Kurtz also mocked those who believed that winning an election fairly, based on the will of the voters, was important in a democracy. "Now the question is: How many people still care about the election deadlock that last fall felt like the story of the century -- and now faintly echoes like some distant Civil War battle?" he wrote.
After reading Kurtz's dismissive tone, it was a bit jarring to examine the actual results of the statewide review of 175,010 disputed ballots. "Full Review Favors Gore," the Washington Post admitted in a box buried on page 10, showing that under all standards applied to the ballots, Gore came out on top. The New York Times' graphic revealed the same outcome.
However, based on the "journalism" promoted by Howard Kurtz, any reporter who actually read and reacted to the real findings would be risking his or her career. Thus, millions of Americans continued to believe that Bush was the legitimate winner in Florida when the facts showed otherwise. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Sandra Day O'Connor's "Maybe' Regret."]
Demonizing Helen Thomas
Given Kurtz's history as hall monitor for the conventional wisdom, it surely should come as no surprise that he would join in the demonization of longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas, known for her courage in asking uncomfortable questions and for her critical views toward Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
When Thomas made an impolitic remark about Israelis leaving what had been Palestine, her mainstream media colleagues joined the loud calls for her career to be brought to an ignominious end, her apology notwithstanding.
Kurtz penned a harsh retrospective on Thomas's sudden retirement from journalism, giving Thomas's critics a free shot at denouncing her for an alleged lack of "objectivity" and her supposedly off-the-wall questions to politicians.
"She asked questions no hard-news reporter would ask, that carried an agenda and reflected her point of view and there were some reporters who felt that was inappropriate," CBS correspondent Mark Knoller was quoted as saying. "Sometimes her questions were embarrassing to others."
"She's always said crazy stuff," added National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg, whose "journalism" career was launched as a defender of his mother, Lucianne Goldberg, after she advised disgruntled federal employee Linda Tripp to tape her conversations with President Clinton's girlfriend Monica Lewinsky and to save the semen-stained blue dress.
"I did my bit in the trenches of Clinton's trousers," Goldberg once wrote. So, in the funhouse-mirror world of today's Washington news media, Goldberg parlayed his time in Clinton's trousers into a slot as a frequent guest on high-profile TV news shows, such as ABC's "Good Morning America," "Nightline," MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews," CNN's "Larry King Live," and, of course, many Fox News programs.
As examples of Helen Thomas's "crazy stuff," Kurtz cited some of her questions as if the very words proved her unfitness to work as a national journalist. For instance, he wrote: "In 2002, Thomas asked [White House press secretary Ari] Fleischer: "Does the president think that the Palestinians have a right to resist 35 years of brutal military occupation and suppression?'"
Apparently, no further comment was needed for Washington Post readers to understand how outlandish such a question was. Kurtz continued: "Four years later, Thomas told Fleischer's successor, Tony Snow, that the United States 'could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon' by Israel, but instead had 'gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine.' Snow tartly thanked her for 'the Hezbollah view.'"
Praise for Critics
Kurtz also praised some of Thomas's colleagues who alerted the world to the dangers of Helen Thomas earlier. He wrote: "A handful of journalists questioned her role over the years. In a 2006 New Republic piece, Jonathan Chait accused Thomas of 'unhinged rants,' noting that she had asked such questions as: 'Why are we killing people in Iraq? Men, women, and children are being killed there ... It's outrageous.'"
Again, Kurtz appeared to believe that the absurdity of Thomas's statement was self-evident.
Yet, as President George W. Bush's unprovoked invasion and bloody occupation of Iraq claimed the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, perhaps the greater absurdity was that Helen Thomas was often alone in asking such impertinent questions.
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