To Err Is Human: The Journal's House Liberal

Dan from New York:

The Wall Street Journal (bless ‘em) upholds an affirmative action policy on its editorial pages and keeps one column reserved for a liberal - regardless of merit. Owing to the overwhelming leftward bias of our nation’s media, demand must be high and recruits must be scarce in this writing category because those who’ve taken the job have been intellectual mediocrities, even by liberal standards (sic).

For years the fort was held down by Al Hunt, whose writing crackled with cynicism, anger and bitterness – and that was on days he wasn’t hung over. The Journal finally threw Hunt overboard a few years ago and mercifully left the slot vacant until the spring of ’08, when I assume they felt the need to have a “liberal voice” in place for the election, and hired Thomas Frank to write left-leaning cogitations (once every other week).

No doubt, Frank had much to recommend him: a proven track record for keeping his finger on the pulse of liberalism. Frank managed to turn a standard-issue Upper West Side wisecrack – What’s The Matter With Kansas? – into a book-length explanation of why folks from the fly-over are too dumb to vote their interests. Pure genius.

Well, the election has come and gone, but Frank still has his Dow Jones laptop. In case you’ve managed to live without his comedy stylings until now, the headline and subhead of today’s composition tell you all you need to know about Frank and the topsy-turvy world he’s trapped in. Health Care and the 'Predator State' It is corporate power, not the government, that we need to worry about.

Thomas Frank versus John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison... gee, that's not a tough call.