TREATING A TOKEN LIKE A TOKEN

This is no big deal, but it's irksome: The Wall Street Journal editorial page just lost token non-wingnut columnist Thomas Frank to Harper's Magazine -- and today I see that Robert Reich has published a Journal op-ed. Unsurprisingly, the column, titled "The Obama Agenda and the Enthusiasm Gap," attacks the president and congressional Democrats from the left -- but here's the illustration chosen by the Journal to accompany it:



Really? That's an appropriate cartoon to illustrate a Robert Reich column? Reich specifically says that voters are unenthusiastic about voting Democratic in the fall because the stimulus and the health care bill were too small:

... The administration's original sin was not spending enough and focusing the stimulus more directly on job creation.

... The health-care law, too, is ... not nearly large or bold enough to assure most people truly affordable care in the future....

The cartoon says just the opposite: that the stimulus and HCR are burdensome because they were so huge. (The further implication is that they're burdensome because they existed at all, which also contradicts what Reich is saying.)

Hey, WSJ: If you're going to clear out a token corner of your editorial page for non-crazy-cons, at least pretend to show little respect for what the non-cons are actually writing.