the error is so ridiculous on its face that it reveals both the bias and the ignorance that afflict both the Times' reporters and its editors, who not only read and approved the article, but decided it was important enough to put on the front page. Think about it: the Times reported that the Governor of Wyoming decreed that the Endangered Species Act "is no longer in force" in his state. That is simply absurd, and it reflects the paper's profound ignorance of the world on which it seeks to report. The Times reporter not only failed to realize that the quote was ridiculous, but deemed it so inherently credible that she printed it based on an internet search that she didn't bother to verify. How could that happen? It happened because the editors and reporters at the Los Angeles Times take it for granted that people who live in weird states like Wyoming are dangerously ignorant yahoos who need to be taken in hand by the federal bureaucracy.
Exactly the point I made here about the WaPo editorial page. Exactly the point Bill Kristol's Weekly Standard op-ed concludes with this week, after documenting the "paranoid style" of the Liberals attacking George Bush on foreign policy:
What is one to say about these media--Democratic spokesmen for contemporary American liberalism? That they have embarrassed and discredited themselves. That they cannot be taken seriously as critics. It would be good to have a responsible opposition party in the United States today. It would be good to have a serious mainstream media. Too bad we have neither.
