Mark Casey Online

When the New York Times speaks, people tend to listen. A sort of godly reverence characterizes even other media sources’ views of their work — as if they have some kind of secret, something that makes their coverage more “true” than anyone else’s. Even right-wing blowhards who are constantly bemoaning the NYT quote and cite from it regularly.

That’s why it was so sad to see Mark Leibovich’s epic hit job about how much he hates Chris Matthews today. Seriously. Set to appear in this sunday’s Times Magazine, it’s a nine-page litany of reasons why Leibovich personally detests Matthews, peppered audaciously with constant and unfounded suggestions that Matthews be taken off the air and, presumably, shot in the back lot.

The main criticism seems to be that Matthews isn’t liberal or conservative or young enough to draw the kind of partisan audience the cable networks feed off of these days. That may be true, but his show is also the best on TV. The Times paints him as a complete loon, but his coverage is far more balanced than anyone else who gets paid to talk about politics. It’s even keeled, and Matthews’ only sin appears to be turning off both liberals and conservatives because of his varied viewpoints, which regularly teeter back and forth between political ideologies.

Leibovich couches his criticisms in a “Chris has a loudmouth style which is going out of style,” sort of arrogance for a print writer. But he comes to that conclusion by comparing Matthews with on-air clowns Jon Stewart and Keith Olberman, both of whom fish for viewers by being “hilariously” unprofessional and devoting significant airtime to footage of dancing bears.

If that is indeed the future of “smart, young” political coverage, then put me on the same train Matthews boards out of town.

April Fools!

April 1st is traditionally the day people play tricks on one another, most often involving making someone believe something to be true, when it isn’t. Google, for instance, always has a great gag on the first of the month — last year it was pretending to offer Gmail users the option of printing out their entire inbox and having it mailed to them; this year, it was pretending to let you send emails and date them as having been sent in the past.

But leave it to the company that does pretty much everything backwards, Wal-Mart, to get the spirit of this day backwards. Instead of playing a joke, they told former employee Debbie Shank, who received brain damage while working for the company, that she didn’t have to pay them their money back.

Originally, they had paid out $470,000 or so under their health care plan. Then Debbie won a settlement from the trucking company, and Wal-Mart tried to take their money back, which under her contract, they’re allowed to do. The judge ruled, however, that they could only have $275,000, because, well — that’s every last dime she had. That’s after the half million from Wal-Mart put together with the half million from the trucking company. For those of you who are good at math, that means two things:

1. Wal-Mart did not give her enough money to pay for her injuries in the first place.

2. Perhaps more importantly, the doctors in this country charged this woman more than six hundred thousand dollars to “repair” (read: stabilize) her brain.

I’m not sure which is more outrageous, but the only real meaning we should take from this story is the following: Wal-Mart’s decision was voluntary. They wanted their money back, and they took it. Then, people were outraged, and enough of us got shitty with them to make them change their mind. Never forget that. You don’t need a judge, you don’t need new laws. You just need democracy.

Wal-Mart is also changing their health care contracts to better allow for situations like Debbie Shanks.

I’m proud of you, America.