Instapulp

This is odd. Instapundit complains that a newspaper columnist is being dishonest. Instapundit notes correctly that the newspaper column did not quote the full post that it targeted, but the suggestion that Instapundit "lumped in" reporters' failure to cheer at the death of al-Zarqawi with other instances of press "misconduct" doesn't seem terribly far off. Instapundit certainly seems to find the anecdote consistent with his repeated insinuations that reporters are on the wrong side of the war.

In any case, the newspaper column is not as far off base as Instapundit's insistence that Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz "went out of his way" to use the cheering as evidence that the press was "properly patriotic." Kurtz did nothing of the sort. He simply noted in a paragraph that Zarqawi had been killed and accurately quoted an AP story about media reaction. Kurtz didn't cite the story as evidence of anything. Nor did Kurtz's piece need a "correction." Neither he nor the AP reporter wrote nothing about the nationality of the reporters.

Newspaper columnists are fair game, obviously, but bloggers who misuse what columnists write shouldn't complain when the same thing happens to them.