He probably shouldn't quit his day job, but Jason Horowitz may want to try his hand at an amateur comedy night sometime. After all, the Washington Post staff writer published a laughable 36-paragraph profile of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) today which hailed the senior New York senator as a leftie who has "embraced Obama's old bipartisan religion" of late "in a move to realize the president's second-term agenda."
"Casual viewers" of last week's inauguration ceremonies "could have been forgiven for mistaking Schumer for the president's Borscht Belt footman," Horowitz gushed, but, "Actually, he's become the president's right-hand man on Capitol Hill," which is "a remarkable development" for a Democrat who in Obama's first term "wanted to crush the opposition, not compromise."
While it's true that Schumer has joined a group of Democrats and Republicans to push a bipartisan immigration reform plan, it's absurd to paint him as a budding compromise-oriented centrist.
Even more laughable is how Post editors chose to publish a pull quote above the Style front-page photo wherein Democratic Party operative Vito Lopez gushes of Schumer that the Empire State "has not had someone of the stature and position of a U.S. senator of the caliber of Chuck Schumer in maybe 40 or 50 years."
Really?
What about the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.), a liberal statesman who was widely respected across the aisle and had a stellar record of public service in both Democratic and Republican administrations prior to serving in the U.S. Senate?
And what of outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Is she mincemeat to Lopez?
This isn't the first time Horowitz has written a gauzy piece about a liberal pol. Back in August, the Post feature writer offered readers a positive portrayal of "data-driven despot" Michael Bloomberg. In October 2010, Horowitz hailed retiring U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) with a positive piece that failed to find any detractors.
