In his column today, Howard Kurtz takes me on over my post on the self-loathing liberal media -- and completely misses the point:
Here's what Arianna isn't telling you. When Newsweek hired Rove, the magazine also hired Markos Moulitsas. Kristol's once-a-week column is balanced on the Times op-ed page by Maureen Dowd, Paul Krugman, Frank Rich and Bob Herbert. And CNN almost never puts on conservative contributors without balancing them with libs; indeed, Snow appeared with Dee Dee Myers during his debut this week. So is Arianna saying the media shouldn't employ conservatives at all?
Of course that's not what I'm saying. Read the post again, Howie.
The point isn't that the MSM shouldn't employ conservatives at all. It's that they shouldn't employ unabashed propagandists like Snow, Kristol, or Rove -- people who have proven that they are willing to lie, obfuscate, and purposefully ignore the facts to further the agenda of the right's lunatic fringe. I may not often agree with Peggy Noonan or George Will or David Brooks or John Fund or David Frum or Tucker Carlson or P.J. O'Rourke or Tony Blankley -- but they aren't operating as propagandists for Bush/Cheney.
Karl Rove, as well as being one of the architects of the last seven years of disastrous rule, is an advisor to the McCain campaign. Which campaign is Markos Moulitsas advising, which covert CIA agent did he out, and which U.S. Attorney did he have fired?
Media outlets like CNN, Newsweek and the New York Times should absolutely include conservative voices in the mix. Just not those whose careers have been built on intentionally deceiving the American people.
The self-loathing liberal media's trend of embracing soulless shills and professional fabricators goes hand in hand with the look-the-other way ethos that gave us the "military analysts" scandal uncovered by the New York Times this week. And for Howie Kurtz not to make the connection between the two is either very naïve, very disingenuous, or willfully ignorant.