I covered the first article this morning where Wapo pointed out that a legal ruling during the Clinton administration supports Bush's stance on the Attorney firing fiasco that has had the left chasing their tails in circles.
Now, I see another article where Wapo, correctly points out how badly Harry "Baghdad" Reid is screwing up.
The decision of Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) to deny rather than nourish a bipartisan agreement is, of course, irresponsible. But so was Mr. Reid's answer when he was asked by the Los Angeles Times how the United States should manage the explosion of violence that the U.S. intelligence community agrees would follow a rapid pullout. "That's a hypothetical. I'm not going to get into it," the paper quoted the Democratic leader as saying.
For now Mr. Reid's cynical politicking and willful blindness to the stakes in Iraq don't matter so much. The result of his maneuvering was to postpone congressional debate until September, when Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, will report on results of the surge -- in other words, just the outcome the White House was hoping for.........
Many are busy arguing that the writer of this latest piece is right or wrong, but my focus here is why Wapo has gone from blindly supporting the liberal agenda to providing a more balanced, not totally balanced, but MORE balanced number of articles, one side arguing the liberal talking points and the other acknowledging, if not supporting, the conservative point of view.
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The reason I think the Wapo writers as well as the editorial board has made this slight shift is based on a few points.
First we are seeing more and more progress being reported in MSM about the successes in Iraq.
Second, Wapo could be seeing the tide turning a bit in the public where Congress now only holds a 14% approval rating:
WHEN I looked at the numbers last month, the Gallup Poll showed President Bush's job approval was at 32 percent, and Congress was at 24 percent. Could things get any worse?
Of course they can. Never underestimate the power of the Democratic Party to self-destruct.
The first job approval numbers for July are in and the Reuters/Zogby Poll shows Bush at 34 percent, Congress at 14 percent.
Under Democratic leadership, Congress has gone from the brink of the abyss and leaped. Whee!
Pollster John Zogby broke down the numbers.
"The Democratic Congress gets poor marks across the ideological spectrum -- just 21 percent of liberals and 10 percent of the very liberal give it positive marks, while 14 percent of conservatives and 14 percent of the very conservative give it positive ratings," Zogby wrote.
"Among Democrats, just 19 percent give Congress positive marks, compared to 13 percent of Republicans and 8 percent of political independents.
"By way of comparison, the Republican Congress had a 23 percent positive job approval rating last October, just a week before voters tossed the GOP out of their leadership posts in both houses."
After six months, Democrats do have one bipartisan accomplishment: Everyone hates Congress.
Don Surber makes a good point there.
There is another point though here, perhaps Wapo would simply be able to say, later, that half of their writers and editorials were right, no matter how things turn out.
We continue to see success in Iraq and Wapo can truthfully say, we saw the tide turning and acknowledged it.
They see the successes slow or stop in Iraq and they can say, truthfully, half our staff knew it all along.
They will also now have examples to back up either claim.
Business wise this is a smart move for Wapo. One has to wonder when the NYT will learn what Wapo seems to be learning, a lesson everyone who is in business learns over time and it is called CYA, which means, Cover Your Ass, for all events.
I guess we will all have to wait and see if this trend continues from Wapo or if their inate liberal bias will win out over the Cover Your Ass business sense.
Time will tell and so will their future articles.
Others discussing this:
Sister Toldjah and Blue Crab Boulevard
Tracked back by:
Is Reid to Blame for Polarizing Congress on Iraq? from Buck Naked Politics...
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