The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has below its masthead the line, "ONE OF AMERICA’S GREAT NEWSPAPERS." No kidding. How the paper measures the greatness of itself is a bit of an unknown. How many papers have been vetted and found wanting? Or are we in the modern Little League of news organizations wherein all are judged a winner?

I suppose that if the field of greatness is expanded sufficiently, then one could assert with a passable straight face that the Post-Gazette is among the unspecified great. And yet, I wonder.

In today’s Sunday Forum section, where editorials live, the editors sought fit to publish Joe Lieberman’s Wall Street Journal OpEd. From last Tuesday.

Still, there are a very good selection of editorialists at the P-G. Jack Kelly does a great job of countering the whining attitude of the editors. Ann McFeathers writes consistently well. But sometimes, in the midst f making good points, the P-G’s columnists betray a certain, well, bias.

In Dennis Roddy’s column today about some of the more ridiculous activity that passes for Homeland Security, the author (a good writer, generally) can’t allow the story to be told and left for the reader. He has to trump up the bona fides of the woman profiled. Roddy’s story revolves around a woman who was arrested for not giving federal officers her identification:

Guards from the Federal Protective Services marched onto the bus,
took her away and charged her with two counts under the Code of Federal
Regulations — failing to comply with signs and directions and
violating the terms of admission to federal property.

"I caught the next bus that came through," she said. "I got to work. I
was like three hours late." She had to let her children know, including
her son, Dale, who is currently recovering from wounds he received
fighting for the U.S. Army in Iraq.

Now, I would be inclined to side with the woman, Deborah Davis. However, her argument has nothing whatsoever to do with her son’s service in Iraq, for which we all should be grateful. Ms Davis’ son’s injuries give her neither more nor less legitimacy in this case. But Roddy can’t help himself. Ah! The injustice of it all! This woman’s son was injured in Iraq and what thanks does she get? Hauled off to the federal pokey! Cheap Dennis. Really cheap.

In the same M.O. but on a different subject, Dan Simpson (who has done some good reporting from Morocco lately) heads straight for the showers in an otherwise innocuous trifle about the Christmas tree exhibit at The Carnegie.

He starts with a PC apology for being at the exhibit in the first place:

Wherever the fir tree falls in the historical transition in religion
from solar monotheism to other systems, including Christianity, for me
the December holidays have always had to include Christmas trees as an
essential part.

Well, I’m relieved that Dan considers a Christmas tree essential to, uh, Christmas. But I can even forgive him this, if only because it has become so painfully predictable. But near the end, in describing one tree that incorporated cows in the design, Simpson goes a little too near some rhetorical phase out:

The theme of the fifth tree was the man in the moon. It has an enormous
kite, with a dramatic tail, and seven cows under the tree. In addition
to "the cattle are lowing" mythology attached to musical accounts of
Christ’s birth in the manger, cows add a restful pastoral touch to any
tableau. If we could adopt a bovine, cow-like approach to some of what
is going on in the world, we would probably be better off, during the
holidays and in general.

Allow me to highlight the offending sentence:

If we could adopt a bovine, cow-like approach to some of what
is going on in the world, we would probably be better off, during the
holidays and in general.

Um, Dan? I don’t where you grew up or where you lived before Pittsburgh. But even us city folk understand that cows get slaughtered.

I’m wondering what the crappy papers run on Sunday.