Shouldn’t reading comprehension be a basic requirement for being a print journalist or an editor?

The Washington Post doesn’t seem to think so:

“This treaty is a masterstroke. . . . It is shorn of the tortured bench marks, sub-limits, arcane definitions and monitoring provisions that weighed down past arms control treaties,” said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). “It assumes a degree of trust between nations that are no longer on the precipice of war.”

Those were words from Kyl’s floor speech on March 6, 2003, in support of ratification of the Moscow Treaty, signed nine months earlier by President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The resolution for ratification passed that day without opposition, 95 to 0 with five senators absent, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), today’s minority leader. Twenty-four Republicans who voted for that treaty seven years ago are in the Senate today, but not one, save possibly Sen. Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), has indicated he or she will vote for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), negotiated by President Obama‘s team. New START has sub-limits, definitions and monitoring provisions.

In fact, Kyl and many of the 23 other senators are critical of elements of New START that they readily accepted or ignored in the agreement they embraced seven years ago.

Kyl complimented the Moscow Treaty for not having “tortured sub-limits, arcane definitions and monitoring provisions”. To say that “New START has sub-limits, definitions and monitoring provisions”, and therefore “Kyl and many of the 23 other senators are critical of elements of New START that they readily accepted or ignored in the agreement they embraced seven years ago” is absurd.

The offending writer is Walter Pincus, who certainly knows better. Too bad the Post doesn’t identify offending editors.