A Tale of Two Wartime Inaugurals
Over the weekend the Times forwarded complaints about the cost of Bush's upcoming inauguration. Sunday's front-page headline [1] forreporter John Tierney's story reads: "For Inauguration in Wartime, A Lingering Question of Tone."
And Saturday's Times features reporter Anne [2]Kornblut [2] talking to first lady Laura Bush. The headline tries to put the administration on the defensive for having the temerity to hold the "$40 million celebration as planned": "Laura Bush Defends Gala In Time of War and Disaster."
Tierney's Sunday story at least gives both sides, letting former Bush speechwriter David Frum defend the White House: "Mr. Frum said that the war and the tsunami catastrophe were not reasons to scale back the inaugural, and noted that Bill Clinton's inaugurals were held while conflict was raging in Bosnia and hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees were suffering."
Indeed, a Nexis search found no headlines from the Times from January 1997 complaining about Democratic President Bill Clinton holding an expensive inaugural while the U.S. had troops on the ground in Bosnia.
Sen. Robert Who?
Monday Arts section features a book review by Janet Maslin of "'Dear Senator' - A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond."
The review, headlined "Thurmond's Child Looks at Her Life and His Racism," begins: "Essie Mae Washington-Williams spent 78 years as the unacknowledged mixed-race daughter of the Senate's most notorious white supremacist."
Apparently, formerKlansman [3] and current Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd isn't even in the running.
Incidentally, in a review of a book by Byrd last August (the virulently anti-Bush "Losing America") guest reviewer John Shattuck identified Byrd as "a respected senior statesman."
For the rest of Maslin's review, click here [4]:
Just "Conservatives" and Democrats in the Senate?
Monday's report from White House reporter Richard Stevenson, "White House Again Backs Amendment On Marriage," uses the conservative label three times while avoiding the term "liberal." Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania is described as one of Bush's "conservative allies" on the Hill, liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts is merely a "Democrat."
For the full report from Stevenson, click here [5]:
"Conservative" Communists
Monday's prominently placed front-page story from Russian-based reporter C.J. Chivers ("How Top Spies in Ukraine Changed the Nation's Path.") is an often-gripping hour-by-hour account of how bloodshed was averted during the recent election controversies in Ukraine.
But it also includes this paragraph: "Throughout the crisis an inside battle was waged by a clique of Ukraine's top intelligence officers, who chose not to follow the plan by President Leonid D. Kuchma's administration to pass power to Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich, the president's chosen successor. Instead, these senior officers, known as the siloviki, worked against it. Such a position is a rare occurrence in former Soviet states, where the security agencies have often been the most conservative and ruthless instruments of state power."
Since when are Communist police states politically "conservative," as opposed to left-wing? One hopes Chivers is not just using the term "conservative" to denote the bad [6]guys [6].
For the full Chivers' report, click here [7]:
