On the front page of this morning's paper, Todd S. Purdum offers up "Yet Another Bold Stroke" which has been labeled "news analysis." By some prankster with "a bit too much hubris and joie de vie?" wonders Bernado in an e-mail this morning. Possibly, or maybe Toad has just confused composing this article with his own psychoanalysis session?
Toad's working through some huge issues in this piece but he's not dealing with a lot of reality.
"News analysis" regarding social security would seem to require walking readers through Bush's claims and explaining the veracity of the claims.
Toad's not interested in that. He merely repeats what the Bully Boys says and then tosses out two other Republicans (Senator Charles Grassley and former House member John Kasich).
This passes for some kind of "analysis" in Toad's mind. (And in the mind of whichever editor pushed this story on through the pipeline as well as the minds of the editorial board that decided to front page this story. Maybe they all just needed a good laugh?)
Between terms like "broad swath" and word combos like "Mr. Bush's penchant for thinking big," Toad's piece works best as his own psychoanlytic session. There's nothing resembling strong journalism or "news analysis" here but we are left with the impression that Toad's suffering from some precognitive "Daddy" issues. While we wish him the best working through those issues, we're left wondering where the "news analysis" is?
Between those issues and working his rolodex to garner the pull quotes, he fails to illuminate or analyse the proposal.
[Note: This post has been corrected in the parenthetical for clarity. Thanks Shirley.]
