The Left wants to the press to do a better job, the Right wants to undercut their credibility.
I don't know why this is too hard to comprehend. It's been an obvious difference in the critique of the press since I've been paying attention to such things. The Post's ombudsman just wrote something along the lines of "the right forgets how mean we were to Clinton and the Left wants us to be an adjunct of Moveon.org."
Uh, no, the issue is that the Left remembers how shitty and unfair you were to Clinton and ALSO remembers how Walter Pincus can't get published on Page 1. It's the Right which has been spewing the "liberal media" drumbeat for decades as idiots like Bernie Goldberg were paraded around the media while the Left has been screeching Please Do Your Jobs Better.
I think at this point the only explanation is that the New Republic is about to go belly up and all their writers are angling for jobs. I know Foer in particular is smarter than this.
