How dishonest is Wes Pruden’s Times? "Pathological" would be a good place to start. On Monday, the paper’s page 2 "CULTURE et cetera" column ran this clip from Andrew Sullivan’s web site:

What’s so amazing about that clip-job? Sullivan placed these idiot comments on his web site last Thursday, November 8—four days before the WashTimes ran it. The following day, he took it all back—noting that he had been deceived by an "appallingly slanted" piece in the Washington Times! (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/9/01. Incredibly, Sullivan hadn’t read Clinton’s speech when he posted his original, astonishing comments.) But Pruden’s paper runs on deceit; it exists to lie, dissemble and deceive you. Imagine! Knowing that Sullivan had renounced his essay—and knowing that he’d blamed the Times for its errors—the Times went ahead and published it anyway, not telling its readers about his later reversal. People who will lie in your faces like that are people who will lie in your faces about anything. There’s a word for Wes Pruden and his slimy little band. And you know that word—anti-American.

But then, high buffoonery is now the norm all over your Washington press corps. Consider the performance turned in Thursday night by Brit Hume and his gang of Fox "all-stars." Joseph Curl’s dissembling piece had appeared in the Washington Times just that day. With a slippery article—and a bogus headline—the Times was pulling its latest scam. With the practiced deceit that is Wes Pruden’s trademark, the paper was falsely suggesting that Clinton had said that, on September 11, we got what we deserved.

You’d think that journalists would check very closely before offering comment on charges like that. For example, you’d think they might check out the AP report of Clinton’s speech, which had been sitting on the wire since Wednesday. Why, you’d even think that an overpaid scribe might read Clinton’s speech before making a comment. In matters like this, you could even imagine that major pundits might want to know what they’re talking about.

If you think that, of course, it means one thing—you’ve never watched Special Report. Hume opened last Thursday’s panel with a quick clip from Clinton’s vile speech:

Blameless for what? It wasn’t quite clear. Then Brit played a slightly longer excerpt:

Those were the only clips played from Clinton’s lengthy presentation. And then the Gang of Three began to discuss What It All Meant—and it quickly became clear that none of the three had ever looked at the actual speech.

For the record, the clips that embarrassing Hume played this day were a fleeting, trivial part of this speech. The excerpts had almost nothing to do with what Clinton went to Georgetown to say. By the way, does anyone doubt that "here in the United States, we were founded as a nation that practiced slavery," or that "we are still paying the price today" for the moral errors in our nation’s racial past? These fleeing comments are utterly commonplace—and they had almost nothing to do with the overall thrust of Clinton’s actual speech.

But when the heralded "all-stars" began to talk, it was clear that none of them knew this. In fact, it was perfectly clear that none of the three had even read through Clinton’s speech. None, of course, was honest enough to say that he just wasn’t able to comment. Each one fumbled and phonied along, sometimes seeming not to know that it’s even possible to read a real speech.

Consider Mara Liasson, for example. Fred Barnes, commenting first, said he doesn’t feel any guilt about slavery. (Clinton hadn’t said that he should.) And he said, "I don’t understand why [Clinton] wants to join the ‘we don’t come to this with clean hands’ school. That’s ridiculous." (There’s no sign that Clinton was saying that, either.) No matter. Fred folded his arms as he closed. Then Brit turned to unprepared Mara:

Mara didn’t have a clue. She "would have liked to have known" where Clinton was going. It didn’t seem to occur to the scribe that she could have found out by reading the speech. But now nit-picking Brit turned to Ceci Connolly—and Connolly didn’t have a clue either:

It "wasn’t clear to" her, "sort of," what "the larger message was"—because she hadn’t read the speech either. By the way, there was absolutely no sign—none at all—that Hume or Barnes had read Clinton’s speech. But that didn’t stop Inexcusable Barnes from drawing a bogus—and quite ugly—conclusion:

Repulsive, isn’t it? And anti-American? In truth, there isn’t a word in Clinton’s speech about "implying a moral equivalence between us and Usama bin Laden and his terrorists." But how in the world would Connolly know—she clearly hadn’t looked at the speech! On the other hand, she did understand her role on this show—she’s there to make snide remarks about Clinton’s motives. At a time of massive national stress, Connolly was too corrupt, too lazy, too empty to know what Clinton had actually said. But she was eager to keep the slander game going. How Roger Ailes beamed with pride!

So let’s see. Andrew Sullivan hadn’t read Clinton’s speech. Ceci and Fred hadn’t read the speech either. They still went ahead and explained what it mean. Our question: How in the world did losers like these get to play such key roles in our discourse?

Next: Trembling, knock-kneed, quaking in fear, Howard Kurtz knew his role. He kept quiet.

It got worse: Later that evening, Jeffrey Kuhner—the Washington Times assistant national editor—guested on the O’Reilly Factor. Remember, there’s nothing they won’t do and say at the Times. So Kuhner went ahead and said this:

Which part of "we have to win the fight we are in" doesn’t the slandering Kuhner get? And which part of this early statement escaped his careful gaze?

We could, of course, go on and on. But what would be the point of that? Jeffrey Kuhner was baldly lying—right in the face of O’Reilly’s viewers. And he was baldly slandering an important public figure. At times of great challenge, there’s a word for such conduct. And you know that word—anti-American.