Bush's Iraq War "Deception" - October 10, 2003
Times Watch for October 10, 2003
Bush's
Iraq War "Deception"
Alessandra Stanley reviews an Iraq war documentary,
"Truth, War and Consequences," from the PBS series "Frontline" for her Thursday
piece, "Selective Intelligence on Road to Baghdad." Her favorable review of the
documentary repeats liberal disinformation on the run-up to the Iraq war: "But
White House deception is the real focus of the program, which draws two main
conclusions, both linked to hubris: that the administration twisted the facts to
paint Mr. Hussein as an imminent threat to the security of the United States,
and that it ignored its own experts' warnings about the risks and cost of
postwar reconstruction."
As previously noted,
Bush never made such a threat. In his last State of the Union address Bush
clearly indicated the threat wasn't imminent: "Some have said we must not act
until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced
their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?"
For the rest of Alessandra Stanley's review,
click here.
George W. Bush
|
Frontline
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Iraq War
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Alessandra Stanley
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Television
"Authoritarian"
Tories vs. "Tolerance"
Give reporter Warren Hoge points for consistency.
After filing
several biased stories from the Labor Party conference, Hoge files one from
the Conservative Party conference for Thursday's paper, introduced by this
unusually opinionated headline: "Unhappy Times for the Tories and Their
Lackluster Leader."
Hoge again takes on the
Labor party from the left, raising the discredited charge of Blair's alleged
distortion of military intelligence: "The unpopular war in Iraq, the failure to
find the banned weapons there that Mr. Blair said justified military action and
the suspicions that his government distorted intelligence to exaggerate the
threat to Britain, all these developments have forced Mr. Blair to watch his
popularity and his credibility sink." Once more, Hoge fails to mention Blairs
government was cleared by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee on
the charge of manipulating intelligence.
Then Hoge focuses on
intolerant, "authoritarian" Tories: "Beyond its leadership battle, the party
confronts longer range problems. It is deeply split between a traditional law
and order wing known in political shorthand as authoritarians and a group with a
more tolerant attitude known as modernizers who preach 'compassionate
conservatism.'"
For the rest of Hoge's story from the Conservative
Party conference,
click here.
Tony Blair
|
Britain
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Warren Hoge
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Iraq War
"Shrill,
Privileged" Doctors vs. "Advocate" Ralph Nader
In Sunday's "The Doctors Are Crying All the Way to
the Bank," Trenton bureau chief David Kocieniewski squeezes in several liberal
characterizations in a New Jersey section column (not online) on state doctors
protesting high medical malpractice insurance premiums.
First up, class war: "The
sputtering economy and New Jersey's back-to-back budget deficits have inflicted
plenty of serious financial pain in the past two years.With all those people
contending with all those calamitous problems, it is bewildering that the
shrillest complaints about economic hardship have come from one of the most
privileged quarters of society-New Jersey's doctors."
Then he likens the
backlash to "a temper tantrum" (just as the Times editorial page characterized
the California recall as a "fit of pique"). Kocieniewski, predictably, also
denigrates the recall: "A few doctors have discussed organizing an effort to
recall Governor McGreevey, as if the remedy for their problem is to put the
state through the expense and political ordeal that has made California a
political farce ('Calling Dr. Schwarzenegger ')."
After a strange Dr.
Strangelove reference, there's a citing of insurance premium statistics from
Public Citizen, which Kocieniewski benignly calls "an advocacy group" but is
funded by liberal crusader Ralph Nader.
Doctors
|
Health Care
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David Kocieniewski
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Labeling Bias
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New Jersey
|
Recall
A
Meaty Times Debate
"New Safety Rules Fail to Stop Tainted Meat," announces Friday's front-page
story from Melody Petersen and Christopher Drew, which notes in the second
paragraph: "Last November the inspectors also found E. coli O157:H7, a dangerous
bacterium spread by cattle waste, in hamburger and stopped a shipment waiting to
go to public schools from a Shapiro meat-grinding facility. Yet the Department
of Agriculture delayed more forceful action and never did more than threaten to
shut the packing plant down." It concludes with this bite from a liberal
Naderite spinoff group (naturally not labeled by the Times as such): "Caroline
Smith-DeWaal, the food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest in Washington, said consumers should check with their grocery stores
and their children's schools 'to ensure that they have strict standards for
testing for harmful pathogens.'"
The Times
thinks E. coli is a big deal in schools. Perhaps someone should tell the Times
food reporter, Marion Burros. In her Wednesday story, "Schools
Seem in No Hurry to Buy Irradiated Beef," she gives credence to knee-jerk
left-wing antipathy to all things nuclear, portraying the irradiation of beef
(which kills E. coli) as a greater concern than E. coli itself: "Most school
officials interviewed said either that contamination was not enough of a problem
for them to consider irradiation or that they needed to know a lot more about
irradiated beef before using it."
Burros
also passes on baseless environmentalist arguments suggesting irradiation
"promotes cancer." She writes: "The government has said that irradiation is a
responsible way to prevent contamination by E. coli 0157:H7, listeria and other
dangerous bacteria. But critics have said that not enough studies have been done
to prove irradiated beef's safety; that in fact some studies have shown that it
may promote cancer and that it should not be given to children until the
concerns are met."
For more on meat,
click here.
Marion Burros
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Christopher Drew
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Environment
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Health
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Meat
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Melody Peterson
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Regulation
Jay
Leno, Partisan Republican
When is it controversial for a TV
personality to show political favoritism? When the politician involved is a
Republican.
Bill
Carter's Friday story, "NBC Supports the Politically Partisan Leno," opens:
"Rejecting criticism about the propriety of allowing Jay Leno to introduce
Arnold Schwarzenegger's victory speech in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, NBC
executives said yesterday that the network fully supported the talk-show
host.Mr. Leno, host of NBC's top-rated 'Tonight' show, broke the longstanding
but unspoken prohibition among late-night hosts against displaying political
partisanship by participating in the Republican Party celebration after Mr.
Schwarzenegger's victory in California's recall election."
Carter
quotes disapproving Syracuse University professor Robert Thompson, who
harrumphs: "NBC is taking a big risk. There's a big culture war raging in this
country." (The Times has used Thompson to back up liberal premises before. Back
in December, reporter John Leland quoted Thompson in an article on conservative
domination of talk radio: "Where radio conservatives have thrived by drawing
hard distinctions between right and wrong, [Thompson] said, 'the liberal
tradition as we understand it acknowledges a diversity of people and values.'")
Liberal
hand-wringing aside, here's a full transcript of Leno's
"political partisanship" from the Schwarzenegger victory rally: "Tonight is
a testament on how important one appearance on 'The Tonight Show' can be. You
know the critics say 'Well, Arnold can't be an administrator, he's an actor. Oh,
Arnold can't be an environmentalist, he's an actor. Oh Arnold can't be governor,
he's an actor.' Well of course Arnold was thrilled. For the first time in his
career, the critics are calling him an actor, ladies and gentlemen. This is a
historic night. Apparently we have all been wrong. It is pronounced Cal-ee-fornia.
Ladies and gentleman, the governor of the great state of California, Arnold
Schwarzenegger."
Not
exactly hardball politics.
For more of Bill Carter on Jay
Leno's support for Schwarzenegger,
click here.
Bill Carter
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Jay Leno
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NBC
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Recall
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Arnold
Schwarzenegger
