Obnoxious, and Obnoxiously Biased, NY Times Reporter is Wrong

A "F**k you, Jeb Bush" tweet got a NY Crimes reporter reprimanded (of course, not fired, but reprimanded so that the Crimes can maintain the fiction that they have journalistic standards, but not have to actually abide by them).

The guy seems to have a very rigid and unnuanced view of the interplay between social pathologies and economic well-being.  He thinks that you are poor first, and that destroys your family.  Maybe, but there is beaucoup research establishing social pathologies as both a significant cause and impediment to economic mobility and prosperity.  Take it from WRM, highlighted in this old NBfPB post.

Actually, there’s plenty of evidence that unwed childbearing, father absence and fraying kinship and community networks exacerbate the problems of low-income people and make it incredibly hard for them to gain a foothold in the middle class. These are thorny problems that aren’t easily solved by the kinds of government measures Obama champions. So his speech says very little about the ways that strong marriages, family stability, or a robust role for churches in helping struggling Americans improve their lives can all improve economic mobility in this country. These social and cultural factors are arguably root causes of inequality, and it’s a pretty conspicuous omission to ignore that in a presidential speech on the subject.

And, as perhaps Timesman Richardson is unaware, black families were much more economically well-off in the first half of the 20th century, relative to today, when their families were substantially more intact (they may have had other valid social/civic complaints, but that is not at issue here).  The disintegration of the black family is the undeniable salient factor in economic stagnation/deterioration in the black community over the last few decades, despite massive redistributive fiscal policies at all levels of government.

Not sure which is a bigger offense in this case, the guy's unhinged and obnoxious bias or his butt-hurting ignorance.

Final thought, this may be why very few people read the Crimes and it is dying.

UPDATE:  Ahem. and Um-hmmm