Who slimed Blanco?

Maybe the Post will try to find out.

Just when I was going to write a gloomy post about how the Bushites had managed to achieve down-the-memory-hole status for that little matter of a senior Administration official telling the press about Gov. Blanco’s alleged failure to declare a state of emergency which she had in fact declared a week earlier, ever-helpful Josh Marshall points to this item from an on-line Q&A with Washington Post Associate Editor Robert Kaiser:

Berkeley, Calif.: The Post published an incorrect report that the La. Governor had not declared a state of emergency about a week after she had. A White House source was cited. Why didn’t you check this? Do you know why the White House provided false info? Were they that clueless or that dishonest? I think The Post owes us some answers about its own work and the White House on this.

Robert G. Kaiser: This seems a fair point to me. I’m sitting here answering questions so can’t immediately find out what our plans are, but I hope they include revisiting this matter for our readers’ benefit.

It might be helpful if someone reminded Mr. Kaiser of this promise in one of next week’s chats, and did the same for the senior editorial staff of Time. The major media and the right-bloggers are still writing up the latest anti-Blanco spin from the Bushites without mentioning that some of the previous spin has become inoperative.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com