Another one of those bad Star headlines

by David Safier

I haven't written about the work of the Star's Creative Headline Writing Team for awhile, but here's one I can't pass up:

Tax laws coddle rich, says Buffett, whose sincerity is doubted

The first half of the head is an accurate description of Warren Buffett's excellent oped in the NY Times, for which I awarded Buffett the Anti-Gatewood, in honor of his saying the rich should pay more taxes.

But as for the second half — "whose sincerity is doubted." Any reasonable editor would walk up to the person who wrote that line and ask, "doubted by whom"? I would have asked that of my high school English students. Doubt has a source, but in the Star head, it's floating out in the universe as a cosmic condemnation of Buffett's sincerity.

Obviously, it's the Republicans who are trying to trash Buffett here, so why not say it? Every other headline for the McClatchy article did.

Republicans reject Buffett's tax argument — LA Times

GOP fires back at Buffet on taxes — Fayetteville Observer

GOP slams Buffett on tax remarks — Wichita Eagle

And so on.

IDIOTIC REPUBLICAN ARGUMENTS NOTE: One of the Republican come-backs to Buffett is the classic, "If you like paying taxes so much, why don't you just pay more?" Buffett is talking about shared responsibility, that the rich must shoulder a reasonable amount of the burden of running government. He's not talking about making up the difference himself. Anyone who honestly thinks the "Why don't you just pay more?" argument makes sense — that person, honestly, doesn't think.