Avalanche of Dumb

Juan Williams can't understand why Markos Moulitsas would be given his own column in Newsweek (ideologically balanced out by Karl Rove, by the way) because he's not a "real journalist." This is the traditional media conceit, of course, that you're not one of them unless you came up through the struggle the way they did. Steve Benen demolishes this nonsense:

Juan Williams said this while answering questions from Sean Hannity, during an interview on Fox News.

The irony was apparently lost on the host, the guest, and the audience. What a shame.

Indeed, I’d just add that the closer one looks at Williams’ complaint, the stranger it seems.

* “[T]he fact is that he’s not a journalist in terms of someone who knows how to do reporting.” — I’m obviously not in a position to speak for Markos, but I don’t think he’s ever claimed to be a journalist, and as far as I can tell, Newsweek didn’t hire him to be a journalist. He’ll be an occasional contributor. As a prominent political player, that hardly seems like an unreasonable move for a magazine like Newsweek to make.

Also, the fact that he studied journalism in college, ran the student newspaper, worked for the Guardian two years ago covering British elections and interned at a major paper certainly makes him more of a journalist than Sean Friggin' Hannity:

Hannity attended St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary in Uniondale in Long Island, graduating in 1980 with a high school diploma... He dropped out of New York University because of financial issues, and decided to pursue a radio career.Hannity hosted his first talk radio show in 1989 at the volunteer college station at UC Santa Barbara, KCSB-FM, while working as a general contractor The show aired for 40 hours of air time and, according to Hannity, he was terrible.Hannity's weekly show was cancelled after less than a year when KCSB management charged him with "discriminating against gays and lesbians" after two shows featuring the book The AIDS Coverup: The Real and Alarming Facts about AIDS by Gene Antonio. The station reversed its decision to dismiss Hannity due in part to a campaign conducted by the Santa Barbara Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Hannity decided against returning to KCSB.

After leaving KCSB, Hannity placed an ad in radio publications presenting himself as "the most talked about college radio host in America," and WVNN in Athens, Alabama (part of the Huntsville market) hired him to be the afternoon talk show host. From Huntsville, he moved to WGST in Atlanta in 1992, filling the slot vacated by Neal Boortz, who had moved to competing station WSB. In September 1996, Fox News founder Roger Ailes hired the then relatively unknown Hannity to co-host the television program Hannity & Colmes with Alan Colmes.

Juan Williams doesn't like Kos because he doesn't know his address. He doesn't live in the Village.