This just in: Water is wet

This morning, The Dallas Morning News' editorial board chides all those journalists who are appalled at Rupert Murdoch's purchase of The Wall Street Journal. Citing nothing from Mr. Murdoch's ample, bad track record with American newspapers (with the exception of the New York Post, he's gutted them and sold them), blaming the negative response on Mr. Murdoch's right-wing politics (while assuring us that he's "more businessman than ideologue" -- hence, his sucking up to the Chinese government by killing news that might offend), pausing only to wave away such past incidents in which he's broken commitments to stay out of the reporting side, the News' Solomons smile benignly because they know from personal experience that a newspaper owner will only want to improve a paper. He would never risk its "gold standard" reputation.

Ah, yes, like the astonishingly bad performance the News has enjoyed recently in "synergizing" its resources and cutting staff to improve quality. Mr. Murdoch has wanted respectable political and business-news power for too long to mess up the WSJ too badly. He will pour in money and resources to boost the paper's bottom line, increase its global reach. But for the badly woundedNews to sing lustily that "thank God, journalism is a business," to predict that Mr. Murdoch will "avert layoffs" and, yes, groan, that he will "synergize" his news sources, well, it's like reading an opium addict's happy fantasy of his next pipe.