Tony Blankley is a hypocrite

Here's a guy who's editorial page editor for The Washington Times. He's a blowhard on "The McLaughlin Group," a show that surely does Jon Stewart proud (not). And he's a sycophant with a curricula vitae that includes a seven-year stint as press secretary for former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich.

Blankley's only redeeming moment, come to think of it, was when he wrote for George Magazine, the late John F. Kennedy Jr.'s pride and joy. It's a publication that no longer exists, which leaves Blankley bereft of his one respectable professional accomplishment.

Blankley, in case you haven't figured it out, is a right-wing henchman. On "Hardball With Chris Matthews" this evening, Blankley decried the era of gotcha journalism that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein heralded in early 1970s Washington, D.C.

The role of the press in the Watergate scandal, according to Blankley, held President Richard Nixon to a standard higher than those that previous presidents observed and withstood. In this way, acording to Blankley, Nixon was selectively indicted by a media that looked the other way just 10 years earlier when left-wing heroes such as JFK crossed the line. If we are to believe Blankley, crossing the line of ethics has been a commonplace presidential practice stretching back to the infancy of the republic.

Maybe so, but Blankley took advantage of the gotcha climate he despises when he decided to join a right-wing jihad against President Bill Clinton. An entrenched ethos, investigative journalism as defined by the Watergate scandal may not be all the good things its proponents contend, but surely its legacy has been more beneficial than the political hypocrite's.