Earlier this week, I described how the revisions to D.C.’s criminal code, which are being portrayed in the media as ‘soft of crime’, in reality are anything but soft of crime. If you’re a “hang ’em high” kind of guy, there’s a lot to like about this bill. But our political press corps, which is based in D.C., has worked itself into a tizzy, and is scribbling things like this:

Parker is defending a ludicrous Washington Post editorial blaming the commission that revised the D.C. criminal code for its problems getting through Congress, when, in fact, the Washington Post editorial board, having misread the code (and its lengthy explanations of why changes were made), helped whip up the feeding frenzy (the Colbert King contingent is strong at the Post). It’s absurd because violent crime isn’t spiraling out of control*–if you actually look at the data, it’s declined, and is at its lowest point since 1985.

This isn’t just a matter of ‘someone is wrong on the Internet’, nor is it a problem of a journalist engaging in ‘activism’ (though it is interesting to see what is viewed as obvious non-political statements and what is viewed as aCtIvIsM!). The Washington Post staff seems to lack basic reading comprehension (not the first time either). They are being lazy and not doing the work, and actively misinforming their readers–and unlike the political action committee known as Fox News, with Fox, you know what you’re getting, but the Post claims to be objective.

It’s just so lazy and incompetent. This subscriber is not happy.

*My guess this misperception partly stems for the frenzy over carjacking coverage and partly from the homeless becoming far more visible, especially near the Washington Post offices (they won’t admit the latter though).