As a diary that soared to the top of the recommended list addresses in detail, Krugman's column in today's NYT comes out swinging. Sadly, a critical point in Krugman's piece is conclusively proven on the front page of the same paper that carries his column.
Krugman notes the brazen dishonesty that has been successfully employed by the McCain/Palin ticket to date, and he speculates as to why it has been successful. One of his most trenchant observations is:
Why do the McCain people think they can get away with this stuff? Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being "balanced" at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that "some Democrats say" that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.
The trenchancy of that observation is objectively proven in the NYT's coverage of Palin's disastrous interview w/ Charles Gibson. As those of us who witnessed this embarrasing exercise know, she whiffed 3 different times when Gibson asked her about the Bush Doctrine. He finally had to give her a brief summary of that doctrine so that the interview could continue.
When a baseball player whiffs on a pitch 3 times, he goes back and takes a seat in the dugout. One might think that a similar principle would apply to a VP candidate, esp when said candidate's first-born is now being sent into harm's way as part of a vain continuing attempt to enforce that visibly failed doctrine. We all know that, if either member of the Dem ticket showed such gross ignorance of such a vital point, he would quickly become an object of scorn and ridicule in the TM.
The NYT, however, grades Palin on a different curve. Their analysis of the interview doesn't even address this gaffe until the 5th paragraph, where it states:
At times visibly nervous, at others appearing to hew so closely to prepared answers that she used the exact same phrases repeatedly, Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of "anticipatory self-defense."
Three paragraphs later, the "analysis" goes on to state:
There were no obvious gaffes during the grilling by Mr. Gibson, who was facing pressure of his own to move Ms. Palin beyond her stump speech to reveal more about her readiness for high office and knowledge of world and domestic affairs.
In the immortal words of Steve Martin, EXCUUSE ME? Being utterly ignorant about her party's core foreign policy doctrine of the past 8 years was not a gaffe? Exactly what would've been a gaffe? Had she stated that WMD's were found in Iraq exactly where Don Rumsfeld said they were, would that have constitued a gaffe?
We have a GOP ticket that views its "national security" credentials as its strong suit. The top half of that ticket can't distinguish Shia from Sunni w/o prompting from JoeMentum, and that half apparently doesn't know that Czechoslovakia split into 2 countries years ago. The bottom half can't identify the "security" doctrine for which her son is now risking his safety. Our country's paper of record views this utterly appalling development w/ basic equanimity.
I have many frustrations w/ the recent course of the Obama campaign. I have joined in many of the cricitisms of that campaign that have been expressed here. I am, however, equally frustrated by the utter inability/unwillingness of the TM to discharge the responsibilities that go along w/ the 1st Amend privileges that the TM has been afforded.
One of the most painful lessons we have learned in the past 8 years is that competence (and lack thereof) matters in govt. It mattered in Iraq, it mattered in NOLA, and it's becoming increasingly apparent how much it matters in handling the economy. Eight years of incompetence have brought this country to the brink of ruin, and 4 more years of it will take us past that brink.
Sadly, that basic point seems to have been lost by the NYT. In search of a phony "balance," our paper of record glossed over an obvious example of basic incompetence by a person who is actively campaigning for this country's 2d highest office. That glossing over offers a classic illustration that we face in combatting the increasingly transparent lies of the GOP ticket.