Leave it to the New York Times (10/7/11) to find a guy collecting unemployment who opposes the extension of unemployment benefits. He's "Dan Tolleson, a researcher and writer with a Ph.D. in politics...whose last good job was working for a group that aims to replace the income tax with a national sales tax."

But don't think reporter Shaila Dewan picked some unrepresentative oddball to highlight just to make a political point about "how divisive the question has become of providing a bigger safety net to the long-term jobless." Oh no--quite the contrary:

Even among those struggling to find work, Mr. Tolleson is not alone in his views. In a recent survey of the unemployed by Rutgers University, more than one in four respondents was opposed to renewing the current extended unemployment benefits. Three out of five said recipients should be required to take training courses.

But when you click on that link, you find that the Rutgers survey is not "of the unemployed"--the sample includes recently jobless people who are currently working, and of those respondents who are jobless right now, a large majority haven't gotten unemployment benefits in the past year. So how many people are like Donald Tolleson, collecting benefits that they don't the government should be giving them? Maybe none--the results aren't broken down that way.

Further, the survey asked about whether "longer and higher benefits from Unemployment Insurance" were a good idea in the context of "ideas that are being considered by government officials to help bring down high unemployment." So if you supported extending unemployment benefits because they would be good for the unemployed but didn't think they would help bring down unemployment, should you answer yes or no?

The question was asked in a more straightforward way by CNN the last time President Obama signed a bill extending benefits (12/17-19/10). Questioned whether they favored or opposed "an extension of unemployment benefits for workers who lose their jobs," 76 percent of a sample of adults nationwide were in favor, with only 22 percent opposed. Could it be that extending unemployment benefits is not as "divisive" as the New York Times would like you to think?

There's a certain the-monster-isn't-so-bad genre of journalism--profiling some character known for vicious misanthropy, usually a right-wing media personality, only to assure readers that once you get to know them, you realize that they don't actually mean all the nasty things they say.  (The Time cover story on Ann Coulter discussed here is perhaps the classic example.)

Today the New York Times (5/12/10) offers us an intimate look at Eric Erickson under the headline "CNN Pundit Draws Ire From All Sides." Erickson is the blogger best known for his assertion that Supreme Court Justice David Souter was a "goat-fucking child molester." (See FAIR Action Alert, 3/16/10, for more examples of Erickson's wit.) But Times reporter Shaila Dewan presents him as a softie: "Over coffee, Mr. Erickson, 34, hardly comes across as a screamer. He is more preoccupied with finding a babysitter for his two small children because his wife, Christy, is sick."

Dewan does refer to a couple of Erickson's screeds, but dismisses them with this: "What critics have not noted is that Mr. Erickson, the editor of the influential conservative blog RedState, is as hard on many Republicans and conservatives as he is on Democrats."

Two things to note: "Exhorting Tea Party followers (he considers himself one) to move beyond protests and get involved in the nitty-gritty of precinct-level politics" is not actually an example of Erickson being hard on Republicans or conservatives, although the Times presents it as one.

And critics were not upset about Erickson's mindless hatred because it was only aimed at Democrats; Souter, after all, is a Republican. It's the mindless hatred itself that's the problem.