HOW IS R.W. APPLE STILL EMPLOYED?

Read Jack Shafer’s alternately hilarious and damning piece about New York Times “news analyst,” Johnny Apple. Apple makes MoDo look well-informed. Only in the cocoon of 43rd Street could such a writer, who gets everything wrong, contradicts himself from day to day, and writes in prose worthy of Anne Lamott could still get front-page play day after day. I guess he performs something of a purpose. As Will Saletan notes, “How will we know when the coalition has won the war? The day Johnny Apple says they’ve lost it.” Actually, the day before.