If I was to sum up the state of American journalism in a nutshell, I wouldn’t cite the New York Times, despite all their scandals and self-inflicted tribulations. I wouldn’t mention that back in the days when the Washington Post was a newspaper, they didn’t work for the administration.

There are good, reliable papers, of course; the Sacramento Bee comes to mind, along with the Wall Street Journal (outside of their execrable opinion/editorial section) and the Christian Science Monitor.

But no. If I was going to sum up modern American journalism in a nutshell, I would say, "The Washington Times."

It’s owned by a foreign megalomaniac who absolutely hates the secular regime of the United States and wants to weaken it so he can try, once again, to take over America through his wacky church. It’s lost over a billion dollars over twenty-five years (and what honest businessman keeps a business going that loses money for twenty-five years and never shows a profit?) while loudly proclaiming that it is the true voice of the American people.

Its journalistic integrity is suspect, much the way a Pink Floyd concert is noisy.

It’s an extreme example, but in a time when the mass media is owned by Murdoch, Ailes, Scaife, and multinational corporations, it varies mostly only in that the owner is a religious nut as well as a right wing extremist, which makes him different from all the other right wing extremists who have taken over the media, with the exception of Christian broadcasting.

So I don’t like the Washington Times, and I don’t respect the Washington Times. The owner is on a monomaniacal quest to turn the US into a breeding ground for the Moonie church, and he’s willing to drop over a billion dollars to that end.

So, in the interests of openness, I must state at this point that when the Washington Times was massively embarrassed by an outrageously over-the-top hoax yesterday, I was delighted and roared with laughter.

For those who didn’t hear, the Times got an email letter to the editor, purportedly from the US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Stephan Minikes. In the letter, Minikes supposedly wrote that his staff was disloyal, and if he could, he would fire the whole lot of them and replace them with people loyal to President Bush.

The letter also attacked career diplomats -- calling the resident staff at all agencies, the top civil service echelons of the State Department, "true survivors ... in the jungle of political opportunism." While this statement is refreshingly candid, it’s generally not the sort of noises you expect to hear from a political appointee, most of whom understand that those "career diplomats" can make their sojourns extremely rewarding, or complete nightmares.

The letter supposedly finished up with a gaseous benediction on the Washington Times, calling them a beacon of light and truth, and telling them to keep up the good work.

Minikes had written to the Times before, but usually to give sober analyses of policy. He certainly never questioned the loyalty of his staff, or fumed about bureaucrats in the Diplomatic Corps. And diplomats are painstaking in their efforts to avoid playing favorites with such things as newspapers.

The Washington Times, always eager to make "bureaucrats" look bad and portray Putsch as a victim of liberal traitors, ate it up with a spoon. Apparently nobody thought the letter to be a bit . . . odd.

Minikes didn’t write the letter. Further, he described his views as diametrically opposed to those in the letter. He had a whole long list of pejoratives to describe that letter.

Minikes was not amused. The State Department was not amused.

I occasionally write letters to the editor for the Mt. Shasta Herald, and less frequently, the Sacramento Bee. While they usually get published, I’ve had statements challenged by Steve Gerace and John Jacobs, editors at those respective publications, both to ascertain that I wrote the letter, and to ask me to provide support for a statement I’ve made in the letter. (The only time I lost on such a challenge was when asked to prove that Ann Coulter made her remark about executing liberals as a lesson to the rest so they wouldn’t turn traitor – the editor apparently concluded that I must have taken it out of context, since no sane commentator would speak that way. Obviously, this was before Anthrax Annie wrote "Slander," let alone "Treason!").

Any reputable paper checks facts, and while the requirements on a letter to the editor are not anywhere near as stringent as those asked of the staff, they do check letters where the authorship might be suspect, or the content was particularly inflammatory.

But the Times saw a chance to bash bureaucrats for disloyalty, and ran the letter.

And it blew up in their faces.

Everyone gets caught by hoaxes, of course. I’ve passed along a couple of stories that turned out to have already appeared on the invaluable urbanlegends.com, and even got a story the other day claiming that Jeb Bush and Kathleen Harris had been killed in a plane crash just outside of Toronto. Since I happened to know that Jeb Bush had been in Toronto the day before, I nearly went with it before sipping coffee and thinking I should double check with the Guardian or someone.

But there’s a difference between looking foolish, and looking like a fool. The Times strode proudly over that line.

Now, I might absolutely despise Sun Myung Moon and his designs upon America, and I might question the intelligence and wisdom of the people working under him, but simple charity compels me to forget all that and reach down and extend the hand of comradeship and succor to those noble, betrayed men and women who strive so hard, each and every day, to Moonify America. It’s just the gentlemanly thing to do, and I certainly want to be a gentleman in these essays.

So without any further babble, I wish to present the Washington Times with a few tips for more effective fact checking.

Double check any letters from US diplomats that accuse their staff of treason. Even if the letter is signed "Ann Coulter." She is not the ambassador to France, and there’s a chance she might never be.
Letters from Supreme Court Justices usually don’t end with the salutation, "Megadittoes, Rush!" nor are they written on "Powerpuff Girls" stationery. The exception would be Clarence Thomas, but he uses "Hello Kitty" stationery.
You ever notice that letters from Hilary Clinton admitting that she murdered Vince Foster always have a Pittsburgh postmark?
Staff should treat as suspect any wire report from UPI claiming that the Pope has urged his followers to all join the Unification Church.
Alan Greenspan is unlikely to claim that the present half-trillion dollar deficit is caused by Clinton’s 1993 tax hike.
Benjamin Franklin is not a Baptist, and neither has he ever proposed that the Constitution acknowledge the divinity of Jesus. Besides which, the man has been dead for 200 years and so has better things to do than submit articles for publication in Insight Magazine.
The controversy over Iraq does not pale next to the crimes of Whitewater and Monicagate, and Saddam Hussein is unlikely to write letters to the Times admitting that this is the case.
You know that bit in the tabloid paper about aliens visiting the leading Presidential candidates every four years? This isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Sorreeee!
When Noam Chomsky writes to admit that he’s a senile old liar, exercise caution. Even if he were senile, it’s unlikely that he would spell his name "Nome Chomski". And he doesn’t live in Pittsburgh.
Newt Gingrich is not the most profound intellect America has produced since Thomas Jefferson. Nor is Tom DeLay. And George isn’t Churchillian. He isn’t even Atlee Clementian.

If the Washington Times follows these guidelines, it won’t keep them honest. But they won’t be as inept, so I’ll close by stating that I am a liberal, and thus should be completely ignored by the Times, and hope that their usual policy on such applies.

We need the laughs.