Clay Chandler is a reporter covering economic policy for the Washington Post — a position held throughout the 1980s by the late Hobart Rowan, the legendary scourge of Reaganomics. Even when he pretended to be merely a reporter, Rowan made it clear in his dispatches that tax cuts of any kind were a sin against man and God, and Chandler is providing the same service for Post readers in 1996. In early June, he published an opinion piece in the paper’s Outlook section whose gist is covered in the headline: “Between You and Me, Mr. Dole . . . Beware Those Tax Cutters and Their Budget-Busting Bill of Goods.” Alas, Dole ignored Chandler’s sage advice. The reporter retaliated with a “news story” last week, the day after Dole announced his tax cuts. Headline: “Economists Question Dole’s Plan.” In an amazing coincidence, Chandler’s news story precisely replicated his opinion piece. We find this implicit tribute to the ghost of Rowan touching, but now that Chandler’s hostility to Dole’s economic plan has been so openly declared in the opinion pages, shouldn’t the Post’s editors assign someone else to cover it in the news pages?
