I agree with sisu. And if I were smart, I'd end this post now.
However...
I also agree with the venerable Instapundit and the conspiratorial Jim Lindgren.
Furthermore, I'm not that smart and I'm not as talented or as nice as any of the above, so I'll probably not be able to express my dismay with Hugh Hewitt's MSM wardrobe questions or with what sounds to me like chronic carping on MSM bias against Christians without sounding anti-Christian. And I do not want to sound that way because I am not anti-Christian.
It's just that sometimes, some Christians seem to be so... anti-anything-but-fundamentalist-Christian.
For credibility in Mr. Hewitt's eyes, do I, blogger, need to answer the same questions he asks of MSM writers? Will my criticisms of his conclusions carry more weight if those answers meet with his approval? Do I get extra credit for writing in pajamas?
Let's see...
Who did I vote for for president in the past five elections?
2004 - no one (my husband was going to vote for Kerry, ended up out of state and unable to vote so we agreed that I would not cast my vote for Bush. No vote fraud in this household!)
2000 - Bush (cancelled by my husband's vote for Gore)
1996 - Dole (cancelled by my husband's vote for Clinton)
1992 - Clinton (12 years ago, my husband and I agreed on something...)
1988 - Bush (I hadn't met my husband yet.)
Do I attend church regularly and if so, in which denomination?
No. I'm wondering why he doesn't want to know why not, and which denominations are approved or unapproved.
Do I believe that the late-term abortion procedure known as partial birth abortion should be legal?
Yes. I protest that question because it is crafted to put proponents of its legality into a box marked heathen and to elevate its opponents to the position of righteous defender of the sanctity of life.
Do I believe same sex marriage ought to be legal?
No. I wonder if Mr. Hewitt is interested in why I think it should not be legal, much as I wonder if he is interested in knowing why I think abortion should. I wonder if he thinks any of these questions - even the seemingly simple who-did-I-vote-for questions - have simple answers?
Do I support the invasion of Iraq?
Yes.
Do I support drilling in ANWR?
Yes.
These were presented as 10 questions. Unless I've grossly misunderstood what I've read on Hugh Hewitt's blog over the past 3 months, I think he would be in agreement with me on my simple answers to 7 of them. Is that a passing score?
He says:
If I know the answers to those ten questions, I can quickly decide what degree of trust with which to approach a reporter's reporting. Even "low trust" reporters can earn trust, of course, but degrees of suspicion are a fact of life. Only MSM pretends otherwise, and bloggers have exposed that pretension as the fiction it really is, even if most of MSM want to continue the charade.
Does that mean he would trust 70% of what I write without question? I certainly hope not. Though apparently I also agree with him on 70% of these issues, I disagree with far more than 30% of at least two of his recent posts.
If I've learned anything in my life, it is to question everything, especially that which I think I know. I can be persuaded by reasonable, sensible, and factual arguments to modify my positions on the last five questions.
After having read Evolution Shares a Desk With 'Intelligent Design' and Hewitt's very selectively presented evidence that Washington Post writer Michael Powell is an agenda-driven and shoddy journalist bent on marginalizing people of faith, I find Hewitt's commentary just as agenda-driven, his fact-checking equally shoddy, and thus, must question the credibility of his conclusion.
Could the WAPO article have been written better? Yes. Could Hewitt have objected that two paragraphs within the article were unfavorable to people of faith? Yes. However, it's not the two paragraphs he chose to cite. (Paragraphs 2, 14, and 18 are much worse.) One of the paragraphs Hewitt quotes is the motion passed by the Dover school board. His main objection to the other one seems to be the use of non-specific words like "several" instead of "two or three". His other objection is that Powell did not fact-check one of the men he quoted:
Several board members resigned in protest. When the remaining board members chose replacements, they subjected certain candidates to withering questions. 'I was asked if I was a liberal or conservative, and if I was a child abuser,' recalled Rehm, who was known as an outspoken opponent of intelligent design."
Observations (Hewitt): How many is "several?" Did any member of the school board confirm Rehm's account of his interview or dispute it? Is the "child abuser" question the routine question now asked of millions of workers with children as a protection against liability flowing from abuse cases?
I was unable to ascertain whether two or three board members ultimately resigned because of the motion, after following all the links provided that didn't require payment. I'll take Hewitt's word on that, though he is mistaken as to the number reported by Powell as replacements. Hewitt says three, but the article describes four (without naming all of them).
Hewitt did not note it, there were 13 people interviewed for the positions nor did he suggest that Powell should haved asked any of them about the content of their interview, which would have been appropriate and informative. Hewitt later links to a York Dispatch article (not free) from which he quotes verification of the liberal/conservative question, but not the child abuse question.
Hewitt continues:
Since the article is supposed to be about a school board's plunge into a controversial borderland between science and faith, nothing would be more indicative of the board's intentions than a detailed report on who was selected to replaced the resigning protesting board members.
Are quotes from the school board members when the plunge was taken not indicative of that? Why no grousing about the statements attributed to the curriculum chairman, William Buckingham? Does the statement of the board's legal representative describing the board's overall mission as defending "the religious freedom of Christians" have no bearing on that? Why not just state religious freedom... why limit it to Christians?
One such appointee is mentioned --John Rowand, identified only as an Assemblies of God pastor. If all three appointees were pastors who believed in the literal interpretation of Scripture, that would tell the reader one thing. If the other two appointees are simply community and school activists with long records of service, that tells us another thing. The key is the Post didn't tell us anything, except that one pastor was appointed and that the quoted Mr. Rehm is a former science teacher and father of four.
That's not quite true. Powell cites the York Daily Record as reporting that in addition to the pastor, "a home-schooler who does not send his kids to public school for religious reasons, and two more who in effect pledged to support the board" were selected. What Hewitt should have done was call Powell for concluding that one of the latter two specifically stated she had not formed an opinion about the motion.
It just doesn't help when the fisking is as shoddy as the article being fisked. Hewitt does not mention that Powell gives a fair overview of opinions on evolutionary biology and intelligent design theories. Would it be a fair article if no opinion conflicting with Hewitt's is presented?
Public discourse is not enriched by the rather lackadaisical reporting of Michael Powell on the Dover school board/ACLU suit, but it is not harmed by that nearly so much as Hugh Hewitt would have his readers believe. In fact, the indignant, but equally biased and perhaps less factual rebuttal by Hewitt - especially when combined with his 10 point inquisition - is much more chilling to an open and honest debate.
