(continued)

The most important discretion a reporter has is not the slant he may try to put on a particular story; it's his ability to choose what to write about and what to ignore. Recently, Kurtz's solution to his dual-loyalty problem has been to ignore one of his employers almost completely. According to Nexis and the Washington Post's own website, during the past 12 months, the one subject the media reporter for the Post has almost never written about is ... CNN.

This sort of benign neglect couldn't come at a better time for CNN, since many of Kurtz's own colleagues believe the news network has gotten so tabloidy and superficial that it's no longer worth watching at all. Or, in the words of one senior Washington Post editor, "The people running CNN today aren't fit to clean your shoes."

All of this might be forgivable—or at least understandable—if Kurtz did a great job of covering the rest of his beat. But while he may well be the most energetic reporter in Washington, he also has unbelievably bad judgment.

The latter quality was on full display last week in the 2,800-word love letter Kurtz wrote to MSNBC host Chris Matthews, just in time for Valentine's Day, on the front page of the Post's Style section. Among the gems of Kurtzian analysis:

• "Matthews is the childlike genius with an uncanny command of political arcana who is sometimes oblivious to his own erratic behavior. In a world of scripted anchors, he fuses passionate punditry with a self-absorption so intense he likes being mocked on Saturday Night Live. Love him or hate him, it's hard to avert your eyes."

• "He enjoys the towel-snapping banter of the locker room, praising women's looks on camera and off. For that matter, he also jokes about people's ethnicity, saying that the Irish hold grudges and teasing pals about being Jewish."

• "His mind wanders the cultural landscape, often leaving guests speechless, as he compares Obama to Lawrence of Arabia one day and Mozart the next."

• "In the end, Matthews wants to keep swinging away with his racket, aiming for that chalk line."

This is typical of Kurtz's warm embrace of fellow members of the permanent Washington press club. But as Eric Alterman documented in his fine book What Liberal Media?, there is another love that Kurtz dares to speak all the time.

Kurtz recently described himself to Media Matters as a "down-the-middle reporter who doesn't consider ideology," even though his second wife is a Republican campaign consultant. But careful students of the Kurtz oeuvre know how often, and how easily, he falls hopelessly in love with Washington conservatives—especially if they happen to be youngish, boyish, or good-looking.

Here are some of Alterman's examples of Kurtz's serial love affairs:

• "Ari Fleischer Likes to Serve Up His Spin With a Smile" was the headline on Kurtz's profile of Bush's first press secretary in the White House. Fleischer was loathed by the presidential press corps, and began his tenure by wildly exaggerating the vandalism supposedly committed by departing Clinton staffers. But Kurtz opined that he had "nearly played error-free ball as Bush's spokesman," and the reporter marveled that Fleischer was "a star accustomed to the pressure-cooker life of White House flackery."

• Rich Lowry of the National Review "oozes niceness" and boasts an "aw-shucks charm and boyish grin" while offering a "sting [that] is usually softened by a soothing wit."

• "Right Face, Right Time: Conservative Bill Kristol Carves a Niche for Himself as the Friendly Contrarian." Part of Kurtz's evidence for that "contrarian" nature: Kristol was "that rarity in Manhattan, a Mets fan." That enraged Alterman so much that he pointed out that in 1970 (when he and Kristol were both growing up in New York), the "Mets outdrew the Yankees in home attendance by nearly 250 percent ...The Yankees, beginning in 1965, were a lousy team with no personality, while the Mets were the city's beloved bums who rose to greatness in one of the most inspiring sports stories of the century [after they won the World Series in 1969]. ...There was nothing remotely contrarian ever about being a Mets fan, save for Kurtz's desire to paint Kristol as a hero on such flimsy ground."

• Tucker Carlson "exudes an unmistakable sense of California cool ... He is by all accounts devoted to his wife ... He goes to church every Sunday."

• Sean Hannity: "What's the 40-year-old conservative talker's secret? Hannity says he's still the same blue-collar guy who grew up as the son of a Long Island probation officer, delivered newspapers at age eight, later tended bar and flipped hamburgers, dropped out of college and became a building contractor and father of four children." Alterman suggested this possible alternative to that sentence: "Hannity says he has become a total jerk, whose millionaire lifestyle has allowed him to live a life of endless champagne, caviar, and call girls."

Finally, there is Kurtz's purest love of all, for the incomparable Andrew Sullivan, whom Kurtz has managed to quote more than 75 times in 10 years.

That's because Sullivan is "a pugnacious writer with a superhero's capacity for multiple identities ... a brainy Brit immersed in lowbrow American culture ... a caustic conservative in the liberal magazine universe. ... [Possessing] a college debater's tenacity and a showman's flair, the Adams-Morgan resident has a grand old time surprising and infuriating his friends, his enemies, and for added spice, his employers."

On the other hand, after David Brock turned his back on the conservative movement, this is how Kurtz started his profile of him: "David Brock is a liar. And a character assassin. And a turncoat. And a partisan hatchet man. And a lonely, tortured soul. And a practitioner of malicious journalism. And a bizarre guy. That, at least, is how he describes himself."

Alterman's bottom line: "...Howard Kurtz loves conservatives but has little time for liberals ... Given the power and influence of his position, [this is] not unlike having the police chief in the hands of one faction of the mob."

Over at Media Matters last December, Eric Boehlert reached exactly the same conclusion: Kurtz "remains chronically oblivious to breaking stories that have a strong progressive media angle" while simultaneously displaying "a chronic overeagerness to amplify any minor media story being advanced by conservatives."

There are two lessons from Kurtz's career. First of all, there is never any penalty for a Washington reporter who relentlessly sucks up to the right. Secondly, his extraordinary productivity is vastly more important to his editors than his blatant conflicts of interest—and his dreadful judgement.

The Kurtz brand has gotten so large that he's routinely allowed to violate some of journalism's most basic principles—and his superiors don't even seem to notice anymore.

	Meet the Press (NBC–Russert)	Face the Nation (CBS–Schieffer)	This Week (ABC–Stephanopoulos)
White Men	7	5	16
White Women	3	1	2
Black Men	1	1	2
Black Women	0	0	0
Gay People	0	0	0
Beagles	0	1	0

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Seen Something? E-mail to alert me to anything you see that warrants high praise or high dudgeon.

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Charles Kaiser is the author of The Gay Metropolis and 1968 in America. He has been media editor for Newsweek, a member of the metro staff of the New York Times, and a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, where he covered the press and book publishing. He has also written for Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times, New York, The Washington Post, The New York Observer, Rolling Stone, Details, Interview, The Advocate, Vogue, and Salon. He has taught journalism at Columbia and Princeton. To find out more, visit charleskaiser.com.
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