WASHINGTON POST, SLICK OPERATOR

Sullivan posted this morning:

"THE BETTER BET": The pro-war, increasingly centrist Washington Post endorses Kerry.

Centrist? Pro-war? I beg to differ.

The Washington Post has been on a crusade against Bush ever since the Abu Ghraib scandal last spring. But they are shrewd about it. The WaPo is centrist in the same way that David Brooks is centrist; they know how to play sympathetic to selected arguments and characters from the other side in order to enhance their credibility, but underneath they remain ruthlessly partisan. The contrast between the WaPo and the NYT is instructive. If you read the New York Times, you will learn either nothing (if you resist the spin) or less than nothing (if you succumb to the spin) about the real world. The NYT contains some true facts, of course, but you will forget the facts, and the impression is false. For a conservative or a moderate to read the NYT is all pain, no gain.

The WaPo is a much more dangerous newspaper for conservatives (I mean that as a compliment) because it is worth reading. Its stances are not wholly predictable, since they are influenced the real world. Whereas ideology at the NYT is a blindfold, at the WaPo, it’s a distorting lens. For example—but before I give this example, I should mention that I haven’t read most of the Washington Post’s coverage of Iraq in the past year, since there are better places to get Iraq news, such as Arthur Chrenkoff and Iraqi bloggers like Iraq the Model, Salaam and Zeyad… Still, I’ve read enough to say this: if the Washington Post reported on America in the 1990s the way they reported on Iraq this year, David Koresh would be a resistance hero, Tim McVeigh an insurgent, and Rush Limbaugh an authoritative, venerated commentator voicing popular anger at an arrogant and illegitimate regime. And after all, this is one piece of the truth. That is what the 1990s were like for some Americans. Which is why it is always tempting to read the WaPo, try to de-spin it, and learn something from it.

So by all means, read the WaPo’s endorsement of John Kerry, which summarizes the choice in 2004 pretty well for the most part, but beware of a few traps. I'll highlight one. Says the editorial:

Mr. Bush's rationales have shifted, but his prescription -- tax cuts -- has remained constant, no matter what the cost to future generations. The resulting fiscal deficit has dragged down the national savings rate, leaving the country dependent upon foreigners for capital in an unsustainable way. Mr. Bush says the answer lies in spending discipline, but he has shown none himself; see, for example, the disgusting farm subsidies he signed into law.

Yes, but there's no use punishing the incumbent if the challenger is worse. Of Kerry, the Post writes:

Mr. Kerry, like Mr. Bush, offers no plan to cope with retirement and health costs, but he promises more fiscal realism. He sensibly proposes to reverse Mr. Bush's tax cuts on the wealthiest and pledges to scale back his own spending proposals if funds don't suffice. He would seek to restore budget discipline rules that helped get deficits under control in the 1990s.

And

On many other issues, Mr. Kerry has the better approach. He has a workable plan to provide health insurance to more Americans; the 45 million uninsured represent a shameful abdication that appears not to have concerned Mr. Bush one whit.

But Kerry cannot be more fiscally responsible than Bush and pass his health care plan. The health care plan costs more than Kerry's tax hikes will raise, and will thus increase rather than reduce the deficit. If you think Kerry will sacrifice his health plan to reduce the deficit, you can support him on fiscal grounds. If you think he'll pass the health care plan, that might be a reason to support him despite the fiscal problems it will cause. But you can't do both.

Also, don't fall for this:

[Kerry] understood early on the dangers of non-state actors such as al Qaeda.

[UPDATE: There's more bashing of the WaPo's wrong spin about the deficit in my whimsical, just update, Social Security reform piece, "Land and Sea:"

In one of the Washington Post's more egregious misrepresentations in recent memory, a headline stated "$3 Trillion Price Tag Left Out as Bush Details His Agenda" This was picked up by blogger Andrew Sullivan as indicating that Bush's proposed second-term domestic agenda would cost $3 trillion. But if you read the article, it said something quite different. Of this $3 trillion, $1 trillion was the "cost" of the extension of the tax cut. Hmm. I probably don't have to explain to anyone that there's a difference between the government spending your money and the government not taking your money.

The other misrepresentation was more understandable. The Post, like everyone else who talks about "transition costs," claimed that if part of younger workers' payroll taxes goes into private accounts, then there will be fewer payroll taxes left over to pay current retirees, which will drain the Social Security "trust fund" (smoke-and-mirrors, that "trust fund," but never mind) and require the government to pay current retirees out of other revenues, either taxing or borrowing. This is true. But at the same time, as younger workers shift to private accounts instead of the traditional Social Security program, the government is being unburdened of future Social Security obligations to these workers. So even if the government borrows all the money it needs to pay current retirees, this will represent no increase in the government's total liabilities.

The Washington Post, then, had it completely wrong. There was actually no "price tag" at all, properly speaking, for the programs they were reporting on. (Other Bush programs do have “price tags,” of course, but overall, the new spending Bush has proposed is small.)]