Semi-Daily Journal Archive

The Blogspot archive of the weblog of J. Bradford DeLong, Professor of Economics and Chair of the PEIS major at U.C. Berkeley, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (New York Times Edition)

Outsourced to Media Matters, which watches Adam Nagourney of the New York Times fail the Turing test:

Media Matters - NYT 's Nagourney contradicted his own reporting to suggest Dems in disarray: In an August 9 article about Ned Lamont's victory over incumbent Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman in the Connecticut primary, New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney suggested that the Democratic Party is "still struggling to arrive at a unified position" about Iraq. But just eight days earlier, Nagourney began an article with a reference to the Democrats' "unified statement" in favor of a phased redeployment of troops from Iraq. From Nagourney's August 9 article in The New York Times:

[E]ven before the results were known, the accepted wisdom in political circles was that a victory by Mr. Lamont would signal there is little room in the Democratic Party for Iraq war supporters, an unwelcome event for a party still struggling to arrive at a unified position about the war, and elevate the influence of bloggers.

From Nagourney's August 1 Times article:

Leading Congressional Democrats, after months of division over Iraq, have called on President Bush to begin a phased redeployment of troops by the end of this year, a unified statement signaling they have concluded that the war could hurt Republicans in the midterm elections. The letter called on American forces in Iraq to make a transition to a ''more limited mission'' dealing with counterterrorism and training and logistical support of Iraq security forces.

[...]

[T]he fact that most of the Democratic leadership had unified around a position -- and presented it so forcefully -- strongly suggests that the politics surrounding the war are changing.

Which is it? Is the party "struggling to arrive at a unified position"? Or is there "little room ... for Iraq war supporters"? Or are both statements simply mindless recitation of flawed anti-Democrat storylines?

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