Mowing Down the Intellectual Dishonesty of The Boston Globe

In its zeal to undercut the presidential ambitions of its home-state governor, the Boston Globe engages in some blatant intellectual dishonesty this morning. Last week, the Globe breathlessly broke the story that a lawn care company that provides services to Mitt Romney has employees who are illegal immigrants. As the Globe archly put it: "as Governor Mitt Romney explores a presidential bid, he has grown outspoken in his criticism of illegal immigration. But, for a decade, the governor has used a landscaping company that relies heavily on . . . illegal Guatemalan immigrants." The Globe headlined its story: "Illegal immigrants toiled for governor." Toiled. Nice touch. Tote that rake, lift that lawnmower.

But as the Globe at least tacitly acknowledged in that article, the illegals didn't toil "for governor" but for their employer, a private-sector company by the name of Community Lawn Service with a Heart, run by a legal immigrant.

The Globe took its intellectual dishonesty a giant leap farther in its editorial of today, Who's cutting Romney's lawn? The paper flatly claims that "Governor Romney employed illegal immigrants to care for his lawn." And that is a flat lie, as the Globe well knows. Mitt Romney no more "employed" those illegals than the Globe's editorialist "employed" the illegal who prepared his lunchtime Whopper at BK - or was it his futomaki platter at Sushi Express? You might have thought that the Globe would have been shamed out of its lie by this column that, ironically, appears on its own op-ed page today.

But hey, why should the Globe care about the truth? It's got a Republican presidential candidacy to undermine here.

UPDATE: For more, check out Squaring the Globe. H/T to Harry Forbes.

Finkelstein lives in Ithaca, NY where he hosts the award-winning public-access TV show 'Right Angle.' Contact him at mark@gunhill.net