The Washington Post has a big, front-page, above-the-fold article today, headlined, “Budget would cut civil rights positions” and “Diminished federal role in fighting discrimination” and “Cuts part of broader effort to curtail federal programs on civil rights.” That’s quoting the hard copy; the online version is perhaps even worse: “Trump administration plans to minimize civil rights efforts in agencies.” The article itself declares as a matter of fact that the Trump administration wants “to rein in government programs that promote civil rights” and “dismantle compliance efforts” and that it is “reducing the role of the federal government in fighting discrimination and protecting minorities.”

Well, democracy may die in darkness, but don’t count on the Washington Post to shed any meaningful light on the truth. This isn’t reporting; this is just stenography, writing down whatever disgruntled bureaucrats and left-wing activists dictate.

The story starts with the budget’s proposal to combine two agencies that police private-sector compliance with federal anti-discrimination directives in employment. Not so outrageous (and indeed not a proposal that some conservatives are entirely happy with). The administration’s proposal regarding its “environmental justice program,” the Post’s second item, is likewise a matter of reorganization. The Post’s third item, regarding the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, involves only an extremely modest budget cut, $1.7 million out of $108.5 million according to another Post article. And that’s it, with respect to civil-rights budget matters.

What the administration is doing, but what the Post doesn’t get to until the jump-page, is to change the Obama administration’s policies with regard to some LGBT issues and the federal micromanagement of state and local police. Thinking that the Obama administration was wrongheaded in these areas cannot fairly be labeled a war on civil rights. And cutting the budget of an out-of-control bureaucracy like the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is long overdue if it is to be put back on the track of enforcing laws instead of rewriting or ignoring them.

Indeed, if the Trump administration is to be faulted for anything, it is for not doing more, and one hopes that eventually the Trump administration will be more aggressive in redirecting civil-rights enforcement. It needs, in particular, to reverse Obama-administration policies that endorsed politically correct racial discrimination (a.k.a. affirmative action) and the aggressive use of the “disparate impact” approach (which likewise encourages race-based rather than merit-based decision-making in a host of areas, such as school discipline and criminal background checks by employers and ballot-security measures).

The bureaucrats and left-wing activists won’t like that either, and the Post will condemn it, but guess what? These people will never support this administration and, if they did, it would be because it had abandoned the people who elected it, along with the principles of colorblind government and the rule of law.