Opinion: Identity politics at Wikipedia

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Somewhat to my surprise, I’ve been impressed the quality of Wikipedia entries, at least the ones that touch on subjects in my editorial writer’s portfolio. But I was taken aback by this bio of I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, which identifies him right off the bat as a ‘Jewish-American lawyer’ and goes on to expose that the I. in his name stands for Irve, a revelation that is accompanied by three footnotes. Wikipedia’s entry for Patrick Fitzgerald, Libby’s nemesis, describes the proscutor simply as an ‘American attorney,’ though reference is later made to his upbringing in ‘a working-class Irish American Catholic family.’