On October 23rd,
we decided that the LA Times should become "The Paper of Record" to replace the New York Times because of the latter's refusal to fire Judith Miller. However, two developments have happened since then: Miller no longer works for the Times, while the LA Times has fired one of the best columnists in the country in Robert Scheer.
Not only that, the LAT has replaced Scheer with Jonah Goldberg, reviled by Armando as one of the worst journalists in the country. So, given the lack of respect they show for their Liberal audience and their sucking up to the Republican Party at a time when they are going down in the polls, this completely reopens the question.
First, Scheer will not be silenced. He will now be writing for the Huffington Post, as Armando pointed out. Next, for your reading pleasure, here are some samples of his writing.
On Judith Miller:
In particular, the indictment makes a farce of the theatrics of New York Times reporter Judith Miller. She knew early on that Libby was using the media to punish former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV for exposing President Bush's false claim that Iraq sought nuclear material from the African nation of Niger. According to the indictment, at a June 23, 2003, meeting with Miller, "Libby was critical of the CIA and disparaged what he termed 'selective leaking' by the CIA concerning intelligence matters. In discussing the CIA's handling of Wilson's trip to Niger, Libby informed her that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA."
That paragraph from the indictment is key to this entire sordid affair. Wilson at that time was beginning to talk to reporters about one of the more egregious distortions in the president's State of the Union speech justifying the Iraq invasion -- the 16-word fabrication about Saddam Hussein's nuclear intentions.
Libby, who had been a source for Miller's erroneous hyping in the New York Times of Iraq's WMD threat, was now attempting to shift blame to the Central Intelligence Agency by impugning Wilson's motives for stepping forth as a critic of the war.
INSTEAD OF confronting Libby for trying to mislead reporters, Miller did nothing to expose his efforts to smear a former ambassador for raising such questions. At the very least, she should have written a story stating that a White House official was planting information to disparage a critic of its war policy. Miller couldn't do that because she had acceded to Libby's demand that his White House connection be concealed in any articles she wrote, by identifying him as a "former [Capitol] Hill staffer."
On the recent passage of the bill granting gun manufacturers immunity from lawsuits:
Maybe it's because I recently was awakened by a volley of gunshots that resulted in the death of an innocent college student -- a budding leader in her community -- that I am so outraged that Congress has decided to grant the gun lobby its most fervent and irresponsible wish: blanket immunity from civil lawsuits.
That protection, offered to no other industry, was assured last week when the House ratified a bill, previously passed by the Senate, shielding gun manufacturers and retailers from civil lawsuits by the victims of gun violence. The bill, now heading to the president's desk for certain approval, is a reward to the National Rifle Assn. and the rest of the gun industry lobby for doing so much to put the Republican Party in power.
On the revelation of the document discrediting the Al-Qaeda operative who linked Saddam and Bin Laden:
Who in the White House knew about DITSUM No. 044-02 and when did they know it?
That's the newly declassified smoking-gun document, originally prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2002 but ignored by President Bush. Its declassification this weekend blows another huge hole in Bush's claim that he was acting on the best intelligence available when he pitched the invasion of Iraq as a way to prevent an Al Qaeda terror attack using weapons of mass destruction.
The report demolished the credibility of the key Al Qaeda informant the administration relied on to make its claim that a working alliance existed between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. It was circulated widely within the U.S. government a full eight months before Bush used the prisoner's lies to argue for an invasion of Iraq because "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases."
On the defeat of all of Ahnold's ballot initiatives:
You have to love California. Yes, I'm buzzed by the stunning rejection of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's referendum revolution aimed at turning this blue state red. That the voters soundly defeated his proposals to punish the public sector unions and legislators who dared to cross the Terminator is a bellwether moment for the nation.
Schwarzenegger was defeated primarily by the hardworking public sector workers of the state: the teachers, firefighters and other civil servants who are sick and tired of being pitted by politicians against those they are so dedicated to serving. "We're the mighty, mighty nurses," the joyous healers chanted in a victory conga line the night they brought the bully down.
Frankly, I feared that what was left of Schwarzenegger's blustery charisma along with the endorsement of some of his proposals by all of the state's big newspapers and the Republicans' attempt to drag their base to the polls with an anti-abortion initiative would fool the voters. That it didn't, along with the rejection of Bush backed candidates in New Jersey and Virginia, trumpets a message of hope for the country.
Scheer was absolutely fearless when calling out his own newspaper for supporting Ahnold and waking up Wednesday morning with egg on their faces. That, I suggest, was the last straw.
So, here is the question: Should we keep the LA Times as "The Paper of Record?" A case can be made that Scheer went too far in singling his own paper out for criticism. If you were the boss, would you want your columnists throwing in-your-face criticism like the kind Scheer threw in his last column? But then again, Maureen Dowd was one of Miller's fiercest critics, and she is keeping her job.
Or should we give the New York Times another chance, given the fact that Miller is no longer working for them? Is this a positive step in the right direction?
Or should we give someone else a chance? If so, who has done the best job over the last few years at exposing the lies of the Bush administration?
Here is what will happen: If the LA Times or the NYT gets over 50% of the vote, then they will be The Paper of Record as far as I'm concerned, although they would hardly be my only source.
If the LAT or NYT wins, but gets less than 50% of the vote, they will face a runoff with the news outlets nominated by you tomorrow.
If neither one wins, we will have a runoff tomorrow of the outlets picked by you.
Keep in mind that the problem with nominating a site like this to be "Paper of Record" is that we normally rely on other news outlets, whatever they may be, for our sources of news. And furthermore, we need to look outside our bubble in order to get the big picture. Looking at what the right-wingers are saying about issues has forced me to come up with evidence to back up my arguments.