Times Watch for
07/26/02
Pro-Abortion = Moderate
Supporting abortion rights and affirmative action makes one a moderate and nonideological in the lexicon of the
New York Times.
In a front page story on Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday, reporter Todd Purdum penned this paragraph:
Mr. Powell's approach to almost all issues - foreign or domestic - is pragmatic and nonideological. He is internationalist, multilateralist and moderate. He has supported abortion rights and affirmative action and is a Republican, many supporters say, in no small measure because Republican officials mentored and promoted him for years.
That paragraph appeared in a July 25 story about Powells struggles against hard line administration officials, a story headlined: Embattled, Scrutinized, Powell Soldiers On.
The two paragraphs leading into the one quoted above:
But almost from the beginning, he has found himself at odds with many of his more hard-line colleagues and the president himself on the handling of foreign policy, whether over Mr. Bush's rejection of the Kyoto treaty on global warming, the president's lumping of Iran, Iraq and North Korea into a global 'axis of evil, or the president's declaration last month that progress toward Middle East peace depended on Yasir Arafat's replacement as Palestinian leader.
In each case, Secretary Powell has embraced the president's position as his own, doing his best to justify the administration's view to often-critical allies around the world. Even when he has initially embraced a position at variance with the administration's ultimate policy - regarding the international family planning issue, for example - Secretary Powell's sense of discipline, loyalty and discretion means that he never shows his true feelings publicly, according to aides and close friends.
Never shows his true feeling publicly - thats more than you can say about Purdum, who is married to former Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers.
