I Get Mad At The Mass Media, Too, You Know

I realize that the mass media are under considerable time and space constraints, and that they feel obliged to report the news as succinctly as possible . . . but I don't think that excuses the media from misreporting facts for the sake of communicating quickly.

Case in point: Troopergate. The Alaskan legislative panel's report about Gov. Sarah Palin's involvement in the firing of her erstwhile brother-in-law did NOT say that her firing of his boss (the Alaskan Public Service Commissioner) violated state law, even though every recap of the story I saw, heard, and read claimed that was the report's conclusion. What the report said was that the pressure Palin and her husband and her staff put on the Commissioner violated state ethics laws. The firing was perfectly within her power as chief executive of the state.

The reason this locks my jaws is that it provides those who want to whitewash or otherwise downplay what Palin did both a scapegoat and a diversion. Blame the "liberal" media! They are reporting it wrong because they have a political agenda! So the argument will be about the press coverage, the political make-up of the legislative panel (something on the order of 10-4 Republican, but the panel's head was a Democrat who made intemperate comments to the media before the report was released, thus adding more ammo to the GOP attack), whether Palin really did improperly fire the Public Service Commissioner . . . anything except what the real issue is--which is her ethics.

Alaska law makes it plain that no one is to use his/her office for either financial gain or personal advantage. There is no doubt that Palin's pressure on the Public Service Commissioner violated that ethics law. "I'm your boss and I want this guy fired because he's my sister's ex and is fighting with her over their kids' custody." That's the quintessential illustration of using one's office for personal gain. [Do we really want someone with such non-existent ethical standards sitting one heartbeat away from the Presidency? I say not. Our system runs on our mutual faith and trust in the idea that everyone buys into the system, that the system is greater than the powers of any individual person, and that the people we select to run it will do so properly. Hence Dubya's increasingly record-breakingly negative polling numbers, among other things.--Ed.]

But the ethics issue is going to get lost in the shuffle and the noise of all the imprecise news summaries and arguments about that instead of taking the center of the stage the way it ought to be doing.

So, thanks for nothing, "liberal" media! You're not supposed to be part of the story--you're supposed to be reporting the story--but you sure screwed it up in this case.