VERY POOR KIDS: A second gap widens!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2012

Part 3—One group has been losing ground: Have black kids really been closing the achievement gap?

Last Friday, in the New York Times, Sabrina Tavernise mentioned this important fact, pretty much acting like everyone already knew it. In reality, the New York Times, like other news orgs, hasn’t shown the slightest interest in discussing that narrowing gap—or in explaining the way the narrowing has been accomplished.

How has that narrowing been achieved? On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, white kids’ scores have continued to rise—but scores by black kids have risen more! You’d almost think this would seem like news, especially since we’re constantly told that our lazy teachers have ruined the schools with their infernal unions.

You might think that—but you’d be wrong. In truth, the New York Times doesn’t care about such facts. It has made its disinterest quite clear through the years. Black kids can pretty much jump in the lake.

The New York Times doesn’t care.

That isn’t the fault of Tavernise, and her front-page report was important. Luckily, there was other news to report—gloomy, depressing, end-of-world news, the kind of education news that the New York Times likes to report.

Friend, do you want to believe that our crumb-bum teachers are destroying our schools with their unions? If so, the New York Times had some news for you! This news involved low-income kids. We’ll use the on-line headline:

TAVERNISE (2/10/12): Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say

Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

Have black kids narrowed the black-white gap? That was the subordinate news, offered as if you already knew it. The focus of this report was also important. But the focus was gloomy.

Hallelujah! The gap between rich and poor students has grown! We have some bad news to report!

In those opening paragraphs, Tavernise spoke about “rich” and “poor” kids. Before too long, she got more specific. According to one recent study by a Stanford professor, this is what has occurred:

TAVERNISE: The changes are tectonic, a result of social and economic processes unfolding over many decades. The data from most of these studies end in 2007 and 2008, before the recession’s full impact was felt. Researchers said that based on experiences during past recessions, the recent downturn was likely to have aggravated the trend.

“With income declines more severe in the lower brackets, there’s a good chance the recession may have widened the gap,” Professor Reardon said. In the study he led, researchers analyzed 12 sets of standardized test scores starting in 1960 and ending in 2007. He compared children from families in the 90th percentile of income—the equivalent of around $160,000 in 2008, when the study was conducted—and children from the 10th percentile, $17,500 in 2008. By the end of that period, the achievement gap by income had grown by 40 percent, he said, while the gap between white and black students, regardless of income, had shrunk substantially.

We’re comparing kids from the tenth percentile with their peers from the 90th rung. Comparing those kids, the gap has grown. In fact, it has grown a lot.

Why are low-income kids losing ground? In one way, Tavernise doesn’t explain the source of the widening gap. Are tenth percentile kids achieving less as time goes by? Could it be that they’re holding their own, or even scoring better, while their upper-end peers show greater gains? This point isn’t explained in the Times report, although it’s quite significant. But in this passage, Tavernise explains why the gap may be widening:

TAVERNISE: One reason for the growing gap in achievement, researchers say, could be that wealthy parents invest more time and money than ever before in their children (in weekend sports, ballet, music lessons, math tutors, and in overall involvement in their children’s schools), while lower-income families, which are now more likely than ever to be headed by a single parent, are increasingly stretched for time and resources. This has been particularly true as more parents try to position their children for college, which has become ever more essential for success in today’s economy.

A study by Sabino Kornrich, a researcher at the Center for Advanced Studies at the Juan March Institute in Madrid, and Frank F. Furstenberg, scheduled to appear in the journal Demography this year, found that in 1972, Americans at the upper end of the income spectrum were spending five times as much per child as low-income families. By 2007 that gap had grown to nine to one; spending by upper-income families more than doubled, while spending by low-income families grew by 20 percent.

Spending by low-income families has grown by twenty percent (we assume that’s adjusted for inflation). But spending by lucky duckies has doubled! This isn’t fair for the low-income children, of course, but it’s the way things are going all through the culture as inequality soars. Meanwhile, Tavernise quoted another professor suggesting another well-known component in the production of such gaps. “James J. Heckman, an economist at the University of Chicago, argues that parenting matters as much as, if not more than, income in forming a child’s cognitive ability and personality, particularly in the years before children start school.”

Low-income kids are way “behind” by the age of three, in part because of approaches to parenting which have little to do with the spending of money. These are some of the ways that achievement gap occurs.

For people who care about low-income kids, these are important topics. Needless to say, this front-page report came and went last week with barely a peep in the liberal press. As with the New York Times, so too with us: On balance, our disinterest in such topics has been quite clear for years. Unless some conservative dares to talk about very poor children in very poor neighborhoods, in which case we quiver with rage, faking our interest with skill!

Tomorrow, we’ll return to that subordinate story, the narrowing of the black-white gap. In closing, though, we do have to mention one manifestation from the New York Times.

In the passage we’ve quoted above, Professor Reardon says the achievement gap by income has grown by 40 percent over the past fifty years. The occasional reader might even wonder: But how big is that gap?

How big was the gap in 1960? How big was the gap by 2008? To help us ponder such basic questions, the Times presented one of its graphics. Click here; it’s on the left.

First, you emit a mordant chuckle. After that, you cry.

The graphic shows the rise in the gap between rich and poor, and the drop in the gap between black and white. But how big are these gaps in the present day? How big is the remaining gap between black kids and white kids, let’s say?

The graphic is hard to decipher. It describes its units in this way: “A difference of one unit is roughly equal to the difference in test scores between a fifth grader and an eighth grader.”

Does this mean that a unit is roughly equal to three academic years? Let’s assume it means something like that. It looks like the remaining gap between black and white kids is roughly 0.7 units (down from 1.2 units around 1955). This would mean that the remaining gap is about two academic years.

That isn’t great, but it’s much better than what it was. (And remember: Both groups of kids have been doing substantially better on the NAEP.) But people! The remaining gap is about two years—at what grade level?

A gap of two years would be pretty awful at the third grade level. A gap of two years wouldn’t be quite as horrible if we’re discussing tenth-graders. But nowhere does the graphic tell us what grade level we’re discussing. Maybe there’s something we’re missing here; we will happily stand corrected. But that info does seem pretty basic, and it isn't here.

That graphic shows the gap has narrowed to 0.7 units—but it doesn’t say at what grade level. Bless their hearts, the New York Times tries. We will happily stand corrected. But is this graphic their latest fail?

Tomorrow: Astounding disinterest

Chapter 7: History continues all week!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Last fund-raising pitch before freeway: Should Americans know the actual history of the Clinton-Gore years?

A great deal of that history has been disappeared. Next week, PBS will apparently help you remember “the good parts” (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/13/12).

In the afternoons, we’re back to work compiling one part of that fuller history. We’re hard at work on Chapter 7 at our companion site, How He Got There.

Tomorrow, we’ll give an overview of that chapter.

How did George Bush ever get to the White House? We’ve never seen so many people agree that very basic American history should be disappeared. Next week, PBS will help you remember the part of this era that is approved. In the process, a gigantic press corps breakdown will once again disappear.

We hope you’ll consider a contribution. (Just click here.) The press corps isn't going to talk. But the truth should be left for the future.
http://dailyhowler.com/contribution.html

Guest host watch: Your discourse is stunningly dumb!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Making Ezra Klein dumb: On Monday, Paul Krugman wrote a column about a very important fact. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/13/12.

Krugman’s fact is a sensitive fact. On the other hand, it may be the most important fact in all of American politics. In many ways, American conservatism is now “detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality.”

That sensitive fact has been true for decades, a point of chronology Krugman still seems to miss. But you simply can’t run a modern nation this way. You simply can’t run a modern nation if tens of millions of its citizens believe all manner of nonsense and crap.

Krugman’s point is very important, though we think he expressed it somewhat poorly. But omigod! In this morning’s column, David Brooks says much the same thing! We’ve been waiting a very long time to see someone use that key word:

BROOKS (2/14/12): This economic determinism would be bad enough if it was just making public debate dumber. But the amputation of sociologic, psychological and cognitive considerations makes good policy impossible.

You’ll have to read the column to see what Brooks was talking about. But we were thrilled to see someone say that our public discourse is “dumb.”

Is our public discourse dumb? We’re not sure—is the Pope’s chalice Catholic? In fact, our public discourse is stunningly dumb. In part, the dumbness is a corporate choice, a choice by our elites.

We thought of that when we watched Ezra Klein guest-hosting last night for Dear Rachel. As you may know, Ezra Klein actually isn’t dumb. This was clear in his opening segment, during which he offered a very informative analysis of Obama and Romney’s budget pronouncements. His guest in this segment was Peter Orszag, former Obama budget honcho. The segment was loaded with basic info, the kind of basic information which is almost constantly missing from our pseudo-debates.

Mitt Romney has offered bizarre budget plans. With Orszag’s help, Klein took you on a long fast ride through this basic information.

That said, corporate clowns just like to have fun, even on putative “news” shows. And so it was that Klein was reduced to the pitiful crap which follows. E. J. Dionne dragged him along:

DIONNE (2/13/12): In the Pew poll, Obama has an 8-point lead over Romney and a 10-point lead over Santorum. Not even the margin of error, when you compare to Gingrich and Gingrich was the main competitor, Romney could make a strong case that he was stronger than Gingrich.

And I think what’s happened on each side, the Romney side, the Santorum side—Romney has been very awkward, to the point where, when he uses a phrase like he governed “in a severely conservative way,” that’s a story for days. We’re talking about the word "severely" and he just does not seem comfortable.

Rick Santorum knows what he believes and looks comfortable saying it. And I think it’s that contrast that is really helping Rick Santorum right now.

KLEIN: What I thought was sort of amazing about “severely conservative” is it was Mitt Romney’s only deviation from his script. He went off of his script for one comment, and it was a gaffe.

There was more to this blockheaded back and forth, but we’ll spare you. Here’s our question: Are these two guys really this dumb? Or were they just pretending?

Do you mind if we explain Dionne’s comments? Romney’s phrase has been “a story for days” because he’s a target on MSNBC. On MSNBC, the hacks have been “talking about the word ‘severely’ ” because that’s the kind of silly shit they’re paid to hack to us rubes.

They’re being paid to pretend that this pointless locution represents some sort of “gaffe.” This is a corporate decision.

Surely, Dionne understands the general shape of this process. In Campaign 2000, the boys and girls spent twenty months mocking every turn of phrase (and wardrobe element) from Candidate Gore, then coming to that same sad conclusion: He just doesn’t seem comfortable! In September 1999, Dionne even described this process as part of a column. He then kept his mouth shut, like a good guild member, as it continued for the next fourteen months.

You may know how that ended up.

Dionne decided to keep his trap shut. Today, he’s paid to go on MSNBC and peddle this same silly shit to us rubes. In the process, liberal viewers get dumbed way down. Last night, so did Klein.

Regarding Klein: If you watched last evening’s program, you may have noticed a few performance tics. Klein is a rather sober person, unlike the jester he replaced. But Maddow’s staff had prepared monologues filled with the same sorts of jokes, jibes and jests which make this putative “news” program a tribute to entertainment values—to the dumb often swamping the smart.

Klein isn’t good at “doing Maddow.” But bless his heart, he kept trying! Ironically, this produced the same sort of awkwardness commonly attributed to Candidate Romney. Klein fumbled his way through the types of jests which Maddow throws down in the way others breathe. He didn’t look comfortable in his own skin, as may sometimes be true with Romney. As was constantly said to be true in the case of Candidate Gore.

Does Romney look comfortable in his own skin? This familiar standard has been invented because it’s so absurdly subjective; it lets any pundit, no matter how slow, voice a negative judgment about a targeted pol. Gore was endlessly trashed on this basis. On MSNBC, so is Romney.

That said, the fundamentals remain: Candidate Gore had sensible proposals; Candidate Romney does not. The silly shit about pointless locutions has been designed to please you tribally, to give you some good entertainment. But can Dionne really be so dumb as to think this bullshit makes sense?

Final point: All through that opening segment, Klein read the text he was given—text which included jests and jibes about what a geeky policy wonk he is. This too is designed to entertain. (Maddow revels in it.) Klein looked uncomfortable in his own skin as he read this silly shit; he couldn’t have seemed much more “stiff.” But the fundamentals remain: Klein offered tons of basic information last night, although it was soon being buried under The Dumb.

Final point: They went after Candidate Gore that way because there was no other way to deride him. But Romney’s proposals are bat-shit insane. Romney’s proposals can be used to defeat him. Still, corporate clowns just want (you) to have fun.

We were happy to see David Brooks use that word. Your discourse is stunningly dumb.

What did Barack Obama say and when did Mitt Romney say it!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Creeping Kit Seelyism: Finally, the New York Times has explained a basic point.

How the heck would that Buffett Rule work? Jackie Calmes has the honors:

CALMES (2/14/12): [Obama] rousingly promoted his initiatives to make college more affordable and to train workers for health care, the sciences and advanced manufacturing. And he called for Warren E. Buffett and other wealthy Americans to pay an income tax rate no lower than what secretaries pay. Mr. Obama’s “Buffett Rule” would set a minimum 30 percent rate on income above $1 million, replacing the current alternative minimum tax that increasingly hits upper-middle-class taxpayers.

In the highlighted passage, we're told that the minimum 30 percent rate would affect income above $1 million. According to Calmes, lucky duckies will get cadged for 30 percent, but only on income above that amount. But wouldn’t you know it? In typical New York Times fashion, Calmes’ report is accompanied by a graphic which explains the rule in a murkier way, suggesting something quite different.

According to the graphic, the Buffett Rule “would institute a minimum tax rate of 30 percent for millionaires.” To many readers, that will imply that someone earning a million bucks will have to fork over 300 grand. How hard would it have been to repeat Calmes’ more precise formulation? At the Times, such basic distinctions rarely so much as get noticed.

They’ve been fumbling with this topic for weeks. They still can’t step in the same river twice.

The New York Times is our most famous newspaper. Quite often, though, its front-line reporters just aren’t all that sharp. Consider what Katharine “Kit” Seelye writes in this morning's paper.

Seelye got famous in Campaign 2000 for her endless snide advances on Gore, including one completely accidental misquotation. This morning, in our hard-copy Times, she reports on Mitt Romney. In her usual pitiful way, she explains what Candidate Romney once suggested and said:

SEELYE (2/14/12): “We’re not conceding anything to Romney on the economic front,” said John Brabender, a senior Santorum adviser.

He said Mr. Santorum’s plans would also address the needs of the poor, a group which Mr. Romney suggested he was not concerned with, saying later that he is focused on the middle class.

Did Romney really say that “later?” Yes he did—about ten seconds later, when he was asked to explain the statement he made ten seconds before. And that's not all:

Did Romney “suggest” he was not concerned with the needs of the poor, “saying later” that he is focused on the middle class? In fact, he said he wasn’t concerned with the very poor (or the very rich), instantly explaining what he meant—that the very poor (and the very rich) weren’t going to be his focus.

We’ve followed Seelye’s work through the years, so we weren’t surprised by her fumbling. But in a nation of 310 million souls, it’s always surprising to see the way the Times plays the game.

These people aren’t good at explaining things, whether it’s the Buffett Rule or that much-hyped Romney remark. By the way: That second paragraph by Seelye doesn’t appear in her on-line report. Was it removed because it's a mess?

We have no idea.

VERY POOR CHILDREN: Who knew!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2012

Part 2—Why hasn’t this fact been reported: Sabrina Tavernise’s report appeared above the fold on the front page of last Friday’s New York Times.

Let's start with some basic words of praise: Good for Sabrina Tavernise!

As its hard-copy headline suggests, Tavernise’s report focused on the rising gap between the educational achievement of high- and low-income kids (“Rich and Poor Further Apart in Education”).

As such, her report had a gloomy focus. But as we read, we were surprised to see her report a secondary fact. How weird! Black kids are doing much better in school, the New York Times seemed to be saying:

TAVERNISE (2/10/12): Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

Say what? Lodged within that nugget paragraph, Tavernise tossed away a remarkable claim: “The achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades!”

Soon, Tavernise said it again. “Who knew?” we incomparably asked:

TAVERNISE (continuing directly): “We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites.

[...]

In the study he led, researchers analyzed 12 sets of standardized test scores starting in 1960 and ending in 2007. He compared children from families in the 90th percentile of income—the equivalent of around $160,000 in 2008, when the study was conducted—and children from the 10th percentile, $17,500 in 2008. By the end of that period, the achievement gap by income had grown by 40 percent, he said, while the gap between white and black students, regardless of income, had shrunk substantially.

Say what? The achievement gap between white and black students has shrunk substantially since the 1960s? The achievement gap has narrowed significantly over the past few decades?

Repeat after us: Who knew?

We don’t mean this, in any way, as a criticism of Tavernise. But her report largely buries this news—treats it like a subordinate fact, like something her readers already knew.

But would a regular New York Times reader already know such a fact? We didn’t think we had ever seen the Times report the fact that the achievement gap has narrowed. Nor did we think that the Times has reported the way this has occurred.

Is it true that the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades? If you consult the “gold standard of educational testing,” the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the data do show such a narrowing. More importantly, the data show how this narrowing has occurred. According to the NAEP data, achievement levels by white students have grown in the past few decades—but achievement levels by black students have grown even more! And the gains in achievement are substantial, as we have noted again and again—and again and again and again.

You might think a major newspaper would want to share this news with the public—especially in an era when the public is constantly being told that its public schools are miserably failing due to the selfishness of their lazy teachers with their infernal unions.

If you thought such a thing, you were wrong! Has the New York Times ever told readers about black students’ rising achievement? We’ve begged for such reporting, for years—but we didn’t think we’d ever read anything like that in the Times.

The topic is bit hard to research, but we did a quick search using Nexis.

We searched using these terms: “Achievement gap AND black AND white.” (“Achievement gap” is a fairly standard term when discussing this general topic.) In the past two years, we found no headlines which seemed to suggest that those rising scores by black students were being discussed. We did find a pair of classic gloomy public school headlines—the only headlines which seemed to target the achievement levels of black kids:

August 16, 2010: Triumph Fades On Racial Gap In City Schools
November 9, 2010: Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected

That first report, by Sharon Otterman, only concerned New York City’s schools. That second report, by Trip Gabriel, is now festooned with corrections. (For our incomparable same-day reaction, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/9/10.)

Let’s get back to the basics: Would a New York Times reader have any idea that black students’ achievement levels are way up on the NAEP, the testing program this great newspaper constantly pimps as our most reliable source of data? We will happily stand corrected. But we don’t think the New York Times has ever reported that fact, even if to report or suggest that those data are bogus or overstated. Last Friday, that fact turned up inside the Tavernise report, treated like a subordinate fact which everyone already knows.

Everyone doesn’t know that fact. They haven’t read about this topic in the brilliant New York Times. And within the emerging liberal world, you couldn’t get people to discuss such facts with a shotgun and a team of howling dogs strapped to the roof of your truck.

Everyone doesn’t know that fact. We’ll ask you again:

Why not?

Tomorrow: Why have low-income kids been losing ground?

Sleeveless sweater watch: The dumbness of the whale!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012

More deep thoughts from Slate: Has Jacob Weisberg adopted a pen name? If so, is it Julia Felsenthal?

The following piece remains the number-one story sitting atop Slate’s front page, three days after posting. We cite the headlines which appear on that front page:

SIMPLY THE VEST
What does Rick Santorum’s love of sleeveless sweaters say about him—and us?

What does Santorum’s love of sleeveless sweaters say? About Felsenthal (and her editor), it seems to say that they are a pair of brainless pifflers.

What does it say about us? What does it say—the fact that we’ve tolerated this brand of inanity for at least the past fifteen years?

What does it say about us? We’d call that a very good question!

Oral sex in the White House watch: You are encouraged to think about only one part of your history!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012

Our drive resumes tomorrow: It’s very, very hard to express the depth of our political culture’s depravity.

How did George W. Bush reach the White House? On Saturday, Digby noted the one part of our recent history we’re all encouraged to ponder.

She quoted a month-old report in the Daily Mail, describing a thrilling PBS special which will air next week:

STEBNER (1/13/12): A two-part PBS special set to air in February will detail the entire life of former president Bill Clinton, from his childhood in Arkansas to his rise to the White House.

The four-hour documentary will also dedicate a full hour to his sexual dalliances and the highly publicised affair with then White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

The special will highlight many of the former president’s involvements. Mr Clinton’s former congressional campaign aide Maria Crider remembers that women were “literally mesmerised by this man.”

“It was absolutely like fly on honey. And he needed that. He needed that kind of adoration,” she said.

British newspapers routinely misspell words like "publicised." For Politico’s account of this mess, just click here. They make the program sound worse!

As Digby noted, the Lewinsky episode is part of President Clinton’s history. That said, that episode also helps explain the history which lay just ahead.

How did George Bush reach the White House? The mainstream “press corps” melted down over this troubling bit of behavior by Clinton. Chris Matthews won’t stop kissing Dear Jack’s ass, but he was very very upset when this very wild fellow, this President Clinton, acted a bit like his hero. (He was also in line for millions of dollars from his owner, Jack Welch.)

All through 1998, the clowns and the fools flung their poo all around. Starting in March 1999, they went after Candidate Gore, President Clinton's successor. (Clinton’s impeachment trial had ended three weeks earlier. In March 1999, they invented three of their stupid tales, turning Gore into a LIAR. And yes, this is the real history. This is how you got to Iraq.)

Starting in March 1999, they went after Candidate Gore. This includes our leading "liberal" heroes, although everyone has agreed, from that day to this, that this twenty-month breakdown simply must not be discussed. (You're allowed to mention it once.)

Week 2 of our fund-raising drive starts tomorrow. How did George Bush get to the White House? This recent history shouldn’t be lost—though good career liberals, checking their bank books, have stood in line to keep it suppressed.

Taking a break from their doo-wop specials, PBS will help us enjoy the steamy parts again! It’s hard to express the depth of the way our “elites” now serve themselves.

Sanity watch: Enabling the crazy!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012

First, you snark: In this morning’s column, Paul Krugman asks a hugely important question.

It may be the most important question in all of American politics. The question he asks has been that important for several decades now.

He asks a very important question—but it’s also a sensitive question. We’ll include the way he frames the question, and the bulk of his answer:

KRUGMAN (2/13/12): How did American conservatism end up so detached from, indeed at odds with, facts and rationality? For it was not always thus. After all, that health reform Mr. Romney wants us to forget followed a blueprint originally laid out at the Heritage Foundation!

My short answer is that the long-running con game of economic conservatives and the wealthy supporters they serve finally went bad. For decades the G.O.P. has won elections by appealing to social and racial divisions, only to turn after each victory to deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy—a process that reached its epitome when George W. Bush won re-election by posing as America’s defender against gay married terrorists, then announced that he had a mandate to privatize Social Security.

Over time, however, this strategy created a base that really believed in all the hokum—and now the party elite has lost control.

Krugman is asking a very important question; it may be the most important question in all of American politics. In principal, we agree with his answer—although his answer is very limited, and in some ways it borders on wrong. (In Campaign 2000, Candidate Bush ran very strongly and very openly on a pledge to privatize Social Security. This part of his platform was strongly supported all through the press corps, and it polled quite well.)

Krugman’s question is hugely important—and by far, he has been our smartest and most valuable player at the top end of the press corps. That’s why we think it’s so unfortunate that he started this important column in the way he did. Especially considering the source, what follows is almost as dumb as the well-packaged hokum conservative voters have internalized over the past forty years:

KRUGMAN: Mitt Romney has a gift for words—self-destructive words. On Friday he did it again, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference that he was a “severely conservative governor.”

As Molly Ball of The Atlantic pointed out, Mr. Romney “described conservatism as if it were a disease.” Indeed. Mark Liberman, a linguistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, provided a list of words that most commonly follow the adverb “severely”; the top five, in frequency of use, are disabled, depressed, ill, limited and injured.

That’s clearly not what Mr. Romney meant to convey. Yet if you look at the race for the G.O.P. presidential nomination, you have to wonder whether it was a Freudian slip. For something has clearly gone very wrong with modern American conservatism.

We’re sorry to tell you, but that’s just dumb. It’s dumb on the substance. On the politics, it’s may be worse.

Mitt Romney has flubbed again—or at least, our smartest player is willing to pretend that he has! He’s willing to waste his time quoting Ball, engaging in the micro-nitpicking which sends thrills up liberal legs. He’s willing to cite a linguistics professor who ought to return to his dry-as-dust lectures. He’s even willing to walk in the realm of Dowd, toying with Freudian slips.

In fairness, he’s isn’t discussing Mitt Romney’s pet dog and how he got on the roof of that car. But in this silly, snark-laden open, he comes depressingly close.

What's wrong with starting a column with three paragraphs of silly dumb shit? Many things are wrong with that tack, if you want to attain a world in which voters don’t believe all that hokum—and by the way, the hokum was running strong on the liberal web in response to last Friday’s “accommodation” to the bishops. We had planned to review a fiery, hokum-laden blog post on that very subject, until Krugman’s important column about the other side's hokum surpassed it. (We’ll look at that blog post tomorrow.)

What’s wrong with Krugman’s snark, which he extends through the meat of his column? (See paragraphs 6, 8, 9, 13.) We’ll offer two quick thoughts:

When you open a column with snark of that type, you’re inviting large swaths of the public to pay no attention to anything which follows. You also burn away 15 percent of your limited space. You leave yourself that much less time to support your central claim, which is hugely important—although it’s a sensitive claim.

Do modern conservative voters believe a big pile of “hokum?” We’d have to say that they do. Do “fantasies and fabrications” appeal to the conservative base? We’d have to say that’s accurate too. But within our democratic traditions, these are very sensitive claims, claims which have to be strongly supported if you want to advance them outside the tribe. Krugman burned up so much of his column with snark that he gave few examples of this hokum—and we'd say that some of his examples were chosen somewhat strangely.

Over the weekend, we were struck by the relentless lunacy expressed at the CPAC convention. A modern nation simply can’t function when tens of millions of its citizens believe so many crazy things.

But the hokum is spreading through our vineyards too, and the snark is helping it spread. Tomorrow, we’ll return to Krugman’s column, noting how poorly and weakly he explains the source of the conservative hokum. And we’ll look at that other blog post, where the hokum ran wild on our side.

Krugman’s question is hugely important. His answer is plainly correct—although we'd say his answer was very limited and was sometimes almost wrong. Why would you start by spreading the snark, by burning up words, when your basic point is so plainly correct and so hugely important?

First, you snark! But here's a question: Does that enable the crazy?

VERY POOR CHILDREN: A very big story!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2012

Part 1—Also not even a peep: Last Friday, a very important news report appeared on the New York Times’ front page.

The report was written by Sabrina Tavernise. It appeared above the fold.

The New York Times is our most famous newspaper, except perhaps for the Wall Street Journal. And Tavernise wrote an important report; “Good for her,” we incomparably said. But if you live in the liberal world, you haven’t read a single word about this important report.

The report appeared on the Times’ front page. After that, all was silent. Forgive the snark which follows:

Why has this report been ignored? Simple! Tavernise’s report dealt with very poor children in very poor neighborhoods—and we liberals quit on such children several decades ago.

Don’t get us wrong! We’ll screech and yell and drop R-bombs when the other tribe talks about very poor children. But aside from that tribal play, we rarely show signs of giving a fig about information like this:

TAVERNISE (2/10/12): Rich and Poor Further Apart in Education

Education was historically considered a great equalizer in American society, capable of lifting less advantaged children and improving their chances for success as adults. But a body of recently published scholarship suggests that the achievement gap between rich and poor children is widening, a development that threatens to dilute education’s leveling effects.

It is a well-known fact that children from affluent families tend to do better in school. Yet the income divide has received far less attention from policy makers and government officials than gaps in student accomplishment by race.

Now, in analyses of long-term data published in recent months, researchers are finding that while the achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades, the gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially during the same period.

As you can see from that hard-copy headline, Tavernise’s report focused on an unfortunate finding— “the achievement gap between rich and poor students has grown substantially” in recent decades. If true, that’s an important fact. But for ourselves, we were even more struck by her subordinate finding:

“The achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly over the past few decades.”

Say what? The achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly in recent decades? Question: Has the New York Times ever reported that remarkable alleged fact? Have readers of our greatest newspaper ever been told that this has occurred? Have they ever been asked to ponder the way that narrowing may have occurred? And how about this:

Have black kids ever been given their day in the sun? Have Times readers ever been told that these kids have been erasing the poisonous legacy left by our benighted ancestors, whose miserable judgments gave us the backwash of our brutal racial heritage? Have readers of the New York Times ever been told about the way those kids have been doing that?

Hve readers been given the chance to consider what those children are doing?

The achievement gap between white and black students has narrowed significantly? We don’t think we’ve ever seen the New York Times report that fact; more on that question tomorrow. But it seems that this must be the case—or at least, that scholars have started to say so. We continued to read the Tavernise piece, and we’ll be danged if she didn’t state both of her key findings again—several more times, in fact:

TAVERNISE (continuing directly): “We have moved from a society in the 1950s and 1960s, in which race was more consequential than family income, to one today in which family income appears more determinative of educational success than race,” said Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. Professor Reardon is the author of a study that found that the gap in standardized test scores between affluent and low-income students had grown by about 40 percent since the 1960s, and is now double the testing gap between blacks and whites.

[...]

In the study he led, researchers analyzed 12 sets of standardized test scores starting in 1960 and ending in 2007. He compared children from families in the 90th percentile of income—the equivalent of around $160,000 in 2008, when the study was conducted—and children from the 10th percentile, $17,500 in 2008. By the end of that period, the achievement gap by income had grown by 40 percent, he said, while the gap between white and black students, regardless of income, had shrunk substantially.

Both studies were first published last fall in a book of research, “Whither Opportunity?” compiled by the Russell Sage Foundation, a research center for social sciences, and the Spencer Foundation, which focuses on education. Their conclusions, while familiar to a small core of social sciences scholars, are now catching the attention of a broader audience, in part because income inequality has been a central theme this election season.

“Their conclusions are now catching the attention of a broader audience?” We don't want to be critical here. But Tavernise doesn’t seem to be spending much time on the “liberal” web!

Snark to the side, let’s return to that one finding: “The gap between white and black students, regardless of income, has shrunk substantially.” Here at THE HOWLER, we’ve been trying to call attention to this appparent fact for years, with absolutely no success. With the exception of Kevin Drum, you couldn’t get liberals to discuss that fact with dogs, a rope and a shotgun! And we’re the people who care so much when members of the other tribe discuss the lives and the interests of very poor children!

But how about this: Has the New York Times ever reported that startling subordinate fact? Has the New York times ever told its readers that “the gap between white and black students, regardless of income, has shrunk substantially” in recent decades? Last Friday, above the fold on page one, Tavernise included that claim as her subordinate finding. But has the Times ever given that fact its day in the sun?

We were struck by this front-page report, which tossed off an important fact—a fact the Times has failed to discuss. We were also struck, though not surprised, by this mammoth disinterest displayed all through the “liberal” world.

When Newt discusses very poor children, we strike. Otherwise, silence invades the suburbs.

Funny but obvious that.

Tomorrow: Has the New York Times ever said that?

Hollywood watch: David Brooks knows novels!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012

If Romney could just learn to fake it: Over and over, the news is a novel! Just as we have long said!

In this morning’s New York Times, David Brooks sketches a novelized format Candidate Romney should ape:

BROOKS (2/10/12): Republicans are especially suspicious of the other-directed type. They feel as if they are battling against the headwinds of a hostile elite culture. They want their candidate to have built his temple upon a rock, to possess an unshakeable set of convictions, to be impervious to the opposition of Washington’s entrenched interests. They also believe that the next president is going to have to make some brutally difficult decisions in order to reduce the debt. This is not a task for someone who is perpetually adjusting to market signals.

If Romney is to thrive, he really needs to go on an integrity tour. He needs to show how his outer pronouncements flow directly from his inner core. He needs to trust that voters will take him as he really is. He needs to tell his own complicated individual story and stop reducing himself to the outsider/businessman advertising cliché. He needs to tell us what about his character is more fundamental than his national park patriotism and his skill at corporate restructuring.

Brooks is sketching a novel the pundit corps likes to type about major candidates. Here’s the problem: By now, it’s abundantly clear that this novel doesn’t fit Candidate Romney. For good or for ill, it’s abundantly clear that Candidate Romney’s outer pronouncements don’t flow directly from his inner core. For good or for ill, he doesn’t possess an unshakeable set of convictions.

And not only that:

Is the next president “going to have to make some brutally difficult decisions in order to reduce the debt?” Candidate Romney has already proposed extremely large tax cuts for the highest earners. These proposals dig the deficit hole much deeper. They show that he won’t even make the obvious decisions where this topic's involved.

As he continues, Brooks keeps typing the Official Approved Pundit Novel. This would make a conventional Hollywood film. But how could it be about Romney?

BROOKS (continuing directly): He needs to stop opportunistically backtracking on his Medicare position, just to please whatever senior group he happens to be in front of. He needs to show that he is willing to pursue at least a few unpopular policies, even policies that are unfashionable in his own party. Since many people fear that he is a suck-up, it would actually help him at this point if he violated party orthodoxy in some bold and independent way.

He needs to step outside the cautious incrementalism that is the inevitable product of excessive polling and focus-group testing. He needs to find a policy like entitlement reform that is so important to him that he’s willing to risk losing the presidency over it. The eternal rule of presidential politics is that a candidate has to be willing to lose everything if he’s going to win everything.

He needs to find a policy that is so important to him that he’s willing to risk losing the presidency over it? Romney is 64 years old. If he hasn’t already “found” such a policy, where would he find one now?

Brooks wants a Sister Soulja moment. He also wants a dramatic, principled stand. We don’t agree that a candidate must conform to this dreamy template. But these are ideas that come from a novel—and its story-line doesn’t fit Mitt.

Our news has been novelized for a long time. In this case, it’s a bit like the old saw concerning sincerity. If Romney can learn to fake this novel, all else will follow from there!

Hypocrisy watch: The other side gets to drop H-bombs!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012

The logic that simply won’t leave: We strongly recommend Kevin Drum’s recent post, The Hypocrisy Trope That Won't Die.

Drum’s post concerns the claim that Obama is being hypocritical by supporting Priorities USA Action, a Democratic super-PAC. To us, the logic here is grindingly obvious. But Drum is right—this narrative never dies.

An earlier manifestation:

During Campaign 2000, the New York Times endlessly suggested that Candidate Gore was being a hypocrite on an even stupider basis. Gore had proposed public financing of elections. But in the absence of such laws, he was still raising private money! Just like Candidate Bush! In the small slow mind of Katharine “Kit” Seelye, this suggested a vast moral breakdown. To recall the relentless way she and her colleagues punished Gore’s misconduct, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/20/02.

Warning! Cover the eyes of the children and pets! And no! According to Nexis, no one else has ever used the word “ca-CHINGed” in the New York Times! It’s amazing that this nonsense occurred, more amazing that liberals allowed it.

Pols should play by the rules which exist. You’d think this logic would be obvious—but as a mattger of fact, it isn’t. This Wednesday, Lynn Neary and Ken Rudin seemed thoroughly bollixed by this logic on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

Suitably cued, so were some of their listeners.

We listened as we rolled in the car. Incomparably, we shook our head while holding the road and remembering “Kit” Seelye’s strange conduct.

SONS OF FLUBBER: Someone has flubbed!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2012

Epilogue—With respect to those 28 states: As you may have noticed, Mitt Romney’s flubs have been out of the news.

Reason? A culture war issue has boiled up concerning inclusion of contraception in health insurance plans. As a result, a press corps which loves the joy of the flub has been trying to nail down some facts.

The effort hasn’t been pretty. Essentially, facts no longer exist within our highly tribalized culture. If you doubt that, consider the ongoing attempt to explain the laws which exist in those 28 states.

Background: The Obama administration wants to require Catholic hospitals and universities to provide birth control/contraception in employees’ health plans. The Catholic bishops oppose this requirement. All week long, Americans liberals have heard a certain fact—a certain alleged fact, that is.

That fact concerns the state of the law in 28 states. This was Jay Carney, White House spokesman, speaking on Tuesday:

CARNEY (2/7/12): The president's commitment is ensuring that this health care coverage is provided to women. And I think there— One important point to make as we have this discussion is that 28 states already require insurance companies to provide contraceptive services. Eight states, as I noted in the past, provide no exemption, not even the exemption that the—the policy announced by Secretary Sebelius provides for churches and houses of worship.

According to Carney, “28 states already require insurance companies to provide contraceptive services.” Also according to Carney: In eight of those states, there isn’t even an exemption for Catholic churches, let alone for Catholic hospitals or for Catholic universities. Variants of this factual claim have been repeated all week long, especially by liberals. On Wednesday, Michelle Goldberg presented a version of the claim at the Daily Beast:

GOLDBERG (2/8/12): But many Catholic institutions are already operating in states that require contraceptive coverage, such as New York and California. Such laws are on the books in 28 states, and only eight of them exempt Catholic hospitals and universities. Nowhere has the Catholic Church shut down in response.

According to Goldberg, twenty states provide no exemption for Catholic hospitals and universities. On that evening’s Hardball, Goldberg debated this factual claim with Melinda Henneberger. Largely due to Chris Matthews’ complete incompetence, complete confusion reigned by the end of the segment.

Let’s be clear. On the merits, it doesn’t matter what state law says, or doesn’t say, in those 28 states. If you approve of the new federal proposal, it doesn’t matter what state legislatures have done in Colorado, New York or Georgia. But in recent years, we liberals have come to love the hypocrisy charge, in which we drop H-bombs on our opponents. In this week’s debate, our claim about the 28 states has been used to say that the bishops and the GOP are just faking—that they didn’t complain when those 28 states passed various laws of this type.

28 states already require this! The claim has been everywhere, sometimes in jumbled or contradictory form. This produced a factual conflict on MSNBC last night.

First up was Rachel Maddow, appearing at 9 PM Eastern. No one plays the hypocrisy card more frequently than Maddow does. Sometimes, her claims may even be accurate—although she rarely spots hypocrisy among those in her own tribe.

Last night, displaying her characteristic certitude, Maddow played the hypocrisy card with respect to those 28 states. To watch her full segment, click here:

MADDOW (2/9/12): Cat is out of the bag. Tons of Catholic universities already provide for health insurance that covers contraception, including a big majority of Catholic law schools. They are already doing this thing they are supposedly so outraged by.

If a Catholic university covering contraception in its health insurance plan was going to cause the end of the world the way Republicans are saying, since it’s already happening, we can conclude the end of the world is not so bad. At least after the world ends, we still have cable news.

In these 28 states, there’s already state law that requires employers, including in many cases employers associated with religious institutions, to provide health insurance that covers contraception. That is already the law of the land in these 28 states.

There was a reason you have not been deafened by the cries of outrage over the policy in these 28 states. It’s because nobody in the Republican Party decided that that sort of thing would be an outrage until now, until they could somehow try to use it against President Obama, even though they never cared about it before.

Actually, in eight of those 28 states that require health insurance to cover contraception, in these eight states, there’s not an exemption for churches. That’s true of all these godless places you see here, like Georgia and Iowa and Montana.

So in fact, the Obama administration’s proposed new rule on health insurance which says religious institutions like churches do not have to provide health insurance that covers contraception, those new rules from the Obama administration would actually give churches a new exemption from that law that they never had before.

In eight states, the Obama administration rule would carve out more space for churches to evade the rules that everybody else has to operate by on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Maddow was repeating a claim which had been widely voiced on her network. Her statement was a bit unclear in certain respects, but her gravamen was obvious. The Republicans are being hypocrites again! In either eight or 28 states, Catholic hospitals and universities are already required to do this!

Again: On the merits, this claim doesn’t matter. If Obama’s proposal makes sense on the merits, it doesn’t matter whether 28 states have already done something like it. But Maddow spoke with perfect certainty. And uh-oh:

One hour later, Lawrence O’Donnell appeared on the air and said this claim was inaccurate! To watch his whole presentation, click this. But here is part of O’Donnell’s finding about those 28 states:

O’DONNELL (2/9/12): Now you’ve heard many, many times in the last couple days that there are now 28 states that have passed laws similar to the regulation and the Obama health care law and that has—all of that has become so suddenly controversial. You’ve also been told, and I’ve been told repeatedly on television, that eight of those states have absolutely no exemptions to the law, none. No religious exemptions at all, no way out for Catholic churches, Catholic schools, Catholic hospitals. They’re stuck.

And I got to tell you, when I heard that, it just didn’t sound right to me. And whenever I hear people in Washington or New York telling me what’s happening out there in the states, in some state law, in a place where they’ve never been, I just don’t believe them. And you shouldn’t either.

And so in a Last Word exclusive investigation, we spent the day today studying the statutes in the eight states that everyone is saying provide absolutely no exemption. The other 20 states, everyone agrees, provide bigger, more comfortable exemptions for the Catholic Church, including Massachusetts, which has falsely been reported as being identical to the provision inserted in the federal law. In all of those other 20 state laws, there’s an exemption big enough for the White House to drive through.

Let’s look then at the Georgia law which you’ve been told, and I’ve been told repeatedly has absolutely no exemptions, and does have that astonishingly liberal-sounding prose introduction to it that I just read.

The Georgia law actually says, "This code section should not be construed to require coverage for prescription coverage benefits in any contract policy or plan that does not otherwise provide coverage for prescription drugs."

And there is the huge exemption to the Georgia law. You are exempt from it if your policy simply does not provide for prescription drugs. And so, all the religious institutions have to do in Georgia is to avoid the requirement to providing birth control pills is to just not provide any drug benefit in their policies, which is true of an awful lot of health insurance policies out there anyway.

O’Donnell went on to discuss the Colorado law. He said he spotted a rather large loophole in that state law too.

Is O’Donnell right about this? We’d have to say we don’t know. We do recommend the second paragraph quoted above, where he recommends skepticism about the things we're told by folk in DC and Gotham.

But is O’Donnell right about the laws in those 28 states? We’ll guess he is, but we can’t say we know. Therein lies our point.

As O’Donnell noted, liberals have been told about those 28 states all week long. The claim has been on wide display, voiced with perfect certitude.

Is this factual claim correct? In our highly tribalized political culture, there are no facts any more! Consider the latest attempt by the New York Times to deal with this widespread assertion.

Do 28 states have similar laws? The Times’ latest attempt to deal with this claim occurs this very morning. Laurie Goodstein does the honors in a top-of-the-front-page report:

GOODSTEIN (2/10/12): The ruling issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, said that only religious organizations that primarily employ and serve their co-religionists would be exempt from the requirement to provide insurance that covers birth control. Churches are therefore exempt, but Catholic hospitals, service agencies and colleges are not. The White House said that 28 states already had such mandates, so this federal rule, which is part of the health care overhaul, just applies the mandate uniformly.

The highlighted statement is technically accurate; the White House has said something like that. But is the White House statement accurate? Even today, the New York Times makes no attempt to say! Nor do they even let you know that this claim is in dispute.

A dispute does seem to exist. Last evening, on the NewsHour, Ray Suarez repeated a version of the claim about the 28 states. When he did, the general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops told him he was wrong:

PICARELLO (2/9/12): Ray, I’m glad you asked that question because it’s coming up a lot. There are 28 states that have some kind of contraceptive mandate. None of them are as broad as the one that the federal government has imposed. For example, all but—the federal government mandate includes a mandate to provide sterilization. Only Vermont does that among those 28 states.

On top of that, most of those states have religious exemptions. And of those, all but three are broader than the one that HHS has chosen. So basically, there’s a lot more accommodation for religious exercise at the state level. And on top of that, states don’t even, you don’t even need to take advantage of the religious exemption in order to avoid it in other ways, for example, by self-insurance. Even in the restrictive states, many Catholic entities are able to avoid this by self-insurance.

Picarello seemed to say that Catholic hospitals and universities aren’t being required to include contraception by state laws. (O’Donnell also mentioned self-insurance in his fuller report.)

Is Picarello’s factual claim accurate? We don’t know—indeed, that’s our point. Within our highly tribalized culture, facts have virtually ceased to exist. In the case, one of the major political tribes has been making a factual claim all week long. But even as of this very morning, the New York Times makes no attempt to assess its accuracy. The Times doesn’t even report the fact that the claim is in dispute.

The Times report is technically accurate—and, at best, it’s useless.

Might we offer an overview? Here it is: The kinds of people who love playing flub don’t do real well with facts. Our “press corps” is good at playing with flubs. They also like to talk about dogs on the roofs of cars. (And about earth tones. And about how many people our big politicians have boffed.)

Mitt Romney’s great grandpa had multiple wives! They also enjoy limning that.

Unfortunately, people who like to gambol and play aren’t real good with facts.

Factual knowledge among the two tribes: On the merits, it doesn’t matter what those 28 states have done. If the Obama proposal is sound, it stands on its own merits.

But we liberals have been hearing a claim all week long. And it’s being advanced for a reason.

Might we offer a minor point? We liberals sometimes exult over surveys which purport to show that we know more facts than the other tribe. We are better informed, we say. Fox folk are factually clueless.

The worth of such surveys always depends on which facts are put on the test. If O’Donnell’s assessment is accurate, we liberals have been misled about some basic facts all week long.

Fox viewers have been spared. If O'Donnell's view is correct, will this one go on the test?

Wedge watch: The birth control fight boils up!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012

As always, Chris and the Times can’t explain: Wedge issue fights can boil up fast, especially in election years.

Clarity tends to take a hike. Inevitably, your nation’s biggest newspapers and most famous broadcasters can’t explain the most basic facts.

This morning, the New York Times features this news report about the new wedge issue—the requirement that birth control and contraception be covered in insurance plans, even at Catholic universities and hospitals. Basically, Jennifer Steinhauer explains what different politicians have said about the new fight.

There’s nothing “wrong” with that kind of reporting. But shouldn’t a newspaper also explain the basic facts about major points in dispute?

Yesterday, the Times covered this same topic in a longer, front-page report. Along with the various quotes from the pols, Helene Cooper and Katharine “Kit” Seelye tried to explain a few facts.

One fact: By now, most people have heard that 28 states have some form of requirement which resembles the new proposed federal requirement. This leads to a fairly obvious question: How have Catholic hospitals and colleges dealt with the requirement to cover contraception and birth control in those 28 states?

In yesterday’s front-page report, Cooper and Seelye saved this question for their very last paragraph. This was their attempt to elucidate this widely-discussed, basic point:

COOPER/SEELYE (2/8/12): Administration officials say one avenue for resolution might be to look at how Catholic institutions in the 28 states with similar laws have dealt with the issue. One possible compromise might be to emulate Hawaii, where the rule is in effect, but where employees at religious institutions that do not offer free contraception can get birth control through side benefits, which the employees nominally pay for but which often end up being free.

Good old Hawaii! But seriously though, folks. Do you have any idea what the fig newton that means?

Earlier, the dynamic duo wanted us to know what Mitt Romney has said and done in the past. This was their attempt to explain:

COOPER/SEELYE: In Johnstown, Colo., Mitt Romney called the rule “a real blow, particularly to our friends in the Catholic faith.” But Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, hoping to galvanize the conservative base of the party, tried to tar Mr. Romney with the same brush, saying that while he was governor of Massachusetts, he had allowed a similar rule to take effect and that he was being hypocritical now.

In 2005, Mr. Romney vetoed a measure to require hospitals to provide the morning-after pill to rape victims. The Legislature overrode his veto, but he did say at the time that in his “heart of hearts,” he believed that rape victims should have access to emergency contraception.

Romney vetoed the measure, then got overridden. That seems to mean that Gingrich and Santorum were wrong in their accusations. Having said that, do you have any idea how that account of what Romney said was supposed to enlarge our understanding? Do you have any idea why that alleged statement was included at all?

What did Romney mean by that statement? Did he mean that rape victims should have access to emergency contraception somewhere else? Did he mean that, in his heart of hearts, he thought they should get access at those Catholic institutions?

What did Romney mean by his statement? Like you, we don’t have the slightest idea. Were the scribes trying to spawn a new flub? We don't know, but this type of work is quite routine at our most famous newspaper!

By the way: We keep hearing that one of “the 28 states with similar laws” is the state of New York—the very state in which the New York Times is located. On liberal TV, these states keep getting cited to show the hypocrisy of the bishops. We’re told that Catholic institutions have made their peace with these requirements in those 28 states.

But uh-oh! On January 30, the New York Times published this long, front-page report about the way students at Catholic colleges in New York have to go elsewhere for birth control. This showed the potential for trouble with the new federal rule, readers were told.

If New York is one of the 28 states, do you understand how this works? We don’t either—and that passage from Cooper and Seelye represents the New York Times’ current hapless attempt to explain how this works in those states.

Strange but true: You live in a culture whose major “journalists” can’t explain shit or shinola! Perhaps the most pathetic example occurred on last evening’s Hardball. Chris Matthews referred a discussion between Melinda Henneberger, who tends to oppose the Obama requirement, and Michelle Goldstein, who tends to support it.

Utter chaos ensued, as always. Chris couldn’t clarify a discussion if five million bucks were at stake. (To watch the segment, click here.)

By the time he was done, the whole world was a muddle. And so, the great man said this:

MATTHEWS (2/8/12): Thank you, Melinda Henneberger. And thank you, Michelle Goldberg.

I think everybody understands these positions—

HENNEBERGER: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: —if they were paying attention in the last few minutes.

Too funny! In truth, no one understood squat or squadoosh after watching Matthews flounder and flail. Inside the culture this man helped create, no one ever will.

Chris got up to speed a bit later on, discussing Dear Jack’s teen-aged lover.

It was an amazing morning in the New York Times!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012

What the heck happened to Seamus: This was an amazing morning on the op-ed page of the Times.

As usual, Collins and Kristof bordered the page. But this morning, each scribe wrote a serious column, concerning a serious topic!

Needless to say, the shock was greatest from Collins. Mitt Romney’s dog was MIA, although he’ll be back on Saturday morning. This morning, Collins’ attention span was such that she was able to write 800 words on a serious topic without drifting off into snark and snide or puzzling about dog carriers.

At one point, Collins even tipped her chapeau to us! Your DAILY HOWLER keeps getting results! (Search on “howling.”)

Collins stayed serious all the way through; as usual, so did Kristof. He discusses Charles Murray’s new book, which has produced quite a few predictable tribal reactions. Many of those tribal reactions have been on-point, of course; Kristof’s basic reaction to Murray’s thesis is that of the liberal world. (What we need most is “good union jobs.”) But we especially liked Kristof’s column because he moved beyond the tribal win to worries about the real world:

KRISTOF (2/9/12): Today, I fear we’re facing a crisis in which a chunk of working-class America risks being calcified into an underclass, marked by drugs, despair, family decline, high incarceration rates and a diminishing role of jobs and education as escalators of upward mobility. We need a national conversation about these dimensions of poverty, and maybe Murray can help trigger it. I fear that liberals are too quick to think of inequality as basically about taxes. Yes, our tax system is a disgrace, but poverty is so much deeper and more complex than that.

Can Murray help trigger that discussion? Almost surely not. But Kristof’s column discusses real people who live in real places. Quite often, our team exults in the tribal win, then moves to other concerns.

The New York Times was a real shock today. Collins and Kristof bordered the page—and neither scribe played the fool. It seemed like something you’d expect from a newspaper in a real world.

SONS OF FLUBBER: The joy of the flub!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2012

Part 4—Helene Cooper tries to explain: “Journalists” are deeply involved in the joy of the flub.

Just consider one reaction to Candidate Romney’s latest.

Romney had been accused of a flub. At the august New Republic, Alec MacGillis took action.

Using old-fashioned language, MacGillis announced a competition: “Your Romney Gaffe Contest.” Readers were invited to think up new flubs—hilarious flubs Romney might yet uncork. The children were soon amusing themselves in the prescribed manner.

Last Friday, preceding the Super Bowl, MacGillis announced the winners.

There was nothing new in this reaction to Romney’s alleged flub. In December 1999, Candidate Gore was flatly misquoted in the New York Times and the Washington Post. “I was the one that started it all!” the foolish flubber was said to have said. Allegedly, he was referring to the investigation of the toxic waste site at New York’s Love Canal.

In reality, Gore hadn’t said it; unintentionally and by mistake, he had been flat-out misquoted. (For the full story, see Chapter 6 at How He Got There.) But before the first day of this nonsense was done, the RNC had swung into action. Chairman Jim Nicholson had thought up new flubs the hapless hopeful might utter.

In the sheer stupidity which follows, you see the way your low-IQ modern political culture sent George Bush to the White House. This was part of the RNC’s second press release on the subject:

RNC PRESS RELEASE (12/1/99): "Al Gore's career certainly has been incredible," added Nicholson. “And I use that word in its literal meaning, too. Next, he'll be telling us how he discovered Niagara Falls, how Tipper first navigated the Hudson River, and how Hillary built the Erie Canal with no one but Naomi Wolf to help her.”

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! In fact, Gore hadn’t made the original quoted remark—but so what? Nicholson was quickly imagining other weird things the hapless hopeful might say. And uh-oh! This became a Standard Pundit Amusement, right through the November 2000 election. Any time a slow-witted “journalist” couldn’t think of something to say, he or she could always imagine some new crazy thing Gore might utter!

The silly children played flub that whole year. George Bush went to the White House.

So it was when the children played flub for twenty months during Campaign 2000. Today, the children still enjoy this game. Beyond that, their skills are extremely weak when it comes to explaining flubs. Consider the way Helene Cooper explained Candidate Romney’s latest.

Cooper works for the New York Times, the brilliant news org which misquoted Gore, then refused to correct its mistake. This Monday, she wrote this fascinating report about the way the Obama White House and all the five families are now on a “Flub Watch”—a flub watch which “never stops.”

In the passage which follows, Cooper explains the way one “spin-master” leaped into action following Romney’s new alleged flub. In the second highlighted passage, Cooper attempts to explain what the candidate actually said:

COOPER (2/6/12): Mr. Woodhouse, a high-octane party spinmaster, was getting his children ready for school around 7 Wednesday morning when he spotted a new present from the Romney camp. ''Romney on CNN: I'm not concerned about the very poor,'' the blogger Rachel Weiner reported over Twitter.

Mr. Woodhouse sprang to action. ''It was a two-fer!'' Mr. Woodhouse said. ''First, it was just the most incredibly insensitive thing that someone in his position could say.'' And second, Mr. Woodhouse said, ''he gave us an opening to go after his record on the middle class,'' since Mr. Romney's comments were part of an effort to show that it is the middle class he is actually concerned about.

Mr. Woodhouse promptly reposted the Romney comments. on Twitter. Then he sent an e-mail to a list of reporters, ''just in case everyone hadn't seen it,'' he said. Minutes later, Mr. Woodhouse was on a conference call with several campaign and White House officials, discussing the remarks.

(To be clear, Mr. Romney said he was not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net, one he said he would fix if needed. Rather, he said, ''I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90 percent to 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.'')

The Obama partisans came up with their plan for the day. ''It was clear by 9 a.m. that this thing had a life of its own,'' Mr. Woodhouse said, as Mr. Romney tried to clarify his remarks while news anchors, bloggers and reporters gave his comments round-the-clock coverage.

“Romney tried to clarify his remarks,” Cooper reported. In the second highlighted passage, Cooper tried to do the same. In the desire “to be clear,” the Timeswoman tried to explain what Romney had actually said.

How good were Cooper’s skills at this task? We’d say her skills were poor. What follows represents the way we ourselves would paraphrase or explain Romney’s remarks. Yes, it would take a few extra words. But then, this is a White House campaign—the kind of enterprise which once put George W. Bush in power:

COOPER REWRITTEN: (To be clear, Mr. Romney said he was “not concerned about” the very poor or the very rich—the very rich because they were “doing fine,” the very poor because they have a safety net which he said he would fix if needed. Rather, he said, ''I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90 percent to 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling.'' Instantly questioned about his choice of words, he said he meant that the very rich and the very poor wouldn’t be the “focus” of his campaign. He said his “focus” would be on that broad middle class. “These are the people who've been most badly hurt during the Obama years,” Romney said.)

In part, you won’t see Romney’s remarks explained that way because this kills the fun of the flub. For similar reasons, the “press corps” kept repeating that misquotation of Gore for weeks and months after it became clear that he had been misquoted. (They also adopted a mocking group paraphrase of what he had supposedly said.) How hapless were the skills of the “press corps?” When the New York Times finally corrected its misquotation of Gore, they misquoted him a new, second way—right in their formal correction of the first misquotation!

That’s the way flub was being played in December 1999. MacGillis and Cooper help us see the way the game is played now.

What is wrong with the joy of the flub? Flub culture gives tremendous power to the boys and girls of the “press corps.” Once these utterly silly children decide that they don’t care for a candidate, flub culture lets them express their displeasure through the flogging of pointless remarks—or even through direct misquotation when the need is great. And make no mistake—they play this game with a special joy. In part, they do this because they aren’t very smart. In part, it’s because they aren’t very honest.

Did Romney really commit a flub? More precisely, did he really say that he’s “not concerned about the very poor?” That quotation is technically accurate—but so was the quotation of Candidate Kerry in 2004. (He said he was “for it before he was against it!” Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!) In our view, it’s fairly clear what Romney meant; indeed, he explained what he meant right away. But reporting what Romney said he meant would kill the fun of the flub—and our “journalists” are all sons of Flubber.

Romney’s remarks were worth exploring in at least several ways. In fact, Romney’s proposals are hard to square with his statement. The very rich aren’t his “focus,” he said—and yet, he has proposed gigantic tax cuts for this class even after the Bush tax cuts get extended. At the same time, he has proposed large cuts in the funding of the programs which make up the safety net. How would this square with his statement that he will fix the safety net if needed?

Can we talk? Some of Romney’s basic proposals are just bat-shit insane. Others are hard to square with his statement about his campaign's focus. But reporters don’t like discussing such crap. Bat-shit crazy proposals are boring. They prefer to have fun with flub culture.

Some of Romney’s most basic proposals are flat-out bat-shit insane. But given the state of our low-IQ culture, you can go for weeks at a time without hearing that fact discussed. Even on The One True Liberal Channel, the millionaire children like to gambol and play. They too like to play with their flubs.

(A run-down on Maddow tomorrow or Saturday. Most evenings, you can hear the liberal world’s brain cells dying as this program is broadcast. Last night, did you see her truly ludicrous opening? Things go from gong-show to worse.)

Flub culture savaged Candidate Gore. Four years later, it badly damaged Candidate Kerry. But so what? “Journalists” deeply enjoy playing flub—and their actual skills are amazingly weak, bordering on non-existent.

Top Democratic strategist watch: Celinda Lake goes off!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Would you have a beer with this strategist: Monday evening, Chris Hayes guest-hosted for Rachel Maddow. At one point, he interviewed Celinda Lake, a well-known, high-ranking Democratic pollster and strategist.

Hayes asked a perfectly sensible question. Celinda Lake went off:

HAYES (2/6/12): One of the most robust polling results of President Obama’s tenure is how strong his personal favorability remains despite whatever economic situation we’re having. How important is that metric, “favorability,” how you feel about the person who is standing in front of you there in a suit, at a microphone, running for president when you get to election day?

LAKE: It matters a lot. And not only is Mitt Romney failing on the personal likeability, but he’s failing on “the guy you want to sit down who would understand your life.” It’s what we call, in the Democratic Party, the “have a beer with the guy” test?

Mitt Romney, by his own words and deeds, just seems completely out of touch with what’s going on for average people. When you make bets for $10,000. When you think income that is the value of people’s houses. When you have offshore accounts—and it’s on and on and on. You pay a lower percentage for your taxes than the average secretary in the United States. I mean, honestly, this man is the perfect candidate as a poster child for the 99 percent to 1 percent message. And he’s inflicting all of these wounds on himself.

Celinda Lake went on and on, playing around with the flubs. Two points:

It’s what we call, in the Democratic Party, the “have a beer with the guy” test.

Will someone just shoot us right now?

“You pay a lower percentage for your taxes than the average secretary in the United States.”

Does Romney pay a lower percentage for his taxes than the average secretary in the United States? We wouldn't bet the house. But we don’t think that’s accurate.

“Democratic strategists” like Lake have helped create the world in which Candidates Kerry and Gore got eaten alive by flub culture—and by the deeply insipid “who do you want to have a beer with” test.

Who do you want to have a beer with? On-line, liberals endlessly mock that standard. Lake just rattles it off.

These people have failed you for decades now. If they misstate basic facts to our faces, we'd say their misconduct persists.

Factor watch: Bernie Goldberg goes off!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Why is Lawrence surprised: We like to give credit where credit is due.

Last night, on the O’Reilly Factor, Bernie Goldberg went off. He discussed an ongoing campaign to make J. C. Penney drop Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson:

GOLDBERG (2/7/12): There's something that needs to be said, no matter how uncomfortable it makes some people listening to us. There is a strain of bigotry—and that's the word I want to use—running through conservative America.

It doesn't mean all conservatives are bigots or even that most conservatives are bigots. That's not what I'm saying. But there is a strain of bigotry, and it goes against gay people, for instance.

Ellen DeGeneres did nothing wrong. She's gay. Right? There is—reasonable people may disagree on gay marriage. That's fine. But to, but to call on somebody's dismissal to be fired, to lose her job because she's gay is bigotry. And I don't care how many people listening to us right now don't like that.

O'REILLY: Well, I mean, the argument though—

GOLDBERG: Let me say—let me say one other thing briefly, Bill. In the middle of the last century, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was another strain of bigotry on the right, and it was against black people. That has to leave the conservative movement.

I used to be a liberal. I became a conservative because liberals were a little too crazy for me. A lot too crazy for me, actually. But you know what? I am immensely uncomfortable with the bigotry on the right, and I don't care how many people don't like it. I am sick of it.

We’d be slower to drop all those B-bombs ourselves. But we’re glad that Factor viewers got to see Bernie go off.

Just for the record, Factor viewers saw Mr. O taking Ellen’s side too! Earlier in the evening, he spoke with Sandy Rios, who supports the effort to get DeGeneres canned:

O'REILLY (2/7/12): You have a right to your opinion.

RIOS: Yes.

O'REILLY: And we respect that opinion, and the Fox News Channel, I think, has made a tremendous, tremendous contribution to the country by respecting traditional opinion.

However, this, as I said, is a business deal. Ms. DeGeneres is hired as a spokesperson by J. C. Penney. J. C. Penney has an absolutely perfect right to do that, as you have in your belief system. OK?

So there she is, earning a salary to represent the department store chain. And then the Million Moms say, "Hey, because we feel a certain way about Ms. DeGeneres' lifestyle, you need to fire her."

I don't think that's the spirit of America, Sandy, I've got to tell you.

Good for Mr. O! As we watched him challenge Rios, our thoughts drifted all the way back to Monday's TV entertainments.

On Monday evening, Lawrence interrupted The Last Word three separate times to play tape from Mr. O’s program. Each time, he marveled at the way Mr. O was taking a liberal-ish stand.

Lawrence played tape of Mr. O criticizing the Hoekstra “broken English” ad. He played tape of Mr. O defending the Clint Eastwood ad about the U.S. fighting back. He played tape of Mr. O saying that things are looking up for President Obama’s re-election chances.

Lawrence marveled every time, dumbing his audience down.

Mr. O can be awful on some topics, but he isn’t Sean Hannity (or certain others). We were glad to see Bernie say what he said. But we weren’t hugely surprised.

SONS OF FLUBBER: Keep flub alive!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012

Part 3—At the Post, flub never dies: We’re all sons and daughters of Flubber now! For that reason, we might want to understand the way flub culture works.

First law in the land of the flub: Once a flub has been committed (or invented), the flub can never die! For one small example of the way this works, consider Theda Skocpol’s front-page piece in Sunday’s Outlook section.

Skocpol wrote the featured piece at the top of page one, an analysis of the tea party. (She has a new book on the subject.)

Before long, she made a glancing reference to Candidate Perry’s “famous verbal flubs.” But then, she turned to Candidates Gingrich and Romney. With respect to the latter, Skocpol soon kept flub alive:

SKOCPOL (2/5/12): But the former House speaker is weighed down by personal baggage, including his associations with mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Conservatives hate “government bailouts,” but in our interviews we rarely heard tea partyers condemn Wall Street capitalists for receiving them. Instead, they contend that corrupt government officials and policies to help minorities buy homes were responsible for the financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009. Many tea partyers think the poor are coddled by government and nod their heads in agreement when Romney says he is “not concerned about the very poor.”

Do tea partyers "nod their heads in agreement when Romney" makes the quoted statement? Since Romney only said that once, we’re not entirely sure what Skocpol means. But however one wants to read that claim about tea party folk, Skocpol serves a familiar function here—she keeps Romney’s flub alive. Once a flub has been committed/invented, readers will see it all over.

Let's be fair! On one level, Skocpol is quoting directly. The words inside those quotations marks were actually uttered by Romney.

But is that a reasonable piece of quotation, or has the quoted statement been taken "out of context?" We’d be inclined to vote for the latter, a point we’ll discuss tomorrow. But everyone knows how flub culture works—how the game of flubs is played.

Once a flub has been identified, it gets repeated through the annals of time. John Kerry was for it before he was against it! That "flub" was also derived from a technically accurate quotation of Kerry. But the press corps’ use of that pointless "flub" made a joke of the 2004 campaign.

The modern "press corps" loves its flubs—has loved them for maybe four decades! They provide a substitute for thought, the thing the "press corps" is often at pains to avoid. Example: Candidate Romney has made a string of proposals which are, on their face, just bat-shit insane. But you can go for weeks at a time without hearing this fact discussed, even on “liberal” TV shows, which keep us so well entertained.

Flubs are much more fun! And flubs are easy to work with.

This produces a very stupid culture—and the very stupid culture of flubs has done much more harm to major Dems than to big Republicans. But the culture of flubs is deeply engrained, even among those who can actually see its problems.

Example:

Paul Farhi is one of the brighter, saner people at the Washington Post. (Brush with greatness: We met Farhi at a comedy event some years back.) But when Farhi discussed the problems with flub culture this weekend, even he finagled some facts, keeping flub alive.

Farhi’s piece appeared last Saturday, on the front page of Style. (He used the term “gaffe,” an old-fashioned term for the flub.) As he started, Farhi was being fair to Romney in various ways:

FARHI (2/4/12): There’s an old saying in political circles: A gaffe is what you make when you unintentionally say what you really believe. If that’s the case, Mitt Romney really has been speaking his mind lately.

More accurate, of course, is that in speaking his mind, Romney let slip a few lines that, taken out of context, distort or oversimplify his views.

"I’m not concerned about the very poor," the man reportedly worth $250 million said in an interview this week, inadvertently reminding everyone that he is reportedly worth $250 million.

"I like being able to fire people who provide services to me," Romney said in January in a comment that was meant to refer to health-care insurance providers but was widely perceived as meaning: He likes firing people.

There’s no doubt Romney’s camp would like to take back those comments, primarily because they reinforce—fairly or not—a caricature of him as a wealthy man who is out of touch with people struggling in a tough economy.

Farhi was being much more fair than is the norm in his guild. He quickly said that Romney’s gaffes have been "taken out of context." He said this process "distorts or oversimplifies" Romney’s actual views.

He said those comments reinforce "a caricature." He suggested this may not be "fair."

The headlines atop the Farhi piece added to the air of sanity. "The gaffe: A fact of modern campaigns," the banner said in the hard-copy Post. "Constant scrutiny means public slip-ups are virtually unavoidable." In the body of his piece, Farhi even reminded his readers that Candidate Obama committed some flubs in 2008—flubs which still get pounded and flogged in reliably low-IQ precincts.

Interesting! If “flubs” are virtually unavoidable, should we focus on them so much? Here at THE HOWLER, we would say no—and Farhi cited one of the downsides to this stupid culture. "Candidates are on safer ground when sticking to their stump speeches, which they give hundreds of times during a campaign, or relying on talking points, which they often review before appearing in public," he quite correctly observed. "Some politicians are loath to place themselves in a format that might encourage them to let loose."

So true! Especially for candidates who are targets, the low-IQ scribblers who drive flub culture will seize upon all incommodious speech, no matter how silly or pointless. For this reason, targeted pols will often cling to the religion of their talking points—although they will then get criticized for being stiff, wooden and scripted.

This is a very dumb part of our culture, driven by love of the flub.

Romney’s proposals are bat-shit insane; the children prefer to play with his flubs. And inside the press corps, flub never dies! Here’s what happened when Farhi himself tried to report the basic facts about Romney’s latest:

FARHI: In the case of Romney’s comment about "the very poor," the candidate and his campaign did immediate damage control this week, pointing out that poor people have a "safety net" and that Romney’s focus is on helping the middle class.

As Romney put it later, "We will hear from the Democrat party the plight of the poor, and there’s no question it’s not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor."

Truly, that’s very strange. A person reading Farhi’s account would think that Romney (and his campaign) only mentioned the safety net "later," at various points "this week." In fact, Romney mentioned the safety net even as he committed his "flub," a millisecond after the part of his statement which Farhi quoted. Even as he committed his flub, Romney cited the fact that "the very poor" have access to the safety net, which he said he would fix if necessary.

Strange! Even as he tried to be fair, Farhi’s basic account of Romney’s new flub was baldly misleading. By some unknown decree, things just seem to work this way within the culture of flub.

Keep flub alive! Romney’s proposals are bat-shit insane. For decades, though, the American "press corps" has worked quite hard to look past such facts. (The DNC has always helped out.) Instead, they play with their flubs.

This low-IQ culture is a very large part of the way Gore and Kerry both “lost.”

Tomorrow: The Times explains what he said

Even in this passage: Something seems to inspire the modern scribe to keep flub alive. Even in this passage, Farhi’s prose is jumbled in a slender fashion:

FARHI: "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me," Romney said in January in a comment that was meant to refer to health-care insurance providers but was widely perceived as meaning: He likes firing people.

Was Romney’s comment meant to refer to insurance providers? As everyone and his crazy uncle noted at the time, the comment did refer to insurance providers!

Farhi’s construction involved a minor nuance of speech. How strange though. In its slender tendency, it served to keep flub alive!

Slime watch: Evaluating what Hoekstra said!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2012

Does his basic claim make sense: Unfortunately, the terrible grimy Peter Hoekstra is running for the senate from Michigan.

On Sunday, during the Super Bowl, he aired a small, grimy ad. By now, you’ve probably read about its use of an Asian-American actress who speaks in broken English about Senator Debbie Stabenow’s “reckless spending.”

Last night, Lawrence O'Donnell was chasing around, trying to learn the actress' name so he could suitably maul her. We had a different question. Here goes:

According to the ad, China will soon take over the world thanks to Stabenow’s "reckless spending." Or something very much like that.

The liberal world has spoken out about the ethnic sliming. We're sometimes skilled at doing such things in ways which help perpetrators like Cap'n Hoekstra, although our guess would be that this type of politics may be nearing the end of its road.

(Did you see Clint Eastwood Sunday night? Did you see him in Gran Torino?)

We thought it might be worth your time to see the role the New York Times assigns to this ad’s basic policy claim. Is Senator Stabenow engaged in “reckless spending?”

This morning, in our hard-copy Times, the report on the ad is seven paragraphs long. In this, paragraph 6, we see Steven Yaccino's sole attempt to evaluate Hoekstra’s assertion:

YACCINO (2/7/12): Ms. Stabenow’s office declined to comment but issued a statement from Mark Brewer, the chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, which described the ad as “shameful” and “deceitful” regarding Ms. Stabenow’s record.

In the hard-copy Times, that was it! Essentially, the paper makes no attempt to evaluate the ad's basic claim.

The ad is awful in many ways, including the way it refers to Stabenow by a stupid, demeaning new nick-name.

But does the ad make a sensible claim? People! Your politics doesn’t turn on such questions! Questions like that are dull.

Does Hoekstra’s basic claim make sense? The New York Times doesn’t seem to care. This is not a new policy.

On-line: On-line, Yaccino’s report is much longer. Just click here.

Did Hoekstra make a sensible claim? What “reckless spending” does the ad have in mind? Even at roughly double length, the New York Times still didn’t care.

In these ways, your “political discourse” turns into a long rolling joke, driven along by wild accusations.

You can say any damn-fool thing you want. No one in the "press" cares.