RE: Fred Hiatt
February 27, 2009 11:06 am ET by Jamison Foser
Speaking of Fred Hiatt's absurd claim that people who don't like George Will spreading global warming misinformation should "debate" him, rather than expect the Post to run a correction ...
Yesterday's Washington Post featured op-eds by Henry Kissinger, David Broder, Bill Kristol, David Ignatius, and George Will. Today's brings op-eds from George Will, Michael Gerson, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Kinsley, and Eugene Robinson.
That's ten columns total. One is by a liberal (Robinson), one by a contrarian who may lean left (Kinsley), two by centrist Villagers (Broder and Ignatius - and remember, Village centrists are typically to the right of the actual center.) And six are by staunch conservatives - Will (twice), Krauthammer, former Nixon aide Kissinger, former Bush I aide Kristol, and former Bush II aide Gerson.
Now, who is in charge of the Post's op-ed page? Fred Hiatt. If Fred Hiatt wants to pretend that critics of Will's falsehoods are welcome to debate Will, Fred Hiatt can start by regularly running op-eds by (more honest) liberal equivalents of Will, Krauthammer and Gerson. And no, Richard Cohen does not count.
In addition the LTE's published today include tow by women. One on opera, one on food. Wa Po is pathetic.
Yesterday I wrote an LTE...
Dear Washington Post,
Thank you for bringing me an editorial page consisting of five white men with an average age of 69 years. Henry Kissinger brings something new every day. And William Kristol is certainly known for his variety of opinions. George Will, David Broder and that young Ignatius fellow bring needed diversity to the page.
As a 44 year old suburbanite Mom the little time I have will no longer be wasted on old white men telling me their opinions. Enough already.
Please use this day’s page in the next Senior Managment retreat. You can call it “How to Reach a 1955 Target Audience.”
I've submitted questions about the George Will controversy to Kurtz' last two online chats, and they've been ignored.
And it's impossible to 'debate' Will on the accuracy of his global cooling column (or its six predecessors, going back to 1992) if the Washington Post refuses to include the least mention on its pages or on its website that anyone is questioning the column's accuracy.
This willingness on the part of the Washington Post to ignore the rather vigorous discussion of Will's column that's taking place outside of its pages enables Will (following the lead of 'ombudsman' Andrew Alexander) to pretend, in today's column, that the only factual criticism of the Feb. 15 column concerns the sea ice measurements.
That's far from the truth, of course. In that column, Will falsely claimed a nonexistent scientific consensus for global cooling in the 1970s, and he has completely reversed the meaning of an article in the Dec. 10, 1976 issue of Science magazine by his very selective quotation from it.
The response of Will and the Washington Post to these criticisms, which have been raised repeatedly elsewhere, has been to pretend they don't exist. That's some 'debate' they're willing to engage in.