Today it's the New York Times (5/6/11) framing the story according to nonsensical GOP talking points:

House Passes a Bill to Expand Offshore Oil Drilling

JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON -- With rising gasoline prices and skyrocketing oil company profits as a backdrop, the House approved a bill on Thursday to force the Obama administration to accelerate oil lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia.

The 266-to-149 vote, largely along party lines, was a skirmish in the larger battle between Republicans and Democrats to capitalize on consumer anger over the price of gasoline, which has now passed $4 a gallon in most parts of the country.

Once again: Domestic drilling will do next to nothing to affect gas prices. (Mostly) Republican politicians want people to believe the opposite, and push policies to that end. But journalists should question the premise of these political maneuvers, not merely reinforce them.

Today's New York Times profile of Christian right propagandist David Barton reports on how the self-styled historian wields a great deal of influence in conservative and Christian nationalist circles, spreading his gospel that the U.S. was founded on Christian principles.

The Times' Erik Eckholm reports that "many historians call his research flawed" and that "liberal organizations are raising the alarm over what they say are Mr. Barton's dangerous distortions," and he quotes Baylor University critic Derek H. Davis, who says that Barton's work includes "a lot of distortions, half-truths and twisted history."

So Eckholm tells us that Barton has critics who say he generally mangles history, but what is true? This is where journalism and the professional judgment it entails  should intervene, but Eckholm is content to act the court stenographer, simply recording what the various parties say, rather than informing readers about the evidence for the conflicting views.

Nor is any mention made of Barton's controversial role in the creation of public school history curricula and text books, or past links with extremist groups, including the Christian Reconstructionist movement and the racist and anti-Semitic Christian Identity sect (Church & State, 4/93).

It's not that there's a shortage of critical work on Barton. Online reports about his links to extremists are widely available, as are any number of solid factual debunkings of his historical claims. Indeed, you can even read about how Barton himself conceded that a dozen quotes he'd attributed to U.S.  founders and other prominent political figures were either false or unverifiable. For instance, the Constitution's co-author and deist James Madison never said, as Barton claimed:

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, nor [sic] upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves ... according to the Ten Commandments of God.

Wouldn't Times readers be better served to know not just that Barton's detractors exist, but that their charges are backed by abundant evidence? And wouldn't it also be important for Americans to know that such a careless and extreme "historian" is playing an influential role in creating public school history curricula and text books that their children are using in school?

By reporting on a conservative icon without ferreting out the facts, the Times can say they covered the issue without incurring the right's anger. It's a Times formula last noted by Julie Hollar about the Times profile of anti-immigrant activist John Tanton.

Corrected version, 5/11/11--providing fuller version of Barton's "Madison" quote.

Salon.com's Justin Elliot has a good piece about media adoration for the Navy SEALs, focusing on an NBC report.

Lest anyone think that report is a weird outlier, here are some quotes from the May 3 broadcast of ABC World News (you can watch it here, if you must):

DIANE SAWYER: Tonight, details are surfacing about that super-human force that took down bin Laden, the Navy SEALs known as Team Six. A force so elite you cannot apply to join their ranks, you are just silently recruited.

**

CHRIS CUOMO: You know, Diane, as impressive as the details of the bin Laden operation are, you really start to appreciate how special these SEALs are, when you learn that taking out bin Laden was just another day at the office.

**

CUOMO: A superhero has nothing on these guys.

**

CUOMO: The only thing missing seems to be the ability to leap a building in a single bound.

**

CUOMO: But for all their physical abilities, what Marcinko says really sets a SEAL apart, their most deadly weapon is their mind.

**

CUOMO: You know, we keep comparing them to superheroes, but they're different from superheroes in a very important way. They're subtle. They're known for their reserved, unassuming nature. So, they carry out missions with calm. Now, Diane, why? Well one big reason is that so the enemy does not know what it's up against until it's too late.

OK, this isn't Sean Hannity's byline in the Post today, but it might as well be. The headline should stop you:

In bin Laden Victory, Echoes of the Bush Years

The piece--actually written by Scott Wilson and Anne Kornblut--lays out the argument:

As President Obama celebrates the signature national-security success of his tenure, he has a long list of people to thank. On the list: George W. Bush.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, Bush waged wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that have forged a military so skilled that it carried out a complicated covert raid with only a minor complication. Public tolerance for military operations over the past decade has shifted to the degree that a mission carried out deep inside a sovereign country has raised little domestic protest.

And a detention and interrogation system that Obama once condemned as contrary to American values produced one early lead that, years later, brought U.S. forces to the high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and a fatal encounter with an unarmed Osama bin Laden.

So not only did torture work, but the illegal, baseless war against Iraq "forged a military so skilled that it carried out a complicated covert raid with only a minor complication."  In other words, the Iraq War led to catching bin Laden. This could give Fox News a new theme to pound for the next couple of days.

Will Ferrell did a one-man show at the end of the Bush years, in his W. character, called "You're Welcome, America." It was pretty funny. This is not.

Calling for more drilling for domestic oil to do something about rising gas prices makes little sense. This should be a simple matter of economics or math--there's not enough oil to recover from U.S. territory to affect global supply, and since oil is a commodity traded on a global market, only an increase in the global supply can affect the price.

Nonetheless, one major political party in this country holds out more drilling as the solution to high prices, and thus that point of view is treated with respect. Take the Washington Post piece today (5/4/11) by Juliet Eilperin, headlined "Soaring Prices Alter Energy Debate a Year After Gulf Spill: A Drive for More Drilling."

The article manages to convey--in passing--that this policy solution wouldn't really work, but nonetheless treats it as if it were a respectable policy option:

Just one year after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 and triggered a massive oil spill, there's little appetite among legislators for new safety regulations. Instead, a single concern is prompting a drive for more drilling: $4-a-gallon gas.

Increased drilling won’t bring down the immediate cost U.S. consumers pay at the pump, but soaring fuel prices have transformed the U.S. energy debate, motivating the House this week to take up at least one of three bills that would ease the way for more energy exploration off both coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico.

So more drilling won't help in an "immediate" way, but as a response to high prices Congress is considering bills to encourage more drilling. The piece does quote critics who point out that increased drilling isn't going to matter, immediately or otherwise--the Post attributes this analysis to "Democrats and environmentalists." As Dean Baker put it, "Tell the Washington Post that All Non-Flat Earthers Believe that Oil Prices Are Determined in a Global Market."

NBC Nightly News on Saturday (4/29/11) had a pretty standard report on the politics of gas prices: Republicans blame Obama, and some Democrats are talking up the idea of raising taxes on oil companies.  "Democrats call the profits excessive, and portray Republicans as wedded to oil interests," correspondent Mike Viqueira explained.

Then NBC introduced an expert, who had this somewhat curious take:

VIQUEIRA: With Congress returning Monday from a two-week break, experts say there is little that Washington can do to lower the short-term price per gallon. In the end, what may bring down the high prices of gas is the high price of gas itself.

AMY JAFFE (Baker Institute Energy Forum Director): Consumers don't realize it, but we have a lot of power. When--last time when Americans stopped driving because they didn't like the high price, that actually did bring down the price of oil over time. And we probably will see that again.

Oil companies? Come on, the people have the real power!

So what's the Baker Energy Forum?  That would James Baker's institute at Rice University. And on the group's advisory board:

Shell
Chevron
ConocoPhilips
ExxonMobil
EnergyFutures Holding Corporation
Marathon Oil Corporation

The "Patrons" list includes Hess and GenOn Energy. The "Members" list includes the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.

Next time NBC might want to mention who they're using for expert analysis--or better yet, find someone else to talk to about gas prices.

The recent New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza about the development of Barack Obama's foreign policy includes this memorable line:

Obama had always read widely, and now he was determined to get a deeper education. He read popular books on foreign affairs by Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman.

The magazine's cartoons never make me laugh, but that  is hilarious.

"John Paul II's Beatification Cheered" was USA Today's headline (5/2/11)--followed by 19 paragraphs of cheerleading for the accelerated process of declaring the late Pope John Paul II an official saint: Various sources in Eric Lyman's article called the event "an important day and a wonderful opportunity to recognize a great man," "a man of God who inspired countless people" with "the strength of a titan, a strength which came to him from God."

The only hint of dissent came in the last two paragraphs of the piece:

Not all were pleased about the beatification.

"John Paul was a great man, a sincere man, and he was well-loved," said the Rev. Paolo Farinella of Genoa. "This whole beatification is a pure public relations move aimed at revitalizing the church's fortunes at a difficult time," he said, referring to sex scandals involving local priests.

So the worst people have to say about John Paul was that he was a "great," "sincere," "well-loved" man whose memory is being exploited? Well, not exactly. As a London Times article (4/4/10) noted last year, some people have had far harsher things to say:

The most serious claims related to Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, an Austrian friend of John Paul’s who abused an estimated 2,000 boys over decades but never faced any sanction from Rome. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Groer’s successor, criticised the handling of that scandal and other abuse cases last week.... Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger--who became Pope Benedict--had tried to investigate the abuses as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, according to Schönborn. But his efforts had been blocked by "the Vatican," an apparent reference to John Paul.

John Paul also faced criticism last week from Poland for protecting Archbishop Juliusz Paetz, who was accused of abusing trainee priests. Letters detailing the charges were sent to John Paul's office and to Ratzinger in 2000 but were ignored. Paetz resigned in 2002 when the allegations became public....

In America, critics pointed out that although Benedict has borne the brunt of criticism over ignoring the scandal of Father Lawrence Murphy, accused of molesting 200 deaf boys at a special school in Wisconsin, Ratzinger had acted on the authority of John Paul.

Another beneficiary of John Paul's discreet approach was Marcial Maciel Degollado, a Mexican priest known as Father Maciel, who founded a conservative religious order. He was accused by former members of abuse in 1998. John Paul blessed Maciel in the Vatican in late 2004, at a time when Ratzinger was investigating him....

John Paul was also accused of ignoring controversy over John Magee, a former private secretary to three popes including the Polish pontiff, who named him Bishop of Cloyne in 1987. Late last month Magee was forced to resign after an independent report found that his diocese in Ireland had put children at risk.

You'd think you might mention these serious allegations in an article about the beatification of John Paul--if your goal was reporting and not cheering, that is.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank deserves some credit for writing this about all of the awful things about the White House Correspondents' Dinner:

The fun begins, appropriately enough, at the offices of the American Gas Association, where White House reporters are feted by the lobbyists of the Quinn Gillespie firm. More lobbyist-sponsored entertainment comes from the Motion Picture Association. Along the way, journalists wind up serving as pimps: We recruit Hollywood stars to entertain the politicians, and we recruit powerful political figures to entertain the stars. Corporate bosses bring in advertisers to gawk at the display, and journalists lucky enough to score invitations fancy themselves celebrities.

Milbank points out that his own paper invited Donald Trump as one of its guests (which is reason enough to write such a column, and skip the event altogether, as Milbank did).

He adds that the parties, after-parties and celebrity-studded receptions add up, and that:

the cumulative effect is icky. With the proliferation of A-list parties and the infusion of corporate and lobbyist cash, Washington journalists give Americans the impression we have shed our professional detachment and are aspiring to be like the celebrities and power players we cover.

I think Americans long ago rendered a verdict on the "professional detachment" of Beltway media elite. He closed with this:

My late colleague David Broder once recalled how, when he began newspapering in mid-century, journalists embraced the credo that "the only way a reporter should ever look at a politician is down." He said they "prided themselves on their independence, their skepticism, and they relished their role in exposing the follies and the larceny of public officials."

That's an odd sentiment to associate with Broder, who rarely expressed that kind of critical attitude towards politicians. The most notable exception might have been Broder's hostility towards Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky affair.

During an interview on CNN last night (5/1/11) with New York firefighter and 9/11 first responder Kenny Specht:

BLITZER: Did you ever give up hope, Kenny, that the U.S. would kill bin Laden?

SPECHT: No, but I'd be lying to you, Wolf, I'd be lying to you if I thought about it every night. No, I didn't give up hope. That's all we had. That's all we had. It's like anything else, though. It's just sometimes we think that when it's not spoken about anymore, we wonder really what's being done.

I mean, we're in a quagmire, for lack of a better term, in Afghanistan. I hope to God that tonight is one large step to maybe wrapping up operations in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Kenny, I'm going to interrupt because I think I've lost contact with you. But I want you to--I want you to stand by, Kenny, if you can. Stand by for a moment because Peter Bergen is joining us now, our national security contributor.

(Thanks to reader Blake Wood for the tip. See something that should be written up? Send us a note:  fair@fair.org)

In today's edition of the Washington Post (5/2/11), Dan Balz puts forth what is probably going to be a popular theme in the coverage of the killing of Osama bin Laden:  that catching the Al-Qaeda leader was a top concern of both the Bush and Obama administrations.

Bush put down the marker not long after the September 11 attacks, saying he wanted bin Laden "dead or alive." That was taken as a sign of cowboy swagger by a Texan president by some of his critics, but it was a reflection of the absolute importance that he and much of the nation attached to bringing to justice the man responsible for the worst terrorist attack on the homeland in the history of the nation....

Bin Laden eluded Bush and his team, to their regret, but not for lack of trying. Bush's persistence was palpable and set the tone for the intelligence community tasked with bringing bin Laden to justice. Obama picked up on that commitment when he came into office and redoubled efforts to defeat Al-Qaeda and kill bin Laden.

To cite just one memorable moment that this account overlooks, Bush declared in March 2002:

Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not. We haven't heard from him in a long time. The idea of focusing on one person really indicates to me people don’t understand the scope of the mission. Terror is bigger than one person. He's just a person who's been marginalized.... I don't know where he is. I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly gathers the rest of the evidence of the Bush administration's less than "palpable" pursuit, including:

In July 2006, we learned that the Bush administration closed its unit that had been hunting bin Laden.

In September 2006, Bush told Fred Barnes, one of his most sycophantic media allies, that an "emphasis on bin Laden doesn't fit with the administration's strategy for combating terrorism."