Cross posted from Balloon Juice
I like the Washington Post. The reporting is great and the writing is often brilliant. It is one of the handful of American newspapers that still has reporters based around the world and the nation even as they cover the local area with depth and detail. Reporters regularly break important stories and add needed context to the issues of the day.
Still, the paper can also--fairly--be called one of the worst papers in America. Why? It is the Editorials and the Opinion section of the paper.
To the jump...
If you judge the WaPo just on its editorials and the predictable circle of limited minds that the Opinion Page Editors allow to be printed--then you would have to judge the WaPo as one of the worst (and laziest) newspapers in America. And while there are some bright spots every now and then, most of the time reading the editorials and opinions is descending into a swamp of faulty logic, magical thinking, false equivalences and a bias in favor of even the silliest chit-chat from the latest Georgetown cocktail party.
Today's lead editorial, "The birthright debate" is a perfect example. It is a classic Fred Hiatt era embarrassment.
The editorial makes the case that the debate over birthright citizenship is a distraction and a very bad idea. The solution, they argue, is "serious legislation" to reform our immigration system. I agree with these points and if they made those points clearly and incisively then the editorial page might have live up to the quality of the rest of the paper. But these conclusions were not the heart of the editorial--they were throw away lines.
The goal of the editorial--like most of the editorials of the Hiatt era--was to create a false right/left, liberal/conservative equivalence: this time in the debate to repeal 14th Amendment birthright citizenship.
Now on one hand you have Republican operatives and elected officials, teatards, professional Right pundits, gasbags, conservative think tanks and wingnut bloggers in their Confederate battle flag boxers all calling for an end to the Birthright citizenship guarantee of the Constitution.
And on the left you have... well criticism that this is a bat-shit crazy idea and almost everybody reaching the same conclusion of today's WaPo editorial: the debate over birthright citizenship is a very bad idea and a distraction in the effort to pass needed reforms to our immigration system.
The challenge for Fred was how to create a false balance between the right and left. Here is how he did it:
Some on the right argue that the Constitution should be changed to prevent U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants from gaining automatic citizenship, in part to prevent these "anchor babies" from being used to legitimize their parents' presence in the country.
Those on the left charge that the talk about changing birthright citizenship is evidence of deep-seated xenophobia; one activist argued that it puts the United States "on the brink of legalizing apartheid."
Everything is in balance because one side wants to deny rights to millions of children and create a permanent underclass of workers and children without rights in America and the other side has made comments that those who favor such a system might be motivated by fear of foreigners (and I would add a wee bit of racism).
Advocating a bad policy idea at odds with American values, our history and our Constitution may wrong, but in the view of the Washington Post Editorial Page it is just as wrong to point out that the motives of folks advocating for that policy might be base more in fear than in fact.
And then to make the case that the left is just as bad as the right, Fred uses a quote from an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that he has taken out of context: "one activist argued that it puts the United States 'on the brink of legalizing apartheid.'".
In the online version of the Editorial the quote links to a comment by "JohnDoe2 ALIPAC Super Hero" in a discussion group at the anti-immigrant and anti-immigration reform web site of the Americans for Legal Immigration which is dedicated to "...fighting against illegal immigration and amnesty for illegal aliens".
In his comment, Mr. JohnDoe2 (who is obviously a very authoritative source for Mr. Hiatt) comments on an article in USA Today about the number of children born to illegal immigrants in America. Mr. JohnDoe2 selectively quotes from USA Today to make an anti-immigrant case and ends his post in ALL CAPS (which also happen to be the only words Mr. JohnDoe2 presumably wrote himself):
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, says stripping away birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants would put the country "on the brink of legalizing apartheid."
http://content.usatoday.com/...
_______________
NO AMNESTY
DON'T REWARD THE CRIMINAL ACTIONS OF MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS
BY GIVING THEM CITIZENSHIP
By last Friday, the "on the brink of legalizing apartheid" selective quote was buzzing about wingnutopia as proof that opponents of the effort to repeal 14th Amendment birthright citizenship were shrill and nuts. The musings of Mark Krikorian of the NRO were repeated hundreds of times:
I loved this nugget from Ali Noorani, head of the National Immigration Forum, one of Washington’s main open-borders coalitions:
"It puts the United States of America on the brink of legalizing apartheid," he said.
Fred could have cited Mark as the source for the quote, but I guess Mr. JohnDoe2 is a more credible source than the NRO--and Fred may be correct on this value judgement. Still, one wonders why Fred Haitt and the Washington Post Editorial page couldn't just link to the USA Today article that was the source of the quote. I think it is because the context of the quote undermines the entire left/right false equivalence at the heart of Fred's muddled logic. Judge for yourself (NIF link added):
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which supports a process for some illegal immigrants to become citizens, said eliminating birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants would be a colossal mistake.
"It puts the United States of America on the brink of legalizing apartheid," he said.
Noorani said some people have always fought for a change to the 14th Amendment's birthright clause, but he is shocked to see prominent members of Congress suddenly embrace it. He thinks the upcoming November elections are the reason.
"This is a pathetic attempt to gin up a (voting) base," he said. "This is political fear-mongering."
I will not wait on the edge of my seat for the WaPo Ombudsman to comment this journalistic malpractice in a future column. OTOH, if I was a betting man I would place some coin on Fred giving Mr. JohnDoe2 his own regular column in the near future, especially if he wears a bowtie.
Cheers
dengre