When it’s criticism of those reporting it:

As I understand it, your measure of worth is how many front page stories you have written and unfortunately some of you will compromise your integrity and display questionable ethics as you seek to keep America informed. This is much like the intelligence analyst whose effectiveness was measured by the number of intelligence reports he produced. For some, it seems that as long as you get a front-page story there is little or no regard for the “collateral damage” you will cause. Personal reputations have no value and you report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for unethical conduct.

Given the near instantaneous ability to report actions on the ground, the responsibility to accurately and truthfully report takes on an unprecedented importance. the speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry. An Arab proverb states – “four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, the neglected opportunity.” Once reported, your assessments become conventional wisdom and nearly impossible to change. Other major challenges are your willingness to be manipulated by “high-level officials” who leak stories and by lawyers who use hyperbole to strengthen their arguments. Your unwillingness to accurately and prominently correct your mistakes and your agenda-driven biases contribute to this corrosive environment. All of these challenges combined create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice to America. Over the course of this war tactically insignificant events have become strategic defeats for America because of the tremendous power and impact of the media and by extension you the journalist.

More thoughts here.

[Update on Monday]

I edited the transcript above to get it out of all caps, and correct a couple minor grammatical issues, since it does seem to be a transcript of a spoken speech.

Indeed it does.

I knew that there was a lot of journalistic fraud out there, but I hadn’t realized the extent. And of course, one of the biggest frauds is Dan Rather.

Does the Pope do Christmas Mass?

Kaimipono Wenger wonders why the New York Times won’t correct its constitutional error.

I’m guessing that they don’t think it’s an error. Given all the other things that they think are in the Constitution that aren’t there, they probably just shrugged it off, and thought, “fake but accurate.”

From this San Francisco publication (which has a “Duhhh, ya think?” headline):

Craig, who has voted against gay marriage, finds his political future in doubt in the wake of the charges, which have drawn national attention.

I know that some may think it relevant, and certainly a lot of people in Baghdad By The Bay obviously will, but really, what difference does it make what his position is on gay marriage? It would have made as much, or as little, sense to me to have written, “Craig, who has voted to cut taxes,” or “Craig, who has voted against more stringent gun controls.” The guy’s supposedly a conservative. How did they expect him to vote?

OK, let’s take it as a given that he’s gay. He’s married, but there was no issue from it (his three children are step-children, brought to the marriage by his wife), so he’s probably not even bi (one wonders what the arrangement is with his wife).

Where is it written that gay people are intrinsically supposed to support gay marriage? I can understand that many, perhaps even most gay people do, but not all of them do. And if they do so, it’s for personal reasons, not necessarily any particular political principle. They want to get married.

But part of the problem with America today is that there are too few people who make political decisions based on any coherent set of principles, instead only arguing for outcomes that they personally like (a classic example is support for Roe v Wade among abortion supporters, because they like abortion to be universally legal more than they like adhering to the Constitution). It’s obviously appealing to cheer for some wealth transfer that benefits you at someone else’s expense, which can be rationalized away as “taking it from greedy corporations,” or “the rich.”

If I were to indulge in such a thing, I’d argue for laws that ban rap music, laws that required everyone in the country to contribute a dollar a month to the Benevolent Society For The Aid And Support Of Rand Simbergs, laws that forced Starbucks to offer protein with their pastries, etc.

But I don’t. And not just because the chances of getting such laws passed are small, and it would be a waste of my time. I don’t do it because I have a set of political principles by which I try to abide, regardless of the impact on me personally. I believe in free speech, even for rappers, I don’t believe in arbitrary wealth transfers, even when it’s a transfer to me. I believe in the freedom of the marketplace, even when it comes to a company as evil as Starbucks.

So why should a gay person, if conservative, be expected to support as distinctly non-conservative an idea as gay marriage? I suspect that he truly does believe that homosexuality is wrong, so he has to live a tortured existence, feeling compelled by his nature to sin, and by his shame and fear of damage to his career and reputation to hide it (however pathetically). But I don’t see why he’s obligated by this accident of nature (and an unfortunate one, for him) to support others’ political agendas, and betray his own principles.

[Update in the late afternoon]

I think that Raoul Ortega has nailed the thinking in comments. Over at Instaman’s place, this morning, Greg Hlatky joked:

If Senator Craig purchased sex offsets to live a sex-neutral lifestyle, would this immunize him from charges of hypocrisy?”

To which Glenn replied:

Indubitably. But who would sell them?

Well, we now have the answer, from Raoul:

Voting for “Gay Marriage” is to Dem politicians what “Carbon Offsets” are to Algore and other Gaian worshippers. Little acts of contrition purchased to balance out all their other sins. If only Larry Craig had voted the other way, people like Offside would have no problem with his trolling among airport toilets, just like how they had no problem with their last president helping himself to his subordinates because he “kept abortion legal.”

So votes for gay marriage and keeping abortion legal are “sex offsets” for Republicans. In fact, come to think about it, it’s what kept Republican Bob Packwood in office for so long, despite his long history of sexually harassing women. Apparently, though, he apparently didn’t buy enough of them to cancel out his most egregious behavior.

In other words, as long as you vote like a Democrat, you get a free pass, just like them.

By the way, I have further Craig thoughts here, for those not viewing this from the main page.

Often, when Congresspeople get in some sort of trouble, it’s a puzzler figuring out what their political party is. Apparently, though, the WaPo has learned the error of its previous ways. They are right up front about this Senator, for some reason:

GOP Senator Pleaded Guilty After Restroom Arrest

I’m glad that they’ve finally stopped making us guess. At least until the next time. It does take some fun out of it, though.

So you won’t read it at the New York Times. Because, you know, it’s all about the narrative.

So you won’t read it at the New York Times. Because, you know, it’s all about the narrative.

So you won’t read it at the New York Times. Because, you know, it’s all about the narrative.

…at the New York Times.