politics

Taking Life Easy at Human Events

June 7, 2004

Sometimes, this whole “reporting” thing is just too easy.

Late last month, the Washington Post turned its attention to some of the Bush campaign’s favorite ways of distorting John Kerry’s record. The next day, Bush-Cheney answered right back with a press release that claimed to set the record straight on the subject, arguing that Republican attacks on Kerry were in fact perfectly accurate.

David Freddoso of Human Events magazine, the “national conservative weekly,” liked that press release. He liked it so much that he rewrote it, condensed it and published it as a piece, headlined, “The Post‘s Preposterous Pro-Kerry Story.”

We understand why a wire service or an online reporter with a pressing deadline might sometimes resort to stenography in lieu of reporting. But a writer for a weekly magazine?

Next time, Freddoso might at least give the Bush flaks an “additional reporting” credit.

–Z.R.

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Zachary Roth is a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly. He also has written for The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Talking Points Memo, among other outlets.