Enter
LOOKING
FORWARD
IN ANGST
JASON
LINKINS
HUFFINGTON
03.03.13
WILLIAM B. PLOWMAN/NBC/NBCU PHOTO BANK VIA GETTY IMAGES
SEQUESTER
JOURNALISM
IS IN SERIOUS
NEED OF ADULT
SUPERVISION
DON’T KNOW if last
week’s David Brooks’
column was the first
time he’d ever contended that President Barack Obama
lacked a plan to replace the looming sequester, but it’s definitely going to be the last time he makes the
contention. That’s because writers
took to the internet en masse to
demonstrate how the claim was not
only untrue, but debunkable within
15 seconds of Googling.
The force of that wave of oppro-
I
brium was enough to cause Brooks
to write a correction, of sorts, on
his original item, blaming free
floating “frustration over the fiscal
idiocy that is about to envelop the
nation” for “getting the better of”
Brooks. Days later, Brooks offered a
fuller mea culpa for the muff.
It nevertheless raises the question: wouldn’t a modicum of editorial guidance have lessened his
— and, by extension, our — “frustration?” In a pleasing coincidence,
New York Times Public Editor Mar-
David Brooks,
New York
Times op-ed
columnist
and author.