I think his column is mostly good sense, but the defense of Newsweek is weak.

“Countless conservatives say the folks at Newsweek were quick to believe the atrocity tales because they share the left-wing, post-Vietnam mentality. On his influential blog, Austin Bay writes that the coastal media ‘presume the worst about the U.S. military – always make that presumption.’

“Excuse me, guys, but this is craziness. I used to write for Newsweek. I know Mike Isikoff and the editors. And I know about liberals in the media. The people who run Newsweek are not a bunch of Noam Chomskys with laptops. Not even close. Whatever might have been the cause of their mistakes, liberalism had nothing to do with it.”

So: Brooks doesn’t know the cause of the mistakes, but he’s sure that “liberalism had nothing to do with it.” To think that liberalism had something to do with it is “craziness.” The reason we can be sure it’s craziness is that the people at Newsweek “are not a bunch of Noam Chomskys with laptops.” I assume we can read this as a denial that Newsweek reporters and editors seek consciously to advance a liberal agenda through the magazine’s reporting. I don’t disagree with that denial.

But isn’t Brooks excluding a lot of middle ground here? Couldn’t it be that the reporters and editors tend to be liberal, and that their liberalism influences their decisions? Or is that more “craziness”?