The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
NOTE: The excerpt below is from the Feb. 17 BOTW archives.
Accountability Journalism
The Associated Press’s definition of “accountability” has certainly changed over the past month. It used to be that the AP held President Bush accountable for everything bad that happened, even the weather. Now the wire service seeks to credit bad things that don’t happen to President Obama’s account:
The success of the stimulus package may be measured less by visible achievements than by what does not happen–the home that is not foreclosed, the family that doesn’t slip into poverty, the disease that does not go undiagnosed.
But the AP hasn’t given up on the old style of accountability, as evidenced by this dispatch from Tokyo:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first official overseas trip was overshadowed by harsh North Korean rhetoric, epitomizing how new administrations often can be hemmed in by problems inherited from their predecessors.
George W. Bush may be a private citizen, but the AP is still determined to hold him accountable. Never mind that Bush, too, inherited the North Korea problem from his predecessor, who was distantly related by marriage to the current secretary of state.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
