Times Watch for October 14, 2003
The
Right's "Dr. Evil"
Contributing writer Matt Bai profiles Democratic
activist John Podesta in "Notion Building," a long article for the Sunday
Magazine on Podesta's strategy for rebuilding the liberal movement. Along the
way, Bai gets a peek into a strategy session held by conservative "godfather"
Paul Weyrich, a session that gives Bai the willies: "The prickly Weyrich
presided with a scowl from the dais (he is now confined to a wheelchair), from
which he exhorted the faithful to get their message out, using words that made
him sound like some liberal's parody of Dr. Evil."
Bai's shocked reaction
isn't surprising:
Previously Bai called the late, liberal Republican John Chafee a "revered
statesman" and claimed conservative economist Stephen Moore was part of a
right-wing cabal that [Bush] administration officials would consult on a
regular basis."
For the rest of Matt Bai's Podesta profile,
click here.
Matt Bai |
Conservatives |
Magazine |
John Podesta |
Paul Weyrich
Nobody
Here But Us "Progressives" and "Populists"
If presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich isn't a
liberal, then just who is? Tuesday's story by Jennifer Lee on the official
launch of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign launch is headlined:
"Kucinich, Declaring for President, Takes Populist Stance." The L-word's missing
from the headline and is nowhere to be found in Lee's article, though she does
mention Kucinich's "progressive agenda" ("progressive" being a word many
conservatives see as a euphemism for "liberal").
Kucinich certainly isn't
hiding his left-leaning politics (which have become even more so after he gave
up his pro-life
credentials to make himself a more palatable candidate in the Democratic
primaries): "'I am running for president of the United States to enable the
goddess of peace to encircle within her arms all the children of this country
and all the children of the world,' Mr. Kucinich said. 'As president I will work
with leaders of the world to make war a thing of the past, to abolish nuclear
weapons.'.He said he would return to bilateral trade by revoking United States
participation in Nafta and the World Trade Organization, repeal the
antiterrorism legislation called the USA Patriot Act, create a universal health
care system, establish universal prekindergarten schooling and create a
cabinet-level Department of Peace that would bring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr.'s principles of nonviolence into government." Sounds liberal to Times
Watch.
Lee later notes that
Kucinich has "called for a study into whether reparations should be paid for
slavery, noting that he has co-sponsored legislation to this effect with
Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan. And he spoke on behalf of
amnesty and legalization for illegal immigrants." Amnesty for illegals? That
certainly doesn't sound "populist."
For the rest of Lee's story on the Kucinich
campaign launch,
click here.
Campaign 2004
|
Rep. Dennis Kucinich |
Labeling Bias |
Jennifer Lee
The
Post Outclasses the Times
At least one national newspaper recognizes an
"obvious mistake" when it makes one. From Washington Post ombudsman
Michael Getler's latest column: "On Oct. 4, The Post made an obvious mistake
on the front page, reporting that chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay had
found 'no evidence for another one of Bush's key claims-that Iraq sought
uranium in Niger.' Bush referred to Africa, not Niger, in the now famous 16
words in his State of the Union speech. The Post corrected this on Wednesday
after several readers and an editor or two from newspapers that carry Post
stories complained."
Good for
the Post; such a move is right on its merits and also throws into deep relief
the New York Times comparatively cavalier attitude toward the Niger
matter-Times reporters continue to make the "obvious mistake"
of conflating Niger
and Africa, and continue to get away with it.
Africa |
Corrections |
Iraq War |
Niger |
Washington Post
Bush's
Forbidden Love?
Paul Krugman is the main attraction of an October
18 fundraiser in Austin for the left-wing Texas Observer magazine, where liberal
columnist Molly Ivins has twice served as editor. In anticipation, Krugman
outlines his paranoid view of Republican politics in a fawning interview for the
local
Austin American-Statesman in which he dismisses Bush as a puppet of the
ultra-right: "I don't know whether Bush himself is actually a hard-line
ideologue. I suspect he probably just only cares about winning. But they've
decided that the way to win is to give Grover Norquist (president of Americans
for Tax Reform) and the Heritage Foundation and (Attorney General) John Ashcroft
whatever they want." Judging by his obsession with Norquist, Krugman considers
ATR's
president the Keyser Soze of the right, an evil genius who always gets his
way.
Krugman repeats his
book-signing talking points: "And on economic and tax policy, they just
routinely lie. Every important economic initiative coming out of the
administration has been sold heavily on false pretenses." He then shows
he reads his own
paper, using the Q-word to describe Iraq: "The immediate problems are the
sluggish economy, exploding budget deficit and what is starting to look like a
quagmire in Iraq."
In a September interview
with Dermot McEvoy of Publishers Weekly, Krugman speaks of the "uniquely fierce
and vindictive" Bush family: "They are basically feudal. This is a family thing.
They believe in family loyalty." After McEvoy points out the Kennedys could be
characterized the same way, Krugman brings up the Schwarzenegger-Maria Shriver
marriage and asserts: "Can you imagine the Bush family allowing some member to
marry a liberal Democrat?" Only one question remains: Is the Bush family
Montague or Capulet?
George W. Bush |
Columnists |
Paul Krugman |
Grover Norquist
|
Quagmire |
Arnold
Schwarzenegger |
Taxes
|
Vietnam
Minding
Syria's Business
Neil
MacFarquhar latest dispatch from Damascus, "New Rules for Israel and Syria,"
again gives
Syria's side (a country on the State Department's list of state sponsors of
terror) while refusing to identify anti-Israel terror groups as terror groups.
Instead, MacFarquhar simply says Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been "labeled" so
by Israel and the U.S., as if there's room for doubt.
MacFarquhar writes for Monday's paper: "Weakening the Assad government, many
Syrian and Western analysts here believe, is the point. Having failed to stem
the violence fomented by the Palestinians through attacks on Mr. Arafat and what
Israel calls terrorist targets inside the occupied territories, the Israeli
government is turning its sights on bigger targets.The campaign against
Damascus is rooted in the accusation that two groups labeled terrorist
organizations by the United States and Israel, among others-Hamas and Islamic
Jihad-are orchestrating suicide bombings from here. Few analysts expect that
the elimination of their representatives here would do much to dent such
operations."
For more of MacFarquhar from
Damascus,
click here.
Hamas |
Israel |
Neil MacFarquhar
|
Palestinians |
Syria |
Terrorism