UnNote

Looks like condemnation of ABC News' The Note may be spreading - spurred on by Josh Marshall and myself. To be clear, it's not that I believe The Note intends to conspire against Democrats, at least not consciously, it's that their cynical view of politics as simply being about the 'game' and their desire to detail the winners and losers on all issues means that, when in doubt, they will favor the past winners - the GOP. However, the GOP has clearly not been winning these last few months, yet The Note doggedly sticks to its defense of the bugman and highlights any movement on Social Security which seems to favor Bush. Then there is their constant questioning of Chairman Dean and what he "means" for the party. Add to this their woeful behavior during last year's presidential election (spreading false rumors during the Republican convention that Kerry intended to shake up his campaign team) and one begins to suspect a lot of what The Note says as reflecting a bias towards the winning team.

It probably wouldn't matter so much, except that The Note is the leading daily political brief and the people that read it are the same people that write the stories The Note comments on. This kind of cyclical Washington 'group think' has certainly not favored the Democrats these last few years. More importantly, this kind of 'group think' is a threat to the accuracy of our press and by extension the viability of our democracy.