Andrew Alexander, the (ahem) ombudsman of the Washington Post gives a few glaring, embarrassing examples of the school-girl crush that the Post's Tom Shales has on Barack Obama.But Alexander knows which side his bread is buttered on. And so, even with that start to his column, he goes on to argue that the Post (and the press generally) are not very biased at all.
And they really expect us to think this guy is a watchdog?
You know, reading the mainstream press is much like reading Lewis Carroll at his most surrealistic -- except that Carroll never claimed to be reporting and he never tried to push an irreligious ideology or political agenda.
So when I finished Alexander's article, I couldn't help but recalling a few bits from Carroll's Alice in Wonderland:
The Duchess: Be what you would seem to be -- or, if you'd like it put more simply -- Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
Alice: I think I should understand that better, if I had it written down: but I can't quite follow it as you say it.
Or...
Caterpillar: Who are YOU?
Alice: This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. I -- I hardly know, sir, just at present -- at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.
Or...
Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
Alice: How do you know I'm mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have believed that Andrew Alexander is anything other than a pompous pretender, playing at being fair and impartial when his only interest is to defend -- no, make that, promote -- the far left predilections of his newspaper.
(An important note from the ombudsman of Vital Signs Blog -- The closing part of that last quotation does not appear in any of the standard texts of Alice in Wonderland. Mr. Hartford may have exercised unprofessional license, deliberately misquoting the Cat in order to convey a personal opinion. The management is investigating the matter.)
