Times Watch director Clay Waters appeared last Friday on the Fox News program "Your World With Neil Cavuto" (with Stuart Varney guest hosting) to discuss the Times' unhappiness at the "rush to hang Saddam Hussein."
Here's a partial transcript, courtesy of the Media Research Center's Tim Graham [1].
On the paper's reaction to Saddam's then-impending death: "Well, obviously, the Times is not going to be sad to see him go, but at the same time, it is clear just from the preview that Bush is not going to get a positive story out of this, as you can see. It's started already. It's going to be like the Zarqawi thing. Bush got half a day of positive coverage and then the media went back to their usual template of doom and gloom, Iraq equals Vietnam. And even today, online they said the trial might be ruined by, quote,"politically driven haste" [2] to execute Saddam after a deliberative trial." Of course, this editorial makes the opposite case, they said this was a lousy trial, so they shouldn't hang Saddam. The only consistency is don't hang Saddam. That's the only thing the Times is consistent about."
Later, Waters added: "The thing the Times should admit, it's not admitting, their editorial page believes the death penalty is unconstitutional. It's a violation of the Eighth Amendment. But of course, obviously, Saddam Hussein might not be the ideal poster boy for the anti death penalty movement. I wish they'd just go ahead and say that. I believe that's the driving force behind their queasiness about the death penalty."