Why is the New York Times' David Kirkpatrick enabling the modern-day Joe McCarthys?

At some point, the mainstream media needs to distinguish itself from the prostitutes who call themselves journalists, but who are actually nothing more than glorified stenographers, willing to print any lie, any slur, unquestioned, because it's "news."

It's not necessarily news, nor true, simply because a Republican alleges something. Especially when you, as a journalist, know that what they're alleging is untrue, and motivated by animus, or by bigotry. When you know that this is how the modern-day McCarthy's operate. They make a story up out of thin air, lob it with a high-profile punch (53 congressman signed on!), and then the victim of the attack has to have a public "have you stopped beating your wife" moment on national TV. Or in the case of the religious right and FOX News attacks on gay Obama appointee, Kevin Jennings, have you stopped being a party to a crime that never even occurred?

Reporters, like the NYT's David Kirkpatrick, get played by both sides of the aisle. And it's the reporters' job to sniff through the spin, and the bull, and find out if there's a real story underneath. It is not the reporters' job to simply reprint one side's accusations as "news," without questioning the source, or pointing out the obvious errors in the charge itself.

David Kirkpatrick's piece today about a renewed effort among conservative House Republicans to get Kevin Jennings fired is one such example. Kirkpatrick dutifully reported that 53 House members have signed a letter to Obama demanding that Jennings be fired. What Kirkpatrick doesn't point out is that the letter itself is flat-out wrong, at the very least, on its most serious allegations:

1. The kid in question was not 15, as GOP Rep. King and his accomplices allege. This was debunked weeks ago, why are the 53 Republicans continuing to spread a lie? Why didn't Kirkpatrick ask them that question?
2. There was no evidence or suggestion of "sexual abuse." So why did the congressmen allege it?
3. Jennings was not required by law to report anything to anyone as the child was the legal age of consent in Massachusetts. What state authority exactly would Jennings report legal consensual sex to? Did Kirkpatrick ask the congressmen that?
4. Sex crimes? When did this story suddenly involve sex crimes?

None of the above allegations, found in the letter, are true. Why isn't the NYT reporting that fact, rather than simply reporting what the letter says - i.e., repeating the already-debunked defamation - and rather than pointing out that it's already been shown to be untrue? Even FOX News had to put out a retraction about this crap - are we really to believe that FOX now has a higher standard regarding anti-gay slurs than the NYT?

And why didn't the NYT report on the anti-gay slurs coming from the right associated with this campaign against Jennings? The fact that the campaign was started by a far-right religious right anti-gay group that simply doesn't like gay people, and has been sloppy with their anti-gay facts in the past? The fact that one of the anti-Jennings activists even invoked the "pervert" word? The fact that many allege that the real problem conservatives have with Jennings is that he's g-a-y.

All the NYT did in this case was publish a he-said-she-said that's already been debunked - which they knew was already debunked. And by publishing it, they've effectively, once again, helped an already dead slur come back to life yet again.