Fresh from caricaturing Nancy Pelosi with the misleading claim that she "favors... schools without prayer and death with taxes," New York Times Los Angeles bureau chief Jennifer Steinhauer gives California the same treatment in today's edition, referring to it as a place where "American values are said to go to die" and as having an image as "a hotbed of liberal lunacy":
The nation's most populous state has also counted itself among the most marginalized in the Republican era, a place where primary votes in presidential contests happen after the fact, federal dollars do not flow in sufficient amounts and American values are said to go to die.
...At the same time, there is some expectation that California, a wildly diverse, bipartisan, complex state, will be working hard to shed its image as a hotbed of liberal lunacy.
Promulgating crude liberal stereotypes is a good career move -- it worked for Maureen Dowd! And as I said before, Steinhauer appears to be following in Dowd's footsteps, although she does cast doubt on the "liberal lunacy" claim.
When do you suppose we can expect Ms. Steinhauer's piece about the American South, that hotbed of fundamentalist lunacy, where English is said to go and die?
Posted by: Seth | November 13, 2006 at 08:38 AM
Get Jennifer Steinhauer a gig at Fox news and spare the LAT readers her inanities. Better yet get her a blog, she could be the next Wonkette who is now too cool for us loosers. I saw her on Fox.
Posted by: Paul | November 13, 2006 at 08:02 PM