Times Watch for October 13, 2003
More
"Parallels" Between Vietnam and Iraq
"Revisiting McNamara and the War He Headed" is Stephen
Holden's Saturday review of the documentary film "The Fog of War." Knowing the
Times, one looks for the comparison of Vietnam to the Iraq war-and one won't be
disappointed:
Holden writes: "It was our lack of empathy, [Vietnam-era Defense Secretary
Robert] McNamara asserts, that also caused the United States to get so deeply
embroiled in Vietnam. What the United States viewed as an extension of the cold
war the Vietnamese regarded as a civil war. Parallels can be found between
Vietnam and the current war in Iraq. Then, as now, the United States acted
without the support of most of its allies."
For the rest of Holden's predictable review,
click here.
Stephen Holden |
Iraq War |
Robert McNamara |
Movies |
Vietnam
Lieberman:
Your Average "Centrist" Joe?
Edward Wyatt's front-page story for Monday
(misleadingly headlined "Lieberman, the Centrist in the Middle of the Pack,")
claims: "Many Democrats say Mr. Lieberman's prospects are diminished by the same
factors that help him stand out from others in the field: he is a centrist, but
his middle-ground stands, while advantageous in a general election, are not
helpful in winning over the hard-core Democrats who are critical to winning
primaries.Mr. Lieberman's strategy is to turn his centrist credentials into an
asset in states where Democrats are generally more conservative than they are in
Iowa and New Hampshire."
This pattern of labeling
the liberal-leaning Lieberman a centrist is an old one.
As the MRC reported in 2000 when Lieberman was introduced as Al Gore's vice
presidential candidate: "He may not be a left-wing liberal, but hes certainly
no centrist either. Just look at the ratings. Hes earned a lifetime 'Liberal
Quotient' of 77 from the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) for his votes
since 1989. As a way of comparison, House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt has
received 71 percent approval from the liberal group over his congressional
tenure. In 1999, Lieberman was assessed 95 percent from ADA while the American
Conservative Union (ACU) gave him a zero for that year, making him one of the
Senates eight most liberal Senators in 1999. His lifetime ACU rating: 19
percent."
For more of Edward Wyatt's
profile of the "centrist" Lieberman's campaign,
click here:
Campaign 2004 |
Labeling Bias |
Sen. Joseph Lieberman
Adam
Cohen's Charming Conservative Assumptions
In his Sunday editorial, "A New Kind of Minority Is
Challenging Louisiana's Racial Conventions." Times editorialist Adam Cohen
implies that Republicans must either change their policies to appeal more to
blacks, or else be eternally suspect on racial issues.
Writing about
Indian-American Republican Bobby Jindal's first-round win in the Louisiana
governor's race, Cohen makes the charming assumption that conservative racism
could cost Jindal: "Mr. Jindal's ethnicity, which has drawn little attention so
far, could be a factor in the runoff.To win, he will need overwhelming white
support. If even a small percentage of white conservatives hold his ethnicity
against him, it could cost him the election."
The opening to Cohen's
editorial is no less insulting: "The election-night blowout at the Astor Crowne
Plaza in the French Quarter last weekend was something rare in Republican
politics: a truly biracial event. But even though 33 percent of Louisiana-and
67 percent of New Orleans-is black, there was scarcely a black reveler there."
(Sounds like the Ralph Nader rally Times Watch attended a couple of years ago at
Madison Square Garden-but that's another story.)
Cohen stacks the deck,
seeming to imply that even if the Indian-American Jindal wins as a Republican,
it will just mean that Asians are acting white: "Blacks who have run for
governor in recent years got less than 35 percent of the vote. It may be that
they were too liberal, but it may also be that the state remains resistant to a
black governor. If Mr. Jindal wins, it may mean not that race no longer matters
in Louisiana, but simply thatAsian-Americans now fall on the white side of the
racial divide." Is Cohen's world really so black-and-white that he can only
visualize a single racial divide? What ever happened to diversity?
Cohen concludes that the
Republicans' only hope for redemption is to become more like Democrats: "If Mr.
Jindal is Louisiana's next governor, he will be hailed by national Republicans
as a symbol of inclusion, a new Colin Powell or J. C. Watts. But he will be a
hollow symbol if he ends the white lock on the governor's mansion despite
overwhelming opposition from the state's blacks. If the Republican Party really
wants to be inclusive, in Louisiana and nationally, it needs to start finding
nonwhite candidates that nonwhites want to vote for."
For the rest of Adam Cohen's story on Republicans
and race,
click here.
Campaign 2003 |
Adam Cohen |
Editorials |
Indian-Americans
|
Bobby Jindal |
Louisiana |
Racism
Nagourney's
Non-Story on Conservative California Worries
Political reporter Adam Nagourney
files another
evidence-thin non-story on how Schwarzenegger's win could be bad news for
Republicans. In Saturday's "Republicans Debate Merits of Following
Schwarzenegger to the Center," Nagourney again strains to fit his hypothesis
into an inconvenient matrix of facts: "Mr. Schwarzenegger's sweeping victory
stirred anxiety among some conservatives, as much as it has cheered moderate
Republicans, who have seized on it as evidence of how the party should position
itself to fortify its standing, even at a time when it has proved increasingly
dominant in American politics."
Later he repeats the
charge: "Yet many have expressed hesitation about this new symbol of the party,
questioning his ideological bona fides and wondering how the party could embrace
someone who was confronted with accusations that he groped and made lewd
comments to more than a dozen women."
But of the "many"
conservatives and Republicans who Nagourney says have showed concern, the only
name he comes up with is columnist George Will, who is influential but just one
columnist.
For more of Nagourney on Schwarzenegger,
click here.
California |
Conservatives |
George Will |
Adam Nagourney
|
Arnold
Schwarzenegger
Cheney
Lashes Out
Saturday's front-page features a
story by Eric Schmitt on a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney with the leading
title, "Cheney Lashes Out at Critics of Policy on Iraq."
Schmitt
positions Cheney as a heavy on Bush's political team: "Vice President Dick
Cheney lashed out on Friday at critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy,
ridiculing their arguments against the war as nave and dangerous in a speech
that was a culmination of a campaign by the White House to regain support for
the postwar effort."
Cheney was
speaking to a group at what Schmitt predictably calls the "conservative Heritage
Foundation" (perhaps Heritage should just change its name so the Times won't
have to keep adding that ideological description). Schmitt inexplicably elides
some words from Cheney's speech that show him quoting President Bush. The Times
version of Cheney's speech: "'Some claim we should not have acted because the
threat from Saddam Hussein was not imminent,' Mr. Cheney said. 'Since when have
terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice
before they strike?'"
Here is
what Cheney actually said, according to the
Heritage transcript: "Some claim we should not have acted because the threat
from Saddam Hussein was not imminent. Yet, as the president has said, 'Since
when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intention, politely putting us
on notice before they strike?'" This is hardly an obscure quote from Bush; it's
from his last State of the Union address.
Schmitt
concludes with the bad news from Iraq: "Just as notable on Friday was what Mr.
Cheney did not say. There was no mention of the 94 Americans killed in Iraq
since Mr. Bush declared the end of major combat on May 1. Nor did he discuss the
uphill efforts to persuade allies to contribute troops and funds for the
occupation, or the growing tensions with the Iraqi Governing Council over
security. Democrats said on Friday that Mr. Cheney had used disingenuous
arguments and false choices out of growing desperation to prop up his speech."
The article concludes with a quote from anti-war Democratic Sen. Jack Reed.
For the rest of Eric Schmitt's on
Cheney's Heritage speech,
click here.
George W. Bush |
Dick Cheney |
Gaffes |
Heritage Foundation
|
Iraq
War |
Labeling Bias