Historic Abandonment of Journalistic Integrity

Michael Shearer and Alec MacGillis, at the Washington Post, are literally stumbling over themselves in building up the $787 billion Obama-Democratic-left's stimulus packages as a feat comparable to that of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Obama Scores Early Victory of Historic Proportions":

Twenty-four days into his presidency, Barack Obama recorded last night a legislative achievement of the sort that few of his predecessors achieved at any point in their tenure.

In size and scope, there is almost nothing in history to rival the economic stimulus legislation that Obama shepherded through Congress in just over three weeks. And the result - produced largely without Republican participation - was remarkably similar to the terms Obama's team outlined even before he was inaugurated: a package of tax cuts and spending totaling about $775 billion.

As Obama urged passage of the plan, he and his still-incomplete team demonstrated a single-mindedness that was familiar from the campaign trail. That intensity may have contributed to missteps in other areas, as the president's White House stumbled repeatedly in the vetting of his Cabinet and staff nominees. And high-minded promises of bipartisanship evaporated as Republicans accused the president and his Democratic allies in Congress of the same heavy-handed tactics that Obama, in his campaign, had often demanded be changed.

Missteps in other areas?

I think they mean the total repudiation of the campaign's promises for hope, change, and a new era of responsibility. And the authors are blaming the GOP for abandoning bipartisanship? Republican members of Congress weren't even including in bill-writing and markup, "completely excluded from the process and it was done without Republican input or public oversight."

And people wonder why we've had growing cynicism and declining engagement in the political process for decades? Analysts say the traditional news media is a dinosaur on the way out, and it pains me to say this as a traditionalist supporter of the broadsheet press, but it's frankly impossible to find honest news and analysis nowadays in the mainstream media outlets. It's no longer maddening, it's frightening - and the burial for stories like this one at the Post can't come too soon.