Since the issue of Veterans' health care was an important issue in the last election, some readers might be interested in a (relatively) new blog, Wounded Warriors. This blog is maintained by the McClatchy (formerly Knight-RIdder) Newspaper chain, and it aggregates news from their wires as well as other sources.
Last week, McClatchy broke a story about the exaggeration of claims by the VA. They have also been instrumental in investigations of the Gonzales affair as well as being the only Washington bureau to doubt claims about WMDs in Iraq. So, at the moment, they're darlings of the left. In reality, they're just good journalists whose customers are a set of papers in the Midwest and South. I'm sure they'll manage to annoy Democrats in the near future, now that the Democrats are running Congress.
Comments
The VA article is amazing. I wonder if this stuff has been going on since the Clinton Administration, or if it's another nickel and dimed heckofajob.
Even if it had begun in the Clinton admin, there's no reason that the Bush admin couldn't come clean. I mean, no reason other than the usual reasons that government officials tell fibs.
I mention it only because the Clinton Administration got credit for putting the VA back on it's feet with electronic patient records, management shakeup and better drug purchasing procedures. The Bush administration/Republican Congress get blamed for the bad stuff that's been in the media lately. The McClatchy report reinforces the stereotype of incompetance, lack of accountablity and penny-pinching indifference to those who have served. Naturally the war changed everything, but I wonder how far back this level of fibbing goes.
I agree that it is a Bush administration problem. You'll never find out how far back it goes, and Bush has been in office long enough to deal with it. Now it just needs to be fixed.
My favorite item to share the blame with more than one president is the energy crisis (Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2). Bush gets blamed for "being in bed with big oil", but it appears they all were.
Why stop at Nixon? FDR is the guy who cut the first deal with the Saudis and began the whole nightmare. (kidding - sort of)
I don't buy the whole "war for oil" talk, but Bush sure lost a great opportunity to get serious about conservation and new energy technology after 9/11. He could have pushed through some real changes in areas like fleet efficiency, and we'd probably be seeing those changes already if he had moved quickly in late 2001 or early 2002.
No question about Bush dropping the perfect chance to do a lot of different things to make us less dependent on the middle east for their oil. What better way to wage a "war" then to cut back on our oil consumption. But, for the most part, people don't want nuclear energy, wind mills, etc. (too dangerous, too ugly, ruins Tom Golisano's view, etc.)
I don't see why you made your comments about McClatchy being the darlings of the left. It's like David Broder hacked in and wrote your post.
Save the "I'm so centrist" crap for someone else. This was stupid.
Sorry, you know I like you, but you sound like a jackass here. You can do better.
Go do a search of any left-leaning publication. Here's one. It's almost comical how McClatchy wasn't mentioned until around the time of the Moyers documentary on them. That's the genesis of the "darlings of the left" comment.
It isn't David Broder centrism to say that good journalists will someday investigate the Democrats and piss them off. Broder-style journalism worships at the altar of beltway insiderism, and above all protects the journalist's standing among the insider community. The reason McClatchy was able to be in front on the Iraq and Gonzales stories, among others, was that they are not insiders. They write for uncool Midwest and Southern regional papers and therefore can be more independent and follow the story without regard for what all the other sheep are doing. When they write a story that's critical of Democrats, it will be heavy on facts and light on innuendo, and I'll want to read it.
By the way, speaking of sheep, I'll freely admit I'm one of the crowd who never heard of McClatchy before they started getting blog and Moyers attention. I now read the McClatchy Washington feed and find it very useful. That's why I wanted to share their VA blog with readers.
All right, fair enough. Though I would still quibble with "of the left" -- more accurate to say "of a certain faction of Kossacks" (some of the media analysis over there, particularly their hatred of the Politico, is indeed silly).
McClatchy used to be Knight-Ridder, as you may know. So you may have heard of them earlier than you think.
Yep, I grew up in an area where the main daily was a Knight-Ridder rag, so I'd heard of them, but never realized they were any good until I started reading them regularly, after Moyers, like all the other "leftists" (whatever that term means).
I started reading Knight-Ridder about five years ago. They've been very good for quite a while.
TPM has been using and promoting McClatchy for a while. I've "known" about them for maybe a year or so. They are the best in terms of solid journalism. I applaud them for that.