Not just jackals, but dumb jackals

I'm not a big fan of the tendency of political activists to accuse news sources of bias. Nor am I a fan of news sources that claim to be unbiased. Desire to be, yes. Claim to be, no. Life just doesn't work that way. Fox is very clearly tilted to the right, CNN to the left, both toward the bottom line. Can we move on?

I am willing, however, to say very nasty things about the intelligence of some of our reporters. At some point, bias toward one ideology or another is not the real problem — or if it is, intelligence alone could provide the solution. (Bias occurs even in the most brilliant work; while stupidity and bias reinforce each other, it would be best not to blame bias for all of the world's problems.)

So why am I saying such insulting things today? Well, this morning NPR aired a report on some recent presidential remarks. Bush was defending himself against suggestions (coming from nowhere and everywhere) that the recent terror alert might have been politically motivated. The reporter (like so many I've heard recently) thought it appropriate to say (in a very significant tone of voice), "some of the intelligence leading to the alert was as much as four years old."

And some of it came from earlier this year.

How much intelligence (brain function) does it take to understand that intelligence (information and analysis) doesn't work on a weekly cycle? And that professional terrorists may, just may, lay plans more than 48 hours in advance? And that intelligence analysis done by experts with unfettered access to classified information may be more complicated than reading al Qaeda press releases?