Stop the presses! Someone copped the identity of Arthur Brisbane, Public Editor for The New York Times, and published under his name a surprisingly good column (A Hard Look at the President) asking The Times to play fair (which may be impossible) in its coverage of President Obama during the general election campaign. In his words:

The Times needs to offer an aggressive look at the president’s record, policy promises and campaign operation to answer the question: Who is the real Barack Obama?

Nowhere does he suggest that questions of Mr. Obama’s birth, or school transcripts or any other conspiratorial pursuits are appropriate for the Times or anyone else.  But, in one more display of the collapse of “journalism” at The Washington Post, the irrepressible Jonathan Bernstein, posting for the irrepressible Greg Sargent sees something “inane” in even asking questions of Mr. Obama. He finds in the article (Times public editor amplifies GOP talking points) a mysterious under plot that tells more about himself than it does Mr. Brisbane:

Conservatives presumably push the idea that we still don’t really know the “real” Barack Obama because they want to hint, without quite saying so, that Obama is somehow alien and un-American. They hint, or even explicitly claim, that if reelected, Obama will unleash a Kenyan socialist agenda on the nation that he kept secret until his second term, after which he won’t have to face voters again.

I have no idea why Brisbane falls for such an inane line. But the best clue to how Obama will behave if re-elected is to carefully examine what he has done in his first three plus years in the White House. That’s it.

Which Conservatives? He has no idea, because Mr. Brisbane doesn’t fall for such an “inane line.” Mr. Bernstein did.  Mr. Brisbane is crystal clear. He believes that The Times coverage has been overtly generous to Mr. Obama, has lacked journalistic skepticism, and is driven by personal adoration, not principle. Do ‘ya think?