Headline Fail

The headline on a Bloomberg.com story:

Tea Party Advocates Who Scorn Socialism Want a Government Job

What? Why, those…those…hypocrites!

Let’s delve into the story, shall we, the better to mock such rank hypocrisy:

March 26 (Bloomberg) — Tea Party activists, who are becoming a force in U.S. politics, want the federal government out of their lives except when it comes to creating jobs.

Yeah. Government jobs, I’ll bet. Right?

More than 90 percent of Tea Party backers interviewed in a new Bloomberg National Poll say the U.S. is verging more toward socialism than capitalism, the federal government is trying to control too many aspects of private life and more decisions should be made at the state level.

At the same time, 70 percent of those who sympathize with the Tea Party, which organized protests this week against President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, want a federal government that fosters job creation.

Um…wait…fosters job creation? That’s not quite the same as handing out government jobs. A government that fosters job creation…allowing that differences of opinion exist on how the government can best do that…well, what do they mean by that?

More stimulus money? Or lower taxes, less regulation? Higher tariffs or lower tariffs? FDR-like work programs or getting the hell out of the way?

The story doesn’t say. That’s the last word on job creation. Nowhere – nowhere – does it suggest that Tea Partiers “want government jobs.”

In my day, editors actually read stories before writing the headlines. Today is obviously not my day.

Via Memeorandum.