, we’re convinced, because they see him as someone more likely to enliven, grow and strengthen the party than the other contenders.
In a perverse way, you can say Dean comes highly recommended. Anyone Novak delights in sneering at is OK in our book. And with the WSJ apparently resorting to the shabbiest kind of deceit in print in its effort to hurt Dean’s chances?
That clinches it. Bring Dean on!
