Is the Washington Post allergic to the word "ultraliberal"? Yes. Here's Exhibit A.
The top of the Sunday Style section of the Washington Post celebrated the far-left protest group Code Pink, complete with colorful pink pictures. Reporter Libby Copeland’s gooey feature was headlined "Protesting for Peace With A Vivid Hue and Cry / Code Pink’s Tactics: Often Theatrical, Always Colorful." Only once in this long piece on "peace" was there a label for the group. Their rented house was a "sort of lefty group home you might expect to find on the outskirts of a college campus. Here, though, some of the lefties double as grandmas."
Inside the section, another gooey headline introduced a full page of text and color pictures: "Activists Are Flush With Hue & Purpose." Copeland explained that Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin said "‘Crazy male testosterone’ was poisoning the planet...fun and outrageousness might save it." Outrageousness? Such as? At the group’s founding retreat, "the discussion about creating Code Pink ended with her suggesting – ‘in the spirit of joy and exorcism’ – that the women do nude cartwheels. And they did."
The only other nod to a label came from the Code Pink women hugging "Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a liberal Democrat from Hawaii (‘He’s wonderful,' Benjamin says.)"
It's not hard to guess where Code Pink stands, since we're told about them unfurling a three-story banner reading 'VOTE PEACE / FIRE BUSH," and the woman wearing the prison-orange jumpsuit with the "GONZALES, A" on the back. She later steps out of the jumpsuit to reveal tank top that says IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY. But Copeland also didn't note the group's "visceral hatred" for Team Bush the way that the Posties did during the Clinton years.
There are no critics of the protesters in the Copeland piece. There's no Democrats who think they're too radical, or "peace" groups who disagree with their tactics, no Capitol Police to disagree with their bizarre claim that they're loved by the cops, and certainly no conservatives to suggest they're not just anti-war, but fans of tyrants like Fidel Castro.
On the Post website, readers can also see a very pink photo layout (most of which appeared in color in the Sunday Post) and a washingtonpost.com video by Lucian Perkins, which looks a lot like a Code Pink promotional video, complete with Medea Benjamin's narration. You can see Code Pink shove and tussle with the Capitol Police and then protest the police brutality. You can see Code Pink members confront Congressman Trent Franks ("he's one of the worst," the Pink-o says after he tells her to take it to bin Laden). And there's weird footage of Code Pink protest theater with some oddball named "Reverend Billy" from the "Church to Stop Shopping." The video link is here.
