Times Watch for July 25, 2003
The
Times Catches Up With Times Watch
The Times finally corrects
Chris Hedges July 1 story profiling a radical Brooklyn judge in which Hedges
falsely claims Sen. Joe McCarthy derailed the career of Stalin-supporting
actor-activist Paul Robeson.
In the Corrections box in
Fridays print edition (not online), the Times notes Hedges referred
incorrectly to events that led to the derailing of Robesons career. He was
called before the House Un-American Activities Committee well before Senator
Joseph R. McCarthys heyday.
As
Times Watch noted
the day Hedges profile came out, Hedges chronology is implausible since
Joseph McCarthy wasnt elected to the Senate until 1947 and didnt make his
famous speech about Communists in the State Department until 1950. Paul
Robesons last movie, Tales of Manhattan, was released in 1942, a full five
years before McCarthys ascent to the Senate. That same year, Robeson said he
wouldn't make any more films until there were better roles for blacks. Joe
McCarthy had nothing to do with it, Hedges fantasies of McCarthyism
notwithstanding.
Conservative
Columnist Joins the Times
The Times announced Friday that Weekly
Standard senior editor David Brooks will become a columnist for the
paper in early September. Brooks column will appear twice a week.
Brooks, who has written frequently for the Times, joins token
non-liberal columnist William Safire as a regular feature of the Times
op-ed page.
For more on David Brooks, new op-ed
columnist for the Times,
click here.
Cant
Recall Reagan as California Gov.?
Fridays front page features a story on
the California recall election by Dean Murphy and John Broder,
11-Week Countdown to California Recall Begins. The vote, which could
result in a replacement for embattled Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, is
set for October 7.
The Times notes
Democrats plan to pile on Rep. Darrell Issa, who financed the recall:
The hope among Democrats is to demonize the Republicans, and in
particular, Mr. Issa, who financed the recall signature-gathering
efforts, as the usurpers of democracy. Even though Mr. Issa is
considered a long shot, Democrats today said he would be the poster
child of their antirecall campaign, mainly because he is the sort of
conservative Republican who has traditionally fared poorly in
statewide elections.
Conservative California governors Ronald Reagan (1967-1975) and George
Deukmejian (1983-1991) werent that long ago, were they? (This isnt
the first
time reporter Broder has joined in a pile-on of Issa.)
Murphy and
Broder move to another issue that may bear on the gubernatorial vote:
Due to a quirk of electoral law, the October ballot will include a
vote unrelated to Mr. Davis, but one that many Democrats believe will
help his cause. A proposition by Ward Connerly, a regent at the
University of California, that would restrict the collection of racial
data in the state has qualified for a vote and must appear on the next
statewide ballot. Mr. Connerly does not believe distinctions should be
made by race. The measure is opposed by many minorities who support
diversity and Mr. Davis recently announced that he would fight its
passage. (Ward Connerly
masterminded the
successful passage of Californias Proposition 209, the California
Civil Rights Initiative.)
The Times odd
formulation begs the question: Can one support diversity, a
suspiciously vague term in the first place, without supporting the
government collecting racial data that could be used to discriminate
on the basis of race? The Racial Privacy Initiative that
Connerly supports reads: "the state shall not classify any
individual by race, ethnicity, color, or national origin in the
operation of public education, public contracting, or public
employment." According to the Times, to be against that is to be
against diversity.
For the rest of Dean Murphy and John
Broders story on the California recall,
click here.
Republicans
Wreck Bipartisanship
It was a bleak day for the federal
pre-school education program Head Start, thinks reporter Diana Jean
Schemo, judging by the tone of House Votes to Shift Control of Head
Start in Eight States.
Schemo, who
clearly likes Head Start (on
July 18 she gushed: Head Start has largely enjoyed a charmed
history, with studies showing that every dollar spent in Head Start
saved the government $4 to $7 down the road.) believes Republicans
have shattered a generation of bipartisan comity by giving some states
more control of their own Head Start programs.
Schemo laments:
After a tense and bitter debate that ended a 38-year history of
bipartisan cooperation on Head Start, the House of Representatives
narrowly passed a bill early this morning that would allow eight
states to take over Head Start, the largest federal program for nearly
1 million preschool children in poverty. The bill, formally called the
School Readiness Act, has attracted broad opposition from Head Start
providers around the country and from an array of child welfare
organizations, who describe it as a block grant program that will open
the way for dismantling the popular day care program. Republicans
rejected the criticism, saying their bill would merely permit states
to better coordinate their own efforts with federal day care
services.
Schemo also lets
Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. George Miller and a coalition of child
welfare advocacy groups criticize the bill directly, with only Rep.
John Boehner speaking in favor of it - and this bill passed.
For the rest of Diana Jean Schemos story
on Head Start,
click here.