SlowpokeBlog

I've been a loyal subscriber to the Washington Post for some time now, but I came within a hair of cancelling my subscription the other day. As much as it makes my stomach turn, I can handle their editorial board's neocon attitude toward the war in Iraq -- what gets me is the obviously, obviously biased Howard Kurtz. This is all old news to political geeks, but I don't get the impression that many people in the mainstream are aware of the fact that Kurtz's wife is a Republican PR strategist. Mind you, this is the guy interpreting Bush and Kerry's TV ads for the Post. You know the flaming nutballs on the right would be screeching about this if the situation were reversed. So I wrote this letter to the Post last week:

As a subscriber to your print edition, I have been meaning to write about this for quite some time. How can you possibly justify having the spouse of a Republican operative as your primary media critic -- the very person who interprets political TV ads for your paper?

Time and time again, I will be reading an article without having looked at the byline, only to catch a whiff of something tilted slightly to the right. Almost without fail, the byline belongs to Kurtz.

What prompts me write today are Kurtz's zealous attempts to quash the Kitty Kelley book. While the allegation about Bush's cocaine use at Camp David may well prove baseless, I find it interesting that Kurtz's distaste for inaccuracy does not seem to be equally applied to the Bush campaign, which has been objectively dishonest at nearly every turn. Perhaps I missed Kurtz's emphatic condemnation of the discredited Swift Boat Veterans, but somehow I doubt it.

Seeing Kurtz all over the place makes me want to cancel my subscription. The Post can do better.

Sincerely,
Jen Sorensen
Charlottesville, VA

You too can write them if you're so inclined, at letters@washpost.com and ombudsman@washpost.com. Just use your own words (i.e., please don't cut and paste from my letter).