Fred Hiatt

In just a few days, Americans will give thanks for their blessings and celebrate them by stuffing themselves with a bountiful feast. Despite this beloved tradition, many in the news media disapprove of overeating and continue to call for taxes on certain foods, and increased regulation.

Time magazine's website, includes an "Ideas" section with what it calls "Essential Insights. Great Debates. Informed Opinions." It was there that Shannon Brownlee, director of the liberal New America Foundation's (which is funded by George Soros' Foundation to Promote Open Society) Health Policy Program, recently called for more regulation under the guise of "public health."

How could anyone oppose big government activism when both Michelle Obama and Elmo the Muppet favor it? It was unfathomable to Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt in his December 26 article 'How did obesity become a partisan fight?'

To a doctrinaire liberal like Hiatt, it's illegitimate to question whether government should be concerned with personal nutrition. Instead, he belittles opposing views with his snarky quips. "Could anyone really object to White House assistant chef Sam Kass trying to interest Elmo in a vegetable-laden burrito? Well, yes, if Michelle Obama is for it, someone will be against it. Someone like Glenn Beck, for example, who was moved to rail against carrot sticks, or Sarah Palin, who warned that Obama wants to deprive us all of dessert."

What Hiatt failed to realize is the real debate over excessive federal intervention where it doesn't belong. After listing some of the first lady's 'Let's Move' initiative, he said 'All of this makes total sense, and historians will marvel (much as they will at climate-change deniers) that anyone could doubt it.' And since global warming is the real cause of the winter blizzard according to the December 25 New York Times so it must be true, right?

Looks like Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt sort of put his foot in his mouth -- or his pen as the case may be -- in an April 27 editorial where he as much as called America's older workers "lumbering" and less talented than "younger, nimbler" employees. In a nation that has one of its largest blocks of citizens in the "older" category, those over 40, it seems like Hiatt just insulted the largest number of Americans. Not the best way to sell newspapers, eh?

In his headlined "600,000 Bad Hires? Making Federal Jobs Cool Once Again," Hiatt seems to be urging The One to come to the rescue of the jobs market. Well, not real jobs, but government jobs, anyway.