Times Watch for September 23, 2003
The Times Marks Its Own May Day
From
Mondays
front-page piece by David Sanger on Bushs imminent trip to the UN: Since
Mr. Bush declared an end to active military operations on May 1, more than 70
American troops in Iraq have been killed by hostile fire.
From
Mondays dispatch from Iraq by Alex Berenson on more U.S. fatalities: The
deaths brought to 304 the number of American troops killed since the Iraq war
began, including 165 since President Bush declared on May 1 that major American
combat operations had ended, according to Pentagon records.
Columnist Ann Coulter, whos noticed the pattern, says sarcastically:
Hey-does anyone know when Bush declared major combat operations had ended?
Because I think there may have been one article in the sports section of the
Times last week that didn't mention it.
Alex Berenson
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George W. Bush
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Casualties
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Iraq
War
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David Sanger
Backhanded
Bush Compliment: Hes Now Less Misleading
Sundays story by Richard Stevenson, A Change of
Tone: Pitfalls Emerge in Iraq, has some backhanded compliments for what
Stevenson calls the Bush administrations recent increase in straight talk.
Stevenson writes: By the
standards of a White House that insists that nearly everything at all times is
proceeding precisely according to plan, and where misjudgment is typically held
to be a stranger, the last few weeks have brought a new, unvarnished tone.
Stevenson writes that the
straight talk only goes so far: In any case, it has its limits. The appearance
by Mr. Cheney on Meet the Press last Sunday was a detailed and unwavering
defense of the administration's Iraq policies. On the domestic front, Mr. Bush
remains unyielding in his assertion that his tax cuts will create a rebound in
employment, despite nearly three years of steady job losses.
Stevenson passes on
Democratic concerns that Bush has been misleading the public: To Democrats who
have been saying since the 2000 campaign that Mr. Bush has misled the American
people, any increase in straight talk from the White House now seems meaningless
or self-serving. If they said with a straight face that the world was flat or
the sky was orange, they would expect people to accept it, and would question
the patriotism of those who didn't, said David Sirota, spokesman for the Center
for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy group. To some political
strategists, the White House's more nuanced new stance on some issues reflects
concern about Mr. Bush's credibility with voters, Congress and the rest of the
world.
To press home the image of
a struggling Bush, Stevenson quotes negative polling data and a passel of
professors who accuse the administration of damage control and of seeking to
climb down without admitting defeat.
For the rest of Richard Stevensons story on Bushs
new openness,
click here.
George W. Bush
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Dick Cheney
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Iraq
War
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Richard Stevenson
Kate
Michelman, the Grande Dame of Abortion
The
Times tops a mostly fawning story on abortion-rights advocate Kate Michelmans
resignation as president of Naral Pro-Choice America (known in happier times for
the abortion-rights movement as the National Abortion Rights Action League) with
the headline: Head of Group Backing Right To Abortion Is to Resign.
An alternate headline,
Head of Abortion-Rights Group to Resign would have been shorter and snappier,
two big pluses in a headline. Instead, the Times goes the long way around in its
Monday story, using up four lines in the hard copy of the Times. Is the Times
trying to soft-pedal NARALs pro-abortion activism by delinking it from the
charged term abortion?
A similar tactic crops up
in the text itself, by reporter Elizabeth Becker: Kate Michelman said today
that she would step down as president of Naral Pro-Choice America, ending 18
years at the helm of the country's most vocal group advocating abortion as a
legal right for women. Again, why not just say advocating abortion rights?
Becker then issues this
blush-worthy description: Ms. Michelman, 61, became one of the grandes dames of
the reproductive rights debate by interpreting her mandate broadly. She
campaigned for state and national politicians who supported abortion rights,
testified at Congressional hearings, started national advertising campaigns,
worked to expand access to clinics providing abortions, and protested and
marched in the streets.Her activism also has roots in her teenage years in
Defiance, Ohio, where she became involved in civil rights protests to help
immigrants.
For the rest of Elizabeth Beckers story on grande
dame Kate Michelman,
click here.
Abortion
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Headlines
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Kate Michelman
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NARAL
Exoneration
Sweeping the Nation?
Tuesdays story by Pam Belluck reports on the push
by Massachusetts for the death penalty, noting the state is bucking a trend: As
more than 100 people sentenced to death have been exonerated across the nation,
other states have abridged or considered abridging the use of the death
penalty.
Belluck makes
exoneration sound like a movement sweeping the nation. But what shes actually
referring to is somewhat less dramatic: A list compiled by anti-death penalty
advocates
noting the number of people released from death row for all reasons since
1973.
The loaded term
exonerated also fails to show the difference (as discussed by Ramesh Ponnuru
on
National Review Online) between people on death row found factually innocent
(as in being innocent of the crime of which theyre accused) and those found
legally innocent (those who get off death row on technicalities).
For the rest of Pam Bellucks story on the death
penalty debate in Massachusetts,
click here.
Pam Belluck
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Crime
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Death Penalty
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Massachusetts
More
Government = More Efficient
Reporter Jennifer Lee offers a suggestion on making
health care simpler and less expensive: Get the federal government a lot more
involved.
On Tuesday, Lee profiles
former Senator Carol Moseley Brauns formal declaration as a candidate for
president. Near the end of a generally fair (if overlong, considering Brauns
low standing in the polls) profile of Brauns run for president, Lee lauds the
efficiencies that far more federal involvement could bring to the health care
system. Using her candidacy as a national platform, Lee writes, Ms. Braun has
chosen a single-payer health care system as her signature issue. Under such a
system, one centralized player, usually a government agency, reimburses medical
providers. The United States now has a relatively complex multipayer system with
hundreds of insurance companies and a Byzantine choice of plans. Nonprofit
advocacy groups have long argued that the efficiencies gained in having one
centralized payer would help provide comprehensive health coverage for
everyone.
Next on the Times agenda:
Fixing the complex problem of privately owned supermarkets, where consumers
suffer under the burden of hundreds of outlets and a Byzantine choice of
things to eat.
For the rest of Lees story on Braun for president,
click here.
Campaign 2004
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Carol Moseley Braun
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Health Care
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Jennifer Lee
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Socialized Medicine