Lori Montgomery of The Washington Post is the Judith Miller of domestic reporting.

[Faygo Kid]

Lori Montgomery's hatchet job on Social Security in Sunday's Washington Post is consistent with her past reporting - namely, rip down everything that could possibly benefit the 99% so as to advance the 1%.

She does the bidding of her masters, just as Judith Miller did in beating the drums for the war in Iraq while at the New York Times. They are cut from the same cloth.

There are many questions about the substance, placement and timing of the Washington Post story. But it's irrefutable that on Tuesday the "supercommittee" will hold a hearing where Alan Simpson will "testify." Have no doubt that the WaPo story will be used at that hearing to claim that Social Security must be "reformed," meaning Draconian cuts to current beneficiaries and its ultimate demise, and soon.

Anyone confident the Dems will come out swinging in support of Social Security, and stick to it? Me neither.

I stand with the OWSers.

[InkAddict]

1. You would have thought those aspens would have all lost

their leaves by now; what's needed is a root-kill and stump rotter.

[PETRUS]

2. The CEPR responds

Washington Post Discards All Journalistic Standards In Attack on Social Security

News outlets generally like to claim a separation between their editorial pages and their news pages. The Washington Post has long ignored this distinction in pursuing its agenda for cutting Social Security, however it took a big step further in tearing down this barrier with a lead front page story that would have been excluded from most opinion pages because of all the inaccuracies it contained.

The basic premise of the story, as expressed in the headline ("the debt fallout: how Social Security went 'cash negative' earlier than expected") and the first paragraph ("Last year, as a debate over the runaway national debt gathered steam in Washington, Social Security passed a treacherous milestone. It went 'cash negative.'") is that Social Security faces some sort of crisis because it is paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes.

This "treacherous milestone" is entirely the Post's invention, it has absolutely nothing to do with the law that governs Social Security benefit payments. Under the law, as long as their is money in the trust fund, then Social Security is able to pay full benefiits. There is literally no other possible interpretation of the law.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/washington-post-discards-all-journalistic-standards-in-attack-on-social-security

More at the link.

[Faygo Kid]

3. I read that too. Surprised there isn't more outrage here on DU.

Maybe we are just resigned to the inevitable.

[PETRUS]

4. I check the CEPR's website almost every day.

And I'm grateful for what they do. There aren't many economists that provide media criticism in layman's terms.

As for resignation:

“I believe that no government can exist for a single moment without the cooperation of the people, willing or forced, and if people suddenly withdraw their cooperation in every detail, the government will come to a standstill.” -Gandhi

Just a thought...