Daily Howler - April 4, 2005

WASHINGTON AWOL (PART 1)! The press is AWOL—and Lithwick is shocked. But the press has been AWOL for years

MONDAY, APRIL 4, 2005

SHOW US THE MONEY: As we see it, Matt Yglesias owes us four dollars; David Edelstein, our favorite, owes us four more. And someone has to send us two bucks for that lemon bar we bought going into the theater. (Maybe that should be Kevin Drum, for linking to Matt in the first place.) But where do we go to get back the time lost to merciful sleep during this earth-shattering snore-bore? Do you want to be completely confounded? Read the gents’ praise for the latest hot flick, then go see Sin City yourselves.

WASHINGTON AWOL (PART 1): In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick makes an excellent point about press reaction to Men in Black, Mark Levin’s junk-book best-seller. But before we examine her excellent point, how about a point of puzzlement? We don’t have the slightest idea why Lithwick thinks this is the case:

LITHWICK: Men in Black was published by Regnery Publishing—the same outfit that brought us Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry last summer. Serious journalists spent serious time debunking the claims set forth in the Swift Boat book, but absolutely no one seems to be taking on Levin.