Washington Post: Send more Liebermans, please
December 22, 2009 9:40 am ET by Jamison Foser
How's this for a loaded "question"?
THE QUESTION
Do we need more Joe Liebermans?
Last week, one senator avoided partisanship and ideological rigidity and successfully leveraged his vote to win what he believed were necessary changes in key piece of legislation. So why was Sen. Joe Lieberman so bitterly criticized rather than praised for his leadership on health care?
That's today's "On Leadership" question from the Washington Post -- and Lieberman couldn't have asked for a more friendly description of his role in health care reform.
"Avoided partisanship"? Even Lieberman defenders concede he was motivated by anger at the Democrats.
And saying Lieberman avoided "ideological rigidity" is an awfully polite way of saying he opposed things he had recently supported, once he saw that Antony Weiner liked them.
Finally, "what he believed were necessary changes" is a kind way of saying "Lieberman's stated concerns with the public option were false."
And the news media has done a terrible job of noticing and correcting those kinds of errors that we see as blatant problems if one is educated on this topic, which we would hope the news media WOULD be!
Journalists need to refrain from being simple transcriptionists. And giving Lieberman praise for his antics is like giving negative attention to a brat.