Saddam, Not So Bad for a Bad Guy? - July 29, 2003
Times Watch for July 29, 2003
Saddam, Not So Bad for a Bad Guy?
In Nicholas Kristofs
Tuesday column, Hearing Liberias Pleas, he argues for intervention in
Liberia, as did the
Times editorial page last week. Unlike the editorial, Kristof actually
brings up his anti-war stand and addresses why he favors intervention in Liberia
while being against it in Iraq: I argued against invading Iraq, but Liberia
presents a much more compelling case for intervention. The difference is not
that Saddam slaughtered at most 1 percent of his population over the last 14
years, while Liberian warfare has killed more than 6 percent of its population
so far.
Thats misleading: Iraq is
far more populous than Liberia. The 2000 population of Liberia was estimated at
3.1 million, according to the New York Times almanac, which set Iraqs
population at 23.6 million. Its also creepy: Kristof says Saddam slaughtered
at most 1 percent of his population, as if that makes him a not-so-bad bad
guy. (By the way, thats still 200,000 people.)
Kristof also claims
Liberia has an urgency to it that Iraq did not: people are being hacked apart
daily in Liberia, and if we do nothing, the conflict may spread across West
Africa. But in the sense of U.S. security, Liberia is rather less urgent than
Iraq. Unlike Iraq, its never had a nuclear program and hasnt threatened its
neighbors with weapons of mass destruction. But then,
Kristof has never
found such arguments credible.
For the rest of Nicholas Kristofs column,
click here.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
|
IRAQ WAR
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NICHOLAS KRISTOF
|
LIBERIA
Injustice for a Taliban Fighter?
Tuesdays Page 2 news
summary teases a story thats inside the paper: A Fathers Fight for Justice.
Stirring sentiments, no doubt. So what injustice is this father fighting? Not
much of one, it turns out. His son, Australian citizen David Hicks, was caught
fighting with the Taliban in late 2001 and is now being held at Guantanamo Bay,
in Cuba. His father is asking the U.S. not to try his son before a military
tribunal but before a civilian court. The headline to the actual story is less
exciting but more accurate: Father Asks To See Son Held by U.S.
AFGHANISTAN
|
GAFFE
|
GUANTANAMO BAY
|
HEADLINES
|
TALIBAN
More
Bad Economic News From Gloomy Louie
Economics writer Louis Uchitelles latest
gloomy piece, for Mondays front page, Red Ink In States Beginning To
Hurt Economic Recovery, includes this sentence: In California alone,
a tentative budget deal will presumably require the state to rid
itself of at least $8 billion in current spending, with the cuts
likely to fall most heavily on education and aid to the poor.
As journalist
Mickey Kaus notes (page
down to Monday): Since when do NYT reporters writing the day's
front-page lead story get away with saying presumably instead of
finding out what's actually? Kaus wisecracks: Gloomy Louie
Uchitelle will paint the economy in any color as long as it's black.
It gets worse.
The Sacramento Bee's
Daniel Weintraub lambastes Uchitelles ignorance of the California
economy, noting more than half of the reported spending reduction is
actually a tax increase - the $4 billion tripling of the car tax."
Weintraub says Uchitelles reporting assumes the simplistic notion
that every dollar the state cuts from spending is a dollar somehow
removed from the economy. Its just not so. Every dollar cut from
state spending is a dollar left in the economy. There is a huge
difference.
In fact,
Uchitelles piece is a hodge-podge of conflicting statements and vague
pronouncements. He claims states are cutting spending but is unable to
provide figures, and basically admits defeat on the subject: The
numbers are hard to add up, but even the most optimistic accounting
has state spending slowing sharply while tax rates rise along with a
variety of fees. The only bit of consistency is that the economic
news is all bad.
Uchitelle is
becoming the Times resident gloom-sayer. In a July 12 front-page story
he wrote: Unemployment among blacks is rising at a faster pace than
in any similar period since the mid-1970's, and the jobs lost have
been mostly in manufacturing, where the pay for blacks has
historically been higher than in many other fields. On Monday, he
expands his reach to find bad news for everybody.
For the rest of Louis Uchitelles gloomy
prognosis,
click here.
CALIFORNIA
|
DEFICITS
|
ECONOMY
|
SPENDING
|
LOUIS UCHITELLE
The
Moose Is Loose, Again
Donald McNeil Jr.s Tuesday story, From Eli Lilly
to Front Line is about Randall Tobias, the retired pharmaceutical executive
President Bush has nominated to oversee the spending of $15 billion to help
people with AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. It also features a Times inside
joke.
McNeil writes: Because
one must point out the moose whenever it raises its head, it must be noted that
he has just published a memoir and business advice book, Put the Moose on the
Table. The moose is a business buzzword for a sound-management principle,
that if there is a problem that everyone in the room knows about - the moose at
the table - it must be discussed, not ignored. Some prominent executives, have
been known to plop down a stuffed moose at meetings to encourage lively debate.
Dissecting that paragraph
requires knowing some recent Times history. McNeil is probably referring to
something Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. did during the papers
unprecedented staff meeting at the height of the Jayson Blair controversy.
As the
New York Daily News described it: In a surreal moment that reminded one
staffer of Shari Lewis' old TV show, Sulzberger produced a stuffed toy moose
that he sometimes trots out as a symbol of open communication. Its use struck
some in the audience as a tone-deaf and patronizing gesture. Sulzberger handed
the moose to Raines, who laid it aside. (Gawker
has one possible explanation of the mooses origin.)
For the rest of McNeils story on Bushs AIDS in
Africa nominee (and the moose),
click here.
AFRICA
|
AIDS
|
JAYSON BLAIR
|
DONALD MCNEIL, JR.
|
MOOSE
|
HOWELL RAINES
|
ARTHUR SULZBERGER JR.
|
RANDALL TOBIAS
