The new "objective" ME at the WSJ

Rupert Murdoch's ideologues begin to take over a venerated newsroom:

When the Wall Street Journal named its new managing editor, Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson tells his staff: "Gerry (Baker) has had a distinguished career as a journalist at the BBC, Financial Times and The Times of London. ...In his most recent role in Washington as US Editor and Assistant Editor of The Times, Gerry has been a commentator and reporter, and so has a clear and principled understanding of the objective of objectivity."

So, here for your reading pleasure, is Baker's Feb. 22, 2008 masterpiece entitled, "Obama: is America ready for this dangerous left winger?"

A snippet:

There is a caste of left-wing Americans who wish essentially and in all honesty that their country was much more like France. They wish it had much higher levels of taxation and government intervention, that it had much higher levels of welfare, that it did not have such a “militaristic” approach to foreign policy. Above all, that its national goals were dictated, not by the dreadful halfwits who inhabit godforsaken places like Kansas and Mississippi, but by the counsels of the United Nations.

Though Mr Obama has done a good job, as all recent serious Democrats have done, of emphasising his belief in American virtues, his record and his programme suggest he is firmly in line with this wing of his party.

Ah, behold the intellectual superiority, the half-masked "harumph!" He left out the Freedom Fries, but you get the idea.

Granted, in the interest of fairness, that this is a column and as such should be opinionated. But go read the thing, GOP talking point after talking point, and see if you think this guy makes the WSJ's news operation any better.

Objectivity in the eyes of Murdoch. Can't say we didn't see this coming.

Charles

P.S.: Oh! But wait! There is more....here is Baker on the Murdoch broadcast platform.