Times Watch for August 15, 2003
Gimme a D! (for Democrat)
James Daos Thursday
report from Louisville tries to pump up the Democratic candidates prospects in
Kentuckys upcoming governors race by casting it as Round One of Campaign 2004.
Kentucky Race Is Test For
Bush on Economy-Democrat Ties Troubles to G.O.P. Policies is a strange,
unconvincing story whose only apparent reason for being is to lift Democratic
spirits, with reporter Dao leading the cheers.
Dao opens by suggesting
the race, featuring Democratic attorney general Ben Chandler squaring off
against Republican Rep. Ernie Fletcher, could be a harbinger of bad tidings for
Bush: Improbable as it sounds, the first major test of President Bush's
vulnerability on the weak economy may come this November in a state that he won
handily in 2000, where his favorable ratings are still high and where
Republicans hold seven of eight Congressional seats. No one said Kentucky
politics was predictable. With a tenacity that has surprised his opponent and
some supporters, the Democratic candidate for governor, Attorney General Ben
Chandler, has attacked Mr. Bush's stewardship of the economy, contending that
Republican policies have drained Kentucky of 56,000 jobs, aided the wealthy at
the expense of the poor and helped drill a gaping hole in the state budget.
Dao goes on to suggest
this tenacity is having an effect, though his evidence is weak: Mr.
Chandler's assault seems to have put Mr. Fletcher on the defensive. In campaign
events, he acknowledges that Kentucky's economy is struggling and that job
creation should be among the new governor's top priorities.
But just because Fletcher
says Kentuckys economy is struggling doesnt necessarily mean hes on the
defensive (one of the Times favorite phrases to apply to Republicans. After
all, the sitting governor, scandal-plagued Paul Patton, is a Democrat, and a
lagging economy would reflects poorly on him as well as Bush.
Dao continues: If Mr.
Chandler, considered the underdog, can ride voters' anxieties about unemployment
to victory, it could give the Democrats momentum in their seemingly uphill quest
to unseat the president, Democrats and political analysts assert.
And if wishes were horses
then dreamers would ride: A local
Kentucky TV poll shows Republican Fletcher up 48%-43% in a state a
Republican hasnt won in 32 years. Thats not much cause for Democratic
optimism, no matter how zealously Dao spins it.
For the rest of James Daos story on the Kentucky
governors race,
click here.
Times
Liberalism, By the Book
Chapter 3 of Journalistic Fraud,
Bob Kohns excellent and detailed new book on how the
Times slants the news, examines the time-honored techniques the paper
employs. Conveniently, a textbook example of what Kohn discusses appears on the
front of Thursdays Times.
The
headline on Michael Janofskys story introducing Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt,
Bushs new nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, uses criticism
from liberal environmentalists to put him on the defensive: Nominee For EPA
Defends His Job As Utah Governor-Rebutting Criticism, He Says Condition of Air,
Water and Land Has Improved.
Janofskys
lead sentence follows the same slanted path: Gov. Michael O. Leavitt today
defended his environmental record in Utah against critics of his nomination to
lead the Environmental Protection Agency, saying that under his stewardship, the
quality of air, water and public lands in Utah had indisputably improved.
The
loaded, critical comments continue: With Democrats promising to make his
confirmation hearings a proxy fight against environmental policies of the Bush
administration that began under Christie Whitman, Mr. Bush's first E.P.A. chief
who resigned under pressure in May, Mr. Leavitt said he was bracing for new
rounds of criticism by groups that contend he is far too conservative, and too
friendly to business interests, to serve as the nation's top environmental
steward.
Things
were rather different, to say the least, when President Clinton picked Carol
Browner as his EPA nominee back in 1992. The headline to the first big piece on
Browner was considerably less confrontational: New Breed of Ecologist to Lead
E.P.A.
Keith
Schneiders led with a treacly anecdote about Browner as a little girl: When
she was growing up, Carol M. Browner spent hours hiking in the Everglades and
once stayed home from school to finish a watercolor of an anhinga, a graceful
and increasingly rare water bird that alighted in the pond outside her family's
home in South Miami. Isnt that precious? Note that Browner wasnt forced in
the headline, the first sentence (or anywhere else) to defend her record or
respond to critics. Thats only for Republican nominees.
For the rest of Michael Janofskys
story on Bushs new EPA nominee,
click here.
Environment
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EPA
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Michael Janofsky
|
Bob Kohn
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Michael Leavitt