Aghast at ideological impurity

Somehow I manage to find the time to read something other than the Times, and I was surprised to find something in Mother Jones, the left-wing magazine, that I could not find a whisper of in the NYT.

It seems that the hostility between the rival Tea Party organizations is growing much worse, and one in particular, the Tea Party Patriots, is dishonest politically and fiscally. A variety of political hustlers of Republican alliances have flocked to lead the spontaneous Tea Party tide. And the outcome is becoming apparent. Mother Jones offers a detailed, though long, three-part series on this one group, with some praise from other Tea Partiers.

Tea Party Patriots Investigated: "They Use You and Abuse You"

Meanwhile, this morning the Times is running an odd piece that expresses surprise that neither liberals nor Tea Partiers are ideologically pure -- in the sense that the sympathies of their adherents don't exactly line up on all issues.

The particular issue is breast feeding, and Michelle Obama's promotion of it as one way to combat childhood obesity. Michele Bachmann, one of the white caps on the Tea Party lake, came out against a government push of breast feeding.

The Times, which to my ear has been extraordinarily kind to the Tea Party, sounds stunned when they learn that some conservatives applaud Mrs. Obama on breast feeding, and some liberals don't like it.

A Breast-Feeding Plan Mixes Partisan Reactions

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Coverage of the Middle East got interesting today.

The herd hustled over to the other countries with unrest, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya. (If you don't know what I mean by the herd, take a look at Evelyn Waugh's Scoop -- a message from 75 years ago that rings like a spoon on a crystal goblet.) In the herd this morning were CNN, Reuters, and the Washington Post, as well as others. Of course, the Times was there, too.

But the Times to its credit focused on questions about military rule, and therefore on the amount of freedom and reform that will be accomplished. There were two stories (why not, though one would do?), and lots of words, but the issue is central to the fate of these countries. The tone is a little weird, given that these questions were obvious from the beginning and, indeed, raised in various Times articles. The other news producers also mentioned it in a backhanded way, in particular with the discussion of the "Day of Victory" demonstration planned today.

Egyptians Say Military Discourages an Open Economy

Egypt’s Missing Stir Doubts on Military’s Vows for Change

But. Those damn buts.

There was better: a more succinct story with more angles in the Times's downtown rival, the Wall Street Journal. I'm going to quote the first paragraph here, but you may need to pay for it to read the whole thing:

"CAIRO—Egypt's youth activists and opposition leaders are beginning to jockey for position, jousting over their revolutionary credentials and firing off accusations of going soft on the military, as the camaraderie that united them at the height of the uprising is replaced by rough-and-tumble politics."

Splits Emerge Among Egypt's Young Activists

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