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Times Watch for 03/26/03
“71” Is The Loneliest Number
71 percent. That’s Bush’s approval rating on Iraq, according to a new Times poll. But you won’t read about it in today’s Times. Instead you’ll learn “Bush's campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from power is producing sharp fissures at home….black Americans are far more likely than whites to oppose Mr. Bush's policy in Iraq.”
71 percent. That’s Bush’s approval rating on his handling of the Iraq conflict, according to the latest NYT/CBS News poll. But you won’t read about it in today’s Times. Once again, the paper is using any tool it can to play down America’s broad support for the war in Iraq.
Last Saturday’s polling piece (also by reporters Adam Nagourney and Janet Elder) pointed to “deep partisan divisions in the nation’s view of the conflict”—in other words, some Democrats didn’t approve.
In today’s poll story, they pluck the race card: “President Bush's campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from power is producing sharp fissures at home. The poll found that black Americans are far more likely than whites to oppose Mr. Bush's policy in Iraq. They are also much more likely to say that the cost of ousting Mr. Hussein was too high, as measured by the loss of life.”
“Nonetheless, support for both the war and for the president, who has kept a low profile after announcing the invasion last week, remains high; Mr. Bush's job approval rating is now 60 percent. Still, Americans said Mr. Bush had failed to give them enough information about how long the war might last, how much it might cost and how many Americans might die in the effort. They also said Mr. Bush had failed to detail how the administration would manage a postwar Iraq.”
The Times is apparently misreading its own poll: The polling data on the Times own web site marks Bush’s overall job approval rating at 70%, not 60%.
That was probably just a mistake—but not mentioning Bush’s consistently high approval rating on Iraq is pure deception on the part of the Times. The Times goes through a laundry list of declining poll numbers (on mostly secondary issues, such as how well people think the war is going) yet fails to mention that on the core question: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling the situation with Iraq?,” Bush’s approval nudged up from 70% to 71%.
Saturday’s poll story, biased as it was, at least led off with Bush’s high approval rating on Iraq. Today’s story doesn’t even mention it—because it doesn’t fit into the grim picture the Times is painting for Bush.
Times Uses “Fog Of War” To Fight Tax Cuts
Yesterday’s Times lambastes “Republican’s shameful use of the fog of war in their budget scheming”—Times code for tax cuts. But today the paper is quite pleased Senate Democrats used the war as an excuse to trim Bush’s tax cut proposal: “Only today, after the cost of the war became evident in lives and dollars, did they successfully turn a popular president's war against him.”
Yesterday’s Times editorial page lambastes “Republicans' shameful use of the fog of war in their budget scheming”—Times code for Bush’s tax cuts. But a “news analysis” by David Firestone today seems quite pleased that Senate Democrats took advantage of the war by voting to trim Bush’s proposed tax cut: “Today's vote was precisely the outcome that Democrats hoped for last week when they delayed a final vote on the budget with a long series of amendments, betting that the president would have to request money for the war once in begun.”
Firestone’s piece, “How the President’s $726 Billion Plan Was Cut In Half,” claims it took American battlefield deaths for senators to do the right thing: “For months, the Democrats derided President Bush's tax cut, arguing that it was unfair. Then, as the war loomed, they argued that wartime was no time to cut taxes. But only today, after the cost of the war became evident in lives and dollars, did they successfully turn a popular president's war against him.”
Firestone crows about moderate Republicans who “made it clear that they agreed with the concern that cruise missiles and tax cuts do not mix.” Describing the folly of tax cuts, Firestone employs some faux-populism Dan Rather could appreciate. “For many senators, approving such a budget with the full set of tax cuts was the equivalent of a family's buying a new car while ignoring the big crack in the basement,” Firestone writes. “Even Republican supporters of the full tax cut, like Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, acknowledged that a huge bill was still in the mail.”
In all, Firestone quotes seven senators, four Republicans and three Democrats--and not a single quote supports Bush. You’d think the measure had lost 98-2 instead of by three votes.