Political literacy please

Reader comment on: Paul Singer's 'Witch Hunt'

Submitted by Ron Kampeas (United States), Aug 28, 2010 19:00

Ira, my 1973 edition of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines "witch hunt" as follows: "an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty, subversion, dishonesty, or the like, usually based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant."

Now, certainly, its use in this story suggests a bias by the Post and/or the reporter/hed writer. But, honestly, its partisan use here hews perfectly to the use cited 27 years ago (are you 27?) in my dictionary. Suggesting that the hed is neologistic, and that prior use *only* referred to the literal burning of innocents at the stake is specious. Ira, you're better than that.

And the journalists who are lobbying Congress for source protection laws collectively responsible for this attack on Singer? Has more than this New York Post writer said such subpoenas are "extremely rare"? Or is she leading this alleged onslaught on Congress, in some other capacity? Please elaborate. As for the NYT and WSJ, the former put "witch hunt" in quotes, making the phrase's bias clear; the latter is a list of stories of market interest, with circumscribed descriptions.

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