November 18, 2005
Hollywood Left too Smart to be
Fooled by Bush's Iraq Lies
"[Hollywood activists] were willing to accept - in fact, they recognized almost
viscerally - that the president's story about Iraq and weapons of mass
destruction was too richly timed and too tightly wrapped, and they understood
that once a storyteller began to tinker with facts, there was no end to the
scenarios he might invent that he might dubiously claim to be 'based on a true
story.'"
- Contributing writer Matt Bai, writing about the Hollywood left in
the November 13 New York Times Magazine.
Passing on "Bush Lied" Talking
Points as Fact
"Mr. Cheney echoed the argument of Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld that Democrats had
access to the same prewar intelligence that the White House did, and that they
came to the same conclusion that Mr. Hussein was a threat. What Mr. Cheney, Mr.
Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld left out was that the administration had access to far
more extensive intelligence than Congress did. They also left unaddressed the
question of how the administration had used that intelligence, which was full of
caveats, subtleties and contradictions. Many Democrats now say that they believe
they were misled by the administration in the way it presented the prewar
intelligence, and that the White House distorted the conclusions."
- White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller, November 17.
Bush "Lashed Out" at Those Who
Call Him A Liar
"President Bush lashed out today at critics of his Iraq policy, accusing them of
trying to rewrite history about the decision to go to war and saying their
criticism is undercutting American forces in battle."
- Lead sentence to online story from Maria Newman on Bush's Veterans Day
Speech, November 11.
Trumpeting GOP "Losses" in NJ, VA
"House Republican leaders were forced to jettison a plan for oil drilling in the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska on Wednesday night to save a sweeping
spending bill, a concession that came one day after the party suffered
significant election loses [sic]."
- Lead sentence of an online version of a story by Carl Hulse,
November 10. Republicans didn't actually lose seats in the Virginia or New
Jersey elections.
"Stinging Defeats for G.O.P. Come at a Sensitive Time"
- Headline to Robin Toner's post-election November 9 story on the New
Jersey and Virginia governor's races, when Democrats retained seats.
vs.
"With Big Issues Absent, The Little Things Count."
- Headline to Richard Berke's November 6, 1997 story on the New Jersey and
Virginia governor's races, when Republicans retained seats.
Fitzgerald as Eliot Ness, Ken
Starr as Torquemada
"It was as if Mr. Fitzgerald had suddenly morphed from the ominous star of a
long-running silent movie into a sympathetic echo of Kevin Costner in 'The
Untouchables.'"
- Todd Purdum on Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, October 29.
"Back in the United States attorney's office in Chicago, the relentless
prosecutor is known as Eliot Ness with a Harvard degree."
- TV critic Alessandra Stanley, October 29.
vs.
"But by the time he stepped down in October 1999, relentless attacks by
Democrats and Clinton allies had created a powerful caricature of [Clinton
prosecutor Kenneth Starr] as a prude and a Torquemada leading a partisan
inquisition."
- Then-Washington bureau chief Jill Abramson, March 22, 2002.
Anti-Crime French Minister
Sarkozy? Trs Gauche
"The major power struggle has been within the governing center-right party, and
so far it looks as if the winner has been Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. He
has managed to dominate government policy by expressing the sentiments of the
angry, anti-immigrant right while drowning out arguments that immigrants have
grievances that should be addressed."
- Craig Smith reporting on the Paris riots, November 13.
"The violence has isolated the country's tough-talking, anticrime interior
minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, whom some people blame for having worsened the
situation with his blunt statements about 'cleaning out' the 'thugs' from those
neighborhoods. France has been grappling for years with growing unrest among its
second- and third-generation immigrants, mostly North African Arabs, who have
faced decades of high unemployment and marginalization. Critics say Mr.
Sarkozy's confrontational approach has polarized the communities and the
government."
- Craig Smith from Paris, November 5.
"While some expressed anger at those causing the unrest, they said officials had
aggravated the situation, particularly Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who
has used unsparing language to describe those who have carried out attacks."
- Craig Smith and Mark Landler from Paris, November 8.
"Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whose hard-line rhetoric has been criticized
even inside the police departments for stoking aggression, is also on the firing
line."
- Reporter Katrin Bennhold, November 8.
Big, Bad Wal-Mart Strikes Again
"Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, often intimidates its competitors and
suppliers. Makers of goods from diapers to DVD's must cater to its whims. But
there is one company that even Wal-Mart eyes warily these days: Google, a
seven-year-old business in a seemingly distant industry."
- Lead sentence to the November 6 story by Steve Lohr.
What Ardor for "Shrinking
Government"?
"Has the American voter's ardor for cutting taxes and shrinking government
cooled? Voters in California, Colorado and Washington State rejected ballot
measures this month that would have rolled back tax increases or limited state
spending. Some say the votes could mark a turning point in a decades-old revolt
against high taxes that got its symbolic start in California in 1978 with
Proposition 13, which sharply limited property tax increases for homeowners and
cut deeply into state services."
- John Broder, November 15. Social spending went up in California
after Proposition 13.
This Just in From Mars
"Indeed, one of the favorite mantras of the current Bush White House and its
conservative allies is that the media suffer from a 'liberal bias' - a
constantly repeated accusation designed to drill this notion into the public
consciousness while putting the press on the defensive. Recent history flies in
the face of this assertion."
- Chief book critic Michiko Kakutani promoting Craig Crawford's book
"Bushes' War Against Media," November 11.
