"Liberal critics" call the AFA a hate group?

I enjoyed this Michael Kinsley
post last year more than anything I'd read in
a long time, because it speaks to a big frustration of mine: while (contrary to
most blogger stereotypes) I appreciate the importance of reporting, I can't
stand reading most straight news writing.

Again and again, complex
issues of bias and fairness--what papers cover, whom they talk to, how they
frame coverage--go unaddressed. Yet in the interest of avoiding bias at a more
micro-level, convention demands that reporters meticulously avoid calling a
spade a spade. Instead, they take a paragraph to explain that some people think
a spade is a spade, while others reject this notion. It's excruciating.

Some commenters won't like the example I'm about to use--I'm looking at
you, Anonymous, and also you, other Anonymous--so to be clear, I'm not
suggesting that the New York Times's editors or reporters are favorably
disposed to the American Family Association, which is sponsoring Rick Perry's prayer-themed political rally tomorrow. I'm
saying only that ostensibly evenhanded copy like this in fact obscures more
than it clarifies: