I've been saying for years that the problem with the media is that they started hiring people with "journalism" degrees who knew nothing save some biases they picked up in college and how to structure a story. They used to hire bright people with brains who knew something. Now they hire gibbering idiots. Case in point: this pathetic article which attempts - lamely - to put the greatness of Barack Obama in historical context. On page 2, the writer informs us that Lyndon Johnson's great talent was demonstrated by his ability to round up "the Southern Republicans in the Senate" and get them on board for the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Because to these dimiwtted little J-School types, everyone knows that the Republicans are bad guys, racists, evil anti-civil rights types. Except of course that in 1965 there were NO Southern Republicans in the Senate. Not one. Unless you expand the definition to include Texas, in which case there was one - John Tower - and he voted against the bill. Every other US Senator from a southern of border state was a democrat. And every one of them voted against the civil rights act. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/weekinreview/17zernike.html?_r=1&oref=slogin It's not just that they're biased - it's that they're stupid.
Did they edit the piece? I don't see the quote that you have there, Archer. This is the closest thing:
I believe that is what Bill referred to. I wrote the reporter asking for her source on the southern republicans. You could have called Harry Byrd lots of things but you could never call him a Republican. He was too far to the right for that.
"Southern" Republicans The sentence is stuck between quotes from Doris Kearns Goodwin, almost as if to attribute it to her! Delete the word "southern" in the NYT article and the quote makes sense. Not to the author of course, but to the rest of us. You should have also asked her if she ever heard of the term "Dixiecrat"!