In the eyes of the American Academy of Diplomacy, editorial bomb-thrower Jim Boyd is "perceptive," "non-partisan," and "truth-telling."

When an unhinged antiwar editor is called “perceptive,” “non-partisan” and “truth-telling,” something stinks.

The awful stench can be traced to blind partisanship, being totally disingenuous, or simply clueless. So which will it be for the the American Academy of Diplomacy?  Clueless, let's hope, for this respected Washington-based group recently anointed a notorious bomb-tossing Midwest editorial editor for its 2005 media award.

Mainstream journalists are known to toss accolades only to swingers from the left side. Self-aggrandizement?  After all, the near and far left side is where roughly 87% of journalists reside ideologically. Diplomats, too? Is this the cause of sieve-like leaking of national secrets to the press? Inner circle career bureaucrats’ subterfuge feeding their media allies — New York Times? – to sink the Bush administration?  Birds of a feather?

Editor & Publisher (E&P), the trade magazine, tosses bouquets to those who run and write for the nation’s newspapers. Its “Shoptalk” column in December is given over to a speech by a little known deputy editorial chief at a Midwest daily that's ranked by The Wall Street Journal among the top 10 leftist newspapers in the nation, a tag it richly deserves.

Jim Boyd is the editor’s name. For the uninitiated, he toils in flyoverland Minneapolis for the McClatchy Co.’s Star Tribune. Think of bomb-thrower Boyd as the print equivalent of Howard Dean. Got the picture?

So why does he rate the diplomats’ prize? This puzzle is not easily solved, made more enigmatic by his award citation's Orwellian doublespeak. The editor is called “perceptive,” “non-partisan,” even “truth-telling.“ Whew!  So much gibberish.  Where to start?

The citation recalls the Orwellian chant, “Ignorance is Strength!” It is "quintessential B.S.," as a local author, St. Paul's Vince Flynn‘s superhero Mitch Rapp might say, before bopping off or crippling some terrorist.

Rarely do firebrands on the left such as the Dean (“I hate Republicans”) and Boyd (“Bush misled”) reply to criticism. They run. They hide. They duck debate, preferring soapboxes. Their uppity “leftiness” will admit no contrary views, unlike the scrappy right.

Boyd’s disregard for fact and often, for plain truth, is comparable nationally to columnist Paul Krugman of the New York Times; to socialist Robert Scheer, ex of the Los Angeles Times; and to myopic Mary Mapes, ex of CBS News’s 60 Minutes. One thing in common: Facts don’t matter much to these intensely partisan media folks, agendas do.  Truth (with a small 't') suffereth.  

Reprinted in E&P, Boyd’s acceptance speech delivers aw-shucks faux humility. His opening line is real enough: “I have a very difficult time believing I deserve this award.” Legions of Twin Citians agree; it’s truly astonishing. Some say, jaws dropping, it's incredible.

Boyd’s speech quickly descends into deceit: "His" editorial pages were “with Bush [about Iraq] so long as he worked with the [UN] Security Council.” False.  Boyd’s paper from the git-go waged — and wages today — a savage name-calling war upon this president, their cheap-shot attacks hinting often of criminality. Boyd himself in a signed column from Germany equated Bush’s going-to-war policies with Herr Hitler’s. It’s the vile stuff of Moveon.org in your daily newspaper. Did I say stench? 

More fiction: When the president “decided to go it alone,” says Boyd, the editorial board parted company with him.  Humm.  But they parted ways years ago, first endorsing Gore, ripping "Lone Ranger" Bush, later libeling the Texan about going to war for “Halliburton profits" (darn capitalist!) and "handing Uzis to kids" (gun control freak). Daily, relentlessly, as if programmed,  the paper pounds on this president, and everyone associated with him, except Colin Powell. An editorial once even panned Bush’s too-rapid golf game.  Not time enough for “contemplation,” it opined soberly.  Likely to have time to mull his manifold presidential sins?  Such juvenile editorial drivel is simply absurd, inexcusable, worthy of scorn and derision, not honor, from the fair-minded. 

(Pssst: Catch the “alone” in “go it alone”? This just in: Great Britain and a coalition also fight with Iraqis in Operation Iraqi Freedom and against terrorism.)

E&P says Boyd’s work is met with “criticism from outside.” Yes, “outside.” That speaks to the insular world of the herd-like, “insider” mainstream media and their political allies on the left. Are insular diplomats in AAD similarly moonstruck?

Two stunning revelations in Boyd’s speech: (1) At least 200 Star Tribune subscribers canceled their papers owing to its editorial pages’ left-liberal excesses — yes, my take. And (2) U.S. Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN) met with the editor's publisher boss to “warn” him of Boyd being so unhinged as to suggest an “angry agenda.” It was even rumored the “aggressive” Boyd was being “associated with the loony left.” Truth Alert!  Senator Coleman (“no friend of Kofi Annan,” cleverly notes Boyd) nailed it.

Contrast that perception, likely reality, with the diplomats’ award citation. As if parody, it lauds the moonbat “…for critical [sic], perceptive [sic], non-partisan [sic] commentary on the policies of governments and international organizations, reflecting exhaustive [sic] research, a willingness to tell truth [sic] to power…” Whew!

Five “[sics]” in a row. Some sort of record?  False presumptions all, each a triumph of Brave New Worldish ad-speak hype over fact, of hyperbole over truth. Okay, so it’s only a dumb citation. Fun on an office wall to impress the unaware, like schoolkids passing through, or to pump up the resume, but it’s fiction. Only that.

E&P’s headline on the speech also skews reality: “Standing Up to ’Pushback’ on the Editorial Page.” “Pushback?”  Not at all. Boyd is not “standing up” to anything. Rather he is refuting his critics’ irrefutable facts with bile and bullying untruths. He is entitled to opinions, but not to facts. Old saw, it fits.

U.S. Navy swift boat vets are “liars” according to Boyd. All 262 of them, liars for telling their truths about Kerry’s dubious military record.  "Swifties'" supporters (including the POWs for Truth?) Boyd shrugs off as "thugs." Cheap dishonesty runs deep on the loony edges, both of them, of what passes for political commentary.

In the dark art of smear Boyd is past master. He hurls ad hominem slurs with the best of the left, such as snippy Dowd and the chippy Ivins on their better (?) days. Truth-tellers at PowerLine, for whom Boyd holds especial enmity, “harass" him, he claims, without evidence. But it's more than that. PowerLine in excruciating detail deconstructs Boyd's flights of partisan fancy, laying bare his partisan misrepresentations. PowerLine makes him look foolish.  My oh my, how that must infuriate him.

Boyd’s “pushback” is all smear, no substance: PowerLine’s proprietors, lawyers all, are to Boyd "immoral," merchants of “slime” and “smear artists,” (Clearly, the man has zero sense of irony.) PowerLine’s views are “fraudulent,” he adds,  without explanation. (Hint: “Fraudulent” because they’re not insiders like him?) Dan Rather merely falsely portrayed PowerLine’s part-time pundits as “paid political operatives” for spoiling his anti-Bush party. Boyd goes bananas.

When I challenged Boyd for boosting the Dems’ quagmire-in-Iraq theory, he emailed that my straight-up criticism was “trash.” (Or maybe, “garbage," I forget.) Whatever, judge for yourself . Also found at Accuracy in Media, this May 2005 column drew dozens of nods from my savvy (naturally!) readers.

Bottom line:  Shame on the Academy for getting it so wrong, so ironically wrong, painting their award recipient as a heroic figure in journalism, when he is a blight on that noble trade, a poster boy for partisan flacks. Like Rather, he is a purveyor of falsehoods when these suit his partisanship.

Dishonesty brings only dishonor to journalism’s table. Ominously for “the press,” the public is increasingly aware of MSM’s oft-denied partisanship. Awaking to this fact, they walk.  Witness the 200 delineated-by-cause canceled subscriptions in a single Midwest newspaper, then weep for journalism’s decline.