(Posted by John.)

I have family in the (Canadian) media, so I’m always wary of out-and-out condemnations of the news business for allegations of incomepetence, ideologically favoring the right, or many of the other accusations that get thrown around. I admit that family ties aren’t the most logically sound reasons for caution, but what can I say.

That said, it seems to me that with the Washington Post’s front-page story of GOP patronage in Iraq today, we now have three stories that the mainstream media – two of them from the WaPo, one from the New York Times – that should have been widely known and repeatedly cited during the 2004 election campaign, and were not (to my memory.)

Ezra Klein is a former Prospect writer and current editor-in-chief at Vox. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Slate, and The Columbia Journalism Review. He’s been a commentator on MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and more.