June 4,
2004
Speaking of Abu Ghraib
"The speech, which made no mention of the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, drew polite applause"
- Marc Santora on Donald Rumsfeld's commencement speech at West Point, May 30.
"Lieutenant Childers died too soon to see the strife in Iraq today, or the photographs of prisoners being humiliated at the hands of American guards in the Abu Ghraib prison. 'He went in with the idea-not of occupation, it was totally, it was liberation,' [his father] said."
- Shaila Dawan, June 1.
News Story or anti-NAFTA Editorial?
"Many of the senator's predictions have come to pass: The United States' trade deficit has reached record highs rather than disappearing under the trade accords, even as Japan and the European Union enjoy trade surpluses. The North American Free Trade Agreement has failed to deliver on its promises to raise living standards, provide hundreds of thousands of new, well-paying jobs on both sides of the border and curb illegal immigration to the United States. And the expanding global trading system has proved such a disappointment to poorer countries that they are clamoring for new global trade laws."
- from Elisabeth Becker's profile of retiring Democratic Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, June 1.
What About Gluttony?
"It will take an enormous reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over the next few decades-a far cry from the minor cuts proposed in the Kyoto Protocol, which President Bush has rejected anyway. What stands in the way is custom, ignorance, sloth, greed and fear."
- editorial board member Verlyn Klinkenborg, May 30 Book Review.
Alessandra Doesn't Like "Ike"
"[Conservative movie director Lionel] Chetwynd's 'Ike' is veined with the defensive self-righteousness that many conservatives expressed about the Vietnam war and now Iraq."
- Alessandra Stanley, May 31.
Reading Iraqi Minds, from the U.S.
"After turning to the United Nations to shore up its failing effort to fashion a new government in Baghdad, the United States ended up Friday with a choice for prime minister certain to be seen more as an American candidate than one of the United Nations or the Iraqis themselves."
- Warren Hoge and Steven Weisman, May 29.
