The Left-Wing Credentials of the Washington Post's Newest Blogger

Today the Washington Post announced they were starting a new blog today devoted to covering think tanks. Sure, why not? It strikes me that this is a good idea. Then I read the rest of the press release:

Think Tanked comes to The Post after first launching on thinktankedblog.com by independent journalist Allen McDuffee in the spring of 2010. At The Post, McDuffee will bring to Think Tanked even more original reporting, in addition to interviews with think tank scholars, updates and summaries of think tank reports, book reviews, daily round-ups and more.

Allen McDuffee is a New York-based politics writer. Part reporter, part investigative journalist, part blogger, Allen has written for The Nation, Huffington Post, AlterNet, Raw Story, New York Observer, In These Times and Truthdig, among others.

Emphasis added. The Nation? AlterNet? Raw Story? Truth Dig? Those are decidedly left-wing outlets. Can you imagine the post hiring anyone from, say, World Net Daily? Because that's about the right-wing equivalent of some of those publications.

Well, I suppose that it's possible to write fair and objective journalism anywhere. Let's take a look at some of McDuffee's journalism, starting with "Neocons Have Disturbing Amounts of Influence Over Obama":

For those who thought the end of the Bush Administration spelled doomsday for the neoconservative movement, think again.

According to a May report (pdf) from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, DC think tank, neoconservatives associated with prominent figures like former Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol and pundit Richard Perle are still broadly active, despite policy failures associated with the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

And here's another gem:

Another War We Can’t Afford
The neo-cons may be coordinating with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and all the usual suspects to build enough public support to bomb Iran

Is there any reason at all that the American Enterprise Insitutute or anyone at any right-of-center think tank should answer McDuffee's phone calls and expect to be treated fairly? Perhaps McDuffee will prove critics wrong, but the the evidence suggests otherwise.