Altercation: Why Read TIME?

I've got a new "Think Again" column here, called "Radio Marti: "Hecka of a Job, Kenny."

Brendan Nyhan is having his fifteen seconds of mini-fame over at Time.com, here, because he was let go by The American Prospect. He is posing as a martyr to free speech, but I don't think I've ever read a sillier argument for victimization.

The argument seems to be that The Prospect, a little liberal magazine of extremely limited means, should be compelled to support arguments that not only undermine the magazine's political commitments but do so on the basis of a mindless commitment to "on-the-one-handism" that currently dominates mainstream mores but has next-to-no basis in reality. Look, the far right is in control of this country's political institutions and much of the media. It is using those institutions to invade nations, shred the Constitution, declare war on journalism and free speech, torture innocent people and deny them due process, unleash unprecedented environmental destruction, and undermine the entire basis of empirical scientific inquiry when it conflicts with its ideological prerogatives (and funders' profits). The left runs a few faculty departments, a few cities (mostly in university towns), a few little magazines (of which TAP is one), and parts of Hollywood -- though not the part that, say, invests $40 million to lie to the American people, commercial-free, on behalf of the Bush administration's lies about 9-11 -- and not much else. But Nyhan expected to be paid by TAP to make arguments that implicitly argue that say, a silly statement by a Hollywood actor or independent director deserves the same scrutiny as a lie by the president, vice president, secretary of defense, secretary of state, or attorney general. It's like a doctor saying, "Well, you have liver cancer, but let's talk about that gut; you're three pounds overweight"; or a FEMA official saying, "Well, there's going to be a hurricane in New Orleans that will destroy all the levees, but it's also drizzling in my backyard and I can't decide if I need to water my garden." The archetype of this argument is something that almost all mainstream reporters appear to believe which is something like, "Yes, Bush misled the country into a dangerous, destructive war that is killing thousands, making us more insecure, costing us trillions and ruining our reputation around the world, but at least he's not lying about blow jobs."