How is it that the media gets so little respect? Well, in part it's because the Republicans trash it unmercifully when it produces good objective analysis.
It's a story of how Knight-Ridder wrote a long article which looked at some 300 cases on which Judge Alito ruled, sent it out to its affiliates, and what happened when it was published. Briefly, the Senate Republican Conference claimed the facts were wrong, one of its Senators wrote an op-ed denouncing the story, the White House found a former Alito law clerk who said his former boss was a good man (what a shock, huh?), a conservative columnist called the story "illiterate," a critique of the article was inserted into the record of the Judiciary Committee (with comments to the effect that to the inserting Senator's knowledge the story had been discredited), and the credibility of one of the authors was attacked.
This is frightening stuff, and it just goes to show how orchestrated the party in power is when it feels it's under pressure. If you're the publisher, how long would it be before you decide to self-censor just because you don't want the grief?
Jane at Firedoglake has more, including some rather telling quotes. Read the whole thing.
Posted by Linkmeister at January 12, 2006 10:34 AM | TrackBack