Why We Can't Trust the WSJ's "Opinion" Section

[no_hypocrisy]

The Wall Street Journal's failure to edit Karl Rove's misleading column on taxes is a case in point.
by Alice Cherbonnier



The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists lays out a journalist's responsibilities. Among them: " Deliberate distortion is never permissible." Admittedly this Code of Ethics is voluntary, as there is no licensing or policing of journalists or columnists, nor is there any requirement for a particular sort of education or experience. Journalists must police themselves, and the public's job is to slam them when they don't.

Consider this column as such a slam, then. Let us take as a case in point the column by Karl Rove called "Nancy Pelosi's Unwelcome Christmas Gift," published on page A17 of the WSJ's opinion section on Thurs., Dec. 2. We've come to expect Karl Rove's writings to be unsatisfactory, but this one breaks new ground for disingenuousness. What were the WSJ's editors thinking when they published this? Did they even read it before they sent it out to millions of readers? Someone did: there's a "teaser" highlighting one of Rove's absurd assertions: "A couple earning $80,000 could lose hundreds per month if the Bush tax rates aren't extended."

Rove's beef is that Nancy Pelosi is insisting that the Obama tax cuts for those who earn under $250,000 a year should stay in place, but wants to see a rate hike on the portion of a taxpayer's taxable income that exceeds that amount. Rove leaves out the italicized information. He darkly warns us that "Congress could go home without stopping the largest tax increase in the nation's history." Say what? The "increase" would be for only the top bracket, and it still would come nowhere near the top rate paid earlier in our history (up to 91%; now it's only 35%).

Rove fails to include essential facts needed to understand the U.S. Tax Code (contrary to the SPJ Code of Ethics: " should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.") He omits the fact that every single taxpayer pays the same tax rate at every step in the Tax Code. The Tax Rate Tables at the end of the link show clearly that every other taxpayer-including Rupert Murdoch, George Soros and Karl Rove-is subject to a mere 10% tax on the first $8,350 of taxable income (if filing as a single person). We're all subject to the same rates every step of the way. We all benefited from the Obama tax cuts, and under the Pelosi plan we will all retain all of them, except for the taxable income over the highest income threshhold.

-more-

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2010/120510Cherbonnier.shtml

[somone]

1. The WSJ editorial pages are outlandish trash

and have no credibility. It's always been that way.

[Cassandra]

2. What were the WSJ's editors thinking?

They were thinking how delicious Rove's tasseled loafers taste.

[Moostache]

3. WSJ is a joke already, has been for some time.

The only people who make book by its words are the cheerleaders and ideologues who only see what they want and only listen to what they want to anyway. Its just emblematic of the entire press - indeed the country itself - in the U$ofA.

[ellenfl]

4. wsj's opinion pages have been rw for a long time. eom

[Blue_Tires]

5. i didn't know people trusted the WSJ op-ed before...

it's been far right as long as i've been reading...

[Octafish]

6. Rupert Murdoch

G.O.P.

[Enthusiast]

7. The WSJ should never

be cited as source of information. They have zero credibility, just like Fox News.