Half-Assed

Responding to a number of e-mailers, Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler persuasively marshals the evidence that the WaPo and Donnie "Lucky Sperm" Graham slant the news page coverage in favor of the Bush Administration by burying the bad news and repeating personal attacks from anonymous Administration thugs.

Inexplicably, however, Gelter states he is "confident" that the paper's right-wing editorial views "have not infected the news sections." Getler doesn't offer an alternative explanation for the news page slant, such as alignment of the planets or the effects of a mind-control ray mounted on the roof of the Old Executive Building. And he doesn't provide any grounds for his confidence, apart from a page one article reporting the earth-shattering exclusive that there are no WMDs in Iraq. (Who knew?)

In fact, Getler's concluding sentence undermines his own claim of confidence by implicitly agreeing with the e-mailers' complaints, saying "[b]ut there is a lot of smoke out there, and probably a fire." Not only that, Mike, but Donnie and Downie are blowing the smoke directly up your ass.