The Times Calls On US Troops To Save Lives In Liberia - July 24, 2003
Times Watch for July 24, 2003
Editors Note: The Times news pages today
nitpick the Iraq war - while the editorial page lobbies for US troops in
Liberia.
The
Times Calls On US Troops To Save Lives In Liberia
A Thursday editorial,
Americas Role in Liberia, shows the Times hasnt lost its chutzpa. After
famously resisting the Iraq war, the Times editorial page now favors U.S.
intervention in Liberia, and right away: Further delay may needlessly condemn
thousands of Liberian civilians to death. Hundreds have already died this week.
The editorial on Liberia makes no mention of Iraq - perhaps the Times realizes
the double standard theyre applying to U.S. intervention and hope no one
notices.
The Times notes: It is
axiomatic that American soldiers should not be put at risk without careful
deliberation and good odds for success. The Times forgot to add and no
American security interests are at stake.
In fact, the Times hasnt
been this eager for intervention since the Kosovo war in April 1999, when U.S.
planes under NATO auspices bombed Belgrade, the capital of the former
Yugoslavia. On April 15, 1999, the editorial page (under former executive editor
Howell Raines) insisted NATO must sustain and intensify the bombing until
dictator Slobodan Milosevic agreed to negotiate. (As Times executive editor,
Raines fiercely resisted U.S. involvement in Iraq.)
For the rest of the editorial from the newly
militant Times,
click here.
Hussein
Deaths The Downside
A Thursday story from Washington nitpicks Allied
success in the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein (the No. 2 and No. 3 henchmen of
the Hussein regime) by suggesting they should have been taken alive for
interrogation.
Eric Schmitt and David
Sangers article comes with the curious title, U.S. Defends Move to Storm House
Where Hussein Brothers Were Hiding. Right at the beginning, the reporters try
to put the military in a defensive crouch: Military commanders in Iraq and
Pentagon officials here today defended the decision to storm the house in Mosul
where Saddam Hussein's sons were hiding rather than try to encircle it and force
them to surrender, much as the United States did with Gen. Manuel Antonio
Noriega in Panama in 1989.
Neither do they miss a
chance to paint Bush as a nave optimist: Mr. Bush seized on the deaths of what
he termed two of the regime's chief henchmen as evidence that despite
continuing American casualties, Iraq would soon be speeding toward elections, a
new constitution and a new currency.
In the world of the Times,
every silver lining for Bush and Iraq has a dark cloud: Capturing the sons
might have yielded an intelligence bonanza and scored propaganda points by
permitting the Iraqis to put them on public trial, allied officials said today.
We wanted them to stand trial, but this happened, Gerard Russell, a spokesman
for the British Foreign Office, told Agence France-Presse today in Basra in
southern Iraq.
For the rest of Schmitt and Sanger on the downside
of killing the Hussein brothers,
click here.
Hussein
Brothers Dead, But Tax Cuts Still Bad
Amid the deaths in a firefight of Saddam
Husseins sons Uday and Qusay, the Times continues nitpicking the war
and searching for a downside for Bush in 2004.
Richard
Stevensons Thursday story from Washington paints their demise in
strictly political terms, demonstrated by the title: Deaths of
Husseins Sons Allow Change of Subject. While Stevenson admits a bad
political month for President Bush got palpably better, his dispatch
carries a long laundry list of various perceived Bush weaknesses for
Democrats to latch onto.
Stevenson
writes: Democrats said Mr. Bush would not easily wipe away the
questions about his credibility or escape doubts among some voters
about whether his economic and foreign policy is succeeding. And there
is lingering concern within the president's party. Only a few days
ago, Republican strategists, including some with close ties to the
administration, were acknowledging that Mr. Bush was having his worst
stretch in political terms since early in his presidency. The rise in
the unemployment rate and the surge in the federal budget deficit
undermined his assurances that his tax cuts would nurse the economy
back to robust health.
And Stevenson
doesnt forget foreign policy controversy: The steady if relatively
small loss of American life in Iraq and the acknowledgment by the
American commander in the region that United States forces there faced
a classic guerrilla campaign conjured up all kinds of unwelcome
associations. And the White House's fumbling efforts to explain how
possibly flawed intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program got into the
State of the Union speech had shown Mr. Bush's top aides to be
uncharacteristically willing to indulge in finger pointing.
For the rest of Stevensons story on what
the death of Husseins sons may mean for Bush,
click here.
Only
Conservatives Capable of Slurs?
When liberals accuse conservatives of
opposing a federal nominee based on the nominees race, religion or
sexual preference, the Times puts the onus on conservatives to deny
the charges of racism or bigotry. But in the case of Bush nominee (An
Extremist Judicial Nominee, according to the Times
editorial page) William Pryor, the shoe is on the right foot, and
its the conservatives making such accusations who are accused of
slurs.
Thursdays story
by Neil Lewis, Judicial Nominee Advances Amid Dispute Over Religion,
is on the fierce, religion-tinged fight over Bush appointee William
Prior, attorney general of Alabama. Lewis story opens: A scheduled
vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee today on one of President
Bush's most conservative judicial nominees turned into an
extraordinary debate over whether Democrats were blocking Catholics
from being named to the federal bench or whether such an accusation
was a politically motivated slur. The Times has done an about-face:
All of a sudden, the person who accuses someone of bigotry becomes the
bad guy.
Lewis lets the
Democratic senators get their licks in against a political ad accusing
Democrats of discriminating against devout Catholic nominees: Senator
Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking committee Democrat, said the
advertisements run by a group for which the president's father and
Republican senators have helped raise money were a despicable smear.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the
advertisements were tawdry and diabolical. In response, the
committee Republicans mostly did not disavow the advertisements but
suggested they were largely accurate.
Lewis gets in
more pro-Democrat talking points, reminding readers that Pryor is a
staunch conservative as well as a strict Catholic. Lewis writes:
Mr. Pryor, the subject of the debate, is a staunch conservative who
has urged a greater role for Christianity in American public life and
has issued especially blunt denunciations of the Supreme Court for its
rulings upholding the right to abortion. When Mr. Pryor appeared
before the committee on June 11, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah
Republican who is chairman, asked him to acknowledge that his beliefs
stemmed from his strict Catholicism.
For the rest of
Neil Lewis story on the Pryor nomination,
click here.
