Jonah and others a while back mentioned the Media Matters report alleging a pronounced conservative bias on the nation’s op-ed pages. While I suspect that a careful analysis of the data would, indeed, demonstrate that conservative/libertarian columnists have a somewhat-larger reach than liberal/progressive ones, the Media Matters piece was far from careful, as I observed elsewhere.

Nor is the explanation offered — that the nation’s far-right media owners just won’t let progressives have their say — a valid one. Sure, there are conservative editors that don’t run liberals, in my experience more of them than liberal editors who don’t run conservatives. But these are editorial decisions, not dictated by a publishers’ conspiracy. Moreover, without factoring in the political leanings of editorial boards, local and regional columnists, and the (increasing) use of free op-ed material from universities, think tanks, and such, it is impossible to present a useful picture of the balance of political views offered serious readers of daily newspapers in the U.S. That was, of course, not Media Matters goal to start with.

The reason I bring this up today is that I just read a syndicated column by Robert Koehler, who is an editor at Tribune Media Services (the nefarious outfit that distributes Jonah’s canine-coddling bilge). If a conservative conspiracy runs the opinion-column industry, it’s hard to imagine how Koehler got this piece past the censors. Ridiculing the veneration of Ground Zero and the revulsion many felt at the prospect of Iranian thug Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting it, Koehler offers this asinine bit of hyperbole and paranoia:

Gone, vanished, also were the hideous memories and images of Abu Ghraib and American GIs torturing bad Iraqis and, of course, the war crimes and sheer slaughter (hundreds of thousands dead) and the spread of toxic, cancer-causing substances such as depleted uranium; and the EPA’s false, post-9/11 all-clear that allowed Wall Street to reopen in asbestos-rife air; and embarrassing memories of the lack of adequate protective gear for the rescue workers, some of whom (as documented by Michael Moore) can’t get health coverage today to deal with their respiratory afflictions.
Who cares about this stuff when the Beast of Iran is in town and threatening to lay a wreath at and thereby defile the hallowed landmark that gives us permission to keep fighting for God and oil?
This hallowed landmark, this Pearl (or “Perle,” as in neocon Richard) Harbor of the new millennium, is indeed God’s answer to the report that issued forth from the think tank called Project for the New American Century, whose members included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz, in September 2000, yearning for a hefty increase in the military budget and U.S. hegemony in the Persian Gulf. All it would take, Lord, for this to happen in a timely manner, the report explained, is “some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.”
And voila, a year later, God and the cousins of the demons in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s soul (they all look alike, y’know?) did the dirty deed, brought down the Towers — and galvanized a nation, a presidency and a prior agenda.

Ah, but perhaps placing Koehler at Tribune Media Services is just an act of repressive tolerance. Not being a progressive, I suppose I am just mentally incapable of appreciating the complexities and nuances of the situation.