I've been trying to figure out what it is that enables NewsBusters to stand out as a beacon of ineptitude in an online environment that is positively saturated with thickheaded right-wingers making incoherent complaints about the “liberal media.” And I think I've hit upon it.

It's not just that their arguments don't make sense; they're also wildly and comically inconsistent.

Take, for example, their reaction yesterday to Sunday's health care vote, in which they posted two entries attacking the media for referring to the passage of health care reform as “historic.” Now, say what you will about the bill's merits, but it's indisputable that such a major overhaul of the nation's health care system is “historic,” whether you believe that the bill will improve the lives of all Americans or turn the country into the next Soviet Union.

But today, NewsBuster Noel Sheppard pens an entry that twice refers to the health care vote as “historic,” and criticizes CNN's Rick Sanchez for not spending more time reporting on its historicalness:

On the day after the historic healthcare reform vote in the House of Representatives, CNN's Rick Sanchez decided to use his interview with Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) to bash former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

[...]

Add it all up, in a six minute interview with a member of Congress just hours after a historic vote in the House, Sanchez spent half of the time chatting with the man about his caustic opinion of Sarah Palin.

Now THAT'S good journalism.

Just so we're clear, NewsBusters' position is that reporting on the “historic” nature of the health care vote is bad journalism, unless doing so means you won't say something mean about Sarah Palin, at which point it becomes good journalism.

Don't try and make sense of it all. Just point and laugh. That's what we do.