Rush and Racism - October 3, 2003
Times Watch for October 3, 2003
Rush and Racism
A
Friday editorial, "Not Ready for Prime Time," lumps Rush Limbaugh's remarks
about the sports media's embrace of Philadelphia's black quarterback Donovan
McNabb in with other commentators it considers beyond the pale: "As any
television pro could have warned ESPN, it turned out that Limbaugh was not ready
for the big leagues. He stands more in the class of Jimmy (the Greek) Snyder,
who made insensitive remarks about blacks, and Michael Savage, fired from MSNBC
for wishing AIDS on a gay caller."
After insulting Rush
Limbaugh, the Times goes on to smear his radio fans as well: "On ESPN's 'Sunday
N.F.L. Countdown' this week, Limbaugh said the kind of thing that wins him
legions of tub-thumping fans on radio but that understandably offends most other
people."
The Times then notes:
"Limbaugh quickly resigned from his ESPN gig. But he insists there was 'no
racist intent whatsoever' and will not apologize, despite the outcry from
McNabb's supporters, including an army of indignant Eagles' fans." (No doubt
those same supportive Eagles fans lustily booing McNabb during his
four-turnover performance in the Eagles' 31-10 loss to the New England
Patriots September 14.)
For the rest of the Times editorial on Rush's
resignation,
click here.
Editorial
|
Football
|
Rush Limbaugh
|
Donovan McNabb
|
Racism
|
Sports
|
Talk Radio
The
Times' Iraqnophobia
The report on Iraqi weapons by chief weapons inspector David Kay is out, and the
Times is having a field day, claiming that it fails to back up the Bush
administration's characterization of Saddam Hussein as an "imminent threat."
James
Risen and Judith Miller's Friday front-pager, "No Illicit Arms Found in Iraq,
U.S. Inspector Tells Congress," quotes Dem. Senator John D. Rockefeller: "I just
think it's extraordinary that a decision was made to go to war, and that we were
told by our highest policymakers that there was, you know, an imminent threat."
A Friday
story by David Sanger ("A Reckoning: Iraq Arms Report Poses Test for Bush")
makes that claim even more explicitly, stating: "The preliminary report
delivered on Thursday by the chief arms inspector in Iraq forces the Bush
administration to come face to face with this reality: that Saddam Hussein's
armory appears to have been stuffed with precursors, potential weapons and
bluffs, but that nothing found so far backs up administration claims that Mr.
Hussein posed an imminent threat to the world."
But as
Andrew Sullivan notes,
Bush never made the "imminent threat" claim. Sullivan writes: "The
administration claimed that Saddam had used WMDs in the past, had hidden
materials from the United Nations, was hiding a continued program for weapons of
mass destruction, and that we should act before the threat was imminent."
Reporter
Sanger continues with a plug for Democratic presidential candidates (most of
whom, by the way, voted in favor of this "unjustified" war): "While the report
by the arms inspector, David Kay, is not final, and while the inspectors may yet
come upon a cache of weapons, the preliminary findings support the claims of
critics, including Democratic candidates, that Mr. Bush used dubious
intelligence to justify his decision to go to war. At worst, these critics say,
the usual caveats and cautions of the underlying intelligence reports were
ignored in the rush to war."
The "rush
to war?" As Opinion Journal editor
James
Taranto noted in a speech in March, before the war: "People were saying this
six months ago, when President Bush took his case to the United Nations. Since
then, the president has done everything asked of him: He's won congressional
authorization for military action; he's persuaded the U.N. Security Council to
give Saddam a 'final opportunity' to comply with his disarmament and other
obligations, and he is even now pursuing yet another Security Council resolution
explicitly authorizing force. A six-month diplomatic effort to win support is
hardly a 'rush' to war."
Sanger
continues: "Dr. Kay paints a picture of a dictator who would be pleased to
develop biological and chemical weapons, some complex and others 'small and
relatively unsophisticated.' But a similar case could be made about dictators in
many other nations, including some that appear to be far ahead of Iraq. Part of
Mr. Bush's task now is to explain why he has not raised the alarm about them as
vociferously."
Well,
partly because it's more difficult to go after a country with robust nuclear
capability than it is to stop it from attaining that stage in the first place.
That's why the U.S. is negotiating with North Korea.
Sanger
grimly concludes: "Ex post facto explanations of war are difficult anytime. They
are even more difficult in the midst of an unpopular occupation, more difficult
and dangerous than the one the United States led in Japan and Germany in 1945,
and fraught with political dangers for Mr. Bush in 2004."
For more of the story by James
Risen and Judith Miller,
click here.
For more of David Sanger's story,
click here.
David Kay |
Saddam Hussein |
Iraq War |
Judith Miller |
James Risen |
David Sanger |
WMD
What
Day Was That Again?
Another day, another Alex Berenson fatality update.
Berenson writes in Friday's Times on the death of an American soldier in
Iraq: "His death brought the number of soldiers killed in Iraq and Kuwait to 316
since the war began March 19. Since President Bush declared major combat
operations over on May 1, 177 soldiers have died in Iraq and Kuwait."
Here's Berenson
on Thursday: "Six soldiers have died in accidents and ambushes in the last
two days, bringing to 315 the total number of troops killed in Iraq and Kuwait
since the war began. Of those, 176 have died in the five months since President
Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1."
And here's Berenson
on Sunday: "More than 300 American troops have been killed since the war in
Iraq began. According to Pentagon records, more than 160 have been killed since
President Bush declared on May 1 that major combat operations had ended. At
least 70 of those deaths have been the result of hostile fire."
Now, what day was that again?
Alex Berenson |
Fatalities |
Iraq War
Krugman
In Wonderland
Paul Krugman's Friday column, "'Slime and Defend,'"
predictably dives into the Joseph Wilson/CIA controversy over who leaked
information on Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame. Krugman's attitude is
apparently "Sentence
first, verdict afterwards."
He writes: "Someone high
in the administration committed a felony and, in the view of the elder Mr. Bush,
treason. End of story." Earlier in the piece Krugman makes himself out to be a
victim as well: "The right-wing media slime machine, which tries to assassinate
the character of anyone who opposes the right's goals-hey, I know all about
it-has already swung into action."
For the rest of Krugman in wonderland,
click here.
Columnists |
Paul Krugman |
Valerie Plame |
Joseph Wilson.
